I absolutely love playoff hockey, especially postseason college hockey. No knock on the National Hockey League playoffs, which are great, but the college game, both the women and the men, is a series of "win or go home" contests. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Now, add the ever-present possibility of sudden-death overtime (all three games in the women’s Frozen Four went to extra time), and the intensity is off the charts. So when someone scores, it’s like a cork getting ripped off a champagne bottle. The celebrations just explode, with players spilling off the bench into a instant on-ice mosh pit. The revelry, justifiably, gets shown again and again and again on television or the arena JumboTrons.
But, admittedly, there’s a piece of my heart that aches for the goalie who surrenders that sudden-death tally. It feels like a tragedy. Colgate’s Julia Vandyk was absolutely crestfallen after Clarkson’s Elizabeth Giguere knocked defender Shelby Wood off the
puck, and at 7:55 of overtime tucked a sublime move past the sprawling Raiders netminder. As Clarkson players celebrated, Vandyk could barely pick herself up off the ice. One by one, her teammates came by, offering a word of encouragement. But Vandyk appeared inconsolable. It was excruciating to watch.
But that’s sports, right? In a championship game, there’s a winner and a loser. There’s just no way around it. Vandyk played like a champion. In three NCAA playoff games, she made 23, 45 and 35 saves, with save percentages of .927 .928 and .929, including a stunning double-overtime upset of Wisconsin in the semifinals. That’s the very definition of "giving your team a chance to win."
Still, none of that seems to matter to the losing goaltender.
This is the flip side of competition. We all automatically think about the winning, the celebrating. That’s human nature. And Clarkson goalie Shea Tiley, who finished the title game with 27 saves and was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, was deserving of the spoils of victory. But that didn’t change the ache I felt toward Vandyk, who led the Raiders to a sparkling 34-6-1 record.
That’s exactly why toughness is so important. You’ve got to bounce back if you don’t want those gut-wrenching losses to define you. Vandyk is only a junior. She’s got to look forward, not back. Yet far too often parents make decisions to shield their kids from this "struggle." In the goaltending realm, that often means finding a youth hockey program where young Johnny or Molly is guaranteed playing time, without having to fight for it, without having to earn it. That’s an enormous disservice to your child.
This is a favorite topic this time of years, when youth hockey programs are holding tryouts for the following season and playing a weighted game of musical chairs to find the best kids. But I’m addressing the parents, and the decisions they make when placing their child.
I was thinking of the parents when I came across an article entitled "Don’t let your athlete skip the struggle," by Janis B. Meredith, author of "11 Habits for Happy and Positive Sports Parents." Meredith recalled talking with a friend about her frustration with watching her kids wrestle with challenges.
"My friend wisely commented, ‘The strongest kids I’ve seen are the ones who things don’t come to easily. The ones who have to fight for playing time, a spot on the team, or even just to improve, are the ones who in the end are the strongest people,’" wrote Meredith.
"I clung to those words a lot as my kids played sports," she wrote. "And now that they are young adults, I see the fruit of their struggle. If they’d skipped those struggles, they wouldn’t have developed into strong, determined adults. Your kids need to struggle in order to learn how to fly."
That’s been my experience as well, as a coach and as a parent. "Protecting" your child from the difficult moments that are ever-present in sports is to deny them the valuable lessons that we want sports to teach our kids. In short, you can’t do it for them.
Here are Meredith’s three top reasons why parents must let children "struggle" on their own. I agree with all of them.
1. Your child needs to learn how to solve problems without your help. Selfsufficiency is a skill he must develop because he’ll need it often as an adult.
2. Your child must learn how to resolve conflicts with others. If you constantly fix things for her, she won’t figure out how to navigate that tricky social minefield for himself.
3. Your child needs to learn persistence. He’ll need it as a spouse, a parent and an employee/employer. You don’t want to raise a child who tucks his tail and runs at the first sign of a struggle.
I’m sure Vandyk, and even her teammate Wood, struggled with their championship loss. I fully expect both of them to bounce back. Because that’s what good hockey players do. And I hope that takes just a little bit of the edge off the heartache.
