Floor Hockey Tips & Tricks

Zone Play as a Defenseman

One play structure that helps teams in floor hockey is a zone strategy. Zone strategies help because:

• Everyone has a better sense as to where to be and what to do
• They reduce your movement, reducing exhaustion
• They are effective at both enabling plays and shutting down the other team

One zone strategy involves having two defensemen.

On offense, D-men's combined job is to keep the ball in the offensive zone and reduce the risk of breakaways. Here’s one example of basic positioning that I think makes a big difference.

In the diagrams below, our team is on offense. The yellow dot is the ball and F stands for our forwards and D for our Defensemen. One D-man is left and the other right. In diagram (a), since the ball is on the left of the court, the left D-man moves forward and near the left wall. The right D-man is back behind the red line and more toward the center.

In diagram (b), the ball changes sides of the court, so the D-men adjust their positions at an appropriate pace (doesn’t have to be fast). This reduces breakaways but allows one of the defensemen to play more offensively.

On defense, D-men's combined job is to clear the ball out of the zone and to especially keep the net clear of centering passes. D-men focus on the "back" half the defensive zone when on defense.

The ball usually finds itself along the sides or corners. One D-man puts pressure on the opponent who has the ball, while the other either provides an outlet on the other side (a), or, say an opponent breaks closer to the net, the open defensemen should move in to block any pass. The forwards can help, but it's primarily the D-men's job.

Of course the game is very dynamic, and improvisation is really valuable. But having some basic zones established helps your team control the play.