The Ride to The Rink: Hockey Isn’t Your Identity: A Powerful Message from Olympian Haley Winn

Hello, hockey skaters and goalies around the world, and welcome back to another

edition of the Ride to the Rink. It's Lee and Mike with you today, and just happened

to have two Olympians with us. Hayley Scamurra and Haley Wynn are with us

today, and I'm going to allow the Olympian to interview the other Olympian. This is

the coolest thing ever. I'm going to watch this episode today. But, Hayley, why don't

you go ahead and ask the question of Haley Wynn, and we'll let the kids listen. All

right, Haley, if you could go back and give advice to ten-year-old Haley Winn or

any girl dreaming of the national team, what would you tell them about

development, mindset, and enjoying the ride? I think I would tell them to, yeah,

one, obviously just have so much fun. That's what it's all about, and that's what

keeps you playing for as long as you do. If you don't have fun with it, then, you

know, it's going to be a short ride. And have confidence in yourself. Know that, you

know, you have amazing skills and abilities and you have those for a reason and to

be confident in those. And I think just obviously continuing to work hard every day.

And I think that comes with loving what you do if you love it. And it's easy to work

hard every day and continue to kind of, you know, put the work in and do the extra

stuff. But as long as you're enjoying it. And again, that leads to having confidence

in your abilities. Hey, Haley. Oh, go ahead, Mike. No, I'm going to say, as a ten-

year-old, what's something, like a habit you have now as a pro and an Olympian?

Like something, a habit you have now that you wish, I wish somebody would have

gave me that advice when I was ten years old. Like what's something you would

draw out that one of our listeners or players could take and say, oh, I'm going to

fast track my development and take Haley's secrets a little earlier in life? Yeah, to

be honest, the first thing that comes to mind is like hockey isn't your identity. I

think when I was ten, it was totally my identity and I just wanted like my whole life

to be hockey. And obviously a huge part of my life is, but it isn't your identity. So if

you have a bad game, it doesn't mean you're a bad person or, you know, you have

a... bad day like you just had a bad game or if you had a bad practice you know

same thing um so i think just knowing that hockey can be such a big part of your

life but it doesn't have to be your whole life and you can still like do other things

you can still play other sports and have other hobbies um but yeah i think that

would be my biggest thing So one follow up for me, and we can talk to ten year old

you, twelve year old you, seventeen year old you in this one. You did such a great

job on our big episode this week talking about, you know, giving yourself the space

to rest, giving yourself the downtime. Right. I think for teenagers specifically,

there's this belief that if I let down mentally for one second, I'm going to lose my

drive and I'm not going to make it. Could you maybe talk to that kid for a second

about rest and recovery are pretty important and you probably won't lose your

drive as long as you're not getting lazy. Yeah. Yeah. No, when I was younger, it was

exactly that. I was like, if I'm not literally thinking about hockey, I'm like, I'm

distracted and I'm not going to make my goals and all this stuff. And, you know,

even when you get high school and college and you have time to hang out with

friends, I'm like, well, should I really hang out with friends? Like I could be getting

better somewhere. So I think, Just giving your body time to rest. I know like Sam'sand I've talked about this all the time. Usually when you take a day, you feel you

come back so much better after your rest and you think it's going to kill you to

take three days off the ice. I probably didn't take three days off the ice until I was

like graduated college because I was just go, go, go. And you take three days off

the ice and you come back so much better. And it's just, it also prolongs your

career. You know, the hockey, it's so hard on your body and you don't feel it when

you're you know, all of a sudden you're in college and you want to play for ten

more years. And it's crazy to think about, you know, the long run. But you have to

think about the long run and what's going to kind of help you play this game as

long as you can. And that's definitely prioritizing, you know, your rest and

recovery. I love it, Haley. I appreciate you giving us a few minutes of your time. I

know you're very busy, both of you. And thanks so much for coming on the show

today. Yeah, thank you so much. It was awesome. All right, you've been listening to

two Olympians and two schmoes on the Our Kids Play Hockey Network. Kids,

remember, wherever you're at in your hockey journey, we believe in you. You

should too. We'll see you on the next ride to the rink, everybody. Take care.