I guess the big question in all of this is where to start.
Over the next three practices we managed to have individualized player meetings to get a pulse on the team. In our coaching strategy book we made notations of player meetings for future reference.
We also graded the players in five categories:
Skating
Passing
Shooting Intelligence
Hockey Intelligence
Coachable
Each category was worth 20 points, which gave the player a grade out of 100.We also did an overall team average from the data collected. The team average was slightly above 55% and no player scored higher than 65% on their individual evaluation.
We then proceeded to do a survey and asked them three questions although there was really four.
The third question was a scenario question, which we knew they would all get together and give the same answer, so we eliminated those results.
The questions were:
What three things get in the way of you maximizing your ability?
Are you a player that:
- Loves to win.
- Hates to Lose.
- It is about getting better.
We gave the players a statement in the form of a question by Nick Saban. Surprisingly 9 of the 16 players answered it. We wanted to see how many players were fully engaged with the process.
Undisciplined teams do dumb things. Disciplined teams do smart things. Which are you?
The top four answers to question one were non-hockey related. It took to position five to name the first hockey related answer, although it could interpreted that coaching is not hockey related.
Nutrition
Sleep
Mental Game
School
Coaching
The answers to Question two were also interesting:
Loves to Win 37.50%
Hates to lose 25.0%
All about the learning 37.50%
The Saban quote question 9 of 16 responded to the question and said they were disciplined.
After we got the results we shared the results of question one with the players and their parents. We pointed out that four of the five were in their control. We gave them YouTube links for nutrition and sleep so they can educate themselves on the importance of each. As for the fifth item it gave us insight that they were really looking to be coached and the answers from question two and the statement question supported that.
We need one more piece of information and that was to figure out what type of competitive personality each of our players had. This came by way of sports Psychologist Dr. Bhrett McCabe. Dr. McCabe has come up with five types of personalities.
The Amp Up (Fires himself up)
The Tactician (Methodical)
The Worrier (Constantly worries about things)
The Bubble Player (Just plays in their own world, very relaxed)
The Chosen One (Faith driven)
The head coach and I went through the line up on a couple occasions to finalize our list.
With that done we could now put together a strategy on what needed to be coached, how communicate through that 50 year age gap, and how to gain trust of a group of players that had lost trust.
Not that tall an order for a couple of Seniors.Right!
Until next time!
Follow on twitter: @Betweentheears2
Between The Ears 