So I'm one of the coaches of a U10 team, and there isn't a nice way of sugar coating it... we're bad. Due to politics at the organization, we struggled to fill bantam and pee wee teams and it caused a ripple effect where kids got moved up, sometimes too soon. As a result, we had too many kids for one squirt team, but not enough for two, and the team I ended up coaching is half kids who got moved up (in most cases too early).
We're improving, but we're still getting blown out. Most of the kids are still upbeat and having fun, but we're starting to see cracks in morale which is totally understandable.
I was thinking that for the last practice of the year before the holidays we could do something a bit more on the fun side of things. I was thinking some games or things that the kids would not see as a chore. Pinning balloons to the post and see if the kids could pop them with shots. Tossing a couple sticks on the ice and having them try to push the sticks across the ice by shooting pucks at them. Rebound drills where they get to try to push the puck past a coach maybe. Things that have a definite goal so they are still competitive for the kids, but where it is less of us trying to repeat the same things every time we talk to them and ideally where it is the kids doing things as a team together, rather than competing against each other.
Any ideas?
We're improving, but we're still getting blown out. Most of the kids are still upbeat and having fun, but we're starting to see cracks in morale which is totally understandable.
I was thinking that for the last practice of the year before the holidays we could do something a bit more on the fun side of things. I was thinking some games or things that the kids would not see as a chore. Pinning balloons to the post and see if the kids could pop them with shots. Tossing a couple sticks on the ice and having them try to push the sticks across the ice by shooting pucks at them. Rebound drills where they get to try to push the puck past a coach maybe. Things that have a definite goal so they are still competitive for the kids, but where it is less of us trying to repeat the same things every time we talk to them and ideally where it is the kids doing things as a team together, rather than competing against each other.
Any ideas?
