Hockey Dad (9 page)

13: Was It Commitment or Should I Have Been Committed?

IN SPITE OF MIKE AND SHAWN being different in their
approach to hockey, no one can ever suggest I didn't show
the same commitment to Shawn as to Mike. You could argue I
should have been committed, but there was never any doubt
about commitment. Registering Shawn for the six-year-old
house league in Whitby was a case in point.

Whitby was one of Ontario's fastest-growing communities at the time and the by-product was a severe ice-time
crunch. Even in the few years since Mike's six-year-old season
in Whitby, ice time had become a major problem. Whitby had
just three pads-two at the Iroquois Park Arena complex just
south of the 401 and one at Luther Vipond Memorial Arena in
Brooklin-for its rapidly expanding population. Between the
WMHA (they dropped Brooklin from the name), ringette,
figuring
skating, etc., there just wasn't enough ice to go around.

It got so bad the WMHA had to scale back its operation.

One of those affected was the six-year-old house league. When
Mike played, there were six teams with seventeen players apiece,
so approximately one hundred six-year-olds were accommodated. But for the 1995-96 season, there were only thirty-four
slots for six-year-olds and thirty-four slots for seven-year-olds;
they would play together in a four-team league of six- and
seven-year-olds.

Everyone knew it was going to be
difficult
to get one of
those thirty-four spots so the expectation was there were going
to be long lineups and hard feelings.

House-league registration was set for a Tuesday in mid-August in the lobby of Iroquois Park. On the prior weekend,
we were away at Mike's provincial lacrosse championship in
Hamilton. The lacrosse provincials were always a hoot. Lots of
games, not much sleep, lots of partying with other parents and
by the time we got home Sunday night, we were exhausted,
physically and emotionally drained.

I just wanted to go to bed, but I mentioned to Cindy
that I better take a run by Iroquois Park just to make sure no
lunatics had started lining up for the registration that would
commence at 5 p.m. on Tuesday. You can imagine my surprise
when I walked into the lobby and saw 6 people sitting in lawn
chairs and chaise lounges with sleeping bags and coolers. Of
the 6 people lining up, three of them were guys I knew who
were registering '89s, the same birth year as Shawn. Thirty-four
slots had just become thirty-one.

I did two things. One, I phoned Cindy and told her to
drive down a lawn chair and cooler to me at the arena. Two,
just barely under my breath, I conjured up about every English
curse word known to man because I knew that the spot right
in front of the Coke machine by the entrance to Pad One was
going to be my home for the next forty-six hours.

Some people might say I'm crazy. Fine. It was a no-brainer for
me. I
figure
d Shawn had to play hockey. I wanted him playing
hockey in the town where we lived. If this was how it had to
be done, so be it. I was resigned to my fate.

The Town of Whitby dimmed the lights for us in the lobby
overnight so we could sleep but the Coke machine illumination wasn't helping my cause. Slowly but surely that night,
more and more people started to show up and camp out. I
went from feeling bitter to fortunate that I was in a spot where
I knew, if I simply invested the forty-six hours, Shawn would
get one of the thirty-four spots.

On Monday morning, Cindy came down and relieved me
for a few hours so I could go home and have a shower. Did I
mention there was quite a heat wave going on at the time? It
was hot and very humid. After getting cleaned up, I returned
to my post and she went home. The line really started to grow
on Monday once word spread around town. It went right out
the front door of the arena and ran alongside the parking lot.
The Town of Whitby was a little concerned with that many
people being outside for that long, so they directed the line
into a side door of Pad One. The lineup then started snaking
through the dressing room corridor of the arena on Pad One
and right out on the
floor
of Pad One.

Monday night was more like a party than Sunday night,
which is to say there was a lot more drinking. It was the minor
hockey equivalent of Woodstock. There were hundreds of people lined up inside the lobby, outside the building and then
back inside through the side door of the complex. It was quite
a night, especially when a mouse ran through the hallway near
the dressing room corridor, sending many into the parking lot
screaming.

The air-conditioned comfort of the main lobby, even
with the Coke machine glow, was never as welcome as it was
then. The registration wasn't supposed to start until 5 p.m.
on Tuesday but the WMHA personnel started it earlier in the
afternoon. Those of us who toughed it out for forty-plus hours
in that lobby will always wear it like a badge of honor even
though others might think us crazy. All I know is Shawn had
one of the thirty-four spots; he better appreciate it.

As a side note, there were never again lineups for that
length of time. The WMHA, in future years, went to a wristband system or a lottery. Iroquois Park Arena eventually went
from two pads to a glorious six-pad facility, the envy of every
community in Canada, and another new facility, McKinney
Arena, was built with two hockey pads and a full-time designated
figure
-skating surface.

I always like to tell people I "lived" at Iroquois Park Arena
when the kids were young. For two days, I actually did.

As house-league hockey players go, Shawn did
fine
. He wasn't
the best kid on his team; he wasn't the worst. He enjoyed going
to his games and practices but when they were over, that was
fine
, too. He was a happy-go-lucky kid who had a smile on his
face whatever he was doing and took none of it too seriously.

On the bright side, he was now pushing off with both feet
so I wasn't being traumatized on that front. But he had developed another annoying habit that was threatening to put me
in a rubber room. On several occasions in games during his
first
house-league season, Shawn would skate onto the ice for
his shift and line up facing the wrong way. He was usually
playing on the wing and there he'd be, facing his own goalie for a face-off, with some confused kid on the other team wondering why Shawn was standing where he was supposed to be.

I don't know how many times I explained to Shawn how to
line up. I gave him all manner of explanations.
"Shawn, make sure your back is to your goalie."

"Shawn, make sure you can see the other team's goalie."

"Shawn, just wait until everyone else on the ice has lined
up and go to the player on the other team who doesn't have
anyone standing beside him."

I don't know how else I could have explained it; I don't
know how many times I told him, but I do know how many
times he ignored me.

This, I
figure
d, was my payback for being stupid enough to
line up for forty-plus hours. God was clearly telling me I was
an idiot, but I wasn't listening to Him any more than Shawn
was listening to me.

As time wore on in Shawn's
first
house-league season, he
did manage to
figure
out the face-off con
fi
guration more often
than not. But even the next season, when he went into the
seven-year-old house league and played on the Whitby Select
7s, he occasionally lapsed and lined up on the wrong side.

There was one game in particular when Shawn lined up
incorrectly. We were driving home-me and Cindy in the front
seat, Shawn in the back-and I made my most impassioned
plea ever to the little guy.

"Shawner," I said to him as we started the drive home,
"buddy, you know I don't ask you for much. I don't expect
you to take your hockey as seriously as Mike takes his hockey
because you're different than Mike, and I'm
fine
with that. You
don't prepare for games like Mike, and that's
fine
. You don't
try as hard as Mike in your games and that's
fine
, too, because
you're having fun and I like to see you have fun. But Shawner,
you have to do me one favor, just one thing, please, for Dad. I
lined up forty-eight hours to get you into hockey, I would do
anything for you so I'm just asking you this one thing-can
you please, please just promise me that you're going to line up
on the right side of the face-off circle from now on?"

I looked into the rear-view mirror and saw he was looking
at me. I was waiting for him to say something and I said, "So
what do you have to say about that, buddy?"

"I'm hungry," he said. "What's for dinner?"

14: Talking the Talk, Walking the Walk: A Coach Is Born

IT WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME.

Most every Hockey Dad feels as though he's got what it
takes to be a better coach than the guy who's doing the job.

Scotty Bowman could be coaching a kids' team and the dads
would all stand around at practice or a game and say they could
do better.

The line combinations are never quite right; the practice
drills could be better; the shifts are too long or too short; this
player plays too much; that player plays too little; or maybe
the wrong goalie is started. It's always something. Trust me, it's
always something.

All that separates the Hockey Dads who endlessly critique their kids' coaches is that some of the very brave-or
is it the very foolish?-decide to walk the walk and not just
talk the talk.

So it was only a matter of time before I took the plunge to
become a coach, or at least an assistant coach to start.

John Velacich's two-year stint as a rep coach with that
group of kids was up and there were a couple of groups interested in applying to succeed him. I was part of one of them. So
were my good pals Stu Seedhouse and Kevin O'Brien, both of
whom already had a foot in the door, having jumped on board
in the major novice year to help out John Velacich. Stu was an
assistant coach under John; Kevin was the trainer.

To be honest, I think it's easier to become Pope than a
minor hockey coach. By the time you
fill
out all the forms,
get the obligatory police check, go through the interview process with the association, to say nothing of the coaching and
training certi?cations (there's a weekend of your life you're
not getting back), and let us not forget the anti-abuse semi-nar/clinic, well, let's just say a lot of time and effort, and some
money, is required in order to become drunk with power and
finally
get to put together the line combinations you've been
thinking of for two years.

Honestly, though, the best part about coaching kids'
hockey is spending time with your buddies, the camaraderie
that goes with time spent together before and after practices
and games and "coaches' meetings" over adult beverages. As
gratifying or as frustrating as coaching kids can be, and it can
be both to extremes, it is best when done with good friends.

And Stu Seedhouse, Kevin O'Brien and I were like the Three
Amigos, spending our winters together in the hockey rinks
and our summers together in the lacrosse arenas. Our boys-Stu's son Steven, Kevin's son Kyle and my son Mike-played
eight consecutive years of AAA hockey together and even longer than that in competitive lacrosse.

Coaching with Stu, who was named head coach of the
minor atom AAA Wildcats, was
terrific
because it always seemed
like we were on the same frequency on just about everything.
Stu is a really bright guy, an engineer who is really high up the
food chain for Ontario Power Generation (formerly Ontario
Hydro) but a lot of fun to be around. Once he gets laughing
he has a tough time stopping. Kevin has always been involved
in industrial security/
fire
prevention and safety and as serious as he is about his profession, he's equally off the wall in
everything else he does. He tells more jokes than a stand-up
comedian, tosses out more puns than Ron MacLean and can
generate as many groans as laughs, a real practical joker. If you
were there that summer night at the Holiday Inn in Burlington,
Ont., when, in front of about one hundred lacrosse parents, he
stretched a condom over his head and, using only the air coming out of his nostrils, blew it up three feet tall on top of his
head…now that's talent.

But for all the laughs we had, Stu and Kevin were great
with the kids, too. Stu is a level-headed guy who rarely, if ever,
loses his cool or raises his voice and really knows the game
of hockey inside and out. From a health and safety perspective, the kids and parents couldn't have had a better trainer
than Kevin, who is safety certi
fi
ed on so many levels that he
actually teaches classes on how to be certi
fi
ed to administer
CPR. Kevin's sporting expertise is more lacrosse than hockey
but that allowed us, and the kids, to make fun of his skates
(ancient) and how he skated (badly).

I should take a brief moment to tackle two subjects
parents coaching their kids and minor hockey coaches being
paid to coach kids.

I understand the former can be a problem at times because
there are occasions when a parent-coach will favor his child
and that causes hard feelings, but there are likely more
occasions when a parent-coach is a little harder on his child
to ensure there isn't that accusation of bias. I know that is
how Stu, Kevin and I always operated. In any case, the minor
hockey system would cease to exist without parents who coach
and my experience has been, more often than not, especially
at the younger ages, it's a positive to have parents involved.

As for the recent trend and now somewhat common
practice of paying minor hockey coaches a salary, which was
unheard of when I
first
started coaching, I think it's mostly
ridiculous. The argument in favor of it is that by paying people you end up with more quali
fi
ed coaches and they do a
better job, but I don't necessarily see evidence to support that.

Actually, I see the opportunity to make a buck as drawing more
undesirables than quali
fi
ed people, guys who are in it for all
the wrong reasons. Minor hockey is an expensive enough
proposition for parents without paying coaches anywhere
from $20,000 a year to two and three times that.

I fully understand the need to sometimes offer
fi
nancial
remuneration to one individual who oversees an entire minor
hockey organization or someone who acts as an organizational mentor for a bank of volunteer coaches. That makes
sense, because you're hiring just one super-quali
fi
ed individual whose references and background check out and he is
able to coordinate a large group that makes everyone better.

But to give individual minor hockey coaches
five
-
figure
salaries to coach kids' hockey teams? There has to be a better way
than that.

It is not, after all, professional hockey.

I don't know where exactly the following was taken from,
so I apologize if it appears here without the proper credit.

I only know I got it as an e-mail from a friend many years ago
and truer words were never spoken when it comes to the relationship between minor hockey coaches and parents. Here
you go:

A store that sells quality hockey coaches has just opened. The
store has six
floor
s and the quality of coaches available increases as
the shopper goes up each
floor
. There is, however, a catch. As you
open the door to any
floor
, you may choose your quality hockey coach
from that
floor
but once you go up a
floor
you cannot go back down
unless you directly exit the building.

So the father of a ten-year-old up-and-coming NHL superstar
goes shopping to
find
a quality hockey coach for his son. On the
first
floor
, the sign on the door reads:
Floor one-these quality hockey
coaches enjoy coaching kids (not afraid to use discipline when
necessary
). The parent reads the sign and says, "Well, that's better
than my child's last coach, but I wonder what's on the next
floor
?"

So up the stairs he goes.

The second-
floor
sign reads:
Floor two-These quality hockey
coaches enjoy coaching kids (not afraid to use discipline when
necessary) and have a detailed game plan for the season.
The
father says, "That's great, but I wonder what's on the next
floor
?"

And up he goes again.

The next sign reads
: Floor three-these quality hockey
coaches enjoy coaching kids (not afraid to use discipline when
necessary), have a detailed game plan for the season and
possess a tremendous amount of hockey knowledge and experience.
"Hmm," the father says, "that's great but what could I get
if I go higher?"

On the fourth
floor
, the sign says:
Floor four-these quality
hockey coaches enjoy coaching kids (not afraid to use discipline
when necessary), have a detailed game plan for the season, possess a tremendous amount of hockey knowledge and experience
and run a great practice.
"Wow, that's very tempting," the father
says, "but I have to know what's on the next
floor
up."

Up one more he goes.
Floor
five
-these quality hockey
coaches enjoy coaching kids (not afraid to use discipline when
necessary), have a detailed game plan for the season, possess
a tremendous amount of hockey knowledge and experience,
run a great practice and believe strongly in fair play and making sure each player gets equal ice time.
"This is incredible," the
father says, "but I just have to see what's on the next
floor
." So he
ascends the
finally
fl
ight of stairs and comes upon the
finally
door with
the
finally
sign:
Floor six-congratulations, you are visitor No. 3,458,987 to
this
floor
. There are no quality hockey coaches available here.
This
floor
exists solely as proof that hockey parents are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping Quality Hockey Coaches
Mart, and have a nice day!