The Snowball Effect:
In a previous article for the Hockey Think Tank, I wrote:
Let’s paint a picture. It’s the first period, the game has no score. Your teammate makes his check miss in the corner and creates a two-on-one at the net front, you slide into space on your one-time side on the back door, and you’re wide open. He slides you a perfect pass and as you go to connect, the puck hits off the heel of the blade and dribbles off the side of the net.
Missed opportunity. The first mistake is missing the net in the first period of a 0-0 game. It can end there, but most often it carries back to the bench. Your body language drops, there might be some “choice words” to yourself. Is any of this productive? Will it prevent you from playing well for the rest of the period? The rest of the game? Some people will answer yes to these questions, and it hurts their game.
The first mistake is missing the net, the 2nd mistake is letting it bring you out of the present and affect even 1 more shift. The first mistake doesn’t kill you, the 2nd does.
Missing the net happens, missing the rest of the game because you can’t course correct is unacceptable. When the snake bites you, chasing after it makes your heart pump more blood so the venom travels through your bloodstream to more of the body doing more harm. When the snake bites, plan to get the venom out as quickly as you can. This is where our failure recovery system comes in.
Failure Recovery = Reset
As players and coaches who teach and guide them, we need to avoid the snowball effect.
I tell my players this.
“A bad shift can’t turn into a bad period. A bad period can’t turn into a bad game. A bad game can’t turn into a bad weekend. A bad weekend can’t turn into a month-long slump.”
Hit the reset button.
My Resets as a Player
In college, I needed to hit my reset button a lot. So much so, I made an actual reset button. On the side panel of my stall, I had an imaginary reset button on the left side.
I would come in after a period that I was benched for doing something small or insignificant, take my gloves and helmet off, sit down, hit a deep breath, and press into the side of my stall where my reset button was.
If I needed to reset between shifts, I focused my attention on 3 letters on the back of my stick just under my grip tape.
P.B.M.
I’d stare at those letters, think of the quote, and then return to the game.
There are a million ways to reset, you just need one that works for you.