As the last of the pond hockey generations melt away, a new breed of hockey player is rising from the depths of the youth ranks. These whippersnappers are learning to play an old game in a newfangled way.
Call it pond hockey 2.0.
It's a hybrid game that harkens back to the long, frost-bitten afternoons when children once created their own rules in the outdoors, their own styles of play and developed a natural passion for the game. But it is played in the context of traditional indoor hockey.
It looks simple enough on the surface, but the theory behind it is more involved.
The goal? Bringing the game down to size for the next generation of hockey players - narrowing the rink to fit the kids.
At the youngest ages, youth hockey teams are now playing on surfaces far smaller than full Olympic-size rinks. Instead of one game on the rink, there are now two or three. Many players ages 8 and under are practicing and competing using a third of the ice or less - a change taking hold across Massachusetts.
The smaller areas allow kids to get more puck time and spend less time worrying about the technical aspects of the game such as positioning, staying in their lanes or skating offsides. In addition, youth hockey associations are sharing the cost of rink rentals on game day, which is expected to save money for the organizations and for the families who pay fees.
In half, or "cross-ice" play, Amherst youth hockey coach Jim Mileski said, he's seeing young skaters develop skills and become better hockey players faster. More important, he said, the new, largely scoreless framework does not appear to be detracting from their enthusiasm.
"I think it's immensely beneficial and they're having more fun," said Mileski, who has two girls on his Mite squad. "Half ice puts kids on one level where they all get to touch the puck and they all get to contribute."
But the change is not without controversy.
Can this new game still be called hockey?
Dan Feldman, vice president of the Amherst Hockey Association (AHA), who runs the learn-to-skate program and coaches on teams at the Squirt and Pee Wee levels, said he didn't need convincing about USA Hockey's "American Development Model," or ADM, the technical name for the program.Nevertheless, there has been some push back against its concepts.
"It's a very noticeable transition, no question about it," said Feldman, a hockey parent who has been involved with the association for nearly seven years. "I think it's the parents mainly providing more push back than the on-ice coaches."
While the long-term results of ADM have yet to be measured, the new hockey model, drawn from similar youth athlete development models around the world, is making inroads. Roger Grillo, of USA Hockey, the governing body for amateur ice hockey in the United States, says for all its critics, ADM is hard to argue with once it is seen in action.
"We're fighting years and years of tradition," said Grillo, who spends his time traveling New England promoting ADM. Grillo will be supervising two ADM-style practices for Mites and Squirts on Jan. 26 at Holyoke's Fitzpatrick Ice Rink. Interested coaches, parents and players are welcome to observe the sessions, which begin at 6 p.m.
"There are certainly people who think it's crazy and insane and it's not hockey," he said.
However, fighting tradition may be necessary to keep youth hockey alive.
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For a long time now, children have been groomed to play hockey solely inside, in controlled 50-minute segments, often pressured by parental expectations and with schedules that can sometimes rival a traveling circus.
The results-driven culture of youth hockey is partly why some 4,000 players in Massachusetts aged 7 and 8 quit playing the sport at the Mite level each year, Grillo noted. In all, nearly 50,000 players were registered to play youth hockey in Massachusetts last year, according to USA Hockey statistics.
And an attitude that values winning and early specialization over the age-appropriate development of skills and fun has put those who stick with the game on a course for "long-term failure," say those within the organization.
"Too much, too soon, too serious," said Grillo, when asked to explain the loss of so many potential hockey players over the years. "Our game hasn't changed with the times. Other sports have."
The Nonotuck Valley Hockey Association, formerly the Easthampton Hockey Association, was once mightier than it is today, with 200-plus players and multiple teams at the Mite, Squirt, Pee Wee, Bantam and Midget levels. But for a variety of reasons - from the rise of football and soccer programs and ice availability issues to transitions in leadership and the rising cost of playing youth hockey - its membership waned. The program is based at the Williston Northampton School's Lossone Arena, a rink it relies on for its survival.
"You get a bad cycle going," said David Boyle of Easthampton, who played through the youth organization at its peak and is now the parent and coach of a Squirt player.
But the association is forging ahead.
It runs learn-to-skate and learn-to-play programs,has a single novice team, one Squirt team with 9- and 10-year-olds and a Midget team for high school-age kids who play in the fall. Its volunteers are trying to reinvigorate the program and some say the tenets of ADM could help.
"The future of the game is, you have to adjust, otherwise, we'll just keep losing numbers," Boyle said. "There's a lot of people that just want to go to the rink on Saturday and have an activity, especially if they're new to hockey. The game isn't for the parents, it's for the kids."
Wide-ranging ADM guidelines, created in a recentpartnership with the National Hockey League, have been in the works for years and have focused on the youngest ages of the sport.
"We felt we'd have a larger impact on them right away," said Grillo, who is USA Hockey's ADM regional manager for the New England and Massachusetts districts and a former head coach of Brown University's men's ice hockey team.
The cross-ice brand of hockey is among the biggest changes USA Hockey is pushing, though the concept is hardly unprecedented. Just as baseball, soccer and other youth sports have condensed playing areas for the youngest players, youth hockey is moving away from NHL-size ice surfaces for those first learning the sport.
In cross-ice games, players who normally would play 12 minutes in a controlled Mite game will now get an estimated 36 minutes playing cross-ice. They will handle the puck far more, learn to negotiate through traffic, keep their heads up, and think quicker on their feet - the same raw skills that earlier generations of hockey players developed on frozen ponds, rivers and lakes.
Cross-ice games and practices, which 4-, 5- and 6-year-old novices are now regularly playing, are expected to be officially implemented at the 7- and 8-year-old Mite level in Massachusetts next year, though details are still being ironed out.
In the cross-ice games at the novice levels, however, referees are absent and scores are not kept. There are no stoppages of play for offsides, icing and other infractions. The kids simply play under the direction of encouraging coaches, who now waste less time showing players where to stand or strategizing about game tactics.
"We want kids to focus on skating, stick handling, battling (for the puck), passing and shooting," Grillo said. "To some degree we have to step back and create the pond and the street hockey a little more inside. We've got to show kids, 'This is OK. This is cool.' It's OK to look like chaos once in a while."
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In some corners of the country, the program has been met with strong resistance from parents and coaches who argue that USA Hockey's ADM is too overreaching.
It's just not hockey, they say.
One online forum on the subject involving parents and coaches in Illinois is indicative of the passionate debate that ADM has fueled, with one critic calling it the "final straw for some hockey families."
"I unfortunately have a son that plays in the most over-analyzed sport of all: youth hockey," chimed in a father who called himself "Disappointed Dad." "I advocate a common sense approach to youth hockey, and I call it the LGA (Leave the Game Alone) model."
A former hockey director who has taught the game for years wrote that he considered ADM "an insult to those who have run organizations and taught the game successfully over a period of years. This whole program tells all of us, 'You are doing it wrong!' "
A little while ago one could have put Jim Mileski, of Belchertown, in the group resisting the change.
A self-described traditionalist, Mileski, an Amherst Mite hockey coach, said his initial reaction to USA Hockey's cross-ice mantra was cold.
"I was very apprehensive. I thought it was a big mistake, but now that I've been coaching, I think it's one of the best things they've done," Mileski said. "When it first started, I got a lot of calls from people saying, 'We're doing what?' and I don't hear that anymore. I'm hearing more positives now.
"Every kid that gets off that ice has the biggest smile on their face I've ever seen," he added. "It's all about fun, getting them to love the game, getting them addicted to the game."
Elsewhere in Massachusetts, Grillo said, USA Hockey's ADM model has been a big adjustment. That hasn't been the case in regions where the sport is less entrenched or where cross-ice was already accepted, such as Vermont.
"It's a pretty big undertaking and with change comes some challenges and speed bumps," said Grillo, a 198310th-round NHL draft pick. "I think there are a lot of parents out there who think they know what the ADM is and they really don't. It's getting them to realize that a cross-ice game for a 7- or 8-year-old kid is in many ways the same as a full-size game for an adult."
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ADM is being embraced by many youth hockey organizations and coaches, including the Amherst Hockey Association and Nonotuck Valley Hockey Association.
"At this age, I think they have this science to back up that your kid could actually become a better hockey player," said hockey parent and coach Kelly Slough of Northampton, who is president of the board at the Nonotuck Valley Hockey Association, which draws from about a half dozen communities.
"I think for every reason, cost and skill development, it's a great thing for the kids," added Slough, who is a native of Regina, Saskatchewan. "They have to be having fun. They should be learning hockey skills almost without knowing it."
In a sport associated withhigh costs and heavy time and travel commitments, the ADM philosophy may make the game more appealing to families with the goal of player retention - and may mean that more kids keep playing over the long term.
After all, Grillo noted, "NHL scouts don't look for kids who know where to stand. They look for kids who know how to play the game. The people at the high end of hockey, they're like 'This is a no-brainer. This is something that should have happened 30 or 40 years ago.' "
Editor's Note: Dan Crowley teaches Learn-to-Play in the Nonotuck Valley Hockey Association in Easthampton.
Dan Crowley can be reached at dcrowley@gazettenet.com.