Last Updated on Wednesday, 04 November 2015 15:23
By Kevin Hartzell
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
I have been fortunate this year already. I am working with two teams, the Twin City Steel of the NA3HL and the White Bear Lake High School girls’ hockey team. The Steel are having a great year so far and the girls just got started officially this week.
Longtime White Bear Lake head coach Jerry Kwapick asked me this past summer, in my hiatus from coaching, if I might like to help with his team. He shared with me that this is a White Bear Lake team that has a chance to be one of their better teams in some years.
After getting on the ice with them this summer, I knew it was a great group of young women and felt maybe this could be a lot of fun, and a learning experience. This past weekend, I had the pleasure of being on the bench for a couple of scrimmages involving the White Bear girls. It was a learning experience and a reminder of things important. One of those things is simply sitting on the bench.
I have always believed that sitting on the bench is important. I actually believe it is a non-negotiable necessity on a couple of levels. Sitting is important for those coming off the ice as they recover from a vigorous shift. Maybe most importantly is that standing players take the view of the game away from those who are sitting. To be “in the game” while on the bench, players have to be able to see the game. It is hard for the coach to teach and for players to understand the details of the game if they cannot see it.
All this said, it is rarer today to see teams sit than to see them standing. I have even seen teams at college level standing. I have often wondered how this all began and how it caught on to such the degree it has.
So here are two short stories from the girls scrimmages this past weekend and good examples of why sitting on the bench is so very important. They were good stories to share with our girls, too, who I suspect wanted to better understand why I thought sitting on the bench was so important as I encouraged them to change from their habit of standing.
Short story No. 1: One of our young defenders was staring straight ahead shortly after getting back to the bench. The play had moved down to the right, but she continued to stare straight ahead. I looked over her shoulder, looking directly to her eyes. As she looked up at me I asked her, “What you looking at?” She replied, “That was really a bad pass I made.” She was staring into space thinking about the bad pass she had made just a few seconds before. I shared with her immediately that we cannot live in the past and that she needed to make a quick assessment of what she maybe could have done better … and then get her eyes immediately back to and on the game. She couldn’t have done so had her team been standing in front of her!
I shared this story with the team in the locker room as reinforcement as to why sitting is so important. Being “in the game” means knowing what is going on in the game and it also means not living in the past. You can’t be “in the game” if you cannot see it. This young defender needed to get her eyes back on the game as soon as she could. It was about moving on and living in the present.
Short story No. 2: One of our defenders made a mistake in the game, one that I had talked about briefly in practice and one we need to eliminate. I pointed this mistake out as she came to the bench. A short time later, this defender made the same mistake. As she came to the bench she saw me looking her straight in the eyes and before I said anything, she said, “I know, coach, I made the same mistake again.” I was happy that she had realized it and beginning to better see and understand the game. I said “good for you for knowing.”
Then I turned to the other defenders and asked what mistake we were talking about. They said nothing. I shared with them that “being in the game” meant seeing these things. Learning during the game by what we do and by what our opposition does and so on. I suspect the girls will get there in time.
It was also quite noticeable that the girls were very quiet on the bench, almost “dead” quiet. I accused them of possibly being zombies (it was after all, Halloween night.) This not talking much if at all is something we need to fix. I think this too may all be tied together with the standing on the bench issue. The girls are accustomed to not seeing the game, or at least not so much of the game, so they are very slow to comment or yell out to teammates to help.
Our team will need to get better at talking to one another and helping each other throughout the game. Before they do, however, they need to take ownership, or certainly become aware of everything that is happening in the game. And they will have to see it to understand it.
I find sitting players also makes coaching so much easier and more organized for both players and coaches. If we are all engaged in the game together, a coach’s comments can be better heard and understood. I think it makes sense that if the coach makes a comment about “that play just now at the blue line” it will be better understood and a teaching moment if the players know which play the coach is actually referring to.
That’s a lot about what seems one little thing. But in my world it’s not little. Understanding the game is big. Attention to detail is important to the team but it is also a life skill. Requiring players to sit on the bench is a big and positive step for coaches in getting their players to a better place.
