Mike Serba Memorial Golf Tournament

Attitude

If I have to name  the one key thing that’s a main factor contributing to success or failure in hockey, I would have to say it’s a player’s attitude.

Sadly, I’ve seen players develop a bad attitude and watched performance and prospects dwindle and eventually die.

Life Isn’t Fair And Hockey Is Just A Slice Of Life

As in life, not everything in your hockey experience is going to go your way.

Think about it; perfection doesn’t exist and that’s just reality. The ice isn’t perfect …. a great pass can hit an imperfection in the ice and jump over a stick. The referees are imperfect human beings that can miss a call or make a bad call and after making a bad call they are likely to act like human beings and stay with the call. Coaches are imperfect human beings and will make poor decisions. And by the way; you as a player are far from perfect.

The biggest problems develop from coaching decisions that a player feels negatively impacts their ice time or stature in the line up.

You as a player have control over how you choose to react.

 Advice For Parents

There are several main areas in which parents can be of great help to your hockey player child.

One is to be aware of and make sure that they’re not being inhibited be fear. I wrote about this recently and you can review my thoughts in the Blog titled “Fear And Loathing In Las Hockeyville”.

Another, but related situation is to make sure that they are not unrealistic in their expectations related to skills development. All too often they see a highly skilled player display an effortless ease in the performance of a skill and wonder why they struggle with that same skill. I can assure that when it comes to development of demanding physical skills (regardless of the discipline) you have to pay your dues. Its takes time, effort and practice. When they watch someone perform a difficult skill with ease; what they didn’t see was the time and effort put out in the development of that skill.

Last but most important please …. please ….. please do not enable a negative attitude. Every normal parent wants the best for their children but I’m amazed at the number of parents who instinctively do exactly the wrong thing when trying to help their child. It seems to me that in the modern world in which we live, we have to make sure everybody just feels good. I’ve seen a number of situations a where a parent dumps on the coach in some misguided effort to support their child. The following is a real example and not the only instance where I’ve seen this happen:                                                                      There was really good player in the Toronto minor hockey system. He was drafted high to the OHL and initial prospects and ranking for the NHL draft were good. However being a 17 year old rookie in the OHL you’re not exactly treated as you were in Midget hockey as “the go-to guy”. I would overhear the boy’s father speaking to his son and say things like …. “the coach is an idiot and doesn’t know what he’s doing” …… “he has you on the wrong line with the wrong line mates” ….. “your line mates are useless and don’t know how to take or give a pass”. The players attitude went south …. his play went south ……. prospects and ranking for NHL draft went south. He never played a game in the NHL.

Make The Coach Look Foolish

To repeat; the biggest problems develop from coaching decisions that  a player feels negatively impacts their icetime or stature in the line up.

You as a player have control over how you choose to react.

Believe it or not, hockey at the higher levels is ultimately quite nondiscriminatory and dispassionate. The reason is very simple. At the higher levels, ownership, management and coaching just wants and needs to win. Winning is everything. Success, money and keeping your job depends on winning. Nobody cares how much money Daddy has or how nicely Mommy smiles as she talks to the coach. I’ve written previously that I think there are a lot of lousy coaches out there but  for the most part even the lousy ones are able to figure out which players are making the biggest contribution to the cause. Ultimately your ability to contribute to the cause with determine your ice time and your success.

If you not getting the ice time you think you deserve, I suggest your best choice is to work your ass off and prove different.

You Haven’t Made It Until You’ve Made It …… And Even Then ……

Back just before the NHL strike around 2005 we used have an annual pro-camp that was attended by a good number of NHL players and top prospects to the NHL currently playing in the AHL or OHL. NHL players that attended included Jason Spezza, Steven Stamkos, Brent Burns, Manny Malholtra and Rick Nash. I can tell you that all of these guys worked their asses off. Their work ethic was almost maniacal … and these guys were already in the NHL.

At the same time there were 2 brothers that were in the OHL. They were both drafted highly to the OHL and prospects for the NHL were initially very good. While the guys I mentioned above worked their asses off; these 2 brothers goofed off. Guess what? …. neither brother played a single game in the NHL.

You Haven’t Made It Until You’ve Made It …… And Even Then ……

Attitude

I’m not sure what the next topic will be. I’ll just wait to be struck by the muse.

Note:

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