Its Been A While

It has been a while so let me catch everyone up. The season started out all right but at the holiday break we are 1-4-1. This season we have had our share of bad breaks. One of our defensemen got a concussion and a second defenseman's bad grades kept him off the ice. Our defense is our weak point with the two defensemen we lost.
   To help us deal with our weakness I decided we would play 1-2-2. I will let you know what happens.

Evaluation of Frist Practice

Well, I have had my first practice and here is what it was like. First, the practice was about 90 minutes long which was a perfect length. As the players warmed up I noticed that since the end of last season a number of the players had grown by several inches. This was the first time I had seen the freshmen skate and they all seemed like good skaters. I had the players run through some drills so I could evaluate them then we scrimmaged for about forty minutes. Next practice I will have the team work on checking, forechecking and powerplay set -up.

First Practice for 2011-2012

Tuesday will be the first practice for the 2011-2012 season. I will have about eight new players and a new goalie. I should have enough players to have three forward lines and three defense pairs which would be good. I have about a month of practices before we play in the Frederick Cup in November and our regular season starts the week after the Frederick Cup.

Coming 2011-2012 Season

This past Sunday I had my welcome to the new season meeting with players and their parents. As always I explain to everyone my expectations for the parents and the players. Then I split the group up. I let the team manager go over the paperwork with the parents and I take the players into another room where we talked about what will happen at practice and what will happen on game day. I have about 20 players to start the season.

Life Has Changed

On July 24th my house and car were destroyed by fire which was started by an arsonist who has not been caught yet. Now I am getting back to preparing for the upcoming hockey season. Before I work on practice planning I  have to start to look for new coaching equipment which include getting new skates, gloves and a helmet.. I lost all these items in the fire.  More thoughts to come.

Looking for an assistant coach

As I start to think about the upcoming season the first thought is of my staff. Right now I have a team manager and one assistant coach. I am looking for at least one other coach who might have some background working with goalies. I would prefer this coach not be a parent but I can be flexible on this preference. Next preparing for the parent/player meetings.

What was SI Thinking?

I had been waiting for my Sports Illustrated issue with the Boston Bruins on the cover. I called SI and they said they were offering a championship package but there would be no cover. Hockey takes another slap in the face. The SI issue that should have the Bruins on the cover actually had golf on the cover. An SI cover with the Stanley Cup Champions on it does more to help the sport then a championship package. Not as many people buy a championship package as may buy an issue of SI. This would seem to show  that SI thinks less of hockey then golf. It would be nice to have SI explain their decision but that probably will not happen. If you show the Champions of baseball, football and basketball then hockey should get equal coverage. What do you think?