"Your job as a coach on game day is overrated, and your job during practices is underrated."

Increase your chances of success during games by following one simple rule: Remain Calm! This sounds so simple and yet the impact it can have on the game is immense. Hockey can be a stressful sport as we all know. Players’ cognitive ability to make decisions has to be instant, players must read the game in front of them, understand their options, control their emotions, all while moving at high speeds and avoiding checks from their opponent. This can definitely put stress on players’ mental state. The last thing any player and a team needs is any additional stress. Guy Gadowsky said it best: “your job as a coach on game day is overrated, and your job during practices is underrated.”

One thing that many coaches deal with behind the bench on game day is lack of control. Once players touch the ice for the game, it is now out of your control. It is now up to the players, and the tools you give them as a coach, to have success. As a coach we too use a lot of emotions during a game. We strive to see our team win. We do not like anything getting in the way of that.

This is extremely true dealing with officiating. When a team gets unfair calls it can have a huge impact on a game and presumably on the team’s chances of success. This frustration can, and many times does, lead to a coach lashing out at the officials or even just out loud to their team. This behaviour can have a bigger impact on the game and so can the negative talking that occurs on the bench. The referees rarely change their mind. When an official makes a call – the call is made. There is no amount of screaming, or name calling that will change that. Instead, this will change the officials outlook to you, and your team. Now instead of letting a questionable call go, they will now make a disputable call. Officials are humans, and have the same emotions as anyone else.

This negative impact can really hurt a team’s success. This is a domino effect, now the team is angry at the officials. More times than not the team will feed off their coach’s energy and emotion. Players behaviour may result in lashing out at the refs, at the other team, and sadly their own teammates. This anger and stress leads to players having tension in their bodies. As a result, they will not play as well and can even end up injured because of the tension that is held in. Their abilities and skill will suffer and many will take bad penalties out of anger.

All as a result of the coach being out of control. To have success, control the controllable. Again, remain calm. If you have a question for the referee, calmly ask them over and discuss it in a cordial fashion. This keeps your team calm and helps them feed off the positive energy on the bench. I myself have had success coaching this way and have seen first hand what the opposite does to a team.

A great example: during one of my Varsity games this season there was a call that didn’t go our way. My team was getting really upset. However,  I remained calm and told my team the officials will not change their minds, let’s focus on what we can control. As the game progressed the opponents faced the same scenario, and handled the situation the opposite way. The opponent’s coach got really angry and lost control on the ref, which resulted in a bench minor penalty. We went on the power play and scored rather quickly. This put our team in the lead. The opposing team only got worse. The players tried to hit with intent to injure out of anger. This resulted in MORE penalties and MORE antics from their coach. My team scored on every power play, changing what should have been a close game, to a 9-1 victory. This is how much impact a coaches negativity can effect the outcome of a game.