My Vision for 2008-09; Part 2

"What about players not involved in High Performance?"

Last post we left with a vision for a combined approach to High Performance training for 2008-09 in the Manitoba water polo community. Now I will attempt to address how the developmental side of the sport fits into that new model. This will be an evolutionary process, what I propose today may take a sharp turn in a year or two, this is a beginning, not an end.

Step #2; Create a viable provincial winter league for Atom and Bantam teams that are club based. A league, to be viable, should start with a minimum of 4 teams per category. How can we ensue that we have leagues with that many teams when we only have 2 clubs in Manitoba? I have a few ideas and these will require support from both clubs. First, we can mandate that each club must develop age group programs in at least 2 city pools (ie Klassen & Eldon Ross or UofM & Pan Am). That will increase the focus and community awareness and give us centres for 2 teams for each club in each category. We can't do this overnight but we can do it in 1 season if we plan for it now, approach the pools as a unified group with the MWPA, and have the structure ready to accept players from the vibrant Middle Years League run by the MWPA.

These leagues can be 5 vs 5 or 6 vs 6, it does not matter. What is important is that we have games on a regular basis, we market the sport, we provide levels of participation and we have community involvement opportunities. This structure allows for the development of referees, coaches and minor officials. It provides players with a taste for the game that has competition as an integral part, not like the infrequent games available today. Following a Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) Model we know that games at this age should not be focussed on outcome but they should emphasize process. This would allow both local clubs to participate with less emphasis on who is "better" and more on what are we learning, collectively. It also allows new clubs or groups to join in the system with less stress or intimidation.

Ok, that takes care of Winnipeg but what about other regions? Well, I have just spent a good deal of my time while in Calgary at the Alberta Open talking to Coach Cyril from Saskatchewan about water polo on the prairies next season. We would like to have some inter provincial games as 1 day affairs with both centres traveling ie Sask Teams and Winnipeg Teams. Brandon is the perfect meeting place and if we have a few Saturday afternoon games at the Sportsplex in 2008-09 you can bet that it will be possible to start an Atom program there in 2009-10. That is a nice piece of this restructuring that the MWPA could become involved with and guide through the development stages.

Step #3; Create a viable provincial winter league for Cadet and Open teams that are NOT club based. Why not based on a club? Because that would be impossible if the HP athletes are all training 5x week or more with Bushido, how could any other team compete? In order to get 4 teams of Cadet Girls or Cadet Boys we would need to (i) move up some Bantams (ii) recruit from the school leagues (iii) use both Bushido and Neptune programs that cross over the HP vs Developmental boundaries. Can you envision a Cadet league of 4 girls teams of 10 players, each with 4 Bantams, 5 HP players and the balance developmental players from school teams or other sports like swimming or basketball? I certainly can and it will be a great mentoring league for the HP players who train so much each week and want to share their passion and experience with others in a fun, experimental game situation.

If you are wondering how the teams would be created it isn't that tough. I will sit down with Trevor, Head Coach of Neptunes, and talk about what kind of teams we want to create, what tactics we want to focus on, do we want a strong countering team and a strong shooting team or do we want 4 balanced teams? Then we will divide the HP players, assign the strong bantams from our clubs, make sure there are committed coaches and then we will all recruit from the school leagues. The tough thing here will be finding a day and time when these teams can have a weekly practice that does not interfere with HP training. That is the one complex piece of this puzzle as we do not want training to overlap with Development and HP programs.

The Open Leagues will be run the same way but with a major difference, we won't assign coaches and run weekly practices. These teams will focus on a weekly game and be lead by Mentors who play, coach, teach the younger or less experienced members of their squads. If you are having trouble with that idea imagine a team of 16-20 year old women led by Heather Carson who will have just returned from a pro career in Italy, or led by Marilyn Thorington or Nancy Smith who have played Senior international water polo for Canada.

This Open league also addresses an important part of the shift in athletes with a new structure. The Neptunes have always had a strong Masters aspect to their programming and membership. I would like to encourage older players not training more than once per week to join that club for social practices that are fitness based. Since all these players would be in the same Open league it makes no difference if they join one club or the other and that helps support Neptunes with a core membership group.

next up, Part #3 "Who trains where and when, who competes out of province?"