Hockey Dad

by Bob Mckenzie

  Having been a coach myself, I knew that cutting kids is easily the worst part of the job. It's a gut-wrenching experience.

  There's no good way to do it. If you cut them en masse like I did with Mike's team, you're accused of not providing individual attention. If you meet one-on-one and tell the kid and his parents that, for example, the boy needs to work on his skating, they go out saying, "Who the hell does that guy think he is to say my kid can't skate?"

  Cutting players is a dirty job, but one that has to be done.

  I've seen long friendships deteriorate or break up entirely because a coach cut a friend's kid. It can get very ugly and it's why some guys just aren't cut out, if you'll pardon the pun, to coach kids' sports.

  After you coach awhile, you realize you can't win no matter what, so you try to do what you think is right for the team.

  If it costs you a friendship or two along the way, so be it. If that friendship couldn't withstand a rough patch from cutting a friend's kid, it probably wasn't a truly solid friendship to begin with. At least that is what you have to tell yourself. As for the parents whose kids get cut, I have this one simple piece of advice: Don't take it personally because it's usually not. Get over it. Your kid will and you will, too, if you allow yourself.

  So, based on all of that, I actually felt a little empathy for Don Houghton, the coach of Shawn's team in minor atom and the guy who cut him. Don's son Bryant, or Buzz as he was called, and Shawn had played together on the same teams for the previous four years. Cindy and I were friends with Don and his wife, Paula, so it wasn't difficult for me to put myself in Don's shoes and realize this was no fun for him either. He was just doing what he thought was right for the team; you can't fault a coach for that.

  Which is not to say I still wasn't a little ticked off, generally speaking, the night Shawn got cut. He's my kid, after all. It's only human nature to absorb or share some of that disappointment with your son. And to embrace a little bit of that "we'll show you" mentality. Shawn was, in my opinion, entirely capable of being a AA-level player; he just wasn't playing as well as he could on a consistent basis and was going to need some work.

  I would hate to think the reason for Shawn's lack of progress as a player through novice and minor atom was tied to the fact I was a lot busier with Mike's hockey over those three years than I was with Shawn's, because I still did manage to make a lot of Shawn's games and practices. I was on him about work ethic and him getting more involved in his games; it's not like I neglected him or his hockey. He was just a pretty laid-back dude.

  But all that was history; it was time to focus on the present. I told Shawn precisely that on the way home that night.

  I said I was going to put in to coach the major atom A team, that we were going to have a lot of fun together, that he was going to have a great season and if he played as well as he's capable of playing, I would put in to coach the AA team the next year and he would prove to everyone he was still a good player who deserved to play AA hockey. It was a good little pep talk-Shawn seemed to like it-and the best part about it was that I actually believed every bit of it.

  Selfishly, I was also encouraged that the AA team had cut three more kids-a forward, Bryn McDonnell, and two defensemen, Breandon Barnett and Michael Ochman-who I thought were good AA-caliber players. For whatever reason, they had, like Shawn, underachieved that minor atom season and pretty much played their way off the team. Great, they would make a good nucleus for the A team.

  Before I could commit to coaching the A team, though, I had to take care of logistics. There would be no Kevin or Stu or Ron Balcom to back me up, so I had to find a whole new staff.

  Steve Hedington, who had been such a big help the last two years with Mike's team, agreed to keep coaching with me. That was huge, because Heddy was an invaluable assistant coach-a level-headed, mature and responsible guy who had played hockey at a high level and an absolutely outstanding teacher who related extremely well with kids of all ages and calibers.

  Bryn McDonnell's dad, Paul, who I often watched AA games with, had indicated he would help out.

  But the real problem was going to be finding a manager, because that is the most labor-intensive position. A head coach's life is nothing but misery without a good manager.

  The A team the previous year had been coached by a guy named Mike Rostek, and his wife, Val, was the manager. Their son Matt played on the team. Mike Rostek's two years as coach with that group were up, so he was moving on to coach his other son, David, an '87. Shawn and Matt Rostek happened to be playing on the same house-league lacrosse team that spring and while I didn't know the Rosteks well at all, I was pumping them for information on the '89 A-level scene. Finally, I asked Val if I applied for the team and if her son Matt made the team-as a coach, you have to be careful you don't make promises you can't keep-would she be interested in managing? She thought about it and eventually said yes, so I was once again back in the coaching saddle.

  I should point out the Rosteks, especially Mike, are completely and utterly crazy, far crazier than me. But that's crazy in an affectionate, good-friend kind of crazy. They're late for everything and the sight of Mike plowing that old, big blue Suburban over snow banks and going "cross-country" to get to games on time and roaring into arena parking lots all over the province will forever be burned into my mind. But the overriding quality of the Rosteks, above and beyond all the craziness, is they are inherently generous people who would do anything for their kids or anyone else's kids for that matter-anytime, anyplace, anything, you name it, no questions asked. In the world of minor hockey, there's no greater redeeming quality than that.

  To be honest, I wasn't quite sure what to expect coaching at the A level after having been involved in only AAA hockey to that point. I was pleasantly surprised. The A kids obviously weren't as gifted as the AAA kids, but what I immediately realized was that, for the most part, the kids and their parents were no less committed to minor hockey than the AAA families.

  They were eager to learn, worked just as hard and while the execution wasn't there to the same degree, it was obvious to me that I wouldn't have to make many coaching adjustments, except maybe try to be a little more patient when teaching concepts or working on skills.

  Speaking from my experiences in the Whitby minor system, there is no difference whatsoever in the time and effort commitment or passion levels between AAA and AA and single A. It's the same basic routine regardless of how many As you string together: two games and two practices, on average, a week and anywhere between four and seven tournaments depending upon what's available.

  We had a competitive little team-not the best; not the worst-in an A loop that included Stouffville, Pickering, Ajax, Uxbridge, Clarington, Port Perry, Lindsay, Port Hope, Cobourg, Trenton, Belleville, Picton and Napanee. I like to think we followed my four-point plan (have fun; embrace and reinforce the proper values; improve skating and skills; and teach team strategies, tactics, systems and concepts) and the season was a success.

  Best of all, putting on my parent hat, Shawn was excelling at this level. He was one of the better players on the team.

  He was scoring goals and points regularly, competing harder than he had been, playing more consistently and seemingly enjoying himself and having a great deal of fun with this group of kids.

  As a parent, you can't ask for much more than that.

  23: New-And-Improved Shawn Makes A U-Turn for the Better

  IT'S FUNNY HOW THE WORLD TURNS SOMETIMES. When Mike was a twelve-year-old, his game went totally into the tank, in large part, I believe, because he was a late arrival to the puberty party. Shawn, on the other hand, got to this occasion quite early. So while in the summer of 1998 I was asking what the aliens had done with twelve-year-old Mike, I was three years later wondering where did this new-and-improved version of twelve-year-old Shawn come from?

  You could see the signs for Shawn in the major atom A season, the first year I coached him. Shawn was getting bigger and stronger than the other kid
s, but it really became most obvious in the summer of '01, although that didn't prevent Shawn from still experiencing the nastiest cut of all.

  Shawn decided that summer to come out of "retirement" to play Peewee A rep lacrosse, which he had quit a few years earlier, so he could, as he put it, "just relax a little."

  I'm not sure how many kids that age ever talk about the need to "relax a little," but that's our Shawnie. I wasn't happy about his decision to quit rep lacrosse when he made it, but what was I going to do? You can't force a kid to play something he doesn't want to play-as much, I admit, as I would have liked to-and Shawn had it in his mind he was going to have a "relaxing" July and August and play only house-league lacrosse.

  This particular summer, though, he was feeling pretty good about himself, although he was probably motivated by something else as well-this Peewee A lacrosse team was scheduled to go on a much-heralded trip to British Columbia.

  Being a Crazy Lacrosse Dad in the summer, I was thrilled Shawn wanted to get back to playing the game at its highest level. I was also thinking a Vancouver lacrosse trip might be nice, too. So off we went to tryouts.

  To say Shawn was one of the better kids at the tryouts was, in my opinion, an understatement. He was, to my eyes, easily in the top five players on the floor, faster and physically stronger than most. He always had decent stick skills and a good feel for the game; at this point he had some physical prowess.

  I couldn't see any way he didn't make this team.

  But he didn't. He got cut. I couldn't believe it. Neither could he. He was stunned. I was outraged, although I said absolutely nothing to anyone on my way out of Luther Vipond Memorial Arena in Brooklin that day. When I'm really seriously upset about something, I go out of my way to not give anyone the satisfaction to see me upset or bothered. So I plastered a phony smile on my face and headed home.

  I told Shawn in the car I thought it was unfair; that I thought he was one of the best players on the floor. He was at a loss for words, which was rare with Shawn. There really wasn't anything else to say. He was clearly disappointed. I went home and thought about it for awhile and tried to come up with a logical explanation for what had just happened. And then it struck me: Maybe it was the Vancouver trip. It had to be. This trip was something the kids on that team had been shooting for, talking about doing for years and they were finally going to do it. This was a winning team with not a lot of turnover from year to year. It was a pretty tight group. As well as Shawn had played in tryouts, I could see how the coaches might still think of him as the laid-back kid who wanted to "relax" in the summer instead of play high-level rep lacrosse; or as the not-too-competitive kid who had played his way off the AA hockey team the year before. And I could also see how the coaches didn't want to cut a kid who had toiled hard for them the last few summers and deprive that kid of the much-anticipated trip of a lacrosse lifetime to B.C.

  It all made sense and, to be honest, I didn't have a problem with it. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made to me. I know tryouts are supposed to be about picking the best kids, but sometimes other factors-loyalty and hard work and commitment and, yeah, sometimes friendship-come into it. And that can be fair, too, though it may not always seem like it at the time.

  I sat Shawn down and explained all of this to him. I told him on one level it's not fair, reiterated that life isn't fair (I never get tired of telling my kids that), but asked him if it was fair for some kid, who ran his ass off in stifling hot arenas the last three summers, to miss out on a trip of a lifetime to Vancouver so some other kid who just wanted to "relax" the last few summers got to go?

  The big question then was whether Shawn was going to play on the Peewee B team. At first, he wasn't sure. He was extremely disappointed at being cut. I asked him if he really wanted to play rep lacrosse or he just wanted a trip to British Columbia. I told him if it was the latter, the Peewee A team was so right to cut him, but that if he really wanted to play rep lacrosse, then he would play on the B team and start proving to the A coaches and everyone else he was worthy to be on the top team.

  He ultimately decided to play on the B team. Long story short, it was a great experience. He was, in my opinion, one of the best players on the team, if not the best; he was named the captain and became a go-to guy whose confidence soared. It was a good summer; a good lesson learned, I hoped.

  There was no question in my mind that Shawn was, at the end of his first season of A-level hockey, good enough to go back and play at the AA level again. In fact, I thought he might actually have a chance to make the AAA team. But I also knew it wouldn't hurt him to spend another year in A and it would also allow me to continue as his coach, which I really wanted to do for at least another year. So I went ahead and committed to coaching the A team again for the 2001-02 season.

  But Shawn did go out to the AAA spring tryouts, just for the experience of it. He fared quite well, especially considering the AAA team at Shawn's age was an OMHA championship caliber squad and one of the better teams in the province. John Annis, the head coach of the AAA team, told Shawn he was good enough to earn a spot but it wouldn't hurt to spend one more year in A with his dad. Shawn was fine with that, but quite proud for showing well at the AAA tryouts.

  Later that season, John Annis and I worked out an arrangement where Shawn would be one of their affiliate players, or AP as they call it, which was unusual because normally only AA players affiliate with AAA teams and A players affiliate with AA teams. But we got Don Houghton, who was still coaching the AA team, to sign off on it, so Shawn and I knew he would, at some point, get a chance to try AAA hockey for the first time. John Annis occasionally had Shawn come out and practice with the AAA kids to get a better feel for the level.

  Shawn had a great season in single A. He was, more often than not, a physically dominant player. He played hard and wasn't afraid to punish people with hits and take the puck to the net to score or set up goals. He was aggressive and confident. On a couple of occasions he was called up to the AAA team by John Annis and he didn't look out of place at all. It was not a reach to think he'd play AAA hockey the next season.

  Our A team was quite competitive that season, but the odds of us getting out of our league in postseason play weren't very good. Cobourg had a powerhouse team, one of the best in the province. Cobourg, a nice little town, is roughly half-way between Toronto and Belleville on the north shore of Lake Ontario. They usually had very strong A-level teams at all ages and were almost always supported strongly by the townspeople.

  Part of the reason Cobourg was as strong as they were was because it was part of Quinte's AAA region, at the far west end of the area. A lot of talented Cobourg players, who were clearly good enough to play AAA for Quinte, didn't like the idea of driving all the way to Belleville or Madoc or wherever for AAA games and practices and instead decide to stay back and play the lower A level in Cobourg. So the Cougars usually had strong teams, whereas in Whitby, for example, the better players were generally playing at the highest level possible, either AAA or AA, not single A.

  As I said, this Cobourg team won a lot and some teams when they win a lot, well, let's just say some parents develop a strong personality to go with a strong team. They would probably call themselves supportive and passionate; I kind of thought a few of them were a tad obnoxious. They used to really give it to me when I was behind the bench and, for the most part, I just ignored them. It wasn't anything I hadn't heard before.

  Because Shawn was one of our most physical players-and he wasn't shy about getting involved that season-he attracted a lot of attention, on and off the ice. Over the years, Shawn didn't get verbally abused or centered out for being the son of the Hockey Insider nearly as much or as badly as Mike did.

  Because Shawn played at different levels against different kids from year to year and I had only just started coaching him, most people didn't even realize who Shawn was on the ice.

  Mike, though, took a pretty good beating almost from the get-go, because he played
AAA every year against a lot of the same teams and kids. Everyone knew who the kid with the glasses was. But that didn't mean Shawn didn't get some abuse, too and these Cobourg players and parents certainly knew who he was.

  Our playoff series with Cobourg was getting pretty heated.

  Their fans were worked up and that got our fans going. It was actually great A hockey, fast and physical. Shawn had crushed a few guys in the series and they were starting to key on him and really give it back. In one of the games at Iroquois Park, he got absolutely flattened in open ice, right in front of where the Cobourg parents were sitting. When he went down, they all jumped up and began cheering and banging on the glass as he slowly got back to his feet. Some of them were yelling across the rink and asking me if I liked that. I was ticked; I am not going to lie. But I kept my game face on, never reacted in the least and just tried to ignore it, although I was seething inside.

  We were giving a valiant effort in the series but Cobourg was too good. We weren't going to win this series. But that didn't mean I didn't get some personal satisfaction before it was over. The game was being played in Cobourg's wonderful old barn. The place was rocking pretty good. You just can't beat small-town hockey when the town gets behind one of its teams. A bunch of local teenage kids sat right behind our bench the whole game and banged on the glass and were really giving it to me and our kids. Keep in mind, this was minor peewee A hockey.

  Shawn took a penalty in the game and was in the box. While he was in there, I noticed two dads from the Cobourg team behind the penalty box and saw that they were jawing at Shawn while he was in there. I also noticed that at some point Shawn said something to them. Suddenly, one of the dads raced down to right behind the penalty box and started banging on the glass, cursing and swearing at Shawn for some reason. At that moment, Shawn's penalty expired and he skated to our bench. Here's how our conversation went: "What happened over there?"