A session devoted to Hockey @ Sportability last Saturday

The focus of this week’s session at Sportability Club was Hockey. After a warm-up of What’s the Time Mr Wolf led by Ollie and Ray, and other warm up routines, it was out with the Hockey sticks and Tennis Balls. To get familiar again with stick and ball we started with some basic dribbling of the ball around the hall. Then to get a bit more control we asked the kids to keep the ball within the court that is marked out on the floor.
Ollie then led a traffic light game for a bit of fun. When he held up the red cone it meant stop with the ball, a yellow cone being held aloft denoted stand on the spot but move the ball from side to side. Lastly, a green cone meant Go and so off around the hall dribbling with your tennis ball it was.
Alan then devised a great little game to test the dribbling skills further. It was called Puppy in the Park and the tennis ball was the puppy and the hockey stick the dog lead. The idea being to lead your puppy (ball) through a series of gates (pairs of cones) around the park. If you lost control and your puppy left the park, then you were out. To make it harder as the game went on the park got smaller and the turns between gates became harder. At the end Callum was the last player and so won the game – well done to Callum.
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After a quick drink break it was back to the action with some slalom dribbling around cones before we did some shooting practice aiming to score between specific cones up against the bench. So players would dribble their ball up to a marker and then shoot from there. It was all about the accuracy of ball control and aim when striking the ball.
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We then moved on to one versus one games where the players had to run up to the far end of the hall where the ball would be thrown in. They then had to compete to get the ball back down the hall and past Callum our resident goalkeeper to be the first to score. The coaches made sure the pairing’s were as evenly matched as they could be in terms of age and ability and everyone took a turn or two.

We finished off the session with a proper match with the group divided in to two teams and using the school’s benches as goals. The yellow team ended up winners in a high scoring game, winning by a couple of goals.

At the end of the session the coaches had the tough job of deciding who received the Star of the week award. They awarded it to Pranav as not only did he have a great session, but he is now away and wont be back with us until September. Safe travels Pranav and well done for another great session.
See you all again next week where, weather permitting, we may get to be outside in some sunshine. I believe the sport the team will be focusing on is Rugby. See you then.

Our Star this week was Pranav, pictured here with Ollie