Tactics

i started hockey in 2003, so i wasnt present. I know we had a team playing, but i dont know about this tactics. but i heard the guys were great in swimming

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I played the Dutch in hobart in a practice game (as a member of the aussie development team). My over-riding memory of that game was of them holding the puck in the corner followed by a swim up the wall with a hand out to fend off opposition players. I think they must have had a different interpretation of barging (which would be easy because the rule used to be and still might be hilariously badly worded). The game was about half an hour (don't think there were any refs in the water) and they beat us 5-1 or 5-2 I think.

Here is my ms paint interpretation.

This site needs more ms paint illustrations of things in my opinion.

Attached Images

scale drawing.JPG (27.3 KB, 53 views)

yeah duck that sounds a perfectly fair explanation... fair play i think. the rules should never have been allowed to be changed at halftime, of course...

and sweet drawing nicky. i remember that same thing, its pretty much accurate. and to scale, ahaha!

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it's more polite on the grating than on the subs bench

*LOL* The scale is kinda of like how we felt when we join the Aus Nationals 2007 as a guest team...

All this tactics discussion and drawings are really interesting... have been playing hockey for about 3 years now and all I have been doing is just play... not much thought into training / tactis... so can't contribute much but will sure try some of these out...

So about 4 on 4... what are the possible formations??

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I remember playing the Dutch womens team in 2000 and was amazed to see their tactic of swimming the puck into their defensive corner.

I can only presume that the tactic was to keep the goal percentage down (ala US men in -92), in the case of a count back after the round robin.

At one point, we had one player in the sin bin and they were given the free puck nearly at half way. They took the free and then turned around and swam the puck into their defensive corner! lol

Glad to see they obviously improved their team tactics for 2004.

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Off Half-Backs Rule

I think we played the Dutch three times in 2000 (correct me if I'm wrong Liam). Once was a warmup game, and then the RR and the playoff that Sven brought up (5th/6th-which we lost).

Firstly, as Nicky correctly illustrated the dutch were friggin huge. Good bunch of guys out of the water, but seriously large.

This seemed to be their tactics. Play some underwater hockey until they managed to get a goal up. Then hold the puck in their own corner until full-time. Nice 'tactic' that. You could watch the game on fast forward and you wouldn't miss a thing. This was done methodically and carefully and with great discipline.

It avoided the rule about players holding it in the corner by periodically moving outside the corner radius (the USA '92 discussion previously). What they did was set up to come out of the corner like an underwater hockey team normally would. The first line of resistance they would barge or fend their way through (like Nicky's diagram). The second line of defense (which was usually me) they would look at and then turn around and swim back into their own corner. Even if there was a whopping great big open goal scoring opportunity -they would ignore it.

Turn, retreat, repeat.

Now these players didn't lack for power or speed. My personal opinion is that we had better skills, but we were much smaller on average, our formation was wrong for the players we had, and some of our players were not as fit as they should have been. The Dutch were capable of playing some very good hockey. But they had been coached out of it.

You can use a similar tactic in Ice Hockey. I think it's called 'cycling'. However in Ice Hockey you can get out of the corner by passing halfway up the court which ain't an option for us. I'm very glad this move is now frowned upon. It was ugly, it was incredably frustrating to play against (because you didn't basically play) and it made boring viewing for any poor schmuck spectators that we will need to attract to grow the sport.

If there are any 2000 Dutch players reading I would love to hear what was going on in your camp that this tactic emerged. What was the after tournament verdict?

this was such a sweet thread. how about we revive it?

looks like we're talking corner tactics and 4 a sides.

for mine, i always think 4 a side is best played in a T formation, a line of 3 mids and a sweeper behind.

we have plenty of ammo from recent comps to add to the tactics thread.

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it's more polite on the grating than on the subs bench

Get some more Dutch-bashing going? Fair enough, most of the last posts were about the way the Dutch played in Hobart. Nat's comments pretty much sum it up, it was ugly, not fun to play against and not fun to play. It was not the intention to remain in the corner, but since the emphasis from the coach was to retain possession, no-one dared take any risks and so we would 'retreat' into the corner.
My impression is that this tactic was devised since the blocking tactic used by France in 1998 was enough to win them the worlds.

Nice of Nat to call me huge though. First time that has happened.

If anyone is reading this and considering keeping the puck in your defensice corner as a tactic, then dont.

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Faster than a speeding puck...

Maybe for the newer players its nice iff you explane the france tactick first.(wink)

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When you are good, then you are not bad..

Oh, sorry about that.

The French sent a player up the wall with the puck with another player ahead of him, kind of like an umbrella actually, who formed a block so the backs couldn't get to the puck carrier. The puck carrier also if left alone would swim semi-curled around the puck so that he would lead on the wall with his shoulder.

I kid you not, I saw one player swim into the back wall doing this because he couldn't see forward while he had the puck. He just turned the corner and headed towards the goal. Playing by braille would be another description of it.

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Faster than a speeding puck...