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Hockey is a game of speed, agility, power, and skill. It’s also a game of intimidation, urgency, pressure, and isolation. The best players aren’t just physically gifted; they’re also mentally tough. They step on the ice with poise, tenacity, and focus. With Hockey Tough, so can you.
Hockey Tough builds on the physical skills by strengthening the mental factors that apply directly to the game. You’ll learn how to control your emotions and maintain composure, stay focused in clutch situations, play aggressively—not carelessly—and improve the team’s performance game in and game out.
Throughout, performance consultant Saul Miller presents the training techniques he has taught hockey players and teams for more than 40 years at every level from college to European leagues, from Olympics to NHL. With insights, anecdotes, and advice from elite players, such as Sidney Crosby, Daniel Sedin, Brendan Gallagher, Ryan Getzlaf, and Mark Messler, Hockey Tough is essential to becoming a complete player on and off the ice.
Chapter 1 The Mental Game
Chapter 2 Goal Setting
Chapter 3 Power Thinking
Chapter 4 Imagery
Chapter 5 Emotional Control
Chapter 6 Changing Channels
Chapter 7 Commitment
Chapter 8 Confidence
Chapter 9 Identity
Chapter 10 Achieving Success
Chapter 11 Team First
Chapter 12 Personality Differences
Chapter 13 Game Readiness
Chapter 14 Scoring
Chapter 15 Defense
Chapter 16 Checking Tough
Chapter 17 Goaltending
Chapter 18 Injury and Recovery
Saul Miller, PhD, is a performance and sport specialist consulting in sport, business, health care, and the arts.
With a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of London, Miller is one of North America’s leading mental coaches. His work in enhancing performance and team building has helped organizations, individuals, and teams be successful while dealing with pressure, stress, and change.
Miller has been working as a sport psychologist for over three decades. He coached the mental game of hockey at every level of play, including youth and recreational leagues, junior and college hockey, top European leagues, and the National Hockey League. His clients extend beyond hockey to include players and teams in the National Football League, National Basketball Association, and Major League Baseball plus Professional Golfers Association Tour players and national and Olympic athletes in more than 20 sports. Dr. Miller is the author of eight books, including the first edition of Hockey Tough: A Winning Mental Game, and is often invited to speak at hockey coaching clinics and conferences throughout North America and in Europe.
Miller resides in North Vancouver, British Columbia.
“Improving mental skills is often the best way to enhance on-ice performance. This book will show you how.”
Barry Trotz-- Head Coach Washington Capitals
“To perform at the highest level, it is imperative to sharpen your mental game. Hockey Tough is a must-read as you prepare to play with more focus and control.”
Jim Nill-- General Manager Dallas Stars, Former NHL Player
“The sharper the mental game, the better the play. Hockey Tough has a winning formula and lots of great advice for sharpening your mental game.”
Scott Bradley-- Assistant General Manager Boston Bruins, Veteran NHL scout
“Hockey Tough describes an often-forgotten component of success in sports. The mental game is critical not only for preparing but also for building and sustaining maximum performance. The book is well written and very applicable.”
Rick Carriere-- Head of Player Development Edmonton Oilers
“Hockey Tough helped our players with their mental approach to the game. Saul has done an unbelievable job highlighting how some elite players overcome those challenges. A terrific resource for any dedicated player.”
Norm M. Bazin-- Head Coach University of Massachusetts at Lowell
“Hockey Tough is a game-changing resource that walks coaches and players through a clear step-by-step approach to building a winning mental game.”
Larry Huras-- Veteran European Hockey Coach
“Hockey Tough has clear advice and valuable daily exercises for players wanting to improve their mental game. It’s a great coaching aid to enhance focus, emotional control, and on-ice performance. Plus it has given me some great ideas for handling challenging situations.”
Michael C. Schafer-- Head Coach Cornell University
“Hockey Tough will help you get your game and your life to the next level. This stuff works.”
Cliff Ronning-- NHL Veteran and Hockey Dad
“The Hockey Tough approach helped us win a championship. It generated the focus and emotion necessary for winning night after night. Saul’s brand of sport psychology really works. Reading the book can make you a better player or a better coach.”
Lars Leuenberger-- Swiss Hockey Coach
“Mind-set is a key aspect of hockey—and life. Dr. Miller’s Hockey Tough simplifies the process and techniques for developing the mind-set and the edge to become a better player and a better person.”
Jason Lammers-- Head Coach and General Manager USHL Dubuque Fighting Saints
“I worked with Saul for over 15 years as an NHL player and later as a coach. The work has been invaluable to me. He understands the game. In Hockey Tough he describes the mentality for excelling as a player or coach.”
Rick Lanz-- Veteran NHL Player and Scout
“Hockey Tough can help any player maximize their true potential if they are willing to do the work. I believe winning as an individual or as a team is a choice. This book describes the focus, attitude, and mental preparation that will make it happen.”
John Fust-- Swiss Hockey Coach
“To accelerate your development in reaching your potential, you need mental skills. Hockey Tough gives you the tools to prepare, focus, and enjoy your journey towards excellence.”
Ville Peltonen-- Veteran of NHL, Finnish, KHL, and Swiss Leagues, Current European Coach
“Elevating your level of play is as much mental as it is physical. Hockey Tough does a great job addressing the mental processes involved in being a successful athlete.”
Dallas Ferguson-- Head Coach University of Alaska at Fairbanks
“Mental toughness is a highly desirable quality for dealing with physically hard, stressful competition. Reading Hockey Tough will help you to know what to do as well as when and how.”
Ron Delorme-- Former NHL Player, NHL Senior Scout Vancouver Canucks
“Dr. Miller has developed an excellent resource thanks to his years of experience dealing with hockey players and coaches. He has simplified the mental approach players need for performing well.”
Marc Crawford-- Veteran NHL and Swiss Hockey Coach
“Working with the Hockey Tough program will improve your preparation, focus, and emotional control and help you compete at the highest level.”
Mark Holick-- Veteran WHL and AHL Head Coach
“Everyone goes through ups and downs in their career. No player is born with confidence. It is a skill which needs to be worked on daily. Hockey Tough is a good guide to practice.”
Jiri Fischer-- Director of Player Development Detroit Red Wings, Former NHL Player
“Besides the obvious physical skills needed for hockey, successful players have the best mental skills. They need to manage the game’s many challenges on a shift-to-shift basis. Hockey Tough is loaded with exercises and advice to help you gain the mental skills so your physical skills have the proper impact on the game.”
Kevin Constantine-- Veteran NHL, AHL, and WHL Coach
Managing Your Mind
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It’s up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It's up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The first principle is that the mind is like a TV set. It's always on, thinking thoughts, running images, and creating feelings. What's important to understand is that you control the remote on that mental TV. You're the boss. You're in control. If you don't like what you're watching, if what you're watching doesn't give you power or doesn't feel good to you, then change the channel.
Being hockey toughis about your ability to stay on the power channel. My job as a sport psychologist is to show you two things: how to change channels on your mental TV and how to develop better-quality programs to tune in to.
The second principle of effective performance is that you get more of what you think about. Because of a mental phenomenon called lateral inhibition, whatever stimulus you focus on becomes magnified in your perceptual field while all other stimuli are downplayed. If you are worried and focus on thoughts and feelings that cause you anxiety (e.g., failure, embarrassment, pain, or disappointment), these thoughts and this reality will become magnified in your mind. Thinking thoughts such as, We're going to blow this lead, This guy is impossible to check, How am I supposed to play with these guys as my linemates ? or I can't put the puck in the net increases the likelihood of a negative performance.
Many players are negative thinkers. At a midget AAA team meeting, I asked a 16-year-old player how many shots he usually took in a game. After thinking a moment, he said, "Five or six." Then he added, "And I'll probably miss the net on all of them." With thinking like that, he's probably right.
You may say, "Well, he's just a kid." Larry Robinson, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman with 18 years of NHL coaching experience, remarked that the pros are just as hard on themselves. "Too many guys [in the NHL] come off the ice and dwell on their mistakes," he says. "There's not enough focusing on the positive aspect of the game."
On the other hand, if you concentrate on the things you want to make happen on the ice (e.g., moving your feet, keeping your head up and on a swivel, passing tape to tape, going hard to the net, releasing quickly, shooting the puck, shooting accurately, keeping your stick on the ice, finishing your check, and clearing the front of the net), you will increase the probability of these things happening. Positive results will follow.
It's important to think positively and to put positive power programs on your mental TV. Sounds simple, yet few people are able to stay tuned in to positive thoughts and feelings all the time. Experts tell us that we think 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day. For most people, more than 80 percent of their thoughts are negative or self-critical. Which brings us to our third principle.
The third principle is that feelings affect thoughts and thoughts affect feelings. This explains why we sometimes get stuck on negatives even though we know we should think positively. It boils down to the way we're wired as human beings, the way our nervous systems work. Every time we have a feeling, a thought automatically goes with it. If the feelings you are experiencing are fear, pain, or uncertainty, the thoughts you'll think will tend to be stress-inducing and limiting. On the other hand, if you feel strong, energetic, and in control, your thoughts will be more positive and your confidence will grow.
The feelings that most frequently limit hockey players have to do with fear, anger, frustration, fatigue, and pain. Table 1.1 shows some examples of how negative feelings can affect thinking.
Negative, limiting feelings can produce negative, limited thinking, which in turn feeds back more negative feelings, creating a negative loop that can become a trap (figure 1.1). That's exactly what a slump is all about: negative feelings, usually anxiety, producing and feeding negative thoughts that create more negative feelings.
The loop of negative thoughts and negative feelings can lead to a slump.
Lou was a 30-goal-a-year scorer in the NHL. He told me that during those high-performance years, he went to the net with confidence and abandon. He felt strong, fast, and self-assured, and he just went for it. Then something unfortunate happened. As he drove to the net on a scoring chance, he was slashed across the face. The slash cut him badly and broke his jaw. After that injury, his feelings and focus changed. He lost some hockey toughness. He noticed he was tentative about going to the net. Instead of thinking, I'll score, he began to think, Watch out. He was looking to avoid a check as often as he was trying to put the puck in the net. As his feelings and focus changed, his goal production dropped dramatically and his career faltered.
Lou's scoring touch recovered as a direct result of his becoming a better mental manager and learning to change the channel from feelings of fear - and the thoughts that go with fear - to feelings and thoughts of power and impact.
Excellence in hockey, as in any sport, is a function of mind and body working together effectively. It's about smooth, coordinated function between thought and action. Excessive tension and fearful or negative thoughts cause a separation or disintegration of the mind - body unit that limits on-ice performance. The question is, how can we reduce these limiting negative thoughts and feelings? Understanding how the mind works and learning techniques to create powerful feelings and productive, positive thoughts will enable you to create a hockey tough state in which you can play your best.
Save
Save
Save
Save
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Practice Well
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
Andrew Cogliano, a smart, speedy NHL winger, uses practice to build confidence and improve his game readiness. "When I practice well I play well. I like to work on my strengths. I especially like to work on things that I want to improve in my game; things like being a little more patient, holding pucks a little more, and shooting accurately. Doing these kinds of things well in practice builds my confidence and works subconsciously on helping me know I'm ready to play great."
If you are physically ready and have practiced well, then it comes down to the mental game. To the three rights: right focus, right feelings, and right attitude.
Andrew Cogliano is a speedy, effective two-way winger with the Anaheim Ducks who relies on practice to build confidence and sharpen skills.
Roy K. Miller/Icon Sportswire
Right Focus
I usually recommend that a player begin a pregame process by reminding himself as follows:
- Know that you are a good player:
- I'm smart (I read the game, I make good decisions, I play the system).
- I'm fast (I keep my feet moving, I'm quick to pucks, I use my speed).
- I'm skilled (I have good hands, I have an excellent shot, I make good passes).
- I'm physical (I win the boards and the battles, I finish checks hard).
- I compete (I'm aggressive, I'm hunting every shift).
- Know your job. Understand the game plan and what you are expected to do on the ice in a variety of game situations. Go over your ABCs. See yourself performing well in the situations you will be facing in the game (e.g., breakouts, crossing center ice, attacking their D, playing in their end, transitions, picking up my check, defending in our end, PK or PP). Discuss any uncertainties with a coach.
- Visualize what you do when you play your best. Use mental rehearsal to see yourself performing well. Run through the When I Play My Best exercise. With mental practice, your reactions become more automatic.
When I asked Sean Burke, an 18-season NHL veteran goalie and an NHL goalie coach, for any specific advice on preparation and confidence, his response applied not just to goalies but to all players. "I always felt that the mental side of it came from the physical preparation. If you are stepping into a game and you don't feel you've put the time and work into it in practice, if you haven't practiced well, if you haven't done all the little things that you need to do, you know, like doing your workouts off the ice, eating properly, getting your rest, it's hard to be mentally confident especially at the NHL level. But even at the 15, 16, 17 age level it's incredibly competitive, and preparation is the one area that you totally control. You know the things you need to do. And if you don't know what to do, there's enough good examples out there, and there are enough people and coaches you can talk to. And if you put the time and effort in to prepare properly, that's where you draw your confidence from. It's where you draw your ability to step into games and realize, okay, now I can compete and have fun with it because I put in the time and I'm prepared."
When I spoke with Chris Pronger, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman, about optimal pregame preparation, his response was sensible. He spoke about doing visualization and creating a positive frame of mind. "Preparation is a personal matter. Some players start preparing the morning of the game. Others start in the afternoon, and still others don't prepare until right before the game. A player should find out what works for him, then do it before every game."
I'm frequently asked, "When should I run through my mental preparation?" I agree with Chris Pronger's comment. It's a personal thing. At the pro level, I often recommend that after a player has his pregame lunch, he relaxes, does some conscious breathing and positive focusing, and then takes a nap. Some players don't like to nap. Others find mentally rehearsing their performance fires them up and makes napping difficult. For those, I suggest they run through their mental rehearsal process after napping. Some prefer to do some positive focusing at the rink.
Along with imagery, be aware of your thinking. Be a positive self-talker. Remember to change the channel or park any negative thoughts. Stay on your positive power channel. Before, during, and after the game, talk positively to yourself and your teammates. Acknowledge your ability, and affirm your successes and their successes. - Set goals for the game. Pick a couple of things you are going to make happen in the game. Gina Kingsbury was an NCAA star, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and an NCAA coach. When I spoke with her about preparation she said, "My mental game was something I needed to work on to reach my dreams and goals of playing for the national team. For me, I would overanalyze and overthink things. I would be in a game and I would judge everything I did. Am I doing it right? Am I playing well? I worked with a sport psychologist, and he said you need to have 3 goals coming into the game. I would usually show up with 10 or 12 goals, but I had to cut it down to 3. I'd write them down on a piece of paper. The first would be something to do with a positive mental attitude. The second would be a feeling I want to feel. And the third was more tactical. I want to get five shots on net. I want to keep my feet moving. I want to be fast. I want to bring speed and so forth.
"I could think about these 3 goals throughout the day. But once I got to the rink I would park those thoughts, put those goals away. I'd put the note in my mouthguard case, and that would mean I couldn't think about it. I could only play the game now and not worry about the rest. And after the game I could visit those goals and judge if I accomplished them or not. I couldn't think about it during the game. The parking of it really helped me because I knew at that point I had prepared myself as much as I could and I just had to go out and play and have fun."
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Changing Channels or Parking It = Being in Control
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what’s appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that’s not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what's appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that's not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
For example, if you have had a bad shift, let it go and focus on being effective the next time out. Or if an opposition player taunts you, slashes you, or attempts to provoke or distract you in a close game, instead of retaliating, being penalized, and hurting your team, park that thought and possibly file it for later. If it's something that can't be forgotten, then at another time, when it won't hurt your team, even the score. If you are having distracting or disturbing thoughts relating to off-ice issues and it's time to prepare for the game, park those thoughts for the time being and deal with them later.
Paul Kariya was an intensely focused hockey tough competitor who knew his role and what it takes to be successful. He was a point-a-game scorer in his 15 years in the NHL. Before his retirement, I asked Paul how he dealt with the high sticks, late hits, clutch and grabs, and other frustrations in the game. He replied, "Getting angry doesn't accomplish anything. It doesn't help me score." Paul explained: "When I was in the Canadian national program, a sport psychologist introduced the idea of parking it, and it's something I still use today. I'm an offensive player. My job is to play offense. It's not to retaliate. If someone chops or slashes me, I park it and refocus. The ultimate get-even is to put the puck in their net."
Cassie Campbell twice captained Team Canada to Olympic gold and then became a broadcaster for the NHL. I asked Cassie, an experienced player and someone who observes the game at the highest level, what she thought was the most important mental quality for a player to acquire. "I think it's the ability to park it. Not to let any of the many possible distractions affect your performance. That ability enables a player to stay focused and follow through on what is asked of him or her."
Parking requires both perspective and emotional control, qualities of mental toughness. Your ability to tune out a thought, change channels, and park it is a combination of your motivation and your ability to release, breathe, and refocus.
Ville Peltonen was an iconic Finnish hockey player who played in the NHL, in the KHL, and in the top leagues in Switzerland and Finland for a remarkable 23 seasons. I asked Ville, a four-time Olympian and frequent team captain, about the importance of having emotional control and the ability to use breathing, change channels, and not play too tight or too tense. "It is important to learn how to relax before you mentally prepare and get charged up for a big game. To do that you need those personal mental tools, and you need to have practiced them so that you know how to use them. I believe it is a skill just like skating or shooting. Except it is a skill that makes all the other skills even more efficient."
One of my favorite examples of mental discipline, and something I'm fond of telling young hockey players, is this: "When I walk through my neighborhood and my neighbor's dog barks, I don't bark back." I have said this dozens of times. Usually, most players smile and nod. They can appreciate that it's ridiculous to bark back at a barking dog.
On the ice, however, when someone on the other team barks at them, many players lose focus and almost reflexively bark back. My advice is don't go there. Ignore it. Park it. If you do notice the provocation, use it or it'll use you.
How can you use it? As always, change channels, take a breath, release (anger, tension, fear, or whatever), and focus instead on the positive, on what you want to do on the ice (your ABCs). Mental toughness is about maintaining that positive focus, no matter what.
Marg was a talented young center, a smart player who skated well and had good hands and a good shot. However, like many hockey players, she would think too much and about too many things when she was under pressure. Often her thinking was negative, focusing on things she did wrong. This focus caused her to become tense, slowed her reactions, and reduced her touch. The more Marg struggled, the more she worried and the more tense she became. She worried that she wasn't scoring, that if she didn't produce she would get less ice time. The more Marg worried, the less productive she became and the less ice time she saw. It was a vicious cycle.
The first step in helping Marg turn her game around was to teach her to release and breathe, to change channels, and park the nonsense. Because Marg tended to worry, I showed her how to use that worry as a reminder to take a breath and focus on positive feelings and positive plays. Gradually, Marg became better able to change her feelings and manage her mind. As she did, her performance improved dramatically.
Playing hockey tough is playing hockey smart. I have seen players do things, thinking they were being hockey tough and making a statement for the team or for pride, when in reality what they were doing was neither hockey tough nor hockey smart. A key to playing tough and smart is having focus and discipline. And emotional control and discipline go hand in hand.
Mark was a hard-working junior defenseman. Although he wasn't big, he was a fearless, physical player who would stand up to anyone to protect his teammates. The problem was that Mark didn't control his temper. In the second period of a close game, with his team leading 1-0, Mark was speared. He retaliated and was given a two-minute penalty. Not surprisingly, he was upset. Thirty seconds after Mark went to the penalty box, the other team scored a power-play goal. As Mark left the penalty box (still steaming), one of the opposing players skated by and said something to the effect that Mark was a dummy who'd just cost his team a goal. Mark snapped. He jumped the opponent and started throwing punches. When the smoke cleared, Mark was back in the penalty box all by himself with a two-minute penalty for instigating and a five-minute penalty for fighting. The complexion of the game shifted. Hockey tough means not allowing your emotions (right brain) to override your focus (left brain).
Being hockey tough means maintaining a team focus and discipline and doing what serves the team on and off the ice. Real toughness is not responding to every barking dog. It's having a clear focus and acting with purpose and intelligence. It's being in control in the face of challenge and adversity.
When confronted with negativity, frustration, or anger, remember to release, breathe, and refocus.
Change channels. Park it. Play hockey tough, and focus on hunting well.
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Managing Your Mind
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It’s up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It's up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The first principle is that the mind is like a TV set. It's always on, thinking thoughts, running images, and creating feelings. What's important to understand is that you control the remote on that mental TV. You're the boss. You're in control. If you don't like what you're watching, if what you're watching doesn't give you power or doesn't feel good to you, then change the channel.
Being hockey toughis about your ability to stay on the power channel. My job as a sport psychologist is to show you two things: how to change channels on your mental TV and how to develop better-quality programs to tune in to.
The second principle of effective performance is that you get more of what you think about. Because of a mental phenomenon called lateral inhibition, whatever stimulus you focus on becomes magnified in your perceptual field while all other stimuli are downplayed. If you are worried and focus on thoughts and feelings that cause you anxiety (e.g., failure, embarrassment, pain, or disappointment), these thoughts and this reality will become magnified in your mind. Thinking thoughts such as, We're going to blow this lead, This guy is impossible to check, How am I supposed to play with these guys as my linemates ? or I can't put the puck in the net increases the likelihood of a negative performance.
Many players are negative thinkers. At a midget AAA team meeting, I asked a 16-year-old player how many shots he usually took in a game. After thinking a moment, he said, "Five or six." Then he added, "And I'll probably miss the net on all of them." With thinking like that, he's probably right.
You may say, "Well, he's just a kid." Larry Robinson, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman with 18 years of NHL coaching experience, remarked that the pros are just as hard on themselves. "Too many guys [in the NHL] come off the ice and dwell on their mistakes," he says. "There's not enough focusing on the positive aspect of the game."
On the other hand, if you concentrate on the things you want to make happen on the ice (e.g., moving your feet, keeping your head up and on a swivel, passing tape to tape, going hard to the net, releasing quickly, shooting the puck, shooting accurately, keeping your stick on the ice, finishing your check, and clearing the front of the net), you will increase the probability of these things happening. Positive results will follow.
It's important to think positively and to put positive power programs on your mental TV. Sounds simple, yet few people are able to stay tuned in to positive thoughts and feelings all the time. Experts tell us that we think 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day. For most people, more than 80 percent of their thoughts are negative or self-critical. Which brings us to our third principle.
The third principle is that feelings affect thoughts and thoughts affect feelings. This explains why we sometimes get stuck on negatives even though we know we should think positively. It boils down to the way we're wired as human beings, the way our nervous systems work. Every time we have a feeling, a thought automatically goes with it. If the feelings you are experiencing are fear, pain, or uncertainty, the thoughts you'll think will tend to be stress-inducing and limiting. On the other hand, if you feel strong, energetic, and in control, your thoughts will be more positive and your confidence will grow.
The feelings that most frequently limit hockey players have to do with fear, anger, frustration, fatigue, and pain. Table 1.1 shows some examples of how negative feelings can affect thinking.
Negative, limiting feelings can produce negative, limited thinking, which in turn feeds back more negative feelings, creating a negative loop that can become a trap (figure 1.1). That's exactly what a slump is all about: negative feelings, usually anxiety, producing and feeding negative thoughts that create more negative feelings.
The loop of negative thoughts and negative feelings can lead to a slump.
Lou was a 30-goal-a-year scorer in the NHL. He told me that during those high-performance years, he went to the net with confidence and abandon. He felt strong, fast, and self-assured, and he just went for it. Then something unfortunate happened. As he drove to the net on a scoring chance, he was slashed across the face. The slash cut him badly and broke his jaw. After that injury, his feelings and focus changed. He lost some hockey toughness. He noticed he was tentative about going to the net. Instead of thinking, I'll score, he began to think, Watch out. He was looking to avoid a check as often as he was trying to put the puck in the net. As his feelings and focus changed, his goal production dropped dramatically and his career faltered.
Lou's scoring touch recovered as a direct result of his becoming a better mental manager and learning to change the channel from feelings of fear - and the thoughts that go with fear - to feelings and thoughts of power and impact.
Excellence in hockey, as in any sport, is a function of mind and body working together effectively. It's about smooth, coordinated function between thought and action. Excessive tension and fearful or negative thoughts cause a separation or disintegration of the mind - body unit that limits on-ice performance. The question is, how can we reduce these limiting negative thoughts and feelings? Understanding how the mind works and learning techniques to create powerful feelings and productive, positive thoughts will enable you to create a hockey tough state in which you can play your best.
Save
Save
Save
Save
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Practice Well
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
Andrew Cogliano, a smart, speedy NHL winger, uses practice to build confidence and improve his game readiness. "When I practice well I play well. I like to work on my strengths. I especially like to work on things that I want to improve in my game; things like being a little more patient, holding pucks a little more, and shooting accurately. Doing these kinds of things well in practice builds my confidence and works subconsciously on helping me know I'm ready to play great."
If you are physically ready and have practiced well, then it comes down to the mental game. To the three rights: right focus, right feelings, and right attitude.
Andrew Cogliano is a speedy, effective two-way winger with the Anaheim Ducks who relies on practice to build confidence and sharpen skills.
Roy K. Miller/Icon Sportswire
Right Focus
I usually recommend that a player begin a pregame process by reminding himself as follows:
- Know that you are a good player:
- I'm smart (I read the game, I make good decisions, I play the system).
- I'm fast (I keep my feet moving, I'm quick to pucks, I use my speed).
- I'm skilled (I have good hands, I have an excellent shot, I make good passes).
- I'm physical (I win the boards and the battles, I finish checks hard).
- I compete (I'm aggressive, I'm hunting every shift).
- Know your job. Understand the game plan and what you are expected to do on the ice in a variety of game situations. Go over your ABCs. See yourself performing well in the situations you will be facing in the game (e.g., breakouts, crossing center ice, attacking their D, playing in their end, transitions, picking up my check, defending in our end, PK or PP). Discuss any uncertainties with a coach.
- Visualize what you do when you play your best. Use mental rehearsal to see yourself performing well. Run through the When I Play My Best exercise. With mental practice, your reactions become more automatic.
When I asked Sean Burke, an 18-season NHL veteran goalie and an NHL goalie coach, for any specific advice on preparation and confidence, his response applied not just to goalies but to all players. "I always felt that the mental side of it came from the physical preparation. If you are stepping into a game and you don't feel you've put the time and work into it in practice, if you haven't practiced well, if you haven't done all the little things that you need to do, you know, like doing your workouts off the ice, eating properly, getting your rest, it's hard to be mentally confident especially at the NHL level. But even at the 15, 16, 17 age level it's incredibly competitive, and preparation is the one area that you totally control. You know the things you need to do. And if you don't know what to do, there's enough good examples out there, and there are enough people and coaches you can talk to. And if you put the time and effort in to prepare properly, that's where you draw your confidence from. It's where you draw your ability to step into games and realize, okay, now I can compete and have fun with it because I put in the time and I'm prepared."
When I spoke with Chris Pronger, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman, about optimal pregame preparation, his response was sensible. He spoke about doing visualization and creating a positive frame of mind. "Preparation is a personal matter. Some players start preparing the morning of the game. Others start in the afternoon, and still others don't prepare until right before the game. A player should find out what works for him, then do it before every game."
I'm frequently asked, "When should I run through my mental preparation?" I agree with Chris Pronger's comment. It's a personal thing. At the pro level, I often recommend that after a player has his pregame lunch, he relaxes, does some conscious breathing and positive focusing, and then takes a nap. Some players don't like to nap. Others find mentally rehearsing their performance fires them up and makes napping difficult. For those, I suggest they run through their mental rehearsal process after napping. Some prefer to do some positive focusing at the rink.
Along with imagery, be aware of your thinking. Be a positive self-talker. Remember to change the channel or park any negative thoughts. Stay on your positive power channel. Before, during, and after the game, talk positively to yourself and your teammates. Acknowledge your ability, and affirm your successes and their successes. - Set goals for the game. Pick a couple of things you are going to make happen in the game. Gina Kingsbury was an NCAA star, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and an NCAA coach. When I spoke with her about preparation she said, "My mental game was something I needed to work on to reach my dreams and goals of playing for the national team. For me, I would overanalyze and overthink things. I would be in a game and I would judge everything I did. Am I doing it right? Am I playing well? I worked with a sport psychologist, and he said you need to have 3 goals coming into the game. I would usually show up with 10 or 12 goals, but I had to cut it down to 3. I'd write them down on a piece of paper. The first would be something to do with a positive mental attitude. The second would be a feeling I want to feel. And the third was more tactical. I want to get five shots on net. I want to keep my feet moving. I want to be fast. I want to bring speed and so forth.
"I could think about these 3 goals throughout the day. But once I got to the rink I would park those thoughts, put those goals away. I'd put the note in my mouthguard case, and that would mean I couldn't think about it. I could only play the game now and not worry about the rest. And after the game I could visit those goals and judge if I accomplished them or not. I couldn't think about it during the game. The parking of it really helped me because I knew at that point I had prepared myself as much as I could and I just had to go out and play and have fun."
Save
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Changing Channels or Parking It = Being in Control
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what’s appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that’s not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what's appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that's not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
For example, if you have had a bad shift, let it go and focus on being effective the next time out. Or if an opposition player taunts you, slashes you, or attempts to provoke or distract you in a close game, instead of retaliating, being penalized, and hurting your team, park that thought and possibly file it for later. If it's something that can't be forgotten, then at another time, when it won't hurt your team, even the score. If you are having distracting or disturbing thoughts relating to off-ice issues and it's time to prepare for the game, park those thoughts for the time being and deal with them later.
Paul Kariya was an intensely focused hockey tough competitor who knew his role and what it takes to be successful. He was a point-a-game scorer in his 15 years in the NHL. Before his retirement, I asked Paul how he dealt with the high sticks, late hits, clutch and grabs, and other frustrations in the game. He replied, "Getting angry doesn't accomplish anything. It doesn't help me score." Paul explained: "When I was in the Canadian national program, a sport psychologist introduced the idea of parking it, and it's something I still use today. I'm an offensive player. My job is to play offense. It's not to retaliate. If someone chops or slashes me, I park it and refocus. The ultimate get-even is to put the puck in their net."
Cassie Campbell twice captained Team Canada to Olympic gold and then became a broadcaster for the NHL. I asked Cassie, an experienced player and someone who observes the game at the highest level, what she thought was the most important mental quality for a player to acquire. "I think it's the ability to park it. Not to let any of the many possible distractions affect your performance. That ability enables a player to stay focused and follow through on what is asked of him or her."
Parking requires both perspective and emotional control, qualities of mental toughness. Your ability to tune out a thought, change channels, and park it is a combination of your motivation and your ability to release, breathe, and refocus.
Ville Peltonen was an iconic Finnish hockey player who played in the NHL, in the KHL, and in the top leagues in Switzerland and Finland for a remarkable 23 seasons. I asked Ville, a four-time Olympian and frequent team captain, about the importance of having emotional control and the ability to use breathing, change channels, and not play too tight or too tense. "It is important to learn how to relax before you mentally prepare and get charged up for a big game. To do that you need those personal mental tools, and you need to have practiced them so that you know how to use them. I believe it is a skill just like skating or shooting. Except it is a skill that makes all the other skills even more efficient."
One of my favorite examples of mental discipline, and something I'm fond of telling young hockey players, is this: "When I walk through my neighborhood and my neighbor's dog barks, I don't bark back." I have said this dozens of times. Usually, most players smile and nod. They can appreciate that it's ridiculous to bark back at a barking dog.
On the ice, however, when someone on the other team barks at them, many players lose focus and almost reflexively bark back. My advice is don't go there. Ignore it. Park it. If you do notice the provocation, use it or it'll use you.
How can you use it? As always, change channels, take a breath, release (anger, tension, fear, or whatever), and focus instead on the positive, on what you want to do on the ice (your ABCs). Mental toughness is about maintaining that positive focus, no matter what.
Marg was a talented young center, a smart player who skated well and had good hands and a good shot. However, like many hockey players, she would think too much and about too many things when she was under pressure. Often her thinking was negative, focusing on things she did wrong. This focus caused her to become tense, slowed her reactions, and reduced her touch. The more Marg struggled, the more she worried and the more tense she became. She worried that she wasn't scoring, that if she didn't produce she would get less ice time. The more Marg worried, the less productive she became and the less ice time she saw. It was a vicious cycle.
The first step in helping Marg turn her game around was to teach her to release and breathe, to change channels, and park the nonsense. Because Marg tended to worry, I showed her how to use that worry as a reminder to take a breath and focus on positive feelings and positive plays. Gradually, Marg became better able to change her feelings and manage her mind. As she did, her performance improved dramatically.
Playing hockey tough is playing hockey smart. I have seen players do things, thinking they were being hockey tough and making a statement for the team or for pride, when in reality what they were doing was neither hockey tough nor hockey smart. A key to playing tough and smart is having focus and discipline. And emotional control and discipline go hand in hand.
Mark was a hard-working junior defenseman. Although he wasn't big, he was a fearless, physical player who would stand up to anyone to protect his teammates. The problem was that Mark didn't control his temper. In the second period of a close game, with his team leading 1-0, Mark was speared. He retaliated and was given a two-minute penalty. Not surprisingly, he was upset. Thirty seconds after Mark went to the penalty box, the other team scored a power-play goal. As Mark left the penalty box (still steaming), one of the opposing players skated by and said something to the effect that Mark was a dummy who'd just cost his team a goal. Mark snapped. He jumped the opponent and started throwing punches. When the smoke cleared, Mark was back in the penalty box all by himself with a two-minute penalty for instigating and a five-minute penalty for fighting. The complexion of the game shifted. Hockey tough means not allowing your emotions (right brain) to override your focus (left brain).
Being hockey tough means maintaining a team focus and discipline and doing what serves the team on and off the ice. Real toughness is not responding to every barking dog. It's having a clear focus and acting with purpose and intelligence. It's being in control in the face of challenge and adversity.
When confronted with negativity, frustration, or anger, remember to release, breathe, and refocus.
Change channels. Park it. Play hockey tough, and focus on hunting well.
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Managing Your Mind
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It’s up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It's up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The first principle is that the mind is like a TV set. It's always on, thinking thoughts, running images, and creating feelings. What's important to understand is that you control the remote on that mental TV. You're the boss. You're in control. If you don't like what you're watching, if what you're watching doesn't give you power or doesn't feel good to you, then change the channel.
Being hockey toughis about your ability to stay on the power channel. My job as a sport psychologist is to show you two things: how to change channels on your mental TV and how to develop better-quality programs to tune in to.
The second principle of effective performance is that you get more of what you think about. Because of a mental phenomenon called lateral inhibition, whatever stimulus you focus on becomes magnified in your perceptual field while all other stimuli are downplayed. If you are worried and focus on thoughts and feelings that cause you anxiety (e.g., failure, embarrassment, pain, or disappointment), these thoughts and this reality will become magnified in your mind. Thinking thoughts such as, We're going to blow this lead, This guy is impossible to check, How am I supposed to play with these guys as my linemates ? or I can't put the puck in the net increases the likelihood of a negative performance.
Many players are negative thinkers. At a midget AAA team meeting, I asked a 16-year-old player how many shots he usually took in a game. After thinking a moment, he said, "Five or six." Then he added, "And I'll probably miss the net on all of them." With thinking like that, he's probably right.
You may say, "Well, he's just a kid." Larry Robinson, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman with 18 years of NHL coaching experience, remarked that the pros are just as hard on themselves. "Too many guys [in the NHL] come off the ice and dwell on their mistakes," he says. "There's not enough focusing on the positive aspect of the game."
On the other hand, if you concentrate on the things you want to make happen on the ice (e.g., moving your feet, keeping your head up and on a swivel, passing tape to tape, going hard to the net, releasing quickly, shooting the puck, shooting accurately, keeping your stick on the ice, finishing your check, and clearing the front of the net), you will increase the probability of these things happening. Positive results will follow.
It's important to think positively and to put positive power programs on your mental TV. Sounds simple, yet few people are able to stay tuned in to positive thoughts and feelings all the time. Experts tell us that we think 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day. For most people, more than 80 percent of their thoughts are negative or self-critical. Which brings us to our third principle.
The third principle is that feelings affect thoughts and thoughts affect feelings. This explains why we sometimes get stuck on negatives even though we know we should think positively. It boils down to the way we're wired as human beings, the way our nervous systems work. Every time we have a feeling, a thought automatically goes with it. If the feelings you are experiencing are fear, pain, or uncertainty, the thoughts you'll think will tend to be stress-inducing and limiting. On the other hand, if you feel strong, energetic, and in control, your thoughts will be more positive and your confidence will grow.
The feelings that most frequently limit hockey players have to do with fear, anger, frustration, fatigue, and pain. Table 1.1 shows some examples of how negative feelings can affect thinking.
Negative, limiting feelings can produce negative, limited thinking, which in turn feeds back more negative feelings, creating a negative loop that can become a trap (figure 1.1). That's exactly what a slump is all about: negative feelings, usually anxiety, producing and feeding negative thoughts that create more negative feelings.
The loop of negative thoughts and negative feelings can lead to a slump.
Lou was a 30-goal-a-year scorer in the NHL. He told me that during those high-performance years, he went to the net with confidence and abandon. He felt strong, fast, and self-assured, and he just went for it. Then something unfortunate happened. As he drove to the net on a scoring chance, he was slashed across the face. The slash cut him badly and broke his jaw. After that injury, his feelings and focus changed. He lost some hockey toughness. He noticed he was tentative about going to the net. Instead of thinking, I'll score, he began to think, Watch out. He was looking to avoid a check as often as he was trying to put the puck in the net. As his feelings and focus changed, his goal production dropped dramatically and his career faltered.
Lou's scoring touch recovered as a direct result of his becoming a better mental manager and learning to change the channel from feelings of fear - and the thoughts that go with fear - to feelings and thoughts of power and impact.
Excellence in hockey, as in any sport, is a function of mind and body working together effectively. It's about smooth, coordinated function between thought and action. Excessive tension and fearful or negative thoughts cause a separation or disintegration of the mind - body unit that limits on-ice performance. The question is, how can we reduce these limiting negative thoughts and feelings? Understanding how the mind works and learning techniques to create powerful feelings and productive, positive thoughts will enable you to create a hockey tough state in which you can play your best.
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Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Practice Well
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
Andrew Cogliano, a smart, speedy NHL winger, uses practice to build confidence and improve his game readiness. "When I practice well I play well. I like to work on my strengths. I especially like to work on things that I want to improve in my game; things like being a little more patient, holding pucks a little more, and shooting accurately. Doing these kinds of things well in practice builds my confidence and works subconsciously on helping me know I'm ready to play great."
If you are physically ready and have practiced well, then it comes down to the mental game. To the three rights: right focus, right feelings, and right attitude.
Andrew Cogliano is a speedy, effective two-way winger with the Anaheim Ducks who relies on practice to build confidence and sharpen skills.
Roy K. Miller/Icon Sportswire
Right Focus
I usually recommend that a player begin a pregame process by reminding himself as follows:
- Know that you are a good player:
- I'm smart (I read the game, I make good decisions, I play the system).
- I'm fast (I keep my feet moving, I'm quick to pucks, I use my speed).
- I'm skilled (I have good hands, I have an excellent shot, I make good passes).
- I'm physical (I win the boards and the battles, I finish checks hard).
- I compete (I'm aggressive, I'm hunting every shift).
- Know your job. Understand the game plan and what you are expected to do on the ice in a variety of game situations. Go over your ABCs. See yourself performing well in the situations you will be facing in the game (e.g., breakouts, crossing center ice, attacking their D, playing in their end, transitions, picking up my check, defending in our end, PK or PP). Discuss any uncertainties with a coach.
- Visualize what you do when you play your best. Use mental rehearsal to see yourself performing well. Run through the When I Play My Best exercise. With mental practice, your reactions become more automatic.
When I asked Sean Burke, an 18-season NHL veteran goalie and an NHL goalie coach, for any specific advice on preparation and confidence, his response applied not just to goalies but to all players. "I always felt that the mental side of it came from the physical preparation. If you are stepping into a game and you don't feel you've put the time and work into it in practice, if you haven't practiced well, if you haven't done all the little things that you need to do, you know, like doing your workouts off the ice, eating properly, getting your rest, it's hard to be mentally confident especially at the NHL level. But even at the 15, 16, 17 age level it's incredibly competitive, and preparation is the one area that you totally control. You know the things you need to do. And if you don't know what to do, there's enough good examples out there, and there are enough people and coaches you can talk to. And if you put the time and effort in to prepare properly, that's where you draw your confidence from. It's where you draw your ability to step into games and realize, okay, now I can compete and have fun with it because I put in the time and I'm prepared."
When I spoke with Chris Pronger, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman, about optimal pregame preparation, his response was sensible. He spoke about doing visualization and creating a positive frame of mind. "Preparation is a personal matter. Some players start preparing the morning of the game. Others start in the afternoon, and still others don't prepare until right before the game. A player should find out what works for him, then do it before every game."
I'm frequently asked, "When should I run through my mental preparation?" I agree with Chris Pronger's comment. It's a personal thing. At the pro level, I often recommend that after a player has his pregame lunch, he relaxes, does some conscious breathing and positive focusing, and then takes a nap. Some players don't like to nap. Others find mentally rehearsing their performance fires them up and makes napping difficult. For those, I suggest they run through their mental rehearsal process after napping. Some prefer to do some positive focusing at the rink.
Along with imagery, be aware of your thinking. Be a positive self-talker. Remember to change the channel or park any negative thoughts. Stay on your positive power channel. Before, during, and after the game, talk positively to yourself and your teammates. Acknowledge your ability, and affirm your successes and their successes. - Set goals for the game. Pick a couple of things you are going to make happen in the game. Gina Kingsbury was an NCAA star, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and an NCAA coach. When I spoke with her about preparation she said, "My mental game was something I needed to work on to reach my dreams and goals of playing for the national team. For me, I would overanalyze and overthink things. I would be in a game and I would judge everything I did. Am I doing it right? Am I playing well? I worked with a sport psychologist, and he said you need to have 3 goals coming into the game. I would usually show up with 10 or 12 goals, but I had to cut it down to 3. I'd write them down on a piece of paper. The first would be something to do with a positive mental attitude. The second would be a feeling I want to feel. And the third was more tactical. I want to get five shots on net. I want to keep my feet moving. I want to be fast. I want to bring speed and so forth.
"I could think about these 3 goals throughout the day. But once I got to the rink I would park those thoughts, put those goals away. I'd put the note in my mouthguard case, and that would mean I couldn't think about it. I could only play the game now and not worry about the rest. And after the game I could visit those goals and judge if I accomplished them or not. I couldn't think about it during the game. The parking of it really helped me because I knew at that point I had prepared myself as much as I could and I just had to go out and play and have fun."
Save
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Changing Channels or Parking It = Being in Control
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what’s appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that’s not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what's appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that's not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
For example, if you have had a bad shift, let it go and focus on being effective the next time out. Or if an opposition player taunts you, slashes you, or attempts to provoke or distract you in a close game, instead of retaliating, being penalized, and hurting your team, park that thought and possibly file it for later. If it's something that can't be forgotten, then at another time, when it won't hurt your team, even the score. If you are having distracting or disturbing thoughts relating to off-ice issues and it's time to prepare for the game, park those thoughts for the time being and deal with them later.
Paul Kariya was an intensely focused hockey tough competitor who knew his role and what it takes to be successful. He was a point-a-game scorer in his 15 years in the NHL. Before his retirement, I asked Paul how he dealt with the high sticks, late hits, clutch and grabs, and other frustrations in the game. He replied, "Getting angry doesn't accomplish anything. It doesn't help me score." Paul explained: "When I was in the Canadian national program, a sport psychologist introduced the idea of parking it, and it's something I still use today. I'm an offensive player. My job is to play offense. It's not to retaliate. If someone chops or slashes me, I park it and refocus. The ultimate get-even is to put the puck in their net."
Cassie Campbell twice captained Team Canada to Olympic gold and then became a broadcaster for the NHL. I asked Cassie, an experienced player and someone who observes the game at the highest level, what she thought was the most important mental quality for a player to acquire. "I think it's the ability to park it. Not to let any of the many possible distractions affect your performance. That ability enables a player to stay focused and follow through on what is asked of him or her."
Parking requires both perspective and emotional control, qualities of mental toughness. Your ability to tune out a thought, change channels, and park it is a combination of your motivation and your ability to release, breathe, and refocus.
Ville Peltonen was an iconic Finnish hockey player who played in the NHL, in the KHL, and in the top leagues in Switzerland and Finland for a remarkable 23 seasons. I asked Ville, a four-time Olympian and frequent team captain, about the importance of having emotional control and the ability to use breathing, change channels, and not play too tight or too tense. "It is important to learn how to relax before you mentally prepare and get charged up for a big game. To do that you need those personal mental tools, and you need to have practiced them so that you know how to use them. I believe it is a skill just like skating or shooting. Except it is a skill that makes all the other skills even more efficient."
One of my favorite examples of mental discipline, and something I'm fond of telling young hockey players, is this: "When I walk through my neighborhood and my neighbor's dog barks, I don't bark back." I have said this dozens of times. Usually, most players smile and nod. They can appreciate that it's ridiculous to bark back at a barking dog.
On the ice, however, when someone on the other team barks at them, many players lose focus and almost reflexively bark back. My advice is don't go there. Ignore it. Park it. If you do notice the provocation, use it or it'll use you.
How can you use it? As always, change channels, take a breath, release (anger, tension, fear, or whatever), and focus instead on the positive, on what you want to do on the ice (your ABCs). Mental toughness is about maintaining that positive focus, no matter what.
Marg was a talented young center, a smart player who skated well and had good hands and a good shot. However, like many hockey players, she would think too much and about too many things when she was under pressure. Often her thinking was negative, focusing on things she did wrong. This focus caused her to become tense, slowed her reactions, and reduced her touch. The more Marg struggled, the more she worried and the more tense she became. She worried that she wasn't scoring, that if she didn't produce she would get less ice time. The more Marg worried, the less productive she became and the less ice time she saw. It was a vicious cycle.
The first step in helping Marg turn her game around was to teach her to release and breathe, to change channels, and park the nonsense. Because Marg tended to worry, I showed her how to use that worry as a reminder to take a breath and focus on positive feelings and positive plays. Gradually, Marg became better able to change her feelings and manage her mind. As she did, her performance improved dramatically.
Playing hockey tough is playing hockey smart. I have seen players do things, thinking they were being hockey tough and making a statement for the team or for pride, when in reality what they were doing was neither hockey tough nor hockey smart. A key to playing tough and smart is having focus and discipline. And emotional control and discipline go hand in hand.
Mark was a hard-working junior defenseman. Although he wasn't big, he was a fearless, physical player who would stand up to anyone to protect his teammates. The problem was that Mark didn't control his temper. In the second period of a close game, with his team leading 1-0, Mark was speared. He retaliated and was given a two-minute penalty. Not surprisingly, he was upset. Thirty seconds after Mark went to the penalty box, the other team scored a power-play goal. As Mark left the penalty box (still steaming), one of the opposing players skated by and said something to the effect that Mark was a dummy who'd just cost his team a goal. Mark snapped. He jumped the opponent and started throwing punches. When the smoke cleared, Mark was back in the penalty box all by himself with a two-minute penalty for instigating and a five-minute penalty for fighting. The complexion of the game shifted. Hockey tough means not allowing your emotions (right brain) to override your focus (left brain).
Being hockey tough means maintaining a team focus and discipline and doing what serves the team on and off the ice. Real toughness is not responding to every barking dog. It's having a clear focus and acting with purpose and intelligence. It's being in control in the face of challenge and adversity.
When confronted with negativity, frustration, or anger, remember to release, breathe, and refocus.
Change channels. Park it. Play hockey tough, and focus on hunting well.
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Managing Your Mind
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It’s up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It's up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The first principle is that the mind is like a TV set. It's always on, thinking thoughts, running images, and creating feelings. What's important to understand is that you control the remote on that mental TV. You're the boss. You're in control. If you don't like what you're watching, if what you're watching doesn't give you power or doesn't feel good to you, then change the channel.
Being hockey toughis about your ability to stay on the power channel. My job as a sport psychologist is to show you two things: how to change channels on your mental TV and how to develop better-quality programs to tune in to.
The second principle of effective performance is that you get more of what you think about. Because of a mental phenomenon called lateral inhibition, whatever stimulus you focus on becomes magnified in your perceptual field while all other stimuli are downplayed. If you are worried and focus on thoughts and feelings that cause you anxiety (e.g., failure, embarrassment, pain, or disappointment), these thoughts and this reality will become magnified in your mind. Thinking thoughts such as, We're going to blow this lead, This guy is impossible to check, How am I supposed to play with these guys as my linemates ? or I can't put the puck in the net increases the likelihood of a negative performance.
Many players are negative thinkers. At a midget AAA team meeting, I asked a 16-year-old player how many shots he usually took in a game. After thinking a moment, he said, "Five or six." Then he added, "And I'll probably miss the net on all of them." With thinking like that, he's probably right.
You may say, "Well, he's just a kid." Larry Robinson, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman with 18 years of NHL coaching experience, remarked that the pros are just as hard on themselves. "Too many guys [in the NHL] come off the ice and dwell on their mistakes," he says. "There's not enough focusing on the positive aspect of the game."
On the other hand, if you concentrate on the things you want to make happen on the ice (e.g., moving your feet, keeping your head up and on a swivel, passing tape to tape, going hard to the net, releasing quickly, shooting the puck, shooting accurately, keeping your stick on the ice, finishing your check, and clearing the front of the net), you will increase the probability of these things happening. Positive results will follow.
It's important to think positively and to put positive power programs on your mental TV. Sounds simple, yet few people are able to stay tuned in to positive thoughts and feelings all the time. Experts tell us that we think 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day. For most people, more than 80 percent of their thoughts are negative or self-critical. Which brings us to our third principle.
The third principle is that feelings affect thoughts and thoughts affect feelings. This explains why we sometimes get stuck on negatives even though we know we should think positively. It boils down to the way we're wired as human beings, the way our nervous systems work. Every time we have a feeling, a thought automatically goes with it. If the feelings you are experiencing are fear, pain, or uncertainty, the thoughts you'll think will tend to be stress-inducing and limiting. On the other hand, if you feel strong, energetic, and in control, your thoughts will be more positive and your confidence will grow.
The feelings that most frequently limit hockey players have to do with fear, anger, frustration, fatigue, and pain. Table 1.1 shows some examples of how negative feelings can affect thinking.
Negative, limiting feelings can produce negative, limited thinking, which in turn feeds back more negative feelings, creating a negative loop that can become a trap (figure 1.1). That's exactly what a slump is all about: negative feelings, usually anxiety, producing and feeding negative thoughts that create more negative feelings.
The loop of negative thoughts and negative feelings can lead to a slump.
Lou was a 30-goal-a-year scorer in the NHL. He told me that during those high-performance years, he went to the net with confidence and abandon. He felt strong, fast, and self-assured, and he just went for it. Then something unfortunate happened. As he drove to the net on a scoring chance, he was slashed across the face. The slash cut him badly and broke his jaw. After that injury, his feelings and focus changed. He lost some hockey toughness. He noticed he was tentative about going to the net. Instead of thinking, I'll score, he began to think, Watch out. He was looking to avoid a check as often as he was trying to put the puck in the net. As his feelings and focus changed, his goal production dropped dramatically and his career faltered.
Lou's scoring touch recovered as a direct result of his becoming a better mental manager and learning to change the channel from feelings of fear - and the thoughts that go with fear - to feelings and thoughts of power and impact.
Excellence in hockey, as in any sport, is a function of mind and body working together effectively. It's about smooth, coordinated function between thought and action. Excessive tension and fearful or negative thoughts cause a separation or disintegration of the mind - body unit that limits on-ice performance. The question is, how can we reduce these limiting negative thoughts and feelings? Understanding how the mind works and learning techniques to create powerful feelings and productive, positive thoughts will enable you to create a hockey tough state in which you can play your best.
Save
Save
Save
Save
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Practice Well
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
Andrew Cogliano, a smart, speedy NHL winger, uses practice to build confidence and improve his game readiness. "When I practice well I play well. I like to work on my strengths. I especially like to work on things that I want to improve in my game; things like being a little more patient, holding pucks a little more, and shooting accurately. Doing these kinds of things well in practice builds my confidence and works subconsciously on helping me know I'm ready to play great."
If you are physically ready and have practiced well, then it comes down to the mental game. To the three rights: right focus, right feelings, and right attitude.
Andrew Cogliano is a speedy, effective two-way winger with the Anaheim Ducks who relies on practice to build confidence and sharpen skills.
Roy K. Miller/Icon Sportswire
Right Focus
I usually recommend that a player begin a pregame process by reminding himself as follows:
- Know that you are a good player:
- I'm smart (I read the game, I make good decisions, I play the system).
- I'm fast (I keep my feet moving, I'm quick to pucks, I use my speed).
- I'm skilled (I have good hands, I have an excellent shot, I make good passes).
- I'm physical (I win the boards and the battles, I finish checks hard).
- I compete (I'm aggressive, I'm hunting every shift).
- Know your job. Understand the game plan and what you are expected to do on the ice in a variety of game situations. Go over your ABCs. See yourself performing well in the situations you will be facing in the game (e.g., breakouts, crossing center ice, attacking their D, playing in their end, transitions, picking up my check, defending in our end, PK or PP). Discuss any uncertainties with a coach.
- Visualize what you do when you play your best. Use mental rehearsal to see yourself performing well. Run through the When I Play My Best exercise. With mental practice, your reactions become more automatic.
When I asked Sean Burke, an 18-season NHL veteran goalie and an NHL goalie coach, for any specific advice on preparation and confidence, his response applied not just to goalies but to all players. "I always felt that the mental side of it came from the physical preparation. If you are stepping into a game and you don't feel you've put the time and work into it in practice, if you haven't practiced well, if you haven't done all the little things that you need to do, you know, like doing your workouts off the ice, eating properly, getting your rest, it's hard to be mentally confident especially at the NHL level. But even at the 15, 16, 17 age level it's incredibly competitive, and preparation is the one area that you totally control. You know the things you need to do. And if you don't know what to do, there's enough good examples out there, and there are enough people and coaches you can talk to. And if you put the time and effort in to prepare properly, that's where you draw your confidence from. It's where you draw your ability to step into games and realize, okay, now I can compete and have fun with it because I put in the time and I'm prepared."
When I spoke with Chris Pronger, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman, about optimal pregame preparation, his response was sensible. He spoke about doing visualization and creating a positive frame of mind. "Preparation is a personal matter. Some players start preparing the morning of the game. Others start in the afternoon, and still others don't prepare until right before the game. A player should find out what works for him, then do it before every game."
I'm frequently asked, "When should I run through my mental preparation?" I agree with Chris Pronger's comment. It's a personal thing. At the pro level, I often recommend that after a player has his pregame lunch, he relaxes, does some conscious breathing and positive focusing, and then takes a nap. Some players don't like to nap. Others find mentally rehearsing their performance fires them up and makes napping difficult. For those, I suggest they run through their mental rehearsal process after napping. Some prefer to do some positive focusing at the rink.
Along with imagery, be aware of your thinking. Be a positive self-talker. Remember to change the channel or park any negative thoughts. Stay on your positive power channel. Before, during, and after the game, talk positively to yourself and your teammates. Acknowledge your ability, and affirm your successes and their successes. - Set goals for the game. Pick a couple of things you are going to make happen in the game. Gina Kingsbury was an NCAA star, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and an NCAA coach. When I spoke with her about preparation she said, "My mental game was something I needed to work on to reach my dreams and goals of playing for the national team. For me, I would overanalyze and overthink things. I would be in a game and I would judge everything I did. Am I doing it right? Am I playing well? I worked with a sport psychologist, and he said you need to have 3 goals coming into the game. I would usually show up with 10 or 12 goals, but I had to cut it down to 3. I'd write them down on a piece of paper. The first would be something to do with a positive mental attitude. The second would be a feeling I want to feel. And the third was more tactical. I want to get five shots on net. I want to keep my feet moving. I want to be fast. I want to bring speed and so forth.
"I could think about these 3 goals throughout the day. But once I got to the rink I would park those thoughts, put those goals away. I'd put the note in my mouthguard case, and that would mean I couldn't think about it. I could only play the game now and not worry about the rest. And after the game I could visit those goals and judge if I accomplished them or not. I couldn't think about it during the game. The parking of it really helped me because I knew at that point I had prepared myself as much as I could and I just had to go out and play and have fun."
Save
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Changing Channels or Parking It = Being in Control
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what’s appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that’s not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what's appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that's not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
For example, if you have had a bad shift, let it go and focus on being effective the next time out. Or if an opposition player taunts you, slashes you, or attempts to provoke or distract you in a close game, instead of retaliating, being penalized, and hurting your team, park that thought and possibly file it for later. If it's something that can't be forgotten, then at another time, when it won't hurt your team, even the score. If you are having distracting or disturbing thoughts relating to off-ice issues and it's time to prepare for the game, park those thoughts for the time being and deal with them later.
Paul Kariya was an intensely focused hockey tough competitor who knew his role and what it takes to be successful. He was a point-a-game scorer in his 15 years in the NHL. Before his retirement, I asked Paul how he dealt with the high sticks, late hits, clutch and grabs, and other frustrations in the game. He replied, "Getting angry doesn't accomplish anything. It doesn't help me score." Paul explained: "When I was in the Canadian national program, a sport psychologist introduced the idea of parking it, and it's something I still use today. I'm an offensive player. My job is to play offense. It's not to retaliate. If someone chops or slashes me, I park it and refocus. The ultimate get-even is to put the puck in their net."
Cassie Campbell twice captained Team Canada to Olympic gold and then became a broadcaster for the NHL. I asked Cassie, an experienced player and someone who observes the game at the highest level, what she thought was the most important mental quality for a player to acquire. "I think it's the ability to park it. Not to let any of the many possible distractions affect your performance. That ability enables a player to stay focused and follow through on what is asked of him or her."
Parking requires both perspective and emotional control, qualities of mental toughness. Your ability to tune out a thought, change channels, and park it is a combination of your motivation and your ability to release, breathe, and refocus.
Ville Peltonen was an iconic Finnish hockey player who played in the NHL, in the KHL, and in the top leagues in Switzerland and Finland for a remarkable 23 seasons. I asked Ville, a four-time Olympian and frequent team captain, about the importance of having emotional control and the ability to use breathing, change channels, and not play too tight or too tense. "It is important to learn how to relax before you mentally prepare and get charged up for a big game. To do that you need those personal mental tools, and you need to have practiced them so that you know how to use them. I believe it is a skill just like skating or shooting. Except it is a skill that makes all the other skills even more efficient."
One of my favorite examples of mental discipline, and something I'm fond of telling young hockey players, is this: "When I walk through my neighborhood and my neighbor's dog barks, I don't bark back." I have said this dozens of times. Usually, most players smile and nod. They can appreciate that it's ridiculous to bark back at a barking dog.
On the ice, however, when someone on the other team barks at them, many players lose focus and almost reflexively bark back. My advice is don't go there. Ignore it. Park it. If you do notice the provocation, use it or it'll use you.
How can you use it? As always, change channels, take a breath, release (anger, tension, fear, or whatever), and focus instead on the positive, on what you want to do on the ice (your ABCs). Mental toughness is about maintaining that positive focus, no matter what.
Marg was a talented young center, a smart player who skated well and had good hands and a good shot. However, like many hockey players, she would think too much and about too many things when she was under pressure. Often her thinking was negative, focusing on things she did wrong. This focus caused her to become tense, slowed her reactions, and reduced her touch. The more Marg struggled, the more she worried and the more tense she became. She worried that she wasn't scoring, that if she didn't produce she would get less ice time. The more Marg worried, the less productive she became and the less ice time she saw. It was a vicious cycle.
The first step in helping Marg turn her game around was to teach her to release and breathe, to change channels, and park the nonsense. Because Marg tended to worry, I showed her how to use that worry as a reminder to take a breath and focus on positive feelings and positive plays. Gradually, Marg became better able to change her feelings and manage her mind. As she did, her performance improved dramatically.
Playing hockey tough is playing hockey smart. I have seen players do things, thinking they were being hockey tough and making a statement for the team or for pride, when in reality what they were doing was neither hockey tough nor hockey smart. A key to playing tough and smart is having focus and discipline. And emotional control and discipline go hand in hand.
Mark was a hard-working junior defenseman. Although he wasn't big, he was a fearless, physical player who would stand up to anyone to protect his teammates. The problem was that Mark didn't control his temper. In the second period of a close game, with his team leading 1-0, Mark was speared. He retaliated and was given a two-minute penalty. Not surprisingly, he was upset. Thirty seconds after Mark went to the penalty box, the other team scored a power-play goal. As Mark left the penalty box (still steaming), one of the opposing players skated by and said something to the effect that Mark was a dummy who'd just cost his team a goal. Mark snapped. He jumped the opponent and started throwing punches. When the smoke cleared, Mark was back in the penalty box all by himself with a two-minute penalty for instigating and a five-minute penalty for fighting. The complexion of the game shifted. Hockey tough means not allowing your emotions (right brain) to override your focus (left brain).
Being hockey tough means maintaining a team focus and discipline and doing what serves the team on and off the ice. Real toughness is not responding to every barking dog. It's having a clear focus and acting with purpose and intelligence. It's being in control in the face of challenge and adversity.
When confronted with negativity, frustration, or anger, remember to release, breathe, and refocus.
Change channels. Park it. Play hockey tough, and focus on hunting well.
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Managing Your Mind
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It’s up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It's up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The first principle is that the mind is like a TV set. It's always on, thinking thoughts, running images, and creating feelings. What's important to understand is that you control the remote on that mental TV. You're the boss. You're in control. If you don't like what you're watching, if what you're watching doesn't give you power or doesn't feel good to you, then change the channel.
Being hockey toughis about your ability to stay on the power channel. My job as a sport psychologist is to show you two things: how to change channels on your mental TV and how to develop better-quality programs to tune in to.
The second principle of effective performance is that you get more of what you think about. Because of a mental phenomenon called lateral inhibition, whatever stimulus you focus on becomes magnified in your perceptual field while all other stimuli are downplayed. If you are worried and focus on thoughts and feelings that cause you anxiety (e.g., failure, embarrassment, pain, or disappointment), these thoughts and this reality will become magnified in your mind. Thinking thoughts such as, We're going to blow this lead, This guy is impossible to check, How am I supposed to play with these guys as my linemates ? or I can't put the puck in the net increases the likelihood of a negative performance.
Many players are negative thinkers. At a midget AAA team meeting, I asked a 16-year-old player how many shots he usually took in a game. After thinking a moment, he said, "Five or six." Then he added, "And I'll probably miss the net on all of them." With thinking like that, he's probably right.
You may say, "Well, he's just a kid." Larry Robinson, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman with 18 years of NHL coaching experience, remarked that the pros are just as hard on themselves. "Too many guys [in the NHL] come off the ice and dwell on their mistakes," he says. "There's not enough focusing on the positive aspect of the game."
On the other hand, if you concentrate on the things you want to make happen on the ice (e.g., moving your feet, keeping your head up and on a swivel, passing tape to tape, going hard to the net, releasing quickly, shooting the puck, shooting accurately, keeping your stick on the ice, finishing your check, and clearing the front of the net), you will increase the probability of these things happening. Positive results will follow.
It's important to think positively and to put positive power programs on your mental TV. Sounds simple, yet few people are able to stay tuned in to positive thoughts and feelings all the time. Experts tell us that we think 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day. For most people, more than 80 percent of their thoughts are negative or self-critical. Which brings us to our third principle.
The third principle is that feelings affect thoughts and thoughts affect feelings. This explains why we sometimes get stuck on negatives even though we know we should think positively. It boils down to the way we're wired as human beings, the way our nervous systems work. Every time we have a feeling, a thought automatically goes with it. If the feelings you are experiencing are fear, pain, or uncertainty, the thoughts you'll think will tend to be stress-inducing and limiting. On the other hand, if you feel strong, energetic, and in control, your thoughts will be more positive and your confidence will grow.
The feelings that most frequently limit hockey players have to do with fear, anger, frustration, fatigue, and pain. Table 1.1 shows some examples of how negative feelings can affect thinking.
Negative, limiting feelings can produce negative, limited thinking, which in turn feeds back more negative feelings, creating a negative loop that can become a trap (figure 1.1). That's exactly what a slump is all about: negative feelings, usually anxiety, producing and feeding negative thoughts that create more negative feelings.
The loop of negative thoughts and negative feelings can lead to a slump.
Lou was a 30-goal-a-year scorer in the NHL. He told me that during those high-performance years, he went to the net with confidence and abandon. He felt strong, fast, and self-assured, and he just went for it. Then something unfortunate happened. As he drove to the net on a scoring chance, he was slashed across the face. The slash cut him badly and broke his jaw. After that injury, his feelings and focus changed. He lost some hockey toughness. He noticed he was tentative about going to the net. Instead of thinking, I'll score, he began to think, Watch out. He was looking to avoid a check as often as he was trying to put the puck in the net. As his feelings and focus changed, his goal production dropped dramatically and his career faltered.
Lou's scoring touch recovered as a direct result of his becoming a better mental manager and learning to change the channel from feelings of fear - and the thoughts that go with fear - to feelings and thoughts of power and impact.
Excellence in hockey, as in any sport, is a function of mind and body working together effectively. It's about smooth, coordinated function between thought and action. Excessive tension and fearful or negative thoughts cause a separation or disintegration of the mind - body unit that limits on-ice performance. The question is, how can we reduce these limiting negative thoughts and feelings? Understanding how the mind works and learning techniques to create powerful feelings and productive, positive thoughts will enable you to create a hockey tough state in which you can play your best.
Save
Save
Save
Save
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Practice Well
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
Andrew Cogliano, a smart, speedy NHL winger, uses practice to build confidence and improve his game readiness. "When I practice well I play well. I like to work on my strengths. I especially like to work on things that I want to improve in my game; things like being a little more patient, holding pucks a little more, and shooting accurately. Doing these kinds of things well in practice builds my confidence and works subconsciously on helping me know I'm ready to play great."
If you are physically ready and have practiced well, then it comes down to the mental game. To the three rights: right focus, right feelings, and right attitude.
Andrew Cogliano is a speedy, effective two-way winger with the Anaheim Ducks who relies on practice to build confidence and sharpen skills.
Roy K. Miller/Icon Sportswire
Right Focus
I usually recommend that a player begin a pregame process by reminding himself as follows:
- Know that you are a good player:
- I'm smart (I read the game, I make good decisions, I play the system).
- I'm fast (I keep my feet moving, I'm quick to pucks, I use my speed).
- I'm skilled (I have good hands, I have an excellent shot, I make good passes).
- I'm physical (I win the boards and the battles, I finish checks hard).
- I compete (I'm aggressive, I'm hunting every shift).
- Know your job. Understand the game plan and what you are expected to do on the ice in a variety of game situations. Go over your ABCs. See yourself performing well in the situations you will be facing in the game (e.g., breakouts, crossing center ice, attacking their D, playing in their end, transitions, picking up my check, defending in our end, PK or PP). Discuss any uncertainties with a coach.
- Visualize what you do when you play your best. Use mental rehearsal to see yourself performing well. Run through the When I Play My Best exercise. With mental practice, your reactions become more automatic.
When I asked Sean Burke, an 18-season NHL veteran goalie and an NHL goalie coach, for any specific advice on preparation and confidence, his response applied not just to goalies but to all players. "I always felt that the mental side of it came from the physical preparation. If you are stepping into a game and you don't feel you've put the time and work into it in practice, if you haven't practiced well, if you haven't done all the little things that you need to do, you know, like doing your workouts off the ice, eating properly, getting your rest, it's hard to be mentally confident especially at the NHL level. But even at the 15, 16, 17 age level it's incredibly competitive, and preparation is the one area that you totally control. You know the things you need to do. And if you don't know what to do, there's enough good examples out there, and there are enough people and coaches you can talk to. And if you put the time and effort in to prepare properly, that's where you draw your confidence from. It's where you draw your ability to step into games and realize, okay, now I can compete and have fun with it because I put in the time and I'm prepared."
When I spoke with Chris Pronger, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman, about optimal pregame preparation, his response was sensible. He spoke about doing visualization and creating a positive frame of mind. "Preparation is a personal matter. Some players start preparing the morning of the game. Others start in the afternoon, and still others don't prepare until right before the game. A player should find out what works for him, then do it before every game."
I'm frequently asked, "When should I run through my mental preparation?" I agree with Chris Pronger's comment. It's a personal thing. At the pro level, I often recommend that after a player has his pregame lunch, he relaxes, does some conscious breathing and positive focusing, and then takes a nap. Some players don't like to nap. Others find mentally rehearsing their performance fires them up and makes napping difficult. For those, I suggest they run through their mental rehearsal process after napping. Some prefer to do some positive focusing at the rink.
Along with imagery, be aware of your thinking. Be a positive self-talker. Remember to change the channel or park any negative thoughts. Stay on your positive power channel. Before, during, and after the game, talk positively to yourself and your teammates. Acknowledge your ability, and affirm your successes and their successes. - Set goals for the game. Pick a couple of things you are going to make happen in the game. Gina Kingsbury was an NCAA star, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and an NCAA coach. When I spoke with her about preparation she said, "My mental game was something I needed to work on to reach my dreams and goals of playing for the national team. For me, I would overanalyze and overthink things. I would be in a game and I would judge everything I did. Am I doing it right? Am I playing well? I worked with a sport psychologist, and he said you need to have 3 goals coming into the game. I would usually show up with 10 or 12 goals, but I had to cut it down to 3. I'd write them down on a piece of paper. The first would be something to do with a positive mental attitude. The second would be a feeling I want to feel. And the third was more tactical. I want to get five shots on net. I want to keep my feet moving. I want to be fast. I want to bring speed and so forth.
"I could think about these 3 goals throughout the day. But once I got to the rink I would park those thoughts, put those goals away. I'd put the note in my mouthguard case, and that would mean I couldn't think about it. I could only play the game now and not worry about the rest. And after the game I could visit those goals and judge if I accomplished them or not. I couldn't think about it during the game. The parking of it really helped me because I knew at that point I had prepared myself as much as I could and I just had to go out and play and have fun."
Save
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Changing Channels or Parking It = Being in Control
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what’s appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that’s not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what's appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that's not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
For example, if you have had a bad shift, let it go and focus on being effective the next time out. Or if an opposition player taunts you, slashes you, or attempts to provoke or distract you in a close game, instead of retaliating, being penalized, and hurting your team, park that thought and possibly file it for later. If it's something that can't be forgotten, then at another time, when it won't hurt your team, even the score. If you are having distracting or disturbing thoughts relating to off-ice issues and it's time to prepare for the game, park those thoughts for the time being and deal with them later.
Paul Kariya was an intensely focused hockey tough competitor who knew his role and what it takes to be successful. He was a point-a-game scorer in his 15 years in the NHL. Before his retirement, I asked Paul how he dealt with the high sticks, late hits, clutch and grabs, and other frustrations in the game. He replied, "Getting angry doesn't accomplish anything. It doesn't help me score." Paul explained: "When I was in the Canadian national program, a sport psychologist introduced the idea of parking it, and it's something I still use today. I'm an offensive player. My job is to play offense. It's not to retaliate. If someone chops or slashes me, I park it and refocus. The ultimate get-even is to put the puck in their net."
Cassie Campbell twice captained Team Canada to Olympic gold and then became a broadcaster for the NHL. I asked Cassie, an experienced player and someone who observes the game at the highest level, what she thought was the most important mental quality for a player to acquire. "I think it's the ability to park it. Not to let any of the many possible distractions affect your performance. That ability enables a player to stay focused and follow through on what is asked of him or her."
Parking requires both perspective and emotional control, qualities of mental toughness. Your ability to tune out a thought, change channels, and park it is a combination of your motivation and your ability to release, breathe, and refocus.
Ville Peltonen was an iconic Finnish hockey player who played in the NHL, in the KHL, and in the top leagues in Switzerland and Finland for a remarkable 23 seasons. I asked Ville, a four-time Olympian and frequent team captain, about the importance of having emotional control and the ability to use breathing, change channels, and not play too tight or too tense. "It is important to learn how to relax before you mentally prepare and get charged up for a big game. To do that you need those personal mental tools, and you need to have practiced them so that you know how to use them. I believe it is a skill just like skating or shooting. Except it is a skill that makes all the other skills even more efficient."
One of my favorite examples of mental discipline, and something I'm fond of telling young hockey players, is this: "When I walk through my neighborhood and my neighbor's dog barks, I don't bark back." I have said this dozens of times. Usually, most players smile and nod. They can appreciate that it's ridiculous to bark back at a barking dog.
On the ice, however, when someone on the other team barks at them, many players lose focus and almost reflexively bark back. My advice is don't go there. Ignore it. Park it. If you do notice the provocation, use it or it'll use you.
How can you use it? As always, change channels, take a breath, release (anger, tension, fear, or whatever), and focus instead on the positive, on what you want to do on the ice (your ABCs). Mental toughness is about maintaining that positive focus, no matter what.
Marg was a talented young center, a smart player who skated well and had good hands and a good shot. However, like many hockey players, she would think too much and about too many things when she was under pressure. Often her thinking was negative, focusing on things she did wrong. This focus caused her to become tense, slowed her reactions, and reduced her touch. The more Marg struggled, the more she worried and the more tense she became. She worried that she wasn't scoring, that if she didn't produce she would get less ice time. The more Marg worried, the less productive she became and the less ice time she saw. It was a vicious cycle.
The first step in helping Marg turn her game around was to teach her to release and breathe, to change channels, and park the nonsense. Because Marg tended to worry, I showed her how to use that worry as a reminder to take a breath and focus on positive feelings and positive plays. Gradually, Marg became better able to change her feelings and manage her mind. As she did, her performance improved dramatically.
Playing hockey tough is playing hockey smart. I have seen players do things, thinking they were being hockey tough and making a statement for the team or for pride, when in reality what they were doing was neither hockey tough nor hockey smart. A key to playing tough and smart is having focus and discipline. And emotional control and discipline go hand in hand.
Mark was a hard-working junior defenseman. Although he wasn't big, he was a fearless, physical player who would stand up to anyone to protect his teammates. The problem was that Mark didn't control his temper. In the second period of a close game, with his team leading 1-0, Mark was speared. He retaliated and was given a two-minute penalty. Not surprisingly, he was upset. Thirty seconds after Mark went to the penalty box, the other team scored a power-play goal. As Mark left the penalty box (still steaming), one of the opposing players skated by and said something to the effect that Mark was a dummy who'd just cost his team a goal. Mark snapped. He jumped the opponent and started throwing punches. When the smoke cleared, Mark was back in the penalty box all by himself with a two-minute penalty for instigating and a five-minute penalty for fighting. The complexion of the game shifted. Hockey tough means not allowing your emotions (right brain) to override your focus (left brain).
Being hockey tough means maintaining a team focus and discipline and doing what serves the team on and off the ice. Real toughness is not responding to every barking dog. It's having a clear focus and acting with purpose and intelligence. It's being in control in the face of challenge and adversity.
When confronted with negativity, frustration, or anger, remember to release, breathe, and refocus.
Change channels. Park it. Play hockey tough, and focus on hunting well.
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Managing Your Mind
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It’s up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It's up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The first principle is that the mind is like a TV set. It's always on, thinking thoughts, running images, and creating feelings. What's important to understand is that you control the remote on that mental TV. You're the boss. You're in control. If you don't like what you're watching, if what you're watching doesn't give you power or doesn't feel good to you, then change the channel.
Being hockey toughis about your ability to stay on the power channel. My job as a sport psychologist is to show you two things: how to change channels on your mental TV and how to develop better-quality programs to tune in to.
The second principle of effective performance is that you get more of what you think about. Because of a mental phenomenon called lateral inhibition, whatever stimulus you focus on becomes magnified in your perceptual field while all other stimuli are downplayed. If you are worried and focus on thoughts and feelings that cause you anxiety (e.g., failure, embarrassment, pain, or disappointment), these thoughts and this reality will become magnified in your mind. Thinking thoughts such as, We're going to blow this lead, This guy is impossible to check, How am I supposed to play with these guys as my linemates ? or I can't put the puck in the net increases the likelihood of a negative performance.
Many players are negative thinkers. At a midget AAA team meeting, I asked a 16-year-old player how many shots he usually took in a game. After thinking a moment, he said, "Five or six." Then he added, "And I'll probably miss the net on all of them." With thinking like that, he's probably right.
You may say, "Well, he's just a kid." Larry Robinson, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman with 18 years of NHL coaching experience, remarked that the pros are just as hard on themselves. "Too many guys [in the NHL] come off the ice and dwell on their mistakes," he says. "There's not enough focusing on the positive aspect of the game."
On the other hand, if you concentrate on the things you want to make happen on the ice (e.g., moving your feet, keeping your head up and on a swivel, passing tape to tape, going hard to the net, releasing quickly, shooting the puck, shooting accurately, keeping your stick on the ice, finishing your check, and clearing the front of the net), you will increase the probability of these things happening. Positive results will follow.
It's important to think positively and to put positive power programs on your mental TV. Sounds simple, yet few people are able to stay tuned in to positive thoughts and feelings all the time. Experts tell us that we think 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day. For most people, more than 80 percent of their thoughts are negative or self-critical. Which brings us to our third principle.
The third principle is that feelings affect thoughts and thoughts affect feelings. This explains why we sometimes get stuck on negatives even though we know we should think positively. It boils down to the way we're wired as human beings, the way our nervous systems work. Every time we have a feeling, a thought automatically goes with it. If the feelings you are experiencing are fear, pain, or uncertainty, the thoughts you'll think will tend to be stress-inducing and limiting. On the other hand, if you feel strong, energetic, and in control, your thoughts will be more positive and your confidence will grow.
The feelings that most frequently limit hockey players have to do with fear, anger, frustration, fatigue, and pain. Table 1.1 shows some examples of how negative feelings can affect thinking.
Negative, limiting feelings can produce negative, limited thinking, which in turn feeds back more negative feelings, creating a negative loop that can become a trap (figure 1.1). That's exactly what a slump is all about: negative feelings, usually anxiety, producing and feeding negative thoughts that create more negative feelings.
The loop of negative thoughts and negative feelings can lead to a slump.
Lou was a 30-goal-a-year scorer in the NHL. He told me that during those high-performance years, he went to the net with confidence and abandon. He felt strong, fast, and self-assured, and he just went for it. Then something unfortunate happened. As he drove to the net on a scoring chance, he was slashed across the face. The slash cut him badly and broke his jaw. After that injury, his feelings and focus changed. He lost some hockey toughness. He noticed he was tentative about going to the net. Instead of thinking, I'll score, he began to think, Watch out. He was looking to avoid a check as often as he was trying to put the puck in the net. As his feelings and focus changed, his goal production dropped dramatically and his career faltered.
Lou's scoring touch recovered as a direct result of his becoming a better mental manager and learning to change the channel from feelings of fear - and the thoughts that go with fear - to feelings and thoughts of power and impact.
Excellence in hockey, as in any sport, is a function of mind and body working together effectively. It's about smooth, coordinated function between thought and action. Excessive tension and fearful or negative thoughts cause a separation or disintegration of the mind - body unit that limits on-ice performance. The question is, how can we reduce these limiting negative thoughts and feelings? Understanding how the mind works and learning techniques to create powerful feelings and productive, positive thoughts will enable you to create a hockey tough state in which you can play your best.
Save
Save
Save
Save
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Practice Well
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
Andrew Cogliano, a smart, speedy NHL winger, uses practice to build confidence and improve his game readiness. "When I practice well I play well. I like to work on my strengths. I especially like to work on things that I want to improve in my game; things like being a little more patient, holding pucks a little more, and shooting accurately. Doing these kinds of things well in practice builds my confidence and works subconsciously on helping me know I'm ready to play great."
If you are physically ready and have practiced well, then it comes down to the mental game. To the three rights: right focus, right feelings, and right attitude.
Andrew Cogliano is a speedy, effective two-way winger with the Anaheim Ducks who relies on practice to build confidence and sharpen skills.
Roy K. Miller/Icon Sportswire
Right Focus
I usually recommend that a player begin a pregame process by reminding himself as follows:
- Know that you are a good player:
- I'm smart (I read the game, I make good decisions, I play the system).
- I'm fast (I keep my feet moving, I'm quick to pucks, I use my speed).
- I'm skilled (I have good hands, I have an excellent shot, I make good passes).
- I'm physical (I win the boards and the battles, I finish checks hard).
- I compete (I'm aggressive, I'm hunting every shift).
- Know your job. Understand the game plan and what you are expected to do on the ice in a variety of game situations. Go over your ABCs. See yourself performing well in the situations you will be facing in the game (e.g., breakouts, crossing center ice, attacking their D, playing in their end, transitions, picking up my check, defending in our end, PK or PP). Discuss any uncertainties with a coach.
- Visualize what you do when you play your best. Use mental rehearsal to see yourself performing well. Run through the When I Play My Best exercise. With mental practice, your reactions become more automatic.
When I asked Sean Burke, an 18-season NHL veteran goalie and an NHL goalie coach, for any specific advice on preparation and confidence, his response applied not just to goalies but to all players. "I always felt that the mental side of it came from the physical preparation. If you are stepping into a game and you don't feel you've put the time and work into it in practice, if you haven't practiced well, if you haven't done all the little things that you need to do, you know, like doing your workouts off the ice, eating properly, getting your rest, it's hard to be mentally confident especially at the NHL level. But even at the 15, 16, 17 age level it's incredibly competitive, and preparation is the one area that you totally control. You know the things you need to do. And if you don't know what to do, there's enough good examples out there, and there are enough people and coaches you can talk to. And if you put the time and effort in to prepare properly, that's where you draw your confidence from. It's where you draw your ability to step into games and realize, okay, now I can compete and have fun with it because I put in the time and I'm prepared."
When I spoke with Chris Pronger, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman, about optimal pregame preparation, his response was sensible. He spoke about doing visualization and creating a positive frame of mind. "Preparation is a personal matter. Some players start preparing the morning of the game. Others start in the afternoon, and still others don't prepare until right before the game. A player should find out what works for him, then do it before every game."
I'm frequently asked, "When should I run through my mental preparation?" I agree with Chris Pronger's comment. It's a personal thing. At the pro level, I often recommend that after a player has his pregame lunch, he relaxes, does some conscious breathing and positive focusing, and then takes a nap. Some players don't like to nap. Others find mentally rehearsing their performance fires them up and makes napping difficult. For those, I suggest they run through their mental rehearsal process after napping. Some prefer to do some positive focusing at the rink.
Along with imagery, be aware of your thinking. Be a positive self-talker. Remember to change the channel or park any negative thoughts. Stay on your positive power channel. Before, during, and after the game, talk positively to yourself and your teammates. Acknowledge your ability, and affirm your successes and their successes. - Set goals for the game. Pick a couple of things you are going to make happen in the game. Gina Kingsbury was an NCAA star, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and an NCAA coach. When I spoke with her about preparation she said, "My mental game was something I needed to work on to reach my dreams and goals of playing for the national team. For me, I would overanalyze and overthink things. I would be in a game and I would judge everything I did. Am I doing it right? Am I playing well? I worked with a sport psychologist, and he said you need to have 3 goals coming into the game. I would usually show up with 10 or 12 goals, but I had to cut it down to 3. I'd write them down on a piece of paper. The first would be something to do with a positive mental attitude. The second would be a feeling I want to feel. And the third was more tactical. I want to get five shots on net. I want to keep my feet moving. I want to be fast. I want to bring speed and so forth.
"I could think about these 3 goals throughout the day. But once I got to the rink I would park those thoughts, put those goals away. I'd put the note in my mouthguard case, and that would mean I couldn't think about it. I could only play the game now and not worry about the rest. And after the game I could visit those goals and judge if I accomplished them or not. I couldn't think about it during the game. The parking of it really helped me because I knew at that point I had prepared myself as much as I could and I just had to go out and play and have fun."
Save
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Changing Channels or Parking It = Being in Control
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what’s appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that’s not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what's appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that's not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
For example, if you have had a bad shift, let it go and focus on being effective the next time out. Or if an opposition player taunts you, slashes you, or attempts to provoke or distract you in a close game, instead of retaliating, being penalized, and hurting your team, park that thought and possibly file it for later. If it's something that can't be forgotten, then at another time, when it won't hurt your team, even the score. If you are having distracting or disturbing thoughts relating to off-ice issues and it's time to prepare for the game, park those thoughts for the time being and deal with them later.
Paul Kariya was an intensely focused hockey tough competitor who knew his role and what it takes to be successful. He was a point-a-game scorer in his 15 years in the NHL. Before his retirement, I asked Paul how he dealt with the high sticks, late hits, clutch and grabs, and other frustrations in the game. He replied, "Getting angry doesn't accomplish anything. It doesn't help me score." Paul explained: "When I was in the Canadian national program, a sport psychologist introduced the idea of parking it, and it's something I still use today. I'm an offensive player. My job is to play offense. It's not to retaliate. If someone chops or slashes me, I park it and refocus. The ultimate get-even is to put the puck in their net."
Cassie Campbell twice captained Team Canada to Olympic gold and then became a broadcaster for the NHL. I asked Cassie, an experienced player and someone who observes the game at the highest level, what she thought was the most important mental quality for a player to acquire. "I think it's the ability to park it. Not to let any of the many possible distractions affect your performance. That ability enables a player to stay focused and follow through on what is asked of him or her."
Parking requires both perspective and emotional control, qualities of mental toughness. Your ability to tune out a thought, change channels, and park it is a combination of your motivation and your ability to release, breathe, and refocus.
Ville Peltonen was an iconic Finnish hockey player who played in the NHL, in the KHL, and in the top leagues in Switzerland and Finland for a remarkable 23 seasons. I asked Ville, a four-time Olympian and frequent team captain, about the importance of having emotional control and the ability to use breathing, change channels, and not play too tight or too tense. "It is important to learn how to relax before you mentally prepare and get charged up for a big game. To do that you need those personal mental tools, and you need to have practiced them so that you know how to use them. I believe it is a skill just like skating or shooting. Except it is a skill that makes all the other skills even more efficient."
One of my favorite examples of mental discipline, and something I'm fond of telling young hockey players, is this: "When I walk through my neighborhood and my neighbor's dog barks, I don't bark back." I have said this dozens of times. Usually, most players smile and nod. They can appreciate that it's ridiculous to bark back at a barking dog.
On the ice, however, when someone on the other team barks at them, many players lose focus and almost reflexively bark back. My advice is don't go there. Ignore it. Park it. If you do notice the provocation, use it or it'll use you.
How can you use it? As always, change channels, take a breath, release (anger, tension, fear, or whatever), and focus instead on the positive, on what you want to do on the ice (your ABCs). Mental toughness is about maintaining that positive focus, no matter what.
Marg was a talented young center, a smart player who skated well and had good hands and a good shot. However, like many hockey players, she would think too much and about too many things when she was under pressure. Often her thinking was negative, focusing on things she did wrong. This focus caused her to become tense, slowed her reactions, and reduced her touch. The more Marg struggled, the more she worried and the more tense she became. She worried that she wasn't scoring, that if she didn't produce she would get less ice time. The more Marg worried, the less productive she became and the less ice time she saw. It was a vicious cycle.
The first step in helping Marg turn her game around was to teach her to release and breathe, to change channels, and park the nonsense. Because Marg tended to worry, I showed her how to use that worry as a reminder to take a breath and focus on positive feelings and positive plays. Gradually, Marg became better able to change her feelings and manage her mind. As she did, her performance improved dramatically.
Playing hockey tough is playing hockey smart. I have seen players do things, thinking they were being hockey tough and making a statement for the team or for pride, when in reality what they were doing was neither hockey tough nor hockey smart. A key to playing tough and smart is having focus and discipline. And emotional control and discipline go hand in hand.
Mark was a hard-working junior defenseman. Although he wasn't big, he was a fearless, physical player who would stand up to anyone to protect his teammates. The problem was that Mark didn't control his temper. In the second period of a close game, with his team leading 1-0, Mark was speared. He retaliated and was given a two-minute penalty. Not surprisingly, he was upset. Thirty seconds after Mark went to the penalty box, the other team scored a power-play goal. As Mark left the penalty box (still steaming), one of the opposing players skated by and said something to the effect that Mark was a dummy who'd just cost his team a goal. Mark snapped. He jumped the opponent and started throwing punches. When the smoke cleared, Mark was back in the penalty box all by himself with a two-minute penalty for instigating and a five-minute penalty for fighting. The complexion of the game shifted. Hockey tough means not allowing your emotions (right brain) to override your focus (left brain).
Being hockey tough means maintaining a team focus and discipline and doing what serves the team on and off the ice. Real toughness is not responding to every barking dog. It's having a clear focus and acting with purpose and intelligence. It's being in control in the face of challenge and adversity.
When confronted with negativity, frustration, or anger, remember to release, breathe, and refocus.
Change channels. Park it. Play hockey tough, and focus on hunting well.
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Managing Your Mind
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It’s up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It's up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The first principle is that the mind is like a TV set. It's always on, thinking thoughts, running images, and creating feelings. What's important to understand is that you control the remote on that mental TV. You're the boss. You're in control. If you don't like what you're watching, if what you're watching doesn't give you power or doesn't feel good to you, then change the channel.
Being hockey toughis about your ability to stay on the power channel. My job as a sport psychologist is to show you two things: how to change channels on your mental TV and how to develop better-quality programs to tune in to.
The second principle of effective performance is that you get more of what you think about. Because of a mental phenomenon called lateral inhibition, whatever stimulus you focus on becomes magnified in your perceptual field while all other stimuli are downplayed. If you are worried and focus on thoughts and feelings that cause you anxiety (e.g., failure, embarrassment, pain, or disappointment), these thoughts and this reality will become magnified in your mind. Thinking thoughts such as, We're going to blow this lead, This guy is impossible to check, How am I supposed to play with these guys as my linemates ? or I can't put the puck in the net increases the likelihood of a negative performance.
Many players are negative thinkers. At a midget AAA team meeting, I asked a 16-year-old player how many shots he usually took in a game. After thinking a moment, he said, "Five or six." Then he added, "And I'll probably miss the net on all of them." With thinking like that, he's probably right.
You may say, "Well, he's just a kid." Larry Robinson, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman with 18 years of NHL coaching experience, remarked that the pros are just as hard on themselves. "Too many guys [in the NHL] come off the ice and dwell on their mistakes," he says. "There's not enough focusing on the positive aspect of the game."
On the other hand, if you concentrate on the things you want to make happen on the ice (e.g., moving your feet, keeping your head up and on a swivel, passing tape to tape, going hard to the net, releasing quickly, shooting the puck, shooting accurately, keeping your stick on the ice, finishing your check, and clearing the front of the net), you will increase the probability of these things happening. Positive results will follow.
It's important to think positively and to put positive power programs on your mental TV. Sounds simple, yet few people are able to stay tuned in to positive thoughts and feelings all the time. Experts tell us that we think 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day. For most people, more than 80 percent of their thoughts are negative or self-critical. Which brings us to our third principle.
The third principle is that feelings affect thoughts and thoughts affect feelings. This explains why we sometimes get stuck on negatives even though we know we should think positively. It boils down to the way we're wired as human beings, the way our nervous systems work. Every time we have a feeling, a thought automatically goes with it. If the feelings you are experiencing are fear, pain, or uncertainty, the thoughts you'll think will tend to be stress-inducing and limiting. On the other hand, if you feel strong, energetic, and in control, your thoughts will be more positive and your confidence will grow.
The feelings that most frequently limit hockey players have to do with fear, anger, frustration, fatigue, and pain. Table 1.1 shows some examples of how negative feelings can affect thinking.
Negative, limiting feelings can produce negative, limited thinking, which in turn feeds back more negative feelings, creating a negative loop that can become a trap (figure 1.1). That's exactly what a slump is all about: negative feelings, usually anxiety, producing and feeding negative thoughts that create more negative feelings.
The loop of negative thoughts and negative feelings can lead to a slump.
Lou was a 30-goal-a-year scorer in the NHL. He told me that during those high-performance years, he went to the net with confidence and abandon. He felt strong, fast, and self-assured, and he just went for it. Then something unfortunate happened. As he drove to the net on a scoring chance, he was slashed across the face. The slash cut him badly and broke his jaw. After that injury, his feelings and focus changed. He lost some hockey toughness. He noticed he was tentative about going to the net. Instead of thinking, I'll score, he began to think, Watch out. He was looking to avoid a check as often as he was trying to put the puck in the net. As his feelings and focus changed, his goal production dropped dramatically and his career faltered.
Lou's scoring touch recovered as a direct result of his becoming a better mental manager and learning to change the channel from feelings of fear - and the thoughts that go with fear - to feelings and thoughts of power and impact.
Excellence in hockey, as in any sport, is a function of mind and body working together effectively. It's about smooth, coordinated function between thought and action. Excessive tension and fearful or negative thoughts cause a separation or disintegration of the mind - body unit that limits on-ice performance. The question is, how can we reduce these limiting negative thoughts and feelings? Understanding how the mind works and learning techniques to create powerful feelings and productive, positive thoughts will enable you to create a hockey tough state in which you can play your best.
Save
Save
Save
Save
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Practice Well
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
Andrew Cogliano, a smart, speedy NHL winger, uses practice to build confidence and improve his game readiness. "When I practice well I play well. I like to work on my strengths. I especially like to work on things that I want to improve in my game; things like being a little more patient, holding pucks a little more, and shooting accurately. Doing these kinds of things well in practice builds my confidence and works subconsciously on helping me know I'm ready to play great."
If you are physically ready and have practiced well, then it comes down to the mental game. To the three rights: right focus, right feelings, and right attitude.
Andrew Cogliano is a speedy, effective two-way winger with the Anaheim Ducks who relies on practice to build confidence and sharpen skills.
Roy K. Miller/Icon Sportswire
Right Focus
I usually recommend that a player begin a pregame process by reminding himself as follows:
- Know that you are a good player:
- I'm smart (I read the game, I make good decisions, I play the system).
- I'm fast (I keep my feet moving, I'm quick to pucks, I use my speed).
- I'm skilled (I have good hands, I have an excellent shot, I make good passes).
- I'm physical (I win the boards and the battles, I finish checks hard).
- I compete (I'm aggressive, I'm hunting every shift).
- Know your job. Understand the game plan and what you are expected to do on the ice in a variety of game situations. Go over your ABCs. See yourself performing well in the situations you will be facing in the game (e.g., breakouts, crossing center ice, attacking their D, playing in their end, transitions, picking up my check, defending in our end, PK or PP). Discuss any uncertainties with a coach.
- Visualize what you do when you play your best. Use mental rehearsal to see yourself performing well. Run through the When I Play My Best exercise. With mental practice, your reactions become more automatic.
When I asked Sean Burke, an 18-season NHL veteran goalie and an NHL goalie coach, for any specific advice on preparation and confidence, his response applied not just to goalies but to all players. "I always felt that the mental side of it came from the physical preparation. If you are stepping into a game and you don't feel you've put the time and work into it in practice, if you haven't practiced well, if you haven't done all the little things that you need to do, you know, like doing your workouts off the ice, eating properly, getting your rest, it's hard to be mentally confident especially at the NHL level. But even at the 15, 16, 17 age level it's incredibly competitive, and preparation is the one area that you totally control. You know the things you need to do. And if you don't know what to do, there's enough good examples out there, and there are enough people and coaches you can talk to. And if you put the time and effort in to prepare properly, that's where you draw your confidence from. It's where you draw your ability to step into games and realize, okay, now I can compete and have fun with it because I put in the time and I'm prepared."
When I spoke with Chris Pronger, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman, about optimal pregame preparation, his response was sensible. He spoke about doing visualization and creating a positive frame of mind. "Preparation is a personal matter. Some players start preparing the morning of the game. Others start in the afternoon, and still others don't prepare until right before the game. A player should find out what works for him, then do it before every game."
I'm frequently asked, "When should I run through my mental preparation?" I agree with Chris Pronger's comment. It's a personal thing. At the pro level, I often recommend that after a player has his pregame lunch, he relaxes, does some conscious breathing and positive focusing, and then takes a nap. Some players don't like to nap. Others find mentally rehearsing their performance fires them up and makes napping difficult. For those, I suggest they run through their mental rehearsal process after napping. Some prefer to do some positive focusing at the rink.
Along with imagery, be aware of your thinking. Be a positive self-talker. Remember to change the channel or park any negative thoughts. Stay on your positive power channel. Before, during, and after the game, talk positively to yourself and your teammates. Acknowledge your ability, and affirm your successes and their successes. - Set goals for the game. Pick a couple of things you are going to make happen in the game. Gina Kingsbury was an NCAA star, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and an NCAA coach. When I spoke with her about preparation she said, "My mental game was something I needed to work on to reach my dreams and goals of playing for the national team. For me, I would overanalyze and overthink things. I would be in a game and I would judge everything I did. Am I doing it right? Am I playing well? I worked with a sport psychologist, and he said you need to have 3 goals coming into the game. I would usually show up with 10 or 12 goals, but I had to cut it down to 3. I'd write them down on a piece of paper. The first would be something to do with a positive mental attitude. The second would be a feeling I want to feel. And the third was more tactical. I want to get five shots on net. I want to keep my feet moving. I want to be fast. I want to bring speed and so forth.
"I could think about these 3 goals throughout the day. But once I got to the rink I would park those thoughts, put those goals away. I'd put the note in my mouthguard case, and that would mean I couldn't think about it. I could only play the game now and not worry about the rest. And after the game I could visit those goals and judge if I accomplished them or not. I couldn't think about it during the game. The parking of it really helped me because I knew at that point I had prepared myself as much as I could and I just had to go out and play and have fun."
Save
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Changing Channels or Parking It = Being in Control
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what’s appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that’s not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what's appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that's not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
For example, if you have had a bad shift, let it go and focus on being effective the next time out. Or if an opposition player taunts you, slashes you, or attempts to provoke or distract you in a close game, instead of retaliating, being penalized, and hurting your team, park that thought and possibly file it for later. If it's something that can't be forgotten, then at another time, when it won't hurt your team, even the score. If you are having distracting or disturbing thoughts relating to off-ice issues and it's time to prepare for the game, park those thoughts for the time being and deal with them later.
Paul Kariya was an intensely focused hockey tough competitor who knew his role and what it takes to be successful. He was a point-a-game scorer in his 15 years in the NHL. Before his retirement, I asked Paul how he dealt with the high sticks, late hits, clutch and grabs, and other frustrations in the game. He replied, "Getting angry doesn't accomplish anything. It doesn't help me score." Paul explained: "When I was in the Canadian national program, a sport psychologist introduced the idea of parking it, and it's something I still use today. I'm an offensive player. My job is to play offense. It's not to retaliate. If someone chops or slashes me, I park it and refocus. The ultimate get-even is to put the puck in their net."
Cassie Campbell twice captained Team Canada to Olympic gold and then became a broadcaster for the NHL. I asked Cassie, an experienced player and someone who observes the game at the highest level, what she thought was the most important mental quality for a player to acquire. "I think it's the ability to park it. Not to let any of the many possible distractions affect your performance. That ability enables a player to stay focused and follow through on what is asked of him or her."
Parking requires both perspective and emotional control, qualities of mental toughness. Your ability to tune out a thought, change channels, and park it is a combination of your motivation and your ability to release, breathe, and refocus.
Ville Peltonen was an iconic Finnish hockey player who played in the NHL, in the KHL, and in the top leagues in Switzerland and Finland for a remarkable 23 seasons. I asked Ville, a four-time Olympian and frequent team captain, about the importance of having emotional control and the ability to use breathing, change channels, and not play too tight or too tense. "It is important to learn how to relax before you mentally prepare and get charged up for a big game. To do that you need those personal mental tools, and you need to have practiced them so that you know how to use them. I believe it is a skill just like skating or shooting. Except it is a skill that makes all the other skills even more efficient."
One of my favorite examples of mental discipline, and something I'm fond of telling young hockey players, is this: "When I walk through my neighborhood and my neighbor's dog barks, I don't bark back." I have said this dozens of times. Usually, most players smile and nod. They can appreciate that it's ridiculous to bark back at a barking dog.
On the ice, however, when someone on the other team barks at them, many players lose focus and almost reflexively bark back. My advice is don't go there. Ignore it. Park it. If you do notice the provocation, use it or it'll use you.
How can you use it? As always, change channels, take a breath, release (anger, tension, fear, or whatever), and focus instead on the positive, on what you want to do on the ice (your ABCs). Mental toughness is about maintaining that positive focus, no matter what.
Marg was a talented young center, a smart player who skated well and had good hands and a good shot. However, like many hockey players, she would think too much and about too many things when she was under pressure. Often her thinking was negative, focusing on things she did wrong. This focus caused her to become tense, slowed her reactions, and reduced her touch. The more Marg struggled, the more she worried and the more tense she became. She worried that she wasn't scoring, that if she didn't produce she would get less ice time. The more Marg worried, the less productive she became and the less ice time she saw. It was a vicious cycle.
The first step in helping Marg turn her game around was to teach her to release and breathe, to change channels, and park the nonsense. Because Marg tended to worry, I showed her how to use that worry as a reminder to take a breath and focus on positive feelings and positive plays. Gradually, Marg became better able to change her feelings and manage her mind. As she did, her performance improved dramatically.
Playing hockey tough is playing hockey smart. I have seen players do things, thinking they were being hockey tough and making a statement for the team or for pride, when in reality what they were doing was neither hockey tough nor hockey smart. A key to playing tough and smart is having focus and discipline. And emotional control and discipline go hand in hand.
Mark was a hard-working junior defenseman. Although he wasn't big, he was a fearless, physical player who would stand up to anyone to protect his teammates. The problem was that Mark didn't control his temper. In the second period of a close game, with his team leading 1-0, Mark was speared. He retaliated and was given a two-minute penalty. Not surprisingly, he was upset. Thirty seconds after Mark went to the penalty box, the other team scored a power-play goal. As Mark left the penalty box (still steaming), one of the opposing players skated by and said something to the effect that Mark was a dummy who'd just cost his team a goal. Mark snapped. He jumped the opponent and started throwing punches. When the smoke cleared, Mark was back in the penalty box all by himself with a two-minute penalty for instigating and a five-minute penalty for fighting. The complexion of the game shifted. Hockey tough means not allowing your emotions (right brain) to override your focus (left brain).
Being hockey tough means maintaining a team focus and discipline and doing what serves the team on and off the ice. Real toughness is not responding to every barking dog. It's having a clear focus and acting with purpose and intelligence. It's being in control in the face of challenge and adversity.
When confronted with negativity, frustration, or anger, remember to release, breathe, and refocus.
Change channels. Park it. Play hockey tough, and focus on hunting well.
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Managing Your Mind
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It’s up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It's up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The first principle is that the mind is like a TV set. It's always on, thinking thoughts, running images, and creating feelings. What's important to understand is that you control the remote on that mental TV. You're the boss. You're in control. If you don't like what you're watching, if what you're watching doesn't give you power or doesn't feel good to you, then change the channel.
Being hockey toughis about your ability to stay on the power channel. My job as a sport psychologist is to show you two things: how to change channels on your mental TV and how to develop better-quality programs to tune in to.
The second principle of effective performance is that you get more of what you think about. Because of a mental phenomenon called lateral inhibition, whatever stimulus you focus on becomes magnified in your perceptual field while all other stimuli are downplayed. If you are worried and focus on thoughts and feelings that cause you anxiety (e.g., failure, embarrassment, pain, or disappointment), these thoughts and this reality will become magnified in your mind. Thinking thoughts such as, We're going to blow this lead, This guy is impossible to check, How am I supposed to play with these guys as my linemates ? or I can't put the puck in the net increases the likelihood of a negative performance.
Many players are negative thinkers. At a midget AAA team meeting, I asked a 16-year-old player how many shots he usually took in a game. After thinking a moment, he said, "Five or six." Then he added, "And I'll probably miss the net on all of them." With thinking like that, he's probably right.
You may say, "Well, he's just a kid." Larry Robinson, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman with 18 years of NHL coaching experience, remarked that the pros are just as hard on themselves. "Too many guys [in the NHL] come off the ice and dwell on their mistakes," he says. "There's not enough focusing on the positive aspect of the game."
On the other hand, if you concentrate on the things you want to make happen on the ice (e.g., moving your feet, keeping your head up and on a swivel, passing tape to tape, going hard to the net, releasing quickly, shooting the puck, shooting accurately, keeping your stick on the ice, finishing your check, and clearing the front of the net), you will increase the probability of these things happening. Positive results will follow.
It's important to think positively and to put positive power programs on your mental TV. Sounds simple, yet few people are able to stay tuned in to positive thoughts and feelings all the time. Experts tell us that we think 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day. For most people, more than 80 percent of their thoughts are negative or self-critical. Which brings us to our third principle.
The third principle is that feelings affect thoughts and thoughts affect feelings. This explains why we sometimes get stuck on negatives even though we know we should think positively. It boils down to the way we're wired as human beings, the way our nervous systems work. Every time we have a feeling, a thought automatically goes with it. If the feelings you are experiencing are fear, pain, or uncertainty, the thoughts you'll think will tend to be stress-inducing and limiting. On the other hand, if you feel strong, energetic, and in control, your thoughts will be more positive and your confidence will grow.
The feelings that most frequently limit hockey players have to do with fear, anger, frustration, fatigue, and pain. Table 1.1 shows some examples of how negative feelings can affect thinking.
Negative, limiting feelings can produce negative, limited thinking, which in turn feeds back more negative feelings, creating a negative loop that can become a trap (figure 1.1). That's exactly what a slump is all about: negative feelings, usually anxiety, producing and feeding negative thoughts that create more negative feelings.
The loop of negative thoughts and negative feelings can lead to a slump.
Lou was a 30-goal-a-year scorer in the NHL. He told me that during those high-performance years, he went to the net with confidence and abandon. He felt strong, fast, and self-assured, and he just went for it. Then something unfortunate happened. As he drove to the net on a scoring chance, he was slashed across the face. The slash cut him badly and broke his jaw. After that injury, his feelings and focus changed. He lost some hockey toughness. He noticed he was tentative about going to the net. Instead of thinking, I'll score, he began to think, Watch out. He was looking to avoid a check as often as he was trying to put the puck in the net. As his feelings and focus changed, his goal production dropped dramatically and his career faltered.
Lou's scoring touch recovered as a direct result of his becoming a better mental manager and learning to change the channel from feelings of fear - and the thoughts that go with fear - to feelings and thoughts of power and impact.
Excellence in hockey, as in any sport, is a function of mind and body working together effectively. It's about smooth, coordinated function between thought and action. Excessive tension and fearful or negative thoughts cause a separation or disintegration of the mind - body unit that limits on-ice performance. The question is, how can we reduce these limiting negative thoughts and feelings? Understanding how the mind works and learning techniques to create powerful feelings and productive, positive thoughts will enable you to create a hockey tough state in which you can play your best.
Save
Save
Save
Save
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Practice Well
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
Andrew Cogliano, a smart, speedy NHL winger, uses practice to build confidence and improve his game readiness. "When I practice well I play well. I like to work on my strengths. I especially like to work on things that I want to improve in my game; things like being a little more patient, holding pucks a little more, and shooting accurately. Doing these kinds of things well in practice builds my confidence and works subconsciously on helping me know I'm ready to play great."
If you are physically ready and have practiced well, then it comes down to the mental game. To the three rights: right focus, right feelings, and right attitude.
Andrew Cogliano is a speedy, effective two-way winger with the Anaheim Ducks who relies on practice to build confidence and sharpen skills.
Roy K. Miller/Icon Sportswire
Right Focus
I usually recommend that a player begin a pregame process by reminding himself as follows:
- Know that you are a good player:
- I'm smart (I read the game, I make good decisions, I play the system).
- I'm fast (I keep my feet moving, I'm quick to pucks, I use my speed).
- I'm skilled (I have good hands, I have an excellent shot, I make good passes).
- I'm physical (I win the boards and the battles, I finish checks hard).
- I compete (I'm aggressive, I'm hunting every shift).
- Know your job. Understand the game plan and what you are expected to do on the ice in a variety of game situations. Go over your ABCs. See yourself performing well in the situations you will be facing in the game (e.g., breakouts, crossing center ice, attacking their D, playing in their end, transitions, picking up my check, defending in our end, PK or PP). Discuss any uncertainties with a coach.
- Visualize what you do when you play your best. Use mental rehearsal to see yourself performing well. Run through the When I Play My Best exercise. With mental practice, your reactions become more automatic.
When I asked Sean Burke, an 18-season NHL veteran goalie and an NHL goalie coach, for any specific advice on preparation and confidence, his response applied not just to goalies but to all players. "I always felt that the mental side of it came from the physical preparation. If you are stepping into a game and you don't feel you've put the time and work into it in practice, if you haven't practiced well, if you haven't done all the little things that you need to do, you know, like doing your workouts off the ice, eating properly, getting your rest, it's hard to be mentally confident especially at the NHL level. But even at the 15, 16, 17 age level it's incredibly competitive, and preparation is the one area that you totally control. You know the things you need to do. And if you don't know what to do, there's enough good examples out there, and there are enough people and coaches you can talk to. And if you put the time and effort in to prepare properly, that's where you draw your confidence from. It's where you draw your ability to step into games and realize, okay, now I can compete and have fun with it because I put in the time and I'm prepared."
When I spoke with Chris Pronger, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman, about optimal pregame preparation, his response was sensible. He spoke about doing visualization and creating a positive frame of mind. "Preparation is a personal matter. Some players start preparing the morning of the game. Others start in the afternoon, and still others don't prepare until right before the game. A player should find out what works for him, then do it before every game."
I'm frequently asked, "When should I run through my mental preparation?" I agree with Chris Pronger's comment. It's a personal thing. At the pro level, I often recommend that after a player has his pregame lunch, he relaxes, does some conscious breathing and positive focusing, and then takes a nap. Some players don't like to nap. Others find mentally rehearsing their performance fires them up and makes napping difficult. For those, I suggest they run through their mental rehearsal process after napping. Some prefer to do some positive focusing at the rink.
Along with imagery, be aware of your thinking. Be a positive self-talker. Remember to change the channel or park any negative thoughts. Stay on your positive power channel. Before, during, and after the game, talk positively to yourself and your teammates. Acknowledge your ability, and affirm your successes and their successes. - Set goals for the game. Pick a couple of things you are going to make happen in the game. Gina Kingsbury was an NCAA star, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and an NCAA coach. When I spoke with her about preparation she said, "My mental game was something I needed to work on to reach my dreams and goals of playing for the national team. For me, I would overanalyze and overthink things. I would be in a game and I would judge everything I did. Am I doing it right? Am I playing well? I worked with a sport psychologist, and he said you need to have 3 goals coming into the game. I would usually show up with 10 or 12 goals, but I had to cut it down to 3. I'd write them down on a piece of paper. The first would be something to do with a positive mental attitude. The second would be a feeling I want to feel. And the third was more tactical. I want to get five shots on net. I want to keep my feet moving. I want to be fast. I want to bring speed and so forth.
"I could think about these 3 goals throughout the day. But once I got to the rink I would park those thoughts, put those goals away. I'd put the note in my mouthguard case, and that would mean I couldn't think about it. I could only play the game now and not worry about the rest. And after the game I could visit those goals and judge if I accomplished them or not. I couldn't think about it during the game. The parking of it really helped me because I knew at that point I had prepared myself as much as I could and I just had to go out and play and have fun."
Save
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Changing Channels or Parking It = Being in Control
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what’s appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that’s not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what's appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that's not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
For example, if you have had a bad shift, let it go and focus on being effective the next time out. Or if an opposition player taunts you, slashes you, or attempts to provoke or distract you in a close game, instead of retaliating, being penalized, and hurting your team, park that thought and possibly file it for later. If it's something that can't be forgotten, then at another time, when it won't hurt your team, even the score. If you are having distracting or disturbing thoughts relating to off-ice issues and it's time to prepare for the game, park those thoughts for the time being and deal with them later.
Paul Kariya was an intensely focused hockey tough competitor who knew his role and what it takes to be successful. He was a point-a-game scorer in his 15 years in the NHL. Before his retirement, I asked Paul how he dealt with the high sticks, late hits, clutch and grabs, and other frustrations in the game. He replied, "Getting angry doesn't accomplish anything. It doesn't help me score." Paul explained: "When I was in the Canadian national program, a sport psychologist introduced the idea of parking it, and it's something I still use today. I'm an offensive player. My job is to play offense. It's not to retaliate. If someone chops or slashes me, I park it and refocus. The ultimate get-even is to put the puck in their net."
Cassie Campbell twice captained Team Canada to Olympic gold and then became a broadcaster for the NHL. I asked Cassie, an experienced player and someone who observes the game at the highest level, what she thought was the most important mental quality for a player to acquire. "I think it's the ability to park it. Not to let any of the many possible distractions affect your performance. That ability enables a player to stay focused and follow through on what is asked of him or her."
Parking requires both perspective and emotional control, qualities of mental toughness. Your ability to tune out a thought, change channels, and park it is a combination of your motivation and your ability to release, breathe, and refocus.
Ville Peltonen was an iconic Finnish hockey player who played in the NHL, in the KHL, and in the top leagues in Switzerland and Finland for a remarkable 23 seasons. I asked Ville, a four-time Olympian and frequent team captain, about the importance of having emotional control and the ability to use breathing, change channels, and not play too tight or too tense. "It is important to learn how to relax before you mentally prepare and get charged up for a big game. To do that you need those personal mental tools, and you need to have practiced them so that you know how to use them. I believe it is a skill just like skating or shooting. Except it is a skill that makes all the other skills even more efficient."
One of my favorite examples of mental discipline, and something I'm fond of telling young hockey players, is this: "When I walk through my neighborhood and my neighbor's dog barks, I don't bark back." I have said this dozens of times. Usually, most players smile and nod. They can appreciate that it's ridiculous to bark back at a barking dog.
On the ice, however, when someone on the other team barks at them, many players lose focus and almost reflexively bark back. My advice is don't go there. Ignore it. Park it. If you do notice the provocation, use it or it'll use you.
How can you use it? As always, change channels, take a breath, release (anger, tension, fear, or whatever), and focus instead on the positive, on what you want to do on the ice (your ABCs). Mental toughness is about maintaining that positive focus, no matter what.
Marg was a talented young center, a smart player who skated well and had good hands and a good shot. However, like many hockey players, she would think too much and about too many things when she was under pressure. Often her thinking was negative, focusing on things she did wrong. This focus caused her to become tense, slowed her reactions, and reduced her touch. The more Marg struggled, the more she worried and the more tense she became. She worried that she wasn't scoring, that if she didn't produce she would get less ice time. The more Marg worried, the less productive she became and the less ice time she saw. It was a vicious cycle.
The first step in helping Marg turn her game around was to teach her to release and breathe, to change channels, and park the nonsense. Because Marg tended to worry, I showed her how to use that worry as a reminder to take a breath and focus on positive feelings and positive plays. Gradually, Marg became better able to change her feelings and manage her mind. As she did, her performance improved dramatically.
Playing hockey tough is playing hockey smart. I have seen players do things, thinking they were being hockey tough and making a statement for the team or for pride, when in reality what they were doing was neither hockey tough nor hockey smart. A key to playing tough and smart is having focus and discipline. And emotional control and discipline go hand in hand.
Mark was a hard-working junior defenseman. Although he wasn't big, he was a fearless, physical player who would stand up to anyone to protect his teammates. The problem was that Mark didn't control his temper. In the second period of a close game, with his team leading 1-0, Mark was speared. He retaliated and was given a two-minute penalty. Not surprisingly, he was upset. Thirty seconds after Mark went to the penalty box, the other team scored a power-play goal. As Mark left the penalty box (still steaming), one of the opposing players skated by and said something to the effect that Mark was a dummy who'd just cost his team a goal. Mark snapped. He jumped the opponent and started throwing punches. When the smoke cleared, Mark was back in the penalty box all by himself with a two-minute penalty for instigating and a five-minute penalty for fighting. The complexion of the game shifted. Hockey tough means not allowing your emotions (right brain) to override your focus (left brain).
Being hockey tough means maintaining a team focus and discipline and doing what serves the team on and off the ice. Real toughness is not responding to every barking dog. It's having a clear focus and acting with purpose and intelligence. It's being in control in the face of challenge and adversity.
When confronted with negativity, frustration, or anger, remember to release, breathe, and refocus.
Change channels. Park it. Play hockey tough, and focus on hunting well.
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Managing Your Mind
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It’s up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The way you manage your thinking and feelings (your mind) is basic to how you perform. It's up to you. Improving your game begins with taking responsibility for managing your mind. I believe there are three key operating principles for managing your mind effectively.
The first principle is that the mind is like a TV set. It's always on, thinking thoughts, running images, and creating feelings. What's important to understand is that you control the remote on that mental TV. You're the boss. You're in control. If you don't like what you're watching, if what you're watching doesn't give you power or doesn't feel good to you, then change the channel.
Being hockey toughis about your ability to stay on the power channel. My job as a sport psychologist is to show you two things: how to change channels on your mental TV and how to develop better-quality programs to tune in to.
The second principle of effective performance is that you get more of what you think about. Because of a mental phenomenon called lateral inhibition, whatever stimulus you focus on becomes magnified in your perceptual field while all other stimuli are downplayed. If you are worried and focus on thoughts and feelings that cause you anxiety (e.g., failure, embarrassment, pain, or disappointment), these thoughts and this reality will become magnified in your mind. Thinking thoughts such as, We're going to blow this lead, This guy is impossible to check, How am I supposed to play with these guys as my linemates ? or I can't put the puck in the net increases the likelihood of a negative performance.
Many players are negative thinkers. At a midget AAA team meeting, I asked a 16-year-old player how many shots he usually took in a game. After thinking a moment, he said, "Five or six." Then he added, "And I'll probably miss the net on all of them." With thinking like that, he's probably right.
You may say, "Well, he's just a kid." Larry Robinson, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman with 18 years of NHL coaching experience, remarked that the pros are just as hard on themselves. "Too many guys [in the NHL] come off the ice and dwell on their mistakes," he says. "There's not enough focusing on the positive aspect of the game."
On the other hand, if you concentrate on the things you want to make happen on the ice (e.g., moving your feet, keeping your head up and on a swivel, passing tape to tape, going hard to the net, releasing quickly, shooting the puck, shooting accurately, keeping your stick on the ice, finishing your check, and clearing the front of the net), you will increase the probability of these things happening. Positive results will follow.
It's important to think positively and to put positive power programs on your mental TV. Sounds simple, yet few people are able to stay tuned in to positive thoughts and feelings all the time. Experts tell us that we think 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day. For most people, more than 80 percent of their thoughts are negative or self-critical. Which brings us to our third principle.
The third principle is that feelings affect thoughts and thoughts affect feelings. This explains why we sometimes get stuck on negatives even though we know we should think positively. It boils down to the way we're wired as human beings, the way our nervous systems work. Every time we have a feeling, a thought automatically goes with it. If the feelings you are experiencing are fear, pain, or uncertainty, the thoughts you'll think will tend to be stress-inducing and limiting. On the other hand, if you feel strong, energetic, and in control, your thoughts will be more positive and your confidence will grow.
The feelings that most frequently limit hockey players have to do with fear, anger, frustration, fatigue, and pain. Table 1.1 shows some examples of how negative feelings can affect thinking.
Negative, limiting feelings can produce negative, limited thinking, which in turn feeds back more negative feelings, creating a negative loop that can become a trap (figure 1.1). That's exactly what a slump is all about: negative feelings, usually anxiety, producing and feeding negative thoughts that create more negative feelings.
The loop of negative thoughts and negative feelings can lead to a slump.
Lou was a 30-goal-a-year scorer in the NHL. He told me that during those high-performance years, he went to the net with confidence and abandon. He felt strong, fast, and self-assured, and he just went for it. Then something unfortunate happened. As he drove to the net on a scoring chance, he was slashed across the face. The slash cut him badly and broke his jaw. After that injury, his feelings and focus changed. He lost some hockey toughness. He noticed he was tentative about going to the net. Instead of thinking, I'll score, he began to think, Watch out. He was looking to avoid a check as often as he was trying to put the puck in the net. As his feelings and focus changed, his goal production dropped dramatically and his career faltered.
Lou's scoring touch recovered as a direct result of his becoming a better mental manager and learning to change the channel from feelings of fear - and the thoughts that go with fear - to feelings and thoughts of power and impact.
Excellence in hockey, as in any sport, is a function of mind and body working together effectively. It's about smooth, coordinated function between thought and action. Excessive tension and fearful or negative thoughts cause a separation or disintegration of the mind - body unit that limits on-ice performance. The question is, how can we reduce these limiting negative thoughts and feelings? Understanding how the mind works and learning techniques to create powerful feelings and productive, positive thoughts will enable you to create a hockey tough state in which you can play your best.
Save
Save
Save
Save
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Practice Well
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
The message throughout Hockey Tough is that practice builds confidence and it also sharpens skills. Practice helps you know that you are physically and mentally prepared, that you have the energy, the focus, the skill, and the determination to execute your ABCs.
Andrew Cogliano, a smart, speedy NHL winger, uses practice to build confidence and improve his game readiness. "When I practice well I play well. I like to work on my strengths. I especially like to work on things that I want to improve in my game; things like being a little more patient, holding pucks a little more, and shooting accurately. Doing these kinds of things well in practice builds my confidence and works subconsciously on helping me know I'm ready to play great."
If you are physically ready and have practiced well, then it comes down to the mental game. To the three rights: right focus, right feelings, and right attitude.
Andrew Cogliano is a speedy, effective two-way winger with the Anaheim Ducks who relies on practice to build confidence and sharpen skills.
Roy K. Miller/Icon Sportswire
Right Focus
I usually recommend that a player begin a pregame process by reminding himself as follows:
- Know that you are a good player:
- I'm smart (I read the game, I make good decisions, I play the system).
- I'm fast (I keep my feet moving, I'm quick to pucks, I use my speed).
- I'm skilled (I have good hands, I have an excellent shot, I make good passes).
- I'm physical (I win the boards and the battles, I finish checks hard).
- I compete (I'm aggressive, I'm hunting every shift).
- Know your job. Understand the game plan and what you are expected to do on the ice in a variety of game situations. Go over your ABCs. See yourself performing well in the situations you will be facing in the game (e.g., breakouts, crossing center ice, attacking their D, playing in their end, transitions, picking up my check, defending in our end, PK or PP). Discuss any uncertainties with a coach.
- Visualize what you do when you play your best. Use mental rehearsal to see yourself performing well. Run through the When I Play My Best exercise. With mental practice, your reactions become more automatic.
When I asked Sean Burke, an 18-season NHL veteran goalie and an NHL goalie coach, for any specific advice on preparation and confidence, his response applied not just to goalies but to all players. "I always felt that the mental side of it came from the physical preparation. If you are stepping into a game and you don't feel you've put the time and work into it in practice, if you haven't practiced well, if you haven't done all the little things that you need to do, you know, like doing your workouts off the ice, eating properly, getting your rest, it's hard to be mentally confident especially at the NHL level. But even at the 15, 16, 17 age level it's incredibly competitive, and preparation is the one area that you totally control. You know the things you need to do. And if you don't know what to do, there's enough good examples out there, and there are enough people and coaches you can talk to. And if you put the time and effort in to prepare properly, that's where you draw your confidence from. It's where you draw your ability to step into games and realize, okay, now I can compete and have fun with it because I put in the time and I'm prepared."
When I spoke with Chris Pronger, an NHL Hall of Fame defenseman, about optimal pregame preparation, his response was sensible. He spoke about doing visualization and creating a positive frame of mind. "Preparation is a personal matter. Some players start preparing the morning of the game. Others start in the afternoon, and still others don't prepare until right before the game. A player should find out what works for him, then do it before every game."
I'm frequently asked, "When should I run through my mental preparation?" I agree with Chris Pronger's comment. It's a personal thing. At the pro level, I often recommend that after a player has his pregame lunch, he relaxes, does some conscious breathing and positive focusing, and then takes a nap. Some players don't like to nap. Others find mentally rehearsing their performance fires them up and makes napping difficult. For those, I suggest they run through their mental rehearsal process after napping. Some prefer to do some positive focusing at the rink.
Along with imagery, be aware of your thinking. Be a positive self-talker. Remember to change the channel or park any negative thoughts. Stay on your positive power channel. Before, during, and after the game, talk positively to yourself and your teammates. Acknowledge your ability, and affirm your successes and their successes. - Set goals for the game. Pick a couple of things you are going to make happen in the game. Gina Kingsbury was an NCAA star, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and an NCAA coach. When I spoke with her about preparation she said, "My mental game was something I needed to work on to reach my dreams and goals of playing for the national team. For me, I would overanalyze and overthink things. I would be in a game and I would judge everything I did. Am I doing it right? Am I playing well? I worked with a sport psychologist, and he said you need to have 3 goals coming into the game. I would usually show up with 10 or 12 goals, but I had to cut it down to 3. I'd write them down on a piece of paper. The first would be something to do with a positive mental attitude. The second would be a feeling I want to feel. And the third was more tactical. I want to get five shots on net. I want to keep my feet moving. I want to be fast. I want to bring speed and so forth.
"I could think about these 3 goals throughout the day. But once I got to the rink I would park those thoughts, put those goals away. I'd put the note in my mouthguard case, and that would mean I couldn't think about it. I could only play the game now and not worry about the rest. And after the game I could visit those goals and judge if I accomplished them or not. I couldn't think about it during the game. The parking of it really helped me because I knew at that point I had prepared myself as much as I could and I just had to go out and play and have fun."
Save
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
Changing Channels or Parking It = Being in Control
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what’s appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that’s not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
Some sport psychologists have used the concept park it to describe the experience of tuning out distracting, negative, or irrelevant thoughts and staying tuned in to what's appropriate. If a thought comes to mind that's not going to help you perform or can interfere with your on-ice performance, change the channel and park it.
For example, if you have had a bad shift, let it go and focus on being effective the next time out. Or if an opposition player taunts you, slashes you, or attempts to provoke or distract you in a close game, instead of retaliating, being penalized, and hurting your team, park that thought and possibly file it for later. If it's something that can't be forgotten, then at another time, when it won't hurt your team, even the score. If you are having distracting or disturbing thoughts relating to off-ice issues and it's time to prepare for the game, park those thoughts for the time being and deal with them later.
Paul Kariya was an intensely focused hockey tough competitor who knew his role and what it takes to be successful. He was a point-a-game scorer in his 15 years in the NHL. Before his retirement, I asked Paul how he dealt with the high sticks, late hits, clutch and grabs, and other frustrations in the game. He replied, "Getting angry doesn't accomplish anything. It doesn't help me score." Paul explained: "When I was in the Canadian national program, a sport psychologist introduced the idea of parking it, and it's something I still use today. I'm an offensive player. My job is to play offense. It's not to retaliate. If someone chops or slashes me, I park it and refocus. The ultimate get-even is to put the puck in their net."
Cassie Campbell twice captained Team Canada to Olympic gold and then became a broadcaster for the NHL. I asked Cassie, an experienced player and someone who observes the game at the highest level, what she thought was the most important mental quality for a player to acquire. "I think it's the ability to park it. Not to let any of the many possible distractions affect your performance. That ability enables a player to stay focused and follow through on what is asked of him or her."
Parking requires both perspective and emotional control, qualities of mental toughness. Your ability to tune out a thought, change channels, and park it is a combination of your motivation and your ability to release, breathe, and refocus.
Ville Peltonen was an iconic Finnish hockey player who played in the NHL, in the KHL, and in the top leagues in Switzerland and Finland for a remarkable 23 seasons. I asked Ville, a four-time Olympian and frequent team captain, about the importance of having emotional control and the ability to use breathing, change channels, and not play too tight or too tense. "It is important to learn how to relax before you mentally prepare and get charged up for a big game. To do that you need those personal mental tools, and you need to have practiced them so that you know how to use them. I believe it is a skill just like skating or shooting. Except it is a skill that makes all the other skills even more efficient."
One of my favorite examples of mental discipline, and something I'm fond of telling young hockey players, is this: "When I walk through my neighborhood and my neighbor's dog barks, I don't bark back." I have said this dozens of times. Usually, most players smile and nod. They can appreciate that it's ridiculous to bark back at a barking dog.
On the ice, however, when someone on the other team barks at them, many players lose focus and almost reflexively bark back. My advice is don't go there. Ignore it. Park it. If you do notice the provocation, use it or it'll use you.
How can you use it? As always, change channels, take a breath, release (anger, tension, fear, or whatever), and focus instead on the positive, on what you want to do on the ice (your ABCs). Mental toughness is about maintaining that positive focus, no matter what.
Marg was a talented young center, a smart player who skated well and had good hands and a good shot. However, like many hockey players, she would think too much and about too many things when she was under pressure. Often her thinking was negative, focusing on things she did wrong. This focus caused her to become tense, slowed her reactions, and reduced her touch. The more Marg struggled, the more she worried and the more tense she became. She worried that she wasn't scoring, that if she didn't produce she would get less ice time. The more Marg worried, the less productive she became and the less ice time she saw. It was a vicious cycle.
The first step in helping Marg turn her game around was to teach her to release and breathe, to change channels, and park the nonsense. Because Marg tended to worry, I showed her how to use that worry as a reminder to take a breath and focus on positive feelings and positive plays. Gradually, Marg became better able to change her feelings and manage her mind. As she did, her performance improved dramatically.
Playing hockey tough is playing hockey smart. I have seen players do things, thinking they were being hockey tough and making a statement for the team or for pride, when in reality what they were doing was neither hockey tough nor hockey smart. A key to playing tough and smart is having focus and discipline. And emotional control and discipline go hand in hand.
Mark was a hard-working junior defenseman. Although he wasn't big, he was a fearless, physical player who would stand up to anyone to protect his teammates. The problem was that Mark didn't control his temper. In the second period of a close game, with his team leading 1-0, Mark was speared. He retaliated and was given a two-minute penalty. Not surprisingly, he was upset. Thirty seconds after Mark went to the penalty box, the other team scored a power-play goal. As Mark left the penalty box (still steaming), one of the opposing players skated by and said something to the effect that Mark was a dummy who'd just cost his team a goal. Mark snapped. He jumped the opponent and started throwing punches. When the smoke cleared, Mark was back in the penalty box all by himself with a two-minute penalty for instigating and a five-minute penalty for fighting. The complexion of the game shifted. Hockey tough means not allowing your emotions (right brain) to override your focus (left brain).
Being hockey tough means maintaining a team focus and discipline and doing what serves the team on and off the ice. Real toughness is not responding to every barking dog. It's having a clear focus and acting with purpose and intelligence. It's being in control in the face of challenge and adversity.
When confronted with negativity, frustration, or anger, remember to release, breathe, and refocus.
Change channels. Park it. Play hockey tough, and focus on hunting well.
Learn more about Hockey Tough.
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