By Melissa Walsh
Herb Brooks-isms are popular in my home. Five of us play hockey, and we’ve all seen Miracle more than a dozen times. Though viewing the game as a seventh-grader in 1980 is still a vivid memory for me, the lesson of the miracle game as applied by my four hockey-playing sons has had a deeper impact on my can-do spirit. The mental strength modeled by my goalie is the most remarkable. I tell my boys, “There’s good-crazy and bad-crazy.” I believe living out a passion to mind the net falls under “good-crazy.” A true goalie amazes onlookers with his puck-blocking talent and his deflection of criticism when he can’t block them all. As a goalie develops, he trains his mind to counter the literal shots of the puck and the figurative shots of severe judgment. He grows his heart, quickness, and thick skin for his mission, focusing on one thing: making the next great save. And when he’s made a great save, he feels that he’s stopped time. Great moments, like stopping time, are born from this opportunity of accepting the risk of playing net. When a goalie’s hot, wow, it’s magical – great split-second moments of staying big to stone the break-out shooter, or reading the attacker like a clairvoyant to foil the deke, or making a swift swoop of the glove to catch the snipe. I don’t have the special, good-crazy gift to play net, but I have the passion to step out and use my head, heart and hands to raise four sons and build a business. I hear these words: “You were born for this. This is your time. Go out there and take it.” I’m seizing each great opportunity with the belief in great moments
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By Melissa Walsh
“Mini-mites, it’s as good as it gets,” said a veteran hockey dad to a mini- mites dad. Overhearing this, I couldn’t help but to nod in agreement. This was about two years ago. I was seated in rink bleachers enjoying five- and six-year olds playing a cross-ice scrimmage. My youngest son was among them. There’s nothing cuter. Fearlessly, these tiny skaters chase the puck like little terriers after a ball. Bunched up in a pack, they manage to gain control of the puck, then take it to the net — hustling, falling down, getting up again, and sometimes even passing. The coaches look on smiling. No systems. All instinct. No swearing or fighting, and usually no penalties. The mini-mite experience is innocent fun and a pure love for playing a game. For organized, indoor hockey, it’s the closest thing to the freedom of kids playing on the pond. And mini-mite parenting is so simple. You get them dressed in the gear, find a spot in the bleachers, sit back, and smile. That’s all you have to do to nurture a mini mite’s love for the game. At a local hockey camp one summer, I heard a pee wee ask Florida Panther David Booth what the most important thing is for making it in the NHL. Booth said, “Never lose your love for the game.” I think about Booth’s comment as I watch the little mini mites play. For them, hockey is just another game, and the love for it is just taking root. Unfortunately, however, I occasionally observe a mini-mite parent uprooting a child’s love for hockey. Whether they’re scolding their little one for making a “mistake” on the ice or for just not “trying hard enough,” I think to myself, “That poor kid doesn’t have a chance. He’s going to lose his love for the game before mites.” While hockey players of yesterday developed instincts and a love for the game on the pond, today’s youngsters are expected to develop this passion in a structured, adult-controlled environment. If we’re not careful, we’ll over-manage potential hockey players into stressed out kids who play hockey. Trenton Youth Hockey’s Frank Murphy, a nationally recognized pioneer of instructional hockey for little kids, insists that hockey skills must be developed in a “fun-filled environment.” In a USA Hockey Magazine profile in 2004, Murphy said that to be a more effective hockey teacher, he had to learn how to get into the heads of mini-mites. They have short attention spans, they process what you say literally, and between drills they like to talk to the coach about kid stuff, like birthday parties and cartoons. I concluded from the article that Murphy’s great success at Trenton was grounded in treating five and six years olds like they’re five and six. This requires patience, kindness, and acting a little zany as needed to keep their attention. Mini-mites is a non-competitive level, designed for FUNdamental development in learning and loving the game of hockey. If you have a mini-mite, I recommend letting him pack his favorite stuffed animal in his hockey bag. Let him brag to team mates about losing his first tooth. Let him act a little silly with his little buddies at the rink. Smile a lot. Cheer them along. Never scream at a mini-mite (or at a mini-mite coach or ref), even from behind the glass. And don’t discuss your mini-mite’s performance during the car ride home. To assess your mini-mite’s development, my advise is simply to ask him, “Are you having fun playing hockey?”
By Melissa Walsh
“He shoots. He scores!” The words of Foster Hewitt echo in the hockey mom’s mind while rising to cheer solid effort at a youth hockey game. She cheers for all the kids — though naturally, it is her hockey kid who will forever be her heart’s superstar. He is her star because he is a “good” player, listening to the coach, heeding the authority of the ref, working hard to move the puck up the ice, maneuvering past and battling opponents. He rises early for practice without complaint. He religiously practices drills on lake ice or the driveway. When faced with aggressive play, excessive or within the rules, Mom’s player continues thinking through his game, envisioning his team’s next goal. The screaming from behind the glass is white noise. His focus is his game, honing instincts of head, heart, and hands. And Mom’s job has been tough. She’s endured obnoxious parents and cringed as her child gets hit hard against the boards. She can spot disappointment on her player’s face from the bleachers, through the cage a hundred feet away, after fanning on a one-timer attempt or making a costly mistake on the back check. Mom asks her player after a frustrating game or on the way to a 7 a.m. practice, “Are you having fun?” “Yeah,” the player replies. “Great,” Mom says. Mom signs the check for the next ice bill knowing that her player’s hockey development is owned by him, not by her. He defines his hockey dreams and craves the excitement of the hockey life. She is proud of her player, because she understands that, by accepting this challenge, her child volunteered for a lesson that will support his development into adulthood — the lesson of puck control. Her player is learning how to rise after getting knocked down. He’s learning essential skills for carrying a responsibility to net. He’s developing instincts for jumping over and maneuvering around obstacles, maturing in self-discipline and self-control. Mom’s player practices techniques for dangling and protecting the puck, creating zone and the chance, looking for a teammate to feed a pass to or taking the shot himself. She is confident that he will enter into the game of life as an assertive and disciplined adult. The character he cultivated during the hockey experience will empower him for serving in a job, heading up a family, or volunteering for his community or nation. Throughout his life, Mom’s player will start out each new morning with the words of Bob Johnson in mind — “It’s a great day for hockey!”
Hockey is a club that holds its members tightly, the bond forged by shared hardship and mutual passion, by every trip to the pond, where your feet hurt and your face is cold and you might get a stick in the ribs or a puck in the mouth, and you still can’t wait to get back out there because you are smitten with the sound of blades scraping against ice and pucks clacking off sticks, and with the game’s speed and ever- changing geometry. It has a way of becoming the center of your life even when you’re not on the ice.
~Wayne Coffey, The Boys of Winter By Melissa Walsh Hockey parents know that hockey is more than a sport; it’s a lifestyle. Add the thrill of playing hockey to the experience of hockey-parenting, and hockey will become a family passion. The Rink Congregation The hockey community is tight-knit. It’s fitting that we hockey families spend so many Sunday mornings together, because we function much like a church congregation, or often like a large dysfunctional family at Sunday brunch. Like a family or community of believers, hockey families are emotionally invested, not just in this sport, but in each other. Whether fond of one other or at odds with one other, one thing is certain, hockey families are not indifferent to one other. The hockey community takes care of hockey families experiencing crisis. And collectively, hockey parents look after the precious rink rats tooling through the rink lobby in their heelys. They hold babies for fellow parents getting little skaters geared up for practice. They take turns buying all the kids slushies. Parents who had played hockey together as kids growing up partner in guiding today’s youth hockey players. Yet in their overzealousness to support their own kid’s development, they sometimes clash with one another, then, as families do, they make up, forgive and move on ! it’s for the good of the kids. After all, they will be spending many more weekends together and traveling numerous more miles together. Because there are no “snow days” for hockey families, they have already survived blizzards together, convoying their SUVs closely behind one another through blinding, blowing snow. The Hockey-Playing Hockey Parent I’ve been a hockey mom for about ten years now and have enjoyed the community of hockey more than any other community of friends in my life. But it wasn’t until I started playing the game myself eight years into my hockey parenting journey that I really became a good hockey mom. To know first-hand what it takes to dangle a puck, to feed a pass, to catch a pass, to score a goal, to feel the intensity of the game, to enjoy the camaraderie of the room ! that has enhanced my ability immeasurably to parent my players well. America’s Hockey Club So in honor of today’s 31st anniversary of the Miracle Game and the recent Hockey Day Across America celebration, I’ve come up with a little acrostic: H is for the humility of hockey’s greatest players. O is for the obsession to play this addictive game. C is for the character that hockey builds in the player. K is for hockey keepsakes, like tourney trophies and game pucks. E is for the empowerment hockey players sense on the ice. Y is for the youthfulness players of all ages feel during a game. The hockey club is a memory-maker for my family. It is my family’s social life, my support network, and the gateway to my boys’ dreams. Hockey creates a rite of passage for my sons and a language I can use to communicate with them. Because hockey allows no shortcuts to glory, pursuing hockey greatness instills the values of perseverance, discipline, and humility. So to all the volunteer coaches, league administrators and rink managers out there, thank you for helping this great sport thrive. My family is blessed to be part of this congregation of believers, also known as Greater Detroit’s outstanding hockey community.
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