Authors: Todd Millar
Moron (8 page)
When I talk to leaders these days, as part of my executive coaching work, I ask them about their upbringing playing in minor sports – in particular, hockey. They tell me things like, “Boy, I made so many great friends, and I had so many great memories, and so many tremendous things happened.” They remember traveling to hockey tournaments, going to team parties, and playing a sport with all of their best friends. These successful individuals honestly do not talk about the season they won all of the games, or scored the most goals, and they don’t bring up where they finished in the standings.
Ultimately, it’s about playing the game of hockey that I love, and that we all love. But we have to remember, especially at the Atom and Peewee level, it’s just a game, and it’s about children developing skills, talents, and relationships. If we can remember that, our kids will win after every game, regardless of the tally of “wins” and “losses.”
Chapter Five
T
he rules of minor hockey have evolved over time. Hockey Canada has been very conscientious of continually improving the game from a participant level as well as from a spectator level with respect to speed and excitement. For example, it used to be that the game was much more of a clutch-and-grab game – where people would grab onto you while you were skating by them. That started to be called “hooking” and was outlawed. Years ago, a stop sign was placed on the back of every minor hockey player’s jersey, and rule emphasis was placed on not hitting players from behind.
Recently, Hockey Canada has started to make several changes with regard to safety. One of those changes is that they have put in place a head contact rule. Previous to this rule change, players would receive a two-minute minor penalty, and a ten-minute misconduct penalty. At face value, that sounds significant – and it was. The real problem was that on-ice officials weren’t necessarily calling the penalty, because of how such an infraction could influence one player by taking him out of the game for ten minutes. What ended up happening is that, as a result, the hit-to-the-head call was not being called as often as it should have been. Two years ago, any direct contact to the helmet (or head) instead became a four-minute minor penalty, and accidental contact to the head was a two-minute minor penalty. If there was an injury as a result, the official could increase that to a major penalty. That rule has had more success than any single change in the last decade. The head is
not
in play. Great job, Hockey Canada!
Everything is in place to have a tremendously successful organization, and for children to have a fantastic and safe experience inside of minor hockey. But, at the end of the day, people have to follow and abide by the policies for the rules to function.
Ultimately, minor hockey is not about the rules – it’s about the kids having fun, learning life and leadership skills, and learning to exercise and socialize. But without proper rules and enforcement of those rules, the kids won’t have a safe environment to have fun within.
One example of a situation (where rules are necessary in order to keep the “fun” in hockey for kids) is in the regulation of so-called “elite” category. The idea behind this age category is to assemble Peewee, Bantam, and Midget athletes who are presumably the “best.” These children would arguably have the greatest chance to advance to amateur JR, post-secondary school careers, or even professional status.
An old practice in this category used to be to have a recruitment plan where you could invite certain excellent young players to a team and “stack the team.” Certain coaches would geographically move elite young athletes to their area. They would go and “recruit” young children to play for their particular community center so that they would have the best team. As a result of this practice, hockey Boards have had to develop rules that tell you when you can and cannot play in a particular community. Remember, this is minor hockey, and no Stanley Cup is on the line here. This is all just about children playing a game. But many adults take this way too seriously, to the detriment of their children.
I had many parents come in to me and ask if their child could move to a particular team, but that was simply not our policy. But, come hell or high water, those parents are going to find a way to move their child from one community to another. In several cases, people have even gone and purchased another house and claimed it to be their primary residence, so that their son could register for a certain hockey team. When we went back and checked a few of these, the family hadn’t actually moved to that house, and it was not their primary residence at all – they were renting it. But others purchased a home to “benefit” their son’s minor hockey “career.” What is wrong with this system?
Hockey Calgary is North America’s largest hockey association, with around 4,500 volunteers. They are all giving up a portion of their free time outside of their working careers, domestic chores and all other priorities in life. How much education have they received, and how effective is the organization in getting the correct information to those volunteers? How can we confront systemic problems with this many volunteers?
One word: education. When adults violate the rules, or when they teach young, impressionable players to break the rules, they are jeopardizing all of the children in our care. We need to have a better education process with our volunteers.
When we first earned our driver’s license, we had to pass a test. We had to go over a few hurdles in order to earn the right, and have the privilege to drive an automobile. Yet, when I think about volunteers, we just naturally assume that everyone gets it – there is no such test to earn the right to work with the kids in minor hockey. The organization takes it for granted that all individuals will go off and read the appropriate documents behind the scenes on their own, and they will be able to comprehend and put them to practice.
We will talk more about volunteers in later chapters, but suffice to say, there is no prerequisite for getting involved in minor hockey in a volunteer capacity, and there isn’t much required training. In fact, there’s no disciplined orientation program. We just take for granted that everyone is going to do the right thing. And what ends up happening is that most volunteers do a great job, but a significant, small minority of poor volunteers creates major systemic problems.
For the most part, kids are not the problem, because they understand the rules. When the whistle blows, the official will put little Johnny into the penalty box, and he’ll sit there for the next two minutes. However, coaches, spectators, parents, and others don’t feel the same relationship to the rules (coaches in particular). Let’s think back to the situation in the last chapter where a 35-year-old coach bullies a twelve-year-old referee. Section 9.2 of the Hockey Canada Rulebook has an entire section dedicated to abuse of officials by coaches. We all need to know the rules, and enforce them when it comes to adults, just as we enforce the rules on our young players during the course of the game.
As a spectator going to an NHL hockey game, you don’t have to know all the rules of the game. You can go and watch the puck fly, players fight one another, and join in with the crowd, cheering, jeering and so forth. But we hold a different responsibility when it comes to minor hockey.
It is our responsibility to spend some time with the rulebook. Imagine that you are learning a new card game, or studying to pass a driver’s test. Do you really know the rules of the game? Will you know when the coach, a spectator, or an official is breaking the rules?
What is acceptable, and what is not acceptable in terms of playing the game? If you want to be a good custodian of the game, and help our children develop socially and physically in a safe environment, get involved, get engaged, and most importantly, get educated. And when it comes to the rules, learn all of them. Take an active interest with the young hockey players, whether your own children or players in your charge.
Ignorance of the rules and regulations is a major problem. It causes many of the outbursts by people who think officials have made a bad call. It also creates many abrasive and difficult situations within and between teams when parents, coaches, and league officials haven’t read the rules. If you are going to play this game or participate at any level, read the rules. Not just the playing rules, but also the regulations; this is a membership-based sport, and there are regulations that pertain to membership – read them!
At the end of the day, what this all comes down to is, we’re talking about children from the ages of six to 18. They are on the ice to learn camaraderie, gain some skills, work with coaches, organizers, and officials in a respectful way, and ultimately, just have fun playing the incredible sport of hockey.
Chapter Six
T
he structure and hierarchy of hockey in Canada contains an interesting duality. One one hand, hockey is big business. On the other, the entire system of minor hockey in Canada is run by thousands of volunteers.
The game of hockey has come a long way from its beginning on small ponds of ice. It has in many ways been transformed into salaries and profits; just think of the recent lockout in the NHL.
Let’s be real about this, Hockey Canada makes money. I believe the reported revenue for the IIHF World Junior Tournament in Calgary was around $20 million dollars. This is a big money-making machine.
All the branches in the minor hockey system have plenty of infrastructure, and each generates huge amounts of cash. The strange thing is, the local minor hockey associations and community clubs are run by volunteers. They
don't
make money. (Or, I should say, they
shouldn’t
make money. I am aware of some of these organizations sitting on large excess pools of cash; running huge surpluses every year.)
The entire system is a very large machine that is making some serious errors because certain parts of the structure are generating excess revenues, while others are barely getting by, and relying on the service of dedicated volunteers (who are not being compensated at all).
So, we have got this big machine called Hockey Canada. They have this massive rulebook for us to follow, and then we also have branches found in each province of Canada that sit between Hockey Canada and local minor hockey associations. And then we have the leagues that fit into this mess. The provincial branches have a rulebook. The local minor hockey associations have a rulebook. The leagues all have rulebooks. All of these rules are presumably followed with the help of a few paid staff members and a veritable army of volunteers. So with all these rules, and all these regulations, my goodness, why the heck do we have a problem?
Well, the core problem inside of the whole discussion is that we have volunteer-based organizations spread across North America, where every single one of these communities have dedicated volunteers that are trying their best and are armed with the right tools. But they are not given the right orientation, and they are not educated in terms of what exactly the rules and regulations are, and they are by and large left to “just do the best you can.” And “the best you can” creates a pile of problems for the organization and the kids.
I don’t want this to come across as if I’m beating up on volunteerism. I’m a big advocate of volunteerism. The issue is that, inside the structure that minor hockey has created, the machine demands a great deal of energy from volunteers, yet the machine does not provide all the guiding principles, orientation, and education that the volunteers need. In other words, the system is flawed from the top down.
A bunch of employees with Hockey Canada are putting great policies in place, but the struggle is that ten percent is the idea, and 90% is the execution of that idea. In this case, not spending enough time with the volunteers is the problem: making sure you have the right volunteers, that they are motivated by the right behaviours, and that they are doing the right jobs. For example, there should be employees (not volunteers) doing important systemic jobs, such as scheduling ice time. At present, volunteers run the majority of the system that operates all aspects of the day-to-day operations as best they can, based on the rules set up by the structure, and as you travel across the structure, there is no consistency. Those with certain skills get more organized than those who do not have those same skills.
Many of the decisions as to how things operate are left up to the direction of volunteers, which inherently can never work as efficiently as when paid staff take care of infrastructure. Additionally, efficiencies are lacking in many areas due to lack of knowledge: volunteers have great intentions, but a lack of knowledge as to how to execute.
I realize that increasing the number of paid roles would increase the cost of the game if there were incremental increases. However, I’m suggesting a complete review and redeployment of roles and responsibilities. In other words, Hockey Canada and branches alike would take more roles and control of critical aspects of their operation, and appropriately reallocate roles managed by volunteers more effectively and efficiently. The general theme is that more volunteers should do less work, while paid infrastructure staff should handle all mission-critical responsibilities.
My goal is not to bad-mouth Hockey Canada or the structure at large. It’s a widely successful organization, and has done incredible things for the game of hockey. It would be great if solutions would come from the top down, and specifically, a major overhaul of roles, responsibilities, and infrastructure, but it’s probably not going to happen anytime soon. The game started from grassroots, and the core successes have resulted from the great and selfless service of volunteers. And the machinery of minor hockey
does
listen to the masses. Changes need to come both from the bottom up and the top down.
From the bottom up, if we educate our volunteers properly, and work hard to adhere to the rules that Hockey Canada has put in place, the game will be healthy for years to come. The irony is that the rules and regulations are already all in place.
From the top down, the game needs to be protected by structure. The top structure and general infrastructure is there, but there needs to be a corporate identity threaded throughout the system. We have top-notch professionals running the top end, but we have misguided, misinformed, and in some cases ill-equipped volunteers at the bottom end.
It's time for a reallocation of funding and an implementation of greater control throughout the system. I'm not suggesting the elimination of the volunteer. That would be ridiculous, and not a viable option. But those volunteers need to be more disciplined and controlled. If we don't make that change, we will not gain full awareness of the pockets of incompetence and deceit. The problem is at the grassroots, local level, and the solution is to allow top down to gain greater influence and impact. The top is where the expertise and money is. They already set the rules of the game. Let them implement more of the management before its too late. Along with the bottom up changes, educating our volunteers and rooting out corruption, we will be able to make minor hockey in Canada a viable, long-term, safe, sustainable, and healthy pastime.