About

Developmental Pickup Hockey (DPH) was started by neighbours Peter and Ron in late 2020. The pickup hockey sessions they’d been playing in were fun, but they weren’t able to keep up with the younger and more skilled players. And if you can’t keep up, you don’t develop your skills or have as much fun — so the idea of DPH was born. Their first season began in October 2020, and since then, they’ve been building a community of players who all share the same goals: to get out and work up a good sweat while playing pickup with others who understand that having fun and including everyone on the ice is more important than scoring.

DPH is competitive but the score is incidental. We encourage everyone to try things on the ice they might not have enough time or confidence to try in a faster and more typical pickup. Therefore, more skilled players should try and give the less skilled players time and space to work on their skills and improve their confidence. A typical 65-minute skate consists of an on-ice warmup, 10 minutes of team drills and basic hockey skills, followed by a 45-minute pickup game.

 

Our Values:

  1. We prioritize allotting time to develop the foundational skills of skating, passing, stickhandling and shooting. Each session begins with a warmup of two 5-minute drills. Every four weeks, we have training days to work on skating, stick handling, passing and shooting. Players can request drills in specific skills they want to develop. If there is enough interest, we will offer developmental coaching every 4 weeks in positional roles and strategies.

  2. We value skill development, building on-ice confidence, and having fun over winning. We want to feel comfortable working on new moves without the fear of letting your team down. Take risks — making mistakes is OK.

  3. We encourage giving weaker players space to make a play. Our group is mostly older and slower. We want everyone to try things on the ice that they might not have enough time or confidence to try in a more competitive pickup.

  4. Ideally, everyone touches the puck on each shift. End-to-end rushes are discouraged. Passing to everyone on your line is encouraged.

  5. We prefer shorter shifts over longer ones. Go hard both ways for 45 seconds to a minute and get off, rather than “coasting” in your shift.

  6. We welcome all gender participation.

  7. We value interactions that bring out the best in each other on and off the ice.