- Children Need Fun, Not Stress in Hockey
GRANT KERR
British Columbia Bureau
Wednesday, July 12, 2000
Vancouver -- Young Canadian hockey players often are bombarded with too much technical information for their own good, a former pro star believes.
Give the puck back to the kids, not overburden them with complicated drills and instruction, stressed Steve Larmer, who scored 441 goals during 15 seasons in the National Hockey League.
"We need to allow kids to play with some creativity and not be penalized for making mistakes," Larmer said last weekend during an international coaching conference he attended as an observer.
Larmer retired from the New York Rangers five years ago and now works with the NHL Players' Association. He also has coached youth hockey in his hometown of Peterborough, Ont., and observed how the minor system functions.
"Those kids [nine-year-olds] taught me more about hockey than I could ever have taught them," Larmer said. "They're playing the game for the right reasons. They love it, it's fun and they want to learn.
"But have we got to the point, with all this technology, we've got information overload? We're throwing all this information down to the kids.
"It's not that complicated of a game, especially for kids to play. You need to know how to skate, shoot and pass -- and how to think. If we develop the creative side of the game at a young age, we will have better players as they get older."
Larmer played major-junior hockey for coach Gary Green of the Peterborough Petes and later in the NHL for Mike Keenan at Chicago and New York.
"It's still a great game to play and we've got to understand that it is a game, not life and death or the most important thing in the world," Larmer said. "Players can be taught life skills through playing hockey and team sports.. They can learn problem solving and communication skills.
"We need to educate parents about what their expectations should be for players in minor hockey. Our role as coaches is to develop not just hockey skills, but life skills so people can have self-confidence and self-esteem and sportsmanship."
Larmer, whose young daughter intends to play hockey this season, endorsed the theme of the conference held at the University of British Columbia and with the Canadian Hockey Association as host.
"When winning becomes more important than teaching skills, as these kids get older, they don't have the proper skills physically or mentally," Larmer said. "Being able to think and make decisions quickly out on the ice . . . I often wonder if we've taken that away from the kids."
Curt Fraser, head coach of the Atlanta Thrashers, also is worried about the direction of Canadian hockey in the new millennium.
"It's a challenge for Canadian coaches to develop these kids better," said Fraser, who played minor hockey in North Vancouver. "We're still the best, but other countries are catching up quickly and we're going to have to respond to that by doing a better development job."
By Fluto Shinzawa, Globe Staff | March 9, 2006
Article 2 -
Will Collegians Receive Another Opportunity ?
Skills competition
Will Collegians Receive Another Opportunity ?
Skills competition
inzawa, Globe Staff | March 9, 2006
Earlier this season, a medal-less member of Team USA returned to his home team after competing in international play, praising the skill level of the Russians and Czechs.
But he wasn't a player from the US Olympic team recently punted out of Turin without a medal to his name. He was Boston College goalie Cory Schneider, whose teenage club of wannabe Olympians failed to medal in the World Junior Championship earlier this year, skating a path that their elder statesmen would find too familiar in the Winter Games against the highly skilled Europowers.
''It's unbelievable what they can do with the puck, how they pass and protect," said Umile. ''They're ahead of us. We're still a pretty good country over here in the way we do things. Maybe they do some things differently with their youth programs and how they develop them." Yes they DO!
Creativity, improvisation, and cleverness are descriptions that have become more applicable to the free-flowing Europeans than the grit-and-grind Americans that emerge from college hockey. Parker, who sent three ex-Terriers to Turin in Rick DiPietro, Chris Drury, and Keith Tkachuk (four if you count former captain Mike Sullivan, an assistant coach for Team USA), points to the early teenage years, a critical development stage for budding collegians, as the difference-makers that draw out the skill in European youth hockey.
''We're(Americans) training hockey players the wrong way," Parker said.
''The Europeans still practice development until they're 14 or 15. Here, we talk about the bantam team that's 62-2, doing great, traveling to Montreal next week, and lost only one game in the last 40. The kid's 10 years old and playing the left-wing lock and getting the system down. But
[the Europeans] don't practice a system of forechecking. They practice how to handle the puck, shoot the puck, and support the puck because the only games they're allowed to play are three-on-three, cross-ice games until they're 12 or 13.
We're doing this all wrong."
Parker recalled an anecdote told by Mike Eruzione when the ex-Terrier looked into registering his youngest son for Winthrop youth hockey. League officials told Eruzione that he would have to pay extra for his son to compete in one extra game and practice per week. Eruzione agreed, but when he said his son didn't need the additional game and would only require the extra practice session, the officials voiced their surprise.
''Everybody should be doing that," Parker said. ''He's 5 years old, so not only does he not know what offsides is, he doesn't care. He's got to learn how to skate first. One other reason they're not developing is that too many kids are quitting at an early age. Nobody's making it fun for them. Whether it's 1924 or 2024,
kids want to do one thing -- stuff that's fun."
