Imagine being on the National Team, and only practicing one day a week? How much do you think you would improve as a player and as a team? While getting on the ice only once a week would never happen here in North America, it is the unfortunate reality in the rest of the women’s hockey world.

I’ve spent the last 2 days working with two elite female hockey teams from England and I am absolutely amazed by their level of commitment and passion for the game.

Some of these England players drive 5 hours just to go to their weekly practice. I sometimes forget how spoiled I am to have 50 arenas within 30 minutes of my house. There are only 800 players registered in all of England. That means that the 40 players who are here make up 5% of the entire country’s players. To give you even more perspective on how few players that is, the state of Minnesota alone has 10,000 registered players.

Can you imagine having just one practice a week to hone your skills, perfect your systems and come together as a team? I don’t know how they do it. When I was playing at college and in the elite women’s leagues, I remember having one day off and feeling like it is an eternity. Can you imagine playing a bad game and having to wait another 7 days before your next ice session?

How do you stay at the top of your game when you aren’t able to get out on the ice?

This is where the “mental” side of the game comes in.

Don’t underestimate the power of THINKING hockey when you aren’t able to get on the ice to PLAY hockey.

When I was back at college, I had the opportunity to tryout for the National Team for the first time. I was so excited and so nervous. I was also stressed out because I wasn’t able to get any ice time before the tryouts. There I was getting the chance of a lifetime to prove myself against the best players in the world and I wasn’t going to be on the ice at all in the 6 weeks beforehand.

I may not have had the chance to PLAY hockey, but I had a lot of time to THINK hockey.
Every day I would spend 30 minutes visualizing myself being out on the ice at the tryouts – scoring goals, making smart defensive plays and winning races to the puck.

I spent the majority of my visualization time working on my weaknesses. I knew that I had to work on my wrist shot before heading to the tryout, but without having the opportunity to step on the ice, I knew that it would be a challenge to see any kind of significant improvement. But every night, I would spend a few minutes thinking about what a perfect wrist shot would look like and picturing myself shooting wrist shots with power and accuracy time and time again.

I committed to taking the time every day to making myself better “mentally” OFF the ice and it really paid off in how I played “physically” ON the ice. Within 10 minutes of the first practice at tryouts, I felt like my old self. Despite the fact that I hadn’t been on the ice in almost 2 months, I felt like I hadn’t missed a beat. My wrist shot was much harder and more accurate than it had been during the season, even though I had only “mentally” practiced it.

You have to practice the mental side of your game as much as you practice the physical side of the game to see real results. After the success I had in that one National team tryout, I never questioned the amazing power THINKING the game can have on how you PLAY the game.

How do you work on your “mental” game? How have you seen that “mental” work transfer over to your “physical” performance? Share your stories and successes below.