Earlier today, analyst Mikael Nahabedian published an article on his newsletter about “the hardest skills to develop” in elite hockey players.
Initially, I was surprised to see which skills were the top six most difficult for athletes to execute.
Through my on-ice work with players of all genders and ages, I know that concepts such as slip passing, the use of the hip pocket and the applications of crossovers in creating separation can be learned relatively quickly in a practice setting.
The real challenge, then, is not just to introduce a high-end skill to a player and seeing them execute it successfully on a blank sheet of ice. Indeed, the blockage for most player occurs when they need to transfer that new skill to a game setting, 1v1, then 3v2, then 5v5.
A young player can hit slip passes all day against a familiar hockey training device like a PowerEdge Pro, but executing that exact same play from the same location may prove elusive against five real-life opponents. This difficulty in creating in-game transfer happens to many players on their development journey.
Why?
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