Listen Up

Today is a great day. It wasn’t great until I got home after work and was greeted by my youngest boy who informed me that there was a lot of orange soda in the house. That’s a nice kid. I sliced up a nice red tomato, some New York extra sharp cheese and poured a little Red Hot sauce over it all. It was probably not the brightest idea in the world, but it just seemed right at the moment. While I was having my nice snack I started thinking about hockey and lacrosse, as I often do. We spend so much time working on being fast that I hope we don’t forget about being smart. Getting from one area to another quickly doesn’t do you much good if you go to the wrong spot, and don’t know what you’re supposed to do when you do get to where you should be. The same goes for passing. A quick pass to nobody is a throw away pass to the other team. Speed is important, but it goes hand in hand with thinking. Just as you work on your physical game through practice, you need to work on your thinking game. Every coach has had a player who doesn’t pay attention, or worse and creates distractions when a coach is working with the team. These players haven’t yet realized that they might be missing out on some very important information that can help improve their own knowledge of the game, and the part they contribute to it. There are also times when a coach is talking to a team, but some players only hear the words, but don’t really hear the message. They go back out on the ice or field and do exactly what the coach was trying to stop them from doing. There are of course those players who listen and try to understand everything their coach is talking to them about. They might not understand at first what it is he or she is trying to show them, but if they pay attention long enough and try to understand, they usually learn what to do after a while. These will be the players who not only move fast, but also move smart. It’s a big part of a lot of sports. You need to listen, watch, practice and learn. I’ve seen some great coaches working hard to teach their team about their game. Listen up; you don’t want to miss anything good, it might be real important.