Could This Ruin Girls’ Hockey?

By Kim McCullough, MSc, YCS

The more I coach and train female hockey players on and off the ice, the more I realize that girls play a mental game with their teammates and themselves that not only destroys their self-confidence, but has a devastating effect on team morale.  It is a competition that is both shocking and familiar in girls’ hockey dressing rooms everywhere.  

Here’s how the scenario typically plays itself out.  After a tough loss or a lacklustre performance, one of the girls starts to complain about how poorly she played.  This creates a domino effect among the other players, and quickly becomes a competition for who played the worst.   Before I started coaching, I never really put much thought toward this destructive dressing room behavior.  But now that I am more involved in all areas of the game, I realize that I see this with girls’ hockey players time and time again, and that I was also guilty of the same thing back when I was a young player.

After losing a tough game, most girls hockey players will lay the blame squarely on themselves.  While this is better than taking no responsibility for the loss whatsoever, or blaming your teammates, coaches, and referees, it does absolutely nothing to increase the player’s confidence or help their team.  A player may have played a bad game.  They may even have their worst game ever.  But why would girls want to “be the best” at “being the worst”?

It’s an interesting and destructive phenomenon, especially since it is usually one of the stronger players on the team who starts it all off.  If one of the best players on your team comes into the room after the game and talks about how badly she played, how do you think the weaker players on the team are going to react?  Quite often, the weaker players will say to themselves, “If she (the strong player) played badly, how bad that does that make me?”

Instead of competing with each other over who was the worst out on the ice, players need to focus on what went right.  I realize this can be a challenge after a tough loss, but it is the only way to regain confidence and prevent the dangerous domino effect of negativity.  Instead of being the best at being the worst, players need to focus on the positive in order to get better as individuals and succeed as a team.  This is easier said than done, but it is the only way to keep self-confidence and team unity intact.

© Total Female Hockey 2008

Kim McCullough, YCS, MSc, is a Athletic Development Specialist and founder of Total Female Hockey. In addition to training and coaching girls at all levels of hockey, from novice to the National team, Kim has also played at the highest level of women’s hockey in the world for the last decade. Kim’s female player development website features a state-of-the-art Complete Off-Season Training Program and her blog gives the coaches and parents of aspiring young players access to the most up-to-date tips and advice on how to help their players take their game to the next level. To learn more about female-specific player development, get your Free Report: The #1 Mistake Female Players Make in the Off-Season at http://www.totalfemalehockey.com