Greetings. Welcome to the Head Coaching ranks.
Whether you’re a long-serving Assistant who has been working hard to prepare for this opportunity, or a slightly kidnapped rookie who isn’t quite sure how he agreed to this…
Here are 5 tips to make your rookie (or any) season a rewarding, successful, and enriching experience—hopefully the first of many in your coaching career.
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1. Set the standard
No matter what level you’re coaching, you need to set some standards for players, parents, and the rest of your leadership team. You might be coaching a level where everyone has a lot to learn… you might be coaching a level where players and parents should absolutely know better… but whether you’ll be playing the part of educator or sheriff (or a little bit of both), setting a clear standard is critical to keeping the peace. Let parents know how to communicate, what to expect from you, and what you’ll be expecting from them… educate players on the rules on-ice, off-ice— ranging from governing body, to your organization, all the way down to your unique squad, as well as the consequences. In addition to the practical benefits of some early structure, you’ll be sending a message that you’re organized, prepared, and thoughtful. This part is boring, unpleasant, but absolutely necessary.
And hopefully you have some other adult volunteers in your orbit. Just like your players and parents— welcome them, embrace them, but don’t let them draft their own job descriptions. Start a dialogue before the season starts, evaluate their skills and passions, and align their qualifications to your vision and the needs of the team. Whether they’re comfortable just opening and closing the door, or a lifelong hockey expert ready for advanced responsibility, it’s important that you’ve clearly communicated your expectations to them. As time goes along, find ways to delegate, empower, and give increased purpose to those who earn it. This doesn’t just lighten your load and potentially expose your players to more/better developmental resources, it creates a wider group of stakeholders in the team.
2. Learn Names
For some of you this is easy. You hear a name once and know it forever. I envy you to a degree that makes me dislike you a little bit. So just do what you always do… zero hard work utilizing your supernatural talent. You can skip ahead to the next section.
For the rest of us, this is no small task. We’re the guys saying “whatshisname” or calling everyone “buddy” after years together. I sometimes call my own children their two siblings names rapid-fire before landing on the right one. I’m that guy, so I know I’m preaching to the choir when I say— that’s not ok. Every kid wants to be acknowledged and feel personally seen by the authority figures in their lives, and learning names is rocket fuel for camaraderie, respect, and buy-in. Learning names is quite literally the least we can do as coaches.
Need a gameplan? Just use your newfound coaching superpowers! Be sneaky about it… but create team activities that help YOU achieve YOUR GOALS. Have your players wear nametags on their helmets and street clothes… Do off-ice teambuilding games that involve players reciting each other’s names … take an unofficial team picture on day 1 with their nametags visible … there’s a million ways to create the reps you need. Get creative, Coach!
3. Be a volunteer, not a hostage
Have you been shanghaied by your local hockey association? Are you here as a result of coercion, trickery, intimidation, or violence? Blink twice if you’re being held you against your will! If you’ve been ‘coachnapped’ or ‘voluntold’, I’m truly sorry. Not sorry enough to rescue you, but pretty sorry. You probably had big plans for yourself this winter. But there’s a perpetual coaching shortage and we need good people mentoring our kids. In the years to come, I hope you look back on this moment with levity and come to think of this entire ordeal as a profound personal compliment. And in the meantime, I hope you can find some immediate joy in the experience. Your players will probably have more fun if they think you’re a volunteer… so you might want to read on…
For the rest of us—we volunteers—let’s lighten up a little bit. You volunteered for this, so try not to look like a hostage. This whole thing goes a lot more smoothly if players believe this is the highlight of your day too. Come to work excited. Emulate the way you hope they approach the game. Bring your authentic energy, optimism, enthusiasm, and positivity—something that your players can see and feel. That attitude isn’t just to inspire them on a daily basis, it’s also to set the standard they’ll need to continue to grow in this sport. And after a season with you, your attitudes will resonate and influence your players long after you’ve left them.
4. Plan for Precision, Plan for Change
Planning for the season can range in scope and detail from coach to coach. For the rookie coach, I would advise highly detailed plans for the first couple weeks, both on and off the ice. Work backwards from age-appropriate team goals and identities (Who do we want to be?) and into related skill progressions and benchmark battles and small area games. There are a million resources out there, especially here within The Hockey Think Tank orbit. Happy whiteboarding.
Take that same reverse-engineering approach to build your plan for teambuilding and off-ice activity (Who do we want to be?). Careful planning of those early weeks assures adequate forethought and smooth execution; gathering resources, educating your fellow coaches and aligning their efforts, tying on-ice activity to off-ice endeavors… the more you workshop those first few weeks, the better the experience for everyone involved.
Conversely, while you want enough early structure to allow for a seamless start, you also need to be agile enough to make adjustments as your team begins to coalesce. The mark of a truly adept coach is his/her ability to coach the team they actually have, not the one they dream about having. Semper Gumby: always flexible. Set the target destination early on, but allow the strengths and weaknesses of your players to percolate, inform you, and dictate adjustments to the roadmap. Preseason planning isn’t a crystal ball; no matter how much you plan, your squad will always be a little better in some areas, a little worse in others, a little more or less inclined than you expected. Showing your team your ability and willingness to adapt and meet their traits is weapons-grade buy-in and culture-building fuel.
5. Break Bad
I once heard a fellow coach tell me “there are three types of coaches: innovators, thieves, and the unemployed”. So while we all strive to become innovators, we’d better also be stealing whatever it takes to keep our jobs.
Every rookie Head Coach could probably compile a list of coaches who influence their own coaching style— past or present, known personally or only from afar. Those are great to have, but they don’t always translate or provide steady inspiration.. Your first order of business should be connecting yourself to the coaches in your own club—somewhere in your rink is a coach (or likely many) who really knows what he/she is doing with players much like your own. Engage, collaborate, and extract as much as possible from those experts. You’ll be providing yourself with immediately valid resources, give yourself a boost towards your own innovation, and endear yourself to the culture of coaches within your organization. The best coaches in the game are never content, never arrogant enough to think they’re done improving, always looking for great new ideas. So continue to expand your personal network, continue to draw inspiration from faraway wellsprings, but whatever you do—stay curious and shop steal local first.
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Finally, invest thoughtfully and heavily with your personal support network these next few weeks… your spouse/partner, children, extended families… major vacations, quick celebrations, small gestures, chores around the house… by sharing you with others, your loved ones serve youth hockey programs too. You club might not remember to say thank you to them, but we can’t forget.
Cheers,
