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Planet Field Hockey

Off The Crossbar Coaching Article Series

So you want to be an elite athlete or you believe you are one already. You expect to be a starting player and play the full seventy minutes of every game. Review the following game situations and measure yourself:

1. During a lull in the game, you decide to walk over to the sideline and change your hat or maybe have a leisurely drink of water and then walk back to your position.
2. The other team is getting the ball and preparing to do a push-in, so you decide to talk to Megan about what courses she has chosen for next semester.
3. We are preparing to take a penalty corner and since you are not directly involved in the corner, you have a conversation with Barb from the other team about last season’s semi-finals.
4. You mistrap the ball at mid-field, it deflects towards their forwards and they move towards our goal. You are sincerely unhappy about your mistake, so your swear a little bit, glare at your stick, and start walking back towards our goal.
5. A defender from the other team attempts a tackle and smashes your stick. The ball goes off your foot. The umpire makes a call for the ball hitting your foot. You start a discussion with the umpire while the other team takes the free hit.


If you have done any one of these or similar things in a game, then you are not an elite athlete. For those of us who believe we do not lose focus during a game, we must measure how we perform in practice. Review the above situations again and you have most likely done everyone of them (or similar ones) in practice situations.


How the Elite Athlete practices

A field hockey game consists of two thirty-five minute halves with a five/ten minute half-time break. During the half-time, we only have time to get water, obtain physio treatment if necessary and receive coaching instruction. We warm-up at least half an hour before the game and we do a cool down after the game.

The elite athlete adheres to the following general practice maxims whether he is training with a group or on his own:

1. He warms up for practice just as though he is going to play in the finals of a major event.
2. The core part of practice is run at the pace of game, so she does not take any kind of break for thirty-five minutes unless she has a serious injury. She has drunk enough water before practice starts just as she would do before a game.
3. He takes the five/ten minute break, just as the game’s half-time, knowing that a second thirty-five minute game pace session will be conducted.


During the practice, the elite athlete follows these specific practice maxims:

1. When a drill is completed, he leaves the balls where they are and immediately starts running at a 3,000m pace (i.e. not a jog) around the perimeter of the practice area while the coaches set up the next drill. He does not wait for his friends and there is no discussion with anyone during the run.
2. If she mistraps a ball, or makes a bad pass, or the shot at goal is bad, or the ball deflects off the goalie, she "sprints" the complete distance and gets that ball. She sprints back to the drill with the ball, she does not get another ball from another group, nor does she get a ball from the ball bag. In this way, her game intensity is maintained, and an added benefit is that we do not spend anytime looking for balls during our practice time.
3. If he mistraps the ball or makes a bad pass, he is out of that phase of the drill and goes back to the beginning. The real game is unforgiving when we make a mistake, the elite athlete learns this in practice. Your team does not continue with an attack if the ball goes off your foot, so why should you or your group continue the attack in a drill if you have breached the rules of the game or failed at the purpose of the drill.


A game at the elite level is not a Social Event. The elite athlete treats all practices the same way. The philosopher said that if people knew what it takes to be successful, they would stop dreaming about it.

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