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As coaches in team sports, every year we go thru the Tuckman’s (1965) Development Model of small groups Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing – Adjourning then repeating it all over again each season thereafter.

 

 

 

This is the beginning of your season, whether it be recreation level (AKA house) or competitive, before teams are formed in each age group associations will go thru balancing or tryouts and even drafts (yes drafts even happen in youth sports).

I can remember one draft in particular in my second year coaching Atom Hockey (9-10 yrs. old), I stepped up to coach a recreation team even though my son made our Atom A1 team as a player whom I had coached two years back committed to return to play only if I was his head coach.  Two years prior, when we were going thru the forming stage of player evaluations for balancing our Hockey 4 teams on Labour Day weekend, I found out sadly that his father had passed away tragically in an boating accident.

His father had already committed to be our team HCSP and was always one we could depend on if anything needed to be done, including a humorous story about a bottle drive where many of the bags he staged in his truck fell out and he had to spend over an hour cleaning it up.

The reason I stepped up to coach his son was we made an agreement when he opted not to return to Hockey in his first year of Atom that he would come back the following year so he could deal with the loss of his father.

That draft, I tried to get one other player that he played with  on two prior teams I coached so he had a familiar face on the team (all the other players he knew were now playing rep) and all coaches were in agreement if I chose the weakest player and goalie in the evaluations to offset so all our teams were balance (the other was also ranked in the top 10).  Just before our turn came to pick him, another coach chose him in lieu going against our collective agreement, and I was beside myself, as was all the other coaches as he had already done the same to another coach who was trying to protect two siblings on the same team.

The director jumped up and told the coach “that was a prick move” but as I was a man of my word, I still chose the weakest goalie and player as I knew I could develop them over the course of a season.  This was yet another example early on in my coaching career of youth sports how some coaches just did not get it was about kids playing kids, in lieu adults competing with other adults thru kids, he thought it was more important to win games than for kids to have fun and have friends on their teams.

Our team ended up being the weakest of the 4 in our age group at our association by a long shot as a result.

 

 

The player that I protected was ranked #1 in the evaluations and was very frustrated in the first few weeks of the season that we had such a weak team.

At times, he would demonstrate poor sportsmanship in practices, even threw his stick when we were doing drills and his weaker team mates (a couple were only in their first year of hockey) could not receive his passes, keep up in drills and so forth.

As I had already gone thru a similar situation two years prior with my Novice Team, I broke the team into 3 skills groups so that all the players could develop with others of similar skills.

I also talked to the player and asked that he be patient, it would take a couple of months for the new players to catch up to the rest, and help out to demonstrate the drills and provide insight to the other players.

This role he took on with vigor, once I got him to buy-in that it would take time for us to develop as a team, he stopped being frustrated and started encouraging all the players in all the skill groups.

I also had a few parents come to me during that period concerned if things would get better as their kids had shared they were frustrated they were losing game after game which I shared the same, be patient, it will take some time for us but we will get there.

 

 

It took about 2 months for our team to come together as a team, and in November we went to a tournament about 90 minutes from our rink and the families decided we would make it a “travel tournament” and would stay in a motel in lieu of long to/from commutes over the course of the three days.

I ended up talking two players into alternating as goalies for the early part of the season while our other goalie in waiting was still learning how to skate (it was his first year of hockey but his father was a goalie and he aspired to also play goal as well).  Ironically the 2 players also had been identified by our coaching group of the 4 teams as 2 of the 4 problem child’s in our age group, one because he had demonstrated a temper towards coaches not only in hockey but baseball, lacrosse, the other merely because all felt he had ADD (I think today if a kid is just a little different everyone takes the easy out and says they have ADD).

Ironically, as I have on every team, I understood the importance of connecting with players so was not an issue for me to figure out their different personalities, the fact that they agreed to play goal to help the team out all the other coaches were like … how did Glen get them to volunteer to play goal?

In that tournament, they both alternated games and we won 1 of the 4 games (it was our first win of the season) and you think we had won the Olympics, that was when I thought to myself the season would not be that bad, there is nothing worse when you lose game after game as are in over your head in the wrong tier.

 

 

At that tournament, I implemented a couple of things to help keep our kid’s confidence going as I knew we would be in tough as all the players needed to work on their core skills.

The first, as a longtime Norte Dame Football Fan, I had my daughter create a “Play Like a Champion Today” Sign and I brought it to the first game and all others going forward. Picture of the actual sign that is now at the bottom of my stairs in my office below (can tell it was hauled to and from the rink for better part of a season).

 

 

The first time I brought it, we talked about what the importance was to play to win, never playing not to lose and values that were associated with cultures of excellence.

We came up with a core list of values as a result that included Work Ethic – Sportsmanship – Fun – Team work – Selflessness – Gratitude – Never Giving Up (Resiliency) – Respect – Winning with Humility and Losing with Dignity – Win or lose as a team – Fearless – Competitiveness – Trust and Be a good team mate

We also went thru the game rituals like warm-ups, intermission and importance of shaking hands at the end of the games, regardless if we won or lost, we would do so with class.

The second was a tactic I did in that one game we won, when other teams took a penalty and we had a face-off in the offensive zone, I would pull our goalie so that we would be 6 on 4.  The tactic worked amazing well, more so as the other teams were so confused how to react and even when the next player on our team would be at the gate to be that 6^th player (every player had the opportunity to contribute, kills me that coaches have power play or penalty kill units as early as Atom).

One game in early January, the other team started getting into penalty trouble in the second period, and I did not even have to prompt the goalies by that point, as soon as the other team had a penalty and they saw there was a faceoff in the offensive zone for our team they came to the bench (for which I affectionately nicknamed by one of my assistant coaches as Captain Hook).

We were down 5-1 when they took their first of 5 consecutive penalties and on 4 of the 5 we scored a goal to tie the game and almost winning with seconds to play when shot went off the post.

When we were shaking hands, the coach of the other team shared with me that he was really happy that the time ran out on the clock with a big sigh of relief.

Later in January we went to our second tournament, this one was in Seattle, 2 hours south of us in the USA, and we stayed in a Hotel and by that point our goalie in waiting was ready to play goal so he alternated with the other two goalies playing the third game and he stood on his head, he must have seen over 40 shots and we won by a score of 4-2.

In the dressing room after the game, the players all said, Coach, “Amen (his nickname) has to play goal for the next game and we can’t mess with the lines for the last game” (even 9-10 year old kids know when it works, don’t mess with it).  We won the 4^th game as well, the first time all season we had won back to back, and it was our 4^th win of the year.

For the last 10 games we went 6-4, and the games we lost were all one goal games.  The players that started the season as new hockey players, were now “seasoned veterans” and we continued to review values before every game/practice.

All and all, although we got off to a rough start, we came together as a team and the latter part of the season were competitive but after we got thru storming every practice and game, the kids and parents all had huge smiles on their faces regardless of the outcome of the games.

 

 

Although we struggled to win many games that season, and I had to implement some desperate measures to do so early in the season, it was probably the most enjoyable year I had as a coach to date.

All my parents were amazing, they even insisted to pay for hotel, meals when we went to the two tournaments (which I argued against but to no avail)

At the season wind up, I received one of the best coach’s gifts I ever received, one of the parents on the team was a videographer/photographer for one of the news stations and when his work did not conflict and was able to come to games he took pictures and put together a team album that the team handed to me at our windup.

There were 4 pictures of each player and each one had one of the values words with their signatures, although I had not shared what we did pre-games, the two parents that helped me as assistant coaches shared with the parents and asked them to relay what value the kids remembered most.

For the player that lost his dad two years prior, his value was “gratitude” and he signed “Thanks Coach” 

Every year thereafter as my son continued in the rep stream where I was coaching, I would go see him play in games and each time he would have a HUGE smile on his face.

He ended up playing all the way until he graduated in high school, 17 years old, now is an avid sponsored snowboarder in X Games competitions.

Ironically when I was searching for a video for this post, I came across one that used Remember the Titans plot as a perfect example of Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing and Adjouring.

 

 

Coaches – the sooner that you get thru the Storming period on your teams, the sooner you will get to the later stages of group development.

At the end of the season, when you see your players for the last time on that team, I suspect you will do so with emotion, until the next season when you start the process all over again.

Let’s all work together to bring the game back to the kids … where it belongs.