Playing Center

There is something truly amazing about watching 10 three-foot tall kids with four feet of equipment all chasing one puck on a sheet of ice.  Today was the first day of the Junior “season.”   The season is pretty long for kids’ sports; it lasts from October through March. The Juniors are the smallest kids in the league, ranging from 5 through about 8 or 9.  But even by 5 they want to be “in the action.”  Every one of them gets on the ice, skates over to me and asks, “Can I play center?”  

I’m not even sure if they know why they want to play center.  I am pretty sure not one of them could name any NHL centers (I know I would have trouble coming up with 3).  But that’s what they want to play.  At this level, the only real difference between the center and any other member of the team, except maybe the goalie, is that the center handles the face-off.  But after that, it is impossible to tell the difference between the center and any defenseman.  Every player on the ice just chases the puck, regardless of the position assigned to him or her.  Oh well, over time they will learn about positional play, but for now, it’s all about skating toward the puck full speed and as they finally get to their target, right in front of the goal, they lift up their stick to make the game-winning goal and promptly fall right down on their little butts.  

Everyone played well today.  In Juniors, we don’t keep score, but every single kid on the ice knows how many goals we scored versus how many goals the other team scored.  According to Matthew, we scored more goals than the Bruins.  It may have been because we had more than twice the number of kids the Bruins had (in the early season, there are a lot of time conflicts with other sports like baseball and soccer).  I would actually rather have them lose their first few games.  My older son Alex had a season where they lost virtually every game.  It may not have been the most fun he ever had, but I am sure he learned a lot about sportsmanship, patience and humility.  That’s why I like to give my kids the “It’s not about winning or losing, blah blah blah” speech after any game they play, win or lose.  This is only week one.