Action Post 3

Hi, my name is Noah Berg, and this is my third action post. I have been helping coach hockey for a month and a half now with a program called the First Shift. This amazing program supplies kids who have never played hockey before with all the equipment and resources they need. It also helps family’s who may not be able to afford all their equipment or get their kid on a team.

I am very deep into my action plan and have seen tons of improvement since the first practice. Many kids have begun to regularly bring their water to practice and try to remember to bring their water to the bench. There are maybe only 1-2 kids per practice that are forgetting their water, and for those couple of kids I make sure I have 3-4 extra water bottles that I bring that they can barrow for the practice. I coach brothers at these practices and one time they both forgot their water because their bottles were being washed. Luckily, I had an extra set just for them and they were able to keep hydrated and continue to develop their hockey skills. This exact same situation has happened numerous times but one specific example that I remember is with a happy, energetic kid named Noah. When I asked him why he wasn’t getting water during water break. He told me with such disappointment in himself that he forgot his water, but when I told him I brought an extra just for him his face lit up with joy. It made my whole weekend to see how happy he was that I brought extra water for him. A couple challenges that I have been able to overcome are dealing with a few shy kids and skeptical parents. Some kids seem to shy to admit that they don’t have water and seem scared or embarrassed. I overcome this by trying to be friendly and welcoming as I approach the kids and offer them water. It has worked out well so far. Another challenge is talking to parents about the importance of water. I have only had a problem with the parents who don’t speak English very well. They seem to brush me off or almost ignore me. I have tired to talk to them through the kids and break the language barrier but this as been ineffective.

Next, I plan on trying to spread my goal of everyone having water to some of the other/older teams that I coach. There are kids on my hockey team that still don’t bring a water bottle to practice and they don’t realize the difference that water during practice can make. I want to make sure that the older kids that I coach that are working and sweating a lot more than the 4-6-year-old and need more water than they think. I will continue to bring water to all my practices and keep informing them of the importance of water.

Thank you for reading.