Welcome to "The Captain." � As a first time coach, I was looking for a way to encourage and inspire my Squirt house hockey players.� One idea I considered was the use of permanently bonded letters to designate a Captain and Assistants, but it didn't seem to fit this age group and with my education as a social worker.� I needed to find a more suitable use to designate team Captains and Assistants. These youth players were just starting to grasp broad concepts of the game...let alone leadership skills, on & off-ice tools, and how, when and why they would communicate with referees. I also didn't want to single out any players with permanently bonded letters.

So I spent painstaking hours hand-cutting, sewing and ironing the little letters into a temporary appliance that I have developed into "The Captain".� Even when I coached in the Bantam division, "The Captain" was still a fitting award for my teenagers and they looked forward to the honor of wearing these awards.� The �How It Works� page is a brief guide and is intended to explain the purpose, procedures, processes and general philosophy for utilizing "The Captain".

Using "The Captain" has been a beneficial and successful tool as a coach and every player embraced the system on our teams. I encourage you to give every player an opportunity to wear a Letter.� Sometimes it might seem difficult (as we all have had experience with) to find a behavior that you want to encourage in some players.� But if you look hard enough, you will find something you can promote within each player... and that player will greatly benefit from the acknowledgement of an award.� At season end, I have made it a custom to let the players vote on who most represented the Captains and Assistants on the team.� As a final send off, I awarded the Letters to the 6 player�s who receive the most votes.

Good luck on your season,

Chris Bardy,
Creator of "The Captain"