The Hockey Think Tank Podcast

SHORT SHIFTS - HOW TO COACH TOP PLAYERS WHO DON'T BUY IN

On today’s SHORT SHIFTS episode, Toph wants to talk about the challenges of how to coach top players who don’t buy in. TEN MINUTES ON THE CLOCK STARTING NOW! We appreciate every listen, download, comment, rating and share on your social sites!

Duration:: 12m
Broadcast on:: 26 Jun 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

On today’s SHORT SHIFTS episode, Toph wants to talk about the challenges of how to coach top players who don’t buy in.

TEN MINUTES ON THE CLOCK STARTING NOW!

We appreciate every listen, download, comment, rating and share on your social sites!

(upbeat music) Here we go with a short shifts episode. 10 minutes are on the clock. Jeffrey J. Who's Scott Lavecchio has no idea what this is gonna be. But Jeff, I think you're gonna like this one, my man. You ready to go? Hit me. Okay, you are coach. You are a coach and your best player does not buy into what you're preaching. Your best player is on their own page. Your best player does not wanna buy into the systems. He's doing things his own way. How do you go about coaching a top player that is not buying into the team? Boom, go, blouses. I always say this, how old? Does it matter? Juniors, yeah, yeah. Okay, let's start at youth and then we'll go out. Youth, youth, like below 14? Yeah, sure. Well, I would use psychology if they're below 14 big time, anytime in practice, I would constantly praise the kids who are the hardest workers, even if they don't have the most skill. And I wouldn't praise this kid ever, literally ever. I wouldn't be negative with them. I would try that first. I have found with younger players that that works really well. And obviously I'm way more off the ice, but when I coached those two years of Triple A hockey, when I retired a few years ago, this was something that I always did rather than negative enforcement. It was positive reinforcement. And that really seemed to work well at the younger ages. It works at the older ages too, to be honest. But at the younger ages, that really works. I would try that for probably three weeks or something, you know, two weeks. I would give that some time. And if nothing changes, then I would have a conversation with them and something that, and this would go for all ages, but this is a little bit more older ages, but it would work, you know, if they're not like, I'm sure we're not talking about nine year olds here. Ask the player what his goals are. Sit down with them. And if they're real young, bring their parents in. Ask them in front of their parents. What are your goals? Okay. So these are your goals. Do you think right now that your effort, your attitude and your team play are things that are gonna help you get to those goals? And almost always, they know, when you're having this conversation and the look on your face and your body language and all of these things, almost always, they know that the answer is no. If it's not, then you tell them, I'm here to tell you, right? It's not, it's not, okay? What do you see out of players at the junior, the college, the pro level? They are bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. Whatever this player is not bringing to the table, you wanna talk about those things. You also wanna talk about the things that this player is bringing to the table and tell them how much you believe in them and that you know that they are on pace with their skill level or whatever they're really good at is making them the best player on the team, that if you keep doing the right things, you're gonna have a chance to achieve whatever the player said his goals were. But I know for a fact, little Jonathan, aka Johnny, sometimes Jimmy, I know for a fact. Sorry, Jimmy got me. I know for a fact, Jimmy Johns, that you are not going to give yourself a chance because of bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. You know, and go into that, give them examples. If you could bring video examples from games, those are, you know, a picture says a thousand words. If you can show them, you know, we talk about back checking, we talk about this and you're not doing it. And this is what people are looking at at the higher levels. Then you could even sample in the old hockey think tank podcast with some things that Tof and I have said, you know, these guys work with the highest level players. These guys, you know, coached at the vision one level. This guy is a male model and played 10 years pro and works with NHL guys. You know, this is what they're saying. If you don't want to listen to me, listen to the male model and Tof, you know, that type, like bring in as many people as you can to reinforce his message. I'm sorry. What else? What am I missing here? What do you think? No, I think that's good. One of the things that I always like to do, again, I always try to think of ways to be proactive in my coaching rather than reactive. So what I would like to do is I would actually take my top guys in at the beginning of the year and basically lay it out for them, say our identity as a team, the buy in of our team and the work ethic of our team is going to go through you guys because, and I don't say this, but like people, kids follow the best players. And if the best players don't work, then, you know, and the coach doesn't hold them accountable to that, then like it, that just, it's a disaster. Cause then number one, people probably aren't going to work. And number two, the people who work, if you're not coaching the top players hard, then they're going to be like, well, you're coaching me hard and you're just letting him do whatever he wants. Like that's not good, but do you have something there? I was just going to say like, I love that. I love that. And I've told people that. I like said that like a, like looking them in the eyes and obviously it's when you believe it and it's true. Like you're the best player on this team when you show up the right way. Hey, and we're, and I'm giving them that. Like letting them know, but guess what? You are awful when you aren't doing this, this, whatever it is or not doing, right? Like, like throw that at them. Like, cause I think a lot of kids, like this is the same thing with like when a scout asked me a question about a really good player. I go to the players a lot of times, depending on the age, say, hey, I want to let you know a scout from this league is asking about you. Now I'm telling you this because I want you to know that all of these extra things you're doing and all these little things you're doing, people are noticing, but you know what they said? They need to see you do bop, bop, bop. And maybe that scout said they need to see you do this and maybe they didn't. And I'm just telling them because I know as a coach that they need to be doing those things to get to the next level, you know? - Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think with that too, like you mentioned something a little bit earlier about the video. So it reminds me, so when I was coaching in Chicago, Medjidhaki, I actually took off of live barn video of this kids practice reps, one of these kids practice reps. And I put it in a little video clip and I showed it to him. And he was probably the most talented player on his team, but he was like the least hardest working kid on the team. And I was like, is this really acceptable to you? Like, is this what you want? Like, do you think this is going to make you better? And then for me as a coach, do you like, you're a leader? Like, because you're one of the top players. And so like, this isn't like that we're not going to win. Like, if you practice like this, there's no way we have a shot. And so the kid was like, oh my God, because it was bad. Like really bad. Like really, really bad. So I've used that before with the top guy. Like literally took the kids like rather than like yelling during practice, like, okay, like let's, because you could like, I was like, all right, I'm going to take a different tact. I'm going to watch this and I'm going to see if what I see on the video is what I'm seeing in practice. Because it was that bad. I'm like, is it really? And I didn't, he was embarrassed. And it changed and yeah, I mean, it was hard not to be. - The video is so impactful at younger ages. I remember Jim Markey, when I moved to Chicago, I lived with you. I was 16 years old. I was really fast. And for the three years prior, I'd played on a line with Paul Stasney or two years prior. I played with Paul Stasney. Paul is obviously disgusting. When Paul would get the puck, or I thought Paul was about to get the puck, I would just sprint and he would, he's so nasty. Somehow he'd get me the puck. And, but I had a tendency when I was younger and playing in Chicago and I first got there to float and watch and watch and watch. And I wasn't effective. I sucked when I did that. I needed to move my feet. And I remember exactly where we were sitting in the rink at Vernon Hills at Glacier when it was the first time I'd ever watched video of myself playing hockey with the team around. And he annihilated me in front of everybody. Here's LaVacchio, feet stuck on the train tracks again. And he showed like 10 clips from the same game. I had no idea that I was like doing that. I didn't know. And I was like, oh my God, that's so embarrassing. Like, even back then when I thought I was a skilled guy, I prided myself on working hard. I didn't realize that like I was just always watching. Wait, go, wait, wait, wait, wait. And I was just so ineffective. And I'll never forget that meeting in my life. Yeah, yeah, kids, when you have coaches that coach you hard, that's a good thing. I promise you, that's a good thing. Lastly, I know we only got about a minute here left, but I think this is really important. It was funny. I was talking with some college guys in Nashville at that camp I was talking about, the Elite Edge hockey camp. And it's so funny because there's such a correlation now, almost, of like coaching kids hard in youth hockey. And it's kind of crept into college hockey. And so like youth hockey coaches cannot be afraid to sit their top players on the bench if they're not buying in or not working hard. And a lot of youth coaches don't do that for fear that that kid is going to leave and go to another organization. You are not doing that kid or your team any good by letting them slip. And it might be a short term win for you where maybe that kid kind of likes being around whatever, like because you're not coaching them hard, but you're doing that kid such a disservice and the kid's never going to make it. If you don't hold them accountable, never. It's just not going to happen. And it's funny, like it's, I only have 10 seconds, but I think this is really important. So I'm going to keep going. That is creeping into college right now because of the transfer portal. And now there are college coaches that are afraid to really like light into their top guys because it's like, okay, I don't like it here. I can just leave now. And the other side of that though, is I know that there are, I shouldn't say I know, but like, there's a strong possibility that like college coaches have taken that tact and been a little bit lighter for fear of like, not for fear of like their top guys leaving or anybody really leaving because they can now. And they're not effective as a coach because they're hard coaches. Like that's what makes them good. Like they're hard and they get into guys and they hold them accountable. And they feel like they can't do it now because like, you know, God forbid you coach somebody hard. They're gonna be like, you know, I'm gonna leave 'cause I don't like it here. And so it's this really interesting weird thing but like you have to be you as a coach and you have to hold your kids accountable to a high standard. You're not doing them any good. It doesn't matter what level it is, whether it's five year old, well five year old maybe, but like, but you still have to hold them to a standard. Have fun, like that's gotta be the standard. The standard is the standard and you gotta meet the standard. And so like, I don't know man. I think it's something that like we can't be afraid, John Wood and the greatest coach of all time. Like, and he was a philosopher. Like he was like what you wouldn't necessarily call a hard authoritarian authoritative coach but his big thing is my best friend is the bench. My best friend is the bench. Oh, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, you're not buying in. Boom, here's the bench. Oh, Bill Walton, two Hall of Famers that played for him at UCLA, not working hard, boom, there's the bench. And they may not like it at the time, but they'll come back to you 10 years later and they'll say, oh, I get it now. I promise you, I guarantee you. So like this whole like youth hockey culture where everybody's like team hopping and stuff like that, like honestly, you can't be afraid to do the right thing and hold these kids accountable. And if they don't wanna be there after that year, who cares? It's less of a headache for you the next year and your team culture's probably gonna be better anyway. - So you don't want them. They're hurting your team anyways. - Yeah, so I went a little bit longer. I thought that was important though. Time's up. Share the show. - Share it. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)