At this point in the season, it’s easy for girls hockey players to get wrapped up in all the distractions and stress of the playoffs and forget about the BIG picture. You want to go as far as possible this post-season, but you also need to think long-term if you want to become an elite female hockey player.Here are 7 tips for writing your own girls hockey success story this post-season and beyond.
1) Be Willing To Do More
In order to set yourself apart from all the players you compete against, you need to be willing to do more. More off-ice training, more stretching, more mental preparation. Your willingness to do more is critical to getting to the next level.
2) But Also Listen To Your Body
Doing more is important, but not at the expense of your health. It is easy to think of muscle soreness, minor injuries and fatigue as “a part of the game”. But if you don’t take care of these minor issues when they are still manageable, they can become BIG problems quickly.
3) Prepare Yourself For What You Are Doing Next
This is critical to do on both a physical and mental level. Eat for what you are doing next. Mentally prepare yourself for every practice and game. Stretch before going to bed so that your muscles can relax and recover for the next day of activity.
4) Always Have A Goal
In order to become an elite female hockey player, you need to have BIG goals. If you are like most girls hockey players, you want to play college hockey and go to the Olympics. Those are both great goals to have, but you need to have smaller yearly, monthly, weekly and daily goals in mind that are going to help you get there. Those smaller goals give you an action plan for your ultimate goals on the rink.
5) Stay Positive
This can be really hard to do during the playoffs especially if your team isn’t performing as well as you’d like to or if you aren’t playing as much as you’d like to. But I want you to think about the bigger picture. Keep words like “can’t” out of your vocabulary. Just because you haven’t done it yet, doesn’t mean it is impossible. Think back to when you first starting learning how to do a wrist shot. Remember how hard it was to raise the puck of the ice. What would have happened if you believed that you would never get the puck in the air? What if you had given up because it was “too hard”. You might not have been able to do it then, but you can do it now. Any goal you set for yourself is going to take time and hard work. Staying positive will make get there that much easier.
6) Make Everyone Around You Better
The idea of working as hard as I could to make my teammates better completely transformed the way I played the game. When I finally stopped obsessing about my own game and thinking about ways that I could help them to improve and stand out, we all got a lot better. Bottom line: the more successful your team is, the more successful you will be.
7) Say Thank You
This is the simplest piece of advice that I could ever give you about becoming a better hockey player and a better person. Always say “Thank You”. As a coach, I really do appreciate it when a player takes the time to say thank you after a practice or training session. It may not seem like a lot to the player at the time, but it means a lot to the parents, coaches and volunteers that are all a key part of your girls hockey success story. Thank the person who drives you to practice at 6am. Thank the person who volunteers their time to coach your team. Thank the trainer who fills the water bottles. They are all doing this to help you become a best player and the very least you can do is thank them for your time. Trust me, it will make their day.
There you have it - 7 tips to writing your own girls hockey success story.
Share your success story from this week in the comment section below. And get ready to set your goals for the week and the action steps that are going to help you get there.
Work Hard. Dream BIG.
~ Coach Kim
