U11 Player Pathway

The U11 Player Pathway is supported by the Hockey Canada Long-Term Player Development Model. This framework has been in effect since 2020, and provides the guiding principles for age appropriate and skill specific programming for all players in Hockey Canada’s youth hockey system.

The U11 Player Pathway provides an environment that helps all players at the U11 age level (9 and 10 years old) to realize their full potential. Hockey Canada strongly believes that the needs of the player should be at the forefront of the programming. The U11 Player Pathway delivers numerous benefits to participants and their families. The benefits include:

• creating a positive experience during evaluations with planned pre-evaluation ice sessions;
• avoiding evaluations the first week of school; and
• allowing all U11 players to play actively for 100% of the season.

FAIR AND EQUAL ICE TIME is a key principle of the U11 Player Pathway. Fair and equal ice time is designed to ensure that all players get the same opportunity to contribute to the outcome of games, regardless of skill or ability.

• A coach’s responsibility is to develop all players to contribute.
• Shortening of the bench is not permitted.
• All players should receive as close to equal ice time as possible, including opportunities on special teams (power play and penalty killing).
• All skaters should rotate through all positions to ensure each player can try each position. (LW/C/RW/LD/RD)
• Full-time goaltenders are allowed. If a team has two goalies, they should rotate for equal playing time and the goalie not playing should be allowed to play out as a skater.

Additional Information:

U11 Canadian Player Pathway