Help put the tryouts in perspective, keep everything positive and don t create additional pressure for a young player to succeed. A tryout is like a job interview, and not everybody who interviews for a job is going to get hired. Some leagues even go so far as to keep parents out of the rink when talent evaluations are taking place. Brill says a better idea is for coaches to communicate honestly with prospective players and their parents - before and after tryouts. If a player isn t selected for a particular team, the player and the parents deserve to hear why.
Coaches can understand where parents are coming from.
There isn t a parent in the whole world who isn t rooting for his or her kid to be a success. In Massachusetts, player development veteran Esdale says the best idea is to put a po sitive emphasis on the tryout experience when speaking to parents. While many tryouts are simply ways for coaches to make up evenly matched teams, eventually you may face the possibility of getting cut from the roster of a squad you desperately hope to make. When he was 16 years old, a player named Chris Chelios was cut from two midget teams because his coaches felt he didn t have the necessary skills. As a forward at Mt. Carmel High School in Chicago he went on to play Canadian junior hockey in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.