We had written earlier the Hungarian Ice Hockey Federation's coaches develepoment program has taken a new path under the direction of Darryl Easson. The next step of the program was covered during the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Budapest during which the Hungarian coaches had a chance to learn and add to their knowledge base.
These seminars were a continuation of the Merit Level supplementary courses for our Coaching Education Licensing program. The February 11th 2016 program was the 2nd day of seminars for coaches of youth players U12 age and below groups. The 1st day was held on November 2015. The 12 to 13 February 2016 program was a seminar for coaches of the U14-U20 age groups. These are our most important group of coaches because they are teaching and coaching the future stars of ice hockey in Hungary. However there are many misconceptions at the youth level of ice hockey on what should be done to develop these players and how to teach them. The seminars will carry a qualification for the successful participants. The participants must fulfil the evaluation process which includes the completion of a workbook and coaching competency evaluation.
Purpose and Goals
The goal of the supplementary coaching Seminar of the Hungarian Coaching Program is to provide our coaches an education program that reflects their needs and the level which they coach. The seminars provide an opportunity for all coaches to:
-Listen to knowledgeable, international speakers sharing their thoughts and insight on coaching
-Learn about the different approaches being used by coaches
-Bring coaches together and allow them to talk to each other
-Share views and experiences with other coaches
-Generate communication among coaches from different backgrounds
-View innovative resources which are being used around the globe to enhance the performance of players
Seminar Set-up
The Seminars were both organised during the Olympic Qualifier in February. The reason for this was because there was very few youth games scheduled this week enabling the coaches to attend and tickets to games could be included for the participants. The seminars were organised at the Hotel Arena. Everything was on one site, restaurant, meeting room it was only a 10 minute walk to the Arena to see the games.
Participants
Over 125 participants from 36 member clubs attended and took part in the three days on seminars. Members of the Hungarian National Team coaching staff also attended a number of the presentations.
Presenters
This year’s seminar featured a good mix of experienced International presenters and local Hungarian coaches speaking during the seminars. Over the 3 days there were 13 different presenters made 22 presentations:
-Jim Brithen (SWE)
-Hannu Järvenpää (FIN)
-Pat Cortina (ITA)
-Joel Hansson (SWE)
-Istvan Fetki (HUN)
-Gergely Majoross (HUN)
-Márton Németh (HUN)
-Tyler Dietrich (CAN)
-István Orgavány (HUN)
-Ádám Ozsvath (HUN)
-Tibor Bauer (HUN)
-Barbara Goral (HUN)
-Darryl Easson (GBR)
Conclusion
The Coaching Seminars this season have been a great success and has shown that our coaches are very interested in improving their knowledge through this program. The inclusion of the international speakers caused a great deal of interest and the local speakers show the amount on knowledge we already have in Hungary. We are planning a “Coaches Together” seminar during 2016 WM where the coaches will get a day long seminar and then be about to sit together to watch a Hungarian game from St Petersburgh.