Breathe

What I had thought would be another year of coaching Bantam hockey has gone from combining bantams and a few first year midgets into a U16 team – now has become an even bigger challenge. Playing at the midget hockey level with only 10 players; one out with an injury, one on holiday, a first year goalie, and seven very tired players, you learn the hard way what tough is. Now with three losses you'd think I'd be upset, the fact is I am very impressed with these players. There's only two players on the bench, the other six are on the ice. The team plays their guts out and I love it. I don't like to lose, but under these conditions – I'm very happy. I see improvement already all around. I also know we will continue to get stronger, faster, smarter, and mentally tough as a team and as individuals. We defiantly frustrate everyone we play. We are not a team that is out to fight, we are out to play well. We get on the board. There's been no shutouts handed over to anyone. Midgets has a rep for being a tad rough around the edges, but in our situation we have to out play rather than out muscle our opponents. We still have work to do on our passing game, and we need to get stronger as skaters to play with such a short bench. By the second period we are looking tired, but our first period and last ten minutes of the game look good. It's the mid section that we need to work on. That is where it all begins to go south on us. We have a first year goalie who is making great saves, but we need to work on clearing out any chance for rebounds. We will continue to improve and continue to get stronger. Team work is crucial. We still tend to fall back on bad habits when we get tired, but that will change over the next few weeks. We also need to keep cool, and not get sucked into a bad situation. No matter how the other team plays or acts on the ice – we need to remain in control of the puck, and our emotions. That's harder than it sounds. I have faith in this team, and a ton of respect for how tough our situation is. This is only the beginning of the season. I predict we only get better as long as we can stay healthy and stick to playing “our game”.I have yet to have anyone ask for more ice time. It used to be that coaches would yell “shoot the puck!”. We just remind our players; “Breathe!”. It is tough, no doubt about that.