100% of our players can become Game Makers.

At LizardHead Hockey we’re choosing to focus our One Room School House opportunities on efforts to develop Game Makers through the practice emphasis of Small Area Games.

Small Area Games generate repetitions of opportunity for each player regardless of their specific skill or ability. Practice after practice, the repetitive participation in the small area games activates the hockey player and the hockey player’s mind. When the mind is on board for hockey the technical skills ultimately follow. And more importantly the long term motivation and self-determination to develop those skills will only be there if the mind is engaged from the outset. Game Makers get their start as small area game makers.

Developing Game Makers is a matter of consistently elevating the player’s understanding by challenging it through intentional small area games. Roughly 80% of what we do at lizardhead practices are games designed to further develop the technical skills by way of application and context.

While we preach and teach game making mindset, we really create opportunities for it to be discovered.

The Telluride multi-sport mindset allows kids to jump into hockey with a high degree of overall athleticism. With that said, in our small town sports model there’s always a wide range of hockey specific skills on the ice at the same time; our teams are always comprised of beginner and intermediate players playing alongside a tripleAAA player. Some players play year round and go to camp other players pull their bag out of storage the week before the season after hiking, biking and fishing all summer. One Room School House Hockey is OUR opportunity to uniquely connect this community through sport. Every winter the Hanley becomes that other living room.

The whole point here is to acknowledge that players becoming Game Makers, is our dream goal for LizardHead hockey players. We want them to be able to jump into any game and be able to jam with the band. A true game-maker can jump in and have fun playing with older, younger, more skilled and less skilled hockey players who are under the roof of the One Room School House. Hockey is a game to be figured out with friends and neighbors.