Ten Year Reunions

In many sports there are programs for the high school and the same program is offered by a youth organization, be it the AAU, American Legion, USA Soccer, Basketball, or Hockey. However, in most cases, the season do not conflict - except one.

Yep - Hockey.

So what is the purpose of this posting? Well a student-athlete has a choice between a youth hockey game and a high school hockey playoff game. Which one is he/she going to choose?

I'm not going to answer this directly, but by offering up a parable.

They don't do 10 year reunions for youth sports. However, they do have them in high school. So imagine, you chose the youth hockey game/tournament over your high school. The high school team lost and with it, went their chance for playing for the state title.

Ten years later comes your high school reunion. You may have gone on to a successful NCAA career, and who knows, maybe played some pro hockey. But how do you answer the question "We would have won if you were there."?

When you win a State title, you are gods of the school the next day. Do very well for your youth team over the weekend and nobody in school cares.

So you have a choice. It's yours to make. Decide wisely.

How a hockey team should be organized

I'm being fertile today -- well it's raining and the bathroom contractor is not here -- he's taking care of his sick child.

Now on to the topic at hand -- How an MSHL hockey team should be organized.

First look at how the school teams are organized or in a better term, how high school sports are organized at our public high schools. From the top down we have:

MPSSAA (Maryland Public Secondary School Athletic Association
^
County Athletic Boards
^
High School Principal
^
Athletic Director
^
Team Coach
^
Athletic Team

Along this track is also the local school board and the State Board of Education. The MPSSAA and the County Athletic Boards are part of the Boards of Education, which reminds us that high school athletics are not separate from the educational arena, but are part of it.

So now we look at a typical MSHL team. Here's what we have:
MSHL
^
Coach
^
Team

Whoa!! Who is the coach accountable to? The MSHL? Not hardly. The league does not have the power to hire or fire coaches. The league may discipline any coach or player for violation of the league rules and USA Hockey playing rules. Anything else? Forgetaboutit.

So, what's needed? Ideally there should be a structure similar to the school's athletic and administrative areas for each team. Somebody should be the equivalent of the principal and somebody should be the equivalent of the athletic director. All the power should not be concentrated in one person. This country decided that almost 240 years ago.

So what should happen are the following steps:

1. Each team should follow the guidance found here and incorporate and form themselves as a 501(c)(3) corporation under the IRS guidelines. Each team should elect a board and appoint one person to act as the president (principal) and the other as coaching director (AD). If you have a co-op team, I would recommend that each school in the co-op have representation on the board.
2. Simultaneously with #1, each conference should do the same. Each conference would then appoint a commissioner, vice-commissioner, and secretary/treasurer and such committees as it needs to take care of the business of running the conference

What about the MSHL? Well, the MSHL acts like the MPSSAA. The MSHL sets the policies and acts as the supreme umpire. The conferences deal with their teams and the MSHL deals with the conferences and runs the state tournaments and any other post season stuff.

A few schools and conferences have done #'s 1 and 2. It is my hope that all teams avail themselves of this opportunity.

The Hockey Word

Yes we all know what THAT word is. We hear it all the time in the ice rink - ANYWHERE in the ice rink. It is a rather unique word in the English language. It is a noun, verb, object, adverb, adjective, gerund, and probably a few other forms that I have forgotten. And, it is VERY common at the ice rink.

But - do we ever hear a teacher use it in a classroom?

I hope the answer to the above is a resounding "NO!". At the same time, I hope that the students never use it to a teacher or any administrator in school either. It's been a while since I was in high school (1973) and a few years since my children were last in that environment (2006). So, consider me part of the Ozzie and Harriet world where we may have used the S word every now and then - and got hit with a quick "T" when we did.

OK, now that that is out of the way, what, you may ask, is the point of this blog entry?? Simple -- if interscholastic sports are an extension of the classroom, the decorum and respect that occurs in the classroom MUST extend to the playing field - or, in our case, the ice rink.

There have been instances of coaches being fired for swearing - not at the game officials, but at the student-athletes. While the MSHL does not have the power to fire or discipline coaches for profanity at their student-athletes (or vice versa) each school club does have the power. While I hope it never becomes necessary, the coaches are responsible to their school. The league cannot and will not intervene. You said it, you meant it. Now accept the consequences.

Just as the players are responsible. In no way, shape, or form, should a student-athlete drop the Hockey Word at a coach. Oh, it is an easy word to use. And it does seem to fit most every hockey situation there is. But, since we're supposed to be educated and have a wide vocabulary to get high scores on the verbal portion of the SAT, ACT, and PSAT, let's use that wonderful vocabulary that's been learned in the classroom and use it instead of the hockey word.

If you do drop the HW at the coach in a vipurative manner, expect to be disciplined. Don't ask Mommy or Daddy to help you out. You said it, you meant it. Accept the consequences.

Fighting

We've already has one fight this season - which is one too many. Fighting has no place in interscholastic sports which is why the MSHL reserves its harshest penalties for those who do fight.

How do we eliminate fighting? Simple. It takes an act of will by the student-athlete to say to him/herself, "I will not fight." That's it. If you ingrain it into your conscience that the ice rink is not the time nor the place to settle your differences by punching your opponent, then there will be no more fights.

It's not the ref's job to prevent a fight from starting, nor is it the parent(s) in the stands, nor the coach. The responsibility falls on the players.

So next time the adreniline starts rushing through the veins, take a deep breath and get even in the traditional way -- on the scoreboard.

Game Counts

There are many differences between High School sports and youth sports. One of them is that high school sports is an extension of the classroom. To that end, rules are set up by the various governing bodies to prevent one side or the other from exerting too much influence over the student. That's why all high school sports have competition limits for a season and for a given week.

Let's look at game limits for a minute. Let me work backwards
MSHL (MPSSAA Basketball) -- 22 games before the tournament
NCAA Divsion III - 25 games before the tournaments
NCAA Division I - 34 games before the tournaments
USA Junior - 40 - 54
USA Youth - unlimited to the extent of budgets.

The MPSSAA says that you can play 3 games in a week (Monday - Saturday) TWICE in a season and that an in-season tournament must happen when schools are not in session.

The MSHL has roughly a 10 week window to play league games and 2 more weeks of pre-season time. That means if a school wishes to play a full 22 game schedule, they have to play 1.8 games per week. Throw in a week of exams, and the number gets to 2 games / week, which fits nicely into the MPSSAA guidelines.

Why all the restrictions? We're trying to strike a balance between academics and extracurricular activities where one is not more important than the other, but each complements the other. "All work and no play make Johnny a dull boy." is the old adage. We want our students to have time for academics and sports, which is why we should not overload the extracurricular at the expense of the curricular (and vice versa).

A coach is a teacher and the practice is where his/her knowledge of the sport is conveyed to the players (students). The game is where he/she finds out how well his/her players absorbed the concepts taught in practice. Any coach can proctor an exam, I mean supervise a bench during a game, but the special ones are those who take raw talent and make it better by school's end.

So why my fuss about game counts? If you treat a game as an examination of what you have learned in practice, then you can see the concern. Imagine a teacher who scheduled 5 tests in 5 days (Monday - Friday). As a parent, would you say anything? You should. First, the teacher is not teaching. The students are learning the subject by examination and the teacher can get lazy. We pay our teachers to teach, not to proctor exams, though that is part of their duties.

Hockey on Campus

OK, I confess, I am a college hockey geek. I saw my first college hockey games at Madison Square Garden in 1972 watching the ECAC Holiday Hockey tournament. Those first games?
In the consolation round: Clarkson vs St. Lawrence and in the championship it was St. Louis vs. Notre Dame. I was planning on going to Clarkson the following fall and I was interested to see what college hockey was all about. CCT beat SLU and ND beat St. Louis, and I was hooked.

This love affair with college hockey is now 38 years old and I am pleased to find other college hockey geeks through US College Hockey Online (www.uscho.com) and the meets and greets at the Frozen Four. It is a fun group and yes, a bit geeky, but we all love our schools, even though Clarkson will never make the NCAA Divsion I finals again. Plus, there are a bunch of us in the MSHL.

So now I find a new resource - Hockey on Campus (www.hockeyoncampus.com) which is an internet radio show devoted to college hockey. Last night was the first broadcast and they archive them as well for later listening. Yesterday they interviewed the college hockey conference commissioners and mens and womens college coaches. The focus was all on D-1, but I hope they do focus on D-III in later shows as I have a financial interest in D-III hockey.

So, if you have any interest in college hockey, every Wednesday night at 7 PM the show is live. Apparently, you can tweet or email the show, too!

Bob Otte

Bob Otte sent me an email on Sunday afternoon announcing that he had to resign as Rules Interpreter of the MSHL. Bob has been taking more and more responsibilites with USA Hockey plus, his new job at his old place with a new employer that actually had him working more hours now then before he retired!!

Bob is a voice of reason. He and I knocked heads a few times over some rule interpretation or another, but it was always civil. Invariably, he was right. But in the end we both respected each others opinion.

So now another of the original 6 (or so) who founded the league has moved on. It is up to us to nurture what they began over 20 years ago so that when our successors look back they can give us the same warm kudos and we give them.

If you see Bob at an ice rink, please give him kudos for a job well done!

He will be missed.