Volume 3, Issue 6 - February, 2003

 "From the Right Wing…"

ANAHEIM MIGHTY DUCKS  #21

Dan Bylsma’s Newsletter --- A Feature of West Michigan Hockey Camp, Inc.

(Printer Friendly Version)

TThis month's issue contains:

 DAN'S TIP OF THE MONTH   THIS MONTH'S QUESTION   TRUST FUND AUCTION   TIPS FROM HOCKEY CAMP   DAN'S HONOR ROLL

  COACH'S TIP   THE SAYING OF THE MONTH   DAN TRIP IN THE NHL   DAN & JAY'S BOOKS   A WAY TO SUBSCRIBE

JAY’S TIP OF THE MONTH FOR PLAYERS…

I'm writing to you this month after I spent four days on a very special trip.  The Mighty Ducks took the players' fathers on a road trip.  It was very exciting to spend that time on the road with Dan and the team.  You can read more about it in the last article of this newsletter. 

This trip gave me the opportunity to become better acquainted with some of the players, but also meet their fathers.  Every father shared their story about their son's journey to the NHL and their tales were similar to Dan's - some worth repeating to you.

Adam Oates' father said Adam was about to give up on hockey after high school.  No Major Jr. team wanted him, but just about the time Adam thought he needed to start looking for a real job, R.P.I. called and invited Adam to attend and play college hockey for them.  Mr. Oates' words were, "I thank God every day for R.P.I. or Adam would have never played in the NHL."  The point of the story is that all the best minds of Major Jr. A, and all but one college, didn't think Adam Oates had any potential.  And he wasn't drafted by any NHL team either!  While I was in Anaheim, Adam passed Gordie Howe's assist record while I was in Anaheim and is destined to be in the Hall of Fame.

Jason Krog's father said that Jason was cut from his area's Major Jr. A team, and then from the local Jr. B team.  A coach in the area thought there should be a second Jr. B team, formed one, and invited Jason to try out.  Four of the five evaluators voted to cut Jason, but the coach insisted he make the team.  He was the Jr. B Player of the Year that year, went on to play for New Hampshire, and become the 1998-1999 Hobey Baker winner as the best college hockey player.

Other fathers told similar stories about Kurt Sauer, Kevin Sawyer, J.S. Giguire...

I've written before that Dan's coaches didn't believe Dan was good enough to play college hockey and his Jr. and college coaches (and his father) didn't believe he would play a game in the NHL.

The father of Matt Moulson - the young man who accepted a scholarship to Cornell and of whom we've written before - wrote me this week.  Matt has been named ECHA Rookie of the Week and more recently, NCAA Player of the Week and his father writes, "The Big Red finished with a perfect home record and are now #2 in the polls.  The Big Red rink has been packed every night with the Lynah Faithful - 3,800 of the greatest, most enthusiastic fans in hockey. His goaltender tied the school record for most shutouts, set by Ken Dryden 30 years ago.  Just an amazing season.  I still have to shake my head.  It's hard to believe three years ago five Midget AAA teams in Toronto didn't want him."

We think these stories are important because too many of you are told you aren't good enough to make this team or that or that you aren't skilled enough to play on the power play or in the third period in close games.  Supposedly knowledgeable coaches told that to Adam, Jason, Kurt, Kevin, Dan, Matt and many others too numerous to mention. 

We have a saying that we put on the bottom of every newsletter:

It takes three things to succeed: talent, hard work, and perseverance.  And the greatest of these is not talent.  

I think the reason these very successful players were told they weren't good enough is because their coaches and the scouts couldn't see the work ethic and the perseverance these players had.  Those characteristics are not visible - they're on the inside - they're part of your character.  Coaches can only see the talent... the least important ingredient to success.  And frankly, some coaches (like myself) and scouts make mistakes in judging talent. 

The lesson I want you to take away from my road trip with the Mighty Ducks is that you should not allow other people's poor or inadequate judgment detract you from your goals - in hockey or in life.

Mark Twain said, "Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions.  Small people always do that, but the really great ones make you feel that you, too, can become great."

Adam, Jason, Dan, and the rest are poster boys for every kid who's been told he isn't good enough.

THIS MONTH'S BEST QUESTION ON THE WEB SITE…

Dear Dan and Jay: We play for a AAA Bantam travel team and regret allowing this "coach" to influence our son. Aside from the coach's favoritism to play the talented players the most and his nephew who is a house player taking others’ ice time, my son (not in the top six players) is now being harassed by players on the team - we suspect they're following the coach's precedent of disrespecting him.

There have been disturbing incidents, including verbal abuse, exclusion, and impractical jokes, which have been brought to the GM's attention and dealt with a "boys will be boys" attitude for fear his son will be black-balled as well. Would you quit this team so late in the season on principle (and not having much fun riding the bench or in the locker room) or stick it out? Frustrated Father

 

Dear F.F.: February seems to be the time of the year for this question and my father tells me we've received over twenty Emails expressing variations on the same concern. The simple answer would be - by all means don’t play for this coach again – even though next year your player might gain favorite status and be one of the players who plays two-thirds of the game. That solves your problem but not the problem for one third of the kids who will play for this coach in succeeding years.

A more pro-active approach would be to work to have the coaching philosophy typified by this coach banned from your association. Toward that end, there is beginning to be ever more ammunition to aid you in that goal: the five year results of Fair Play in Nova Scotia, the Peterborough Pete Squirt AAA team coached by Steve Larmer and Greg Millen, the book "Whose Puck is it Anyway", our IT PAYS program, the statistic that 80% of the kids quit the sport by age 13 (among the reasons are that they were treated unfairly), etc. Making this change would make a significant contribution to all the kids in your program.

It has been said that experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first and then the lesson. The lesson here is that tryouts are not to see if your player is skilled enough to play for this or that coach, it’s to see if this coach is good enough to entrust your player. And good is used here meaning the opposite of words like ill advised, inappropriate, self-serving, self-aggrandizing, egotistical, and even evil. And while the "player tryout” happens once for the whole season, the coach’s tryout happens every practice, every game. Just like a coach wouldn’t think twice about cutting a player who is not skilled enough, a parent shouldn’t think twice about cutting a coach who isn’t good enough.

Over the years, it has been my experience and that of others whose opinion I respect that coaches that are playing their own kids disproportionately to their ability and berating others are generally coaches who do not understand the game from either a tactical or skill development perspective.  To top it off, what little they do know they have trouble teaching.  If your player doesn't play for them he isn't missing anything but the experience of learning from a bad example.

If you knew about this coach’s philosophy but thought your son was skilled enough to be one of the favored players and now are upset that the coach didn’t see it your way, shame on you. If you didn’t know about this coach’s philosophy, also shame on you for entrusting your player to a coach without checking out his background and philosophy. And further shame on you for waiting this long to take action. Our guess is you wouldn’t have stood by for this long while your player’s school teacher allowed him to participate in only one third of the instruction or allow the other students to disrespect him, and for our money, hockey is well below education on the list of activities which we think are important opportunities for our children.

The lesson here is to understand what tryouts are. Not many parents understand them; not many coaches do either. Garry Galley (1147 games in the NHL) pulled his kids from a team with a coach like the one you describe. I wouldn’t let my son play for this coach; my father wouldn’t have let me play for him either.

There are only three reasons to have your child play youth sports: to have fun, to develop his athleticism, and to learn positive life lessons. We think this program provides none of these three and we’d be out of there.

*****

Another question I've been getting is "How's your knee/head injury?"  First, to my knowledge I don't have a head injury, but as my father says, "Who can tell with a hockey player?"  I know the head injury was reported on the news services, but they were misinformed. 

Regarding my knee.  Actually, before the All Star break I was skating on one leg for more than a few games.  There is inflammation, fluid, and perhaps some floating cartilage and  certainly a lot of discomfort. While I inherited considerable pain tolerance from my mother, this has been severe.  So I'm working on strengthening my knee muscles (which isn't much fun) and skating every other day.  Today was the first day that I could say the discomfort was tolerable.  If I can say that again tomorrow I will be able to report progress.  I'm hoping to get back into the line up when the Ducks return to Anaheim March 2nd.  I don't want to miss the playoffs - they haven't been a regular feature of my career. 

In the meantime, I'm enjoying doing color commentary for Steve Carroll, the Ducks' radio announcer.  I'm not sure how colorful I am but I'm keeping my career options open because there's life after hockey for all of us.  You can hear #21 yapping by going to the Ducks' web site and clicking on the radio link anytime and get the last game or at NHL.com, then the Ducks' radio link at game time.  Sometimes I only do the second and third period. 

Thanks for all your messages of care and concern.  They are appreciated.

Dan Bylsma

MY CHARITABLE TRUST FUND...

There is no auction this month...

DAN'S TIP OF THE MONTH   THIS MONTH'S QUESTION   TRUST FUND AUCTION   TIPS FROM HOCKEY CAMP   DAN'S HONOR ROLL

  COACH'S TIP   THE SAYING OF THE MONTH   DAN TRIP IN THE NHL   DAN & JAY'S BOOKS   A WAY TO SUBSCRIBE

NOTES FROM DAN'S HOCKEY CAMP...

(We reprint this article that first appeared in the Newsletter in 2001 because our subscription list continues to grow and it's the time when some of you are thinking about summer hockey camps).

This may seem a bit early to think about summer hockey camp, but my father tells me mine is already nearly full.  There are nearly 600,000 kids playing youth hockey in the US and I have room for only 100 kids in my camp so that leaves a lot of you wondering if you should send your player to a summer hockey camp, and if so, whose camp should you consider. 

Why send your player to a hockey camp?  An important consideration is the skill level and teaching ability of your player’s present coach.  If the coach was like my father, he was a great coach, but he didn’t know from sic’em about skating fundamentals.  So he sent me to summer hockey camp to learn the things he couldn’t teach me.  If, on the other hand your son or daughter plays for a coach who knows skating fundamentals and knows how to teach them, you will have different considerations than my father had for sending me to camp.

I like to think of a good camp as one that functions like a doctor’s office for players.  If your child isn’t feeling good, you might try home remedies or over-the-counter medicines, but if the malaise persists, you would take him to the doctor for a check up.  A good camp should be able to review the player’s skating technique and prescribe a remedy to help the player correct or improve his technique.

I also think summer hockey camp can be a great carrot to elicit desired behavior.  Your player’s opinions to the contrary, there’s no constitutional right to go to summer hockey camp.  It should be a reward for good citizenship.  Better study habits, personal housekeeping improvements, diligent attention to assigned family chores, and perhaps earning some of the cost are things that can be made a condition for shelling out the big dollars for summer hockey camp.  (In case you kids are reading this, believe me when I tell you that these were all conditions for my parents to allow my brothers and I to have the privilege to go to a summer hockey camp.) 

One of the reasons my parents sent my brothers and I to summer hockey camp had nothing to do with hockey.  They thought it was important for their kids to attend college.  So they sent us to hockey camps at colleges so we could see what it was like to be on a college campus, be in a college environment, and live in a dorm.  It was one of their tricks to influence us.  It worked because we all thought it was our decision to go to college – it never occurred to us that they had anything to do with our decision.

What camp should you consider?

A camp that promises two things: fun and skating skills – in that order.  I think fun is the most important consideration because as the name suggests (and some parents forget): this is summer hockey camp, that is - summer, we’re going to play a game, at a camp.  Games, summer, and camp should be about having fun.  Besides, if the player is not having fun, the learning will be marginal at best.

Why is skating important?  This game is all about skating.  During an average game your player will have the puck on his stick for 20 seconds at most but he or she will be skating for 15 to 20 minutes, which should give you an idea of the importance of being a good skater.  So I would encourage you to look for a camp that will teach your player new skating skills, improve existing skills, perhaps diagnose and correct flaws in the player’s skating technique, and emphasize drills that will show the skater how to work on improving his or her technique.

How can you tell what a camp will be like?

The best way is by word of mouth from other hockey parents whose kids have attended other camps.  You can also study the brochures at your local rink or the information most camps provide on the Internet.  Look for the key words ‘fun’ and ‘skating fundamentals’ as well as other things that you might think are important… well qualified instructors, instructor-to-pupil ratios, good role models, special skills (goalie instruction?), university environment, indoor off-ice facilities in case of rain, etc.  And the name of the camp might give you a clue as to their philosophy, i.e. "Rock'em Sock'em Hockey Camp".

Should you consider having your player attend more than one camp?

Yes, but I would only consider more than one camp for my child if the other one is a math camp, band camp, science camp, Bible camp, space camp, Odyssey of the Mind camp, orchestra camp, drama camp, Boy or Girl Scout camp, or just plain fun camp.

Should I, a coach or parent, consider attending a summer camp for adults?

I know that many coaches, like my father, lack the ability to teach skating fundamentals - truth be told and admitted, some of you don't skate that well yourself.  The most important thing you can do in terms of improving your players' skill level and consequently their performance is to improve their skating fundamentals.  It's a battle to play the game if you can't skate proficiently.  So I strongly recommend going to a skating clinic or adult camp where you can learn the fundamentals and how to teach them.  The key here is to learn the teaching techniques so you can pass them along to your players and then reinforce these techniques throughout the year.  Several coaches who come to the adult session of my camp tell me they come for just for that purpose.  I think they really come because it's a great time and they have a chance to re-live their childhood - but those are difficult reasons to sell back home.