I like the mentor approach, the one coach who basically runs it and has assistant coaches. Even at the Airdrie Minor Hockey Association level I've tried to push for the coaches to get together with a group of atom players and sit down and talk about the skills they've taught and which skill development workouts or drills they've used have worked and which haven't. But it's always competitive; it's this team versus that team, and it's always about winning.
The other thing that you look at is, yes, gymnastics tends to be a very young, maturing sport. It's the younger athletes who tend to be at the international level. But a lot of sports that we have in Canada tend to be older, maturing sports. If you look at the long-term athlete development model, these athletes shouldn't be doing one sport at a young age anyway. Why don't we have a recreational program where on Mondays they play soccer, on Tuesdays they play hockey, on Wednesdays they swim, on Thursdays they play basketball, on Fridays they do something else, and every day they go? If we have a coach who's not a specialist in that sport, they can develop those skills. They're just general kinesiology-type skills, physical literacy. People learn to run. People learn to throw a ball. People learn to kick a ball. That's physical literacy, and a lot of our kids don't have it at all. Probably 50% of the kids in elementary school don't know how to kick a ball, and that's wrong. It's wrong. You go out and look at an elementary school field and a lot of kids don't know how to run, because they don't run. They don't run anymore. It's scary to watch. It's because physical education has fallen off, right? Physical education is not a huge part of our development like it was when we were younger. You had to learn how to throw a ball, otherwise you just didn't survive through murder ball, or whatever it was.
I think that's one thing we need to do. The other thing is just having those general physical skills. If we develop those through to the age of 12 or 14, the cream will rise to the top. If they're really skilled at controlling a ball with their feet, they'll go to soccer. If they're really skilled in the water, they'll go to water polo or swimming or diving. They won't specialize at 8, 9, and 10 years old and be finished the sport at 14, like they are now.