Making A Lockerroom Sign

Although there’s still plenty of summer left right now, I feel it’s the hockey coach’s job to plan far ahead.  For sure we hope our players are doing the same — or doing their off-season training right now.  At the same time, we coaches have to work behind the scenes DURING THE SUMMER MONTHS to ensure a smooth start to the coming season.

I happen to use a lot of aids or gadgets to make my coaching job easier.  And it’s during these off-season months that I can relax and do the job rightly.  As a matter of fact, lots of the little things I do are in answer to problems I’ve spotted in past seasons (and most of them come from the notes I’m constantly taking during the season).

As for the current little helper…  Almost every rink I deal with lately has multiple surfaces.  And, even if my players and parents know which rink we’re skating in on a given night, there’s always the confusion of which lockerroom we’ll be using in that rink.  Ya, if you get my drift, most kids end-up peeking in one dressingroom after another until they discover a familiar face or two.

So, I long ago solved this problem — for my teams, as well as for other teams who wonder the hallways.

What I did was to make the shown sign to be affixed on our lockerroom door.

I first did the artwork on my computer, printed it, then copied that onto a fairly stiff card stock.  (I’ve often doubled or tripled the thickness of the final sign by just gluing extra cards to the back.)

Most rink lockerroom doors are metal.  So, having saved a bunch of refrigerator magnets (the ones that are always arriving via mail to advertise the local real estate agent, whomever), I glue about four of these on the back.

I next protect both sides of the sign with a clear Contact Paper (or you might have the local print shop laminate yours).

As an FYI…  Magnets actually lose their strength if they’re not kept in contact with a metal surface.  So, since I carry a large 3-ring binder to each game (for rosters and other game related materials), I keep an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of tin in that book upon which I affix the sign for storage.

Sure, this all sounds like a bit of work.  At the same time, it’s awesome to be able to walk into a rink, find a lockerroom, and then slap that sign on the door.  My players get used to looking for it soon enough, and I think they like the idea of not having to drift around to find their mates.

Also as an FYI…  The sample shown here is one sign I’ve used in the past.  Some others have my New England Hockey Institute logo on them, and I’ve even had some that displayed a brief motivational message — ie, “Enter here with…”