Solving Problems ???

Every coach runs into officiating that is not up to speed or is simply over their head. The more you are around the game the more you realize that there will always be a number of games each season that you'll walk away with the feeling that the officials had a bigger role in deciding the game than anyone would have preferred. Usually though these things tend to balance out and with every call that seems to go against your team, there tends to be a similar number that goes against your opponent. Of course the bigger or more important the game, the more everyone hopes that the officials role will be one that they are not the story and the players will be the deciding factor in the outcome. That is usually the hope of the officials as well, but sometimes the officials are placed into a situation where they must play a bigger role than anyone was hoping for. With all that said, this post has nothing to do with officiating and everything to do with the coaches role in dealing with infractions by their players.

A number of year ago USA Hockey had a seminar for coaches with a presenters from various upper levels of the game. They had NHL coaches, NCAA coaches and Junior Hockey coaches presenting on various topics about the sport. Jack Parker, the long time BU head coach was was one of the latter coaches to address the coaches forum. He first talked about his topic, problem solving. He admitted that he really had no specific direction on where to take this topic, but he figured out an angle that might be useful for coaches from the youth levels, which was the majority of the attendees. His idea for solving problems zeroed in on problem players and how to deal with them. This article was started with a quick take on dealing with officiating and was done so to relate to Coach Parkers presentation. He first talked about a couple of similar takes, like the above, on officiating and then related those to appropriate ways he felt that coaches need to deal with their players that went above and beyond the role of the officials. He openly admitted, to no ones surprise, that officials will make mistakes and more importantly will miss infractions, especially by players that try to take liberties away from the puck. Most of his presentation was about one of his former players and he was very candid in admitting that the player was not only a high scoring forward, but a player that had the mentality of abusing as many of his opponents as possible. As much as this player enjoyed winning the game or scoring a goal he took equal pride with how much he could get away with.

Coach Parker quickly realized the need to redirect this players focus and had many discussions with the player that seemed to
help, but he still felt the player was not getting the bigger picture. During one of the games early in his players career one of his assistant coaches told coach Parker he had overheard the problem player bragging to a teammate that he had speared an opponent while backchecking, which the officials never saw. Coach Parker was furious and spent numerous hours looking at the game tapes to try to find it. He never did find the infraction, but felt he needed to step up the pressure on this player if he was ever to get the message. The next day he brought him into the office and told him while watching the tapes the night before he witnessed the player spearing a BC player, behind the play. The player admitted to the action and coach Parker suspended him for a game, the penalty the player would have served if the officials had seen it.

The obvious questions are, how many coaches are willing to wait for the officials to police there players, when in fact they know their players need their direction instead. How many games have you witnessed where the officials have missed a serious infraction where you know the coaches saw it and done nothing about it. How many times have you witnessed players who are acting in troubling ways both on and off the ice, which the coaches are aware of, but decide not to step in with appropriate discipline. Maybe equally distressing, how many times have you witnessed top players allowed a much wider berth with inappropriate behavior than players on the lower levels of the ability level. At any level, can these actions possibly serve the player or team to buy into a a standard of discipline that will allow them all to grow as individuals and a team. Players, like all of us, are pretty perceptive to what is allowed and what isn't. And like all of us, when the standards are lowered, we all usually gravitate to the new level of expectations.

Coach Parker is a great example of one person that would lower his expectations. How could his example raise the bar for so many other players and teams ?????