Who wouldn’t want a team filled with determined, resilient people? 

I tell people all the time that my reliance on details and routines is necessary because I’m not smart enough to operate otherwise. That might be a bit of a sarcastic exaggeration, but if I can’t picture my skates sitting in my stall when I go to bed, then chances are I won’t sleep much. People roll their eyes, but being organized and sticking to a routine is a key piece of who I am as a person and a hockey coach. I don’t look at it like a crutch – quite the opposite. Others might, but that’s ok, I don’t control them. 

What I do control is my approach, and I’ve learned to lean in to my strengths. So much so that while I was interviewing for the General Manager / Head Coach position with a new expansion franchise in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League, I never felt more like myself, and it’s ultimately what earned me the job. This is a dream position for me – the opportunity to kickstart a brand new organization from scratch with what I believe is important to longterm excellence – so I wanted to treat it as such. The hiring committee might not share my affinity for spreadsheets, and it took a lot of work to prepare presentations and define precisely how I’d do things, but at the end of the day being myself worked.

How you do anything is how you do everything. 

I’ve used this phrase a hundred times in the past few months. For me, culture begins off the ice. Ken Hitchcock once said that a team’s identity exists in their work habits, which is another way of saying the process is the point, not the results. I want to build a team of players and staff members that cares about details. Every detail matters. If my skates are sitting in their rightful place each morning then that’s a detail I don’t need to think about. It’s automatic. It allows me the headspace to focus on something that’s not so automatic. This is the culture I want at the end of the day – a culture of focused, intelligent, hard-working people that concentrates on the controllables and doesn’t sweat the uncontrollables for too long. 

So in order to get that culture I have to build it one brick at a time. We all want to be part of a winning culture because winning hockey games is one of the best feelings in the universe. But it’s not easy, and it takes time. For me, winning is a process that starts with a personal philosophy I call Seek Exceptional. This is inspired by Pete Carroll’s book Win Forever in which he digs deep into finding better ways to do things that have already been done. If I’m always seeking exceptional methods, exceptional people, and exceptional players, then it stands to reason that I’m going to seek exceptional methods for attracting those elements to my organization. 

It started in my interview process when I went above and beyond what was expected of me, and it continues now as we begin to recruit players, name our team, and forge our identity. 

So, what am I looking for when it comes to people and players? How do we define exceptional?

Character & Compete

I’m focused on two specific traits when it comes to building this hockey team: character and compete. I believe character never compromises, but despite having all these neat little sayings that look cool when they’re painted on a wall, they can be a challenge when you put them to work in real life situations. For example, at the start of this process I was approached about a very talented hockey player with questionable character. I was tempted. At the end of the day we’re chasing wins, right? But the problem with that is that’s the end of the day, and our team is still stretching out and watching the sun rise. If skill was more important than character then by all means, I’d dig deeper. But it’s not. One skilled player isn’t going to make the difference for our team. A skilled player with character and compete? Hell yeah, now we’re talking. 

One of my many weaknesses is over-complicating things. I’ll create a drill for practice and add so many progressions that I confuse myself. Knowing this (and being constantly reminded of it every time I draw up practice) is the reason I focused on two keys for recruiting: character and compete. No more, two is enough. So even when I’m tempted, I’ll return to these keys when I’m making decisions. I set this focus at the start of the process and if I ignore them now then I’m compromising what I believe is right and what I believe will lead to longterm success. 

And character never compromises. 

Character is also what grants compete to players, coaches, trainers, or the single parent who drives two kids to two different sports. Character is discipline, or the ability to trade what you want now for what you want later. Character drives kids to compete in practice and open their mind to a high standard of coaching. We’ve all seen the flip side of that equation – entitlement, selfishness, arrogance – poison that seeps through a dressing room like a virus (sorry). People who operate on a platform of negativity will never reach their potential unless they look for a better way of doing things, unless they seek exceptional.

I have time for people who want to get better. There’s a competitive spirit that’s necessary even when you’re seeking changes to your attitude or approach. We can work with ambition, we can chip away selfishness and arrogance when it comes from a place of low confidence or there are other dynamics at play. No one comes in with a sunny disposition every single day – if hockey was easy then there’d be no point. But the willingness to engage in the details shows resilience and determination. 

Who wouldn’t want a team filled with determined, resilient people? 

Starting from scratch is exciting, but it’s a big job. An important job. The choices we make now will set the table for next season and the seasons to come. That’s not lost on me. It might be easier to take the easy way out from time to time when it comes to the details, but the only way I can define that is to say I’d be ignoring the details. Which means I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight. 

And I’m going to need rest if I’m going to do this thing right.

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