Category: Athlete

THANK YOU!

Posted Glen MulcahyPosted in Athlete, Coach, Early Sport Specialization, Organization Executive, Parents

Our 4th Youth Sports Digital Summit ran this past weekend and I am writing this at the halfway point and must confess I am truly humbled from all the feedback, comments, shares and overall numbers that visited our site, signed up and watched one or more session.

I plan to do a Facebook live version of this prior to scheduling out our newsletter but I know I will miss someone so I felt best to share in a blog as well.

As the youth sports community is in limbo as the world continues to practice physical distancing, what amazed me the most the weeks going into the summit was the fact that so many amazing organizations and sports leaders reached out either directly or by sharing out via their social media platforms to make it our best Summit to date.

It was when we were having our weekly 2-4-1 Sports Zoom call and Steve Boyle said he would jump on Facebook live with myself and team member Geoff Lenahan was a wow moment for me.

Then I spent the better part of Thursday afternoon, less than 12 hours before the summit was going “live” to figure out how we could do a joint Facebook Live Call and thanks to my best friends Google and Youtube we were able to figure it out.  After a hour of testing with our co-op students we ready to do so at 9AM Friday morning on day 1, Steve and I went “live” (albeit not without glitches as the first time).

The number of people reached, engagements and views of our first and second Facebook live posts was tenfold what we normally see on our social media.

 

I would be remiss if my first thank you was not for Steve and Geoff for jumping on the Facebook live this weekend, THANKS GUYS!

I also want to take the opportunity to thank all of the amazing speakers who shared their insight for this and all of our past summits going back to Summer 2018.  Each time a speaker accepts our invitation or reaches out to me directly to participate I am truly humbled they do so.

Thanks to all of our team members, Geoff, John, current Adriel, and Isabel and all prior co-op students who have put in the work to make the digital summits, podcasts and other digital resources we have built available in the last couple of years.

Thanks to the Federal and Provincial Grant Programs to provide funding to us as a small not for profit organization so we can sponsor students to provide them valuable work experience and help us continue to grow as an organization.

Just like it is when I have attended conferences either as a speaker or as attendee I know that it will take a few weeks to reflect on this weekend and the last few weeks that lead up to what was our 4th Digital Summit.

 

Kudos to every single person who visited our site, signed up for the summits, and watched one or more of the interviews to add to their tool basket and hone their crafts during this time of hiatus.  Special thanks to all of you that signed up for monthly or yearly membership passes to help us continue providing all grassroots sports stakeholders resources, especially now, when everyone is tightening their wallets due to the impact COVID-19 has had on so many industries, not just sports.

Ironically, the platform that we have been utilizing for over 3 years is one that is being ok … in December they had 10 million users, 4 months later, Zoom has over 200 Million users like schools, workplaces are shifting to digital vs. face to face meetings.

Thanks for everything that you do in the youth sports space, whether it as a coach, parent, official, volunteer board member volunteering for why we all do this, the kids.

The very same kids that are cooped up at home during this hiatus and when health authorities do ease up on physical distancing restrictions permitting kids to return to play at parks, fields beaches or organized sports the big unknown is what is that going to look like post-COVID-19.

 

 

I know after coaching for over 25 years how it can be a thankless gig in a sense and those of you that understand the importance of lifelong learning and are doing so to get ready for the time we can return to play …. THANK YOU!!!!

To all of our allies across the globe, thanks for locking arms with us in recent years so we can all work together to bring the game back to the kids … where it belongs.

Last, but not least, I would be totally remiss if I did not thank my amazing family, my wife Melissa for 25 years, daughter Erin and Son Liam for their unwavering support to permit me to do what I am truly passionate about, Kids and Sports.

Just like it is when I have attended conferences either as a speaker or as an attendee I know that it will take a few weeks to reflect on the last few days and weeks that lead up to our 4th Digital Summit.

With the uncertainty of when youth sports programming will ramp up again, I to add a live webinar (or some facsimile thereof) in the coming weeks to augment our podcast and building other digital resources.

In the event I forgot anyone, I apologize for doing so, I will ensure that I amend this blog and update if so as all of those that have supported me I want you to know

I am truly humbled and gracious for your support.

 

#WeApplaud #OnApplaudit

Please say thank you to all medical and front line workers you know for their selfless dedication to fight this fight.

We are all in this together.

Be Safe.

 

 

 

 

 

Creative Ways to be “socially” active

Posted Glen MulcahyPosted in Athlete, Coach, Early Sport Specialization, Organization Executive, Parents

Having been involved in youth sports my entire life, as we continue to clamp down to fight the CV virus and I continue to see empty fields, courts, gyms, rec centres, pools closing down it has my head spinning as have been a long term advocate for us all to get out and PLAY.

We have already started sharing various ways that people across the globe are improvising, adapting and overcoming so they can be active to adhere to mandated stay at home protocols.

I am glad to start seeing others reference what I feel should be the correct term, in lieu of “social” distancing, the term that we all should be using is “physical” distancing to ensure we stay 6’ or more away from others. Now more than ever we need to come together as one to fight the spread of COVID-19 but need to find creative ways to ensure not only do we maintain our social and work networks, but finding ways to be physically and mentally active (sound mind = sound body).

Although we are all being forced to limit interaction with friends, work colleagues, work and study from home (if companies are able to do so) now more than ever we have to ensure we find creative means to stay socially connected although we have to practice physical distance protocols.

Below are just a few examples we have shared out thus far, keep checking our daily shares

Zumba in Utah Backyards

Kudos to all the ladies for participating in what I suspect will not be the first, nor the last, Zumba Backyard Party in the coming weeks.

Germans Singing Bella Ciao from rooftops in solidarity with Italy

 

Practicing physical distancing but at the same time supporting another country who has been hit hard by the COVID-19 virus just shows how the world is coming together in this fight.

Students sing “somewhere over the rainbow” together from home after concert canceled

 

I suspect Israel Kamakawiwo’ole (Bruddah Iz or IZ) would have had tears in his eyes while holding his infamous ukulele as he heard all these amazing voices come together while practicing physical distancing at their respective homes to ensure that the show must go on.

Kudos to all of the students and their school staff for improvising, adapting and overcoming.

What is ironic is for years we have been advocating the importance for kids who replaced their former active playtime with inactive screen time is the only means that many people can remain socially connected now by using those very same screens.

As more and more of us shift to working from home, universities and potentially schools going to online education, as well as all other sectors doing same, we need to adapt, improvise so we can overcome.

With all sports on hold until such time that we are given the green light to return back to fields, courts, rinks as are beaches, parks until we get the green light puts more stress on parents to figure out how we can keep kids active as all public places are closed.

Here are some tips on how to do so;

#1 Set up your backyard for multi-sport sampling … put soccer balls, whiffle balls, footballs, frisbees, tennis balls, basketballs, badminton nets, volleyballs on the grass and see what happens.

My backyard, while my kids were growing up even, included a small basketball hoop, a pitching net for my daughter to pitch to and bounce back, street hockey net, golf whiffle balls

Fortunately, both were ones that loved to be outside and playing and still are now, just this weekend we dug up our badminton net and played followed by playing catch with a frisbee, football, and softball.

We also have a 14’ cedar hedge on one side of our house so we were able to get in some hits of various whiffle balls (golf and softball size)

#2 If you have a basement, have a mini stick game, rollerblade, setup a mini-basketball hoop, nets

#3 If you have a stationary bike, check out various spin classes that are now being offered online for free via Youtube

#4 If you have a weight set that has been the infamous go to air out sports equipment while in season, put the sports gear outside and dust off so the whole family can use

#5 Setup a yoga area and can follow instructors who are offering free classes online

#6 Those that are confined to apartments, setup mini obstacle courses, exercise balls, balance boards, chairs and so forth

#7 Play Musical chairs in the dining room or better yet, dance to your favorite music

#8 If you have a balcony and a Bluetooth speaker, host your own neighborhood Zumba parties or “community” band and choirs

#9 Go Old School – Play board games, cards, darts, pool/snooker, Foosball, Air Hockey, Ping Pong while listening to Vinyl records, cassette tapes or CD’s

AND

Just love watching your kids play while they do so

Perhaps when we return back from the post CV outbreak, we will see a shift where more kids play for the sake of playing vs. the adultification and professionalism that has evolved the last 10+ years

Playing games for fun, with their friends, and regardless of the outcome asking two questions after the game is played

  1. Coach – What is the snack today?
  2. When they all pack up and leave … Coach  – When do we play again?

Hopefully, in addition to their community sports, they head to those parks, beaches and other areas outside and play pickup games or ride bikes, climb trees, skip rocks, swim, run, hopscotch without the adults telling them what to do, how to do it, when and how long, what positions they play, with who or not and so on like we did as kids that were not commonplace pre CV outbreak but were for prior generations.

As communities are showing across the globe and are adapting, improvising and overcoming, we will get thru these tough times…. Together.

Ensure that you stay positive, be there for others, offer to help where you can, and adhere to physical distancing protocols and all other health authority recommendations as we continue to fight this fight together.

 

If you know anyone is a front line medical staff worker (doctors, nurses, paramedics, researchers etc) please thank them daily for all the amazing work they are doing to help us fight this who are doing so selflessly as we all should be doing now to help each other.

 

 

#WeApplaud #OnApplaudit

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shifting to a Virtual Environment

Posted Glen MulcahyPosted in Athlete, Coach, Early Sport Specialization, Organization Executive, Parents

 

In the last couple of weeks, the world as we know it has seen unprecedented closures of all sports, restaurants, schools, colleges, retail stores, and workplaces and so on so we do everything possible to contain the spread of COVID-19.

As we work with so many youth sports organizations with volunteer board members this week who had to suspend their winter seasons or postpone the launch of their spring seasons and many organizations (including ours) shifting to virtual work from home (WFH) I felt best to provide some tips how we can do the necessary work needed to ensure that we are prepared to ramp up once the medical community across the globe gives us the green light to do so.

In addition to youth sports organizations, we also have been a sponsor of co-op university students for several years who have helped us build out our platforms and know that colleges and universities also have shifted to virtual classrooms as well, and we, in turn, have shifted so they work from home to complete their co-op hours needed and aspire to sponsor more this summer.

As we have been building out our various digital resources the last few years thru our digital arm “For The Love Of The Game” to include digital summits, podcasts, webinars, online courses we have experimented with various software and hardware configurations and below is our list of recommendations how can set up a virtual board room/office if still scrambling to do so.

A computer – Either a laptop or desktop (PC or Mac).

A camera  – either built-in (laptops/tablets) or an add on webcam to their desktop computer.

Best bang for buck Webcam – Logitech C920 (> $100.00) – 1080P video with a decent built-in microphone

A microphone – many USB cameras will include an integrated microphone.  If you are using a laptop, it will also have a basic integrated microphone.

Better quality Microphones for buck include those with corded/Bluetooth headphones or Blue Snowball/Jedi are used by many people for video chats, interviews, podcasts

Collaboration software – there are many remote collaboration tools available on the market.  Our recommendation is Zoom, a free to use service for smaller groups for short meetings up to 40 minutes or for small monthly fee that can add additional users. Zoom uses the same hardware as Skype but in addition to meetings, can also be used for webinars and sharing screens

Conference Headset / Microphone– for those seeking a cleaner overall experience you may wish to consider a conference headset.  This will deliver high-quality sound and a high-quality microphone for work from home and can also be brought back to the office when given the green light to do so

Plantronics has a system that you can get very cost affective on eBay that allows users to connect to landline (if houses still have), Zoom/Skype via USB or Bluetooth (Cell Phones).  Model W740 and suggest getting the how to swap adapter for battery charging and an extra charger

Data /Software – Google Docs (free) for collaboration and sharing or Microsoft One Drive (subscription based on number of users but can get 1 Tb cloud storage with office 365 subscription)

Email – can setup work emails remotely as aliases with a Gmail account or webmail access. This can take a little finessing as we experienced for our interns to work remotely (ISP, Email hosting or browser conflicts/cookies), I suggest all sports orgs set up a Gmail account for interns so they use either in offices or WFH (work from home)

Team Connection – We suggest What’s App, it permits users to do group texting and accessible both by phone/tablet but also desktop/laptop with web-based apps. This also will not impact users data plans although many of the cellular providers are waiving data charges

Phone – Suggest call forwarding to a cell phone or remote log-in for voice mail

Not only can board members have their regular or emergency meetings weekly, but the Zoom Platform can also be scaled to host online training (vs. live workshops), webinars and suspect even AGM’s will be hosted as can have up to 100 participants for 20.00/month CDN with meeting duration up to 24 hours.  All can be recorded as well, but to do so the device hosting the Zoom Meeting must have available storage to do so (approx. 1GB/Hour of recording)

Our Online Option for Resources, Tips for all stakeholders in youth sports

In the summer of 2018, we hosted our first virtual summit to incorporate many of the technology platforms we recommend above thru a lot of trial and error (hardware and software) so stakeholders in youth sports could get insight from some of the top leaders in the space across the globe and we will be resharing our most recent summit with 18 speakers April 3-5th.  In addition to the insight all of the amazing speakers will share, we are also looking at sharing a live webinar on day one of this summit and encouraging all those that sign up to leave comments for all of the interviews to provide all youth sports stakeholders tips so they add to their tool baskets to implement when their upcoming seasons start up again.

The benefit, you can do so at home and access any device that is connected to the internet, phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, smart tvs or game consoles. The best part, it’s FREE to sign-up for vs. paying hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to attend live conferences (which have all be canceled for the foreseeable future also)

 

 

What: 2020 Youth Sports Digital Summit

When: We are going “live” with digital summit April 3-5th

Who: Interviews with 21 different speakers (key takeaways will be posted on the event page)

Why: We continue to host the online summits so all stakeholders of the grassroots sports community so they can learn tips from experts from across the globe as cost affectively as possible

Where: Accessible by any device that can access the internet (computer, laptop, smartphone, tablet, smart TV, game console)

How: Click HERE to go to the registration page with more info to sign up for FREE

Starting April 3rd, we will release 6 interviews per day that I will preface each interview with the key takeaways followed by 6 more on Saturday April 4th and Sunday April 5th.

The schedule for the interviews will be shared in advance so you can prepare for also.

In the event that you are unable to see/hear from all of the speakers you would like, we are offering cost-effective on-demand options for your to do so for this summit as well as all of our prior summits and online courses that we continue to build.  We now have over 70 hours of digital content that you can access with any digital device at your convenience.

Many other amazing guests who share insight on their amazing programs, coaching tips, developing cultures of excellence so anyone that signs up when their seasons start up again will hit the ground running!!!

We also provide links to resources, their websites you can reference going forward.

I know that all organizations across the globe are implementing contingency plans to ensure that we contain the virus and although it is a stressful time for all of us while we do so, we are all in this together.

One thing that I have been thinking as each day goes by is I hope when we are given the green light to return back to sports that hopefully it will allow us all to look at it from a different lens.

Perhaps the adults will take it less seriously and recognize that it is a game played by kids, officiated by kids, coached by volunteers (many of which are parents who stepped up) with volunteer board members to ensure programs run.

Perhaps those chasing the dream for their kids in the money sports (scholarships, professional contracts) will see that the return on investment they are aspiring for will be moreso in terms of their kids becoming great people, great athletes as they return and if they reach a level beyond high school, that is just gravy.

Perhaps after this time away, we will take a breath next time we are at youth sports game in lieu of screaming a kid for making a mistake, an official for missing or making a bad call, a coach for a mistake made due to learning HOW to coach (not what to coach).

Maybe, just maybe, there will be a PARADIGM shift that we have been aspiring for where adults Just Love Watching The Kids Play again.

At the end of the day, that’s why we do what we do, to help all stakeholders in the space create the highest quality youth sports experience possible so kids love the season more at the end of the season than they did at the beginning and they have active, healthy lifestyles well into their adulthood.

Our best wishes also go out to those that have tested positive for the virus so they can fight it with vigor and condolences to all those families who have lost a loved one.

We also encourage everyone to not panic during this time, just as we have thru other illnesses, economic times of instability, the world WILL get thru this, now more than ever we have to come together and follow all the recommendations from the health authorities so we are safe.

We can’t wait for the time when it is safe for kids to return back to PLAY, whether it be organized sports or free, unstructured play.

Hopefully, it is sooner rather than later.

 

 

Respect has to be a core value

Posted Glen MulcahyPosted in Athlete, Coach, Early Sport Specialization, Organization Executive, Parents

 

 

For years I have been advocating for the importance of bringing back respect to youth sports and although I have seen a shift, and many organizations have done public service announcements, campaigns or signage when I come across various posts in social media or in print it just leaves my head spinning how much more work we have to do.

This past week we attended ViaSport’s International Women’s day event as we believe strongly in the importance of growing all levels of female participation of athletes, coaches, officials, board members, and various other leadership roles.

 

There were approximately 100 attendees for the event from various sports organizations in BC, which did include a small representation of he/him/his (including yours truly) and had a series of speakers reviewing the challenges to increase female and women’s (she/her/hers) participation within their various organizations.

In the afternoon, we went thru a Gender-Based Analysis Plus Workshop ran by Dr. Melanie Stewart from BC’s Provincial Gender Equity Office where she started off by highlighting some of the gender inequalities that still exist but the statistics that jumped out at me the most were gender-based Violence

  • In 2016/17 – 55% of sexual assault victims were females under 25 that were reported
  • More alarming, only 5% of sexual assaults are reported to police, and only 11% of those will lead to a conviction.

The reason these numbers jumped out at me to the extent they did was the fact that literally a year ago around the same time I attended another event sponsored by Via Sport, the BC Safe Sport Summit in response to the series of articles LY that Jamie Strashin and Lori Ward wrote for CBC that highlighted 222 coaches in Canada had been prosecuted sexually assaulting over 600 athletes from their late teens until mid ’20s.

If the 5% rule of thumb that are reported to police is, in fact, accurate, that means there could be over 10,000 athletes that were sexually assaulted the last 20 years in Canada!

As far as I am concerned, ONE is too many, we still have work to do to ensure sport is safe from all forms of harassment.

This just a week after I read an article highlighting the harassment towards a high school hockey player in Philadelphia, Alyssa Wruble, where a fan-created a sign challenging for her to declare her gender and number of the students from opposition school she was playing against chanting “she’s a dude”

In the morning address to all the attendees Mitzi Dean, the BC Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equality shared a story about her 7-year-old daughter who played on a mixed hockey team with boys almost quit the game because the boys told her frequently that she did not belong on the team.

REALLY?  Both examples were just a painful reminder that we still have so much work to do to change the culture in youth sports for the better and I believe one of the reasons is due to the lack of respect we have, yes we talk about it, but do we truly walk the walk?

The very definition of respect is:

re·spect

/rəˈspekt/

noun

#1- a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

“the director had a lot of respect for Douglas as an actor”

#2 due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others.

“young people’s lack of respect for their parents”

verb

  1. admire (someone or something) deeply, as a result of their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

“she was respected by everyone she worked with”

With inclusivity being one of the hot topics and initiatives we discussed over the day as well as prior Women’s day and other events I have attended, one of the biggest issues that we still continue to face is the current culture of youth sports needs to change so youth sport is not only inclusive but the core value of respecting others so it becomes ingrained in all of our DNA’s.

Had it been a core value as part of the overall culture vs. highlighted on signage, public service announcements, or strategic initiatives still in the development phases Alyssa, Mitzi’s daughter all the other girls out there that aspire to play a game and may be forced to play with the boys as there are no programs in place for them for girls only teams would be respected and admired for their skills and abilities in lieu.

My niece is another one of those girls, who is a very skilled player and the only option was to play on boys teams who shared similar stories with me until she reached Bantam so had to move to play on and academy all-girls team (at a great expense to my in-laws for her to do so).

Fortunately, her love for the game never wavered like Hayley Wickenheiser and many other female trailblazers before her and she just received confirmation that she has been accepted to McGill and offered a spot on the Women’s Hockey Team starting next season.

Fortunately leaders in the space including Via Sport, Provincial and Federal Government, PSO NSO, and even professional sports are working towards programs to ensure we do keep moving the boulder up the mountain as the keynote speaker Charmaine Crooks (OLY, Order of Canada) used in her great keynote presentation so sport is inclusive, safe and sport can be a positive for all.

I can’t think of a better example of an initiative to ensure that respect does become part of our core values than the Hockey Declaration of Principles drafted by all the governing hockey associations worldwide in collaboration with the NHL released in Fall 2017.

We concur with the declaration of principals, not just for hockey, but sports are for everyone globally.

Sadly as each day passes while all sports are on hold to ensure the safety of all stakeholders as the world comes together to fight the spread of the Corona Virus I would be remiss not ending this post focusing on the importance of respect not acknowledging all the first responders and medical community who have come together as a global team to make the world safe again.

My utmost admiration to all of those that are doing so and let’s all work together to ensure that all those who love the game, whether it be young kids, teens or collegiate, professional athletes, and all the other stakeholders involved can return to the games they love when the medical community deems it safe to do so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you pick them, PLAY them

Posted Glen MulcahyPosted in Athlete, Coach, Organization Executive, Parents

Earlier this week I received a message thru our Facebook page then exchanged a few emails with a parent who reached out as they were concerned that his sons U13 competitive stream (rep) coaches were running short bench game after game including having specialty teams like a power play, penalty kill.

It was not the first reach out I have received nor do I suspect it would be the last but the parent shared with me that he came across the blog that I had written about my son whose coach used the very same short bench tactic time after time, but for me really became personal when he did so a month after my mother passed away and he shared my son had dedicated the game in her memory

The wave of emotions that I experienced then is not as high now as I have really tried to focus on the half-full approach working with coaches and parents in recent years to highlight the good work that is being done by many youth sports organizations to bring the game back to the kids.

I have always been a believer in all the sports I coached to give every player an opportunity to contribute to the outcome, and even went to the extent to ensure that every player had opportunities to play positions that everyone wanted to, in baseball to play pitcher, shortstop or catcher, in hockey all positions including goalie until U13 (even then had to have players suit up when both our goalies got injured).

The reason?

 

 

In this day and age where more and more kids are pulling out of youth sports as Project Play highlighted last year where 62% “retire” by the age of 11 after an average 3 year “career,” one would think that youth sports organizations would be doing EVERYTHING possible to reverse these trends and not turning a blind eye to coaches that are missing what youth sports should be, a safe environment to develop not only the skills of the game but skills of life.

What life lesson does a 11-year-old kid learn when he does not get the opportunity to play when it is their time to go out?

Having talked to many kids that were victims of short benches going back to 7-8 years of age, all told me the reason they quit is the coach only played their favorites.

Here’s my take on the coaches that do so.

If you pick them, PLAY them.

The worst culprits in the youth sports space that run short benches to win games at all costs are the ones in the competitive stream or rep level, but even when I have had recreation stream coaches in clinics or workshops they have shared with me they have seen more than their fair share of coaches that run short benches to win games, some as early as the beginning of the game, many in the latter stages of a game when it is close.

In many sports, particularly the recreation level, youth sports organizations do have what is called fair play, equal play policies where coaches must play all players as equally as possible.

But entice those coaches with a tournament trophy, banner for league or playoffs, or just a feather in the cap as their team won against a rival association then it is like offering a bonus to a car sales rep for selling 20 cars in a month … it becomes the end all and be all, do whatever it takes even if you have to take shortcuts to do so.

The big issue I have when coaches do so is they picked the players for their teams either thru the tryout process (which painfully starts earlier and earlier every year) or a draft (usually started U9 age groups in many sports).

This means that they chose the players for their teams yet they think nothing of sitting a player and playing their favorites game after game in lieu of focusing on developing every player on their team so the team as a whole collectively gets better?

They also will have those very same favorite players on specialty teams which further deprives players of playing time and the opportunity to contribute to game outcomes.

Over the last few years, I have highlighted some examples of nations or sports organizations whose participation rates are not declining like many of those are in USA and Canada but are GROWING.

Perhaps youth sports orgs and their coaches (which I recognize many are volunteers) could learn something from those as they also have had many players reach high levels as a result of their development models.

 

SWEDEN

 

Hmmm .. maybe Sweden is on to something in terms of the player development model?

What makes the Swedish hockey model different?

#1 – All of their ice rinks are community-owned, unlike Canada and the USA where private multi-sheet facilities are almost on every street corner like a Tim Hortons is in Canada or Dunkin Donuts in the USA. Because they are community rinks and Sweden recognizing the importance of multi-sport participation they melt their ice on April 1st every year.

This means NO SPRING HOCKEY.

A phenomenon that has exploded in Canada in the USA that both Hockey Canada and USA Hockey are not sanctioning as they don’t want kids to play hockey year-round.

#2 – Because of the Spring Hockey model, the youth sports coaches that coach in winter as volunteers may aspire to get a paid position coaching in the spring which means they have to win as many games as possible to apply for those spring hockey coaching gigs.

#3 – Unlike Canada and the USA, Sweden does not COMPETE until the kids are U15 age (13-14), there are no scoresheets, scorekeepers, standings or individual stats being kept

Why?

Because Sweden’s model emphasizes the importance of focusing on the core skills of hockey during the key motor skill acquisition years.

#4 – Practice to Game ratio is minimum 3:1 also, as Sweden recognizes that players develop in practices, not games and in some instances with the explosion of spring and travel teams, kids as young as 6 years old may play over 80 games in one year, equivalent to the NHL?

In terms of the practice to game ratio in Canada, this could be fixed very easily as most rep teams get 2 practices, 2 games a week, convert one of the game slots to a practice slot and alternate home and away weeks with other teams in your tier.

Voila – 3:1 Practice to game ratio.

Based on the fact that parents pushed back because their 6 year old super elite prospects would not be able to play full ice hockey when Hockey Canada rolled out cross-ice hockey a few years back (proven to optimal development) I suspect although a simple fix, the push back will be even worse.

The fixation with playing competitive games in Canada is too much, too early and we could learn from Sweden as well as another country that is setting the bar, Norway

 

 

NORWAY

Another country who has set the bar for reaching the highest level of competition is Norway, who won 39 Medals in the 2018 Winter Olympics made them the all-time winningest country since the inception of the Winter Games.

Like Sweden, they don’t promote competition in youth sports until the kids become teenagers (13) and focus on multi-sport athleticism so kids become the best athletes they can become.

They both focus on the importance of playing with their friends, playing for their communities (vs. travel teams) and having FUN.

As a result, both nation’s youth sports participation rates are over 90% vs. those in Canada and the USA seeing the attrition rates we are seeing.

They also DON’T have the issues attracting and retaining officials like we do where our rates are as high as 50% of young officials quit in their first year, 30% every year thereafter due to the abuse they are taking from those winning at all coaches and over the top parents.

Coaches, if you pick them, play them.  Focus on developing all players and winning will be the byproduct in lieu of the focus.

AND

If you do so, they will love the game more at the end of the season than the beginning and come back with big smiles on their faces next season in lieu of many of the players quitting a game they once loved.

Don’t be one of “those” coaches that thinks nothing of sitting a 10 year old kid to win a game when every player on your team should be given the opportunity to contribute to the outcome, win or loss.

In doing so, their confidence will remain intact and like all the players I coached their only questions after the game will be ….

  1. What’s the Snack Coach?
  2. When do we Play again?

If you are still playing a sport in your adulthood as still love the game as you did as a youth player ….

The first question you ask when you get in the dressing room?

Who has, how much is the beer?  THE SNACK

When do we play again?

Take the high road and if you pick them, PLAY them so they keep playing well into their adulthood.

 

PS Tagline - Dont be a kids last coach