Meditation on a Losing Season

Oh it’s the end of a very long, very losing season (they were about 2-40-2), and we are now entering that stressful time before tryouts when hockey parents everywhere enter a period of reflection. You know the questions we contemplate: Is my kid on the right team? Should he try out for Defense or Offense? Is he working hard enough? Is travel hockey all it's cracked up to be? Why is there so little money in my checking account?

Travel hockey requires a family-wide commitment that goes beyond the financial. Supporting your hockey player costs every family member time, energy and sleep! So when I think about these questions, particularly after a losing season, how can I convince myself that these sacrifices are worthwhile? I decided to take a cue from the self-help industry and consider all of the good things that came from this season – even though they lost and lost and lost and lost… it was really bad. Really, really bad. So here it goes – my Hockey Gratitude Journal entry

I am grateful that:

• My son worked hard at his hockey skills and he improved.
• He learned how to play forward again, even though he prefers defense.
• He made a lot of great friends.
• The parents and coaches were very nice, everyone was nice. I feel like I made friends too.
• There was almost no locker room nonsense the entire season. That was blissful.
• There is a gym in the Ice House so I get to work out regularly during practices. This allows me to eat and drink more, so that is good. (I can now do 24 push-ups too! Isn’t that awesome?)
• My son learned how to read a map. I still haven’t gotten a GPS and when we are looking for rinks in faraway places, my 12 year-old is a great navigator.
• During this school year, my son has stopped kids in his school from picking on other kids quite a few times. He is not the biggest kid in the 7th grade and he's almost the youngest. But I think his losing season has given him a certain empathy for the misfits, and I’m proud that my hockey player recognizes what’s right and has the courage to risk some of his social capital defending them.
• The night before the last game of the season, he decided he needed to get to bed early. As he hit the stairs, he looked at me and said “You know Mom I have to go to bed so I can get up in the morning and do something I love.” I don’t know a lot of people, young or old, who could have that kind of attitude in the wake of a 2-40-2 record, but I am very sure that my son really loves hockey and he plays for the joy of the game. He really believes any day is a good day for hockey, win or lose. How’s that for a kid?

What would you add to this list? What are you thankful to hockey for?

Parents Behaving Badly?

Last season, a fellow hockey parent Greg B, sent me one of those e-mails that gets passed around the Internet. This one was about hockey, so I read it. (Greg if you still have it send it to me again and I'll post it.) The letter was written by a hockey parent and he wanted to make the point that people have hockey parents all wrong. We're not crazy and violent. And playing hockey teaches our kids wonderful things like team work, taking responsibility, following the rules, listening to a coach, how to win and lose gracefully and a lot more. He even pointed out how hockey parents and kids actually talk to each other on those long, early morning car trips from rink to rink. (That's really true too. We do talk, and it's not all about hockey - it's a lot about hockey - but not all.) Like the parent who wrote the letter, I have found myself on more than one occasion defending hockey.

And while I do love the sport, I have wondered at times if there isn't a little something wrong here. What is it that brings out the bad parent behavior anyway? The screaming, the tantrums about playing time, the walking out in the middle of tryouts (If my Johnny isn't going to be AA, he's not playing here!). I try to tell myself, parents can be crazy in every sport - it's not just hockey. But just this season we had a few "incidents" of parents behaving badly that - well- made me wonder.

In one hard-hitting, intense Bantam game, the losing coach went with his team to the middle of the ice where the kids were lining up to shake hands. Now that is one of the best things about hockey, right? But this coach missed the point and he actually knocked players from the other team down to the ice. Really. (And no it wasn't by accident, these were bantams. You have to try to knock them down).

More unbelievably in another bantam game, after a very hard but legal (no penalty) hit, the parent of the kid who had been hit was so upset that, after the game, he waited for the player who had checked his son. When the player left the ice, the parent threw a cup of hot coffee at him. (Yes the parent was banned for the season, but this is really unbelievable isn't it?) How do you get to a place where you think throwing a cup of coffee at a child is the right thing to do?

But of everything that I saw and heard about this year, I was most bothered by one of my 8 year old's Mite games. It was one those one-sided games, where the coach has to tell the kids to stop scoring and pass the puck around. Though they were completely outmatched, there were three Dads from the other team standing up on the boards, around the bench, yelling down at their kids. These kids were so little 7 and 8, maybe even 6. And these Dads kept screaming. One Dad had even dragged a chair over from snack bar, so he didn't have to struggle to hang on to the boards. Happily, one their kids did manage to get the puck, take it down the ice and score. It was great for them to avoid the shut out. So the Dad, the one on the chair, you think he'd be happy. But then he yelled down at the kids "Cheer, cheer for your team! What's the matter with you?"

These kids can't even score without getting yelled at! Unbelievable. And how sad for those kids. They get to play the greatest sport on earth, but the sound track is being heckled constantly by Daddy Dearest.

So what do you think? Are we hockey parents the same or worse than parents for other sports? (Aren't most of us also soccer parents, baseball parents and basketball parents anyway?) What has to happen to fix this problem? I think firm codes of conduct and strict enforcement would go a long way. But then things have to be enforced by the businesses that want our money. Hmmm. Oh and if you go up on the boards, even once, you should immediately be shown the parking lot. What do you think?

Update - Greg B. sent me the letter. It is posted here http://bit.ly/NDwPX