no stick color at club games

Hi All,
just a question, to see if has been tested in another place. We usually play at club games, without "white sticks at one side, black sticks at the other" rule. Basically, not all the members of the same team have same stick/cap color.
It's something we started mainly because the lack of discipline of some players, unable to get decent painted sticks every hockey night.
But we found (or think that) it forces the players to look more carefully, paying more attention to bodies, swimsuits, positions, situations, etc.Usually, one thing hard to teach is to lift the head up, and start looking not only at the puck, but at the whole picture as well.
Just to know if someone else tried it, and get some opinions about it.

Regards,
Sebastián

My first reaction to this was a pretty stong negative as a big part of the flow of the game is the quick recognition from just a glance at stick color, but the more I think about it the more the point about gettting heads up and looking at the other players makes sense. I play in pickup style basketball and soccer games with no extra need to wear identifing clothing or what not. What may be sacraficed in initial speed of the game should be made up for in better recognition and teaching awareness... which is very difficult to teach indeed.

I will need to meditate on this concept some.

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When I was coaching my youngsters in Belgium I sometimes made both teams play with the same stick for exactly that reason.
Additionally they were so smart to have bought quit a lot of there material in group so they almost all had the same masks and fins! They really hit themselves in the head for that one later on, but it helped them learn to look around as you said.

I wonder if the human ability to recognize other faces so quickly and easily makes the basketball and soccer comparison invalid. I do like the thinking behind the idea of learning to get the head up though.

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Oh yeah, and now they're broke.

i could see the pace of the game being reduced significantly, and possibly a lot more loose passes

i'd probably never go to the club again

That was my *first* thought. But that would just happen initially as the players adjusted from what they were used to... glancing at stick color, but I think it would progress. And to the benifit of the club as a whole better players.

Probably not an uncommon reaction, and maybe why I won't be able to trial this at home.

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An aquifer is a water bearing layer of rock or soil. Aquifers are separated by impermeable layers of rock or clay called an aquitard. Aquitard, however may sound a bit offensive to some, and therefore we will be changing the name to Aquachallenge.

I think that depends a bit on the way you sell them the story. I don't know how easily you can motivate your players or how crazy they are, but sell it as a challange. "This is where you seperate the men from the boys" kind of stuff. The pro's from the mediocur player. Even if you know it isn't so.
Otherwise there is still the experiment of fun factor you can get in. Or just have every player doing a wrong pass buy a beer and have a big party afterwards

by having no stick colour sure you get them used to poping their head up and looking around - but you also remove one of the main things that players need to be able to do in a decent paced game; and that is notice their teams colour in the corner of their eye and send a pass there potentially opening up the game etc

you gain benefit in some ways but you also lose out in other aspects

it's like training with a shirt on - sure it makes you work a **** load harder but it also promotes lazy habits, like not swimming out of curls.

i don't think i'd ever try it at a club level, the games here are crap enough to play in as is; maybe at a higher level at a training camp or something

well, a lot of people complains every time they come to the pool, because they are confused... And putting there the fact that the pool water is not always crystal (blame lights or pool mantainers, but visibility is often 5 meters or less ) obviously helps to annoy visitors... But we have many, some of them international, and they like the club games... Some of them, they even come back and play again too...

True that you can't glance at color stick, but you still can glance at player position, and the way they are laying down in the bottom. Like basketball or football, I also play both of them, and never with uniforms... Also make bad passes there too :-)
It's true that a passing game is hard to see, unless all the players have enough experience and know each other enough.

Regards,
Sebastián

We use this kind of train and I think it's good. People learn to look for their team mates and pass to a person not anywhere... And we use in our club trainings, with a very different kind of players.

We use same colour sticks also with a game explained to me by Fred time ago: begin with equal teams and same colour, and who scores a goal changes team; then the team who scores plays with one less player, or more if it scores again. It's funny and people learn to play with few people in the team.

Another variation is to play with the colour stick you have; then you find random colour distribution in the team... A bit more difficult... This video is a training match like this:

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