The three-minute crew talk

Craft note: practice advice, not a rule.

A good pre-game talk is short and specific. Three minutes in the room covers more than any amount of talking on the ice later.

Agree who covers the goal line on each end, who watches the benches at a stoppage, how you will signal to each other for a possible icing or a puck that might have crossed the line, and who talks to which bench after a long stoppage.

Then agree the facts of tonight's game: level, period lengths, curfew or not, penalty lengths if the league uses local ones, and anything the assignor told you. End with one sentence each on what you want to do better than last game.