Playing on a High Quality Team

[nayrbs]

I am inquiring about how some players get on these big name teams? Mission Empire Snipers, Anaheim Mission Bulldogs, Nexed teams, Team Tour, and numerous other teams. Does anyone know if these teams have try-outs or are the players picked because they "know somebody?" If anyone as any information about how to get on one of these teams or contact information for the organization, please respond.

[missionhockey21]

I've played on a few sponsored teams, and they were set up through my local rinks and the teams already had impressive records in travel. Thats all the info I know, but I think if you go to Hyper's website and Mission's website you can get some info about how to apply for sponsorship.

[MBurke]

Some of them have tryouts, but most don't. It's not really 'knowing someone' as much as it is making a name for yourself with other, smaller, less recognized teams.

Mike Burke
Commissioner
Eastern Collegiate Roller Hockey Association
http://www.ecrha.net

[DannyG]

..."the other way..." to do this is to organize and manage a new team...your own, and then work like the dickens to make yourself, and your new team better and better...

-how about you be willing to take a team, all work together, and work your way up the ladder of success at the regional and national level.

This other way I am suggesting will be a lot of hard work, but the rewards are equivalent to the effort that you put out.

Don't be one of those quick fix, instant gratification guys. How about the last team you played on? What happens to them when you, as a quality player that they depend on, leave? This is the "elitist, pyramid effect," which is to say that if all the better players leave their teams to form super-teams, then the lesser skilled players leave the game, and we end up with less and less hockey for everybody. That is the opposite of growth and development.

I assure you that the silver-gold-platinum pyramid of NARCh is not good for anybody except the elitist teams that buy into it. Rather, what would be better for the game is thousands of local teams each entering into a national, multi-level tournament, with a "level playing field" of a chance for all.

I assure you that there are hundreds of quality players out there just like you, playing at the local level. You don't need to try-out for a platinum, recruited, corporate sponsored team, in order to develop yourself as a player and perform at the national level. See what you can create of a new team/opportunity for yourself, and other teammates.

I guarantee you will be glad you did, and you will have made our sport better for it.

sincerely,

Daniel T. Guard,
Coach, El Paso Polar Bears Inline Hockey,
Recreation Services Supervisor,
El Paso Parks & Recreation Department

[MDE3]

Very good post!! As one who is culpable of some of this elitist searching for my own son, I understand exactly what you mean. (Through the internet and my own soliciting, and his abilities my son did manage to get on one of these teams a few years ago but it was not necessarily a fun experience). Our local rink has all but lost any travel teams because so many of the clubs even below the Narch levels use some form of widespread recruiting in order to be competitive. I'm sure this is not a unique situation as your post seems to indicate.

It gets back to the coaching available at the facilities -if it is excellent the programs are generally successfull -even at the higher travel levels - and tends to draw talent to the club as well. But it has to start at the "learn to skate" level and continue. I firmly believe USA Inline has the best overall program for the sport to grow along the lines of ice hockey and that they are formally addressing these issues.

That is not to say there are not excellent independant programs, but only by having a single National program will there be some parity in training and a fair opportunity for talented youth to advance from club to regional and maybe National level teams while maintaining a solid base of competitive levels of hockey.

[MDE3]

I believe it is a combination of both - the tryouts are kind of by invitation only. In many cases such an invitation often comes when you have become noticed at regional events and get to know some of these teams or players from playing against them.

[DannyG]

Okay, in turn, I must say that MDE3 touches several good points:

1. Both the NARCh and USA Hockey Inline formula can work, as long as the NARCh is for the Empire Snipers, the Huntington Beach Boys, the Orange County Blades, the LaBrea Bulldogs, the Honeybaked Rollin' Hogs, etc, then let those guys play with each other all they want...

2. A level-playing-field, like Little League Baseball had to come up with in response to Japanese recruited teams a number of years ago, will continue to be provided by USAHIL. They haven't been able to address "the team from the 200 player league vs. the team from the 850 player league" disparity, but perhaps their second division youth nationals (this year) will take care of this.

So, I would allow two national programs to exist for two different types of teams. No problem

3. At our local rink, you can play all the tournament team play you want, but ONLY if you participate on a house league team. Any parent or coach is free to form a tournament team, but EVERYBODY plays house rec league...EVERYBODY. You don't, you don't get to use the rink, practice, or anything else. Everybody signs up, and the house league makes up all the team rosters through ability-pool, lottery draft: all teams are made up arbitrarily, and we re-make completely new teams each season, even new, made-up team names...our favorites this season: the "L.A. Beach Bums" and the Boise Novas".

The whole point to all this is that we, too, have had three players participate with the USAHIL National Team Development Program: our players are as good as any in the country...and they got that way playing on rec teams, the OCCASSIONAL travelling tournament team, and working their butts off on their skills.

Our teams have never won a national championship at any level, but we do have two third places, and a runner-up. We have won three national sportsmanship awards at USAHIL nationals (youth AND adult; anybody else done that?), and we had TWO National Skills Challenge Champions at last years youth nationals (AND a runner up).

The point to all this is, you don't need the corporate, recruited, try-out team to become the highest level player that you can.

Thanks again for listening...I haven't used this many capital letters since the caps lock key broke on my old Mac 12 years ago...

-Dan

[MDE3]

Good post again. Narch Tours etc. came into existance because there was no truly National Team level programs(run exclusively by hockey people for hockey people) for the very gifted(sorry USARS). And it's a natural evolution of the individuals to want to "meet at high noon" to do some serious "member measuring" (sorry ladies I may soon be asked to leave) However if inline hockey parellels the ice hockey pattern, even the 250 member versus 650 member clubs are accomodated via the "tier" system. The sport has not yet the organizations in place all funneling their programs through the same body for this to work, but it could be done.

There are still even in ice hockey a whole slew of private tournaments hosted - which bring some commercial satisfaction to their operators (ie Silver Sticks etc.), so there is no reason why Narch and Tours could not continue to run their programs. However all players would belong to one National organization - in this case USA Hockey Inline. The true pinnacle would be the National Junior Team as in ice hockey and every club would compete at various levels in the National Program. Nothing to prevent having private tournaments, except that winning the Nationals at USAHIL would now be the zenith for youth hockey instead of Narch.(sorry for those reading who think it already is, but I'm talking about some pretty estabished perceptions)

It's obvious from your enthusiasm that you are incredibly dedicated to your youth program - and that's what it takes. However it's been my experience that dedication alone is not enough and that must be acompanied by competent and credible coaching (which you also must have in place)for a program to succeed. In my area there is not really the dedication or the pool of talented help (interested in roller hockey) to keep the program going. Ice hockey is strong and draws what limited help we have. It may be necessary for a pool of talented PIHA/MLRH players and coaches to offer their services (paid) to rinks such as our local one to form a nucleus of talented coaches and player who can keep the momentum going in these smaller population based outposts.

[DannyG]

thank you for the kind words...just a thought, in case any USARS or USAHIL folks are following this...

Your point regarding the quality of coaching being a barometer for player, and indeed, program development, is well taken.

Hey, USA Hockey Inline: we absolutely must develop our coach training program WAY beyond what it is now...the ability to train ANY volunteer coach to a level of competence must be in place...and not just "if you can get 30 coaches @ $30 bucks each, to qualify for a coach school session," or some such formula which effectively shuts out a start-up program, or a program who gets new coaches in ones-and-twos.

Hopefully, this will occur in the next couple of years. Prior to my re-joining the hockey world in 1987 (and finding the roller hockey world in '88) I went through the four state levels of coach training & certification with the North Texas Youth Soccer Association, which qualified me to attend the USSF National (C-class license) training school. To give you an idea, the entire process took about 1500 hours of actual personal and program training, and $1500, all over 18 months.

If inline hockey can get the same basic structure, there will be enough coaching talent to match the player talent anywhere, anytime...

Let's all try to move in that direction.

[nayrbs]

Correct me if I have interpreted you wrong, but you are saying if a very good player is on a "crappy team" and this good player wants to become even better, that he should not seek to play on a better team? What if this player has a dream to play at this elite level? He should not try to join an organization that continuously puts out great teams?

Not everyone wants to create their own team. I did that before and the only reason it was so fun was because we were one of the best teams in the nation. The problem is people split up, they move, go to school, become head-cases, and work. These become conflicts!

I am just trying to network with some of these teams because I am sick of playing hockey at a lower level than I used too! I want those chances to be seen again and recognized again.

Thanks for reading,

Nayrbs

[DannyG]

your points are valid...you have not misinterpreted me, however, as you might expect, i could only put so much into a single post. I chose to highlight the trade-off between large numbers of players seeking to "move up the ladder," at the expense of the over all program.

What I tried to suggest, and we have this as a defeined program format in our local program, is for the elite player to do both; play in the rec teams and the elite travel teams.

Please allow me one observation touching on one of your points...In considering the factors of a) the level of team you play on, b) the level of teams you play against, and c) the level of coaching quality you receive, I have listed the importance of these in the REVERSE order. To carry your example to an extreme: a high level coach with a crappy team playing in a crappy league will do the player more good than any other combination. However, that is an obviously extreme-case exaggeration, eh?

I acknowledge that most of what I said earlier was aimed at the younger, 13-17 year old player who has just passed into the intermediate stage in skills. As a player moves from the novice to intermediate to advanced to elite levels of individual skills, they sometimes see other teams "with stars in their eyes," thinking that's the only thing preventing them from being a high level player. I do NOT, however think that is either your situation, nor the other guy I responded to earlier. Both of you guys seem to be older, and much more knowledgeable about things than the situation I just described.

At the point you describe yourself, you should indeed go for it. You are ready to fly the nest, or fly the nest again, as it may be. Please accept that my frustration was that I have worked with a bunch of guys for 8 years (as their only coach) who are now in the 18-22 year old age range. The nucleus of these guys put their team together that made the 3rd/4th division cut at USAHIL nats for the first time last year, and made it to 7th place. They oonly had five skaters the whole tourney, and only got beat by the Rhode Island Thunder, and the DC Voltage, all tourney long. They have also won all three Texas Cup events that they have entered vs. some legitimate Division 2 national-level competition. My frustration is the three guys from this age group that flew the nest, looking for greener grass, over the last 2 years, before this group developed themselves to the point they are at now. The other guys left too soon, what they were seeking was in their own back yard all the time. I want more players like yourselves to recognize backyard potential and make it happen for yourselves and the sport, and NOT fly off to greener pastures at the drop of a hat.

-But-

Okay, if it ain't there, you gotta go elsewhere. Good luck, keep workng hard, I hope you find what your looking for.

-Dan

[edit: I just noticed that you are the original poster of this thread...there isn't two guys I am talking to here, you are both of 'em...oops, continued good luck, go get 'em]<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by DannyG on 02/04/03 02:48 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

[columbus_RHstar]

Before I was even born..My dad coached the midget state champs in ice hockey, he was a very good coach..or so he says..He had to attend a 2 week class hosted at a college during their spring break as did all other coaches and coaches to be for the next year.
They stayed on campus in dorms (school wasn't in session) every morning they would begin training at 7:00am, they would work until Noon in the calssroom, at 1:00 they would go through 3 hours of on-ice work and then 3 hours of medical training, he was liscensed in first aid and CPR and some other various things that slip my mind.

The test that they took was twice as long as the USAHIL one that is present now and was NOT open book. They did have a book with proper techniques and such.

The whole point of this is to say, back then, the 80's, they had these camps for coaches that were much much much more demanding then USAHIL's current way to get coaches. Right now he is one of the most well-educated in hockey as a whole in the area, albeit some of the former ECHL players who stuck around after the team folded, and obviously the Blue Jackets, however I have met some of their assistnt caoches and he is more X's and O's smarter than them and knows as much if not more than Doug Maclean, in X's and O's terms. If USA Hockey can produce this back then why doesn't USAHIL try something like this?

[missionhockey21]

Wow, the training does sound much more intense than todays.
USAHIL should start having training more in depth like what your dad went through to become a good coach.

[DannyG]

Absolutely...your dad has described an equivalant of the eight day, 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. three field sessions, three class sessions daily that is the USSF national school...We need this from USAHIL...

[MDE3]

That sounds like the "master level" or level V of USA Hockey coaches program. I think there is no doubt USA Inline would like to have coaching of roller hockey parellel that of ice hockey, but such things take time and money. Money comes with increased participation etc. Increased participation takes better coaching so we have the basic chicken or egg problem here. No doubt over time as the sport grows so will the formal training available. I would suggest that an ice hockey coach of intermediate or advanced level could attain the same rating in Inline hockey with the attendance of one formal training clinic in Inline hockey. This would give inline hockey access to a greater number of experienced and qualified coaches. If you want to get a good idea of the level of coaching training available for ice hockey - take a look at USA hockey website - under "coaches". The format already exists - all that's needed is participants.