Benched

I remember the first time my son missed a shift, almost like I remember where I was when JFK was shot.
He was a senior tyke, assigned to a team after much debate because he was new to hockey and, just like his dad, his skating was suspect.
The head coach was a prototype child-first veteran of minor hockey and all was well when he was behind the bench. After all, it's not hard to coach tykes. The buzzer sounds every two minutes and the kids change. Everyone plays the same.
But not on this day at Nichols arena when the head coach was away and his uber-competitive assistant was at play.
The 2IC dutifully rotated the house league seven-year-olds until the dying minutes. With the regular season game hanging in the balance, and our team trailing by one, he tightened the bench in an oh-so-exciting pro move. Left waiting for their turns were my son and another boy. The assistant coach double-shifted his own kid.
Twit.
Ice time and attitudes, quite rightly, change as kids move through the age groups or jump up to competitive hockey. In competitive minor hockey, deploying the skills of kids in different situations is part of the coach's essential toolkit. The point is to win games, always, not to carefully balance playing time.
And sometimes kids bench themselves either during the course of a game. As they get older, understandable distractions start taking hold. Girlfriends (more about their impact in a future post), part-time jobs and yes, even homework, conspire to keep teens out of entire games.
Makes missing a shift in tyke seem like child's play.