The Ride To The Rink - Jason Podollan's Secret to Overcoming Mistakes on the Ice

Lee MJ Elias [0:08 - 0:43]: Hello, hockey skaters and goalies around the world. Welcome back to another edition of the Ride to the Rink at the full crew here today. Christie Cash, Andre Burns, Mike Benelli. And I'm Lee Elias. And we've got a former pro hockey player here to talk to you today. His name is Jason Padolan. You should definitely look him up. He's going to talk to us about mindset. On our long episode this week, which I encourage you all to listen to if you can, we talked about ways to look at a growth mindset, ways to look at things when there's mistakes on the ice. And Jason gave a really great plan. The three Rs, he calls it, on how to dive into that. So, Jason, I'm going to sauce the puck to you. Please feel free to tell the kids this platform. 

Jason Podollan [0:43 - 0:48]: All right? You're saucing it to me. I'm like, back door on my one timer or like you're in a position to score. 

Lee MJ Elias [0:48 - 0:49]: Let's put it. 

Jason Podollan [0:49 - 2:42]: All right. Okay. Let's do it. Yeah. Well, I know all you, all you players out there going to the rink, hopefully you're thinking about how you're going to impact the game in a positive way and the things that you do well, that's going to help your team win. But I know there's probably some of you that are thinking about how we're not going to screw up and how we want to avoid, you know, some of these mistakes that we make. And if you're one of those players that dwells on mistakes and has a hard time recovering from them. One of the things that I work with my players on is called the three R's, and Leah already said it's rewind, replay, reset. So what that means is that once that shift is over and you get back to the bench and you take your drink of water and you take a couple deep breaths and you sit down, I want you to rewind that play in your mind where you made the mistake, and then I want you to replay it. But this time, I want it to be without the mistake being made. So I want you to see yourself correcting whatever that error was. So in the podcast, I use the example of a defenseman going back for a puck retrieval. Perhaps you didn't shoulder check, which allowed you not to know where the four checker was, which allowed you to turn the puck over and make a pass to somebody that was actually covered. So now when you're replaying that, that situation in the game, you see yourself shoulder checking. You see yourself making a scan. So you make the proper read, and now you go on a wheel behind the net, and then you find a new option. After you do that, you've now told yourself that you've corrected the mistake. You've now learned from the error that you made, which will allow yourself to move on. And that's the reset part. So you can actually even see a reset button in your mind, if that helps you, like, press a big red reset button. Boom, you press the button, it's done. We've deposited that. Our subconscious brain now knows that we've learned from the mistake. There's no reason for us to make that mistake again. We don't be worried about it in the future. It's in our past. And now we get back to the moment, and we move forward. 

Christie Casciano [2:43 - 2:47]: Jason, what kind of success have kids seen by using the three Rs? 

Jason Podollan [2:48 - 4:01]: Oh, tons of success. It really has allowed kids to not have the second bad shift and then the third bad shift and potentially making it turn into a really terrible game or maybe at some levels, getting sat on the bench themselves and not playing anymore. I know a lot of players, it's, it's. It's hard, right, to. To not be looking backwards when they want to play well, but they end up hurting themselves in the process. So this is a mechanism to. To. Yeah, to leave that bad shift behind, to allow yourself to step forward with bravery and courage and to move into that next shift and go out there and do it again. And oftentimes, Christy, like, the better we get at it, we almost don't even need to do it. At some point, then the tool becomes irrelevant because we recognize that the mistake is there. We recognize in the moment what we could have done, and then it helps us, even maybe in shift, to recover from that mistake. So when I work with all my athletes, the idea is, how long do we stay in this mental state that isn't helping us? Right? So that's the term mental agility. When we close the gap on that and we get out of the. Of the negative state and back into the positive state quickly, we have great mental agility. We're back, we're playing consistent. We're somebody our coach can depend on, and we're proud of ourselves for being resilient. 

Lee MJ Elias [4:01 - 4:50]: And, Jason, it's just like when we talk about muscle memory, right? You want to get good at a shot. We're going to practice it and practice it and practice, and eventually you get to the game, you don't think about it. It just happens. And I think the three R's are a great rep. Right. Of you practice, you practice and then eventually when those mistakes happen, you'll just be mentally prepared to have a growth mindset to move forward and to scan and understand the growth mindset aspect of that mistake. And I want to say this too, again, in hockey, mistakes are 100% going to happen and it's your ability to learn from those mistakes and get those, those tools into your toolbox that help you develop as a player. Right. And your coaches should know that too. But tremendous stuff. Mike, anything to add? 

Mike Bonelli [4:51 - 5:17]: No, I think this is just, I mean, I think one of the things I would say is if you're going to practice these three Rs, you know, make sure you're, you're talking to your coaches beforehand and say, listen, this is something that's really going to help me and support me if I can, you know, have this time to kind of reflect and, and rewind, replay and reset myself. And I think coaches that know you're, you're, you're approaching it with this mindset and you're approaching this with like a tool that you're trying to use. I, I think you'll find them very supportive of that. 

Lee MJ Elias [5:17 - 5:19]: Yeah, go ahead. 

Jason Podollan [5:19 - 6:38]: I will throw in a bonus piece here. So, yeah, like this, and to Mike's point, like, this is, this could potentially even be something that nobody knows you're doing. Like, this isn't a three, five minute process. In my mind. This is like 10 to 20 seconds. You can do a, you can do a 45 second hockey shift in five seconds using this drill, really. Right. So it's not, it's usually at the end of a shift, it's something that when you're getting your water and taking a breath, like no one's even going to notice you're doing it. It's not going to make you feel like everyone's looking at you. What's wrong with this kid? But to your point, Lee, and this is where the bonus points come in, is if this is something that does help you and you think that it does work, I encourage my players to actually have a post shift routine where they do it every time. And why I suggest that is because generally speaking, you are making more good plays than you are bad plays. So if you're somebody that would like to have a little bit more confidence, you reinforcing the good things you just did on your shift is a fantastic way to work on your visualization, work on your, your mental game and also get some positive reinforcement from yourself that you're making an impact on the game. And then you're much more likely to also use it if you do make a mistake and it's not, you know, I used it two weeks ago when I made that bad turnover and I'm going to try and use it again in the third period. Like it becomes a little bit disjointed. So if you make yourself a habit of just doing that, that's some bonus material there too. That can get you in some good habits. 

Lee MJ Elias [6:38 - 7:08]: It's fantastic advice. And Jason, you don't know this, but we end every ride to the rink with the same phrase, which is we believe in you. You should too. And I think that this episode really taps on the you should too nature in that. Because kids, while we do believe in you, it's a two way street. You've got to believe in you. You've got to have that self esteem. You've got to see that path ahead of you. And I think that, Jason, you provided some tremendous tools for those hockey players listening today. So thank you for sharing that. 

Jason Podollan [7:08 - 7:10]: Awesome. Really appreciate you having me. 

Lee MJ Elias [7:10 - 7:15]: All right, kids, that's it for the ride to the rink. Remember, I'm going to say it again. We believe in you. You should too. 

Christie Casciano [7:15 - 7:16]: Believe in you. 

Lee MJ Elias [7:17 - 7:20]: Enjoy every second of hockey this week, my friends. We'll take care. Skate on.