If you’ve ever used the practice planning and drill drawing tools that are out there for hockey coaches, you probably share my frustration. They’re clunky, hard to use, and most of them feel like they haven’t been updated in a decade. That’s why we built PracticeHawk. It’s a new platform for coaches who want something that actually feels good to use when you’re planning practices, organizing drills, and drawing diagrams.
The core of the platform is free. No trial countdown, no credit card. Sign up and use it.
The Diagram Editor
This is honestly the feature we’re most proud of, and the one that drove us to build PracticeHawk in the first place. I’ve spent way too many hours fighting with existing drill drawing tools. Things that should be simple, like placing a player on the ice and drawing a skating path, somehow turn into a 10-minute ordeal. PracticeHawk’s diagram editor runs right in your browser and it just works.
- Drag players, coaches, cones, pucks, nets, tires, and barriers onto a regulation rink
- Draw skating paths, passes, and shots with smooth curves, including backward skating and puck carries
- Switch between full ice, half ice, and quarter ice views
- Color-code and label players to keep things clear
- Drop text annotations anywhere for coaching notes
- Export the finished diagram as a PNG to share however you like
It’s the kind of tool where you open it up, place a few things, and immediately think “oh, this is how it should have always worked.” We’ve put a lot of hours into making it feel that way, because the alternatives certainly don’t.
Your Drill Library
Every coach has drills scattered across notebooks, old emails, and half-remembered clinic handouts. PracticeHawk gives you one place to keep all of them.
- Organize by category: skills, tactics, small area games, scrimmage, warm-ups, dryland, and more
- Tag each drill with a difficulty level so you can find age-appropriate activities quickly
- Attach a diagram, description, and default duration to each one
- Import and export drills to share with other coaches or keep a backup
Once your drills are in, they’re yours. Free to build up and maintain for as long as you want.
Practice Plan Builder
This is where the drill library really comes together. Building a practice plan is just dragging drills onto a timeline and arranging them the way you want. No wrestling with the interface to get things in the right order.
- Drag and drop to arrange your session from warm-up to cool-down
- Set durations and watch total practice time update as you go
- Add coach notes to individual drills for reminders or variations
- Group activities into stations and rotate players through them
- Keep an eye on work/rest balance so intensity stays appropriate for the age group
It takes the scramble out of practice prep. Build a plan at your kitchen table on Sunday night and show up Monday already knowing what you’re doing.
Pro Features for When You Want More
Everything above is free. But if you’re running a team and want the full toolkit, PracticeHawk Pro adds some things that are worth a look:
- Team management: invite your players and assistant coaches at no extra cost
- AI practice plan generator: tell it what you want to work on and it’ll pull drills from your library and build a full practice
- Plan templates: save your best practice structures and share them with other coaches
- Live practice mode: use your phone on the bench to track timing, view drill details, and show diagrams to your staff
- National drill repositories: access drills from USA Hockey and Hockey Canada
- Mobile app: full access on iOS and Android
- Print and PDF export: for the times you just need it on paper
Pro comes with a free trial so you can see if it fits how you work before committing.
Give It a Try
PracticeHawk is live at www.practicehawk.com. Sign up, draw a drill, build a plan, and see what you think. We built it because we were tired of the tools that were out there and wanted something that actually respects a coach’s time. We’d love to hear what you think of it.