Up, down, up, down: 50 minutes with the Timbits
Posted Feb 9, 2012 By Nevil HuntEMC sports - Diamonds and chunks of some meteors are considered the hardest materials on Earth.
That's only because science has yet to design a machine to measure the might and resilience of the average Timbit hockey player.
Before a Canadian kid reaches the novice level of play, there's the initiation stage. No referees or many rules, just big helpings of fun.
It's late on a Wednesday afternoon, not even 5 p.m., but William Wright is ready for hockey at the Walter Baker Centre in Barrhaven. There's still more than 30 minutes before William will get on the ice but he's fully dressed for action and getting fidgety.
"Don't put your mouthguard in yet," his dad advises him.
The mouthguard goes in anyway.
William and his Navy Seals teammates are in their second year of initiation hockey.
Slowly the dressing room starts to fill with players, parents, siblings too young to lace up skates. The kids drag hockey bags that are nearly as big as them.
Coach Dave Vesey arrives and with his hockey stick gives William a light tap on the shinpads.
"You gonna score some goals today?" asks Dave Vesey.
"Yeah," says William, who soon disappears, headed to the rink to watch the Zamboni do its stuff.
The room is now completely full of big people and little people and the noise of happiness. The players need help to get dressed. Many can't even reach the clothes hooks without clambering onto the benches. Suddenly there's a crisis: someone has lost a sock.
Vesey is head instructor of the Nepean Minor Hockey Association's six-year-old programs. To the kids he's the Keeper of the Plastic Hotdogs.
HOT DOGS
As part of a concerted effort to provide variety and lots of laughs, Vesey uses plastic hot dogs in place of pucks for some practice drills. The dog toys slide erratically, creating an extra challenge for the stick-handlers.
Vesey may be a little overqualified for coaching Timbits, but he is clearly enjoying himself - maybe even as much as the players.
"I came up with my kids in NMHA," Vesey says, adding he's coached for about 25 years, usually two teams each season. "The president asked if I'd like to make a slightly different careeer shift."
Vesey has as many as nine high school-age volunteer instructors on the ice with him to help explain drills and keep mini-games running smoothly.
"They learn through play. They're not drills, they're games," Vesey says. "The outcome is that they learn what they need to play hockey."
When the Zamboni finishes its work, the Timbits spill onto the ice - literally in some cases. The ice time of an initiation player invloves skating, trying to stop, turning while trying to maintain balance, and plenty of falling and getting up.
The plastic hotdogs hit the ice for 10 minutes of keep-away. The rest of the 50-minute session is split into easy-to-digest segments. A parent hits the buzzer every three minutes and the kids move from mini-games to drills.
The two simultaneous mini-games take place inside each blue line. Even with skates on, many of the players are short enough that they can skate into and out of the net without ducking their heads.
At centre are the drills, uhh, games.
Old bicycle tires are laid out and the instructions are to step over each one as the players pass. Step over becomes step inside, weave between, or even step on and fall over. It's all good.
Later, the game switches to stick-handling ringette rings using upside-down hockey sticks. Attention span as as short as the players, so the Timbits soon find themselves opping over small cutout pictures of frogs.
Vesey sees the drills improving "core strength and balance." The kids see fun, even if the frogs seem to jump up and trip them every now and then.
One more buzz of the buzzer and the players line up to get off the ice. The dressing room fills again, the noise even noisier than before.
nevil.hunt@metroland.com
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