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My new team

10/31/2018, 1:15pm CDT
By Kevin Hartzell, Let's Play Hockey Columnist

Kevin Hartzell imagines what he would say as head coach of a new hockey team

I miss coaching, but I love my new freedom and wouldn’t trade it. I was lucky. Way back in the days of the St. Paul Vulcans, I was lucky that junior hockey was developing to give kids like me a chance to develop beyond high school. Junior hockey did a lot for me as a player, and a lot for me as a person. Playing in the USHL greatly shaped me. Coaching did as well. I was fortunate to coach 13 years in the USHL. In the end, I believe coaching in the USHL was exactly where I was intended to be.

As I see the world evolving about me, I wonder what might be changing with the culture of the game. I am convinced the skill of the players is at an all-time high. Most players can skate and shoot. But just in my short time at the Elite League a couple of weeks ago, I was reminded much about what the boys at this age still need to learn.

That got me to thinking about what I might say to my new junior team, if I had one. Here goes my opening monologue/welcome speech to my new (fictitious) junior team, a team of teenage boys. Standing with me, I would want several people, first and foremost Kevin Ziegler. If he is with me, we have a good start.

“Welcome to everyone. We are about to embark on a journey together, and let me stress the concept, TOGETHER. We are going to win together and lose together. We will laugh together and occasionally, we might even shed a tear together. 

“Together, we are going to enjoy the experience of self-improvement. Self-improvement is goal number one for each of you. This is your job, to be your own best coach. You are here to develop you and to share this new and improved you with your team. My job is to help you in this journey and meld all this talent together. OUR GOAL is to find out how good we can be …TOGETHER!

“We are going to start with learning what is called, ‘The Process.’ You hear it all the time, but unfortunately many, if not most people, are not committed to it. We will stay committed to ‘The Process’ both individually and collectively.

“’The Process’ is simple. We constantly review to identify areas that are good and areas that need improvement. Then, we problem solve to find ways to improve in these areas. We then apply the new ideas. We do this daily, and not just for hockey. We do it for school. We will do it for how we can improve as men. And we will commit to the process for any other areas we can improve in that are important to us.

“I am going to help you embrace these challenges of improvement. I want each of you to embrace what is difficult. Difficult situations help us grow. We are all going to get knocked down from time to time, but of course the key to life is to get back up and get after it. This is what grit is, being able to embrace the difficult with resolve. Grit is getting knocked down and getting back up with resolve. Grit is the key to success in life. If you can approach life’s challenges with a positive attitude and resolve, you can achieve ‘success.’

“We are going to leave here as better men. Our goal as men and as people is to improve the condition of everything we touch. Our goal is to make our team better with the sharing of our skills and positive attitude. We are going to treat our host families with honor and respect. We are going to treat each other with honor and respect. And being young hockey players in a new town, you will be meeting young ladies, and you are going to treat them with honor and respect. You have one goal with any young lady you meet: to help her in her quest to be the best version of herself. That, after all, is what great teammates and good people do.

“You have spent much of your career on developing skills, and we will not be distracted from continuing on that path. That said, what we are looking for, what every team will look for in your play going forward, is RELIABLILITY and DEPENDABILITY. Being a consistent performer that your teammates and coaches trust they can expect out of you is of utmost importance. It is where we each want to get to – to be a reliable and dependable teammate.

“New topic. Why do players fail? What is failure? I think it is when you don’t make adequate progress on your potential. If we prepare and play to our ability, regardless of result, that is not failure. But often we as humans certainly do not do this. If we don’t learn from our mistakes, if we keep making the same mistake over again, you and I won’t be long for this competitive world. We must first be self-critical, so we can identify our mistakes. We also need to be able to be humble enough to learn from those around us that love us. This includes, foremost, teammates and coaches. We have got to be able to receive criticism in a healthy way. It’s called, being coachable!

“Players also fail when they do not embrace the ‘suck.’ It’s a great old saying, ‘embrace the suck.’ There will be difficulties and hardships. All worthwhile adventures include difficulties. Embrace these difficulties. There will be days where you don’t feel like you’re getting what you deserve. Tough it out. Work. Stay committed to the process. It is the only way. Unfortunately, many get distracted by the things that don’t matter. You must remain committed to and focused on the PROCESS!

“And we all have to learn what it means to love. Life is about love and so is this endeavor. Don’t we all want people around us that care about us and our team? If we care, we will do our best for those we care about. We will open our minds and hearts to those who are trying to help us. We will play for each other. And we will hold ourselves and our teammates accountable. Accountability is a big part of the love equation. What you hold dear, you need to hold accountable. This includes yourself and team members.

“Lastly, if you have a problem or an idea of how we can do things better, you need to speak up. You can talk to your captains and you can talk to the coaches. That said, if you are a person who wants to complain about things, I will tell you don’t. Be part of the solution. Speak your mind if needed. If this place isn’t to your liking, we will trade you somewhere. But if you stay, and if you give of yourself to this team, and we all remain committed to this Process, we will achieve whatever we achieve, and we will do it together. And with honor. We are all going to do our best to take each other on a special ride.”

Then, or in the very near future, I would get these boys journaling. I would spend a good amount of time on effective journaling. I would help them get started with the documentation of their own history, and learning from that history, and also planning their future. I would schedule journal readings to be shared with the team.  
 

A St. Paul native and forward for the University of Minnesota from 1978-82, Kevin Hartzell coached in the USHL from 1983-89 with the St. Paul Vulcans and from 2005-12 with the Sioux Falls Stampede. He was the head coach of Lillehammer in Norway’s GET-Ligaen from 2012-14. His columns have appeared in Let’s Play Hockey since the late 1980s. His book “Leading From the Ice” is available at amazon.com.

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