BERLIN, NJ – It’s a scene that comes straight from the Highlight Videos. Late in the 3rd Period your star player picks up a loose puck, deep in his own end. Known as a finisher, he immediately gains everyone’s attention. Yours. Every player on the ice. Every player on the bench. Every fan in the arena. People listening to the game on the radio picture it just as intently as the live audience does.
As a neatly dressed spectator standing behind the bench you offer verbal encouragement; but as the Head Coach your mouth is dry. The game-breaker has the puck.
With god-given skating ability, honed by years of practice, he is propelled by the wind of a world-class pace. No more than three piston-like strides allow Mr. Wonderful access to the neutral zone. Your view of the ice is a coach’s delight; their defense is in a desperate retreat and their closest back checker is being rapidly outdistanced. His gratuitous swipe at the puck is ignored.
Their blue line is next and your boy is clearly ‘going for goal’. He is on a mission and he is in a big hurry. With only the one defender left, your guy dangles the puck outside…cuts inside…then cleverly takes it back to the forehand again. Their remaining defender played the puck instead of the body and is now out of position. The home town hero is in the clear.
Their goalie makes the first move, daringly moving out of the crease and throwing himself directly into the line of fire. Mr. Wonderful knows that a goalie moving forward has an automatic weakness. Low stick side. There will be no deking on this breakaway because that’s exactly where the puck is going; low to the stick, virtue of a quick snap shot. Like a scene out of Hollywood, everyone sees it hit the netting. Everyone gets excited and everyone stands and cheers. Except for you.
You, no longer a spectator; now only the Head Coach, become the only person in the arena to feel confused. Your job is to win games and you are about to do that. But your job is also to coach the entire team and you search for ways to tell Mr. Wonderful that he actually made a bad play. It was selfish. It was risky. And in the long run, his doing that repeatedly will hurt the team. There is no choice but for a calm, quiet confrontation. The only question is as to the methodology.
What do you think of this bit of dialogue as a suggestion?
“Hey, nice goal. Definitely pretty…but let’s take a closer look at it for a minute. First of all, you had the winger open at the half-boards. Our basic breakout is to get the puck up to the winger and then the diagonal pass to the Centerman. That didn’t happen, did it?”
“In the Neutral Zone you were 1 on 2. Anytime we are outnumbered in the Neutral Zone we ‘soft dump’ the puck in and make the Defense turn around. It gives us a chance to either safely change lines or to get a fore-check going. That didn’t happen either.”
“Pretty much, you broke our rules when you ignored our system. You told every guy on the ice that you are the only one who is valuable in the clutch and that they become worthless. The bottom line is this…you won the game but could possibly have put the season at risk. But, hey. Let’s not get too bent out of shape. That’s why we’re all here. To work on our game. Right? You as a player and me as a Coach. So I would say this; after tomorrow mornings skate be prepared to stay on the ice for awhile. We’re going to work on the basic breakout play. Both of us need to brush up on it a little bit.”
Obviously my belief is that selfish play can have corrosive effects on the team. In my mind, a self-absorbed 45 second shift by one player can damage a solid 60 minute effort by the rest of the team. As a coach, I cannot let that happen. The level of play does not matter. From In House (league) to NHL we are all the same on the inside. We all love the game and we all want to enjoy every waking second of it. Unfortunately, it is hard to do that when the central figure in your system is a puck hog. To a degree, that’s why there are stories of great players who never played on a Cup winner.
Every season, right at the end of camp, I hand out a playbook. It depicts basic strategies, formations and concepts that work best for that particular group. Included is a ‘Team Code”. It includes often used words like ‘respect’ and ‘commitment’ and it utilizes common phrases like ‘team first’, ‘accountability’, and ‘common bond’. However, the players sign it. It doesn’t matter how old they are, how good they are or how long they have been on the team. They read it, they sign it, and they commit to playing for the team and for each other. A sample copy stays on the locker room wall. Players either buy in or they cash out.
As a guy who has been around the game for a very long time I can be hard headed about what works and what doesn’t. Coming up with the right system or the most advantageous use of X’s and O’s is not really that difficult. Having the players adhere to a team concept is really the trick. Sometimes, when riding my ‘high horse’, people kid me and ask why, if I know so much, I am not coaching professionally. I always refer them to Pat Boone who said that there were 50,000 people who could sing as well or better than he could…but that Pat was the one who had the microphone.
Still, no matter how far I get as a Coach it will always be the same way. I will always believe that more games are won or lost in the locker room than on the ice. I will always treat the 4th Line like heroes while demanding non-stop energy from the top line and I will do those sorts of things out of a belief that the Head Coach is very much like the Wizard of Oz in that the Coach has the rare opportunity to give out heart, brains and courage to his players – even though the players already possess them.
Additionally, a Coach can also reward the role players solely for their efforts and their willingness to participate in the 1 on 1 battles. And more importantly he can demand that the talented players be just as accountable to a team system as those spare players are.
When you add it all up the sum total is this; when every single player feels that thier contribution is an integral part of the team’s success, when every one knows that it is the ‘team first’ contributions that are recognized and rewarded, and when your roster is filled with the wounded who are always willing to risk it all instead of the All Stars who want it all, your group can not be stopped. They will succeed in accomplishing the greatest achievement of them all – not wishing to be wearing any other sweater but this one and knowing that it is this team that will live in his heart forever. There will never be an E-Bay auction of this jersey – it has become priceless.
Contact the author at Thomas.ryan@prohockeynews.com Publisher’s Note : Where we you in the late 60’s and early 70’s? Me, I spent more than a few summers in south Jersey with my sister at our aunt and uncle’s home in Whitman Square on the Black Horse Pike near Cherry Hills. Summers of swimming and bike riding and doing nothing. Over the years I have been fascinated with serendipity and fate. I have met friends and acquaintances with whom I unknowingly shared time and space earlier in lfe. Such is the case this past week or so. Pro Hockey News was contacted by Pops Ryan about writing for us and we gladly took him on. Turns out he is from Berlin (NJ) not far from Whitman Square. But in turn we discovered that Mitch Cooper, Pro Hockey News’ CHL editor also hails from the same area and same timeline. Pops Ryan is an aspiring hockey coach and has years of experience to share with Pro Hockey News and our readers. We look forward to a long relationship with Pops and hope our readers will check his regular column out. Pops will also be writing about the Central Hockey League for us.
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