Position, Pass, Repeat: A Slow Skater’s Guide to Beer League

 If you don’t have wheels, you can still win shifts. In this episode, we break down 14 practical ways slower beer league players make a real impact—from smarter reads and sharper positioning to stick detail, net-front work, and being the bench “glue guy.” 

Chapters

• 1:20 Play Smarter
• 3:32 Master Positioning
• 5:30 Play Between the Puck and the Net
• 7:11 Stick Positioning
• 8:51 Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
• 10:46 Pass More
• 12:19 Control the Tempo
• 14:11 Reliable Outlets
• 17:01 Use Angles and Body Position
• 20:08 Go to the Net
• 22:04 Play Defense?
• 23:32 Manage Your Energy
• 24:49 Focus on a Skill
• 26:45 Be the Glue
• 27:48 Wrap-Up

Transcript

Roz (00:00)
You might not have speed, but you can still have an impact. Here's how slow players can still be helpful in beer league hockey.

Every beer league team has that one player who probably can't beat anyone in a race, but somehow always ends up in the right spot making the right play. That could be you.

Today we're talking about how to make impact on your team without needing to have NHL caliber wheels. Just hockey IQ timing and maybe a little bit of luck.

Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of The Beer Leaguer Podcast. This one is something that hits a little bit close to home for me. How to still be a useful and helpful to your team beer league player while not being the most fleet of foot.

Now I'm someone that has never been a fast player even when I was younger. I was one of the slowest players on pretty much any team I played on and that's just something that stayed with me. I like to think I'm still a useful player because I can do some other things out there and kind of mask my lack of speed. I think it's pretty apparent though.

but maybe not make it as much of a detriment as you would think it is. So on this episode, we're gonna go over some different things that slower players can do to make themselves better at beer league hockey. But honestly, these are also things that will help out faster players maybe play a little bit faster, look a little bit faster and play better. So it's applicable to just about anyone.

So the first thing, and this is probably the main thing everybody thinks of when you come up with a topic like this and start talking about it is play smarter, not faster. That means reading plays, trying to think ahead, notice what's going on out on the ice. So this goes to the idea of taking a snapshot.

of what's happening and where everybody is and where people are heading. Trying to get used to doing that and seeing everything, not just what's directly in front of you, not just what's down at your feet and doing it all the time. Not just when you have the puck, not just when you're waiting for the puck, but doing it all the time. I think it's Gretzky talked about this where he was always a step or two ahead of everybody else. And that's one thing that made him so good is that he anticipated everything.

And you can do that too. You you know the players on your team, probably if the people you've played with, you know where people are heading, you know what they're thinking. And if you play against the same people over and over and over, you start to learn their trends and you can pick up on stuff like that and start to read what people are doing. You know, maybe you see.

Your winger that you're playing with heading down to the corner, but you know He always peels off before he gets to the corner. He doesn't go all the way in he's going to peel back You know, you know that you can tell that's what's going to happen or you know You're playing defense on someone that you're familiar with and you know, they always try and cut to the middle They never want to take a puck wide always try and cut to the middle well now, you know that use that knowledge that you have look for these trends and

and do as much as you can with it. You know, anticipate what people are going to do to help you out. It sounds really simple. It's not a easy thing.

to say here do A, B, and C and you have the perfect results. But it's really just paying attention and watching what's going on. Like I said, it's watching your teammates, watching your opposition, and getting used to it. And if you really just kind of pay attention a little bit more during games, or if you have access to recordings of your games, paying attention to those as well, as painful as it might be to watch yourself, you instinctively start to know some of these things. And it can really help. So.

Play smarter, not faster. And honestly, by playing smarter, sometimes you can look faster. Second thing, positioning. This is such a big one for players that aren't outrunning people, aren't burning around people, and aren't outmaneuvering everybody. Be in the right position for things. Know where you're supposed to be.

And honestly for beer league, it's almost more important to not know where you're supposed to be, but know where your teammates expect you to be. So if you're a winger and your defense is trying to get pucks out of the zone, don't be breaking out and wondering why they're not passing it to you at the far blue line. Come back, help them out. You know, if you're a defenseman in the offensive zone, don't, you know, be scooching back.

out of the zone and taking yourself out of the play just to kind of get a head start because you're not very fast. I'm not going to get the puck that way. So learn where your positions are supposed to be and then also learn where your team expects you to be and talk. Talk, talk, talk. That's the best way to learn this stuff is talk when passes get missed or if a teammate, you know, passes out in the middle of nowhere.

Talk to them, see what they're thinking. Were they expecting you to jump in behind them? Were they expecting you to cut to the net or something like that? Were they expecting you to cover a guy when maybe they didn't explicitly say that? Talk to them, see what they're thinking. And again, get that rapport going. It's very similar to the first point. Learn the habits of everyone.

And doesn't always mean that you have to change everything. Maybe they change. Maybe if you tell them, no, I'm not expecting a drop pass from you, I'm expecting to cut to the net. The next time, maybe they don't give you the drop pass. Next time they take the shot so you can follow up on it. So things like that is really important. So it's master your positioning, which again, it's beer league. More than likely doesn't mean always what you would think of as correct positioning, but where your team expects you to be.

Number three.

between the puck and the net. It's probably the easiest advice you will ever get for playing defense and hockey and it sounds extremely simple and it is extremely simple. Not always the easiest to handle especially if you're going against someone who's much faster than you but do your best to stay between the puck and the net.

So if someone's coming down on you and you're playing, you know, don't have be playing defense, you can be playing wing and they're coming down at you, stay between the puck and the net. Doing that forces them to do something. Now you always do want to try and push any players off to the sides, keep the middle as open as you can for your goalie. Side shots should be easier for them to stop because they're harder shots, but really stay between the puck and the net.

that forces the player with the puck to do something. And forcing somebody to do something is always better than letting them just kind of do whatever they want. You know, that's when people make mistakes, especially, especially in beer league.

And the great thing is when you're playing defense on somebody, you can use yourself as the defender. You also have a stick. It's long. It gives you added length and reach. So somebody is super fast and they're able to get kind of around you, still use your stick to have that little bit more time to help you out with at least keeping that between the puck and the net.

Kind of similar with positioning, how you want to stay on somebody, but just keep yourself between the puck and the net. Block that as much as possible. Slow down the opposing player who's coming on offense as much as you can.

Number four, stick positioning. All right, you generally know where you're supposed to be now, where your teammates are expecting you. You are doing your best to keep yourself between the puck and your net. What's the next thing you do? Stick positioning. Like I talked about, your stick can help you so much, defensively especially,

it gives you added length, added reach. If someone starts to get around you, you can use it to corral players. That's how you help keep players out of the center of the ice. You know, use your stick to help corral them going one way. Make them have to make a really good move to go around your stick to help yourself out. The other thing you can do is use your stick to try and block passing lanes. You know, you can use your stick to

Get on someone that has the puck, obviously, but if somebody doesn't have the puck and you're just kind of in the way with the stick, get your stick parallel to the ice and block some passing lanes. Block passes from happening with that. Use your stick to lift sticks as well. Also, the inverse of this works on the offensive end.

is use your stick to again have added reach. Maybe you can get a puck around someone that's trying to defend you because you you know use the full reach of your stick even if it's one-handed to go around somebody. Use your stick to

give an opening for a teammate to give you a pass, even if your body is kind of in the way and not in a good spot. Maybe you can get your stick out there so they can find your stick. So again, don't forget you have a stick. It's another couple of feet extension on your arm. Use it.

Number five, communicate.

Hopefully that's simple enough. Hopefully it is. Talk to your teammates. Like I said in the very beginning of this under point number one, talk to your teammates, see what they're expecting you to do. Tell them what you're expecting them to do. That is such a huge thing that in lower level beer leagues doesn't happen. Upper level beer league, if you go watch upper games a lot of times, especially players that have played

You know, at a high level, semi pro or even pro level or even super highly, you know, college or even really high level competitive high school, there's a lot of talk on the ice. Usually there's usually a lot of chatter about things, you know, players calling for things, saying they're doing different stuff on the offensive end and on the defensive end and just chatter back and forth. And on lower level beer league, you don't hear as much of that. And the more talk, the better to communicate things out.

I have heard people say that they don't want the other team to hear what they're doing. I've heard that as an excuse of why they don't talk. And yeah, I suppose that that could be a thing, but yeah, I really don't think that's a good excuse. Talk, talk out there. Talk while you're playing, talk on the bench. You know, don't just spend the whole time on the bench.

talking crap about the other team or saying, the guy should have made that pass or why didn't he get that shot or whatever. Talk about what you're expecting and what they were expecting and see what they're thinking. You're see if they're. See what they're thinking you're going to do and you tell them what you're thinking they're going to do. You know, find some middle ground in there and find out what.

Everybody's thinking, you on your line, your defense pairing, whatever, see where everyone's thoughts are. So just communicate, talk.

It's not that hard.

Number six, pass more. Even if you're a slow skater, you can pass just as fast as probably anyone else on your team. Pass the puck more. The puck's always gonna move faster than a skater anyways. So learn to pass better. Learn to pass more and pass better, get in the habit of it. Become a good passer. Good, crisp outlet passes are...

so underutilized and so poorly done in general in beer league, especially low level beer league. And when you have like good, nice outlet passes, man, they just set up stuff so well. So learn to pass better. You if you've done these other things before, these all kind of build on each other. If you've done this stuff before, you know, you

have decent positioning from where you're at. So hopefully you're getting some pucks coming to you. You've talked to your teammates, know, they have their sticks and positions to receive pucks. They're kind of getting open as much as they can. You know when they're expecting pucks. They know when you're expecting to give them pucks. Get it to them.

Like I said, the puck always moves faster than a player. So even if you're slow, you can still pass the puck fast. So learn to pass better, start passing more, look for passes for people. And you know, maybe it gets your team to actually pass the puck more. It's not such a bad thing. Instead of having a bunch of players trying to play one-on-one hockey, maybe you start a trend with it. So number six, pass more often.

Number seven.

Control the speed of the game as much as you can. Now, when you have the puck, you kind of control the speed of the game. You you can get the puck and just rifle passes out right away or try and take off right away, or you can stop and hold it for a beat. Look for a good play to make. And if your teammates have listened and they know you're going to do this, hopefully they're moving and getting in position for you. So you can make a good smart play.

to pass the puck to them or take the puck up or whatever you're going to do. But you are the one controlling the pace of that. So when you get a chance to try and control the pace of the game, that can mean for you slowing it down to closer to something you're comfortable with. And also, if you slow kind of everything else down and then all of a sudden you start going, even if you're not the fastest player,

you've taking the other team by surprise and maybe able to get a step or two before somebody faster catches up to you. So think about that. Think about having the control, the pace of play and also changing the pace of play. You don't have to be going full speed all the time every second. You can change speeds. If you watch a lot of pro players, they change speeds all the time.

If you watch lot of high-level beer league players, change speed a decent amount of time.

So don't think you always have to be going full speed all the time for everything. You can change speeds. That's especially useful on offense, less so on defense when you kind of have to match speed with your opponent. But on offense, it's definitely a thing you can do. know, slow down and speed up and slow down and speed up and you know, maybe lose somebody that's trying to cover you. Maybe you can get to an open space. Maybe you can get around somebody with a puck, but control the tempo that you play at.

Number eight. Yeah, that's eight. Number eight.

This is really more of a... This is really more for the wingers out there, kind of the center too.

Be a good outlet. Be ready for outlet passes. Like I was talking about breakout passes, crisp breakout passes out of the defensive zone in beer league are so great. They don't happen very often, but when they do, man, plays just kind of work themselves out a lot of times. One of the big keys to it is be a reliable. One of the big keys to it is to be a reliable outlet.

So if you're a winger, that means not just taking off and streaking down, waiting for that, you know, breakout pass as you enter the offensive zone. That means maybe coming back to.

The general rule of thumb is top of the face off circle area at least and getting on the inside of the defender inside meaning you are more into the defensive zone than the defender is so that way you can get a puck and even if you can't really do a move to get around the person or do something to get out, you can at least get the puck fully out of the zone. At least do that. But becoming a reliable outlet person.

is so helpful for starting plays on offense and for getting pucks out of the defensive zone. So for wingers, like I said, that means coming back and helping out with that. A lot of times for centers, that means coming down and maybe helping out the defense, getting pucks out, but also moving. That's a big thing that a lot of forwards in general don't do in beer league is when the defensemen get a puck, the forwards kind of freeze.

They don't move, you know? Start cutting and moving. Do something so you get open. Don't just randomly move though, because you know, if your defenseman has the puck and they see you streaking across the ice left to right, and then all of a sudden you real quickly cut back and they don't know you're gonna do that, they're gonna probably go to where they thought you were gonna go to. So again, goes back up to previous things we talked about. Communicate, talk about these things.

and also learn what your teammates tend to do and what their patterns are.

and keep doing those things so that you can be a reliable outlet for getting pucks out of the zone.

Number nine.

angles along with angles that's also kind of body position. Same when we talked about using your stick. Use your body. You know, use your body to get in the way of things. So that can mean get in the way of like we talked about between the puck and the net.

and get in the way of that, that can mean cutting off passes that players want to make on either end of it. If you're playing defense, cutting off the passer or the passee, but making that an extremely hard pass to do, make them have to make an amazing pass to get around you for it, or make them have to do an amazing move to get past you to get a shot off. And by the same token, when you're playing offense, use your angles.

Try and use body position to keep defenders away from you if you notice a lot of pro players what they do and they have the puck is They will use their body to like shield off a defender and have their stick out away from it So basically the defender would have to go all the way through their body To just get to the butt end of the stick let alone get all the way

to the very end of the stick. And unless you're playing against some like monstrous sized person like Zdeno Chara, they're not getting that puck. So use your body for these things. Use your body to make space, to cut off angles, or like I on offense, use it to create angles and create space for yourself. And angles are so important to...

take in consideration of how to get pucks to places, how to get pucks either into the zone, out of the zone, get shots on net stop shots on net is to start thinking of you see where the puck is, you probably know where the person is trying to go with it or what would be a good place for them to go with it. How are they going to do it? Most people want to go there the most direct route. How do you cut that off? It's very similar to the way people think about like pool.

Think of it like that with the puck being the...

with the puck being, you know, a pool ball that they're trying to bank off into something or put straight to, you know, a corner or straight to the net or whatever. Think of it in a similar vein of something like that. And that's how you're trying to use your angles for it. And a very important thing to remember when you're trying to think of angles with a puck like that is you're looking at that where the puck is trying to go.

not necessarily where the player is trying to go, because it can be different. Because again, if people are keeping the puck away from themselves to try and use their body to block off a defender, then if you're just blocking their body and not paying attention to the puck being way out to the side, well, then you're not really blocking off where that puck is going to go, are you? No, you're blocking where their body would go, but they might still be able to get a shot off. So remember that.

just because you block somebody's body doesn't mean that you're blocking the puck. So always look where the puck is going, where the puck's angles are, not necessarily where the body angles are.

Number 10.

you don't have a lot of speed, you're probably not going to be doing McDavid style breakouts on offense. So how can you help out get goals?

play in front of the net. This in beer league is generally the way most goals are scored, especially low level beer league. You don't have a lot of people just coming down sniping shots. It's usually somebody takes a shot, there's a rebound and then a whole mess of guys going for it in front of the net. So if you're not the most fleet of foot and you want to help out an offense, get down there by the net.

That can be helping by screening the goalie. Maybe somebody's trying to move you and you and that defender are both screening the goalie, which can be helpful because the goalie can't see things that can be watching for the puck with shots and trying to flip those rebounds in. You know, that's not going to be a full windup slap shot down there. Probably it's not going to be usually a good looking shot. It's going to be a lot of ugly little flips and tips and things like that.

but that's what you should be looking for and be ready for it and be in position for it. That is a great way to score goals in a beer league and especially in lower level beer leagues. That's how a lot of goals do get scored down there. On the flip side on defense, try and prevent that. Like we just talked about with body position and angles and things like that. Don't let the person be down there.

Now, you know, this is beerly. You can't be just cross checking people and knocking people out of the crease and stuff like that. But don't let them even get down there, get in the way of it and be cognizant of where the puck is. Like we talked about, because if you're on defense, you don't want to be the one screening your goalie. So make sure you're not screening them. It's kind of the opposite of what the offense wants to do. Obviously this is all mirrored stuff. So net front.

Either get in front of there, get in front of the goalie, or keep people out of that, and keep your goalie's vision clear.

Number 11.

play defense. I know, I know it's beer league. wants to play defense, but listen, if you do play defense, it's helpful. You don't have to be the fastest person out there to help be a defensive minded player.

You can get away with a pretty large lack of speed playing defensively smart, especially, especially in lower level beer leagues. It gets harder and harder as you move up the beer league chain to be able to do that because players tend to have a, as you move up, players tend to have a better mix of physical and mental speed for the game.

So it's harder to only have one of those and defend people. But especially at lower levels, you tend to have people that either really fast and probably don't have hands or have really good hands, but aren't super fast or can think where they're going and kind of know what they want to do, but don't have hands or speed. They probably just have one of those things or some lesser combo of two of those, but probably not all three. So if you're not the fastest player out there and you're trying to figure out a way to help out your team. Play defense.

You know, be a defenseman, maybe be a defensively responsible forward. Back check. Or the really scary word that I don't know if any beer leaguers know how to do this. For check.

I know, they're foreign words, you can find out what they mean, but it can help. And especially if you're looking for ways to help out as a slower player. It's a great way to do it.

Number 12. don't know. I know. I don't know which way. How to do 12 now with my hands on number 12. If you are a little bit of a slower player, don't burn yourself out out there. If you're already slow, don't completely gas yourself out on your shifts. Be smart about it. Take shorter shifts or at least shifts where you don't come back to the bench completely gassed, you know, because.

If you do that, you're going be playing out there at, say, 70 or 80 % of your capacity at best. And if already 100 % of your capacity is not keeping up with people, playing that much lower is just going to make it that much harder to do it. So be a lot more cognizant of your changes. Make smart changes, which in general means don't make changes.

as your team is transitioning to defense, because that's usually a bad change, but also error on the side of a shorter shift versus a longer shift. And this is a whole, we could have a whole nother discussion on this for beer league, because in general, beer leaguers take the pretty long shifts that they don't need to. But we'll just go with the simple thing of error on the shorter side of a shift versus a longer shift.

Alright, number 13. I don't know how to do my hands for 13. I don't know how the camera works to flip it around. whatever, number 13.

Try and get good at one like particular skill. Try and work on that skill. And when I say a particular skill, I'm talking about things like maybe you get really good on face-offs. Maybe you get really good at working like the half wall. They usually call that in hockey. You know, where you set yourself up on the wall and, you know, look to find players. Usually you associate that with like a power play, but...

any kind of winger usually you can get good at that. Finding where people are open and moving the puck around. Maybe you get really good at blocking passing lanes and so you become very helpful for penalty kills and things like that. But try and find a skill that you do have for hockey and get good at it. know, excel at a skill.

In the pros, there is guys that are kind of like one trick ponies that stick around forever. I think the most famous one always is faceoffs is there is always every year in the NHL. Four or five guys that, you know, play eight, nine minutes a night. But, you know, stick around for. You know, they play eight or nine minutes a night and they stick around for like, you know, 10, 12, 14 years.

And it's because they're face-off specialists. That's all they are is they're really good at face-offs. Now in beer league, does this matter a ton for face-offs? Probably not. But if you get really good at face-offs, that's thing you can do. That's a way to help out. You know, that's...

It's not just something that you can do that you say, hey, that's a helpful skill that I have that helps your team out, but it's also a way to feel better about your game. If you have one thing that you're really good at and kind of hang your hat on, it can really help you feel a lot better about playing, especially if you are a slower player and don't feel like you're helping out in other ways.

All right, finally, number 14. I think this kind of goes without saying, if you are a slower player, especially if you feel that being a slower player is making you not as valuable as a teammate out there, and you're looking for a way to kind of like I was saying, feel better about how you're helping out your team. Be a glue guy. And by being a glue guy, what I mean is.

Be the upbeat guy on the bench. Be a good locker room guy. If your team is lacking someone that's a beer person on your team, be the person that does that or the person that organizes it. Anything like that that just kind of helps make the team more fun, makes people have more fun playing beer league. After wins, after losses, no matter what, helps them have a good time with it. Be that guy. That does not require any speed whatsoever.

to do that. That doesn't require any kind of good hockey sense or any hockey specialties to be that person on your team. And everybody needs at least one person on their team like that, if not multiple people.

So there you go, that is 14 different things you can do if you are a slower player to help out your team and help you be a better player just overall. Also 14 things that average or good hockey players can do to get better at hockey as well. Kind of works for everybody, isn't that nice? Love to hear if you have suggestions yourself for things that you think a slower player can do to help out because...

I would like to do some of those things as a slower player. So let me know as always, if you have comments, feedback, anything about the show, you can get a hold of the show over at thebeerleaguer.com. That's the best way to get a hold of everything, find past shows, find all the different stuff you want to find out about the show, social media accounts, whatever. Go check it out, thebeerleaguer.com. All right, everybody, as always, thanks a lot for listening. I appreciate it. I'll catch you in the next one.