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Guest wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2025 9:41 am
Why would you shorten the bench for 9yr olds in regular season play? Only reason would be a discipline issue otherwise makes no sense to need to win the regular season with a round robin playoff format.
Shorter bench wins more games. You don't win the whole thing if you're not willing to do that. Full stop.
If you need a win. Play 19.
Last time they played us (VP) they only played 3 defencemen in the third. A couple of those kids must have clocked 25 minutes (4 and 19).
4 and 9.
19 also probably played 25 minutes.
Why would the parents of the other D allow this?
Part of the game. If you want to win trophies, players need to know and accept their roles. Someone has to sit.
Winning trophies at all costs at this age is neither particularly difficult nor what young athletes truly need. As a coach, you can push kids hard in the summer, exhaust them with intense skating drills, enforce strict tactics, and triple-shift your best players. In the short term, this approach may bring impressive results. However, in the long run, top players will burn out and miss crucial stages of development, while third-line players will stagnate, requiring constant replacements each season or widening the skill gap within the team.
In two years, well-balanced teams that prioritize gradual development will catch up, and no one will remember who won the regular season in U9 or U10.
The same principle applies to mathematics. You can bypass foundational arithmetic and teach a child to apply complex formulas mechanically. In grades 3 and 4, this may seem impressive, but by grade 12, their lack of a strong foundation will leave them struggling while their peers catch up.
At age 9, the focus should be on developing speed, agility, flexibility and motor skills, along with individual abilities like edge work, puck control, and basic tactical concepts such as passing and positioning. The outcome of a random game or tournament shouldn’t be overestimated. What truly matters is how well kids apply what they’ve been taught—how they pass, how they position themselves, and how confident they are with and without the puck. If something doesn’t go as planned, it’s the coach’s responsibility to analyze the issue, improve that aspect of the game, and refine their teaching methods—not to yell or blame the players.
In AA and AAA combined, there may be only about 5 coaches who are truly capable of developing well-rounded, skilled players. The rest are either overambitious parents-idiots, money grabbers, or outright charlatans.