She holds a sheaf of her latest newsletter and she’s distributing them to the mothers from the team. The guys never seem to read more than five words of what she writes so she always gives the neatly typed page to the mothers; she knows they’ll read it.

This letter took her quite a while to get right. She started it at work — thank goodness her boss has a son in hockey too — and didn’t get back to it until about 10 at night. First she had to work on her son’s English essay — he’d chosen to read Scrubs on Skates by Scott Young, and his finished presentation wasn’t up to her standards, so she’d spent some time tinkering. Someone was always quick to point out a typo in her notes, so she tried to make sure her son’s essay was perfect.

She had struggled with this parental note because she was in the middle of a dispute that was ripping the team apart and she wanted to be exact about the coach’s message. The coach wasn’t much of a writer, so he relied on her to be his voice.

The team had been losing, and losing badly. The season was half over and it was clear they weren’t going to make the playoffs. At the beginning there had been the usual undercurrent of dissent — there’s always someone who wants to complain about ice time or the way lines are put together or the colour of the practice jerseys. If hockey is Canada’s national sport, complaining about coaches must come a close second, especially during a losing streak.

After the latest loss, the coach was walking into the arena lobby with the team sweaters over his shoulder when one of the fathers stepped in front of him and demanded a meeting about practices and equal shifts. He said he was speaking for three of the other fathers, as well.

One of the team’s standing rules was that parents wouldn’t approach the coach after the game — they were too emotional and a straightforward situation, like this, could get out of hand. The coach stayed calm and told the father he wouldn’t talk then, but he would the next day. The father tried to pursue his point, but the coach walked away to share a laugh with a couple of his players who were at the snack bar getting their post-game treat.

The next night they met in a local restaurant that was the team meeting place. Four fathers were there, along with the coach. There was beer on the table and one of the dads, an obnoxious character, did most of the talking. He said they wanted the meeting to make things better for their kids; their kids wanted to win, he said, and so did they.

He said they all thought the coach ran good practices, there just weren’t enough of them. He and three other dads were willing to pay $200 each to rent extra ice, but their offer was conditional: they would put up the money if the coach agreed to play the best players more. Not surprisingly, their kids were the best players.

The coach remained noncommittal. He, too, wanted to win, but his job was to think about every kid on his team. He was the one who had selected each of those boys. He was the one who saw the disappointment in their eyes when they didn’t do well, and how they vibrated with excitement when they were having fun. He thanked the four for their input and left the table. He said he’d get back to them in a few days.

His response was in Lynn’s newsletter. The first paragraph said the team Christmas party would start with a recreational skate. Brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles were all invited to join the team Saturday morning during the regularly scheduled practice. After that they were welcome to join the coach’s family in their annual trek to the local food bank, where they would spend the rest of the afternoon.

Lynn had fun with the next paragraph. She thanked some of the parents for the “kind offer” they had made to the coach. She wrote that the coach had looked at the team budget and discovered no more money was needed for this season. He did, however, hope that in the spirit of the season they would be willing to donate those funds to the food bank.

She was still passing out the letter — the mothers who’d finished reading it said it was a great idea for the kids to work at the food bank and they’d see if they could spend the afternoon there, too — when the action on the ice caught her eye. Her team was on a power play. She smiled when she saw that the coach had the five weakest kids in play. Those four fathers might not take the time to scan the newsletter, but they had to be reading what was happening on the ice.

The coach was telling them, and their sons, something important: this team was not about winning at all costs. His idea of success was for every one of those kids, not just the most skilled, to get better and better, and to enjoy doing it. It was an idea he hoped the boys would take with them to that other game, the one outside the arena.