The Role of the Competitive Head Coach
Your new position
Congratulations! You are now a head coach of a competitive hockey team with the KMHA. In this position you will be working with a host of other volunteers that will help and assist you through your season. You are directly responsible to the Director of Competitive Programs (2011-2012, Steve MacLean). You will also get assistance from your respective League Rep (2011-2012 A/AA, Dave Farnes; B, Mike Norkum) who will deal with issues relating to schedules and issues surrounding league and playoff play.
You will also be in contact with other coaches and convenors from your age group. A complete list of all of these people is available from the KMHA website at www.kmha.ca.
You will require your Development 1 Coach certification to be a competitive coach within the ODHA. Clinic information can be found at http://odha.com/Pages/Clinics/Developmental_1.php
You may have many reasons for wanting to be a head coach. You may want to spend more time with your child who is playing hockey, you may feel you can teach children to become better hockey players, you may enjoy the social interaction with the children and their families, or you may really love the game and want to be a part of it. All of these are good reasons, and KMHA will especially support your efforts if you are motivated for all of them. Please remember that statistically you are unlikely to ever coach a child that goes on to have a professional career. You will, however, coach many future doctors, teachers, lawyers, business leaders, etc. When your players reach adulthood, the wins and losses will have long been forgotten, but the atmosphere and opportunity you create and the positivity you invest in their lives will have a lasting impact. Your ability to demonstrate the fun, fitness and friendship they can have with hockey should be a big reason you want to be a head coach at KMHA.
Philosophy
The easiest way to start off your planning for the season is to develop and refine your coaching philosophy. This philosophy will guide and shape not only the type of season that you plan to have, but also the type of team that you assemble. Once this philosophy is refined make sure that you make it visible and know, it is the easiest way to communicate the reasons behind the plans you have for the upcoming hockey season.
Website Letter
You will need to develop a letter for the KMHA website that will be posted next to your announcement as coach of your respective team. This letter is a great way to introduce yourself, provide some background on your experiences and highlight your coaching philosophy. In this letter it is also important to outline what the time and financial expectations will be for your team. You can include information that you have about the tournaments that your team is registered for as well as information about your tryout process. This letter can be updated at any point through the season by forwarding a new copy to the Director of Competitive Programs.
Budget Development
Through your application process you were required to develop a budget for submission. Now is the time to ensure that your expenses and revenues match, covering what you need to be covered. Example budgets are also available through the KMHA. It is valuable to look at the budget of the past season to know what specific expenses your age group has (ex. AA league fees).
Once your team has been selected and you have identified the Manager and Treasurer, a bank account in the team’s name should be established. This account will require three signatures on any cheques that are written (head coach must be one signing officer, while the remaining two are usually a manager and treasurer) for the team bank account. The head coach is ultimately responsible for the team funds and should have the bank statements mailed to their attention and be aware of the financial situation of the team at all times. This account must be closed by June 1st, 2012.
Your budget and bank account information must be submitted to the VP, Finance and Admin at the start of the 2011-2012 season.
Tournaments
Competitive Tournaments book up fast! It is important that you consider booking your tournaments early in the summer to avoid them filling up prior to you getting in. KMHA will provide cheque advances for the payment of these tournaments with the completion of a form from the KMHA Office (Lori Thornton – Office Manager). It is also important that when booking your tournaments that you also consider booking your block of hotels at the same time. This information should be turned over to your manager once they are designated.
Yearly Plans
The use of a yearly plan will be invaluable to the success of your team’s hockey development over the season. You will have on average 50 practices over the year which will be most easily coordinated through the use of a seasonal plan. There are several different formats for this plan, with a wide variety of methods for covering all aspects of the game. If you are interested in seeing examples of a seasonal plan you can contact the Coach Mentor (2011-2012, Andy Choquette) for information.
Tryout Prep
After covering all of these pre-season administrative requirements it is now time to get down to the business of picking your team. You will be assigned tryout times by the KMHA Ice Scheduler (2011-2012, Kathy Morey) which will be posted on the KMHA website. Around the beginning of August you will be provided with a rough number of participants that you can expect at your tryouts. This number may range anywhere from 20 to 70 players, so your plan will need to be tailored accordingly. Approximately one week prior to the start of your tryout process you will get a list of players from the Registrar (2011-2012, Lisa Buder) that will be attending your tryout. If you are an A or B coach players may be re-assigned to your tryouts from the level above and you will be notified by the upper level coach.
It is important to take the allocation of tryout ice and develop a reassignment plan. The tryout allocations for the 2011-2012 season are approximately as follows:
- AA – 8 hours
- A – 6 hours
- B – 5 hours
Your reassignment plan should take into account your desired numbers of reassignments per night, remembering that this is only a plan. If there is a tough decision to be made early in the process it is always better to give the players the benefit to the doubt and take a look at them again. Following your last tryout session you will need to reassign players to a total of 17 players remaining (2 goalies, 6 defence and 9 forwards).
Evaluators
You are responsible in finding a number of independent evaluators to assist you with picking your team. There are always challenges in finding these people as every association is running their tryouts at the same time, so try and line up your people early. There are a couple of things to remember when selecting these evaluators: they cannot have a child trying out for the team they are evaluating, they should have a good hockey knowledge, it is best to try and get some people that don’t know the kids that you are evaluating and you should make sure that anyone that does know the kids doesn’t bring a bias with them and if they do that you know about it.
The KMHA will assign one evaluator to each team’s tryout process to ensure that they have a voice at the table during the evaluation deliberations. This will allow for the KMHA to respond to any concerns from re-assigned players as to the impartiality of your tryout process.
Player evaluations
It is important to note that no player should be allowed onto your tryout ice unless they are on your official tryout roster. If they are not on this roster then they are not covered by KMHA insurance. Contact the Registrar (2011-2012, Lisa Buder) with any concerns relating to your tryout roster. Only the registrar can authorize a player to tryout. Without this authorization, a player should not be allowed on the ice.
Your tryout may include any combination of skill evaluation, inter-squad scrimmage and/or exhibition games over the hours that you are allotted. Ensure that you develop a scoring system for your process. This system will not have to be provided to any of the re-assigned players but may be of assistance to you and the Director of Competitive Programs in the event of concerns raised over the re-assignment.
Prior to the players beginning the tryout process you should hold a parent and/or player meeting (depending on the level that you coach). In this meeting you can outline the following:
- your expectations of commitment for the season, both financial and time
- your selection criteria for the team
- your tryout process
- your re-assignment procedure
Build your team based on the criteria that you set out. Remember to remain un-biased through this process…..the players should not be evaluated against your opinion of their parents.
Reassignments
There are various methods of re-assigning players from one level to the next. This will be a personal preference and depends on the age group that you are dealing with. You may wish to use a combination of phone calls or personal meetings for the re-assignments and/or emails for the returning players. It is recommended that on each night that releases are being conducted all players are contacted to advise whether they are returning or not.
This is a challenging part of your competitive coaching experience. There are several things that you can do to best prepare yourself for these difficult conversations:
- ensure during the evaluation process that you have notes on areas that the player is strong and areas that they need to improve to be competitive in the future
- let the parent / players know prior to the process that you will not debate your decision during this conversation
- do not discuss any other player in the process with the reassigned parent / player as this will lead to debate over your evaluation of those players
- advise the parent / player that you want some time to finish your tryouts and get your team going (allowing for a cooling off period) and that after that you will meet with them to discuss your reasons for the re-assignment, if they wish to do so
If you experience any problematic parents / players during your re-assignment process advise the Director of Competitive Programs (2011-2012, Steve MacLean)
Equipment
Prior to the commencement of your tryouts you will be provided with the following equipment:
- tryout jerseys and t-shirts for the players to keep
- a first aid kit
- a puck bag with pucks
- a set of home and away jersey’s
You will be expected to provide a deposit (2011-2012, $400) to the KMHA Equipment Manager (2011-2012, Jim Hay) at the time that you pick up your equipment. This cheque will be returned to you when the equipment is returned in good condition at the end of the year.
Coaches are responsible for returning equipment in good condition. Equipment that is returned in a condition deemed by the Equipment Manager to be unacceptable, or is lost, becomes the responsibility of the coach who must then get the family responsible to correct the situation or have the team share in the cost. Sweaters are billed to the player they were issued to if they are not returned or are ruined.
Regular Season, Playoff format
Within the ODHA competitive leagues are divided into the A/AA league and the B League. KMHA has a representative that sits on each of these leagues governing bodies (2011-2012 A/AA, Dave Farnes, B, Mike Norkum). This representative can address any questions that you have in regards to the operation of your league and their respective schedule. This representative will also hear your feedback in relation to the workings of your league and report your challenges and/or concerns back to the league’s governing bodies.
The A/AA league has a regular season of 30 games that starts towards to the end of September and is finished during the end of the 1st week of February. In the 2010-2011 season the top 8 teams in each age group advanced to the playoffs, playing up to 3 multi-game series to ultimately determine the league champion.
The B League has a regular season of 32 games that starts at the beginning of October and finishes at the end of February. In the 2010-2011 season the top 8 teams in each age group advanced to the A group finals and the remaining teams had the option to participate in a B side playoff series (round robin with single game final). The A side playoff were 2 multi-game series with a single game championship.
Ice Allocation
Each level is allocated an amount of practice ice through the KMHA that is broken into a yearly allotment allocated on a weekly basis. These times are averages and most teams will receive slightly more than average early in the season, before their regular season has begun, and slightly less than average during the busy weeks of the year. This allocation for practices is as follows:
- AA – an average of 3 hours / week
- A – an average of 2.5 hours / week
- B – an average of 2 hours / week
Any additional ice to this allocation is the responsibility of the team to secure through other sources (ie. City Allocations, Bell Sensplex, Ottawa University, Carleton University, Minto Skating Club, Township of Mississippi Mills, etc.).
Parent Meeting
Early in the season it is important to have a parent meeting to discuss your expectations for the upcoming year. You will be spending a lot of time with this group so it is important that everyone gets off on the same foot. The following are some areas that can be considered for discussion at your parent meeting:
- Personal introduction
- Outline of your on and off ice program
- Your anticipated ice times
- Dressing room expectations
- Arrival time expectations
- Code of Conduct and Team discipline
- Player expectations
- Parent expectations
- Tournaments
- Method of communication
- Your teams budget
This is the best time to set out all of your expectations from your group for the season. Take your time planning and laying out this information as it will be time well spent as the season progresses.
Player Meeting, Goals and Objectives, Code of Conduct
Early in the season it is suggested that you conduct team and individual player meetings. The team player meeting is a good opportunity to discuss and set the team goals and objectives for the season, as well as create your code of conduct. If these are set by the players and coaches then they will be a clear set of shared information that everyone can work towards. Individual player meetings can be used to highlight the great things that your players bring to their team as well as isolate some areas that you would like the player to focus their energy on for improvement.
Team Discipline
Code of Conduct violations should be recorded and dealt with immediately (the Code of Conduct is a part of the KMHA Constitution, and is available on the KMHA website). This may involve a conversation with the player and parent(s), or in the case of more serious breaches, it may involve the KMHA Chairman of Discipline and Appeals (2011-2012, Bob McDougall). Where possible, issues should be resolved between coach and player and parents. If unresolved there, they should go to their League Rep, then to the Director of Competitive Programs (2011-2012, Steve MacLean), and next it will be escalated to the VP of Hockey Programs (2011-2012, Andy McAfee) if necessary.
All coaches in KMHA have the discretion of suspending a player for one game, though it must be discussed with the player and parents in advance and the Director of Competitive Programs (2011-2012, Steve MacLean) must be notified. Any issues that the coach believes warrants more than one game must be presented to the Director of Competitive Programs (2011-2012, Steve MacLean) and may involve the KMHA Chairman of Discipline and Appeals (2011-2012, Bob McDougall).
Coaches must be mindful of their own code of conduct and lessons from Speak Out. Swearing is not acceptable for any age or level (If coaches can refrain from swearing around IP players, they can do the same around older players and are instructed to do so). Treat players, parents of both teams and officials with respect. It is good to remember that coaches do not yell at or otherwise disrespect their own players for making a mistake on the ice. Officials will also make mistakes and the same leniency should be shown.
Team Building
It will be important to have your team gel early in the season. A good way of getting your players to build team chemistry together is through some off-ice team building activities. There are many different activities that can be done to have the players learn to work together in a social setting. This will be time well spent to properly build the foundation of your team that will carry on through the season.
Team Staff
It is important to remember that your position is a volunteer one! There is lots of work to do to have a competitive team run smoothly over the course of a season, so make sure that you delegate work to the rest of the families on your team. There are 17 families involved in the season, so it is realistic to expect that every family contribute in some way to the team. The following is a list of positions that may be used on your team and a brief description of their roles:
- Assistant Coaches – these people will assist you in running your team’s on and off-ice development program. In this there should be identified a coach to coordinate your goalie development. Your assistant coaches will require the Coach Stream course. You other on-ice helpers will not require this certification.
- Trainer – you will be required to have a certified trainer on your game bench and practice ice at all times. For this reason it is suggested that you have more than one qualified trainer on your team.
- Manager – this is a very important role on your team to ensure that all of the administrative and off-ice activities are looked after. Your manager will assist the treasurer in the finances of the team, organize registration and team organization for tournaments, hotel bookings and confirmations, gather and submit team information for the Registrar, etc.
- Treasurer – this person will be responsible for the management of all team funds. All revenues and expense will be organized by this person, as well as budgetary tracking and reconciliations (recommend for the midpoint and end of season).
- Parent Representative – a parent representative may be selected by your parent group to act a linkage between the coaching staff and the parents. This person may be present in the dressing room to provide adult supervision prior to the start of, and after the end of, games. The Parent Representative can also bring any general concerns of the parents to you. You may decide whether to allow the Parent Rep to be present in the dressing room for pre and post-game talks – they would not be needed for dressing room supervision at those times.
- Fund Raising Coordinator – this person will coordinate all aspects of your fundraising efforts, including fundraising selection, volunteer organization, sponsorship requests, etc.
- Website – this person will select, create and manage your team’s website. The website is an invaluable tool for your messaging and for the team’s schedule.
- Scorekeeper / Timekeeper – For all home games you will be required to have 2 people work the scorer’s box (clock and game sheet). In the A/AA league these people will be required to attend a training session prior to being allowed to work this function.
- Statistician – this person can collect all of the stats that you want gathered during your games.
- Team Photographer / Videographer – this person will take and gather all of the photos and videos for your team over the season.
Any of your team volunteers that have direct contact with the players (assistant coaches, trainer and manager) will be required to have a police check completed as well as the Speak Out certification. Coaches, Assistant Coaches, Trainers, Managers and On-ice Helpers will also be required to be reflected on your official roster for insurance purposes. If they are not reflected on your roster you may not be able to use them in their function at some tournaments.
Affiliations
KMHA has set out the expectation that all teams will have full line-ups (17 players) on their practice and game ices. This will mean that you need to identify affiliates to your team early in the season, sometime after the team(s) at the lower level are established. It is important that you have discussion with the coaches of the teams for your identified affiliates to ensure that you both are clear of when and how the affiliated players will be used.
It is recommended that you do not select or identify your affiliated players during the tryout process. It is very easy to talk about the affiliation program during your re-assignment discussions, but is an area that is better left until a few weeks down the road.
Surveys
The Director of Competitive Programs will request that you send out a mid-term and year end survey. This survey is anonymous, and it is encouraged to be completed by the parents to not only get a feedback on the program that was run but to also receive feedback on the KMHA competitive program as a whole.
Most coaches in KMHA receive excellent survey results. Knowing who those excellent coaches are is as important and knowing those that need improvement, and KMHA is committed to offering head coach positions to coaches that demonstrate strong technical skills, interpersonal skills, sportsmanship, leadership, and provide a positive hockey experience for every player on the team.
It has been noted that positive survey results have little correlation with wins and losses. The success and enjoyment of the hockey season is almost entirely the result of a good coach providing a fun and challenging and socially positive environment for children playing a game of hockey.
Resources
There are a host of resources that you can rely on throughout the season, including your team staff, other coaches, Executive Members, who are there to assist you with any challenges you may face throughout the season. Don’t hesitate to use them, as some of them have likely been through a similar situation, and may be able to assist you with this challenge.
Have a great season.
