Welcome Minor Atom MD Team Red to the 2011 - 2012 season. The coaching staff would like to take this opportunity to welcome all parents, siblings, Grandparents and friends. Our goal as the coaching staff is first and foremost the development of your child, not only as a hockey player but also as a team member of Team Red and as an individual. Over the course of the season we want to teach your child the skills to help develop your son/daughter to enable them at minimum to remain at the MD level if that is there wish but we also want to be able to develop players to be able to advance to a higher playing level if they wish to do so.
The coaching staff will require each player to come to each practice, game and/or off ice training session prepared, focused and ready to give his/her best effort each and every time. We understand this is a lot to ask for 9 years but we believe being prepared, focused and ready to give your best effort each and every time will enable your child to develop into elite hockey players.
We want to measure player development by not how many wins we get, we want to measure player development by watching players improve their skills (skating, stick handling, passing, skating backwards, positioning, where and what to do without the puck etc.) but most off all when the game or practice is over we want each and every child to leave with a smile on their face and say they enjoyed themselves and want to come back to the rink to continue to work hard. Wins, goals, assists, shutouts, championships are not goals, they are rewards for coming to practice/games and working hard, focusing, listening, leading by example, coming prepared, bring a good work ethic and even teaching your fellow team mates by talking to them and lending a hand when needed.
If we, as a group, remember the above message throughout the year we will have the best year possible and a pretty tough one to beat. Please cheer your child on throughout the season, praise them often, don't focus on mistakes, we all make them and we will continue to make them. Through practice and the coaching staff doing our jobs we will reduce mistakes as the season progresses.
Once again, the coaching staff is very excited of the upcoming season as the sky is our limit, its just up to us as how high we want to take it.
Coach Scott