Simple Breakout (Rec League)

Like most of you, I still like to play some rec hockey (though for me it's ball hockey now instead of ice). Our team is mostly guys in their late-20's and early-30's and we are routinely pretty competetive in our lower tier division (don't blow anyone away, but we usually compete for the championship).

Lately though, we've been running into these younger teams who transition from ice hockey. Most of them in their early 20's, lots of wheels, lots of good individual skill, that sort of thing. Most of these teams send in a rather disorganized 2 man forecheck, but because of the overall team speed it was causing us problems. We don't practice, so we needed something we could pick up fairly easily on. Nothing too complicated, but enough to breakdown and expose the forecheck and aggressiveness.

Most of these teams attack in waves. First group goes in and presses, and the next group follows up with immediate pressure if the ball gets past the first group. Our goal was to sort of expose that by quickly chipping past each wave. The one benefit our team has is that we aren't lazy, we run hard, we don't stand around too much and we all get back.

We needed something that was not only easy for us to pick up on, but also something that wasn't too easy for the other team to read and pick up on.

This play can be reversed to either side, but we'll look at the right side only. When the puck is at the right D, the RW will circle down a bit, then cut across the rink. the C then goes outside the blueline and circles back down to where the RW was. The pass goes from the RD to the C. As that happens, the LW goes to the RW wall between the blueline and centre for a chip from the C. As this is happening, the RW cuts up the middle of the rink, then can either accept the pass from the LW in the middle, or continue over to the RW wall (just outside centre) for another chip pass by the LW. The centre follows up by jumping back into the play. In ballhockey this play is more of a chip out, dump and change (due to the redline becoming the blueline when you get possession). In ice hockey you can use this as possession breakout.