Mixing Ambition, Inclusion in Youth Hockey

Every coach in the NHL no doubt has the ambition to win the Stanley Cup, whether this fast-approaching season or building out a winning culture to contend for the coveted trophy sooner versus later.

For volunteer coaches in the Kraken Youth Hockey Association (KYHA), ambition is encouraged when working with kids via a more holistic definition.

In a preseason training for some 40 volunteer coaches, the Kraken invited Hannah Olson, assistant professor and director of the University of Washington Center for Leadership in Athletics, to facilitate a session and explain the UW center’s approach to “Ambitious Coaching.”

“One of the hardest things for coaches is we have built a youth sports model that is not always developmentally appropriate,” said Hannah, who has two decades of coaching and sports management experience at the high school, college and pro levels. “Sports can be a performative thing in a very public way. Unfortunately, the higher stakes [of winning or losing] come at earlier ages. When I was coming up, that was high school. Now, it affects nine- and 10-year-olds at tournaments.

“It can still be about performance but, in a longer-term perspective, about paying attention to young athletes wholistically. There is a promise in sport as an incredible vehicle for transformation.”

The UW center’s Ambitious Coaching concept aims for such heights for youth sports participants, including the kids playing in the KYHA. Olson told the 40-coach group that an athlete’s “peak performance isn’t achievable without focusing on her/his/their social, physical and psychological health.” She said when a youth hockey coach embraces “the wholistic well-being and growth of an athlete, appreciating their uniqueness, complex life and specific needs,” it goes a long way toward maximizing results on the ice. Perhaps best of all, the young hockey player’s enjoyment of the sport and teamwork comes naturally with this approach.

“We want to flip the [youth sports] environment to more of a mastery climate,” said Olson. “We are urging coaches to promote effort and improvement. Mastery is all about self-reference, not about comparing yourself to a teammate who might be bigger and stronger ... we urge coaches to create space for their players to make mistakes as they work to be better. Sometimes, the best rep is followed by a failed one.”

Olson said players testing new skills can benefit from “future-oriented” positive reinforcement rather than a review of what mistakes were made. The coach can review what adjustments can be made and encourage young athletes to test new skills.

“The coach might say, ‘you are so close, I can’t wait to you work at it in our practice,’ “ said Olson. “There is a way to frame positive reinforcement and talk to your team without making them feel the stress of failing.”

The Kraken youth coaches, who work across all skill and age levels from recreational teams to Jr Kraken AAA girls and boys, were surveyed beforehand about what topic most interested them. The overwhelming choice was leadership and communication, creating buy-in even before Olson’s facilitation started.

Olson’s goal for the 90-minute session was to show the coaches how tuning up their personal styles of communicating can positively impact a team. Olson and the UW center lean into showing coaches how adopting a style of leadership and delivering messages based on the needs of the athletes on their squads can be a win-win proposition.

The UW program includes an impressive 15 core practices: Instruction (clear explanations), diagnosis, feedback, adapting instruction, framing communication (to build relationships), sequencing (of drills), routines (to help put both individuals and teams at ease), allowing space (for athletes to explore problem-solving), practice planning, goal setting, competition management, social-emotional skill building, shared decision-making, relationship building and leadership development (including athletes).

The UW-led seminar was a shared project between the Kraken and One Roof Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the team and Climate Pledge Arena, with a primary tenet of providing more access to play (including hockey) among youth in underserved communities. UW’s ambitious coaching paradigm. At its core, the UW coaching model aligns with the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) espoused by the Kraken and One Roof in all matters on and off the ice. For the KYHA, there is a distinct intention for an inclusive approach to lead to a winning culture.

Per the UW Center for Leadership in Athletics website, the use of the term “ambitious” is an extension of work previously completed by researchers and teachers from the UW College of Education, who are engaged in a collaborative effort to identify high-leverage practices that form “Ambitious Teaching” to engage “students of all racial, ethnic, class, and gender categories in intellectually rigorous, deep thinking about subjects and subject matter.” Julie McCleery, director of research-practice partnerships for the UW center, is the primary driver of the research.

“One big thing [about ambitious coaching] is giving space and autonomy to youth athletes when appropriate,” said Olson, “rather than joysticking them around.”

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