After weeks and months of practices and games, leave it to Mark Johnson to bring the game back to its basic form.
Halfway through Tuesday’s practice at the UBC Thunderbird Arena, Johnson orders the nets be placed along the side boards at one end of the ice and drops the puck on a spirited game of 2-on-2 cross-ice hockey.
Players battle for pucks in front of the net and along the boards. Bodies join and leave the game as the action ebbs and flows as pretty passing plays are interrupted by spectacular saves.
At one point Johnson halts the action to pose the most fundamental of hockey questions.
“What is the object of this game?” the U.S. coach shouts.
For players who have spent the better part of the fall and winter training with their coach, they can sense that such an easy question must be a trick. They look at each other and then back at Johnson.
“The object of the game is to score,” he says so matter-of-factly that players can only question their own fundamental knowledge of a game they have played for the better parts of their lives.
[...] competition will inspire and improve the state of the game internationally. I was reading the American Development Model (ADM) blog (http://usahadm.com/wordpress/?p=84) about how Coach Mark Johnson had Team USA practice cross-ice [...]