Success on the ice begins with preparation off of it.

There’s nothing better than the start of practice. Smooth ice, crisp air, and the anticipation of an hour or so of pucks, competition, and fun!

And for me, nothing derails that excitement quicker than seeing the wrong colour socks step onto the ice.

Part of the reason I got a job as the head coach of the Junior A Winkler Flyers is my attention to detail and belief in being organized. Actually, it’s not just a belief — it’s the foundation upon which I’ve built my approach to coaching.

When I step onto the ice I want to deliver a rock solid practice plan that takes advantage of every available moment of ice time, even when I’ve got 20 minutes or so built in for individual or unstructured skill development. If I’m running the practice then I want to focus on the details of each drill. If my assistant coach is running practice then I want to devote my energy to one-on-one time — conversations with players in line, specific techniques I want them to try, simple corrections.

If half the group is wearing orange and half is wearing black, and one player steps out with green socks, then they’re demonstrating that they’re not ready to go to work with their teammates.

Sure, you can still practice with the wrong colour socks, but it’s a slippery slope, and it’s a slope my brain can’t handle. Some mornings I spend more time debating the colour combinations than I do the actual practice plan. Seriously. Orange forwards and yellow defence on one side vs black forwards and blue defence on the other side? Two colours split right down the middle? We like to play a lot of small area games and use game scenarios to teach systems — sometimes the positions matter, sometimes they don’t, but the colours always matter. I will die on this hill.

The good news is that with most small habits like wearing the right socks, you only need to remind your players once. Or one player, more accurately. Boot them off the ice, and everyone will know the value of being prepared for practice.

Alright, like the importance of sock colour, here are a few more small habits that can have a big impact on your team’s process.

Be on time

A few years ago at The Coaches Site’s conference in Toronto I heard Portland Winterhawks head coach and general manager Mike Johnston talk about his process for training camp. Part of his early philosophy was keeping the amount of rules to a minimum, but one crucial rule that can’t be ignored is adherence to the schedule.

So far, time is undefeated, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change any time soon. The sun will come up tomorrow, the Earth will rotate, and morning skate will start at 10:15 am sharp.

Trying to organize 20 hockey players is a challenging day-to-day task, but it’s near impossible if your team’s process doesn’t include simple buy-in when it comes to meetings and video sessions, not to mention games and practices. Like the sock obsession for me, keeping the schedule consistent is a huge help because it removes distraction.

We always run the power play meetings at the same time, the pre-scout at the same time, and morning skates and practice are mostly at the same time. In fact, when the schedule does change — say you had a road game and didn’t get home until 3 am — it’s actually exciting and it’s easy to remember.

A fun trick I learned from Kelowna Rockets head coach Kris Mallette: when the schedule does require a small tweak, set random meeting times. Power play: 9:32, defence: 9:38. The players always ask about the times, and it’s really nothing except a small exercise to keep them engaged during the grind of a long season.

And because this question seems to come up a lot at conferences and interviews, here’s the schedule I run on a typical game day:

• 9:15 am: Warm up stretch and activation
• 9:30 am: Penalty kill meeting
• 9:40 am: Power play (sometimes split into two units)
• 10:15 am: Morning skate (normally 25-30 minutes followed by 15 minutes of free ice)
• 6:00 pm: Pre-game meeting (pre-scout video for a home game)
• 6:55 pm: On-ice warmup
• 17:30 pm: Puck drops
• 9:45 pm: Cheer and/or cry

Hello/goodbye

My office is located just inside our players’ entrance at our rink, so the guys have to walk by every time they get to the rink and every time they leave. One of my biggest surprises about this level was how often I need to remind the players to say hello when they arrive, and goodbye when they leave.

When I was an assistant coach at UBC it wasn’t an issue whatsoever. In fact, one of my favourite memories was Adam Rossignol stopping in the office after practice and kicking his feet up for an hour to chat about — well, often to just chat about complete nonsense. Football, music, haircuts — didn’t matter, it was just fun to visit.

And that’s the problem with an open door policy — your door is always open. But I believe it’s better than the alternative.

Often a simple greeting is all it takes to get someone’s day started off on the right foot. Teenagers are a lot more awkward than 21-26 year-old university students, but that’s the point. U18 and U15 players and so on are even more awkward when it comes to simply saying hello and goodbye, but it’s important. In fact, on my roster I currently have players who brought poor reputations when they first arrived. Sometimes those reputations are justified, sometimes they aren’t, but I’d like to believe most young hockey players who carry that baggage are misunderstood.

Ensuring that everybody, those players included, says hello when they get to the rink and goodbye when they leave goes a long way toward opening them up and making them comfortable with the coaches and the process. I have one player this season who it’s worked wonders for – it builds trust in the relationship and it makes young athletes more open to coaching, which in turn helps them get better quicker, which in turn leads to winning.

So yes, I can draw a straight line from saying hello in the morning to winning hockey games. It might be a long line, but it’s simple and it’s important.

I’ve noticed it’s especially helpful with goalies. Your goaltender is the most important player on the team. Imagine they’ve just gone through a tough loss. The team loses, but tending the twine is a lonely position. It’s possible that they surrendered the winning goal, showered and changed, and left the rink without talking to anybody. And then imagine they show up the next day and head straight into the dressing room and they still haven’t talked to anybody. One of my goalies has been here for a year and a half now and no matter what happens, he says hello and goodbye, and it has helped both of us get through some tough times, and I really respect his commitment to doing it even though there are times when he wants to throw his blocker at me.

In reality, there are hundreds of small habits that all contribute to the overall process of a hockey team. Things like:

• Preparing the same way for games and practices
• Taking care of off-ice habits like sleep hygiene and nutrition
• Dedicating time and energy to something
• Contributing energy and attitude every day

Your habits are the foundation that gradually grows to become your team’s identity. Practice organization, timing, and daily greetings are just of the most powerful habits that I’ve found work for me and my style. I really encourage you to find your own procedures that you believe in and then stick to them no matter what.