“I Hope Your Kid Played for Their Favourite Coach This Season”

I hope every kid played for their favourite coach this season.

Every time I walk into a rink, in the back of my mind I think about how fortunate I was to have a coach and mentor like Dale Turner.

Every time I walk into a rink, in the back of my mind, I think about my coaching days and how I could have been a better coach or how I could have handled certain situations better.

I think about a lot of shit a lot of the time. I over think and analyze things all of the time, but in my profession you have to self-assess your routines, strategies, philosophies, standards and your interactions on a daily basis. I don’t review the curriculum every day, perhaps I should, but I don’t.

You see all of things I think about and play over and over again in my mind are the personal interactions I have with my students and colleagues.

You see that’s why I hope every kid played for their favourite coach this season, because those daily interactions matter. In two decades of teaching and over half of that time spent also coaching I’ve come to understand the importance and impact of those personal interactions.

I hope your kid was able to experience that. I hope your kid was able to walk away from the rink with a positive outlook on their relationship with their coach, the game and their role within it moving forward.

I hope every kid got to experience that this season, however we all know that some didn’t.

The interactions are critical in creating a positive culture, environment and experiences for players or students.

I’m not the be all end all of teaching and I was certainly not the be all end all of coaching, but you learn very quickly that the interactions between coach and player are the most meaningful of all.

Sure, I have my regrets, I wish I could have done some things differently, but I learned from those interactions, experiences and environments. You see as a coach I was in charge of creating, shaping and cultivating the environment, culture, interactions and experiences of my players.

I could write a book on Dale’s impact as a coach, person, teacher and mentor, but at the end of the day, it all came down to interactions and how he communicated with all of us.

That’s why I hope your kid played for their favourite coach this year, because those interactions go beyond the game of hockey, they have the impact to change lives.

Every time I walk into a rink, I learn something new, but I think about my coaching days, what I could have done differently and I think about my favourite coaches and the impact they had and continue to have on my life.