This weeks episode is a deeper dive into sportsmanship. We define sportsmanship as a part of the J.A.C.K.E.T.S. Way and from the literature around youth sports. We also get into how good sportsmanship benefits us as individuals in and out of the sport of hockey. We finish the episode off talking about how we as coaches can teach sportsmanship through modeling good behavior, reinforcing good sportsmanship, and taking an educational approach to bad sportsmanship.

This episode is all about team building. An important topic, especially with many teams adding a few new players or being a new team altogether. Team building is a crucial part of developing a positive team dynamic, something that helps kids feel more accepted on their team, increases improvement, and helps with performance in hockey and beyond. We touch on what team building is compared to team bonding, what to consider with the timing of team building events, other key factors, and then a few example activities to work on communication, trust, group success, and more.

This weeks focus is on positive self-talk, an important tool to help athletes face competition anxiety, build confidence, and help motivation. We start with defining self-talk and the different variations and functions it has. Then we talk about what we as coaches can do to make it easier for our players to have positive self-talk and build their skills of self-talk. The reflection challenge this week is looking at how we as coaches can recognize moments in the past where we have let athletes been negative towards themselves and how we can help them change that view to something more positive and useful.