Earlier this week, my girls hockey players were working on full-ice 1v1 drills and I had to admit I was frustrated at their lack of gap control. To be fair, one of the hardest things for all hockey players to do (especially defensemen) is to keep a tight gap in a one-on-one open-ice situation. It takes great timing, quick feet and guts to get a tight gap and keep it when just a little mistake could result in a breakaway.

It’s just so much easier to keep a larger gap. But then you are giving the offensive player complete control of the play. Although playing defense is a much more reactive position than playing forward, girls hockey defensemen tend to be far too passive through the neutral zone and into the defensive zone.

So how do you get better at gap control?

You have to be willing to fail.

Get over the fear of getting beat.

When I first moved out to Calgary, I was playing defense against some of the best women’s hockey players in the world - Wickenheiser, Goyette, Campbell. I was scared that they were going to make me look ridiculous in the 1v1 full-ice drills - and to be honest, they did. For the first few weeks of practice, I looked like a human turnstile. I was really trying to tighten the gap because I knew that was what I had to do as a defenseman to stand-out and show that I could play with the best in the world. I had to put my ego aside and allow myself to learn from my mistakes. By the second month of the season, I was still losing some 1v1 battles, but not nearly as often as I was in the beginning.

You have to be willing to get beat one-on-one 9 times out of 10, and realize that the one time you didn’t get beat because of your tight gap is the true confidence builder. Every time you lose the battle, you learn what to change for the next battle. You have to be willing to get outside of the your comfort zone and do what other players aren’t willing to do.

Most girls hockey players just play with the big (safe) gap and never try to tighten it up. They just play passive defense, backing in on their own goalie and giving control to the attacking players.

If you want to be like everyone else, do whatever everyone else does.

If you want to be different, you have to be willing to step outside your comfort zone.

If you want to make significant improvements, you have to be willing to fail.

Those short-term failures will lead to your long-term success.

Work Hard, Dream BIG.

Your friend and coach,

~ Kim

Today is a great day for elite women’s hockey in North America. I am in Kingston, Ontario, watching the superstars from the Canadian Women’s Hockey League and the Western Women’s Hockey League battle it for the title of the best women’s hockey team in North America. The rosters of the 4 teams that are here are jam-packed full of past, present and future Olympians, and players representing nearly all of the major college and university teams you can name. All of these women are extremely successful hockey players — so how did they get here?…

…By making their strengths stronger.

What are your three biggest strengths as a player? What can you do to make them even better?

Aspiring girls hockey players sometimes spend too much time focusing on improving their weaknesses, instead of on strengthening their strengths. If you are already the best forechecker on your team, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t work at becoming even better. What if you become the best forechecker in your league? Or in the world?

Back when I was playing at an elite level, these were my 3 biggest strengths:

1) My ability to forecheck

2) My physical strength

3) My ability to be in the right place at the right time

Sure, I could have just stayed “good” at these 3 areas of my game and focused my energy on some other skills I wasn’t so great at. For example, I never had the fanciest moves in the world - I could have spent hours and hours trying to be a pretty good stickhandler or I could focus my efforts on being the strongest player on the ice. I was never known as a player with the fanciest moves around and no one would have expected that from me. They did expect me to win all the battles in the corner, in front of the net and along the boards though.

It just made sense for me to make my strengths stronger instead of making my weaknesses a little better.

Now don’t get me wrong - if there was a skill that I couldn’t do at all, then I would have worked hard to make it competent. For example, when I first started playing women’s college hockey, I had no wrist shot whatsoever. I was always a defenseman as a kid, so I spent the majority of my time working on my slap-shot instead. But as soon as I was moved up front, I knew that I would have to develop a quicker release and a powerful wrist shot in order to be effective. So I spent a lot of time working on my technique to get the wrist shot up to a respectable level. I was never going to have the best wrist shot in the world, but I didn’t want it to be an embarrassment either.

Now that we are heading into the off-season, you have the opportunity to develop some of your weaknesses and really strengthen your strengths. My physical strength was always a huge asset for me on the ice, so I spent a lot of time in the summer working hard in my off-ice training to become the strongest player possible. For me, the road to success was always paved right through the weight room. Ten years ago, when I first went to college to play women’s hockey, my dedication to off-ice training really gave me a huge advantage over my competition. Nowadays, it is an absolute requirement. You can’t get to the elite levels of women’s hockey without working as hard off the ice as you do on the ice.

What 3 strengths are you going to make even stronger this off-season?

Work Hard. Dream BIG. Get Stronger.

~ Coach Kim

PS - My brand-new site just went live today. Check it out here: Total Female Hockey TRAINING.

Girls and women’s hockey teams across North America are getting ready for their biggest games of the season in the next few weeks. My former college team, Dartmouth, is taking on the #1 team in women’s college hockey tomorrow in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Anyone that tells you to approach the biggest game of the season as “just another game” is absolutely full of it. So how do you get ready to beat the best team in female hockey?
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I am just in the middle of re-reading one of the books I used throughout my entire career to keep me focused and motivated as I worked towards achieving my goals on and off the ice. It is called, “In Pursuit of Excellence”, and it has one story in particular that I wanted to share with you that really helped me to understand the importance of having a laser-like focus in order to reach your goal of becoming an elite womens’ hockey player.
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I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to go on another rant today. But yesterday’s post about girls hockey coaches reminded me of another small pet peeve of mine when it comes to coaches and parents asking for advice on how to get their young female hockey players focused for the big playoff game.
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Hockey playoffs get underway in the next week or so for most girls hockey teams. Playoff time brings a mix of nerves and excitement that can be enough to get any player stressed out. In order to perform your best throughout the playoff run, you need to have strategies in place that help you to get focused, stay focused and re-focus. Maintaining the right level and kind of focus can be really tough during the playoffs. Here are a few key tips to keep you focused this post-season…
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Have we lost focus on what hockey is all about for 99.9% of players? Check out this video and you be the judge.

Young hockey players don’t have million dollar contracts in hand and shouldn’t be subjected to all the pressure and politics that come with being paid to play.

Please share this video with anyone you think might have forgotten what hockey is all about for 99.9% of the population.

It doesn’t matter if you are involved in boys hockey or girls hockey, the message is the same:

Work Hard. Dream BIG. Have FUN.

~ Coach Kim

Mark Johnson’s Wisconsin Badgers women’s hockey team has been one of the best teams in US college hockey for years (winning the national championship in 2006 and 2007). I had the pleasure of watching the team play two weeks ago in Duluth, and they were just plain impressive. When asked what his key to the incredible success his program has had in the seven years he has been coaching at Wisconsin, here’s what he said…
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I’m back in Minnesota for the second time in a week - they love their girls hockey here as much as we do in Toronto. Tomorrow I am going to be doing seminars and watching some great hockey between the US women’s national team and the Minnesota Whitecaps of the Western Women’s Hockey League. The US national team trains at a facility outside of Minneapolis that was created as a result of the vision of one of hockey’s greatest coaches, Herb Brooks. Coach Brooks is the one whose story is told in the movie “Miracle”. And although I love that movie, I know for certain that it was no “miracle on ice”.
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When I was an aspiring girls hockey player, I set two HUGE goals of playing college hockey and making the national team. Pretty big stuff for someone who had only been playing hockey for two years! And even though I worked so hard every single day to achieve those goals, I was missing one critical thing that would have made it all so much easier.
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