Plastic trophies are addictive. Useless, but addictive.
Parents can look at them and feel that they are doing a good job raising future superstars. Kids can look at them and dream of the day they might be silver.
Coaches can...well, if they are good coaches they can send them to Value Village. The bad ones can hang them on their wall and think of them as proof they are just a couple lucky breaks from being promoted from the East Ottawa u-12 Red Devils to the actual Red Devils in Manchester.
It's precisely because they are addictive that those who are trying to drag Canada's development system into the 21st Century are doing all that they can to eliminate the plastic trophy chase from the youth game.
If you don't keep standings, you can keep coaches focused on what matters -- development.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Unfortunately the focus now often remains on defending an outdated, competitive, system that, in fairness, is all people have ever known. Additionally, the program that is replacing it -- LTPD -- hasn't always been sold as well as it could have been.
Outside of a few true believers (Jason de Vos being the most vocal/highest profile voice) mostly talking to other true believers, it's rare to hear an articulate defence of the new ways.
The biggest way this manifests itself is in the fight against "not keeping score." Putting aside the fact they do, in fact, keep score and that what the new system advocates is to not keep a table, this is where the battle lines are drawn.
People just can't wrap their head around the idea that keeping standings at the youngest ages is counterproductive to a development focus. Human nature will cause coaches and parents to demand short-term thinking (WIN NOW!!1!!1!1!!) over thinking long (Scholarships! Pro careers!! National team caps!!!).
But, but hockey, you might be saying. Indeed, minor hockey in this country operates under a hyper-competitive system that constantly weeds out the small and the weak. It works because of the sheer amount of kids involved and because of the insane amount of money at the top of the development pyramid -- the CHL.
Soccer does not have anywhere near the same advantages. Also, does the hockey system even work? How many talented kids are driven out of the game because of the irrational pressure it places upon children (and I was involved in it, so I can speak from experience. There is nothing as, well, terrifying as watching grown adults watching the All Ontario atom CC final...).
Also, take a look at how many January, February and March birthdays there are amongst Canadian NHL players. Why does that matter? The age cut-off in minor hockey is January 1. Thus, kids born in January are competing against kids born as much as 11 months later. That's a long time in an 8-year old's physical development.
In short, the January babies are bigger than the December ones and thus are more likely to make travel teams at the younger ages which, in turn, means they get better coaching and thus are still better by the time the size advantage evens out.
The same thing happens in all youth sports, soccer included.
But, this is hard concept to easily digest. Winning games is easy to understand, which is why we're seeing parents (we assume) involved at the highest level of development in Ontario openly betraying the no standings philosophy of the new OPDL.
Just two weeks into the new league and already an independent website has popped up to make sure we know that Vaughn kicked the u13 TFC academy's ass last week.
Fear not, OPDLStandings.com will make sure you know what teams deserve their plastic trophies. It wouldn't shock me if somewhere someone is collecting money to give a plastic trophy to the "champion."
I'm inclined to think that these people are misguided, but well meaning. So, I hope that whoever is behind this website takes up De Vos' challenge he issued on the TSN FC podcast this week to debate him about the value of standings at the u13 level. He asked listeners to contact him via Twitter if they knew who was behind it. His Twitter address is @jasondevos.
In the meantime I propose a compromise. We will keep standings, we'll just delay them for 5-6 years. One point per scholarship, two per pro contract and three per national team call-up.
I'll be happy to give the winner the biggest plastic trophy I can buy.
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