On today’s SHORT SHIFTS episode, Vechs wants to talk about what coaches should be doing with their first practice of the season.
TEN MINUTES ON THE CLOCK STARTING NOW!
We appreciate every listen, download, comment, rating and share on your social sites!
(upbeat music) What's up fam, welcome to another, I was gonna say wellness Wednesday. That's only if you're in the community. Sorry guys, no, welcome to our short shifts here. Jeffrey J. Hulovecchio, Tofur Scott, old, old, old man. He's the guy on the other side of the podcast equation here. I'm Young Spring Chicken at 38, he is now 39. (laughs) - And you will be 39 in less than a month. So thank you very much. - A little bit more than a month. - Yeah, you're old. Anyways, vis-a-vis I'm your boss. Tofur your question here, for today, he has no idea what I'm gonna ask. Also it's-- - He's an ipso facto, I'm your boss. - ipso facto, I'm your boss. Thank you. Seasons are about to start, right? I'm programming out right now. I got people starting practice in literally, what's the date here, less than three weeks. Some of them two weeks, some of them in a week here, triple A team starting in July. Wild, I digress. Yeah, I know, dude, I know. Ugh, anyways, first practice of the year. What are you looking to do? What do you, you're the head coach. What do you do, and I'm talking about like, from the moment the players arrive at the rink. Like, set in the tone for the year. What does that look like for you? Are you having a meeting before? If so, kinda what do you think and you're saying there? And then like, what is the first practice looking like for you? In my mind, I'm asking for maybe a little bit older players, like let's say like 15 or 16 and up, you know, what are you thinking? - Let me ask you a question. Do you believe in first impressions? - Do you believe in life after love? - Yes, I do. You can only make one. - So you can only make one first impression. So as the coach, you have to be on your game and ready to rock and roll. And so what do I mean by that? I mean, you need to be, let's rock, let's rock today. (laughing) Yes. If you're watching this on YouTube, then you know, Jeff just did. School of Rock, thank you. You're a fat and you have body odor. (laughing) - You're a fat loser and you have body odor. - That's just, that's it. - So good, favorite line of the whole movie. (laughing) - Okay, well this, we are off the rails or back. But as a coach, you're making a first impression. And when I say that, you got to be prepared. Like I'm a big believer that the team takes on the personality of its head coach, 99% of the time. And so like, what do you want your team to be? They got to be like, you have to be prepared and ready to go. You have to be prepared and ready to go. So I would get some like logistical meetings done beforehand, like before the first time they step in the rink. Like if you're first time getting to the rink, you have to go through two hours of meetings before you get to practice. Like practice is gonna be crap. So get your meetings done beforehand, whether you have like a camping trip as a team or maybe you do it over Zoom or you're setting the expectations and the standards for the season, whatever it may be. Like get all that stuff, like day one should be about getting to the rink, having fun, setting the standard and going. And going. So like my practice when I have a first practice of the year is high intensity. Like I'm not looking to do any type of like system structure thinking stuff. I wanna set the foundation for how hard our team is gonna frickin' work. That's for me, that's the most important part of the first practice is you are setting the standard for the rest of the year. You're setting the standard. And so it's high paced, it's difficult, it's fun for sure, but like we're gonna learn how to work and we're gonna learn what it means to work in that first one. So like try not to do a ton of like meetings and like logistical stuff beforehand, let them come to the rink, get their stuff on and then let's frickin' go. - I absolutely love that. Oof, I love that. What type of drills you doing? - A lot of compete. It's all compete. High intensity, high paced compete. Like not a lot of thinking, not a lot of like you know system structure stuff. Like we're, 'cause at the basis of like who I want my team to be, and again, a team takes after the personality that had coached a lot of the times. Like I want my teams to be competitive as F. Like that's the most important thing to me is that my team works and we're competitive. And so like what's my first impression as a coach for the guys on the team or the girls on the team is it's we're gonna compete. Like this is the standard. And then like typically what I'll do in the first practice is you go through different stuff and it's not good enough. You guys think that like this compete level is what we need to do if we're gonna push each other to get better. Like we gotta up it. We gotta up it here. Like I know that everybody in here has more in the tank. I know everybody in here has more in the tank. Like let's get her going and then they'll up it. And then you say to get like, hey, I think we even have more. Like there's more in the tank than what we've, and then they up it even more. And so really like it's just setting the standard of what's acceptable. Setting the standard of how the rest of the year is gonna look in that first impression that you have as a coach. - Absolutely love it, man. Absolutely love the only thing that I would do differently. And this is something I started doing three summers ago in the gym. And I think it's really powerful. You and I always talk about what is your why. I think it's also really powerful for players to tell their why and their goals to their teammates. Because I found that not only when a young person says their goals out loud, it becomes more real. Now it's like, oh, well, now people are gonna hold me accountable to whatever I'm saying are my goals. So the only thing that I would change is you know, I'd give like a very short meeting in the beginning saying like the best way for all of you to achieve your goals is going to be for us to be the best team we can be, for us to be consistent, to everyone push each other. Like I want you guys sometimes to be at each other's throats in practice 'cause you're battling that hard. But as soon as practice is over your brothers and we're hugging and we're all doing that to make each other better so that we can all reach our team goal this year and your own personal goals moving forward throughout the future. So that being said, we're gonna go around the room right now quickly and I wanna hear, what are your personal goals for the season? What are your goals for this team for the season? And what are your ultimate long-term goals in hockey? And I would go around the room, I would make each player stand up. This is a multi-factorial number one, not even a hockey thing. Like kids are afraid to talk in public, a lot of them, not all of them, a lot of them. Public speaking, if you can do it, you will be more successful. And the way that society is, everybody always stuck on their phone, computer, all this stuff, eyes down, lack of eye contact and things like that, that's something that I wanna make a priority in all of my team meetings, that I'm making all different guys stand up and talk to an entire room of people for just a life thing. But then, like I said, now everybody hears your goals. So now if you're slacking off in practice, it's not gonna be just a coach who's saying, "Hey, come on, I need more out of you. "Your teammates are gonna be there to do it." And it's even more powerful when your teammates do that for you. So I would start right before we go down the ice, doing that and then I would also revisit that every month or two and make them do that again and again and again throughout the season. - I love that, that makes sense. Do you think it would be better to do that literally on the first day of practice? Or do you think it would be better to do it? Kind of like, what? - I think, no, I think right before they go on the ice. - Just like the effect of it right before the ice, everybody's together in the locker room. - And that, you should see it in the gym when I make the guys do it, whether it's pro group or my youngest group, which is like 14 to 17. Like, they're nervous doing it, you can see they're uncomfortable. But, you know, I as the coach explain, this is why we're doing it, this will make you all better, this will make you guys hold each other accountable and I want you to look in your teammates' eyes when they're talking. 'Cause like, what they're gonna tell you, I want them, I want you to hold them accountable to whatever they say their goal is. And I want them to hold you accountable. And now we're gonna go out there and we're gonna prove it. And now boys, I'll be just going nuts and we'll go out there, we'll run your practice and we'll have the best practice of all time. Like that's, so it's, there's multiple reasons I would do it at that point. - That makes sense, I could see that. - Yeah, but you're really, like at the end of the day, like you're setting the tone, man. You're setting the tone. And then as a coach, you gotta be consistent with that push that you do. Like, it's easy to have a really good first practice as a coach. It's a lot different to have the same intensity and detail in January or February than you did at the beginning. And so as a coach, you're trying to find your way too, right? So like, is a first impression really important? - Yeah, but as a coach, you also have to understand that you're gonna make mistakes, you know? But make them by trying hard. Don't make passive mistakes as a coach. Make aggressive mistakes as a coach, if that makes any sense. - Absolutely love that, absolutely love that. And getting the boys to battle and understand this is what we wanna, this is our identity, this is who we wanna be. This is the level of compete and battle and energy and focus that we wanna have throughout the year. And we're starting with it today and we're not letting off the gas until our very last game, which is gonna be at nationals in the championship. Let's go! (laughing) - I love it. All right, five seconds left. You got anything else to add? - Share the show. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
On today’s SHORT SHIFTS episode, Vechs wants to talk about what coaches should be doing with their first practice of the season.
TEN MINUTES ON THE CLOCK STARTING NOW!
We appreciate every listen, download, comment, rating and share on your social sites!
