Training My Own Hockey Team

Juniors is a grind. 

Long road trips.

Hotel breakfasts.

Shared living spaces and makeshift beds.

When you mix in the steady Junior hockey diet of microwavable Mac and cheese, natty lights, and Fortnite, it's no wonder development in juniors stagnates.

Going into my last junior season, I aimed to instill a culture that balanced these less than ideal habits with what I knew was an important part of the next level: strength and conditioning.  

In my organization, we had no strength and conditioning program. We just had a gym we were expected to use. With no structure or organization, I knew an off-ice program could take us to the next level.

Inspired by Colin Shields—who was a player and strength and conditioning coach with the Belfast Giants—I talked to our head coach and we agreed I would run strength and conditioning during the season.

I become both a player and part of the coaching staff. 

That's right, I was the Jackie Moon of the Eastern Hockey League. 

Yeah, I know it's a basketball joke. Someone find me an appropriate hockey analogy and I'll change it. 

In a preseason meeting with our head coach—Jim Mosso—I sat in his office, my shoulders shifted forward and arms crossed, focused on explaining my training program that lay on his wood-finished desk. Coach Mosso's gaze latched off of the program, interrupted my explanation and told me coaching my own teammates would be my hardest challenge ever as a coach.

 In the subsequent six months, I was forced to confront flaws within myself as a coach, teammate, and person.  

Lesson #1 - Small Wins

 There are smarter coaches on this site who will explain the changing landscape of coaching—that the days of yelling and demanding authority are on the way out. 

My athletes were also my peers. I had no other choice but to inspire them to work. Not for me, but for themselves. Anything we did, they needed to understand what was in it for them. Otherwise, they would at best go through the motions, or at worst mutiny. 

This forced me to reevaluate all of my programming plans. Before any plan would work, I had to show everybody on the team results.

I resolved to focus on injury prevention and relief above everything else—even strength. My tenure as strength coach would not live to see the results of consistent weight training, but by including early lessons on pelvic positioning, mobility, and PRI techniques, guys with chronic hip or groin pain (which is basically all of them) felt better right away.

The first few weeks of workouts were, honestly, glorified warm-ups. But, within a few workouts, many thanked me for relieving their hip flexor or groin pain. Now they were bought in. Next, I could focus on other elements to spur long-term progress: consistent strength training and power development. Anything we programmed, the group was much more likely to get to work on. 

Even if you're in a situation where you do have real authority, the principle should be the same: show results. Once players understand you can help, they'll motivate themselves. Any self-motivation will spurn further and last longer than fabricated motivation to abide by a coach's instructions.

Ignoring the need for buy-in not only makes them resent you, but they're also not going to improve. In these scenarios, athletes look to take shortcuts, go through the motions.

Lesson #2 - A culture takes a team

“Workout at 9 am tomorrow,” my text to the group chat read, as it almost always did the night before lifts.

“But Rosieeeeeeeee” one player responded, accompanied with a gif of Eric Cartman and his trademark “But memmmmm.”

After 12 upvotes on the South Park gif, I took a deep exhale and prepared for the worst. 

As they walked in, their eyes squinted with glances that said, “Fuck you, Rosie.” I could explain to them why and show them results, but inevitably logic and reason wouldn't fix their emotional annoyance.

These days were inevitable. Their first occurrences, many players went through the motions and resented every damn dumbbell row. But, as the season wore on, I decided I couldn't let these random days deter us. I talked to our leaders, told them I needed their support especially on these days. One of our captains started coming early, greeting players with a smile and a good chirp as they walked into the rink. By the time they got to the gym, they were laughing and chirping each other. 

The squinted death glares opened and tense shoulders relaxed.

Seeing this, I realized a great culture is not just about the coaches. 

It reminded me I wasn't alone. I had a group of leaders—and by extension a whole team—to support me. It also affirmed that I couldn't do it on my own. And as I coach, I won't ever try to again.

By the end of the season, my openness leaked into our whole locker. Players, rookies and veterans alike, came up to me to share what they liked about the workouts and what they didn't. They felt secure to give their input, and that fed back into the cycle of increased motivation.

I had to let go of control and let the team culture take over.

Lesson #3 - Cultivate Confidence (“Look the part” is BS)

Look, we all know Mike Boyle drinks beers all summer and then rolls into his facility to train Jack Eichel. But he's friggin Mike Boyle. Decades of experience and industry-wide respect will give you that luxury. More importantly, though, it's not Coach Boyle's respect that makes this possible but because I think he actually just couldn't care less if people thought he wasn't in good enough shape to train elite athletes. (Can someone who knows Coach Boyle fact check me on this?) I entered this season with confidence in my competence but diffident with dormant doubt.

Although a veteran, I was a role player. Far from a league star, I for the first time dealt with a situation where I was coaching players better than me. How could I tell everybody else what they need to get better?

I approached each individual conversation wearily. I prepared my lessons, ensured I could overcome any objections. My exercise demos came out uncharacteristically nervous, choking on my words as I overexplained. Once after a workout, our captain and one of my closest friends said, “Rosie, you don't need to keep explaining everything. We trust you.”

The captain, speaking on behalf of the team, reassured me. I had become so skeptical of becoming a dictatorial coach, I swung too far in the other direction, inviting criticism when I should've spoken with conviction.

Going to Coach Boyle's Instagram that evening, I rewatched a clip of him explaining the nonsense of “looking the part.” Being a great coach, and being a great player reside in different domains. And, I had any plans to coach players at higher levels (it wouldn't be long before I did) so I had to vanquish my insecurity.

Inspired by my teammates, I balanced the dichotomy between clarity and confidence, and uncompromising demands.

Less than six months later, Devan would trust me to coach the freshman at Umass Lowell—an elite group including several NHL draft picks. With these players, I had to exude confidence. Only if I wavered in my knowledge in front of them would they question my competency. Fortunately, I was able to learn the lesson in Vermont and cultivate conviction with each coaching cue.   

Coaching my own team was one of the greatest learning experiences of my life. And, I think it was the hardest thing I'll ever do as a coach.

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This article originally appeared on David's personal website, davidrosalesfitness.com.

David, in addition to being the head editor for SCAPH, is also co-owner of Roman Fitness Systems.