Comments on: Cold Dry Hands: The Short Bench

By: Kinsella Reporting

Kinsella Reporting — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 00:52:00 +0000

My son played A peewees.The coach was a maniac. Our first scrimmage he skipped over the third line in the second rotation. The games were 33 minutes long. With PK”s & PP’s, his kid was on the ice for 23-25 minutes a game. We were about a .350 team. We stunk. In the final tournament of the year I asked the coach to play everyone. What difference could it make? So, we finish as a .345 team? I was practically blackballed. The coach and his cronies talked behind my back and still do to this day three years later. I’ve often thought about telling this guy he owes me $1,500 for a wasted season. These coaches do whatever they want and answer to no one. I would never coach like that. My kid remembers it, too. I enjoyed the article.

By: Gumby

Gumby — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 16:32:00 +0000

Nicely done. My son had the privilege of playing for a great coach for 4 straight seasons. This coach played over 900 games in the NHL and rolled his lines all 4 years. His philosophy: If I take the kid (at tryouts), I’m going to play him. If I’m not going to play him, I won’t take him. We were VERY successful in 3 of those 4 seasons, including a Bantam AA state championship. In the “not as successful” season, we had a winning record, but missed the playoffs in very tightly contested league.

I’m a roller hockey coach. I don’t have the creds to successfully coach ice hockey. I was, however lucky enough to learn from a Minnesota guy (ice and roller), who taught me a few systems that allow weaker players to have success against stronger players by emphasizing position, assignment and discipline, especially on defense. This allowed us to play the weaker players because we weren’t asking them to do something they lacked the speed, strength and skills to do.

By: Warren 'Coach' Nye

Warren 'Coach' Nye — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 17:30:00 +0000

Great article Hal, Totally agree that there is no way to be shortening a bench in minor hockey. Maybe because this is happening more there ever we are seeing a decline in kids playing the sport. Let kids play and have some fun!

By: CadleCreek

CadleCreek — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 15:45:00 +0000

good article. How do you fell about hybrid policies? My squirt “A” teams had a predetermined informed policy that 1 goal games during the last 1 minute of play the coaches may use a short bench and timeouts so only the top performers would play. We limited the roster to 12 skaters. For Pee Wee “A”, we have 4 minute 1 goal rule where we may choose to shorten the bench. we have a roster of 15 skaters. We don;t have a preset rule for who is going to be grocery sticked. We play the players that have been the best that game, with no regard to who they are or who their parents are.

Even with informed consent, I was called out by a parent who thought their pee wee was the 2nd coming of bobby hull that her son didn’t play the last 3 minutes of a semi-final game we were trailing by 1 goal. I kindly pointed out my son was stapled to the bench with 5 minutes left that game because he had been playing poorly, too.