I put up my hand to be a hockey coach, because there would be professional coaches helping out with practices. Most of what I know, I learned from the sidelines of watching house league and through osmosis as a Canadian.
If we didn’t have professional coaches, I wouldn’t have volunteered. So, I suspect that I’m part of the target market for this addition. They ran the practices for 2.5 months, from the start of the season until Christmas. I was hoping that I would learn how to do on-ice coaching from the professionals.
Since this is a bit of a single-perspective retrospective, I’ll use a “happy, confused, sad” format.
Happy
I liked having the professional coaches. I could count on them being there every Saturday.
There was a strong emphasis on skills, which was appropriate for the beginning of the year and lower skill players.
The drills were generally good and the coaches were competent. They demonstrated the drills well, gave good feedback, and was patient with the kids.
The kids improved. It was cool to watch the kids get better over multiple iterations within a single session.
Confused
I’m not sure what was the intention behind having professional coaches. My impression was it was supposed to be a train-the-trainer model, but that’s not what happened.
Professional coaching was probably expensive. How did we decide that his was a better way to spend money than paying for a subscription to online resources or a course? Some examples that would have been helpful are CoachThem (used by the Select team) or a course.
I’m not sure if this format led to low attendance by Select players. They may have felt it was too basic and the practices couldn’t complete with their other obligations. Or maybe the Select players wouldn’t have come anyways. It’s hard to know. But it probably would have been good to have drills that could be adapted to different skill levels.
At practice, we share the ice with another team. After a few weeks, the coaches on the other team ran some drills in parallel with the professional coaches. For example, during the skating portion, the volunteer coach did more basic drills in one lane. Eventually, they stopped using the professional coaches altogether. I’m not sure why this happened. Was it because they thought the professional coaches were not doing a good job? Or that they couldn’t ask for something different?
Sad
I would have liked to receive more coaching from them as a coach. I was hoping to have learned more about how to create a practice plan, how to read a drill, how to choose a drill, and what to look for to give feedback.
I would have liked to receive the practice plans in advance on “paper.” These would be a valuable resource for me now.
I would have liked more consistency in coaching. Some professional coaches involved the volunteer parents by setting up stations. Others did not use stations, which resulted in kids standing around waiting their turn too much.
I would have liked more continuity in the coaching. We had a lot of different coaches. Part of the reason is we have three different time slots at two arenas. Coaches were assigned to time and places, but the teams moved around. But also, we had substitute occasionally.
I would have liked more team tactics. We didn’t have many drills on how to work together as a team. To give a simple example, how to take a face off. Consequently, we didn’t start this until January, which was very late.
The bottom line is I’m glad we had the coaches. I wouldn’t be a coach without them. There was a lot of potential for positive impact. The potential was realized for the players, but less so for the coaches.
This weekend we will be playing the last game of the regular season. Thanks to everyone who is arriving on time and getting dressed independently. I am impressed with the growth on the team.
1. Team tactics and strategy on Saturday
Please arrive 40 minutes early to practice on Saturday. We will be using the time to teach some team tactics and strategy. This material is best covered using a whiteboard, so we’ll do that in the dressing room before the start of practice.
2. Attendance
We were missing 1/3 of the team at the game last week. We didn’t have enough to make full lines, so the kids were pretty tired by the end. Please make an effort to attend the games. If you cannot make the game, update TeamSnap as soon as possible. We are allowed to borrow players, so that we don’t forfeit games.
4. March Break
There will be a practice and a game the second weekend of March Break (18 and 19). Please enter your availability now, so we will know if we need to borrow players to field a team.
5. Select Players
Players on the Select teams are expected to regularly attend practices and games. Selects have been diligent in attending games, we appreciate that, but there has been less diligence with the practices. Please do your best to come on Saturday, as we will be covering team tactics and strategy.
6. Photos
If you have not received a photo proof for your child, there will be one final makeup session on Saturday. It will take place 10am-1pm at Y. One more reason to come to practice early.
7. Goalie
We still need a second (and possibly third) volunteer for goalie. If no one steps forward, I will continue scheduling the goalies week by week. It would be better for the team, if a smaller number of players to honed their skills and became really comfortable in the position. It will involve playing 2-4 games in that role.
8. Off season
We still have a couple more months of hockey, so it seems too early to talk about the off seasons. But we will soon be choosing activities for the spring and summer. In choosing a physical activity for the off season, consider something other than hockey. Youth who play in multiple sports have fewer injuries and stay in recreational sports longer. Also, consider an activity that has symmetric movements, such as swimming, trampolining, fitness, because to offset the hockey stance.
Next week, the playoffs start, and it’s like pressing the reset button to starting a new season with a clean slate.
Thanks for your support. Looking forward to this weekend.
Our sidewalk became an obstacle course this morning after a snow plow left a berm across the path.
Dear Councillor Robinson, Mayor Tory, and 311,
We have been living here for almost 10 years now. We have been through many snow storms in that time. The most memorable was a couple of years ago when even TTC buses were abandoned. It took a solid week to clear the snow with crews working overnight.
The snow removal on the sidewalk last night was the worst that I’d ever experienced. I don’t know if they brought the wrong equipment or didn’t have enough equipment. The plow would travel along the sidewalk and stop, lift the blade, drive on, and start plowing again further down the road. Usually, but not always, the stop was in front of an electrical pole. Because we had so much snow yesterday, these breaks in plowing resulted in large berms of snow on the sidewalk. The combination of these berms and tire tracks resulted in a formidable obstacle course on the sidewalk. This morning, my daughter and I were walking on Lawrence Avenue East. Each time we had to clamber over one of these berms, we yelled, “Parkour!”
Walking would have been easier if no plowing occurred. I’m sorry to say that when service is this poor, it’s not worth having. We are looking at a sizable property tax increase, which I don’t have a problem with, but I do have an issue with worsening service for no good reason.
No action is required on your part for our home. We are relatively young and relatively able-bodied. We were able to clear the mess in front of our house. I have attached photos and a video. Please ensure that we go back to the old standard of service. Thank you.
“Louis XIV et Molière” by Jean-Léon Gérôme, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
There’s no evidence that Molière dined with the Sun King. Furthermore, if it did happen, it didn’t look like this painting. And I’m not just talking about the lighting.
The work was painted in 1862 by Jean-Léon Gérôme, who was one of the most important artists of his time. One of the genres that he worked in was historical painting, depictions of scenes from history. Meals such as the one in the painting were happening from 1669-1715.
Molière did perform at Versailles, and the king was a fan and patron. But Molière was more likely to be dinner entertainment than a dinner guest. Being an actor was not a respected profession. “Molière” was a stage name, taken to spare embarrassment to his family, who were affluent members of the bourgeoisie. Under the previous regime, actors were considered subversive, and not even allowed to be buried on hallowed ground.
Attention from Louis XIV was a much coveted and carefully managed commodity, and he would be unlikely to squander it on an actor. As Margaret Visser wrote, “Intimacy with Louis meant power, and power was symbolically expressed in attending to certain of the king’s most private and physical needs: handing him his stockings to put on in the morning, being present as he used his chaise percée, rushing when the signal sounded to be present as he got ready for bed. It mattered desperately what closeness the king allowed you– whether he spoke to you, in front of whom, and for how long.” [1]
If such a meal between the two men occurred, I would have expected better documentary evidence. The painting is supposedly based on an episode from a noblewoman’s memoirs. [2] But I wasn’t able to find it in the Château de Versailles database of memoirs [3]. It may be mentioned in a biography of Molière. If someone has better information, let me know.
If the meal did occur, it didn’t look like this.
Louis XIV and Molière would not be sitting across from each other. They would have been sitting side by side, like the head table at a wedding. The meal was a spectacle, intended to be seen, and for the nobility to be seen. The table would have an elaborate display of both dishes in porcelain, silver, and gold, and of food on platters and pyramids. Only individuals seated at the table ate. Everyone else was the audience. (They typically obtained nourishment at a separate time and place.)
While Gérôme applied a 19th Century sensibility to the dining table, he did get the seating mostly right. Only the royal family were permitted chairs at these meals. Only monarchs sat on a fauteil, a chair with arms. Other members of the royal family were permitted chairs with backs, but not arms. Highly ranked noblewomen were given tabouret, a padded stool, smaller than the one in the Gérôme painting. If Molière was seated, it would have been on a tabouret. It’s more likely that he wasn’t seated at all, as it would put him too far above his station. Furthermore, Louis’s penchant for routine meant that he rarely made ad hoc decisions or exceptions.
There would not have been a bed in the room. Le Grand Couvert occurred daily at 10pm in the antechamber to the Queen’s bedroom. So while it was an intimate location, and was a bookend to the lever at the start of the day, it wasn’t the room where she slept. (It’s possible that her attendants slept in this antechamber, but they did not have beds like this. It’s more likely that the Queen and her posse all piled in the bed together.)
The room would have been much more crowded. I previously mentioned the attention economy around Louis XIV. If one were to gain status or favour for their projects, one needed to be in the same room as the king. Not only would the room be full to capacity, but there would also be nobility looking in through the doorway.
There would have been more women in the room. The royal family participated in Le Grand Couvert as it was their evening meal too. (This arrangement likely contributed to Louis’s son, later Louis XV, to prefer small quiet suppers without the spectacle during his reign.) By the same token, noble wives would have attended as well.
The clothing in the painting was reasonably accurate. At formal events, of which Le Grand Couvert was one of many, the men did dress in sumptuous frock coats, short pants with knee socks, and high-heeled shoes. Outside of these settings, men typically wore a black or dark gray suit, with a similar, but simpler cut. Molière’s suit is in this style, though the coat sleeves often were longer. Furthermore, he likely could not afford the formal attire.
While this painting is replete with historical inaccuracies, is it a lie? It depends on how it’s presented. For example, Hamilton the musical is based on a biography of a historical figure, but at the same time Lin-Manuel Miranda has made a number of artistic decisions that aren’t factually correct. It’s somehow more obvious when people are singing and dancing on a stage that the story didn’t really happen that way.
To me, the most jarring one is in “A Winter’s Ball,” where Aaron Burr sings, “Martha Washington named her feral tomcat after him.”
Hamilton turns to the audience and says, “That’s true.”
And it’s definitely not true, although the lyrics gesture to something that is true, which is Hamilton repeating a false story about him.
Historical paintings in the 19th Century were intended to be educational. Past events were opportunities to communicate values to an audience. In this sense, it’s not so different from Hamilton.
But we get in trouble when art is presented as fact. Art poses questions, engages in dialogue, and reflects ourselves back to us. In this instance, a painting of something that actually happened in just this way.
This painting of Louis XIV and Molière by Gérôme came up because I was doing research on dinner etiquette. Various web sites would show this painting [4,5,6] or one like it [7] in an uncritical manner. Although there are exceptions [2], these sites tended not to give the context that this beautifully-rendered painting was not a high-fidelity recounting, but an artistic interpretation. Consequently, we are deceived into thinking that the painting depicts historical fact. But we played a role in that deception.
Our contemporary eyes are influenced by photography and cameras as infallible documentary. But we should know better. Images can be Photoshopped, clips can be edited down, and a video can be a deep fake. Part of the labour that we need to do as audiences is to participate in the conversation, not to stay mired in our unconscious biases, and add back in the context.
I began leading the team this week as head coach. I created the practice plan, talked to the kids, and assigned tasks to the assistant coaches. It was hard work getting there and it was stressful, but we managed to pull off a close win.
When I put together the practice plan, I knew that there were two things I wanted to work on: passing the puck and playing positions. I went down the rabbit hole of Internet hockey drill repositories.
It takes a long time for me to read a drill. I’m like a kid who is learning to read prose— I use my finger and sound out the words, and I still get things wrong.
I picked out a bunch of passing drills. I went to shinny twice with my son and I practiced putting out cones and giving instructions. Not surprisingly, I’m terrible at it. By Thursday, I chose a set of six to email to Coach Matthew and Coach Mahmood.
Coach Matthew offered to lead off with a skating drill. I accepted gladly.
We only got through four of the drills that I had planned. And the kids were generally terrible at them. There was a lot of skating, so they got tired. There was a lot of passing, but not much shooting. I think the kids didn’t have a lot of fun. The saving grace was the game of British Poke Check at the end.
Before the game, I prepared the lines (assigning players to positions), something that Coach Matthew normally does. We compared notes and I made a couple of tweaks, but we weren’t far apart.
Before the game, I led the team meeting, something I had never done before. I announced the lines. I reminded them to pass the puck and to be ready to receive the puck. The best passer would receive an entire bag of Kit Kat Minis.
I asked Coach Mahmood to run the defence, which is something I would normally do. I wanted to listen in on how Coach Matthew ran the offence, and I wanted to watch the game as a whole. I stood on the bench to get a better view of the ice. I only fell off once and as far as I know no one noticed.
Our opponents scored their first goal 30 seconds into the game. By about 12 minutes into the game, we were behind by 5 goals. We were letting goals in and players were generally not passing. Coach Matthew kept saying, “Lots of game left to play.”
About 5 minutes into the second period, the team started coming together. Defence got tighter. Passing started to happen. We gradually started to close the gap. We scored the winning goal with less than a minute left to play. Our goalie made a crucial stop to end the game.
Then, it was time to hand out the Kit Kat. I told the kids that I was proud of their grit. I called out two runner-ups, before giving the candy to the winner. All three players are normally quiet and unassuming. Positive reinforcement for behaviour you want to see and starve behaviour that you don’t want to see.
I am proud of myself. Usually, the team wins and I feel like I didn’t have anything to do with it. But this was different. I identified the direction, I chose the drills, and I motivated the kids.
I feel like I’m driving the bus now. I feel like I deserve to be called Coach Susan. I’m not taking a back seat to the ACs, but still working collaboratively. And I think this is what the ACs want too. They didn’t want to be Head Coach, for their own reasons. My relationship with them is collegial, but not close, and I appreciate that they’ve been holding space for me to step up.
On Saturday, we were using a practice plan that Coach Matthew used with his Select team. There was a mix of technical skills, team tactics, and fun drills. After we finished the first drill, Coach Matthew sauntered up to me and made a beautiful, effortless hockey stop, and said, “What are we working on, Coach?”
It was a light bulb moment for me. I’m the head coach. As if it wasn’t clear enough already, Coach Matthew wants me to be head coach. He said as much at the beginning of the year, that he couldn’t be head coach. He has also been taciturn and not opinionated about what the team was learning from professional coaches. I had hoped to take care of the off-ice details and leave the on-ice to Coach Matthew and Coach Mahmood. In retrospect, this division is not that clean. What happens in the dressing room is connected with what happens on the ice. And nobody had been driving. I was hoping one of them would step up, and they thought I would take the job.
So, I picked the next drill and paid close attention to how he gave instructions. I will need to pick up a whistle and whiteboard with an arena printed on it. He explained the drill using the whiteboard and then demonstrated on the ice. I listened to the words that he used and the scribbles on the whiteboard.
We lost our game on Sunday. In the dressing room, Coach Matthew pointed out that we were an easy team to beat right now, because we’re not passing the puck. I had been waiting a long time for him to say something like this, so I was looking forward to the next practice.
I’m taking the steering wheel now. I now have a direction, buy in, and some tools. Let’s go.
