Pinch and Pop Face Off Drill
The objective is to practice controlling the ball after drawing a face off.
Set several flat cones around the face-off X at spots that are likely to allow your team to pick up the ensuing ground ball.
Start a face off guy on the center X with a ball.
On a coach’s whistle, he should make one of the basic face off moves and try to push the ball to sit on one of the cones.
The skills that should be practiced are:
• Basic face off positioning and moves
• Ball placement after the draw
To increase the challenge add a second player to the face off. This second player can provide token pressure, or the two can go for a live face off. Another dynamic of the drill would be to challenge the face off guy to pull the ball out of the face off and then run out and scoop it before it hits the cones (this gets them in the habit of going to get the ball after a draw).
