Coaches: Thinking about coaching

[Canadiens1958]

Coached, was an administrator and scouted youth hockey for over 40 years. Pre double and triple letter era onward.

The key to coaching is being inclusive.Getting every youngster to participate and contribute. Making the players and other team members look forward to coming to the rink for every practice and game.

Accomplish these objectives and success will follow.

[Isbrant]

I have coached for years now, ages 4-8 and I love it.

A few points or suggestions to go along with a lot of the ones already metioned:

- You are trying to make better people, not just better hockey players.
- My goal is to get all the kids to want to play again next year; it needs to be fun
- The best coaches are the best thieves. Steal drills, ideas, techniques, anything you can.
- Ensure all the coaches are on the same page
- Ensure the parents understand the team rules and goals. Ice time, discipline, positions
- Delegate. You can not do everything yourself. Try to get all the parents to have a responsibility
- Make a practice plan ahead of time and know what you are going to be doing during practice.
- Challenge the kids but back off if need be
- Always try to set up the kids for success. eg If you have a new kid in net, try playing them against a weaker team or give them stronger players on defense to help.

This is all I have for now, if you would like me to elaborate, let me know.

[letsgojackets]

Originally Posted by Lonewolfe2015

The worst is when those parents are also coaching. I've been a head and assistant coach to those types and seen a lot of stupid stuff. Had a head coach my first year that refused to give anyone but his own son extra minutes, even going so far as to take time from other kids (HUGE mistake, he never coached again).

I also had an assistant coach that wouldn't discipline his own kid but instead put it on me to do, yet encouraged him to disobey what I said when I wasn't around. This kid was young, highly talented but very immature and he didn't understand that being up 6 goals meant he couldn't break position (I kept him at defense to try and limit his ability to showboat) and score his hattrick goal. Almost got in trouble myself with the league because of that (we have a suspension policy for any team's coach that wins by 7 or more). Had to pull him from the game to make him stop.

Last year the head coach and I had talk with both our sons. The deal was, I didn't care if my son would not listen to me but he had to listen to the other coach and vice versa. It wasn't because we didn't want to deal with our own kid it was because they started to tune us out. It worked pretty well.

[madmutter]

Originally Posted by letsgojackets

Last year the head coach and I had talk with both our sons. The deal was, I didn't care if my son would not listen to me but he had to listen to the other coach and vice versa. It wasn't because we didn't want to deal with our own kid it was because they started to tune us out. It worked pretty well.

I've found that this isn't an uncommon situation. It's hard to be "Coach" and "Dad" and I think it's even harder for a kid to tell the difference.