Penalty Strokes - Strategy and Practice
There are many effective approaches to taking a penalty stroke. To be successful you should find a technique that focuses on aspects that are in your control – and will make you a high-percentage stroke-taker.
Here are some keys to success:
Determine a simple routine for addressing the ball and preparing to take the stroke.
Focus on this routine and you will eliminate distractions under pressure.
Pick a point in the goal that you are going to shoot at – don’t change your mind after you have started your final preparation for the stroke.
Shoot for either of the bottom corners. Shooting high means you can shoot over the goal you can’t shoot under.
Aim for the back post (the corner of the sideboard and backboard). This gives you a few inches of room on the outside.
Shoot a few inches in the air. The shot along the ground (on the GK’s stick side) is easier for the keeper to stop with his stick.
Practice: Place cones on the goal line, one stick-length from the goalpost on either side. Aim inside the cones on either side to score.
Simulate game-pressure situations in practice: Rewards for scoring, “punishments” for missing.
If you follow these principles and shoot low, hard into the corners, you will score most of the time.

The Zonal Defence
A game of hockey can be separated into 2 phases, Firstly when your team has possession, and secondly when the opposition has possession. To be a successful team you must be able to control the game in both phases. When the opposition have the ball the objective is to win the ball back without allowing them to create goal-scoring opportunities. In the past the method of defence used, was assigning players to an opposition number in that particular area of the field, who they were then to mark as tightly as possible.