How to select and evaluate a coach
How should an association select coaches? How do you evaluate yourself as a coach? Did you have a good year or a bad year? Should you keep coaching? Are you a good coach?
There are lots of different ways to evaluate a hockey coach. In fact, choosing how to evaluate a coach goes a long way towards determining the type of program you will have. For example, if a coach is evaluated mostly on win/loss percentage, you may end up creating coaches who know how to win games, but destroy kids in the process. If you evaluate a coach based on how "organized, neat, and polite" his kids are, you may end up with little robots wearing ties who quit the sport. How about looking at practices, and picking the coach who knows the most drills? That may be great if we want Marine drill sergeants, but how about helping develop the love of hockey?
Most hockey programs I've been associated with over the last 30 years tend to pick their coaches based on who was the best hockey player, or who plays hockey at all. We have had people come to town who used to play in the NHL. If they volunteer to coach they are always picked, without looking at any other criteria. However, many of these people tend to be terrible coaches. We had one ex-NHL player who screamed at the kids all the time and ended up suspended for hitting a player.
Playing hockey in the NHL is very difficult. The path through the Junior leagues is extremely rough and physical. To get to the NHL a player has to be very tough, perhaps a good fighter, and mean. These are not the traits we want in a youth hockey coach. Some ex-NHL players are great people and should be coaches. Some are terrible people and have no business coaching. It is important to look beyond the simple fact of "hockey playing experience" when picking the coaches.
The coach is critical to the enjoyment of hockey. There are so many benefits to youth hockey, and lessons that can be learned, but if a kid quits he won't learn any of them. The coach needs to treat the kids with respect, limit the yelling, help them build the love of hockey. Winning or losing just isn't that important.
I believe it is very important for youth hockey associations to collect feedback from the kids about their coach. A simple form a the end of the year with 2 questions:
Did you enjoy playing for your coach this year?
Would you like to play for the same coach next year?
My primary goal and method of self-evaluation is, "If all the kids on my team play hockey the next year, and love the game, I had a great year".