It’s common for coaches to strategize to win games. That’s why we practice and that’s why we play…isn’t it?

We know that there is a correlation between winning and having fun but does a young athlete need to win in order to have fun. What about development? Do athletes develop quicker if they are playing on a team that is more successful in the win column?

If you ask any sports professional, they will say that the most important thing about playing sport is to have fun. Otherwise, there is no point doing it. Half of all young athletes quit sport by the age of 13 because it isn’t fun anymore and the leading cause is that there is too much pressures from parents and coaches.

Unfortunately, many coaches at the Novice and Atom level of minor hockey do not understand the emotional impact a player experiences when they are sat, when they miss shifts or when they are consistently short shifted. There are many strategies to achieve this type of imbalance. Some of these include 1) last kid on and first kid off, 2) missing a shift due to a team penalty, 3) double shifting players in order to achieve a distinct advantage over their opponent, 4) starting the same players each game and each period and my favorite 5) short shifting an entire line that the coach has deemed as being weak.

The reality here is that less than one percent of children chose sport as a career in adulthood. That includes all forms of sport (coaching, power skating instructors, personal trainer, professional hockey players etc.). The likelihood of any minor hockey player making it to the NHL is minuet. The stats are staggering. Most studies suggest that about three in every 10,000 youth hockey players, or 0.03 percent make it to the NHL. That includes players that enjoy successful careers as well as the ones that drop in for a cup of coffee. Putting that into perspective, the odds of a high school graduate of finishing college in the US is about 70%.

Also, children develop at different rates. A child that is a star at 7 or 8 may not excel when Bantam roles around. A good example of this is a small, shifty agile player. Long limbed children take time to grow into their bodies. During the early years their pace of develop is slower. When they hit bantam, they typically have a greater advantage over small players as the game changes. The same goes for players that are less mature. Now I’m just generalizing here but you can easily verify this by taking in a Midget AAA game and counting the number of tall players versus the number of shorter players.

My point here is, players find different times in their youth hockey career to excel. Why do some coaches provide unequal opportunity to players when none of them have reached their full potential and nobody has any idea as to when they will? Kids that don’t receive equal opportunity in their youth are less likely to build confidence playing with the sport. This leads to further isolation from the group. Also, studies show that a confident individual with harness the energy from recent success and use it to achieve further positive results.

So why does a coach choose to provide more opportunity to some players more than others? Why do some players receive more opportunity to develop at these early ages? Does it make the player better and if so, better at what? Is it an ego trip for the coaches as they want win and do the players need to win?

The reality is, eight-year old’s don’t care about the score of a hockey game. Although, when they receive less opportunity then their teammates, they feel inferior and experience emotional stress. They think that their leader, the coach, doesn’t believe in them and this has a far greater impact on a child’s emotional state than winning a hockey game. Reality check, it’s a game. A game that the children are playing.

Children from 4 up to the age of 11 or 12 don’t understand why they receive less opportunity in the game as their brains haven’t develop the ability to rationalize this concept. Once they reach puberty and experience higher levels of competitiveness, they start to understand that we are all different. Some are stronger than others and that’s a great time in youth sport to celebrate these successes. At that point with the top tier players, they get to earn their playing time and they understand that.

Last year, my eight-year-old truly believed that he was one of the strongest players on his winter team. We know this because we asked him. In reality, he was one of the weaker players on his Tier 1 Novice team but his own built in defense system puts him on top. It protected his own fragile, self confidence and it did a great job. Unfortunately, the adult coaches didn’t do their job to protect the children when the team adopted the “win at all cost” model. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that we continue to advocate for equal opportunity for all players. You see, my youngest will likely not even have his cup of coffee in the NHL but he will achieve some amazing success as an member of our society. A future husband, a father, a taxpayer that will have a positive contribution to his community.

As for youth hockey, eventually most coaches learn how these negative experiences of offering unequal opportunity, impact the children and they adjust their approach for future years of coaching. I had one very wise coach mention that “Hockey doesn’t actually start getting serious until Bantam”. The game changes so much when contact is added to the mix.

Too often I hear about experiences where the player was sat, short shifted and received less of an opportunity than the other players. This typically gets worse as the season goes and eventually the child is disengaged from the coaches and emotionally impacted by the experience. Where is the humanity in this? Unfortunately, most hockey clubs do not educate their coaches enough at the younger levels to focus on fun, fair play and equal opportunity.

In minor hockey, coaches are volunteers and as parents, we shouldn’t lose sight of that. They volunteer their time.

Here is my advice to novice coaches that are new to caching youth hockey. Provide equal opportunity to all players. Just role the lines. That way, everyone gets an opportunity to learn in different game situations. You may not be able to measure the payoff now, but it will have a lifelong impact on the children you are mentoring.

Posted in Coaching