The challenges, the memories, the perks
For the past 10 years I have volunteered as a team manager of hockey teams my boys have played on.
Atom A, Peewee A, Peewee AAA, Bantam A, Bantam AA, and now I’m into my fifth year with the YCMHS Vikings high school team.
Like anyone who volunteers, the hours are long and the pay isn’t great. But I do it for the perks. And what would those be? Well, this season it hasn’t been on the scoreboard. It’s been a rough ‘ ole year for the Vikings.
Towards the end of every season I always start compiling a team DVD of photos and videos set to music. I spend forever picking out the right songs to add to the DVDs. I usually go for a song that exudes a feeling of a hardship, victory, motivation, teamwork, facing adversity, overcoming challenges, looking back, looking ahead, saying goodbye and, most importantly, acknowledging a great bunch of players.
That’s a pretty tall order to sum up in multiple selections of four minutes or less. But it always works and even though I’ll watch the team DVD about 40 times before sharing it with the families and players, when we gather in the room to watch it together I always get a lump in my throat and am swept up with emotions. That’s those perks I mentioned. Throughout the years volunteering with these teams I have come to meet many wonderful hockey players, coaches and parents. We even have our loyal fans who come out to all of our games to show their support. I may not know all of their names, but I know their faces.
Many of the players and parents that I spend the better part of each week with I have known for years as our kids have played on teams together. I consider them life-long friends.
And even kids and parents who are on our rival teams fall into this same category.
There’s a lot of information I pass onto the teams I’m involved with: dates and times of practices, of games, info on fundraisers, travel arrangements, hotel arrangements, tournament schedules and on and on the list goes.
I send out a lot of emails, including my ‘The Week Ahead’ email. I can remember years ago standing in the Mariners Centre being completely confused as all of the players from my younger son’s team, and many of the parents, were at the rink on a night that wasn’t our usual practice night. I couldn’t understand why they were there, and it seemed odd to me that they would have excluded my son for a game of pick-up hockey. It was only chance that I happened to be at the rink.
Finally, I asked some of them, “Why are you here?”
They responded, “For the extra practice that you scheduled and you emailed us about.”
Well, at least it was good to know that people were reading my emails.
At our high school games we charge an admission of $5 for adults and $3 for students to help cover the cost of the ice rental, the officials, scorekeeper and game announcer. Even though we start out with a healthy float in our cash box, nearly everyone who comes in pays with $20 so we quickly, and frequently, run out of change. Every so often someone will even hand us a $50. I don’t mean to, but I think each time I say, “Seriously?”
It’s not unusual for me to send out an email to our team asking for people to bring $5 bills to the rink so we can swap them out for the larger bills.
This past weekend I had to chuckle when I discovered the message I have driven home has stuck. One of the dads lingered around our admission gate for a while before finally purchasing some of our 50/50 tickets. He passed us a $20 but bought $10 in tickets and he had waited to make his purchase when he knew we were in a good position to make change.
Still, he mentioned, “Tina always says to pay with $5 or $10, not $20s.” It’s probably something he’ll always remember.
We played our game, our last league game, and it wasn’t pretty. We ended up losing 9-0 against a team we knew was going to be strong. Still, it was a disappointing way to wrap things up at home.
That night when I got home I worked some more on my season DVD, listening to the songs I had picked, watching videos I had shot and photos I had taken.
Even though it’s been a hard season, when you put it all to music you realize it’s still been another great season spent with great people.
Like I said, the perks.
I may already have that lump in my throat.