Um...yeah. You know what the most fun is? Winning.
I've mentioned before on CP all I ever wanted to be from a very young age is to be a band teacher, specifically wanting to get into coaching US university bands in an NCAA setting. The problem is that to get to that level you have to work your way up, and the beginning levels are just like this new soccer rule. It is not allowed to have a program who's primary mandate is "winning." One cannot teach kids anymore the way I was taught and thus you cannot simply tell the kids "we're working to win, and anything else is unacceptable."
I believe that winning promotes learning how to be a good winner, and losing promotes (in some) the idea that only hard work brings success.
By age 12 they should be playing "to win," and not just participate. The argument that they should be working on skills is BS, because skills are best developed in game situations where the game (winning or losing) is very much on the line.
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So far, this is the oldest I've been.
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i am confused about what perry c said about eliminating scoring for kids 8 yrs old and under in hockey - my son is 8 and playing his second year of novice and the score is posted up on the scoreboard for everyone to see plain as day - now i don't believe his league has standings, or keeps any official scoring summaries - but what do i know.
the bottom line is that the kids know if they are winning or losing and for the most part they seem to rebound very quickly after being thumped.
i always have to laugh because some of the kids will point out when the scoreboard is incorrect (i.e they last goal has not been put up) - but yet they don't seem to recall passing the puck across the front of our net on their last shift.
personally i am not a fan of the participation medal - if you finish T3 then you get something, and if you are 4 or lower - you get a thanks for coming out.....
I played for a lot of losing teams, I also coached losing teams in football and hockey. And losing is just if not more of a learning experience then winning. When you win, you learn about winning with sportsmanship, you also gain a desire to keep winning because it feels good.
When you lose its a measuring stick for the next game or the next season, you can fix your mistakes.
I can see for the really young kids when you're teaching fundamentals that the score isn't as important as progress. But man when you hit the later years and you don't get the winning, losing lessons, you come to expect that things don't matter as much.
I don't know who came up with the idea of scoreless games, but its moronic.
Maybe everyone can get the same color medal at the Olympics. Or the winning and losing teams hoist the Stanley Cup or Grey Cup or Superbowl together because its all about the sharing.
Maybe we can also replace body checking with flyby high fives and hypervelocity a$$ smacks.
Maybe we can teach kids that its ok to pass the ball or the puck to the other team because its their puck or ball too.
Brother
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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I don't think that they're giving 12 years olds enough credit. When you're 8, spending an hour running around chasing the ball aimlessly in a pack is just fine. But when you're 12, you are old enough to start learning strategy and skill in sports. But don't put them to use and do anything crazy like... I don't know... trying to win.
This is like my buddies wife telling me that if her son gets bullied that he should reach out and hug the bully because they're just lonely people and they're lashing out.
Great idea hug a bully, and remember that when he's reaching out to your face with his fists that at this moment he's not lonely anymore.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
This is like my buddies wife telling me that if her son gets bullied that he should reach out and hug the bully because they're just lonely people and they're lashing out.
I remember getting to city championships when I was 8 or 9 years old and losing.... I've managed to cope for over 2 decades since, but I may just be a ticking time bomb.
my kid is 5, he gets what winning and losing is. And I hate the idea of no score keeping crapola. Life gets more competitive as we get older. I learned to win when I was a kid. And I had to learn to deal with losing as well. Everyone should.
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My son's Novice hockey team routinely gets whipped, and the boys don't seem to take it that hard. They stop counting goals on the scoreboard after 5-0. When they finally won a game, they celebrated like they won the Stanley Cup. They are having fun, and don't seem to feel bad when they lose.
Keeping statistics for children seems creepy though.
This is like my buddies wife telling me that if her son gets bullied that he should reach out and hug the bully because they're just lonely people and they're lashing out.
Great idea hug a bully, and remember that when he's reaching out to your face with his fists that at this moment he's not lonely anymore.
Wow, just wow...
"Honey, we've raised a pansy!"
How is this person ever going to deal with anyone who displays aggressive behaviour towards them?
if this comes to pass my 9 year old son (and yes likely his parents) are not going to be happy as he takes his soccer pretty seriously. Is this for all levels of U10 and U12?
its fine that in timbits hockey and u8 soccer and below they have already taken out any semblance of keeping score, and that in novice hockey it's kind of a mixed bag (scores are kept on the scoreboard, but not recorded by hockey calgary- ie there are no standings kept, also minor hockey week is not an elimination tourney just a kumbaya game festival), but by atom/u10 these kids are kind of expecting there to be scores, winners and losers and I don't think that is cruel or heartless
I've got my son in Under 6 Parent and Kid soccer. We go on the field with them, and practice skills, and then for the last 10-20 minutes the kids play a game. No scores are kept. My son who is just over 5 years old, knows the score at all times. No matter how much I preach to him that I just want him to try hard and be a team player, he takes it to heart if he doesn't score a goal, or if his team "loses". One kid even came up to my son and bragged about scoring 3 goals on my son's team. This is in a game where the parents are on the field. Scoreless games in a low scoring sport like soccer isn't going to work well the kids closer to 12 on a much grander scale if it doesn't work for 5 year old kids.
I think scoreless soccer will encourage more skill (rather than "safe" and "dumb" plays) but then, its essentially drop in / pickup... and it should be free. If communities actively announced pickup games, I think that it is better, more fun and develops more skill then games. But you shouldn't have to pay for that.
(FTR, I play in once a week, organized league, and twice a week in pickup... pickup is way more skill, and has a few guys that played for collage / state teams - even high div leagues - and its still pretty competitive. I go in and out of organized leagues, I'm dropping out after this season even though my team is first place and undefeated, just because I think pickup is way more fun.)
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"With a coach and a player, sometimes there's just so much respect there that it's boils over"
-Taylor Hall
My son's Novice hockey team routinely gets whipped, and the boys don't seem to take it that hard. They stop counting goals on the scoreboard after 5-0. When they finally won a game, they celebrated like they won the Stanley Cup. They are having fun, and don't seem to feel bad when they lose.
Keeping statistics for children seems creepy though.
Just like a certain team in Kokanee league?
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The CMSA should run a bubblewrap league concurrently with the regular leagues and see how that goes. If a parent is registering their kid in soccer, I'd like to think that most want them to learn how to win, how to lose, how to play on a team, etc. if they're signing up a 12-year-old into a sport and expect them not to want to win, they're obviously out to lunch.
Then... 10 years down the road, check in to see where everyone ended up. I would be willing to bet that those who continued to play through their teens and into adulthood played the real version of the game at 12, not some watered-down facsimile.
