4 beats
- Beats
- Pass
- Cut
- Recover
- 5 yd stripes · not a marking
Man-down · 5 on 6
Box-and-String
Verified in part · checked against Belgium’s national team playbook, the Canadian coaching manual and LaxLibrary
The play, beat by beat
- 1Their Left Wing passes to their Top LeftBox Low Left recovers
- 2Their Top Left passes to their PointBox Top Left recovers
- 3Their Point passes to their Top RightBox Low Left recovers
- 4Their Top Right passes to their Right WingBox Top Right recovers
Coaching points
- String: sit on the crease while the ball is on a corner, and sprint to the top the moment it goes there. Read the pass and leave early.
- Box poles: push out gently when the ball is on your corner, and come back in when it is on the far side. Sticks up in the lanes like trees in a forest.
- With the string up top, the two top poles take the shooters beside him and the two low poles pinch in on the wings and the crease man. Canada's manual: rotate only as a last resort.
- Easy to teach, but a strong point man with a good crease man will beat it (LaxLibrary, Canada). Belgium's playbook calls this a box-and-one. It is the string version, where the fifth man chases the top, not the crease-locker version (see 4-Man Rotation).
How it was checked
A standard play the sources back, but a step or detail of it rests on a single source or on our own reading of them. Verified in part · checked against Belgium’s national team playbook, the Canadian coaching manual and LaxLibrary.
