I asked my youngest son for his opinion on the situation you describe. He’s 20 now, a former junior player and a skills trainer but he also coached a U10 local league team alongside me when he was 16, which was a blast). Sometimes, it’s useful to get a more youthful perspective on situations like yours.
So, he read your story in this thread and said, “Jeezus, that’s Evan. Remember Evan, dad? Joe Jr. is exactly the same.”
“Evan,” of course, was a 9 year-old boy we coached. And yes, my son is right — Joe Jr. is just like “Evan.”
Here’s my son’s take. Sorry if it’s a bit harsh — he’s a straight shooter.
@BadgerBruce thank you very much for the thoughtful reply.
I agree the main point is to try and get him to enjoy hockey. Not to be a great player, but just to look forward to coming out.
I've certainly engaged with him about why he thinks he needs to play hockey. He's never given a reason beyond just saying he has to go. Beyond one kid who he was on the same team with 3 years ago he didn't know anyone else on the team, and he doesn't really interact much with anyone. As I said I think he just internalized that me and his mom like hockey, and his brothers play hockey, so he feels like he has to too. Or at least that's the best I can figure.
Parking him in front of the goal to try to score: you know what it did work once - when he was 6, playing U7, and I was head coach. He scored right away, had a big smile on his face and said "You know what Dad, that plan you had worked!". Two years later, he's 8, a different coach set it up, and it didn't work. Not only didn't he score, but he was crying afterwards because he didn't score. And I feel like it went against what I have been telling him - that hockey isn't just about scoring goals, that neither of his brothers have scored any goals this year (true), but how you play as a team. But Coach Kevin, who got him to stand in front of the net (and get his own talented kid to try and feed Joe Jr some goals) had his heart in the right place. And he's the one coach (out of 6 or 7) who has really noticed Joe Jr's struggles and tried to help him.
A story from this weekend. We went back out to practice. Joe Jr was as unenthused as usual. I noticed that some kids actively didn't want to be paired with him during a 1 on 1 drill. In the dressing room afterwards this one kid said "Hey good practice Joe Jr". My kid said nothing (to which I spoke with him afterwards). The other kid then said "You're a really good hockey player. I bet you could make it to the NHL some day". I mean - good on the kid for trying to buck up Joe Jr's spirits, but the kid said it without enthusiasm, and even I cringed.
I'd be happy to not be a coach. Well not entirely - I do like being out there with the kids. But it's not about me. But we're at a level where it's entirely parent-coached. I don't really love our head coach. He's not there at least a third of the time. But nobody had stepped forward at the start of the year so he reluctantly said he would, and it's hard to fault him for doing so. Why I don't love him though is that at U9 I don't think they're too old to still be doing fun games out there: freeze tag, asteroids, british bulldog, whatever. But we never do them. Instead as we've gotten closer to the end of the year there's been more and more scrimmages in our practices, which is not helpful for my kid.
At this point there's two weeks left. 1 practice and three games, plus a year end party. We'll just finish it off, if for no other reason than it would be awkward to miss the last 2 weeks but still show up at the party. And I'll be damned if I sign him up for hockey again next year.
