Selling Caps programs

Friday night my players sold programs at the Washington Capitals game. The programs cost $2 each and we get to keep all the money we make minus the $200 that the Capitals stake us with. It was an interesting night. We sold quite a few programs, some people gave us $5 dollars for one program and said keep the rest as a donation and there was one unfortunate instances when one of the coaches from a team we played walked up to buy a program and when he realized who was selling the programs he said " no thanks I do not need one from you guys". I was disappointed that a opposing coach would react that way. This is a fund-raising event that the kids will volunteer for and it is fun too.

Need to raise money

Ice Hockey in Maryland is a sport not directly supported by the school systems like football and basketball is. As a result teams do fundraisers to try and off set the costs. One of our more successful fundraisers is selling programs at a Washington Capitals game. I really do appreciate the support of the Capitals. It usually gives my team enough money to cover our required deposit for ice time for next year. It also gives my players a chance to spend time together off the ice which they do not get to do much of because they attend different schools.
     Does anyone have other fundraisers that do not include baking? I would love to hear about them.

Season in Review

Now that I have taken couple days away from thinking about high school hockey. I spent my morning commute thinking about the just ended season. I realized  couple of things about the season 1) My team did not play well against physical teams 2) To win we need to stay out of the penalty box 3) The value of practice time for the underclassmen. I am not sure how much playing in the pre-season tournament helped my team. I will have to think carefully about playing in the Frederick Cup next fall.
     Next fall I will have a team that will have no seniors but I will have a good core of juniors so it should be interesting.

The Last Game

The last game did not go exactly as planned. The team we played came out being very physical something my team does not handle well. We spent most of the second period killing penalties. It seems despite being very physical and hitting my players very high they did not get any penalties. Due to their high hitting I lost one of my players to a possible concussion. I brought the high hitting to the referees attention but they did not seem to care or be concerned. I thought we had scored a goal but the referee waved off the goal and said the puck came out of the net. I said that could happen if the puck hit the back bar and came back out which is what happened. The referee looked at me confused and said no goal coach. We did lose the game and a number of my team's parents said this was the most physical game they had seen.

This Week's challenge

This is the last week of the regular season for my hockey team. Last week we were eliminated from the playoffs but we still have one game left to play on Friday night. My challenge is to keep my team focused and wanting to play on Friday night. I plan to make part of my speech to the players Friday night " they want to end the season with a win." I will say to the seniors it would be good for them to win their last high school hockey game. We will just have to see how the game goes.

Post Season Honors

Yesterday I learned that two of my seniors had been chosen for the All - Conference Team. There are only six players on the team. I had one forward and my goalie chosen. The players were voted onto the team by the Head Coaches of our conference according to their stats.
    There are two other All-Star teams one is the Senior All-Star Team and the MHC All-Star Game. I have already had two defensemen, one forward and one goalie chosen for the MHC All-Star Game. Next I will see how many of my seniors get chosen for the Senior All-Star Team.

An Interesting Opinion

Last night my team played a very good first period. We were behind only 1-0 at the end of the first period. We were playing a team that was higher in the standings but they were not better just more physical. my team does not respond to overly physical play to well. As the second period unfolded it was obvious the referees were not calling many penalties against our opponent. My team became frustrated with the referees. We ended losing the game but the interesting thing happened after the game.
        After the game was over one of my team captains asked if he could ask the referees why they did not make a lot of calls tonight against the other team. I said sure we can go ask them. My captain politely asked the referees why they did not call a lot of penalties. The referees looked right at my captain and said " He was right they did not call a lot of penalties on the other team and that was because they thought the other team did not deserves the penalties even though they did commit the penalties.
      The adventures in high school hockey continue.