u/ExtremeGardening

Let me preface this by saying I'm not selling anything and I didn't use AI for any part of this post.

After coaching/assistant coaching my son's hockey teams for several years I decided to take on the role of Team Manager when he moved up to the competitive tier and I was no longer best suited to be a head coach; I played goal growing up and the player skills development moved beyond my expertise.

Being a Team Manager can come with a steep learning curve, especially if you're not a very organized person to begin with. I hope this post will help those of you who have been thrown into the role, perhaps because no one else was willing. Teams and coaches deserve good managers, even if it is a bit of an "invisible" role at times (more on that later). The following are my tips for getting off to a good start.

1. Find your associations Managers' Guide and read it twice. Then realize it leaves a lot to be desired and find 2 more guides online from other associations. Read those. Now you kind of have an idea of what your role entails.
2. With the Head Coach, determine who owns what. Usually, the coach owns player development and the Manager owns the admin, but that's not always the case. Be crystal clear with each other who is responsible for what. This is especially important when it comes to parent complaints.
3. Decide early on what jobs you and the head coach are willing to do and then work on delegating the rest. Some of these roles might not be necessary for a U7/U9 house league team, but I'm including a comprehensive list anyways. I outsource the following where possible:
   1. Treasurer (collects team fees, reimburses the coach/manager for extra ice or events, deals with money from fundraising and/or sponsors). You'll want to setup a community/association bank account where you and the Treasurer are both able to deposit/withdraw funds. You should both have eyes on the team budget spreadsheet and be able to provide it to parents and/or your association if requested. Your budget should be in place ASAP.
   2. Social Coordinator/Tournament Director. These are the folks who book restaurants, procure hotel conference rooms for pizza night, order the pizza, bring napkins and drinks. They might also book team building activities. They should always save their receipts and provide them to the Treasurer for reimbursement. I strongly dislike dealing with these sorts of events so I farm it out immediately to people who are good at it. This year I had 2 parent volunteers agree to work together on this.
   3. Fundraising Coordinator. Maybe you want to run an NHL hockey pool or Holiday Raffle. This person organizes all of that.
   4. Timekeepers/Scorekeepers/Penalty Box. Many organizations have the Home team provide these volunteers. Often they will need to be certified by your association after taking a short course. You can also choose to pay a company or person to do these jobs for you. It's usually ~$15-20 per game.
4. Create a non-shared spreadsheet with the following tabs:
   1. Roster/Parent Contacts
   2. Important Dates
   3. Tournaments (hotel info, restaurant bookings, travel permits, etc)
   4. Links (associate and league web pages, digital gamesheet links, official schedule)
   5. Contacts (the Head Coaches and Managers for your league, important league and associate staff like the VP of Ice Allocation, VP of Safety)
   6. Manager Tasks - this is your every growing list of tasks with due dates, priorities, and notes. This is where you'll look every few days to see what you've got to get done. Reference specific email dates, links, and documents.
5. Create an email for yourself or at least create a label for your personal email where you tag everything team-related so it doesn't get lost. I received 23 hockey emails yesterday and that's just a normal pre-season Sunday.
6. Determine how you will handle official communication. I prefer to use an email distribution list and then send short reminders/updates in TeamSnap (or whatever app your team uses). I do not send out communications that require action via TeamSnap unless it's urgent.
7. Get access to any systems you need early and save the username/password somewhere safe. Digital game sheets, ice time booking, suspension system, ref requests, rescheduling). It's better to get access now before you need it - you don't want to end up in a situation where a player gets suspended and you can't meet the mandatory reporting deadline and the league conveyor has to chase you down.
8. Print out your roster/game sheet stickers, even if your association uses digital game sheets. Find the template online for Avery 5163 mailing labels and print your full roster so you don't need to write it all out every game. These come in handy at some tournaments and exhibition games or as a backup when the digital system fails.
9. Build out your team calendar immediately and centralize it.
   • Regular-season games
   • Practices
   • Tournaments
   • Exhibition games
   • Team events
   • Registration/payment deadlines
   • Travel-permit deadlines
   • Roster deadlines
   • Certification deadlines
   • Fundraising dates
   • Association/league meetings

• With the head coach, set expectations with parents early. Have a short parent meeting/email covering:
  • How communication works
  • Expected response times
  • Who to contact for what (head coach, manager, trainer, league, etc)
  • Game/practice arrival expectations
  • Dressing-room expectations
  • Volunteer expectations
  • Tournament expectations
  • Behaviour/sportsmanship
  • Social media/photo expectations
  • What the manager will and won't handle
• Know your rescheduling process.
  • Who initiates it?
  • Who contacts the other team?
  • Who books replacement ice?
  • Who pays?
  • Who books refs and timekeepers

This is a bit longer than intended, but hopefully it helps someone out.