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Travels of a Hockey Coach, Part 5

Part 5

Cam: I've seen players who play the game who aren't necessarily strong students or strong individuals, but as they start to continue to play they develop an understanding of camaraderie, of team work, of responsibility, of work ethic, of attitude - those things that are required in a successful hockey team. What they do is that they bring that to the other side of the table so to speak, which is a life skill, and as you know, when you go through life and you are aspiring to be whatever you want to be, those are the kind of things that are necessary to be successful.

I've seen it happen in hockey. I've seen it happen in other types of endeavors, whether it be music, whether it be a job, hobby, whatever it may be. As soon as they find something that they enjoy doing as a 15, 16, 17 year old individual, the passion takes over, and the interest, and the understanding, and of course all the things that go with that are developed and again, hopefully, to become successful citizens in our society. Steve: You know you made an interesting point, which again relates to some of the things we say in our language system. Sometimes a boy will start in hockey and may not be that enthusiastic, but if they can get some positive returns from it - the camaraderie which you mentioned, or some success, or the satisfaction of having accepted some discipline and having stuck with it, tends to reinforce that desire to continue.

And I think the same is true with language learning where people sometimes, maybe they are not that interested or they are not that confident that they can do it. If they give themselves half a chance and if they start to do well, that will kind of reinforce that commitment, and so that the passion will grow as they do it. I would like to ask Mark whether you, in growing up, the people you played with, and yourself, do you think, that the hockey experience the teamwork, the other qualities that Cam referred to, do you think that you and some of your other, you know, teammates took those kinds of things from hockey, and were able to apply it in their other activities?

Mark: Yeah, I mean, if I think back to guys that I played with as a kid, say in high school, a lot of those guys would have stopped playing probably at the end of high school and you know a lot of those guys I haven't kept in contact with and I can't really speak about. But guys that went on to play, like guys that I played with at university, or guys that I played with after, certainly the guys that I play with at university, having graduated with a Yale degree.that was.

Many of them then went on to work in New York in the major financial services companies and so on there in New York. That was one of the things that those companies were looking for. that was one of things. not just that their new recruits were university graduates or even from Ivy League schools, but one of the things they were looking for was, or one of the things that attracted them to these people, was the fact that they had played sports. And I know that that's one of the things that recruiters do look for is that ability to work as a team. They know these guys have the ability to work in a team. They have the discipline to see things through, I guess, many of the skills that we're talking about here. Steve: Well, I think that's probably a good note to end on. Maybe this whole idea of teamwork, I mean, in the modern world and probably in the days of the caveman - there's only so many things you can do on your own. You need everyone's help. You need people to be pulling in the same direction. So, you need cooperation, even as you're competing. You're competing against the forces of nature. You're competing against another team. You're competing in the marketplace against another company. But you're never doing it alone. Typically, you're doing it with your co-workers and so forth. So, I think that hockey, or I guess any team sport, can be quite a school for developing those kinds of qualities. So, let me ask you, Cam, how? what kind of continuing involvement, other than our team that we play on, which we'll be playing on for another thirty years until we can't walk, but what sorts of continuing involvements do you see for yourself in the hockey world? Cam: Well, presently I am owner/operator of five hockey skills academies and this evolved from the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, which I was able to see a number of games and was disillusioned and unhappy with Canada's performance. A number of people went back to Toronto and?the year later. and discussed what went wrong with our team. And we do this in Canada every twenty years or so to find out what it is we are doing wrong, how can we get back on top, etcetera.

The idea of a skills academy evolved out of the recommendations and it was allowing ice time that was sitting free during the day and schools to marry. With the partnership of the minor hockey association, the school board, the school itself, and the hockey group, whatever that might be, to merge into a skills academy and to teach kids skills because this was one of the recommendations that Hockey Canada and the rest of the organizations around the game felt that we needed to improve as a country and as a national team. And so our mandate in these academies are (sic) to teach and to create opportunities for kids to develop their skills, and so we're doing this. We started off in a pilot project about six years ago.

Five years ago, with Bjorn Kending and Dave King out of Alberta, and it has grown from there to over forty-four schools in the country and it seems to grow exponentially every year. We started off with our first academy three years ago and they had something like twelve or fourteen at that time all across Canada. At our last meeting in Calgary last summer, we had forty-four. So, you can start to see the growth and the understanding and the ability for people to look at this as a viable option. Kids get credit for PE, it's their PE class - physical education. They are able to create a multi-grade level program and our understanding in discussing this with a number of the kids over the course of the last two or three years that the kids love it. The kids love it.

Steve: Well, that's great. So, it looks like our future - Canada's future as a hockey power. We might be hopefully able to maintain some of the success. We haven't always had success, and I guess we'll finish off with Mark. I mean when Mark was five years old we were out on the ice and passing the puck around and now he has got his five year old out, six year old out. So, it's third generation. So, do you feel you'll get involved in youngsters' hockey as a coach and that kind of thing? Mark: Well, I am already coaching my son's team. Yeah, he is six. At the time that you're referring to when we were out on the ice I think I was eight, but close enough. For sure, I mean. it's fun to not only coach my son but just to coach all the kids and give back a lot of the things that I would have received by people like Cam, for instance, in my career growing up. Getting back to the issue of Canadian hockey and how we can improve our skill level.

There are a lot of Canadian hockey players who have played professionally. In the past those people weren't necessarily involved in minor hockey. It seems like now there's more of an effort to try and get more qualified coaches involved rather than just somebody's father. As for myself, I'm certainly more than willing to do my part there. I think that's a good sign and a good direction for minor hockey because I know in most other countries where I've been, certainly anybody coaching hockey is someone qualified ?is actually paid more often than not. That has not been the case in Canada. Partly because of the sheer numbers of players that we do have. But the direction now is to have more qualified coaches at all levels and I think that's a good thing. Steve: Well, we've sort of indulged in talking about Canada's favorite pastime. I'm sure if we were Brazilians or, I don't know, Italians we would have been talking about soccer football - or British, for that matter. I want to thank you both. It's been very, very interesting. Thank you Cam: My pleasure. Mark: Mine, also.

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Part 5

Cam: I've seen players who play the game who aren't necessarily strong students or strong individuals, but as they start to continue to play they develop an understanding of camaraderie, of team work, of responsibility, of work ethic, of attitude - those things that are required in a successful hockey team. What they do is that they bring that to the other side of the table so to speak, which is a life skill, and as you know, when you go through life and you are aspiring to be whatever you want to be, those are the kind of things that are necessary to be successful.

I've seen it happen in hockey. I've seen it happen in other types of endeavors, whether it be music, whether it be a job, hobby, whatever it may be. As soon as they find something that they enjoy doing as a 15, 16, 17 year old individual, the passion takes over, and the interest, and the understanding, and of course all the things that go with that are developed and again, hopefully, to become successful citizens in our society. Steve: You know you made an interesting point, which again relates to some of the things we say in our language system. Sometimes a boy will start in hockey and may not be that enthusiastic, but if they can get some positive returns from it - the camaraderie which you mentioned, or some success, or the satisfaction of having accepted some discipline and having stuck with it, tends to reinforce that desire to continue.

And I think the same is true with language learning where people sometimes, maybe they are not that interested or they are not that confident that they can do it. If they give themselves half a chance and if they start to do well, that will kind of reinforce that commitment, and so that the passion will grow as they do it. I would like to ask Mark whether you, in growing up, the people you played with, and yourself, do you think, that the hockey experience the teamwork, the other qualities that Cam referred to, do you think that you and some of your other, you know, teammates took those kinds of things from hockey, and were able to apply it in their other activities?

Mark: Yeah, I mean, if I think back to guys that I played with as a kid, say in high school, a lot of those guys would have stopped playing probably at the end of high school and you know a lot of those guys I haven't kept in contact with and I can't really speak about. But guys that went on to play, like guys that I played with at university, or guys that I played with after, certainly the guys that I play with at university, having graduated with a Yale degree.that was.

Many of them then went on to work in New York in the major financial services companies and so on there in New York. That was one of the things that those companies were looking for. that was one of things. not just that their new recruits were university graduates or even from Ivy League schools, but one of the things they were looking for was, or one of the things that attracted them to these people, was the fact that they had played sports. And I know that that's one of the things that recruiters do look for is that ability to work as a team. They know these guys have the ability to work in a team. They have the discipline to see things through, I guess, many of the skills that we're talking about here. Steve: Well, I think that's probably a good note to end on. Maybe this whole idea of teamwork, I mean, in the modern world and probably in the days of the caveman - there's only so many things you can do on your own. You need everyone's help. You need people to be pulling in the same direction. So, you need cooperation, even as you're competing. You're competing against the forces of nature. You're competing against another team. You're competing in the marketplace against another company. But you're never doing it alone. Typically, you're doing it with your co-workers and so forth. So, I think that hockey, or I guess any team sport, can be quite a school for developing those kinds of qualities. So, let me ask you, Cam, how? what kind of continuing involvement, other than our team that we play on, which we'll be playing on for another thirty years until we can't walk, but what sorts of continuing involvements do you see for yourself in the hockey world? Cam: Well, presently I am owner/operator of five hockey skills academies and this evolved from the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, which I was able to see a number of games and was disillusioned and unhappy with Canada's performance. A number of people went back to Toronto and?the year later. and discussed what went wrong with our team. And we do this in Canada every twenty years or so to find out what it is we are doing wrong, how can we get back on top, etcetera.

The idea of a skills academy evolved out of the recommendations and it was allowing ice time that was sitting free during the day and schools to marry. With the partnership of the minor hockey association, the school board, the school itself, and the hockey group, whatever that might be, to merge into a skills academy and to teach kids skills because this was one of the recommendations that Hockey Canada and the rest of the organizations around the game felt that we needed to improve as a country and as a national team. And so our mandate in these academies are (sic) to teach and to create opportunities for kids to develop their skills, and so we're doing this. We started off in a pilot project about six years ago.

Five years ago, with Bjorn Kending and Dave King out of Alberta, and it has grown from there to over forty-four schools in the country and it seems to grow exponentially every year. We started off with our first academy three years ago and they had something like twelve or fourteen at that time all across Canada. At our last meeting in Calgary last summer, we had forty-four. So, you can start to see the growth and the understanding and the ability for people to look at this as a viable option. Kids get credit for PE, it's their PE class - physical education. They are able to create a multi-grade level program and our understanding in discussing this with a number of the kids over the course of the last two or three years that the kids love it. The kids love it.

Steve: Well, that's great. So, it looks like our future - Canada's future as a hockey power. We might be hopefully able to maintain some of the success. We haven't always had success, and I guess we'll finish off with Mark. I mean when Mark was five years old we were out on the ice and passing the puck around and now he has got his five year old out, six year old out. So, it's third generation. So, do you feel you'll get involved in youngsters' hockey as a coach and that kind of thing? Mark: Well, I am already coaching my son's team. Yeah, he is six. At the time that you're referring to when we were out on the ice I think I was eight, but close enough. For sure, I mean. it's fun to not only coach my son but just to coach all the kids and give back a lot of the things that I would have received by people like Cam, for instance, in my career growing up. Getting back to the issue of Canadian hockey and how we can improve our skill level.

There are a lot of Canadian hockey players who have played professionally. In the past those people weren't necessarily involved in minor hockey. It seems like now there's more of an effort to try and get more qualified coaches involved rather than just somebody's father. As for myself, I'm certainly more than willing to do my part there. I think that's a good sign and a good direction for minor hockey because I know in most other countries where I've been, certainly anybody coaching hockey is someone qualified ?is actually paid more often than not. That has not been the case in Canada. Partly because of the sheer numbers of players that we do have. But the direction now is to have more qualified coaches at all levels and I think that's a good thing. Steve: Well, we've sort of indulged in talking about Canada's favorite pastime. I'm sure if we were Brazilians or, I don't know, Italians we would have been talking about soccer football - or British, for that matter. I want to thank you both. It's been very, very interesting. Thank you Cam: My pleasure. Mark: Mine, also.