Episode 365 Parents: You’re Ready Already

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Hutch. Daren. My note to parents this week is to tell them you're already ready. But a quick note before I say that, depending on where you live, this might feel maybe like old news. Some of you are past this because school is back in some places.

Tryouts perhaps have started, maybe even seasons. The rink to rink shuffle is really already your reality. If that's you, the same principles are going to apply, but maybe just shift the timeline a bit. The goal isn't a specific date on the calendar. It's more of a mindset about arriving settled instead of scrambling.

If you're still in that last stretch of summer on the other hand, here's how I think you should use it. There's a particular kind of panic that shows up with a lot of people late in August. You can feel it in the group chats, you can see that the rink in the parking lot, that sudden urge to cram in three more skates, book an ice slot you don't normally take, add a session with a coach just to be safe before the season starts. I get the instinct, but I think it's the wrong instinct. Escape here, escape there.

That's okay, but not a sprint to the finish. If the extra ice already fits your regular summer prep pattern, great. Keep doing what you're doing. But trying to jam in a pile of additional work like, David Hutchison cramming for a university exam in the last couple of weeks here doesn't sharpen a goalie, it tires them out. And it does something worse with a lot of kids, it plants a seed of anxiety.

Suddenly, feel like they have to do more, like showing up just ready isn't enough. Like there's a deficit to make up before the puck drops. Maybe even a bit of fear of missing out when you see other people doing things. That feeling doesn't come from the calendar though. It comes from us.

We already coach our goalies to be even keeled, have that same demeanor whether they let in five or maybe they steal a shutout. We tell them not to ride the emotional roller coaster from game to game or moment to moment. That principle doesn't stop applying in August though. It applies to the season as a whole. Don't build this up as a big year.

Don't be saying you've gotta do this. You've gotta do that. Let's not have that creep into our talk about the season. The message we want landing with our goalies is simple. You're ready.

Not you'll be ready if you do x y and zed in the next ten days, just ready as you are. If you've got a stretch of unstructured time left before that rink to rink shuffle starts, don't fill it with more hockey, Fill it with family. A weekend away, a late day, a late dinner on the deck, whatever summer means to you and your family. Once the season starts, that time gets scarce really fast. This is the last real window for it, so use it as that, not as training camp you forgot to schedule.

If there's one thing worth actually doing in these final couple of weeks, it's not on the ice. It's the stuff that makes everything else work. Summer, as we all know, lets routines drift. Bedtime slide later, morning slide later, meals get a bit looser. None of that's a problem in July of course, but it does become a problem in September if the reset happens all at once on day one of school, day one of tryouts, day one of the season.

So start now gently. Bedtime, start walking it back until the We get closer to what the season time routine is a bit every night, not all at once. Same thing with waking up. Let's not have a jarring shock later as we have to start playing and eating well as well. Let's not do anything too dramatic but let's just tighten up a little bit from that loose summer that we all enjoy.

Those Fenway Park hot dogs maybe need to go aside till next summer. None of this of course is about performance. It's about making the transition into the season feel unremarkable because for a goalie who's supposed to look the same every night, the best possible thing for the season itself to arrive without drama. Bottom line, you don't need to earn readiness in a last minute scramble. Whether you've got two weeks of your summer left or you're already three practices into the season, keep the normal pattern, protect whatever family time you can, get the sleep and routine dialed in if it isn't already, and carry your goalie into the year exactly the way you want them to play, steady, unbothered, already prepared.

Sleep is such a valuable asset to to whether you're playing hockey or not, but the athlete certainly needs to monitor it far more than we ever believed twenty years ago.

I think that's absolutely true and the other side of what I was saying affects your sleep as well. If you're in that mindset of panic, mindset of having to do too much, maybe physically doing too much, that sleep is a little harder to come by. So that's that's how some good good habits coming here. It's probably good advice for the three of us as well.

I was just gonna say, what's this sleep stuff you talk about? I need some of that. Hutch needs some of that. Daren Daren, you look like you might need some of that buddy. You've been going hard.

It's huge. And I and I took me a while to get around, like, going to bed earlier because you didn't feel like you should be going to bed at at a particular time. Now, I'm all in.

What time?

08:30, Shut up

him. Really? Yeah. Wow. Good for you.

Yeah. No. No. In the season in the summer, I go to bed earlier. In in the season, you're waiting.

You can't. Yep.

You got games or you're watching games.

That's the hardest part for me. I managed to get into a routine in the off season and then all a sudden we hit the hockey season and it's like home game up till one in the morning because I'm working. You know, late night skate on a Monday up till one in the morning because we don't get off the ice till 11:45. Like, it's just and then that cycle is really hard to maintain. And I guess that's probably the similar for a lot of these athletes.

They're playing late night games, their schedules change, the more more they can sort of prepare and rest and be ready for it, and make sure they're getting those eight hours minimum, the better off they'll be set up for success.

On non game nights, you gotta force yourself, shut it down early. Earlier than you would even think and then because it's probably gonna take a while.

Well, mean, for us here at my household, it's really easy to go to bed early most nights outside of, like I said, those outside influences because we eat dinner at 04:30 like we're Florida retirees. It's kinda crazy. People laugh

at 04:30?

Yeah. Like, honestly, it's the craziest thing in the world. I don't know how it started but it's even my kids laugh at us. I've They join us, but they laugh at us.

Because he eats like a bird all day long and he's starving by 04:30.

Yeah. Exactly. That's exactly it.

Need more Fenway dogs. Can't afford them. Send money for Fenway dogs. That's a t shirt that I'm gonna make up.