Nobody Cares, Work Harder
You wanna get better? Go work for it! Skill acquisition doesn’t come easy, and it takes practice to keep it and improve on it once you have it. Wanna know the truth about your play? Nobody cares, work harder.
Sports are Awesome!
Sports are a pretty awesome thing. Everybody always says “sports are a microcosm for life” and that’s absolutely true. But, in the heat of it it really isn’t, the kids are just playing and it isn’t until way later in life that we realize the many different attributes that sport has given us. From work ethic, to accountability and even learning to deal with disappointment, sports teach us so much. For what it’s worth I think every kid should play some kind of organized sports at least once in their lives on a team and learn to work with others, take blame when they mess up and enjoy the spotlight when they do something awesome. But there’s another side to organized sports and that’s sports like track and field, wrestling, swimming and figure skating where there’s no one to blame but yourself when things don’t work out. I think there’s a ton of value in having no one else to blame, and having to look in the mirror in defeat and make the changes necessary to improve. Everyone should have the chance to experience that because it’ll pay dividends down the road.
One of the best aspects of sport in my opinion, is developing leaders. Within a team setting there’s a natural pecking order that sorts itself out pretty early on in the season, and there’s always someone everyone in the locker room looks to. Sometimes this is the leading scorer, sometimes it’s the kid that just puts their head down and get’s to work and sometimes it’s even the funny kid who’s always cracking jokes. These kids aren’t always the most talented kids, but they’re what we call “the glue guy/gal”. This kid doesn’t always have the best skillset and they’re more than likely not going to be your leading scorer but they’re absolutely going to be part of the glue that holds your team together in tough times. They’ll be the first to take blame when they mess up, they’ll be the first one to tell you to pick your head up when things aren’t going well, and more often than not they’ll be the kid trying to set an example for the others. You want to be successful in sport and in business/life? Either be the glue guy/gal or find yourself one.
Another great aspect of sport is that it can teach us how important taking care of our bodies is. I can’t tell you how many adults (myself included) are walking orthopedic messes due to sport. Truth is 15-50 years ago we just didn’t have the information we have now when it comes to physical preparation off the field of play, and most of us just either didn’t do it or we worked out like a bodybuilder because we wanted to look like Arnold, Phil Heath and Ronnie Coleman thinking it would help us be better on the field of play. Today, there’s NO excuse to end up in that kind of position. Between our understanding of training, recovery strategies, nutrition and sleep we’re all in an amazing position to not only excel in sport, but excel in life when we decide (or are forced) to hang em up. Sports can also instill in us a mindset of short term sacrifice for long term gain. Deciding to suffer in the moment so we’re in a better position down the road is a skillset that’s substantially easier to obtain through sport, and invaluable in life.
Sports Will Definitely Test Your Mettle
As awesome as sports can be, they’ll test you a little bit from time to time. I grew up playing hockey down here in Tampa, Florida and lead our high school league in points (and PIMs) while also leading the SFHL in goals, assists and points. For all intents and purposes, I was good. I played for Team Florida in the Chicago Showcase and Hockey Night in Boston and even played internationally in the Prague Invitational. Got scouted out of high school and ended up going off to play in the Central States Hockey League. While this was considered junior B (would be Tier III Junior A in today’s world), this league was legit. In my two years in Cincinnati (Go COOOOOBRAS!) I played against Scott Darling (Stanley Cup in Chicago), Brandon Bollig (Stanley Cup in Chicago), Joe Vitale (Stanley Cup in Pittsburgh), Paul Stastney, Chris Butler, and Joe Corvo. The top teams in this league regularly won showcase games against teams in the NAHL, and the National Champion came from this league for 8 years in a row. It was a good league and I managed to make my way onto a team who had won a total of 8 games in their previous four seasons (roughly 240 games). So here I am after signing my contract thinking I’m gonna be a stud and get a ton of ice time. Not so fast buddy!
I got to Cincinnati ready to start camp and guess who throws up during our first off ice session? This guy! I know, doesn’t make a ton of sense that a future strength and conditioning coach was the first AND ONLY guy to throw up at practice but I didn’t put the work in over the summer. I was a “stud” back home joining a team who won I think one game the year before and was outscored by a margin of over 200 goals so I thought I could coast. One thing they don’t tell you when you go off to play somewhere and it hit me like a sack of bricks:
Everyone on your team was the best player back at their home rink. That’s how these things work, it’s an upside down funnel going up the ladder and there’s less and less room for kids as you move up. Know this, understand this and prepare yourself for it. You played first line and PP minutes back home? That won’t happen right away at the next level, you’re going to have to prove yourself on the third and forth line where your job changes COMPLETELY.
Now this seems like it should be common sense but I was a dumb kid coming out of Florida who played both nationally and internationally with no real world perspective on how this kind of stuff worked. To say I was shellshocked would be an understatement and I actually found myself questioning if this was for me. It took a phone call from my dad and another one from my former boss at Smoothie King to get me in the right headspace to get to work, suffer and put myself in a better position to play.
I actually didn’t dress my first game in Cincinnati. Dad came up to watch my first game and everything, and I had to sit next to him in the stands and take stats as my team went on to win their first game of the season. You know how hard it is to watch your teammates play while you’re stuck up in the stands? It’s tough. You know what’s usually even more tough? Getting into a line up of a team that’s winning games. As luck would have it though one of the fourth liners had a pretty rough game and it opened up a spot for me to slide into the line up. I probably played 3-4 minutes that game but I did my job, which was literally to not get scored on but it was enough to keep me in the line up. The lesson I learned? Be prepared! I wrote my own death certificate when I came into camp ill prepared, don’t let that happen to you. For the next two years I put the time in the gym, worked my bag off in practice and played hard enough to force my coach to play me. I wasn’t the best player on the team and regularly only played 7-10 minutes that first year but I only sat one other game outside of an injury that took me out for 6 weeks.
Climbing the Ladder
You wanna know something else they don’t tell you about playing at the next level? You’re not going to play the role you played previously, and you won’t be able to play the game you want to play it. It takes a special kind of athlete to seamlessly transition their game to the next level, the other 90% of us have to spend time grinding and proving ourselves. I got to Cincinnati and was flabbergasted by the fact that we had these things called “systems.” I was always just fast and physical and could score, but nobody ever took the time to teach me how to play the game. There’s forecheck schemes, defensive zone schemes, neutral zone schemes, breakouts, penalty kill forechecks, power play schemes, etc and I didn’t know ANY of them. Turns out, they’re pretty important and now I had to play a role and not play my game. That was a hard lesson to learn and boy did I fight it for a while, but I wanted to stay in the line up so I had to make the decision to play the game my coach wanted me to. And I’m grateful to both Chad MacLeod and Don Biggs for FORCING me to learn the game, it’s paid dividends in my adult life.
Learning to be a role player when you’re used to the spotlight is a HUGE kick in the junk. Here I was, a kid who was used to the spotlight back home having articles written about me in the local papers, playing nationally and internationally, leading leagues in scoring and I’m absolutely grinding to get 7-10 minutes a game if I’m lucky. But you know what this taught me? Short term sacrifice can yield long term gains! That first year we won 9 games, beating our franchise all time wins by a game and doing it in only one season. I had 9 goals, zero assists and about 8 PIMs.
Guess what happened year 2 in Cincinnati? I was the team captain and I dressed EVERY SINGLE GAME including every preseason game that season. We were ranked number two in the entire country (not just our league), and made it all the way to the Hurster Cup Finals in Peoria, IL. That team was something special and although we had a bad showing in the Finals and didn’t make it to Nationals we had a lot to be proud of.
We went from being one of the most penalized teams in the country to one of the least penalized teams.
We went on a 16 game win streak that season. For the rest of my life I never played for a team that sniffed that kind of streak.
We played the National Champions to OT twice, but fell short both times.
We went from one of the worst teams in the entire country, to being voted one of the best by the Junior Hockey News.
I went from not dressing and having 9 points, to dressing every single game and scoring over 30 points during the season and another 10 in the playoffs, while regularly getting PP/PK and second line minutes.
I was named the team captain not only by management, but by my teammates as well.
10 kids from that team either immediately or eventually went on to play NCAA hockey, and another 6 or 7 went on to play in the NAHL and USHL.
Our organization did a ton of good work in the community running clinics and camps for the youth.
I have yet to play for, coach or even be around a team that was tighter knit than that group. I’m still close with many of them and speak regularly to some of them.
You want to measure your successes in sports? They don’t come in the numbers, they come in the relationships and memories you make along the way and as you get older you’ll start to realize that. I can remember maybe a handful of our successes on the ice from that season, but I can tell you a hundred stories about us off the ice, on road trips, at parties, even in the locker room.
The Next Rung on the Ladder
OK so now I’ve had some success at the next level. Solid point totals, captain of one of the best teams in the country and I even signed a letter of intent to play NCAA hockey for the same team that three of my teammates are going to play for including one of my linemates who was the leading scorer in the league. This school also managed to snag four other kids from our league including the number two leading scorer from Chicago, the number 1, 3, and 4 leading scorers out of the Western States Hockey League, the number 1 and 2 leading scorers from the Northern Pacific Hockey League and one of the top goalies from the Ontario Junior Hockey League. Overall we had 19 recruits who reported in August with 18 returning players from the previous season. If you’re not familiar with hockey rosters there’s typically only room for 25 players, and we had 37 not including walk ons trying out which brought it closer to 50. The reason this happened is that the season before, this team had managed to win 1 game, and hadn’t had a winning season in almost 30 years. There was going to be a large number of cuts before it was all said and done and I was out to make sure I wasn’t one of them.
Try outs started at midnight on the first day we were allowed to skate as a team (so technically the night before). Walk ons were quickly cut and and we were down to the 18 returners and 19 recruits. I had a rough try out scoring a few goals but spending about 8 minutes per game in the box. The transition from the hard hitting, clutch and grab junior hockey to college hockey was a rough one for me. I played a very Steve Downie/Andrew Shaw kind of game. I’ll score you some goals and kill some penalties, but I’m gonna be a pest as well. Well, the college game didn’t like that and when tryouts were over and the roster came out, I found myself sharing the fifth line center position. We kept 27 players including 3 goalies so I was somewhat of the last man in, but no worries right? I’ve been in this position before and I’ll crack that lineup. There was just one problem, we were GOOD.
First game I found myself up in the stands again, and again sitting next to my dad who came up to see me play my first game. It was a bummer. Remember earlier when I said it’s pretty hard to break into a winning lineup? This was no different. We won our first game 9-1 against Worcester State and I would go on to not dress the next 7 games because we just kept winning, and winning BIG. There was ZERO place for movement in the lineup when you’re winning games by 5-8 goals and you can’t blame the coach at that point. I put myself in this position by having an off tryout and it turned into a waiting game where you’re almost secretly hoping your team loses so you can crack the line up. It’s honestly a pretty brutal position to be in.
Fast forward to mid November and I managed to get into a game. Not because of anything I had done, but because one of my teammates had broken his steel in warm ups and our equipment manager didn’t bring that size steel on the road. I still contend that if his feet would have fit into my skates my coach would have asked me to give them to him but luckily for me they didn’t. The good news was I got into the game and did my job and we won against Framingham State pretty decisively. The bad news was that we had steel for my teammate’s skate back at school and I was back out of the lineup. It would be January before I saw the ice in a game again, but I was committed to being the hardest worker in practice and forcing my coach to play me.
Fast forward to December 31st. We had almost four weeks off for Christmas break and had to report back on New Years Eve for camp before the second half of the season started. Now one thing I didn’t mention was that this school was in a tiny town, and had 700 total students and there was very little to do. We lost 7 kids who never came back for the second half of the season because they just couldn’t take the small town atmosphere. BUT that was great news for me because now there was space in the line up. I got into every game for the rest of the season and we ended up making it to the conference semi finals for the first time in school history. I finished the season in the top 5 in shorthanded goals in all of NCAA hockey, and our team lead all of NCAA hockey (DIII and DI) in goals per game. We lost in the conference semifinals to UMASS Dartmouth who went on to play in the NCAA tournament. It ended up being a pretty solid year, but I learned that NO ONE cares what you’ve done before you get there, it’s all about what you can do for them in the moment. In short: nobody cares, work harder.
The Ending of a Pretty OK Career
After my first year of NCAA hockey I decided it just wasn’t for me. Here I am playing NCAA DIII hockey in Dudley, Massachusetts a billion miles from home, not getting a regular shift and majoring in history. Hockey was never going to pay the bills for me and I decided to transfer back home and go to school at the University of South Florida where I could major in Athletic Training and play club hockey. While I would say I ended up having a relatively successful NCAA first season I only managed to score 5 goals (mostly shorthanded as that’s where most of my minutes came from) and only played 18 games including our conference playoffs. Five goals in the NCAA is nothing to thumb your nose at, however don’t forget I played for the highest scoring team in all of NCAA hockey so it wasn’t overly great. When I got to USF, I was a stud again and managed to be a two time First Team All American and amassed 199 points in three seasons. I’m not sure if anyone ever managed to break my point total record but it stood for at least a decade. I often wondered what could have been if I decided to stick it out up at Nichols College, but over the years I have learned to be content with my decision to focus on my future professional career as opposed to continue to try to live the dream only to realize that I never made it in the end.
My hockey career was a pretty fun one that provided me a ton of opportunities. It brought me to Vienna, Austria and Prague, Czech Republic internationally, it took me all over this country and it taught me things that I legitimately don’t think I could have learned any other way. Biggest two lessons it taught me were:
Be prepared at all costs. You never know when someone’s going to break their steel in their skate and you’ll be called up.
Nobody cares what you’ve done in the past. Your past and reputation will help open (or close) doors for you, however it’s up to you to hone your craft and make it impossible for your coach to play you, or your employer to retain you.