David Roebuck

This certainly stirred the pot, love the discourse. Here's why I like this rule: First, let's talk about the fact that nothing is perfect. Including this rule. There are pros and cons to it like everything. For me, the pros out way the cons and I'll lay them both out below. Let's start with the cons: -There are more whistles. So games are a little longer and the rinks don't love that as games will spill over onto each other. The flow of the game isn't as good either. Valid point. -It creates more lopsided games. Probably true. When teams have greater skill discrepancies, it creates an advantage for the better team as typically they'll draw more penalties and then will have more in-zone time to capitalize on top of it. Valid point. -Players won't learn how to play in the neutral zone on special teams when the puck goes down the ice. Yep. That's ok. They can learn that later. -There's an art to icing the puck development-wise. Yep. We can teach that at older ages too, and I'll get more into this in the pros. Now to the pros: I'll start by saying that when I played/coached at Cornell we always had one of the best penalty kills in the country. We practiced at least once a week where our players were not allowed to ice the puck on penalty kills. Why we did that will all be in the pros below. -Clearing a puck on an icing at the higher levels is often a multiple player job, not a one player job. Pressure is coming hard (they have more players than you) so a pass is often made to a teammate before the puck is cleared. The art is learning how to clear as a team, not just as an individual. With that... -It forces players without the puck to have to support it. And if you want to develop hockey sense in your players, creating conditions where you have to anticipate without the puck is massively important. This rule promotes that. And anytime you can promote more passing and decision-making, I'm all for it. -It forces players to have to communicate. It's a great habit to emphasize as a coach as again there's less time and space/options to make a play with this rule. Communication and puck support are the foundations of team play. -Not only does it promote decision making as I laid out above, but it promotes skill development. You have to be more evasive in your skating/edges, you have to give and receive more passes, and you have to handle the puck more in tight areas. This makes players better. But Toph, it's not REAL HOCKEY!! You're right, it's not. Youth hockey shouldn't completely resemble what hockey at the older ages look like. It's ok if it doesn't "look like" real hockey when it's developmentally appropriate. And guys, that's OK. In USA Hockey the rule has changed to where 15o and above for the boys and 16u and above for girls can ice the puck now. If I had my way, I would change that to 16u (boys) and 19u (girls) to get them ready for the next level of play where icing is allowed on the penalty kill.

I love how you can’t ice the puck on a penalty kill in youth hockey.