Bob McKenzie has seen and done it all in the hockey world. Now a respected TSN Hockey Insider with over 35 years of experience, McKenzie rewound the clock and took a look back at how the game has changed since he was a minor hockey parent and coach in the OMHA.
“I loved everything about coaching. I loved preparing for the practices and running the practices. I loved the camaraderie of the coaching staff. Working with the kids. Anyone will tell you, next to playing, coaching is the best thing because you’re at ice level,” said McKenzie, speaking at The Coaches Site Conference. “There’s wins, there’s losses, it’s competitive. It gets the adrenaline going. There’s so many ways to measure your success. You can see the improvement in the kids. It is so challenging and so rewarding yet it is so frustrating but that’s part of the challenge of it and I loved all of it.”
McKenzie believes the game has changed for the better since then. Coaches have positively adjusted their styles to match how kids learn in today’s world. However, the focus still remains on creating programs that are community based. Many of the players on McKenzie’s teams played lacrosse together in the summer and spent the majority of their time in minor hockey on the same team.