Reply To: Daily Drill Section Fourteen

[SMAC]

How did you do in provincials

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It was a 5 team round robin and we played 4 games. Beat Grande Prairie 4-2, tied Sherwood Park 1-1, beat Spruce Grove PAC 8-2, beat Highwood Raiders 3-2 and placed first and got a bye into the final. We lost to Highwood 1-2. outshot them 26-13 but didn't score on our chances.

We had about 6 A+ scoring chances and got one and they had about 3 and got 2. Some of the players were too uptight and didn't put it in when they usually would.

Great finish though. We coached 14 games and had 44 GF and 20 GA, were 5-1 in in the last six league games to finish the schedule and 6-1-1 in the playoffs and then the Provincial tournament.

Girl's worked so hard and I think we deserved better but that is hockey.

The GHC association had so little faith that we would win the first playoff round (won 3-0) that they didn't rent ice for the week before the Provincials and had to scramble to get us practices.

My assistant coaches, Haley Irwin (two gold medals) and Jess Wong (former captain of Minnesota Duluth and U22 player) were great and did a lot of team building during the down time. Our goalie coach Cam (contract goalie coach) drove the 8 hrs. up to be part of it.

Haley was part of the on ice celebration after the 2010 Gold http://nypost.com/2010/02/26/canadian-womens-hockey-team-celebrates-win/#1

Our mandate was to get through the season with no problems and have the players enjoy playing again. The team was rift with internal conflict and made up of first and third year players with only two second year. I addressed this right away and mixed the lines with all age groups, made them sit together, got the hockey mom out of the dressing room and put the captains in charge, met with each player on the bus on our road trips, first and third years shared hotel rooms and put Haley and Jess in charge of team building. There was a lot of talent on the team so I knew we were capable of going deep into the playoffs and we almost got it done.

The team was pretty good in the defensive zone but needed to be a lot more aggressive and we worked on that. I totally changed the forecheck to 1-2-3-4-5 read and react like most NHL teams play and we did a lot of passing games and offensive attack drills featuring reading to middle drive or create wide 2-1's and get the D joining the rush. I also implemented an aggressive PK and a PP that attacks the net continuously. We used lots of transition games and competition in the six weeks of practice I had with them. The most important thing we worked on were habits like facing the puck, stick on the puck, angling and that led to us giving up 20 or less shots in most games while the offense usually produced 30+ shots. So we averaged just over 3 GF a game and just under 1.5 GA a game.

There is only one team in Calgary now and they should always be strong. When I coached two years ago there were 3 then 2 teams with no chance of winning because bottom third of the team were not AAA players. Players continually leave to play at sports schools the last year or two of eligibility so it was hard to build a Championship team. The sports schools play eastern teams and get scouted more but every one of my graduating players this year was offered scholarships by CIS or NCAA schools so the parents should pay to play here instead of $35 000 to send their child to a private sports school.

Winning Silver in the Provincial Championships was good. Losing 1-2 when you outshoot the opponents 26-13 was tough.

They went on to beat British Columbia in the regional final then played in the Esso Cup Canadian Championships. They won the round robin but lost to Ontario in the play-off and ended up winning the Bronze. We split the two league games against them, beat them in the Provincial round robin 3-2 and then lost 1-2 in the Gold medal game. So the teams were about as even as you can get. We played the game better and they have more goal scorers.

I told Girl's Hockey Calgary that I would like to coach the team next year but instead of continuing with me they decided to have an interview process and hired the coaching staff from 14-15 that they decided not to rehire at the start of 15-16 season.

Most of the questions during the interview were about my age and how could I possibly relate to high school aged players. No consideration that I am constantly coaching teams, my skills class, private lessons, hockey camps, attend coaching symposiums, continuously update this site with the most current hockey ideas from all over the hockey world. So the white hair is all they saw and as Simon and Garfunkel sang; 'They hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest.' Any 'ism' is a nasty thing and Ageism is one of them. A silver medal was the best result a Calgary team has had in the last decade and it should speak for itself.