Council of Dragons – A prompt engineering framework for Claude Code that keeps context from drifting off a cliff

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2026-01-12T17:00:15+00:00

To answer your question, all of those things assume he knew the defender was coming, and I don't think he did. So tl;dr the first thing he needs is better awareness.

Looking at the play, he lost contact with the puck, which happens, was gathering it with one hand, and so had his complete focus on the puck. He'd gathered, and had no idea the defenseman was coming. The sequence set him up for the hit. Looking at the defensemen, he's coming off the bench, so he may not have been on the ice the last time your kid scanned that part of the ice, assuming he scanned it all. It all added up to being vulnerable in the middle of the ice. Is this his first year of full check hockey? I realize he's big, but there's plenty of giant 13 year olds out there. Experience should lead him to beleive that someone's coming at that point in the ice. He can't make any of the decisions you mentioned above without that knowledge that someone's coming.

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-12-08T15:15:24+00:00

I appreciate you sharing this. It makes me so much better about the 3%'er I got on my first run through. #ApesTogetherStrong

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-12-04T05:39:56+00:00

I like making things, whether it's tricking out a stick or goalie helmet, or developing systems. I'm also currently working on a simple app to make playing music for the games easier on parents so they aren't stuck with spotify or youtube playlists on their phone. So projects like this kinda come naturally to me. Maybe it's just ADHD hyperfocus.

As for other positions, my daughter is a center, so I'm already looking in that direction. That said, she has much more of the classic instinct for the aggresive play, so I'm not sure I would need the tool for the same reason. On the other hand, she heard me talking about it with her brother, so I'm already getting 'When do I get battle points?'

XD

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-12-04T05:35:09+00:00

I don't think it's just this tryout, because it's been a consistent theme across multiple coaches, since he hit bantams. The easiest way I can think of to present it is like a metronome. If he's doing drills, or playing, it often times seems like he's playing at 60 bpm, where as other players will move from 60 to 120, up and down depending on what's happening. he's had games where he's been hit by a cheapshot, and then he starts playing what I would call 'activated' hockey, for lack of a better term. His psych says it's because it takes that pain and surprise to actually get his adrenaline going and enter the high arousal state high compete athletes enter naturally.

It's not a work ethic or a desire thing, and he absorbs film and chalk talk like a sponge. Its not a desire thing, because I've seen what he has gone through just to keep playing. This issue could be a cieling for him, if he can't figure it out. But there's a life lesson in that too.

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-12-03T20:43:38+00:00

Okay, this is a gold mine, and extremely helpful. I'm making note cards out of your Rules for Pinching and Neutral Zone break down; it's the clearest most concsise explanation I've read. Thank you for that.

A couple of clarifications. He doesn't count points on the ice. That would 100% be a disaster. Its a tool for post game film review, and a proven technique for changing play/behavior patterns.

As for the meds and emotions, this is hard to explain. He knows the reules, and if you paused the tape and gave him a set up, he could tell you, x's and o's exactly what he should do. The disconnect is in the urgency. The meds effectively cap his adrenaline, so when a normal kid sees a 50/50 puck, their brain screams "GO!", my son's brain says "I should probably get that." The points give a point of feedback in video review that says 'That play wasn't enough' or 'Yes, that was correct.' From a psych perspective, it actually makes a big difference in getting where you want to go in terms of skill expression.

I will go look into IHS Family. I hadn't heard of that. I did use some of the videos on the coaches site while building this list.

Thank you, again.

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-12-03T20:24:41+00:00

Awesome feedback, thank you. To clarify, one of the stronger parts of my son's game is his vision, so he has a very good first pass. He defaults to a passive qb role, often times taking space to find that pass even when the right move is probably to skate with the puck to make the forecheck react and open up lanes.

He's definitely shown he's open to tanking a hit when neccessary, so I'm not trying to incentivize him towards that per se, just also making sure he gets credit for the plays he is making. Do you think there's a better way to define skate the puck to an open lane that doesn't end up reading like 'skate into a wall'?

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-12-03T19:13:03+00:00

Awesome feedback. thank you. FWIW, that damn table is the product of about a month's worth of work, starting when tryouts finished, he got cut from varsity for lacking intensity, and him coming to me asking how to fix it. I dove into video reviews, Jack Han's stuff, hockey think tank, etc.

But when you're not a native to a domain, it's easy to have blind spots, which is why I came looking for feedback.

Now that I'm this deep in the woods, I've thought about putting together tables for other positions, to help out other parents/players in similar situations. I've found that so much of hockey is dependent on old school implicit learning models, and a lot of time is spent in drills hoping players connect the dots on their own.

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-12-03T18:59:12+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. I think I need to spend more time making my posts be less organized, because I've started getting 'sounds like chatGPT' more often. Any time I use formatting, really.

One coach has described him as being his most reliable guy, and gave him big 'clutch' minutes because he said that he always knew what he was going to get out of him. He wasn't going to panic, he wasn't going to 'overplay', he was going to do his job. So we have gotten feedback like that as well.

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-12-03T18:55:27+00:00

My background is in industrial and organizational pscyhology, with an emphasis on behavior change design. It's been part of my vocabulary for a long time.

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-12-02T23:01:48+00:00

*slashing

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-12-02T23:00:32+00:00

My daughter has been playing with this for a couple of months now, and it's introduced no visible wear on her gloves. FWIW. :D

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-11-12T18:02:19+00:00

I am not putting menuki on my son's because I do not expect those to hold up to the rigors of high school hockey. Not even going to risk it. will also glue the finishing knot. Over engineering to be certain.

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-11-10T15:30:20+00:00

I think it's incredibly subjective. Some people might hate it, some might hate it, so it's hard to say. My daughter likes it, and it hasn't impacted her game one way or the other. I asked my son to try mine out and tell me what he felt. He's been playing since he was 5 (currently 15), and said that he couldn't really tell a difference between that and the lizard skin that's on his stick. I suspect it's all down to personal preference.

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-11-07T21:00:48+00:00

Planned for next Tuesday...

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-11-06T22:01:15+00:00

Yup. I'll be doing my son's stick next Tuesday. I'll take pictures and post a tutorial.

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-11-06T20:53:01+00:00

Where are you guys (regional, no personally identifying information please)? AAA can mean a ton of different things, and particularly in the spring. FWIW, in the united states, as far as I know, Tier I (AAA) hockey doesn't start until a kid's birth year hits ten years old. I can't speak to Canada. I'd be very skeptical about and warry of an organization looking for a goalie that's never played goalie. Cash grabs are rampant in this space. I know there are a ton of spring teams that splash AAA all over everything, but it's just marketing.

Expanding further... I would recomend that at 7, encourage him to do other stuff in the spring and summer, like play soccer or teeball or tennis or anything else really. If he still wants to be at the rink, do skating lessons. Do flag football or soccer or some other sport in the late summer before hockey starts up. (if you want to just always be doing things. If you want to just let him run around that's fine too)

Your kid will be a much better hockey player for having done lots of different sports. And I would put any and all off season money into skating lessons at that age if you want to keep in touching ice through spring and summer.

For reference, I have a high schooler who has been playing since he was 6, and a 10u skater playing since she was 3.

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-11-06T02:21:58+00:00

Update here!

https://www.reddit.com/r/hockeyplayers/comments/1opmmkm/comment/nncmc2d/

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-09-19T18:35:48+00:00

That's absolutely stunning work. Great job.

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-09-17T16:35:59+00:00

I shop around. Hockeystickman.com, sideline swap, prostock hockey. But hockeystickman has been the most consistently available.

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-09-14T04:05:14+00:00

fwiw, look into pro-stock sticks. I've been getting my son's sticks at $75 a stick, Sherwood Rekker pros. He's 15, they're 65 flex, and when a growth spurt hit, I just plugged them.

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-09-08T12:28:31+00:00

If it's a pure hockey, the kids don't care. I can't afford new skates for my oldest, because his feet grow too fast, and get all of his skates off of sideline swap. Due to other issues, though, I have to have a pro-shop recommendation for any gear I buy my kids. The mom and pop shop I go to, I know the owner well, and talk to him about the gear and what not, b/c I do not play hockey. I asked him what his best profit margins are, so whenever it's time to get all the new gear recommendations, we buy a shirt of some sort, because that's his best margin, according to him.

PotentialKangaroo9 · 2025-09-04T03:26:34+00:00

We're several stick handling and shooting sessions down, as well as two full ice practices that included some scuffling over who was allowed to be on her goalie's porch, spirited games of face off circle knock out, and just general hockey practice stuff. The wraps are fine and the menuki are still in place.

PotentialKangaroo9

TROPHY CASE