Article

Have you ever interviewed for a job? Then you know what it feels like to go to an NHL training camp.

Every training camp feels exactly like you are interviewing again and again to make the team. Some players get comfortable “trying out,” many players get nervous before every camp, still for others, nerves affect their game so much during camp that they don’t get a chance to return. Without a doubt, though, every player at every level experiences that “first interview” feeling.

Great pro players heading into camp develop inner game strategies to help them alleviate this making-the-team pressure. The first key is to get their minds off what they might do wrong today and instead keep their minds on what they desire to accomplish during training camp.

In the early 1950’s Florence Chadwick became the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions. On her first attempt she had been swimming for hours and was getting very near to the English coast. That’s when the seas turned much colder, heavy swells developed, and a dense fog settled in.

As Florence’s pace slowed and energy drained, her mother called out to encourage her through the fog from one of the small boats following behind, but Florence was exhausted and couldn’t go on. After collapsing into the boat Florence felt defeated and was heart broken when she realized how close she’d come, later telling the media, “I think that I could have made it if I had been able to see my goal.”

On her next attempt to swim the Channel, Florence developed a powerful mental image of the coast of England, memorizing every coastal feature and replayed those images again and again in her mind. This time she encountered the same discouraging conditions as before, but her vision saw her through to success. When you have clarity of vision (of where you want to go and what you desire to accomplish) your mindset stays focused on all the little details that give you your desired result.

The second Inner Game strategy that successful players apply during training camp is best illustrated in a real-life story that I call “One-eye Motivation.”

When I played for the Montreal Canadiens during the 1980’s and 90’s, one of my favorite people in the world, Claude Ruel, used to run a pre-camp skate during August. We would all skate as Claude ran us through various drills, and at the end of the hour Claude would stand in the middle of the ice, facing towards one end, and blow his whistle. This signified that all of us would skate one hard lap, before slowing down. Of course he would have us repeat this multiple times as a way to get us into shape.

Now one thing that you might not know about Claude is that he had vision in only one eye due to a hockey accident. All of the players knew this and even the young rookies and prospects soon caught on to this fact. I used to pay special attention to these younger players to see if they would take advantage of Claude’s ability to see only one-half of the ice. Think about it! If a player wanted to cheat, he could skate hard on the side that Claude was watching, and coast down the side that Claude couldn’t see.

During my time with the Canadiens there were a few young players who cheated Claude. Do you know what is amazing? None of them ever made the team.

Training camp is a time where everyone in management is watching your performance, but you can’t be motivated to play because they are watching. You must be inspired to play your best because of something much deeper inside of you. People who only perform when the Boss is in the room don’t last long.

In fact, training camps (and job interviews) increase our anxiety when we focus on the wrong things that might happen or on the people watching. This same anxiety is conquered when our desire to compete comes instead from our personal inner drive.

Over my 15 NHL training camps, and many Junior and Minor hockey camps before those, I watched talented players continually miss making teams because they didn’t develop this inner drive or the mental toughness skills to get their best game on the ice. Yes, mastering these simple concepts is essential for players to get their best games on the ice during training camp, but the great thing is, they become pretty good life strategies too.

Ryan Walter played and coached for 17 seasons in the NHL and is now President of the Abbotsford Heat, the AHL affliliate of the NHL's Calgary Flames.