Team Work

At one point during a game, the coach called one of his 7-year-old hockey players aside and asked, “Do you understand what cooperation is? What a team is?”

The little boy nodded in the affirmative.

“Do you understand that what matters is not whether we win or lose, but how we play together as a team?”

The little boy nodded yes.

“So,” the coach continued, “I’m sure you know, when a penalty is called, you shouldn’t argue, curse, attack the referee, or call him a pecker-head.”

Do you understand all that?”

Again the little boy nodded.

He continued, “And when I call you off the ice so that another boy gets a chance to play, it’s not good sportsmanship to call your coach ‘a dumb jerk’, is it?”

Again the little boy nodded.

“Good,” said the coach. “Now go over there and explain all that to your mother.”