Three top NCAA Division I coaches - Omaha's Dean Blais, Air Force's Frank Serratore and Boston College's Jerry York - took the stage in Colorado this week to share some of their best practices with the rising stars in the coaching profession.

USA Hockey: College Coaches Offer Up a Winning Formula

USA Hockey, in partnership with the U.S. Olympic Committee, brought 60 top youth, high school and junior hockey coaches to Colorado Springs this week for a High Performance Symposium. USA Hockey Magazine managing editor Harry Thompson covered the college coaches' address for usahockey.com.

"We try to teach a lot of creativity,” said York in Thompson's story. “The game has become more structured, but we can get too paranoid with where a player needs to stand and what they need to do. Then it’s not a game all of a sudden.

“It’s not football where when you have the ball you’re on offense and when you don’t have the ball you’re on defense. In our sport you have the puck [and then] you don’t have the puck. If you can’t be creative and develop that with your players you’re going to have robots out there. We have to teach creativity and keep the game fun, because it’s a terrific game. You can’t spoil it by overcoaching.”

The conversation covered everything from the coaches' evolution in their approach to practice planning. The trio of coaches - who have combined for more than 1,600 wins at the NCAA level - had a lot to share.

"The college season is a long season and it doesn’t take long before the boys get sick of old Uncle Frank and his drills,” Serratore said.

“When we play small area games, the guys love it. You know they’re going to compete and they’re going to maintain their fitness level. Just a lot of good things happen. The residual effect is that they pick up things on how to play an unstructured style. Basically, it’s like the pond hockey we played when we were kids.”