What is a dad to do

So. I am a hockey dad. Not a crazy one per say, but I can be a little on the odd side when I want to be. I have a boy. A great boy. He amazes me with his quick wit and his strength of mind and body. Yesterday he was dealt probably the worst blow of his short life.

I'll start off by saying that this 11 year old has had to deal with more adversity then most adults will in a lifetime. Yet every time, he comes out smelling like a rose. When he was 2, I was a laid-off steelworker with a lot of time on my hand's and I bought him a pair of Bauer skates, dropped 100 bucks on a back of equipment and started off to skating school with him. He took to it like a duck to water. The next year he started hockey school and was automatically one of the strongest kids on the ice. We then moved from Stoney Creek to the hockey heaven that is Alberta. There was where he really found his stride.

A "hat trick" a game scorer, he was leaned on regularly to produce and never failed. I'm not even considering him to be the next "Shea Weber" or Sydney Crosby, but the kid has talent. The thing with Cold Lake AB was that it was a small town with a strong hockey program and he was shinning like a big star. Then it happened. BANG. I was his head coach and handed some of the worst hockey parents I have ever encountered. The problems ranged from verbal abuse directed at my son to phone calls in the middle of the evening accusing me of padding his numbers or not passing around enough ice time. Ironically we won the regional championships that year.

The next year got even worse. I didn't get the head coach position for his team and the guy who did was a world class douche. Verbal abuse doesn't even cover his coaching policy and he wasn't even foreign to demeaning the kids on the bench. I thought that was going to be it. I thought that poor little 9 year old was going to hang up the skates. He suffered through the summer of moving back to Ontario. A move he to date still hasn't forgiven me for, and we had our eye's opened to the beast that is Hockey Ontario.

Our posting was changed last minute and the AAA team he was originally going to play for was no longer a reality. That and in my lack of knowledge, we weren't appraised of the habit of spring tryouts for the following year. After speaking to a director in the new area, he assured me that I didn't need to scramble to get him to another area tryouts because the local rep team was just as good if not better then the outside area AA and A programs... it was a lie.

Our tryout skate was a nightmare. The boy looked 8 inches taller then everyone else and there were kids that made the team that could barely skate backwards. The beautiful woman that keeps me centered told me, "don't worry, its exactly what he needs, he gets to be the rock star". She was right, he did, but it wasn't what he needed. I watched slowing as all the skills, fitness and hockey sense deteriorated from him. At the end of the season, it took a tonne of time and money just to get him to the shape he was when we initially moved from Alberta. I won't even get into the gong show that was our season.

Then a ray of hope came our way. I took the boy to AAA tryouts in Barrie. A team he had no hope in hell of making and he was cut. This was a first for him and he took it extremely well. But a wonderful lady pointed out that it didn't have to end there. We could take him to one of a various amount of teams and have him tryout there... which we did. We showed up to the tryouts after a quick phone call to the coach and he not only made the team, but was a walk on.

It was at this time that I was training in the good 'ol U.S of A to go "over there" and I left my son knowing that he knew what he had to do. I was wrong again. He spent the time I was gone on the couch with a new friend and was in no way in shape for the season. The coach was horrified when he saw what shape the boy was in. I stepped in, and got him back into training. The boy just needed a little direction and he was off. He lost 10lbs and went from a 3rd line D man to starting position and special teams machine.

The season was a blast. Good parents, great kids and a very supportive family environment for my family while I was off to go fight "over there". It wasn't a winning season by any stretch of the imagination, but the boys all pulled together and were playing real AAA hockey by the end. We were ready to tryout for the same team this year knowing that the coach was staying on and very happy with the boy's play... or so we thought.

A parent stepped in for the head coach position and won the job. The wheels were coming off again. He decided that he didn't want big players with big hits and big shots. He wanted exactly what the boy was not. Little speed demon's. The boy stepped up to tryouts thinking he had a shot, and was wrong. The beautiful woman that had held this together called it from day one and I refused to believe that the boy wasn't going to make it on superior size, speed and strength. Wife-1, Me-0. He made it all the way to final cuts and was released at the last ice time. He was crushed. He had dropped yet another 10lbs in training for the job. His father was and best friend was still away at war, his friend's had all moved away, and now this. How could a grown adult drag him through this hell? Was he blind? Did he not see? What am I missing?

I can't help but think that had I been there, it would have been harder for the cut to happen. I know I have let the young man down. I should have been there, to cheer him on. To let him know that its okay. But here is the kicker. Children 1/2 his size, strenth and speed made the team. What the hell. Am I that bad a person? Did the coach just ditch my kid to keep me away? Not only that, but the coach pinned two of the best Friend's on the team against each other for the last spot, and then gave it to neither of them.

Having not been there, the fault therefore lies with me. I should have been there. The boy has gone through enough, without having to have his hope's and dream's dashed by somebody who is more concerned about a "vision" then he is about talent. Its not fair to any little boy to be cut, but part of a process of learning loss and how to jump up and dust himself off, but how much dust does one boy have to chew on before somebody wakes up and says.... he has done enough.

I guess my final thought was that because this team hailed from all over a region, I loved the fact that there were no politics involved. The old head coach had no kids in hockey, neither did the assistant coach or the manager. Next to impossible for politics of children to play a role when the coach doesn't have to worry about who is friend's with who..... but it has all changed. I've said it before and I'll say it again. At the AAA level, a parent's place is in the stands, cheering and being as positive as possible. But if you pick up the coach's whistle, you had better learn to be about development and the kids, and not your own agenda.

At least that is what I think