Tom M,
Two things come to mind reading this post.
1. As a youngster I loved the Northland sticks. I remember buying them in Detroit when our Ontario team visited.
2. Of course you backcheck! You're a coach.lol
As for your girls, I recall taking a coaching course where they showed a video of a game. The camera only focussed on the players legs, so you never saw anything but Canada socks. It was a wonderful demonsrtation of game like skating...and it was very good!
Eventually the camera panned out so that we could see that this was a womens game. I think a few eyebrows raised that day, and a few light bulbs switched on.
Tom, I'm interested in your insights over the last three years. Mens hockey overseas sandwiched between two years of high level female hockey. Perhaps you could write an insightful book on this.
Cheers,
Paulie
Paulie, I have thought about doing something like that because I think I have unique experiences that have allowed me to see hockey all over the world. Some other coaches have done things with Hockey Canada and stayed in hotels while in other countries. I usually stay with the people who bring me there and get to know what is happening from a closer perspective.
In the last 20 years I have worked with Korean school, university and pro teams and gone to Korea as a guest coach. I have spoken at a World Championship in Finland as well and doing seminars with Juhani and Jursinov and done 3 hockey schools in Vierumaki as well as attend an international conference there. I have spent two weeks in Norway doing a hockey school and bringin the U of Calgary team there to play pro teams. I also took my women's team to Scandanavia on a tour 4 years ago.
Juhani and I set up the national development program for Austria and spent 2 weeks in Vienna teaching their coaches, I was there another year helping select their national youth teams.
I have done a hockey school in Guadalajara, Mexico which included a tour of the state each day. Done camps and hockey schools in Penn., California, Michigan, Minnesota.
I took my college men to Germany and Switzerland to play pro teams and have toured with 2 bantam aged teams to places inclucing the Czech Republic. I have also been to coaching conferences in Austria and my team played a tournament in Switzerland last year.
Last year with Red Bull I coached with coaches from Finland, Sweden, Russia, Canada, USA, Czech, Slovakia and Austria.
Here I have coached all levels of youth hockey from 6 to men, house league to AAA. I also have run practices for the Chinese and Australian national women's teams.
Each country has a differenct philosophy of the game and a different way to run a practice. Disciplin varies from non existent to beating players in the back of the legs with a hockey stick.
In the last 7 years I spent 5 coaching college women, 1 as a skills coach for the 4 Red Bull teams of pro, U20 and U17. I am the only coach in Calgary to be at all 3 hockey playing post secondary institutions, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology-4 years, U of Calgary - 8 years and Mount Royal College-5years
Besides meaning that I am getting old the experiences have given me exposure to most of the hockey world. One day I hope to put the experiences down on paper; even if it is just for me to remember everything before I am too old to remember anything.