Dan Replies:
Dear K.M.: Great to hear you're a distributor for the books... thanks.
We'd decide the issue based on the make-up of the team. If the natural leader (and there usually is one - the one who is vocal in the locker room and someone who some, if not all, congregate around) is a good kid, with good values, we'd let the team vote. If the natural leader is someone whose influence is not as wholesome as it might be, we'd consider choosing.
If you do let the team vote, you and your assistant coaches are a part of the team and you should have a vote and tell the kids that. And if the vote goes in a way that might be detrimental to the team, you can cast the "deciding" vote.
Your overriding responsibility (as we might have said a time or two before) is to teach life lessons. This can be an outstanding opportunity to teach important life lessons. If you let them vote, stress the importance of their vote (as voting is in a free society) and not to take it likely. Have them think about what characteristics they admire in people and what they think it takes to be a leader. Who among them do they think could represent them to the coaching staff if there is a problem? What kind of a person does it take to speak confidently to an official? Does a gift or talent in one area (being able to put the puck in the net) necessarily coincide with the ability to lead, to speak well? We'd emphasize that important decisions are not to be made on the spur of the moment, so they should take a week, consult with their parents and vote next Saturday.
Regardless of how they are chosen, you can have an enormous impact on the players who are the "C" and "A". Help them to be leaders by showing them how to address officials and let them lead by allowing them make announcements to the team ("we're wearing home jerseys today"). I'd consider allowing them to be present at parents' meetings and some coaches meetings where other matters of importance to the team are decided. In other words, "coach them", and this in skills that may have far more of an impact on their lives than whether they learn to line up for a face-off correctly in the defensive zone.
Dan suggests that you consider rotate the "C" and the "A". That would give you the opportunity to "coach" a greater number of kids.
If this opportunity to teach life lessons is one you'd just as soon pass on, it doesn't matter who is chosen or how.
We hope this helps.
