Punctuation

Six-year olds do not understand the value of punctuation. I learned this the other day at dek hockey practice. (Yes, the definition of insanity is not learning from your mistakes. After two seasons of coaching, I'm positive I've done enough penance to make up for the few sins I've committed in my life. But for some reason, I didn't say no when my kids asked if I was going to coach again this season.)

 

The season started interestingly. One evening, I asked my son if he would like to help me plan out a couple of simple plays. He instantly perked up and grabbed several dozen pieces of paper. “We're only going to come up to two or three,” I cautioned while he looked for a pencil.

 

“I know. I'll get more paper for the next play.”

 

“Bud, the plays have to be simple. Remember, the kids on the team are going to be between 6 and 10.”

 

He ran off several names of kids he'd played with previous seasons and asked if they were going to be on the team.

 

“I don't know. I won't have the roster until the first day of practice.” (I'm pretty sure professional football coaches at least have a hint of their players a week or two before their season starts. It seems that the standards for volunteer coaches of dek hockey in Pennsylvania are far below par. Don't even get me started about my ordeals with salary caps.)

 

A few minutes later, my son came back with his first plan. After his third trip of carrying the papers, he had it all together.

 

“I said the play needs to be simple.”

 

“It is. See, we get the ball then they shoot it (He pointed to the first X). Then I pass it here. (He showed me the second X.) Then the winger runs over here. (This was represented by a Y.) Their defense (These were A and B) think (Now, I vaguely remember what he was like at 6 and playing dek hockey. It was his first season. And I'm positive that if you asked his coach how he played, the word “think” would not be one of the descriptive words.)

 

We were half-way through the Cyrillic alphabet and I was lost and we were only halfway through his play. “Bud, this might be too complex for some of the younger players. (And the coaches.) How about something like this. I call it around the world.”

 

My drawing only had three Xs. I could tell he was not impressed by the way he looked for the supporting glossary.

 

“It might work. How about we try my play first?”

 

“Let's see who's on the team first, then I'll decide.”

 

So this brings us to our first practice of the season. I have to admit, my team is easy to describe. Short pretty much sums it up. What they lacked for in size, they made up for with an uncanny knack of hitting my shins with their sticks. Even with my old sports injury (It was NOT gout. I have the note from my doctor.) I was running the drills with them. Our first drill was getting the ball out of our zone.

 

“Ok guys, listen up.” This is usually a good way to start a drill.

 

I want the defense men to shoot the ball up the boards as hard as they can,.” I pointed where I wanted them to shoot. This is also a good way to continue the drill. Also, notice the well placed comma.

 

This is where the punctuation comes in. The comma clearly states that there is more coming. It does NOT in any way imply that the ball, carelessly left on the dek, should be shot as hard as you can in such a way, that while the coach's hand is out, your follow through ends up crushing most of the bones in his thumb. At least, when I was in school it didn't mean that.

 

Laying on the dek and whimpering would not be considered a good way to continue the drill. But, at least I now have two sports related injuries.

Practice

This spring, I got a terrifying email. “Dek Hockey practice”.

Oh, the email started off innocently enough (I'm paraphrasing. Reading the email still gives me panic attacks). “Parents, the kids have had a great season, since playoffs start on Saturday, we're going to have a practice Friday night to show them positions.

Let me explain dek hockey, if you are not familiar with the sport. It's hockey, with a ball. They play it in an enclosed area, like hockey, but instead of ice and skates, they have a ball, shoes, shin pads, elbow pads, gloves and a helmet. You may think it's enclosed to keep the ball in. That might be true, but the real reason is; when you give a group of 6-9 year olds wooden sticks, federal saftey laws require that they be separated from the public.

The email went on to lie that the parents would only stand in the positions. I'd just gotten over a severe case of a mutated Ebola-SARS-Swine-Avian flu attack. (I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't fought off this mutated virus, it would have swept across the world with devasting results.) I figured I owed it to my son to show up and support him. After all, it was only to show positions, help them figure out where they needed to play...

The first drill sounded simple. When the ball goes into the corner, the kids are supposed to pass it up the boards. (the main point being not to pass it in front of their goal...) The coach passed the ball into the corner, a kid ran after it, passed it up the boards to a waiting teammate. “Fathers you pressure the kids.”...

There are several things wrong with that sentence. The kids were armed with deadly weapons. We were outnumbered. The kids were armed with deadly weapons.

After several hundred trips into the corner, almost as many bruises on my shins and a growing desire to whack one of the little monsters, they called a break. Fathers against sons, in a game that would go down in history as one of the bloodiest battles. Up and down the dek we raced, sticks flying, parents crippled and kids laughing evily.

I've read enough medical journals (ok, my wife has nagged me enough about junk food and exercise) to know that seeing dark spots are not a good thing. When I started seeing double, it was time to sit down. (Ok, it wasn't so much a decision.) Two heart attacks and a stroke later, the “practice” was over and I was allowed to seek propper medical treatment.

This fall, when the email came, my wife finally found me, curled up in a ball whimpering.

“What's wrong?” I think there might have been some worry in her voice.

“Dek hockey practice...”

To my horror, my son was right behind his mother and sent up a cheer. My only hope of ignoring the email and explaining to my son how it hadn't been delivered was gone.

However... this time would be different. I was healthy, the Ebola-SARS-Swine-Avian flu had been completely wiped out.

“I'm going to beat you so bad.” my son started off with the trash talking on the way to the practice.

“Oh yeah? I'm going to bury you so deep they won't be able to dig you out.” I countered.

“That was good!” (He needs a little work on the whole trash talking.) “We'll, after we get home, I'm going to throw away your keys!” (Again, we're going to have to work on this.)

How did I do this time? I made it through the practice on my feet. I even managed to play with a broken ankle. (I found out that the official dek hockey ball, while about the size of a baseball, is made out of rocks and probably pleutonium and spikes pop out right before it hits your ankle.) Did the parents win? Well, the coach was the kids' goalie and the team's regular goalie was ours. While the adults played their best, our goalie pretty much summed it up when he wanted the parents to shoot on him.

However, I did win the face off against my son at least once. I think that was because I went for the ball and he went for my ankles. So, while techinically I won the face off, he wasn't the one limping. “Old age and experience will beat youth and skill” might be true. But when youth comes armed with hockey sticks and a thirst for blood, old age doesn't stand a chance.