HighSchoolHockeyForums.com

delete

It seems to me it is hard to recruit and retain if something is really broken. How bad is the situation can you give a bit of a description of your mite program. things like; ice situation, coaching, numbers, association support. I know you said your with a smaller program, so I'm just guessing that advanced kids and learn to skate kids are in the same group but how bad is it?

IMO a good mite program has low fees, good ice hours, age split (8s and 9s, 6s and 7, 4s and 5s) with room for up and down by ability, fall and summer skills camps, some scheduled outdoor ice, cross ice games until last years, and a director who creates practice plan guidelines for all levels. What else?

Ask any plumber and he'll tell you that stuff runs downhill. You can maybe do it without him but a good association NEEDS strong leadership from the varsity coach. After all, he has a vested interest in how well your mite program works, and he's there year after year.

del

del

HockeyDad41 wrote:

auld_skool wrote:Ask any plumber and he'll tell you that stuff runs downhill. You can maybe do it without him but a good association NEEDS strong leadership from the varsity coach. After all, he has a vested interest in how well your mite program works, and he's there year after year.

That's a good idea. I'll have to ask our mite director what the level of involvement is with the Varsity coach.

"HockeyDad41" who's your mite director? Bernie??? Last I checked Choice League didn't have a high school coach

del

Hockeydad41....Are you a board member of your association?

del

HockeyDad41 wrote:

2pipesnin wrote:Hockeydad41....Are you a board member of your association?

No, but I do attend the meetings. There are no openings on the board at this time.

I think you should run for President

HockeyDad41 wrote:

auld_skool wrote:Ask any plumber and he'll tell you that stuff runs downhill. You can maybe do it without him but a good association NEEDS strong leadership from the varsity coach. After all, he has a vested interest in how well your mite program works, and he's there year after year.

That's a good idea. I'll have to ask our mite director what the level of involvement is with the Varsity coach.

To me the involvement of the varsity head oach is a doubel edged sword. On the one hand a highly involved varsity coach can give great ideas, and can get the high school kids involved with the youth which helps encourage the kids. On the other hand the varsity coach brings with a whole bunch of additional politics (as if the current ones were not enough).

One example: our varsity coach is very involved with our youth program, especially our mite program (as he has a mite aged son). Well one of our mite parents also has two high school aged sons that play hockey for the high school (aka they play for the varsity coach). This parent has been very unhappy about several things occurring at the youth level and he actually has some very valid points as they have been conveyed to me. However, he feels (and deservedly so if you are close to the situation and knwo the parties involved) that if he voices these concerns or becomes overly vocal about anything on theyouth level it will detrimentally effect his sons at the high school level (this has actually proved to be true in osme other circumstances).

Other examples have been shown where kids get pidgeon holed early by the high school coach and regardless of their improvement are never given the opportunity to succeed later, and conversly the coach has identified "future stars" at way to early a stage and has pidgeon holed them to the point where they are asked to do things in high school they aren't capable of but he still sees them as the "stars" they once were at the youth level. Some of you can say "well obviously he isn't a good coach if that is how he does things...." or whatever, but fact is MOST high school coaches in all sports are like this when they get too involved with the youth levels.

Another downside is high school coaches have a tendency of wanting to implement "their system" into the youth ranks. Well, on the surface this "appears" to work because the kids are well coache din the "system" before even getting to high school and coincidingly the high school program tends to be successful. On the other hand it comes at the expense of individual improvement. There is a study of several very successful Texas football programs that win alot of state championships but move few kids beyond the high school level (ie, as good as those teams are they almost never send a kid to D1 football) and the study is balanced with a study of some Texas high school programs who have sent alot of kids to D1 but do not have as much team success in high school. It was determined the correlary was that the successful teams were coaching "the system" over skills at the youth levels whereas the programs that were not as successful but were moving kids on had more focus on skill development than system play.

Bottom line is after weighing the pros and cons it is my opinion that high school coaches should have little to no involvement with youth programs, it is just too frought with potential downsides without ENOUGH upside to the equation (mind you I am in a program where the high school coach is very involved and we have alot of participation).

del

Use them as you see fit to help with clinics, etc., but offer them very little authority. There really is no connection. Two entirely different organizations. Remember, some Bantam A teams send their 17 athletes to 7 different high schools. Do you offer some high schools a "better connection" to the kids than others? No, can't. Youth programs develop kids through Bantam and then it's off to high school. No connection. Youth programs should focus on developing strong players without consideration to where they'll play hockey when they're done with Bantam.

Hello, Stillwater, 501c3 generally means can't discriminate.