Teaching Life Skills Through Hockey

Youth hockey coach Paul Breon has been around long enough to realize a winning team is far from the most valuable thing he can try to provide players.

That sentiment was reinforced this month when Breon, 48, who coaches a Jr Kraken 12-Under recreation team, took part in the third annual Kraken Youth Hockey Coaches Training clinic. This year’s clinic, offered to all coaches within the Jr. Kraken umbrella, brought in the Positive Coaching Alliance national nonprofit organization and guest trainer Cletus Coffey to speak about unlocking the life-changing power of sports for all kids, regardless of socioeconomic circumstance.

“It never ceases to amaze me how great their focus is on how young, developing minds work and how they relate it to how coaching has evolved and changed,” Breon, who played his youth hockey in Kent and surrounding areas, said of the clinic organized by the Kraken’s One Roof Foundation community arm. “I grew up playing hockey and all sorts of sports. And the coaches were, to put it politely, pretty hardcore. And pretty old school.

“But that’s the way it was,” he added. “And so, it’s very refreshing to see how that’s all changed. But also, to continuously be reminded about how these young minds are different. And how everything we’re doing, whether on the ice or in the locker room, translates to how they’re going to grow up as humans.”

Part of what Breon took away from the clinic was the importance of relating to his preteen players, whose minds often will be anyplace but the ice. Without that relatability, he said, many of the positive benefits of hockey might be impossible to fully instill.

“One big thing is really just the amount of information that hits this particular age group on a daily basis – whether it’s social media, or screens, or the whole school clique thing starting up,” he said. “It’s very different from an 8-Under team, where a lot of the time they aren’t even walking around with a phone yet.

“So, they have quite a few different distractions. And the first big step is really to just be aware of it.”

That awareness includes understanding that a young player might show up to a practice “with not only school stuff on their mind, but the last 20 (social media) posts about some random thing that’s impacting them.” And that it doesn’t mean their “head isn’t in the game” or they’re trying to be disrespectful.

“It’s worth pausing and seeing what’s going on with their life,” he said.

Nick Havens, who played youth hockey in his native Montana and now coaches Jr Kraken 8-Under and 10-Under recreation teams, said the clinic offered multiple techniques on boosting player self-esteem so they aren’t turned off hockey when something inevitably goes wrong on the ice.

“For a lot of them, this is their first time with an actual team,” Havens said. “And so, it’s the first time they’re getting put into a stress dynamic they’ve probably never had. And so, how do you deal with that stress?”

Havens mentioned a scenario where a young goalie might allow a “soft” goal that could leave him demoralized. So, the clinic mentioned forming a “mistake ritual” with players where they do something such as visibly brushing their shoulder off whenever a mistake is made by them or a teammate.

“Mistakes happen all the time,” he said. “So, you create a ritual like brushing your shoulder off and moving on to the next thing. You develop a ritual like that when the kids are so young at 8 and 10 and that way, when mistakes happen when they’re older, they are able to move on to the next thing immediately.”

But beyond that, he said, the clinic also looked at reinforcing values of sportsmanship and respecting the game so players learn to love hockey.

For the clinic’s guest trainer Coffey, a onetime professional football player and Team USA Master Track & Field competitor turned motivational speaker, those values and concepts are key to young athletes getting the most out of hockey and other sports.

“You’re bringing their attention and awareness to the life skills that sports can offer,” Coffey said.

Once they hear about those values, he said, they can start building upon them as they grow older. And if they find themselves playing on a team or for an “old school” coach not sharing those values, they can look to better align themselves with a program that does.

But it all starts with coaching, he said, and showing young athletes what truly matters in the big picture.

“There’s an intrinsic desire to attach our self-worth to the scorecard,” Coffey said. “And we talk about this, how just because you didn’t win it doesn’t mean you’re a bad kid or not good.”

For older kids, he added, there’s a similar dynamic at play with a need to impress peers for “likes” on social media. And it’s important to let them know it isn’t a poor reflection of who they are as a person if that post doesn’t get liked or shared often.

“Bringing it back to sports, if a player goes through a particular drill and doesn’t get what they’re looking for, you tell them, ‘Let’s go back to the drawing board,’” Coffey said. “Let’s focus on attitude, effort and response. It’s connecting them to the life skills they’ll need. And I’m a big fan of that.”

So is Brett Graham, 42, entering his first season as an 8-Under recreation coach after previously serving as an assistant. Graham had struggled to find hockey books to better prepare him for the mental side of coaching kids so young and felt the clinic gave him valuable pointers.

One was the idea of keeping their “emotional tank” filled at a 5-to-1 ratio – five positive affirmations for every negative or “coachable” moment that arises.

“With 8-Under kids, winning shouldn’t even be on your radar, as one of your goals,” said Graham, who grew up playing and coaching youth hockey in his native Victoria, B.C. “If kids like to win, that makes it fun. But really, it’s all about making these kids happy with what they’re doing and supporting them.

“You don’t want to come off as Coach (Jack) Reilly from the (Disney Movie) Mighty Ducks,” he added. “You want to be this positive figure that makes them feel good about hockey.”

And being exactly that type of positive figure is why 12-Under bench boss Breon has long believed that coaching a winning team is far from the best thing he can offer players. Breon constantly reminds his players, coaches and parents that the underlying theme of whatever they do is to “build” – whether on wins, losses, or individual skills.

“It’s always sort of humbling to continually be reminded that, whatever we do is going to affect how they grow up into fully functional adults,” Breon said. “And that’s a much bigger weight for us to carry. It goes well beyond the ice.”