How do I move up from line 3 to line 1?
I get this question a lot. Playing on line 1 is an inspiring goal to set for yourself. In order to get there, you need to become one of the better players on your team, you’ll need to be a leader and capable of handling yourself physically and emotionally in the most important moments of the most important games.
The path to getting here isn’t the same for everyone. You’ll need to leverage your unique strengths to produce results.
Here are a couple of episodes from my podcast archives that might help you move up to line 1:
– 5 Character Traits Every Hockey Player Must Have by Matt Korthuis
– Your Reputation as a Teammate featuring Matt Reid
– Leadership: Do you need to wear a letter in order to be a leader? Featuring Dr. Cassidy Preston
– Want More Ice time? Start Doing These 5 Things that Other Players May Not Be Doing
– Why Playing YOUR Game is Important and Why the World and Your Team Needs YOU!
– Why It’s Important to Set Goals, Stay Consistent and Enjoy the Process
How do I improve my confidence in games?
Confidence is a deep topic, it’s on the opposite side of the spectrum from fear. If we’re experiencing fear, we’re not going to play our best. Confidence, the belief that we are capable of handling this situation, allows us to rise to the occasion. We believe we are capable of rising to the occasion.
In hockey, we feel pressure in different aspects of the game. It might be pre-game anxiety, pressure from our parents or maybe we just really want to make a specific team. If we can feel confident in these situations we improve our chances of achieving our goals.
– How To Maximize Your Confidence Heading Into Tryouts- New Season with Jake Newton
– Mental Training: Why Training Your Brain is Just as Important as Training Your Body
– Learning to Control the Mind so the Mind Doesn’t Control You Featuring Jake Newton and Justin Barnett
How can I get better faster?
Getting better is what we all strive for. We want to achieve our full potential. There’s a process to get there. We set goals, we attack them and we either achieve the goal or learn from the process. Accelerating this process helps us get better faster.
– How to Get the Most Out of Your Ice Time and Eliminate the “Fluff” featuring KHL Skills Coach Ted Suihkonen
– How Your Daily Habits Affect Your Long-Term Success in Hockey and in Life Featuring Coach Brian Slugocki
– How to Skate and Train Like a National Hockey League Player
How do I pick myself up after a mistake during a game?
Often we think that if we beat ourselves up after a mistake that we’ll play better in the future. We think this is holding ourselves to a higher standard. This is a mistake, it’s not the way the best players do it.
The fastest way to learn from our mistakes is to acknowledge the mistake, understand what happened without judging ourselves for it, and figure out how to be better the next time we encounter that situation. Then, we get back to being our best by focusing on what’s important now. This process is called self-compassion and its scientifically proven to accelerate improvement.
Here are a couple of podcast episodes that I think are relevant to this topic:
– How To Maximize Your Confidence Heading Into Tryouts/New Season with Jake Newton
– Learning to Control the Mind so the Mind Doesn’t Control You Featuring Jake Newton and Justin Barnett
– What’s Holding You Back? How to Deal with Confidence Issues
– The Mindset of a Pro Featuring Jake Newton
How do I cope with pre-game anxiety?
Anxiety is a deep topic, it’s on the opposite side of the spectrum from confidence. If we’re experiencing fear or anxiety, we’re not going to play our best. It’s called fight or flight (or freeze).
Moving from anxiety or fear can be done by building a toolkit and understanding how our minds are designed to function. Here are a couple of episodes from the podcast that I think are relevant.
– What’s Holding You Back? How to Deal with Confidence Issues
– The Mindset of a Pro Featuring Jake Newton
How do I deal with getting cut from a team I wanted to make?
If you plan to play hockey for a longer period of time, you’re going to experience setbacks. It might be an injury or getting cut from a team. This is part of the process. It’s going to happen to everyone. The best players get back on the horse as quickly as possible and keep their careers moving forward.
– The Mindset of an NHL Tough Guy Featuring John Scott
– Making the NHL: What They Don’t Tell You About The Grind Featuring Former NHLer Kris Beech
