Hockey Books

A fellow parent on my son’s youth hockey team asked for a list of hockey book I recommend. I offer the following with the caveat that these are books I read, and there are others out there I have still yet to read or find.

Any list of hockey book begins with Ken Dryden. Simply put Dryden’s writings are a distant first and lead the pack in the same way Secretariat won the Preakness.  Dryden played goalie for the 1970s Montreal Canadians Dynasty winning multiple Stanly Cups. During that run, Dryden took a year off of hockey to complete his law education and apprenticeship. He returned to the Canadians to etch his name a couple more times into sport’s greatest trophy. Following his playing career Dryden served in Canada’s Parliament. His writing captures the heart of what it means to be a hockey player, but further gives his readers insights into the history and evolution of the game. His first book The Game, is not only the best hockey book ever written, it’s arguably the greatest sports book ever written.

The Game by Ken Dryden

Best Quote: “Nothing is as good as it used to be, and it never was. The “golden age of sports,” the golden age of anything, is the age of everyone’s childhood.”

Summary: The best sports book ever written. Dryden’s first book takes the reader through his final year on the Canadians, the last year his team would win the Stanley Cup. But more than a memoir of his time on the ice, Dryden exposes the reader to the feelings of hockey players; what they think and why. Moreover, Dryden provides his broader philosophies of hockey and of life.

Game Change, The Life and Death of Steve Montador and the Future of Hockey by Ken Dryden

Best Quote: “Very few goals are scored in a game; very few can be allowed. Offence is about opportunities; defence is about mistakes.”

Summary: Steve Montador died in 2015. An examination of his brain following his death led to a diagnosis of CTE, a condition we increasingly find in football players and other athletes who suffer repeated blows to the head. Dryden uses Montador’s story, his career arc as the background in examining the evolution of the game, and the intersection of modern science, medicine, and sports. Dryden does a deep dive into the impacts of concussions and offers perspectives of ways hockey can evolve and become a better, safer game.

Scotty, A Hockey Life Like No Other by Ken Dryden

Best Quote: “Most prodigies never play Carnegie Hall. In their lives, so focused on learning the notes, they never create their own music.”

Summary: Ken Dryden provides a unique biography of perhaps the hockey’s greatest coach, Scotty Bowman. Dryden does this by walking the reader through Bowman’s life filled in with interviews of Scotty talking about the greatest hockey teams of all time, from the 70s Canadians to the 80s Islanders and Oilers, to the 90s/00s Red Wings to the 2010s Blackhawks. Bowman offers a unique perspective behind each of these teams. By chronicling these teams, Dryden and Bowman also provide a history of the evolution of hockey.

Hockey books provide us more than insight into the game at the professional level, there are a couple terrific books that discuss hockey at the youth level.

Let Them Lead: Unexpected Lessons in Leadership from America's Worst High School Hockey Team by John Bacon

Best Quote: “I don’t buy for a second the notion of “quality time.” There’s only time, and wherever you spend it, that’s what you care about—and everyone knows it.”

Summary: John Bacon spends a year chronicling how he turned a historically bad hockey team to a constant championship contender. While the book certainly paints a picture of Michigan high school hockey, it is more of a leadership book whose lessons can apply to business, the military, or any other organization that prides itself on leader development. Bacon details how he implemented simple rules, changed the culture of his team, and gave ownership of the team’s outcome to the players. His book is a nice reminder that the ultimate form of respect is self-respect. And when your team respects itself, the possibilities are endless. 

Pee Wees: Confessions of a Hockey Parent by Rich Cohen

Best Quote: “He can’t skate the cones and doesn’t nail the drills. All he can do is play hockey.”

Summary: Rich takes the time to tell the story of his son’s year in Pee Wee hockey. His son plays in Fairfield Connecticut, a fairly wealthy suburb of New York City. Throughout the book Cohen details some of the insanity that is filling the ranks of youth sports. The pressure cooker of tryouts that tell very little about character, leadership, and work ethic…the most important traits of a hockey player.  

While players and coaches can provide insider information, Gare Joyce, a sports writer went inside the world of scouts and has provided the hockey reader innumerable insights into the game. The thought and effort he gives to writing about life in the juniors is invaluable to someone looking to understand how one advances from youth hockey to the pros.

Future Greats and Heartbreaks: A Year Undercover in the Secret World of NHL Scouts by Gare Joyce.

Best Quote: “Those who play and those who played see a different game than even the most dedicated spectator…It is proven every year.”

Summary: If there is a writer who comes in a distant second to Ken Dryden, it’s Gare Joyce. In this book Joyce travels the world watching high level junior hockey tournaments throughout Canada, the U.S., and Europe. He comes across a multitude of future NHL stars to include Patrick Kaine, Phil Kessel, and Sidney Crosby in their teenage years. What’s fascinating about the book is the details about the game and about players Joyce picks up by talking to other players. In a sense, the best scouts aren’t the ones who sit in the stands, it’s the ones who sit in the locker rooms and skate on the ice with their peers. But for every future star spending their youth in junior hockey, away from their parents, and away from a normal childhood, Joyce comes across scores of others who will never play in one game in the NHL.

Most Valuable: How Sidney Crosby Became the Best Player in Hockey's Greatest Era and Changed the Game Forever by Gare B. Joyce

Best Quote: “In hockey’s first century the NHL provided jobs to hundreds of players who would have told you that hockey was a game; for the most deeply invested, a passion. Now, however, for those who are even reasonably aspiring to the NHL, hockey must be pursued with a professional rigour.”

Summary: A terrific book that looks at the hockey life of Sidney Crosby, from his time growing up in Cole Harbour to his multiple Olympic Gold Medals, World Championships, Stanley Cups, and unfortunately concussions. While Crosby serves as the central character of the book, Gare goes beyond the biography aspect to detail the inner workings of hockey from the junior levels through the NHL. There are the behind the scenes details such as providing a description of how the Canadian team was able to defeat the Americans in the 2010 Olympic finals (Crosby’s Golden Goal). Moreover, Gare provides insights into the evolution of the game since the 2005 lockout year. The game is faster and values speed, skating, an skill over size and toughness. Stars of today stand up for themselves, because keeping an enforcer or a fighter on the roster puts a team at a disadvantage.

Behind the Bench: Inside the Minds of Hockey's Greatest Coaches by Craig Custance

Best Quote: “You never know where you’re getting your best idea. It could be from your rookie player, it could be from your power skating instructor, it could be from the guy who cooks breakfast. You have to be open-minded.”

Summary: Another hockey book that is more in the lines of a leadership book. Behind the Bench is a look at the minds and methods of eleven of the best hockey coaches in the game today. More than a discussion of Xs and Os, Custance takes a unique perspective, and turns a hockey book into a leadership book, similar to what one would find in the business section of the local Barnes and Noble. Custance leadership themes that run throughout the book include the ability to manage talent, the role of luck, and the role of self-reflection, enabling leaders to engage as lifelong students of their profession.

Aligned with leadership books are those that speak to innovative tactics and coaching techniques.

Tape to Space: Redefining Modern Hockey Tactics by Ryan Stimson

Best Quote: “Ideally, positions shouldn’t matter. From when they are first starting out, children should be taught how to read and react to various situations regardless of their designated position.”

Summary:  The author takes a different look at how hockey should be played. In defiance of conventional wisdom, the author advocates for fewer systems and less defined positions in favor of players who can constantly stay in motion, read the opposing team and developing plays and skate accordantly. Five players acting as one in lieu of disparate offense and defense positioning. The innovative concepts in this book are not however appropriate for youth level, but rather for advanced higher level leagues, high level juniors, college, and professional hockey.  

Tropic of Hockey: My Search for the Game in Unlikely Places by Dave Bidini

Best Quotes: “Sports taps into emotions we guard for the rest of our waking hours. Those who play sports, or who pledge love for their favorite teams, often find it impossible to express these feelings to wives, husbands, or children. We use games to vent our spirit, behaving in ways we can’t at work or home.”

Though we frame sport as singular events, they exist in a realm of perpetual play. Wins become losses that become victories. The score is inconsequential as long as you keep playing.”

Summary: An interesting travel type book that chronicles the author travelling to unique places to play hockey. In some ways this book is a travel memoir or travel blog and less a hockey book. But the best sports writing is when you write about something other than is tangential to the sport. Bidini tells us about his playing in seventh story of a mall in Hong Kong, in the city of Harbin in northern China, in Dubai in the desert of the United Emirates, and on to Transylvania, where the game is a war between Romanians and ethnic Hungarians, who were introduced to hockey by a 1929 newsreel of Canadians chasing the puck. Each rink has its unique story, some with strange designs and locations, and others with odd rink rats that you find in ice complexes throughout North America. It’s a fascinating tale and serves as a good reminder that no matter where you find yourself on earth, you can find someone like yourself.

Belfry Hockey by Darryl Belfry

Best Quote: “Often we don’t really know what “good” is until we see someone who’s actually good, and that goes for everything…. if you can skate and pass the puck, you can play at any level.”

Summary: A book for coaches that are looking to use more advanced ways to train their players and their teams. Belfry offers his ideas on how to slow drills down to focus on technique and skills then speed them up to game type situations.

Take Your Eye Off the Puck: How to Watch Hockey By Knowing Where to Look by Greg Wyshynski

Best Quote: “hockey is actually the perfect marriage of strategy and ingenuity; of preparation and improvisation; and of wisdom and will.”

Summary: This is a terrific book for kids, or anyone new to the game and who wants to gain a deeper understanding of the way hockey is played in today’s era. Often, the average spectator watches a game in the way mites or squirts play the game, by focusing on the puck, or the player with the puck. However, hockey is a game of rapid and continual movement by all players. Indeed, like in soccer, it is the players who don’t have the puck and move to the right space that put their teams in a position of relative advantage. 

Burke's Law: A Life in Hockey by Brian Burke

Best Quote: “He was always three steps ahead. Visionaries look and see the next mountain and ask, “How do we get there?” Gary looks ahead and sees six mountains.

Summary: In this book, Brian Burke, architect of a Stanley Cup winning Anaheim details his thoughts on the best way to build a hockey team and to compete for the Stanley Cup. Along the way Burke tells the story of his hockey career, one in which he comes across all the famous names in hockey. Burke discusses how he had to deal with the league, other coaches, and the media as a General Manager. The flaw behind Burke’s theory of building a hockey team is that it’s meant for a bygone era. In the age of free-agency, general managers and head coaches must work with the players they can accumulate and modify their system to the talent they have, not the talent they wish to have (to paraphrase Don Rumsfeld’s quote of “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish to have”).

The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team by Wayne Coffey.

Summary: Decent book about the 1980 U.S. Men's Hockey Team. The author uses the game as a background to provide short biographical sketches of each member of the team. Unfortunately, this method leads to a distortion of the timeline of the game, and of events leading up to the game. There were some neat details on a few of the players, (Jim Craig went to Norwich for a week), and one player clearly had OCD. Despite the jumbled timeline, by giving each player his due, Coffey’s book will give you insights into the 1980 Olympic Hockey Team you find anywhere else.

No One Wins Alone: A Memoir by Mark Messier

Best Quote: “he was mindful of another painful recent lesson he’d learned. One minute you’re one of us. The next minute, you’re a guy in a suit who doesn’t play. You might have played once, but this isn’t what you do anymore. There’s a bigger wall there than you’d expect.”

Summary: A recap of the hockey life of one of the greatest players and leaders in the game. Messier takes the reader from his time in youth hockey through all the success of the 1980s Oilers and through his time leading the New York Rangers to their first Stanley Cup in 44 years.   

Home Ice: Reflections on Backyard Rinks and Frozen Ponds by Jack Falla

Open Ice: Reflections and Confessions of a Hockey Lifer by Jack Falla

Best Quote: "I’ve never been unhappy on the rink." 

I group Jack Falla’s books together because if you read one then you will read the other.

Home Ice is a collection of essays that center around Fall’s backyard rink. The rink serves as the main character who is at the center of Falla’s life events. The rink provides everlasting memories for the author as a husband, as a father, and as a friend to all those around him.

Open Ice is more of a collection of essays that describe Falla’s personal relationship to the game. Like any great sports writing the book is about something more than hockey. Open Ice is about family relationships, relationships to friends, and how gaps continually open and close within them. When you are apart of the game for 50-years, it becomes apparent that you can’t separate the personal and professional aspects of the game. Hockey is part of who you are, how you relate to other people, and how you mark the steps of your life.   

The Science of Hockey: The Math, Technology, and Data Behind the Sport by Kevin Snow and John Vogl

Best Quote: “that black slab of vulcanized rubber was the greatest thing he’d ever seen”

Summary: An interesting book that describes the details of the game on the ice, off the ice, and on the details of the ice itself. Indeed, the authors tell us how thick most rinks keep the ice sheet which often depends on how often the ice is used. Other interesting notes include how teams approach the draft, injury prevention and recovery, and how NHL teams are adapting to sports science.

Breakaway: From Behind the Iron Curtain to the NHL—The Untold Story of Hockey’s Great Escapes by Tal Pinchevsky

Best Quote: ““I've learned to expect nothing from the Russians and I am never disappointed,”

Summary: Pinchevsky details the early years of Eastern European hockey players and their defections to the NHL. Before the famous Russians such as Federov, Larionov, and Fetisov, there were the Stastnys of Czechoslovakia, Petr Klima, and Peter Bondra. In some ways the details of how these players were able to defect to the West to play in the NHL reads like a spy thriller as players had to avoid the never blinking eye of the KGB and other communist nation agencies. The book is easy to follow as each chapter presents its own story behind various players and their journey (often with their family) from the grips of the Iron Curtain to the ice sheets of the NHL.

The Russian Five: A Story of Espionage, Defection, Bribery and Courage by Keith Gave

Best Quote: “The only place you can really identify a hockey player is on the ice, in the game”

Summary: In this book Keith Gave tells the story of how Sergei Fedorov, Viacheslav Fetisov, Vladimir Konstantinov, Vyacheslav Kozlov and Igor Larionov left the Soviet Union to join the NHL and eventually skate together to form the nucleus of a Red Wings Dynasty under Scotty Bowman. Like the previous book, this one reads like another spy thriller with secret meetings and bribes to public officials. The Russian Five brought with them their theory of hockey that the best form of defense was control of the puck. The book will make you search on YouTube videos of the Russian Five skating together and making opposing lines look like Squirts on the ice.

Draft Day: How Hockey Teams Pick Winners or Get Left Behind by Doug MacLean and Scott Morrison

Best Quote: “There is life after hockey, but hockey will always be a part of my life.”

Summary: One of the great hockey coaches and gerneral managers Doug MacLean provides his thoughts and insights on what it takes to build a hockey team through the draft. More than simple ideas, MacLean takes the reader on a history of the NHL draft that looks at the hits and misses over the years. Every year ther are first round busts and late round bloomers underscoring how it’s hard to make predictions on the future path of teenagers.

The Seven A.M. Practice by Roy MacGregor

Best Quote: “We can’t win at home, we can’t win on the road. My failure as a coach is that I can’t think of anywhere else to play.”  

In this book, the author tells his own tales of being a parent and supporting his children in their youthful endeavors, which of course means driving kids to practice before the sun rises in frigid winter mornings. The book serves as a reminder to those currently watching our children grow up on the ice rink, the baseball diamond, the tennis court, or the football field that these are the golden years of parenthood, and for most kids who will never go on to play at the highest levels, it is their golden years of sports. The 7 A.M. practice may suck at the time, but when their gone you will spend the rest of your life wishing to have them back.

The Home Team: Fathers, Sons, & Hockey by Roy MacGregor

Best Quote: “When I look up, I see my father, and I see what he is dreaming: Dunc, forever young, skating faster and faster through life”

 A profound story of some of hckey’s greatest stars and their relationship to their fathers. The book tells the personal tale of these relationships with Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey and Marty McSorley during their famous tour of Europe. Other families discussed in this book include the Howes, the Hulls, the Dineens, and the Drydens. The story if the Hulls stands out with the telling of Bobby Hull (the Golden Jet) and his troubles marriage along with his absentee relationship with his son Brett.

The Last Season by Roy MacGregor

Best Quote: “A player like Matti doesn’t understand that the game is not the puck, the game is the flow, and that concept you cannot teach.”  

A work of fiction by Roy MacGregor, and one of the better hockey fiction books out there. The story follows Felix Batterinski, a hockey player from Northern Ontario who earns his way as a fighter and as an enforcer for the Stanley Cup Champion Flyers. Following his playing career, Batterinski turns to work as a player-coach in Finland, where a controversial incident becomes the catalyst for his tragic downfall.

Wayne Gretzky’s Ghost: And Other Tales from a Lifetime in Hockey by Roy Macgregor

Best Quote: “Hockey is the dance of life, an affirmation that despite the deathly chill of winter we are alive.”

Second Best Quote: “Goaltenders form almost a secret society within the hockey world, so caught up in their own world that they have virtually created a second one for themselves.”

After Wayne Gretzky retired from playing hockey, Roy MacGregor was hired to ghost write some articles for #99 the following season. The book has these columns, then expands to include the author’s works over several decades.

Herb Brooks: The Inside Story of a Hockey Mastermind by John Gilbert

Best Quote: “having the best play the best can accelerate the development of a small group, but it also leads to self-fulfilling prophecy in which merely identifying elite players can be mistaken for developing them.”

A nice biography of Herb Brooks, who although famous for coaching the 1980 U.S. Hockey Team to Olympic Gold was brilliant in his other coaching endeavors. Brooks turned around high school teams, the University of Minnesota Hockey Team, coached reasonably well in Europe, and had a winning record as coach of the New York Rangers (a team that played in the same Division of the NY Islanders during their dynasty years). Brooks was a leader and an innovator, and a true champion of USA Hockey.

The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association by Ed Willis

Best Quote: “Everyone says it’s the coaches who teach you the game, but it’s the players you play with and against. You learn by observing, and you learn through competition.”

A fascinating book the chronicles the World Hockey Association. The WHA came into existence during the time of alternate leagues of professional sports evidenced by the WBA, World Team Tennis, and eventually the USFL. The WHA changed the game and advanced it to a more recognizable and enjoyable game we watch today. Indeed, the WHA not only threw massive amounts of money to stars like Bobby Hull, they signed 18-year olds to contracts at a time when the NHL minimum age was 20. Thus Wayne Gretzky signing with Indianapolis and being sold to Edmonton ensured the star didn’t have to wait to turn 20 to play professionally. The WHA was also innovative in signing more Europeans who would change the face (and pace) of the game.

Draft Day: How Hockey Teams Pick Winners or Get Left Behind by Doug MacLean and Scott Morrison

Best Quote: “There is life after hockey, but hockey will always be part of my life.”

The authors detail what goes into selecting players for the NHL draft. From developing a solid scouting department to the value of in-person interviews and observations of each player, the book paints the picture of how players are selected and later developed. The authors provide a lot of insights, and help the reader understand that not all high selections are sure fire hits, and that how a team invests in and develops a player can be more important than the talent they were selected for.

Columbus Day in DC

7 October

Columbus Day Weekend this year means a hockey tournament in the greater DC area. Living as a geographic bachelor means driving back to Williamsburg at 5 AM every weekend. This weekend means driving 35 minutes to a Hampton Inn near Dulles Airport. Saying you’re in DC while staying and skating by Dulles is like saying you’re in New York City but living on Staten Island.   

I meet Jill, Sabrina, and Brendan at the hotel Friday night. The drive from Williamsburg took them a little less than three hours but following a full week of school and work they are all fairly tired. Other families arrive at the hotel throughout the day, mostly driving from the greater Norfolk and Virginia Beach area. The latter means driving across the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel (HRBT) on a Friday afternoon. This can add 90 minutes to the drive.

A modern-day Dante could use the sitting in traffic at the HRBT as a special level of hell. Traffic often backs up 4-6 miles in both direction, and when that traffic builds up is completely unpredictable. Break downs in the tunnel happen at all times in the day. Couches and mattresses fall off pick-up trucks. Tailgaters serve as catalysis in 12-car pile ups. When I drive Brendan to hockey games in Viriginia Beach I often leave the house two hours prior to the first faceoff. Sometimes we stop for a coffee because I have an hour to spare, and other times Brendan barely makes it on the ice for pregame warmups.

In planning for the tournament Jill and I signed Sabrina up for a tennis tournament in McClean. Rather than force her to sit in a cold ice rink watching her brother play, we take advantage of a local tennis tournament lining up on the weekend of a hockey tournament. This is a tactic we will attempt to replicate as often as we can. In this case, the tactic pays off larger than expected as Sabrina wins her first USTA tournament. She had come in second place in previous events, but the trip to the outer-rim of DC results in the first gold medal around her neck.

8 October

The first game of the weekend starts at 8 in the morning. It takes 30 minutes to drive to the rink. We backwards plan to figure out what time we should wake up in the morning. Taking in time for pregame warmups, the time to get equipment on, and eating a small breakfast at the hotel, we wake up at six. It’s dark, it’s early, it’s what it means to be a youth hockey parent.

The first game is close with a score of 2-2 after the first period. The play was balanced with both goalies making solid saves. In the three years Brendan has been skating in youth hockey I largely conclude that youth goaltending is unpredictable. There is a wide range of talent, and like every position in every youth sport, size and maturity matter just as much as talent. Even talented goalies who have yet to reach adolescent growth spurts struggle to cover areas of the net that will eventually become routine saves later in life. In this game both goalies have talent which is refreshing to see.

A couple minutes into the second period the opposing team has a player shoot out for what looks like a breakaway. Brendan is playing forward, skates hard for a backcheck and knocks the puck away from the attacker. A teammate takes the puck the other way, and seconds later the Warriors have a 3-2 lead. This is the goal that breaks the proverbial floodgates, and at the end of the game the Warriors are on top with an 8-2 victory.

Brendan’s backcheck exhibits one of the most overlooked aspects of team sports. When someone scores a goal, a basket, or a touchdown, it is often the result of a series of actions, passes, or blocks that lead to the points. After the game I talk to Brendan about the play as an example of how it takes a team to win the game. Within the team every player has a role. Finding and accepting that role can be difficult if it means serving in a new role. In the house league Brendan is a consistent goal scorer. The travel team doesn’t need Brendan to score all the goals, rather it needs him to score, make a pass, or hustle to a critical backcheck.  

In the movie Miracle, Coach Herb Brooks tells the officials at USA Hockey that assembling an all-star team won’t cut it to beat the Russians. It’s an important point because in hockey the five players on the ice must complement each other. There are players who want the puck all the time (think Gretzky and Crosby) and there are players that want the puck at the right time (think about the one-timers of Hull, Ovetchkin). There are players who excel in open space and there are players who create open space. There are players who can steal the puck in the open ice and there are players who will fight for the puck in the corners. This general rule applies at the youth level through the NHL.

Our second game begins later in the afternoon and is the same time Sabrina’s tennis tournament begins. The game is a blowout in every way with the Warriors walking off the ice at the sound of the buzzer with a 14-0 win. Brendan has been on the other side of this dynamic, and it’s his first time winning like this. I ask him how he feels, and he has mixed feelings. On one hand he was happy to have a big win, but on the other hand he understands that the win was a little too comfertable. We’ve had dinner conversations before where we talk how nothing worthwhile in life comes easy.

Hockey is a sport where it’s hard to mitigate blow out games. Sometimes the third period will go under a running clock, but that’s really the extent of what you can do. There’s no mercy rule like baseball, and you can’t kneel down on the ball and run out the clock. It’s dangerous in any contact sport not to play 100%, because there’s someone on the other side who is no matter what the scoreboard says. Getting lazy is the shortest way to getting injured.   

Coach Tony tells the kids to execute more passes before shooting, and moves some of the more prolific goal scorers to defense. After the later goals the coaches tell the kids to line up at center ice for the faceoff, not giving them the time or space to celebrate. So despite the lopsided score, there are some lessons in sportsmanship. The passing guidance however became a double-edged sword, more passing means more puck movement which means more opportunities to score. Hopefully the players observed this as well and can take that to games against more equal competition.

Following the game Brendan and I drive back to the hotel. For the first time I do my best not to talk about the game. In his book Every Moment Matters, author John O’Sullivan talks about the ride home being the worst moment to try to teach a child something about sports, teamwork, life, or generally anything at all. It’s best to let kids process the game in their own way as any questions or comments, no matter how well intentioned can create resentment. I focus my words on telling Brendan I enjoyed watching him play (which is true) and can’t wait for the next game. If Brendan wants to talk about the game I’ll listen but stay in listening mode. It’s a new concept for me, and one that I have to focus on to practice, but it already seems to pay dividends.

9 October.

Because the 8 AM game wasn’t early enough on Saturday, our Sunday game starts at 7:10. This means getting up at 5:30 and prayer that the coffee in the lobby is ready for consumption. The coffee is weak and devoid of flavor, but it’s hot and gets me to the Sheetz near the rink where the coffee is better in the same way a steak at Applebee’s is better than the steak at Ruby Tuesdays.

The game is one sided through two periods, but the Warriors don’t run away with a double-digit victory as they did in the previous game. The final score is 7-0, but some interesting dynamics take place.

The talent disparity between the two teams is obvious from the beginning, and the Warriors control the puck for most of the game. But one of the drawbacks of a talent disparity is the temptation to form bad habits. Players all want to score a goal and frequently get out of position attempting to do so. No-look passes are intercepted in situations where a better team would lead to a scoring chance or a goal against.

Air and Space Annex

We get back the hotel and meet Sabrina and Jill in the lobby for a second breakfast. There is no second game on Sunday so most of the parents and players take the time to visit the Air and Space Museum annex. The Udvar-Hazy complex is a short drive from the hotel. Kids from multiple teams are at the museum. Exhibits include the SR-71 Blackbird, the Space Shuttle Discovery, one of the Concordes, the Enola Gay, and the Red Bull capsule Felix Baumgartner jumped from at 120,000 feet. This experience reinforces the idea that travelling for youth sports needs to encompass more than just the games. Museums, amusement parks, professional sports events, and battlefield visits are just a few of the activities we can do. Travel sports is what you make of it, and travel sports can enhance family time instead of being a distraction.  

Sabrina with the Space Shuttle

Later in the evening, the coaches hold a video session with the players. It’s difficult as the video is from one angle and shot on an iPhone. However, the coaches spend time on the video, pausing and inserting graphics. The coaches extend an invitation to the parents but I choose make a run to Wawa for a couple of quesadillas for Brendan and I. I then read on my Kindle in the lobby waiting for the conclusion of the film session.

There is an element of PTSD from my younger days spent in the film room. Athletes who watch film know the specific moments in each game where they did something good, and moments where they made a mistake, even if a coach did not observe the mistake during the game. As the film advances and you know your mistake is about to be magnified to everyone, the anxiety builds. You take the criticism and are thankful when the session is over. There are times when coaches highlight players doing the right thing, but to an athlete one mistake can negate all the good in the game. The video doesn’t lie. That being said it is an effective method to hold players accountable, and at the U10 level, introducing them to this concept seems worthwhile.   

10 October

We get off to a late start, sleeping in until 6:15 to we can arrive in time for an 8:20 faceoff. We have time to sit and eat breakfast in the hotel lobby, and I encourage Brendan to sit with his teammates instead of me. As we continue with hockey I am more and more convinced that I need to step aside more often and let Brendan spend more time talking with his friends and teammates. Small events like eating breakfast with a teammate add up to a more powerful chemistry on the ice. The kids get used to talking to each other. They begin to recognize who their teammate is on the ice when the action is fast. All culminating into more communication on the ice, calling for the puck by saying their teammates name instead of banging their stick on the ice.

There is a larger piece to having Brendan sit with his teammates. I recognize the aspect of Erich Marie Remarque’s observation in his book The Road Back that “youth doesn’t want to be understood; it only wants is to be let alone.”  

The game begins with the Warriors showing some rust, and frankly showing some over confidence. Attempted creativity turns into a blind pass that’s intercepted by the opposing team and leads to an early goal. To me, I can spot the talent gap between the two teams from the start, but the kids are generally oblivious to the most likely outcome.

At the end of the game the scoreboard displays a final score of 10-1, a mitigation as we asked the scorekeeper not to post any more goals after 10. The actual score stands at 15-1. Last tournament I offered how some games teach you nothing except your place. This game has the same effect. The warriors are a level above some of the teams in our bracket. In some ways it’s good to build the confidence of the players, on the other hand, there will be a search to find the right competitive level to play in future tournaments. The Goldilocks reference applied to youth sports. 

The victory inserts the Warriors into final against the Jr. Canes, the team we faced in the opening game. Puck drop is at 3:20, so Brendan and I head back to the hotel to clean up, pack up, and check out. We have a few hours to spare and use that time with a run to Pure Hockey followed by a trip to Ashburn Ice Arena and the pro-shop. There is a dearth of hockey shops in Southern Virginia, so visiting places like Pure Hockey and Hockey Monkey are quickly becoming part of our tournament ritual. Brendan and I also stop for lunch at Chipotle.

Despite eating at Chipotle, Brendan and I are still alive and get to the rink about an hour before the game. Coach Tony likes to spend time before the games with the kids getting them warmed up physically and mentally. Other teams do this too,

Finally, the game kicks off at 3:20 in the afternoon and as one would expect from a championship game, the contest is the toughest of the weekend. When the clock strikes zero, the Warriors have 8, the Junior Canes have 1, but the scoreboard says little about the contest.

Both teams step onto the ice filled with emotion. A combination of internally produced adrenaline and pre-game speeches by the coaches. Both teams contest every puck and there is decisively less room to maneuver on the ice. The high emotional start leads to more body contact culminating in arguably the most skilled player on the team receiving a double minor. Not the best start.

Emotion can be useful in sports, but anyone who played at any level in any game understands that emotion won’t carry you through nine innings, four quarters, or three periods. Emotion is useful for the first batter, the first series, or the first shift, but after that a team relies on it’s skills, chemistry, and depth of talent. Everyone is plays to win, everyone tries hard, and any advice to “try harder” or “want it more” is generally useless advice.  

With a key player sitting in the penalty box, it was time for other kids on the to step up.

And that’s what happened. The Warriors begin to score goals, not by skating through the defense, but by working hard in the corners, getting the puck to a player in front of the goal, and jamming the puck into the back of the net. Brendan scores on a rebound in front of the net, followed by more kids scoring goals and those goals spread over three lines. Everyone contributes. The satisfaction of this win comes down to the Warriors could probably have won, albeit by a different score had they not played well. But they saved their best game for the championship game. There’s a deep satisfaction when that happens.

When the clock struck 0:00, the bench empties and the scene on the ice is a group of 10-year-old kids throwing their gloves in the air and engulfing their goalie. The rink awards the players a banner that will hang up at the home rink, and each player gets a gold medal around their neck. As adults we often forget that for 99% of us the golden age of competitive sports occurs in our childhood. Winning the championship in Beer League at the local rink can never match the magic of winning a hometown little league championship or coming in first place at a hockey tournament. The bonds of friendship are deeper in our youth and sharing those moments with friends creates memories for a lifetime.

They all smile in their moment for the camera with their parents, but the smiles in their conversations I see at a distance with their friends are larger. Youth wants to be left alone.

The largest tell in the championship photos is when they finally leave the ice and take a group picture around the banner. Their eyes look down, their faces a bit drawn, a level of fatigue setting in. At the end of the 1983 Stanly Cup Playoffs, the Oilers walked off the ice having lost the series to the New York Islanders. As they passed by the Islanders locker room, they noticed how tired and worn out the Islanders were. That’s when it finally clicked that winning a title will never come easy, not matter how dominant the team is in the regular season. They took that lesson to heart to win the cup the next year.

A look of fatigue following the championship

In some way there is a moment of jealousy, that feeling when someone else possesses you value which you can no longer attain. It’s like the last line in the move Stand By Me:

“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?”  

First Travel Tournament

Restarting the youth hockey blog I began two years ago as I coached my son’s mite and squirt teams. This year’s thoughts and analysis begin from the parenting perspective. I am no longer behind the bench nor leading and developing practices during the week. Moreover, Brendan begins the year with his select/travel team, and my coaching time and effort focused on the house league. The team is the Hampton Roads Warriors and given that Warrior is a brand of hockey equipment and gear, it makes it easy to purchase t-shirts and sweatshirts with “Warrior” on the front.

The first travel of the year takes us to Middletown New Jersey for a Labor Day tournament. Brendan rides up with Joe, another parent and house league coach. I spend my weekdays in DC, having started a new job back in June, thus drive straight to New Jersey to meet everyone at the rink.

One can often judge the quality of hockey in an area by the facilities. This rink has two full ice surfaces, a coffee shop, skate shop, and a full athletic center which includes outdoor pools. One of the ice sheets has stadium type seating and large scoreboard hanging over center ice. To a child, playing at larger rinks provides a larger than life feel to the game. Indeed, this tournament has music playing between periods, and between faceoffs, a trait that doesn’t normally occur in house league games. Seeing how different communities place value to different sports displayed by the money the local community invests into these facilities is one of the better or educational aspects of travelling within the United States.

In high school, when our tennis team travelled by bus to other schools we could judge the quality of competition by the student parking lot. If the cars in the student lot were nicer than the cars in the teachers lot, we knew we were in for a long day. If the cars in the teachers lot were better than the cars in the student lot, we know we had a chance. In some ways I feel the same way travelling to other rinks…I will not only compare the rink to our home rink, but the cars of hockey parents to help me think about how much time and money they invest into the sport.

Over the summer at our local tennis club, I pointed out to Brendan and Sabrina the composition of the Williams and Mary men’s and women’s tennis team. Players came from all over the state, the country, and the world to include Europe and Asia. This is Brendan’s first full hockey tournament played on a full rink outside of the Hampton Roads area. We played 3-3 tournaments the previous two years, but on a smaller ice surface. Thinking about youth athletic development, its good for Brendan to skate against non-house league teams and gain an understanding of the quality and quantity of hockey players elsewhere in the country. Sooner or later every athlete learns that their individual competition isn’t constrained to their hometown area. Be it hockey, tennis, baseball, or basketball, the competition is global.

Weather it’s war or athletic competition, the ending matters more then the beginning. The team’s first game is Friday evening against the local team. Most of our players just finished a 7-8 hour drive and have yet to play a competitive game with each other. The local team rapidly scores two-goals in the first five minutes of the game, and quickly the feeling drops that the game might get out of hand, and we could be on the short end of double-digit loss. The kids fight back, apply some sustained pressure and sure enough Brendan skates to the right place, a rebound flies directly to his stick, and the first goal of the 22-23 season belongs to Brendan. This serves as a turning point for the team, and at the end of the first period we are down 2-1.

The second period is a back-and-forth affair, the home team scores on a powerplay, but the warriors spring back on the shift to keep it a one-goal game entering the third period. The local team scored to go up 4-2 halfway through the period, and with two and half minutes left the coach pulls the goalie for an extra attacker. The Warriors apply sustained pressure and score with a little less then two minutes left. The goalie quickly skates to the bench following the face off, and after some more sustained pressure the Warriors score again with 19 seconds on the clock. The players on the bench explode, jumping up and down with excitement.

There is no overtime, and the rules of this tournament dictate a sudden death shootout. The local team scores on their first attempt and our player gets off a decent shot but is countered with a better save. We walk away with 1-point and given the juxtaposition of the beginning and the end of the game, it’s hard not to be thrilled. The kids never quit, never got down on themselves or down on each other. The season starts off on the right foot.

In youth sports it’s important to recognize accomplishment and effort. Brendan earns game MVP for the team, and the coach awards him the MVP Triton. Another player earns the silver stick award for hardest worker. Often, in youth sports there are kids who play at a higher level, and game MVP or game ball/puck could go to a small group of players after each game.  Recognizing effort after a week of practice or at the end of game gives every player no matter what their skill an aim point and a reason more than just winning to do their best.

Brendan Earns Game MVP

Taking time to decompress and process intense events is important for adults and children. Our hotel is in Edison, a 30-mintue drive from the rink. This seems inconvenient at first, but it offers time for Brendan to think about the game, and to talk about it in an unemotional way. When we arrive at the hotel, the kids clean up and we all meet in the lobby for pizza. We are a short drive to New York City and thank god we order from a local pizzeria and not a pizza chain. The kids eat their pizza and disappear to one of the hallways for some intense games of knee hockey. Our first game the next day starts in the mid-afternoon, so we let the kids stay up late while adults drink some adult beverages in the lobby. It’s nice to sit down with other parents to gain an understanding that the struggles one faces as a parent is not unique, and we all have similar balancing acts in our lives. Indeed, I find that building team chemistry among parents of a team is important as building chemistry between the players.

Saturday morning Brendan and I sleep in. We partake in the breakfast buffet, and take a 10-minute drive to Monkey Sports. In Southern Virginia there are few places to purchase hockey equipment, and the places that do sell hockey gear the selection is limited. This is Brendan’s first time in a store that is focused on hockey equipment. We get new gloves, a new stick, and I pick up a jersey for my own pick-up hockey I play in in DC. If you pray to the hockey gods five times a day, you do so facing Woodbridge, New Jersey.

Sometimes losing helps one learn to do things better, and sometimes losing helps one learn their place. Our first game on Saturday morning the Warriors lose to a team from Pittsburgh 8-5, but the score is misleading. Our five goals come on ten or so shots while the 8 goals scored by the other team come on over 40 shots. 90 percent of the game is played in our defensive zone, and the outcome of the game is never really in doubt. Our goals come on broken plays and breakaways, while the Pittsburgh team’s goals come after periods of sustained pressure. The Pittsburgh team is an AA team, one level below the highest level of AAA. So while the loss is discouraging, it serves as a focal point to understand what level of hockey we are at, and where we need to go.

O Represent Opposing Team Shots

X Represents Warrior Shots

Appointing a team captain in youth sports is a fruitless effort, and often the title goes to either the most talented player or to a coach’s son/daughter. Leadership is a combination of nature and nurture. Some people are born with dynamic personalities and inherent leadership skills. Others need time to nurture their leadership abilities. In both cases, effective leadership comes from practice, effort, and dedicated learning. For the Warriors, the coaches select the team Captain and Assistant Captains before the first game, then have those kids select their replacement for the next game. It’s probably safe to hold off on appointing full time captains until high school age, and even then leadership skills are just beginning. I recently graduated the Army War College where the younger students are in their early 40s, and there are still courses, lectures, and guest speakers all focused on leadership.

Following the second game the tournament hosts a skills competition open to all players who compete in relay races, shootouts, accuracy, and hardest shot competition. It’s a nice break from the games and offers some structured fun for all the kids participating in the tournament. This is the first time I have seen this type of event, and I hope other tournaments we travel to host similar activities.

The second game of the day is a disappointment in many ways. The team comes out flat and are unable to find any sort of offense. While they scored 5-goals against a AA team they can’t seem to apply any pressure. The kids feel the frustration which shows in some escalating chippyness on the ice. Both teams slash, and at a level where there is no checking, the game is filled with checks and other aggressive body contact. It doesn’t help that there is only one referee assigned to the game, and thus potential penalties behind the play go unnoticed. Fortunately, at the 10U level, kids don’t have the hormones going through them as high-school and college age kids do, thus no fights break out on the ice. Had this been a higher level or age group the game would have gotten out of hand. When the horn blows at the end of the period the Warriors are shut out.

It’s late, and the next game will start at 8:45 the next morning. As Brendan takes off his equipment, he tells me he just wants to go back to the hotel. I figure he needs some decompression time, and probably something to eat. We head over to Mo’s (Welcome to Mo’s!) for dinner before the long drive to the hotel and sitting down talking through the game has some therapeutic effects. Halfway through his burrito bowl, Brendan talks about the game and does some pretty good analysis for a 10-year old. When we first sat to eat, I heard complaints about the referees, and complaints about the other team. This is normal in both youth and adult sports. We are more likely to find fault in others for our own failures, rather than conduct some introspection. Listening to Brendan transition for blame to acceptance to communicating what he could do better was a proud parenting moment. We jump into the car and head back to the hotel and given the time we get back neither of us is up for staying up late.

The final morning, we have breakfast, drive to the rink, and Brendan heads inside to warm up with his teammates. I walk outside to the parking lot to meet my father who drives down from Connecticut to see Brendan play. Brendan is completely surprised to see his grandfather, but I can sense his joy. Knowing his grandfather woke up early to make a two-hour drive to see him skate lets him know that he loved, and there is nothing more important to a child than having and keeping that knowledge.

The last game is competitive, and after the first period the Warriors are down 1-0, with the only opposing goal coming at the tail end of a 2-minute 5-3 power play. About halfway through the second, the opposing team scores a couple goals in short order, and at the end of the game the scoreboard reads 6-0. The kids are frustrated having gone consecutive games without scoring a goal, but take out their stress by celebrating a teammates birthday with donuts before the long drive home.

Ending the last game with a handshake underneath the scoreboard.

Warriors in White.

Clinics and Blowouts

17/18 October

Off the ice I spend Sunday and Monday night in a coaching clinic. As this is my first year with squirts I attend the level-I hockey clinic which has a virtual delivery in pandemic times. As it’s virtual, the hosts of the clinic are in Minnesota, and the clinic runs on Zoom from 8:30-11:30 on two consecutive nights. In that sense, the time works for me, but I skip both a men’s league game and Monday night practice. I coordinate a ride for Brendan so he doesn’t miss out. Growing up in a town where we had a unified sports program, and the kids you went to school with were the same ones in the little league, youth hockey, or Pop Warner football program meant that everyone knew everyone, kids and parents alike. So it’s nice to be able to ask another parent or coach to drive my son to and from practice knowing I’m ready to reciprocate the action. Last season the adults missed out on getting to know each other, and there seems to be more team-parent unity this season. In this way, youth sports is important way to build social capital in the community.

The virtual clinic is surprisingly good. It gave me a chance to talk with coaches of other U10 teams across the country, and the experiences we shared are remarkably similar. Everyone struggles with learning the new rules, and everyone deals with varying degrees of talent. I pick up some coaching tips ranging from how I talk to the kids to how I demonstrate a drill. I also pick up a couple of book recommendations.

Since my time as an assistant coach of the mites team, I habitually talked to all the kids standing up. I did this when describing drills or walking them through positioning on the ice. I’m 6’3, and when I’m on skates in front of a nine-year-old I must appear to be eight feet tall. The more experienced coaches in the clinic recommend taking a knee every time I talk to the team, a technique I immediately embrace in the next practice. Kids aren’t miniature adults and expecting them to maintain eye contact and pay attention while my words literally go over their heads is not the best method for imparting hockey knowledge.

The second technique I learn is to demonstrate the various drills in silence. If two things are true in life, one is that everyone claims to be good at multitasking, the other is that nobody is good at multitasking. Kids can listen to a coach talk through a drill or they can watch the demonstration of the drill. Talking over my shoulder while demonstrating is distracting, and only creates more confusion for the kids. Now I take a knee, talk through the drill, then get up and demonstrate in silence. So far, I can see an improvement in communication with the team.    

24 October

One of the keys to maintaining sanity throughout the COVID-19 pandemic is to remain flexible. Plans change with little to no notice. We have a game scheduled against Virginia Beach, but early in the week the VA Beach team had an exposure to the virus. Our plans change and we use our home ice for a game against the Prowl 2 (P2) team.

The game is a blowout from the beginning, and we lose 11-5.

On the plus side, the kids don’t quit, and we score our 5th goal with less than a minute remaining in the game. The goal scorer performs a small celebration which on the face of it seems absurd given the score. If this was a higher level of hockey and not a bunch of nine and ten-year-olds, a lecture would probably follow in the locker room about when it is appropriate to celebrate a goal, and when it’s not. However, to me, the celebration is an indicator that the kids are still having fun, which is really the objective of hockey at the squirt level.

Not everybody had fun in the game. As the goals rack up, Brendan starts to lose his mind a bit. At one point he skates to the bench nearly in tears as the game turns into a runaway. Quickly emotion drives his play instead of passion. Towards the middle of the second period, he runs into an opposing player and is assessed a minor penalty with a misconduct tacked on. He sits in the box for a long time. The other team scores on the power-play, and continues to score when Brendan isn’t on the ice to contribute. This latter aspect becomes a point of discussion, as I explain to Brendan that he hurt his team when he plays out of control.

Kids celebrate their accomplishments no matter what’s on the scoreboard

When I reflect upon the game afterwards, I realize I should have pulled him off the ice as I saw his emotions getting out of control. I also think that should ask my fellow coaches on the bench to help me with this judgement in the future, as it is impossible to objectively evaluate your own kid. We all have unconscious biases and holding your own kids to different standards is one that we all share. The second reflection translates to a talk with Brendan on why he plays hockey. You have to be careful with kids and sports, and sometimes they become more passionate about winning than they do competing. It’s not a love of hockey, football, baseball, or tennis, rather it’s a love of winning. That can be dangerous and lead to burn-out real fast. Even precocious youth athletes will eventually reach a level where everyone possess their talent, and if you value winning over competing and playing the sport, quitting becomes the most likely option.

27 October

This week Brendan’s school had a field day at the same time of hockey practice. I left the choice to Brendan on which event he wanted to attend, giving him agency in the decision. I mention that I still have to attend practice as I made a commitment to the team as a coach, but told him that there was no right or wrong answer for him.

I say there is no right or wrong answer, but to an extent I am happy with his decision. It’s important to spend time with multiple groups of friends, and sometimes a day off from practice is good for physical and mental recovery.

We award the hardest worker championship belt to Ken, who stepped up to play goal this week. It was his first time in net, and he came to practice ready and eager to learn the position. Not only did he perform well in goal, but he threw all his effort into the position. At our level of the game we rotate players in net, and it tends to serve as point of reflection for all the players that take the time to do it. Every single one comments on the lack of a defenseman protecting the net, and how they can see their teammates bunch up as they chase the puck instead of skating to open ice. I firmly believe that a week in goal turns each skater into a smarter and generally more aware hockey player.  

30 October

Taking a day off from practice seems to help Brendan as he scores five of the team’s six goals in a game that ends in a 6-6 tie, to include the game-tying goal with about 90 seconds left. There is no shootout or overtime at the U10 level and the tie will keep both teams hungry for the next win. Further, close games tend to bring out harder skating and effort from both teams who have something to play for until the game clock strikes zero. When I talk to Brendan after the game we both agree that its more fun to play in a competitive game, a close loss, a tie, or a close win than it is to be on either side of a blowout win. He mentions a couple games from the previous year in mites when we won some lopsided victories, and how those games tended to get a bit boring. I tell him that we often learn more from losing, and that winning big can hurt in the long run, as you can pick up bad habits that work against inferior opponents but will lead to defeat against teams that play at or above your level.

Skating off the ice after a hard fought 6-6 tie

From the coaching perspective, I smile at the result. The P1 and P2 team all train together, and I hate to see any of the kids disappointed. A tie game also validates the method we used to split the players into two teams at the start of the season. We divided the talent equally. The 11-5 game seems to be an anomaly considering the other two games were decided by two goals. Kids tend to stay engaged, remain passionate, and skate hard on every shift when they believe the game is winnable, or that the opponent has the capability to beat them.

After the game we collect the goalie gear from this week’s goaltenders, as Brendan volunteered to play goal for the following week. The discussion on blowouts would prove to be a premonition of sorts.  

1 November

I arrive to practice on Monday evening and hand out pictures to various players on the team. Throughout the season I take pictures with a Canon digital camera, and every so often print some out after editing them at home. I did this last season when I coached the mites and the players and parents seen to generally appreciate the effort. As a kid playing youth sports I had a little league baseball coach that printed out photographs and handed them out at practice every so often. I still have these in boxes and photo-albums in my house, and I value them more as I get older. Of course, today I can go home and edit the pictures and discard ones that don’t turn out so well. The next day I can head to CVS and print out 4x6 pictures at $.37 per photo. My little league coach had to drop the roll of film off at the Photomat, pick them up two weeks later, and hope for the best. If you are ever given the choice of an era to live in, choose the current one.

Printing out photographs in the the modern era is a lost art. About 99% of the pictures I took with either a digital camera or my smartphone reside on social media or on an external hard drive. These include pictures of vacations, family, and friends. It occurred to me about two years ago that if I get hit by a bus, all these pictures probably go to the grave with me. I purchased a photo album last year for Sabrina and Brendan, and have been filling them with selected photos from the time they were born until now. Pictures with family, with friends, and action shots from tennis, basketball, and hockey all make their way in.

7 November

It’s a cool autumn morning when Brendan and I depart the house for the hour-long drive to Virginia Beach. We typically depart 2-hours before game time, and sometimes we arrive about an hour before, and other times we barely make the game. Anyone who has spent time in the Hampton Roads area understands the trials and tribulations of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel (HRBT), and the daily unpredictability it brings into the commute of tens of thousands of people. Today we are clear of traffic, which works nice as getting on the goalie gear takes a little extra time.

Brendan playing goalie for the first time this season. Every player has an opportunity to play in net and learn a little more about the game and about themselves

Throughout the week the team’s confidence is high, but that all disappears in the first few minutes of the game. Virginia Beach scores a few quick goals and is up 6-1 after the first period. It’s 12-1 after the second, and once VB opens a 10-goal lead the scoreboard stops tracking their goals. Brendan does pretty well, but is overwhelmed by the number of shots. When VB scores their tenth goal I call timeout to talk to the team.

During the timeout I tell each player to look at the scoreboard. Then I tell them to look at me, because that is the last time, they will look at the scoreboard for the remainder of the game. The contest is no longer about winning or losing, but about doing their best on every shift. The team responds and controls the play for the next few minutes, but eventually VB scores again, and again. But the kids don’t quit.

The game brings out an interesting factor in youth team sports. Sometimes a team has one or two players that are on a different level than everyone else on the field or on the ice. Often this comes when a kid has been solely focused on one sport, spending the entire year in that field. Other times it happens based on the size of the kid playing. In the latter, it could come from genes passed down from large parents, or other times it’s because they were born early in the year. In a league that spans two age groups, this can mean a player 1 year and 11 months older than other kids on the ice. Meaningless as an adult, but a huge advantage in physical and cognitive development when you can count your age on you fingers. In the game today, VB had one of those players who was responsible for most of their goals. It’s frustrating to the players, and to me as a coach, but sometimes 9 and 10-year-old kids amaze you with resilience.

We score our second goal late in the third period, at a point where I lost track of the score. The team bangs their sticks on the ice and against the boards to celebrate with Josh, who scored his first goal of the season. Blowouts build character but they also build bonds between the players. When people go through hard times together it often brings them closer together, from tough losses in youth sports, to the trials and tribulations of combat; getting overcoming adversity forges deeper friendships.

Our First Road Game

4 October

              Practice after our first game focuses on some basic team skills by introducing basic breakouts to the team. During their time in squirts, we used the final 10 minutes of our half-ice scrimmage to focus on breakouts as teams were constantly moving the puck up and down the ice. When kids move up to squirts its a different game, as one would expect the transition from half to full ice to be. They grasp the concept, but we sense that it will take time to fully ingrain into the players that they can’t just skate the length of the ice repeatedly with the puck. The puck must move with passes, and I remind the players that the fastest thing on the ice isn’t a player, coach, or referee, it’s the puck.

I’m lucky to work with coaches who think differently than I do. We end practice with a game of dodgeball, which provides some fun, some competition, and maintains an element of skating development with starts, stops, and moving on edges. Scott added this to the agenda, and it’s a good way to keep the kids involved in the practice and leaving the ice on a high note. Sometimes I forget that the players on the ice are 9 and 10, and that simple games like dodgeball or freeze tag maintain levity in practice, ensuring that players look forward to the next practice.

Prowl Squirts end the practice with a game of dodgeball

9 October

              Our first road game of the season in Virginia Beach, and thankfully it’s later in the afternoon. It can be painful waking up at 5:30 for the short drive to our rink in Yorktown, but the hour drive to the VA Beach rink can be rough. Anyone who has ever been in the Hampton Roads area understands that traffic jams can happen at any time. There can be a fatal crash in the HRBT at midnight or 3 in the afternoon all the same. So it’s an hour drive, and we always factor an extra 30 minutes for traffic. On this day, we arrive at the rink a bit early, as the roads were generally clear.

              We have eight skaters for the game, and run 5 offense and 3 defense each period, rotating players at different positions each period. This is a philosophy I intend to generally follow throughout the year as I think players at the 10U level should gain experience and appreciation for each position. With only eight skaters a couple wind up playing more defense or forward, and in the third period I ask for volunteers for defense, and three players instantly raise their hands.

              The game has a rough start with the VA Beach team scoring six goals in the first half of the first period. Our players are generally flat-footed and not attacking the puck. Multiple times the opposing team skates the puck past our players who stand still and watch them skate by. I look at Joe (my fellow coach) and think to myself that the game is going to get out of hand. There is no mercy rule in hockey like there is in little league baseball. A team can run up the score to a hundred if the talent mismatch is great enough. While I don’t think they will score 100, in my mind 20 is a distinct possibility. But then things change.

              Our team starts attacking the puck, getting to the open pucks before the VA Beach players and putting a player on the puck when VA Beach has possession. We start to control the puck for greater lengths of time in their zone, get some good shots, and if not for the terrific goaltending of the other team, we probably score a couple goals. At the end of the first period the score is still 6-0, but the feeling of the game has flipped.

              The second period feels like a new game. We get more shots on goal, control the puck and generally the flow of the game. The opposing goaltender continues to make some amazing saves, but halfway through the second Brendan gets by the defense on a breakaway and puts one through what has been up until now an impenetrable fortress. On the next shift a similar play occurs, and we find ourselves down 6-2. VA Beach puts another one in the net, and we go into the third period down 7-2.

              Joe and I take the minute between periods to tell the kids how great they are skating. When they go back out to start the third, we look at each other and briefly mention how great the team is playing. The final period resembles the second, although we don’t score any goals. We had chances, shots, and the advantage of attack zone and time of possession, and the game ends with the final score showing VA Beach 8, Prowl 2.

              Despite the score there are tons of positives to take away from the game. Most importantly the kids didn’t quit, didn’t get discouraged, and competed hard the entire game. In team sports when another team jumps to a quick lead the negative ions start flowing fast (and yes, I know the positive/negative ion thing isn’t real). Being a hockey player is more than the ability to skate fast, make tape-to-tape passes, and to put the puck in the top corner of the net. Being a hockey player is about effort, grit, and competing the entire game. You can learn a lot more about an athlete observing them play down six goals in the third period than you can watching a player skate around a cone in a drill during practice. Indeed, half of being a hockey player is comprised of traits we don’t teach on the ice at practice twice a week.

11 October

              I miss the first practice of the week while attend the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) convention in D.C. Brendan still makes it to practice as Coach Scott picks him up and drops him off at the house. It’s nice as Brendan gets a chance to play and spend time with one of his better friends on the team. One of the greatest aspects of youth hockey and youth sports in general is the relationships and friendships you make with other players you’re growing up with. As an adult, we form friendships with other coaches and parents of other kids on the team.

13 October

              Each week we have two practices, Monday, and Wednesday, followed by a game on the weekend. At the conclusion of each game, we award a MVP puck to the player of the game. This week we start a new tradition to name the hardest worker at practice throughout the week. I get the idea from Pete Carroll’s book Win Forever, where he started a tradition at USC where he recognized the hardest working player at practice each week. I initially thought of awarding a stuffed panther (our team logo is a panther), or a small trophy, but my fellow coaches recommend a championship belt that we can pass on one week to the next. It’s a brilliant idea. At the end of practice we call up J to award him the title, and his teammates love it. They bang their sticks on the ice, and the new tradition is a success.   Rewarding and recognizing effort can be just as, if not more important than praising talent.

The Prowl Squirts Hardest Worker Championship Belt

              It’s often said that there is no such thing as a new idea. This is mostly true, and I find many of the ideas as a youth coach from reading books by other coaches and athletes. Here is a quick list of some of the books I have found helpful over the past couple of years. I will add more in future posts.

              Behind the Bench by Craig Custance: Less of a hockey book and more of a leadership book. Behind the Bench follows discussions and interviews with multiple NHL Stanly Cup winning coaches. The coaches explain their philosophy and what they do different than anyone else. The interesting aspect of coaches like Mike Sullivan and John Tortorella is that they had opportunities early in life to pursue other careers that at the time offered stability and a solid paycheck, but chose to start at next to nothing to pursue their dream. Moreover, one coach offers the insight that you never know where the next great idea will come from, it could be a rookie skater, or the guy who cooks breakfast. Be open minded, communicate, and always be willing to learn.  

              Win Forever by Pete Carroll: In this book, Pete Carroll describes his coaching philosophy and how it led to multiple championships at USC and a Super Bowl victory with the Seattle Seahawks. Although Carroll is a football coach, his theories on practice and running a team are applicable in all sports. I stole the hardest worker of the week idea from this book.

              The Captains Class by Sam Walker: Here the author examines the captains of the greatest dynasties from multiple sports. What Walker discovers is that the captain of these teams wasn’t necessarily the best player on the team, but often the player that possessed a greatness in character. Their character built chemistry on the team, or the team’s intrapersonal dynamics that impact performance. Leadership and athletic ability are two distinct things and something coaches should recognize and understand when picking their team’s captain.

              Scotty by Ken Dryden:  Ken Dryden is the best hockey writer ever. Whoever comes behind him is a distant second. The Game should be required reading for anyone involved in the sport. But in Scotty: A Hockey Life Like No Other, Ken Dryden talks with Scotty Bowman about his coaching and life’s philosophy, the evolution of the sport and then ranks the greatest teams of all time. Perhaps his main insight is that a coach must understand the players the he or she has, and then apply their talents accordantly. For the most part, coaches at all levels don’t get to choose all their players. Even select teams are constrained by the talent pool they choose from. You can force players into a system, but must design a system to match the players you have so they can attain the fullest potential.

              The Playmaker’s Advantage by Leonard Zaichowsky: Here the author provides page after page of wisdom on developing young athletes. From the foundational advice to raise kids who play multiple sports to describing how coaches must tailer practices and games to their age groups. Indeed, when coaching the squirt level trying to employ drills I did in high school simply won’t work. 9- and 10-year-olds are not miniature adults, their brains are still developing, as are their physical skills.

              Quiet by Susan Cain: Not a sports book, but one that is worth the time to read for anyone who encounters other human beings. The book describes various personalities with a focus on introverts, and how they differ from extroverts. The next time you see a professional athlete hesitate to talk to the media, or appear uncomfortable at public events, the simple explanation is they are naturally introverted. The book changed how I interact with my kids, as I am raising one extrovert and one who is more introverted. With the latter, I back off on pushing him to interact with crowds, and understand that after periods of excitement (like a hockey game), he needs his quiet time playing with his toys in his room to recharge his emotions. Social overstimulation can have the same effect and be just as exhausting as going a extended time without sleep.  As an assistant professor at the staff college, I took the wisdom in this book and applied it to the classroom where I get a feel for who the introverts are, and figure different ways to draw their thoughts into the conversation, thus preventing extroverts from dominating all the discussion. I take this to the rink by seeing a players caution to try a new skill or go first in a drill as retreating from the novelty or overstimulation, not from a disinclination to play hockey.

16 October

              Early morning game lining up our P1 players against our P2 players. We bring in a goalie from the peewee team as our normal goalie is playing in a travel team tournament. Between the P1 and P2 teams we have full time goalie and one set of goalie equipment that we rotate between players each week as they volunteer to stand in the net. Because we have one full time peewee goalie and one skater playing goalie, we agree to split the time of each goaltender between the two teams. This helps to maintain a closer and more competitive contest.

              The game is generally close, and we win 7-5. The story of the game however is that we can see the players making progress in learning how to play their positions, and more importantly a faster pace of play as our skating drills are starting to pay off. There is a lot of work to be done on positioning, passing, and other skills, but we are only a month into the season. At the very least the game provides another data point on how we will design our practices over the next couple of weeks.

              On the ice after our game is the mites. They are short players and ask some of our younger players if they are interested in another game. Brendan and couple teammates jump on the opportunity representing the future of rink rats everywhere. The mites separate into older and more skilled players from the younger and newer to hockey players. So although some kids are playing a level down, its no more than a year and against kids who can play at a higher level.

              Brendan has fun, and comes off the ice gassed after the second game. Brendan then makes some interesting comments about the difference in style, and it becomes clear why the transition to squirts is a big jump, and a completely different game. The half ice aspect means skaters are constantly starting and stopping, and skate from one end to the other. Indeed, there is no neutral zone and there is a rapid transition from offense to defense. The 2-minute controlled shifts means skating for longer periods of time, whereas in squirts we tend to change lines at a minute to a minute and a half intervals. Further, there are no faceoffs where a player can take a moment to catch their breath before the referee drops the puck.

              Another change when moving to squirts is the necessity to improve backwards skating. Most of the goals come off breakaways, often from the red line or blue line in. Players in squirts often blow by defensive players whose backwards skating skills don’t quite match their ability to skate forwards. We rarely see goals come from sustained pressure in the offensive zone, or from cycling the puck low. The latter type of goals will hopefully come as they move up in age levels.

Overall the main lessons we learned over the past couple weeks is that we need to continue development of skating drills and other hockey fundamentals, but balance that with hockey sense and a basic understanding of what to do with the puck when they gain possession. Finding this balance seems to be the challenge ahead of us.

The Beginning of Squirts

 Inter-Season

              Our last season ended with a tournament in Ocean City Maryland towards the end of March. For the most part Brendan stayed off the ice over the spring and summer, although we dropped in on a couple stick and puck sessions at the rink, as well as a couple of skating clinics to prepare for the next season. Spring and Summer were a transition to tennis, which both Brendan and his sister Sabrina play. I am a big believer in raising kids to be multi-sport athletes under the premise that focusing on one too early in life will lead to burn out, but also under the theory that kids should become overall athletes and that each sport feeds into the skills development of others. In his book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, David Epstein carries this premise using multiple examples such as Roger Federer who didn’t start focusing on tennis until he was 12-years old. There are those who will contradict this thesis and insist that kids need to focus on one sport from an early age, but typically these people have a self-interest to promote this perspective. I’m happy to report however, that Brendan and Sabrina’s tennis season was a resounding success, as they practiced all season and did better and better in their weekend tournaments.  

13 September

              This Monday night marks our first practice of the season. As Brendan and his teammates move up to squirts there are some major changes from mites. First, we are now skating full ice. At the 8U level kids played games on half the ice sheet, which meant no icing, and there was always a possibility of a goal when one of the kids blindly threw the puck to the other far end. The ability to score five or six goals a game with blind shots from behind your own net no longer exist. Second, the age for squirts is 9- and 10-year-olds. Older 8-year-old kids born early in the year had the potential to play against other kids nearly three years younger than them in mites, which is a huge time of physical and mental growth. The competition is a little more even this year. Games will have referees who call icing and send kids to the penalty box, rather than coaches on the ice managing the game flow. Finally, the buzzer doesn’t ring every two-minutes to signal a line change. Teams and coaches must manage that themselves.

              For practices, we added twenty-minutes to each session, going from 60 to 80-minute practices. This is helpful in that we can add some tactics and instruction to our practices while still ensuring the kids get in enough skating and skills development which is still the most important aspect at this level.

15 September

              It’s only the second practice of the season and yet we have our first casualty on the ice. One of our kids wipes out and slides feet first into the boards breaking his leg in two places. When it happened, we had no idea of the extent, but the screams of pain were intense. Another coach and I help the player off the ice and his parents take him to the hospital for his X-Rays. We learn of the diagnosis the next day. I feel horrible and take the time to talk to Brendan about it.

              Seeing a teammate go down with an injury provides somewhat of a life lesson. The initial reaction is to feel sorry, and extend sympathies, and they genuine feelings. But there is the second level where after the player is carried off the ice we go back into our drills to prepare the team for the season. Injuries happen in sports and life continues. The backup comes into the game, the coaches adjust the plan, and the players still on the ice get over their initial feelings to continue to compete. Moreover, one players injury can serve as another players opportunity, just ask Tom Brady who owes his career to Mo Lewis and devastating hit on Drew Bledsoe. Drew goes to the hospital, the referee blows his whistle to start the play clock, and the team moves on.

              This is also a lesson I learned in the military. Overseas units take casualties, and we remember with a ceremony and prayers by the chaplain, then the unit, be it a squad, platoon, or company gets back to the mission, and often has resumed the mission before the remembrance ceremony takes place. Sports teams and military organizations that rely on specific individuals for success are brittle and a recipe for long-term failure.  

20 & 22 September 2021

              Scott, Seth, and I generally run the practices taking turns designing each session. We try to keep practice interesting, fun, but also competitive and filled with hard work. We vary our warm-ups with skating and footwork drills followed by small games and stations. The limitation of our practice is that we only have half of the ice, thus must make creative use of the space we have. Squirts are still physically small, which helps mitigate the impact of half the ice. Leading up to the first games we are focused on skating as well as passing and shooting skills. We agree to hold off on tactics until the season begins as we want all the kids to get their hockey legs back under them.

              How much to focus on game tactics versus skills development is tightrope we will walk all season. Squirts are still 9 and 10-years-old, thus we won’t fill practice with overly complicated drills that demand precise execution. Further, the tactics we teach are more in line with basic positioning and getting the kids to understand that they can’t chase the puck up and down the ice, rather they need to skate to space and let the puck come to them. Other aspects of tactics include teaching some of them the basic premise of offsides which was not something we had to think about during the season in mites. So when I say we are going over tactics, the definition of tactics

              Preparing for each practice takes time. We are not professional coaches watching film, but we do take the time to sketch out various drills (we use hockey share) and to continually progress through the season. For each practice session I would estimate that we spend about 1-2 hours thinking about and designing the practice. It’s a rough estimate, we’re volunteer youth coaches not lawyers billing by the hour.

27 September 2021

              Hockey practice today is for the most part uneventful, but as our first game approaches it provides an opportunity for the coaches to talk about our goalie issue. With 22 players we can divide the squirts into two teams (P1 and P2), but alas we only have one goalie. Our goalie will have to rotate between teams. We acquire a second set of goalie gear, and will use volunteers from the skaters to rotate who will play goal week to week. At the 10 and under level we can still compete using various players in net on a non-permanent basis I was skeptical of the concept last year but came around when I witnessed how each kid enjoyed their opportunity to try playing goalie. Brendan played goalie twice and offered some great insights from his time between the pipes.

              Playing goalie over the week’s practice and in the weekend game gives each kid an chance to see the game from a different perspective. After his first game in goal Brendan explained to me how he saw skaters bunching up and chasing the puck instead of spreading out and moving the puck around. In this sense, playing goalie made him a smarter hockey player. The second aspect of playing goalie is that kids who played goalie never criticized a goalie again. Playing goal allowed them to appreciate the difficulty and the courage it takes to stand in front of the net and to have pucks shot at you on a continual basis. They also learn how difficult it can be to stay engaged and pay attention the entire contest as goalies don’t get to rest on the bench.

29 September 2021

              In our last practice before our weekend intersquad match, we use the time on the ice for some small games and scrimmages. Scott and I leave the ice for about 30 minutes to meet with the parents of our players which provides an opportunity to discuss our coaching philosophy for the season. Before I explain the philosophy, I introduce myself using a little bit of the Red Team Who Am I? technique, letting everyone know where I am from, what I do for a living and other aspect of my personal life. It’s a good technique to break down perceived social barriers when getting to know someone.

              Each parent gives a brief introduction, which I think is important as last season parents did not have a true opportunity to get to know one another. COVID-19 protocol limited the number of parents that could attend and limited the time everyone could spend inside the rink. This season offers more hope that we can build the relationships and friendships that are central to youth sports.

              Scott and I then use the remaining time to offer our thoughts and philosophy for the season. I begin by telling them where I want the team to be at the end of the season, because as the Cheshire Cat once explained, “if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” I explain that first and foremost by the end of the year I want the kids to want to return and play again next year. If we can instill a love and passion of hockey in each kid, then I consider the season a success.

              Our second goal is for the kids to begin life-long friendships with their teammates. As I approach my mid-40s, I find that the people who I maintain contact most from my childhood are those who I played youth sports with. I was lucky to grow up in a town with a unified sports program. That is everyone from our hometown played in the same youth sports league which was large enough for multiple teams in sports such as little league baseball, and where we had the ability to field competitive teams in football. My teammates remained largely the same from the third grade to senior year of high school. Brendan had his first taste of this aspect of friendship over the summer. The hockey team had its own birthday party circuit, where kids attending each other’s parties were mostly (but not totally) hockey teammates. Brendan still invited a few friends from school, and having a diverse set of friends is important.

              After describing our objectives, Scott and I talk about how we will run our practices and the games. I tell the parents that I would rather a player miss a game than a practice. It is practice where the kids get their ice time and while they are on the ice they will skate more, touch the puck more, pass more, and shoot more times than they will in a game. Practice is where they will develop as hockey players at their respective level. At the professional level, Allen Iverson was probably right in his diatribe “We’re talking about practice.” But in youth sports, practice reigns supreme. I explain my thoughts on how practice means the kids get better by small increments over the course of the six month season and come the end of March each kid will be a completely different hockey player than at the start of the season.

              The second aspect we talk about is how we intent to run our games. Scott and I coach in a house league and in a house league everyone plays. Winning is fun, and there is an element where kids need to win often enough to want to keep coming back to the rink night after night, week after week. We intend to balance our lines the best we can to ensure we remain competitive in each contest, but no players are sitting out, nor are any players going to do iron-man hockey simply because at 10-years old they are better skaters than others.

              Third, we talk about positions. For the most part my intent is to have every kid play each position throughout the course of the season. Learning the responsibilities of each position (defense, center, wing) is a crucial part of player development. When they get older or play for elite travel teams they can focus on one position or another, but building better hockey players means having a broad understanding of the game.

              We then talk some administrative issues. We explain that the only ones who should talk to the referees are the coaches. We ask parents not to complain to the refs during games and to stress to their kids not to argue with the officials. The hockey community is small in Southern Virginia, and as such Scott and I happen to play men’s league hockey with most of the referees in the league. We have personal relationships with them that go back nearly a decade. As we explain this nuance, I can see the message resonate in the meeting. Referees make mistakes just as often as the rest f us do in life. We can only hope that bad and missed calls even out over the course of the season. In some ways its another lesson that life’s not fair, and when the calls go your way its often at the expense of someone else. But I stress that the guys who are officiating a squirts hockey game at 7AM on a Saturday morning aren’t doing so in pursuit of generational wealth. Rather, they are out there for the same reason the coaches and the kids out on the ice…a love of the game.

Refs show up at 7AM on a Saturday for a 10U game because they love the game

              Scott and I then talk equipment reinforcing the importance of neck guards and mouthpieces and the necessity of showing up early enough to get dressed before the game and on the ice for warm-ups. We also ask the parents to let us know ahead of time if they plan to miss a game. For a coach, there is little more that is frustrating than showing up ready for a game and missing half the team.

When Brendan and I get home from practice I reflect on our discussion with the parents and begin to craft my own coaching philosophy. Back in 2006 - 2008, I was a company commander in Second Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division. Commanders publish their own command philosophies. Since that time I joined the faculty of the Joint Forces Staff College and wrote out a teaching philosophy to guide my actions in the seminars and classrooms. Why it never occurred to me to think about and write a coaching philosophy is beyond me, but something I hope to finish later this month. I doubt many will read it, but the act of writing forces you to reflect, and often forces you to make decisions where your thinking might contradict itself. So writing this out is probably something I should do.

2 October 2021

              Our first game of the year is a contest between the two Prowl Squirt Teams (P1 and P2). Along with the P2 head coach, we agree to match lines to keep ensure a competitive game, and that kids don’t wind up playing an entire period without touching the puck. Overall, the concept works as our P1 team narrowly escapes with a 5-4 victory. For the most part the game is back and forth, and neither team dominates the ice one shift after another. Skating one shift after another without ever touching the puck can frustrate any hockey player, and when there is a clear size and talent mismatch on the ice, kids can quickly become frustrated with games and soon find themselves in a position where they dread showing up to the rink early on a weekend morning.

A competitive first game

              After the game Brendan and I go to a nearby diner for breakfast. Breaking bread with my son is perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of coaching and being a hockey parent. I did the same over the summer when Sabrina and Brendan competed in their weekend tennis tournaments. I found that breakfast (or brunch) after a match was a time when my kids were happy, and generally open to talking about hockey, tennis, school, or just about anything else that’s on their mind. I find that as my kids get older they are more hesitant to open conversation with me, not in an awkward manner, but in the way that kids can be uncomfortable sharing thoughts and feelings with their parents. Eating pancakes or French toast after a hockey game is the perfect time to talk when their adrenaline is still rushing through them.

              The time after games isn’t the only meal Brendan and I share. Typically following practices on Monday we drive to a local Mexican restaurant up the road from our house. It was a tradition we started last year and genuinely is an event we both look forward to. Over the summer Sabrina and I did our own meal following her weekly guitar lessons, and again I found that breaking bread, even with your own kids is a way for us to let our guard down and open up to each other in ways we normally don’t get at the house. As Ferris Bueller once said, “life goes by pretty quick…’ you have to seek out the time and place to slow it down.

Ocean City

The season wraps up near the end of March with a tournament in Ocean City, Maryland. The first game is at 12:30 on a Friday. It’s a three-hour drive to the hotel which means pulling the kids out of school on a Friday. I will always preach academics and school before sports, but this is a once-a-year opportunity for Brendan and our family. Jill and Sabrina make the trip with us, making it a family event. Given the lack of travel for the past year, a short vacation, even if it’s driven by a hockey tournament is something we need.

Our family wakes up a little before 6 in the morning to get ready for the 3 ½ hour drive to Ocean City. I get the kids up, fed, and dressed while Jill drops off our dog at the kennel the weekend. It’s dark, it’s raining, and it’s windy, but other than that it’s perfect weather. The drive itself is uneventful, although it’s the first time we cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel (CBBT). The bridge is a bit over 17 miles long, and about halfway across you get the felling like you are driving in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Observing some rather large cargo ships to our left and right only add to that experience. Brendan asks us when the bridge was built, followed by Jill asking Siri the same question. The CBBT opened in 1964, which serves as a reminder that we are still living off of the infrastructure investments of the Eisenhower administration. I like Ike!

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel

At about 11 we arrive at out hotel in Ocean City. The hotel has a COVID-19 protocol. As we enter, the staff checks our temperature, and reminds us to keep our masks on in all places apart from our rooms. Brendan’s first game is at 12, so we scurry to the elevator, walk into the room, and put Brendan’s equipment on. We walk out onto the balcony which overlooks the inside of the hotel with the ice surface in the center. The best description I can think of when we are on the ice is the atmosphere of a prison. There are people in their balconies overlooking the ice rink cheering for one team or another. All that is missing is flaming toilet paper raining down on us from above.

Thank goodness nobody threw toilet paper from the balconies

We hang out in the room until about 10 minutes before game time (another COVID protocol), then head down to the ice for the first game of the weekend.

Each game consists of two 15-minute running clock periods. The rink is smaller than the kids are used to and does not have the high boards or glass surrounding the ice surface. The ice is also a bit slower than the kids are used to, but this aspect is a good thing on the smaller ice surface. Indeed, with a smaller ice surface, kids skate, stop, and turn more often than on a normal rink which will better develop nearly every skill within their games.

The first game has a strange ebb and flow to the contest. The Prowl take a quick 3-1 lead, but then let up a series of unanswered goals. At the end of the first half, we find ourselves behind 6-3. Towards the middle of the send half, our team wakes up and pulls out to a 9-8 lead. Unfortunately, the lead does not hold, and with about 42 seconds remaining, our opponents score the final goal of the contest which ends in a 9-9 tie. There are not shootouts, and just like a tie in every sport at every level, everyone is a bit disappointed. However, the bright side of the match is that most of the team had just spent 3-4 hours in car, and the opening game got the rust out of them.

The noon game is our only game on Friday. We watch the other Prowl Team play their game which they win comfortably. The two Prowl teams then have time reserved in the indoor pool for the kids to play (another COVID protocol, time is set aside for each team to use the pool). It never amazes me how much energy 6–8-year-old children can burn. Children at that age don’t just have a second wind, they have a third, a fourth, and fifth…and probably some more after that. We wind down the evening by watching some more games from our balcony, and I use the time to ask Brendan about what he sees happening on the ice. He points out when players are out of position, and he is quick to identify the better players on each team. Surprisingly he can also pick apart some of the action, calling out players for not seeing an open teammate for a pass. At the Mites level, passing happens, but most players are still comfortable skating it up the ice on their own and shooting. Typically, at the first sight of pressure from the opposing team, the average Mite will either shoot the puck or blindly throw the puck down the ice, and there is no icing in Mites. I get the feeling that simply watching games up close, at a speed he identifies with can help to build hockey sense, which is a sperate skill from skating and shooting. Hockey sense, along with on ice leadership, coachability, and attitude are some of the intangibles you can’t rate in a skills competition but are often what separates the best hockey players from the players with the best hockey skills.

Saturday

The alarm goes off at 5:30 in the morning, making this the wake-up time two days running. Our first game is at 6:40 AM, and we are the second game of the day. Brendan and I each have a banana, and Brendan drinks some juice while I sip on my first coffee of the day, knowing I am going to drink coffee by the barrel today. We get dresses in our dimly lit hotel room while Jill and Sabrina continue to sleep. I think about waking them up to see if they want to watch but think the better of it. Two days of waking up before sunrise can take its toll kids, a lesson we will learn later in the afternoon.  

Our game isn’t competitive, and we win 14-7, with every player but our goalie scoring at least one goal. We jumped to an early lead and soon were up by four goals. By going up four goals the other team switches to a smaller net, which makes it a bit harder to score. From my standpoint it makes no sense why an 8 and under tournament didn’t use the smaller nets as the norm for all teams. The point when the referee stops the game to change it out feels a bit humiliating. The kids don’t pay much attention, and both teams continue to skate hard, but the disparity of both size and skill between the two teams remains, and the game never really gets close.

Blowout games are never fun. Kids seem to enjoy them when they are winning but hate them when they are losing. As an adult, playing in a blowout game isn’t much fun no matter which bench you sit on. Indeed, when you play teams and skaters with lesser skills it can lead to overconfidence, laziness, and the buildup of bad habits. If skating at 70%, or not executing breakouts properly, and not playing in the right position still leads to victory, players fall into these routines. It then comes as a shock as they advance in age and in levels of the game when everyone else does the right thing, and you can’t rely on the mistakes of the opposition to win.

He shoots and scores!

By 7:30 the game is over, and Brendan and I head to the hotel room to shower and change. We do this, then grab breakfast. We finish eating and its just past 9, and our next game doesn’t start until 2:30 in the afternoon. I have no idea what to do for the next five hours. We walk back to the room as Jill and Sabrina are getting their own day started. They plan on getting breakfast, then doing some shopping in the Ocean City area. Brendan and I lay down on the beds, turn on the TV and just try to chill. I eventually go back to reading while Brendan plays some games on his IPad.  

Our second game of the day begins on a high note. Brendan scores the first goal of the game off a feed from Wyatt about 10-seconds into the match. We build an early 4-1 lead and our team hits a brick wall. The kids start watching the play instead of being involved in it. Players don’t skate back to the defensive zone, passing ends abruptly, and at the end of the game the scoreboard reads 12-4, with the Prowl on the short end. We are now 1-1-1, and will have a final game on Sunday. All the kids on the team are frustrated, a few of them yell at each other, trying to find an excuse or someone to blame for the loss. For the first time as a youth hockey coach, I see the kids losing focus and not enjoying the game.

It’s hard to figure out what happened in this game. Certainly, waking up before 6 the last two mornings had an impact, as did playing their third game in two days. For several of our Mites, to include Brendan, this is the most hockey he has ever played over a three-day span. Coach Joe and I talk after the game to try to figure it out, to try to think through a game plan, and to develop a way to motivate the kids after the game. For now, everyone heads up to their rooms to wash off, change, and attend the team pizza dinner later that night.

As we wait for dinner, I have some time to reflect on some of the broader aspects of what I am watching in Ocean City. For Brendan and I, and indeed for many of the families and their hockey players this is the first time we are watching our kids skate against other kids away from the Hampton Roads area. I had some trepidation that other teams would bring in 8-year old Conner McDavids and Sydney Crosbys, but was relived to see everyone hold their own. Granted, we are still playing other communities in the South, where kids can’t go into the backyard and ice skate and play hockey on their backyard rink 6 months out of the year, but that just gives our kids the advantage of being multi-sport athletes. I had the same nervousness when I took Sabrina and Brendan to their first tennis tournament in Richmond. In the same manner I watched both my kids hold their own while they played complete strangers. They won some, and they lost some, and for the most part like all the kids in Lake Wobegon, were above average.

The hotel reserves a banquet room for each team on Saturday evening. We order pizzas for the kids on both Prowl teams which leads to an insight from the earlier games. The theory is that all the kids are burning so much energy, that their normal eating habits just weren’t enough to sustain them through the last game. I think there is something to it, as the large meal seems to reenergize the team. Young kids seem to have an unlimited amount of energy, but that energy needs fuel. The strain of waking up at 5:30 AM on consecutive mornings, with long drives and hockey games took its toll and burned through all the kids had. Word would come down that Sunday’s game would be late in the morning meant the large dinner would be followed by a good night’s rest, and hopefully a better outcome on the ice.

Skate hard…and Go Army Beat Navy!

Sunday

Our final game begins at 1050 on Sunday morning. I still wake up at 6, as keeping a steady sleep schedule is a part of managing migraines (more on that later). Waking up at 6 in Ocean City does come with its advantages. I grab a cup of coffee and my camera, walk to the beach, and watch the sunrise. I’m not the only one with this idea, as by 10 minutes until sunrise about 10 others walk out into the sand and stare into the ocean. This is my first time watching a sunrise over the Atlantic since an Anniversary trip Jill and I took to the Dominican Republic. Watching the sun pop out over the horizon, seeing the blend of yellow, pink, orange, and blue is spiritual. It’s calming and serves as a reminder that no matter what happens today there is a tomorrow. The world moves on indifferent to life’s trivial problems.

Sunrise in Ocean City

The entire family sleeps in, giving me the opportunity to sit on the balcony with a second cup of coffee and start reading my next book. I’m jumping into Matterhorn, as a whole lotta people I know and respect recommend it. I’m also able to watch some early games from the balcony. One should always take advantage when an opportunity comes to watch a hockey game in person. It doesn’t matter if it’s an 8 and under mites game, a high school game, high level juniors, or the NHL. At some point in the game someone is going to do something that seems unbelievable. An impossible save by a goalie, a no look behind the back pass that goes tape-to-tape, or a Gordan Bombay style triple deke. And while these ridiculous plays will always be on YouTube for professional athletes, the moment after a young kid does it, it’s gone forever only to remain in the memory of those who saw it.  

One of the truisms of youth sports is that you never know how a child will react to the situation they are put in. Following a devastating loss, our kids return to the ice determined to win. Our opponents score the first goal early in the game, but from that point on the Prowl control everything. The puck stays on the opponents end of the ice for most of the game. Our kids constantly attack the puck, we control the tempo and by the end of the first half we are up 9-3. There is more of the same in the second half, and when the horn sounds to end the game the scoreboard reads 12-4, and the Prowl are celebrating like they just won the Stanley Cup, but it’s all the same when you’re 8 years old. Winning is winning, and the size of the trophy doesn’t matter.

The team lines up to receive the medal, and we receive a team trophy for the tournament. We gather for a team photo, and it’s one that I will print out and keep in my office. Jill, Brendan, Sabrina, and I then head up to the hotel room to change, pack up the equipment, and hit the road.

We depart the hotel but stop across the street to pick up some lunch on the way back to Williamsburg. There is a restaurant across the street that makes good burgers and sandwiches, thus we go inside to get some food. Surprisingly, at 12:30 on a Sunday, there is a drunk patron at the bar. The bartender is refusing to serve him anymore drinks, and one of the waitresses asks him nicely for his car keys, which to his credit he hand over to her. As I watch this unfold, I think of the final scene from the original Bad News Bears. It now occurs to me the subtle genius behind it. The Bears and the Yankees just played the most important game of their lives, and as they celebrate and run around the field, the camera pans out showing the traffic in the background. The world is going about its day, completely unconcerned with what is happening on the little league baseball field. All the emotions, all the intensity, the last second goals and the impossible saves, kids skating around the holding a trophy in their hands while parents snap pictures and livestream the game on Facebook. The universe is indifferent.  

Coaching Mites

This is the start of my hockey blog. This blog will focus on the lessons I am learning as a youth hockey coach. I started to coach my son’s Mites (ages 6-8) hockey team in the Fall of 2020. It was in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic which created its own unique challenges both inside and outside the rink. I am writing this blog for a multitude of reasons. First, to share some insights on coaching youth sports. Second, to keep a record of my thoughts and lessons learned as I watched my son, his teammates, and even myself grow and mature as hockey players and as people. Finally, to serve as a reminder of what hockey, and more generally sports brings to our culture, to our relationships, and to our identity.

With the exception of my kids, the names of other kids are fictional.

Summer 2020

I taught my daughter and my son to start ice skating the week of their third birthday. My daughter, the eldest, is 16 months older than my son, or as I explain to others, 9 months, and 10 minutes. Each of them started with small rental skates from the local rink in Yorktown, progressing to figure skates, and finally fitting into hockey skates shortly after their fifth birthday. Learning to skate in figure skates was how I was brought up, and seems thebe the best way to teach kids who skate once or twice a week unlike our Canadian neighbors to the north who seemingly have an ice rink in every backyard. It takes a little longer to get to 10,000 hours in Southern Virginia.

Out local rink hosts both learn to skate lessons, and a “hockey university” learn to play program. Both my children played in the hockey university program, and both enjoyed their time on the ice. My daughter however completely rejected the scrimmage portion of the clinic. At nearly every level of youth hockey the final 10-minutes or so of practice usually contains a dark jersey vs light jersey scrimmage. While the time does not focus on any specific skills, it is an important part of the practice to keep the practices both fun, and to induce a level of competitiveness in the kids. My daughter shutting down in the scrimmage portion leads to the first lesson I learned as a hockey parent.

Parents want their kids to succeed. Part of this success is searching for and discovering what kids enjoy, and what their passions are. It is easy to have a child emulate or mirror what we do well, but harder to encourage what we are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with. I enjoy hockey, have been skating and playing since I was 3, and found it easy to drive my kids to the rink. It’s harder when kids want to make their own path in life. In addition to tennis, my daughter now plays guitar, an activity I am complete unfamiliar with, and unable to help her other than providing her the time, the lessons, and of course the guitars, amps, picks, and other equipment.

It wasn’t just me who learned from this experience. One of the hardest things for a kid to do is tell their parents they don’t share the same passion for something their parents do. After a practice session over the summer, while tucking my daughter into bed, she explained to me that she didn’t want to play hockey anymore. Overcoming the fear of disappointing her father took courage, and I’m proud of the way she did it.

October 2020

The season begins with a weekend tournament in Chesapeake, Virginia. We have had zero team practices, and although some of the kids on the team played together in previous seasons the lack of preparation and ice time from the pandemic is glaring from the start. Over the course of four games (two on Saturday and two on Sunday), we lose each game by an average of 12-15 goals and failed to score even once. Each day the 45-minute drive home is long, and a bit awkward, as this is my son’s introduction to the team. I try to lighten up the modo by explaining to him that the team can only get better. But 8-year-olds are hard to figure out. Brendan acknowledges that it can only get better, but also states that it will be hard to keep playing if they keep losing games by 16 goals. Yong kids think concretely, often only seeing what is directly in front of them and thinking that whatever they are experiencing will last forever, or mostly forever.

I have nice conversation with one of the other fathers over email. I relate what happened over the weekend to what I experienced in youth football. Over my final two years of youth football, my team won precisely one game. Most games were blowouts, often losing by 30 or more points without scoring a single touchdown. However, for myself and my teammates, we learned more about ourselves over those two seasons than in any other period in our lives. We would lose by 30 points on a Sunday, and be back at practice on Tuesday, giving it our all. It was important to keep showing up and trying hard, because whether you are 8, 10, or 40-years-old, being there for your teammates matter more than the skills you bring to the field. The friends I made in youth football I keep in touch with to this day.

There are pure skaters and there are hockey players. They are not mutually exclusive, but you can certainly excel in one while being average in the other. I can judge the value of a hockey player by their performance in the last game on the last day of a tournament, down ten goals better than I can judge them as a hockey player by having them skate circles around a cone.

Coaching

My son convinces me to serve as an assistant coach on for the team. I use the word serve, because taking the time to coach youth sports is service. It is service to kids and families you don’t know, and service to the community as you mold kids into better people. When someone mentions that they coach youth sports, be it hockey, football, baseball, softball, basketball, or any other sport, thank them for their service.

I register with USA hockey as a coach and undergo the required background checks that ensure I don’t have a history of criminal behavior. I also take some mandatory online training that USA hockey offers to coaches that range from identifying inappropriate or predatory behavior form other adults to recognizing the symptoms of concussions. There are also some lessons on how to run a practice that involves a bunch of 6–8-year-old kids skating around on the ice. It’s chaos, and one must embrace the chaos to be successful.

Part of embracing the chaos means keeping the players moving for the entire 60 minutes of practice. A typical practice session for Mites is to start with some skating drills and warmups, and then to break into three or four stations (depending on the number of coaches and kids at practice). Each station is typically a small area game that builds skating, passing, stick handling, and shooting skills. With 3-4 players at each station there is little waiting in line.  We don’t spend time on tactics, preferring to keep the kids moving and interested in the practice. Tactics will come in later years and higher levels (Squirts, pee-wee, bantom, etc…). Moreover, we don’t have the kids focus on a position. The theory being that when the puck is in the offensive zone, they play offense, and when the puck is in the defensive zone, they play defense. The most we try to do is to have the kids spread out, so as not to look like a youth soccer team with everyone chasing the ball. Mites hockey is 4-on-4 and played on half the ice sheet. We can save tactics for another year.

As we practice twice a week, one coach is responsible for designing the practice on Tuesday, and another coach for Thursday. We draw up the drills on a hockey whiteboard and send it to all the coaches on a group chat and in the Slack app, along with a description of the drill and which coach is responsible for that station. Every so often we get through the warmups on the ice and I forget what drill / station I am responsible for, and I take out my phone to check. I hate doing this as it gives the impression that my head is not in the practice, so I do my best to remember, and later in the season write down what I am doing on an index card to avoid the “coach is texting” perception.   

The first couple weeks of coaching I try to be more of an assistant, but as time goes by I get my opportunities to make some changes to the practice. For example, during the scrimmage I have those not on the ice skate around in the neutral zone. The goal here is to keep the kids active and give them a chance to play around with the puck to work on skating and stick handling.

Part of coaching Mites is instilling a love for the game of hockey. The coaching staff wants every kid to keep returning to the rink and to the team year-after-year. We keep the practices fun, and try to keep a light demeaner at all the games. In the end we don’t don’t “work hockey,” we “play hockey.” Hockey is play time, you practice hard, you play hard, but never lose sight of the fact that kids are PLAYING hockey.

Before our second game I grab a new puck from the rink and purchase a silver sharpie from Target. My plan is to give a “player of the game” puck to one player each week, writing in their name, number, what they did special, and the date, creating a small memento that the kids can put on their desk or shelf at home. The first game I do this, Garrett (one of our players) scores five goals and earns his trophy puck. I think nothing of it until I get an email from his father later that night. Turns out Garrett’s dog passed away the night before, and Garrett played the game with a heavy heart. On the backside of the puck Garrett inscribes a personal note to his departed pet. Sometimes you don’t understand how a small gesture can mean much more to another person.

A New Tradition

During the learn to play sessions when my daughter and son both participated, the three of us would drive over to a local pizzeria for some pizza. Brendan and I typically ordered personal pizzas, while my pizza-hating daughter ordered a bowl of spaghetti. This tradition of eating out after practice continued with Brendan once the team practices began. Our practices on Tuesday end about 7PM, leaving us enough time to grab some dinner. By the third practice we started going to a Mexican restaurant on the way home. A month into the season we became regulars, ordering the same dish every time. Often the meals are ready for us by the time we sit at the table.  

Breaking bread is one of the more important activities of humanity. It creates trust, friendship, and allows us time to tell stories to each other. After some of our early Saturday or Sunday morning games some of the coaches and our kids grab breakfast at Einstein’s bagels (when we play in Virginia Beach), or a local diner (when we play in Yorktown). When we do this, the kids typically sit together and forge the friendships that they have been developing on the ice. For the adults, it gives us time to talk about hockey, our families, or any other kind of adult conversation that we tend to miss throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

At its very core, hockey is a brotherhood/sisterhood. Throughout my 20+ year military career, the friendships I make outside of uniform tend to form inside a hockey rink. Even in uniform, I tend to find other hockey players at the various posts I’ve been stationed at. These friendships form irrelevant of rank, and one of the cool aspects of men’s league hockey is watching a junior enlisted soldier chirp a field grade officer, which is followed by joining each other for beers in the parking lot.

Whether it’s enjoying a meal with my son and daughter, or breaking bread with new friends who also share a passion of parenting and hockey, I sense that the memory of these meals is just as important as the memories we gain inside the rink.  

COVID 19

The impact of COVID-19 touches nearly every aspect of our lives. My kid’s school was completely online at the start of the year, then moved to a hybrid model where they are in residence twice a week, and online the other three days. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than millions of kids at this point, so I am thankful for how our community has thus far responded. One aspect of life that remained largely unimpacted was youth hockey, at least until now.

In November of 2020, the rinks in our local area, from Richmond to Yorktown to Virginia Beach experienced a COVID-19 outbreak. Multiple players and coaches from every rink informed the hockey community of positive tests, which resulted in the rinks and hockey programs shutting down for two weeks. It offers a nice break, but by the end of two weeks as cabin fever sets in we are itching to get back on the ice.

We were lucky to maintain the season throughout the pandemic, but some critical aspects of youth hockey disappeared. First, we lost use of the locker rooms. To mitigate the spread of the virus, all players get dressed outside the rink (in the parking lot). For kids, the locker room is a space where they can forge their friendships, joke with each other away from the ears of their parents. It’s a place where they can talk about to the good, the bad, and the ugly of what happens on the ice. Topics can include talking about how they set up a “tic-tac-toe” goal or do shaming of a player who didn’t hustle on a back check. When their winning, it’s a fun place, sometimes filled with loud music from someone’s hockey playlist. When you’re losing, it can be a place of respectful silence. Either way, it’s a place for a team to build chemistry, or the intrapersonal dynamics within a team that can determine success or failure. Peer pressure is a hell of a thing.

In addition to the banter of the locker room, other aspects of team building and childhood in general sit on the back burner. There are no sleepovers, no birthday parties, no team fun days at the bounce house or laser tag, or at whatever the new popular place for kids to hang out may be. They are building friendships but building friendships in the same way I make friends with the people I work with. I see them at the office, but then they disappear from my life from the time I begin my drive home until I get in the next day.

More than the kids not building chemistry in the locker room, coaches and parents rarely intermingle throughout the season. Our faces are hidden behind masks, protecting us from spreading and contracting COVID while also protecting us from forming friendships that normally form when your kids form their friendships. By the time you turn 40, get married, and start a family making new friends doesn’t rank high in your life’s priorities. As Chuck Klosterman wrote in Raised in Captivity, “what’s the upside of meeting interesting people if your’re already married?” Indeed, having kids means spending time with people you would never otherwise have met. Knowing fellow hockey parents helps to build context of what we see from the kids on the rink. Context builds empathy, and we are missing out on this critical aspect of team building.  

Masks and social distancing, although absolutely necessary reduce the personal connections that come from sports

January 2021

After the holiday break, we pick up the routine of our two practices and one game per week schedule. Three days of hockey seems to be the ideal. I am a firm believer that young kids need time for rest and recuperation following youth sports games and practices. More than physical rest, they need a mental break from the game as well. On days when Brendan is not playing hockey he also plays tennis with his sister, or nerf wars with other kids in our neighborhood.  

I am a firm believer in kids playing multiple sports growing up. The end of the season will be an end to hockey for a few months. However, I also believe that playing other sports helps to build strength, hand-eye coordination, and overall athletic skills that can apply to any activity. Indeed, playing multiple sports helps to build a personal culture of fitness, which is something that I hope my kids will carry with them their entire lives. There may come a time when my kids choose to focus on one sport, but ages 8 and 9 isn’t the time to start.

The pandemic closed our local recreation center, which meant no basketball leagues this year. However, we have been able to continue tennis, which of course is an outdoor sport. Both Brendan and Sabrina play every Wednesday, and as often as I can take them to a court to hit with them.

Games

We have a weekly game, normally on Saturday morning, but occasionally on Sunday. Game time is early, sometime at 7AM or 8:30 AM. The Yorktown rink is only 15 minutes or so from my house while it takes approximately 50 minutes to drive to the rink in Virginia Beach, the latter of which includes crossing the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel (HRBT) which can randomly add an hour to any drive on the Peninsula. The commute with the early start times means waking up by 5:30AM, and leaving the house by 6. This is a new experience for Brendan, but a nostalgic feeling for my childhood winter weekends.

Brendan, #56 in Black skating the puck

On the ice, the games are four vs four, and played on half the ice. There are no referees as the game flow is managed by one coach for each team being on the ice during the game. No referees mean no penalties, an aspect which I think many parents have yet to understand. I come to this conclusion after hearing some parents loudly complain that the other coach or I should have called a tripping, or a hook during the game. In the NHL and other professional leagues, the high glass around the boards is meant to protect the fans from pucks flying into the stands at nearly 100 miles per hour. In youth hockey, the boards and glass protect the coaches and kids, as we cannot hear parents screaming abusive language at us. Combine this with youth hockey players having ear guards on their helmets and any screaming or yelling from the bleachers doesn’t reach the kids ears.

Call it stoicism if you like, but my personal perspective is that it is useless to get angry over things you can’t control. One of these incontrollable things is call from referees, a dynamic that will begin next year in Squirts. I tend to believe that by the time we leave this world the bad calls and the good calls will even out. It takes effort to overcome recency bias, but when calls in a game seem unfair, consider that they are unfair to someone else’s benefit, a dynamic that will eventually play into your favor.

Playing half ice also means there are no offsides, and no icing calls.  When an incident that would normally be a penalty occurs, one of the coaches simply pulls the offender aside to explain to them what they did wrong. Barring a player going all out Happy Gilmore by trying to stab another player with a skate, the kids stay on the ice and learn the rules. No penalties mean no powerplays, just figuring out what to do when they get the puck is enough as they learn to play.

The games are split into two 20-minute running clock halves. After every two minutes the buzzer rings for a controlled line change. The boards are too high for Mites to jump over, and there is a coach on the bench responsible for opening and closing the door at each change. We start the game and the second half with a face-off, and those are the only two face-offs for the game. After a goal, the team that gave up the goal gets possession from behind their own net, like how adults play in pick-up games. This keeps the game moving, which is important as setting up for face-offs could constitute a large percentage of the time due to the number of goals each team scores.

Watching Mites hockey has dispelled the myth of precocious hockey players in the 6–8-year-old level. Often, there are stories of NHL superstars who scored 100 or 200 goals in a season. Don’t be fooled, it’s not that hard of an accomplishment. We use normal sized goals, the same size as adults use. This means that often the goal is taller than the kid playing goalie. Moreover, at the Mites level goalies are rotated through, meaning there are no full-time goalies. Indeed, the kid in net might be playing his first game ever as a goalie, and this can be the scenario in every game. It is not unusual for one player to score eight or ten goals a game, half of which were blind attempts at clearing the puck down the ice when the opposing goalie wasn’t paying attention. This also explains why we don’t keep score.

Coaches don’t keep score, but the kids do. Brendan is sure to tell me the exact score of every game, even though I lose count in the first five minutes. Not only do the kids keep score, they happen to know the exact number of goals and assists they have accumulated throughout the season, as well as the stats for their teammates. I don’t put much faith into the cumulative season stats, as they might be a bit inflated. Seeing kids keep score, track stats, and focus on wins and losses brings to light an interesting dynamic. There are some kids that hate to lose. You see the pain in their face at the end of the game knowing the other team scored more goals. It’s a pain that goes deep into their souls and I think it is a focus that they will carry with them for most of their lives. Even though the coaches are preaching fun over winning at this level, to these kids it is important to win, all the time, every puck battle, every period, every game. They might leave the rink angry from a loss, or in constant criticism of their individual performance. On the surface they seem miserable, but at a deeper level this is what they thrive on. Other kids are just the opposite, focused on having fun and truly enjoying the time they are at the rink and on the ice. I don’t think one perspective is necessarily better than the other, but more of an important trait to notice in our kids as they progress through childhood.

The Incident

It’s mid-February and in addition to managing the bench, it is my responsibility to bring snacks for the kids to eat and drink after the game. Each family gets one or two turns in this job. Looking at what each family provides is a kind of insight into their private life. Some weekends the kids get Gatorade and fruit, other weekends it’s Capri-Sun and potato chips, or granola bars and candy. When we play in Virginia Beach there’s always the possibility of donuts with a Krispy Kreme across the street from the rink. When it’s my turn to bring the snacks, Brendan sits in the lobby as I walk 18 bags of Capri Sun, Oranges, and Granola Bars inside the rink area so the kids can quickly grab them on their way out following out game. As I set them up, I become a front row witness to some unexpected violence.

The game before us is the High School aged kids. A player has the puck near the boards and is hit from behind. It’s a nasty hit, and the referee immediately blows his whistle, probably for a 5-minute penalty. The rest of the players on the ice are frozen, except for one from the home team who immediately gets in the face of the offending player. Words are exchanged, but as I am behind the glass, I can’t hear what is said. The home player then chokes up on his stick like it’s a baseball bat and whacks the original offender who tries to skate away. The home player then reloads, winding his stick back, and cracking the opposing player in the arm and ribs as he crumbles to the ground. This is Happy Gilmore land, and about the worst one can do short of taking off their skate and stabbing another player with it. I’ve been playing hockey for 40 years, and this is the first time I have seen a hockey player transformed into a baseball player to injure someone.

Hockey, like football isn’t a contact sport, rather it’s a collision sport. While hockey players typically don’t weigh 300 pounds, they collide at faster speeds. If force equals mass x acceleration, the force of a collision in hockey can be as bad, if not worse than those in football. There is no checking in Mites hockey, but our practice drills and games involve a lot of contact, normally in the way of kids bumping and running into each other. Learning to absorb contact from an opposing player without losing your mind is an important piece to building a life-long hockey player.

People’s inability to absorb incidental contact is the reason I no longer skate in men’s league hockey. The leagues are filled with grown men who started playing hockey as an adult, learning how to carry themselves by watching highlights on ESPN. They consider any contact as a reason to drop their gloves. Tripping, interference, and other penalties happen throughout the game, and often the referee earning twenty bucks a game will make the call. Unfortunately, some adults can not leave well enough alone and consider any penalty an insult to their personal honor, as if after someone tripped them the offender will sleep with their wife in the penalty box. About three years ago I found myself coming home at midnight full of anger after a 10:30 PM game. I would lie awake most of the night full of adrenaline leading to long and painful day afterwards. The dream died a long time ago, and when you get home at midnight from a men’s league game it’s too late to become anything other than the hockey player you already are.

My peak hockey came in my early 30s skating in the Landesliga for the Stuttgart Rebels. The LandesLiga was a nice return to practices, coaches, and full contact hockey, something most people never experience. This was a decade ago, though it seems like yesterday. Now I skate in a private pick-up game every Sunday. There are no referees, no penalties, and we police our own behavior on the ice. There is one golden rule: “don’t be an a**hole,” which works surprisingly well. For the most part it’s the same group of 20, and we rotate the players to keep the teams relatively even. There are no 10-point blow outs which as an adult is not fun for either the winner or the loser. In the end, no matter what level one attains in hockey, you end up where you started, at a local rink. Instead of playing games in the dark hours of the morning you are playing the dark hours of the night. The circle is complete.

As you continue skate in men’s leagues, every so often your faster than your opponent, but only because you are twenty years younger. This is perhaps the best part of becoming eligible for Over-35 league.  However, that 65-year-old sitting on the bench next to you might be a step or two slower, but he once played in the WHL with Gordie Howe. Despite your speed, he beats you with his hands, his vision, and his experience every single time. Being a great hockey player is more than just the cumulative rating of your skating skills.

Learn to Play and Playing the Squirts

Every hockey program needs a sustainable pipeline of new players. To encourage new players form the local community, the Prowl hosts a “Learn to Play” event at the rink in Yorktown. Coaches from each level run different stations, while some of the Prowl players volunteer to help. We organize the ice into six stations, with one set aside for young kids without skates. Paul (one of our Mites coaches) diagrams various drills, but we quickly devolve to having the kids skate the puck and shoot on a goal. The Prowl players work with the young kids, sometimes holding them up while they try to skate, or sometimes passing back and forth with the learn to play kids. The event is a success, but even more impressive was how the young Prowl players handled themselves on the ice. Watching Brendan take a younger kids hand and skate with him on the ice, and then softly pass the puck back and forth warmed my heart. When your child succeeds in an athletic or academic event it’s easy to feel pride in their success. But when your child shows compassion and helps those not as skilled in something they do, you come away with the feeling and knowledge that surpasses the thrill of a hattrick or game winning goal.  

Brendan on the breakaway

Following the learn to play session we have the rising Mites scrimmage the Squirts. It’s an interesting experiment as it clearly displays how the Mites have yet to comprehend the concepts of offsides and position play. In Mites, the 4 vs 4 on half ice means that players can move ahead of the puck, plant themselves in front of the opposing net, and shoot the puck down the ice without any consequences. In a developing 2-0, Brendan skates ahead of his teammate Victor, and goes offsides by about ten feet. Brendan was doing what he was taught by skating to the net but with little afterthought on the timing of arrival.  

Surprisingly the Mites keep the game close, and with less than a minute to play find themselves down one goal by a score of 3-2. The Squirts took an early 2-0 lead, but the Mites led by Victor’s two breakaway goals even the score about halfway through the third period. As soon as the clock hits 1 minute, one of the coaches calls for David, our goaltender to come to the bench, giving the Mites an extra skater, but leaving the net empty. Just as David arrives at the bench Victor and Garret get a two-on-one opportunity, Garret shoots the puck into the pads of te goaltender, but Garrett is right there for the rebound. It’s a tie game with twenty seconds left. I look towards the bench and see all the kids jumping up and down, hugging each other and giving high fives. More than any other moment in the season, they have come together as a team Time runs out before we can get to the faceoff (we use a running clock). We had intended to have a shootout no matter what the outcome, allowing each skater to take their turn, but now the shootout has a sense of meaning to all the kids.

To my surprise the Mites win the shootout. Again, the team goes bananas on the bench. Easily one of the best memories these kids will take with them.

March 2021

The season is starting to wind down, and in our first game of the month the opposing team can only field three skaters and a goalie. We have all our players, and before we start the game, I ask for two volunteers to play for the opposing team. Two of my solid players volunteer, and they turn their jerseys inside out to blend in with the other team who wears white. This is not the first time a team has been short of players, and surprisingly the kids are amenable to playing for another team especially when it means they will get more ice time. The 4-on-4 structure of Mites hockey gives us more reliance or flexibility when kids can’t make the game. The magic numbers of players are either 8 (for two lines) or 6 which lets me pair two players, as they get two shifts on for every one shift off.

Over the course of the season, we have had games with seven skaters. With seven skaters one player will stay on for an extra shift at each line change. I learned my lesson the first time we did this to keep an index card and pencil handy, list all the players and place a check mark each time they do a double shift. While I may not be tracking who gets double shifts, the kids certainly are, and will let you know that one or two of their teammates got more ice time than they did.

Our last weekend of games comes in mid-March with a game on Saturday and Sunday. About 30-minutes before Brendan and I were to begin the drive, we get a note that the Virginia Beach team cannot field a team due to a COVID quarantine. Some of their kids play on a travel team that played in a tournament last weekend, and thus are on a two-week quarantine. Brendan and I make up for Saturday’s cancellation by going to a stick and puck session at our local rink. The coaches text back and forth and decide on an inter-squad scrimmage for Sunday morning to wrap up the season. 

On Sunday morning we split the team into the two-sub teams we have used all season. There is the P1 team and the P2 team. This is the first time all year that the kids will play a full game against each other, normally only getting about 8-10 minutes at the end of practice. The best part of coaching youth hockey is the unexpected. You never know how 6–8-year-old kids will react to anything life throws at them. The inter-squad game turns out to be the most competitive game of the season with the scoreboard displaying a 6-6 tie at the end of regulation. Not only is it the most competitive, but it’s also the hardest I’ve seen everyone skate all season. When you compete against your friends, the sibling rivalry dynamic comes into effect. All the kids skate hard, are standing on the bench watching intensely throughout the game. Seeing and feeling the intensity is what brings hockey players back to the rink, day after day, month after month, year after year.

Protecting the middle of the ice

Our goalie David shows more intensity than I have ever seen. David loves to play goal, and if this were an older level, he would be playing in goal every week. As it stands different kids used the team’s shared goalie gear to provide everyone a chance to play. David shows a little frustration after the first goal is scored, then gets angrier and more intense, eventually slamming is stick to the ice after some of the later goals. I skate to him and remind him that it is a long game, that he’s making way more saves than goals allowed, and overall playing a spectacular game. But what I see this morning in David I see in some other kids as well which is a pursuit of perfection. In some ways being ultra-competitive is good, and other times it can be unhealthy. I see the same dynamic in Brendan at times. Trying to be perfect means leaving no room for failure. Having space for failure is critical, because that is the space that allows you to rebound when you do fail, and we do at multiple points in our life.

To finish the season off we have all the kids on both teams take part in the shootout, and each team knocks three goals past the opposing goaltender. Regulation ends in a tie, the shootout ends in a tie. All the kids come off the benches to congratulate their goalies, and we take a complete team photo. Perfect way to end the season.

I get home and edit the photos as I have done after each game. As I do so I reflect on what youth sports can mean to these kids. Chances are that none of them will ever reach the NHL, a couple might, and it’s a BIG might, play at a high level in juniors or in college. What that means is from Mites though Squirts, to Bantom, Midget, and High School, this is their golden years of sports, just as it was for the rest of us. This is the time that sports are the driving force behind friendships, physical and mental fitness, and overall happiness in life. Enjoy the time, encourage excellence, and always make it a positive and fun experience.

Your 2020-2021 PYHA Mites