When coaching sled hockey, the natural tendency is to take what is known in traditional ice hockey and apply it. The coach needs to consider the following three points, you need to

• Reduce speed
• Compress distance
• Increase rest to participate ratio

When compared to ice hockey, the overall speed of sled hockey is a bit slower. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of advanced players that can literally fly around the ice on their sleds. However, in the recreational setting where the players are novice to intermediate a coach needs to be aware of the limitation this will present. For instance, stationary passing. When first instructing this, the players should be place very close to each other (2 or 3 sled lengths maximum). You will quickly find out that this a difficult task for some players. It is much more difficult to move laterally in the sled to reach for a puck; this usually requires the player to turn and move the sled, much slower than a simple step to the left or right. If players are positioned too far apart, a barrage of errant passes will ensue, transforming your stationary drill into a sprint to the puck. Only as a player progresses, gradually widen the field.

This is related to the reduced speed in that your recreational level players will benefit if you shrink up your drills a bit. For instance, a common drill seen in ice hockey is the Wagon Wheel (aka Horse Shoe). In ice hockey, it is common even for novice players to run the drill with player skating from the goal line all the way to the blue line dot (offside faceoff). For a novice sled hockey player this can be the equivalent of skating a full ice sprint. Don’t be afraid to compress the drill to half or even 1/4 of the zone. Your players will not only benefit from not over exerting but will be able to concentrate on the other important aspects of the drill (passing and puck handling).

While you will find that the athletes even at the recreation level have vastly developed upper body strength, do not assume that they can keep up at a break neck speed for 60 minutes. Take care to develop your drills to maintain a minimum of 4:1 ( rest : active ) ratio.

Sled Hockey is very similar to Ice Hockey however there are some twists unique to its sport. Below, there is a document to the Disabled Coaching Manual as adhered to by USA Hockey. This site is a must for coaches.

Planning drills is very similar to ice hockey. For recreational level USA Hockey suggests to try to keep to the following:

• 25% warm-up
• 25% conditioning
• 25% skill
• 25% fun

Another bit of advice, your team will most likely be comprised with a combination of pushed and self mobilized players. The tendency is to split the players into two separate groups. Purposely worked against this as you will quickly find the players limiting their interaction with the team members. Sled Hockey is a team sport, all of the players must be integrated as equally as possible. This is a challenge for the coach. When developing drills keep your pushed players actively engaged in the same drills even if it requires slight modification. For instance, if a pushed player has difficulty moving a puck let him use a ball. Variety in ball size helps, anything from a street hockey ball to a dodge ball are good to have available.

Warm-Up 
Concentrate on long even glides, good form, but no racing. With ice hockey, we would setup 3 evenly spaced cones along the length of the ice, at each cone a single long powerful stride is taken. Keeping in mind the rule of compressed distance, setup a mini rink spanning the neutral zone. Between the blue lines our player take no more than 3 long powerful glides. Our pushed players are also instructed to lean into the turns. Pushers also need to be instructed to help the player by tilting the sled slightly into the turns.

Conditioning 
In this next phase of practice I like to help build up stamina in the players.  Also need to keep in mind this can be strenuous for our pushers.

Skill 
There are fundamentals in common with ice hockey such as passing and shooting. Other areas differ a bit such as stick handling and turning.

Fun 
Don’t forget the end goal is to make this an enjoyable activity. Be creative and don’t restrict yourself with a “hockey only” mentality.

Time Management 
For our practices we are usually limited to one hour of ice and are under a strict curfew as the rink tightly schedules other events around us. Be prepared! Before arriving at the rink for practice, develop a practice plan. Also have in place contingencies in case a drill does not go as planned. If something does not work out try to reduce the drill into it most basic aspects and only teach one of those. One example with introducing the Wagon Wheel to the team. At first the players can become confused about the alternating of passing then skating. If this happens stop the drill and tweak it to have the coaches pass for the players, letting them get a grasp of alternating the skating and shooting. The next time you attempt the drill re-introduced the passing aspect.