Perfect Practice: The Coaching Edge

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Leo MacDonald has been a junior- and university-hockey coach as well as
the owner/director of a hockey school. In a book directed at his fellow
coaches, particularly those who work with players aged 14 and older, he
provides concrete suggestions for creating the “perfect practice.”

Reflecting the author’s concern about the lack of attention to
game-like drills, the book offers 19 different ideas for purposeful
scrimmages and 23 drills that more closely emulate game conditions.
(Given that each of these scrimmages and drills is visually represented
on a rink diagram, the key to the symbols employed would have been more
usefully positioned at the book’s beginning rather than at its
conclusion.) There are tips on how to use practice time and rink space
more effectively (two sample 60-minute practice schedules are provided)
as well as four representative dryland training programs that can be
implemented in the off-season. The book’s numerous black-and-white
photos are principally decorative and lack sufficient contrast.

Notwithstanding some occasionally stilted prose, Perfect Practice would
be a worthwhile personal purchase for coaches who want to improve
themselves and their teams as well as a useful addition to the sports
sections of public libraries.