Making Hockey Better

Cultural change by changing the model

The twelve year old kids were celebrating their goals. Each one more glorious than the next. Fist bumps, stick rides, air guitar solos and screaming piles of joyous children filled the ice.

One kid even had a well rehearsed routine where he and his line mates formed an icy conga line and circled their end of the ice three times while the in house speakers blared “The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!”

So the twelve year olds were loud. The cowbells and airhorns from the parents in the stands were even worse. By the seventh goal, the on ice antics we held back a little. But the screaming from the bleachers was unrelenting.

I looked down at our kids. Their heads were hanging low. Our team was ok, but we hadn’t scored yet. “I wanna go over there and stuff that airhorn straight up their ass”, quipped Jax in frustration.

“Me too,” I added, “But that sound could very well already be coming from their asshole buddy”.

Life on a house league hockey bench. One team pretty good. Our team? Nots…