Mid-January marks a crucial turning point in the hockey season, and feelings of exhaustion may be creeping in. But with the right mindset, this time can also ignite a renewed passion for the game. Listen in for some strategies to help you stay connected to your love for hockey and make the most of the season's final stretch. We'll look at conducting a personal review, setting mental structures, and revisiting goals to ensure you end your season on a high, cherishing every moment on the ice.
In our discussion, we'll reflect on the lessons learned throughout the season and how they've shaped us, both on and off the rink. As a player, whether you're a skater or a goaltender, I invite you to join me in a mental audit that can pave the way for growth and fulfillment as the postseason approaches. Together, we'll explore the importance of maintaining a connection with the game we love and expressing gratitude for the opportunity to play it. No matter the outcome of your season, remember that your commitment to hockey is a triumph in itself.
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Hello hockey skaters and goalies around the world, and welcome to another edition of the ride to the rink. It's Lee Elias here. You know I was thinking a lot about what do I want to talk about on this week's episode and I'm looking at the date we're recording this in mid-January and I realized this is kind of the part of the season where you're probably entering the final stretch. Whether your team has playoff or a postseason, you're getting at that point of the season. You're past the holidays, you might be a little burnt out, you might be a little exhausted or hey, you might be really excited, you might be really looking forward to the final part of the season. I just think it's really important that, no matter where you are on that chart for the final stretch of the season, you should know you're doing great. Now you're probably asking yourself how do you know if I'm doing great? You're some guy behind a screen or on an audio file right now that I'm listening to on my phone or my my computer. You're doing great because you're still playing hockey and I'll tell you whether you're having a great season, a mediocre season, or maybe you're having a bad season. You're not loving every aspect of it right now. You're still participating in the season, you're still showing up to practice, you're still showing up to games, you are still part of the team and, above all, you made the commitment and you're sticking to it. That's how I know that you're doing great now. I also want to let you know that it's completely normal at this part of the season to kind of feel things right again I said it before exhaustion, excitement. It's also a big part of the season, a big time of year. You want to refocus yourself and remind yourself of a few really important things, number one being this is a game and you love this game. You can never lose touch an understanding that your passion for the sport of hockey transcends any team, any game, any shift, any season in your life, right, so just always be rooted and remember you love this game and be thankful that you get to play this game. And the older you get, I promise you, the more that will come into the picture.
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The next thing is to just maybe do a mental audit, sit down. What I mean by audit is just sit down and and review things you've learned this season, whether they're good or bad. I always took the time and I encourage you to do the same, to sit down and maybe write out hey, here's five or ten of the lessons I've learned this year, whether it was taught to me by coach, whether it was failure that I learned from, whether it was how I interacted with other players, other teammates that I liked or didn't like. Here's the skill sets I've grown on. Here's the skill sets I haven't grown on that I want to grow on. You want to sit down, look at your game, look at your season and really just take a moment to write down you can do this right on your phone the things that you have improved on, want to improve on, things you like that didn't like. I think it's really important to get in touch with those things, because in the game of hockey, the game itself is go, go, go, but the hockey life is go, go, go. If you're listening to this with your parents, they're probably nodding right now because we're going from rink to rink to rink to rink with you. You're going from practice to practice, the team to team, potentially going all over the place. It's a very fast paced life on and off the ice and I think it's so important as hockey players that you take a moment just to just eat it five minutes. Sit there, reflect, understand where you're going, remember that you love this game.
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If you wrote goals out before the season, where are you on that?
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Have you achieved them?
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Is it time to look ahead to get new goals? Is it, is it not achieved right? Is there more you can do? And then, as you head down the road towards the postseason or the end of the season, mentally structuring how you want to present yourself at that time, at the end of the season. It was always hard for me, right when the season ended. I love playing so much that you know, and at that time you didn't. I didn't play year round all the time, right, there's always a little bit of let down at the end of the season. You lose your teammates who lose the team you're on. You shift the. You know, maybe spring hockey, maybe summer hockey, maybe another sport which I always recommend.
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But you got to prepare yourself that the more you prepare, the more mentally ready you are for things that happen in the game, all of them preseason the season, late season, postseason no postseason changing sports, changing the end of school. The more you can prepare for that now, the more you'll be prepared for it later on in life, and your ability to deal with that adversity is a massive skill set. It is a massive skill set you're going to need if you really want to succeed at moving forward, not just in hockey, but in life. So that's today's ride to the rink. I want to remind you you're doing great. I'm telling you that you're doing great. I want you to know that I believe in you. You should believe in you as well. All right, and take that all the way to the end of the season. All right, this is, lee with the ride to the rink. We'll see you next time.