US Navy SEAL Shane Anderson readying the Odessa Jackalopes for some Log PT.
Last Updated on Friday, 05 September 2014 10:07
By Kevin Hartzell
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
Let me start out by saying the following can be seen as a bit self-serving as I have begun a service of introducing the concepts of great teams and great leadership to a variety of organizations. That said, working with the Odessa Jackalopes of the NAHL was such a pleasure and the lessons learned by all are worth relaying, that I hope you find it as interesting as I do.
Odessa Jackalopes owner Richard Gasser by all accounts is a good man, one who many have told me truly cares about the welfare of those he serves. He has made a good living in the business world doing among a number of things, providing products and services to the oil industry. On top of it all, he has helped nurture hockey in western Texas.
Gasser went the extra mile recently with his NAHL team when he sought out some outside help to accelerate his team’s understanding of what it was going to take to be a great team and the leadership such a pursuit requires. I believe he understands that the players who populate these junior teams are with you for only a short while. Getting them up to speed quickly with important fundamentals is important for junior teams. Junior teams don’t have a lot of time to get players on the same page as their players may stay with their team for as little as one season.
Odessa and Midland are two cities joined together in the hot desert-like countryside of western Texas. What join these cities together are rows of homes and businesses that often have something to do with the oil industry of the Permian Basin. The Permian Basin is a large area of southwest Texas and is rich in a number of resources. One of the most important resources for Odessa and Midland is oil.
On approach to the area from an airplane, one sees a great number of brown squares, each about a city block from the next. Only a hint of brownish green vegetation surrounds these squares. These brown squares in most cases host a single oil drill and most of them are in motion, pumping the valuable dark liquid from the basin to tanks and trucks waiting for their treasure.
Getting off the plane, it is 98 degrees. They say it is a dry heat. I am not sure what that means after travelling from International Falls where a couple of nights previous it had reached into the 30’s for an overnight low.
A trip to the hockey team’s headquarters brings us to the site of the Fairgrounds. It is a vision that brings a Minnesota native right back to our own Minnesota State Fairgrounds as entering the grounds one sees a replica of our own Fairgrounds Coliseum. This one however is home to the Odessa Jackalopes.
Within a few hours, our team assembles to assist the young Jackalopes squad. On our team are two U.S. Navy SEALs, Lou Nebel and Shane Anderson. Over the next several days we are going to take the young Jackalopes through a number of tasks and competitions with lessons to be learned each step of the way. What is important here is not what our tasks and competitions consisted of, but the lessons learned by these young men, 17 of them new to the Jackalopes organization. Of these 17 new faces, many are away from home for the first time and new to junior hockey. They have come to Odessa from across America, from Flordia, California, Michigan and Minnesota, and even four imports from Sweden.
On the first day, the players were given journals to record their thoughts and lessons learned. Part of each evening’s homework is to journal. Each day the team was put through various games and activities. To be successful in these games would require quality fundamentals including solid leadership skills, and individual and team communication skills. Each day in review sessions, players would report and share their journal entries with their teammates. Included in their reporting was the following.
In one game while wearing blindfolds, teams had to become untangled from a rope with only verbal skills to lead the way. One teammate read his journal report after their somewhat unsuccessful effort and said something close to the following: “We had too many voices talking over one another. We didn’t listen and didn’t know who to listen to. It reminds me of our hockey locker room when things aren’t going well. We have lots of people talking and even yelling, but no real direction on how to fix our problems until the coach comes in and tells us something. We need to have one person talking. If you have something relevant to say, say it and everyone else needs to listen … but one at a time.”
He was spot on. If they can maintain this one lesson, they can collectively be a better problem solving team and help to get them back on track when things aren’t going their way. I might add that if a person has only a complaint but no solution, they ought to keep it to themselves. A complaint by itself serves no useful purpose but to create noise … which often there is too much of.
After a complex team game where a solution to the problem was hard to find, a player read from his journal: “Everyone learned that each of us has a voice. Sometimes we got too focused on the leaders’ idea and when it didn’t work, we needed to better listen to other teammates’ ideas as a better solution could have come from any one of us.”
We call that “not falling in love with an idea.” They can take that resolution both to the locker room and corporate America.
After a hard, physical workout where they were encouraged to smile, a player reported: “When things get very hard, a smile and a good attitude carry you right through.”
Referring to a variety of tasks, one journal reading said the following: “Attention to detail is everyone’s responsibility. We all must hold ourselves accountable to knowing what is needed … not just the leaders”.
One of my favorites was, and again I paraphrase: “Leaders really need to listen. When they hear a good idea, they need to follow and support it. Leaders are both good listeners and good followers.”
One player repeated what had been said the day before, “Everything we do everyday matters. Make your bed in the morning, start out with a success and then build from there. Everything is a habit; we can create good ones or bad ones. We all have equal opportunity each day; it is up to us to take advantage of it.”
Amen.
Kevin Hartzell was most recently the head coach of Lillehammer in Norway’s GET-Ligaen. A St. Paul native and forward for the University of Minnesota from 1978-82, Hartzell coached in the USHL from 1983-89 with the St. Paul Vulcans and from 2005-12 with the Sioux Falls Stampede. His columns have appeared in Let’s Play Hockey since the late 1980s.
