The Tryout Survival Guide for Hockey Parents and Players

 Hello, hockey friends and families around the world, and welcome back to another edition of Our Kids Tryout for Hockey. That's right, it's our annual eval tryout episode on Our Kids Play Hockey. Always one of our more popular episodes as you enter the time period of year where the parents are sitting in the stands biting their nails, the coaches are eagerly watching all of the players, your kids have a lot of pressure or no pressure. Wherever you're at on the tryout eval journey, our job today is to quell some of that anxiety and to make sure that you're entering it with knowledge, with some experience. Some of you are doing this for the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth time. Some of you might be doing it for the first time. Let's get you into it the right way. And we're going to give maybe a little bit of behind the scenes today of how teams are are picked from a coach's point of view, right? Last year, and we always recommend you listen to this episode from last year, we talked a lot about how evals take place really over the entire season. When you get to an eval or a child situation, I'm not saying most of the team is picked, period, but we know your kids. We can guess who's going to be where most of the time for about eighty percent or more of the roster. Obviously, there's new kids coming in. There's kids going out. There's a lot of different factors that play into that. But we talked about the accountability and that really giving the effort the entire season without pressure, just working hard, having fun, really gives the most impact on these tryouts. And that it's very rare, I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's very rare that you're going to get to a tryout and then just miraculously jump two levels or find a new team. And then the last thing I'm going to say before I throw it to my co-hosts, christie casciano-Burns and Mike Bonelli, is that placement on a team should be based on where your kid is is going to develop the most their hockey skills, their mindset, where they need to be to become a better hockey player. It should not be, parents, solely based on the letters after the team. I know that is easier said than done. But you have got to remember that if your kid is placed on a team and they will develop on that team, that really is, I promise you, that really is the best place for your kid. We'll get into a lot of these other things today. I'm going to throw it to my co-host, christie Casciano-Burns, who has done more evals than Mike and I combined in terms of a parent, Mike. You've done more as a coach. But christie, you go ahead. Unmute yourself and let everybody know because she's live from the WSYR newsroom in Syracuse, New York. Thank you. A note about hockey parents. Nothing can unravel the coolest hockey dad or mom than tryouts, right? You've paid those high fees. Your kid has picked the team. You've got it circled in red on your calendar. You're a bundle of nerves. Just a quick note for parents. Try not to let your nerves and excitement transfer to your kids. Because during tryouts. So do your best to stay calm. to be positive and to let your kids know, just go out there and do your best. If you make mistakes, don't worry about it. Keep going. Don't give up. Don't throw your stick on the ground. Don't show any kind of, you know, hostile emotions. Be cool. Be kind. Be fast. Play like you want to make that team. That's the advice we always gave to our kids. And try, parents, as best you can. Don't put your nose up to the glass. Don't be taking notes and looking at every mistake they've made. That's the worst thing you can do. Just watch and let it happen. Let it play out. That's my best advice for parents. Yeah, it's good advice. And I think I think that's where, you know, so over the last and just in full disclosure, you know, the last probably seven, eight years. I mean, I've really come to the realization that there are no tryouts anymore. And, you know, the whole idea that, you know, a kid can show up somewhere and somebody not know who they are. it's over, you know, it just doesn't, and it goes both. It actually, I don't really know who really is responsible for that. We have more parents that reach out prior to trial saying, Hey, my kid's coming to tryouts. He played here. We're moving here. We're coming here. And then they're initiating it. And then the other side of it is youth coaches that are trying to get the edge and see a player. And they're reaching out to those parents who, and they're getting that information so on both sides of the coin you know it's not like you show up and say oh my name's mike pinelli and and oh and here's your jersey number mike and good luck today at our anonymous tryout and um you know best of luck making it but i think christie's you know advice no matter what whether you were a kid um pre-selected or you think that the tryouts a sham or you think the evaluation does it may or may not mean anything Make sure that you're going out. If you're going out there, if you're going to do this, then it's just set that impression. Be kind, have fun, work hard, and just be the player that you are. Like, just go out and accentuate who you are. And Lee mentioned it earlier. You're going, hopefully, fall or rise to the level that your skills and ability allow you to be. I mean, the bottom line is, Ninety five percent of coaches are trying to pick what they think is the best team for them. Not what the best team is for the five parents that are sitting in the stands. It's their team. It's what they're trying to project. And we can get into kind of how to dissect a little bit of that. But at the end of the day, there's there's there's only there's only one really one person who's going to make that decision on playing time, whether they selected you or not on the team. And I think the Christie's point. Make that great impression, have fun, be relaxed, and just be in a really good spot with your child. It is a very, very difficult time of year for everyone involved. Yes. And one more note about parents, because I have seen parents get pretty much blacklisted after tryouts because they've made some nasty comments to other parents or even emailed the coach with some nasty grams. Why did my kid make the team? That is the quickest way for you to not go forward as a hockey family. by bad mouthing after a tryout or you think it wasn't fair. You know, it's not the coaches, it's your kid's job to get picked, right? The coach already, as Mike alluded to, the coach may already have an idea of who he wants on the team. You know, he's trying to balance it out. And you don't have that perspective. And it's very easy to be critical and, you know, to badmouth other kids and to badmouth other parents and badmouth coaches. But resist that temptation. Adopt the hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil philosophy during tryouts and after tryouts. It's great stuff, guys. You know, since we're talking about parents and again, we're going to turn this episode in a cool way in a second here, a new direction. But this time of year, you know, largely because of this show, you can imagine a lot of parents come up to us about what's about to happen or what's going to happen sometimes after the eval. And look, I will never compromise a conversation I've had in private with a parent to everybody listening. Don't worry about that. But I will say that my message is typically pretty consistent and we're both echoing it, which is one, Your kids should lie in a place where they're going to develop. That's the most important thing. Number two is that none of us want our kids to hurt. And I always say that I understand the pain. I've lived the pain as a parent. I've lived the pain as a player. All right. I'm not making the team that you want to make, but I'm also resigned to where this ranks in life. And that adversity is part of life. All right. You're not always going to make the team you want to make. And then the last note to parents is, and this one's going to sound a little harsh, but it's true. Your child's selection, whatever team, good or bad in your eyes, is not a reflection of you. It's not a reflection of you on social media. When you go on social media and say, my kid made the double AAA team, or adversely, my kid made this team, B team, I don't have to say it nicely. Nobody cares. Nobody ever lists that their kid made the B team. So let's get that out of the way. So you always know when the kids that don't make the AAA team because they don't post. Well, exactly. And the thing is, I don't love it either way. My point to you is if you're going to post about – be proud about your kids. Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with people who post about how wonderful they're having a season or how great their kids are dressing and how hard they're working. And there's a lot of parents who listen to this show who do exactly that. All right. But just remember that I don't know any parent. And this is a self reflection here. I don't know any parent that looks at another parent's post about their kid making a triple A team. and goes, man, I wish I was like that parent. I just wish my life was like... Nobody does that. And again, I'm just saying, it's their life. It's not your life in the sense of their kids are a separate whole person. Their team designation is not a reflection on you as a parent. There are a lot of kids on B teams today that will be on very high-level teams in a couple years. Adversely, there's a lot of kids on AAA teams today that will quit hockey in a few years. You don't know where it's going to lie. So enjoy the journey. Okay. Enjoy the journey. I'm glad we talked about that because you have to use some discretion when celebrating, right? But now it's go time for the kids. So let's get into the kids. And coaches, I tag you. I pass the puck to both of you. Yeah, well, I'm going to talk about this. This is a unique year for me. So both of you know, I've been very blessed to coach very high level teams as a head coach for several years. This year, I'm also going to be a head coach for a youth team. For those of you listening, for several years in a row, I've been assistant coach on purpose because I haven't wanted to be a head coach. Well, it lies on me next year. I will be the head coach of a ten-U team. So we're going to talk about this on today's episode. I'm going to be asking Mike and christie, kind of as a host, Any advice, any questions or thoughts that they have for me to go into this eval with as much knowledge as I can as a head coach. Keeping in mind, too, that these two have mentored me as a hockey parent for the last you know, half decade, more than that, six years, seven years. And I want to look at it as a coach, a little disclaimer. Okay. Cause obviously some of you listening to the show, no, no, who I'm coaching probably are on the team or will be on the team. We are not going to go into specifics. There's no names. We're not talking anything strictly about like who's getting picked or anything like that. Just for the entire audience listening, this is going to be somewhat of a surface conversation about how a youth coach should go into an eval and to select not the best team possible, right, in terms of talent, but maybe the best team possible in terms of mix. So go ahead. Let's go. Should we start with Mike, the resident super coach? Happy Monday, Mike. Happy Monday, Mike. I haven't cut anybody this weekend. So I think there's kind of like a three-stage piece here that happens before, right? Number one is the organization framing – the level of play and then the coach is selecting, right? So it's the organization's job to say, here's our level of play for this evaluation. this is the head coach that we've chosen and this is the committee or the one or the four or whatever it is however you're doing your evaluation and tryouts define what it is uh it can't be because you know i've been on organizations and been a part of boards that have gone completely independent evaluators like it's a blind test where you know four college guys are in the stands and they're paying them a lot of money they're supposed to evaluate a team that i'm going to coach and then they're saying okay these are the kids i would pick and then those kids don't get picked anyway because nobody wanted those kids on the team in the first place right so you know for so someone defined what the tryout is and define who your coach is i think that the next stage of that is the coach defining how he evaluates or the committee or whoever is going to be doing the actual selection. What is the criteria as far as these are the things we're looking for? And again, I would keep it very vague. I would like, we want talented players that can contribute to this team that have these attributes, good people, great teammates, willing to work hard, whatever, willing to, willing to, willing to, you know, open, be open to development. And then at least the, You go in with a definition of what the process is. Is it two days? Is it one day? Do you get cut after the first day? Are there callbacks? Are they just taking the first fifteen kids that show up? Are we looking for six D, two D, one D? Do we have two goalies already? Like, I think it's an obligation to the program. And again, this is all depending on what size your program is and what kind of, you know, I think I've talked about this in the show before. You have the compilers and you have the developers. You have the people that the youth programs that develop the talent and say that they're a family friendly organization. And then you have the compilers, which are the ones that go out and recruit, they draw, they pick, they solicit, and they entice people to come to them. Those are two different categories. And again, if you're coaching and you're getting into this crazy time of the season, just define what it all is that you're trying to do and just be as open and transparent as you can about the process. So let me dive in there, Mike, about a little bit about the situation I'm in, right? So we've got... It's a squirt team. We have a tremendous amount of players returning next season that are going from first year squirt to second year squirt. I'm also in a situation where we have several mites graduating to squirt. All right. And then on top of that, we may have new players coming in. Now, I can tell you that the roster that is graduating is not a full roster, right? It's about the three quarters of a roster. So there is room there for other players to come in. Now, to your point about standards, let me tell you about where I'm coming from as a coach. And we can kind of continue about maybe looking and evaluating from there. I wrote down on a note card, I've had this in my head for a long time. It's coach who's in front of you. All right, coach whoever's in front of you. Now, the reason I wrote that is because from a recruitment standpoint, which I think is somewhat of a crazy word to ten you but i also understand organizations need to fill rosters right and the organization's done a good job of supporting me with that but i am going to coach whoever is standing in front of me on the first day whether it is the greatest talent team of all time or not i am very committed to developing whoever is in front of me now that is not something i'm willing to sacrifice i'm bringing that up because Mike, you will laugh at this. christie, you'll laugh at this too. There are, I'll just say, interested parties that want to come to this team that are very focused on the record and the winning. Right? Look, it's not an unfair thing. I always say it's not unfair to want to win. I don't deny. I want to win. Right? I always say that to everybody. I'm not coaching to lose games. All right? But my attitude at this age level is the development and me being able to teach them how to play is far more important. And with that said, the wins will take care of themselves if we do that part right. Right? So when I get the idea of like, well, how are you going to do this year? I haven't even thought about it. I honestly have not thought about that, right? Obviously, there's pieces you need. Can I break in for one second? Because I'll forget. Yeah, absolutely. When a parent comes to you and says, I want to know about the wins and the losses, and they're new to your team. Mm-hmm. aren't they, isn't everyone in the same boat? Like there is no team. It's a complete rebuild from day one, right? Bill Belichick wins the Super Bowl. The next year is a brand new year. Next day. Wins the national championship. The next day is a brand new team. It's no longer the team. Like in youth hockey, most programs will have like some crazy turnover, right? So say it's more than fifty percent. That is no longer in the same team. It's not even close to being the same team. Right. And you're a new, like, did you coach this team last year? I was an assistant coach on this team. Yeah, but you didn't coach the team. You were an assistant coach. So it's not, nothing you can do can influence whether the team will win or lose. I can put together, I can say, yes, we're going to have a team that's going to win almost every game. Well, how are you going to do that? We're going to play probably the worst competition we can. We're going to play down a level. Yeah. We're going to play down a level. And I'm going to be sure to make sure we have our fifty win season. Right. So I didn't mean to go off. No, no. I don't want to say I'm a little different. This is this is kind of a laurel that I'm not willing to break. Okay. My thought process is if that answer of I'm going to coach the kids in front of me, I'm going to develop the kids and I'll go into how I'm going to develop them too. Cause I'm actually really excited. I mean that really excited and motivated about how I want to coach this team next year from a curriculum standpoint, from a skill standpoint, obviously that will evolve and change throughout the season, but I'm very excited about the development side. So I'll go into that and tell them about how I'm going to do this. And I'm always telling myself, if that's not good enough for you and your family, Two things. One is that's fine. Like there's no, I'm not, I'm not going to spend too much time and be like, you don't know what you're doing. That's not for me to decide. That's, that's for you to decide. Right. All right. If that's not good enough for you, that's okay. Cause I am going to coach the kids that are in front of me. All right. And my gut tells me, christie, I want to throw this one to you. My gut tells me that if I find, we'll just say, we'll just say, that are really excited about learning and have the right attitude and want to be part of a growing team, With the goal of, yes, doing the best we can in games, it's going to be a pretty good atmosphere for the kids. It's going to be a pretty good development atmosphere for the kids. It's going to be a nice atmosphere for the parents because they all understand that. That's kind of what I'm hoping from an environment standpoint to build. We talk a lot about environment on this show, right? And look, if the team wins everything, it's wonderful. But it's like I can't go into it thinking about just that. I agree. Good for you. And I think for that parent that asked you that, hand them your resume and drop the mic. It's funny you mentioned that too. christie, here's one for you too, right? So one of the things that happened when I was named coach was a conversation about, hey, we need to share who you are. Look, I coach a women's national team. I'm very blessed to have a lot of accolades. And I was actually kind of shy of like, oh, I don't want it to be about that. And the organization convinced me, like, we have to do that. We have to let people know you are. So I let them do it. So I'm actually humbled that there are people now like, oh, he's coaching that team. Again, I'm patting myself on the back a little too much here, but. They did that, and I was okay with that, the way they did it. It's all about how you do it. I'll say thankful that they convinced me to do that. At the end of the day, I'm trying to build a great environment. Coach the kids that are in front of you. Here's the other thing. Mike, I'm going to throw it back to you. I have a development plan for next season. Again, no matter who's in front of me. Keeping in mind, this is this is ten you hockey. We're not talking eighteen you or sixteen you where things are advanced. We we did a really great episode. And this is why I love this show so much about benchmarks at different age groups. So now I we've done the research as hosts about what should they be accomplishing at ten you. Keeping in mind, you know, three quarters of the team is a second year square team. So I've also got to look ahead to twelve you and say, OK, where do I want them to be at the end of the season? And I really do plan to build out plans for the season to get them to those benchmarks. That's my real goal for this season, is that when I hand off the older three quarters of the team, that they are at benchmark or beyond. They are where they need to be now to be effective. Twelve U players for the next age group. And then obviously the first year, ten U players of where should you be at the end of this season? These are the things that I'm thinking about as a coach. Right. And, and I don't, Mike, I don't know if that has too much to do with my selection process. Right. Because it's like, I'm going to coach the kids that are in front of me. All right. Now I will say this too. How about this, Mike? Like there has to be an appropriate level of ability to make the team that I don't, you know, the word cut gets thrown around. I don't really understand how that can happen at tenure. But my attitude is look, if there's a, we'll just say, if there's a kid talent wise that, towards the bottom of the lineup. I don't want to shed that kid. I want to build that kid. Right. I want to develop that kid. What are your thoughts on that? So, well, number one is like, so if I, if I came into a program and somebody was asking me for my advice on how to build a tenure program, number one is I would scrap a B and I would go with major minor and I would take first year players and second year players. And I would build I would build a program based off of age. And again, if you can't do it today because you're like, oh, we don't have enough kids for that. Well, then you have to figure out organically, how can I get to that point? Like we all do a great job of having these great, huge AU programs, right? And there's a lot of kids in AU. And then all of a sudden we have this absurd rationale that we're going to now, all the kids we've developed, we're going to bring them up and cut kids because we're going to have a team of and a team of and like, well, well, that's kind of ridiculous. What was the whole effort of building, knowing that nobody at eight can be projected to be who they were at sixteen, right? So if we're cutting, if the whole philosophy is long term athletic development and including the ecosystem of players for the longest, developing the most players for the longest time, then the model's already broken, right? So the model's already broken. If you're saying you're doing AEB and you're picking kids that are first year and second year, then again, no offense to your program, but it's a broken model already because now you're developing kids and you guys can put this in the bank. Every parent listening, write it down and go next year, see where you're at. What's gonna happen is, Lee's best coach in the world. Parents going to love him. Right. They're going to they're going to have the second year kids and the first year kids. He's going to develop the second year kids. They're going to be unbelievable. They're going to they have to move on just based off of the the age classification. They have to move up now to twelve you. Right. So now all the ten you kids that didn't have as good a coaching with Lee from the other team. They're going to see, oh my God, what about those crappy kids that are coming up to play with us now? Now we've got, so they leave. They do, they leave. They leave your organization to go to, or they say, hey, I'm going to hold you over a barrel. You must have me play up. You don't let me play up. So again, I know we're getting off of valuations. No, this is good. So if I'm a parent, I'm probably going, well, I want to go to the program that's going to keep my kid with a coach for the longest time. And if I know a ten, like my challenge to every great ten-U coach, is to pick a kid and keep him for four years. That's my challenge. My challenge is, you're so good, you pick the kid, keep him for four years. Now, they can leave, But like we have a saying with the organization I'm helping right now, and we're building an AU program, once selected, always accepted. You will not get cut. There is no cuts. Now, you might not be on the top team, the second team, the third, whatever team it is you're on, it's all based off of that's what we're supposed to be doing. That's what we do for a living, right? We find talent and we move talent. Now, we know that talent is not, you know, it's not, is it linear, right? It's not a straight line. Talent is, talent ebbs and flows, right? To your point, Lee, like where you think you are in September, you might have a grand plan of where you want to be in December. And in December, you're like, oh crap, I got to crumple that plan up and go back to September. So when we're thinking about what you're talking about, if you're a parent and you look in and say, well, I want the team that's going to give my son or daughter the longest time to develop with great coaching. So again, I'd probably go right back to major-minor. I'd go back to age-appropriate teams and specific teams, and then I'd go into a growth session of saying, okay, if I really like this setup, then I want to be in the same developmental category for as long as I can. Not everybody can do that, but the funny thing is most programs can. And when I talk about those developer programs, the mom and pops, the small ones, the ones that aren't getting eaten up by everyone, those programs, it's even more important to do it. Because when you shatter all these kids, because inevitably, the first two kids that think they're too good, they move on. The middle kid's like, oh my god, this stinks. I got to move on, because I'm just as good as those kids, and you're not. And then the last kids say, oh, there's no team left, so now I got to leave. And you'll see these programs have huge gaps in programming. Because they don't think long-term and they don't think, how do I keep my kids in my system for the longest period of time? Right. And that's going to take a lot to fix because there are a lot of programs out there. And kids don't stay together. I think that's a huge problem. I mean, imagine if all these kids, and as you talked about, Mike, they break them all up. Some kids leave. Some kids decide to stay. You'll see the programs that I work with and they can't follow this model. The funny thing is that not only do the kids stay together, they're more successful in the long run. Because imagine every six months you have to retrain and get to a whole different group of kids. Who can do that? Like imagine if you told a college coach, every six months, I'm going to give you seventeen new players. You would never win. You couldn't do it. Right. And that's the problem with the transfer portal. But that's another subject. But anyway. But wouldn't that be something if more programs adopted that philosophy? It would be so much more successful, not only for the programs, but for the kids, too. You're talking about genuine development. which is not happening en talking about community. comes with community comm I think at the youth leve It's why, you know, in lo back in the day, you coul have a whole like like tou for years and years and y It's the same kids. There's twelve kids. They go up, they go up, they go up, they play together. Not necessarily have to be the same coach, but there has to be. Let's go back to the beginning of this, right? There has to be an organizational philosophy. There has to be what Lee's doing is a syllabus. There has to be a lesson plan. There has to be a program plan in place to how am I going to get your player from here to here? And then I think then you have to step in with the organization and say, well, how are we going to support that plan? We're going to support that plan by telling you when you get selected, when you are seven, or in this case, nine, then you're going to play ten you with us. You're going to play nine, ten, eleven, twelve. We will not cut you. Right. Right, and here's the deal is that, look, the organization's giving me a lot of support. They don't run exactly that way. My hope, and again, I got to preface this, I don't know how much I control over this. My actual hope is that we have too many players and we have to have two teams because that's good to grow the game. This is a girls' tenure team, right? So the more girls that are in the game, the better, right? It's not a nightmare scenario. The tough scenario is we have maybe five over the limit. Right. And now it's a tough way to get too many, which is bad. Right. You don't have enough and they have to drop a team. Right. So you have to say, well, now I got to take the best kids, not potentially. Yeah, I'll tell you how I'm thinking about this, Mike, because I'm thinking about it a little bit differently, because in my opinion, girls hockey, we can't afford to lose anyone at this point. It is the fastest growing side of hockey right now. Girls hockey has skyrocketed over the last five years, but we're not exactly in a place where it's like, oh, no, sorry, I don't have a spot for you. So what, what my hope is, and I got to preface this again, I don't think I have too much control over this. This is what I'm going to propose is that if we're five kids over, let them, let them be on the team as practice players, however you want to at least offer the, the opportunity that look, we will develop you at practice, even though you can't roster you in games, then it's on the families to decide, okay, do you want to do that? Or do you want to look elsewhere? Cause there are other teams out there. I'm, I'm, you know, I believe that anyone can make another team. There's enough teams in the area where I coach, thank goodness, where they could play. But I can't, like, attend you Cutting doesn't make sense to me. Like you need, we need to be building pipelines. And again, the worst kid at ten you should be developed. I don't, it blows my mind. You're throwing a whole wrinkle into this conversation, by the way, by bringing up that it's an all girls team. Yeah. Because here's my philosophy on that. And I'll give it, I mean, I don't know, I didn't mean to jump in, but if you're an organization that has boys and girls, right, and you pick a bunch of girls, I'm talking about co-ed teams. Sure. You have to be really careful, right, at ten you. And even at twelve you. Because after twelve you, the girls leave and all of a sudden you have no boys. You're like, I can't believe it. We don't have a band team anymore. Because you picked all the good kids because, you know, traditionally, I mean, statistically, a lot of those girls are better. They're better at eight, nine years old. They do look good. There's a bunch of ponytails out here and we have no, you know, no buzz cuts. And then you're sitting there going, oh, my God, where did all the boys go? Well, you cut them all when they were ten years old. Right, right. You got to be really careful. But to Lee's point, if it's a ten you girls team and I a hundred percent agree, I'd rather have thirty of those girls in a development setting with iron building iron than than to say you're not you're not ready. But the funny thing is, you won't get ready. unless you're in the right development program. You may, you may get, you may, you may, but, but at the end of the day, you have to be in the right place. Just saying, if that scenario happens, my plan is also to schedule additional non-league games so we can get them into games as well. But it's all developmentally. That's what's so cool about youth hockey, right? You can do whatever you want. You can literally, you know, you could play, you could have thirty girls and, listen, This is crazy. You could have thirty girls in your own rink and play each other every weekend and it could be more beneficial than going anywhere. The same crappy girls in Philly are right here in Connecticut. The same shitty girls are all bad. So why wouldn't you just play each other? Right. Agreed. And having those extra girls on the team. No, I don't agree with the crappy girls. Totally agree with you. Having those extra girls on the team, think about it. Kids get sick. Kids, you know, they get injured. Events come up, family events. It certainly would be beneficial to your team to have the extra bodies on the team. Right, but USA Hockey kills you, too, because they limit your roster size, right? Well, they do. You can have them on as passers-by. I may not be able to roster them for, for league games, but like, that's what I said. That's what you just have to be upfront with everybody at the beginning of the year. We're going to have several non-league games where we want these young women to be playing. And then it's on me as a coach to make sure that the, the rostered players understand the role in that game is we're here to help. We're here to, we're here to build them up. And I can't think of a better team building environment. Keeping in mind too, you all know this at home. Team building is a massive part of any curriculum for any team that I built. And that this team is no different. Right. If anything, I'm probably gonna have more access to do it with bringing these girls together under one roof and understanding what we're doing and why we're doing it. And I'll tell you this, parents, that when you can get a group of young kids understanding, hey, kind of the one for all mentality and that we're here to build each other's game up. They're really good at it when they get that message at home as well. All right. If there's a parent saying, no, no, no, get to the top of the team. Don't listen to this. I mean, you're, you're destroying your team. I don't care how good or bad your team is. I'm telling you that that's not part of it. I think going back to that evaluation process too, you have to do with, like, listen, you have to be a little selfish, right? For your child. You have to say like, yeah, you know, I know the coach really wants them on the team or her, and they might develop like the coach is telling me, like, They're not a top player. So sometimes you've got to evaluate and say, well, who is your kid? Does your kid need to be the best player at ten? Again, I i've wavered on this like a lot like a lot of people saying well you can't be the best unless you play the best and i'm like well if you never touch the puck you'll never be anything like you never get even to see if you could be successful right so i think you know going back to like the evaluation and and the tryout process side of it like you have to be honest too like saying well right well if the coach is being honest with me i got to be honest with him well That's the whole thing, Mike, for me is that I'm being honest and I have no problem telling these parents that there is a curriculum base. There's a development plan here. It's fluid. You have to understand it's fluid, right? Because what I need to work on or what I think I'm going to have to work on in October may not be what we need to work on in October. But my commitment to you is I'm going to do my absolute best to make sure that we're finding the right things to work on and get this parents. Coaches make mistakes, too, sometimes. All right. Sometimes we miss the mark. But going into this eval again, and it's kind of the mantra of the episode, I will coach whoever is in front of me. That's whether I pick the team, an evaluator picks the team, because that's how I'm going into this. That's my responsibility this year is to develop the kids that are in front of me. And then the record will take care of itself. You got to think like a teacher would, right? Because we would never go into a classroom and be like, I can't believe that you have four kids in the back of the room. You've never even talked to them. These are the kids you picked for my classroom? This is horrible. I mean, I guess there's standards, right? But not a tenure. You walk into the classroom, think like a teacher. Like, okay, I walked into the classroom. These are my kids. So am I going to coach? Am I going to teach up or down level of my student? And then like anything in life, If the students that are struggling in athletics or academics We're going to have to guide them in a little different way and help them with some extra stuff. The ones that are excelling, then we've got to challenge them. We've got to find a way for them to say, just like in a classroom, I see my own kids, like the top student peering, you know, being a peer mentor, tutor for the lower students. Like, hey, buddy up and help. And like that's what being a community and being what a program is about. So I think if parents could step back and be like, well, all athletics is is the weekend of school. Think about how a teacher would put that classroom together and how they would get the best out of your student athlete. It's really the same thing at the end of the day. Lee's talking about it. Here's my advice. Don't go to a program that doesn't have a syllabus. Don't go to a coach that doesn't have a plan. Just don't do it. If you do do it, don't say in December, I can't believe this guy doesn't have a plan. You knew he didn't have a plan. You went there knowing he didn't have a plan. If you say, hey, coach, what's your plan? Shut up. Right. And Lee, since you're the teacher, you have to pick your classroom. I'm just curious about your evals. So will you be doing the evals? How's that going to work for you? Is it two days? Is it one day? Yeah, great question. So, so to my knowledge, right, someone, they have a coach out there that does the actual on ice part so I can watch and he actually evaluate the kids, which is exactly how I want it. That's exactly how I do it at the national team as well. The best case scenario for me is to be able to watch the players and if I need to be on the bench to evaluate them I come down and kind of listen. But to my knowledge, it's a two-day process, possibly three. They have guest coaches come in to run the drills. And keeping in mind, and again, we're running out of time here, christie, but keep in mind, what I'm evaluating at TenU is not someone's special team's ability. I'm looking at the basics, the skating, the passing, the shooting, maybe a little bit of on-ice awareness at that area, how you interact with the kids, how you interact with the coaches, the same things that we always talk about. And, you know, Mike, to your point, too, at TenU, the blessing of TenU coaching is that I could probably pinpoint pretty easily the skill sets we need to work on because at TenU it's pretty big, right? Skating is number one always, right? There's still a blanket out there. Right. Well, I'm saying you can look at a TENU team and say, this is probably what we're going to work on. When you look at AT&U, it's far more specific. All right. So it's like like that's a benefit to me of like, no, skating is the number one priority. All of your kids need to be leaving my team pretty proficient at skating that's appropriate for the age level. Beyond that, yes, I would like to see some basic skill sets, maybe some breakouts, maybe some defensive offensive awareness. But they need to be taught that now. That's not something that they should necessarily be coming in with at an expert level. I mean, I can I can show you sixteen year olds that don't have that down at even a proficient level. Well, you made a good point, too. It's a different way to look at the eighteen and the ten, because at eighteen, you're building a real team. Yeah, that's completely different. You're putting puzzle pieces together. At ten, you're just finding really good kids. And to Chrissy's point, like you're looking for the non-crazy parent. Like you say, oh, those two people aren't crazy and the kid's really nice. Perfect candidate for my team. Right. Well, I'll say this too, at the national team level, I'm looking for players that compliment other players. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's razor thin at the top level at this level. I want everyone, I want everybody to be on the team. All right. And I think parents too, to encourage your kids, start evaluations, make sure you tell them, you know, make every shift count, play with heart, play with hustle, be polite, be that kid out there. Who's a good team player. Um, You know, don't throw those tantrums on the ice if things don't go your way. If you make a mistake, keep going, plow through, push through it. Be that kid who catches the attention because of your love for the game. Hey, to quote our co-host Olympian and PWHL player Haley Skimora, be the hardest worker out there. If the whole team is striving for that, you got a great team. You got a great situation. That's the message to my daughter. That's the message to my players. That's the message to my son. Be the hardest worker out there. All right. All right, teacher, you got your syllabus. I do, I do. And go ahead, take our advice too. We've solved your problem for you. Take the extra girls and develop them. So we've solved all your problems again, Lee. All of them. I was going to say, you've all listening. You've gotten a micro view into one of like ten thousand teams being picked this year. But these are the type of discussions that should be happening. Right. And that's what we wanted to do with a little bit of behind the scenes here this year. I thank both of you. You guys have given me such great advice throughout the years of the show. But look, sometimes you need to reaffirm. Sometimes you want to hear from your friends. Right. And that we're doing this the right way. But. Parents, players, everyone listening, just go under evals, be the hardest worker out there. That's about all you control anyway. All right. And no matter what team you make, you make the best of it. This is just like life. Not everything's always going to go your way. Sometimes it does go your way, whatever it is, push forward and find a way to be an accountable, excellent human being on your team. Cause that's, that's the ROI at the end of the day. All right, guys, any final thoughts before we close this one out? Yeah, just the little things too. Your kids may have grown a little bit through the season. Make sure everything fits right before those evaluations and tryouts. Make sure the skates feel good, the pants feel good, and everything, all the padding is the right fit. Make sure they show up on time. Make sure they do an equipment check before you get out there. The last thing you want is to show up and, oh my gosh, we forgot our skate, we forgot our helmet. You don't want to be that kid. And be polite. You know, say please and thank you and carry your own hockey bag. All those little things will be noted when you go up for your events. Agreed. A hundred percent. And untuck your jersey. Don't tuck your jersey. Untuck that jersey. I hate that tuck. We got to see the number. We got to see the number. Yeah, yeah. Don't hold people up in the stands looking at your kids. My final thought will be the same thing that we always say. Before your kid walks in that arena, the three things you should say to them. I love you no matter what happens out there. I love watching you play. Work hard, have fun, learn something. Parents, that's all you need to say before the eval. You do not need to say anything else. This has been a great edition of Our Kids Play Hockey with Krista Cash and Burns. Mike Bonelli, I'm Lee Elias. Thank you so much. Obviously, we're wishing you all nothing but the best with your evaluations, all right? I hope all of you get everything that you want. But if you don't, keep pushing forward because hockey is the greatest sport in the universe that we know of. Have fun, everybody. Take care. We'll see you in the next episode.