Articles

[hockeygod]

Both sides resort to myths in the debate over fighting

By PAT HICKEY, The Gazette February 15, 2011

Fighting in the National Hockey League has been in the news in the past two weeks and it's time to look at a couple of myths and misconceptions.

Myth No. 1 is that the NHL is only major professional sport that allows fighting.

In fact, the NHL rule book devotes 51/2 pages to the definition of fighting, the circumstances surrounding fights and the sanctions that result from a fight.

But, while the NHL rules say that fighting is unacceptable, the reality is that the league tolerates fighting. Players who are involved in fights seldom face any consequences.

When a player takes a penalty for hooking, interference or for something as benign as jumping on the ice too soon giving his team too many men, he may incur the wrath of his coach for leaving his team short-handed.

That doesn't happen with fighting. While there is a provision for extra penalties for a player who instigates a fight, this infraction is seldom invoked. When a fighter goes to the penalty box, he usually takes an opponent with him. In these cases, a coach may actually praise the player for giving his team a lift or sticking up for a teammate.

A straw poll of the Canadiens' players yesterday provided a consensus that fighting is part of the game and will never be eliminated.

Captain Brian Gionta fell back on Myth No. 2, which stipulates that fighting serves as a safety valve for pent-up emotions. He played college hockey at Boston College and noted that the NCAA hands out suspensions for fighting and that the result is that there are more stick fouls.

But the pent-up emotion argument doesn't hold to an examination of the facts. Our good friends at hockeyfights.comoffer some interesting statistics about fighting and they show the great disparity between fighting in the regular season and in the playoffs. You would think that emotions would run highest with the Stanley Cup on the line. You would think that the animosity between teams would increase when they face each other up to seven times over a two-week period.

The reality is that fighting practically disappears during the postseason. Over the past five seasons, there has been at least one fight in 40 per cent of the games in the regular season. That number drops to about 10 per cent in the postseason. In the 2008 playoffs, there were 85 games and only six of them (7.1 per cent) included a fight

Why the drop? It's because coaches and players concentrate on winning hockey games and, with the rare exception, fighting doesn't win hockey games.

One reason the NHL tolerates fights is that some fans like them and that may be necessary to sell the game in a season that is too long and features a product that is too watered down.

When Penguins owner Mario Lemieux went off during the weekend, decrying some of the recent goonery around the league, fans weighed in on chat sites and radio talk shows. They denounced him as a whiner and pointed out that he's hypocritical because his team leads the NHL in fighting majors and employs Matt Cooke, who has a reputation for delivering dangerous hits.

But Lemieux, who expressed his frustration as a player by calling the NHL a garage league, offers some food for thought.

Michael Cammalleri said he had been talking to some friends who said that fighting must be on the rise this season. The reality is that the incidence of fighting has been steady the past five seasons at about .58 fights a game.

But something is wrong when there are three fights in the first four seconds of a game or when two teams rack up more than 360 penalty minutes. Suspensions are up but it's difficult to say whether that's because there's more dirty play or because the NHL is coming down harder on offenders. The anecdotal evidence would suggest there have been more injuries to key players but, again, it's sometimes difficult to separate foul play from misadventure.

The NHL can't afford to lose Sidney Crosby because of a hit from behind, and Matt Cooke should have answered for trying to take down Alexander Ovechkin with his knee. And there should be a way to cut out the overwhelming number of fights that are unnecessary and stupid.

In the meantime, fans can take comfort in the fact that the best is yet to come -the playoffs start in two months.

phickey@montrealgazette.com

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

DMan wrote:
Here's another interesting one from Daniel Coyle:
The Power of Crumminess

Dave – good one! Here it is… Thanks for alerting us!

Dean
——–

THE POWER OF CRUMMINESS

Here’s a little-appreciated fact about talent hotbeds: their facilities tend to be rundown. Rusty. Makeshift. Overcrowded.

In a word, crummy.

Exhibit A could be the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, which has produced Michael Phelps and a squadron of other top national swimmers despite its considerably-less-than-lovely setting. Or Anand Kumar’s tin-roof math class in India where an astounding 78 percent of the students are accepted to India’s Harvard, the Indian Institutes of Technology. Or any of another dozen other hotbeds where this precise atmosphere is repeated so often that it stops feeling like a coincidence, and starts to feel more like a fingerprint, or a mathematical equation: Crumminess + Crowdedness = Beautiful Talent.

This strikes most of us as surprising, because to the modern American/European mind, crumminess and crowdedness are considered deeply undesirable. We instinctively strive for groomed fields, top-level technology, comfortable surroundings — and enough space where each age group can gather in splendid isolation.

The question is, is talent developed better in roomy, well-appointed facilities? Or is there something else going on in these remote hotbeds? To put it simply, are there any advantages to being crummy and crowded?

We get an interesting data point from Vermont’s Burke Mountain Academy, a bona fide hotbed of downhill skiing talent (it’s produced 40-plus Olympians in its 30 years). Burke’s facility is far from rundown (though the classrooms and dorms tend toward the spartan), but it has two features that set it apart: an undersized ski hill, and an ancient, creaking beast of a ski lift that, by all appearances, should have been replaced long ago. It’s an old-fashioned poma lift, and it works like this: you stand on the snow, grab onto a bar/seat contraption, and get dragged uphill.

Most visitors who come to Burke see the old poma lift and presume that it’ll be replaced soon by something faster and more efficient. But the teachers and coaches of Burke would never think of it. To their minds, the poma lift might be their most valuable resource.

From the poma lift, young skiers get a catbird seat to watch the older, better skiers make turns. That physical closeness transforms the small ski hill into a rich kingdom of watching and learning, not to mention motivation. Kids on that poma lift receive the privilege of seeing up close who they might become, if they work hard.

We’re all acquainted with the phenomenon of the scruffy underdog from the remote country who rises up and defeats big, rich Goliath — we see it all the time in sports, music, and business. And we naturally interpret their success as evidence of the superior hunger of poor countries. They want it more. They’re tougher. They’re quintessential underdogs.

But I think Burke and the other hotbeds gives us a new way to think about underdogs. Crumminess and crowdedness, used properly, can be advantages. The skiers from Burke only look like underdogs — in fact, they’re the overdogs, because they’ve designed the perfect space to create deeper, better practice and ignite more motivation.

So what do the rest of us do? Should we demolish our good facilities and replace them with crowded, tin-roofed structures? Well, not quite. I think it’s more useful to look closely at the useful elements from the hotbeds and try to copy them. A few ideas:

* 1. Find ways to mix age groups. Isolation diminishes motivation. Nothing creates effort and intensity like staring at older talent, someone who you want to become. Putting groups together — even in passing, as on the poma lift — injects a burst of motivational electricity.
* 2. Aim to make facilities spartan and simple. Research shows that luxurious surroundings diminish effort — and why not? It’s a signal to our unconscious minds that we’ve got it made — why should we keep taking risks and working hard?
* 3. When given the choice, invest in people over facilities. Teachers are the real engine of the day-by-day learning process that drives any hotbed. The addition of one master teacher creates more talent than a million dollars’ worth of bricks and mortar.

P.S. — Okay, what do you think? What would you do if you received a check for $50,000 tomorrow to help develop talent in your team/school? Please rank the following possibilities from most-effective to least-effective:

* 1. Pay for new facilities/equipment
* 2. Hire the single best teacher/coach you can find
* 3. Bring in a top-notch series of camps/seminars for students and teachers
* 4. Pay existing teachers/coaches more
—–

Dean's rankings (assuming I had primarily average teachers / coaches and one or two whom were above average; assuming I had the basics so far as equipment; knowing $50k would be a mere drop in the bucket so far as a new facility):

1. Hire the single best teacher/coach you can find. (Release those who are average.)
2. Pay the two above average existing teachers/coaches more. (#1 & #2 – It is about identifying, recruiting and retaining GOOD PEOPLE first.)
3. Bring in a top-notch series of camps / seminars for students and teachers
4. Pay for new facilities/equipment (if I didn't NEED new stuff.)

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Kids inspired by NHL headhunters

It isn’t just Sidney Crosby and Marc Savard who’ve had their brains rattled. A Calgary Atom has too and is asking everyone to stop for the good of the game

By CHRIS STEVENSON, QMI Agency February 18, 2011

The kid never saw it coming.

A blindside hit to the head left 10-year-old Matthew, an Atom 1 player in the Calgary area, slightly dazed, but not confused.

An articulate young man, Matthew (the family didn’t want its last name used) said he knows why he was the victim of a blow to the head: Kids his age watch the NHL. They want to be NHLers and they do what the NHLers do.

“I definitely think that. There have been a lot of incidents of hits to the head. NHL players are doing it and of course the kids watch it,” said Matthew in an interview with QMI Agency, a followup after he sent a thoughtful and well-written e-mail to me about headshots and the state of the game, from the NHL on down.

“They are trying to be like the NHL superstars. I really think they watch them and they copy them.”

Does anybody think NHL general managers or members of the board of governors or league executives are concerned about the trickle-down effect of headshots at the NHL level through the feeding chain?

Anybody?

Matthew missed school Monday with a headache after getting hit on a play that saw his aggressor kicked out of the game with a major penalty. Matthew used the time at home to craft his email to me.

He said he was feeling much better Tuesday.

“I read your article on blindside hits and I had a blindside hit done on me the same weekend you wrote your article,” wrote Matthew.

“Kids know how to hurt someone because they watch it on TV, so when they play hockey, they try to do the same thing. Lucky for me, the referee did see the hit and gave the kid a game suspension. So should these gorillas keep elbowing?

“They were coming towards us and I wasn’t looking at him. I was looking at the puck,” said Matthew.

“They had the puck and I couldn’t see him. He came across the blue line and hit me with an elbow to the head. My head was hurting a little bit and I was kind of dizzy. I went to the bench and after the first few seconds I was set to get back into it.”

Lucky for Matthew, his dad, Paul, has been involved in rugby and has an idea of what a concussion looks like. He watched Matthew closely and decided a trip to the hospital wasn’t necessary.

Other kids aren’t so lucky.

We’ve been hearing a lot about concussions, particularly since Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby has been out with one since early January, but kids being affected at the minor hockey level are seldom mentioned.

Dr. Renata Frankovich, director of the Physiotherapy and Sports Injury Centres in Ottawa, met with a concussed 16-year hockey player the other day.

Speaking at Algonquin College’s sports business symposium on the business implications of head injuries in sport, she said in most cases, symptoms clear up in seven to 10 days. But they hadn’t for this young player.

“He had a hockey injury and I can’t tell him when he’s going to be better,” she said. “It’s a very scary situation for young athletes. With a (knee) injury, you can give them some idea of how long it will be to recover. That’s not the case here. This is a difficult time that can make a young athlete depressed and scared.”

Minor hockey coaches and parents should educate themselves on the symptoms of a concussion and what to do if a player is suspected of having sustained one (thinkfirst.ca is a good place to start).

Coaches and parents should know it does not require a direct blow to the head to cause a concussion.

Of course, the best way to handle a concussion is not to get one in the first place, because there is no treatment other than rest.

Even after going through what he did, Matthew isn’t deterred from playing the game. He said he’s not intimidated or scared and the joy he gets from the playing trumps any lingering negative feelings he might have after the incident.

“Oh, yeah, I love it. I’ve always loved hockey from the first time I stepped on the ice,” said Matthew.

“I’ll always play. I’m just not really worried about (getting a blow to the head) again. It happened and I was shocked, but I’m not worried it’s going to happen every game.”

Paul, Matthew’s dad, said he was disappointed by what he heard from one of the coaches of the opposing team.

“He said his player shouldn’t have been suspended because Matthew got up. What if he had collapsed at home later? It’s that thinking, ‘If there’s no blood, it’s not a foul.’

“I’ve been a part of the those player evaluation committees and I hear people saying, ‘That kid is going to make the best team because he’s running around hitting the top players.’ Certain signals are being sold to the kids.”

Matthew, through the eyes of a 10-year-old, probably sees things much clearer than most adults.

His answer to the problem of headshots?

“I think what they should do is probably just kick those guys out of the league,” he said. “Kick them out of the league if they do it on purpose. It’s just a game. They shouldn’t be allowed to play.”

If only it were that simple, huh?

“We don’t mind the physicality. We play rugby,” said Paul. “But when a kid can’t see it coming and gets a blow to the head, it’s ridiculous. It’s a culture. There’s got to be a good discussion about it.”

Matthew should know he has helped push the discussion along.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Cherry: Get rid of hitting

By IAN BUSBY, Calgary Sun February 18, 2011

Don Cherry has a quick and easy solution for eliminating all head shots and concussions in hockey.

Just get rid of the hitting.

No one wants to do that, especially not Cherry.

But fingers are being pointed starting at the NHL level on down for some of the vicious blindside hits that rattled the likes of Marc Savard and Sidney Crosby.

“Blindside hitting is the one you are trying to get rid of. Head-first into the boards is the other one we need to get rid of,” said Cherry, in Calgary for the Heritage Classic, speaking Friday at the Cold-FX Salute to Hockey Moms luncheon.

While Cherry applauds the 10-year-old Calgary minor hockey player who spoke out after receiving a blindside hit, the CBC commentator said kids need to learn how to protect themselves.

Cherry has tried for years to get rid of checking from behind, going as far as to hand out ‘stop’ stickers for helmets, but it is still a problem.

“If you are going head first into the boards, that goes along with the not let them hit until they are 12 years old,” Cherry said. “They have no idea how to get ready for a hit. They have no idea how to take blind passes up the middle.

“They go into the corners straight. When they hit 13 and they open up hitting, they are with guys that know how to hit, and they don’t know how to receive a hit.”

The 10-year-old who wrote to the Sun said players his age are just emulating what they see in the NHL.

“It’s good that the kid writes in,’ Cherry said.

Cherry would argue that protection has caused a lot of the problems.

When he was a professional player, he didn’t wear a helmet and he said the concussion problems weren’t as bad as they are now.

“In 1979, I predicted they would have concussions,” Cherry said about the league-mandated helmet rule.

“We all had respect for the head. You would never think about blindsiding a guy. You would never think about hitting somebody head-first into the boards.”

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Dangerous on-ice shots crackdown intensifies in city minor hockey

BILL KAUFMANN, Calgary Sun February 18, 2011

Condemning dangerous, cheap on-ice hits will soon be the first star of the city’s minor hockey sportsmanship focus, says the movement’s vice-president.

News of the long-planned phase of the Minor Hockey Association of Calgary’s Respect In Sport program comes after a 10-year-old city-area Atom 1 player told of taking a serious head shot in a recent game and claimed kids are emulating their often violent NHL heroes.

The latest phase in sportsmanship awareness will highlight the dangers of hits-from-behind, blindsidings and head shots by way of literature and arena banners, said Hockey Calgary’s Perry Cavanagh.

It’ll be the next step of a two-year-old program that will either be unveiled in March or for the next hockey season, he said.

“It might have to wait until next year — we’re pretty tied up organizing the coming playoffs right now,” said Cavanagh.

He said the organization has waited until 2011 to roll out the phase because it wants to keep the message fresh and not “gather dust on the shelf.” The Atom 1 player named Matthew said he missed a day of school this week after taking a blinside hit to his head that resulted in the offender being tossed from the game.

Matthew said numerous such incidents in his league result from young players emulating NHL action.

Cavanagh said he doesn’t doubt that, adding it’s a concern for his association.

“Kids see that and they think that’s hockey — kids need to know that’s not part of minor hockey,” he said.

Hockey Calgary, he said, has always taken such conduct seriously and has cracked down, dishing out indefinite suspensions and life-time bans for some offenders, though they’ve been considerably older than Matthew.

Cavanagh said there’s no place for such play in the younger leagues, though the danger it poses is less there.

“The speed and mass — there’s normally not a lot of energy being generated,” he said.

Matthew’s father who’s part of a league committee told the Sun there’s a culture of tolerance, even admiration for cheap hits among adults involved in Calgary minor hockey.

Cavanagh said he disagrees, that the movement has long had a philosophy of taking a hard line on hazardous, dirty play.

“Nobody wants to see headshots in a game — concussion awareness is a major issue,” he said.

“We’re onside with this kid (Matthew).”
—–

I have seen and heard the stuff of which Matthew's dad speaks… the culture of acceptance within the minor hockey ranks. And not just accepted, but taught and promoted!!! Brutal.

I know Perry Cavanagh – he is an intelligent man – but he is either "wishful thinking" or denying it publicly to do damage control. I also know for a fact some of the people I have heard it from are … teachers. It shocked the Hell out of me.

A few days after I heard and saw the first two instances of this (by teachers, who are also parents – in charge of kids), I read a great quote: "Silence on the presence of wrongdoing is complicity." This provides me with a great line that sadly, I have now had to use since.

(The first two times it happened, I was so shocked I didn't say anything… I didn't know what to say! I was literally stunned. I am sure my body language spoke volumes to the kids and adults involved. The third time I was present when it happened, I spoke out against it and this quote came in handy.)

Can you imagine anyone, let alone teachers, teaching and condoning violence against other kids? BRUTAL. What the Hell is the world coming to? I almost want to home-school my kids now…

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Head injuries a blow to NHL bravado

By Amber Hildebrandt, CBC News February 21, 2011

The loss of NHL star Sidney Crosby to a concussion is a reminder that all players are vulnerable to the injury, and experts are warning that sports culture must change.

Losing NHL star Sidney Crosby to a concussion is a reminder that all players are vulnerable, Canadian hockey Hall of Famer Marcel Dionne says.

"That's the scary part," said the retired NHL player. "Now it's affecting our superstars. It takes that to review what's happening."

But ask Dionne about the NHL's latest high-profile hit on Maple Leaf Mikhail Grabovski – who experts believe suffered a concussion after two hard hits in the Feb. 15 game but was allowed back on the ice and scored the winning goal – and he appears to take a more typically tough-guy approach.

"Absolutely," Grabovski should've been allowed back on the ice after a second hit, Dionne said. "He came back and proved it.

"I watched him play against Buffalo," Dionne said, referring to a later game. "I think he's playing better than ever. They woke him up or something."

Dionne, who played 18 seasons in the NHL, is indicative of a bravado that persists in the National Hockey League – an attitude that experts say needs to change.

Dr. Richard Wennberg, a neurologist and concussion expert at the University of Toronto, says that watching Grabovski slip and slide as he tried to rise to his feet and the rubbing of his neck once he reached the bench were clear indications to him that the hockey player had a concussion.

"By observation, it can be stated with certainty that he had a concussion," Wennberg said. "It would be against current medical management to continue playing the game."

But continue he did. Leafs management said Grabovski responded coherently to questions. Some critics said a doctor should have made the call instead of a trainer and that Grabovski should have been taken away for 15 minutes for an assessment.
NHL urged to adopt return-to-play protocol

Crosby, the Pittsburgh Penguins captain, has been out of action since Jan. 6 after taking hits to the head in successive games. He says he expects to play again this season but admits he can't be sure.

Dustin Fink, a trainer who tracks concussions on his blog Theconcussionblog.com, says the NHL is behind the times when it comes to in-game diagnosis and return-to-play protocol for concussions.

National Football League players who show symptoms of a concussion aren't allowed to return to play the same day. They must be symptom-free and cleared by an independent neurologist before returning to the field.

"The bigger sports tend to be a lot less proactive," Fink said. "They are protecting their multibillion-dollar industries and their players themselves."
Concussion symptoms

Classic concussion symptoms include confusion and amnesia, especially of the event that caused the concussion.

Other immediate symptoms may include:

* Headache.
* Dizziness.
* Ringing in the ears.
* Nausea or vomiting.
* Slurred speech.
* Fatigue.

For more on this and other questions, see our FAQs. [http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2011/02/17/f-concussions-what-they-are-faq.html]

Professional football and hockey leagues aren't the only ones struggling to minimize the risk of concussions.

U.S. downhill skier Lindsey Vonn participated in the World Cup on Feb. 13, winning silver, despite later admissions she felt foggy after a concussion suffered during training. The U.S. lacrosse league is currently debating whether to require girls to wear helmets – and wondering whether extra armour might actually increase aggression.
33 concussions despite rule

Fink acknowledges the NHL at least introduced Rule 48 – which makes blindside head hits illegal – but says it's not enough. Despite that rule, the league saw 33 reported concussions by Dec. 1, as many by that date as in the previous season in total.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has said the number of concussions are up this season due to accidental or inadvertent collisions, but the number caused by blindside hits are down.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there may be up to 3.8 million sports and recreation-related concussions in the U.S. each year, with concussions accounting for one in 10 of all sports injuries.

Fink says the hockey league needs to create a standard return-to-play protocol for concussions in line with the NFL's and give medical teams the independent power to decide whether to pull a player.

But he understands the difficulties in changing the culture.

"Hockey is a tough-guy sport. You definitely don't want to show weakness with your opponent," Fink said

In the end, he says, it's an important issue that needs to be taken seriously by players, management and the league.

"I don't care how tough you are," Fink said. "You only have one brain. We can't fix that brain."
Sports culture a major barrier: doctor
Injuries to young athletes

Michael Stuart, chief medical officer at USA Hockey, is behind a proposal to raise the age of bodychecking in U.S. youth hockey. Stuart says there's more than enough evidence for Canada to do the same – and a large reason for that is a study conducted by the University of Calgary that showed bodychecking in Pee Wee hockey more than tripled the risk of concussion and injury. Find out more. [http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/02/21/concussion-hockey-bodycheck-age.html]

However, despite an evolving wealth of knowledge about concussions, the culture in sports remains an impediment, says Paul Echlin, a sports medicine physician based in London, Ont.

"The No. 1 thing is not wanting to leave the playing field or the ice surface or the football field regardless," Echlin said. "Unless somebody drags you off, you're not going to go."

Echlin was the lead author of a study on concussions in hockey players published in the Neurosurgical Focus journal in November 2010 that found a lack of standardized knowledge among athletes, coaches, trainers and parents about the signs and symptoms of a concussion.

The concussion expert says it's what leagues do with the information that is telling.

"When you start to turn your head when you know this knowledge, that's a problem," Echlin said.
Players never had it so good: Dionne

However, Dionne argues, players have never had it so good – with their health so top of mind.
Career-ending concussions

Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young, New England Revolution soccer player Taylor Twellman, Colorado Avalanche forward Steve Moore – a photo gallery showcases these and other professional athletes [http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/photos/82#igimgid_419] whose careers have been hampered or ended by concussions.

"We never had this," said Dionne, who played from 1971 to 1989 for the Detroit Red Wings, Los Angeles Kings and New York Rangers. "I think the players' association recognizes that we have to protect our players, so is the league, the insurance companies…. And on top of that, the doctors are right there."

But Dionne, who says he suffered a single concussion during an NHL career nearly two decades long, worries that concussions are becoming more prevalent because the sport is getting faster, players are bigger and stronger, and hard equipment is less forgiving.

"There will always be concussions," said neurologist Wennberg. "There's no way to legislate concussions out of the game."

Both Dionne and Wennberg suggest part of the solution could be to increase the rink size, a change that studies show reduces contact.

Dionne, though, may have a simpler idea.

"The little guys have the stop sign," Dionne laughed, referring to use in the minor leagues of a stop sign to reduce hits from behind. "Maybe we're going to have to do this ourselves!"

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[DMan]

Winning & losing streaks. Any rhyme or reason?

http://sciencewitness.com/2011/02/22/winning-losing-streaks-any-rhyme-or-reason/

[Tom Molloy]

John Russo writes a lot of good articles for the "Let's Play Hockey" magazine from Minnesota.

http://www.letsplayhockey.com/russoarchive.html he covers a lot of topics and has good ideas.

'The Game is the Greatest Coach'
'Enjoy the Game'

[DMan]

Another good one from Daniel Coyle:

Breaking Ceilings
We got a ping-pong table at Christmas, and within days my 15-year-old son and I were seriously, hopelessly addicted. At first, I beat him regularly — 21-15 would be a typical score. Occasionally, I even dialed my game back a notch, so the game would stay excitingly close.

But then one fateful week something changed. The games were suddenly getting closer. Uncomfortably close. Then, with quiet inevitability, something tipped. The kid started winning. Not just winning, but thumping me with increasing ease, to the point where I began to suspect he was dialing it back for me.

Something had changed — or rather hadn’t changed. While my son kept getting better, I’d stopped improving. I had to face the unpleasant truth: I’d bumped into my ceiling.

We bump into ceilings all the time — at work, in sports, in music, in every area of performance. But when we look deeper, this area is wrapped in mystery. What’s causing the ceiling, and how do we get through it? The mystery is deepened by the fact that our skills in navigating that encounter — our ceiling IQ — might be one of the most important factors of our longterm performance.

When we encounter a performance ceiling, we instinctively make a couple natural presumptions:

1) That we’ve reached our natural limit — the point where our skills plateau.

2) That the best way past the limit is to keep grinding – to grit our teeth, stick with our methods and to defeat the ceiling through sheer cussed persistence.

The question is, are our instincts right? Or are there other, smarter ways to crack through our ceilings?

We get some insights from this article written by Josh Foer called Secrets of Mind-Gamer. Foer, a twenty-something science journalist, transforms himself into a memory champion in the space of a single year (memorizing, among other things, a shuffled deck of playing cards as quickly as possible).

At one point in his journey, Foer hit a ceiling. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t memorize a deck of cards any faster. He then sought out an expert (who in a parallel familiar to Talent Code readers, turns out to be Dr. Anders Ericsson). The ever-resourceful Ericsson gives Foer some surprising advice: speed up your practice. Force yourself to go too fast. Force yourself to make mistakes. Analyze those mistakes, find your weak points, and fix them.

Foer and Ericsson’s speed strategy works beautifully. Foer goes on to win the memory championships and set a new American speed record for card-memorization. It’s an intriguing story (and looks to be a fascinating book). But mostly it’s useful because it shines a light on a new way to think about ceilings.

Foer and Ericsson didn’t think of the ceiling to be a limit. Instead, they thought of it as a level of automaticity — a point at which Foer became fast, unthinking, and proficient. Automaticity – sort of like our brain’s autopilot for specific tasks — is usually a good thing. It helps us walk and talk without thinking too much. But when we want to improve beyond a certain level, automaticity becomes a barrier. We try harder — we grind away — but that just reinforces the automatic circuit. Progress stops.

The solution, then, is not to grind, but to disrupt. To choose a new strategy that breaks up the automaticity, reveals our shortcomings, and allows us to rewire our circuit. To change some factor — in Foer’s case, speeding up time — so that he’s prevented from being automatic, and thus can improve.

And in light of that, here are a few disruptive tools for ceiling-busting, stolen from various hotbeds:

* Use Overspeed: Foer’s technique is relatively common among musicians and athletes. Going too fast breaks up the normal rhythms of a skill and allows them to be rebuilt and improved.
* Use Underspeed: slowing way down to develop new feel; common to musicians (who, perhaps by many-laddered nature of the work, tend to become ferocious ceiling-busters. For example, world-champion speed typist Albert Tangora likes to type at half-speed when he hits a plateau.
* Single Out: Focusing on one key element and working on it in isolation. For example, major-league batters will practice identifying various pitches. They are singling out the visual, pattern-recognition element of hitting.
* Seek Fresh Feedback: Finding new metrics — such as videotaping your performance, or seeking out a consult from a new teacher — can quickly lead to new insights and experiments.
* Give it Time: Ceilings are as much emotional challenges as anything else, best encountered with a sense of perspective. As George Leonard points out in his book, Mastery, “this is the inexorable fact of the journey: you also have to be willing to spend most of your time on a plateau, to keep practicing even when you seem to be getting nowhere.”

Normally, we think of stories like Foer’s as inspiration: he tried harder, so he broke through. But this story is not about inspiration; it’s really about strategy. He didn’t succeed merely because he tried harder, but because he tried in a highly methodic way that was consistent with the way our brains learn — by getting in the zone where we make mistakes and fix them. Talent’s not a possession — it’s a construction project.

As for my ceiling: it turns out that one half of our ping-pong table can be raised into a vertical position, creating a practice wall. At first it felt strange — the ball, rebounding from a few feet closer than I was accustomed to, shot back at me so quickly that I could barely catch up. It was overspeed in excelsis. But I’ve done it for a few days now, and I’m hitting the ball pretty well. Playing a real game seems weirdly slow.

Okay, so I still haven’t beaten the kid. But the last two games were 21-19 and 22-20. Now I just have to make sure he doesn’t find out about my secret practice technique.

PS — From the kid: “Hey Dad, if you don’t want me to find out about your practice technique, maybe you shouldn’t write about it in your blog!”

Source:http://thetalentcode.com/2011/02/24/breaking-ceilings/

[hockeygod]

Ban bodychecking? Absolutely

By Kim Gray Thursday, Feb 24 2011
Kim Gray's Modern Family Blog

Here's something to think about if you haven't been following the news and you happen to be a hockey parent.

Bodychecking is legal at 11 years old across Canada – except in Quebec.

Bodychecking is not permitted in La Belle Province until the kids are 13 years of age.

A recent University of Calgary study showed that Alberta Pee Wee leagues (where kids are 11 and 12 years old) suffered 73 concussions over the same period of time only 20 of these injuries occurred in Quebec among the same age group.

Curiously, USA Hockey – a body which governs U.S. amateur hockey – will be voting on a proposed rule to ban bodychecking nationwide until players turn 13 years old.

This vote, to take place in June, is in part a response to the Canadian study just referenced.

Chief medical officer for USA Hockey – Michael Stuart – has said he's concerned younger players don't have the physical and mental awareness required to execute safe and legal bodychecks, which results in risky and sometimes damaging collisions on ice between players.

All factors considered, it seems a country-wide decision to ban bodychecking until players are 13 is a no-brainer.

Care to comment?

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[Tom Molloy]

My thought is that age 13 is the absolute worst time to bring in body checking. I taught jr. high for 22 of my 34 years of teaching. At ages 12-13 you have the biggest difference in size between children than you ever will have. I have had 6'4" – 193 cm. 13 year old boy's with 5' – 153 cm, classmates/ The growth difference is +/- 3 years (sometimes more). So one boy can have the body of a 16 year old while another has the body of a 10 year old. The boy with the 16 year old body is also coming into puberty and the testosterone is flowing and increasing the aggressiveness. (I do 2 practices a week with 11-14 year olds now and see the huge difference in physical maturity)

They have got to be kidding.

I remember my son, who didn't grow until he was 17 lining up at the face off dot in the bantam championship game vs a boy who was bigger than my asst. coach (who was a 6'3" 220 lb. former NHL defenseman). That was 12 years ago and the rule then was body checking starting at age 13.

The people running hockey need to either have body checking from the start, and teach good technique and eliminate charging and boarding which passes off as body checking in minor hockey, OR and I think this is better, introduce body checking at age 15 when the growth differences have evened off a lot. There was always checking when I grew up and it wasn't the focus but now with a starting age it is such a big deal that hitting becomes the game instead of the "game".

You can learn this game with body contact, as in angling, riding off, blocking without the hitting. I have seen too many players quit because they are afraid (i.e. boys playing vs men) and too many minor hockey games that look more like roller ball than hockey, with players running around crashing into opponents with no angles or defensive side considerations.

Brendan Shannahan played with no body checking while growing up and was one of the toughest skilled forwards to ever play the game and promotes no hitting in youth hockey while demonstrating through his carreer that it isn't important at an early age. The kid's need to learn contact from the D side hockey; not collision hockey.

'The Game is the Greatest Coach'
'Enjoy the Game'

[hockeygod]

American model growing game at youth level

Saturday, 01.29.2011
By Mike G. Morreale – NHL.com Staff Writer

RALEIGH, N.C. — Carolina Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos Jr. can't wait for the day when General Manager Jim Rutherford can step to the podium at the NHL Entry Draft and announce the name of a player born and trained from within the state.

The thing is, that day is quickly approaching due in large part to the increased support and widespread implementation of the American Developmental Model (ADM), a new philosophy in age-appropriate athlete development launched by USA Hockey in January 2009.

Within the last year, athletes from Carolina Youth Hockey programs have earned scholarships to the University of North Dakota men's program and the women's program at Boston College.

As part of this year's NHL All-Star Weekend, an ADM conference and clinic was held at the Raleigh RecZone on Saturday afternoon, marking the second time ADM regional manager Scott Paluch has helped conduct a clinic in the area.

"We want to get more kids on the ice to play, teach them how to play better and get them to love the game and play it longer," USA Hockey executive director Dave Ogrean said. "Hockey in America is growing and getting better. We're interested in having more Americans in the NHL; 80 percent of the clubs in the NHL are from the U.S. Our relationship with the League is better than it's ever been. The growth has been great."

Along with Karmanos Jr., Paluch and Ogrean, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke also spoke to the crowd inside the lobby area of the RecZone.

"Everything an athlete in another sport is asked to do, we ask our athletes to do on a piece of steel about an eighth-of-an-inch wide," Burke said. "This is the way forward; this is not a shot in the dark. This is not something a bunch of people who never played hockey sat around and thought about. We studied how they developed players in Europe, in Sweden and Finland, and put this program together. We believe it's the right way forward. A ton a research went into this and the goal is to get as many kids on the ice and have them enjoy the game."

With USA Hockey's Red, White and Blue initiative, coaches can promote creativity among players, increase player involvement and create a positive environment to learn and play.

"We view this as a revolutionary model," Commissioner Bettman said. "USA Hockey developed a proven system for developing young athletes. The ADM will have the effect of increasing player participation, creating a positive environment for children to learn and play hockey, and it will facilitate skill development among young players. Thanks to the hard work of NHL member clubs, coaches and players and alumni, ADM clinics and demos around the NHL have been an on-going and important role to validate this model and increase youth participation."

The model includes shrinking the ice surface during practices that now see players split up and rotate throughout six different stations to hone a specific set of skills. Now, less time is wasted during practice and all players touch the puck more. USA Hockey believes that dynamic will foster a greater passion for the sport among young players.

The smaller-ice philosophy is especially important in teaching players skill without worrying about the technical aspects of the game, such as positioning, staying in lanes or skating offside.

"We think it's an exciting development for hockey in this country," Bettman continued. "We view the relationship with USA Hockey to not only be important, but vital. The more we do at the grass-roots level, the more players develop into NHL players."
—

RALEIGH, N.C. — There's a pretty significant proposal up for vote during USA Hockey's Annual Congress meeting June 8-11 in Colorado Springs, Co.

It includes a proposed modification that would prohibit body checking in games for youth hockey players until they reach bantam level (13-14 years old). The current rule allows checking in games at the pee-wee level (11-12 years old).

"Body contact and body checking is a fundamental and special skill and you have to be able to teach it … not just say, 'Go and do it,' " USA Hockey Executive Director Dave Ogrean told NHL.com

The proposal appears to be a foregone conclusion.

"There's been a lot of safety and health-related issues and feedback from former players, who are now coaches, about the distraction away from mastering other skills because you focus on (checking) too early," Ogrean said. "We also know instances where parents have said, 'I don't want my kid to play hockey because I don't want them to check too early.'

"This has been a result of a lot of study," he continued. "We know that not everyone shares a uniform opinion, but based on the health and safety research we've done, and the input from a lot of people who are experts in the game, taking body checking out of the pee wee level and, instead, teaching body contact and then implementing the checking a year later is the proper path."

Scott Paluch, a regional manager for USA Hockey's American Development Model, feels taking this step is an important one for the maturation of young players in this country.

"It's an emotional topic for a lot of people who have grown up in our game," Paluch told NHL.com. "The piece of legislation that doesn't get talked about enough is that we want to introduce body contact at a younger age. We want to start the education sooner, so when they start from mite, we can begin talking about how you come together in body contact. We would increase that education at the squirt level, discussing the proper angling and how to accept contact. At the pee-wee level, we would actually talk about introducing checking at practice and then, finally, full checking in games in bantam."

— Mike G. Morreale

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Tom,

Good post regarding the age of introduction of checking. Wait till 15 (Minor Midget) but only if all the 15 year-olds play together – not with 14 year-olds or with 16 / 17 year-olds – so they are all in the same boat. But I guess you could still have some pretty big gaps in size and strength here. Waiting later (15) does introduce the "testosterone factor" where the kids want to test each others mettle physically – so they might be more prone to try to separate the body from the head instead of the puck from the man – especially since it is a novelty and they have been waiting for this! Maybe younger is better – less testosterone, smaller bodies, less mass, less acceleration, less distance to fall (lower centre of gravity), etc.

A friend I teach with asked why we don't teach checking earlier when the kids are closer in size – say in Atom (ages 9-10?) – prior to Peewee. Good point as the growth spurt usually hasn't hit yet.

What I see now is the kids and their parents (and to a lesser extent, the coaches) panicking as they graduate from Atom into Peewee (age 12 turning 13 – when the current checking age is set.) Often, the coaches haven't been selected yet; they can't get their checking certification until after tryouts and by then, the new incoming kids from Atom have already had to try out in checking conditions for which they are unprepared (and afraid.) I had a few parents try to rent ice this summer to have me teach their kids in advance.

Regardless of the age, coaches need to be selected well enough in advance such that they can complete a checking clinic prior to tryouts. The kids should be able to attend a checking skills camp prior to tryouts. This would put more people at ease – including the parents.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[DMan]

Tom & Dean,

What is the "Checking Certification" that coaches have to go through? I'm a little unsure about starting body contact later, as I do think the testosterone factor is there. I also think it allows kids to play for too long with their heads down and be very vulnerable to injury. Tom, what do they do in Europe?

Obviously there is no easy answer, but I do think off ice clinics can help. Our players are pretty rough around the edges since they haven't been playing all that long. When we were taking too many penalties for high hits & head contact this season we started doing the UAS Hockey off-ice checking drills and the improvement was immediate. The video is available here:
http://usahockey.cachefly.net/webofficecheckingvideo.wmv
I'm sure hockey Canada has something similar?

When it comes to the NHL, one discussion I never hear is talk about going to Olympic size ice. It's so much tougher to make contact with the little bit of extra space. Just a thought….an expensive one, but when you see your most talented players sitting on the sidelines all options should be open for discussion.

Dave

[hockeygod]

Checking Certification is a 7.5 hour course (Hockey Alberta is the only one I can comment on) which consists of about 5 hours of classroom time and 1.5 hours on-ice. The intent is to teach the coaches the theory and techniques of checking from contact confidence to body checking (give and receive a check.) I haven't been to one since they started doing this as I am not required to have this certification since I don't coach at peewee. (I just saw the manual last week for the first time.) I did work on several instructional videos for Hockey Canada in the early to mid 1990's and have been teaching the various levels of coach certification, so I am familiar with the terminology, etc.

I believe the head coach of each peewee team needs to attend this clinic prior to coaching their team. Hockey Canada is evolving their coaching certification to mandate regular updating of coaching certification – unlike up till now, once you achieve a certification, it doesn't expire (except for medical training / CPR, police checks, etc.) Not sure how frequently you will have to update – ongoing annually or every two or three years – and I don't know the scope of the renewals (repeat certification or take shorter update courses.)

I did watch the video link – most of these exercises were included in the Hockey Canada video back in the early 1990's. Bjorn did a generic rewrite of a few topics and then various organizations branded them with their national colours.

In an ideal world, all of the checking certification would happen before tryouts and assistant coaches (and then players) would also attend. Unfortunately, many coaches aren't named much before tryouts start in September and the local Minor Hockey Associations overwhelm Hockey Alberta with Checking Clinic requests at the last minute – then wonder why HA can't supply them with an instructor 'tomorrow'! Even though if the local MHA's name their coaches earlier, they can request a clinic at any time of the year! (Sometimes the MHA's forget to ask until tryouts are over!) Crazy!

Olympic size ice – they should have done this in the mid 1980's when everyone started building new rinks, luxury boxes, etc. Make them Olympic size, but have expanding / contracting seating to format to NHL size – like they did in Calgary when they built the Saddledome for the Olympics. They took this expandability out several years ago. Too late now because of the cost. Can't re-jig existing arenas because you would have to remove seats and this hits the owners in the pocketbook. Now with players bigger, stronger and faster than ever before, Olympic ice is an even better idea.

Soap box time:

You know what I really like… watching 4 on 4 overtime. Crazy quick transitions and more scoring chances with the ice opened up (less bodies and the players need to skate… get rid of the goons and eradicate fighting, head shots and stick work – 5 mins and a GM each infraction with escalating suspensions each occurance – if the NHL truly wanted to eliminate fighting, head shots, etc, this is all it would take!) Maybe we will end up playing 4×4 full-time on the the traditional NHL sized surface in lieu of 5×5… shrink the rosters to 16 skaters / team (NHLPA will be pissed!) … while we are at it, contract 6 teams and do a dispersal draft… Can you imagine how crazy good the hockey skills would be??!!

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[Author]

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