Back in 1972 I was coaching a Mite hockey team. These were 6- to 8-year-olds. There were three Mite teams, A, B, and C There were tryouts, and the better players were on the A team, second best on the B team, and the remainder on the C team. Each team was given one hour of practice ice during the week, and one hour of game time ice on the weekend.
I called a meeting of the parents of all three teams and suggested that we practice all three teams at the same time and share our ice hours. The parents were immediately suspicious. I then pointed out to them that the name of the game is skate. Bob Johson who coached University of Wisconsin, Pittsburg Penguins, and the US Olympic hockey teams told me of an experiment he was involved in. They took two teams of players who had never skated or played hockey. One team was taught all the facets of hockey which included skating, passing, shooting, offensive and defensive plays. The other team was just taught skating in hockey equipment and carrying a hockey stick. After a predetermined time, they played a game. The team that had only worked on skating seriously beat the team that had worked on all facets of the game. The parents agreed that sharing ice time would give their kids three times as much ice time for the same amount of money.
It took a lot of preparation. Hockey is played in three phases, offensive, defensive, and transition. We got six nets and set up the ice sideways with three zones. In each of the three zones all the skills were worked on.
I don’t remember the Final win loss of the A Mites, but we had very few loses, and were the first Rockford Hockey team to win a state championship.
I went on to coach Midgets (15 to 16), Junior B (17 to 19), and college club at Northern Illinois University.
Many fond memories
