“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”

- Vince Lombardi

By nature, hockey is an imperfect game. Mistakes far outpace highlight-reel plays. The speed, physicality and beautifully chaotic environment leads to human error. With that in mind, it’s important to build a culture that doesn’t demand perfection, but strives to attain excellence.

“You’re never going to be perfect,” Bemidji State women’s head coach Jim Scanlan said. “You want to create an environment where your players feel comfortable that they can make mistakes.”

Creating an atmosphere where players feel comfortable and confident often comes from the parents and the coaches down. Always barking for a perfect play, stopping a drill because it wasn’t executed with laser precision can have a negative impact, even if the coach’s intent is to get it right.

“Hockey is a game of mistakes. They are going to happen all the time,” Scanlan said. “We try to have an environment where our players feel comfortable enough that they can go out and do the things we practice all the time and know that if I make a mistake, I’m not going to be benched. As coaches we’re not going to jump down their back because of it.”

Parents also play a key part in this. If mom or dad bring up bad games, missed passes, turnovers, etc. after games and practices, the child may become more nervous or scared to make mistakes on the ice. It may hinder development and enjoyment of the game.

Building Trust

“When players feel that you trust them, and you believe in them, they’re going to go out and play and not worry about making mistakes,” Scanlan said.

Not fearing the repercussions of receiving an earful or, even worse, benched, can help a player relax and build confidence. They can be at ease on the ice without the stress and anxiety of messing up.

Sometimes, in the heat of the game, it’s hard to refrain from hollering when a player makes a mistake. So how can coaches, and parents at home, stay cool when a mistake is made?

“A lot of it is experience,” Scanlan said. “There are times where you do get frustrated and things happen in the heat of the moment, but you have to keep telling yourself that patience is a big part of it. You have to take a step back if you can really quick and realize and evaluate what happened.”

Emphasize the Process

It might be an old coaching cliché, but the goal is to get better every day.

“Going into a season, we’re going to be at a certain level as a team. And each day you want to try and get a little bit better,” Scanlan said. “So, obviously, those steps are going to be small, but if we can keep taking those steps every time we get onto the ice, that’s the idea. We want to try to improve every single day.”

Small steps lead to bigger gains as the season goes on. Hockey is not a game that’s mastered overnight. It takes years to gain the skill needed to play high school hockey, let alone college or pro.

“This day in age players are so focused on instant gratification and getting things immediately and rewarded, that is a challenge for any coach – to get their player to realize it is a process,” Scanlan said.

Like any journey, it’s not always smooth sailing. Development isn’t always linear so sometimes you have to trust that even if results don’t appear immediately, eventually the effort will pay off.

“You’re going to have those moments where you’re going to get beat and you’re going to have times where you’re sluggish, it’s all part of the season,” Scanlan said. “You can’t allow yourself to get down as a team because you have those moments where things aren’t going well. That’s where you really have to emphasis this is all part of the process.”

Life Lessons

Even if a team goes undefeated, there is no such thing as a perfect season – there are always lessons to learn from mistakes.

“I hope that every youth coach realizes that regardless of how the season ends, regardless of their win-loss record, there are so many things that their players are going to get out of the season,” Scanlan said.

Sometimes “participation” gets thrown around like a bad word in sports. However, just being a part of something like team sports can build character.

“Participation is something that gets overlooked a lot in youth sports. Just the fact that they’re participating is huge,” Scanlan said. “They’re making a commitment to be a part of a team and all the sacrifices that go with it – they’ve got to give up stuff because they’ve got practice and they’re going to play on weekends.”

At the end of the year, only one team takes home a championship. However, just because a team didn’t make it to the state tourney or win it all, doesn’t mean the season was a failure. Even if a team falls short of their goal, whether it was to make the state tourney or win it all, the message has to come from the coach that the season was a success.

“Hopefully coaches are sending the message that, ‘You all have improved as players, you’ve all learned valuable lessons that are going to help you as you go through life and regardless of that final game, regardless of the outcome, regardless of our record at the end of the year, it’s been a successful season,” Scanlan said. “Things aren’t always going to go your way. You can do everything your coaches ask and still maybe you’re not quite good enough to be on the top line or on the power play, or as a team you don’t accomplish your goals, but there are still values that you can take with you.”