Welcome fellow coaches!

[Stewie 721]

8 hours ago, JR Boucicaut said:

Well, the head coach for my wife's team asked me to take over the duties for next year.  I accepted.

He retired from his job and wants to be free to travel with his family.

We started our playoffs (they do a tournament weekend) yesterday with me behind the bench as the head coach was in his own playoffs for his league.   We won 1-0.

Try coaching your wife.  I've gotten the "is he pissed at me because I criticized" look from the head coach/assistant coach to my wife being salty on the bench because she doesn't want to take orders from her husband...

Thank goodness you have that comfy ass couch, Bouce

[badger_14 601]

On 3/22/2018 at 1:26 PM, Santos L Halper said:

People like the horse's ass that is in charge of OP's town's organization see a group of guys and girls that don't have kids involved - and yet, simply because they love hockey (and maybe want to teach a kid or two to love it as well), are STILL willing to coach...thereby sacrificing any semblance of a normal social/family life... 

....and then discourage their participation.

That attitude is so idiotic I have a hard time fathoming how it ever gets perpetuated.

The people that don't "have a dog in the fight" are the coaches that we should be ENCOURAGING - not driving out of the game.  

I think there's a sense (among parents) that other parents are going to be more trustworthy generally - we've spent a good 40 years steeping folks in "stranger danger" and hockey is a fairly insular community/sport on its own.  But I also like to point out that in general, people don't care if their children's teachers are parents or not - and if someone is willing and able and wants to share their enjoyment of a sport or activity with others, why not welcome them in?

I don't think, 90% of the time, that a parent intentionally favors his or her own child.  But it happens, of course.  And if you limit yourself to parent volunteers, you run into the practical limit of how many able, willing parents you have available.  When I coached in Learn to Play, I ended up being the default "in charge" person for the older age group, because the guy who was technically the director had to leave with his own kids for other activities and couldn't stay.  I was simply the only one there for the whole two hours or so.  (and had to deal with occasional bouts of crazy with very little backup).

And, as noted, sometimes players just listen better to someone who isn't legally or biologically related to them.  My classmate is a goalie, and skates with her wife, but their teammates have all categorically told her that no, they cannot play together next season, because they just get too worked up.

[RayJ24 5]

Good day -

I am in my first year coaching 8U for two of my kids.  I last played at the club level in college, taking a good decade off any ice and any watching the sport at all while on active duty in the Army.  There was no hockey to speak of in Iraq & Afghanistan.  This thread brought me to a point at which to register on the site and read a little bit as I get back into the game with my son and daughter.

Seeing my kids play caused me to pull out the 652 Tacks from when I was a teenager and lace 'em up again this past winter.  With the outdoor rink a mile away from the house, I was able to get all that ice time that used to be such a premium. What a dream.

Thanks, everyone!

Ray

[Santos L Halper 90]

43 minutes ago, RayJ24 said:

Good day -

I am in my first year coaching 8U for two of my kids.  I last played at the club level in college, taking a good decade off any ice and any watching the sport at all while on active duty in the Army.  There was no hockey to speak of in Iraq & Afghanistan.  This thread brought me to a point at which to register on the site and read a little bit as I get back into the game with my son and daughter.

Seeing my kids play caused me to pull out the 652 Tacks from when I was a teenager and lace 'em up again this past winter.  With the outdoor rink a mile away from the house, I was able to get all that ice time that used to be such a premium. What a dream.

Thanks, everyone!

Ray

Greetings and welcome, Ray!

First off, a sincere "thank you" to your for your service to our country.  Your and your family's bravery and sacrifices are appreciated.  

 

47 minutes ago, RayJ24 said:

I am in my first year coaching 8U for two of my kids.  [...] This thread brought me to a point at which to register on the site and read a little bit as I get back into the game with my son and daughter....

Ahhhh....coaching your own kids.  Speaking from my experience, it can be at once the most rewarding and terrible experience a coach can have.  That "dad/coach - coach/dad" dichotomy is occasionally difficult for everyone to manage and requires healthy doses of love, patience, humor, and understanding to successfully navigate.  If I were to give any advice, it would be to enjoy every minute of it.  Our kids grow up so quick and those hours we get to spend on the ice teaching them to love the game that we love should be the happiest of our - AND their - lives!

 

1 hour ago, RayJ24 said:

...

Seeing my kids play caused me to pull out the 652 Tacks from when I was a teenager and lace 'em up again this past winter. 

Yikes!  Get yourself some new skates!  

(Of course, you probably weren't a teenager as long ago as I was - so maybe they're not all that old after all....)

[10013005 30]

7 hours ago, RayJ24 said:

Good day -

I am in my first year coaching 8U for two of my kids.  I last played at the club level in college, taking a good decade off any ice and any watching the sport at all while on active duty in the Army.  There was no hockey to speak of in Iraq & Afghanistan.  This thread brought me to a point at which to register on the site and read a little bit as I get back into the game with my son and daughter.

Seeing my kids play caused me to pull out the 652 Tacks from when I was a teenager and lace 'em up again this past winter.  With the outdoor rink a mile away from the house, I was able to get all that ice time that used to be such a premium. What a dream.

Thanks, everyone!

Ray

lots of free resources and knowledge out there that can make a world of difference in helping your kids improve faster and get more fun out of their hockey. if you have any questions just ask.

 

someone started another thread with regards to the old howie meeker hockey school clips on CBC. they were made before I was born but lots of very demanding but effective drills for young kids: http://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/howie-meeker-hockey-school-puck-control-and-the-snapshot

howie's drills for the most part are pretty timeless, lots of good skills and skating coaches I work with nowadays still do things adhering to those same basic principles.

[RayJ24 5]

On 4/10/2018 at 4:41 PM, 10013005 said:

lots of free resources and knowledge out there that can make a world of difference in helping your kids improve faster and get more fun out of their hockey. if you have any questions just ask.

Thanks for the link within the previous response regarding those timeless drills and activities.  When it comes to player rotations, can anyone share some of their lessons learned when it comes to meaningful or equal playing time ?

Thus far, I've watched minutes very closely wanting to protect that aspect, which has been a distraction during play, making my teaching pretty choppy during the first couple of months.

Edited April 13, 2018 by RayJ24

[Santos L Halper 90]

1 hour ago, RayJ24 said:

Thanks for the link within the previous response regarding those timeless drills and activities.  When it comes to player rotations, can anyone share some of their lessons learned when it comes to meaningful or equal playing time ?

Thus far, I've watched minutes very closely wanting to protect that aspect, which has been a distraction during play, making my teaching pretty choppy during the first couple of months.

At the 8U level, I tend to agree with the USA Hockey ADM philosophy of enforcing equal minutes via a forced line change at a whistle or scoreboard buzzer every 90 - 120 seconds.  That way, we, as coaches, don't have to think so much about who's had more (or less...) ice time - we just split our kids into roughly equal groups and change at every buzzer.  The way I see it, there will be plenty of opportunities in the older age groups to shorten our benches while chasing victories - but 8U is NOT the time to start that.  

As far as 'meaningful minutes' go, as trite as it sounds, we can't let ourselves forget that these are kids, NOT mini adults.  Especially at 8U, kids' motivations are different than ours - thus minutes we might consider especially 'meaningful' as adults may not have any special significance to the average 8U player.  Put differently, individual kids (generally) don't care if they're the ones relied on to be on the ice with 1:30 to go in a one goal game...they just want to be on the ice, have fun, score goals, and celebrate afterwards with their teammates, greasy pizza, and overpriced video games.

Don't worry about choppy teaching.  Kids are generally episodic learners - meaning any overall theme you might be trying to establish will likely be lost on them anyway.  Get the teaching you can done within the framework you have to operate and, above all, keep them smiling.  If the kids you coach at 8U are excited to sign up for 10U, then you've done a great job!

[beerleaguecaptain 999]

On 4/13/2018 at 12:56 PM, RayJ24 said:

Thanks for the link within the previous response regarding those timeless drills and activities.  When it comes to player rotations, can anyone share some of their lessons learned when it comes to meaningful or equal playing time ?

Thus far, I've watched minutes very closely wanting to protect that aspect, which has been a distraction during play, making my teaching pretty choppy during the first couple of months.

I coached kids for about 10 years and always felt y job was first and foremost to give every player an experience they enjoyed and second that they grew up a bit and earned about themselves and the game.  To that end I always made it a habit to make sure minutes were evenly distributed.  As the kids got older the only caveat was if we were trying to win a playoff game we might make some power play or penalty kill choices late in a game but thats about it.  To me if I played weaker kids at the end of a game down a man early in the season than they knew I trusted them and they learned to to do it when we really needed them to late in the season.  That type of growth is priceless.