muckandgrind wrote:
A classy coach would never allow a game to get to 20-0....unless you are playing in a pool play situation where goals scored was the tie-breaker.
What coaches should do when the game gets out of reach for the other team is move their forwards to defense and vice versa. Mandate that they pass the puck a minimum number of times before they shoot, or not shoot at all.
Meeehhh! I don't ever like the idea of telling players not to give 100 %.
If your shortening the bench anyway it's better to let the players that aren't good enough to play on the top lines play more, then they can still give 100% and reduce the scoring naturally. Also if your beating teams 20-0 WTH are you scheduling games with them for anyway? I realize in Assoc. hockey there's not much you can do about it, but summer AAA I'd think you have a better idea of your competition.
You'll run into that in tournaments all the time. Sometimes weaker teams will enter a tournament without always knowing who else has entered the same tournament and get toasted. What I hate to see are some of the stronger invite teams entering open tournaments. Or open teams filling their roster with invite players for an open tournament.
I' would never tell a player to not give 100%. You can still give 100% and not show-up the other team. It's called "being a good sport". I see many coaches tell their kids when they are way up on someone to use the rest of the game as a passing drill, or give the players a chance to move to a different position.
What do they do in football when a team is killing the other? They keep the ball on the ground and don't pass. The same should be for youth hockey....except they should pass, but not shoot.
So your saying stop shooting? IDK
I don't like running up the score either, but I know that players don't like it when the other team starts toying with them by playing keep away or whatever, they'd rather get their axe whooped straight up, then be embarrassed anyway, and then have to hear afterwards from the other side that "not only did we beat you 10-0 but we quit shooting after the 2nd period"
I've seen some kids that weren't that great, or never gave 100%, play tremendously after having their pride kicked around by a better team, now that's a life lesson.
Can't Never Tried wrote:
Meeehhh! I don't ever like the idea of telling players not to give 100 %.
If your shortening the bench anyway it's better to let the players that aren't good enough to play on the top lines play more, then they can still give 100% and reduce the scoring naturally. Also if your beating teams 20-0 WTH are you scheduling games with them for anyway? I realize in Assoc. hockey there's not much you can do about it, but summer AAA I'd think you have a better idea of your competition.
You'll run into that in tournaments all the time. Sometimes weaker teams will enter a tournament without always knowing who else has entered the same tournament and get toasted. What I hate to see are some of the stronger invite teams entering open tournaments. Or open teams filling their roster with invite players for an open tournament.
I' would never tell a player to not give 100%. You can still give 100% and not show-up the other team. It's called "being a good sport". I see many coaches tell their kids when they are way up on someone to use the rest of the game as a passing drill, or give the players a chance to move to a different position.
What do they do in football when a team is killing the other? They keep the ball on the ground and don't pass. The same should be for youth hockey....except they should pass, but not shoot.
So your saying stop shooting? IDK
I don't like running up the score either, but I know that players don't like it when the other team starts toying with them by playing keep away or whatever, they'd rather get their axe whooped straight up, then be embarrassed anyway, and then have to hear afterwards from the other side that "not only did we beat you 10-0 but we quit shooting after the 2nd period"
I've seen some kids that weren't that great, or never gave 100%, play tremendously after having their pride kicked around by a better team, now that's a life lesson.
You don't have to stop shooting altogether, just tell them to pass the puck a few times BEFORE taking the shot. Maybe put your top scorers on the blueline. There are some things a coach can do to show sportsmanship, without telling his players to not give 100%. A good coach will also tell his players to be humble in their wins and not taunt the other team afterwards.
"Can't never tried" makes a good point that you don't want to tell players to stop trying. Telling players to stop shooting or to play "keep away" can be used to keep the score down; however, many view that as poor sportsmanship as well.
The real problem boils down to the differential in talent levels between the teams in the lower age invite divisions. The Machine/Blades type teams are usually much deeper than the intermediate level AAA teams in the early years. This difference has been magnified by the growth in the number of AAA teams over the past few years. One option for the elite teams is to avoid playing local tournaments. I believe the 99 Machine traveled to a couple of tourneys this year. The downside is that the travel costs add up quickly. Another option is to have those teams play up a level. That has pitfalls as well. Some of the younger kids really are not physcially ready to play with the older kids. Also many tournament directors won't allow teams to play up based on the reasoning that the teams kids in the older division didn't sign up play younger kids. A third option is for tournament directors to recruit stronger out of town teams to their invite divisions. The number of out of town teams in local tourneys seems to be way down from those in years past. This seems to be the only solution that can have any type of immediate impact, but I'm not sure that the tourney directors really want to expend that effort if their tourneys are filling up now.
Over time, the talent differential will close but I don't see an easy solution to the problem in the short term.
