Game On… and On… and On…
by Dan Bauer
It is time for USA Hockey to make a move. A move likely to be as unpopular as the helmet rule for coaches, but one with similar safety ramifications. One that is long overdue. It is time to take serious measures to reel in youth hockey’s addiction to games.
Tryout tribulations are still simmering, football cleats are laying in the hallway and most of us have leaves to rake, but the games are on. Hockey games, and lots of them—two in a day, sometimes three, five in a weekend, do I hear six? New skates are still stiff and new sticks to blame for missed goals. And practice, we don’t need no stinkin’ practice.
As I headed to the rink on a recent Sunday to get our lockeroom ready for the high school season, I expected to find a low-key agenda on tap inside. Understand that tryouts had just finished one week ago. What I found to my surprise and dismay was a full slate of youth games. Teams with as few as two practices were now playing their second and or third games of the infantile season.
I try to convince myself that this is just a bad dream. This can’t be happening. First year Pee Wees heading into their first taste of checking with two practices under their belt. No safety issue there, they should be ready for contact. And what about the new rules standards that will be enforced? Apparently no need to get anybody ready for that either. How about learning everyone’s name on the team? Can we even achieve that in one week? Every shred of logic is tossed out the window in the rush to get the games on.
USA Hockey, whose job it is to govern and regulate youth hockey, has stepped in to protect our coaches by making an unpopular, but wise decision, to put helmets on them. They are also working to bring consistency to their coaching education program. In the meantime the safety and well being of the players is left up to local control. It is now time for them to step up and protect the players and the integrity of basic logic from over-zealous coaches. There is a reason why the NHL, NCAA and WIAA legislate a defined pre-season. It is for the safety of the players. It is to give everyone ample opportunity to properly prepare for the season. It is time to prepare your team physically, mentally and collectively. That simply cannot be accomplished in one week, at any level.
We preach that youth hockey is about skill development—yet we set no rules or regulations to help ensure that it will happen. We recommend a 3:1 practice to game ratio; we suggest maximum game limits and fanatical youth boards ignore them like a child transfixed on a video game. The NHL, NCAA and WIAA also have set game limits. You are not allowed to exceed them—they are hard and fast rules. They are based on a defined season length appropriate for that particular age level. Making that decision is another step that could easily be implemented by the powers in Colorado Springs. It is time for USA Hockey to stop making recommendations that are easily pushed aside and replace them with rules and consequences for not obeying them.
Youth hockey seasons and the number of games played continue to grow and grow with no end in sight. All evidence tells us that this is counterproductive to developing skill in players. Every study done extols the value of practice in skill development. We have the proof, but continue to disregard it as if it were science fiction. Once again our progressive society chooses to treat common sense like an 18th century medical cure. Unlike using leeches to eradicate disease from the body, common sense never goes out of style and doesn’t change from one generation to the next.
The Fox Valley Blades Youth Hockey Association under the direction of Ace Coordinator Mike Elkin, uses a unique formula to regulate their program. They total up practice ice time first and then from those numbers determine how many games their teams should play based on a 2.5 to 3:1 ratio. This is a monumental idea that should be adopted by every youth program. Elkin, the former head coach of the Neenah high school Rockets, was recently Wisconsin’s recipient of the USA Hockey Young Leaders award for his innovative ideas and efforts with the Blades cross-ice program. He is strong advocate for cross-ice hockey and has proven that strategy to be a very successful one. The folks in Neenah are fortunate to have his leadership.
There was a time when games were seemingly the reward for hours of practice. Now in our games gone wild mentality the more we play the better. Each year I am appalled as I watch youth players skills decline. I cringe when I see 13 squirts on a full sheet of ice knowing that each team is practicing only once or twice a week. We have accepted mediocre hockey as the norm. It is like listening to a 9-year-old piano player that only practices once a week, but puts on three or four recitals each weekend. It wouldn’t be entertaining and neither is bad hockey. But as long as the scoreboard is on and somebody gets to go home a “winner” parents are both happy and pacified.
A friend of my daughter just recently signed on to a professional figure skating ice show in Georgia & Florida. When she arrives there in a few weeks she will practice for forty-two hours in fours days to prepare for her first performance. I doubt many of our youth hockey players will get that much ice in an entire season. Practice is a priority to success that we have trivialized to make room for more games.
In spite of overwhelming evidence we continue to support the games over practice philosophy. Sixty games by a youth team will translate to approximately twelve to fifteen hours of ice time per player. That isn’t a miss-print, it is a fact substantiated by USA Hockey research. Sixty games that will take four or five months to play, a hundred hours of time on the road and a part-time job to finance, for twelve plus hours of ice time. A kid twenty years ago would get that much ice time during a weekend on the local outdoor rink or pond. And it wouldn’t cost him more than a few dollars to pack a lunch or buy a couple of hot dogs at the concessions stand. Think about that. One weekend of “rat hockey”, skating, passing, shooting & having fun could equal those baker’s dozen hours you get in sixty games. This is not a myth or a fairy tale, it actually use to happen. The difference, and the reason why it doesn’t exist today is that there is no glory for parents at the outdoor rink and the fact that many kids now have more passion for their Play Station than the playground.
Try proposing to your coach or your youth board to take a weekend off and open up the ice time at the rink for “rat hockey”. Just let kids come and go and just play. All ages, no coaches, just an opportunity for old-fashioned fun at the rink. Those board members will look at you as if you have three-heads. It will be a look of shock and disgust that you would dare think about practicing on a weekend instead of playing games.
It has become common practice to play games and games and more games. It is time for practice or even just open “rat hockey” to become more common than games. It is time for USA Hockey to realize that when it comes to practice to game ratios, there is no common sense exercised. It is time to replace “Game On” with “Game Off” and truly give our youth players the opportunity to be the best they can be.
Dan Bauer is the head hockey coach at Wausau East High School. You can contact him at dbauer@wausau.k12.wi.us and read more of his work at www.hockeybybauer.com