This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend my first minor hockey tournament as a head coach. It was in Dryden, Ontario with my Atom team the Sioux Lookout Jr. Flyers. I have to say that I had lofty expectations for our team; maybe even winning this tournament; based on the facts that we have good players and the kids were playing well as a team at the time. But at the same time, it's all about the experience for the kids so I made sure I did my best to see that each kid on our team got lots of ice time.
Game 1: Our first game was against a team from Dryden. This was an interesting game for me as a coach because we had not played a game since the Monday of the previous week. So to keep things simple I lined up the kids in positions which I thought they would feel the most comfortable; and I explained to them that this game's line up was not set in stone. Well, I guess it worked because we won 15-0.
Yes, I'll admit the Dryden team did not have a lot of skilled players, but at the same time, we played a good team game; we passed the puck and played our positions well. And when Dryden did have chances, our goalie made the saves. After the game I told the kids "I know I said the line up wasn't set in stone but........." and then one of our parents chimed it, "that worked." Yes it did!
Game 2: Our second game was against a team from Kenora; six hours after game one. I was happy to see the kids didn't seem tired and they were anxious to play another hockey game. I talked to a couple of kids who politely came up to me and asked if they could play different positions, so I juggled our line up a bit to accommodate them. After the first period of this game, the score was 2-2; we had given up a 2-0 lead but the kids didn't get down on themselves and the final score was 9-2 for us. I (and a lot of others) noticed some kids on their team; one in particular; seemed to get progressively more angry as the game went on; and started to trip, slash, and crosscheck our kids; even our goalie, pretty aggressively. As one of my players put it "she was nasty!" I liked how our team handled it though, we got off the ice and talked about it as a team in our dressing room; we didn't make a fuss with the refs or the coaches or parents of the other team, and then we moved on.
Game 3 was Saturday morning at 10:30. All the kids showed up looking well rested and ready to roll. Our opponent was a team from Thunder Bay. Now; based on what little experience I had; I knew Thunder Bay teams were good teams. So as a bit of strategy; I lined up my best player and his line as our third line instead of our first; hoping Thunder Bay would have a weaker third line and our guys would have a field day. It worked early, we got up on them 2-0. But like I said earlier, they had a good team and they tied it up 2-2. Again, our kids didn't get down and continued to play hard. We got the lead 3-2; and it seemed like we made it 4-2 a little later but a good goal was not seen by the refs so they didn't count it, Then in the third period; they stormed us for three straight goals to make it 5-3. I could tell on the bench the kids seemed pretty down; so my assistant coach and I just kept telling them to keep playing hard and good things will happen. Our best player scored late in the game to make it 5-4; so we pulled our goalie with about 45 seconds left. We stormed their net but just couldn't bury that tying goal, we lost 5-4. While we were shaking hands with the other coaches, they praised us for having a good team and playing a good game, which I appreciated to hear, but seemed somewhat confused about why they would say that with such conviction. Later I looked at the standings, their team was pummeling other teams 8-1 and 7-2; and we came within a disallowed goal of tying them. I was super proud of our kids after that game and I told them so. I thought it was the best game I'd ever seen them play; we could have given up when it was 5-3, but we didn't; and we clawed our way back and almost tied it.
(continued below)
Game 4: Our final round robin game was Saturday afternoon about 4 hours after our close one with Thunder Bay and I have to say; the kids looked tired. I thought we gave up some goals the previous game because some of our defensemen aren't that mobile yet, so I moved one of my forwards back to defense because he was a good skater; and he could help out the lesser skilled kids. He wasn't crazy about the idea, but I convinced him by telling him he'd get more ice time! I asked the kids before the game "are you guys tired?" and they all shouted "NO!" And I told them I thought they looked tired and to prove me wrong. Well they did, we won 4-0. This game was made interesting by our new defenseman, who kept wanting to play as a forward and wouldn't stay back, leaving our less mobile kids on their own. He played a great game though, picking up an assist and sliding through our crease to save a goal! Another highlight for our team was one of our defensemen scored! It was a long wrister from the point that made it's way in after hitting a couple of sticks. The kid that scored is my most reliable defenseman, so to see him score one was pretty special. I picked him our team MVP that game. The other team had some chances, but our goalie was there everytime. When we went to shake hands with other coaches, one of them said to me "you've got a hot goalie there." He was right, we had the best goalie in the tournament, in my opinion.
Later that evening, we found out we finished sixth place out of sixteen teams; which was OK, but I couldn't help but think about that one disallowed goal against Thunder Bay. In my head we would have won that game or maybe even tied it, but either way we would have ended up in the A side instead. But that was our place and we had to live with it. Our first playoff game was the next morning at 8:30am.
That evening I went home and emailed our parents about the game time. That night though; I couldn't sleep. I hadn't been involved in a minor hockey playoff (or any hockey, for that matter) since I was about 12 years old! I was so nervous, yet excited at the same time. I kept going through my head, trying to think what I could say in the dressing room to get the kids fired up, or what I could do to our line up to make us more competitive, balanced, yet still fair for the kids in terms of ice time. In the end though, I couldn't come up with a damn thing! After I think 2 or 3 hours of shut eye for me, we loaded up at 6:30am Sunday morning for our next game.
Game 5: Our first playoff game; and I was happy to see all the kids there rested and ready to go. I didn't shuffle the line up; and preached to the kids to remember to do the things we do well that set us apart from the other teams that were no longer playing in this tournament. My assistant coach got the kids fired up. He would say so who are we? And the kids would scream "FLYERS" over and over again before we went out. Way to go coach! We played another team from Kenora and it was a pretty even game, but in the end it worked out for us. Our skilled players scored some goals and our goalie made all the saves and we won 4-0. It was on to the B side finals!
We didn't have too much time as our next game was only an hour after our first one ended. Our whole team and parents spent the hour watching the other Sioux Lookout team play their A side semi final game. Probably the most exciting Atom game I have ever seen! It was just a non stop, up and down, back and forth hockey game. The team from Sioux played their hearts out but in the end they came up just short; losing 6-5.
Game 6: Our last game of the tournament; win or lose. Our opponent was from Red Lake. They were a good team, they won a lot of their games 4-2 or 5-3 and according to a parent that I spoke to, they had two kids who passed the puck well and scored all their goals. To be honest with you, I thought they sounded pretty beatable, but for some reason, I was nervous for our team before the game. I made no line up changes, some kids asked but I just couldn't accommodate them at that point in the tournament, we were playing well, and we were playing as a team. Red Lake actually scored the first goal of the game, after we had some chances but didn't score, and the kids seemed a little down on themselves. But this time I didn't say anything as they always bounced back before. We wound up getting two goals from our third line centre and went up 2-1; but after his second goal, Red Lake scored again on the very next shift; game tied 2-2. The kids seemed to play tentative so I reminded them to play hard and without fear; if they made a mistake, there were five kids on the ice to help them out. It was our last game of the day and I just thought we should play like it. Red Lake made it 3-2 but we were able to tie it. I got the feeling that it was going to be a "next goal wins" kind of game and I was feeling a little upset that it got to that point because throughout the whole game our kids had chances, but either hit a post, had a save made against us, or we missed the net entirely. Sure enough, Red Lake scored to make it 4-3 and with about a minute and a half left I called a time out. I just used the time out to give the kids a rest and then I put a made up line of my five best skaters out there to try and tie things up. With about 45 seconds left we pulled our goalie for a sixth skater. The kids played their hearts out but we just couldn't seem to get the puck deep into their end, then somehow,and I don't know how, the puck started to make it's way towards our empty net from center ice. At first I thought it was going to go wide, then as it got closer I thought it was going to hit the post, it seemed like forever for me, but then my next feeling was my heart sinking as I watched that puck slide into our net, millimeters from the inside of the post. We lost the B side final 5-3.
During a short ceremony to hand the medals out to the kids I made sure to thank the organizers of the tournament for a job well done; and to ask the fans in the arena to give our kids a hand; they played their hearts out but came up just short.
I was happy to see how the kids handled the loss. No one cried, no one complained, we all just accepted that we tried our best, but it just wasn't to be for us this time. In my own mind, we were the better team out there, we just couldn't bury our chances early in the game and it wound up costing us. But whatever, I asked each and every kid if they had fun and the answer was always a "yes" and that's what's important for kids playing hockey at this age.
I shouldn't forget to mention I had several compliments from other coaches, other parents, the refs, and the tournament organizers about how we were a good team that played well. I can't put into words how proud I am of these kids! Two more tournaments to go; both in the month of February,2011. Of course I'll be blogging those so feel free to come back to this site and see how we did! Thanks for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment