Last Updated on Wednesday, 05 November 2014 16:24
By Kevin Hartzell
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
I was asked the other day how a coach goes about creating a team identity. The coach of any team has the responsibility to establish many of the values by which his/her team will play. If in college or pros, the way the team recruits or drafts are part of this process as well.
One team I have always thought has a great identity has been Bemidji State men’s hockey team. Coach Tom Serratore has been able to recruit nice talent, yet he and his staff know it is not the same high-end talent of say Minnesota or Boston College. So they look for talent that also loves to work extremely hard. They put in systems that require hard work, not only on their part, but that of their opponents. They require their opponents to work hard, too. They get pucks deep and require their opponents to work through 200 feet of Bemidji State players to penetrate their defenses. The Beavers play like they know who they are … they have a strong identity.
This year’s Minnesota Wild team appears to me to be the best they may have ever been. The credit goes to many. They have a fine mix of players who play within a team identity of hard work and skill. What they might claim as their mantra/team identity I am not privy to, but it sure looks good when a team plays “their” game night after night.
In Lillehammer, I was the first North American coach they had ever had. There were questions from the media upon my arrival regarding what I wanted our team to represent. Not totally knowing how our team would compare to our competitors, I chose three words that I felt should apply. These three words would serve as a mantra that can help to focus a hockey team to remember what is important: smart, tough and disciplined.
Those words or mantra can still be vague, so a coach needs to reinforce these words through much of what is emphasized throughout the season. As an example, my team in Lillehammer was playing early in the season just like many teams in Norway – embellishing injury to draw penalties from the referees. This is not uncommon throughout Europe and it was not uncommon in Norway. It was certainly not uncommon with our team early in the season. This behavior, however, did not in my opinion fit our mantra or team identity.
At about game three, in a video session I played a clip of one of our own players embellishing injury. I asked the player if he was truly hurt and he admitted of course that he embellished to possibly draw a harsher penalty. I asked the team to stop this tactic. I “asked,” but really I was demanding that this tactic stop.
Being that we had to beat teams considered more skilled than us throughout the league, I explained that we needed to establish this identity of smart, tough and disciplined. If we were to get knocked down, we were going to get back up. We were going to control those things that we could control. We couldn’t control that some teams would have more skill. We could control our attitude and effort.
Smart-tough-disciplined meant, in part, as I was now defining for our team, that tough meant when getting knocked down, we would be the toughest-minded team in the league by getting right back up and playing on. We would let nothing get in the way of our disciplined, tough-minded focus.
Our players embraced the concept and over time, I believe we lived and played with and by our mantra of smart, tough and disciplined. This mantra or team identity and our continued commitment to it was part of why our team was so successful. I actually believe it was a big part of our success. This example and many others throughout the year contributed to our own self-identity.
No matter the age of your team, as a coach you can come up with an identity you want your team to live and play by. Developing and articulating this mantra is important. It can start with words to describe the style of play that fits your team. It can start with words to describe your team values. Whatever it is, as a coach, I believe it is up to you to lead the effort to define your mantra/identity. Then the coach must continue to find reasons to reinforce the good behavior that reflects these words and values. And of course at times, the coach must also identify for your team behaviors that need to be “fixed” that do not reflect or serve those values.
As a coach, you can also serve your team by helping each individual to identify their own personal mantra, one that hopefully fits within the team’s identity. Each player needs to establish their own identity that fits within the team. When you get everyone on the same page, then you truly are giving your team a chance to compete favorably each and every game throughout the season.
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. His new book “Leading From the Ice” is now available at amazon.com.
