Something happened at Quinn's hockey this past weekend, and I've been humming and hawing about whether or not I should blog about it. I finally decided to post about it, even though I know I will come across as a stark raving lunatic.
Quinn and Shannon play hockey at the same time. They are in an instructional league, and Shannon goes to one end of the ice with the beginner group, while Quinn skates on the other end of the ice with the 'competitive group'.
Now hockey is the one sport where Chris and I don't coach. We both love the game and know a fair bit about it, but neither of us ever played hockey, AND both of us are mediocre skaters. (yes, Aidan solidly kicks our butt in skating now).
Because we don't coach, we often sit on the bench biting our tongues. Why - you say? Well, we've both played enough competitive sports, and coached enough that we know how players, and especially young kids are supposed to be coached.
Now, back to Saturday. Quinn's 'practice' started out with two coaches, and three older kids (I'm guessing the kids were 10, 13, and 18) playing a game of coaches vs. kids. This can often be a great learning tool because you can show the kids techniques, and teach them about spacing, looking up, and passing.
You CAN do this, but this is not what they were doing. Instead, it very quickly became a game of keep away. Yep, 5 people played keep away from SIX YEAR OLDS for twenty minutes. It was beyond frustrating to watch, and you could see the little guys getting more and more dejected.
Once they wrapped up the little exercise, they decided to work on penalty shots. They lined the kids up and off they went. Quinn took his shot (which was stopped by the goalie). Next thing I know is that Quinn is skating over to the bench crying his eyes out.
He was soooo.... upset that he didn't get a goal. I managed to calm him down and told him to go back out and get in line. Then he said: "I'm not allowed to."
"What do you mean you're not allowed to?"
Another mom sitting on the bench (consoling her crying son) piped up and said: "they were told that if they miss the shot they have to come to the bench. They're only allowed to go back in line if they score."
Let's remember that these children are six years old. Let's remember
that this is supposed to be INSTRUCTIONAL hockey. Let's remember that
the main goal of all this is to teach kids how to play hockey and have
fun.
To say I saw red is an understatement. I was absolutely LIVID. Here is my child, bawling his eyes out because some jerk of a coach told him that because he 'failed' he couldn't try again. No instruction was given on what he could do better, how he could improve.... nope, just go sit on the bench.
I immediately opened the gate, and started walking on the ice, ready to tear this coach a new one. The other mom (the voice of reason) said: "Tara, don't do it."
I took a breath and walked back to the bench.
Then I did the next best thing (in my twisted mind). I started yelling at the coach.
I'm not proud of it, but I was so furious at what was going on, so angry because my child was devastated that I started yelling at the coach.
"This is supposed to be INSTRUCTIONAL hockey!!! You're SUPPOSED to be teaching them how to play - not sending them to the bench when they miss a shot!!"
Yep. I was that hockey mom. Unfortunately, my personality is such that I cannot keep quiet when something is being done to hurt my child (or any other child). I simply can't sit there and grit my teeth and bite my tongue. Obviously it's something I need to work on, because what am I teaching my kids?
In the end, they never gave Quinn (or the other three boys standing by the bench) a chance to go back in line. After that little exercise was done, they played yet another game of keep away for the remainder of practice.
Good times.
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