“The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.”, News, Minor Atom REP, 2016-2017 (Glanbrook Minor Hockey Association)

This Team is part of the 2016-2017 season, which is not set as the current season.
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Mar 27, 2017 | Ayden Harvey | 1667 views
“The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.”
The best laid plans of mice and men
often go awry

- Robert Burns




I suppose it's the literature nerd in me, but that poem, written over 220 years ago, quickly came to mind this year after the OMHA weekend.  It was all planned...tournament victory...good battle in the next round but felt we would have a good chance...all the way to the finals.

But then, something changed that plan.  And just like that mouse who had worked hard and planned for what she needed to prepare for, we were faced with the reality that sometimes things just don't go our way.  I won't lie to you kids, I respect you all too much for that, but that loss got to me.  It hurt.  And I know it hurt you too - you were all so hungry for it. Once I got over it (still kind of working on it lol), I was able to see past it.  For me, this was a magical moment.  Here's what I saw:

I saw a team that worked hard, really hard, together, to get better.  You asked for suicide skates and asked to be pushed.  And all the while you had fun.  Cheered each other on.  Laughed.  And then asked for more.  

I saw a pretty good team from last year completely transform into a juggernaut of a team.  What you were all able to do this year blew my mind.  I had a season plan of skills and ideas and a few systems to implement...and when you had picked all those up by the end of October I knew I had to adjust my plan.  The biggest trick in coaching is to know your athletes...what they're capable of...how they need to be pushed...how much they can handle...I know I mentioned in my letter last year that this is the smartest team I've been associated with and it was definitely on display this year.  Very few teams in the province move the puck like we do and understand what's going to happen and where we should be.  Give and go, cycling, regroup...all complicated things that I added in this year because you showed me you could handle it and wanted more.

I saw a team learn how to win and then win when they were expected to.  We were good, real good, all year, but we didn't know at the beginning of the year what it took to win the hard game.  The tournament final in Barrie showed that, but then we cleared up the communication error (totally my fault I realized after) and won Brantford and league finals.  And what was more important was that people started expecting us to win and we still did.  Coming up and surprising a team in a game or a tournament is one thing, but to win tournaments and series when everyone knew who we were and everyone else expected us to win is something that can't be understated.  Playing under pressure, and performing under that pressure is a skill that will carry you through the rest of your life...sports or not...it is a skill that not many people have at their disposal.

I saw a coach, me, learn from his players.  Every coach always says that cliche..."I love learning from my players"...but it is just that, a cliche.  Most couldn't give you specifics of what they learned or when and it just sounds good so they repeat it.  I can.  Brantford.  Game 1.  Last minute collapse to Kitchener.  And I learned then what it actually means to communicate effectively.  No jargon, no cliches, no pat expressions.  You were all doing what I communicated for you to do in those moments, and I couldn't understand why we collapsed like that.  In our post game talk, I had that moment of understanding.  And you taught me the importance of clarity in a message and understanding that what I see as clear might not always be.  As a coach and an educator I thank you all for that lesson.

There were moments this year when I was able to sit back and just watch you play.  What an honour and a privilege that was.  Honestly.  Those games when you were on fire I had more fun watching than any pro game I've seen.  There's something special in the way you all play as a team.  Something you may not recognize just yet, but hopefully one day you will.

I saw all of you love the game.  Sure, there were moments where you may have been upset at a loss, or upset that you didn't play as much as someone else, but you all fought through all of that and came back smiling and happy to be at the rink with your Ranger family.

I saw everyone involved give everything they could to make the team better.  Manager Jenn doing countless things behind the scenes to make sure I knew the details and what I could and couldn't do - the important role she plays every year cannot be understated...even though it often is.  The entire coaching staff working together, planning practices, discussing strategy and helping become the players we knew you could be.  Parents driving you to arenas several times a week, 7 hours to Notre Dame because I thought that would be a fun time lol, and always cheering loudly up in the stands.

I often look at my life in terms of a legacy.  Legacy, boys, is the way you will be remembered, and for how long.  I think about what people will say about me when I'm no longer around and how I'll be remembered.   A bit morbid perhaps, but it helps to guide my behaviour and my interactions with those around me.  The thoughts of legacy extend to my teams.

When we won that Brantford tournament I thought to myself, "There it is.  Our banner.  It will hang forever at the arena.  There's our legacy."  Congratulations boys, you now have a championship legacy - banners and trophies.  You will be able to come back to the arena when you have your kids and point to your signature on that banner.  Talk about how much fun it was.  How good this team was.  How high our ranking went that year.  How you played on that team with people you're still friends with.  To inspire a love for the game that you have.  I've always looked to those artifacts to cement the fact that people will remember for a very long time just how special this team was.  A legacy hanging on the wall, for everyone to see.  And to forever be remembered as champions.

But I was wrong.

That's is only a part of our legacy.  A very small part.

Our legacy will be unknown.  To us.  But appreciated by people we have never met.

This year you helped to save lives. Yes, the idea was set up by parents, but you all took it over and made it your own.  You raised money at the arena, shovelled driveways, and donated allowances to make a difference.  And what a difference you made - over $3000 to donate to Mac SickKids!  That is truly incredible. 

Parents, your legacy is in those kids that made that difference.  You will be remembered as someone who raised that (future) man to be loving, empathetic, diligent, respectful, generous, and socially aware amongst many other things.  You should be proud...and it may be difficult to see all that now as we're often so immersed in daily life (and that they left the milk out, or didn't clean their room, or left some other giant mess in the house) and also in the game of hockey that everything else can become a blur.  But, I ask of you that if people ever ask you about your legacy or your impact on the world, mention your children, and maybe the impact this team had on them, and the positive impact they've had on human lives.  Allow yourself to be proud of the man you're raising, even in the moments when you're ready to scream at them.  

Boys.  Team.  Ranger family.  Your legacy at this point is unknown.  In the short term, you've helped to brighten the days of those who are in the hospital now.  But, you don't know whose lives you've touched.  Whose lives you've saved.  How many future generations of people you've impacted with your efforts. Likely, you won't ever know.  When children leave SickKids, they're not told who helped to brighten their day and save their life.  But even though they may not know...you have.  You have brightened days.  You have saved lives.  That is something magical.  Someone, somewhere has you to thank.  And they are thankful.  Even if you don't know it.

So boys, I have something to ask of you now.  When you bring your kids back (and one day you'll understand that part of your legacy is that small, smiling face you're talking to in that moment) to look at that banner, talk about the fun, and that I yelled and made you skate lines, and how awesome your teammates were, and that goal you scored, and how much you loved all of it.  But talk to them about how you worked together to do something bigger than you.  Bigger than this team.  Talk to them about how at the end of the day, hockey is a game that we get to play.  One where you learned many lessons about overcoming adversity and being a good teammate.  But your legacy isn't hanging there on that wall. 

Part of your legacy got up and walked out of McMaster hospital one day, healthy, and with a smile on their face.  


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