Kids Speak Out

[InigoMontoya]

A pet peeve that has recently caused a great deal of irritation deals with figures in positions of authority, whether a coach/manager, an association head of development, a district board member, state or USA hockey expert, who misquote, misrepresent, or take someone else’s work out of context. An article in LPH illustrates this point.

Let’s give the author the benefit of the doubt regarding parents nearly coming to blows, and MOST of the parents behaving in a way that should have had them removed from the building. If not the benefit of the doubt, then we’ll at least give him poetic license to make a point.

The issue I have with the article is the statistical analysis that is implied, the assumptions that are made based on that analysis, and the conclusions and instructions that are foisted on the reader. This is a slope that we, as the flock, have allowed ourselves to slide down for some time now, as we busy ourselves with cud chewing rather than thinking about the information that has been presented. In the following, I offer you my thoughts, but, more importantly, I offer you the opportunity to think, as well.

Re: 7 & 8: 5,000 high school students were asked to pick 3 of the 7 options made available to them by MSHSL (for these questions there was apparently not an OTHER or N/A type option to choose). If 5,000 kids were told to pick 3, the total should be around 15,000; as is the case with #7. However, #8 only totals 7,808, not 15,000; therefore the reaction to that question lies somewhere on the spectrum of 1)all of the students picked 1 or 2 of the options – to – 2)half of the students picked 3 and half of the students picked none of the options.

A couple observations that could have been made, though not statistically accurate either, may have included 1)half of the students wouldn’t choose anything LEAST, or 2)the students could only find 1 or 2 of the options that would qualify as LEAST when forced to choose from the 7 options.
A conclusion for which I definitely cannot connect the dots would be: “45 percent of high school students feel their parents are too involved and try to control what their kids are doing in sports.” There is simply nothing in the 10 page survey available on the MSHSL website that supports that conclusion.

The first section describes poor parent behavior at games, the survey doesn’t support that. The last section jumps to parents pushing kids to play past high school, the survey doesn’t address that. The middle section seems nothing but an attempt to confuse those sheep that are afraid of math.

I think we all should expect a little more from the experts.

[3GoonsWest]

A pet peeve that has recently caused a great deal of irritation deals with figures in positions of authority, whether a coach/manager, an association head of development, a district board member, state or USA hockey expert, who misquote, misrepresent, or take someone else’s work out of context. An article in LPH illustrates this point.

Let’s give the author the benefit of the doubt regarding parents nearly coming to blows, and MOST of the parents behaving in a way that should have had them removed from the building. If not the benefit of the doubt, then we’ll at least give him poetic license to make a point.

The issue I have with the article is the statistical analysis that is implied, the assumptions that are made based on that analysis, and the conclusions and instructions that are foisted on the reader. This is a slope that we, as the flock, have allowed ourselves to slide down for some time now, as we busy ourselves with cud chewing rather than thinking about the information that has been presented. In the following, I offer you my thoughts, but, more importantly, I offer you the opportunity to think, as well.

Re: 7 & 8: 5,000 high school students were asked to pick 3 of the 7 options made available to them by MSHSL (for these questions there was apparently not an OTHER or N/A type option to choose). If 5,000 kids were told to pick 3, the total should be around 15,000; as is the case with #7. However, #8 only totals 7,808, not 15,000; therefore the reaction to that question lies somewhere on the spectrum of 1)all of the students picked 1 or 2 of the options – to – 2)half of the students picked 3 and half of the students picked none of the options.

A couple observations that could have been made, though not statistically accurate either, may have included 1)half of the students wouldn’t choose anything LEAST, or 2)the students could only find 1 or 2 of the options that would qualify as LEAST when forced to choose from the 7 options.
A conclusion for which I definitely cannot connect the dots would be: “45 percent of high school students feel their parents are too involved and try to control what their kids are doing in sports.” There is simply nothing in the 10 page survey available on the MSHSL website that supports that conclusion.

The first section describes poor parent behavior at games, the survey doesn’t support that. The last section jumps to parents pushing kids to play past high school, the survey doesn’t address that. The middle section seems nothing but an attempt to confuse those sheep that are afraid of math.

I think we all should expect a little more from the experts.

"Baseball is 90% mental -- the other half is physical." It looks like the MH hierarchy is using the same new math that Yogi did. Besides, has there ever been a high school student, athlete or not, that didn't think that his/her parents were too critical, involved and controlling? Let's ask them if they would like to stay up later, eat more junk food and spin the tires at every stop sign and then be amazed at those answers too.

[elliott70]

I bleieve the survey was conducted by teh Minnesota State High School League, not by Minnesota Hockey.

And Hal Tearse, a MH non-voting board member, wrote the article, his interpretation was not that of the Minnesota Hockey board. It was an article for Let's Play Hockey, a for profit organizatin not associated with MH.

And you may not agree with Mr. Tearse, it should be noted that he has provided ALL of hockey in Minnesota with some valuable work. And is entitled to a thank you.

"It looks like the MH hierarchy is using the same new math that Yogi did."
If you want to be critical of MH please do it on something that they are off-based on rather than jumping to unfounded conclusions.

[InigoMontoya]

Elliot,

I'm sure the author is a heck of a guy. For his valuable work, I'll offer my thanks. That doesn't exonerate him when he provides some work that is not valuable.

His by line in LPH includes "Minnesota Hockey Coach-in-Chief". As such, I don't think it's a stretch for the average, or even the above-average, reader to assume that he is representing Minnesota Hockey. If you have an issue with Minnesota Hockey being misrepresented, it seems to me that you should address that to the Mr. Tearse, not Goon.

I stick by my first post: the "jumping to unfounded conclusions" was done in the article written by the Minnesota Hockey Coach-in-Chief.

[3GoonsWest]

My fault Elliot, I didn't mean to lump the arithmetic skills of every member of MH together. Although the article is signed...

By Hal Tearse
Minnesota Hockey Coach-in-Chief,

I'm sure he doesn't speak for everyone. I'm also aware of the fact that Mr. Tearse has done many good things for youth hockey. My problem lies with the article and the fact far too many people will not bother to look at the entire survey. IMO there are entirely too many people taking snapshots of these surveys to promote their ideas. It's like saying your only going to teach small area games and no other aspects of the game of hockey, then wonder why the kids don't understand offsides. In that regard, I agree with the original post, numbers can be twisted to say anything you want. Is anyone listening to the kids when only 6% say that the number of games/meets/tournaments is too many yet there was/is an effort to allow even fewer games?

[elliott70]

Elliot,

I'm sure the author is a heck of a guy. For his valuable work, I'll offer my thanks. That doesn't exonerate him when he provides some work that is not valuable.

His by line in LPH includes "Minnesota Hockey Coach-in-Chief". As such, I don't think it's a stretch for the average, or even the above-average, reader to assume that he is representing Minnesota Hockey. If you have an issue with Minnesota Hockey being misrepresented, it seems to me that you should address that to the Mr. Tearse, not Goon.

I stick by my first post: the "jumping to unfounded conclusions" was done in the article written by the Minnesota Hockey Coach-in-Chief.

I am not trying to down play your analysis of the article or put down goon.
I AM trying to set the record straight.

[elliott70]

My fault Elliot, I didn't mean to lump the arithmetic skills of every member of MH together. Although the article is signed...

By Hal Tearse
Minnesota Hockey Coach-in-Chief,

I'm sure he doesn't speak for everyone. I'm also aware of the fact that Mr. Tearse has done many good things for youth hockey. My problem lies with the article and the fact far too many people will not bother to look at the entire survey. IMO there are entirely too many people taking snapshots of these surveys to promote their ideas. It's like saying your only going to teach small area games and no other aspects of the game of hockey, then wonder why the kids don't understand offsides. In that regard, I agree with the original post, numbers can be twisted to say anything you want. Is anyone listening to the kids when only 6% say that the number of games/meets/tournaments is too many yet there was/is an effort to allow even fewer games?

And to that point I agree entirely with you.
My opinion is that we do not need to run hockey from a mountain in Colorado or the Minnesota Hockey board room (not sure where that is).

[spin-o-rama]

As the op pointed out, there were only 7808 answers to question 8, or 1.5 per kid. The fact that the question did not give the option to give less than 3 answers says something.
Hal may have statistical analysis problems with his 45% conclusion*, but his lacrosse story also says something.
I think they say the same thing. It's a few rotten apples spoiling things.
I am glad for programs and campaigns to remind us that it's a game.

* Using Hal math, 156% of HS kids feel their parents are too involved AND try to control my participation AND seldom/never attend my games AND behave poorly when they attend my games AND don’t respect my coach AND criticize every mistake I make AND feel participation in high school sports is not important.
Just poking fun Hal!

[goldy313]

Hal sometimes does MH a disservice by adding his MH title into his opinion pieces, he can give the impression that he is speaking for MH when that's not the case.

Most places of business won't let you do that in an opinion column, if the Mayo Clinic sends in an editorial or opinion piece to the Strib it's signed by The CEO and identified as such i.e. Dennis Cortese CEO Mayo Clinic and is to be taken as Mayo's policy or public comment on the matter, same can be said for 3M or the DNR to name a few. Nobody else has that power or authority and you'd probably be fired for doing such but I doubt the Strib would print it because of policy, even if it agreed with Mayo's statement. LPH shouldn't let Hal Terse byline his opinions with a MH tagline unless that is the postion of MH, because by doing so they're giving the impression that he is speaking for MH, not for Hal Terse.

[GreekChurch]

Hal sometimes does MH a disservice by adding his MH title into his opinion pieces, he can give the impression that he is speaking for MH when that's not the case.

Most places of business won't let you do that in an opinion column, if the Mayo Clinic sends in an editorial or opinion piece to the Strib it's signed by The CEO and identified as such i.e. Dennis Cortese CEO Mayo Clinic and is to be taken as Mayo's policy or public comment on the matter, same can be said for 3M or the DNR to name a few. Nobody else has that power or authority and you'd probably be fired for doing such but I doubt the Strib would print it because of policy, even if it agreed with Mayo's statement. LPH shouldn't let Hal Terse byline his opinions with a MH tagline unless that is the postion of MH, because by doing so they're giving the impression that he is speaking for MH, not for Hal Terse.

Absolutley correct.