What 97% of girl hockey players don’t have
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posted by Total Female Hockey Club Kim McCullough, Director & Founder of Total Female Hockey, has trained, coached and consulted with over 1500 players and 300 coaches, from novice to National teams, on how to take their on-ice performance to the next level through off-ice player development. |
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Yesterday, I spent the day with my friend Darin Gillis and his U16 Ohio Flames girls hockey team doing off-ice fitness testing, dryland training, and workshops on performance nutrition, goal setting and how to get noticed and recruited by women’s college hockey teams as part of the first Total Female Hockey Elite Player Development Camp I’ve done in Ohio (the next camp is in Chicago next weekend). Now that the entire team has been assessed, they know what they need to improve on and they have the resources that will help them get better , they are armed with all the information they need to take their performance to the next level.
I truly believe every girls hockey player deserves the same level of access and the opportunity to learn exactly what it takes to become an elite female hockey player. But they don’t - yet.
The truth is that we are not doing a very good job of developing elite female hockey players in North America. Sure, we’ve won all the gold medals and continue to dominate on the world stage, but much of this success can be attributed to the sheer number of girls playing the game and the opportunity to compete and train against the “best” on a consistent basis.
But are we really giving all girls hockey players in North America access to the opportunity to reach all of their hockey dreams?
For the most part, we rely on a very Darwinistic approach when it comes to player development. We have far more girls playing and the “cream of the crop” naturally rises to the top. When this top 3% of players between the ages of 14-18 emerge, we give them access to the resources they need to make it to the elite level.
But what about everyone else?
Why are only the “best” given the information and the opportunity?
It is irresponsible and unfair for us to cater only the “elite” players.
I recognize that not every girls hockey player in North America aspires to play women’s college hockey or make the Olympic team.
But there are many who do who don’t make the “right” team or are not from an association, team or area that has the access to development resources both on and off the ice, or aren’t “elite” quite yet that aren’t given the opportunity to move on to the highest levels of female hockey.
I always tell players to, “Work Hard and Dream BIG”, but the truth is that those 2 things are not enough to make you a great player. You need to have access to the resources that will allow you to get there and be able to put together your plan to get you where you want to be.
I am not exactly sure what the answer is to this problem. We can’t clone elite coaches, mass produce elite teams so that every girl has the chance to see what elite level girls hockey really looks like, or invite them all to selection camps that run across North America every spring and summer.
But we can empower them with information. We can let them know exactly what it takes to get to that elite level and allow them to make the decision as to whether they want to pursue those dreams.
That is how we will create a culture of excellence in women’s hockey.
Where every girl has the opportunity to fulfill her dreams.
Trips like this to Ohio (and the one I making out to Chicago next weekend) help me to believe that this type of widespread education and empowerment in girls hockey is possible. For right now, it will have to be one team, group and camp at a time.
Working Hard and Dreaming BIG.
~ Coach Kim
Copyright © 2009 Total Female Hockey Club.
View Original Post at totalfemalehockeyclub.com
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