It happens to all of us: before we know it we’ve left our youth behind and with each passing day move further away from it. Life comes at you fast, they say, and despite modern medicine and science, father time remains undefeated. So it’s only natural to look back and reminisce about simpler times, when there were less responsibilities, and all that mattered was going to sleep so we could wake up in the morning to play hockey again.
That feeling doesn’t just hit us normal hockey fans who never got a chance to play in the NHL. It hits NHL players as well, and the later they get in their careers, the more they look back at the road that got them to where they are. Thousands of early morning practices, years of their life spent at rinks taking power skating, puck handling and shooting classes and putting on and taking off their gear. To play the game at the highest level takes a huge sacrifice of a large part of childhood, so while we all look back fondly on our youth, what we appreciate and remember will greatly differ. Here are some of the things that NHLers remember when looking back on their youth hockey careers.
Their Parents
Most athletes will thank their parents for the sacrifices and hard work it took to raise a child that is destined to be a professional athlete. But hockey parents can truly say they put in the work. Getting up before dawn in a Canadian winter, and then driving to practices before school and work is no easy task. There’s a reason why NHL players are so quick to share their success with their parents: if it weren’t for them they really wouldn’t be in the NHL. We saw a glimpse of this when Walter Gretzky passed away earlier this year, and the entire hockey world felt like it had lost a father figure. We saw it again at the end of this season when great American goaltender Ryan Miller had an emotional moment with his parents after his last NHL game. NHL players never forget the reason they get to live their dreams and play hockey for a living, and without their parents’ support and sacrifices, the players’ lives would be much different. In Alex Ovechkin’s case, it was his older brother who took him to his games when his parents could no longer do so. In a devastating turn of events, Sergei Ovechkin dies of a blood clot following a car accident when Alex was 10. Even now Ovechkin pays tribute to his brother by kissing his glove and pointing to the sky after he scores a goal.
The Friendships
Even at the young age of youth and minor hockey, there is a sense of competition and going to battle with your teammates. Your teammates on the ice become your friends off the ice, and if you’re like me, they turn into some of your lifelong friends. Every NHL player has stories of friends they played with as children. Some make it to the NHL together, while others give up their dreams of playing in the NHL at a young age. Sidney Crosby famously would call one of his friends at 7:30 AM during their summer vacations, so they could go and play roller hockey all day. Edmonton Oiler superstar Connor McDavid played with current Florida Panther Sam Bennett all throughout their childhood, and are lifelong friends. But when Bennett played for the Flames, it became a heated rivalry on the ice, no matter how much love there was off it. Sometimes, like with McDavid and Bennett, friendships continue into the NHL, but most of the time they just continue on into normal life. Either way, youth sports teammates are some of the best friends you’ll ever have.
Playing the Game
Most players who make it to the NHL just have the desire to play hockey all day and every day. The stories of players skating around after practice or going home to shoot more pucks are not exaggerated, and while other kids may go home to play videogames or other activities, the very best continued to eat, sleep, and breathe the game. Think about Crosby phoning his friend at 7:30 AM every morning to play during the summer. Other players love the game so much they dedicate their later years to moving away from home to attend a hockey school or University, especially if they live in a smaller town. Nathan MacKinnon did this when he was a teenager and transferred to Shattuck-Saint Mary’s in Faribault, Minnesota. There are plenty of European players who came to North America at young ages, knowing zero English, to try and one day have a chance of playing in the NHL. Some even went to College here to play for strong NCAA hockey programs. Gustav Nyquist, Carl Hagelin, and Thomas Vanek all went down this road to the NHL. The one thing all these players love is playing the game, no matter where in the world they are.
The Fun Stuff
A lot of NHLers look back at their youth hockey years as some of the best years of their lives. Many of them look back to team road trips and tournaments as the highlights of their youth hockey careers. Others remember smaller things like going for breakfast after practice or team pizza parties after games. For example, Auston Matthews reportedly became interested in playing hockey at the age of 5, because he loved watching the zamboni clean the ice at Phoenix Coyotes games. The Sedin twins began playing much later at the age of 8, and they remember fondly that Daniel had to change his position from center to wing so that they could play on the same line together. It is fun little memories like these that illustrate just how long the path to the NHL is, and even though every player takes a different route, the youth hockey years are often remembered as some of the funnest years of their childhood.
If you really think about it, hockey itself is a very strange game. It’s exhilarating and a joy to play, but when you really deconstruct the game, it is a little funny to think about. A bunch of players skating around and chasing a piece of rubber with bent sticks? Imagine trying to explain that to someone who has never heard of hockey before! Well isn’t it fitting then that a strange game like hockey has some really strange rules that the players must abide by? We know about all of the normal rules that come up during a broadcast, but what about some of the more absurd rules that we rarely ever get to hear about? Let’s take a look at some of the strangest rules in the sport of hockey!
Goalies must use white tape on their stick
Does it get any more absurd than controlling the colour of the tape that a goaltender can use for their stick? Well, apparently it is something the NHL is serious about because it is right in the official NHL rulebook. NHL Rule 10.2 states that ‘In the case of a goalkeeper’s stick, there shall be a knob of white tape or some other protective material approved by the League’. Why is the league so specific about the colour of the goalie’s stick tape? Likely to give the ref or goal judge a clear and unobstructed view of where the puck is. When you put it that way, it makes sense. If there is a scramble in front of the net, one could mistake the knob of the goalie’s stick for the puck. So, as strange as the rule might seem, it actually works in the goalie’s favour.
Teams Can Only Have One Goaltender on the Ice
What? This seems pretty obvious doesn’t it? Why would a team ever think to have more than one goalie on the ice? Wait, when you say it like that, it’s brilliant! Can you imagine the anarchy on the ice if a team were allowed to send out a second goaltender? Imagine a 5 on 3 penalty kill with one skater and two goaltenders guarding the net. It would make for some pretty entertaining games and a major change in strategy. Actually, goal scoring would be way down in hockey if there were two goalies guarding the net so it is probably for the best that NHL Rule 5.3 exists in the NHL rulebook.
If No Refs or Linesman Are Able to Officiate, Players Can Take Over
These rules just keep getting more absurd the more you read them. But this is another rule that is officially in the NHL rulebook. The exact wording states that: if, through misadventure or sickness, the Referees and Linesmen appointed are prevented from appearing, the League will make every attempt to find suitable replacement officials, otherwise, the Managers or Coaches of the two Clubs shall agree on Referee(s) and Linesman(men). This is a long way of saying that if there are no officials and the league cannot find any replacements, then players from each side will have to officiate their own game. It brings me back to the days of street hockey where you call your own penalties and high sticks. Now I know this would probably never actually happen in an NHL game, but it’s hard to imagine how players would be able to stay unbiased. Would you call a penalty on your own teammate? Or call back a goal for your own team?
Too Many Men? It Could End Up in a Penalty Shot
Wait, isn’t too many men on the ice just a regular minor penalty? Well yes it is and it isn’t. If there are too many men on the ice accidentally then it is a minor penalty. There are those who have done it on purpose in the past though, and the league has had to change their rulebook accordingly. Legendary coach Roger Neilson would push the boundaries of the NHL rulebook all the time. In this case, Nielsen would continue to send out players while killing off a 5 on 3 penalty, knowing that his team couldn’t be penalized anymore. There have been other times when coaches have purposely interrupted a breakaway or an odd-man rush by sending another defender over the boards. It seems like a smart strategy doesn’t it? So smart that the league had to incorporate this rule to penalize teams with a penalty shot if they send too many men onto the ice intentionally.
A Team Cannot Just Bring a Goalie in for a Penalty Shot
So say your team has just intentionally sent too many men over the boards and were penalized with a penalty shot against. How can this coach mess with these officials even more? By trying to switch out their goalie for the backup goalie who is sitting on the bench. That seems like it is breaking the rules, right? Well, technically you can swap out your goalie for a penalty shot, you just can’t swap back after the penalty shot is over. Coaches will have to wait until the next whistle or stoppage in play if they wish to bring their starting goaltender back into the net. Why is this? I’m not really sure and with this rule, I couldn’t even come up with a logical reason from the league. Interestingly enough, coaches can switch goaltenders during the shootout when a game is not resolved during an overtime period. If the coach knows that one goalie handles penalty shots better than the other, then switching to that goalie in the shootout makes sense. The new goalie would also be fresh, having not played for the previous 65 minutes of game action!
As passionate hockey players, from the very first time we strap on skates and hit the ice, kids all across the country dream of one day making it to the NHL. It all seems so easy when you are young. All of our heroes in the NHL started playing in youth leagues just like ours, whether in Canada or Europe, or anywhere in between, they all had humble beginnings before ever aspiring to realize their dream to play in the NHL. But what we do not realize as kids is the lifelong dedication to honing your craft. All of the early mornings, the late nights, and the sacrifices made that can begin at as early an age as we can remember. You do not just make it to the NHL, you earn your way there.
Childhood
From a young age, the long road to the NHL begins astride on shaky skates with our parents cheering us on! Early morning practices before school starts are common for youth hockey leagues, and the dedication to the game begins long before we even know it. There is a reason why every NHL player credits their parents at some point in their careers. Without the 5:00 AM wakeups and lugging our equipment to and from the car, how could we even get our hockey careers off the ground? Often it is our parents who sign up as coaches and volunteer their time to help develop us and ensure that the very first lesson we learn from hockey is how to have fun. If the early morning wakeups do not deter you, then you are ready for the next phase in your hockey career.
Youth Hockey
As we get older, the levels of hockey become more competitive and those who no longer enjoy the pressure of making rep teams or competing for spots, quickly lose interest in furthering their careers. This is the age in which parents start to believe that their child is an NHL star in the making. Well, statistics show that those parents are wrong about 99% of the time. Estimates have the total number of NHL players to ever play the game at well under 10,000, which is incredible considering the NHL is 104 years old. Granted, while most of the league’s history was played with less teams then there are now, it is still an astonishingly low number. If you think about how many kids play youth hockey around the world, not just in Canada, then you can quickly begin to see why making it to the NHL is considered such a long shot.
Junior Hockey
If, and this is a massive if, you are elite and talented enough to make it to the junior hockey level, consider your career already a success. This is the step that most hockey players never even make it to, and while the options do open up slightly at this point, it is still a longshot to make it to the NHL even for junior players. Several studies have been completed about the percentage chance of having a sustained NHL career for major junior players in the CHL. Each time, the estimated chance is around 5% or less. Further to this, unless you are a generational talent like Sidney Crosby or Connor McDavid, you could potentially be stuck in junior leagues or minor leagues for your whole career, waiting for all of the pieces to fall into place for an NHL club to call you up.
Drafted
Wow, congratulations! You were drafted by an NHL team out of either major junior hockey or NCAA college hockey. Your dream of playing in the NHL and making millions of dollars is just around the corner right? Wrong. Let’s take Sidney Crosby’s draft class from 2005 as an example. Nine of the thirty players selected in the first round did not even have an NHL career of any substance. That is 30% of the best players in that year from around the world, who never played out their NHL careers. This percentage gets higher the later in the draft you go.
So making it to the NHL draft is not even a guarantee to play in the NHL. Every year, hundreds, perhaps thousands of young hockey players don’t even get drafted. Imagine the heartbreak for players and families who dedicated their whole lives to hockey in hopes of making it to the NHL. All the sacrifices that were made, the large chunks of childhood that they will never have a chance to get back. Quite often young players have their education disrupted in order to dedicate their lives to hockey. Is this something that sounds appealing to you?
We’re not trying to dissuade players from trying to reach the NHL, rather, it should be known how difficult it is to realize this goal. What if you don’t make the NHL? Is playing in Europe in a league like the KHL an option?
Making the NHL should never be seen as impossible, even though the actual percentage chance of it happening nearly is.
What a player does need to consider is the Climb. Where and how long you are willing to climb is your call. There are plenty of professional leagues out there that will pay you to play! How much you make and where you play in the world, depends on you!
We can teach it, preach it, and believe it, but the unfortunate truth is that even in 2022, racism and bigotry still exist in our daily lives. The hockey community has always been a tight knit one, so when something tragic happens, we all feel it. If you saw the recent video of Jacksonville Icemen defenseman Jacob Panetta making an inappropriate and racially charged gesture towards Jordan Subban, you’ll understand exactly why celebrating diversity on the ice is so important. Panetta was suspended for the remainder of the season, but the damage had already been done. Subban is the younger brother of NHL players PK and Malcolm Subban, the former of which has been discriminated against on social media in the past during his time with the Montreal Canadiens.
Diversity hasn’t always been a strong point of the NHL, but the league is taking up the fight against racism, especially with the large influx of non-caucasian players entering the league. Hockey, which has historically been a primarily white sport, lags behind other professional leagues like the NBA in creating a truly diverse and global game. The NHL is represented by athletes from 18 different countries, while the NBA features nearly 50, including legitimate superstars from every continent. Recent NBA MVPs include Nikola Jokic from Serbia and Giannis Antetokounmpo from Greece, while this year’s front runner is Joel Embiid from the African nation of Cameroon.
The Old Narrative Needs to Go
For years, Don Cherry promoted anti-European rhetoric on Hockey Night in Canada. We get it, we can admire being a patriotic Canadian as much as the next person, but Cherry’s rants were constantly toeing the line of controversy. The long-standing narrative that North American players play harder than European players has to stop. One only needs to watch Alex Ovechkin play for a few minutes to realize how much things have changed.
What about other tough European players like Nicklas Kronwell or Thomas Holmstrom? Peter Forsberg was as tough and strong a player as you will ever see, and see how long you last in the corners against Zdeno Chara. If the NHL wants to ensure a new generation of diverse players, it will need to dispel long-standing and discriminatory attitudes towards international players.
#TapeOutHate
Budweiser and the Hockey Diversity Alliance recently released a campaign called #TapeOutHate which takes aim at racism on the ice. The alliance is selling a special hockey tape that has the words ‘racism has no place in hockey’ written on it. The HDA was created in 2020 by several NHL players of different ethnic backgrounds who were united by the shared trauma they felt by enduring racial slurs during their youth. Players like Anthony Duclair, Nazem Kadri, and Matt Dumba joined forces to create the alliance, and are now bringing forth the #TapeOutHate campaign to bring awareness to the cause.
The group put together a video featuring NHLers like Wayne Simmonds, who speak candidly about enduring racial discrimination from fans, coaches, and other players. The censored version of the video will be played on Hockey Night in Canada, while the uncensored version can be found online.
As more players from increasingly diverse backgrounds make their way to the NHL, the HDA should continue to expand and make a bigger impact on the culture of the game. There is a hope that taking these strides can eliminate encounters like the one Jordan Subban had to face just last month. If the NHL can send a positive message to its players and fans, then there will be a trickle down effect throughout the hockey world.
An Ever-Changing Game
The wonderful thing about hockey is the second you put on a jersey and helmet, you become a hockey player no matter what your ethnicity is. The real change needs to come from the parents at the youth hockey level. Canada has always been a multicultural country, and hockey has been a sport that is woven into the fabric of our culture. Whether it is the Punjabi broadcast of Hockey Night in Canada or the French broadcast of a Montreal Canadiens game, hockey always manages to transcend language.
Teaching our children that hockey is a game for everyone is an important first step in eliminating prejudice and keeping the game we all love as beautiful as it is. People from all ethnicities, religion, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic status can enjoy hockey and should be able to play the game without any fear or judgment. Truth be told, perhaps more than any other sport, hockey needs an injection of diversity at its highest levels. This all starts with a change in mentality and acceptance at the grassroots level, to ensure that visible minorities and people of color feel just as welcome in the sport as anyone else.
The HDA is a Great First Step
The Hockey Diversity Alliance is making incredible changes at the professional level, and will be a powerful tool to fight racism on the ice, period. Younger players will feel empowered and racial prejudices will cease to be tolerated from anyone involved in the game. Hockey is evolving, and we always have to keep in mind the popularity of the sport around the world, not just in traditionally white countries. The Beijing Winter Olympic Games are playing without NHL participation this year and every country is still from North America or Europe, except for China, which received automatic entry as the host nation.
There are youth leagues and non-professional hockey leagues in more countries than you might think. But even still, a majority of players who make it to the NHL come from the same few countries. The HDA is a great first step in making hockey an accessible game no matter where you are from, and in the long run, the game will benefit from this. We all love hockey because it is a beautiful sport, but let’s all do our part to make this beautiful sport inclusive and hate-free.
The mental side of hockey is one that does not get mentioned much by the media, but players are certainly becoming more candid about it. Being a professional athlete is often glamorized and any criticism of them is justified due to their million dollar paychecks. But hockey is becoming an increasingly open space for players to talk about the toll the game takes on their minds and not just their bodies. Las Vegas Golden Knights goaltender Robin Lehner is well known for openly talking about his bi-polar disorder, ADHD, and addiction problems. Former Vancouver Canuck goaltender Corey Hirsch has spoken candidly about his depression to the point of contemplating suicide.
The Mindset of a Hockey Goalie
The mindset of a goalie is so much different from players both on and off the ice. It is akin to other ‘island’ positions like being a baseball pitcher or football quarterback: the outcome of the game is nearly always a direct reflection of their in-game performance. When you think about it that way, it should not be surprising that goalies put so much pressure on themselves before every game.
Have you ever seen a goalie in pregame warmups? A lot of them have quirky little superstitions that they need to do before every game. Marc-Andre Fleury and Patrick Roy are both known for actively talking to their goalposts before and during the game. If you think about it, being a goalie can be a pretty lonely and isolating position. While players get to converse on the bench between shifts and skate around the ice, goalies more or less have to stay within their crease the entire game.
Part of why having the right mindset for goalies is difficult is because there are things that happen that are out of their control. Pucks can be deflected or the goalie can be completely screened on a shot, and if the goal goes in the goalie will always shoulder the blame. It is similar to how baseball hitters can fail 70% of the time at the plate, and still be considered a world-class hitter. It isn’t about the failures and the mistakes, it is the successful part of being a goalie that we should be focusing on.
When you are a goalie, there is nobody there to back you up if you are out of position or let out a juicy rebound. A defenseman always has their partner, and a forward can always cover backchecking for a linemate, but a goalie is on their own in the crease. Any goalie can have the perfect form and positioning, and still let in goals from anywhere on the ice. That is what can be so frustrating for those striving for perfection. Hirsch has been quoted as saying that being an NHL goalie is 80% mental and says that the perfect balance is staying mentally alert and sharp while staying physically relaxed. If your mindset in the crease is strong, then your physical abilities will follow almost like a reflex.
Unfortunately for goalies, you are only as strong as the ability to shake off the last goal you let in. If you dwell on mistakes and allow them to remain on your mind, then it will be difficult to ever regain your composure. Goalies need to learn to deal with disappointment and imperfection: you can’t reasonably expect to post a shutout in every game you play in. Even the best pitchers allow homeruns, the best quarterbacks throw interceptions, and the best goalies let in goals. It is the nature of sport, and the true measure of mental toughness is being able to overcome these disappointments and focus on the things that you can control.
The Mindset of a Hockey Player
Players have it easy! Well, that’s not exactly true, but there is definitely less individual pressure on players than on goalies. As a player, you can make a mistake on the ice and it does not necessarily mean that the game is lost. When you are a goalie, every shot against you and every goal you let in has the potential to lose the game. It is a strikingly different mindset for players than for goalies.
But it’s not that players do not put pressure on themselves. Have you ever heard of the phrase, ‘they’re squeezing their stick’? This is referring to players that are in a scoring slump and are squeezing their stick harder in order to try and score a goal. Prolonged slumps can be detrimental to a player’s confidence, especially when you consider just how difficult it can be to score a goal on the ice.
NHL players have been known to head out to the ice before warmups to visualize what is going to happen later in the game. It’s not so much imagining yourself scoring goals, but it provides a mental reassurance when the game actually starts. Imagining yourself making positive plays can help bolster your confidence, and can eliminate mental blocks when you are actually on the ice.
One thing that can really help players regain confidence is to learn from your mistakes on the ice. Just as goalies need to deal with letting in goals, defenders need to learn how to forget giveaways and forwards need to get past missing a golden opportunity to score. Do you think basketball players think about every shot they have missed? You are never going to be perfect on the ice so don’t let any mistakes you have made affect your ability to learn from them to improve your game in the future.
When players have a positive mindset, it helps their teammates out too. If you are showing negative body language on the ice and on the bench, it weighs on your linemates as well. Mastering the skill of having a positive mindset will not only help you to overcome mistakes, but it will allow you to re-focus on the things you are doing right on the ice.
