Feedback better than push-ups, Quebec minor hockey coaches say

Encouragement is more effective than physical discipline when it comes to getting results from young hockey players, say minor-league coaches in Quebec.

They are critical of a Lac St-Louis coach, Louis Isabella, who ordered his team of 11 and 12-year-old players to do more than 50 push-ups following a loss. Isabella was suspended by the Hockey Lac St-Louis disciplinary committee.

"I find that positive reinforcement gets much better results than punish-oriented events like push-ups or skating or anything else in that nature," David Benamron, a AA peewee coach for the Lakeshore Panthers, told CBC Montreal's Daybreak.

Michael Stinziani, a trainer at Evolution Ice Hockey School in Dorval, said that when he was a young adult his coaches used push-ups as motivation, not as a punishment.

Coaches have to be tough but fair, he added.

"Some teams if you're a little bit sterner on them, that may work," he said. "But some teams you have to be softer and communicating. That may help the team achieve their goal."

A second chance?

As a player, Benamron says he was often forced to skate laps but that isn't the kind of coaching style he uses. Instead, he emulates his favourite coaches by communicating with players and talking with them off the ice.

"We try to emphasize a lot of the things they do right and correct the things they do wrong but without punishment," he said.

Stinziani says the suspension might be a bit long, but that Isabella could learn from the incident.

"I do think he does deserve a second chance following the suspension," he said. "It's a lesson and I think if he comes back after May that he can move on from this."