How Much Can We Copy From The Stars?

You’ll often catch me saying that my students and players have gained a lot from my studying star athletes.  For example, when it comes to hockey stars, younger students benefited from my dissecting Denis Savard’s spinarama, and then teaching it in several very easy steps; while my studies of the great Ovechkin have surely helped older players with their shooting movements.

That established, I need to refer to at least two things from the other side of the ledger…

1) A long time friend and former adult student of mine wrote me today to inspire this entry, with something he’d learned recently from Brett Hull.  To be honest, I think the advice Hull shared was right.  What worried me, though, was a fear that my friend would thereafter blindly believe whatever a star might say or do.

2) And that brings me to the cover picture from above.  You know, the shirt-tucked-in fad that had every little skater from a generation ago thinking he or she would immediately become The Great One, just by copying the way Gretzky dressed on-ice.  

Oh, and we can add a third story to the others…  For, quite some time back I had a great guy and former Rangers and Flames player work with me in my summer hockey schools.  Our only problem was that he had a stick knob the size of a truck tire, and I didn’t want our students to see it.  His side of the argument was that his idol, the great Gordie Howe, used a large knob.  My side was to suggest that Mr Hockey could have used a tree limb, and still be miles better than the mere mortals around him.  (I didn’t want to remind my friend that the Howe-type knob hadn’t done him a lot of good, since it never elevated his game much beyond being his team’s tough guy.)    

And those three points bring me to the take-away here…  Oh, I realize it’s not all that easy to know what we should or shouldn’t copy when it comes to our favorite players.  However, I think a little common sense should help…

• Is it the bright blue stick that makes your kid’s favorite player great?  I think not (and I’ve provided plenty of advice in my writings and videos to help a player pick the right stick — to quicken the hands, or to add zip in his or her shot). 
• If some star says he owes all his success to something like being a figure skater as a child, is it possible there were a kzillion other kids of that generation who followed a similar path, and never made it beyond Midgets or high school?  Ya, I’ll bet everything on the latter being so.
• Personally, I’ve been both a hockey parent and a grandparent, so I know the wrestle that takes place when a young one gets mesmerized by the latest shiny objects — like their favorite player’s new stick, new skates, or new helmet.  Or, like the way their idol is wearing his uniform differently, or how he might be using tape in a different way.

Actually, that last bullet point holds a couple of gems we can ponder on a little further…

I mean, when it comes to hockey sticks, skates or helmets, are there any items that influence ones playing ability more than others?  You bet!  And that’s why I caution anyone who will listen to be extra-careful in the purchase of the first two items.  As for the hockey helmet?  Naw.  Presuming they’re all made with a fairly high degree of safety built in, a player’s choice should be purely cosmetic.

Then, I mentioned tape up there — hmmmmm…  Nowadays I think professionals are generally directed to use tape that blends with their socks and such.  However, there was a period back around the early 1980s when pros were taping around their skates and lower legs almost in mummy-fashion.  For many it meant limiting ankle movements, which eventually led to rather robotic skating strides.  Worse yet, you should have seen kids in local rinks — or at least the kids who weren’t getting good coaching guidance — wrapping layer upon layer of tape around their legs and ankles.

Well, although I could go on with more examples of poor choices when it comes to equipment — or equipment modification, I’ll leave things open to questions down below.  I’d love to hear the experiences of others.

*

A few years later I decided to add a bit more to this post, in another entitled “A Follow-up to: How Much Can We Copy From The Stars?“