NotfromMN wrote:Actually, winning the tournament should be taken into consideration. Hockey is a team sport, it doesn't matter how much talent an individual has if they can't play as a team player and win games. From what I heard, D6 creamed everyone, yet have the fewest players selected. Mmmm.....
hocktang wrote:It wasn't about who won and who lost, but about the best players.
I think what NotfromMN was saying is that if "Team A" consistently beats Teams B, C, D, etc. by wide margins, they must have some very good players. This is especially true in situations like this where coaching isn't a major factor. Having more than their share of the best players explains why they did so well, and as long as they have a game-style format the evaluators should recognize this.
NotfromMN wrote:
Actually, winning the tournament should be taken into consideration. Hockey is a team sport, it doesn't matter how much talent an individual has if they can't play as a team player and win games. From what I heard, D6 creamed everyone, yet have the fewest players selected. Mmmm.....
You must not have been at the games. I understand in the first game vs D16 they were dominated, outshot by a very wide margin and their goaltenders did a great job. I was told D6 had less then 10 shots and capitalized on 2 mistakes by D16. The D6 goalies were the 2 best players on their team the first game. They combined for 40+ saves.
Goalies are huge at the next/top level. I would bet that in certain games if you were to switch goalies and play again you would see a different result.
Game scores and wins and losses should never be considered.
Graders should never look at the score and treat every shift like it's 0-0. They should also watch every game and the whole game as we all know it's about chances.
hocktang wrote:It wasn't about who won and who lost, but about the best players.
The "best" players are the ones who have a team, not individual concept. Look at the Detroit Red Wings.
Even Herb Brooks did not take the most talented kids, he went against the grain by taking the so called other kids that he thought would be the best team. They all thought he was crazy choosing who he did.
Remember its not the name on the back of the jersey but the name on the front. Wow sorry Flashbacks!
It would be nice if there were more opportunities for the other kids to get top development here locally at a reasonable price. There are enough talented Coaches here in the great state of hockey that we should not have to travel.
hocktang wrote:It wasn't about who won and who lost, but about the best players.
The "best" players are the ones who have a team, not individual concept. Look at the Detroit Red Wings.
Even Herb Brooks did not take the most talented kids, he went against the grain by taking the so called other kids that he thought would be the best team. They all thought he was crazy choosing who he did.
Remember its not the name on the back of the jersey but the name on the front. Wow sorry Flashbacks!
It would be nice if there were more opportunities for the other kids to get top development here locally at a reasonable price. There are enough talented Coaches here in the great state of hockey that we should not have to travel.
Great comments all! Unfortunately again most of this is about the Elite or Top Level kid, and the Other Kids tend get left behind. Maybe we need to look at what Herb Brooks brought to the game of hockey and re examine where we are headed in the girls process. Seems to be that what ended up as some of The Best players started as The Other Kid.
NotfromMN wrote:
The "best" players are the ones who have a team, not individual concept. Look at the Detroit Red Wings.
Even Herb Brooks did not take the most talented kids, he went against the grain by taking the so called other kids that he thought would be the best team. They all thought he was crazy choosing who he did.
Remember its not the name on the back of the jersey but the name on the front. Wow sorry Flashbacks!
It would be nice if there were more opportunities for the other kids to get top development here locally at a reasonable price. There are enough talented Coaches here in the great state of hockey that we should not have to travel.
Great comments all! Unfortunately again most of this is about the Elite or Top Level kid, and the Other Kids tend get left behind. Maybe we need to look at what Herb Brooks brought to the game of hockey and re examine where we are headed in the girls process. Seems to be that what ended up as some of The Best players started as The Other Kid.
I love to sit back and watch the game and what goes on around the game.
And I see a lot of the players that are considered the better players are also the players that have been given the most opportunity to excel.
I see kids that have been in camp after camp & AAA team after AAA team that were standouts in there early teens just become normal players as they get older.
Some kids will look better because of the endless training that they can get but that is not to say that that kid that does not get equal opportunities to play in those camps and AAA teams cannot be as good if given the chance.
I would love to see all kids get an opportunity to learn at a higher level and not give the opportunity to only the then elite.
hockeya1a wrote:
Even Herb Brooks did not take the most talented kids, he went against the grain by taking the so called other kids that he thought would be the best team. They all thought he was crazy choosing who he did.
Remember its not the name on the back of the jersey but the name on the front. Wow sorry Flashbacks!
It would be nice if there were more opportunities for the other kids to get top development here locally at a reasonable price. There are enough talented Coaches here in the great state of hockey that we should not have to travel.
Great comments all! Unfortunately again most of this is about the Elite or Top Level kid, and the Other Kids tend get left behind. Maybe we need to look at what Herb Brooks brought to the game of hockey and re examine where we are headed in the girls process. Seems to be that what ended up as some of The Best players started as The Other Kid.
I love to sit back and watch the game and what goes on around the game.
And I see a lot of the players that are considered the better players are also the players that have been given the most opportunity to excel.
I see kids that have been in camp after camp & AAA team after AAA team that were standouts in there early teens just become normal players as they get older.
Some kids will look better because of the endless training that they can get but that is not to say that that kid that does not get equal opportunities to play in those camps and AAA teams cannot be as good if given the chance.
I would love to see all kids get an opportunity to learn at a higher level and not give the opportunity to only the then elite.
My husband has always said that the money for the elite training would be better spent on elite training for coaches and we'd end up with more elite players because of it. As it is now I have never heard so many parents, and players unhappy with their high school coaches. My husband is helping coach a spring team with girls from 7 different schools, only 1 has had positive things to say about their coaches. I have heard things like all we do is skate in circles at practice, or my coach didn't even play high school hockey, or it would be nice if he would work on powerskating, shooting, stickhandling. If you want true elite players they should play on and against teams that aren't one girl shows and all to often that what you see in girls high school hockey.
My opinion- Minnesota hockey is going in the right direction with trying to give more players opportunity. My opinion and this is just what I think.
The point of the NDP program is to find olympians. I think MN hockey is contradicting themselves by having a development camp be a tryout.
They can't have a development camp because of the reason below.....
The root of the whole problem is that there are too many girls focused on a scholarship instead of love of the game. In a more mature sport like basketball, softball, volleyball. There are JO teams and AAU teams, but very few play hardcore(only the very elite). Because there is a greater number of players and less scholarships it seems to me that there isn't quite the concentration of nutty parents out there like there is in MN girls hockey or girls hockey in general. The sport is still growing so there is more opportinity in theory.
I have always asked myself why are the girls playing a sport year round unless they absolutely can't get enough of it. And I can only name about 4 girls in about 100 that would rather be playing hockey than doing other things all of the time. That is also why many of them burn out by 17 when the players who truely love it pass them up. I think that is why you see turnover at the elite level. You are most likey done playing a sport after college anyway if you are female , why spend so much time focusing on it?
So my point is that maybe if everyone focused on love of the game and playing for the right reasons. We would have more players playing longer there fore a larger pool to pick from at the elite level. We wouldn't have parent coaches with agendas, we wouldn't have girls pushing themselves all the time for a pipe dream of an olympics. WE wouldn't have other coaches out there saying if you don't do this you won't excel at the next level. I think until we get to that point we can't focus on development because it always seems there is someone out there with the bigger and better option to get the player ahead a parent will be more willing to write that check if there is some carrort being dangled....Just my opinion.
gopher25 wrote:My opinion- Minnesota hockey is going in the right direction with trying to give more players opportunity. My opinion and this is just what I think.
You may be right here, and maybe it's the focus of the parents/kids that is off. Could be that we are simply making a bigger meaning out of the NDP than it should be. It is meant to be about the "Elite" from what I can see.
fin-gal, you may be right to a point, but I have to argue with the all the coaches suck approach. At some point doesn't each kids and parent for that matter need to take some accountability. I will agree, I don't see great coaching through out girls hockey, but don't you think that if a coach would get all of that training, would they just move on to boys where there is more future and possability, again leaving the girls with the first level of coaching, for a lack of better terms. Just my opinion, but I see some good coaches out there, they just get punished by parents that are some what "Stuck" with them coaching their kid, but don't "like" them or what they do for "Their" kid.
gopher25 wrote:My opinion- Minnesota hockey is going in the right direction with trying to give more players opportunity. My opinion and this is just what I think.
You may be right here, and maybe it's the focus of the parents/kids that is off. Could be that we are simply making a bigger meaning out of the NDP than it should be. It is meant to be about the "Elite" from what I can see.
fin-gal, you may be right to a point, but I have to argue with the all the coaches suck approach. At some point doesn't each kids and parent for that matter need to take some accountability. I will agree, I don't see great coaching through out girls hockey, but don't you think that if a coach would get all of that training, would they just move on to boys where there is more future and possability, again leaving the girls with the first level of coaching, for a lack of better terms. Just my opinion, but I see some good coaches out there, they just get punished by parents that are some what "Stuck" with them coaching their kid, but don't "like" them or what they do for "Their" kid.
I'm not saying all coaches suck, what I am saying it's pretty sad when 1 group out of the 7 schools represented on my daughters team thinks their coaches were good. this isn't about coaches who suck at what they do your always going to have some of that, it's about coaches not having much training before they're let loose on kids. If you want elite hockey, start out with elite coaches on the womens side. If your happy having a handful of power house programs and the rest nightmeres for the families involved, leave things the way they are.
Melvin I'm in your corner on the goalie thing, but I'm a little partial. You can ride a hot goalie a long way. There were a couple of comments regarding players deemed as elite and high dollar opportunties afforded to them and not the so called "other kids". I like to look at my kid as one of those "other kids". She plays upper level when invited, is not dedicated to a specific "AAA" team, plays because she loves to play. She also plays another sport in the off-season, but plays hockey in her spare time because she loves to do it and stay sharp. The other thing she has is an understanding I like to belive I instilled in her, and that is you dont have to spend a ton of money to improve and play with the so called elite. Hard work and hustile are 2 determining factors in how you wil perform. She and a couple of her friends will get together and run a couple miles a day, jugle, work with fitness balls, lift some weights, do quickness drilles, etc. all of which are free or done with low cost items. The girls take their training seriously, but they keep it fun too. I work out with her from time to time so it's something we can do and have fun doing together. I realized it could be easy for me to sit back and watch other players get opportunities my kids may not get; or work with them to enjoy the sport and help them improve to be one of the "Other Kids" that got noticed for the right reasons. Regardless of the selection processes keep reminding them to work hard and those that don't get noticed today will eventually be noticed tomorrow.
In a number of cases the coaches are blamed by the parents, but maybe what is really happening is the players convinced by their parents do not listen to the coach. A number ago of years my son was a Girls Varsity Head coach, one of the major problems he had was that the of a few talented players convinced their daughters he did not know what he was doing, and one of the parents had wanted the job. In one game he had worked all week long with his centers on face off winning and what happened if you lost and went through all possibilities. In one instance in their defensive zone the player did what her dad had told her to do her rather than what her coach wanted her to do and she lost stood there and watched the other center go in and score, needless the father was loud and upset when she was benched. After she graduated from High school and went on to play D III she actually contacted my son, apologized for her dad and she stated that she now understood what he was trying to teach. He quit coaching about 6 years ago misses the game and players but not the parents.Most of the players send a message once and a while and a few of the good parents ask how he is doing but at the time just followed along with the others.
In this style of an advanced program a lot of players are out of their comfort zone, whether you make it or not, here is a chance to see what a player needs to do to improve in certain areas. Next year or the year after players mature at different rates and sometimes the player who was just a player at 15, by 17 has really developed and matured both as a person and player.
We have 2 daughters, one is a pretty good hockey player, the younger one is only ok. I felt the coaching at the U14 level was better than what I seen at the high school level. I don't complain or blame the coaches for anything. I feel my daughters have gotten what they wanted out of hockey. I am far from an outside observer. What I see is U14 coaches are usally parents that have a decent background in hockey, who are there for the benefit of the girls. While head girls high school coaches are in most cases the 3rd or 4th tier of coaches, ranking well below the JV boys coach and the way the handle the team is in a a 3rd or 4th tier manner.
dochockey wrote:We have 2 daughters, one is a pretty good hockey player, the younger one is only ok. I felt the coaching at the U14 level was better than what I seen at the high school level. I don't complain or blame the coaches for anything. I feel my daughters have gotten what they wanted out of hockey. I am far from an outside observer. What I see is U14 coaches are usally parents that have a decent background in hockey, who are there for the benefit of the girls. While head girls high school coaches are in most cases the 3rd or 4th tier of coaches, ranking well below the JV boys coach and the way the handle the team is in a a 3rd or 4th tier manner.
Actually from what I've seen there are some excellent coaches in girls high school hockey, but obviously this is not always the case and the quality does vary A LOT from school to school. There is no way to measure, but I would say that overall the average coaching level is much better at the high school level than at U14 - high school is definitely a step up. There is more at stake, more visibility and the hiring process is tougher. Of course your mileage may vary, depending on which program you are involved with, as there are always exceptions to the rule.
From what I am reading here, it sounds like people would rather have the higher caliber players take the off season off. Then, if the one's who don't have the passion, get to go to the development camp, eventually things would even out by 17's. Remember, your kid is only a kid once. If they have the passion, is it wrong to let them pursue it by playing AAA and other hockey related programs throughout the year? Because of the huge disparity in high school teams, sometimes the only good competition to be found is at the summer level. Of the D-1 recruiting class this year, I would bet the majority did more than just lace them up for the high school season. As far as the checkbook argument goes, you can spend it on hockey or you can spend it on booze for the lake in the summer. See you at the rink!
After reading alot of comments in this forum I often come close to commenting, and then decide that this is a vent session, so let it be, it's healthy to get your feelings out.
This is a particlularly interesting thread to follow as it seems to be a breaking point for a parents athletic parenting career. Have I succeeded or failed. There are so many hopes and dreams on the line here. There are so many posts that warrent quoting, it's hard to choose. I wish more of the hopes and dreams would be those of the student/athlete and less of the parents.
Much of this illustrates what has become horribly lost in youth and high school sports. I invite you to go through the posts on this thread and read into how many are based on the feelings of a parent with the assumption that my daughter feels the same way. I know, I know, this is what she tells me. Ask yourselves how many of these posts reflect the feelings and aspirations of teenage girls. It's easy to come on this forum and say that many girls on a team feel their coach doesn't know hockey or isnt' a good teacher. I would submit that left of their own volition, very few, if any players would make these statements about their coaching staff. However, the parenting going on here will certainly place these thoughts solidly in a young person's head. What's happened to me is someone elses fault and they have a different agenda than we do.
It's true that the coaching in girl's youth and high school hockey is 'sometimes' suspect and inconsistant from team to team and school to school. Many girl's coaches, however, have an enormous amount of training, dedicaton, and expirience and have 'chosen' to coach girls because they offer a unique coaching challenge. As the sport grows and "good hockey people" become more at ease with coaching girls....this will cease to be an issue.
As a coach, I love to read the 'my kid got screwed" posts as it helps give me a good perspective on how we as coaches can help the players with life situations. Yes, most high school coaches have only special interests at heart and have no interest in puttng the best team on the ice and teaching young adults that this is how life will work very shortly. I challenge each of you to allow you student/athlete to live their dream, which may be to play hockey...or it may be to just have the coolest cell phone, or to just fit in, feel good about themselves, and enjoy their youth, rather than live the dream my parent has decided for me. Here's a fact: Most youth and high school hockey players just want to be kids. They go along with the college hockey dream of their parents because all kids want their parents to love them and don't want to dissapoint the most important people in their lives, no matter how disconnected they may be. If i have to go along with this, dad, to get you to accept me....i'll do it and pretend it's what i want too.
Melvin44....I don't know you but I will spend my lifetime trying to help parents see things more as you do. Help you girl's be successful and deal with the situations that life presents, or, on the other hand, try to find a way that Minnesota Hockey could run the Advanced program so that my, i mean my daughter's, dream could have been fullfilled.
Thanks for listening and I will again, go back to just trying to ignore the crazyness and just try to help young girls develop into healthy adults. I know we all want the first round money, but second round ain't bad either.
Reading these reply’s you get the feeling some people just don’t understand what going on. That maybe their view is somewhat distorted based on their experience (or lack there of). You can blame bad coaches or incompetent evaluators all you want, but my experience tells me that the elite players are elite because they have a real and full passion for the game. You can see it, heck you can feel it. Good coaching and quality instruction is fundamentally part of the equation, but isn’t necessarily crucial. The top players develop because they have found a personal significance with the sport (maybe an identity, I don’t’ know) but a definite love for the game and the competition, for which they just can’t get enough. The reason they are playing year round is because they can. The opportunities are there so they take full advantage of them. IMO these girls don’t go to the Advance Development programs with the expectation that they will become Olympians. They go because they love to compete. That’s what competitive athletes do; they continuously match their skills with the skills of other competitive athletes. This takes commitment and this takes sacrifice. The notion that the “others” are left behind is absurd. The brass ring is there for all who seek it. I think I heard once that you generally get out what you put in. And there is no magic formula to follow. Play year round or not, it still comes down to fervor for the game and lot of hard work. It’s been my understanding that success is promised to no one. If you get left out it’s not because someone blocked the entrance, it’s because you weren’t willing (or able) to go in. I think possibly the ones doing the most complaining are the ones who want the prize just handed to them. They are use to too many participation medals. They feel that they deserve it because they simply showed up. I may be old school, but that’s how it’s always worked. The reason you see players drop off is because it’s inevitable. Not just in girl’s hockey, but for all sports. One reason is the pursuit other interests, the other is they no longer can compete for playing time because of diminishing roster spots. Believe me it’s not some huge conspiracy. It’s life. The sooner you understand this, the clearer the picture gets.
I haven't read anything better than your post. You get what you put into it. The thought someone was "screwed" when 102 players moved on is ridiculous. Chances are anyone that didn't make the round of 102 wasn't going to make the next cut either.
Good luck to all the girls that participated and those that moved on. To those that didn't make it, don't give up, work harder and know that you may make it next year. Kids mature at different times.
I haven't read anything better than your post. You get what you put into it. The thought someone was "screwed" when 102 players moved on is ridiculous. Chances are anyone that didn't make the round of 102 wasn't going to make the next cut either.
Good luck to all the girls that participated and those that moved on. To those that didn't make it, don't give up, work harder and know that you may make it next year. Kids mature at different times.
SECoach you are so right on with your comments. I couldn't agree more about the parent/child relationship in sports. TOO many parents are living through their kids. Remember these kids are not defined solely by their hockey playing abilities.
I recently heard a 'girl I know very well' refer to a couple of her teammates as 'drama queens'. After observing the girls in question with the parents, I believe I could refer to the adults as 'drama coaches'. I'm not sure why I want to mention this, but I think it fits in here somewhere.
I didn't mean to start people piling on coaches or parents. All I meant to say was I would rather see elite training going to the coaches because there's a perception out there (I feel rightfully so) that girls coaching isn't very good in alot of places and if people want to more elite players they should get more programs with elite coaching because nobody gets better in these 8 to 1 games and there are still far to many games like these.
