Tuesday, September 28, 2010

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Bolton Pouliot Has Turned Heads And Is Challenging For A Spot

Bolton is a great kid who works extremely hard. Bolton came to me at the start of this summer. Pleasure working with him

Ahead of his time

Bolton Pouliot

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By Greg Meachem

Published: September 10, 2010 6:45 AM
Updated: September 10, 2010 9:55 AM

Bolton Pouliot wasn’t shooting for the stars when he checked into the Red Deer Rebels training camp as a raw rookie.
Flash forward two weeks and the Rebels coaching staff is hoping that they have a future Western Hockey League star in the Calgary product.
The 16-year-old goaltender basically secured the full-time back-up berth with his play through camp and the Black and White intrasquad game and looked stellar while blocking pucks through the second half of Wednesday’s preseason-opening 3-0 win over the Calgary Hitmen at Airdrie.
Pouliot, one of three goalies — 20-year-olds Darcy Kuemper and Kraymer Barnstable being the others — remaining on the Rebels roster, admitted Thursday that he didn’t expect to be at this point so soon.
“My goal this fall was just to make the Black and White game. I didn’t plan on signing or playing exhibition games,” he said. “My goal was to get as far as the Black and White game and anything else would be just extra.
“I have a lot of work to do from here and as long as I keep pushing I think I have a chance to stay. I have to keep developing and learning from the other guys.”
Pouliot stopped all 18 shots he faced Wednesday and appeared calm, cool and collected in the process.
“It was very nerve-wracking just getting in there, but eventually I kind of calmed down. I made that first save and everything kind of played out from there,” he said.
The fact that Pouliot was able to maintain his composure in his first-ever WHL contest was a testament to the training he received at the Goalie Development Institute in Calgary during the summer.
“I worked with a mental trainer, Shaun Smith, at GDI,” said the six-foot-one netminder.
“We worked on making sure I don’t get too up or down. Shaun really stressed the importance of staying level-headed and he probably helped me get this far.”
Pouliot, selected in the seventh round of the 2009 WHL bantam draft, enjoyed a strong season with the minor midget AAA Calgary Royals last winter and didn’t disappoint the Rebels scouts who caught him in action.
“Our scouts told us that he’d push for a spot here this year,” said Rebels head coach/vice-president of hockey operations Jesse Wallin.
“Until you see him yourself, it’s really hard to tell, but he certainly had a very good training camp and last night the screws tightened up a bit. He moved up to the next step, the preseason, and I thought he handled that really well. We’ll see he continues to progress.”
Wallin is confident that Pouliot has all the tools to progress into a capable and perhaps superior WHL goaltender.
“He’s got a lot of qualities that we like,” said Wallin. “(Rebels goalie coach) Brent Belecki has been very impressed with him in training camp and Bolton is a very mature young man, he carries himself very well. I think you can see that in his play. He plays with a lot of poise, a lot of confidence. He’s big and strong and moves well for a young guy.
“The biggest thing is he’s a leader and he competes. Through the rookie camp and into main camp you could hear him taking charge on the ice, you could hear him talking to his defencemen. He’s a take-charge kid and a real competitor. Every day he’s been on the ice he’s worked hard to get better. He’s eager, he’s keen, and when you have those qualities you know there’s going to be growth that comes with it.”
• The Rebels and Hitmen meet again Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Innisfail Arena.
The Rebels conclude preseason play next week, meeting the Hurricanes Tuesday at Lethbridge, facing the Edmonton Oil Kings Friday at Lacombe and taking on the Medicine Hat Tigers 24 hours later at Stettler.
• Red Deer is ranked 10th in the CHL BMO Mastercard Top 10 preseason rankings released Thursday. The Mississauga St. Michael’s Majors are the top-ranked team, with three WHL clubs — the Portland Winterhawks, Tri-City Americans and Saskatoon Blades — ranked third, sixth and eighth.
gmeachem@reddeeradvocate.com

Mason Raymond's Goal: Put The Puck In The Net

Raymond is one of the nicest guys that I have ever got the chance to meet. He was a great competitor and had to battle the odds but I think it was his goal setting that helped him to reach this level. Found this article, good read about Raymond:

Raymond's straightforward goal: Score more goals

BY BEN KUZMA, THE PROVINCE

Mason Raymond has the confidence to predict that the 30-plus goal plateau is attainable in his fourth pro season.

Photograph by: Jeff Vinnick, Getty Images

Mason Raymond has always dreamed big. There's no limit to large aspirations, even though being slight in stature as a midget hockey star in Alberta had many doubting that the speedy Vancouver Canucks winger would ever collect an NHL cheque. That group included Raymond.

He now has the money after avoiding arbitration and signing a two-year, $5.1 million US contract extension following a career-high 25 goals and 53 points. And he now has the confidence to predict that the 30-plus goal plateau is attainable in his fourth pro season.

Pretty good bravado from a guy who had to be convinced to give the AJHL a try in Camrose where the Kodiaks retired his No. 9 jersey on Sept. 10.

"I credit a lot of it to experience," said Raymond. "Each year, I learn more and believe in myself and who I can be out on the ice. And I just keep pushing forward to hopefully improve on the numbers. They're close to my chest, but I like to set goals. And I'll strive to reach them."

As main camp progresses and the preseason nears, one of the many questions is who will join Ryan Kesler and Raymond on the second line? Raymond has earned the right to be pencilled in, but lost in his solid season were bouts of inconsistency. He scored 17 goals in his first 39 games -- including his first career hat trick on Dec. 27 in Calgary -- and had goal droughts of 10 and 11 games. Two of his three postseason goals came in the Chicago playoff series and he had the winner in Game 1.

Raymond has to prove he's a legitimate top-six forward and not a one-year scoring wonder. Yet he was brave enough at times to barge into tough scoring areas, brave enough to try some trickery in the slot and not simply stick to a restrictive perimeter game.

And if it's true that to know where you're going that you have to know where you've been, then a trip in time for Raymond earlier this month to revisit his hockey roots was timely.

NHL expectation is enough of an animal to wrestle, but Raymond wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for midget hockey buddy Daniel Bertram convincing him to give the Kodiaks a try.

"That was arguably my most fun years in hockey," said Raymond, who had 144 points in two AJHL seasons before playing two years at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. "It was a big transition in my life and a place where I believed in myself again."

The memories came flooding back at his jersey retirement.

"It was a full day," said Raymond. "I visited a bunch of schools, signed autographs and then the jersey. Obviously, it's a huge honour."

It will mean more if Raymond and the Canucks can meet heightened Stanley Cup expectations. They became unglued during their second-round playoff series because they lost their composure and by they time they regained it, the damage had been done.

"We've got to sort that out," said Raymond. "This is a great window for us to do some great things and we have a great group of core guys. But we've got to go out and do the work."

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Sports Illustrated Article On Depression- Good read!

Jon Wertheim>VIEWPOINT

McKinley's apparent suicide casts light on athletes' risk of depression

Kenny McKinley played in eight games as a rookie last season before he was sidelined with a knee injury. He began 2010 on injured reserve.

It was before the famous tent stint in Australia, the various drug suspensions, the holistic medicine, the Toronto Argonauts and the Redemption. In the summer of 2003, Ricky Williams was passing through New York on a media tour and we ended up talking. Williams said a few words about his football career, but then, candid as ever, he took the conversation on a hairpin turn and began to talk about his battles with mental illness.

You may recall that during his fairly disastrous tenure with the New Orleans Saints, Williams had a habit of answering questions without removing his football helmet. But that wasn't all. After practice, he would leave the locker room and head to the Burger King drive-thru, only to realize that he would have to interact with someone to place an order. So he would head home to spend the rest of the day in seclusion. The phone would ring and he wouldn't pick up. "At practice [the next day] my teammates would be like, 'Hey, what did you do last night?' " Williams recalled. "I'm thinking, I went from the living room to the office to the bedroom."

The team did little to help. Only after tooling around the Internet did Williams self-diagnose himself with social anxiety disorder. He finally massed the courage to confront the Saints' hidebound coach, Jim Haslett. He explained that he was seeking treatment for a psychological issue. According to Williams, Haslett used profanity to tell him, in so many words, "to stop being a baby and just play football." (Haslett did not respond to SI's questions about the incident.)

Around the same time, Williams broke his ankle. The team treated his recovery as a matter of vital importance. Trainers and rehab specialists oversaw is every move and asked for near-daily updates on his condition. Teammates texted him daily. Williams was struck by the contrast. "There's a physical prejudice in sports," he says. "When it's a broken bone, the teams will do everything in their power to make sure it's OK. When it's a broken soul, it's like a weakness."

I recalled this when the news broke that Denver Broncos wide receiver Kenny McKinley was found dead on Monday afternoon in Arapahoe County of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. While the investigation is ongoing and McKinley hasn't been officially linked to depression, one has to wonder if he was depressed, especially after he was placed on injured reserve with a knee injury. (According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the risk factors for suicide include depression and other mental disorders or a substance abuse disorder. More than 90 percent of people who commit suicide have these risk factors.)

To the uninitiated, it makes no sense. Aren't these young, sculpted, famous, rich gladiators antithetical to the whole concept of depression? Aren't pro athletes supposed to be impervious to all manner of pain? Don't they collide violently against each other, and need to be talked out of playing with the kinds of injuries that would incapacitate most of us for weeks?

In the macho, less-than-enlightened Republic of Sports, depression and other mental illnesses are often stigmatized as maladies for the weak. "Gutless" was the term Bobby Valentine, then the Mets manager, allegedly used to describe Pete Harnisch after the pitcher suffered a depressive episode. "Run it off," an NBA coach once told Vin Baker when the player tried to explain his depression. "Don't let the blues get you down!"

"Head case" remains one of the most damning labels in the front office. Sports psychologists know that if they want acceptance among athletes, they're better off re-branding themselves as the less-menacing "performance coaches."

The abiding irony: it's entirely possible that athletes in pro sports -- the ultimate kennel of alpha dogs -- might be MORE prone to mental illness than members of society at large. After hereditary influences, the biggest risk factor for depression is stress. Performing in front of thousands of fans, having your work scrutinized and judged regularly, and laboring in a field where success and failure are so clear-cut can exact a huge psychic toll. There's also the stress of knowing that your career, and thus the window of opportunity to make millions, is narrow. As McKinley's agent, Andrew Bondrarowicz, told the Denver Post: "These guys, they're made of steel on the outside. But for a lot of them, the challenge of being at your best and living up to all the expectations is a difficult situation. Some people are better equipped and have the support system."

Other factors include:

• Head injuries. Studies show that someone who has endured multiple concussions is up to four times more likely to suffer depression. Athletes, of course, are at a far greater risk than the general population to suffer cranial injuries, which can alter brain chemistry. Andre Waters, the Eagles' fearsome defensive back, committed suicide in 2006 at age 43; an autopsy revealed that his brain tissue had degenerated to that befitting a man in his 80s.

Another Philadelphia football player, Owen Thomas, a reserve for Penn, committed suicide in April and was honored posthumously just last weekend. According to researchers, he, too, showed early signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

• Childhood trauma. Researchers know that exposure to trauma at a young age can lead to an increased likelihood of depression and mental illness later in life. (Studies have also shown that growing up in a single-parent household can increase the risk.) Think about how many "athlete narratives" contain almost unimaginably bleak childhood episodes.

Apart from medication and therapy, mental health can be improved by social stability and a solid home life. For all the perks of playing sports for a living, social stability does not rank high on the list. From the road games to the constant possibility of a trade to an all-consuming regular season to the dissonance that accompanies coming into vast sums of wealth overnight, sports are hardly conducive to social stability.

* * *

The wheels of progress tend to turn slowly in sports. But they do rotate. As mental health has become better understood and accepted in the mainstream -- where the National Institute of Mental Health suggests that a quarter of American adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year -- so too are psychological issues beginning to lose some of their stigma in sports. In recent years a welter of athletes in a variety of sports (Jennifer Capriati, Joey Votto, Stephane Richer) have unashamedly admitted to battling mental illness. It was the inimitable Ron Artest who, during his memorable monologue after the NBA Finals, expressed profuse thanks to his psychiatrist.

In this excellent recent article, my colleague Pablo Torre notes that Royals pitcher Zack Greinke is even hailed as the "Jackie Robinson" of mental illness. Greinke missed most of an entire season to address and treat social anxiety disorder and clinical depression. Crediting therapy and anti-depressants, he returned to win the Cy Young Award. "Whether he likes it or not, [Greinke] is the guy who really paved the way for the modern player to come out about these issues," Mike Sweeney, a former teammate, told SI.

Scan the injured reserve or disabled list and, likely for the first time, explanations of "social anxiety" and "stress-related" are among the listed causes. To Ricky Williams' point, athletes now can have a credible reason for missing games even if the malady doesn't appear on an X-Ray or MRI.

In some cases, teams and leagues and even college programs have gone proactive, educating athletes and making psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health experts readily available. In Torre's story, source after source suggested that the culture in sports is, finally, shifting. As it should be. Athletes like Kenny McKinley might appear to be made of steel on the outside. Inside? They're simply as prone to mental illness as the rest of us -- likely more so.

A Successful Off-Season Is On You

:: A SUCCESSFUL OFF-SEASON IS ON YOU ::

Not too long ago, Patrick Kane ended the 2009-2010 NHL season with a goal on Michael Leighton that I am sure Leighton wants back. For many, the Blackhawks victory signaled the end of another hockey season and a wait for the next season to begin. Waiting though for the next season is what often gets goaltenders of all ages and levels in trouble.

The end of the National Hockey League season often coincides with the end of the school year. For many goaltenders this is the start of summer holidays. Hockey is often put on the backburner as the weather is warm, holidays with families and friends are booked and the motivation to work on becoming a better goaltender is hard to be found externally. Hey who wants to work on improving their game now when hockey is still months away?

The fact is every goaltender should want to work on improving their game at this time of year yet it is often a very select few that complete physical, on-ice and mental training in June and July. A goaltender who is not working on improving their game is falling behind the competition in my mind. I see it every year, mid to late August goaltenders hit the panic button and begin to attempt to fix their game in a short period of time. Some are successful yet for the most part the athletes who leave their training to the last minute are overcome by “the other guy.”

“The other guy” is often the goaltender who has committed to making himself a better goaltender throughout the summer and has put the repeated time and effort into both their on and off ice training that ensures that when tryouts start back up they are comfortable with the physical, technical and mental skills that they have been taught. Ask any goaltender and they will agree that when learning a new skill of any sorts it takes completing the skill multiple times before it becomes habit. Many goaltenders who enter into tryouts with little training fail to perform at their best because they have not created the muscle or mental memory to complete a newly learned skill quickly and decisively.

So why is it that most athletes leave their training to the last minute if success is found by creating that muscle and mental memory though training throughout the summer? The answer is motivation. The external motivation of upcoming tryouts or making the highest team possible is not as readily available in the middle of summer.

Without the external motivation that is missing in action during the earlier portion of the summer the responsibility for creating that motivation must come from within the athlete.

Motivation is one of the strongest factors in successful athletes. Motivation is that internal force that determines all aspects of our behavior from how we think to how we feel. In sport, being highly motivated is widely believed to be a prerequisite for ensuring that athletes reach their full potential. Elite athletes have been found to have a large amount of intrinsic motivation and you too can increase your intrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation comes from within where extrinsic motivation comes from outside, examples of this include such factors as money, winning a trophy or avoiding punishment. Intrinsic motivation is considered to be the healthiest form of motivation and often the amount of intrinsic motivation often relates to the amount of success an athlete experiences.

One way to increase your amount of intrinsic motivation is through goal setting. Goals set by yourself to become a better athlete will help to give you that energy and desire in the middle of the summer when taking a break is the easier option. The problem is that goal setting has been given a bad name by athletes and coaches who fail to understand goal setting in full. When goals are set properly and for the athlete they can be found to be highly effective in providing that extra motivation throughout the summer.

Another technique for increasing intrinsic motivation is through positive self-talk. Throughout the summer your negative or unconstructive self-talk will attempt to take over. Thoughts like “it’s too hot outside,” “I’m on vacation” or “I’m too tired or soar today” are often used by athletes to take the day off which can lead to weeks of inactivity. Surround yourself with positive self-talk that gets you excited to work hard and improve your game and you will find that you can tap into a supply of motivation that you may have never experienced before.

A third technique for increasing motivation is through creating movies in your mind. Imagery of what you will become if you work hard throughout the summer and experiencing success in the fall during tryouts will help you to stay in control of your improving game. Running images in your mind will allow you to see what you are working towards and why you should work hard through vivid and realistic images.

Good goalies seldom ever become great goaltenders during the hockey season. This may be when the goaltender gets the acknowledgement for all of their hard work but the work was often completed well in advance to the start of the season. Physical, technical and mental skills will improve greatly if the athlete is given the opportunity to work on the aspects when the pressure is not as present and the athlete does not feel rushed to improve quickly. Looking for ways to increase your motivation now? The Athletes Well is filled with 54 ways to increase your motivation and ensure that come tryout time you will be performing at your best. If you have any questions, comments or concerns please feel free to email me atssmith@absolutementaltraining.com!

Practice Is When Goalies Become Great

:: PRACTICE IS WHEN GOALIES BECOME GREAT ::

Shaun Smith is the founder of Absolute Mental Training and provides The Goalie Guild with a weekly column that is posted every Tuesday. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email him atssmith@absolutementaltraining.com!

On June 26, 2010, Andy Strickland tweeted, “A highly rated kid told NHL teams in his interviews that his least favourite part of hockey is the practice! That’s why you fell out of 1st round!” Nothing’s worse than telling your future potential bosses that the one thing you dislike about the sport that you play is the hard work that will ensure that you become a great player. No player or goalie has made it to the National Hockey League without a lot of hard work and this ill advised answer sent a highly touted prospect out of what surely would have meant millions of dollars for being a first round draft pick.

By no means am I going to tell you that athletes enjoy pushing themselves to the point where they feel like they may get sick or the inability to climb stairs after a gruelling workout, but it is in those gruelling workouts that good athletes become great. This is why scouts and coaches look for athletes who want to get better and who understand the value of practice. Don’t believe me? Look again at the same draft and the Phoenix Coyotes 27th overall pick that surprised many experts when they drafted Mark Visentin. While many were surprised that Visentin was drafted so high his comments after the draft highlighted to me why the Coyotes were willing to take Mark with such a high pick. Visentin stated in an interview with Niagara this week that “Practices are huge for me. I try to bring my great work ethic and I think it feeds off onto the other players. When you practice hard it shows during a game.”

There is no such thing as flicking a switch and turning it on when it is game time. Many athletes who fail to work hard in practice often tell me that they can turn it on when it is game time. The truth is that failing to compete in practice leads to bad habits. These bad habits will show up during your games and will result in poor goals and performances.

The proof is very evident in athletes who fail to prepare or work hard in practices. Poor practices will result in the following:

- Little or no improvement
- Loss of focus
- Loss of drive
- Decrease in confidence
- Letting down others
- Poor tryouts
- Weak games

Looking to improve your practices? Ensure that you are working on the following:

- Work hard. Be the first one on the ice and the last one off of the ice every time as well as being the hardest working person on the ice.

- Create game situations and solutions to those game situations that will set you up for success.

- Work on your weaknesses. You will only be as good as your weakest skill set unless you work on your weaknesses. We all have weaknesses, even the most elite athletes, the secret is to know your weaknesses and work on making them your strengths.

- Be active. Continue to evolve your game and stay on top of new techniques that will help your game. Failing to recognize the transitions of today’s game has left many goaltenders without a job.

- Never Quit. Never quit on a puck. Elite goaltenders hate to be scored on in practice and work hard to ensure that they don’t get beat even during practice.

How you approach practices can have a dramatic effect on how you perform as a goaltender as well as the likelihood that a coach or scout is willing to take a chance on you. This was evident during this year’s draft when you look at the two very distinct stories of the unidentified player and Mark Visentin. Which athlete’s route do you want to follow? It’s up to you. Developing appropriate practice habits and creating a successful plan for each and every practice are skills that I regularly work on with athletes. I truly believe that no words can explain the importance of going to practice working hard and focusing on getting better every time on the ice. If you are not willing to put in the effort someone else will.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns please feel free to email me at ssmith@absolutementaltraining.com!

Goaltending & Mental Training = A Perfect Match

:: GOALTENDING & MENTAL TRAINING = A PERFECT MATCH ::

Ken Dryden once was quoted saying, “Because the demands on a goalie are mostly mental, it means that for a goalie the biggest enemy is himself. Not a puck, not an opponent, not a quirk of size or style. Him. The stress and anxiety he feels when he plays, the fear of failing, the fear of being embarrassed, the fear of being physically hurt, all the symptoms of his position, in constant ebb and flow, but never disappearing. The successful goalie understands these neuroses, accepts them, and puts them under control. The unsuccessful goalie is distracted by them, his mind in knots, his body quickly following.”

It was reading quotes like this and playing the position that led me to study the mental side of the position of goaltending. Although the amount to which a goaltender is affected by their mental game is debatable, there is no doubt that no matter how technically or physically strong a goaltender is, he cannot ignore the mental side of the game.

Yet many goaltenders decide to ignore the mental side of their game. When I talk with these goalies, it is often not that they don’t appreciate the mental side of their game, but because they don’t know where to start or how to improve their mental skill set. The truth is that mental training is very similar to training which you already complete for physical or technical skills.

When completing physical or technical training, you become stronger either in the form of pure physical strength, or on a particular area of your game. Though repetitions, this strength is produced and you begin to gain an edge over where you were before you started training. By working on your backside push, you will gain the edge by having the ability to remain in your butterfly and push to wherever the puck may now be located. This does not happen on a whim. It takes practice. I am sure the first time you attempted or attempt a backside push, you only slid inches, but over time you develop the ability to push across your crease.

Mental training is no different. By working on specific mental skills, you will become stronger and be able to deal with a bad goal or a bad call from the referee. By developing skills through the introduction of new skills and the practicing of these new skills, you have the ability to overcome your mental blocks. Your mental training will allow you to have the skill set to handle whatever it is that is thrown at you during a game or season. This comes from working on your mental game, not ignoring it.

Another area which goaltending is much like mental training is flexibility. Goalies that are successful and have long careers do so because of their physical flexibility. They are able to fight against injuries because of their body’s ability to stretch in ways that the general population is unable to. Miikka Kiprusoff completes three hours of flexibility training each day. This allows him to play 70-plus games every season with no injuries.

A goaltender must also be flexible mentally, in that they must be ready and able to handle whatever situations may be thrown at them. A goaltender must be able to rebound from being cut from a team or from a bad call from the referee if they are to be successful. Being able to remain focused and keep your emotions under control are what allow goaltenders to continue to battle for very few spots at the NHL level as well as compete in games where things are not necessarily going their way.

Finally, a goaltender cannot just complete physical or technical training for a couple of sessions and expect that it will fix their game. It often takes months of training for the new skills to be fully learned so that they can occur with little to no thinking. Making a skill automatic takes thousands of repetitions and to be maintained takes consistent practice. How many times have you learned a new skill, yet because you did not use it, you forget how to use it or when to use it?

Mental training is no different. You must continually work on your mental skill set if you want to be successful. Take confidence for example if you fail to work on maintaining your confidence one bad game can lead to a string of games which are poor. Yet if you were to complete a mental training program that maintained your confidence you would be able to shake off this bad game and move on.

Mental training and goaltending is a perfect match. Yet many people have not welcomed mental training like they have physical and technical training to this date. I believe that part of the problem is that many goaltenders seek out mental coaches who don’t understand the demands of goaltending fully. When I was still playing competitively I sought out help with my mental game and was amazed with how little “expert mental coaches” understood about the position. This is what attracted me to my current career choice as I want to figure out what it was that goaltenders go through and how mentally they can overcome any obstacles that they may face. You wouldn’t go to a knee surgeon to have a surgery completed on your heart. Why go to a mental coach who doesn’t understand the position and the demands of the position. After years of research, I believe that my programs have been designed for goaltenders and the success stories of my goaltenders speak for themselves.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns please feel free to email me atssmith@absolutementaltraining.com!

Goalie Frustrations

:: GOALIE FRUSTRATIONS ::

Today I was talking to a young goaltender who I have been working with to help him make quadrant hockey for the first time, when we got on the topic of consistency. The young goaltender who I was working with has been struggling with consistency and feels like he may never become as consistent as the goalies he will be competing against in tryouts. This young goalie is frustrated.

To help goaltenders out there, I wanted to start with a story about a young goaltender who, when he was good, he was great and when he was bad, he was really bad. This young goalie wore his heart on his sleeve and had a true love for the position of goaltender and it showed. When games were not going this goalie’s way, he would be quick to get upset and may have broken a few sticks. The better the hockey this goalie played, the more he expected out of his game and the more his frustrations towards his inconsistent play grew. It was at this time this goaltender decided that to be successful as a goaltender, he would need the help of a mental performance coach.

This goaltender was me.

So how about you? Do you get frustrated? Have you ever lost your cool? Maybe fellow athletes or coaches refer to you as a hot head? Do you hold onto the frustrations of the last goal? Game? You’re not alone.

Goalies everywhere are being taught to show no emotion after a goal. Showing emotions after a goal lets the other team know they have gotten to the goaltender and the goaltender’s team worry that the goaltender may be in trouble. These goaltenders then bottle up the negative emotions and frustrations of the previous goal in their mind which leads to blowouts or terrible performances.

The first step to overcome your frustrations and emotions from a bad goal is to realize that being frustrated about the goal is human nature. An angry reaction to a bad goal is the direct result of feeling as though we are capable of better. The intention of the anger which we feel after a goal is a positive one as it is produced with the intentions of driving us to be a better goaltender. Yet by getting angry, we end up shooting ourselves in the foot if we don’t find an appropriate release.

The key to resolving frustration is to honour the intention of wanting to play better through the process of learning. Each time that you allow a goal, use the goal as an opportunity to review what you did wrong and what it is that you can do next time so that you don’t experience these feelings again. Every single National Hockey League goaltender has allowed bad goals throughout their careers, but the key to their success is their ability to learn from their mistakes and become better at the parts of their game which they have been exposed.

Even today when I strap on the pads, I get frustrated when I have been scored on just like I did when I was a young goaltender with NHL aspirations. The difference is that I have learned how to let go of these frustrations and strive to learn from every goal that I allow. These same mental techniques have also helped many goaltenders which I work with varying in skill level from beginner to pro to experience the frustrations of being scored on as a positive and not allow one bad goal or game to lead them down the same path of inconsistency.

Shaun Smith is the founder of Absolute Mental Training and provides The Goalie Guild with a weekly column that is posted every Tuesday. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email him at ssmith@absolutementaltraining.com!

Tryouts- Negative Thoughts And Nerves

:: TRYOUTS – NEGATIVE THOUGHTS AND NERVES ::

Imagine for a second you are standing at the tee box (I know… golf… but I have a valid point) you look at the water that is about fifty yards in front of you and say to yourself, “I hope I don’t hit my ball into the water,” where’s your ball going? Most likely it’s going in the water. I don’t think that you need to be a mental expert to know that we always get what we are most focused on. This means that no matter what we are focusing on, either a positive or negative result or consciously or unconsciously will have a direct effect on our performance. Too often during high pressure situations we see athletes crumble and the cause often results in a poor mental makeup or simply ignoring the mental aspect of the game.

If you want to get nervous, focus on what you don’t want to happen, focus on the past or future and feel all of the nervousness, stress and doubts that will be created. The truth is that no one WANTS to create these negative feelings themselves but yet almost every athlete will create negative feelings all on their own.

For athletes to become successful, they must learn how to monitor their thoughts and images that are creating these negative emotions in their mind during competition and learn how to automatically replace these negative thoughts with positive images and thoughts. Athletes I work with begin to make this switch automatically so that whenever you find yourself focusing on what you don’t want, it automatically gets replaced with one that you do want, WITHOUT you thinking. This means that when you play, you can simply enjoy performing at your best and no longer are overwhelmed with negative thoughts or focusing on not thinking of negative thoughts.

The first step to an automatic mind is to determine the specific moments when you get tense, nervous or discouraged. Every athlete I work with will have a unique set of experience that creates their negative emotions. The best way to determine this is through visualization and previous performances. Look at competitions that you recently played in and replay the game in your mind keeping in tune with the emotions that you felt during the competition.

The key to visualization is to make the images in your mind realistic by recalling the ice sights, sounds, feelings in your muscles and your mind. If you find a moment where you were particularly nervous replay this event in your mind and determine the root cause of the negative feelings. Complete this activity for multiple competitions and you will soon discover a trend of events which trigger your negative emotions. Triggers can range from stepping on the ice for warm up to a bad call from the referee so look for those events that affect you.

The process of determining what causes you to be overcome with negative emotions or feelings is a very deliberate process but will help you to gain self awareness. By completing this activity you will now be able to understand what causes you to be overcome with negative emotions. This is only the first step in replacing the negative emotions with a positive emotion but I hope that it will help you to gain more self awareness in your game. Professional athletes are aware of what triggers them even if the answer of what triggers them is embarrassing.