Inside The Sceptres’ Video Room: How The Game Takes Shape

Inside the Toronto Sceptres’ dressing room and offices, assistant coach Rachel Flanagan is pulling up clips of the team’s latest game, marking and diagramming several defensive zone moments on the screen. She’s in charge of the day’s video session with the team, and the intention is to reinforce some of the concepts that they’ve been sharpening.

With the team rounding into the last few games of the season, Flanagan reflects on how using the technology helps add to coaches’ observations: “It's not just the eye test anymore. It's like using data to look at the game in a way that maybe in the past we didn't have access to.”

In another part of the coaches’ area, Troy Ryan is reviewing specific video with defender Renata Fast. They’re looking at her time and space with the puck at the point in the offensive zone, and Ryan has examples of plays that are excellent, some neutral, and some that could’ve been better.

“The best video that we get to do as coaches is when an individual player is seeking some support and some help and would like some video to back that,” he explains.

“There's nothing like it for us, when an individual reaches out and wants to go over some clips and you pull the clips, and it's great to build that coach-athlete relationship.”

“Those things are really important for them, to lean on the resources,” says Flanagan. “Troy and Gina specifically are trying to make it more like feedback is a loop. So we want them to be curious about what their game is like in good times and in terms of their strategy.”

“It's got to be a good mix of correction and catching people doing things the right way, rationale for adjustments that are needed in the game,” Ryan says.

Assistant coach Steph Thompson takes the lead on capturing the team’s video.

“A lot of it in a game, for example, she's kind of up in the stands, an eye in the sky. The game’s being recorded into her system. And she's tagging instances in the game, thousands of instances. So like every breakout, every entry, every defensive zone touch, every offensive zone play. Every instance in the game that's occurring, she tags them.”

From there, the other coaches can organize and use the footage for virtually any aspect of team or individual play. The daily team video sessions can look different depending on whether new information is being introduced or existing concepts are reinforced.

“We'll do like a game review video where they’ve lived that, we're just trying to show them, depending on where you're at in your year, you're sometimes showing the little mistakes that were made and the tweaks that need to be made,” Ryan explains.

“Sometimes you're showing video of them doing the right thing. So it just confirms the good play that they’re doing. A lot of times when you're introducing a new concept or talking about something new, that's when a lot of questions will be asked. It becomes very interactive.”

Another way that video enhances the efficiency of coaching direction is that it’s not subjective. There’s no arguing with visual evidence, and even artificial intelligence is used to help uncover situations that a coach might not identify.

“We use a combination of it. That's probably something that a lot of people don't know, you're using a hybrid system of what we see and what we can pick up, but sometimes what we see and we pick up can be so subjective,” Ryan observes.

“Sometimes using almost like a ‘third party’ AI pulling video clips can make it a little less personal. Sometimes the stats that we share are from AI pulling it out of the video instead of my opinion on what’s a Grade A chance, a Grade B chance or a Grade C chance.

“So I'm a big believer in merging those two things together. I would never fully trust, like an AI version of video, but I'd also never fully trust an individual coach’s interpretation of video. So I think merging those things together is probably the most efficient thing right now.”

At this point, PWHL players are used to having video as part of their practice and communication flow.

“We're really tech heavy here in Toronto,” Flanagan says. “We have a TV on the ice for practice. We have a whiteboard there to draw things if we need to, but generally we don't use it.

“I think there are probably still a lot of coaches who still hand out paper systems, still use a whiteboard. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just easier to manage the amount of data and go back and find things than flipping through a binder to go back through all your drills. All of our drills are kept in a drill bank and we all have access to that. And it’s just so much easier.”

Goaltending coach Brad Kirkwood explains how he uses video for his process:

“I can explain something, but to be able to show them and for them to be able to see themselves and to be able to break it down in the microseconds, it's key because the puck’s coming quick and what they're doing is really quick to the eye.

“We can bring [the iPads] on the ice, we can bring them over right away and give them instant feedback and then go back and fix what we were just looking at.”

The digital ‘playbook’ is stored online for players and coaches to access whenever they want. Information on team philosophies and systems as they change throughout the season is only a click away.

“Obviously it can be probably overwhelming at times. You have to be careful what you present to players because as coaches we just have so much access to information. So we’re selective about how we present that to players. Even a pre-scout, the amount of information that we're giving players is not the amount of information we have.” said Flanagan.

In the morning presentation, players listen and nod as the concepts are shown onscreen and details are reinforced: good defensive sticks, outlet passes, smart decisions.

On game days, the head coach says, the format is the same, with emphasis on what is needed for success:

“It's like, here's these three things that we need to do. Here's us doing it really, really well. If we execute these things, we will be successful tonight.”

According to Ryan, the use of video only enhances the coach-athlete relationship.

“One thing that's really important from a video perspective is knowing that it's not always coach-driven. It's not always negative, it's not always positive. It's a mixture. And I believe the best video is when players are seeking it from a coach. So it's not an evaluation. It's not a critique. It's a player who is looking to improve their game, and they're seeking coaches as a resource to be able to pull the video and make them better athletes.”

Follow C Benwell on X @gamedayhky on YouTube @gamedayhockey and on Instagram @gamedayhky