Podcasts

I’ve been wanting to revisit this topic for a long time, because it goes all the way back to some great conversations I used to have with a sport psychologist. She was a coach, a college professor, and her specialty was parent–athlete communication. The two of us connected instantly, because I’d spent decades dealing with the same issues from the coaching side…

In this episode, I’m taking you back to a moment that shaped the way I’ve looked at hockey drills for decades. It started in a Boston meeting room, long before USA Hockey had its current name, when a simple question opened my eyes to the hidden negatives tucked inside even our best‑intentioned drills.

Every once in a while, a message from the past lands with surprising force on today’s athletes, parents, and coaches. That’s exactly why I decided to revisit one of the most quoted passages in sports culture — The Man in the Arena — and record a short podcast episode to go with it.

This might be the second most important teaching principle any hockey coach, parent, or player could ever know. But, let me take you back for a moment. Years ago, one of my old Physical Education professors warned us about a trap that coaches still fall into today. He’d say: “If you keep running the same drill over and over, you’re not teaching anymore — you’re just killing the clock.”