The Ride To The Rink - What Do These Letters Mean?

Not every hockey journey looks the same, but we should be able to celebrate them all. Lee shares his own journey on this episode of The Ride To The Rink and reminds us that we should believe in ourselves regardless of what our journey looks like!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Hey everybody, this episode of the Ride to the Rink is brought to you by our title sponsor, nhl Sense Arena, and a lot of you know what that is. It's a virtual reality training game that brings the rink into your home and allows you to take off ice training literally to a new reality. Now look, you guys know this. If you listen to this show, we know you're working on your physical skill sets, your toe drag, your shots, your passing, your skating. This allows you to work on your mental skill set, your hockey IQ, which we say to you all the time as one of the most underdeveloped aspects of youth hockey players. Nhl Sense Arena, with their 100 plus drills, their training plans from top coaches, all USA Hockey approved for players and goalies, is going to give you that edge that you need off the ice, that you can train so you can bring it to the ice Again. As coaches, we don't always have the time to work on some of these drills that NHL Sense Arena has made available in our team practices and, unless you have a private instructor, this is a great alternative for you to do that. So, listen, you're going to have to go to your parents. We're probably listening to this with you, but we're giving $50 off an annual plan. We use our code HockeyNeverStops at checkout and again, you're going to need their permission to do this and we want you to ask them. You can tell them to listen to this, if they're not already. Go to hockeysensearenacom and use the code HockeyNeverStops. You and your family can save $50 off on an annual plan for NHL Sense Arena, and again, we know that instruction can be expensive. Ice time is expensive. When you do this for less than $30 a month, you're going to get a whole new way to practice and earn that time in your house from you and your families so you can enjoy the game. So this is Lee. We're diving into the ride to the rink right now. Enjoy this episode and remember to check out Sense Arena and use HockeyNeverStops to check out for your $50 off. Take care, hello hockey skaters and goalies around the world, this is Lee Elias, back with another edition of the ride to the rink, the show made specifically for you, the hockey player, and I've got something today to share with you that I share with a lot of teams when I speak professionally. I'm going to give you a series of letters here and I want you to take a moment and tell me if you can figure out what they mean. I'm going to read them off the sheet I have right in front of me. Here are the letters BBBBAAA, college and beyond. Let me do that one more time BBBBAAA, college, beyond. Now what those letters are and it's not something that I used to share because I was embarrassed by it, but as I've gotten older I've learned that it's actually a strength.

Speaker 1: 2:43

What is my road in youth hockey to college hockey and beyond? I was lucky enough, fortunate enough, to have a cup of coffee and the minors after college, but I played on more B teams in my career than I did A teams. In fact, if you add up all the A's, it's just about equal. I started playing hockey at the youth hockey level when I was 12 years old. I'm looking at it right now For Pee Wee B Bantam first year B Bantam. Second year B Midget first year B Now.

Speaker 1: 3:15

During that time I was practicing at home. I was very dedicated. I really really fell in love with the game. But more importantly, I fell in love with the process and the dedication and discipline of getting my game better. It wasn't about so much beating the other people, but I understood. A I had a lot of ground I needed to catch up on because I didn't start playing until I was 12. B I realized I loved every single second of training, of shooting in my garage, of creating my own training aids at the time because there weren't any available. And skating and finding going to open hockey and just finding any way I could to learn the game. Sitting down on the early days of the internet trying to find articles, working with coaches about the tactics of the game. Any bit of hockey knowledge I could get I went after and I realized during that time, sometime around probably 14 or 15 years old man, I am obsessed with this. I love this. If you're not there, if that's not how you feel about the game, absolutely okay, nothing wrong with that. That's not something that you have to have in your life, but you do need to recognize whether you do or don't have it and you can make some realistic expectations about the game. Now what happened between my first midget year and my second midget year is that I A probably grew a little bit. I got very strong and my game kind of vaulted to the next level and that's how I went from AA and AAA into college and then beyond right.

Speaker 1: 4:41

But the point of this video is, no matter where you are on your hockey journey whether you have been a high level, multiple A player your whole life and God bless you if you have or you're a B player B and you don't know where you wanna be, but you know you wanna go somewhere I'm here to tell you that there is no direct, correct path to accomplishing your goals in this game. It just comes down to hard work, it comes down to patience, it comes down to knowing whether or not you love this game and you're obsessed with this game and then having realistic expectations. Now I'll tell you this as well I also had a dream and I wasn't afraid to pursue my dream in this game and to get to where I want it to be. And you're gonna have a lot of coaches and players along the way that tell you that you can't accomplish your dream, whether it's in hockey or something else. And I'm here to tell you that you have every right to your dream. You are not guaranteed to accomplish that dream, you are not guaranteed an outcome, but you should be guaranteed the right to pursue the dream that you have, and I'm telling you that I believe in you. If you have that dream and you're willing to put the work in that you should pursue it. You should see where it takes you because I guarantee you, whether you accomplish that dream or not, you're gonna get a lot further down the line than if you didn't try at all. So that's the road today.

Speaker 1: 6:02

Bbbbaaaaa College Pro. That was my journey in hockey. No two journeys are the same, and remember I believe in you. You should too when it comes to your hockey journey. So that's today's ride to the rink, a ride down the road of hockey. That again, you have no idea where it may take you, but if you put in the time, the dedication and you wanna learn and you wanna get better, you'll probably get towards the direction you wanna go. This has been Leave With the Ride To the Rink Powered by NHL Sensorina. Make sure you check them out. You get $50 off if you go to NHL Sensorina and put in the code. Hockey never stops, so check that out and we'll see you on the next edition of the Ride To the Rink. Have a great one, everybody.