Upon seeing this newsletter in your inbox, I’m sure some of you might be thinking, “Oh yeah, I remember this guy and his writing”, at least I hope I’ve left that type of an impression with folks. Trust me when I say, I do feel shame in not posting anything lately (or say… 5 months) and do miss being able to throw my thoughts and such on a screen and have people read, discuss or delete them.
I know the last time I posted, I gave one reason why I wasn’t posting as much: I was rather quite busy. This was true as outside of my full-time job and coaching, as I had mentioned in my previous email, myself and Andrew Trimble of
had started our own Podcast, called The Hockey Toolkit. You can find us on pretty much all podcasting services.Another reason, one that I wasn’t as open about at the time, and now am ready to admit, was that I was completely burnt out and dejected from this past season coaching 16U.
I plan on sharing a lot of what happened and what I learned over the course of almost 7 months, but I will be completely open and honest here…
I wasn’t having a lot of fun.
That is not a slight to the players, my assistant, or the club I was working for. This was that this entire previous season felt like an uphill battle and it was extremely draining mentally. We played league games where we were completely out of our depth and had hit the running clock differential by the end of the 1st period, yet we couldn’t get that running clock as we had to go another full period. We were 2-28 through the season, with a -125 gf/ga differential. Our last win I wasn’t even able to make it, and that was the last weekend of November, a Saturday evening.
Some coaches would have just blamed the kids, the league, or the club the entire season. Don’t get me wrong I can’t say I didn’t assign blame to the above at times. It would be very easy for others to have mailed it in and just tried to get to the finish line. I’m not that person though. Due to the unfortunate (or sometimes fortunate) high level of pressure, one that I put on myself to do the best job possible, I blamed myself.
Showing up to the rink for a 90-minute ice slot, late in the evenings during the dead of winter, frustrated, trying to run the most efficient and effective practice possible, and then leaving the rink even more frustrated takes a toll on one’s psyche.
I kept showing up, with the best intentions and hopes that “maybe this is the time that this concept sticks” or “maybe this is where things change because of ‘X,Y and Z’” and that balloon of optimism would at some point pop and it would end up being me; driving home, listening to depressing Rock on the radio, replaying what went wrong or what I wasn’t doing right to get things to click.
Does this story finish with a happy ending? Does the Coach eventually figure out the missing piece to the puzzle and things turn around?
Negative. Nope. Nada.
But, after a few weeks off and talking with numerous mentors, colleagues, players, and their parents, I found some solace in knowing that at the end of the day, I did the best that I could under the circumstances.
That showing up and caring, was more than enough…
I look forward to writing more frequently as I am in a better place with hockey than I was 5 months back. I’ve been able to reflect and can’t wait to share what I’ve learned and am still learning. Hopefully, you will enjoy it too.