Going from Hesitant to Assertive

My last topic covered aggressive vs assertive, where I promoted assertiveness over aggression. Now I’m going to discuss the other end of the spectrum, going from timid and hesitant to assertive.

I believe it’s a well known fact that assertiveness (often inaccurately referred to as aggression) is an essential characteristic for elite hockey players. It is pretty clear that when two players go into the corner to get the puck that an assertive player will come out with the puck against a timid and hesitant player.

Personally there has been many times when I played timid and hesitant, even though for most of my career I’ve been very assertive. Therefore, it is my hope to provide some useful insight from my personal experiences to help explain why players play hesitant and how they can become assertive.

In reflecting, I found that part of my hesitation was the result of not understanding the difference between aggression and assertiveness. I thought hitting a player too hard wasn’t nice, as it was not what I learned to do growing up. I was aware of the importance for me to play physical, yet I developed a habit of going hard to hit a guy like I was told, but last second slow up or not hit my opponent nearly as hard as I could.

I remember being told to “hit like you mean it.” Reasonable advice, but was useless in helping me recognize that playing assertive is a part of the game and doesn’t imply that I am being a bully, cruel or mean. The deciding factor that shifted my game back to being assertive during my junior career was my Sport Psychologist, Barbara Meyer.

The year I spent working with Barbara was instrumental to my overall development. I can still recall our first few sessions where she would simply ask me questions about my game and how I could improve. I would come up with all the answers, and then she would give her thoughts on top. This simplistic but elegant method quickly allowed me to uncover that playing assertive is one of the key components for me to play my best game.

The idea of playing assertive made a lot more sense to me then playing aggressive. I noticed that when I played assertive I didn’t have the little hesitations that I often had hitting my opponents when I thought I was playing aggressive.

On a side note, we now have Don Cherry sending out the message in support of how Mike Richards apparently “hits to hurt.” I don’t know what he is thinking saying that, but we can’t be promoting players to hit to hurt. Moreover, he is only adding more reason for players to become timid and hesitant in fear of hurting others. Not what I would call a great message by any means.

Furthermore, I would like to point out that playing assertive is much more than simply how hard a player makes a body check. When it comes to playing assertive it is more important to work hard and have the will to win puck battles than making a hard hit.

In summary, I found through my experience that a player may be playing timid and hesitant because of a misunderstanding about playing assertive, possibly confusing it with aggression. It is then my tip to resolve this misinterpretation by the player to first clearly understand for themselves the meaning of assertiveness and aggression.

After clarifying, the player can begin engraining how important assertiveness is to their game. I simply recommend that the player takes the time to breakdown their game into a few key components and I’m sure they will find playing assertive to be among the few, just like I did. This awareness will begin the shift in the player’s game and hopefully allow them to let go of the hesitation and truly play assertive.

Aggressive Vs Assertive

There is a theory that aggression is a positive and encouraged characteristic for hockey players. I think it is absurd and by no means meant to be a part of hockey. Assertiveness on the other hand, I encourage and believe is an essential characteristic for elite hockey players.

I come to this conclusion because aggression is defined as a behavior with the intent to harm or injure a living organism. The literature defines two kinds of aggression:

Hostile Aggression - the primary goal of the behavior is to inflict physical or psychological harm. Example: I hate that player, so I am going to hurt him.

Instrumental Aggression – the behavior is a stepping stone to a nonaggressive primary goal. Example: I am going to hurt their top player so we can win the game.

Not what I think the sport of hockey had in mind and hopefully not encouraged characteristics for hockey players.

The key distinction between aggression and assertiveness falls within the intent behind the behavior. Assertiveness involves no intent to cause harm. Some examples to illustrate what I would encourage and call assertiveness include:

- Making a hard hit to send a message that I’m going to play assertive (often confused with intimidation, but if done assertively not aggressively, it is more to do with setting a tone or a standard)

- Pushing and/or stick checking to win a puck battle

- Hitting a player because you want to make sure he falls down, giving you more time and space

In being assertive it is also crucial to be aware and choose appropriate behaviors. For example, if you want to send a message that you are going to be playing assertive all game, this does not validate a hit from behind. A hit from behind is likely to result in injury, consequently choosing this behavior to send your message, is choosing harm as a secondary intention. The rules of the game aid in separating appropriate from inappropriate behaviors.

Simply put, if you are staying within the rules of the game, not intending to harm and are playing physical then you are being assertive, not aggressive.

Consequently, this brings us to the idea of creating an environment that promotes assertiveness, not aggression. The factors that shape the environment around assertiveness and aggression are our authoritative figures such as parents and coaches and the social atmosphere created by teammates and peers.

My tip for creating this environment is for coaches, parents, teammates and peers to intend to promote assertiveness and not aggression, especially in times of frustration when aggression is most likely to occur, these are known as “Coachable Moments.” During the times when a player is losing, receiving unfair officiating, being embarrassed, in physical pain or playing below their capability are the times where the guidance and influence they receive are the most important.

Guidance could include keeping winning in perspective, teaching non-harmful conflict resolution skills, or merely a reminder of appropriate behaviors and to be assertive, not aggressive. Simple, but in a sport where so much aggression has been so lightly punished or even praised and promoted, it is much needed.

Intrinsic Motivation

In hockey, a player’s motivation level can predict whether or not they will be successful. However, usually a player’s level of success is used to determine how motivated they are.

It is my philosophy that a player can become more successful from restructuring their motivation to promote a greater desire to train, practice and play. To optimize the structure of player’s motivation let’s begin with gaining a greater understanding of motivation, and then apply the subtle focus points that can change everything.

The Integrated Theory of Motivation by Vallerand and Losier, helps explain that social factors such as how much success, failure, coaching and competition we have, help shape our preconceptions about our competency and autonomy (self control over our success). Together, the social factors and preconceptions we develop determine our level of motivation, which decides the levels of sportsmanship, persistence and intensity we exert.

Vallerand and Losier further determined a continuum for the five different types of motivation. The least to most powerful types of motivation are:

External Motivation - wanting to earn money or a title. Or doing it because you were told to.

Introverted Motivation - avoid negative emotions. Doing it because you fear what will happen if you don’t.

Identified Motivation – wanting to compete in sport or associate with its benefits, such as health benefits.

Integrated Motivation – associating it as a part of you. “It’s who I am.”

Intrinsic Motivation – the big word here is FUN. It is fun to participate in the sport or the training.

In summary, there are all sorts of different reasons that move us to do things, but the key is that the most important one is doing something because we enjoy it. Notice that when we do things because we have to, ought to, or even want to, that we are not nearly as motivated with respect to when we do things because we enjoy to or love to.

So, the subtle focus point is that it is “ok” to be motivated by reasons outside of pure enjoyment, but in order to optimize our motivation the core of our focus needs to be on the enjoyment we experience during the activity. Focusing on the enjoyment will make players train, practice and play with more intensity and persistence, which we know is instrumental to being successful.

The Early Exposure Theory

This tip looks at another defining characteristic of successful athletes, early exposure to important resources. There are two common ways used to illustrate this, the first being the relative age effect. Research has clearly proven that the earlier you are born in the year, the more likely you are to succeed in hockey. A January born player can have almost a whole year of development to their advantage over a December born player. This advantage makes them more likely to do well and coaches will see them as talented, even though the difference is largely because of their relative age.

However this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because once they are picked on the better teams this gives them the opportunity to experience more practice time, and sometimes with better coaching. Hence, they do become better.

The other illustration that early exposure to important resources is a defining characteristic to becoming a successful athlete is the birthplace effect. Research has also shown that being raised in city with a population between 250 000 and 1 million people will give you the highest chance of becoming a professional athlete. Above or below that range and your chances decrease.

This shows that an athlete needs both the right resources, yet those resources have to be readily available. For example, a larger city like Toronto has great resources, facilities and instructors, but on and off-ice training sessions are always filling up, potentially resulting in poor coach to player ratios. Also players will potentially either not be able to sign up for everything they want or for anything at all because of the high demand that leaves resources having to turn players away and increase their prices, leaving some players financially disadvantaged.

On the other end of the spectrum, in a much smaller community the availability will be high and costs low but the resources are not likely to be as good.

In summary, my advice would be to not use some research findings as an escape goat from achieving what you desire, instead use them to your advantage.

If your child was born later in the year take a serious look into whether playing for the top team is best for their development. Sometimes a player will be better off playing AA over AAA if they are not going to do well enough at the AAA level. It will allow the player to take on a more important role on the team and develop their confidence. Also, playing on a lower level team doesn’t mean the player has to get less exposure to important resources. If the player really wants to get better, look into getting them the extra help and coaching they need on the side so the prophecy doesn’t become self fulfilling. I like to think we have a fair bit of control over our own fate.

Furthermore, I don’t think moving to city of 250 000 to a million people is necessary to optimize a player’s chances of being successful. There is lots of help out there, not to mention the about of free information on the internet that grows daily. I think it was said best in the old English proverb, “where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Deliberate Practice

For those that are unaware, the number one predictor of success is practice time. The more you practice, the more you are likely to succeed. However, having lots and lots of practice time doesn’t guarantee success, and some people find a way to be successful with less practice time. One of the reasons that have been used to describe this is deliberate practice. It is a less commonly mentioned but a key distinct aspect of successful athletes.

Deliberate practice means practicing with a goal in mind. It could be to score more goals this practice or drill, anticipate plays better or just focus on skating with better form.

To explain how having intentions will make you more successful, we need to look at the subconscious effect that they have. Setting a goal prior to a drill will direct your attention to important details about your performance that you might miss otherwise. In this way, you’ll be more engaged to learn and are more likely to improve. Research shows that clarifying one’s intention for both practice and competition can be very powerful and if used properly is incredibly beneficial for improving performance.

Hence, if you start practicing deliberately you are more likely to improve at a faster rate and more likely to become a better hockey player.

Another important finding is that a player’s development is optimized when their training corresponds with their developmental status. Meaning you don’t tell Sidney Crosby to spend half an hour on his backward cross-overs, just like you wouldn’t tell a novice to spend half an hour on his backhand toe drag spin-o-rama! Maybe not a shocker to many, but it is important to remember it is better for a player earlier in their development to spend more time on basics and developing their broad motor skills.

In summary, if you want to be better practice lots, practice deliberately and master the basics before the back hand toe drags.