Bench Coach

Last week during Spring Fling, the opposing coach didn’t show up, and from what I had heard, was in the habit of not showing up on a regular basis. I felt bad for the kids, not that they cared, because they still got to play hockey. Even still, there’s something kind of sad when a parent just bails out on a group of kids. It’s a failure to hold up your end of an obligation, because the kids are doing their part, and they want to play.

In a way, A lucked out, because her coach, MR, is very dedicated to his kid, and is very serious about teaching good values and etiquette. Part of that is being responsible as a parent and a coach. He is always there, and wants the players to be good people, first and foremost. I really like the guy, he’s very down to earth, and his child is a very nice kid. N is fortunate because even though his coach doesn’t show up all the time, there are a core group of dads who are always there and they all know hockey and can fill in. Their sons are all excellent players, as well.

Anyway, the reason this has come up is because last game, the opposing team didn’t have a coach, and there weren’t any parents to fill in. One of the moms asked if someone could just sit on the bench, and A’s coach asked me to do it. Now I’ve worked the bench before, but that was assisting GG, who is an outstanding coach. All I had to do was open the door for the players, it was easy. This time around, they needed someone calling the shots, i.e., making line changes. Yikes, I’d never done that before. Too much responsibility for the likes of me.

That said, however, they still needed a coach, and MR was looking at me like I was a sissy for not being more forthcoming. I agreed, but asked another dad to help out. I figured he could do the line changes and I could cheer and open doors. Well, as it turns out, I was in the company of a person who might be guilty of taking themselves a little too seriously and was either unwilling or incapable of taking control.

As a consequence, I ended up doing everything, including all the line changes while he just stood there and just yelled at the players. In an odd way, it worked out, but it was definitely a revealing moment. For full disclosure, they only had one substitute, so doing line changes was simply a matter of replacing one player, but I didn’t know any of these guys. It was the opposing team, after all. Plus, they had constant equipment problems and I had to take care of them. Talk about learning on the fly.

I did learn a thing or two about hockey and coaching. In an ideal situation, you have ten players, giving you two offensive units (3+3) and two defensive units (2+2). If you have two coaches, which is how N’s team does it, one coach changes the offensive players, and one does the defense. You simply give each unit two minutes on the ice and then call them in and send out fresh legs.

I only had one player, so I had to switch them one at time. This required keeping track of the order that players had gone in, and knowing their names. The way I accomplished this was by pointing out a player on the ice and asking the player at rest what their name was, then calling them in. I had to constantly be on the ball, and as I mentioned, they constantly needed skates tied or socks fastened. They were, however, great kids, and they played hard and gave it their all. I give them two thumbs up for their hard work ethic, just great kids.

I learned a lot during that game, and even though I don’t necessarily want to be a coach, I guess I know I can do it in a pinch... sort of.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to mhaithaca for the pic.