Coming to the end

Our 20 Time project is now coming to and end. Luc and I are still running the practices and we are excited to say the kids have come a long way. They had their first playoff game this past tuesday and they won!  Luc and I were very excited for them and for their season to continue.  They are continuing to work hard at practices and at games and they deserved their playoff appearance. Me and Luc are hopefully going to be able to sit on the bench for their next playoff game. In the last couple games that we have watched and assessed we were watching from the stands and not able to coach the kids personally after periods and after shifts. This will make it easier for the kids to learn about the mistakes they made and change earlier in the game and not during the next practice.  Also we just had the Radnor Hockey Banquet. Luc and I were excited to see all the kids attending and see the awards they received. Personally, I think they were all able to receive awards because of the works that they put in throughout the season.  Hopefully their season will continue after their next game.

Going with the Flow

Me and my partner, Luc vonCzoernig, are just continuing to go with the flow. We did our mid year presentation a couple weeks ago and it went really well. We showed videos of the drills that we are doing with the players and the goalies. We also showed an animated version of the drills. We are super techy!:). We are also continuing to work with our mentor, Jay vonCzoernig.  He sends us drills and techniques that we can us with the kids as well. Most of the drills are simple stuff such as skating and shooting drills. Here is one that he uses when he coaches.


This drill is a very simple drill that Mr. vonCzoernig uses. There are two lines set up in the corner. One line has to skate around the cones and the other line stops and starts at each cone. While they are doing this the coach will put a puck into the middle of the ice. It now becomes a race for the skaters. Who ever gets the puck will go and try to score while the other skater will try and play defense.  These types of drills are very easy and help develope the skaters simple skills. Being able to make tight turns, stop and start, and accelerate are very important but are also very easy to master.

Continuing the Process

We finally sent out our letter to our mentor and are currently waiting on a response. He is on vacation in Nicaragua.  While we wait we are going to keep taking videos of the players and applying our notes to their practices. When looking at the notes Luc and I took of the players, there were many patterns that we could tell that all players could work on.  Here is a picture of the notes that I took for each of the kids.




 Most of them needed to work on simple techniques such as skating, passing, and shooting. These will be very easy to work on in team practices as all players can work on it. But there are some players that have more complicated techniques they need to work on such as stickhandling. These specific players can work on it in the practices, but we will tell these players that they will also need to put work in at their home if they want to become better faster.  This is where the kids will learn other skills for life such as accountability. The kids who want to work on their stick handling or other more complex techniques need to do so without Luc and I watching over them. They must be accountable if they do Practice their stickhandling or not.  For January, we plan to have more videos of the players and continue to work on their weaknesses.

Letter to Mentor and Other Stuff

The letter to our mentor is almost complete.  Me and my partner Luc are still working out some kinks in the letter before we send it to our mentor.  Another problem that me and Luc are having an issue with is working together on the project.  Last week I was away for hockey so Luc had to work by himself, now Luc is away and I have to work by myself.  This is becoming a bit of an issue as we can't collaborate on the letter and work on the video analysis.

We are also continuing to analyze the players and making videos of the players.  Luc and I have taken notes of each of the players and are continuing to make drills and other helpful tips to help the kids get better.  For the month of December we will have our final notes and evaluations of each of the players so we know where to start.  This picture is one of the drills that Luc and I plan to use for the goalies.  This drill was found on the USA Hockey website for drills that players and coaches can use.

In this drill pucks will be placed inside the crease while the goalie stands out of it.  The goalie must move around the top of the crease while not touching or tripping over the pucks.  This will teach the goalie about depth control and staying at the top of the crease and controlling their angles.

Pitch and Mentor

Hi again!  We did our pitch and we thought we did pretty well.  We described everything we were going to do in our project and the use of our time in school.  But I guess our teacher didn't think so.  On the grade sheet that we received a 15/20. Me and my partner Luc got a 4 for every section, which is satisfactory, but on articulation and planning, we only got a three.  This section shows that we are able to answer questions from the panel and the audience.  From Luc and I's perspective we think we answered our questions thoroughly, but that opinion was with everybody.

Besides our pitch, Luc and I began searching for a mentor.  Since we are coaching, we thought we would look for someone with many years of coaching experience, but it needed to be in the hockey field.  We settled on using Jay vonCzoernig as our mentor.  Yes, it is Luc's dad, but he has many years of coaching and playing experience for high and low level teams.  He is also the head coach of the Radnor Middle School Hockey Team, so we can get his insight right away at the practice, or give our own insight of what we see to help him.

This photo from Simon Stepsys may be a little cartoonish, but it shows exactly what we are going through with this project.  We must fail multiple times with our pitch and proposal before we get it perfect and final.

Proposal and Pitch

Me and my partner Luc have received our initial proposal back from Mrs. Swinehart. We got an 11 out of 24 on it. She mostly told us to elaborate on some of our ideas that we wrote down for our project. One of the parts we got point off of was the meaning of the project. Luc and I think that our project has a bigger meaning than it’s title. The Radnor Ice Hockey club from elementary to Middle School has given us a lot of great things. We have grown a lot as hockey players do to the club and it’s coaches. Now we feel we should give back to what has given to us.  Another part that points were taken off was on our timeline.  The timeline showed what we were going to do throughout the year.  One part that our teacher was confused on was the evaluation of the players.  The evaluation process would go through a month or two.  This would include looking at their skating, shooting, and other aspects of their game.  I think that we got points off because of our lack of description.  Me and Luc understand what we are talking about and we think that other people know what are talking about as well.  We need to elaborate more on our ideas so our teacher and other people can know what we are talking about.

Me and Luc also began writing our pitch.  We need to find a way to win over our teacher and other judges to let us do this project.  Persuasion and description need to be used.  Like I said earlier we need to be descriptive on our plans for this project so they know what we are planning to do.  Persuasion will be used in the words we choose to use and our enthusiasm in our voices.  This graphic from Roger Dooley of the blog Neuromarketing helps show our ideas and plans on how to use persuasion in our pitch.

 

Radnor Middle School Hockey Coaching Ideas

I think I have an idea of what I would like to do for this project. Helping the Radnor Middle School Hockey team. This has been in my interests but thinking of how to make this project worthwhile has been difficult for me. I have been talking with my teacher about possible ideas.  This photo I got from
https://fiberopticnow.github.io/blog/brainstorming/ represents our brainstorming session.

  One of the ideas that my partner, Luc VonCzoernig. and I came up with our teacher is to video games throughout the year to help the, with their in game mistakes and progress throughout the year.  Since I am a goalie I would help the goalies with things such as crease movements and save selection. Then we would practice their mistakes in practice so they can become better goalies. I thought this was a really good idea. The first practice I am able to make is coming up this weekend. I am very excited to meet the goalies and be able to help them with their game.  But the watching and critiquing might be the hardest part. Being able to find mistakes is harder than it seems but I am up for the challenge.  In conclusion I am very excited for my project and and excited for the things to come.