Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! I’ll save all the talk about nutrition for “Tasty Tuesday” tomorrow while I am recovering from too much turkey and stick with the “Mental Monday” theme for today since I got a great question from one of my players the other day that I really had to share:

“How do I play with players who have not fully developed their skills yet? There is a huge range of skill levels on my new girls’ hockey team and I am finding it hard not to lose my mind!”

I asked a few of the Olympic women’s hockey players that I have played with for the last 10 years about how they deal with this exact scenario. This is a particularly tough challenge for them since they are usually significantly more skilled than the other players they are skating with at the club team level and need to maintain their high-level of play so that they are effective when they go back to the National Team.

Each one of the Olympians said that in order to continue getting better, despite playing with weaker players, they set very specific goals for every practice and game. They know exactly what they want to focus on in each drill and on each shift, and make sure that they do everything they can to achieve those goals. It might be something as simple as making sure that their passes always hit the tape. This may seem “easy” – but think about it. If you are used to playing with speedy skilled players, adjusting your timing so that you are making effective passes to weaker players is actually pretty challenging.

The reality is that you aren’t always going to be playing with great players or against great teams, and it takes a lot of discipline to keep yourself focused on getting better in those circumstances. It is much easier to play down to their level than it is to challenge yourself to improve your game. It is really easy to get frustrated – but that won’t help you to get better. You’ve got to use this as an opportunity to learn and really push yourself as an individual to get better despite your circumstances. 

It is the setting of those specific goals that will make a huge difference to your performance – and your sanity. After all, if it works for the female hockey elite, it should work for the rest of us.

~ Coach Kim