What Coaches & Scouts Look for at Tryouts
We are now entering the season of spring tryout camps and player drafts at all levels of hockey.
This is a nerve-racking and stressful time for both players and their families, but if you prepare the correct way and understand what coaches and scouts will be looking for it can greatly improve your performance, while eliminating much of your stress and anxiety.
What coaches and scouts typically look for can be divided into two categories:
- Tangibles
- Intangibles
Let’s first look at tangibles. Tangible characteristics are a player’s actual physical skills and abilities. For forwards and defencemen, this includes such things as a player’s size, skating, puck handling, passing the puck, receiving a pass, shooting, shot-blocking abilities, use of deception, IQ, whether the player wins puck battles – to name a few. For goalies, tangible characteristics can include size, skating, ability to play the puck outside the crease, ability to eliminate rebounds, quickness, tracking the puck, and overall technical form.
Tangible characteristics are the base skills a player needs to demonstrate to be considered a serious prospect. Obviously the better they are at each of these individual tangible skills, the better their chance is to be drafted or make a team they are trying out for.
Now let’s look at the Intangibles scouts and coaches look for. There are two categories of intangibles – enhancing and diminishing.
Enhancing intangible characteristics include, passion, effort, leadership, and compete level.
Diminishing intangible characteristics include things such as a lack of enhancing characteristics, as well as bad body language, selfishness, not being a team player or even parents who interfere with the process in negative ways.
It is important to note that intangible characteristics are nearly 100% within the control of the player and family. If a player and family exhibit enhancing intangible characteristics, it greatly enhances the perception and value of the player in the eyes of coaches and scouts. Further, if a player and family ensure they do NOT exhibit any of the diminishing intangible characteristics – that is also a positive in their eyes!
In summary, when players attend tryout camps or showcases for upcoming drafts, it is important to pay attention to both the tangible and intangible characteristics cited above. The tangibles are often what players tend to focus on and that’s great, but do not forget about the intangibles! Coaches and scouts LOVE players that work hard, show leadership, congratulate their teammates after goals, or pump them up on the bench. They also like players who help others out on and off the ice, the players that help clean up the dressing room without being asked to, and those that are polite to all others. By showing both tangible and intangible skills, you will greatly enhance your value in the eyes of coaches and scouts alike!
