Pirate Numbers Game: players move around inside of circle in proper carrying position, avoiding other players. Coach stands in middle holding up hand showing how many "islands" the kids see - change numbers of fingers being held out. Kids call out number changes when they see them.
Coach call's out:
1) "Shark coming" - players stop ball and freeze in ready position so shark misses them.
2) "Whirlpool" - players spin with ball in place.
3) "Pirates coming" - players run to to a cone on outside and stop ball at cone. Coach = pirate
U5's start with No Ball: practice game first with no ball. Looking for heads up and proper stick/grip position. (move around group and correct grip as needed).
U6/U7 start with Ball.
Game:
First play game only with "Shark Coming" and "Whirlpool" so players have time to practice control and you can correct move around correcting technic or adding an extension below:
Technical Extensions: a) change direction (curl away) when you come to a player b) left or right pull around player
Once everyone looks comfortable add:
"Pirates coming " - Add small circle in the middle that is Coach's pirate ship. When you call out "Pirates coming" Coach looks to steal ball and players run back to a ship (cone) on outside before Pirate (coach) steals ball from them. If Pirate gets ball they put it in small circle in the middle. Player can steal the ball back from circle after they have run and touched a cone. (Additional challenge: you can add "load your canons" by having kids try to put the ball on top of their cone)
in more ways than one
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in more ways than one
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