Are You Committed?

Some interesting numbers showing just how willing and committed you must be to play NCAA Hockey.

There are approximately 28,000 high school senior aged or older players registered with USA Hockey or playing Jr. Hockey in the United States.

There are 59 D1 Teams.

There are 79 D3 Teams.

Each team brings in an average of 6 new players each season and about half of those are from the United States. That means that only about 408 of the 28,000 players will get a chance to play in college.

That represents about 1.5% of the players……

For Division 1 that represents about .6% of players.

How committed are you and what are you doing special to be in the top ½%  ???????

Remember those numbers when you are training this summer.

5 C's To Build A Great Team

5 C's to Build a Great Team

1. Communicate - Most teams, including teams at home, break down because of poor communication. Where there is a void in communication negativity fills it. Frequent and positive communication fills the void and begins the process of building trust. You can’t have a great team without strong relationships and you can’t have strong relationships without great communication and trust. Leaders must communicate with team members individually and collectively as a team and team members must enhance their communication with each other.

2. Connect - While communicating begins the process of building trust, connecting is what creates a bond of trust. Many teams communicate but the great ones also connect. They form bonds of trust that strengthen relationships and the team. They go deeper, below the surface level of communication, and communicate and connect in a more intimate and powerful way. Getting to know your team members, being vulnerable, sharing experiences together, facing challenges together, and working on projects together are a few ways to connect.

3. Commitment - Without communication, connection and commitment your team will not perform at a high level. Communication and connection build the trust that generates the commitment that fosters the teamwork that delivers results. Great teams are not only committed to doing great work. They are also committed to each other. They put the team first and are willing to serve and sacrifice for the benefit of the team.

4. Care - When you care you give a little more time, a little more effort, a little more energy, and a little more love to the things and the people you care about. You may be a good team but to be a great team I encourage you to care just a little more. Care about the work you do and how it contributes to the team. Care about the people you work with. Care about the mission of your team. Those who care build great things that others care about. 

5. Contagious Energy - Of course I’m talking about contagious positive energy. Great teams are filled with positive energy and it’s important for each person on the team to know that they are contagious. If you’re moody your negative energy is contagious and makes it hard for others to trust and feel comfortable around you. If you are positively contagious you make everyone around you better. There’s no "i" in team but there are two "i" in positive. This means "I" must be positive to be my best and "I" must be positive to help my team be our best. As a team member you can be a germ or a big dose of vitamin C to your team. Choose to be positively contagious.
by Jon Gordon

Yes, Hockey Did Win

One of the fun parts about writing is going back in time and looking at some of the things you wrote about. Some things you wrote about in the past just don't seem relevant at all. Then there are things that stand the test of time and seem to make even more sense today.
In early November I wrote a post titled ,"Yesterday, Hockey Won". 
http://hockeysummit.blogspot.com/2013/11/yesterday-hockey-won.html
A lot of people seemed to like it at the time and I received some really nice feedback on it. 
This entry is to follow up on that piece and I am happy to declare that yes, hockey did win.

In November of this past season, the team I have helped coach this season, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Knights u18s played team Comcast who had tragically lost a teammate just days earlier.  As I chronicled in the earlier blog post, I was amazed at the resiliency of Team Comcast as they valiantly battled and lost a heart breaking game to our team 5-4.  Obviously the results of that game were not important compared to what they were dealing with as individuals and a team mourning the loss of a close teammate. In my opinion hockey did win that day and gave the boys a platform to come together and try to begin a long hard healing process.
So how does that story relate to today?

Fast forward to this past weekend. The same two teams were locked in a tie for points and playing a deciding game in Wilkes Barre with a winner to go on to playoffs and a loser eliminated from the post season. The entire season came down to one game.
The coaching staff, parents and players from Team Comcast obviously had done a remarkable job pulling together and playing hard all season long to give themselves a chance to be in that position and continue their season. 
As the game was about to start and intensity filled the arena, I remember looking down at their goal and watching their team all kneel down in a circle with their heads down. I am sure it was to acknowledge their lost teammate. I felt myself get lost for a second in that moment. I forgot we were about to play a game. I found myself thinking of all they had been through. Thinking of those boys becoming young men and somehow learning to deal and cope with what they had gone through. Wondering how they got through it. 
Then the puck dropped.......
The game went on. Life went on.
In that earlier blog post I wrote about the healing properties that I believe exist in hockey. Never was my belief so validated than on Saturday. Team Comcast came into our team's building and managed to win the must win game 3-0. They played hard. They played smart. They played together. They deserved to win. 
Now of course I was upset for our guys. They played hard all season and wanted to win desperately. I wanted to win desperately. That is what players and coaches are supposed to do. 
But after the sting of losing wore off and I was driving home it hit me......
Maybe we all won. 
Certainly Team Comcast did. They accomplished a great deal. Those young men should be very proud of sticking together and doing what they had to after their loss of a loved one. A pain like that will never go away completely, but they played the next game. And then the next one. And then the next one.....
But I was thinking of our team too. I was looking for a positive from being eliminated the way we were and what I came up with was this; 
I hope our team learned a lesson that they can take with them the rest of their lives from our opponent this weekend.  Not just a hockey lesson, a life lesson. 
The lesson being that in life bad things can and do happen. Sometimes very tragic things. But you can't quit. You can get through things with friends, with loved ones, with family.......with teammates. No matter what comes your way stick together. 
You can be ready for the next puck to drop.....That is what I hope our guys learned.
If they did, maybe our team won too....