1-2-2 Forecheck: Against All Breakouts

This post is the 1-2-2 forecheck against all sorts of breakouts. It’s called the 1-2-2 very obviously because we have one forward ahead that steers the play, then we have a line of two FWD’s and then we have a line of two D.

(Audio transcribed from How to Play Hockey: Our Minor Hockey Coaching Course.)

1-2-2 Forecheck vs All Breakouts

Quick Up:

We’ve arrived in zone when their D decides to move it to a W.
F1 that’s forcing can flush the opposing W forcing him/her to the wall not engaging.
This allows our strong side F2 to now jump and our F1 can then recover in behind, so we haven’t lost any of our positioning as we jump on it and recover, we’re still in a 1-2-2 position.
F2 has jumped becoming the new F1.
F1 has recovered strong side becoming our new F2.
F3 has continued to be defensive weak side during this.

D to D:

Against D to D we’re going to need a little bit of help.
Our F1 has pursued against their D1, and they’ve moved the puck D to D.
Rather than chasing behind the net, we will send our original weak side FWD who becomes the strong side FWD when the D to D is made.
He/she attacks the opposing D2 who now has the puck.
Our original strong side F2, becomes the weak side FWD after the D to D, by sliding over and behind the new attacking FWD.
To finish, the original attacking F1 stops his/her pursuit, getting back defensively becoming the new weak side FWD.

Wheel:

We’ve entered the zone and their D1 is pursuing the puck with control behind the net, if our F1 is close enough he/she can stay right on the D1 and if this D1 moves the puck up to their strong side W, we jump and we slide and we recover.
Just as mentioned above in the D to D scenario.
If the D1 is a little bit too far ahead of our F1, then our F1 will cut in front of the net in pursuit.

Reverse:

This is starting to get a little bit more technical here because the breakout is getting a little bit more technical.
Their D1 is going behind the net and our F1 has chased hard forcing their D1 to reverse to their D2.
We want our closest forward to jump. Generally that will be the strongside F2.
Weak side F3 will slide over to the strong side, and the F1 will come back, covering the weak side.

The game may take you in slightly different positions from time to time, so we’re often rotating to get ourselves in good position. Another tip to be aware of and know is, as a F1 if you can read this reverse well enough and stay in the play then continue to be in pursuit if you are the closest FWD.

Rim:

Here we may have to activate one of our D.
We rim the puck in and have our F1 going in hard to retrieve it.
The rim might get past the F1, so if it does our D1 can force and pinch in.
F2 jumps in behind the D1
The FWD who rimmed the puck slides over
And F1 will either recover behind the net or in front of the net.

In all of these scenarios we try to cut things off on the half wall and jam it back down and we had our F2 or F3 doing this, in this case one of our D is waiting, anticipating and jumping. So the first FWD in the 1-2-2 is the one that really activates and the other FWD’s wait to see what’s going to happen. They get up in the play but they haven’t committed until that next pass is made and then somebody goes.

You may want to go over some of the scenarios again to see some of those switches and hopefully it will make sense that F1 is the aggressor and the two FWD’s and the two D are waiting to see what happens. That’s the 1-2-2 forecheck.

Thanks for reading! Why don’t you take the course and watch the detailed video instead?

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