© Bandits Goalie School - 2008
By: Dr. Hugh Bray
The focus of this column is to introduce and explore the importance of developing the mental skills necessary to become a better goaltender. While these skills are not a substitute for the athletic skills essential for goalies, current sports research suggests that if an athlete develops mental skills along with physical skills their performance improves.
In last month’s column we discussed how to quickly stop negative thoughts from impacting your performance with the 5 R’s The Five R’s were; RELEASE, RELAX, REGROUP, REFOCUS, and READY. Two items were mentioned in these steps, one being “how you talk to yourself’ and the other was “paint a picture”. Then a homework task was assigned. Make sure to complete the next paragraph before moving on in this column.
To improve these skills it will be necessary to do a homework assignment. In my seminars I have every athlete complete the “The ideal coach/ideal athlete” assessment. To do this you will need to take a piece of paper and divided it into 4 squares by drawing a line in the middle of the paper from top to bottom and then half way down the side draw a line across the center of the paper from side to side. In the top left square put in all of the qualities of an ideal coach. This can be a coach you have now or it can be a combination of characteristics of coaches you have had in the past. In your mind what makes a good coach. In the top right square what makes up an ideal goaltender. How do they think, how do they train. Anything you can think of that makes an ideal goalie. In the bottom left corner put in how an ideal coach works with a player. How do they talk to the player and most important how does the ideal coach correct mistakes? In the bottom right corner put in what you feel the goalie’s responsibilities are to improve their game. How do they respond to criticism? That was your home work and it needs to be completed before moving on to the next paragraph.
With this assignment you have basically laid out a map of how the ideal coach communicates with an ideal goalie. Interestingly, our brain is set up in much the same way with a coach side and an athlete side. These two sides are constantly communicating with one another in a process called “self-talk”. Dr. Dennis Waitley in his “Psychology of Winning” states we talk to ourselves with this “little voice” at more than 400 words per minute and it’s nearly all negative in telling ourselves how ineffective we are. This is like having an extremely critical coach sitting on your shoulder telling you you’re a bad goalie. Only our own “little voice” and the messages it sends is far more powerful than the voice of another, meaning it has more of an impact on our evaluation of our skills, and in the end result, how we play. Fortunately, you have established a road map of where you want to go with this “little voice” with your homework assignment. Dr. Waitley believes that, with practice, we can change our 80% negative “self-talk into 80% positive by: Number One becoming aware of what we say to yourself when something bad happens; and Number Two, changing the “little voice” negative comments over to instructions of how to solve or fix the problem. You have already laid out the groundwork to do this with the ideal coach/ideal athlete assignment. Now you just need to practice the skill of stopping the self criticism and provide yourself just straight forward information to improve.
Oh, the one last thing I previously asked you to do, by following my instructions for the next second or two and have somebody read the next statement to you, or you can read it to someone else and ask them what happened.
Ready,
“Don’t think of a red sports car”……………………………..
Most of us immediately think of a red sports car, even though we are instructed to not think of that sports car. The reason this may happen is that the coach side of our brain uses primarily words and this makes perfect sense to that side of the brain as it’s quite logical. Through the self-talk process it tells the athlete side of the brain to “not think of a red sports car”. However the athlete side works with pictures and tries to do what the words say by painting a picture of what the words mean. But, you can’t form a picture from a statement like that so it drops the “don’t” and you see a red sports car in your mind. What happens when you say “don’t let them score”? The messages you send to yourself need to be clear and the words you select must focus on what you want to have happen rather than what you don’t want to occur. You need to paint the picture of how you want things to turn out, for instance, “I will stop them from scoring”. This takes time and practice, just like all goaltending skills, but in the end you will be surprised with your improved game if you put in the effort on these mental skills. Good luck with your practicing and goaltending.
Hugh Bray is a licensed psychologist who currently works with the University of Michigan Hockey Team as their team psychologist. In the past he has worked with the St. Louis Blues and Detroit Red Wings of the NHL. For several years he was the sport psychologist for the National Developmental Program of USA Hockey in Ann Arbor. He was the 1990 team psychologist for the USA Olympic Hockey Team. He has delivered daily seminars to the Jr. Elite and Elite Goaltenders in the Bandit’s training camps. He has a private practice working with many elite level athletes in various sports including an Olympic Champion and National Champions. He is available for individual consultation through Bandits Goaltending Schools.
To learn more about Bandits Goalie School, go to: Bandits Goalie Camp - Learn to Rob the Shooters Blind! 
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