The Ride To The Rink - Evaluating Growth In Youth Hockey At The End Of The Season Artwork

Our Kids Play Hockey

Our Kids Play Hockey is a podcast that focuses on youth hockey, offering insights, stories, and interviews from the hockey community. It provides valuable advice for parents, coaches, and players, covering various aspects of the game, including skill development, sportsmanship, teamwork, and creating a positive experience for young athletes. The show frequently features guests who share their expertise and personal experiences in youth hockey, both on and off the ice.

The show features three hockey parents, who all work in the game at high levels:

Christie Casciano-Burns - USA Hockey Columnist, Author, and WSYR Anchor
Mike Bonelli - USA Hockey Coach and Organizational Consultant
Lee M.J. Elias - Hockey Entrepreneur, Author, and Team Strategist

In addition to the main podcast, there are several spin-off series that dive into specific aspects of youth hockey:

1.Our Girls Play Hockey – This series highlights the growing presence of girls in hockey, addressing the unique challenges they face while celebrating their accomplishments and contributions to the sport.

2.The Ride to The Rink – A shorter, motivational series designed to be listened to on the way to the rink, offering quick, inspirational tips and advice to help players and parents get into the right mindset before a game or practice.

3.Our Kids Play Goalie – This series is dedicated to young goalies and the unique challenges they face. It provides advice for players, parents, and coaches on how to support and develop young goaltenders, focusing on the mental and physical demands of the position.

Together, these shows provide a comprehensive platform for parents, players, and coaches involved in youth hockey, offering insights for all aspects of the sport, from parenting, playing, or coaching to specialized positions like goaltending.

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Our Kids Play Hockey

The Ride To The Rink - Evaluating Growth In Youth Hockey At The End Of The Season

February 29, 2024 • Season 1 • Episode 220

In this week's episode of "Ride to the Rink," Lee MJ Elias discusses the significance of self-evaluation and growth for young hockey players as the season draws to an end. Lee emphasizes that development should not solely be measured by a game's outcome but by personal improvement and teamwork. Listeners will learn the importance of setting and accomplishing personal goals, assessing their contributions as teammates, and the value of listening and learning from coaches and parents. This episode provides actionable advice for players to reflect on their season, identify their strengths and areas for improvement, and understand how they can be better team members. Join us as we explore the deeper measures of success in hockey and life, ensuring players recognize their achievements and set new goals for the upcoming season.

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Speaker 1: 1:36

Hello hockey skaters and goalies around the world and welcome back to another edition of the ride to the rank. This is Lea Elias with you today and I want to talk to you guys for a few minutes today, as we start to approach the end of the season, about things you need to do as an individual player and as a teammate to make sure that you understand your growth and your progression each season, because I think too often we gauge seasons by what happens. In the last game, did you win or lose? Did you get the championship? Was your season a winning season or a losing season? And while these are gauges on a hockey season, as a young hockey player, they are not your only means of development. They are not your only means of success. So I think it's really important we just take a few minutes to take a look at your season, take a look at some of the things that you've done throughout the season and give you some actionable items to really gauge your success in your development throughout the season. Now, from an individual point of view again, we always come back to points, goals, assists if you're on defense, maybe plus minus if you're in goal, maybe you're a saved percentage and again, these are statistics to track your game, but what I want you to do is sit down for a few minutes and write one to three different things that you specifically improved on this season. It can be a skill set, it can be a mentality thing. You know, just at the top of my head, I was helping out a might team this year and there's a young lady on this team named Avery Jane and she had not scored a goal all season and it was starting to become very frustrating. And we've, even though we were working on it every single week, sometimes the goals just weren't coming. And then in one game we were there and she scored a hat trick right in front of the net. All three times the puck went in the net and she. The smile on her face was massive, but that was a win. The outcome of the game was actually irrelevant to all of us at that point because all of the hard work had paid off. I think it is so important that you make sure that at the end of a season, you can look back and say you know, at the start of the season, these were things that I wanted to work on, that I accomplished or I was working at and I did accomplish them. I can give you another example of a young gold tender. I know that was working on his glove hand all season obviously all of the gold tending aspects of gold and he's been working on but his glove was a weak spot at the beginning of the season. He worked and worked and worked until it clicked and now his glove is one of the better assets of his game. So, no matter what it is you're skating, you're stick handling, you're shooting, you're passing, you're on ice awareness, you're IQ, you're scanning so important that you set goals at the beginning of the year for yourself and make sure that you understand that you have accomplished them and grown as a player every single year. Your development as a hockey player is extremely important. In fact, it's more important than the outcome of the season in most cases. Now, as a teammate, I think it's also important to audit or take a look at how good of a teammate you were this year. Were you the kid on the team that was kind of only making wisecracks, making other people feel down, saying things you should have been saying, or were you the person that really lifted up your teammates at the end of the year? I can tell you right now that coaches look for that in players, and the older you get, the more important it becomes. And it's normal when you're 10, 11, 12 years old to kind of horse around a lot and play around a lot. But we pay attention to the types of things that are coming out of your mouth. Is it positive? Is it encouraging? Are you pushing your teammates to be better versions of themselves? Are you listening to your coaching staff? Make sure that you do a little bit of an audit at the end of the season as well, of how you've been as a teammate, how you've been as a player to your coach, how you've been as a player to your parents. This is a very important part of development, not just in hockey but in life. I always say that TV shows and the movies sometimes they portray parents and coaches as being these lame characters when in reality they're not. They're there to help you become better. They have answers and knowledge to give you and I can tell you right now, kids, we want to give all of that knowledge to the kids who want to receive it. There's a great quote when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Be the students. That's ready to learn. When a coach or parent says something to you, don't be the person who says oh, I know, I know, I know. Listen, learn, retain, apply, put it on the ice. So again for this ride to the right as you approach the end of the season, take note. Write down the things that you've succeeded with already this season, no matter how small. Write a list of things you got better at. Write a list of things you want to get better at next season and then write down the way you want to be as a teammate, the way you want to receive things as a teammate. Treat others like you want to be treated right. So that's the message for today. Make sure you take a look at yourself and the growth that you've made this year. I know you have all made tremendous growth this season, right, or you wouldn't be coming back. So that's going to do it for this edition of the ride to the rink. My name is Lee Elias, remember. You can listen to all the ride to the rinks and all of our podcasts at ourkidsplayhockeycom. I am just wishing you the wonderful end of the season into the spring, into the summer, as we head towards the 24, 25 hockey season, hockey season. Take care everybody. See you next time.