Postby Joe » Mon Dec 17, 2012 10:22 pm
I grew up in the same organization my son currently plays in, which was a very early adopter of ADM.
When I was 4, I was given a jersey, put on a team with my friends, and they'd drop a puck at center ice and let us go. Every two minutes the buzzer would go and we'd change up. That was our house league, and I did that for five years before I started playing travel hockey. I played up through college and so I can't say it ever affected me, but looking back, it's clear that the biggest, fastest kids would have the puck 90% of the time, and the slower, less-skilled players might not touch it all season.
Contrast that to what my 6yo is doing. He started at 4 in our learn-to-skate program, which was two hours a week of station work with no sticks. He did that for 1.5 years, then moved up to the learn-to-play program. This was also station-based, but with sticks and pucks and a focus on hockey skills. After two months, they separated the rink into three zones - each end zone held 3-on-3 games with goalies, and center ice was broken out into passing and shooting drills. The kids were broken up into groups of 5 or 6 and they rotated through, essentially playing 3-on-3 cross-ice at 4 stations and doing drills at the other two.
Having experienced both, as a player and parent, I LOVE ADM. When I grew up, our organization was it in my area. Now there are two other organizations, neither of which have adopted ADM. I think it's unfortunate, but to each their own. I think the focus on skill building and close-knit, 3-on-3 games benefits all. We have a pretty large discrepancy in talent in our learn-to-play program (which I help coach), and even the slow kids who aren't that interested in the game get to handle the puck in game situations. That would never happen in a full-ice setting.
I'm Joe from Backyard-Hockey.com and EliteRinks.com.
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