Coaching Perspectives

Coaching isn’t easy. It may look easy. Parts of the job of coaching are easy, but in reality coaching is very difficult. In my mind coaching boils down to two mantras that have been espoused by famous coaches.

The first attributed to Scotty Bowman is the belief that coaching is simply, “ the ability to have the right players on the ice at the right time.” Sounds easy doesn’t it. I mean in reality how hard it could it be? It is in fact extremely difficult. As a coach your success night in night out is hinged on your ability to be objective. Think about it you need to be objective game by game to effectively place the right people in the right situations.

However, hockey coaches rely to heavily on hunches or veteran status (and sometimes this is important). My colleague is absolutely correct, hockey needs better stats. However, stats are useless unless they are used proactively in game situations. And in my experience hockey coaches don’t do this. Or if they do they don’t do it well because it isn’t part of how they view the game. They feel they are throwing their impact on the game out the door because they are adhering to statistics outputs, not pure ‘knowledge’.

The second witticism by a coach, who I can’t remember, said “coaching is the art of treating everybody different and exactly the same, all at the same time.” Truer words about coaching have never been spoken. Athletes are a different bunch. 20 of them in a locker room is challenge.

Where coaches need to continue to explore the world of working with athletes is in the realm of the off-ice. When coaches watch their athletes walk out of the door after practice, in many ways they feel their responsibility ends. Far from it. In my experiences those coaches who went the extra mile to learn more about their athletes, understand their development objectives both at and away from the rink earned a greater degree of respect from their athletes. Coaches who were able to do this without appearing ‘buddy-buddy’ or as trying to ‘kiss ass’, were extremely successful.

I believe this was the case because the athletes felt that the coach was trying to understand where the athletes were coming from. Athletes were more willing to go the extra mile for the coach who appeared to care and understand their perspective of the demands he was making of this athletes.

This is why coaches need to understand the holistic aspect of working with athletes. The investment it takes to try to view and work with your athletes as multi-dimensional beings will pay significant dividends for you (as the coach), the athlete and by extension, your team as a whole.