Hockey Sense Demystified: Beer League IQ

Want the game to finally “slow down” for you? In this episode, we break down what hockey sense (a.k.a. hockey IQ) truly means—seeing the whole ice, understanding where teammates and opponents should be, and anticipating the next play. Then we share practical ways to build your hockey IQ on and off the ice. 

Links & Resources
• The Beer Leaguer Hub — https://thebeerleaguer.com
• Sense Arena (VR training) — https://www.sensearena.com
• USA Hockey Intelligym — https://www.usahockeyintelligym.com/
• Beers on Ice — https://www.youtube.com/@beersonice
• Hockey IQ Podcast — hockeysarsenal.com/podcast
• How To Hockey (Coach Jeremy) — https://howtohockey.com/

CTA
Got a tip that’s worked for you? Drop a comment or message us at TheBeerLeaguer.com

Chapters

• 0:33 What is Hockey Sense/Hockey IQ?
• 2:46 Small Area Games
• 4:25 Play With Better Players
• 5:37 Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
• 7:39 Read and React Drills
• 11:15 Video Games
• 14:01 Skill Clinics
• 15:09 Playing Different Positions
• 16:47 Play Different Hockey
• 18:22 Play Other Sports
• 18:59 Coach Kids
• 19:54 Consider Time and Score Situations
• 21:39 Watch 1 Player
• 22:50 Play "What Should they Do?"
• 24:01 Listen to More Podcasts
• 24:54 Add Variety to your Drills
• 29:19 Film Yourself
• 29:32 Wrap-Up

Transcript

Roz (00:00)
Whenever you talk about trying to improve your hockey game, one of the phrases that gets thrown around a lot is improving your hockey sense. But what the heck is it? On this episode of The Beer Leaguer Podcast, go ahead and dive a little bit deeper into actually what people mean when they say hockey sense and also some ways that you can improve it on your own.

Alright, so improving your hockey sense. First thing you to know is what actually is hockey sense. Now, this is a pretty broad and generic term that people use for all kinds of mental hockey things. It's kind of an all encompassing bucket that people throw a lot of stuff in. So I'm going to give you what my interpretation of hockey sense is. And that's what we're to kind of go with for the entirety of this episode.

So when I talk about hockey sense or when I hear other people talk about it or hockey IQ or anything along those lines, to me, that is not just a blanket term for the mental aspect of playing hockey, but it's really understanding what's going on during a game. it's knowing where you're supposed to be at any point in time during a game, but also where other players on your team are supposed to be.

as well as anticipating what the other team is doing. So for example, say you are bringing the puck up ice on offense and you're playing wing. It's knowing, okay, my other wing is going to try and, you know, do something, you know, knowing what they're trying to do. So either they're going to stay, you know, far from you and cut in at the blue line towards the net.

they're gonna trail behind you but it's knowing that knowing what your center is gonna do also knowing what your defensemen are gonna do and Being aware of it also being aware of hey, I'm taking a puck in all by myself Maybe that's the time everybody's gonna try and take a line change. It's knowing what's going on It's really kind of having that top-down view of what's happening on the ice while you're playing That's what

I think of when I say hockey sense or hockey IQ. I use those terms interchangeably.

So how can you get better at that? How can you work on that? There are lot of ways you can do that. And I have a list here of a number of ideas of things that sometimes you can do on ice, some are off ice, some are easier than others to do. Some you do by yourself, some you need teammates or your whole team to do it with. So let's get started.

All right, the first thing that I think really helps with improving hockey sense and actually is a great skill builder all around for everything is playing small area games. That is usually things like playing like three on three games or playing like half ice, something like that. Playing in a smaller area, it forces you to use different skills than you use playing regular hockey. And that can really help out your hockey sense because you.

have less people out there, you're usually more aware of what they're doing and you kind of get used to having to follow quick movements and be a lot more cognizant of where your teammates and your opponents are at all times. Near me, there's a rink that has ice you can rent that's about half ice size. It's about half a rink and people will rent that out and play like three on three on it. And it's very compact, very condensed and

It's really great for helping out hockey sense. It's great for kind of, you know, like I said, learning to anticipate where your teammates are going to be and also where defenders are going to go also helps you with great hockey sense for defending because you don't have a lot of space. So you are kind of confined into certain areas and forces you to make faster, better decisions besides being great for skating. That's a lot of stopping and starting.

and great for passing and just playing in traffic. Great for all those things, but especially great for developing your hockey sense. And honestly, it's usually cheaper to play on smaller things like that. So it's something I definitely recommend.

Another easy way to kind of help improve your hockey sense, improve your knowledge and feel of what's going on around you is playing with better players. When you play with better players, it kind of forces you to get better as you play with them, but it also shows you your shortcomings and things that you can improve on that can be playing with better players in a league, having better players on your team, playing in a pickup that's a little bit above your level, anything like

No, I wouldn't say jumping in and playing with, you pro players. Yeah, you're not learning anything. That's really probably not helping anything. But playing with players that are a level or two up really can help, especially doing something like that in a more relaxed setting, like in a pickup game versus playing in a league game. That can be a lot more of a competitive thing that really can help you to improve your hockey sense, because it does once again, similar to like small area games, force you to play faster.

force you to be a little bit more aware of what's going on there. And, you know, try and use your brain to compensate for maybe physically what you can't do to keep up with them. So that is a great way to kind of build up some more hockey IQ.

Another thing you can do, and this one really is kind of a little bit more depending on how you're playing hockey, what you're doing, going out there and what kind of team you're on is you can actually talk to your teammates. And, you know, if you have one that is going to give you some honest feedback, that can be really helpful if it's somebody that sees you regularly, like sees you every week or so. But you do have to be a little bit careful on the kind of person you're asking because you want someone that one is going to give you honest feedback.

Not just be like, yeah, you're doing great, but also constructive feedback. You know, not just things like, yeah, you can't shoot or you're really terrible when you pass or anything like that, but giving you actual concrete examples of things that you could have done better. Maybe you didn't see things you were, should have been looking out for while you were playing. If you have something like that on your team, it might be worth trying to talk to them either during a game, after a game.

sometime and getting feedback on your actual game from

Also, and this goes back to previous episodes, we've talked about this a bunch, talked about this in the last episode.

communicate, talk to your teammates, talk to people on the ice, talk on the bench, find out what people are thinking you're going to do, what they're planning to do. And, know, get on the same page. You might have the best idea in your head that you're going to make this great play with your teammates, but if they're not thinking the same thing, it's not going to work. So talk, talk, talk, talk. Talking on ice is such an underutilized skill.

in lower level beer league. And I don't get why, just talk. I know it can be difficult while you're out there really trying to make things happen, but it is worth it to talk more. And I put it in the same category of, you everyone always says, how do I skate better? Bend your knees because no one bends their knees enough. How do I get smarter at hockey? Talk more. Trust me, you're I'm sure not talking enough out there.

what's going on in the game.

Number five, I guess we can make this like a list. Do off ice read and react drills and read and react drills can be all kinds of different things. They can be doing things like trying to do quick passes, trying to take, you know, really snappy shots. It can be watching for something to happen, you know, on a screen and you do something. It can be, you know.

you shoot a puck and as soon as it hits the wall, you shoot another one or something like that, just something. So you are taking a hockey action and tying it to something else that is happening that you're having to pay attention to. And what this does is it helps you one with whatever skill you're doing. So if it's shooting or passing or stickhandle or something like that, it helps that obviously because you're working on it. But it also helps you kind of do that almost automatically.

less consciously and that really can help you see and learn better to do that stuff out on the ice because if you don't have to pay full attention to everything, every little thing that you're doing, you can pay more attention to the game around you. This is something that I actually talked about a lot with Mike Steiner in a couple of the interviews that we've done with him from beers on ice. And one of the big differences that we came up with between lower level and really high level beer league

is high level beer leaguers, like they don't even think about skating. You know, they just skate. They're not worried about, you know, oh, I have to cut here or maybe this is the time to do a mohawk or I have to ride my edges to do this or this is the time to do a crossover or anything like that. They just do it. But a lot of lower level beer leaguers, you're thinking about skating. You're very conscious that you're out there skating. And that's really what makes hockey a lot more difficult than a lot of these other sports where you're running.

I mean, think of when you play like basketball. You're not thinking of running while you're playing basketball.

And if you play basketball for any amount of time, you're probably really not even thinking about dribbling the basketball, you know, while you're going up the court with it or anything. It just kind of happens automatically. So that's not really in the forefront of your brain. That's just kind of happening and you're doing these things and you're able to really, I can't think of a better way to put it, use more brain power to see what's going on on the court and analyze what's happening.

and what you can do. And so if you relay that same kind of thing to hockey, if you can do some of these things more automatically, then that can really make the game seem easier, make the game slow down for you. You know, that's what they always talk about with people as they get more used to different levels, the game slows down. Obviously, the game hasn't gotten any slower. It's just as fast as it was. But you're not spending your whole time thinking about, OK,

This is how I have to skate. You know, now this is when I want to do a forwards crossover and I've got to hit my inside edge on this foot so I can cut this way or things like that. You if you can kind of do that more automatically, you can more think about, you know, what you're doing with the puck. And once you can think about that a little bit more automatically, you know, carrying the puck and everything and doing some basic stick handling, you can really start to see what's around you and

it kind of opens up. So doing some of these read and react drills can help with that, can help, you know, do these things a little bit more automatically, make them a little bit more muscle memory that's happening.

Another thing you can do is play video games. We've talked about this channel a number of times. give video games can help, you know, if you play the right ones. The NHL series, which is kind of the big series that's out there, can definitely help with hockey sense because if you stay as one player on the ice and play through things, you kind of see what's happening, what everybody else is doing on the ice around you.

And that can help you learn how these plays are supposed to work and how, you know, players interact with each other and what they're expecting you to do. So that can definitely help.

Other games that are out there that are more geared towards kind of teaching hockey skills and hockey sense, things like that versus just playing our NHL sense arena, which is the VR headset game. And that's lot more of like a skills thing. You know, there's I know there's a huge section of that for goalies because goalies also need to have hockey sense, maybe even more so than players, because you kind of of be able to know what's going on in front of you.

With all that, so it's very important for goalies to have pretty good hockey sense and hockey IQ. NHL Sense Arena. What that is is you have your VR goggles and you have attachments you put on your hockey stick or if you're a goalie, goes on your glove and your blocker. And you can do different drills like, you know, trying to get better at timing for one timers and receiving passes and sending passes and some shot things and stuff like that. But it also.

can kind of get you a little bit more used to, you know, pushing passes to the right guy, you know, which player is the right player to pass to at a certain time. And, you know, you have to be looking at it. You can't be looking down at the puck because then you can't see which player is supposed to pass to and that kind of stuff. There is also a program out there from USA hockey. They have something that's very similar. That is just something that is on with like a keyboard on your computer that is supposed to help improve your hockey sense in a similar way of

watching what's going on and learning to anticipate what's happening with plays on the screen. I've seen that one before. That seems really cool. But unlike the sensor in a one, which is seems like those kind of games are a lot more randomized. What's happening? The USA hockey one seems to be a little bit more geared towards. Kind of the more.

more like set plays that teams might have kind of more standard plays and standard setups and things which you know it's definitely geared towards kids and they probably do have more of that kind of stuff than adult beer leaguers do so it may or may not work as great for you some of these other ones.

join skill clinics. Skill clinics help. Like I said, learning how to do some of these skills without really having to concentrate super hard on them and learning new skills that might make things easier for you can help improve your hockey sense. There's skill clinics out there for adults. Obviously those would be perfect. But a lot of times once for kids will accept adults, especially beginner adults. I know a lot of the skating clinics that are out there.

They will, you know, be for kids for power skating and they'll be like the random adult in there. And as long as you're not embarrassed by it and you shouldn't be. Those can totally help you improve your hockey sense ⁓ for sure. 100%. Playing different positions. One of the things that I like to do on my team, I've talked about it on here before is near the end of the season. If games kind of don't matter for playoffs, have a game where almost everybody switches positions.

I think it helps you, you know, see the game differently. If you're always a left wing and all of sudden now you're playing right D, yeah, you're probably not going to be great at it first off, which is fine, but it forces you to see the game differently and do some different things and also see what you're expecting someone that's playing your position to do. Maybe you notice, you know, you're a left wing, you're not playing right D. Maybe you notice, Hey, that left winger is, you know, not coming down for passes to get out of the

defensive zone or Hey, you know, the center isn't coming back and helping out. They really need to you might notice that stuff differently playing a different position just having a different spot on the ice that you're looking at plus also having to see how the game looks differently for what you're trying to do and I don't have a better word for it besides give some empathy for these other positions and what you usually play.

So try different positions. This is a great thing to do. Also, if you're playing pick up, like I talked about, play a different position, even just switching the side of the ice. If you're normally a right wing, play left wing. See what happens. Yeah, it's going to be a little different with the puck and everything, but just see how that looks different. The game is going to look different from a different side of the ice like that. You know, try that out. See, see what different things you see and how things change.

Along those same lines as a way to see things differently, play different version of hockey. So this would be like roller hockey or ball hockey, something like that. It's still hockey. A lot of the skills are transferable back and forth, but it's different. I don't know ball hockey super well. I know roller more. And I know for like roller usually are playing four on four. So, you know, there's less people out there's a lot of times in a smaller rink, which can make a big difference.

You know, it you're playing with a different style of puck or even sometimes a ball, which reacts totally differently. And this is also why you see a lot of players that grew up playing roller hockey when they move into ice hockey, because the games played very differently. And it's a lot more like one on one based for things. A lot of these roller players coming over usually have really good hands because they're just touching the puck a lot more. Less players out there, more puck touches.

So, you know, try playing a different version of hockey.

It's great to try and get in some of these things like in the off season. You know, if you don't want to play ice hockey in the summer, or maybe you don't have the ability to, maybe there's no ice around you in the summer, play roller hockey, not just skate around with roller blades, which is great for your skating and will help your ice skating. They're different, but they're similar enough. It will help. But also playing roller hockey, same thing. It's different, but a lot of that, a lot of those skills are transferable and will definitely help out.

So playing a different version of hockey can really help you in your beer league hockey sense.

We'd also really go different and just play different sport. Playing different sports teaches different things. They talk about it all the time with kids that it's not great for kids to play the same sport all the time, all year round when they're younger, you know, because you kind of get in a rut and you don't really expand, you know, not just physically, but mentally expand out those muscles that are a little bit fringy and you can really get into ruts doing things. So playing different sports can really help.

So playing different sports totally can help not just for kids, but

adults do.

sticking in that varied sports theme there.

try coaching or volunteering with a youth team. Most youth hockey teams, you know, they probably have like one or two parents that are helping out and doing the, doing everything and may or may not know what they're doing. Maybe I've ever played hockey before, but if you like have a buddy that has a kid on a team or you know, somebody that's, you know, working with a youth team, see if they need somebody else to help out and you know, just being on the ice, doing something a little bit different.

can one, you can pick up things that they're doing and learn some stuff, but also kind of getting that larger overview from coaching versus playing can help you see things differently and can definitely help you increase your hockey sense because you are kind of getting that larger like overhead view of what's happening because you're a coach versus being out there playing, you know, and you're helping kids out, learn to play hockey. So that's always good.

One thing that I think can make a big difference when you're trying to improve your hockey sense. I don't know if this directly will make it better, but I think it can kind of make things easier to understand and digest and categorize is being aware of score and time and how those can affect what you're doing in a game. Because that can make all the difference in the world. I mean, think about it. If.

You're chasing down a puck in the corner of the defensive zone. If you're doing that during a one-one game in the middle of the first period, that's very different than a game that you're up, you know, three to one with 10 seconds to go in the game. You have very different thoughts of this is what I need to be doing next. This is where the puck should be going. This is what should be happening. So being aware of that and even being aware of that when you're watching games,

you're sitting on the bench of a game, not just when you're out on the ice, but being aware of that and seeing how that changes the game and knowing that that is a huge component of what's happening, what people are thinking of doing, I think can really help categorize things for a lot of people. I know it helps me kind of categorize what people should and shouldn't be doing out there on the ice and seeing how that how those differences are out there.

So if you're looking for some more things, if you're looking for more ways of how to kind of categorize yourself, how to categorize this stuff yourself and learn to kind of put all these different hockey sense ideas into buckets of like, when's a good time to, you know, rush up with a puck? When do you just dump it in? Things like that. Another way to do that is watching pro hockey. And especially if you're watching it at home.

And you have your DVR going, watching pro hockey one. Just focus in on one particular player and watch what they're doing. Watch what they're doing with the puck away from the puck as much as you can. That can be a little bit tough when you're watching from home, but you can also definitely do that if you're at a game live watching that. And if you're watching kind of like a replay on a game, a lot of times they give you different camera angles you can look at. And that can be a really useful thing to do is find one particular player.

You know, probably play the same position you normally play or trying to learn a new one plays that position and watch what they do the whole game. It's way more, I think, important to see what they do away from the puck and how they set up different things, how they take away different stuff on defense, how they get open on offense and vice versa. All these different things that they're doing out there and seeing what they're doing versus just what they do with the puck every time.

Or just always watching where the puck goes. Watching that stuff away from the play can be super helpful in recognizing things that you should probably be doing too. Also, if you're at home watching, you can, you know, be watching the game and when a player gets a puck and you know, they're going to obviously about to do something. You can, a, if you really want to pause the game and try and think about, well, here's their options. I wonder what they're going to do there. You know, I see they could do.

A pass to here, they could try and cut this way. They could take a shot. if they do the pass to this guy, that doesn't look totally clear because there's someone in the way. If they cut over, that looks mostly open, but then there's nowhere for them to go with the puck afterwards. But they could take the shot, So I would do. You know, X.

You can do that subconsciously. can just, you know, do that while you're watching a game, but you can't also literally watch a game, pause it, think through some of these things, resume it and see what happens. See, you know, how much they matched up with what you thought. And if what you thought was going to happen happened, you know, if you thought a defender was going to block a passing lane or get in the way of a shot or someone was going to take away a shot with, you know, try to drop down to block it. So the person moved around it.

That's a great way to kind of practice your hockey IQ and build that up. It's very similar to a lot of the video game stuff that we're talking about.

Another way to improve some of your hockey sense and pick up honestly more tips on how to improve hockey sense and more ideas for it is listen to podcasts. Hopefully this podcast is one of those that gives you some ideas on things like that. There are plenty of other ones out there. There's ones like there's the hockey IQ podcast. What a crazy name that has ideas for things like this. It doesn't just have

You know, lists of ways to improve your hockey sense, but they talk about it. It's definitely a huge topic on there every episode. So that's good one. ⁓ watch stuff on YouTube for things like this. There's plenty out there. I think kind of the OG with all these things is how to hockey, you know, coach Jeremy, especially in a lot of older videos has tips and tricks for things like this on how to improve your hockey sense and different skills that you can build up that do help that out.

You can also add variety to any kind of skating or shooting drills or passing drills that you're doing. If you are lucky enough to get out and go to like stick and pucks and you're doing different skating drills, doing some different things, instead of just doing end to end rushes or things like that, practice Mohawks, practice forwards and backwards crossovers or anything like that. Just try and add more variety.

to your skating package and from the same idea from your shooting package. So not always just shooting, you know, the big slap shot or your snapshot, shoot bad angles, shoot pucks in your feet, all kinds of things like that. Because the more you get comfortable doing a wide variety of things, the more those ideas will come up to you as possibilities for things out on the ice. So if you are, I will take a Mohawk, for example.

For those of don't know what a mohawk is, it's... I feel like everybody always talks about Sidney Crosby doing the mohawks. It's where you have kind of your ankles or your heels, I should say, your heels are close together, almost, you know, maybe touching, and your feet are out, and you're kind of skating in a circle that way. And that's something you obviously you have to practice that. But if you never practice that...

You're never going to just think to do that during a game. If you practice it a little bit, you might consciously think, this is a great time to do a Mohawk. Let me try doing this. Or if it's something you've practiced a bunch and you can really do it without thinking, then you might just do it during a game. You might kind of not consciously have to be like, okay, I think this is a good chance to do a Mohawk. Let me get, you know, my left foot here. Okay. Right foot here and start.

It's a lot more automatic for you. And that's really what a lot of this hockey sense stuff is. Isn't just developing your actual ability to see everything on the ice. It's also to free up your brain to be able to do this stuff because you can do some of these other things more automatically. So adding variety or skating drills and shooting drills and things like that can make it a lot more likely that you'll have a much larger bag of tricks.

to pull from to be able to do things for and not to think about it, but also know that there's an ability to do stuff. So like I was saying, if you practice shooting pucks that you know are in your feet. One you've you're a lot more likely to be able to do that during a game. If you get a bad pass, which Hey, this is beer league. There's plenty of bad passes, which is great, but it also means you don't have to stop and think and be like, Oh crap. I got to get this out of my feet and do this. You just know, Oh, I can shoot it from here.

And if you're just going to be like, I can shoot it from here. You're not even worrying about that. Now you're going, okay, where am I shooting it, you know, towards? I, you know, aiming this at the goalies pads? Is there open space wherever you're able to think about that versus, I got to get it out. don't really know how to dig the puck out of my skate here to get the shot off. That's kind of the idea. So adding a larger variety of things to try out.

You see, pro guys do this stuff all the time where they practice one thing over and over and over and over and over again, just to get really good at one particular skill. And finally, and I know I've talked about this on many other episodes, I get a whole episode about this.

film your own games and watch yourself. It can be painful. I know that it can be really painful because yeah, you're a lot slower than you thought you were. You look a lot worse than you thought you did, but it does give you the option to go back and take a look at what you thought you saw versus what actually is going on in a game. So you can, you know, go back to certain points in the game when you had the puck.

or you were trying to stop somebody with the puck and what you thought you saw going on versus what actually was going on. Did you miss, you know, your teammate that was completely wide open because you didn't turn your head to the left for some reason. Did you not go and cover, you know, the guy that came in behind to get a great shot off because you were just focused on the puck and not paying attention to what was going on around you.

It can be painful. know that nobody really likes to watch themselves on film, but it can teach you a lot. can be a super helpful learning tool and a great way to improve your actual, your personal hockey sense.

Well, hopefully there's some ideas in there that you can actually use to try and improve the hockey sense on your own. Hopefully you have a little bit better idea of what hockey sense is as well. So when people talk about hockey sense or hockey IQ, you know what they're talking about.

I'd love to hear about it. can send me a message, drop a comment down below, or as always, head over to thebeerleaguer.com and get ahold of me from there. There's a bunch of different ways that is the hub for all things for The Beer Leaguer, thebeerleaguer.com. All right, everybody. Thanks a lot for listening to this episode. Catch you in the next one.