This weeks episode is a deeper dive into sportsmanship. We define sportsmanship as a part of the J.A.C.K.E.T.S. Way and from the literature around youth sports. We also get into how good sportsmanship benefits us as individuals in and out of the sport of hockey. We finish the episode off talking about how we as coaches can teach sportsmanship through modeling good behavior, reinforcing good sportsmanship, and taking an educational approach to bad sportsmanship.

This episode is all about team building. An important topic, especially with many teams adding a few new players or being a new team altogether. Team building is a crucial part of developing a positive team dynamic, something that helps kids feel more accepted on their team, increases improvement, and helps with performance in hockey and beyond. We touch on what team building is compared to team bonding, what to consider with the timing of team building events, other key factors, and then a few example activities to work on communication, trust, group success, and more.

This weeks focus is on positive self-talk, an important tool to help athletes face competition anxiety, build confidence, and help motivation. We start with defining self-talk and the different variations and functions it has. Then we talk about what we as coaches can do to make it easier for our players to have positive self-talk and build their skills of self-talk. The reflection challenge this week is looking at how we as coaches can recognize moments in the past where we have let athletes been negative towards themselves and how we can help them change that view to something more positive and useful.

Welcome back to the Blue Jackets Hockey League Car Ride Podcast! This episode we talk about communication and interaction, using Kaupilla's Wheel of Interaction as a tool we coaches can use to deal with different situations with our athletes. The challenge this episode is to reflect back on any difficult interactions you have had with athletes and if/how you could have handled them differently. Then think about how you might handle it again using the wheel for the next time you are in that situation!

Thanks for listening!

How can we build our questioning skills as coaches? We tackle this question in this episode by sharing three essential things to do when asking questions to athletes. We talk about getting away from short conversations with closed questions and how to get more focus on the understanding from our athletes. We finish with some quality leads from the USCCE and USA Hockey and a simple process to follow to have engaging conversations focused on the athlete's learning and thinking.

The coaching challenges this week include:

This episode is all about feedback. We start by quickly going through the observation and decision making process from USA Hockey that helps us decide what to give feedback on and when to give it. We then discuss the important things to keep in mind when deciding how to give feedback, including not overcoaching, being open to discussion, and giving the least amount of feedback as necessary. We finish the information with some key considerations to keep in mind when giving feedback to the players and the process to go through. At the end of the episode we end with some take away challenges which include: 

This episode features information on the Fun Integration Theory and aims to provide information on why fun is important to understand, and what fun is for a young athlete. It also aims to provide practical actions for how we as coaches can increase the fun for our athletes. After listening to this episode, reflect on how often you talk to the kids on their level, call them by their name, and take interest in their favorite hobbies. Additionally, reflect on how you use positive coaching to encourage and promote trying hard and positive team dynamics.

To learn more about the Fun Integration Theory from one of the authors, check out Heather Mannix's USA Hockey Webinar (click here)!

In this episode we introduce the Blue Jackets Hockey League Car Ride Podcast and speak on our first topic which is the prerequisites for learning. We discuss what learning is and the nature of learning being a risky activity. We then break down the tools we can use as coaches to help players feel safer when learning and embrace the activities a bit more. We then talk about the perspective of the athlete and the coach and how that impacts learning and how we can help athletes embrace a mastery orientation. The episode wraps up with a couple of reflection questions as you head into your practice this week:

I hope you enjoy the episode! Please reach out to me with any comments, feedback, or questions ([email protected])!