Interview with Dawson College women's Coach Scott Lambton

Interview with Dawson College women’s coach, Scott Lambton, on the trends he has seen in the development of girls hockey and regarding specifics to Lac St Louis girls hockey

Scott, you have been coaching Dawson women’s team since ?
Eight years! Head coach for the past five seasons.
And how has the game evolved since you started coaching?
I think that in the last 3 or 4 years , the lower end of girls hockey has improved so that gap between the strong and weaker girls has narrowed. The high side has stayed the same or lowered just a bit.
What do you attribute that to?
Not as many girls, high end girls are coming to the CEGEP level with the same level of game sense that we had experienced earlier. Catherine Ward, Lauriane Rougeau and Marie Phillippe Poulin, these girls had a great understanding of the game.
With the exception of Catherine Ward, these girls came out of boys hockey. Laurianne and Marie Phil played Midget Espoir, they may have been better prepared having played boys hockey at that level.
However, we see the girls playing boys hockey learning too many bad habits in an attempt to survive the game, whereas the girls playing girls hockey continue to grow their skills and competition levels . the game knowledge, we hope, will be addressed as they lose the fear of being injured by an over sized boy.
In our program we play a possession style game and there are certain nuiances to that game which are fundamentally different than dumping the puck in the corner and trying to over power the defender for the puck. We like to create offensive opportunities, we like to delay as we enter the zone look for the trailer, these aspects are not developed at some of the boys levels and we see girls getting the puck, chipping it deep thereby removing the threat of being hammer by the defenseman.

Hockey Lac St Louis joined Richelieu Hockey in passing a resolution to move all girls to girls hockey with the exception of girls who can play and compete at the highest level. What are your thoughts on that?

My first reaction is I like it because , as I mentioned before, we play a possession game and I believe that the Lac St Louis “AA’ program (and Richelieu as well) will teach more of that game inside girls hockey than the girls would learn playing BB or Cc or A or B.

Exposure for the girls, with the new resolution, is going to be better. We, as recruiters, no longer have to worry about missing a girl who plays CC or BB on some team. The girls we are looking for will either be playing “AA” boys or “AA” girls and we can spend more time focused on those two areas rather than covering all sorts of different level tournaments and games to follow the girls at the various levels.


Who is the best player that you have coached?
Marie Phillippe Poulin

What, in your opinion, needs to taught more of at the lower levels, before they come to the CEGEP level?

Mental Aspect? They need work more on the mental preparation of the game…they need more mentoring, they need to have better time management skills as the first half season is very overwhelming for incoming CEGEP students.
Physcial Aspect? Not enough exposure to high intensity training. Hockey Quebec has taken some steps with their U14 and U16 programs to introduce the girls to high performance training but it needs to be instilled earlier
Skills Aspect? Skating? Basic skating, yes…Agility and explosiveness and footwork, the standard is too low in this aspect.
Puck Possession? This is the weakest area. Because too many have developed bad habits to survive. Playing Bantam BB or Cc, Midget BB, Midget CC or A or B does more harm than good. From what I know from lac st Louis, a girls hockey’s team is going to get more practice hours…just being on ice, you are bound to get better!
When you put a girl with contact hockey with guys, they tend to throw pucks away to protect themselves from being hurt.. both forwards and defensemen do this….
Should there be more contact in girls hockey here in Quebec considering what Quebec teams face in national tournaments?
Two girls battling are usually in the same strength neighbourhood, while with guys versus a girl, the strength equation is too lob sided. If Quebec is moving towards developing a league where it is a AAA regional level, like the teams at the Esso Cup, then yes…that battling would be a great addition and if they could take out the stick work then, that would be great as well!
How do you find the level of coaching in Lac St Louis?
The past four or five years there has been a significant improvement in the preparation of the girls, the coaching has improved as coaches seem to be putting more energy in the girls preparation. Still, there are many areas of improvement as we discussed in what the girls need to be taught before arriving at CEGEP level… but there is certainly a better preparation, as I mentioned earlier that the mid and lower level CEGEP players skills are much further ahead than they were four or five years ago.

Thanks for your time, Scott!