|
Connecting & Communicating with Players
In order for a coach to be effective, he/she must be able to communicate effectively with his/her players. Coaches need to know who they’re coaching – not just names and faces, but also personalities, goals, and desires. When a coach begins to understand the “why’s” of his/her players, then the lines of clear and effective communication can begin.
NHL Proposed Rule Changes
In Mid-August the NHL held a camp for prospects where the league tried out lots of new rule adjustments. Lots of hockey people have very strong opinions about the league messing with the rules, but I think there are some very legitimate ideas proposed at the camp which could benefit the game .
Bad Habits to Eliminate
“How you do anything is how you do everything.” -source unknown This is a great quote, and one relevant to everyone in the hockey coaching field. With so much happening on the ice, it’s often easy to overlook small bad habits that creep in to teams. Eliminating these habits will not only make you a stronger team, but also help form players with better character.
5 Tryout Tips for Coaches (Part 3 of 3)
5 Tryout Tips for Parents (Part 2 of 3)
This post is part 2 of a three-part series revolving around tryouts. These posts will cover tryout tips for players, parents, and coaches. This focus is on tips/thoughts for parents. Parents have one of the most difficult parts of the process – they’re utterly helpless, everything is in the hands of the player and coaches. Disclaimer: These “tips” for parents come from a coaching perspective. They’re not meant to be “scolding” in any way – instead, they’re simply to help give a coaches perspective on some common interactions during one of the most difficult times of the season.
5 Tryout Tips for Players (Part 1 of 3)
During the tryout times, I get a lot of players who ask me about the tryout process. Over the past year or so, I’ve written several pieces about tryouts (just search this blog for “tryouts”), but I wanted to give players (hopefully some of my own trying out as well) a couple quick tips for entering tryouts.
Pins & Needles
Some may have been wondering where I’ve been for the past few weeks, and why the post consistency has decreased. I’ve been heavily involved in taking the ice down and re-installing it at our local rink. This weekend I’m actually up in Minnesota watching an NAHL tryout. As I sit in the lobby observing about a hundred kids coming in (some I’ve coached, some I’ve coached against), one thing is very apparent….everyone is on pins & needles. This is the final tryout camp for one of the teams in the North American Hockey League. Players enter with the hopes of making a high-level US-based junior team. Parents wait nervously in the stands and lobby, sometimes pacing back and forth, chain smoking, or just sitting there fidgeting. It’s fun hockey to watch because every player on the ice is competing. There are some obvious cuts and some obvious returning players, but the rest remains very close in talent. Many perceptions of junior hockey tryouts are they serve primarily as a fundraiser for the organization. I suppose if you broke it down, it’s easy to see how that would be an easy conclusion to jump to. Just for fun, here are the numbers of the camp I’m watching: 100 players (approximately) x $250 each player = $25,000 Ice expense of approximately 25 hours at $150/hr = $5,250 Total approximate profit: $19,750 – not bad for a weekend’s work! No matter what the dollar amount equals out to, my main hope is the players attending are being treated honestly and fairly. Let me make it clear by saying I am NOT saying they aren’t being treated fairly/honestly. I hope that when players attend ANY junior tryout (or any other level tryout for that matter), the coaching staff is having a completely honest conversation with the players as opposed to stringing them along to get more money out of them. Good luck to all the skaters on the ice this weekend!
How to Watch a Professional Game
I think if most coaches went around their locker room and asked how many player watch NHL games, a good number of kids (generally speaking) would raise their hands. I would venture to guess if you asked who watches a game without texting their friends, updating Facebook, or Tweeting – the number of hands raised would be drastically decreased. Players (and coaches) who watch professional hockey have tons of opportunities to learn from the best in the game every time a game is televised.
Taking a Lesson from the Capitals
If you’re a Washington Capitals fan, the last couple days have probably been pretty tough to handle after their first-round exit from the playoffs after being up three games to one in the series. While surfing through the latest hockey headlines online, I came across a question from Dave Hodge on TSN.ca titled Does the Caps’ Loss Make Mockery of Regular Season. The question is an interesting one – one which I’m sure will stir up some debate and emotional responses (especially from the Caps’ fans).
« Newer Posts — Older Posts » |
 |
Greater Good: Wadena Hockey Club
Tags: donations, greater good, tornado, wadena hockey
We all work hard to keep kids involved in the great game of hockey. Unfortunately for the approximately 4,000 people in the small Minnesota town of Wadena, this task was made much more difficult when a tornado ripped through their rink in June. With all the devastation, their Zamboni, floor, and compressors managed to survive the storm. Take a look at the YouTube video below to see some of the photos from the arena.
HockeyShare.com has made a donation to the Wadena Hockey Club, and would like to encourage anyone in the position to give even a small donation visit their club page and/or donation link.
Wadena Hockey Club Page: http://www.leaguelineup.com/welcome.asp?url=wadenahockeyclub
Donation Page: http://wadenahockey.3dcartstores.com/