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Perseverance in hockey

This is an excerpt from On the Inside Edge by Ryan Hamilton.

Grit: The Perseverance Part

One late September afternoon, I found myself with some time to kill. I had just dropped my kids off at their respective after-school programs, and it was going to be an hour before pickup. Thus, I was strolling the mall, enjoying a caramel latte (I get mine half sweet and extra hot), and contemplating the impending start of hockey season across North America. As I walked past Lids (a local hat store), my phone buzzed in my back left pocket. A quick glance at the screen showed a familiar number; it was that of a player I had worked with many times over the past few years.

This player, who was once a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League standout, had been passed over in the draft by every NHL team before eventually signing a contract as a free agent. Eventually, he found his way into the Lightning organization and progressed through the East Coast Hockey League and into the American Hockey League and even managed to play a few games in the NHL—a passion goal realized. He had earned everything he had gotten and went from an “undersized, undrafted long shot” to a valued member of the Syracuse Crunch and maybe someday, he dreamed, a full-time member of the Tampa Bay Lightning. This was the impressive, albeit challenging, trajectory he had taken up until that September afternoon he decided to dial my number. As I picked up the phone, there was little room for small talk.

Him: “Hammy, thanks for answering, I’m just calling to tell you I am [expletive] done.

Me: “OK. Wait, what?”

Him [I’m paraphrasing]: “I’m done. I can’t do this. I was just sent down to Syracuse for their training camp. Another year not making the Lightning and that’s fine, but now I’m here in Syracuse, and the coach has me on the fourth line again. I nearly led the league in scoring last year. What else do I have to do to get anywhere in this organization? My wife is just following me around everywhere, and it’s not fair to her. I’m barely making any money; I’m just wasting my time and wasting my life playing hockey. I’m just delaying the regular everyday job I’m destined to do. I’m done.”

Well, then, I said a lot. And then he said a lot more. And I’ll spare you the details.

The player was Yanni Gourde. He has two Stanley Cup rings. He is well known for his tenacity and competitiveness. He was a key expansion draft addition by the Seattle Kraken when they entered the league. When people think about passionate and tenacious players, they think of Gourde; he’s no fun to compete against in games or practice. But when I think of him, the first thing that comes to my mind is perseverance.

Yes, he is rich in passion (he loves what he does and knows why he’s doing it), but that doesn’t mean his journey in hockey was easy or his dreams were destined to come true. And just because he kept making progress and building his career one level at a time didn’t mean that new challenges weren’t always waiting for him. The crazy thing about being passionate is that sometimes it takes you headlong into another obstacle. In the face of these obstacles, the perseverance part of grit becomes critical.

On the day of that phone call, Yanni needed to vent; he wasn’t really going to quit, but he was having that experience he had throughout his hockey playing life: a door seemingly being slammed in his face. Yanni dreamed of being a full-time NHL player but there were no bulldozers clearing the path for him; he was bushwhacking and grinding forward every day. Someone with less perseverance would have quit—not just threaten to. And this is grit. Just continuing to show up. Daunted at times but never defeated.

Like confidence and mental toughness, perseverance is best thought of as something we do rather than something we have. It’s a skill we can get better at. And if we can get better at perseverance, we can get better at grittiness. And if we can get better at grittiness, we have a better chance of making our dreams come true.

Here’s a straightforward, slightly modified definition of perseverance, from The Merriam-Webster Dictionary: “Persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.”³ Inherent in this definition is the concept of difficulty in the path toward a goal but also a sense of moving forward despite that difficulty. I think hockey players know there will be struggles as they progress through their careers; however, when the challenges hit, it often feels like something is wrong or broken. When setbacks occur, it may seem as though the obstacles in our lives are screwing up our dreams. It can feel like other players have it easier. We can look around a dressing room on any given practice day and see teammates who worry less about money, who have always had a role on special teams, who are “naturally” smooth skaters, or who were blessed with an early growth spurt and just seem to be knocking down (literally and figuratively) every obstacle and human in their path. Oh, if only we were all so blessed, our dreams would be much more likely to come true . . . or would they?

I recently reviewed an intriguing study using data from the Swedish Ice Hockey Association.⁴ The study found that one of the biggest predictors of who makes age group national teams like U17, U18s, and World Juniors has little to do with how hard they work, how much they care, or the number of sacrifices they make. Indeed, it’s a variable largely out of the hands of young hockey players around the globe. It’s how early they hit their physical maturity. If you want to make one of these national teams, the key is that you reach physical maturity earlier. Not the most motivating story you’ve ever heard, I am sure. Like, come on, Ryan, what am I supposed to do about this other than take my vitamins, eat my protein, and hope my parents gave me the right genes? Before you burn this book in protest, stay tuned; there’s a catch.

When you look at those Swedish players who reached the NHL, there was a negative relationship with early maturation. Said differently, early maturation is an advantage when it comes to making junior national teams, but it is a disadvantage when it comes to making the NHL. For late maturers, by staying in the game and figuring out ways to have success despite their lack of physical size (relative to their peers), they are advantaged in their development and long-term prospects. The young and physically blessed don’t have as many problems to solve or reasons to search for nuanced ways to develop. They can use already developed physical attributes to impose themselves on the sport. Their challenges will come later, and so will their opportunity to learn how to persevere, grow, and be gritty.

This research is a specific example of the impact physical maturation has on career trajectories. Critically, though, this lesson could apply to any number of obstacles an athlete might run into and must persevere through. You might feel disadvantaged because someone else seems to have more skill. You might lament that someone else has more resources and doesn’t have to work a summer job in addition to their training. You might feel you have a coach who isn’t right for you. To the gritty, these obstacles are temporary. Remember, perseverance is “persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.” Difficulties and delays are not end points or roadblocks; they are waypoints and provide opportunities to demonstrate and develop your grit.

When I asked Yanni about what advice he would give to younger players to help them persevere, he made the following excellent suggestions:

• Have a purpose every day. Sure, you may not be getting the opportunities you want, or maybe you’ve hit a setback. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a purpose for everything you do today in practice, in the gym, in a meeting, in your next game.
• Don’t look too far ahead. When you are focused on the top of the mountain and you hit a setback, it all just feels so far away and unlikely. You start to doubt that you’ll ever reach the summit. You can’t anticipate or manage all the steps ahead. Instead, especially when times are tough, focus on one little goal, one step, and one day at a time.
• Use the setbacks as fuel. Yanni was used to being doubted and overlooked—he used this as motivation to prove people wrong. In some ways, the obstacle of being disregarded and doubted became an asset. It doesn’t sound all that healthy, but what worked for Yanni was using every perceived injustice as extra drive in practice, workouts, drills, and games. When I talked to him, he knew exactly how many forwards were given opportunities in Tampa Bay before he was. He could name them—not because he didn’t think they deserved it or that they weren’t good people—but the fact the organization chose to give them a chance before him was viewed as another source of fuel to help him achieve his passion. He didn’t get to choose the setback, only how he responded to it.

The thing that was probably the clearest when talking to Yanni (as he was driving to Montreal with his lovely wife Marie on a hot July summer day) was “pouting is inconsistent with perseverance.” Yanni knew that doors were closed in front of him, but that didn’t cause him to look elsewhere for an opportunity; instead, he trusted the door would eventually open a crack for him, and when it did, he’d take advantage of the opportunity. Perseverance for him was not looking for new doors elsewhere but instead bringing relentlessness to the opportunities and obstacles ahead. It’s been my experience that if you stick in there long enough, doors will open for you. I’ve rarely seen anyone more prepared to charge through it than Yanni Gourde.

If you want to show true grit, define your passion clearly and then choose to solve the problems that present themselves in your path. Perseverance is trying new strategies, taking new risks, getting up after being knocked down, and enduring the challenges that are inherent in all high achievements.

More Excerpts From On the Inside Edge

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