Canada’s passion for hockey has created a competitive environment that isn’t always for the best.

“Everybody wants to be successful, but a lot of times we want to take the short path to get that success and in doing that ignore 99 per cent of the players,” says Al Wozney, who in 2008, along with his wife Carol, created the Steveston Hockey Club.

The goal of the Steveston Hockey Club is to provide access to skill development for every youth hockey player in Richmond.

“Often (in hockey) you’re only dealing with a small percentage that excel, that are going to score 50 goals in a year,” Wozney says. “In building a community and an association, you want to get kids to not only enjoy the game but stay in the game longer. Come Bantam, a lot of kids drop out because they can no longer compete because they haven’t been taught the skills to be able to compete.”

Wozney, coach this season of an Atom Division rep team in the Seafair Minor Hockey Association, bases a lot of his philosophies on personal experiences. He was talented enough as a youth to play on the Burnaby Winter Club team (captained by future Vancouver Canuck Cliff Ronning) that won the Air Canada Cup Midget Division championship in 1981. He notes the team was compiled entirely of Burnaby players, not the stacked clubs with players from throughout the region that typically dominate today.

After a knee injury while playing Junior A hockey forced him into early retirement, Wozney soon found solace in coaching. He’s been behind the bench for the last 20 years, many of those in Newfoundland.

“My coaching philosophy is based on my experiences,” he says. “I’ve coached a bunch of kids who were all-stars and others who have had to work really hard to become successful. What I found is that so many kids in the latter group become far more successful than those in the elite group are at young ages. I began wondering what makes this so and it all comes back to skill development. If the elite are always getting the instruction naturally they’re going to be better.”

The current success of Seafair’s two Atom rep teams, both in Tier 1 this season, further supports Wozney’s theory.

“We build skills at a very young age and it’s a model a lot of other associations are starting to look at,” he says. “The idea is to cut back the number of games kids play and increase the practices.”

That’s a dramatic shift in thinking from the traditional hockey model. Wozney says you have to offer players a certain number of games to maintain their interest, but it doesn’t have to be so excessive that there’s no time to learn.

“What sells it is personal achievement. When they can learn to do a turn quicker than the next guy, that’s a success and that’s what keeps them in hockey and makes them happy,” he says.

But, says Wozney, getting parents to buy in can be more challenging. Often they judge coaches and their child’s success by wins and losses—because they don’t know anything different such as appreciating growth in the finer points of the game like stickhandling or an ability to find open ice.

Wozney says being a coach is more or less about being a motivator. Frequently, depending on the individual, positive reinforcement is needed. But, he adds, he has never emphasized winning to minor hockey players because it doesn’t matter.

“The Steveston Hockey Club is a grassroots, skill development program for Richmond kids,” he says. “We believe that has to continue long-term.”

And there is plenty of room for growth. Recently, the club affiliated with Selects Hockey which is a global association of like-minded individuals with a goal of establishing skill-development centres throughout North America and Europe.

“This broadens their hockey world,” says Wozney. “It’s easy to be a big fish in a small pond, but for some elite players this gives them options like trying out among the best kids in North America. And for double-A players, for lack of a better term, they get a chance to experience playing against kids from Chicago or Philadelphia or travel like we did last year to Prague. It’s a fulfilling experience for the youngest kids to kids who will be potentially drafted. Last year 17 kids (who participated in the program) were drafted into National Hockey League.”