Team Above Self

Everyone who has any real experience in the hockey world knows that a team cannot function well or win frequently if all the players are focused only on themselves and their best interests. Instead, a successful hockey team needs to have members who care about the group as a whole and who look out for one another’s best interests. Believe it or not, you can help to foster this atmosphere of teamwork and camaraderie. It doesn’t, as some believe, just happen or not happen. It is something you can and should work to build and grow among your players.  

Give Everyone a Respected Voice

First things first, a lot of coaches make the mistake of setting up a team atmosphere in which they do all the talking and the players do all the listening and obeying.

While is is true that all players need to listen to and respect their coach above all else, it’s also true that every player should have some kind of voice.

Coaches should make space, such as in team meetings, for each player who likes to bring up opinions or thoughts. It is the coach’s job to make sure each player is listened to with respect and care, no matter what he may say. The coach should also encourage those more quiet players to speak up.

When players see their coach listening to, valuing, and responding to each and every opinion, they quickly learn that each and every voice on the team matters. Thus, respect grows among the whole team, leading to a much more respectful, much more winning atmosphere on the whole.

Interaction is Key

Something else to remember among your hockey players is that bonds and true team spirit can’t form if some players on the team are seen and/or treated as “outliers.”

As a coach, it is your job to make sure every player interacts with every other player. Whether you do this by pairing people up for drills differently each time or putting every player in the game on a rotation, you want to encourage everyone to work together and to get to know and respect everyone else.

This way, the whole team can come together as one and put the team above the individual and even above the “end goal” of a win.

A Guide to Muscle Gain for Hockey Players

Many hockey players, including young ones, want desperately to build muscle. They know that more muscle equals more power and skill on the ice.

Unfortunately, gaining muscle is not as easy as you might think. Many young hockey players often find this out the hard way, spending hours in the gym but still not seeing the results that they want.

While the gym is an important part of building muscle, it’s not the only part- far from it. Building muscle requires a lot of effort and dedication. Fortunately, though, following a few simple tips can help immensely.

Eat More

First things first, muscle building requires calories and plenty of them.  

If you don’t eat enough calories, you’re constantly going to be losing weight, making it impossible to put on muscle.

If you eat just enough calories, you will stay at the same weight and will still find it difficult to put on muscle.

If you eat more than the calories your body needs and more than you burn off each day, however, you can start gaining weight, which you can then convert to muscle.

You can get a decent idea of how much you’ll need to eat to gain weight and muscle by multiplying your bodyweight by 18 and using the figure as your daily calorie intake. If that doesn’t work, try upping your multiplier to 20. There are also good calorie calculators online that can take your age, weight, height, and activity level and then figure out how much you’ll need to eat to lose, maintain, or gain weight.

However you figure it all out, the bottom line is that eating more calories than you need is necessary for muscle gain.

Train the Right Way

In addition to ensuring that you are eating enough to stimulate muscle gain, you’ll also need to make sure that you are working out frequently enough and in the right ways.

Practices and games are all well and good, but true muscle gain requires concentrated effort at the gym and, typically, a lot of weight lifting. Any good trainer can help set you up on a program to match your goals. Of course, you then have to stick to that program to see results.

As you can see, building muscle isn’t impossible. Sure, it’s challenging, but if you follow these tips, get plenty of rest, and take care of yourself, you should start seeing results before you know it.

Tips to Getting Your Young Athlete to Eat Healthier

All kids should be eating healthily, but this especially applies to young hockey players. These kids are athletes, which means they work their little bodies hard and need the right fuel to keep them going and healthy. That means that parents should ditch the fast food and the easy, ready-made meals in favor of healthier fare.   

While eating healthily can seem difficult, especially if you lead the busy lifestyle of the typical “hockey family,” it’s definitely worthwhile. Making nutritious meals for the whole family can be a way to get everybody healthy, including parents and siblings of the family athlete. Plus, if you prep and eat meals together, it’s a great way to bond and to stay in the loop with what’s going on with your kid.

Committing to healthier eating doesn’t have to mean doing anything drastic either. No you, your family, and the athlete in your life can get the benefits of healthy eating just by making a few simple changes.

Keep Junk Food Out of the House

To start with, make an effort to keep junk food, like chips and candy, out of the house. You’ll be surprised at just how true the old adage, “out of sight, out of mind” is. If you have junk foods easily accessible in the home, your kids (and you!) are likely to reach for those foods first.

If you stock your fridge with fruits, veggies, and healthy snacks and meals, however, that is what you’re more likely to reach for and to eat. So, as a family, do a “junk food sweep,” collecting junk food from around the home and getting rid of it. Then, make a pledge not to bring any unhealthy foods into the home.

That doesn’t mean you can never have a treat, but it does mean that you should reserve such foods for special occasions and make healthier options your main “go to” foods.

Add Fruits and Vegetables to Every Meal

Another easy way to eat healthier is to make sure that every meal contains at least one serving of fruit and another of vegetables. This is easier than you might think too.

At breakfast, pair your eggs with a few sliced tomatoes and some diced onions. At lunch, enjoy a sandwich topped with avocado and a side of carrot sticks. For dinner, have some broiled chicken with broccoli on the side and fresh strawberries for dessert.

The possibilities are really endless, and when you fill your diet with healthy, low calorie fruits and vegetables, everyone is bound to start feeling better, and healthy eating will become second nature before you know it.

Play Up the Benefits

Finally, remember that your kids are smart enough to understand the benefits of a healthy diet. If they grumble or complain about what you’re serving, tell them plainly and honestly about the benefits of a healthy diet.

Make sure your young athlete knows that it will make him more powerful on the ice, and that alone should be enough to get him eating his veggies.

Remember, healthy eating isn’t hard; it’s just a matter of getting everyone in the family onboard and committing as a family unit to a more nutritious diet and a healthier lifestyle.

Related articles

• Ten Easy Tips To Live By (anapr.com)

Multi Sport Participation Leads to Cross Training

You probably know that many of today’s top athletes are true definitions of the word athleticism, and many of them are multi-sport athletes. Serious athletes aim to possess speed, agility, and strength all wrapped up in one package. The best way for them to build these qualities is through participating in practices and training that combine all three of these skills and continually work on them equally; it’s not enough to have just one or even two. It’s only when these three skills come together that a truly skilled athlete is born.   

In addition to specially designed practices and training, young athletes are encouraged to play a range of other dynamic sports. Not only will this be fun for them, but it will also help to prevent burnout and, most importantly of all, help in fostering these skills. Good dynamic sports for young hockey players to try include:

l  Tennis

l  Basketball

l  Soccer

l  Lacrosse

l  Football

Young players who follow multi-sport athletes lead will also find that they have better motor skills, which will help in stick handling, and improved reactivity, according to studies. The promise of these skills should be enough to encourage any young athlete to play multiple sports. 

Related articles

• New Website http://www.LockerRoomTalk.com Compiles College Coach Ratings and Reviews; Locker Room Talk : The Way for Student-Athletes to Recruit Their Coaches (onenewspage.us)

The Long Term Athlete Development Model

There are two types of youth hockey players: kids who truly love and are passionate about the game and kids who are just playing it for fun or maybe because they’re being forced to. It’s the kids in that first group- the ones who love the sport with all they’ve got- who are often the most gifted and the most in need of nurturing. These are the kids who will pick up a stick and pull on their skates anytime they have a spare minute, the kids who get together with their friends for a game of pick-up hockey, and who work on perfecting skills long after practice has ended for everyone else.

  While all kids can benefit from specialized coaching, it’s especially important for these passionate young players. The right coaching at the right time can ensure that they never lose that drive or that thirst for hockey that they currently possess. Experts in the sports education field believe that, for training to be as effective as possible, it has to be delivered at a calculated, gradual pace.

That’s why many coaches stand by and use the Long-Term Athlete Development Model, a training model that incorporates specific training, intensity, and competition goals and lessons to be delivered at set times. The model consists of seven stages, all designed to help youth athletes gain the skills and knowledge they need in a steady, controlled way to have maximum long-term benefits for them.

The first stage of the model is known as “Active Start” and is for children up to age six. This stage, along with stage 2- “FUNdamentals” and stage 3- “Learn to Train,” is all about helping players to begin building physical and mental skills necessary for being a success at the sport of their choice. The next three stages, which start for girls who are 11 and boys who are 12, are all about real training and picking a sport specialization. Winning is not focused on until near the end of the stages since the goal is to create good athletes, not necessarily ones who win all the time or who base their worth on the outcome of a competition. With that said, however, players who have successfully passed through all these stages are more likely to win more often than those who haven’t.

The seventh and final stage of the model is Stage 7- the “Active for Life” stage, which focuses on encouraging people of all ages to continue their involvement in sports. Whether professionally or just for fun, the idea is to keep people active and to have them continue enjoying sports and all that they can still stand to gain from being a part of them.

This model creates people who love their sports for life, so it’s a great strategy to use with all of your players, but especially those who already have that passion and special spark for the sport.

Related articles

• Making the Team with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (timesleader.com)