Hi all – this post is not about money or economics at all. It’s about something far, far more important – Gold Mike (U8) hockey.
My son is playing in the Gold Mites level. I was lucky I had some free time (yeah – lots of free time!) and was able coach his hockey team this year.
We started off with a bunch of terrible hurdles. First, the draft for the team left us as far, far weaker than the other team in our town. Several of our players were extremely poor skaters. Then, 3 weeks after the draft, the player I had drafted first – by far our best player – left the team to go play for a more advanced program. All of a sudden a bad team was a terrible team. I had never played or coached hockey before, so I didn’t really have much knowledge on what to do in practice.
The team started off as one of the worst teams in the league. We won only 1 of our 6 games preseason games. Many times our kids were in tears after the games – they are only 7-8-9 years old so these losses hurt. And we were getting smoked in game after game after game.
We were fortunate enough to have what appears to be the best 8 year old goalie on the planet. The little dude can stand on his head. One game he stopped 29 shots on goal. We lost that game 3-0, because we only had 2 shots on goal for the whole game. Even his awesomeness ended up working against us in the beginning, because we were seeded in a higher division due to our single win and low goals against. We lost our first 6 games in the regular season, for a total of 1-11 to start the year.
I a huge proponent of maximum effort. Trying, getting a little bit better, doing things wrong instead of not doing anything – the kids probably thought I was crazy for praising them for trying so hard when we were getting killed in games.
If you raise kids, or want to simply be better at things yourself, YOU MUST READ THIS ARTICLE. My kids are thriving in school due to praising for effort and not good work or intelligence. I used this with the kids on the team a bunch during this season.
After the holidays, things started turning around a little bit. We scored a few goals, which was a big deal for us. We started playing in the opposing teams zone far more frequently, even when we were losing.
Then, something happened for the playoffs. I don’t know what happened or why, but the team got much better as soon as the playoffs started. It’s like they learned everything we tried working with the kids all year in the last 2 weeks of the year. We won our first two games of the playoffs, which was the first time we won two games in a row. We then tied a team which had beaten us by 5 and 6 goals in the regular season. We lost our last game of the playoffs 5-2 – which put us in a tie for 2nd place in the playoffs.
We made it into the finals by winning a tiebreaker rule for the most goals scored! This was a team which only scored 5 goals during the first 10 games.
So we made it to the finals – where we played the team which beat us 5-2 in the game just before. This team had beaten us 2 times during the regular season, plus the 5-2 loss they handed us in the playoffs. Now, I felt we had “won” that last game in lots of ways – we controlled the puck for more time, had more shots, dominated with passing and played great all around. But we lost 5-2. It’s like that in hockey sometimes.
So, we play them in the championship game. I gave the kids a speech straight out of “Miracle” on this one. Told them we had beaten them the game before, but the score didn’t show it. That the way to win the game was to win your shift, win the puck battles. Go after the puck and be aggressive, play your position (which is very, very hard for 8 year olds).
The game was scoreless until 1:23 to go in the third period. Yep, the championship game was 0-0 for over 30 minutes (11 minute periods for the 8 year olds). It was an awesome game – our goalie blocked a penalty shot, there were tons of shots and great defensive plays.
Then, one of our defense passed the puck out of the corner to his twin brother who was standing in front of the goal, and he just shot it in!
1:23 later, the game is over. We won!
So Congratulations to the Oak Park Huskies Gold Mites 1 team! You should be proud of your hard work.
What a great story. One of the highlights of my undistinguished athletic career was coaching my son’s first grade baseball team which happened to be at the same school where I attended first grade after being away from the neighborhood for over 25 years.
I like baseball but never played the game, but I was roped by the principal into being an assistant coach. Problem: there was no coach–and no other assistant coach. This was in a wealthy neighborhood where, BION, parents actually hired coaches for first grade teams, and some of the opposing players looked like third graders.
Most of my team had never played the game, but we had one outstanding player who had a glove passed down from his father through three older brothers. If he could get close to a ball he could catch it, and the boys called it Tex’s Magic Glove.
Against all odds we went undefeated to the championship game. And Tex’s mother shows up without the damn glove. Tex dropped two balls in the field but we went into the bottom of the final inning 1 run up. Our opponts proceeded to load the bases with one out when Tex’s mom shows up with the glove. On the next pitch Tex catches a fly ball and nails a runner who had drifted off base.
Awesome! I loved playing sports but coaching is even more fun. There is nothing like helping the kids. I already miss the team. there are the stars and the kids who cannot play at all, but they all have fun. It’s a remarkable experience. I just emphasize trying and effort – I figure the kids will get that out of it for the future.
Michael
Thanks for sharing a great story. You have set a great example for those young men , which believe me they will carry with them the rest of their lives.
Congratulations to the Oak Park Huskies Gold Mites 1 team, and their coach Michael Sankowski. You deserve a at·ta·boy too.
My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard.
Mother would come out and say, “You’re tearing up the grass.”
“We’re not raising grass,” Dad would reply. “We’re raising boys.”
-Harmon Killebrew
“We’re not raising grass, we’re raising boys!” That’s awesome.
“His twin brother who was standing in front of the goal, and he just shot it in”
Clearly, a “skate to where the puck is going” kind of guy
Well done, coach
Thanks. We worked so hard on the “get the puck out of the corner and center it in front of the net when we are in their zone” and they just couldn’t get it. It was terrible. Kids were clumping up in the corner, and there would be nobody infront of the net, or they would forget and try to skate it closer to the net.
The kids are so dang young, and hockey is such a fluid sport. It’s not like baseball where you have your position, or even basketball where you play 1 on 1 with another player.
Heck, yesterday, we had two kids who waited with the puck outside the blue line for some kids to get out of the zone so they could dump it in. I don’t even know where they learned that – we never even tried to teach them. They know offsides and just put it together themselves.
How ’bout those Blackhhawks? What a bunch of losers after the other night, huh?
6 games in 9 days, playing in the mile high stadium. I am glad they lost – now they don’t have the pressure of the streak. They will win the Cup. That’s all everyone here talks about – the cup.
Michael, that’s an excellent story. Hockey is absolutely a team game. You can have all the individual stars in the world, but that won’t guarantee success as the NY Rangers proved in the days before the salary cap. My Ottawa Senators are also hanging in there this season despite missing their three superstars. Bottom line is that in a team game like hockey, the coach is the key. So you deserve a ton of credit for your team’s success.
But I fear your Blackhawks may have peaked too early
Fell good story of the day.. Congrats.
Feel
Great story Mike!
Been out of town for a week and only had my Ipad which I hate typing with (too many n’s end up in the place where spaces belong and it takes me 3x as long to make a comment) but Ive been reading my usual sites
There is nothing that can replace the opportunity to do what you did with your son and those kids. They will remember Coach Mike forever.
I didnt win championships but I did have the opportunity to take kids who started with almost zero baseball skills to competitive records and wins over heavily favored opponents. They and their parents still remember it 15 years later. The only rule my assistant and I had was “No kid is gonna hate baseball after this year” If an 8 year old decides he doesnt want to try baseball (or any sport) again because of the coach, he (the coach)was a failure
Teach them a few basics, put them in situations where they have to stay involved (it was a pitching machine league and I would put every kid on the “mound” for a few innings….. the fear of a ball up the middle heightens your senses when you are 45 ft away) and its amazing what they are able to learn. Putting the worst kid in rightfield all the time is the worst coaching strategy ever. He gets bored and every ball to right field becomes an inside the park homerun.
Thanks for the change of pace and congratulations!
great work
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