18: The Four-Point Plan: Not as Stupid as I Look
THE PREMISE OF THIS BOOK is I am not the least bit shy
about holding myself up to ridicule and revealing to one and
all that I can be a horse's ass at times. I'm okay with that. But
if you're going to read the stories that make me look like an
idiot, you're also going to have to put up with the occasional
parts where I tell you how smart I am. If that doesn't appeal
to you, skip this chapter entirely and forge ahead because
there are many examples of stupidity to come.
But right here, right now, it's time to tell you I'm not as
stupid as I look. I do actually get it; I fully understand what
minor hockey is about, at least what it should be about. This,
of course, is the preface to me becoming the head coach of the
Whitby minor peewee AAA team.
Coaching as an assistant with Stu Seedhouse in atom, I
knew I wanted to be the head coach in minor peewee, but my
fear was I wouldn't be able to because of work commitments.
Exacerbating the situation was that Stu was not going to be
involved this year as he was going to coach his daughter Ellie's
team in girls' hockey. Kevin O'Brien was back as trainer and I
shanghaied another parent, Ron Balcom, whose son Aaron was
on the team, to be the manager/treasurer.
The challenge, though, was
find
ing minor hockey coaching
expertise-one or preferably two experienced assistants-for
the times when I wouldn't be able to be at a practice and/or a
game. In my business, that could be anytime, anywhere.
I was at the Nagano Olympics in 1998 and my biggest concern was not whether Wayne Gretzky should have shot in the
shootout against Dominik Hasek, but whether I could, long distance, convince a friend, Mark Rowland from Oshawa, to help
out as an associate coach. Mark had coached his own son back
in the day, had been "retired" and wasn't sure he wanted to
do it again. But I was persuasive on the phone from Japan and
managed to convince him to give it a shot, for one year anyway.
That was great; it was even better that Mark had a friend, Steve
Hedington, who had played in the Ontario Hockey League
(Niagara Falls and Sudbury) and wanted to help out, too. That
took care of that. I was going to be a head coach for the
first
time. I am often asked how, with such a busy work schedule, I
ever
find
the time to coach. The answer is simple really. If you
want to get to your kids' practices and games, it's actually easier if you coach. Who decides when practices and games are
scheduled? The coach, of course. It's all about control. For the
most part, I had control of when the team would practice or
play and I set it up in such a way to minimize
conflict
s with
work. When I went to the OMHA scheduling meetings I was
like General Norman Schwarzkopf on Operation Desert Storm.
But there are always going to be
conflict
s and that's why you
need a large and able support staff who you trust implicitly and
I most certainly had that. Coaching is a weighty
responsibility
.
Ultimately, the head coach of a minor hockey team is charged
with safeguarding seventeen kids, whose parents may or may
not be present, for many hours each week from late August to
early March, in places that could be many miles away from
home. Outside of a kid's parents, a minor hockey coach can
have as much, if not more, input and
influence
as that kid's
teacher at school.
I have very strong opinions on what minor hockey should
be. So now you're going to get the same four-point philosophy I outlined for the parents and players at the start of that
season:
1. Have Fun. If it isn't fun, what's the point? That doesn't
mean it can't be challenging or there won't be bumps in
the road, but if the players and parents aren't having fun,
why do it? It costs too much money and takes up too
many days and nights for it not to be fun.
I
firm
ly believe that once a month or so, outside of
practices or games, the team needs to have fun as a group
away from the arena. It could be an excursion to the
Hockey Hall of Fame; a pregame meal at Pizza Hut or Don
Cherry's Restaurant; the ever-popular trip to Laser Quest
in Oshawa; a game of touch football or ball hockey; or
perhaps a bus trip to a road game to make the kids feel
like they're (minor?) pros.
On the ice, I started every practice with
five
-minute
mini-games at each end of the ice, four-on-four at one
end and four-on-three at the other with a goalie in each
net. The attacking team had to score a goal and then go on
defense or the defending team had to get the puck back
out over the blue line in order to switch to offense, just
like a half-court game of one-on-one basketball. The only
rule was the kids had to go hard, keep their feet moving,
and that was rarely a problem. Of all the things I ever did
as a coach, nothing got a more favorable reaction from
the kids than a mini-game to start every practice. It's the
best warm-up for practice because they not only worked
up a good sweat, they got excited about practicing. The
kids worked harder, competed harder, got more creative
and had more fun playing that mini-game than any drill.
They were eager and pumped up to do whatever hard
work we threw at them in practice after that.
The fun, I always believed, should extend to the parents, too. We had many good parent parties. It didn't hurt
that the group of parents on Mike's team were a
terrific
,
level-headed bunch who were always up for a good time.
At the end of it all, as much as what takes place on the
ice is of value, it's the other stuff the kids really remember, like the time Nick Cotter zipped himself inside his
hockey bag or when Kyle O'Brien got Walter Gretzky to
autograph his jock. It's about the relationships, friendships and many memories. If you make it just about the
hockey, you have made a critical mistake.
2. Instill the Right Values. Teamwork. Sportsmanship. Discipline. Work ethic. Commitment. Dedication. Sacri
fi
ce.
Cooperation. Respect. All that good stuff.
If, at the end of the season, the players, and the coaches
and parents for that matter, have learned more about
those qualities than they have about how to take a slap
shot or break the puck out of their own end, I would consider it a successful season. If you're going to invest that
much time, effort and money, there has to be a bigger
payoff than what happens on the ice.
3. Improve Individual Skating and Skills Development.
This one is pretty obvious. As a coach, you are responsible for making sure the kids are better skaters, puck
handlers and shooters at the end of the season than at
the beginning. While skill development happened every
time we took to the ice for practice, we tried to designate at least one practice a week to just skills. We often
brought in outside help who specialized in power skating
or puck handling or off-ice conditioning. I had a high-performance trainer, Dennis Lindsay, to introduce the
kids to rudimentary plyometrics and core work. I had
Jari Byrski-my wonderful Ukrainian friend and a true
character who has worked with countless Toronto-area
kids over the years, including so many that have made
it in the NHL (Jason Spezza, Brent Burns, Wojtek Wolski,
among others)-to work on skating and puck handling
in his fun-infused fashion.
4. Teaching Team Concepts, Strategies and Systems. Yes,
there's that dirty word again-systems. There are those
who will tell you it is evil incarnate in minor hockey. If
that's all you're doing for instruction, shame on you. But
if you are ensuring the kids are having fun on and off
the ice, extolling the proper life values, giving them well
designed personal improvement programs for skills etc.,
there is nothing wrong with teaching them how to break
out of their zone, forecheck, regroup, work a power play,
set up a penalty kill, block shots and take away passing
or shooting lanes. In other words, teaching them how to
play like a team.
Like anything in life, it's all about balance and
find
ing the
right emphasis at the right time.
In many ways, hockey is a complex game. In so many others, though, it really couldn't be simpler. It doesn't matter if it's
the NHL or minor peewee AAA, it's basically the same game. I
am not so naïve to believe coaching a minor peewee AAA team
is the same as coaching in the NHL. Being around the NHL
every day, I know that as well as anyone.
But the same basic principles of the game still apply.
We gave each kid a different slogan to memorize that
related to a
specific
aspect of the game and how we thought it
should be played. If an NHL team were to successfully execute
the majority of these slogans on any given night, that team
would win a lot more than it loses:
Keep your feet moving.
Shoot the puck.
Pucks and bodies to the net.
Support the puck all over the ice, no fair
fight
s (in other
words, always try to outnumber the other team in battles for
loose pucks).
Short, hard shifts.
Don't be afraid to make a mistake.
Fight from and/or get on the right side of the puck (back-check like your hair is on
fire
).
The puck moves faster than anyone can skate, head-man
the puck.
No turnovers at either blue line.
Discipline, discipline, discipline; initiate, don't retaliate.
Play the game, not the scoreboard (that is, don't get discouraged if you're down three and don't get complacent if
you're up three, just play the same way every shift).
Always make yourself a threat to score a goal.
Say nothing when you lose; say less when you win.
It's all about respect. For your teammates, your coaches,
your parents, your opponents, yourself and the
officials
.
There is an old saying in hockey that goes something like
this: "What goes on in the dressing room stays in the dressing room."
If you are going to coach kids' hockey, DO NOT embrace
that slogan. If you do, you are asking for trouble. The dressing
room is not Las Vegas and these players are not adults.
As
difficult
as some parents can be by being overly involved
and interfering when you are coaching, the parents ultimately
have the right to know what goes on behind closed doors with
their kids. There must be a high level of transparency. And that
is for your own protection as much as anything.
As a coach, you must be aware of what is going on at all
times in your dressing room. It's important for kids to develop
some independence and not feel like there is someone watching over their every move-the dressing room needs to feel
like it is "their" place-but a common mistake many minor
hockey coaches make is to leave their players unsupervised
in the dressing room for too long. You need to know if your
kids are locker-boxing (pounding each other in their helmeted
heads with their gloves on) or if kids are being picked on or
harassed. Or whatever. I don't have to tell anyone reading this
book how cruel kids can be and how the mob mentality can
take over if you permit it. All of that is the head coach's responsibility as much as teaching them how to play the game.
As for the playing hockey part of coaching, I've always
believed you don't ask players of any age or caliber to win.
You don't ask them to score goals or prevent them. It's the old journey versus destination thing; the focus should be on the
process as opposed to the result. Scoring goals and getting wins
are the end result. You have to teach them all the little things-the journey, if you will-which are required to score or prevent
goals. I never asked or expected the kids to win. I asked them
to work hard and embrace the values, skills and concepts they
were taught.