The Head Up & Awareness Hockey Practice is set up to focus on 3 things:

1. Reinforce the importance of keeping your head up
2. Players without the puck need to get open! Players with the puck need to look for open teammates and work on give & gos!
3. Compete & have fun with a team tournament! Coaches will be keeping score of the full practice. A trophy will be awarded at the end of the practice (it is fun to break up normal season practices with a couple of intersquad tournaments throughout the year).

Coach will split up the team into two evenly matched teams for practice. One team will wear dark and the other team will wear light. The games will be high energy and high tempo, make sure to give players rest and water between each game. During the transition between each game, the coaches can tally up the points and set up the next game while the players take a break. The games are the following:

1. Finnish 5 Puck (5 minutes): No points awarded here. Teams will be focused on warming up and keeping head up. We will play fun hype music in the background with a bluetooth player. Coach will rotate the Finnish 5 Puck progression with two groups (one is warming up while the other one is resting at blueline). Goalies can warm up.
2. King or Queen of The Hill (5 minutes): The first challenge. This allows everyone to start the game at once and a chance to help their team earn the first point. Coaches can let the whole team play in the neutral zone or section off an area in one of the zones. Last person with a puck gets 1 Tournament Point for their team. Goalies can warm up.
3. 3 vs. 3 Handball Game (10 minutes): This starts things off fun and reinforces give & goes! Teams will be spilt up and will be playing 3 v 3 handball. Whichever team ends up with most goals gets 1 Tournament Point. Goalies can do movement drills during this or you can include them in the net and play with a tennis ball. 
4. Gates of Buffalo 3 vs. 3 (10 minutes): Whichever team ends up with most goals by passing through the gates at the end of time gets 1 Tournament Point. Goalies can continue drills or you can include them and have the game be 1 point for passing through a gate and 2 points for scoring a goal.
5. Picket Fences 3 vs. 3 (10 minutes): Forwards get 2 points for scoring a goal and defense gets 1 point for skating the puck out through the fences. Whoever gets most points gets 1 Tournament Point.
6. Union Scoring Game (10 minutes): Teams can score on any goalie - team with the most goals at the end gets 1 Tournament Point.

Coaches can add or remove any of the games above to make this tournament their own! Have fun with it and encourage players to cheer for their teammates!