Breakaway!

I've always found this to be a fun and competitive drill for players of all age groups. I've used in both Junior Hockey and even Senior Hockey as well as with Minor Hockey players.

The concept is pretty simple but it does involve some competition and a good workout for the players and even involves the goaltenders. You as the coach can control the drill and tailor it to what you want to accomplish.

In the diagram, you can see that we line the players up in two lines, staring just in front of the goal. There is a puck placed at center ice. The first two players in each line lay down on their stomachs. When the coach blows his whistle, they get up and race for the puck.

The player who reaches the puck first is on a break and the player chasing tries to check him. The idea is for the players to fight it out until one of them scores so even if the the first player is stopped by the goaltender, the other player can try to scores while being checked by the first player.

There can be all types of incentives for the players to score such as the player who scores can come back to the line-up while the other player and goaltender have to do 10 push-ups. If the goaltender doesn't allow a goal in the time you allow for each segment of the drill, both players have to do 10 push-ups etc., etc.

I usually like to let the drill go on until there have been two good shots on net. To add even more fun to the drill, I sometimes have the two lines act as teams and keep track of the goals with some kind of incentive for the winning team.