Зона атаки. Атакующий менталитет ADOPT AN OFFENSIVE MINDSET In the 2000s, however, the game has morphed into a far different game. Aside from man-advantage situations (and even then not often), the offensive team is rarely afforded the time or space to employ any preset designs. As a result, today’s practices should be designed to drill and perfect the spontaneous, subconscious ability to quickly recognize and exploit any momentary weakness in the opposition’s defensive zone coverage. This can be achieved most effectively by players with a take-it-to-the-net mentality. Coaches should have their players drilled to move quickly into a more advantageous position in the offensive scoring web and to strike during the split second a defensive breakdown is sensed. As much as on-ice skill development drills are critical to fundamental offensive hockey, an underlying theme of this chapter has been adopting a mentality of getting to the scoring areas and eventually getting the puck to the net. Players can practice visualizing themselves in goal-scoring situations off the ice. Indeed, since scoring is the most enjoyable part of the game, a more accurate statement might be that players should probably always be thinking about it. Players do this almost automatically. The better ones, it’s been suggested, do it more frequently and more vividly. Coaches need to support this off-ice mental practice as a means of attaining goals. Recent advancements in the field of sport psychology have addressed and investigated this area of mental imagery as a performance-enhancement technique. Literature suggests a number of the positive effects of mental imaging on skills, tactical strategies, performance execution, and error correction. Former NHL defenseman Eric Weinrich, a veteran of 18 seasons after graduating from the University of Maine, was considered an offensive defenseman throughout his career, often quarterbacking his team’s power play from the point. He attests to the value of mental training but relies on it more as an off-ice preparation routine: “During the game, I don’t visualize much when I am on the bench. All the work should have been done ahead of time. . . I trust in my ability and my experience to get the job done. If you do the practice and mental rehearsal regularly beforehand, your performance in the game will be fine” . Coaches can reinforce performance enhancement in many ways, such as seeking out a person with experience in this mental practice to work with the team. Building an offensive mindset could then be a shared theme of both the sport psychology consultant and the coaching staff. More directly, the head coach should consider changing the behind-the-bench mentality toward a more proactive atmosphere of seeing solutions rather than barking orders meant to correct on-ice mistakes or yelling from the bench to try to influence officiating decisions.
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