That featured photo up there may have confused some of my long time readers but, I think you’ll soon understand its meaning… Ya, I begin this entry with one of my favorite sayings, this one borrowed from the late, great Soviet hockey coach, Anatoli Tarasov. As I recall, “The Father of Russian Hockey” was referring to his players taking pride in doing their jobs — whatever those jobs might be. What he did was quote someone famous in Russian theater, noting that: “There are no small roles, only small actors.” As you’ve probably come to know, something always seems to…
While this one originated with a question from a long time high school hockey coach, my answer probably isn’t going to exactly get too much into what he expects. Oh, it’ll be good stuff for him, but I’m going to go a little bit beyond what he’s asking in order to really help his player and my faithful members. Let me start by pasting in part of the email from that coach… “Dennis. For the first time in my coaching career I am stumped. I coach high school hockey and usually by this age I don’t have to teach a…
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As sort of a background to our study on genes, I thought members would be helped to discover how new that study is. As quoted in Wikipedia: “In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all genetic material of an organism. It consists of DNA. The genome includes both the genes and the noncoding DNA, as well as mitochondrial DNA and chloroplast DNA. The study of the genome is called genomics. I don’t believe the volunteer coach, the average youth hockey parent, or the typical adult rec player has to know this part of science as well…
Before reading this posts, members might like to get some further scientific background on genetics in “A Brief History of Studying Genes“. In what will likely be a three-part discussion on the human building blocks known as “genes”, I’m going to ask my long time friend and trusted advisor on such matters, Shaun Goodsell, MA, President and CEO of Mental Edge, to kick things off with something he labeled… “The Secret of Champions” For years I have wondered what part innate talent plays in the success of athletes. Growing up aspiring to be a pro athlete I thought on many…
I’m hoping my hockey friends noticed the “THE” in my title, because I truly meant to type it that way. Yes, I feel that in the overall picture of being a hockey coach or hockey dad — or even if I was an adult rec player, the coming days, weeks and months are as important as any in the entire year! In a way, what we do over that span is going to determine how we (or our player/s) will perform next fall.Oh, by the way… It’s very possible that I’ll leave this particular article available to the general public. …
Members will gradually get to know my long time Russian friend, Elena Segal, who has inspired a number of my articles. We can also thank Elena for the current Russian hockey reflections, though. She’s super-proud of her work in the use of ballet with other athletes, and she suggests to me that ballet was an important part of the great Anatoli Tarasov’s teaching plan. For sure the above video should be helpful to everyone in the game. Personally, it gives me a chance to relive my long ago studies in Moscow. Perhaps parts of it will also help younger…
Okay, I have to start with a huge smile here, because I’ve just finished browsing through some old notes reflecting back on what I’d call — for the lack of a better name — a “tryout” I ran a few years back for a new 5- and 6-year old team coming from my winter Learn-to-skate/Learn-to-play program. Ya, they were an adorable lot, with a 4-year old even being one of our better little guys. Anyway, for the sake of those who might be involved with a similar kind of team or clinic right now, I thought I’d share some of…
Number one, just because this piece centers around young hockey players doesn’t mean those dealing with older players aren’t going to gain from it. With that, I recently received a great question via social media. And, since it seemed something worthy of most parents and coaches of very young kids, I asked the writer if he minded me sharing it with my faithful site members. (Of course he didn’t mind!) Maybe not so surprisingly, you’ll find me thinking out loud here at times. Let me begin, though, by showing what I received from the above noted questioner… “My oldest…
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