Nick's approach to growing confident athletes
CoachNick believes in nurturing the whole athlete. His philosophy goes beyond just hockey skills, focusing on building resilience, mental strength, and self-confidence both on and off the ice. Discover how our unique coaching methodology empowers young players.
Overcoming self-doubt
The ability to stop the negative self-talk of "who am I kidding" is everything. We all struggle with this, no matter our age, but for kids, it's so much worse. Getting a child to open up and vocalize their worries is obviously the first hurdle, but often, just giving someone the floor to talk and not feel judged for saying the wrong thing has the power to move mountains. Everyone has the ability to overcome, but sometimes what we need more than anything else is the room to find ourselves on the other side of whatever it is that has us so rattled with anxiety.
Building skills and confidence
On the ice, everything uses teaching progressions, ensuring you don't move too fast beyond a skater's current skill level. Confidence is obviously built slowly, and the rewards are easy to see on the ice when a child realizes they've managed to pull off the impossible. Off-ice training, however, is a little different. With the calmness of the training environment being such a radically different space to learn within, it provides a fresh outlook, often a much more optimistic headspace because having the ability to detach from what was happening on the ice is, in many cases, where huge transformations within a skater take place. Off-ice training provides a different conversation, often new questions percolate, and different dialogues about technique occur.
Nick's unique coaching advantage
As I'm not a drill-sergeant type, my coaching approach is more within the framework of supporting and encouraging. Some athletes, regardless of sport, need very demanding and highly aggressive leadership to thrive, and others do not function on that aggressive approach. For me as a coach, I do my best work when I give a skater the room to think without pressurizing the situation.
"The best outcome is when I hear from parents and school teachers that there has been a dramatic shift in a skater's attitude."
Coach Nick