badger_14

Belligerent parent has been banned from the rinks for the rest of the season. So one less thing to worry about, I guess? While it does feels like a less than satisfactory outcome, his kid still gets to play, and I'm happy about that. :)

My trip out to see my brother & SIL and adorable awesome nephews in Oregon has been rescheduled for mid-March! So excited. No, as long as the weather cooperates on both ends of the country...

I know, it stinks, but number one, I'd really like to see where it goes, and number two, I hope it ends well. (I see it looks like it will. Hooray.)

I probably shouldn't crack wise about that being a sh*tty situation. In seriousness that sucks, I hope it's best-case scenario and reasonably fixable.

I know, I am someone's dogsitter/walker. Like I said: my parents haven't found anyone they'd trust with him. I don't ordinarily mind it (hey, I get the house to myself for a week), and as long as we can find another cheap flight, I'll go later in the spring. There are a variety of reasons why leaving the dog to someone else's care is not practical, feasible, or wise, and I'll leave it at that.

Because all of our family members live 500+ miles away! Well, essentially. We have no family here and don't know anyone willing to handle an 80lb standard poodle with separation anxiety.

Part of the 'ticked off' is that my parents get to go see them twice a year, but I have to stay home with the dog, and it's only because my mother is sick that I was going to be sent off as the emissary. My brother/SIL do want to see me, it's just I haven't been able to go.

Was going to fly out today to visit my brother, SIL, and my nephews for my littler nephew's 1st birthday - big deal, as I haven't seen the older one since he was 8 months old, never met the little one, and haven't flown anywhere since before 9-11. But the weather came, the flight is cancelled, and there aren't any free seats (with this airline) til the 18th. So, no flight, no trip, no mini-nephew's birthday. Ticked off, frustrated, and sad.

Yesterday, I told a kid (with absolute sincerity) that he'd done a really good job sticking with a kid about twice his size in a battle for the puck during a drill. He absolutely lit up. Best part of coaching.

The Glantz clinic I went to outside of Boston was good, but it probably varies depending on where you are. Laura Stamm clinics (if there is one near you - (Oakland?) also take adults - same deal, powerskating, edgework, etc. Weekend Warriors kind of depends on how many players and what kind of experience - some of the camps split folks into a more novice and a more intermediate group. However, if it is a very small camp, you are likely to get a lot of individual attention either way.

The new league jerseys run stupidly small (2XL by this manufacturer is roughly equivalent to CCM's L), so I fixed mine. Cannibalized an old jersey, put in some side panels. Doesn't look half bad, imho. And now for my next trick, to see if it holds up in a game.

Daughter, actually. 6-year-old Olympic hopeful, maybe?

Parent told his kid not to bother passing or trying to pass because "no one's going to be there anyway" and then asked me to confirm that, "it doesn't matter because no one else can pass at this level, right?" Man, it's called Learn to Play for a reason (in this case, 4 - 6ish). I tried to play it neutral and said "Well, everyone's learning. It's a process." I am not sure that went over well... (The thing of it is, the kid and a couple of others were actually passing pretty well with each other. I mean no one here is making Stanley-Cup-winning tic-tac-toe plays here, but the puck is getting from Player A to Player B with reasonable consistency.)

A nice change from the various Parents Behaving Badly was the guy at the association meeting last night praising me and the other LTP coaches, in front of the association's president.

The kids I coach are starting to figure things out; they now look like miniature beer leaguers instead of semi-mobile pylons. Go kids go.

Might just might have a line on a job. Not full time or anything, but work is work. Now just wondering what kind of sacrifice I have to perform for the fickle Employment Gods to smile on me...

Nothing seems to be going right lately. Late January through March is a tenuous time of year for me mental-health-wise anyway, even without everything going on.

See if a doc will prescribe you codeine cough syrup. Even if it doesn't totally quell the cough, you'll stop caring. (in seriousness, coughs suck, hope you feel better.)

My mother is in the hospital with a mass and fluid in her abdomen. (she actually went in because she had abnormally low sodium levels, but guess why that was...)

Ouch. Hope it's not bad & you recover quickly.

It's a bit of a sticky situation in terms of who has authority to do what. The program coordinator is only there for the first set of kids, and since I'm there for both sessions (and have no kids of my own), I wind up being sort of default-responsible during the second hour. But I still have to go to the coordinator for "what's the protocol on handling [x]". It's not like I don't have experience dealing with the rowdy and/or intoxicated in other, non-hockey situations, it's a frustrating question of 'what am I allowed to do and who do I rely on for backup'. It's a potential safety thing. We're in a holding pattern over it at the moment, that is, I am waiting for the coordinator to get back to me about what the association president says about the situation.

This is my third year coaching, so I'm still quite new to the whole business, but this is the most difficult situation I've been faced with yet. The first year, there was just one guy who needed a reminder to back off and let the coaches do our jobs for the hour. Last year, I already knew a lot of the parents, and it was a great group of folks. As far as the kids, across the board they're good kids, a couple can be frustrating, but I'm sure I could be a pretty frustrating kid myself, so I do the best I can. I work with the learn-to-play kids, so between the littler ones and the bigger ones, I've got about sixty kids to remember. I'm lucky they all have their names on their helmets... What I hate most about this parent situation (inappropriate behavior at the rink) is that I'm afraid the kid - who's a good kid, enthusiastic and clearly loves to be on the ice - is going to get caught in the middle and suffer indirectly because of the whole mess.

Difficult situation with hockey parents continues, unabated.

One parent cools down, another parent heats up. Worrying that I didn't handle the situation as well (as assertively) as I could have, and hoping it's not a conflict I'll have to deal with again. I understand a parent being worried about their kid's safety, and it stemmed from a valid point initially. (We're a learn-to-play program with a wide discrepancy in age, size, and experience, even within the age groups (4-7/8 and 7/8 - 10), and sometimes smallish 7/8 year olds are playing with much bigger 9/10 year olds - usually, all I have to do is remind the bigger kids that they need to watch themselves, they heed, life goes on.) But having sharp words with some poor kid (who is not yours) over the boards isn't okay, and I wished I'd done a better job to making it clear to Parent that on-ice safety is the coaches' responsibility and we'll handle it. It was something I hadn't had to deal with before, had no one else to back me up, and no clear instruction on how to handle Parent Issues .

My dogwalking - client? boss? - asked if I could dogsit over Christmas, and I had to say no because I've got a lot going on (including a medical thing which will put me out for a day) that week, but I still feel terrible about it because I've been working for him/the dog for two years and I know it's very hard to get a dogsitter on short notice over a holiday. Frustrating situation.