It has been a hectic couple of weeks for me as the fall season ramps up for clinics and conferences wearing my various hats in the youth sports space. It started with two presentations I did for Nanaimo Minor Hockey on behalf of Changing the Game Project where they invited several other sports groups in their community to attend including Lacrosse, Baseball, Senior High School and faculty members and students in the Kinesiology program at Vancouver Island University.  I received word while I was en route for talks in Kamloops that they wish to have me back to work further with their kids, parents, coaches and exec members early in 2019 to build on the momentum to bring the game back to the kids. The second event I was presenting on behalf of PARADIGM Sports for Softball’s BC Development conference where I delivered the opening keynote, follow-up presentation and participated on their panel to end the first day along with two other amazing speakers who were at the conference.  The focus of the panel was recruitment and retention so they could continue to reverse the negative trends of attrition they saw happening a few years back which included sharing insight on LTAD/Multi-Sport Participation.

The weekend ended with my other hat as Hockey Canada NCCP facilitator for BC Hockey where I ran a Coach 2 Clinic for Abbotsford Minor Hockey Association for 18 coaches starting what I always aspire will be long coaching journies. One of the exercises that I do in clinics is asking the coaches to share why they coach and what they would like to get out of the clinic and one of the coaches shared that he got into coaching as he had retired from professional hockey that included playing for a few teams in the NHL and then playing pro in Germany until his hometown had a spot open up for their fire department that he had applied for so could move on to the next chapter of his life raising a young family.

He stated that he was still able to compete at the highest level but he had “lost the love for the game” and when his hometown  fire department came calling he felt it was time for him to hang up his skates.

After a couple of years got the itch to still be involved in the game so put his name forward to help coach an atom team (9-10 years old) and as he was leaving when the clinic wrapped up I said it won’t be long before that love and passion he once had comes back working with kids. He responded by saying, he was having a blast and it was coming back slowly but surely. In all three events I asked the coaches, executive members how many were familiar with LTAD (or variations thereof I will explain below) and although almost every NSO (National Sport Organization) in Canada has adapted their versions and some have revamped in recent years only a few hands went up. I then asked if they were familiar with Physical literacy or Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS) and even less hands went up.

Houston … we have a problem.

Although LTAD (or variations) have been around for decades, and developed by our very own Sport for Life in Canada, we still face our challenges for our grassroots coaches to have heard of LTAD, let alone implement it in their coaching and development programs. Why? Because in Canada we have so many sports groups, NSO’s (National Sports Organizations), Provincial Governing Bodies (i.e. Via Sport, Alberta Sport Connection), PSO’s (Provincial Sports Organizations), RSO’s (Regional Sports Organizations) and lastly LSO’s (local sports organizations) Compound that with the explosion of private programs thanks to the early sport specializations including academies, travel teams, or “elite” leagues for 8 year olds, many of which are unsanctioned where the coaches do not require to become certified under the NCCP program. The end result, each one of these groups have their own executive members, board members, policies, procedures, bylaws and initiatives each year that is leading to it taking years for it to disseminate to the very people that need it the most … the grassroots coaches.  Many of which are parents that have been recruited to step up to help and before they know are told they have become the head coach of a team even though they merely raised their hand to help on ice or in practices. This puts these parent volunteers in situations where they may or may not be comfortable with. A similar analogy would be if you were a high school student and applied to work as a cook at a fast food restaurant and the following day you were told that you were going to be the manager. Just like the players need time to develop all their core skills, so do coaches, and we truly need to look at our current system to ensure that these new coaches have ALL the tools they need before they are thrown to the wolves so to speak as head coaches. One being to ensure they know what LTAD is and why we should be adhering to so kids develop over time, participate in as many physical activities or sports as possible to avoid burnout, overuse injuries and love the game more at the end of a season than the beginning. It’s one thing for a former professional hockey player to lose the love of the game in his 30’s after playing for decades, it’s another thing altogether when kids start hanging up their skates at 10-11-12 years old because their coaches did not follow LTAD and started introducing systems, tactics, way before they should. In sum, LTAD outlines the various stages that coaches should be focusing on that is age appropriate. Below is a modified image for the Softball BC presentation that outlines the stages of LTAD, but like Hockey Canada, Softball Canada has opted to call theirs LTPD = Long Term Player Development (same guts but tweaks relative to their sport)

Stage 1 – Active Start – 0-6 Years Old

This is when kids should be exposed to as many activities as possible that involves running, falling, getting up, throwing, catching, swimming, biking, skiing, snowboarding, one handed strike (i.e. tennis), two handed strike (softball) and list goes on.  That way kids develop Physical Literacy, they develop the confidence and initial competence in a number of core motor skills so they are ultimately active for life Stage 2 – FUNdamentals – 6 – 9 Years old This is when kids should sample as many sports as possible to build on those core motor skills, softball in spring, soccer in fall, skiing/snowboarding in the winter, playing in the playgrounds year round etc etc. This not only includes organized sports, but free play, unstructured with adult supervision (yes you heard me right, let kids play with a coach, parent, ref present so they make their own teams, form their own rules and more often than not will play for HOURS) Nothing frustrates me more when I see kids at this age group already starting to specialize in ONE sport, they should play EVERYTHING until they find ones they enjoy most Learning to Train 10-12 Kids should continue to play 2-3 organized sports (ultimately not concurrently unless sports orgs provide schedules to permit).  Also encourage them to participate in free, unstructured play like pickup basketball, soccer, street hockey, playing catch, Frisbee etc. to become the best athletes, not sport specific players. I know that many parents that have their kids playing “elite” level at 6-7 years old are going to counter me on this, but I don’t believe that kids should even play competitively until they finish this level of LTAD, I believe every NSO should be looking at not tracking outcomes of games (scores, goals, assists) until kids enter high school. This is also the critical years for motor skill development, so coaches should be focusing on skills stations, free play, creativity that relates to individual tactics NOT jumping to team tactics and strategies as kids can execute until they have the technical skills to do so. WHY? If it worked for Norway, who won 39 medals this past winter Olympic Games and are the all record hold for most medals since the inception of the winter games, who does not permit their kids to compete until 13 and are one of the only nations that are not experiencing the attrition rates many other countries are where kids quit by that age. Train to Train – 13-16 Years This is when coaches should introduce team tactics and systems but continue to focus on core skill development.  Too often I see coaches implementing specialty units like power play, penalty kill and depriving 2/3 of the kids on teams from the opportunity to do in games and it can start as early as Stage 2 – Fundamentals. What happens? Parents complain about playing time, kids are deprived their opportunity to contribute and it leads them to quitting. Training to Compete – 17-23 Years Old IF kids followed the right pathway and did not specialize prior, this is when they should consider focusing on the sport they love the most BUT I still encourage kids to continue playing complementary sports so 2 per year Training to Win – 19+ Years Old Then once they graduate from high school … pick the one they love most and focus on competing at the highest the level they aspire for. Active for Life The GOAL – that all kids are active for life, less than 1% will go on to play professionally or collegiately, if they love being active will ski/snowboard, play adult rec hockey, slo-pitch (or fastball), golf, tennis, biking, running and so on. The other reason why our youth sports coaches are not adhering to LTAD is the pressure they face to win so start implementing tactics, strategies in the earlier stages that should be focused primarily on core motor skill development. Everyone then get frustrated watching kids play in games that they can’t execute systems that they don’t have the skills for, coaches are still learning also as our parents, exec members. We could all learn from the likes of Norway, just let the kids be kids, Play, Have Fun and not worry about outcomes until they reach their latter teens. We have our work to do to ensure that our youth sports coaches are armed with all the tools they need to follow LTAD, and it all starts with the grassroots coaches and parents. Just let kids be kids, encourage them to sample as many sports as possible, and then encourage them to pursue the one they LOVE the most in their late teens. Let’s all work together to bring the game back to the kids … where it belongs.