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, seven days free.

D1 LW C
Go ahead, Coach: drag the players around. It's really that easy!

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from youth travel teams to varsity programs

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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.
  1. 1
    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.

  2. 2
    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.

  3. 3
    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.

clickplays Coach D.K.

Wheel breakout

3 steps
Ice hockey wheel breakout diagram: D1 wheels behind the net, the outlet pass is dashed, the far wing stretches.
clickplays.com Page 1 of 1
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.

How it works

Draw your plays, build your practices.

  1. clickplays Coach D.K.

    Pivot and go

    3 steps
    Ice hockey pivot drill diagram: skate backward to the dot, pivot, and go forward with the puck.
    clickplays.com Page 1 of 1
    1

    Draw your play

    Two minutes on ClickPlays play editor, and that is the last time you draw it. It is still there next season, and it still prints.

  2. clickplays 15 min
    Team Systems

    Wheel breakout

    Ice hockey wheel breakout used as a drill: D1 wheels behind the net, the outlet pass is dashed, the far wing stretches.
    • D1 wheels, never stops behind the net
    • Strong-side wing hits the wall
    • Far wing stretches to the red line
    Directions

    Both ends at once, whistle every rep. Five each way, then flip the D pair.

    2

    Make it a drill

    Your play can be used to make a drill. Nothing gets redrawn. You just write down instructions, any variants and included in the practice planner.

  3. clickplays 12U Travel

    Tuesday Ice

    5:45 - 6:50
    5:45 - 5:55 Edges and transitions Skating 10m
    5:55 - 6:10 Puck protection stations Puck Control 15m
    6:10 - 6:25 Wheel breakout Team Systems 15m
    6:25 - 6:45 Cross-ice 3v3 Small-Area Games 20m
    6:45 - 6:50 Stretch, off 5m
    clickplays.com 65 min planned of 65
    3

    Plan your practice

    The drills you already built become your next practice plan, and the minutes add up against the gym time you actually have.

Questions coaches ask

Is there a tool to draw hockey drills?
Yes. ClickPlays runs in the browser. Seven days free, then Starter is $99 a year or $12 a month: the play creator, unlimited plays and playbooks, saving, printing and sharing. PRO is $149 a year or $29 a month and adds the practice planner, the drill bank and Sideline.
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 save it as a PDF from the print window, and tape it to the glass or the locker-room wall. Online sharing is for your staff, who sign in for read-only access.

You are going to draw it again anyway.

Seven days free.
Draw the whole binder, not just the first page, and print sheets cleaner than the photocopy.

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