Congratulations to Team Ontario Red for winning the Under-18 National Championship trophy today in dramatic fashion with a double-overtime victory against Team Quebec! This was not only an extremely successful tournament for the Ontario teams ON the ice, but it was also our most successful championships OFF the ice as well.
If you want to have the same success both on and off the ice, you HAVE to use these 2 critical tips at every single game…
Not only did we win the National Championship ON the ice this week, but we also managed to get through the entire tournament without a single muscle pull, strain or sprain. That’s almost unheard off with 20 players playing their hardest at the highest level possible for 5 days straight. We managed to keep all our players at their best on the ice all week and to emerge from the tournament with a clean bill of health because of all of the work we did OFF the ice.
We did a 15 minute warm-up before every single game and a 10 minute cool-down afterwards. It’s hard to find the energy for a 15 minute warm-up when you’ve played 5 games in 5 nights and the 10 minute post-game recovery routine is always a tough sell, especially when 2 of those games go into double-overtime. But that’s the kind of commitment it takes to be the best.
As the tournament went on, I changed our warm-up and cool-down routines accordingly. While there is nothing wrong with always doing the same “song and dance” before and after each game, it is nice to be able to change it on the fly depending on the energy and enthusiasm levels of the players.
The off-ice warm-up we did on Day 1 looked very different from the one we did on Day 5 and the off-ice cool-down we did after our 1st double-overtime game was very different from the ones we did when we won in regulation time.
Making sure that you warm-up and cool-down before each and every game is one of the first steps is critical for performing your best. Modifying those pre-game and post-game routines according to your specific needs is how you take it to the next level.
How would you modify your warm-up routine during a busy tournament to make sure that you don’t get too tired before the big game but you are still prepared to play your best?
What would your cool-down routine look like after playing 3 hard periods as opposed to after playing a triple-overtime marathon?
Share your ideas below.
~ Coach Kim
I’m in a tournament right now and we felt that we were kinda tired/slow this afternoon so we did our regular warm up but at the end we did a couple of sprints which helped us get that energy level up, then we slowly jogged back into our dressing room. Our team is only just starting to cool down, we do a 5 minute jog, but we do dynamic stretching during our run, we’ll do a few lunges, jog for a bit, do some hamstring stretches, jog for a bit, etc.
After a game that went into double overtime I would make it a bit lighter the jog but for longer, instead of 10 maybe 15 minutes. Everyone will be extremely tired so just go a bit slower but go a bit longer.