Babcock borrows from hoops, gridiron peers
Innovator introduces walk-through practice to optimize Olympic camp
CALGARY Decked out in a red T-shirt and black Nike running shoes, Team Canada head coach Mike Babcock was running the show — literally — on a Fiberglas surface Monday at Calgary’s Markin MacPhail international-sized rink.
In a perfect world, the men’s Olympic hockey team would be skating.
But armed with hockey sticks, gloves, and a “walkthrough” practice plan, they made the best of the situation.
“I thought it was a real good day for us,” said Babcock, following what looked an awful lot like an on-ice practice.
“Obviously, I have never done this before. We’ve put a lot of planning into it. I spent a lot of time talking to people to gather the information, Tom Izzo in particular with Michigan State basketball. He talks about the walk-throughs and (they are) part of the reason that he believes they’ve been to six (NCAA) Final Fours in the last 15 years. Todd Downing is a quarterback coach with the (Detroit) Lions. He talked about the plays they walk through every day and the muscle memory and the timing and spacing that’s going on.
“This is a big sheet and guys aren’t used to it. It’s even bigger when you can’t move very fast, and you couldn’t go very fast today. But I thought it was a good teaching tool.”
A teacher by trade, Babcock is famous for research. He’s well aware everyone learns differently, especially athletes. So when he found out that players were not going to be able to skate during the four-day orientation camp ahead of the 2014 Olympics, he began brainstorming ways to install concepts and go through system work without skating.
In football and basketball, walk-through practices are used often, but it isn’t a normal thing in hockey.
Having never executed one, Babcock connected with Izzo, a Hall of Fame basketball coach and proven winner.
“He just says in the Final Four, there’s no time,” said Babcock. “He does it right in the hotel. They tape it down. They walk through it. The other thing they told me ... sometimes the intensity of practice gets so high physically that it’s not as engaged mentally. You’re walking out here. You’ve got to know the spacing. Plus, you’re penalty killing, you see how big the rink is. So (it’s about) the spacing part of things.”
Babcock also learned plenty from Downing.
“He was fantastic. Actually, he was brilliant,” he said. “He had so many good ideas for me. When you haven’t done something ... It’s easy for me to come out and run stuff when you’re on the ice. That’s what I do for a living. This isn’t what I do for a living. So I didn’t know how it was going to be.”
Extremely pleased with the outcome (and also adding he plans to adopt the concept when he returns to the Detroit Red Wings), Babcock said the coaching staff was going to review the process on Monday night and revisit it again on Tuesday.
“I thought this was great,” he said. “No one got killed. It wasn’t hard. No one got hurt. There was no wear and tear on the body. It was fun and it was different. The National Hockey League (season) is 82 games and it’s a grind. There was nothing wrong with this. It was good.”
So other than Logan Couture skidding along the floor, there were no lower-body injuries to speak about.
“It wasn’t a stroll in the park, I guess,” said Colorado Avalanche forward Matt Duchene. “It was a little bit difficult. Everybody is trying to grasp the systems and obviously, we’re in shoes and running with a ball, which is not what we’re used to. There was no gliding out here at all, so it was very different.”
For some, running around a rink and bobbling passes was a throwback.
“I haven’t really picked up a ball hockey (game) or played road hockey for a while,” said Chicago Blackhawks defenceman Duncan Keith. “To see some of these other guys, it’s kind of funny seeing (Sidney) Crosby and (Shea) Weber, those guys are hitting an orange ball like we’re kids again. It’s been good to get a grasp of the systems. This is a workout. I haven’t run this much in a long time.”
Boston Bruins forward Milan Lucic had to think hard about the last time he’d played ball hockey. “The summer of 2007,” he said.