Quite a game
Thanks to all the Shark parents for braving the elements and making it to the game.
I hope everybody made it home safe. And I hope the damage is minimal around your house.
With Christmas vacation and the colds that make the rounds, the coaches in our league are used to having to deal with a short bench and missing key players.
Throw in an ice storm and there is a chance your team will be in tough.
That was the case for the Bruins today.
The Bruins (Yellow) team was short many players and the Sharks had a good line up.
Coach Sean, from the Bruins team, mentioned to me before the game that they were short players and it would be a tough game for them
Before the game I talked to our key players and mentioned they might get a message from the coach to ease up during the game. What I would ask them to do was to focus on passing.
Form the coaches and parents point of view, you could see, as the game went on, that the Bruins were struggling.
At the start of the second period I told the boys on the bench to focus on passing not scoring, that we were going to win the game and we did not need any more goals
The boys did respond in a way, but that is hard for ten year old boys to not try.
One goal we got was on a pass from Nolan to Jacob in the slot. That was a nice play.
Also Jacob passed out to David out front. That was exactly the play we worked on in practise and it was great to see it work. The only problem was, the boys were doing what I asked and we were running up the score.
In the third period, every shift, all the coaches on the on bench told the boys, defence and forwards, “No more goals!”
You could see some of the boys easing up but that is hard for the whole team to do.
For the most part, I was proud of the way the boys responded to this unusual request from the coach.
Also, there was some physical contact. This is to be expected. There were some good calls made by the refs and some missed calls. It is very important for the boys to get used to this kind of play and not get upset and retaliate.
Some of the boys need to work on the emotional control when the going gets physical like that. I have talked to the players concerned.
The final thing the boys heard from the coach was about the end of game celebration.
At the end of a game like that, there is no need to celebrate. When the boys did I told them to settle down and again they responded to the request and settled down right away
As a coach I would rather lose a one goal game than win a game like that.
Fortunately the league is quite well balanced and that kind of thing will not happen very often.
On the bright side, any time the goalie gets a shut out it is a big deal.
Sadiq had a shut out today and was solid in net. Way to go Sadiq, you get the Golden Moment.
Get ready for the Christmas tournament and the three on three games.
I hope everyone has a great Christmas and holiday season
All the best from the Armstrong Family