Ask Dan Question & Answer

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Question #104:
Dan and Jay: I'm a good player, but I can't seem to make any of the travel teams I try out for. I can smoke some of the kids who are making the teams in pick-up hockey. I almost always get chosen first in make-up games over them. The kids know I'm better and I'm getting very discouraged and sick of the politics. How can I progress if I can't play travel? C.M.

Dan Replies:
From Jay: Assuming you are a better player and if you're not making the travel teams you're trying out for, it might be important for you to realize that sometimes travel organizations are formed so that parents can control who THEY hang out with. In a house league, everyone who signs up plays and teams are assigned by a draw of some kind. So if I'm a gangster and I sign up my kid to play and he plays on your team, your parents have to hang out with a gangster.

If I'm loud and obnoxious, your parents might get together with the other parents and say "We're all nice folks and we're sick of hanging around with that Bylsma thug. Let's form a travel team and if his kid tries out, he won't make it!" So even if my kid is a great player - he won't make that travel team.

What I'm trying to say is that there are a lot of reasons why some kids make a travel team and others don't. If my kid is a super star, a team whose parents want to win might be willing to put up with my being a gangster. But if the talent is about equal, the kid whose father is willing to sponsor the team may win out over the kid whose parents can't sponsor. The parents with a big van may win out over the kid whose parents have a VW bug. The kid whose parent is the mayor may win over the kid whose parents are Hell's Angels. Sometimes it doesn't have much to do with talent.

So what do you do? Work to become so good that they will want to take you even if your father is a Hell's Angel. And if you do get cut, go to the coach and don't ask him why you got cut, ask him what you need to do to make the team next season.

One last thing. Dan didn't play travel hockey until he was 14. I didn't let him play earlier because I didn't respect some of the parents of the kids who played (see - here it had nothing to do with Dan's talent), didn't like the coach, and I thought some of the kids who played weren't a good bunch for Dan to hang out with. In spite of that depravation Dan still made it to play college hockey and all the way to the NHL. If you spend the same amount of time practicing stickhandling and shooting that the travel team spends traveling, I guarantee you will have better skills in the end than if you made the travel team. No one improves their hockey skills traveling in a car OR BY PLAYING GAMES! You only have your stick on the puck for 30 seconds in a game. What do you learn in 30 seconds? How much do you improve in 30 seconds? Not very much if anything.

I hope this helps.

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