Renewal
I just beheld one of those moments that captures perfectly why coaches get into the business of working with kids. It was bittersweet, utterly raw and real, which might have been as simple as a Seventh and Eighth Graders’ junior varsity hockey game, if it weren’t so laden with meaning and set on a dark and somber Monday afternoon, as if the occasion didn’t merit turning all the lights on.
The rink was silent compared to five days before, when the Varsity Girls lost a heartbreaker in the playoffs, suddenly ending their season in a shock that gave way to tears. The bleachers were filled with students and parents who roared with every surge up and down the ice. Even the ice had roared, shaking with the weight of a train passing, since that was the sound made by the skates of the team captain, a foreign born, international elite-level player, who in the blink of an eye could double the speed of anyone around her as she made terrifying - or thrilling - rushes with the puck, depending on which side you were on.
On Monday, those echoes made the building all the more empty. The personalities were gone. The numbers and jerseys we were used to weren’t there.
The Zamboni finished resurfacing the ice. Two referees appeared and pushed the goals into place before one of them gave a quick gesture to the players waiting outside the glass. With that, the JV team trickled onto the ice, skinny little things pushing along on coltish legs, albeit with eager faces behind their masks. The coaches probably fought to keep their composure at the sight.
Only seven minutes into the first period, the JV squad was up six to nothing. One coach looked down the bench to the other, over the girls’ heads, and motioned with his thumbs and middle fingers: Spread them out.
Women’s hockey is relatively new in the sporting world, so the number of girls who’ve availed themselves of Pee Wee and developmental programs is limited. Most of them flock to my daughter’s Catholic girls’ school, which does no recruiting whatsoever for athletics - though they’d hardly need to. Two Olympians, including one famous multiple Gold medalist, were students, which has filled the pool with aspiring swimmers. The hockey team has attracted a number of experienced young players and inspired many more to strap on skates.
The opponents on Monday have not been so lucky.
’Spread out. Hit the corners,’ the coaches instructed as they leaned down to the kids on the bench. ‘When you get in their zone, you have to make five passes before anyone shoots on the goal.’
This worked - mostly. The team was so dominant that the puck kept winding up in the net.
‘FIVE passes!’ the coaches insisted.
The girls really were trying to be considerate. While they knew better than to charge in at the goal, the spreading out and the passing was a new skill which went better some times than others. However, the genius of this was not lost on the coaches. One criticism of this year’s Varsity is that the reliance on that elite hotshot captain and the few other girls who could similarly skate circles around the opposition meant they had never established a disciplined passing plan.
This five passes drill might be a blessing in disguise, and soon a training plan, an objective, a blueprint. On a cloudy, quiet Monday, when no one noticed, a future dynasty quietly tottered onto the ice. The JV won, 13-2.
[Postscript: Two nights later, the seniors, universally feared and admired and who have driver’s licenses, boyfriends, and no doubt far more glamorous things to do, all showed up to stand behind the bench and scream their support for the JV - who had their hands full but won, 2-0.]
