The occasional necro-bump of a thread isn’t always a bad thing …
I coached minor hockey for 34 years. Take this longwinded post for whatever you think it’s worth.
An extraordinarily small number of kids truly love to play hockey more than anything else in the world. They rarely say “I love hockey,” but they show it nearly 24/7. They are the modern day equivalent of Gordie Howe getting booted out of grade school for a few days in the mid-1930s because he brought his hockey stick to class every day.
The kids who behave as though someone in their family died if a 6:00 a.m. practice the day before Christmas is suddenly canceled.
Hockey is not a “job” to these kids. No, it’s pure, unadulterated joy. As an aside, I never said “good job” or “good work” to any kid I ever coached. No, I always said “good play.” Play is fun. Job is not fun. Work is less fun. But I digress …
Sure, the kids with a chance at a future in the game have hockey IQ and skill and speed and all those measurable things. Athletically gifted, for sure, and they are internally driven to improve. But the separator, in my experience, is the immeasurable depth of their LOVE of the game. It’s definitely NOT normal.
The ones who “make it” do not outgrow this love. Most kids do. They wake up one day and realize they are 14 or 15 years old and love a child’s game. It’s sobering and, honestly, a bit embarrassing for some young men. Let me put it this way: imagine your 4 or 5 year old loved to play ping pong, and when he’s 15 or 16 years old the ONLY thing he wants to do is … play ping pong. Be honest: the kids in high school are going to think your kid is one strange cat. Yeah, hockey can be like that, too. A young man is really good at something that has absolutely no value outside of a sheet of ice, and everyone around him has abandoned children’s games and is … well, “growing up.” Another aside: one of my (now adult) sons made the mid-season league all-star team when he was 17 and playing Tier II junior, and he quit the team and the game forever two weeks later. “Where does this lead?” he asked himself. Didn’t like the answer. Thought he’d found his one true love but ended up divorced at age 17. There were high level figure skaters who were floored by the quality of his edge work, but great edge work and an open schedule will get you a minimum wage gig at Tim Horton’s. Scratch that — one doesn’t need the edge work.
But the truly special ones are like those swans that mate for life. One love — hockey — and the search is over.
When even the youth game becomes stiflingly regimented, when upbeat minor hockey coaches are replaced by ugly drill sergeants when a kid is just 10 or 11, when head games get played by amateur psychologists and all the inherently beautiful elements of just being on that gorgeous sheet of ice are replaced by adult agendas few kids really understand, the special ones STILL LOVE hockey more than anything else. Being on the ice is better than anything else in the world. I’ve heard other coaches say, “that kid might make it, there’s no quit in him.” In my humble opinion, they are incorrect. The key isn’t “having no quit.” No, the key is undying love of the game.
So, if parents need to push a kid to go to practice or “work hard” at a camp … the kid doesn’t have that extraordinarily rare obsessive love of the game. No amount of training creates this love. And in my view, that undying love is why a guy like Big Gordie played pro for 32 years.