PLAYING FAST #2 - How many games should we play?

[@MatthewHalverson-y5x]

Parents are willing to speak up and parents want more games (from my experience). Tough to break that status quo without mutiny

[@cglasford1]

I agree with your 2 to 1 ratio. I think that is great. It is a hard thing at the younger levels is keeping the kids engaged. At CGHA they technically don't allow any out of association scrimmages for the U4-U6 level and as a coach we have had issues with player retention because they are used to playing games in all other youth sports from the jump. "games are fun, practice is boring" and its hard to convince the players and their parents that skill development is more important as the kids don't understand delayed gratification yet. With my team this year U6 we started having "shared practices" whenever we had solo ice and the kids developed so much better and wee far more engaged. If you are counting scrimmages as games, I don't personally at least not a legit scrimmage with coaches on the ice not just a none-sanctioned game, you would be hard pressed to hit that 2-1 ratio as most U4-U8 teams are only getting 2-3 hours of ice per week.