edit: sort of turned into a long, rambly mess of a thing, sorry...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gamblor
this stuff 100% gets taught. the problem is that most guys are too stupid to listen or recognize situations.
coaches in 1-on-1 time (i.e. before/after practice, or even during other drills) will, say, help a player recognize when to back up 10 feet or pop out or get down low or something during a cycle.
but in a game situation, most guys just are too dumb to remember that stuff, or they do it when the guy with the puck is too dumb to recognize whats going on.
you do see a lot of guys who are smart guys do things like this, but their, or their teammates' games are weak enough in other areas that they just don't advance farther.
yeah i was gonna say something like this. a lot of the most talented players from even a young age (say 12-14) are among the dumbest, laziest, and least likely to be coachable. and i never really even played with any
really good players, but most of those guys are aware that they're good from like age 5-10 or whatever, and develop egos due to the status of hockey here. and i mean, i've seen the delusions of grandeur from the parents of some of these kids, talking like it's some kind of lock that he'll play for the NHL Team X one day (not joking), when it's clear to everyone else how ridiculous a scenario that is. i'm talking guys who don't even end up playing junior anywhere meaningful.
so you can imagine what it's like when they're 14-16, getting drafted into the CHL, moving somewhere else to play (in a lot of cases), thinking they're on track to make the NHL maybe. so you can see how many of these guys might not take school too seriously, most of the top players i played with and knew didn't. then add in where in some places the community/schools can take the "kid gloves" approach to star athletes, so their idiocy is enabled. as a result a lot of them end up being uneducated, which is tragic if they were dumb to begin with.
basically in the end in a lot of cases you get dumb guys who might not understand, or care to, how to really play the game. they aren't terribly interested in strategy, gameplanning, listening to their coaches, and so on (save for the idiot savants who have an innate understanding of the game, but who are otherwise morons). and in rare cases you get guys who are good, but also smart, value education, care about understanding the game, do what they're told, etc.
so bring it back around to Gamblor's point, understanding the game, positional play, reading and reacting are all different skills than being a good passer, stickhandler, shooter, hitter, etc. and a lot of the best players i've known were kinda dumb, and bad at the first group of skills. is it coachable? yeah probably, but it's difficult to teach a person how to think, when it should just be instinct. if it's second nature, it might not be good enough because there just isn't enough time / space the higher you go.
i believe there is a lot of value in gaining skills from other sports to this end. guys who play Lacrosse, or basketball, or soccer (or football?) understand these kind of things better naturally imo.