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The Basketball Podcast: EP413 with Jim Haverstrom on Ecological Coaching across Sports
In this week’s basketball coaching conversation, Youth Hockey Director and Coach Developer for USA Hockey Jim Haverstrom joins the Basketball Podcast to share insights on USA Hockey’s Ecological Shift.
Jim Haverstrom is a dedicated youth hockey director and coach developer with USA Hockey, boasting over 25 years of hands-on experience in youth sports that began as a volunteer coach for his son’s team in Orlando, Florida. With a degree from the University of Kansas, Jim has built a 20+ year career focused on player development, serving as a trainer for the Positive Coaching Alliance and as Player Safety Coordinator for USA Hockey’s Southeast District from 2020 to 2025.
His expertise lies in designing high-quality practices that emphasize puck touches, decision-making, and fun—proven to equate one well-run session to the developmental value of up to eleven traditional games, as per Hockey Canada studies he often references. Jim’s value to fellow coaches stems from his practical insights on creating inviting environments for skill acquisition, avoiding contextless drills, and prioritizing play over rigid structures to foster long-term growth and team success.
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Jim Haverstrom Quotes:
“I work with a program where I train their youngest players, their 8Us, and I coach one of their 10U teams. And I work with coaching the coaches . . I’m a coach developer for USA Hockey, and the group of coach developers I’m with, we probably trained close to 3,000 coaches this year through the USA Hockey education program.”
“USA Hockey has jumped on totally on board with this. In our education program, we have 4 levels that they’re required to take over a 4-year span, and we are pushing ecological dynamics. We stay away from certain words, but we use constraints-led approach. We show how we use that. We want to get kids to learn how to become decision makers. How should we teach technique? How can we avoid isolated training when possible, make it so that it’s transferable to the game and not just make cones players.”
“We can still do game-oriented drills, or I’d rather call them activities because when I think of activities now, it’s active participation and learning by the learner, as opposed to this is where you go, this is how you turn. And the kids love it.”
“If the kids aren’t having fun at practice, why would they go home and practice away from the rink? Kids don’t just get good attending practice. The really good ones get practice at home. They want to get better, so they try harder and they try new things. And if we put them in a supportive environment, then they’re willing to fail and get better at what they’re doing.”
“We have a section [with coaches] where we work on observation, and the CLA to observe. So, we set up these off-ice games where these coaches are playing these different off-ice games, and we have to observe it. But then we talk about, ‘What are the constraints doing? What is this constraint creating in this game? What constraints could we change? Can we make this thing bigger? Can we make it smaller?’ We’re sneaking in CLA under the guise of working on our observational techniques.”
“With my 10U team, we play three 13-minute periods. I have 3 lines, so the kids get on for 13 minutes a game. But in a well-structured practice, the situations that can happen in the game can be 15 to 20 times more than they’ll actually see in a game. My practices are totally game-like, so all the situations arise way more often.”
“And since we set them up with the constraints, the constraints are working on things that I see that they need to work on in the game. We’re not creating their solutions. We’re just guiding them to possible solutions. And what I found the most exciting about all of this is they come up with solutions I never thought of because they’re basing it off of the player that they are, not the player that I may have been or the player that I envision them to be.”
“I try to emphasize that usually as coaches, we do a really good job planning our explanation, but we don’t plan our questions. And then we all know what question we come up with. It’s like, ‘Do you understand?’ And they all say, ‘Yes.’”
“It’s really important when you’re working with young players, to make sure it’s very adaptable. Because as they grow, and this is another reason why I really love teaching through a game-like approach, their technique’s going to have to change anyway. As they get through puberty, there’s going to be a drastic change in their technique. But if I’m focusing on the same time them learning how to play the game, that’s not going to change through puberty. Those concepts will be there no matter how their technique changes, because now they’re understanding how the game is played.”
“We want you to be the best athlete you can. We will hold you accountable as a coach. And something just as powerful as saying to a kid, ‘You’re better than that’ can really turn a kid around. Because what that’s also saying to them is, maybe you’re not giving your all, but I believe in you as a coach. That you are better than that and you have the ability to get there.”
“I really like to keep score. And we have winners and losers. I do have consequences, but they’re sometimes going to be fun consequences. One of the ones that drives them crazy is if we’ll play all the games, the winner at the end of the night has to untie the skates of the other team. They cannot stand to do that.”
“Also what I will do at times is, a team will lose and I will point out plays by the team that lost that were exceptional. So, ‘Hey, I know this team won, but did you see such and such do this? Did you see how they were behind and they battled, they battled to the very end?’ So, it’s not just rewarding the winning team with compliments.”
“What do you tell parents who see this for the first time? I think for a long time, it used to be the idea that I’m the coach, you’re the parent, you bring your kid to practice, I run practice, and you leave me alone. I’m the expert. But we have to remember that those children are the most important people in those parents’ lives . . I’ll say, ‘This is something I noticed in watching our games, that we need to get better at. This is what we did. This may look ugly tonight, but if it was perfect like we talked about, they’re not learning. So, we’re going to repeat this so that they start to feel more comfortable in these situations.’”
Jim Haverstrom Breakdown:
Jim Haverstrom Selected Links from the Podcast:
Jim Haverstrom
Heather Mannix
Nikita Kucherov
Connor McDavid
Rob Gray
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