Drills, breakouts, systems

Draw Hockey Drills Your Skaters Can Read

Real rink, real skating notation, taped to the glass.
Runs in your browser. Nothing to download, free to start.
Start drawing free See how it works
No credit card. Nothing to install.
D1 LW C
Go ahead, Coach: drag the players around. It's really that easy!
12,000+ coaches run their plays on ClickPlays
from youth travel teams to varsity programs

Five guys drifting in the same hemisphere.

That is how coaches describe their breakout. The whiteboard version looked fine.

The locker-room whiteboard: a breakout in general zones, gone by warmup.
The hemisphere problem

Breakouts, D-zone coverage, the power play: coaches call them the hardest things to teach, and the reason is always positioning. Teach a spot as a rough area and five skaters drift through the same hemisphere of ice.

Ice costs dollars a minute

Rink time costs dollars a minute wherever you play. A drill explained at the whiteboard for three minutes, then re-explained on the ice for three more, just spent six of the minutes you booked for skating.

Your playbook is a binder

The drills live on paper: rink templates drawn by hand, one sheet per drill, redrawn when the drill changes, photocopied when an assistant needs one. The binder is the system, and the binder has one copy.

The drill was never the problem. The drawing was.

Hand-drawn sheets have no standard: one coach draws a drill one way, an assistant marks it up to make sense of it, and the player cannot tell a skate from a pass. ClickPlays draws every drill in one notation, the one hockey already reads: skating is solid, backward skating is C-cuts, carrying the puck is the wavy line, a pass is dashed, a shot ends in a target. The rink is the real 200 x 85, with the faceoff circles, dots, hash marks and creases where they actually are, so a position is a coordinate, not a hemisphere.

  1. Five skaters, one hemisphere

    A breakout is five exact spots, not five suggestions. Place skaters on the real dots, walls and slot, and the printed sheet shows each player a position they can point to.

  2. Three coaches, three notations

    Solid skate, C-cut backward skating, wavy puck carry, dashed pass, shot to a target. Every coach on your staff draws with the same five arrows, so every sheet reads the same to every player.

  3. The binder has one copy

    Every drill saves to your playbook with a name. Change it and the sheet updates. Print one drill or the whole practice, and every assistant holds the current version.

D1D2LWCRWG
A wheel breakout drawn in ClickPlays: D1 wheels behind the net, the outlet pass is dashed, the far wing stretches.
Real rinks: 200 x 85 NHL trapezoid Full ice Half ice

ClickPlays is not affiliated with or endorsed by USA Hockey, the NCAA, or the NHL. Rink dimensions follow the published rules of each organization.

FG
A half-ice pivot drill: skate to the dot, C-cut backward to the top of the circle, shot from the slot.

Backward skating gets its own line

Half-ice and small-area drills draw on the half rink, cones where the stations go. Backward skating draws as C-cuts, the same line coaches put on paper by hand, so a defense pivot drill reads right the first time instead of needing a note in the margin.

Unlimited drills on the free plan, so the whole binder gets drawn, not just the first page. If your first sheet does not come out cleaner than the photocopy in the binder, close the tab and you have lost nothing.

Draw your first drill free
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free tool to draw hockey drills?
Yes. ClickPlays runs in the browser: a playbook with unlimited drills and plays, the play editor, saving, printing, and sharing. No credit card required.
Is the rink regulation size?
Yes. The rink is the North American 200 x 85 feet sheet shared by USA Hockey, the NCAA and the NHL, with faceoff circles, dots, hash marks, creases and lines where the rulebooks put them. An NHL variant adds the goaltender trapezoid.
Does ClickPlays use standard hockey drill notation?
Yes. Skating draws solid, backward skating draws as C-cuts, carrying the puck draws as the wavy line, passes are dashed, and a shot ends in a target reticle.
Can I diagram systems like breakouts and the power play?
Yes. Place all five skaters plus the goalie on exact rink coordinates, draw each route, and use steps to show the sequence: retrieval, outlet, exit. Save each system under its own name.
Do my players need accounts to see the drills?
No. Print the sheet or export a PDF and tape it to the glass or the locker-room wall. Online sharing is for your staff, who sign in free for read-only access.

Draw your next play in the next minute

Free account, no credit card. It saves itself, prints clean, and nothing erases it. The only thing you can lose by trying is the play you were about to forget.

Start drawing free