Trouble in WBLhttp://www.stateofhockey.com/news_article/show

Discussion of Minnesota Girls High School Hockey

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Lace'emUp
Posts: 359
Joined: Mon Oct 03, 2011 10:37 am

Post by Lace'emUp » Thu Dec 28, 2017 11:02 am

Mnnstar wrote:Talked, to a friend of mine who has a girl on WBL team. Now you only believe Part of what you hear and half of what you see. He said, one of the parents is bragging that “he fired Hartzell”. I see since he has left WBL has lost two of their last 3 games. He also said that the 3 parents all have D1 comitts on the team and two of them had been this group of girls youth coaches.
As noted above by meridian90, one of the parents who was apart of this coup stated they have offered to "help" coach the team on several occasions. In your opinion, do you believe the goal of this group of dads was only to go after this one particular assistant coach, or is their plan to root out the other assistants and maybe the head coach? Does the head coach want any of these fellas coaching along his side knowing how they went about getting the assistant to quit? What do the players think about what's going on? That's the biggest question. This is their team. Do they want to win or do they want chaos?

highgloveside
Posts: 110
Joined: Thu Dec 14, 2017 12:34 pm

Post by highgloveside » Thu Dec 28, 2017 3:37 pm

Nobody that I talk to down there had or has any interest in coaching. Even the ones who would seem qualified. Meridian is off base with all of his comments. Seems he may have some skin in the game and he doesn't like the cards he has been dealt with the Boys side and may be gasping for air on the girls side too. My question is if the parents had an axe to grind with the coaches, don't you think they would all have been subject to this? and I also think it's weird that he said that's the first letter he knows about that complained about his behavior. I know one thing for sure, when parents are out to get you it is fast and furious and constant so I think he must have known he overstepped his boundary big time on this one OR it had been going on a long time and the parents and players kept their mouths shut. I also think it's weird that the Assistant coach goes into the locker room and goes nuts on the kids rather than the head coach? Seems like he was a little too willing to lay the hammer down on something that was not warranted. I usually take the coaches side of things but when someone shows me the email on their phone that the head coach knew about and approved of the girls getting to practice late that's a real head stinger. Anyway it may have helped Flake! yip yip

Zamman
Posts: 2097
Joined: Sat Dec 07, 2002 1:15 pm
Location: Edina

Post by Zamman » Fri Dec 29, 2017 10:17 am

As I am someone who has worked at an arena for more that 20 years, I know that coaches enter locker rooms of guys or gals without knocking or announcing all the time. I also know that some girls teams will walk around their locker rooms with the doors wide open, just as the boys do.
In my opinion when a team is in the locker room, the doors should be closed, when they go on the ice they should lock them. I do not know of any arena that will not give out keys to the locker rooms for anyone who uses them.
Coaches should at the very least knock on the door. I knock when ever I enter a locker room that appears to have someone in it, guys or gals courtesy and especially if the door is closed. As employees we need to get in and clean them after they are used.
In today's world you have to watch what you do and say. Oh and all players, coaches and parents throw out the F-bomb all the time.....

thegreatone99
Posts: 172
Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2016 11:45 am

Post by thegreatone99 » Mon Jan 01, 2018 10:27 am

This behavior is commonplace now. Girls hockey is clearly on the downward trend. HS girls hockey now only has a handful of competitive teams, there is no difference in college. How many times do we have to watch Canada play the US for the Gold? Or MN and Wisc face off for the Championship? All these nutty parents continue to ruin the game. ND will not be the only major program to drop women's college hockey, more will come with rising costs and lack of revenue generation.

Mnnstar
Posts: 192
Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2016 8:11 am

Post by Mnnstar » Mon Jan 01, 2018 6:56 pm

highgloveside wrote:Nobody that I talk to down there had or has any interest in coaching. Even the ones who would seem qualified. Meridian is off base with all of his comments. Seems he may have some skin in the game and he doesn't like the cards he has been dealt with the Boys side and may be gasping for air on the girls side too. My question is if the parents had an axe to grind with the coaches, don't you think they would all have been subject to this? and I also think it's weird that he said that's the first letter he knows about that complained about his behavior. I know one thing for sure, when parents are out to get you it is fast and furious and constant so I think he must have known he overstepped his boundary big time on this one OR it had been going on a long time and the parents and players kept their mouths shut. I also think it's weird that the Assistant coach goes into the locker room and goes nuts on the kids rather than the head coach? Seems like he was a little too willing to lay the hammer down on something that was not warranted. I usually take the coaches side of things but when someone shows me the email on their phone that the head coach knew about and approved of the girls getting to practice late that's a real head stinger. Anyway it may have helped Flake! yip yip
Why show you the email when you wrea part of writing it. Give us a copy before u leave for Russia.

highgloveside
Posts: 110
Joined: Thu Dec 14, 2017 12:34 pm

Post by highgloveside » Tue Jan 02, 2018 10:07 am

Brrrrr it's cold here in Russia. Or wait maybe it just feels like Russia right here in MN.

greybeard58
Posts: 2510
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 11:40 pm

Post by greybeard58 » Tue Jan 02, 2018 10:28 pm

Why we still allow bullying to flourish in kids sports
Coaches continue to perpetuate behavior that would be unacceptable in any other setting.

By Lisa L. Lewis January 2 at 6:00 AM
Lisa L. Lewis is a writer based in Southern California.

(iStock)
In the cellphone video, a teenage boy stands at the front of the classroom as his football teammates laugh. The coach walks to the door and closes it. “We don’t want no witnesses,” he says, to more laughter. After hesitating, the boy complies with the coach’s orders to close his eyes and clasp his hands behind his head. Then the coach punches him in the stomach. The boy doubles over and falls to the floor as his teammates laugh some more.

The clip, shot at California’s Beaumont High School, made headlines after it was turned over to local police in October. Equally shocking, however, were the expressions of support by many of the players and their parents, who downplayed the incident and lauded the coach, Will Martin, for his mentoring influence. “If it’s so bad, why are the kids laughing?” one mom asked, while another parent characterized Martin as a “man of God.”

Martin’s behavior may be an extreme example, but physical and emotional bullying by youth coaches is often still accepted or even defended as a way to improve performance and build character. Some coaches use exercise as punishment, including one in Des Moines, who was subsequently fired for it in 2012. And verbal abuse by coaches such as name-calling and belittling players is common at all levels of sports. In one study of 800 youth athletes, more than a third of the respondents said their coaches had yelled at a kid angrily for making a mistake, and 4 percent said the coach had hit, kicked or slapped someone on the team. (The authors note that if their sample is seen as representative of the larger population of youth athletes, this equates to close to 2 million kids being on the receiving end of this type of physical bullying each year.)

In any other setting, that behavior would immediately be recognized as physical abuse, noted Jennifer Fraser, the author of “Teaching Bullies: Zero Tolerance on the Court or in the Classroom.” “Imagine two women in a staff meeting,” she suggested. “Would this be seen as motivating? Would she (the victim) be a better employee as a result?”

In many cases, coaches are simply replicating what was done to them or may be taking out their frustration on their players. “When a coach is yelling like that, they’re modeling poor emotional control,” said Kristen Dieffenbach, an associate professor of athletic coaching education at West Virginia University and an executive board member of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology. “When I coach soccer and hockey, I yell — sometimes you need to in order to get the kids to pay attention to you. But there’s a difference between high energy and ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ ”

For kids and adolescents, the impact of being yelled at and belittled — or having a coach slap kick or even punch them — is long-lasting. (Even though the majority of the research looks at peer-to-peer bullying, the dynamic in coach-player bullying is consistent with the imbalance of power that’s generally used in definitions of bullying.)

Players may hesitate to speak up for fear of retaliation. And parents who do so risk being seen as helicopter parents, Fraser noted.

And in fact, there’s no evidence to suggest that this type of domineering coaching is what wins championships. Instead, coaches who use positive methods have a better track record of keeping kids from dropping out of youth sports, increasing player engagement and developing skills and character, which in turn help teams win. The nonprofit Positive Coaching Alliance, based in Mountain View, Calif., and featuring an all-star advisory board lineup that includes winning coaches, such as Phil Jackson, Bruce Bochy and Steve Mariucci, calls this double-goal coaching, which focuses on winning and even more so on teaching life lessons.

Similarly, experts like Dieffenbach believe the best way to combat old-school coaching is through education. Dieffenbach said coaches often get frustrated and resort to dictatorial techniques because they lack other tools. “Is your job as a coach to dominate, or to lead and develop?” she asked.

Requirements for high school coaches vary by state — in Illinois, for example, prospective coaches only need coaching certification if they don’t already have an Illinois teaching, school counseling or similar certificate. And in Hawaii, the governing body for high school sports only requires that coaches participating in state championship events take a “Fundamentals of Coaching” course and allows them two years to do so, even though they’re coaching players in the interim. The course is offered by the National Federation of State High School Associations, which oversees interscholastic sports federations in each state and the District of Columbia and is one of the main groups offering courses to meet these varying state requirements. Dan Schuster, who oversees educational services for the association, noted that the fundamentals course addresses bullying in the context of providing a safe and respectful environment and refers coaches to additional optional resources on the topic.

In addition to educating coaches, though, we need to look at the broader culture that’s made these bullying behaviors seem acceptable. Rationalizing it through a “win at all costs” mind-set or accepting that it’s embedded in competitive sports — particularly in aggressive ones like football — only perpetuates it. Joe Ehrmann, a former NFL defensive lineman who spent most of his career with the Baltimore Colts and is now a minister, has said, “The great myth in America today is that sports builds character . . . (but) sports doesn’t build character unless the coach models it, nurtures it and teaches it.”

We need to make sure that when we talk about bullying, we’re clear about exactly what that means. In a paper published last month in the Sport Journal, Charles Bachand noted that being able to determine whether bullying in sports is increasing or decreasing depends on having a standard definition. Some of the research to date doesn’t even include key components such as the imbalance of power inherent in the coach-player dynamic, Bachand pointed out.

Of course, most coaches are hard-working, well-meaning and passionate about sports. Those who do end up bullying may simply be frustrated or misguided about athlete development.

But when they do bully players, we have a responsibility to avoid defending or normalizing it. I have a son who plays high school varsity football, and I was sickened not just by the clip of the Beaumont High School coach, but by the parents who defended his behavior. A teen who’s been punched in the stomach by his coach has already been failed once by adults and doesn’t need to be failed again.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the university where Kristen Dieffenbach works.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pos ... ds-sports/

highgloveside
Posts: 110
Joined: Thu Dec 14, 2017 12:34 pm

Post by highgloveside » Wed Jan 03, 2018 11:49 am

Can't argue with greybeard58. Advocating for the athletes well being is nothing to be critical of. Maybe MNstar will fish for the negatives in your post,or should i say NYstar? This topic is getting old now anyway, Like MNstar/NYstar said, probably best for all side to leave it alone. Then again He/She is the one that posted the topic in the first place.

Mnnstar
Posts: 192
Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2016 8:11 am

Post by Mnnstar » Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:24 pm

highgloveside wrote:Can't argue with greybeard58. Advocating for the athletes well being is nothing to be critical of. Maybe MNstar will fish for the negatives in your post,or should i say NYstar? This topic is getting old now anyway, Like MNstar/NYstar said, probably best for all side to leave it alone. Then again He/She is the one that posted the topic in the first place.
What a change from this articlehttp://www.stateofhockey.com/news_article/show ... id=2036788 in less than a month

highgloveside
Posts: 110
Joined: Thu Dec 14, 2017 12:34 pm

Post by highgloveside » Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:35 pm

Hey, when you get paid to write articles why not write as many as you can. Problem is you can't complain your coaching and not making a penny when in reality you are. Your gathering material to get paid. Just like NYstar does. Pen and paper or microphone, there's a couple bucks in it for everyone.

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