Minnesota Hockey District 16

The Minnesota Bantam B State Hockey Tournament was March 18th-20th in Marshall, MN.  In the first round the Lake of the Woods Bantams faced the Woodbury Royals.  The Bears come out on the short end of a 3-2 score.  The Bears next faced Chisago Lakes, but again come up short with another 3-2 decision.  The Lake of the Woods Bantams played hard, as a team, as they have all year.

The acronym TEAM - Together Everyone Achieves More - was used throughout the Bantam season to drive home the importance of working together.

Now at this point, most people are envisioning the morning rah-rah session at Wal-Mart getting everyone excited to start a new day of work, but the TEAM concept could have been the most important attribute effecting the Bantam's season.  This thought process was not only used on the ice during practices and games, but off the ice and with many others besides the players.

One of the best examples of putting the goals of the team ahead of personnel goals was a game in which a line change occurred with the line being brought off the ice having skated a short shift consisting of just a few seconds.  Upon entering the player's box the coach hopped down off the bench and approached the players in order to explain the reasons behind the short shift and to prevent any hurt feelings or team dissension.  But before the coach was too far into his counseling, one of the players stopped him and said "It's OK coach, we want to win too!"

This level of emotional maturity and focus on team is rare in adults but in a teenager, it's truly remarkable.  Now imagine an entire team like this.

The parents are obviously a big part of this TEAM.  A group of people who have stood by these players over all the past years of hockey, keeping in mind one of these years was the often discussed Squirt B Year in which there were no victories.  That is, no games in which the Bears scored more goals than the opposition.  That year's victories were required to be moral in nature, a year that tested even the biggest of optimists.  These parents have supported their players in good times and tough times, who supported the coaches even though they may not agree with all of the coach's decisions.  A parent recently commented to the coach "you helped my son to love the game again".  This support not only makes the season much more enjoyable but much more successful as well.  These parents put on team dinners, ensured the District Playoff tournament held in Baudette was well run, and many other items too numerous to mention, in addition to all the typical hockey parent duties.  Without this support this season wouldn't have been possible.

A critical part of the TEAM in an area like Lake of the Woods, are the surrounding communities: providing support in many ways.  When a fund raising dinner was held by the Bantams to pay for warm-ups for the team and help pay for their trip to the state tournament the support was nothing short of over-whelming.  Thank you to all!  Community support also came in the form of coming to the games throughout the year.  At the Bantam District Tournament held in Baudette the community support was incredible.  People who didn't have a son or grandson or maybe they couldn't have named a player on the team, still came out to support their locate hockey.  At the state tournament the opposing team would take the ice to a smattering of applause.  But when the Bantam Bears took the ice, a cheer erupted like the winning goal had been scored to the biggest game of the year.  Throughout the playoffs the countless emails, phone calls, text messages and well-wishers made the players, parents and coaches thankful we live in the community we do.

Coach and I were on the way to the state tournament when we stopped in Bemidji for lunch.  As we were finishing lunch coach took note of a person sitting a couple of tables away.  No sooner had he commented, when this person started to tell those she was having lunch with about the Baudette Bantam team going to the State Tournament by defeating two teams from Moorhead at the Regional tournament.  A former Baudette resident but now living in Bemidji, she talked about the team's accomplishments with such enthusiasm and excitement, a person would think she was our #1 fan, we couldn't help but smile.  The support has been outstanding.

One last component of TEAM is the coach.  One of coach's best pregame speeches was about an eagle and how coach witnessed an adult eagle teaching it's young how to fly, all of this, he witnessed first-hand through his home window.  The story goes:  when it's time for the young eaglet to learn how to fly, the adult eagle removes everything from the nest the eaglet finds comforting in the nest, all of the grass and feathers lining the nest leaving only the big sticks.  The adult eagle next picks up the eaglet and carries it as it flies, letting the young bird feel the wind rush past it in flight.  Next the eagle nudges the eaglet to the edge of the nest and pushes the eaglet out letting it free fall from the nest, but catching it's young before it hits the ground. The eagle does this, over and over in hopes the eaglet will open its wings and try to fly.  But the eaglet is afraid at first to open its wings when falling, afraid the rushing wind will rip its wings off.

The point of the story is to challenge the players to move past the things keeping them from reaching their goals.  To not be content with being comfortable but meet the unknown, because without doing this, they will never know how much they can truly accomplish.  Now bantam parents, please request your son to tell you this story.  But, just a note, during the telling of this story please require arm flapping and eagle screeching, as this is how it was told to them!  On the drive home from the state tournament not long after leaving Marshall there was an eagle soaring over-head.  The sight of this eagle brought a smile to my face as I recalled coach's "eagle pre-game speech".  It was one of those moments in life when a connection is made between a pregame speech, what we expect from our kids and what we expect from ourselves.  The 2010-2011 Lake of the Woods Bantams had accomplished so much throughout the year and had worked hard as a TEAM.

We could have felt bad about not winning our games at the State Tournament, but it was easy to smile and think about the accomplishment of getting there. Oddly enough, I saw many eagles on the 7 hour drive back to Baudette, each time bringing on a smile and thoughts of this TEAM having accomplished the nearly unimaginable.  I lost count of the number of eagles I saw on the way home, but my thoughts were with the 14 eagles, with who I had spent this hockey season.

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of the TEAM.