I'm coaching/managing/captaining 4 teams this spring.
U14 girls and their parents are like herding cats. Previous manager sent an email every 4-5 weeks. Drove us nuts. I send an email a week with updates. Still impossible to get commitments from girls and their families. Never know if we'll show up with 4 girls or 15. Peewee manager counterpart sends an email and kids and parents just show up on time.
Invited a bunch of friends to join me for a tournament. Tourney setup is such that every player registers individually, all they have to do is sign up with their CC and put my name in the team box. I don't know if I'll have 6 or 16 playing with me.
If you're in, say you're in. If you're out, let your spot go and say you're out. Wafflers suck.
On the flip side, I'm a first-time league captain. People love playing in this league. We have 11 skaters and 1 goalie. 3 of my skaters couldn't come to our opening game and were polite enough to let me know and I had 2 spots filled in under an hour.
I'm also running an adult beginner program and I have 14-15 people on the ice EVERY week. It's pretty awesome.
Not entirely a vent; looks like I'm batting .500!!