Making the Most of Your Hockey Season: Getting to Know Your Coach

This is the first in a series of articles designed to help players and families navigate their youth hockey seasons and to assist them in having an enjoyable and productive experience.

By Scott Lowe – MYHockeyRankings.com

The beginning of any new hockey season often elicits a range of emotions in young players.

They are excited to get back on the ice, be around their hockey buddies again and play in some real, meaningful games. There is a sense of wonder and curiosity about what the season ahead might hold for a player and the team. And there probably is a little bit of nervousness about how a player might fit in if there are newcomers joining the team and what role the coach might envision for him or her. That nervousness might be compounded if a player is playing for a new coach.

Some young players may be trying the sport for the first time, while others may be playing on their first organized or travel teams. There are players who will be stepping up to a new, more challenging level of play or moving to a new organization. Older players might be heading to a training camp at which they will find out if they will make a team or need to look elsewhere for a place to play that season.

When we are excited to participate in something, that’s usually because we view that activity as a worthwhile, enjoyable and rewarding. Put simply, it’s fun.

Nervousness brings with it a connotation of pressure or fear. Sometimes that pressure can be self-imposed and doesn’t really exist other than in a player’s mind, while feelings of fear may be chalked up to the unknowns that may lie ahead.

While feeling nervous is a part of sports participation – and many elite athletes will tell you that if you don’t feel butterflies in your stomach every time you are preparing to compete you may have lost your edge – it’s important that young players aren’t nervous because they feel stressed out, uptight or afraid to let someone else down. Feelings that are a result of fear or nervousness can take the enjoyment out of sports participation for young athletes.

These days, sports get serious enough quickly enough. Most of us who participated in athletics as kids were playing something all the time, whether we were part of a local neighborhood youth team or playing pick-up games in our backyards, at recess or at the playground. It seemed like we were always playing some kind of sport.

Kids today have more opportunities than ever to play anything and everything 12 months out of the year. The difference is that they play many more organized games than we ever did, and these are games in which winning and losing matters with officials keeping order, coaches yelling from the benches and parents watching and shouting from the bleachers. 

My youth hockey season was 16 to 20 games. We started in late October and played until late February or early march. Many of us also played basketball during the winter, because we had time and that was fun, too. Then it was baseball or lacrosse season. We also really looked forward to that. While winning is always fun, we played to stay active and for the fun that the competition and camaraderie sports provided. And when we weren’t competing in organized sports, we were in the neighborhood or at the playground playing pickup games.

Many youth hockey teams in 2024 play between 50 and 75 games. Including practices and games, they are on the ice four or five days a week and go right from winter hockey to spring hockey to summer hockey. Some kids also play for school teams during their club hockey seasons. It’s not usual for players to be on the ice for 12 months and to play in 100 or more games during a calendar year.

Today’s societal norms provide kids with fewer opportunities to play sports just for fun and to compete without feeling some sort of stress or pressure. Winning often is emphasized at a very young age over player development, and everything is organized and structured, so finding the right types of organizations and coaches who provide an enjoyable and safe environment that allows the children to grow as athletes and people is extremely important.

A huge component of locating an organization that provides the right combination of fun and development is finding a coach who is the right fit for the player. The right coach can make all the difference in the world when it comes to a young player’s overall experience and development – and ultimately whether he or she continues to pursue the sport in the future. If a child is timid or nervous for any reason, the right coach can ease those feelings.

Children respond to different adults and varying adult personalities in different ways. If a coach’s personality and style aren’t a good fit for the player’s personality, the young person can feel intimidated or become disinterested. Obviously, those are feelings that can detract from a player’s overall experience in the short term and possibly lead to a player giving up the sport altogether at some point in the future.

A coach who can strike a balance between fun and development, cares about the players as people first and is sensitive to and able to work with a variety of personality types is ideal for pretty much any age level. We often talk about good coaches being “in it for the right reasons.” Well, those are the right reasons.

If players look forward to going to the rink as much for practices as they do for games because hockey is fun, they like the coach and their improvement is noticeable and celebrated, there’s a good chance they will fall in love with the sport. Players who really enjoy a sport are more likely to continue playing and advance to higher levels. No one knows what doors hockey may open, but at the very least they will have an activity they enjoy that can help them stay active and healthy for the rest of their lives.

The best way for a young player to make the most of his or her hockey experience is to get to know the coach and continue to build that relationship throughout the season.

Help the Coach Help You

It may take some time for a coach to get a feel for each player’s personality and what type of approach works best for each kid. In the meantime, before that information is gathered, it is possible that damage to the player-coach relationship may occur early in a season if a coach inadvertently handles a situation in such a manner that it has a negative impact on the player’s psyche or how the player views the coach.

Communication between families, players and coaches is essential to avoiding this type of situation. The earlier a player can get to know and become comfortable with a coach, the more likely it is that he or she will have a positive experience.

That is just one of the reasons it is imperative for players to make the effort to get to know their coach as early in the season as possible if they want to maximize the odds of having an enjoyable and successful season. In fact, for players of all ages, building a relationship with the coach may be the most important thing they can do to ensure they get the most of out of their season and set themselves up for future success.

For younger players, this process can be facilitated by the parents, who may want to reach out to the coach initially if they feel there is any valuable information they can share with the coach to help him or her understand the best approach with their child. While it’s a great idea for the parents of younger players to be proactive and get the ball rolling, it is important even for those players to feel comfortable approaching their coaches on their own and asking questions when they are confused or want to find out what they can do to improve.

A player who doesn’t understand what the coach is teaching isn’t going to improve or figure it out without a conversation. The player may get moved down the lineup or not be put on the ice in certain game situations without realizing why, and the coach may think the player isn’t capable without realizing that he or she simply is confused.

This can lead to a vicious cycle in which the player gets more frustrated with the lack of opportunities and stops having fun. In turn, the player’s body language or attitude may deteriorate, and the coach may start to write off the player as someone who doesn’t care or may never be able to perform certain tasks on the ice.

This is a situation that probably can be avoided with a simple conversation, but the coach may have no idea that the player simply isn’t understanding certain concepts. If the player hasn’t gotten to know the coach and isn’t comfortable reaching out for help, that conversation may never happen. The player then may arrive at a crossroads where the season completely falls apart if he or she won’t approach the coach to talk about the confusion.

If a younger player isn’t comfortable enough or is too embarrassed to approach the coach, it’s perfectly fine for the parent to set up a time for all of them to sit down and discuss the situation. This may be a great icebreaker and pave the way for future direct communication between the player and the coach that doesn’t require such a formal meeting.

It really shouldn’t ever come with this in youth sports, but unfortunately it seems to keep getting harder for us to communicate face to face thanks to our technology-based society that relies mostly on devices and text messages as our primary means of communication.

Since many coaches of older players prefer not to deal with parents, situations like this one are why it’s so important for those players to begin the process of getting to know the coach as early as possible. Those players who hope to get the most out of their seasons and are interested in continuing to play at higher levels going forward should initiate contact with their coaches early to start the relationship-building process. They then should maintain an open dialogue throughout the season to get feedback on their play and seek advice and assistance for their next steps in the sport.

This can be difficult for everyone involved, but parents should try hard to find the balance between guiding their kids and being too involved. They should strive to give their kids some space to socialize and grow as people and players while providing the structure they still need to be successful. Far too many parents stay way too involved in every detail of their kids’ hockey careers as they get older, and this can hinder their development on and off the ice.

The earlier that young players can get comfortable approaching and talking to adults, the smoother the ride will be for everyone involved as they grow older and become interested in pursuing hockey beyond the youth and high-school levels.

Growing the Player-Coach Relationship

More times than not, the coach is going to get the credit for a team’s success or receive the blame for a team’s failures. The coach also is a key component in determining whether an individual player’s season is successful, so it’s extremely important for players to build a relationship with their coach and to take advantage of his or her willingness to make the players better as a group and individually.

A coach also can help a player he or she likes and who hopes to progress to higher levels in the future achieve that goal through networking and by providing a strong recommendation. Players who don’t build a relationship with their coaches are not doing everything in their power to improve and ensure a successful, productive season.

Most youth hockey coaches are volunteers, and those who are paid often do not earn enough money to make a living coaching. Many of them coach because they love the game and want to give back to the sport by providing a positive experience that helps players learn to love the game and improve. 

Usually, they are willing to do whatever they can to help a young player achieve his or her goals and advance in the sport, but they can’t do that if they don’t know their players’ aspirations and don’t really get to know the players as people. While just about any coach is willing to recommend a player to another team at a higher level, the recommendation can go a lot farther if a coach really gets to know and appreciate someone as both a player and a person.

Hockey is such a small world. Many coaches have relationships with others around the country who may be coaching or scouting for an organization at a level that some of his or her players aspire to reach. If a coach has a great relationship with a player, this type of network can prove to be invaluable for young players who strive to continue climbing the developmental ladder in hopes of one day playing at the junior, college or professional level.

While being seen by coaches and scouts from higher-level organizations always is important for players trying to advance, a ringing endorsement from a coach who is well known and trusted that serves as a testament to a player’s coachability, drive, work ethic and attitude always will be most beneficial, especially for players from areas of the country that aren’t really scouted.

Most coaches are willing to recommend their players to other organizations no matter what, but a sincere, heartfelt recommendation from a coach who has a strong network and is respected around the hockey community can push a player over the top. The only way to ensure getting this type of support is by getting to know the coach.

This process can be beneficial for more than just hockey as many young people find it difficult to approach adults they don’t know well in any setting and to engage in conversations about important and sometimes difficult topics. The more often a young athlete can interact with adults and become comfortable conversing in those settings, the better off he or she will be later in school, sports and life.

Just like in hockey, the best way to make the most out of school, a friendship, an internship or a job is by building strong relationships. Unfortunately, this seems to have become a forgotten part of life. It doesn’t have to be, however, if parents stress the concept to their children at a young age. Sports in general – and hockey specifically – present a tremendous, non-threatening opportunity to do this.

Parents who help their kids set up an initial meeting and do some handholding but allow the relationship between the player and coach to grow organically as the player gets more comfortable will reap the benefits forever. It’s perfectly fine for parents of younger players to follow up with both the player and the coach to make sure the intended messaging was understood since certain aspects of conversations often can get lost in translation.

In an initial meeting, players should not be afraid to ask about the role that the coach has in mind for them, aspects of the game at which the coach thinks they excel and the areas of their game that might need improvement. Once they know where they stand, it’s important to share their individual goals for the season and the future. That information will provide the coach with insight as to how serious and committed a player is and help the coach create an individual blueprint to help that player progress toward his or her goals and have a successful season.

Short-term goals might include working toward an opportunity to play on a top line or defensive pairing or to get some time on the power play or penalty kill. Longer-term goals might include advancing to play at a higher level of youth hockey and eventually moving on to play at the junior and college levels.

Learning to listen also is a key component of building a relationship with a coach. Players shouldn’t be afraid to ask questions, but also shouldn’t question a coach’s decisions about the team or game strategy or the coach’s knowledge of the game. And they shouldn’t come to a meeting with a predetermined answer to everything the coach might say. Listen to what the coach says, absorb that information and then formulate a thoughtful response.

Communication, relationship building and listening are skills that often are not fully developed but can set young people up for future success throughout their lives. Most young hockey players will not go on to have college or professional careers, but they certainly can use their participation in the sport to propel them to a lifetime of success off the ice.

The process of getting to know a coach will help the player in almost every future endeavor on or off the ice. To take full advantage of the opportunity, players should consider asking the coach about the possibility of meeting once a month to go over their progress, watch film or talk about future opportunities. Not only will this help a player improve, but also it will show the coach a commitment to improving and doing whatever is necessary to advance in the sport.

That can go in the coach’s recommendation letter, and the entire process will go a long way toward helping a young player make the most of his or her hockey season.