MEET program manager ryan chiasson
Many of you have likely seen Matt around the lacrosse field over the past two years -- Ryan is a bit of 'jack-of-all-trades' at TOP Sports! Hailing from Toronto, Matt was a successful dual-sport athlete in high-school, playing lacrosse and hockey at the provincial levels throughout his adolescent and teenage years. Upon graduation from high-school Ryan earned an CULFA Athletic Scholarship to University of Toronto where he is currently playing and studying Kineseology.
Matt currently holds certificates from the National Coaching Certification Program, Ontario Lacrosse, and Hockey Canada, and will be pursuing his Lacrosse Coaching Certification from Canada Lacrosse this year. In addition to his role as the Program Manager of TOP Lacrosse, Matt also oversees parts of the TOP Sports Camps programs.
If you'd like to reach out and chat about our lacrosse programs, Matt can be found via email at matt@topsports.ca.
The 'Four-Corners' Development Model
The 'Four-Corners' development model is a staple at all TOP Lacrosse practices, providing players at all ages with a highly-structured and efficient practice plan resulting in more touches of the ball, more repetitions per drill, and a more engaging practice experience. Players will be placed in small groups and rotate through all stations during the practice time, usually spending between 10-12 minutes per station. We believe in spending a lot of time on the fundamentals of core skills; dribbling, shooting, passing, and competition, ensuring all players have a strong base of skills before introducing more advanced concepts.
Game-Based Learning Environment
It's no secret that kids like to play games, whether it's on the playground, in the backyard, or on the field. In fact, games-based learning has been shown to be one of the most effective ways that kids learn. By using games to teach soccer, we can teach kids to execute skills based on their environment, which is called the 'practice-to-game transfer'. Skills cannot be solely learned in isolation, but must be reinforced by making decisions, and ultimately by making mistakes. For any situation that occurs in the game of soccer, we are able to use small-area games to replicate it, provide kids with more reps of that situation, and provide instant feedback and teaching. At all practices we incorporate at least one small-area game station, which can take the form of activity-based games (ie. freeze tag), skill-based games (ie. shark & minnows w/ balls), and role-based situational games (ie. transition 2 v 2).
The 'Four-Corners' model is a staple in the TOP Lacrosse program.