[Ch40s]

I apologize if any points I bring up have already been discussed. I do not have time to read the whole thread but I really want to add my two cents.

I played 10 years in the Calgary minor hockey system. Some years there was great coaching, teammates, and parents, while other years were absolute piss.

My experience is the evaluation process is aweful. There are kids that you know will make division one simply because they're the sons of the "higher-ups", not because they deserve to be there. The whole process of evaluating is extremely subjective (random parents do it for the most part) and simply unfair. Sometimes you're evaluated very well, other times players end up where they shouldn't be, even two divisions lower.

I believe this relates to your story, as the son's dad was the coach and single handedly almost got your son onto the team below. That is absolute crap.

This is atom. This is community hockey. There should be even icetime for every single player. It doesn't even matter if it's midgit you're talking about. Everybody paid the same amount. It isn't competitive, AAA hockey.

I had an experience with my coach having ridiculous bias' for giving out icetime (I should say now the guy was an absolute idiot). He claimed those who showed up for practices would get powerplay and overtime playing time. I felt this was generally fair, especially for those skipping out from practices without any particular reason. Too bad he couldn't follow through... he ended up just playing the puck hogs (not even the best players, this reflected his idiocy). This bias of his was so blatant to everyone, but he avoided the parents and kept playing the puck hogs (which included his own kid).

In my case I, as a player, stepped up and called him on it. Luckily I had many players on my side (as only about a quarter of the team received extra ice time). He ended up playing us fair, thankfully. That was his last year of coaching.

In your situation with the coach, I'm not entirely sure what can be done, but that doesn't mean don't try. It seems the people running the show for your community team are a bunch of idiots. This coach should not be allowed to coach with that much bias. The kids are there to have fun, and should all have equal ice time. You need to wrangle up other parents who have your same view, if possible. This really shouldn't be that hard, as most parents are simply scared to come out about that, as they think it's the norm. Even if it is the norm - it really, really shouldn't be.

You really need to fight for fairness with this, because it will come up again if your son continues to play minor hockey, no matter what association he plays with.