Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/81890
here was about two minutes to play in the play- off game and I was anxiously pacing behind the bench, barking out whatever instructions seemed important at that very moment. You watch the game and you watch the clock in those final seconds, sometimes precisely at the very same time. We were up by a goal, poised to advance to the next round of the playoffs, when I felt a tug on my jacket. "Ah coach," one of my players said on the bench. "Yea," I answered, concentrating more on the game and the clock than on him at that instant. "Are there snacks today?" "Whaaaat?" I barked exasperated. "Did anyone bring snacks today?" "Huh?" I said as I looked away. "I hope they didn't bring apple juice," the young boy said. "I don't like apple juice." T The moment froze me in all the playoff excitement, the way all special and meaningful moments should. If somehow, I could have captured that conversation on tape, I would have had one of those special sporting moments for parents everywhere, the kind you need to play for coaches and executives and trainers and managers and all of us who take youth hockey way too seriously. It isn't life or death, as we like to think it is. It isn't do or die as often as we pretend it to be. In one tiny moment in one game, youth hockey was reduced to what it really is about. Apple juice. OK, so it's not apple juice. But what apple juice happens to represent in all of this. The snack. The routine. The ritual. Kids can win and lose and not even give a second's thought about either, but don't forget the post-game drinks. If anything will spoil a good time that will. You see, it's all part of the culture of hockey. Not who wins, not who scores goals, not which team accomplished what on any given night, but whether Mom and Dad are there, whether their grandparents are in the stands watching, whether their best friend was on their team and they got a shift on the power play, and yes, about what they ate. When you get involved in hockey, when you truly put your heart into the game and into the environment and into everything, it can be when it's at its best. The game is only part of the package. It becomes a social outing for parents. It becomes a social outing for children. It should never be about who is going for extra power skating and who is going straight from Mites to the Ottawa Senators but about building that kind of environment, the kind of memories kids and parents and families will have forever. Sometimes, when I stand around the arenas I can't believe the tone of the conversations I hear. The visions are so shortsighted. The conversations are almost always about today and who won and who lost and who scored. Not enough people use the word fun and not enough sell it that way either. Hard as we try to think like kids, we're not kids. Hard as we try to remember what we were like when we were young, our vision is clouded by perspective and logic, something not always evident with children. Ask any parent whether they would rather win or lose, and without a doubt they would say win. But ask most children what they would prefer: playing a regular shift, with power play time and penalty killing time on a losing team rather playing sparingly on a winning team, and the answer has already come out in two different studies. Overwhelmingly, kids would rather play a lot and lose than PHOTOS BY USA Hockey LOT AND LOSE THAN WIN WHILE PLAYING A LITTLE. OVERWHELMINGLY, KIDS WOULD RATHER PLAY A win while playing a little. ence. You can't know what's in a kid's mind. I was coaching a team a few years ago when I got a call from the goaltender's father. It was the day before the championship game. The father told me his son didn't want to play anymore. "Anymore after tomorrow?" I asked. "No," the father said. "He just doesn't want to play anymore." "Did something happen?" I asked. USAHOCKEYMAGAZINE.COM SEPTEMBER.2012 25 Like I said, it is about apple juice. It is, after all, about the experi-