Practice schedule and ?

[ndirishfighting]

How many Associations give your team two days off the day before a game with no practice?

Also how many Associations High School coaches have no contact with youth teams?

Along with no coaches meetings, to make sure teams are on the same page,what to teach and etc...?

[Coach2414]

Yes it happens around the state, two days off prior to a game. Not the greatest Idea, but it happens. So many teams, not enough ice for schedulers to keep an eye on game schedule. You could talk with teams in your association to exchange or purchase their ice time.

I see and have heard from plenty of youth coaches about the lack of the high school coaches involvement. In some associations HS coaches are involved in coaching selections, not sure how much their say weighs in on who the selected coach is.

There are some HS coaches involved at the younger level, mite/squirt programs. There's coaches that attend weekly board meetings. Some coaches are in touch with the Bantam AA coach.

The involvement of a HS coach is up to them, I think its best to have a coach at the high school level be involved in some sort of manner with the youth.

Coaches will sometimes communicate which system they run, what they want to see out of a kid next year. Most coaches can judge talent and lack there of. Its up to the coach to put the player into a successful situation for set player to work on their skill. Sometimes set player doesn't work or disagrees with coaches assessment. That almost always is communicated to higher level coaching.

Ex. "What was he like for you last year?"
"he produced and was one of our top 5 guys, but... for his size he never drove to the net after repeatedly telling him he needs to come outside protect the puck and lower the shoulder and with speed take it to the net, instead he tried to stickhandle and lost the puck or took a bad shooting angle"


Coaches will take that into consideration. Sometimes that's a difference between a B player and a A player, coach-ability

[blueline_6]

How many Associations give your team two days off the day before a game with no practice?

It's common. Ice time is a limited resource, rinks are expensive to build and many cities are not willing to spend tax payer money to build rinks for youth hockey teams. Our association has approx. 500 kids, we have two sheets of ice in our town, we buy additional ice time from a neighboring community and we still come up short on our allocation goals per team. Remember that youth hockey programs compete for ice time with local high school programs, figure skating clubs and other organizations.

Also how many Associations High School coaches have no contact with youth teams?

Hard to quantify "how many." There are roughly 250 high school hockey programs in Minnesota. Some have no contact with their local youth associations, some are very involved. Depends on the coach.

Along with no coaches meetings, to make sure teams are on the same page,what to teach and etc...?

Minnesota youth hockey is a volunteer driven, community based program. The majority of the coaches are volunteer parents so coaching staffs turn over from year-to-year for youth teams. What you suggest is a great idea but for most associations it is logistically difficult to implement on a long-term, consistent basis. There is also the other side of the coin - what if your high school coach is a moron, do you want his philosophies guiding the youth coaches?