Quote:
Originally Posted by MattyC
Were you a better hockey player the next year because of it?
I have no problem with the last couple minutes putting your best players out, particularly if it's a selects thing, but anyone under 15 should never end up playing less than 8-10 min unless they did something to deserve that bench in game (stupid penalties, being disrespectful, whatever your teams rules are). But if you're a select team, and you have a kid you can only play that much because he's that far below the other players, you should've picked a different kid. You picked the team, you have to live with it. Don't punish the kid for it.
There's a difference between having a crappy attitude because you have to miss a few shifts for whatever reason (yeah, I don't play that kid either) and a child being sad because they're not being included. If it's a constant problem, youre not helping that kid by crushing his confidence every time he comes to the rink. And I would suspect he doesn't get much extra attention in practice either. We're talking about 9 year olds. Not 15 year olds.
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Impossible to say. But the opposite question: was I a
worse player the next year? is more important, and just as unanswerable.
Suggesting every kid deserves at least 8 minutes is just arbitrary, and thus pretty empty, IMO.