Coaching Call
Coaching Call is is a question show about coaching grassroots hockey.
We have a certain take on coaching hockey. We believe in using sport to make players better people on and off the ice. Your hosts are David Trombley, a coach with 30 years of experience at all levels and ages, and Susan Sim, a new house league coach.
You can submit your questions at http://newcoach.ca/
Coaching Call
Ep 8. How to stay onside with parents
With the start of the new hockey season, it's time to hold that all-important parent meeting. This meeting lays the foundation for productive relationships between coaches and parents. Our guest is Gary Titmarsh, who has maintained good relationships with his player's families for over 20 twenty years.
Coaching Call is is a question show about coaching grassroots hockey. We have a certain take on coaching hockey. We believe in using sport to make players better people on and off the ice. Your hosts are David Trombley, a coach with 30 years of experience at all levels and ages, and Susan Sim, a new house league coach. Submit your questions at http://newcoach.ca/ or in the comments.
Susan: Welcome to Coaching Call a weekly podcast where we answer your questions about coaching hockey. More than skills and drills, we coach for connection and character on and off the ice. How are you, Dave?
David: I'm doing very well today. It's a great day. Took the dog for a walk back home, little workout, and I'm ready to go today. Yourself, Susan?
Susan: Very nice. I had tea with a, an acquaintance that I met eight years ago. So that was really nice to have that connection again.
David: Nice. it's always good to reconnect with people that you feel connected with.
Susan: Yeah.
David: Yeah, and I'm finding that with this podcast, I'm doing the same thing with my old coaches or people who I've coached with, or they've coached me, and even our guest today that we're having on, Gary, I haven't spoken to him for many moons, but boy, I tell you, when I reached out to him, it's just like we just picked off, or picked up where we just left off.
Susan: Oh, that's great. I look forward to talking to Gary, and he'll be a big help for this week's topic. I've been working on my first parent meeting with my select team.
Now, as a parent, I've never attended a parent meeting, so even though this is an entire chapter out of the Hockey Canada Coach 1/2, course, no one's ever had a parent meeting with me, so I'm gonna try and do a good job of this.
David: Oh, I know you're going to do a great job. You went to that Hockey Canada course. Did they have any outline for you?
Susan: Yeah, they did. They had, an outline that had six, six or seven parts to it. One, an introduction, so introduce yourself for five to ten minutes. two, give an overview of your coaching philosophy. That would be another 10 minutes. give details of your program. What are you going to emphasize this year?
what are the games? What are the practices? how players can get ice time. Number four, the budget. What you're going to spend time, spend your money on this year. So that is about 15 minutes. team apparel 5 minutes. expectations of the parents, another 20 minutes, and finally, five measly minutes for questions.
have you worked with this outline before, Dave?
David: a little bit. You know what, it's been a little bit of time since I've actually coached a hockey team itself, but, absolutely. That's pretty much the general outline. It's a nice outline to follow. Doesn't mean that you can't tweak it, to for say, your hockey team itself. And, but, the bottom line is, doesn't matter what team you're coaching, select, or even an NHL meeting, it's pretty much the same.
It's, this is what we're going to do, this is what we're going to cost,this. And, you're just really informing the team. The big part will be the questions at the end from the parents.
And those Q& A could be very short, five minutes, or it could be extremely long as well. but that is really the nuts and bolts, because that is the group you want to communicate with year round. Not even year round, like almost on a daily basis, meaning that every time you see them at the rink, it might not be every parent, but you're actually communicating with the parents as you're going all the time.
Yeah, I haven't done a parent meeting in the context of hockey, but I've been the president of the Parents Association. for my children's schools, and every year is different. It depends a lot on who shows up and who's in the room. You may get no questions or you may get very detailed questions. some parent wants, to be very involved, has lots of questions, wants to make a WhatsApp group, wants to make friends with everybody.
And then you have the parent that wants to do the videoing. You know what? Maybe taking pictures and have them posting pictures and videos. And then you have another parent that doesn't want any pictures or no videos. And then, it's just wow! You know what? Can of worms, but you want to get it out.
You want to get it out and solve these problems right away.
Susan: Do you find that the questions that they ask are very different from you know say Select versus AAA?
David: maybe. I find that at AAA, they've been a little bit more groomed. They've been around hockey a little bit more. Select, maybe. it's a lot of newness. It's a lot of, the scheduling, the tournaments. are we staying overnight? Where AAA, they already know how many tournaments they're going into, but generally, you know what, the talk is pretty much the same.
you know what, prior to every meeting that, I'm going to actually go to, I want to anticipate potential questions that parents are going to ask me. the best thing for me to do is I take my dog for a walk. And, as I take my dog for a walk, I keep just asking myself the question, What questions are parents going to ask me?
You know what, one of the big things will be cost. What is it going to cost us? that's always... Always the big question, how much is it going to cost us? How much practice ice are we going to be getting? Are we bringing in a skills instructor? Are we bringing in a goalie instructor? We're the goalie parents.
Yes, you're bringing in the skills instructor, but. What are you doing for us? how's that going to be working out? and there are tons of questions you can go over, but you refining and really trying to feel what those parents are going to be asking you. So you're pretty much prepared for them when they do ask you that question.
And if you don't have all those answers, you just go, that's a great question. I'll get back to you on that.
Susan: I think that's a great example of empathy, right? The amount of empathy that you need to coach well. you just, you don't just understand where your player's heads are at, you also need to understand where their family's heads are at.
David: Absolutely. Because everyone is different. All the dynamics are different. And you know what? Some families are very well off and so whatever the price tag is, it's not a big deal. Where other families are very budget conscious and, every dollar counts. Especially these days with everything going through the roof.
Susan: Are parents involved differently at select versus the high levels like, like AAA?
David: parents are still involved. They can be involved as managers, trainers, depending on what teams need what. At AAA, sometimes the coaching staff, which are now almost pretty much paid, will come in with their own staff. and the own staff would be head coach, assistant coach, and even the trainer and manager.
the really most important next to the head coach and all those people I mentioned is that manager and trainer. every trainer still has to go through the training course, set out by the NCCP, right? So even if you're a doctor, it makes no sense, but that's just the way it works. It's insurance probably, I would anticipate that.
and I really find that a lot of these parents want to be included, not so much the on ice portion. You'll have a lot more volunteer parents on ice at select level than you would at the AAA level.
Susan: we have one tournament this year and all of the parents are coming and that surprised me a little bit. and you're saying at AAA there's more travel and do parents still do a lot of the traveling with the kids?
David: Absolutely. It all depends how many kids are in that family household. I know just me personally, my parents love to go on the trips. It's like almost an excuse to go and get away from the house, right? rather than going on some extravagant vacation, it was the hockey tournament. It's the tournament to Quebec City, to Montreal, to Calgary, to Sudbury, to Barrie, wherever it was.
It was a good time. It was a lot of fun.
Susan: The reason we have parent meetings is so that we can start to build a relationship with the parents. We like to talk about connections on this show and that includes the parents. So what has been your experience like building or not building relationships with parents?
David: I know when I first coach, I, especially after the first meeting and you're running practices and you have games going, and then all of a sudden I can see the parents, they want to know, David, about this, and I'll be out the back door. I was like, you know what, I am doing everything I can for this hockey team.
They just need to show up, drop the kid off and let me do my job. And unfortunately, that's not the way it works. It's, I really had to learn that. Not only am I communicating with the kids and I care for the kids, but then I got to translate that over to the parents too. And they might not like all the answers.
That's just the way it is, but I will give you my honest answer on what I'm trying to do to help develop each and every player on that hockey team.
Susan: That's a really good insight. last year on my house league team. I had one or two kids that, I had trouble getting them to do whatever it is I wanted to do. And in one case, I finally was at my wits end and I went to the parent, and he was great. He understood what the issue was right away, and he was on my side right away. And I regret not going to him earlier.
David: Absolutely. And majority of the parents, like 99 percent of the parents, do understand their kids. And especially the ones that are a little bit more challenging, if we'll just leave it that way. because they're all going to grow up and hopefully, you know what, to find their way. But, before we even get there...
We're the ones trying to help them find their way. And if the parent is on board, it just, it is such a relief.
Susan: Do you have any examples of how you dealt with conflicts with parents? Because this is a big deal. I don't have any experience directly because I've only had positive experiences, but I took the Respect in Sport Parents edition and that led me to think there's a lot of conflict out there.
David: most coaches have this 24 hour rule. And really what that is, it's really to bring down the emotion of either side, whether it's the coach or whether it's the parent's side, but sometimes that doesn't happen. Some parents want an answer right now. I remember being at the rink. It was Ted Reeve Arena and I was coaching AAA and this parent was like, My manager was like,Lloyd wants to see you right now.
I said, we need a 24 hour rule. No, he wants to see you right now. All right, let's do it. You know what? So he came around the corner and I said, how can I help you? And you don't want to be in a heated situation as well. You don't want to raise your energy up and match the energy of the other person.
You want to keep your energy low. And let them steam and you just say, I understand. I understand. And you repeat back what they're saying. And so he was telling me that his son wasn't on the power play, wasn't on the penalty killing. I understand your son was not on the power play. Yes. I saw all those power plays and he was not on the penalty.
Yes. I saw all those PKs. So I understand. And then all of a sudden, once I saw his energy level drop, And I said, Mike, to my manager, can I see the game sheet tonight? And I said, Lloyd, you're talking about tonight, right? All those power plays and penalty killings. I said, here's the game sheet from tonight.
Neither team had a penalty. And he looked at me and went, I know there were penalties and left.
But what happened is that the next time I saw him two days later, whatever it is during our practice, I went straight over to him. I said, I don't want this to fester up inside of you. Let's talk now. And he said, and then he apologized. He actually apologized to me. I'm so sorry. I have it so built up in my head that there was not even a penalty during the game and I was already blaming you.
it's amazing how you have to talk and I think what's, what I've learned is that you just can't talk once a month to parents. You got to be communicating. As regularly as you can with them.
Susan: Now, when you first started coaching, was email as prevalent as it is now?
David: No, not at all. No, didn't even have email. How's that?
Susan: yeah, exactly. last year I sent a lot of emails. I tried not to send too many emails, like in the beginning I sent a lot of emails, but after that I tried to send at least one email a month. And I would talk about how the team was going, and I would talk about the kids as kids, and how I was proud of them for, something that they were doing, but also give them suggestions for, I don't know, preventing injury and nutrition, that kind of stuff. 20 years ago, 30 years ago, we didn't have email. So what did you do?
David: That's where we had those parent meetings and the parent meetings used to recap all that stuff. what, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, we didn't have any emails. I think it's really a great opportunity just to touch base and it could be just point form, a recap of the game. Don't forget to bring your water bottle.
Hey, eat something nutritious before you pop in. Don't stop at the golden arches, before you come in. and, but back then it was just like, you only had so much time to really talk to the hockey team. So my communication was with the team always.My team were responsible for themselves.
So we talk about nutrition in the dressing room. We talk about water. We talk about stretching. We talk about, all these small things to make them better hockey players. And, but what got lost was the parents not knowing what we were trying to do in the dressing room, And the only person that would be that in between person was our manager.
And if he wasn't able to get in touch with them, or talk to them all, or... Because, they get in their kind of little groups, right? He's okay, all the parents come on in here for a big circle meeting. No, I don't think it was like that at all. I believe that, the emails are great.
It's just, you're talking to the kids, and now you can just communicate with those parents too.
Susan: I think, it would be a best practice these days with the technology that we're, we have available. we're having our parent meeting, virtually,we're doing it in the evening where we would normally have a practice but practices haven't started yet and we're doing it over Zoom and it's my plan to record the meeting and then make the recording available to any parents who couldn't be there.
David: Oh, I think that's just amazing, because you know what? if you were to do it during a practice time, then you have to come off the practice ice, and then you have to find a room, and if you had to use a stinky dressing room, you'd use a stinky dressing room, Or if you wanted to rent a room, if you had one of those facilities, a hockey rink that actually has general meeting rooms.
That's great for you guys. But you want to be as a coach on the ice working with the kids. And I think this is a great opportunity to touch base with the parents and you have all the parents. Just make sure you control whether they can be muted or not muted. and I think having the meeting, you set a time.
Susan: This meeting is going to be one hour and you know what? So people know it's one hour. If you don't set a time limit, then all of a sudden it can go to two, three, four hours and people like, I got to get the heck out of here. I got to go to bed or whatever it is. So is an hour a good amount of time for a parent meeting?
David: Absolutely. You know what? It's more than enough time. You know what? You want to stick to your format. You want to make your notes and you want to get through them. And you can just say to the parents, Don't worry about making any notes. You can make notes. I will forward you my recap to you. by email.
Or you can actually forward it to them even beforehand. you can even ask the parents, If you have any general questions, you know what? type them into the chat box during Zoom. Or send them... Ahead of time and then you could actually look up those answers too. I think technology is great these days and we should use full advantage of it.
Susan: The manager has organized the meeting. Her son has played select before and she said 30 minutes, that's it, that's enough. Which is very different from the Hockey Canada recommendation, which is well over an hour. I think over an hour is too much, it's too much commitment and I don't know what I'm going to say for the last, I don't know, whatever it happens to be, like, based on my experience with parent meetings, Even if you have a lot of questions, you want a way to end it. and I have an agenda, I have a handout that has all of my key notes, and I also have a couple of forms that I need the parents to fill out, and the manager is going to send all of that out in advance.
David: I think that's great. I agree with your manager if you can make it shorter Absolutely makes people more happy, right? So I got a zoom meeting, how long is it 10 hours? oh my gosh, right? But you know what if you know that it's 30 minutes and it's compact and you're prepared you could probably blast that thing off in 30 minutes and But then again, it comes around to the questions, how long right, how long would it all be?
I've been training hockey, teams for over 30 years. And, you know what? I've worked with a lot of great coaches. And every coach is different. You gotta be who you are. You gotta be your own personality. But one of the coaches I found that was over the top with his communication skills with the parents was Gary Titmarsh.
this guy was... Awesome. I can take lessons from him and, the one thing I found with Gary is that, not only did he have great communication with the kids, but he also had it with the parents as well. I'm not saying that he didn't have any problems, but, there was a lot of problems that were avoided just by the ability to communicate and allow the parents to know where the ship was going.
Susan: And,once we have him on, it's, it, he'll let you know. know a lot more as we go forward. That's awesome. Let's bring Gary on. Hi, Gary.
Gary: Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for having me on the call.
Susan: why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Gary: My name is Gary and I've coached hockey for over 20 years. And, one of the reasons I got into hockey coaching was for my son, and secondly, my daughter was a competitive gymnast, and I saw a lot of things that her coaches did that I thought were incredibly wrong, and I saw a lot of coaches that I felt weren't really doing the job as well as they should have, and not meeting the expectations of either the players, excuse me, or the parents.
You said something earlier, David, that I thought was really insightful and really describes what I try to do, and you said You want to let parents know where the ship is going. And I think that's absolutely key is that as a result of my daughter's competitive career in coaching, I realized that every parent cares deeply about their player, whether it's a son or a daughter, and they want to know that they're going to be well taken care of. And they want to know where the ship is going. What is your plan for the year? And I mean down to the smallest detail. What time are the practices? What time, when are we going on tournaments? What should we wear? Everything has to be made up front so that everyone understands here's what we're going to do.
Here's how we're going to do it. And we're going to do it together and everybody understands where we are going in terms of practices, games, philosophy,you mentioned, wind sprints, and I know there's different phrases for it, but a lot of coaches will have, a bad game and they force their kids to do, laps and sprints it's a punishment is what it is.
And I tell my players right from the very beginning, we will never have, what do they call it? Not, what kind of, Bag skates. I said we will never,
David: yeah.
Gary: we will never have a bag skate. Because my understanding of every player going in is every player wants to do well. It's not like they don't want to do well. They want to do well.
And if you punish them after a bad game, it's not like they didn't want to do well. And they begin to hate the idea of skating. I positioned it, and David, I learned this from you probably, is that I have wind sprints every practice. It's not it's punishment, it's because conditioning is key.
At any age group, ultimately, the better conditioned athlete will be able to outperform a better athlete who's not in great shape. So I make it right clear from the very beginning. There will be no bag skates, but we will have skates every practice that are tough, because you need to be in top physical condition to perform at your very best.
David: Mhm. That is so true, Gary. you know what? The story that goes through my head was that I'm at college. I'm at Clarkson University. Cap Raider is the head coach. coming back from a long road trip, we, we lost to Brown, and Brown was the, that year, the worst team, and we lost to Brown, and we came back.
It's like a 15 hour road, road trip on the bus, and Cap gets up and says, You got 20 minutes. Don't be late. Now, this is on a Sunday. We don't skate on Sunday. Someone stood up and go, does he mean now? We need to get dressed, get on the ice now. of course, we all scrambled. we grab our gear.
It's frozen from being underneath the bus, right? And then we get into the dressing room. We dress as fast as we can. We get on the ice. We did a two hour bag skate. And then,
Gary: What did it teach you?
David: hang on, it gets better. He did it for two weeks straight. No nets for two weeks straight. Now he was part of that U. S. Olympic team that won, the gold medal in Lake Placid. he was the third string goalie. So maybe that's where he was influenced from, but it taught us nothing. It taught us absolutely nothing. And like you said, Gary, we want to win.
Gary: and that's another thing that I talk right from the beginning of the season to parents is the idea of winning. If you only focus on winning, I don't believe you'll ever improve as a player because you're always trying to win and winning is actually approach is a result of a lot of small little things.
That need to be done well. And frankly, it all starts with the face off. If you don't win the puck, you're not going to win. But once you win the puck, you've got to make a pass. And to make a good pass, you have to have players in position who know where they're supposed to be. So it's all these little details
David: that create a win.
Gary: And I find, David, that I tend to coach younger teams more than the older teams, like under 12 years old, is that if you can get them accustomed to the idea that winning is a result of doing all the little things right. Making the pass. Getting a man in the open. Understanding your defensive and offensive responsibilities, etc.
David: And I actually, I don't know if I talked about this, with my younger teams, I actually keep track of the number of passes. And we reward players for great passes. Because that's ultimately, as we grow up, that makes the difference. You can be a great skater, but if you can't pass, you're not going anywhere.
Gary: And if you can't take a pass, you're not going anywhere.
David: So I really focus on let parents understand and players understand that it's the small things done right. And I think I learned that from you, because you're, demonstrate, observe, correct. It's an attempt to, hey, here's what we're going to do.
Gary: I'm going to observe you, and I'm going to correct those mistakes as quickly as possible so they don't linger.
David: And I think a big part of practice is, and things I tell parents is, you can't fail in practice. Practice is for trying out those things we're not good at. So why would I punish you if you're not good at them?
Gary: We're trying to get better.
Susan: I have a question for both of you, how do you deal with losing streaks, both with players and, parents?
Gary: David, do you want to go first.
I've never had one
David: Well, you know what,if you're talking about a losing streak with,obviously wins and losses, you know what, you can analyze it that way. But, sometimes you have to look at the teams who you're playing. You have to look at, potentially, the players on your team that maybe haven't shown up.
Could be some of your better players as well. But then you have to start evaluating, the stats. where are you losing on the stats? Are you losing with face offs, like Gary had talked about? Are you giving up too many shots? Have we given up too many high quality shots? Too many rebounds?
Gary: it's the game inside the game that you really gotta analyze itself, As Gary said, these players show up to play hard. And, you know what, it's our opportunity to show them and change the meaning that 2-1 loss, 3-1 loss, really is a result of this. You know what, it could be conditioning, it could be too many penalties, it could be not enough face offs won, it could be we're not generating enough shots either to create Yeah, and,
Susan: How about you, Gary?
Gary: I mostly coach, as I said, minor hockey, kids under 12. And if we're on a losing strike, there's probably a pretty straightforward, simple answer. The other teams simply have better players. And by better players, I mean at under 10 or under 11. It's one or two better skaters.
And you really can't compete against that. you can help your players be better skaters, play better position. I've been on teams that have made playoffs, and I've been on teams that were lucky to win six games a year. The important thing is you see progress. And the players don't get dejected or feel badly.
And there's always great defensive plays. There's always great plays in a game that you can highlight and say, that's the kind of thing we're looking for. And I, and David might agree, the game is won or lost in practice. That's where the game is won or lost. And that's why I really demand from my players that in practice, it's got to be 100 percent all the time, because if you can't give it in practice, it doesn't magically appear in a game.
David: It's the John Wooden philosophy.
Gary: Yeah.
David: It's really is. As simple as it is, I can't remember exactly who the player was, but one player, hey coach, look, see that? I can make a layup or I can do the three point. Says, yeah, that's great, but can you do it with your left hand?
Gary: the interesting, the question about a losing streak is sometimes it has a greater impact on the parents than it does on the players. And I think that's where it kind of filters down. I read a fabulous article years ago, and David, you may have read it, where it talks about, they interviewed 200, 250 high top level athletes and asked them what do you remember about growing up as an athlete. And they said, oh, the drive home. Because in the drive home, the type A father was like, you screwed up that play or you did this. And people said, we hated the drive home. And I remembered I had done that once or twice with my son. And I said, you're right. And the article said, what would you prefer happens in a car? Just say, It comes back to grandparents. If you ever see grandparents watch their grandkids play, they just love watching them play. So enjoy watching them play, and in the car just say, Hey, that was a great game. I saw you did a great play. If the kid wants to talk about it, he'll talk about it.
But a lot of kids that I've coached are terrified of their father, generally speaking,
On the drive home.
David: It can be mother too,
Gary: actually
what Gary's leading at. It can be the mums, too, Yeah, I actually send this article out to every parent before the season starts, saying, you know what, take a lesson from this article and take a lesson from me, don't get hard on your kids on the way home.
Enjoy the experience, because every parent will tell you when it's over, we just enjoyed watching them play.
David: It's so true. And, you know what, we all know deep down inside, you're really just trying to help your kid. That's all you're really trying to do. But, when you've been on the other side of the fence, as a player, getting this, you don't need it. I know when I screwed up as a player. I know when I gave the puck away.
I know when I fell. I know when I lost the face off. I don't need it pushed back into my face again.
Gary: Even with a 9, 10, or 11 year old, if they've made a bad mistake on the ice, we all make mistakes, I can just look at them skating and I know that they feel bad. They don't need a coach in their face or a parent saying, you made this mistake. That's not going to help them in any way, shape, or form. So if it's something that I can tell they're really upset about, because sometimes at a young age they get very upset, I tell them, hey, don't worry about it. We'll learn from that and we'll know better next time. Way to go,
Susan: at one point I was that parent. I wasn't really negative, but I would talk about how things could be better, and I decided to do only positive reinforcement, and now my son's favourite time is the ride home. He can't wait to get in the car, and he'll say, how'd I do? How'd I do?
Gary: Yeah.
Susan: And I'll tell him how he did. And then he says, Oh, and he'll say it again, how'd I do? And I'll tell him the same thing, right? And he'll say, oh, yeah. How'd I do? And I'll tell him a third time. So he's like fishing for compliments, but he loves it. It's now his favorite part of playing hockey.
Gary: One of the things that I instituted with all the teams that I coach is after every game, I send out a fairly comprehensive coach's comment. because first of all, it communicates to the parents that hey, I'm watching the game with a critical eye and I'm very open and I want you to know what I see and how it might be different from what But it's all generally very positive. Here's what we did really well today. And I try to highlight any... Any number of players who've done well, and it's not necessarily goals. It could be, this was a tremendous defensive play by so and This was a great save by the goalie in this period. We might have lost 10-1, but there's always positives coming out of every single game.
And then at the end, and so scored with an assist by and whatnot. And here's what I think we need to look to improve to move forward. That's all. Nothing more than that. And I get so much back from the feedback from the parents saying. The kids can't wait to read this because it's always about good things and the parents love to read it because they go, oh, I see how the coach has got a positive attitude, enthusiastic about where the team's going, and it really removes any sense of parents trying to understand what their coach is thinking.
Susan: I love that.
Gary: Yeah, and it works out really well because, in my experience, and I know David, a lot of coaches have a lot of success with this, where they'll have a 24 hour no talk rule after the game. I went, what's that? I don't understand that. The team comes off the ice, they go into the dressing room. I'll say a few words.
What did we do well? Boom, boom, boom. What do we need to improve? Boom, boom, boom, boom. And then I go out and I stand in the lobby with the parents.
David: And they realize I'm approachable. And we're all wanting, we all want the same thing,
Gary: And I have reasons for everything I do. So if they want to ask me a question, I know exactly why I did what I did and when I did it.
David: And, David knows I tend to roll the lines because every kid has to have confidence. You never know when they're going to be able to step up and they're going to be having to step up.
And,and funny you said about parents. I've had very little trouble with parents over 20 years.
Gary: Almost none to speak of.
David: Not like me, but but you know what it is. It's experience. It's I think it's adapting. Susan and I were talking about using emails and recapping and we're Or there were no emails. You're not going to pick up the phone and start calling all the parents and this is the recap of the game. and I think what happens when you have this 24 hour rule, it's about emotions.
But we weren't having these recaps with the parents and then the parents were just building up a story in their head until it exploded, And,
Susan: Yeah, I think what Gary was doing there is that he was seizing the initiative. He was giving them the narrative before they had a chance to form a narrative on their head. And he was giving a narrative that's very positive and emphasize these micro moments. they may have lost, but that's not important.
What he was focusing on was the positives. And that kind of drives how people feel about what just happened. So he's telling them how to feel before they've had a chance to coalesce a negative in their head.
Gary: Now, to be fair, I am not always positive. I do, for every player, I do a mid season report card. Just like they get in school. And it's about skating, positioning, shooting, hockey sense, etc. And I grade each player, and I try to give them feedback so that when the end of the season comes in the GTHL, And players are wondering, oh, am I going to make the team next year, or whatever the situation is.
Hey, I've put down on paper what some of the issues are with your son or daughter as a player, and what we're trying to fix. I invite parents, hey, if you have any comments, just like at a school parent interview, come talk to me. I'm more than happy to talk to you. In ten years of doing those, I don't think I've had three parents come and talk to me.
And the three parents who did was all because their kids were doing great.
Susan: This is really smart. This is, it's a very smart approach. the teachers have figured it out. We should certainly take a page from their book.
David: It's the old, it's I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna tell you what I did, and I'm gonna tell you what I did again.
Susan: Yes.
David: 'cause really what you have, you have 30 coaches in the stands coaching.
Gary: Yeah, and they've never lost a game.
David: and all of a sudden you're trying to work on, say, hinging, D to D a hinge and up to the side, and you see it happen a couple times and it's great, but then you have the 30 coaches telling you need to do this because this didn't happen, that didn't happen, that had happened. Yeah, but did you see the hinging tonight? No.
Gary: one of the most interesting comments I always get after a certain number of games is we're not doing very good on the power play. Why aren't we working on a power play? And these are like 9 and 10 year olds. And I'm thinking, how many power plays do we actually get in a game?
And they go, not many. I go, okay. And don't power plays depend on passing? yeah. we can't hardly make three passes in a period, let alone make three passes in a power play. So I think, power plays are important, but because I tend to coach younger kids... You've got to learn the fundamentals.
You've got to learn, I will say with my daughter, one thing her coaches said that was absolutely true. when she was eight years old, she, they said, we're not training them to win today. We're training them to win in 10 years. We're training them to the proper techniques so they understand what they're doing and how to do it.
And lo and behold, 10 years later, she stood in London, England at the Olympics because they did that correctly.
David: Awesome. Oh, that's awesome. So Susan, what are you gonna do with your hockey team?
Susan: I, As a coach, I tend to focus not on the negatives, but we've talked about this before, Dave, like the gap and the gain. you look at the gap between now and where you want to go. and at the expense of looking at the gain, where you've come from and how far you've come. And I tend to focus on the gaps because that's what I use to help me decide what drills to put in.
But Gary's advice says, Focus on the gain, find opportunities to bring that out. So when I'm sitting there taking notes during the game, I'm going to take notes about the positives as well. Cause this is how I can use it. So this, I love how Gary's advice was really simple and very actionable.
Gary: another great tactic is I actually use the game as a learning experience, and as players come off the ice, I or my assistant coaches will use a pad and diagram, oh, here's what you might want to consider moving forward. Not that you did something wrong, but maybe we should try this next time or whatever.
So that they're actually learning in the middle of the game right away, because it's immediate.
Susan: I think that's great advice. I look forward to when I can put that in place. I don't have, my hockey eyes are not that good yet.
Gary: the problem is, every time I do it, either we score or the other team scores, and I don't see what happens.
It's so true. You miss half the game. Yeah, but it's a learning experience. Practice is practice, but they'll tell you nothing is quite like the game when it comes to learning. And the other thing I find with kids today, is David, you probably agree, I grew up watching hockey. A lot of hockey. And I find a lot of players today, they just don't watch much hockey.
They love playing it, which is great, but they don't actually watch it to learn from it.
Susan: Yes, this is called studying, right? This is, you need to study the game if you want to get good.
Gary: And I coached select for about four or five years, along with house league. And the way that I approach single A or double A or triple A is actually very different than I approach select or house league. In basic house league, if you can just get the kids to realize, and this is a very simple rule, David, you might disagree, one rule. Try to be first to the puck. Be first to the puck. No matter what else, if you're first to the puck, good things will happen. And I've actually talked with some parents of kids who said, geez, my kid's really struggling in house league. What can we do? I said, just tell them, be first, just put everything else out of your mind. Be first to the puck. Position is important. Don't race halfway across. But, and then they realize, oh, yeah, be first of the puck. And Bing, good things happen.
David: And that in house league, the kids who have the puck, they're always first to the puck. They just know that part of the game, right?
Gary: Yep.
David: On the puck right away. And then how many are watching? How many are watching?
Gary: Right.
David: Absolutely. And then you try to teach the positioning and all that comes in. But let's go get the puck. Let's be on the...
Gary: But yeah, if you have a team with the mindset of be first of the puck, I tell you, that will be a successful team. At any age.
David: Any age. That's right. First and then own it. I want you to own that. Don't give it away.
Gary: And we have, the kids get tired of me saying this, and I go, if you're not first of the puck, what's your next job? Work twice as hard to get it back.
Susan: Do you have any final thoughts on how to have good relationships with parents, Gary?
Gary: Yeah, really just to summarize is that I really try hard to communicate what I want to accomplish and how I'm going to accomplish it in a time frame for when I'm going to accomplish it. And it starts very early. It tryouts all the way through the season and it just never stops. I'm always looking for fun ways to make the game more fun for the players and for the parents.
When I sign a player, I would send out a news release and it would have the TSN, ESPN logos on it, breaking news. John Smith has just been, contracted to play for the Markham Islanders and da da da da da. And here, Coach Gary says he's an amazing player with a great... And they get a press release, and they think that's a lot of fun.
we'll have pizza parties or when they, first game I give them, a comp... When I actually give them their sweater, I say, by the way, here's a hundred grand. A hundred grand? It's a chocolate bar. But just little things that make them realize, you know what? Hockey's hockey. But having friends, having a fun time, and walking out with your head high that, hey, you did your best. It's all great.
Susan: That's great. That's great. I'm completely on board with that.
David: Susan, do you want to hire him or what?
Gary: Yeah.
Susan: No, I have the job. I have a hockey coach.
Gary: I don't have a job. I'm retired.
Susan: Thanks for coming on today, Gary.
Gary: My pleasure. Anytime.
David: Thanks a lot, Gary. Great to see you again.
Gary: Super. Thanks
David: Okay, we'll talk to you soon.
Gary: Okay, bye bye.
David: Like I said earlier, I've, I've worked with. So many coaches, but the key thing with all these coaches and they were all successful. some a lot more than others. Gary being one of those, yes, he was successful. And it's not just winning. success doesn't come from winning and losing.
It's really about how the season is progressing. We need to progress as we move forward, right? And he had talked about that and when I think about the other coaches that were unsuccessful, they were afraid to make those tough decisions. They were afraid to talk to the parent. They were afraid to talk to the kid.
They allowed the bully to run the hockey team and the coaches. You know what, man, you got to step up, you got to step up for not the one, but not only the one, but also for the other 14, 15, however many on the team, right? and then plus the parents in behind that, the support, like you're representing a big group here.
And Gary understands that. he says, sometimes I get to make tough decisions and tough choices and have tough conversations, but that's why. You're the leader. That's what leaders do, right? So you gotta remember that.
Susan: yeah, I'm not sure this is talked about as much in terms of hockey coaching. But really, the leadership skills come to the fore. What we talk about a lot in the context of hockey are skills and drills, right? You can go to Hockey Canada and take, skills courses. You can get lots of drills.
There's a Drill Hub on Hockey Canada. But this kind of very judgment oriented, very subjective, in the moment, how do I lead? How do I build relationships? How do I build connection? That's leadership. And that's tough.
David: Comes from within. We all have leadership characters inside of us. We have those skills. Some are more natural than others, but you just start building on it. And you're going to make mistakes. That's okay. But then own it and say, that's not me. I'm going to move forward. This is who I am. And yeah, that's all you can do.
Susan: My goal is to not to make the same mistake twice. Make each mistake only once. And I think that's progress.
David: Absolutely. absolutely. We're human. We're going to make mistakes as we go. But if you keep doing the same thing over and over again,you're not progressing, right?
So it's the same thing as, a neutral zone regroup. You have the defense come back. You're going to hinge and then go to the other side. And in the beginning, it might not be a good hinge. It might be straight across, or the one defenseman's not positioning. And you keep working, and then all of a sudden, Wow, look at that team. They're so good at, neutral zone regrouping and hinging and hitting the far wingers. Yeah, that takes practice.
Susan: That takes time, right? And coaches are no different. How they deliver the message, how they communicate, what works, what doesn't work. I'm not saying that again. That didn't work or I'm not going to try that again, Work in progress. Work in progress.
David: Absolutely. But what we can do rather than reinvent the wheel is that we listen to guys like Gary, Gary has a really great ideas and what he does for his hockey team that has success.
And you want to take from him and apply it right away. Don't wait a year. we're talking about, why do you want to sit around for three years trying to reinvent the wheel? Forget it. You know what? There's success out there. Copy it and just be yourself, become yourself.
Susan: Because everyone else has already taken.
David: I think that's true. Oh,
Susan: That was a great call, Dave.
David: He's amazing.
Susan: Yeah.
David: Wait till the next ones I have.
Susan: Looking forward to it.
Thanks for tuning in to Coaching Call. We'll be back next week to answer more questions. The audio podcast is available from Apple, Spotify, and other directories. The vidcast is available on YouTube. Send us your questions in the comments or on our website, newcoach dot ca. Bye!
David: See ya.