April 11, 2024

The Ride To The Rink - Be More Well Rounded!

Show Notes
Transcript

In this week's episode of "The Ride to the Rink," Lee Elias dives into the multifaceted benefits of being a well-rounded individual, not just for hockey players but for anyone striving to enhance their cognitive and physical abilities. Lee shares personal insights and experiences, highlighting the importance of engaging in various activities outside of hockey.

Key Points Discussed:

- The Value of Playing Multiple Sports: Lee discusses the well-documented benefits of engaging in various sports to develop diverse physical skills that are transferable to hockey. He emphasizes that being a great athlete isn't confined to excelling in a single sport.

- Cognitive Benefits of Diverse Activities: Transitioning from the physical to the mental, Lee explores how activities like baseball, softball, and even non-sporting hobbies like music and gaming, can enhance cognitive abilities, strategic thinking, and focus.

- Personal Insights: Sharing anecdotes from his children's experiences with baseball and softball, Lee reflects on the tactical thinking developed in these sports and how it can be applied to hockey, particularly in terms of anticipation and strategic planning.

- Beyond Sports - Music and Gaming: Lee argues that extracurricular activities, including musical instruments and video gaming, foster a range of beneficial skills. These include teamwork, strategic planning, and the ability to adapt to changing scenarios.

- The Importance of Enjoyment and Learning: Encouraging listeners to draw lessons from all their experiences, Lee stresses the significance of enjoying these activities while consciously reflecting on how they can contribute to personal and athletic growth.

- A Call to Parents: A special message to parents about the value of encouraging a well-rounded lifestyle for their children, ensuring a balance between various activities while maintaining a healthy, enjoyable life.

Lee wraps up the episode with a powerful reminder that diversifying one's interests and activities can accelerate personal development, not just in hockey but in life. He invites listeners to embrace the game in everything they do, fostering a love for learning and growth across all facets of their lives.

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WEBVTT

00:00:08.131 --> 00:00:12.723
Hello hockey skaters and goalies around the world, welcome back to another edition of the ride to the rink.

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It's Lee Elias right back with you again this week on this special episode.

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Why is it special?

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Because I'm talking about something that could be of value to you.

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At least I think it is.

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Today's topic is something we've probably heard before.

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You hear a lot of people talk about how, statistically speaking, medically speaking, every bit of data shows that you should play multiple sports if you want to be a great hockey player, but obviously a great athlete.

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So I think you know that and I think a lot of you listening do play multiple sports.

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Odds are, if you're listening to the show, hockey's the top sport for you, or one of the top sports.

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But again, you know that you play multiple sports.

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Physically, you are going to learn some skill sets that apply to hockey and the other sports in turn, but I want to take this on a little bit of a turn.

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Today I'm going to turn that knob a little bit.

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My son and daughter both started playing baseball and softball recently and I realized through conversations with them something else that there is a mental tie-in to the physical tie-in of playing multiple sports when it comes to your cognitive ability to become a better athlete from a tactical standpoint.

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Now, what do I mean by that?

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You play hockey, obviously.

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Hockey is a very reactive sport and the way we train you is to build up muscle memory for you to respond and react to situational plays that happen where there's five to 10 different outcomes Every time you touch a puck.

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It's very quick, it's very past.

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You got to make a decision on a tee.

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Now, when you think about baseball or softball, start to realize that you know when you're in the field.

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You got to start thinking ahead of the play of this.

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If this batter hits the ball and there's a guy on first or a girl on first, I got to throw it here.

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I got to do this play.

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You kind of premeditatively think about what you need to do and even in the moment it can change, just like hockey.

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But baseball cognitively has a lot more pre-thinking strategy than hockey and it made me think of how can this affect me on the ice or affect my kids on the ice.

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My son, who's a goaltender, obviously understanding the patience of playing six, seven plus innings and knowing how to be on the field and keep focused can help him in the net.

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It can help a skater on the ice in certain situations.

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And then I went even further, beyond this.

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Every different sport brings a little bit of something different cognitively for you to learn a mental side of a game, to you to learn strategy, and just like the physical side of sports we're throwing a baseball or a football or kicking a soccer ball or using a lacrosse stick, gymnastics whatever you play all translates to you being a better physical athlete.

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Whatever you do also translates cognitively to you thinking games a little better.

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And this goes beyond sports when you think about extracurriculars.

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There's so many different things you can draw from.

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I wrote a few down.

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Just music in general Do you play an instrument?

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Are you part of an orchestra?

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Are you in choir?

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Do you need to work with other people to sing in key, on tune, on time?

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These are all aspects of building a great team towards a common goal.

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I also wrote down gaming which, let's be honest, almost everybody I know games now, strategy, being part of a team, thinking ahead, no matter what type of game you're playing, if you're a Fortnite or somebody like that, or someone who loves adventure games, planning ahead, understanding side quests, knowing missions there's stuff you can draw from there.

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If you like board games some people out there that are old school, incredible strategy needed to work in a board game or also this collaborative board games.

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The point is this at the end of the day, your ability as an athlete or a gamer or a musician to draw out those lessons, that is a skill set.

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Now, there is nothing wrong if you just want to go through all of these little things that you do the sports, the games, the extracurriculars and just enjoy them.

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You should enjoy them.

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But your ability to look at a piece of music or look at a game and say, how can this help me become a better hockey player or a better person or a better teammate, and vice versa, how can hockey make me a better musician?

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Your ability to collaboratively in your mind connect the dots, will help you advanced at light speed.

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If you can see the game in everything you do and keep loving it in everything you do, man, you're going to advance a lot faster than you think.

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Again, not talking so much about the physical aspects that you get from sports I think that's fairly obvious but the cognitive, the mental, the ability to see teams working together to see how music flows or a game flows or a story flows, together to see how music flows or a game flows or a story flows, or to understand in a baseball game that you premeditatively thinking of the next play, is building up something in your brain, a skillset that can help you out.

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The more things you can do while sleeping, eating and having a sane life parents, I'm talking to you on that one the more things you can do to well-round yourself, I think, the more well-rounded you will become.

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I know that sounds obvious, but we don't do it enough.

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You do not have to hyper-focus on one thing.

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You do not have to do that.

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You are more than just the game.

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You are you and I believe in you.

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You should too.

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I say that a lot, but that's today's message.

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See how much you can draw out from all of your experiences, even the ones you don't like, to help make you a better, whatever you want to be.

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That's going to do it for this edition of the ride to the rink.

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I'm Lee Elias.

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Remember all of the ride to the rinks available at our kids by hockeycom, along with all of our full episodes.

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Thank you so much for listening.

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We hope you're enjoying whatever part of the season you're in, take care, skate on.

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We'll see you next time.

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Have a good one everybody.