Peewee and Bantam Hockey Tryout Prep: The 3-Week Plan
Peewee and bantam tryouts have a strange calendar. Most associations run them in the spring, a week or two after the season ends, to place kids on next season’s A, B, or C team. So your kid skates their last game, gets a short breath, and then gets evaluated for a team that does not start for five months. That is why the plan below is three weeks and not eight: there is usually not more time than that between the end of the season and the first tryout skate.
The placement itself is more honest than it looks from the stands. Evaluators are usually a mix of association coaches and a few outside skaters who do not know the kids, working off a numbered jersey and a clipboard. They are sorting, not cutting. Almost every kid who tries out gets a team. The question is which one, and skating decides most of it.
Bantam adds the thing every parent is thinking about: body checking. At bantam age the game becomes a contact game, and the tryout reflects it. Evaluators are watching who keeps their head up, who finishes a check legally and stays on their feet, and who goes into the corner first. None of that gets practiced at home. It gets practiced on the ice, in full gear, under a coach, and the prep for it is legs, balance, and a habit of looking up.
What coaches are actually looking for
At these ages the list is short and it starts with skating. Can they stop both ways, cross over both directions, and get from a standstill to speed in three strides. A kid who can skate but cannot handle the puck is a project. A kid who can handle the puck but cannot skate is a problem, because the puck moves at the speed of the worst skater on the ice. Evaluators will forgive a lot of hands if the feet are there.
Second is compete level, and it is easier to see than parents expect. Who goes to the puck first on a fifty-fifty, who backchecks without being told, who is still skating hard on the third shift of the third session. Evaluators talk to each other between sessions and the names that come up are the kids who never coasted, not the kids who scored.
Third is what they do with the puck when someone is on them. Simple plays made fast beat fancy plays made late. And last, and it matters more than kids believe, is how they take a correction from a coach they have never met. The kid who nods, tries it, and does not look for their parents in the stands has made a good impression before anyone has scored.
What the ice sessions actually look like
Expect two to four sessions over a week or so. The first is usually all skating: forward and backward, stops, crossovers around the circles, tight turns around cones, a timed lap or two. It looks like a skating clinic because it is one. Evaluators use it to sort the group before they have seen a single pass. The second session adds puck skills, usually stationary passing, shooting from the slot, one-on-ones from the blue line, and a small-area game. Later sessions are scrimmage with mixed groups, and at bantam that scrimmage is full contact.
Goalies are evaluated separately at most associations, in their own drills and then in the scrimmages, and there are usually fewer of them than the teams need, which changes the pressure entirely. If your kid is a goalie, the prep is different: a lot of it is being ready to face fifty shots in a row from kids trying to impress someone.
The kid who stands out in these sessions is rarely the one who does something spectacular. It is the one whose skating never dips, who wins the race to a loose puck, who talks on the bench, and who plays the third session like the first. That is what three weeks of legs and reps is for.
This was written for every peewee and bantam hockey player. ParentEdge writes one for yours.
Their position, their team, what they’re working on, and what the next few weeks actually look like. Two minutes, nothing to sign up for.
Tryout day checklist
- Skates sharpened a few days before, not new and not the morning of. New skates at a tryout are a blister and a bad edge waiting to happen.
- Full gear laid out the night before and dry: helmet with cage, neck guard (required for youth almost everywhere now), shoulder pads, elbows, gloves, shin pads, and a mouthguard.
- USA Hockey registration confirmed, tryout fee paid, and any association forms turned in before the first session. Check-in tables send kids home for this.
- Tape, a spare stick if you have one, and a skate guard. Tape the stick at home, not on the bench at check-in.
- Two water bottles. Rinks are cold and kids forget to drink.
- Arrive forty-five minutes before ice time. Tryout dressing rooms are crowded and the jersey number handout takes longer than it should.
- First shift hard. Evaluators form a picture in the first ten minutes and spend the rest of the session confirming it.
- Talk on the bench and on the ice: call for the puck, call out the open player, say "got it" on the backcheck.
- When a coach corrects something, nod, and do it the next rep. No looking at the stands.
- After each session, write down two things that went well and the one skating rep to fix. Then let it go.
When are peewee and bantam hockey tryouts?
Most associations hold them in the spring, within a few weeks of the season ending, to place kids for the following season. Some run a second placement in late summer, and a few do all of it in the fall. Ask the association for the dates early, because the gap between the last game and the first tryout is often only two or three weeks.
Does my kid have to try out to get on a team?
At most associations, no. Tryouts are placement, not a cut. Nearly every kid who registers ends up on an A, B, or C team. The tryout decides which one. A few larger associations do cap their top team and turn kids toward the next tier, but the kid still has a team.
How do I prepare a bantam kid for checking at tryouts?
Not at home. Body contact gets taught on the ice in full gear by a coach, and most associations run a checking clinic in the weeks before the bantam season. What you can do at home is legs, single-leg balance, and stickhandling with the eyes up, because the kid who keeps their head up and stays low absorbs contact far better than the kid who is looking at the puck.
Should a goalie do this plan?
The legs and balance parts, yes. The shooting and stickhandling, less so. A goalie prepping for tryouts wants hip and groin mobility, a lot of up-and-down reps in the pads, and as much ice as they can get facing real shots. Ask the association whether goalies are evaluated in their own session, because at most they are, and it changes what to prepare for.