Becoming More Aggressive

Hey everyone,

Long time lurker, first time poster here. Thanks for all of the useful info and insights I’ve read on this board.

I’m a lifelong hockey player myself and now my son is 8 years old and in his 4th year of hockey. I am very pleased with his development so far and more importantly he’s developed a passion for the game and absolutely loves it.

One area that I’ve noticed he could use some improvement on is his aggressiveness. He’s very hesitant to go into the corners, to try to steal the puck from others, and is just very soft on the puck overall. Even compared to some of the younger kids he plays with they are much more rough than him and can very easily take the puck from him and win basically every puck battle.

Does anyone have any tips or suggestions on different things we can work on to help him become less scared to get hurt, less scared to hurt others, and just become more aggressive overall? We run a few battle drills at practice each week but it’s the same outcome with him being soft and losing 95% of the battles. Some people have suggested trying some other physical sports like lacrosse and football, but with an already full schedule I’m not sure that we can squeeze another activity in.

Thanks in advance!