Mike Serba Memorial Golf Tournament

Coaches Don’t Grow On Trees ….. Or Do They?

To Help You Better Understand The Beast You’re Dealing With

First let me just say that for the most part; God bless the people who volunteer their time and get into coaching. Without them there would be no teams and no hockey leagues. However, as I wrote before, I’m not a huge fan of the level of the proficiency of coaching at the minor hockey level.  Most often, the coaching is being performed by people just stating to coach and who are pretty much dimly aware of all the knowledge, skill sets and experience required.  Too many people think that if you can skate a bit, draw out some drills on a board and blow a whistle; then you’re qualified to coach.  For now, let’s just say that I find this to be very unfortunate because this is when the young kids have an extraordinary capacity to learn.

Other than guidance from parents, the most important factor that will affect the development and success of a hockey player is the coach. In the GTHL, parents and kids tend to get hung up on the organization or the jersey when it’s the coach that’s the most important factor.  In the OMA, team options and therefore coaching choices are limited and the OMA never makes your life easy to make a team and therefore a coaching change. In the GTHL, parents have it far better. At the triple A level there are 12 teams to choose from and many more choices at the double and single A levels. My advise is to do lot of due diligence to find the best coach possible.

Where Do Minor Hockey Coaches Come From?

In my experience there are 3 basic ways people get into coaching.

At the earliest house league levels it’s usually just some dad whose son is starting in hockey, who played a bit of hockey in his youth and who has to drive to the arena anyway.

At the next level, the coaching entering the system usually comes from a parent that watches his son’s or daughter’s game and says to himself; “I can do a better job that idiot behind the bench”. From there they fall into 2 general categories; Those that take the job seriously, want to do a good job, quickly find out it’s more difficult than they thought, and then educate themselves so they can do a good job ….. and then there’s the  egomaniac (you can generally spot this one because that’s usually the guy that commands the audience of parents in the lobby and regales them with  examples of his brilliance and knowledge).

Paid Minor Hockey Coaches

A fairly recent development is the paid coach. As I wrote in one of my previous blogs, this all started sometime in the early 2000’s when three very wealthy gentlemen by the names of; Harvey Shapiro, Peter Friedman and Stuart Hyman, (who had children that were just starting out in hockey in the GTHL)  purchased the triple A North York Junior Canadiens organization. They were the ones that started to bring in paid professional coaches to the local minor hockey scene.

This coincided with a time when there was a proliferation of hockey schools opening up. Most of these hockey schools were started by players who didn’t quite make it to the “big time” and therefore didn’t make the big bucks. Having spent many years dedicated to hockey and with many having sacrificed their education in pursuit of a hockey career; starting a hockey school seemed natural. The problem is that running a successful hockey school is damn tough so getting a paid GTHL coaching gig was perfect for them. They were able to make extra money with the added benefit for them that here’s a source of students for their hockey school; maybe with a little added coercion of extra ice time for those that attend regularly at their school.

Coaches Don’t Grow On Trees ….. Or Do They?

In the next blog I’ll provide an outline of all of the skill sets and knowledge needed to be a good coach; but really it’ll be a great guide for parents to help them assess a coach.

There’s a lot more to come.

Note:

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