POPULARITY OF TOURNAMENTS HAS INCREASED OVER THE YEARS
Hockey tournaments have become extremely popular in the last ten or
fifteen years. It is not uncommon for teams - whether they are house
league or rep clubs - to take part in as many as five, six or more
tournaments each season. These tournaments are usually held from Friday to
Sunday and guarantee each team a minimum of three games. A good team may
get as many as six games on a weekend if they get to the championship
game.
Say what you want - tournaments are used as a way for hockey
associations to raise money. Many years ago, someone got the bright idea
that if you gathered a lot of teams together for a "compressed
competition"; charged a high entry fee for the teams; sell tickets to
parents who came to the games to watch their children; operated a
concession with a licensed bar; and sold advertising in programs, you
could make a lot of money and keep the local registration fees from rising
too high.
THE 'RAFFLE-TICKET' PHENOMENON
Eventually, all hockey associations got wind of this and we now have
what I will call the "raffle-ticket phenomenon" in minor hockey.
By this, I mean that it is almost expected that if a team comes to your
tournament, you should be going to theirs. For example, if someone sells
you a raffle ticket, you expect them to buy one from you when it is your
turn to sell. I also see this phenomenon being used with respect to 50-50
draws. Many minor hockey teams designate a parent to sell 50-50 tickets to
fans as a way to raise money. So, if you buy tickets when you visit
another arena, you expect those people to buy tickets when they come to
your arena.
HOCKEY TOURNAMENTS ARE NOW OUT OF HAND
Hockey tournaments have now gotten out of hand. It is becoming
increasingly expensive to run tournaments, so games are shortened, entry
fees are increased and admission prices have sky-rocketed. Furthermore,
municipalities have found that they can make more money renting out ice
during tournaments than they can during regular weekends, so they schedule
as many as they possibly can during the season. Coaches sometimes have to
go to tournaments just so that their team can keep active. And many of
them are out of town.
ENTERING A TOURNAMENT IS RISKY BUSINESS
Whenever you go to a hockey tournament, you are risking disaster as a
coach.
First of all, parents would like to play different teams when they go
to a tournament. However, when you play different teams from different
associations, you have no idea of the calibre of their clubs. The
situation is worse in house league and lower tier levels. Once you get to
the AAA level, you find the competition pretty much even.
Another thing you often find when you go to a tournament is that the
style of officiating is not what you are accustomed to. Sure, we will
always say that the rule book is the same regardless of where you play,
but the reality is that the supervisor of officials has a lot to do with
the consistency of his or her referees. On top of this, it is extremely
difficult to find officials who have time to do games during the day at
tournaments - especially if they are held on weekdays. Therefore, you can
sometimes find inexperienced referees on the ice in situations which will
be hard to handle merely because they were the only ones available.
IT IS NOT EASY TO REFEREE A TOURNAMENT
Tournament organizers also try to squeeze in as many games as possible.
This leads to another problem when it comes to officiating. It is not
uncommon to find referees doing up to 20 games during a weekend
tournament. Not only is this tiring, but it is also extremely difficult to
keep sharp and on top of your game as an official when you are on the ice
for three or four intense games in a row. And yet, it is often hard to
avoid this type of scheduling simply because we don't have enough
referees.
The fact that Mr. Craigen's son had the same referee for all three of
his games is not surprising. While it doesn't happen often, it is
possible. Referees must be scheduled prior to the beginning of a
tournament. They have a life too and cannot all be sitting around the
entire weekend not knowing when they will be going on the ice. So when the
game is scheduled, the referee-in-chief may not have any idea of who will
be playing. He is given times and must make sure that the officials are
scheduled. The assignment of the referees for the championship games may
be done during the tournament, but the majority of games are assigned in
advance.
A referee is not too impressed when he is forced to do the same team
more than once or twice in a tournament. Time is the best healer, so
during the season if you are in a difficult game there is usually a period
of time before you do the same team again. In a tournament, you may have
an extremely difficult contest in the morning and find yourself on the ice
with the same team a few hours later. This is unfortunate, but it can't be
helped. The referee knows the players, coaches and fans will be on his
case from the opening whistle because of the problems which arose in the
previous game. Add to this the fact that the emotions increase as you get
deeper into the tournament and you can well imagine the pressure that a
referee feels if he is doing a team for the 3rd time in a day or two.
TOURNAMENTS BRING OUT THE WORST
Tournaments tend to bring out the worst in parents and coaches. The
games are emotional powder kegs. If you have traveled a long way to get to
the tournament, and if each family has spent hundreds of dollars for
hotels, food and other expenses, you want to win at all cost. Add to that
the fact that the games may have been shortened a bit for scheduling
purposes, and it is easy to see why people lose their tempers easily. We
also realize that tournaments often provide alcoholic beverages as
refreshment and it is obvious what that does as you get later into the
day.
TOURNAMENTS OR LEAGUE PLAY - WHERE ARE THE PRIORITIES?
It is time for hockey associations to re-evaluate their priorities. The
most important thing they do is organize a league for their member teams.
It is time for everyone to stop being so concerned about attending
tournaments and pay more attention to using the time and money for
additional practices and games with local competition in a situation where
they have control over the environment. Tournaments are fine at the end of
the season to determine a regional champion, but they have long lost their
usefulness as a form of competition during the season.
Tournaments have also lost their usefulness as a fund-raiser for the
most part. The expenses have risen so much that the profits have fallen.
As a parent, I felt that hockey tournaments were nothing more than a big
waste of money. I would spend up to $500 on a weekend to watch my son play
3 to 5 games in order to get a medal that he could hang on the wall. That
works out to over $100 per game. When I coached minor hockey teams, I
often rationalized with parents who wanted to go on out of town trips. I
told them that I would rather have them all pay me $500. That would give
me $8000 that I could use to purchase extra ice-time for up to 80 games
and practices instead of using that money to buy five games and 16 medals.
Perhaps the most important reason for cutting back on tournaments is
because of what tournaments tend to do to the image of minor hockey. Many
of the most notorious negative incidents occur during tournaments.
Players, coaches, parents and fans get all caught up in the emotional
atmosphere surrounding the intense tournament play and then anything can
happen.
For the time being, it looks as if tournaments are going to be a big
part of the hockey scene for a while yet. Therefore, it is up to
tournament organizers and coaches to try to keep a handle on the situation
in order to ensure positive experiences for all participants. However, do
not bury your head in the sand. If you plan on attending a tournament, be
prepared for anything.
