NEW ULM — Those who go to the New Ulm Civic Center to watch a hockey game, chances are their attention is focused on where the puck is.

But what does a coach or a scout watch during that same time?

New Ulm Steel coach Zach Stepan says that his attention is focused on a lot of different aspects.

“There are a lot of different details when I am watching a game from the bench,” he said. “Games are actually harder to watch when you are on the bench so that is why we do a lot of video because you can miss a lot of stuff when you are on the bench and talking with your players — you can miss other stuff that goes on. But one detail might be going through a guy or playing the body and another one might be making sure we are getting pucks in and out of our zone and not turning pucks over at the blue line. During the week there are different details that we go through and then during practice and then on the weekend games I will look for.

“Last week [against Breezy Point] we wanted to make sure we continued to play the body and box guys out in front of the net,” Stepan said. “We wanted to make sure we were making plays in our defensive zone and did not turn the puck over at their blue line.”

Fans also see line changes during a game and they are closely timed out.

“For the most part our top two lines stay the same but if it gets to a point where a guy is getting gassed I may pop a guy in or out. This year [in the NA3HL] they have a rule where you can dress 21 guys so right now we are dressing 13 forwards to allow for a guy to take a shift off,” Stepan said.

The coach said that his hope is that a line is only out on the ice for 45 seconds before a line change happens.

“Once you are past that 45-second mark you are either not working hard enough or you are tired — or we are stuck out their in our defensive zone and gassed. So we try and keep that time close,” Stepan said.

Nick Campbell, who handles the Steel defensemen, said that he wants his defensemen to make the simple plays.

“We don’t want them to try and do too much,” he said. “We have a lot of young defensemen so I want them to make a good first pass and have simple plays and it will go from there. I like to say I don’t want them running around with their heads cut off — they need to have stick on puck and body on body. Make sure they do not get lost and finish their checks.”

Stepan said that he does watch the other team’s line changes, especially at home games.

“Home teams get the second line change but when we are on the road we just go with who is playing well because you are not really able to line match when you are away,” Stepan said.

The Steel play this Saturday at Breezy Point. New Ulm defeated Breezy Point 11-1 last weekend.