Youth Hockey Coaching – it’s not a Dad Coach problem, its a Bad Coach problem

This is a note for parents of youth hockey players.
References in this article are specific to Illinois but the context is relevant in plenty of other locations.

The club that my youngest child plays hockey for recently decided to create a new program for the spring that had high aspirations. The name even screamed that this was going to be the best of the best. This is a club that never really wins many state championships, tournaments, or leagues. They are a hockey is for everyone club rather than focused on creating the best players and focusing on the top half, which is what many of the competing clubs in the area focus on. There are great players at the club, but inevitably the best of the best move to the other clubs that have a focus on player development rather than participation. This has frustrated the club in recent years.

Last summer a new president assumed the duties from the outgoing president. His sights and goals shifted the club to be more aware of their ability to be competitive and has begun to shift the organization in to 2 separate entities: 1 focused on in house hockey is for everyone, 1 focused on travel hockey excellence. The fall season did not go well from a winning or competitive standpoint for any team at any level (sure they won some tournaments, but really did not compete among the elite teams in the state). The in house hockey numbers were higher than any club in the entire state. Both of these things are a problem.

In house hockey participation is too high to provide any meaningful experience for the players or parents. The rink is too crowded, the parking impossible, the ice times too tight and it all adds up to frustrated parents, slow to develop players, and a facility that is not happy with the way too many hockey players in the rink (they also have other activities at this complex). In house hockey should be an experience that allows less skilled players to enjoy hockey, older players that have hockey as a hobby, and aspiring hockey players that want to make the leap to the travel teams.

Travel hockey participation is too high to provide meaningful development for all the players and the programs in place to create the development opportunities are generic for all levels and do not take into account ages/windows of development, skills vs team vs strength desired at each level.

Which leads me back to the title of this post. At this club, and many clubs, the coaching is the ultimate factor in development. At this club with this hockey director the focus has always been on hockey is for everyone and the coaches in place are either Dads or a stable of coaches that coach the In House teams, the Learn to Play program, as well as skills and travel program. the core 5 coaches that are the go to coaches (and every club has go to coaches – this is not a criticism!) are tasked with coaching 5 year olds and 14 to 17 year olds all during the same season and every age in-between. It is the exception to have a coach that understands that windows for development at each age group, that can structure the appropriate skill development process (plans for a whole season of development and knows what they will teach in month 1 vs month 6), and can communicate appropriately and effectively to age of the audience. It gets harder or more complicated when you throw in the In House players vs travel players.

For the spring and their new program that focused on creating ultra-competitive teams that were to develop skills for the best players, this has been nothing more than more of the same. Most of the teams (all?) have been spectacularly uncompetitive. What was described to parents as a dedicated focus on creating a pool of players with the best abilities and allowing them dedicated time to grow their skills has simply not happened. The reason is coaching. The development process requires coaches that are focused and know their audience, both from a generic age specific development process and from a personality of the individuals perspective. This club shook it all up by placing coaches with no prior experience with those players, did not solicit feedback from those players’ coaches from their fall/winter teams, and allowed those coaches to coach multiple teams at multiple levels decreasing the time they can spend focused on a particular team or group. But they are not Dads coaching their kids.

See this club quietly stated during the fall/winter season that it desires to move away from Dad coaches (this club has no Mom coaches, but with the rise in popularity of women’s hockey, this applies to Moms who coach as well). The reasoning for the new direction is to be more competitive and there is a bias towards thinking that Dads are not as effective coaches compared to coaches that do not have a child on the team. I strongly disagree with this bias and this thinking for the following reasons:

• Dads are going to understand the language that works for that age. They live it everyday
• Dads know the players and the friends on the team in a way that the non-Dad coach cannot. Translates to more effective communication
• Dads who were hockey players or hockey coaches first and then became Dads might actually know more than the non-Dad coach
• Not being a Dad does not make a good coach. Being a Dad and coaching your child are two separate things. You can great at both. You can be terrible at both.
• Being a bad coach does not make you a Dad. Bad coaches are in every club.

Bad coaching is the issue, not being a Dad. Until clubs become more diligent about monitoring the coaching that existing coaches provide, you cannot say whether a coach is right for your organization whether he is a Dad or not. Until clubs set measurements of success for the players at each level and hold the coaches accountable for the player development at that level, you do not know whether your coaches are effective. Using your coaching stable first, without being able to prove how effective they are, puts the players at a developmental disadvantage – maybe. Without measurement, who really knows? Likewise, denying a Dad the opportunity to coach because he is a Dad whether or not he is a good coach is just as bad or worse.

I am a Dad and I am a coach. I have coached from learn to skate on up to college hockey. Along the way, I have picked up a few things. First and foremost is that being a good coach is a process of continuous learning. I get better every year because the high school kids I coach deserve my best. My best from last year is not my best of the next year. If youth coaches and clubs want to have competitive travel teams, it happens with the #1 focus being on enabling the best coaches, the coaches with a track record of success, being the coaches that work with the players whether they are a Dad or not.

Hockey costs too much

Or does it?  

With rinks costing $20m or more to build and many of those being sold in bankruptcy proceedings for 15-20% of that cost, something is clearly not working.  

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130126/ISSUE01/301269974/suburban-ice-rink-finances-are-slip-sliding-away

When reading about the failure to make a profit for these newish facilities, and having been a coach in around the Chicagoland area for the past 20 years, it seems at first glance a bit unbelievable given the high relative cost to play hockey compared to other sports.

As we started to research the finances of privately owned facilities (as opposed to park district or municipal facilities) and achieved a greater understanding of the expenses of water and electricity, the costs that the facilities are charging its customers seem to continue to escalate without any increase in service to the customers.

But our primary interest is in the specific area of High School hockey.  We believe it is the most varied and inconsistent are of fees and expenses in all of hockey in northern Illinois.  Teams offer many different variations of hockey, from combined teams with multi-school participants, to off ice conditioning and training, to specialized goalie and skating coaches, as well as various leagues to participate.  These costs if better understood as a whole could help the high school hockey community understand collectively what is being offered and what is an average expense for a team or club compared to what is a bargain and what is a premium offering.

To that end, we have invited dozens of high school hockey programs in Northern Illinois to participate in a survey designed to capture the costs and investments clubs make to support high school hockey at their schools.  

We encourage your participation if invited.  The information remains confidential and we will only  publish the results in a summary format publicly, although you have the option as a participant to receive the detailed findings.

Thank you.