Dan Replies:
From Jay - Dear G.B.: My rules were to play the lines equally - equal time whether it was even strength, Power Play or Penalty Kill - right down to Line 1 starts the first period, Line 2 the second, etc. until the last five minutes... then the game was mine. If the game was close, my best guys played, if we were comfortably ahead, the other guys finished out the game.
I took great comfort in the fact that the kids endorsed the system to the last man and to the last tick of the clock down to 5:00 in the third when the worst of them would shout "Get a whistle, get a whistle" so I could put the good guys in to try to win it for us. The guys who didn't play if we were comfortably ahead took that as a badge of honor.
If I ever did get a complaint it was something like, "You know we could have won the game if you put the good guys (read that Dan) out on the powerplays." I would answer, "You are probably right, but this program is not about winning, it's about teaching life lessons and we still win our fair share of the games and everyone has an equal opportunity to contribute. If I play the good kids more, they will get better at the expense of the ice time of the poorer kids. Where's the fairness in that?"
As to handling obnoxious parents, every season I would communicate with the parents. The letter or the talk would include these points: 1) that they had their kids for the whole week... I had them for 3-4 hours. When they had their kids they had the privilege to scream at them, belittle them, mock their friends, abuse policemen in their hearing, and berate their teachers. But during these 3-4 four hours, they entrusted their children to me. I was only one with privileges.
And 2) because I thought that the reason their kids played sports was to teach them the highest ideals of sportsmanship, I would do my best to model that ideal out and I would not tolerate anyone undermining those lessons with unacceptable behavior in my hearing. The first warning would be a look, the second would be a friendly word, the third step would be... well I wouldn't allow their presence to poison what sports attempts to accomplish for other people's children.
Perhaps this "worked" because I never had any players with obnoxious parents; perhaps I didn't have to deal with any obnoxious parents because this worked.
