The ABCS of winning hockey, according to the coaches who should know
In his two practices as the Maple Leafs’ head coach, Randy Carlyle has taken the team back to the drawing board.
Leaf players called Sunday’s practice a “back-tobasics” training session and Monday’s featured whiteboard work and stops-and-starts after 90 minutes.
It’s hockey at its most simple. With that in mind, we went where hockey is meant to be played at the most basic level. In the Greater Toronto Hockey League, the earliest level of competitive hockey is minor atom, where the players are 9 and 10 years old.
We had one question for the coaches. What’s one basic thing the Leafs need to learn?
MARC PHARAND, 47, GOULDING PARK RANGERS:
“I remember watching a few of the Leafs’ games and looking over to my son and saying, ‘You know, Dylan, they’re getting paid $60,000 a game and they make the same mistakes you guys do.’
“I said, ‘Let’s look at this replay . . . the guy gave up on his man.’ Essentially, what I see is that they abandoned their man and the coverage that you need in your zone. It’s that responsibility that you’re always teaching your kids: Don’t let your man out of your sight. You need to have your head on a swivel.”
ALBE GARBE, 68, MARKHAM ISLA
“My biggest com sive-zone coverag team was workin Leafs never got th put pressure on t tercept that pass
“I played for Rog to his coaching cl team is cycling an the cycle, of cour guy going up the or to pin the guy. ment by taking hi there.”