 鲜花( 1348)  鸡蛋( 5)
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去年的一篇文，有点意思
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3 q0 P2 f D) CEdmonton Minor Hockey Week is here, the most venerable minor hockey tournament in North America, and a stern test for each team# T2 A8 b. b6 T
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Minor hockey is a kid skating around with his blade upside down the entire season, then at last lining up for a face-off in correct hockey stance.# s5 n c2 b* H' ~
& \' \# t! y; L; v3 `3 P9 p9 LIt is a wobbly kid saving the game by shooting the puck off the goal line.
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It is a volunteer father not trained to coach, striving to teach the intricacies of a proper wrist shot.. i6 N& P+ t5 a* m/ E4 X
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It is a kid who never before raised the puck, suddenly picking the top corner.
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4 F% i! D$ q. v0 g+ ^8 QMinor hockey is supposed to be fun, but it’s a serious fun. The score is kept, improvements are noted, winning matters, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
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The fun of minor hockey is no more serious than in this coming week at the 50th annual Quikcard Edmonton Minor Hockey Week tournament. North America’s most venerable minor hockey tournament starts on Friday, with 519 teams, 3,000 volunteer organizers, 3,000 volunteer coaches and managers, 8,500 players and 736 games.
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Losing teams will be knocked out, winners will advance and championship squads will get trophies. I’m OK with all that, with minor hockey’s tension between having fun and the vigorous pursuit of on-ice success.
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, ]& s& `$ E; [& LMinor hockey is a strict meritocracy, but with low tiers of competition for dabblers, as well as high ones for the fiercest and most obsessed, and tiers for every kind of player in between., ]4 a9 H% V4 H
& G4 `# z3 H% J5 F: o9 ^% aThe game has its own sights and smells. It is modern, spacious dressing rooms and tiny, cramped old ones. They get progressively more stinky as you move from Novice to Atom, from Peewee to Bantam.3 M, w* t6 n7 `, @6 p# c
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It is rink rat brothers and sisters, never watching the game, but running about, playing madly all over the arena., N: C& H S8 e% J
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The game is not easy. It’s a kid who likes to go to practice but is so unnerved by games he throws up in the washroom beforehand.$ P4 H/ f; C, e4 B* f
) i+ }" a9 Z# Z8 [+ Y: X4 E/ d- hIt’s parents worried about all the talk of concussions and wondering if hitting really does have a place.
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8 i- N6 G# H5 t( R8 W, v* qIt is at least one parent and one asst. coach on a team knowing far more about hockey than the head coach does. It’s a coach who gets everything right, and a coach who gets everything wrong, and very often that is the same coach in the same season.# v. g+ B, r& b9 e1 C
. I1 d5 G& d. Q u: `8 e$ NIt’s families living life at a sprinter’s pace, racing from practice to game, game to practice. It’s rushing to the rink only to realize that you forgot that mouthguard, or elbow pad, or stick. It is helmets that hurt the head, no matter how much you adjust them.& F: H$ B9 d% O, f( j. Z0 G
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It is not always fair. It’s a solid defenceman falling down at the wrong moment. It’s a bad line-change that leads to a crucial goal against. It’s old-timey refs letting go every infraction, and young teen refs calling way too many. It’s strong teams gaining unfair advantage by putting themselves into weaker tiers so they have a far easier time winning tournaments." l4 E/ |0 K' a0 d3 v' Y
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It’s parents wanting the team to do well, but most of all wanting their own child to thrive. It’s almost every player and parent on every team struggling to constrain their own desire for glory, and learning to find a useful role on the team, which is as important a life lesson as you will find.
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Minor hockey pays out what you put in, not a penny more, a penny less.
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7 [6 r# b) s3 Y. ]) @It is a girl hauling her own equipment bag into the rink, because that is what hockey players do.
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It is a parent driving here, there and everywhere around the city, because that is what it takes.
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/ x) a7 H! ~6 w" nIt is immigrant parents getting involved, wanting their children to be part of the best of Canada.
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: V8 E3 l% p# _* W. m# a, ?It is parents who say they don’t care much about winning, but smiling more widely and laughing more freely when their team finally does win. y% p5 m$ r$ |1 ?* l
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It is a stern father pleased at last with his son. The boy can’t properly clean his room, or tie his skates, or get everything right at school, but he sure did play a whale of a game.
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% |" y: g$ h8 t; F' n xIt is the working with each player to carry that puck, pass it and shoot it effectively. It is also passing on the old-time strategies and truths of the game: Up the boards! Don’t pass it up the middle! Get it in deep! Crash the net!
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But it is also having the nerve to go against those old strategies and truths, to discover some new tactic or strategy that works best for the particular group of a players on a particular team. Or, I should say, to “rediscover” a strategy, for there’s little new in the ancient game, as I recently discovered.
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# ]0 x$ U6 B CIn the EMHA playoffs last season, my Novice team, the Sneak Attack, played best by closely protecting the slot, having two defenders and two winger stationed there, while one lone player, the centre, rushed the points if the puck ever went out there. I was nervous bringing in this strategy, thinking it was some strange and possibly wrong-headed concept, but I later found out it’s the very strategy that Team Canada coach Harry Sinden had devised for Game 2 against the Soviet Union in 1972. After getting thrashed in Game One, Sinden wanted to make sure the Soviets were unable to pass the puck easily through the slot, so he pulled his wingers back and into the middle. The ploy worked for Sinden. It also worked for that version of the Sneak Attack, though I’ve had to discard it this year with a new group of players, and a new challenge to find a way to maximize each player’s contribution.6 f9 V2 v7 y( ~2 Y& P+ M. [
5 G. V/ l2 ^$ F9 C! O' C. sMinor hockey is a test. It is a coach trying to instruct his team, as five kids spin about madly, five others stare blankly, and five comprehend exactly what he’s saying the first time he says it. It is instructing those spinners and those blank-faced kids all year long, not knowing if they’re grasping a single thing, only to see them play near perfect hockey in the playoffs.% H2 N: w1 f; g9 n$ ?; D3 j! E \
/ @' p( M/ m( p ]It is small kids feeling as big as mountains when they finally get it right. It is a kid scoring his first goal and playing like Gretzky for the rest of the game. It is a sick kid who missed school that day begging her parents to allow her to go to the game that night.
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It is a kid sizing up where he or she fits in on the team.
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It is thinking that no team can be as fun as the one you were just on, then finding a new team just as swell.
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1 m8 b0 X" I: o/ |- XIt is rink talk about this one young particular special boy playing high above his age group, how he is a sure-fire NHLer.
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It is all young players asking their fathers: “Do you think I could play in the NHL?”
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1 o) [2 s5 e& ^3 ]% W# bIt is mornings so dark and cold and early, you will never forget them.( ~% c' {9 S8 V% n% [* X- c( f
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It is a father stepping up to coach because no one else is willing to do it, then finding himself on an unexpected and rich adventure.) G, J) r/ k: V$ S6 ?1 g2 _
# K9 i# j: G* N0 X# p" k# b# JMinor hockey is our game of games, our theatre of dreams, the heart of our national sporting cult.2 G3 @1 y* n. t. V0 T* C
8 K% j$ |7 U! F R/ [It is older, bigger and greater than we are. It grips us in its cold, gloved hand. It challenges, stretches and defeats us repeatedly, but it is meant to defeat us so that we might improve.# w# p; P+ @7 K5 c; s4 _
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It is the best game I have known, the best we have got.
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Related posts: The Rise of the Sneak Attack: the inside story of an unlikely championship hockey team |
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发表于 2013-10-23 18:32
发表于 2013-10-24 08:18
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发表于 2013-10-28 13:23
