The Unlikely Superstar

The Montreal Forum was empty. The custodial staff were beginning to sweep up.

Most everyone had left the 1984 NHL entry draft when one player heard his named called--9th round, 171st overall, the Los Angeles Kings choose Luc Robitaille. He walked down to the Kings table, after convincing security he really was a player that had just been drafted, where a Kings representative gave him a pin to wear---they were out of sweaters and caps.

Robitaille was considered to be a big long shot at ever making an NHL roster.


Scouts said he was slow, an average to poor skater.

And the The Hall of Fame? Laughable.

But there was one scout who believed in him. Literally one. Alex Smart saw Luc Robitaille's determination, his dedication to his craft, his work ethic, and went to bat with the Kings brass to give him a shot.

Robitaille was sent back to junior early in his first two training camps.

But he persevered.

Robitaille thanked Smart, who passed on a few years ago, in his recent Hockey Hall of Fame induction speech. It was the belief by one person that allowed Robitaille's singular belief in himself to take over and flourish.


Luc Robitaille played 19 seasons in the NHL, amassing 668 goals and 1,394 points, making him the highest scoring left winger in NHL history, and 20th overall scorer of all-time.


To be sure, there are similar stories about players who no one really believed in and who achieved great things, but very few who are Hall of Fame inductees. Luc Robitaille is a shining example of how will and determination can make the level of achievement one seeks limitless.

One man, who no one really believed in, stands in the Hall that only a small handful of players are privileged enough to be a part of, all because he thought he could, and someone else saw that in him.

Influence, Angle, Attack!

Influence: (noun). A power affecting a person, thing, or course of events.

What if you knew what your opponent was going to do before they did?

Players are often taught to 'read and react' to the play in an effort to dictate on the ice.

What about influencing the play to gain the upper hand on your opponent?

We use (or attempt to use) the power of influence every day.


When you describe how careful you'll be with the car if you're allowed to take it out on the weekend? That's Influence.

When you tell your folks that you'll do better on the next test and that there were distractions beyond your control before handing them the paper to sign? Influence.

When you list the top ten reasons why you should have an iPhone, number one being that you'll use it only for good, not evil?

Influence.

You're taking control of events so you can impact the outcome, usually in your favor.

Why not apply influence to your play on the ice?

When you influence you're in control, guiding the play or situation. When you react, someone else is in control, and you're basing your next move on how they've influenced you.

Note well: A big part of influencing the play in hockey is the use of proper angle and taking time and space away from the other player.

Here's a strategy that I've had success with. It's called I. A. A. (Influence, Angle, Attack) and it's a strategy you can use anywhere on the ice.


Influence: Instead of waiting for the other player to make a play, and then reacting, steer the opposing player to a general area of the ice that gives you an advantage. A good example of this is a D-man 'cheating' a step or two to the middle on a 1-on-1, giving the forward a feeling of being able to take the outside lane.

Angle: Once you've influenced the player to a certain area on the ice, you can then take the proper angle to make sure your opponent has nowhere to go and then begin to quickly take away their space (and time).

Attack: Close the gap on your angle until you body check, battle, and win the puck. For players in non-checking hockey it's taking their space or lane away. For those in checking hockey it's about a good old fashioned pasting, before you, or a teammate pick, up the puck.

5-Minute Major:

When you're sitting back, reading and reacting to the play all the time, the other team has the upper hand. Sometimes you have to, it can be the nature of the game at times. If you work on Influencing the play, you'll have the upper hand more often and you'll react less.

Here's a cool video about proper use of angles.

Note how Keith Acton (Former Assistant Coach-Toronto Maple Leafs and long-time NHLer) describes the importance of angling, 'taking the player where HE wants him to go' (Influence).

It's a movie....and you're the star.

Have you ever seen something happen in your mind before it happens for real?

As kids, many hockey players have imagined themselves scoring the winning OT goal in game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals.

The power of our mind is incredible and largely under-developed.

Last week's topic concerned positive self-talk and what you put into your mind concerning your ability and self-image. This week we look at visualization as a powerful tool to help in your hockey success.

NOTE WELL: It works.

With positive self-talk you lay the belief system that allows you to then visualize yourself being great, to see yourself in the moment, in the act of succeeding.

Scoring the OT goal
Making a big, game-changing hit.
Making a great save.
Making the right coaching decision.
Inspiring your players or teammates.


Here are some tips on how you can get good at visualization.

5-Minute Power-Play:

Before each game, find a quiet area and close our eyes. Visualize yourself succeeding, making the right play. It could be as simple as an outlet pass, or some other basic play that happens a bunch of times throughout the game, or a single important, game-changing play. It's up to you.

Keep your eyes closed until you see the action play like a movie in your head. Don't stop until you're able to focus enough to see it clearly, over and over. Remember, it's a movie and you're the star.

Don't just think the outcome, feel the outcome. Don't just see yourself carrying the trophy or being mobbed by teammates after scoring the game winning goal, connect with the emotion that goes with it (like that it feels incredible!)


2-Minute Power-Play:

Ensure that you view the movie through your own eyes, not as a third party. This makes the visualization more powerful and easier to feel what it will be like to accomplish your goals.

Add music to help bring the emotion into the mix.

2-Minute Minor:

Distractions will make it much tougher to focus . Do your best to find a quiet place to visualize your success. Being around teammates who might try and distract you won't help you develop your visualization skills. This can make visualizing right before the game, on your way to the rink, or even at home, some of the best times to practice.


Penalty-Kill:

Like any skill visualization takes practice. Some people may look at you kinda funny too! Make an effort to incorporate this into anything and everything you do, then watch the results. It will only take one time for you to see your movie played out to it's successful result on the ice , for real, to make you a believer.

What are you telling yourself?

A colleague of mine gave a great speech recently. The subject? Whatever you put after "I am" you become. Whatever you believe will happen, will probably happen.

In short, it was about self-talk.

Self-talk seems a little crazy to some.

You want me to talk ...... to myself? Yes. But before you call for the guys in the white coats, note well: we do it all the time.

As people we are constantly talking to ourselves. It may not be out loud (that's when the dudes in the white coats appear), but we're telling ourselves all kinds of things, usually about how we view our own ability to achieve a goal, overcome an

obstacle, about our self-worth, or intelligence.

You know the old saying: garbage in, garbage out.

For athletes, players and coaches, self-talk is critical to their success. And not just any self-talk, but positive self-talk

We live in a world that leans towards the negative. Turn on the local or national news and you know what I mean. It's 90% negative, followed up by a story about a rescued cat so the newscast doesn't sound all bad.

Then there's the pressure of fitting in. Walking, talking, and dressing like everyone else, listening to the same music on the latest gadget as everyone else.

It can sometimes be hard to rise above a lot of the negative energy and peer-pressure.


2-Minute Power-Play:

There is a solution. Hint: it's fixed to your neck.

Talk to any high performance athlete and they'll tell you most of their success comes not from their physical training or natural ability but from their mental ability to stay focused, to have strong self-belief, which ensures they'll use their physical skills or gifts to the fullest.

Think Martin Brodeur
Think Roger Federer
Think Alex Ovechkin

It starts with you.
It starts with your HEAD.
It starts with what you tell yourself about YOU

5-Minute Power Play:

Tell yourself you're the greatest.

the greatest coach
the greatest player
the greatest goalie
the greatest finisher
the greatest hockey parent (or parent for that matter!)
You're unstoppable.

Good things will happen, guaranteed. And it's not reserved for NHL players. It works for anyone.

I've written about communication being a skill that is just as important as stick handling, shooting, skating, or passing. Your mental skills are equally important. Without strong self-belief, none of those other skills are allowed to work at top level.


5-Minute Major:

Stay away from negative situations or negative people.

Negative people always find fault first in anything, or with anyone.
Negative people always gripe.
Negative people are always 'meddling'.
Negative people are always quick to ridicule your ideas --mostly because they don't have any cool ideas of their own.
Negative people usually get left behind, no matter how good they are.


Penalty-Kill:

The easy path is to let yourself fall into the negative world that bombards us all day. Make it a point to surround yourself with positive people. Insist on it. Positive energy and positive self-talk gives you energy to understand what the path to success looks like, whatever the task is.

Put good stuff in your mind everyday and you're sure to achieve things you never really thought possible before, but were always capable of.

Do you respond, or react?

How we respond to events is more important than the event itself.

Watching tennis matches at the U.S. Open recently reminded me of this important lesson.

I watched player after player in this year's U.S. Open in crucial Quarter-final, Semi-final, and Final matches, regularly smash or bang their racquets in frustration.

In a funny coincidence every player that lost their composure lost their match. Coincidence? No way. Those players reacted instead of responding. They let negative energy and thoughts into their minds and it cost them, not just in their results on the court but in the court of public and professional opinion.

The greats like Roger Federer, Wayne Gretzky, or Sidney Crosby find ways of responding instead of reacting.

In hockey we often like to blame referees for their poor calls, shifting blame for a loss to the guys in stripes. Coaches regularly fly off the handle and vomit various versions of the 'blame game' towards referees. Parents too. This flows down to the players. Players see coaches getting upset, they get upset.

2-Minute Power Play:

When you respond, you allow yourself to focus on the solution.

Your whole stance and approach to adversity is different. It becomes about overcoming the obstacle instead of reacting to it. Reacting robs you of the energy and focus needed to overcome it. Make adversity a time for you and your team to prove yourselves, no matter whether it's a minor or major penalty or a blown call.


2-Minute Minor:

No one is out to 'get' you, coach or player, so you can forget about a ref trying to 'do you in' with bad call after bad call. If a referee is erring towards giving you or your team less leeway it could very likely be a result of how you've reacted to their legitimate calls in the past.

5-Minute Major:

Your reputation as a parent, player, or coach is on the line every time a situation arises where you have the choice to react or respond. If you lose control, others around you are sure to follow suit-- whether you're a coach, player, or parent. People notice. Believe it.

Penalty Kill:

As a coach, make it a rule not to talk to referees unless it's between periods, where you can discuss any issues calmly and in a more private setting--away from your players.

Also make it a rule that no player is to say anything to the refs. Follow through on disciplining players who do.



As a new season dawns for those of us in the hockey world, let's remind ourselves as players, parents, and coaches about the importance of focusing on what you can control--your attitude and the way you respond to events. Focus on the solution, get your teammates, yourself, or your players to respond, not react, to adversity.

Quote of The Week: To respond is positive, to react is negative
-Zig Ziglar

Dedication

This Week's Tip:

Dedication

Not really a 'tip' as much as a philosophy. How dedicated are you to your goals, hockey or otherwise? Do you know what your goals are? (Clue: write them down. Once they're on paper you can read them everyday to reinforce what you're going after). How much 'extra' are you doing? Are you going through the motions or working as hard as you can, then doing a little bit more? Be honest with yourself.

Check out Sam Gagner-Edmonton Oilers star of the future (Clip 1) and Mike Komisarek-Montreal Canadiens star D man (Clip 2) and see how hard they work to prepare in the off season for their next 82-plus game campaign.







Here are 3 'extra things you can do to help your performance:

1. Every night before you go to bed and twice during each day, close your eyes and picture yourself making the right play--scoring a big goal, making a great pass or hit, or a great save. This is known as visualization (note well: it works for stuff other than hockey)

2. Make it a goal to identify 2 aspects of our game to improve then figure out one thing you can do each day to improve those aspects (ie: improve your shot by making sure your shoot 50-100 pucks a day against the wall up at the local school yard, or do 100 squat jumps to improve leg strength--these don't take a lot of time but done every day for 20-30 minutes you're sure to improve.)

3. Take going to lessons and camps as a STARTING point for your training, the place where you learn the skills. Then do EXTRA outside of camp based on what you learned. The camps end at some point. Your training and dedication shouldn't end when the camp does.

Note well: If you're not doing the extra, someone else is. And that someone may come along and take your spot on a team that you think you've got all sewn up. Coaches can tell who's put in the work and who hasn't.


Quote of the Week:

"When a fear presents itself, that's the time to move into that fear. In taking on that fear, confronting it, there's going to be some kind of positive breakthrough and growth. The phrase 'That wasn't as bad as I thought it would be' usually follows!"

-Stew Carson

Shoot to Score!

This Week's Tip

Shooting:

Wendel Clark (THIS guy again?) talks about the advantage of seeing through the eyes of the puck. Start the video at 6:29 (or watch the other tutorials if you like!) and see the advantage you get by shooting based on what the puck sees, not what you see. Your head and body are in a different position, and the puck is actually better suited to 'seeing' more options than your eyes alone can. Wendel talks about this aspect in reference to breakaways but it's a great general shooting tip and the point of emphasis for this week's tip.

If you can master this technique you'll dramatically increase your chances of 'bulging the twine, "lighting the lamp" , beating the "Deans of the Disc Domicile" or the "Purveyors of the Puck Pagoda" I've always wanted to find a place to write those.......




This Week's Quotes:

"To RESPOND is positive, to REACT is negative"
-Zig Ziglar

"No person fails who tries their best"
-Orison Marsden, American writer and founder of Success Magazine

A Tip About....Tip-In's

Tip Of The Week

The Tip-In:

There are a number of different types of tip-in techniques. For those of you at Friday's lesson we focused on the stationary forehand/backhand tip-in technique. Check out the Hockey Canada video below to see other types of tip-in technique. These will be covered in subsequent lessons.

Like any other skill, this takes practice and requires good eye-hand coordination (something you can practice as well). Most goals are not scored from the top of the circle, 'top shelf' (where most players LIKE to score because it looks cool and is dramatic) but from the front of the net, 1-3 feet in front of the goalie in either a mad scramble, on a rebound, or from...you guessed it.....a TIP IN. Hence why the tip in is a critical skill if you want to score goals!

Enjoy.




Quote Of The Week:

"People think I'm disciplined. It is not discipline. It is devotion. There is a great difference."

-Luciano Pavarotti, opera singer 1935-2007.

Body Position and Use of Stick When Defending

Tip Of The Week:

Body Position and Use of Stick When Defending

This is somewhat similar to last week's IAA (Influence, Angle, Attack) See if you can pick out the IAA phases in this video. These terms are used in the video but the concept is the same. Note Well: Coach Keith Acton (Leafs) talks about his stick position in addition to his body position, critical stuff. Also, this is not just a skill for Defenseman to acquire and work at but for ALL players. Forwards can use the IAA and stick position when angling and checking in the neutral, offensive, OR defensive zone.




Quote of the Week:

Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.

– Earl Nightingale