r/youthhockey

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.

I have signed my two sons up for hockey this year. They are 6 and nearly 4, so I am aware that they are young and my expectations are not high. They have also not been exposed to much skating or hockey because we moved to Canada from the UK where hockey not really a thing.

They both love it, which is great. I can see them improving really quickly and the league they are in is known to be excellent and produce phenomenal players.

The thing that I have noticed is how good some of these kids are. I expected it in my older son's division. The youngest division is for kids who are 4+ (with the exception of children like mine whose birthdays are late in the year and will turn 4 by December 31st). So some of the kids playing with my 6-year-old have been playing for 3 years...makes sense that they're flying around the ice and lifting the puck with a solid wrist shot. My 6-year-old has noticed the difference in skill level and has told me that he's not as good as the other kids (I explained that he is still new to the sport and skating, and that it's houseleague and just for fun, so no pressure and he is doing amazing).

It's my younger son's division that has me baffled. My son is almost 4. There is no younger division, so surely this is the first season these kids could have played. But some of them (and when I say "some," I mean a solid half of the kids) are phenomenal. They know the rules of the game, are excellent skaters, and actually have technique with a stick. And most of the ones who are newer to the rules have very obviously had skating lessons already.

What I am wondering as a parent is how early are these kids starting?! I thought I was pushing it by putting in my 6 and nearly 4-year-old (who are very clearly at the lower end of their divisions, especially my youngest).

For reference, I am a dance teacher and have been for nearly 20 years. I teach children. I have the occasional child at this age who is naturally talented (and there is certainly improvement over the course of the year for everyone), but have never seen anything like this before.

My mind is blown.

I learned hockey as an adult and my husband has skated since he could walk and played his entire life. We just bought our kiddo's first pair of skates, but the blades haven't been sharpened. We're not sure if we should sharpen them or not mainly cause we want her to practice wearing them around the house for a while. Is this a bad idea?

We gonna take her to a rink in a couple days to get her first ice time with absolutely no expectation that she will "skate". This is mostly get her used to the idea of being on the ice, it's cold and slippery. So we are thinking it doesn't really matter if they haven't been sharpened or not?

She is obsessed with watching her dad play and loves watching it on TV. Would also love to hear any other parents tips/advice on introducing their kid to hockey.

So i know SD gets a lot of flak for kind of forcing you to look down... and ive also heard the balance board + wood ball argument.. but i have a 10 year old who is a good skater and just needs to build confidence with the puck. Hes played with both the deker and the tiles, and actually enjoys practicing (more with the SD because the app for the tiles is pretty trash).

Anyhow, I really want to get him something he can use. Of course, I dont want to build bad habits... but i feel like something like this could help.

What are your thoughts? Which one would you choose, or is there another tool out there worth looking at (something that makes training into a game)