Junior Reign “Fueling The Passion”
Junior Reign “fuels passion” for young people by using the great sport of ice hockey to provide an environment in which kids find something they love and deeply enjoy. When kids fall in love with the game of hockey, the passion for the sport burns inside them and they take on a commitment to mastery of their craft, which sets the stage for them to be receptive to the transferable life lessons of discipline, hard work, teamwork, and perseverance that are essential to develop in order to experience success in hockey, and more importantly in life. The Junior Reign (originally Wildcats Hockey Club) was founded by Ben and Joyce Frank out of a passion to do for kids what sports have done for their own lives. Positive experiences in youth sports are what made Ben and Joyce who they are today. This has created an immense passion in providing the same experience for children in a world that is becoming more sedentary and in which many youth sports organizations have abandoned a focus on fundamental character and life skills in favor of a “win at all costs” mentality at the expense of child development.
Belief System
“Together, We Can Make Youth Hockey A Life-Changing Experience.”
We believe in learning. We understand how learning works and have built a scientific, evidenced-based curriculum around these principles. It’s going to be hard, and it’s going to be ugly, but we know that together we can learn and achieve anything we are willing to work for.
We believe in age appropriate, long-term athletic development and are completely against the short term, win at all costs culture.
We believe we have the responsibility to harness the power of youth sports to build better people, closer families, and a better world.
Junior Reign Hockey 3 Pillars: (The “How” Of What We Do).
1. The American Development Model
USA Hockey’s groundbreaking American Development Model provides the foundational science and principles for all of Jr Reign Hockey programming. In fact, in 2014 Jr Reign Hockey was named by USA Hockey as one of only 17 “Model Associations” at the time, across the entire United States for our commitment and delivery of the program. The focus is long-term, age appropriate development rather than on taking short cuts for short term results. Kids are not “mini adults”. An understanding of the different physiological and cognitive needs of each age group is critical to foster long term growth and fulfillment of athletic potential. As they grow, every athlete has sensitive time periods called windows of trainability where they are most receptive to training stimulus and skill acquisition. The areas that are “open” or “receptive” to development can differ dramatically from one age group to the next and the understanding and focus on these key time periods is critical to the athlete’s long term success. For example, young athletes under 8 years of age are very receptive to agility, but not to endurance or strength training, thus spending time on areas the athlete is not receptive to, not only limits their time spent on the most important areas of training, but may even be harmful or dangerous to the athlete. Athletes only enter these key sensitive stages once in their lifetime and once they are closed, it is extremely challenging to go back and develop those fundamental skills and movement patterns. Athletes who are trained with the understanding and curriculum based around these “windows” develop an incredible foundation, allowing them to continue to build and develop rapidly and to a higher ceiling long term, setting them up to pursue their maximal potential as an athlete.
More information available at: www.admkids.com
2.The Positive Coaching Alliance
The Jr Reign takes the responsibility of being a leader in youth sports very seriously. Not only are we responsible for building “better athletes”, we must also build “better people”. Youth sports is an important part of every child’s life and in their journey to become a successful person and good citizen. Wildcats Hockey made the commitment in 2014 to become a partner of the Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) and stand firmly against the “win at all costs culture” in youth sports. All Wildcats coaches are certified “double goal coaches” who strive to win, while never compromising the more important goal of teaching life lessons through sport. Athletes are taught to become “triple impact competitors” who strive to make the game better, make their teammates better, and make themselves better in everything they do. Our club parents are expected to be “2nd goal parents” who leave the first goal of “winning” to coaches and athletes, while focusing entirely on supporting the 2nd goal of teaching life lessons through sports.
More information on the positive coaching alliance is available at: www.positivecoach.org
3. A Unique And United Structure
Jr Reign Hockey is characterized by our unique structure of dedicated, full time directors that are experienced, educated, and immensely passionate at what they do. While many youth sports clubs are made up of numerous independent coaches with their own philosophies and initiatives, our directors work with our age group managers, coaches, and volunteer staff, under one clear and cooperative philosophy backed by the sport science of the ADM and the cultural principles of the PCA. All staff work together for the benefit of the athlete’s experience and long term potential. Rather than focusing on a specific team or level of play, our trained directors and age group managers are experts in the science of each age group and on developing every player within our club at that age group up through the program and to their long term potential. Our program works by growing players from within for the long term with patience, care, and attention, and not by recruiting or replacing athletes from the outside in. We are committed to each athlete’s “process”. Through the ups and downs of their athletic development, we support and encourage and will not give up on our athletes in times of struggle.
The club has a clear and documented season curriculum for every age group. The athlete and parent has an opportunity to read and learn from all of the resources within the curriculum in advance and know what to expect not only in their current season, but in the upcoming seasons as the athlete progresses through each age group. Additionally, even our private skills training is offered as a structured and unified program delivered by all of our coaches through a documented and progressive curriculum based on age and ability.
Each athlete and parent can relax and trust that at every level of the program and with every staff member, the program will be delivered with consistency, quality, and based on sport science and long term athlete development principles.
Our Story
In 2005 Ben Frank drove down to California from Toronto, Canada in search of something. Ben had been offered some opportunities to experience California through contacts met while playing pro roller hockey, and recently had completed his degree in Physical Health and Education from the University of Toronto where he played for their Nationally ranked men’s ice hockey team. After a brief stint at various pro hockey training camps and considering minor pro hockey, Ben decided to move onto the next chapter in his life. Outside of schooling and playing hockey, the only jobs that Ben had pursued or enjoyed revolved around coaching, teaching, and working with children. Deep down he needed some way to merge his passion for hockey and coaching kids with a career, but he didn’t know how.
After time working at roller hockey rinks and hockey equipment manufacturers, Ben began coaching youth ice hockey for the Anaheim Wildcats. It was an exciting time in Ben’s life as he married the love of his life, California native Joyce (Manalese, now Frank) and was doing what he loved in working with kids through the great sport of hockey. But something was still missing…. Ben felt a hunger to have a bigger impact than just the few teams he was personally coaching. Now it’s no mistake that Ben’s wife Joyce also had a similar passion from her background as a standout youth basketball player, tennis player, and track athlete who also shared a passion for athletics and their impact on her life. Joyce was also looking for some way to live her passion rather than stay in her successful corporate career. After some searching, negotiating, and some luck, Ben and Joyce risked their life savings and took over the small 7 team “Anaheim Wildcats” and entered into the unknown of running a youth sports organization near the end of 2010.
The next few years presented many challenges including having the club’s top coaches recruited away by larger organizations and taking their players with them. The organization continually needed further funding to build it into a bigger and more credible organization that included a tournament series, in house learn to play hockey, and a training facility. While the club was growing and experiencing some success, both Ben and Joyce could tell that something deeper was still missing. There were so many things about youth hockey that didn’t feel right. It seemed so easy to lose sight of why any of us were even doing this. It became about recruiting children and youth coaches, about winning a youth hockey game on a weekend, about this political relationship or that. The Wildcats needed to be different than what was standard in youth hockey. There had to be a better way to do things. A better way to grow players and build people at the same time and feel good about their impact on the world. If there wasn’t, we wouldn’t last, we would surely give up in utter frustration and regret. In the midst of this internal conflict, Ben received a last minute invitation to attend the USA Hockey ADM (American Development Model) Symposium in Pittsburgh, PA. It was a groundbreaking new initiative from USA Hockey and each district had invited a key hockey leader to attend. The invitee from the Pacific District had just cancelled and they needed someone to fill the spot. Not knowing much about it, but curious, Ben agreed to attend and booked a last minute flight.
That week in Pittsburgh would change Ben and the Wildcats forever.
A week filled with expert presentations from around the globe on sports science and athlete development inspired and humbled Ben. Suddenly, everything became crystal clear…”What we were doing was all wrong!”. The model the Wildcats had been following was just the way things had always been done. “We were spinning our wheels season after season building an organization based around adult centered, short term goals of trying to win youth hockey games on a given weekend or in a given season”. The Wildcats needed to be about the big picture for the athlete’s goals, dreams and for their life, regardless of what that meant for the adult’s goals or achievements. And here Ben was at a symposium with world experts, learning the exact blue-print to make it all happen. Now all Ben had to do was go home, mid season, and “change everything”. He had to tell all of the faithful staff and families that what they had been doing was failing the athletes and that we needed to change course and take drastic measures to do so. No easy task…Predictably, this created new challenges. From 2011 to 2014 Wildcats brought in an entirely new staff. A staff of people that shared the same love for hockey but also a hunger to do things differently and to do something special for kids and families. Something that was bigger than a hockey team. And in the beginning of 2014 it was seeming to pay off. The club had just been named a Model Association by USA Hockey (1 in only 17 nationwide at the time) and the club had grown to its biggest size ever. It was beginning to represent the vision Ben saw back in 2011 when he was in Pittsburgh.
In the midst of major change, the Wildcats would face the biggest challenge of all, when tensions and conflicting values with the rink landlord led to moving the club 30 miles away to a lesser known and developed rink for youth hockey development that created more than an hour commute for the majority of club families who now, understandably, could not make the commute. The club was entering a new environment with a community who did not know or trust the Wildcats or their completely unique perspective on hockey development in following the American Development Model. The club was at risk of not fielding any teams and uncertainty swirled abound.
But with a strong relationship and support from their new home at Icetown Riverside and with an experienced and professional core staff as a united front, the Wildcats worked harder than ever and rebuilt quickly and soon proved all the naysayers wrong. They fielded a smaller but successful club the first season in its new home and by year two, the Wildcats had expanded to a second facility in Carlsbad Icetown, launched two training facilities and reached new club records of number of players, retention rates, customer satisfaction, and player advancement. What’s more, the Wildcats started to attract more like-minded people that wanted to make a difference in youth hockey and the Wildcats tribe grew and grew. The Wildcats have gained momentum and become a force of competitive nature picking up steam each and every season and quickly becoming the unique and special club those on the inside always knew it could be. The Wildcats began to be recognized as a model for player development and hockey programming and now attend events across the country presenting and advising to other clubs and organizations that want to implement massive change and develop a long term, athlete centered program. Stops have included Minnesota Hockey Directors Course, The USA Hockey Hockey Directors Course at NARCE, Maryland Amatuer Hockey, Michigan Amateur Hockey, and multiple USA Coaching Seminars in the Pacific District.
2017 would mark another landmark moment for the Wildcats as we would shed the name and colors of the "Wildcats" and become the "Jr. Reign", the official youth hockey club for the professional hockey team "Ontario Reign" the proud affiliate of the NHL's Los Angeles Kings. The President of both the LA Kings, Luc Robitaille, and of the Ontario Reign, Darren Abbot, would issue a letter to the entire hockey community referencing the important moment this relationship represented in the growth of hockey and positive hockey experiences in the local community. They would go on to reference the reasons for selecting the Wildcats Hockey Club as the club to partner with based on the leadership and vision in place and having age appropriate, athlete focused programming based on being a model association with USA Hockey and a proud partner of the Positive Coaching Alliance. The "Jr. Reign" players and families are now often found skating in the intermissions at the pro's rink, Citizens Business Bank Arena, as well as in the player tunnels giving the players "high-fives" and even following the players on the benches in warmups. The kids are more motivated than ever and look up to their hero's who only add to the unforgettable positive experiences that exist in an intentional youth hockey club. The future is certainly bright for the "Jr. Reign" and all of its players and families.
