Q+A
Q&A Hockey Eastern Ontario’s director of long-term player development Gregg Kennedy has more than three decades of coaching experience at the minor, junior and university level. Kennedy, currently the head coach of the Upper Canada Cyclones Triple-A club, will be part of a panel discussing bodychecking and head injuries on Nov. 23 at Hockeyfest, an event hosted by Centre Ice. He recently talked to CI about some of the major issues facing the game today. Q: First of all, can you explain what the long-term player development program is all about? A: We want to make sure that we teach age- and skill-level specific skills and tactics to our players. In other words, we’re not teaching novice house leaguers the power play. We want to make sure that our coaches are teaching the right skills to the right level athlete, be it a House C or a Triple-A player, but also based on his age, his maturation, his physical growth and development. Q: The percentage of young boys playing hockey today, compared with 15 years ago, has fallen. Why do you think that is and what can be done about it? A: I think it’s a reflection
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of the ethnic diversity of our country, first and foremost. There are many more non-traditional Canadian families in this country than there were 40, 50 years ago and even 10 and 15 years ago. That’s a factor. Cost is a factor. Obviously, safety and injuries have become a factor. But I think that some of those things can be fixed from simple PR. Bad messages get out about the concussions and the injuries in our game and bad messages get out about the cost to play this game. I don’t think it’s as bad as the word on the street has it. We’ve got to start looking at initiatives within communities, within our neighbourhoods, of trying to educate people and get people turned on to hockey and playing
hockey in this country, whether they were born here or not.
Q: How would you do that? A: You need some type of a campaign. You need to get out in the community, into schools and get in front of young kids. You show up with a bunch of sticks and balls and get some kids turned on to playing hockey. Q: What about this sense that there is too much focus on winning and losing and kids aren’t having fun anymore? How can we change that? A: I think that whole statement can be misleading. I’ve heard this argument that kids aren’t playing our game because it’s not fun. That isn’t a reason why
kids don’t sign up. That might be a reason why kids drop out, but to say kids don’t sign up to play begin with because it’s not fun … you’ve got to play first before you can determine whether it’s fun or not. When you consider that probably 90 or 95 per cent of the kids who play hockey in this country play it at the recreational or houseleague level, there’s a lot of fun going on there. Do we need to find a way to help our coaches make the experience even more fun? Certainly, we’re always trying to do that. But I can’t imagine somebody actually saying, ‘I don’t want my kid to play because he’s not going to have fun.’ Q: The other factor mentioned by parents
was how timeconsuming hockey has become – that all the practices, games and travelling to tournaments are just too much. How do you respond to that? A: I think most associations have a limit on the number of outof-town tournaments that you’re allowed to register for and compete in. There would also be team votes – are we going to play in three tournaments this year or four? Again, I think that is an elite-level problem. It’s not a problem at the recreational level. Most house-league teams, they’re lucky if they have one practice and one game a week. If that’s too much of a burden, then I don’t know how you answer that. It’s
CENTRE ICE DECEMBER 2013