Our Girls Play Hockey: Why Confidence Can’t Come From Coaches or Parents

SPEAKER_02 1:15

This episode is powered by NHL Sense Arena. Hello, hockey friends and families around the world, and welcome back to another edition of Our Girls Play Hockey. It's Lee Elias with Mike Vinelli and our great friend Haley Skomora here today. And we're talking about confidence today. Confidence that lasts. This is going to be a really important episode because I don't think we talk about this topic enough. You know, the questions that come to mind before we even begin is like, well, what is confidence? Can you define confidence? How do you earn or how do you get confident? How do you keep confidence? It's actually a much more in-depth topic than I think people realize. And I think that the key here is that top performers, elite athletes, Olympic athletes, which we just happen to have with us again, um, this is a big part of the game. This is a big part of not just success, but continued success in a world where you're always trying to make the next team or the next level. And then you get there, and then what do we hear? Well, now the real work begins. Right? Like, so this is a big topic today. And I want to bring in Haley right now. Yeah, you know, Haley, let's start with this. When you hear the word confidence, right? What does that mean to an Olympic and professional player? Let's start there.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

I think the biggest thing with confidence is it has to come from within. Like it has to come from you. You can't be seeking it out through external forces. And I think as an athlete, sometimes that's really hard to do. I think I'm still working on it. I think sometimes we seek out external validation from your coaches, from your parents, from your teammates. Um, and I think while all those are great and it might help build confidence, it might not last. So I think it's huge to like have your own standards and what gives you confidence when you're out there, what defines your game, what you define as success, and attribute that to your confidence and not because otherwise, if you're focused on external validation, like that's what it's dependent on. And then if you don't get that, you're not gonna be as confident. And so I think it's super important to um to give that to yourself, to give yourself credit, um, and to set your own standards in that sense. And so I think as an athlete, that's what I'm continuing to work on. I think it's a it's a constant kind of give and take with that. Um, and especially when you're trying to make teams too, right? Of course, you want that external validation, but I think at the end of the day, you really just have to give that to yourself and uh focus within.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

I I think anybody that's worked with athletes, right? And anybody that's worked with um both confident and insecure athletes, sometimes cockiness can be seen in in in multiple ways. Like I I see a cocky kid that's confident, and if they if they present themselves the right way, and I think that's the the that's the real secret sauce, right? Is like you have to, if you have this inner confidence, you almost seem cocky. Like, I know I'm going to win this game, I know I'm gonna win this match. I but then there's this unearned confidence, which is cockiness, like right. So it's like so there's that piece where I think, you know, I think Haley said it too, like a lot of the people that make it to the professional level, they present a lot of confidence, right? Because they have to, they have to they have to manifest that confidence out. But I think us as coaches and parents certainly can take away that confidence by always like finding the cracks in it. And I I think that's really where you know a lot of us, you know, probably fail with with athletes is that we don't we we we we we mistake confidence with cockiness. And we don't nobody likes cockiness, right? So it's it's a it's a hard thing to read something.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

It's interesting. We're we're recording this kind of on the heels of the World Cup ending, and the person that keeps coming to my mind right now is Latan, uh as a presenter, right? So very famous football/slash soccer player um that a lot of people believe to be cocky in the way that he speaks, but I believe him to be extremely like eternally confident in his abilities to the point it comes across that way. But what's interesting about Latan uh is that everyone loves him, right? It's for the things that he said. I should say most people like him. He's a bit of an acquired taste, but this guy oozes confidence, he just believes in himself. Now, I'm not gonna even go as far as say, does that guy ever have doubts in himself? Maybe, but he's living a life of confidence. He played with a lot of confidence, he broadcasted with a lot of confidence, but he owns it. And I think that's where the line gets uh mixed up sometimes. This is a guy that does not care, at least doesn't show he cares, what anybody thinks. He thinks he's great, he knows he's doing a good job. That's what matters. This goes back to the point that Haley made. Mike, you you you using some interesting language, I'm always paying attention to language. Haley, you made that great point about confidence is in you, it's yours to keep, it's not really someone else's to give you. People can influence it for sure, but it's yours. At the end of the day, it's your decision. Yet we use words like I lost my confidence, or my confidence was taken from me, right? Like this is that exploration of those words to me, right? Can someone take your confidence away? Right now, I'm I'm gonna say this right now that just from a high-level answer, the answer is actually no to that. No one can take it, people can affect it, and you can you can effectively lose it, but it you're in control of it at the end of the day. Learning that is a lifelong process and practice, as Haley, Haley said, right? When you're younger, and Haley, I'm let's let's talk about young young hate Haley Scamora, young scams. I don't know if that was your nickname. No, it was not. But I remember when I was younger too, it seemed like if a coach said the wrong thing or I made a bad play, my confidence could fluctuate from fully confident to really bad very quickly. And I think that that's normal for a lot of kids. And I want to say that because you're still learning how to process these emotions. Did you have events like that when you were young Young Scams? It's our new show, by the way. Young Scams coming to coming to our network this fall. No, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Young Scams definitely struggled with that for sure. I think, you know, my dad was my coach for a while. I had other coaches if they ever said anything, because my goal was to always like make them happy, make them proud. And so if I ever got that feedback, like I wasn't doing that, I would just just keep going deco and downhill. Like it was hard. Um, so it was really hard to manage those. And I think as you get older, you kind of realize that's what was affecting you.

SPEAKER_04 7:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Um, and so to this day, I'm still working on that and still working on like not worrying about other people and just focusing on how I feel about my game and not worrying about what the coach thinks or what my parents think or or what the fans think. You know, there's just so many different like factors that you can't control. And it's just so important because if you try to keep pleasing all these other people, you are gonna be working at that always, and you're gonna tire yourself out and uh it'll be really difficult. So I think it's super important to um, like I said before, just really focus on yourself and uh and not let that get to you.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Haley, you know what's interesting about what you just said, coaches feel exactly what you just described, also, right? Probably in some ways, even even more if you're coaching youth hockey, you've you can feel these parents. You know, here's a funny one for you. Like, uh and I'll I I'll use this as from one from the past, you know, first practice in the summer, and you're hearing things like we're not gonna win a game this year. It's like like, wait, wait a minute, I haven't even started doing anything yet. What do you mean we're not gonna win a game this year? So if I listen to any of that, uh, or this is how the lineup should be, or this person should be here, uh, you're gonna fail pretty miserably as a coach and as a player. Go ahead, Mike.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

No, no, I was just saying this. I'm I'm thinking to myself, like, you know, Haley and you like from the player and the coaching perspective, I mean, I mean, the confidence does come from you know uh validation in a lot of like I think it's affected by it. I'm right, but when you're young, when you're young, if I would ask uh young, young Haley, uh young scams. Sorry, sorry, I didn't get deleted. But if if I'm asking young scams, like what would be what like and again, I know I don't want to work shock this out right now, but like what are what are like what's a quick way you would say to a uh a you as 12 years old when somebody gave you a pretty good you know beatdown and be like, oh bye, what what can I do to reset myself really quick? No matter what anybody says, like I'm me, I'm confident, I I know I feel good about what I do, but what can you do then to reset that quick without like this whole like big process to go through? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

I think just reminding yourself it's okay to make mistakes, it happens. You're still you're still you, you're still a great player. Take take a deep breath in through the nose, out through the mouth, and just just be like, okay, next shift, I'm gonna, you know, make contact and win a puck battle. Like just focus on one thing. And I think that's that's huge. Um, another thing I remember I saw somewhere, I swear on Instagram or something, where I think as parents, you can like ask your kid, are you proud of yourself? rather than always just saying I'm like, and like obviously parents can still say they're proud of you, but like asking your kid the question. So they start asking themselves, hey, am I proud of myself? Did like how do I feel about what I accomplished today? And more intrinsic motivation in that sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Yeah, we talk a lot about on the show about that, all that kind of like the language is so important. Like you how you are asking your child something and in a coach asking the kid something. And we go right down, like we always mostly talk talk about it mostly by you know the omission of like, hey, don't go off sides instead of you know, instead of the opposite, whereas, hey, make make the play here to create a better play. Like, so and it's the same idea, like that same idea of you know changing the language of how you're speaking to your players, and you as a parent, right? If I see young scams and she's like really broken down, like maybe me as a parent is saying, Well, you know, you know how great you are at this. Like, what do you think? Like, what are you feeling about this? Because because really, I I guess in a way, you know, as you're as you're talking, you know, confidence, like I across the board, like for you, do you feel like your confidence level like was the same in all your activities? Or do you think like you like really high confuse obviously you're a great student athlete, right? So you're like, oh, I'm a great, I'm a great student. I'm I I and you've said this like without being cocky, you're like, I was a really good student. Like I got my work done. I was very confident in my academics, I was very confident in my hockey ability. But do you think that, you know, do you think there's times when there's other aspects of your life where like, I'm not, I'm not really always confident.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Definitely. I think one thing that comes to mind is actually maybe public speaking. That was really hard for me growing up as a kid. I would get really nervous, my face would turn beat red, um, like doing interviews, different things like that. And so that's kind of funny now to think about like how far I've grown, obviously, in that hundred and thousands of people a week headlining a podcast. Like that was probably like middle school, high school was like big fear of mine. And that's definitely something I was not confident in was going up and talking in front of a lot of people, or even at my desk. Like I wouldn't really talk out loud in class. I was very much more reserved and quiet, didn't want to make a scene or anything like that. Um, so little things like that, I think I didn't have the confidence. And then sometimes in sport, I didn't. It would just depend on the day. I think it fluctuated a little bit more on a game to game kind of basis or weekend to weekend. And I think I I sought out either coach or teammate validation or parent validation pretty frequently, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

You know, we're running towards a couple of different topics here, Haley. I I want to I I do want to get back to the actual validation thing. I think that's an important part of how to stay confident. Um, but one thing you're bringing up that I want to make sure we say to the listeners, especially if there's any kids listening, is that at some point along the line, you recognize that, okay, the things that I'm afraid of, I have to run towards and get better at them. All right, whether that's hockey speaking or anything. When do you think you realize that?

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Honestly, probably not till college, maybe. Sure. I don't know if that was something I actually ever thought of in my high school or middle school days. I don't think I did. I think I would just avoid them at all costs and just and just keep doing what I was comfortable with. I think once you get to college, I think you you step outside of your comfort zone a little bit more, you're away from your parents, you're learning how to do life on your own a little more. And um, yeah, kind of crazy to think about those.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

I think it's funny, like you say that, right? Because as parents, like we're trying to do, we're trying to inject those times into our kids earlier and earlier, and sometimes too early. Like, like, but there is like I'm really like me, I'm a pretty confident person speaking. Like, I could speak in front of a whole crowd of people. Yeah, Mikey Book, Mikey Book, you know, I can just make it, I can just make it work, right? So, but my but you know, to have my kids, like, I'm like, well, you know, if I have my uh my uh 13-year-old and say, hey, I need you to get up and speak on this, it's like, well, I I'm not doing that. Like, why would I, you know, like I have no interest in that, or I I can't do it. You know, so I think it's one of those things where, you know, like you you said, I mean you you found it as you went to college, right? And you're like, oh, okay, I got I gotta get outside my comfort zone a little bit here. But I think as parents and coaches, maybe, you know, we we probab we try to interject those things and like manufacture those those times because we know how valuable they are to have. Like we we know how valuable it is to be like, okay, well, if the first time I have to get into a public speaking environment is my sophomore year in college in front of an auditorium, maybe that's not the best time to have to be thrown into that.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna connect the dots here a little bit, right? So, Haley, this is a just a very quick question to follow up on that to your point, right? You you figured this out in college, and I'm sure things start to flo flourish for you, and you start realizing I don't have to apply this just to one thing. I I will remind everybody. It was is that correct what I said? Like when this connected, things started evolving faster, right?

SPEAKER_04 15:43

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

I want to remind this audience that, and I love this story that we talked to you about this show and coming on this show, and the conversation, if if if you don't mind me saying again, was hey, we're gonna do this. And your quote was, you know what, it scares me, let's do it. That's what you said, and it's that wasn't a shock to me, knowing you as an athlete of you run towards these opportunities. You gotta ask this, right? Um, what would Olympic gold medalist scams, Walter Cup winning scams, say now to 12-year-old scams that's terrified of this?

SPEAKER_04 16:14

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Like, what would what would you? I'm not saying what would the message be to young yourself, or what would how about this? What would 12-year-old scams think of you now? That's a really good question. That is a big yeah, yeah, that's a whole emphasis.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

I think young scams would be shocked at how much I put myself out there, yeah. Um, how much I've accomplished. Like, I I don't think she'd even believe it. I think she'd be like, You you do what now? You you're on a podcast, you're chatting with people? Like, what? You've you've gone on the jumbotron after a game and talked to 17,000 people.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

There's no hockey in Vegas. What are you doing? What do you what are you doing? It's funny because actually, I I could see the younger you being like, you want that gold medal, huh? But you do a podcast, huh? Yeah, yeah. Crazy. Um, now listen, going back, I want to talk about a word you you said before that I think is actually the key phrase here for the entire episode, which is external validation.

SPEAKER_04 17:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Uh, I'm gonna say my belief here. If you guys disagree, you say it. Um confidence, pure confidence, can only come from within, from you. No one can give you confidence. People can make you feel more confident, they can fuel your confidence, but the confidence comes from within. Now, Mike, to your point, as parents, as mentors, as coaches, we do have a responsibility to help fuel the tank and help kids understand what it means to feel confident and be confident. The the college analogy is really funny, Haley, because I remember when I went to college, uh, my parents were terrified because just I was a A B student, now B C student in high school, uh, a lot of responsibility in college. They just were worried about how was I gonna do this? And I I was a great student athlete, right? I did really good grades and I really did good in college. And I remember they asked me, this is where I'm going with this. They said, Well, how what happened? Like, what happened that you made this massive change and all of a sudden you're like this productive member of all these things? And I said, Well, you know, you know, guys, I was always listening when you talked to me. I was always I always heard everything you said. I just didn't do any of it in high school because like a lot of it was A being done for me, B, I was a high school kid, I was rebelling. I, you know, not that I had a bad relationship with my parents, but like every other teenager, it's like, stop, mom, stop, dad, like, right? When I got to college, you're not there. I had to do it. So the point I made to them was I was always listening and I just applied it for the first time, right? And I now I'm at a point in my life where I'm so thankful for that, right? I've been able to share that with my parents, but the confidence part came from me, knowing I could do these things. We have to be careful with external validation. I think a lot of people think confidence is built through praise, right? And it's like you gotta be careful with that, because I could praise you forever. If you don't feel it inside, it's it's not confidence, right? Now, the last thing I'll say to I'll throw it back to you guys. This is the the the crazy part of it. Your mind can lie to you and tell you negative messages and start to steal your confidence. This is where it gets a stretch. Those thoughts are not really you either. Like, you're not your thoughts. If you can connect to that as a human being, I'm talking to everybody listening right now. All right, it takes you to another level. Like your mind, it's a defense mechanism, it will lie to you. You're not good enough. We've all heard that at one point. You don't belong here. I still hear that from time to time. All right, I've just gotten really good at being like, yeah, no, not gonna listen to that voice today. All right, Kayleigh and Mike, right? We all have that internal dialogue, we all seek external validation in some form. It's the awareness of it. I think that's the key to this, right? The awareness of, oh, I'm seeking approval, or I'm listening to a negative voice in my head. If you become aware of that, it is a Pandora's box for you, right? Haley, I'll go to you, right? Like, like you seem pretty aware of these emotions and these feelings, right? Is was college when you started to become aware of that? Was it later? And then how have you worked today as a professional to control that? Because, like you said, it doesn't just go away, and you're in an environment where there's you know 10 to 20,000 people screaming at you every night. Right? That can't be easy.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

No, I think I don't know if I realized that lesson until I was a postgrad. Like I I think in college I was able to to compartmentalize things, and that is when I started focusing on just where I was and just being in the present, right? Um, and not being like, wait, I why haven't I achieved this step yet? And like thinking too far ahead. Where after college, when I played pro, like in the NWHL and stuff, I just focused on having fun. I think that was great for me. Um, and then once I started doing USA hockey stuff, and then honestly, probably training with Nick out at the Beast Bus is when I really like dialed in on focusing on my mindset, um, focusing on giving myself that validation and also realizing how much I was basing things off of validation. And that's when I started to become aware of like what negative self-talk can do and how to change it to positive self-talk and and also acknowledging when you do have negative thoughts, like that's okay. You can acknowledge it and then just continue on. It's better than just ignoring it.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

And call it out. I always like to in there, like say I'm upset, right? I I don't feel like I'm angry. It's so important you say what you're feeling because then you get control over it. Go go ahead, Haley. I just wanted to. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

No, I love that. And I think I mean, for me, it's been a huge step just to realize how much I was relying on uh external validation. I think needing the approval of my, you know, my parents growing up, I think needing the approval of coaches growing up, once I identified it, it was so helpful for me to be able to like release that more. And again, like I said, I think I I still have a hard time with it. I'm definitely still a people pleaser. Um, and so working on that uh continuously.

SPEAKER_04 22:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

But um I think, like you kind of said, identifying it is like a huge step, being aware of it is a huge step, and then taking those steps to give yourself the confidence and ask yourself how you're feeling about things and trusting what you think and not feeling like you need to ask other people, hey, is this the right thing to think? Like I've I've been guilty of that too. Like needing other people to agree with what I'm thinking. And um, I think we all can start asking ourselves and trusting our own intuition and our own confidence.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

You're bringing up a great point about the what'd you think of that? Like, like uh number one question I hear a lot after podcasts or after speaking is hey, how do you think that went? How do you think that went? Now here's the thing I'm not saying that getting feedback is a bad thing. Like, like I, you know, when I do a public speaking environment where I write a book, like I yeah, I I want feedback. I want to know what I can do better. But I think the key to that is I have to dive down and do that assessment on myself first. I want to decide how I did. If I do a speaking gig before I ask anybody else, how was that? I'm going to think, do I feel like I did a good job? All right, because that's actually going to create better questions, right? Instead of saying how was that, I might say something like, Hey, I really enjoyed this part. I thought this part was a little soft. How did you feel about that part? Now it's I'm trying to get better, right? Not I need your validation of was that a good talk? Was that a good show? Right. And I can tell you this too, like we're we're about to hit 600 episodes of this somewhere along the line. You know, especially Mike and I figured out probably know what we're doing at this point, right? Always trying to get better though, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Like always, I've had some good stinkers once in a while. So I think Haley makes a great point about like building that confidence. And I think I think it, but I think there is there is a responsibility, uh, certainly from parents, but from coaches and the people interacting with athletes to build those pathways because it's so much easier to break a person down. I mean, it's easy. Like you want to kill somebody's confidence, that's easy. Like being negative and being like just saying how but how bad it was or what a horrible play that was. Like, those are easy things for human beings to do. It's really hard to go out of your way to to, and again, I and I don't mean unjustified praise. I just mean more like like almost like what you guys have been talking about. Like maybe there's a better way to build that path to say, hey, you know, without being negative, like, oh, how'd you feel you did today, Haley? Oh, I think I did pretty good. And you're not saying, well, you really thought that was a good play? Like, like, so so like I think that's where, you know, like, are you sure you thought you did about that play? So I think it's like for for me, you especially as the kids are younger and they're finding their way through this, you don't want to give somebody um, it's like the whole trophy debate, right? It's like you don't want to give somebody uh an unearned like award or or confidence, but you also have to find a way to say, listen, you have to be confident in yourself because you have done these great things and the stuff that you felt you didn't do well, well, you need to feel what that was, and then you need to fix that. Like it doesn't matter to like to me, and I and me as a parent, I'm always like, Well, don't you feel good about that? And they're like, Yeah, I feel great about it. Like, and it's me saying, Well, I don't feel good about it, but it's not, but it's not my issue, like it's not my problem. Like, if I'm a you're they're the ones that felt like they they reached that that level of what they wanted, and that they were confident, so it's not my job to remind them how bad it was.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Yeah, you know, again, we're talking about how confidence comes from within and then the external forces that can affect your confidence. This is why I always say trust is the most important part of any relationship or any team, right? Because I find from a coaching standpoint, even from a teammate standpoint, um, I want to build the trust so I can be honest with you because I think I'm only gonna help you become more confident by being honest with you. I don't want to tell you it's a great play if it's not a great play, right? I see so much of that. Oh, it's a great play. Like your kid just turned it over in the slot, like that's a horrible play. Like, what I don't want to tell them that. Now, there is a way to explain that to someone, and sometimes that way is all that's nothing you mean, but like, hey, listen, that was not a great play. What are a few other options we could have done there? Right. And the kid's gonna feel that. Like, let's be honest, like this is part of coaching. Kid's gonna feel a little bad they made a bad play. I'm okay with that as a coach, I'm not ripping them apart, I'm teaching them. All right, and you know what's gonna happen? The next time they come up the ice, they're not gonna think, well, coach said it was a great idea to pass the puck to the slot, right? Coach is gonna say, No, that's not that's not a great option, and then then you praise that play. Hey, you had your head up there, you made a good decision. That is more confidence. I mean, you can feel it in the way I'm describing it, right? You made a good decision there, all right. So much confidence is built. How about this for a statement? So much confidence is built by allowing athletes, just for this show, to uncover what they're doing wrong and then fixing what they're doing wrong. All right, I was just doing a private lesson today with a defenseman that is their timing is off and they felt not great coming into the zone. And they they said, You want to get going? Let's let's run some coming in the zones. I said, No, let's do the uh iron cross and the circle first. Let me see your skating. All right, we looked at the skating. Okay, you're not you're not low enough, your balance is off. Let's do it again. I want you to take bigger strides, sit down a little bit more, get your stick straight. And the guy did it, got it down, and he goes, You know what? I feel way more confident now. Yes, because we got the fundamental part now. We uncovered what was off and we fixed it, and then we started doing other drills. I should have do some offensive drills with with some transition because I know that transition is something he's going to do on D. I didn't want him thinking that though. So now we got the balance, we got the skating, we got the transition. Now I'm gonna come in on you on the zone and lead your stick. It was almost like immediate change, and he felt confident. And I said, You just were in your head a little bit, and we had some fundamentals to change, but by uncovering the mistakes is how we found the confidence. It wasn't by just saying, Man, you're great, you're tall, way to go. Like, like great play, like you know, like these are things you got to think about. Confidence, like most things, comes from molten lava, right? It's earthquakes, it's volcanoes. You're not gonna build it just be by saying it. I don't have to say this, right? So I hope I'm making some sense with that. That that if you're gonna be a ambassador of confidence for someone, I'm gonna say it again, it comes from with them. You have to present things in a way that they're going to process it and become confident. Nothing will make somebody more confident than if they can figure it out on their own.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

I I really believe I guess that was my point. When the kids are younger, you can hide those little nuggets in there and get and create the confidence. Like, like you can make it like they think, oh, I'm reaching, I'm reaching. Oh, I made it. Yeah, you didn't really make it, but I helped you like I got it so you could make it. Like, so like little things like that where you build that because once you get the confidence, like I can do anything, like I can literally do anything, right? So so when you when you say like Haley's saying it now, like, okay, I'll yeah, I'll give it a shot. What the hell? It's something new. I'm I'll do it. Like, like I'm not I'm not a brand failing. I'm just gonna try something, you know, I'm gonna try it because it doesn't affect my you know who I am. It it just like affects me saying, Oh, okay, that wasn't a great choice. I probably don't need to do that.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

I I want to bring the episode here too. So I was talking about a high-level player with this training a minute ago. Let's bring it down to youth hockey. All right, I was training with a U U10 team recently. Um, had a young player that was coming up to me with about 15 minutes left in practice. We've all experienced this, uh, Mike, Kaylee. You probably have too of hey, I'm tired, can I take a break? Hey, I'm I'm not feeling this. Can I stop? All right, and I'm looking, and it's not just who knows. She's not sick, like she's fine, right? She's she's tired. And I just kind of said very straightforward, no, we're gonna finish practice, right? We got and I said, you know, we got 10 minutes left. You can do it. And I kind of went back to the practice. She came up to me again with five minutes left. Coach, I'm I'm I'm I'm just feeling a little tired. Like, like I just so again, I gotta disclaim this. Like, she's not in any danger here. I want to make sure everybody understands not hyperventilating this. I just want to make sure everybody understands like like like yeah, this is this is clearly a situation of she's just not sure she can do it, all right? She's not feeling confident. That that's what I'm trying to say. Yeah, right. And and said, uh again, said no, I didn't yell at her anything. No, we're gonna finish practice. You can do it, you can you can push through this, right? She did, she finished practice. Um, we got done, everybody addressed, and this is the key moment. Went up, found went up to her purposely, found her. And I kneeled and I said, I am really proud of you for pushing through. You were tired and you did it tired and you got it done, and I'm proud of you for that. And I saw her fight, her face like light up. That was what she needed to be told in the moment of no, we can do it. I didn't say suck it up, I didn't say you're not really tired. I didn't say I've heard this, you don't even know what tired is. I work all day, you think you're tired. Oh, I got a mortgage. Kids don't care about that, guys. I don't know how else to say that. Like the kids really don't care. All right. I said, no, we're just gonna do it. I didn't make a big deal out of it. And then she felt like, you know, I I can do this. Yeah, you can. All right.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Well, it's also when you're working with young players, too, right? Helly, it's like when you're working with young players and and you're doing that now, like in all these camps you're doing and the clinics and all the outlets, like you can you can you know what the end result has to look like, right? So you could break a skill down so they could find something that they could be good at and then build the confidence, like a wrist shot. Risk shot's not easy, but if you could find a way to have a player hit a target and then distribute weight and then change the angle, like all of a sudden they can start building, and that that is building, like they are the ones getting the confidence, but you're the one that has to show them that path. Like, you know, you can't just say, Oh, hit the top right-hand corner. Well, because then the player will never do it. So, what do you they're just getting beaten down, right? So, I think it's such a it's such a skill to be able to go in and say, Well, I know what I can do for you to make it feel like you're doing great, because I can make this skill very, very simple.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

I mean, on that point, Mike, right? Like, let's talk about wrist shots since this is a hockey show, right? Um, you can praise aspects of a wrist shot. Like, it's not uncommon for me to tell younger kids, like, I don't even care if you hit the net, I just want to see the weight transfer, right? And now I'm telling them, like, it doesn't matter if you score. I need to see the weight transfer, and I need to see your not just your arms doing the shot, and you see your toe pointing. Let's get these little aspects down, then we can worry about your accuracy because it doesn't matter. Your accuracy is not gonna be there if you don't get some of these other things down, and then praise that hey, that was great weight transfer. You did a great job on that, right? And then they start to feel it, right? That helps to build confidence, right? Um, Haley, I do want to I do want to ask this too, just before we run out of time. We got like 10 minutes left, right? Um show is titled Our Girls Play Hockey, right? What what do you feel like the differences are from boys to girls when it comes to building confidence? Um, we can also talk about some of the similarities too, right? But but I think we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about this. Like the the female experience with confidence, uh, at least in my experience, it's slightly different than the male experience, where men have NHL role models their whole lives, existence for everything. We have that now, obviously, in women's hockey too. All right, but but not every ceiling has been broken here, right? Different from the female perspective. Am I am I correct with that assumption?

SPEAKER_00 33:46

I think so. Um, you know, I think as women, we're expected to be perfect, we're expected to do things by the book, we're expected to outperform men in a way, um, and do everything right. And I think, you know, I think that leads to a lot of like the whole people-pleasing aspect, uh, making making our coaches proud of us, making sure we're following the letter to the T. And that's where a lot of times with like younger girls, you have to be like, hey, you're allowed to be creative in this one. You don't have to do it exactly as I said it. Like, I really do think that is something in women that we're kind of conditioned by in just different ways in society, that we're expected to be able to do things perfectly. And sports is not perfect. And that's what's so beautiful about it. Um, and I think that's what you know, kind of helps us get out of that shell and be okay with making mistakes and learning that mistakes do eventually make you better and you're able to kind of master something after that.

SPEAKER_03 34:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Um, but yeah, I think that's a huge hurdle as women that we that we face just by societal pressure and different things like that.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

I'm thinking, I'm thinking like, you know, as you're growing up, right? And and and you're looking at different different age categories of girls and young young ladies, that, you know, I found, you know, I think that, and it's and it sometimes it's not just the girls, it's it's just the personality of that group. And the girls seem to be uh the in my experience, the girls that I would have in these pods in these clinics, if I had 60, you know, I'd have 60, 78 kids out there, mites out there, and say there were 11 girls in the group, they always thrived by being together. They just did. I don't know why it was, maybe because the alpha male in the group was just so more overpowering than the than the weakest girl. Like it's just this weird dynamic. And I found that like the comp I could build so much more confidence in their peer group and in the girls' group than if I injected one of the best kids on the team and they're a boy, and he'd overwhelm the group, the other, the group just wouldn't, they they wouldn't try things. They wouldn't, they wouldn't think they could do it. So it was it was a really like for me, like I very I I'm again, this is not every girl, and it's not every boy, and it's not all the time in age groups. I'm just saying that the young, like when the girls are six or seven or eight years old, I found that having those girls in an environment where they can find success a lot easier. Now, it did change. Like I've worked with girls that are 13 and 14, you know, 11, 12, 13, 14 years old with the boys, and they were just better. Like they were stronger, they were taller, they were faster, and the boys were intimidated. Like the girls were walking around like, hey, I'm I'm the shit, like I'm I'm the best player on the ice, like I'm exuding the confidence because physically they were stronger, they were better, they were in in the groups we were with, right? So I think it's I think it all it all depends on where you are in in your pecking order of who you are as an athlete. But I think for overall, especially as as we've progressed with girls' hockey and it's grown so much, right? That when you put your daughter in youth hockey, sometimes you got you can't expect them to be that alpha boy quickly, and and just and and let them grow into that. And when they're getting their confidence up, then then you just let you say, hey, wherever you are gonna go with your skill, you go with it.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Yeah, I I I found with confidence too, with with especially like youth girls' hockey, and I'm gonna give the same disclaimer that Mike said that this is not true of every young girl that plays hockey, all right. But I found by and large, and I've had women, women, uh female coaches affirm this multiple times that the individual healthy competition that we see in boys' or boys' hockey uh is not typically the best thing to do with youth girls' hockey in the sense of like you want them to come up together. The team together winning uh seems to be much more of a motivator than me beating my teammate, right? Now, it does not mean we don't coach competitive drills where we we put players against other players, but at the end of the day, the the team together winning seems to be more of a motivator than just me scoring 50 goals, right? Um, and I see that and I and I coach to that quite a bit. And I think the the point I'm trying to make here, and again, we're all evolving here, like there's no doubt that you know, women's sports, I'll even say women's rights, in a lot of ways are evolving. Like when you look at 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and you know, the the decades, you know, not saying there hasn't been some steps back to, okay, but but things are progressing when you look at it from a macro standpoint. But I think that the message, and Haley, I want to get your thoughts on this for especially the male coaches, is just have just having some awareness, like like what you said earlier about like, well, we're expected to be perfect all the time. I can see a lot of coaches going, well, I don't I don't expect that, I don't expect that, but that doesn't make it less true. And you just have to be aware that a lot of women, a lot of girls are coming in with that mindset. So, how you coach, just be aware of that. And coaching women's national team, a lot of changes. I'm not going in that locker room most of the time, obviously, right? Not to mention there are other things that happen with women I have to be very aware of as their coach. Awareness is key. Am I right on that, Haley? Is that something you wish you'd see a little bit more of? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Awareness and then just like some empathy, you know, different things like that. And I think just reiterating that it's okay to make mistakes, I think, especially in uh with young women, I think is critical. Um, and not, you know, calling them out in front of the whole team and you know, humiliating them in that sense, I think is huge. Um, and again, not saying that you can't coach them hard or can't, you know, because obviously people are different. Um, but I think there's different ways to go about it that are more effective, probably for most young girls. And I would imagine that's more one-on-one talking through it, um, you know, acknowledging that there was a mistake, but that we're able to get better from mistakes and it's normal and everyone does make mistakes.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

Well, and honestly, if you're if you're if your job, if you're in the business of growing the sport and getting more girls to play, there's just more boys out there right now that you can, you know, issue carnage on. Like it doesn't matter if you lose two or three boys in your group because there's plenty. Like there's a lot more, right? But on the girls' side, there are there just aren't as many girls. So your idea of you know, want to keep those young girls in the game longer and let them gain that confidence to a point where then they can start making decisions when they want to stay in the game or not is so important if you're on the side of growing the game. If you're on the side of saying, you know, I don't want to cut just because this girl is, you know, she's not you know up to snuff right now at seven, I'm gonna cut her from hockey. Maybe we got to rethink that and be like, we, you know, maybe you gotta treat this pop population a little different and keep more girls in the game, so that when does when it does become time that you have to maybe get a little harder and and and get a little, you know, a little more aggressive in your tone, like any athlete, there's just more of them out there.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Yeah. All right, final question for us to talk about because we have to. It's 2026 when we're recording this. Um, you know, social media is still social media. So this is a question for the group. You know, it's commonplace for kids to measure their confidence against you know, someone else's highlights, right? And I think that where I want to start with this is that I'm not saying don't watch highlights. Like, I'm not gonna tell you not to watch great amazing hockey plays, but you don't have to compare yourself to the person in the play. You should have a growth mindset of what can I learn from this. When I was a kid, I wanted to play against people better than me because I wanted to learn, I wanted them to show me what I couldn't do, and then I had a mentality of well, I want to try and learn that now, right? Where I think somewhere along the line that flipped to I have to be that good now, and that is just not the case, right? Like you have to evolve as you evolve, and that sometimes people compare themselves. I'll give a great example, young goaltenders, right? If you're five foot two and you're watching Vasileschi thinking, I want to play like like him, I mean, you are setting yourself up for failure. You you are, you know, he plays to his his size just just like Frankel plays to her size, right? Like, like they're both pretty good goalies last time I checked, right? So you got to be realistic. I mean, Haley, it's funny because you're the one on the highlight now, right? You're you're the one on the highlight making the plays, right? How would this uh affect you? How what's your message to the young kids out there listening about that maybe they're watching you, right? Thinking, well, I want to be like Skimora.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

Yeah, I think I would remind them that before those highlights, there was a lot of mistakes, a lot of fumbles. Um, I was reminded of that today. I had a skate today, this morning. Uh, a few like uh, you know, pro guys were out there, and I was so nervous. I whiffed three pucks in the first, like my first rep of a drill. I whipped the puck on the pass, then I got it. I whiffed it on one of the dekers, and then I whiffed it on my shot. I was like, this is a solid start. So just know that it's okay. It happens to everyone. Yeah, um, and yeah, before those highlights, there were mistakes that led to those, and that's what makes you get better.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

I love that you go from scoring two goals in the first game of the Olympics to whiffing on three things in a practice. Like it, if that's not a great example of like how this works, yes, right? Like, like it's just everyone's susceptible to it. Mike, any final thoughts on confidence before I close this out?

SPEAKER_01 43:28

No, I I I just I I think the message you had at the beginning, don't let somebody take your confidence. You know, you you can you can keep it, you can you know build your own confidence, you got to find your little tools that you need to remind yourself when you feel like somebody got in there, you got to kick them out and and find a way to you know remember you know what you've done and what you've accomplished and and what you're doing, you know, what your what your goals are.

SPEAKER_02 43:49

Haley, any final thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 43:51

Yeah, I think that's a great point. I think confidence comes from within, like I said, and I think I liked what you added with like that mistakes lead to confidence. I think that's a great way to reframe mistakes, if you will, because it has such a negative connotation. So I actually I really loved that part that you added.

SPEAKER_02 44:07

I will actually read this. I just posted this yesterday, and Haley, your comment there actually just remember made me remind this. But I actually am gonna bring this up on my social media right now and read it to the group real quick because I thought it was really impactful. This is talk about confidence, success rate. Fank Sinatra, pretty famous singer, did 1,200 songs, only had 209 hits. 17 of his songs were hits. Babe Ruth, 714 home runs. People know that. Uh, he did that in 8,399 attempts. That's an 8.5 success rate with home runs. Pablo Picasso, pretty famous painter, 1,170 paintings, famous. Amazing. That was out of 150,000. That's a 0.7% success rate. And it says here the math of success is brutal. Only the ones that are willing to take a beating and keep swinging will make it. That's where confidence comes from. All right. And in a game where everything is based on capitalizing on the failure of your opponents, parents, coaches, adults, all of us, we play that role in building confidence. All right. And I'll leave you with this last little tidbit. Uh, if you're looking for a way to build confidence, and I'm not just talking to kids right now, take the skimora approach. We've heard this about, if you listen to this podcast, I am a gold medalist, I am a Walter Cup champion. I am confident. You may not believe it when you say it, but say it. Say it every day. You'll be surprised what starts to happen. For Haley Scamora and Mike Vanilli, I'm Leah Lyas. This has been another great episode of Our Girls Play Hockey. Keep tuning in. We're with you the entire year. It just keeps going, my friends. If you have a comment or something you want to talk about, email us team at our kids play hockey or use the link accompanying this episode in the description. We will get back to you for Haley Skomora for Mike Vanelli. I'm Leah Lyas. We'll see you in the next episode, everybody. Take care. We hope you enjoyed this edition of Our Kids Play Hockey. Make sure to like and subscribe right now if you found value wherever you're listening, whether it's a podcast network, a social media network, or our website, ourkidsplayhockey.com. Also, make sure to check out our children's book, When Hockey Stops, at WhenHockeystops.com. It's a book that helps children deal with adversity in the game and in life. We're very proud of it. But thanks so much for listening to this edition of Our Kids Play Hockey, and we'll see you on the next episode.