So my son's squirt team is at a tournament this weekend and they are proving to be at the wrong level. They're through the round robin and Tyler hasn't let up a goal yet. The interesting thing is that if you watched them in warm-ups, you'd never know the difference between the teams. There are some serious skills on the teams we're playing. There are two reasons I can see why we're doing so well against the other teams:

1. We seem to be the only team at the tournament whose players treat the game as a unit, always looking from the time they get the puck to find an open player to move it to. Don't get me wrong, we're not perfect but to watch the passing and vision. True story on the bench this weekend...head coach put in a three pass rule right after our sixth goal. He was speechless when a player said "but coach, we just made three passes before that goal.

2. We play without hesitation. I am truly astounded by the shouting and negative reinforcement that comes off the benches and out of the stands of our opponents. I know it's tough to watch your kids getting beat pretty soundly. That said, everyone faces some of those games. The best thing a coach (and a parent) can do is support and teach, not scold and put fear of embarrassment into the kids. Yelling at the top of your lungs "Come on Johnny! Skate!" just isn't going to get him back in the game. It's disheartening enough to lose a game by a large score. It's far worse to have parents and coaches tearing you down and questioning your intensity.

Even in our worst games, you never hear our coaches yelling in that manner. The time to teach is when they come off the ice, quietly and with positive reinforcement. One might argue that it has a lot to do with our kids playing with such speed and confidence.