15: Falling into the Trap, in More Ways Than One
AS A COACHING STAFF, we were probably a little, or a lot,
naïve, idealistic and intent on trying to do things the right way,
but what we knew for sure before we started is that we would
be doing it that season without the best player in Whitby.
Liam Reddox had decided to leave Whitby to play in the
Metropolitan Toronto Hockey League (MTHL, now known as
the Greater Toronto Hockey League or GTHL). He wasn't actually
moving-he and his family were still residing in Whitby-but
at the time it was possible to transfer out of the OMHA to the
MTHL (it has become much more
difficult
to do that now; not
impossible, but
difficult
). The OMHA is a residence-based league
for the most part. You are supposed to play where you live and
towns compete against other towns. The GTHL consists of as
many as a dozen AAA organizations (Toronto Young Nationals,
Toronto Marlies, Toronto Red Wings, among others). Any player
in the GTHL is free to play on any team that wants him, regardless of where in the Greater Toronto Area he lives.
My personal preference has always been for my boys to play
where they live, alongside many of the kids they go to school
with or play summer sports with. But I also understand if a
player or parent has an issue with the coach, or does not want
the extra travel of going to OMHA centers east and north of
Toronto; the OMHA system doesn't offer a lot of
fl
exibility.
Each to their own, I say.
In Liam's case, I fully understood why he was leaving.
Liam was such an elite player, so much better than any of the
Whitby kids; he clearly longed to play with the best players in
the province on one of the very best teams. He wasn't going to
be able to do that in Whitby. He could, though, achieve that
by going into the city because the GTHL is well known for having two or three stacked teams. I understood the motivation.
Generally speaking, though, I'm not a fan of the GTHL
model. Recruiting players is big business in the GTHL and
before one season is even over, many of the players have
already committed to playing on a different team for the next
season. The old joke is that when the two best teams in the
GTHL meet in the championship at the end of the year, half
the players on one team are already committed to playing on
the other team, and vice versa, and everyone knows it. It's like
prepubescent unrestricted free agency gone wild. That said, the
best players and best teams in the '86 age group were
definitely
in the MTHL.
Meanwhile, the minor atom AAA Wildcats were a reasonably competitive, middle-of-the-pack team in the OMHA's
ETA (Eastern Triple A) league. We would usually get the same
twenty-
five
or thirty kids trying out most years. There was no
recruiting or anything like that. You'd get three or four tryouts
to pick the team and that was that.
Whitby was still one of the smallest AAA centers in the
province at the time and we had to play a new minor atom
entry, the York-Simcoe Express, which drew on a very large
region that includes Aurora, Newmarket and north all the way
to Lake Simcoe. That's a big area, with a large population base,
and the Express were a very good team in their
first
year in the
league. They beat us badly in our
first
meeting so, as a coaching staff, we were brainstorming how we might make it closer
for the coming rematch.
York Simcoe seemed so much faster than our kids. We
were working hard at making our kids better skaters and puck
handlers but the truth of the matter was that York Simcoe's
athleticism was simply superior.
So I made a suggestion: How about we throw a little different look at them?
I'll get in big trouble with this story-from Wayne Gretzky
to Bobby Orr-because what I did is considered one of the cardinal sins of coaching kids in minor hockey. So be it. I'm a big
boy, I can take it.
We taught the kids to play a "system" for the next game
against York Simcoe. There, I said it. Others would call it "neutralizing skill" and say it's a symbol of everything that is wrong
with minor hockey.
Fair enough. All I knew is that our kids didn't have any fun
getting beat by double digits the
first
time they played York
Simcoe, I knew we were doing everything humanly possible in
practice to make them better skaters and puck handlers, but I
still didn't like our chances of doing it fast enough to not get
blown out in the next meeting. Winning and losing is not the
end all, be all-I understand that-but ask a bunch of ten-year-olds how much they enjoy getting blitzed 10-1.
We called it "The Trap," but it wasn't really the trap system employed by NHL teams that clog up the neutral zone.
Our trap was a little more aggressive and worked as follows:
The two forechecking wingers would go in hard and "lock off"
the other team's wingers, who were waiting on the boards for
the breakout pass. Our center would go in a little bit passively
to forecheck the other team's defenseman with the puck and
try to steer or angle him towards the boards, preferably on his
backhand, as he came out from behind his own net with the
puck. One of our defensemen would step up aggressively and
lock off the other team's center, who was usually curling in the
middle of the ice awaiting a breakout pass. Our other defenseman would stay back and assume a defensive posture at the
offensive blue line. Keep in mind, this was back in the bad
old days before zero tolerance on restraining fouls. If executed
properly, the other team's puck carrier had no passing options
at all. If he was angled towards the boards, he had nowhere
to go.
The kids on our team maybe weren't quite as athletic as the
York Simcoe players, but they were smart, coachable, eager and
they followed instructions well.
Whitby 8, York Simcoe 3.
The poor kids and the coach on the other team didn't
know what hit them. York Simcoe kept turning the puck over.
We kept scoring. It wasn't even close.
Now, I'm not saying there wasn't a temptation to use "The
Trap" over and over again, because it initially confused the hell
out of opposing players and coaches at the minor atom level.
But Stu and I both favored aggressive, two-man forechecking.
Besides, it wouldn't take long for opposing coaches to
figure
out the easy way to beat our trap. That is, don't set up behind
the net, just wheel that puck as soon as you get it and skate by
the
first
forechecker.
But we did trot it out from time to time when we thought
we were really overmatched in the talent department. We were
playing Detroit Compuware, one of North America's best teams,
in the Kitchener-Waterloo tournament in November. There was
no comparison between our team and theirs. They were the
crème de la crème of minor hockey. It was a double-digit disaster just waiting to happen.
So we employed our version of the trap and kept it close.
Compuware won 4-1. I think they outshot us 55-5, but we
confused and confounded them long enough to keep it closer
than it should have been. When it was over, Stu and I looked
at each other on the bench. We were just drained. I shook Stu's
hand and said: "Never have so many worked so hard for so
long for so little." Our kids felt like they won the game, they
were that happy not to have been blown out.
When the game was over one of the Compuware coaches
started to give me the business about our "system" and lecturing me on how wrong it is to teach that to ten-year-olds. I let
him have it right back; I didn't need a lesson in minor hockey
values from this guy.
"I'll tell you what's wrong," I said to him. "Recruiting ten
year-olds from all over the state of Michigan and beyond,
giving them skates and sticks and free equipment and putting together a team of little superstars that wins most of their
games by twelve goals, with a bunch of obnoxious A-hole parents in the stands cheering every goal like it's the
first
, that's
what's wrong."
I would like to tell you we were perfect coaches in our
first
year,
but when things aren't going well, it's easy to get going down
the wrong road.
Late in the regular season, the Wildcats went on quite a
losing streak, up around eight or nine games. With each passing game of that streak, we became more and more desperate.
In minor hockey, desperation usually means shortening the
bench, playing your best players more and your weaker players less. It's an insidious thing, really. We never planned on
doing it-equal ice time was going to be our foundation-but
the losses piled up and suddenly the good players were getting
all the power play time and some of the weaker players weren't
seeing ice in the
finally
few minutes.
I've told you enough embarrassing and stupid things about
myself that I won't be accused of trying to make myself look
too good here, but I do recall phoning Stu one night and telling him we needed a coaching meeting. So we got everyone
together and I basically said we were losing sight of what's
important, that equitable ice time was the platform on which
we ran as coaches and we were getting away from that. It
wasn't right. I said I would rather lose all our remaining games
than coach a team where we regularly shortened the bench.
Not surprisingly, everyone agreed. We would go back to doing
it the right way, regardless of the results.
Which was not to say we would sit idly by and lose every
game without pushing some buttons. Being a rookie coach,
a rookie assistant coach at that, I felt I needed input from a
veteran, so I called Roger Neilson, who was coaching the St.
Louis Blues at the time. Roger, by the way, was one of the
greatest people ever involved in the game of hockey and he's
sorely missed after passing away in 2003 after a valiant battle
with cancer. Typical of Roger, he was absolutely thrilled that
I thought to call him and immediately began peppering me
with questions about how we were losing games.
Roger, of course, was a great tactician and after pondering
the data I gave him, he came up with a prescription for what
he thought ailed the Wildcats-better puck support, especially
on the breakout.
It was really just a little tweak to the standard controlled
breakout, having the center come over to support the winger
on the boards with the puck and keeping the weak side winger
from
fly
ing the zone until he saw the other winger or center
was safely on the way out of the zone before leaving himself.
We taught it to the kids and called it the "St. Louis Blue
breakout." They thought it was cool to have a breakout named
for an NHL team. We rediscovered our winning ways, to a
point, and though we didn't make it to the OMHAs, it was, all
in all, a successful year. The kids had fun; so did we.
16: Vengeance Is a Dish Best Served Curved
IT WASN'T REALLY CHILD ABUSE. Not really, although I suppose I could see how some might see it that way.
I have already told you Mike was a good kid, a good player
but, at times, a little on the volatile side. Gee, I wonder where
he got that?
It was Mike's major atom AAA (eleven-year-old) season
and we were in Kitchener for a tournament. We were down to
our last round-robin game on a Saturday afternoon and were
playing the Detroit Little Caesars, who were being coached by
Viktor Fedorov, father of then-Red Wing Sergei Fedorov. All the
Wildcats needed was a tie to advance, but midway through the
game we were down 2-0 and our prospects looked a little bleak.
Stu Seedhouse was, of course, still the head coach, but I
was responsible for changing the forward lines. Mike had just
completed a shift where things hadn't gone particularly well
for his line. He came off the ice in what I would call a "mild to
moderate" state of agitation.
"Relax, Mike," I said to him cheerily, sensing he needed to
be calmed down. "You're not playing bad, the team isn't playing bad, there's lots of time left, just relax and we'll be
fine
."
It was not only textbook coaching, it was textbook parenting. Potentially volatile situation; take the emotion out of it;
everybody take a deep breath and relax. I was kind of proud of
myself because I'm not usually that calm, cool and collected.
But Mike didn't feel like relaxing, apparently. He turned
and looked at me through those big glasses of his and more or
less snarled a few words, waved his arms in my direction and
suggested he didn't need to relax and I didn't need to remind
him to relax. He started getting bent out of shape.
It was on. What follows, it goes without saying, was not
textbook coaching or parenting.
Mike had his back to me, I put my hand on his shoulder
and, much more forcefully and emphatically, told him to not
talk back, keep his mouth shut and don't get excited. Well,
Mike didn't like that too much. He twisted his shoulder to get
my hand off him, started talking a lot of emotional nonsense
and kicking one of his skates against the boards. He was having quite a little tantrum, he was on the way to out of control
and my fuse was lit, too.
I hopped off the bench and stood just behind it. I reached
around to the front of Mike, grabbed two
fi
stfuls of his hockey
sweater right in the middle of his chest and picked him up off
the ground, feet up and over the bench, and deposited him in
front of me as I pivoted to put my back to the game.
Mike continued to squirm and fuss a bit as he stood there
so I tightened my grip on his sweater with both hands and
pulled him in really close so my face was right up against
his cage. I was trying to use eye contact to snap him out of
wherever he was and I really blasted him, telling him only one
thing-"Settle down!"
As quickly as it got heated, it suddenly cooled. Just like
that, the two of us were there, face to face and not saying a
word to each other. I realized that whatever had possessed him
to lose his cool, and mine as well, had passed. Recognizing we
needed a quick reconciliation-there was still lots of hockey
to be played-I very calmly explained to Mike I wasn't mad at
him, that he had been playing
fine
and I only wanted him to
focus on playing the game, that we were down two goals and
we needed him to be at his best if we were going to get a tie
and move on.
All of this transpired in less than one minute-it started
and ended in a
fl
ash-while the game was still going on. I patted him on the back, he took his place on the bench and was
ready to go again. It was almost as if it had never happened. As
I jumped back up on the bench, though, I started to worry who
in the stands might have seen me pick up Mike by his sweater
and get into his face.
I sidled up to Stu on the bench, folded my arms across my
chest to look really casual and relaxed, I tilted my head in Stu's
direction while I watched the game and said, "Stu, uh, could
you do me a, uh, little favor? Just have a look up in the stands
and tell me if Cindy is staring at me right now?"
"Nope," Stu said. "She's watching the game."
Whew. Close call. Cindy hadn't seen what happened with
me and Mike and that was just as well.
No coach should ever, and I mean ever, lay hands on one
of his players. It's just not acceptable. But in that instance,
for that moment, I wasn't Mike's coach as much as I was his
father. Some will say it shouldn't matter; it was
unacceptable
in
any case, or that's a good reason for parents not ever coaching their kids.
Fair enough, but I did what I felt needed to be done at the
time and the moment passed and we all lived happily ever after.
After that, though, Stu and I agreed in the future he would handle all "situations" with Mike and I would do the same with
his son Steven because there was no question the father-son
dynamic complicated things that day.
Now, here's the kicker to the story.
After he got refocused, Mike assisted on one goal and scored
the tying goal himself. The game
finished
2-2; we advanced,
knocking out the Little Caesars.
Perhaps there was something in the air in that Kitchener
arena that day because in the lobby right after that game, a couple of parents from the Little Caesars' team tried to physically
accost their coach, Viktor Fedorov. It was quite a nasty scene.
"Wow," I said to one of the other Detroit parents in the
lobby after the melee, "that's crazy. Why did they go after the
coach, their kids not get enough ice time?"
"No," the Detroit parent responded, "those were the parents
of the good players who thought he [Fedorov] didn't shorten
the bench enough to win the game. They were mad because he
played everyone, we tied and we're not moving on."
Go
figure
. Another day in the paradise we call minor hockey.
The
finally
word on this episode, though, goes to Mike
himself, who even today still likes to needle me: "Hey, Dad,
remember that time you physically abused me in major atom?"
To which I say, "Yes, Mike, I do remember."
And, without fail, with a big grin, he replies: "Thanks, Dad,
I needed that."
Again, I
find
myself having to make sure you don't think one
snapshot of a Mike-Bob "snap show" was in any way indicative of the whole major atom AAA season, because it wasn't. It
was a great year. The kids, the coaching staff and the parents
had a great time. The team was reasonably competitive most
nights and, from a personal perspective, Mike was scoring a lot
of goals, racking up points and playing quite well. As coaches,
we put a lot into it and I believe the kids got a lot out of it,
too. The funny or memorable moments are too numerous to
recount but there are two stories that have to be told.
Whitby was playing Quinte at Iroquois Park. It was a great
game, really intense. We scored the go-ahead goal with less
than a minute left, but a talented and somewhat theatrical
Quinte defenseman answered back with the tying goal just seconds later. He celebrated it by skating to the center ice dot,
turning towards our parents in the stands and bowing to them.
Well, that got everyone all worked up, on and off the ice.
With four seconds left we had a face-off in the Quinte end
and Stu called time out, pulled the goalie for an extra attacker
and drew up a play for the kids to try to get the winner. But
when he
finished
explaining the play to the kids-and this
is just one reason why Stu is a very good coach-he told the
players in no uncertain terms that he did not want any shenanigans, whether we scored or not. He instructed every player on
the bench to stay there when the game ended. Anyway, long
story short, we scored a miraculous buzzer-beater goal right off
the face-off, just as time was expiring, to win the game. While
the kids on the ice were celebrating like crazy, Stu and I were
making sure to hold our bench.
The next thing you know-and this image is indelibly
burned into all of our minds-we see our trainer Kevin O'Brien,
in his blue and gold Whitby track suit, running full speed off
the bench and onto the ice towards the on-ice celebration.
He dropped down onto both knees as he passed the Quinte
bench-sliding, hootin' and hollerin'-all the while waving
his white trainer's towel over his head in a circular motion.
Stu and I looked at each other and completely cracked up.
The kids on the bench were laughing so hard at "Mr. O'Brien"
that they were almost crying, especially since he had lectured
the kids before the game on "good sportsmanship."
I guess there was one "big kid" Stu forgot to talk to about
staying on the bench.
The other story that has to be told from the same season is
the one that inspired this book and the whole notion of Crazy
Hockey Dad.
We had been knocked out of the OMHA playoffs and had
dropped down to the ETA (Eastern Triple A) playoffs, or "ringette round," as we called it. It was the
finally
game of a series
with Barrie in venerable Dunlop Arena and we were losing 5-2
with about
five
minutes to go.
"Hey, Stu," I suggested, "why don't you let me call a stick
measurement to see if we can't score a power play goal to try
to light a little
fire
here?"
Stu thought about it and although the look on his face was
one of reluctance, he said, "Go for it."
In one of the previous games against Barrie, I had been
looking at their kids' sticks in the rack between the benches
and noticed about half of their team was using wildly illegal
curves.
I had one of our players, an alternate captain, Kenny Henry,
ask the referee for a stick measurement on a Barrie player. The
referee looked at poor Kenny like he was nuts and then shot
me a dirty look on the bench. You could tell he was really
ticked a coach was calling a stick measurement in major atom.
He asked Kenny, "What kind of measurement do you want?"
This ref was playing it by the book, because when you request
a stick measurement, apparently you have to specify if it's for
the curve or the length or whatever. Kenny guessed "curve"
and the ref was obliged to do the measurement.
The ref con
fi
scated the Barrie player's stick for the measurement and the whole arena erupted. Their bench and their
parents went a little nuts. The ref had to go to the referees'
room to get a stick-measuring gauge. It was quite a scene.
Sure enough, the stick was illegal, the Barrie player went
to the box and with only seconds left in his penalty, we scored
a power play goal to narrow Barrie's lead to two goals with
just over three minutes left in the game. The goal lit a
fire
under our guys. We started to play a lot better. With less than
two minutes remaining, there was a stoppage and I went back
at Stu.
"Let me call another stick measurement," I said. "Their
kids are still using the illegal sticks."
Stu started laughing. "Go ahead," he said.
If everyone in the rink went
little nuts
on the
first
stick
call, you should have witnessed the scene when we called the
second. Their bench was in bedlam. Kids were throwing sticks
up to their parents in the crowd, presumably to get the illegal
sticks off their bench. Some of their parents were screaming
at me and our bench. The referee was looking at me like he
wanted me dead.