We had a pretty good practice session yesterday evening. Interesting fact for the Midget B level, there was only one player missing at practice, and he had called me beforehand to let me know he had to work really late.
This may not look like a reason to celebrate but to give you an idea, last season it wasn't unusual for Andrew's team to have a practice where only 7 skaters and Andrew would show up for a practice and his team had 16 skaters compared to this year's team which has 13 skaters.
It's pretty depressing to work hard and try to set up a practice plan for only 7 skaters. Not sure I've explained it but I often differentiate players between "skaters" and "goalies". In our case, we've got 13 skaters and Andrew as the lone goalie. It's always easier for me to look at how many fellas other than Andrew showed up.
As I said, pretty good session where we worked again mostly on individual skills, i.e. skating, puck handling, passing and shooting. My thinking is that working from the ground up on the pyramid of skills will help us in the long run. Sure, there'll be moments where we will look disorganized and out of sync but if the kids get to put their passes right on the stick blade of their teammates, we will have a better shot at doing a whole lot things better, from breaking out of our zone to creating scoring chances at the other end.
We also only had half the ice to work with as one of the Midget A team was using the other half. It's a byproduct of too many teams in the association and not enough ice time available for practices. Most competitive teams, i.e. BB and CC, do get full ice practices while the recreative teams often have to make do with half ice practices. Many people complain about it but I don't mind, really. For now, Even if all the guys showed up, let's say I split them in two groups of 7 as I only have one assistant on the ice with, there's not much more we could practice. Maybe some team work stuff but for now I'm quite content with just getting the kids to touch the puck as much as possible. And the kids are responding well to that so far.
Looking forward to Saturday's game, we cold possibly be down two forwards. Loïck could miss a second game in a row and probably not his last since he said he often works in a restaurant on Saturday night. Boggles my mind why he would sign up to play hockey when most games are either on Saturday or Sunday nights. I guess he just loves playing the game... Frank's mom had already told me last Saturday that there was a good chance he'd miss this week's game because they are celebrating his grandmother's birthday. He reminded me of it yesterday when I surveyed the group about possible absentees. Funny thing is that just as we were leaving the ice, he came around to me as I was gathering my things. He told me that, well, he didn't know how long dinner would last on Saturday. That sometimes these things do last long but that if he had a chance to make it to the game, even though he'd cut it real close, he asked if it was still ok that he came. I told him I understood it was a special occasion and that of course, if he could make it the locker room on time for the start of the game, or maybe with only 5-10 minutes to spare, of course I'd allow him to play the game. I thought it was really interesting that he was trying to keep his optiosn open. I'd like to believe that it was the effect of being around the team during practice that made him want to make sure he possibly could play the game.
In a semi team related news, Andrew was asked to be an affiliate for the Midget A1 team, the one with which we shared the ice yesterday. For our team, this has little implication other than allowing me to explain how the affiliation of players works.
Every team in minor hockey can have affiliated players but one player can only be an affiliate to one team. What is an affiliated player? It's a reserve player that gets to play on a team that's at a higher level. It can be a higher competition level withing a same age group (e.g. Midget B playing as an affiliate with a Midget A team) or a a older age group (Bantam player affiliated to a Midget team) There are rules regulating where you can pick your affiliates. Basically, a recreative team (single letter caliber, i.e. A & B) can affiliate players from other recreative teams. Midget A team affiliates players from Midget B teams but they could go down to get them from a Bantam A team. Midget B teams usually get their affiliates from Bantam A team but they have to wait for the Bantam CC team to make their choice, i.e. protect their own affiliates. They have priority since they are at a competitive level. A Midget B team could also affiliate a Bantam B player but it doesn't really make a lot of sense since usually the better Bantam players will be playing at the A level. I couldn't affiliate a Bantam CC though, since he's at a competitive level and we're recreative. Hope this makes sense.
I have gone to watch a couple Bantam A games in the last three weeks and have spotted a couple players. Once I'll have decided which players I'd like to affiliate, I would then have to make sure the Bantam CC team has not already affiliated him and then check with the other Midget B team to see if they also wanted that given player. If so, it would become a negotiating game with a bit of give and take where you I might to let go of some if I want some other. I have already told the other Midget B's coach that I was giving them first shot for an affiliate goalie, since there's a better chance they might need one than I would.
Going back to Andrew, and goalies in general, since goalies are a special breed of players, the rules are a bit different. A goalie can be affiliated to two teams playing at different levels. For exemple, a Bantam A goalie can be affiliated with the Bantam CC team and also with a Midget B team. Same goes for Andrew. Not only was he asked to be an affiliate for that Midget A team, he was also told that the Junior B team (there's only one) wanted to make him an affiliate since even though he doesn't play in Midget A, he's a third year Midget and they seem to think his age and maturity and level of play (borderline A in my book) combine well if he ever was needed for a game at the Junior level.
Of course, this means virtually nothing in terms of possibility of playing at a higher level since both the Junior B and the Midget A team have two goalies on their roster and are not required to dress two for a game. Basically, if one were to miss a game, they could play the other and not really need Andrew to play for them and they'd need him only in a sort of extreme case where both goalies would be missing a game. Still, he's on their list and sometimes a team can ask their affiliates to come and practice with them something which I'm sure Andrew would like. More ice time the better for him.
FM