As today marks the official full week return to work, school after the holiday break I would be remiss in not talking about this year’s World Junior Tournament that was hosted in my hometown, Vancouver, BC and across the Pond (ferry ride) in Victoria. Like Mikey Dipietro who tweeted after Team Canada’s tough loss to Finland, I too am proud to be Canadian (albeit equally as proud of my Irish heritage) and like it was during the Winter Olympics in 2010, it was amazing to have the opportunity to see some amazing hockey being played by the future prospects of the NHL.

Although Vancouver has hosted the World Juniors in 2006 this was the first time that I was able to get tickets to see live games, starting with the cheap man’s version of pre-competition games where I got to see Jack and Quinn Hughes for the first time live and said to myself Vancouver Canucks FINALLY have a power play D-Man, prospect Quinn Hughes did not disappoint, and whoever wins the draft lottery this coming draft, which also is being hosted in Vancouver, will get another “pretty good player” as his younger brother Jack is pegged to be the #1 overall pick.

I was then offered free tickets to see Czech Republic vs. Swiss, Canada vs. Swiss and thanks to my wife’s cousin having purchased 4 corporate seats and two sons getting hit with the same flu that I was recovering from, the opportunity to see the Gold Game USA vs. Finland.

I also watched a few games on the tube as I do every year including the New Year’s Eve game Canada vs. Russia and the semi-final match vs. Finland.

Some of my key takeaways as a result of seeing both live and TV versions of this year’s World Juniors;

My whole life has revolved around Hockey and many other sports and nothing makes me prouder than when Canada wins gold in an international tournament like the World Juniors but as Hockey is now a global game, as this year’s world juniors and those over the last 10 years have shown, anyone can win on any given day (as not only Canada found out but so did Sweden who was 48-0 in round robin play and lost to Swiss in semi-final game).

Although Team Canada dominated Denmark (14-0), strong game vs. the Czech’s (5-1) they won by only one goal against the Swiss that I saw first hand, then lost to Russia by one goal, then lost to Finland also by one goal that knocked them out of the tournament.

Soon after the Finland game, team captain Max Comtois was berated on social media with various comments from “fans” who critiqued him for missing the penalty shot that would have tied the game BUT what none of these naysayers knew is Max played thru a separated shoulder he sustained in the tournament that will mean he will miss minimum 2 weeks from his Junior team Drummondville.

This when Telus shared their #endbullying commercial with Jordan Eberle for the second year in a row how over 1 Million kids are cyberbullied yearly?

As my Nanny (grandmother) told me all the time, if you don’t anything good to say, say nothing and ALWAYS treat others as you expect to be treated.

The lack of respect in hockey and other sports is one of my biggest pet peeves today and we must bring respect back into the game to eliminate harassment of ANY KIND.

TOUGH PUCK LUCK – What about the tough puck luck in the Finland semi-final?

With 46 seconds left to play and Canada up 1-0 (always scary in any game to not have an insurance goal) and Finland scores a pinball-type goal that would be worthy of the McDonalds commercials several years back with Michael Jordan and Larry Bird. Off the net, a shin pad, stick, then backhand off Dipietro to find the top shelf only for Mikey to look at his teammate in utter disbelief?

What about the wide open net that Noah Dobson missed because his %(^()$*^% composite stick broke in OT that lead to an odd-man rush by Finland that leads to the game-winning goal? If Gordie How could score as many goals as he did with a wooden stick, flat blade and have a wrist shot over 70 MPH, there is something to be said about being old school, I still don’t believe in composite sticks as they lead to too many missed scoring opportunities when they break like this time.

At the end of the day as the final game I witnessed proved, Finland was the better team in the tournament but had Canada gotten some better puck luck perhaps they would have least made it to the medal round.

Mike Dipietro, goalie for Team Canada who suffered that tough puck luck showed the epitome of class and the importance of losing with dignity when he shared his tweet;

One of the best moments in the world Juniors was when the fans chanted DI-PI-ETRO and he mother broke into tears, too often we forget about the support that all these players get from their families and friends.

What Team Canada’s early exit showed is that Canada still has their work to do to repeat and setting our high expectations what they did 5 years in row 1993-1997 and then again 2005-2009 winning gold so it has set our expectations high every year Canada suits up for the World Juniors.

Since 2010, however, Canada won gold in 2015 (Connor McDavid one of the co-captains) and 2018 and the only returning player from LY was the very same Max Comtois, team captain, who was a victim of the ridiculous and cowardly social media rants for not scoring on the penalty shot (with a separated shoulder).

We have our work to do in Canada to reach that same level and a few other countries have shown they have moved in the right direction to give Canada a run for the money at their own game.

They too suffered some bad puck luck, having the first goal they scored called back as one of their players was in the crease violating a IIHF rule?  We were seated right behind the Finnish net at the time and the US player was mauled by the two Finnish D-Men leaving the other US player to jump on the loose puck and bury it in the net.

Had that goal counted, perhaps it would have been the US anthem played at the end of the game as all games had been won by teams that scored the first goal in the games.

It did not help that USA could not score on any of their 5 power plays although there were flashes of brilliance and posts hits on some shots, the puck did not cross the line when it needed to.

USA Hockey has been setting the bar for LTAD for years now, with their adaption called the American Development Model (ADM) which includes several years head start for cross ice hockey for the younger players, small area games for all age groups, smaller nets, lighter pucks, coaching certification relative to age groups to adhere to the levels.

Ken Martel, Technical Director, ADM for USA Hockey and many of his regional managers including Bob Mancini whom I had the opportunity to talk to for our winter summit which we will be replaying latter part of January, have done an amazing job with Team USA

Click on Video below for more insight;

2019 is the 4^th consecutive year that the USA has medaled in the tournament, Ryan Poehling is named the top forward, the Hughes Brothers and many other prospects including Keith Primeaus son (goalie) will potentially have long NHL careers.

This is not just a result of the ADM model, but is also due their National Team Development Program starting with 16 and 17 year olds (the time when kids should look at specializing NOT before) and some other pretty good players have come out of the program including; Austin Matthews, Jake Eichel, Matthew and Brady Tkachuk and many others.

TEAM FINLAND

I have no idea why everyone had Finland a dark horse in the tournament, as Finland has now won 3 GOLD medals since 2014, all three of those same Major Junior Tournament years Canada did NOT MEDAL. (First Column = Gold, Second = Silver, Third = Bronze Medal)

This reflects Finland’s commitment also to LTAD, focusing on practice to game ratios much higher than Canada 3,4 or 5:1 relative to the stages that kids are at and like Sweden, and they have been focusing on the importance of coaching the person as we shared about Erkka Usterland who lead Finland to Olympic Silver in 2006.

They have been setting the bar for a good athlete focused coaching for years, and the results are showing on the worlds stage.

The gold game that I had the privilege to watch on Saturday night was the top two teams in world juniors since 2010 and although Canada is the all-time leader since the world juniors started decades back (17 Gold Medals, 10 of which due to 5 consecutive golds in the 90’s and early 2000’s pre 2010), if we don’t change our system NOW, we will continue to fall short at the Juniors and other international events.

Recommendations for change to our grass roots programs leading to high performance

1. We need to focus on development, not competiton.

The easy fix in the rep stream – replace on of the game slots (currently in western Canada rep teams play 2 games, 2 practices and a dryland) with a practice slot and VOILA, we have a 3:1 Practice to game ratio and kids will develop vs. overly compete

DON’T sign up for Spring hockey unless it truly is a Spring Development, once, twice a week max working on skills, small area games, cross ice etc. but no games or tournaments as players develop in practices NOT games.

Play other sports in the Spring and Summer, Hockey is already the longest season of any sports and kids need to take a break from the ice so they can develop other motor skills that will translate to Hockey (i.e. Sidney Crosby batting pucks out of the air)

2.We need to have our best coaches in the trenches, grass roots when kids are developing their core motor skills between the ages of 9-12 to learn LTAD, Fundamental Movement Skills, Physical Literacy. I have had over 3000 coaches in clinics alone and when I ask the question how many coaches are familiar with these concepts, only a few hands go up so we have so much work to do to get our coaches on board.

3. We need those coaches to recognize there is so much more to coaching that writing up drills on a white board and focus on the person, not the outcome as well as the importance for life-long learning.  The NCCP program ran by Coaching Association of Canada in conjunction with Hockey Canada is now requiring coaches to get a minimum number of professional development (PD) credits but it has been a long time coming

4. We need to eliminate old school coaching practices at all levels that for some reason people did not think there was anything wrong with it when Swiss Coach berades players on their team for making mistakes as he did in the game vs. Sweden.

Swiss Head Coach Christian Wohlwend screaming at Sandro Schmid for mistake made touching puck causing it to go offside in last 2 minutes of game vs. Sweden.

Had Swiss lost the game, I suspect this video clip would have gone viral calling for him to be fired, but because they won and qualified to be in the final 4 (losing to Russia in the Bronze game) commentators merely shared that he was hot under the collar and smoke coming out his ears?

Ironically, one of those former old School Coaches, John Tortorella, who was infamous for his player rants on the bench and was advised by Columbus if he was going to continue coaching he would have to become more athlete focused recently shared this quote we posted to twitter;

Swiss Coach may have accomplished the win by putting fear into his players or as some of the players stated was being honest with them but using a totally different approach merely by pulling the player aside and showing him on a whiteboard what he should have done in lieu, as the old cliché goes, you get much father with honey than you do with vinegar.

The only way that any of this will happen, however, is if Parents who are paying the bills are educated why other nations have caught up to us in terms of their programs and coaching development and how they will continue to excel if we don’t change our culture and systems NOW.

Like Mike Dipietro, I also am proud to be Canadian, but we can no longer do the same things over and over again and expect different results (Einsteins definition of Insanity). We need to implement a significant PARADIGM shift in our development model so we don’t fall further behind other nations as we have this past decade.

Otherwise the worst 4 words anyone can say will be posted in one of our blogs years from now ….

I TOLD YOU SO.