Good read!!, News, Tyke, 2014-2015 (Tillsonburg Minor Hockey Inc.)

This Team is part of the 2014-2015 season, which is not set as the current season.
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Dec 17, 2014 | Dana Hicks | 2068 views
Good read!!
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Hello Tyke Parents,

 

 

I just wanted to take a moment and reflect on the season nearing the halfway point…..

 

We just had a very fun and exciting evening with the Thunder who we thank very much for scoring a goal early on!!!

 

CHRIS ABBOTT/TILLSONBURG NEWSCHRIS ABBOTT/TILLSONBURG NEWSCHRIS ABBOTT/TILLSONBURG NEWSCHRIS ABBOTT/TILLSONBURG NEWS (CHRIS ABBOTT/TILLSONBURG NEWS( Tillsonburg News Website)

 

It is easy as a parent/grandparent/aunt or uncle,  to get caught up in the "game" mentality and atmosphere of the season.  As we see more competitions between teams we will feel that competitive nature in ourselves coming out.  This is just a reminder that the kids feed off of us.  They look to us and our reactions to the games played.  Remember in Tyke all kids rotate positions and your coaches will be there to guide them with each new experience.  Teach your child that though they may or may not like a position, it is the TEAM sport they are playing and in order to be a great hockey player they should learn all the positions because every great winger is a great defender and every great defender has some fantastic offensive opportunities as well.  It makes our jobs as coaches easier when we are trying to keep everyone engaged that they hear the same messages at home.

 

I promise you, I have been around hockey since the time of the dinosaur, or what feels like 125 years and I have been involved with the IP program for 7, this is the BEST age to sit back and ENJOY hockey.  There is no outside influences, no hockey stress, no try outs, and should be absolutely no issues surrounding your child's hockey experience.  Please, take a moment and savor this…I cannot stress that enough.  As they move on to mainstream hockey the little faces that bring you joy change.  Take pictures of this time, remember it fondly and make sure your children do as well. 

 

January's schedule is posted, there is a Tyke tournament we are all participating in on the 10/11 so there is no home games at that time.  We also have some blackout weekends so the games are a bit sparse.  February and March will make up for that hopefully!!

 

Most of all remember this….

 

CHRIS ABBOTT/TILLSONBURG NEWS  Friendships made in hockey last a lifetime….and at the end of every game, all your kids care about is the "pizza" or the apple juice or the trip to McDonalds or just a "Good Game" from anyone watching…

 

 

Merry Christmas to you and your family from all of us at Tillsonburg Minor Hockey, may the Holiday season bring peace and happiness to everyone…

 

 

Dana Hicks

IP Convenor

Tillsonburg Minor Hockey

 

 

The following story has been shared time and time again, but it puts things into perspective for me and this age group…I hope you all read it…

 

Subject:  I Hope They Didn't Bring Apple Juice

By Steve Simmons

 

There was about two minutes to play in the playoff game and I was anxiously pacing behind the bench, barking out whatever instructions seemed important at that very moment.  You watch the game and you watch the clock in those final seconds, sometimes precisely at the very same time.

 

We were up by a goal, poised to advance to the next round of the playoffs, when I felt a tug on my jacket.

 

"Ah coach," one of my players said on the bench.

 

"Yea," I answered, concentrating more on the game and the clock than on him at that instance.

 

"Is there snacks today?"

 

"Whaaaat?" I barked exasperated.

 

"Did anyone bring snacks today?"

 

"Huh," I looked away.

 

"I hope they didn't bring apple juice." The young boy said.  "I don't like apple juice."

 

The moment froze me in all the playoff excitement, the way all special and meaningful moments should.  If somehow, I could have captured that conversation on tape, I would have had one of those special sporting moments for parents everywhere, the kind you need to play for coaches and executive and trainers and managers and all of us who take kids hockey way too seriously.  It isn't life or death, as we like to think it is.  It isn't do or die as often as we pretend it to be.  In one tiny moment in one game minor hockey was reduced to what it really is about.  Apple juice.

 

OK, so it's not apple juice.  But what apple juice happens to represent in all of this.  The snack.  The routine.  The ritual.  Kids can win and lose and not even give a second's thought about either, but don't forget the post-game drinks.  If anything will spoil a good time, that will.

 

You see, it's all part of the culture of hockey.  Not who wins, not who scores goals, not which team accomplished what on which night, but about whether mom and dad are there, whether their grandparents are in the stands watching, whether their best friend was on their team and they got a shift on the power play, and yes, about what they ate.

 

When you get involved in hockey, when you truly put your heart into the game and into the environment and into everything, it can be when it's at its best, the game is only part of the package.  It becomes a social outing for parents.  It becomes a social outing for  children.  It should never be about who is going for extra power skating and who is going straight from minor tyke to the Ottawa Senators but about building that kind of environment, the kind of memories kids and parents and families will have forever.

 

Sometimes, when I stand around the arenas I can't believe the tone of the conversations I hear.  The visions are so short-sighted.  The conversations are almost always about today and who won and who lost and who scored.  Not enough people use the word fun and not enough sell it that way either.

 

Hard as we try to think like kids, we're not kids.  Hard as we try to remember what we were when we were young, our vision is clouded by perspective and logic, something not always evident with children.

 

Ask any parent whether they would rather win or lose and without a doubt they would say win.

 

But ask most children what they would prefer, playing a regular shift, with power play time and penalty killing time on a losing team rather playing sparingly on a winning team, and the answer has already come out in two different studies.  Overwhelmingly, kids would rather play a lot than win and play a little.  Like we said, it is about apple juice.  It is, after all, about the experience.

 

You can't know what's in a kid's mind.  I was coaching a team a few years ago when I got a call from the goaltender's father.  It was the day before the championship game.  The father told me his son didn't want to play anymore.

 

"Anymore after tomorrow." I asked.

 

"No," the father said.  "He just doesn't want to play anymore."

 

"Did something happen?" I asked.

 

"He won't tell me," the father said.

 

I hung up the phone and began to wonder how this happened and who would play goal the next day when I decided to call back.

 

"Can I talk to him?" I asked the father.

 

The goalie came on the phone.  "I don't want to play anymore."

 

"But you know what tomorrow is, don't you?  Are you nervous?"

 

"No."

 

"Then what?  You can tell me."

 

"I don't like it anymore."

 

"Don't like playing goal?"

 

"They hurt me," he said.

 

"Who hurts you?"

 

"The guys," he said

 

"What guys?"

 

"Our guys.  They jump on me after the game.  It hurts me and scares me."

 

"Is that it?"

 

"Yea."

 

"Do you trust me?"

 

"Yea."

 

"What if I told you they won't jump on you and hurt you anymore.  Would you

play then?"

 

"Are you sure?"

 

"I'm sure."

 

"Then I'll play."

 

And that was the end of the goalie crisis.  The kid was scared and wouldn't tell his parents.  The kid loved playing but didn't love being jumped on after winning games.  You can't anticipate anything like that as a coach. You can't anticipate what's in their minds.

 

It's their game, we have to remember.  Not our game.  They don't think like we do or look at the sport like we do.  They don't have to adjust to us, we have to adjust to them.  We have to make certain we're not spoiling their experience.  Our experience is important too, but the game is for the children and not for the adults.  We can say that over and over again, but the message seems to get lost every year.

 

Lost in too many coaches who lose perspective and who think nothing of blaming and yelling and bullying.  Lost by parents who think their son or daughter is the next this or the next that and they are already spending the millions their little one will be earning by the time they finish hockey in the winter, 3-on-3 in the summer, power skating over winter break, special lessons over March break, pre-tryout camp before the AAA tryouts in May and a couple weeks of hockey school, just to make certain they don't go rusty.

 

I have asked many NHL players how they grew up in the game.  My favorite answer came from Trevor Lindon, who has captained more than one team.  He said he played hockey until April and then put his skates away.  He played baseball all summer until the last week of August.  He went to hockey camp for one week then began his season midway through September with tryouts.

 

No summer hockey.  No special schools.  No skating 12 months a year.  "I didn't even see my skates for about five months a year.  I think the kids today are playing way too much hockey and all you have to do is look at the development to see it really isn't producing any better players.  "We have to let the kids be kids."

 

When, I asked Gary Roberts recently, did he think he had a future in hockey.  "When I got a call from an agent before the OHL draft," he said.

"Before that, it was just a game we played."

 

Do me a favor:  Until the agent comes knocking on your teenager's door, let's keep it that way.  A game for kids.  And one reminder, I don't care what the age: Don't forget the snacks.

 

(Steve Simmons writes a city column for the Toronto Sun when he isn't coaching his Avenue Road minor atom select team or Vaughan peewee house league team.  His syndicated Sunday sports column is the most read sports column in Canada.)

 

 

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