Winnetka Park District: The Tortoise and the Hare

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Updated: December 26, 2011 8:07AM

The Hockey season for the last 30 years of my life begins around Labor Day. It is then that the Winnetka Hockey Club assembles its’ travel teams for the upcoming season. It is not an enjoyable time. As coaches, our job is to assemble the best team we can. Along with this comes the responsibility of “cutting” players. I try to tell people that getting “cut” to a lower team can and should be a powerful learning tool. A cut does not mean failure, at least to a kid. Sometimes, it is viewed as failure to the parent. The child moves on. He makes new friends and enjoys the experience just as much, if not more, on the lower team. Why? Because that child is playing on the correct team. Because sometimes you improve more playing on the lower team and being the “star”: you get more ice time, you play in different situations that you might not otherwise have the opportunity.

I expected this season to be pretty much the same as most. You have players that we call “locks”; those that will make the team, those that were on the “bubble” and those that were not expected to make the team. And then came the player I will call “Kid Number 34.” In tryouts each player is assigned a number. At the end of the tryout we post the team by the player’s number, not his name. This way, when we post the numbers of who makes the team there’s less disappointment.

We start by playing a game. I noticed this Kid Number 34. If you are a player you want the coaches to notice you. This kid does not stop skating. He does stops and starts and never stops moving his feet. He’s like watching the energizer bunny out there. He’s outskating the kids who should be outskating him. He beats kids to pucks. He’s not always the prettiest kid out there but he works his tail off. Then I look at where he played last year. The kids from his team rarely, if ever, make the jump from his level to the level at which I coach. Still I decide he needs another look the second night of tryouts.

Kid Number 34 comes out the second night. The competition is much tougher since we cut many of the kids after the first night. I ask the proctor, a knowledgeable hockey guy with no children trying out to watch him. My assistant coach says,”Who’s that Number 34 kid? I like that kid.” I tell him who he is and where he played the year before. After a very tight tryout, we determine that any kid that works this hard deserves to make the team.

Now here’s the real interesting thing about Kid Number 34. He came to travel hockey three years ago as a first year Squirt. He ended up on the third travel team. As a second year Squirt he tried out at the same level and actually went down a team. His parents’ strategy was not to complain, but to ask our hockey director for feedback. “Ask what you did wrong and what you can do better.” As that year unfolded, he was eventually moved up to a Pee Wee team because of a player shortage. The physical play helped grow his game. And along the way there were no complaints, no feelings of being wronged. It was his sport. What he did was make a commitment not to quit; to work harder and become a better player.

Kid Number 34 is into his second month on my team. Many people were surprised to see Kid 34 make my team. However my answer is simple; he outworked the kids who did not.

And so the lesson is simple. It is not always the kid who is the best player at age 8 who is the best player at age 12. And it is not the best player at 12 who is the best at 17. It’s the kid that stays with it.

Winnetka Ice Arena is a facility of the Winnetka Park District. For more information about the Winnetka Ice Arena, visit www.winpark.org or call (847) 501-2060. Find Winnetka Ice Arena on Facebook, www.facebook.com/winnetkaicearena.

Tom Gullen is the superintendent of facilities at the Winnetka Park District