Although he loves the game and plays it well, for Tyson Mereweather, the words "fun" and "hockey" seldom came together in the same sentence but then coach Bob Bayless came along and things changed.

"The last two years with Bob as my coach have been the funnest time I've ever had in hockey," 12 year old Tyson said when I asked him what he thought about his coach.

The year before meeting Bob, when he was just 9 year, Tyson had been kicked out of organized hockey. He was "uncontrollable", had a bad temper, and he swore constantly. In short, he was just too much for most coaches to handle.

The next year Tyson was allowed back into the league but no coach wanted him … except Bayless.

"Right from the beginning things went a lot better," said Pearly Mereweather, Tyson's mother. "Bob is soft and gentle where many other coaches are loud and aggressive. He's also extremely patient and he found ways to keep Tyson busy when he wasn't on the ice. He had him count the number of passes each team made as they went from one end of the rink to the other … things like that. When Bob was able to keep him busy, Tyson tended to get less excited and soon he stopped losing his temper."

Things got even better after Christmas that year (January 1999) when Tyson was diagnosed with ADHD and started taking Dexedrine. He calmed down even more.

So let's get to the bottom of this story. How does Tyson feel that Coach Bayless was able to help him? "I'm much more calm now," he says. "I didn't lose my temper once last year, I'm having a lot more fun, I have a better attitude, I'm a lot more focused when I play … and, oh yeah … I'm scoring a lot more goals too!" That's quite a gift for a coach to give a kid.

Why does Bayless devote so much of his time to coaching youth sports? "My dad never saw me play," he says "and I was thankful for the men in the community who tried to take his place. Now it's my turn."

I heard about Bob Bayless when I was telling a friend about Jim Cessford, a novice league hockey coach and Chief of the Delta Police Department. Cessford coaches 10 year-olds. At the beginning of every season, he has a team meeting and together he and his players set their goals for the year. Last year's goals were: * BE AN AWESOME NOVICE HOCKEY TEAM * HAVE FUN * GIVE 100% * PLAY FAIR * SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGE EACH OTHER * BE A TEAM.

Throughout the season these goals form the basis of each post-game evaluation which is led by a different player each time. In one evaluation session after another, players conclude that being "awesome" is almost always associated with games when fun, 100% effort, fairness, pride, support, encouragement and teamwork prevail.

Coach Cessford also takes the time to speak with each player individually before they leave the arena to congratulate them on at least one good play or one act of fairness or teamwork they demonstrated in that game.