Coaching update

I thought it time to give an update on some developments on the coaching side of the club.

Over the Christmas break, we received a bit of a blow in terms of coaching across the club, with the decision by Ian Chapman that he was going to devote more of his time to work and his business, resulting in an inability to continue with coaching at present.

Although we have recruited 7 new coaches to the club across the last 6 months, this is still a big disappointment. Ian is a well-loved and admired member of our coaching community and many of our current players, young and old, have benefitted from his guidance and mentoring during their playing careers.

I have tried to convince Ian to stay involved in some capacity, even if only keeping on one or two of his favourite coaching sessions. However, he has explained that he needs to fully commit to his business plan and I have to respect that on behalf of the club.

Ian knows that the door is open to his return on whatever basis; seasonal, occasional or a return to full involvement and that he will be welcomed with open arms.

On behalf of the club, I would like to say thank you publicly to Ian for all he has done and achieved. I also wish to emphasise that I and the club hope that this ends up a temporary sabbatical rather than any sort of retirement.

In terms of filling the gap, we are very fortunate that a number of our other coaches are stepping in.

Thanks to Janice, Tasos, Billy and Lee for picking up Ian’s responsibilities across senior, youth and satellite hockey.

On a more positive note, the coaches involved in senior hockey have been working together to adopt a new club wide coaching framework, which is being adopted by all the senior teams. This framework was developed by Head of Performance, Lee Pendreigh and will allow players to migrate amongst our teams more easily, with a common playbook and terminology in place. The framework will also assist players who aspire to play representative hockey at district and international level to prepare appropriately.

Over the next few months we will be introducing a youth hockey framework, which will dovetail with the senior framework. The youth framework will capture all that is and has been good about Cala EHC, adding some of the excellent coaching assets, being delivered by Scottish Hockey and GB Hockey.

We believe that we can capture the essence of what is best in youth hockey and use it as a foundation for our aspirations to introduce the game to a wider and larger community in the future.

I will keep you updated.

Kind regards
Colin

Updated 00:25 - 30 Aug 2019 by Colin Fraser