photo: © International Ice Hockey Federation
Of the three IIHF Global Hockey Forum topics – Women’s, Marketing, and Development – it was Development that focused mostly on the action on the ice, even though Xs and Os were mostly absent there as well. Development focused on talent, transformational leadership, and selection.
“Our job is to provide opportunities and find ways of improving the environment in which our athletes and coaches operate,” says Kalle Valiaho, IIHF Development Manager for Europe and Africa.
“At the Global Hockey Forum we were able to provide various insights on how to build a structure that keeps players in the game. Our speakers shared the latest findings from their research and explained how to implement them in practice.”
When those experts meet a curious audience, such as the one in Nice, France, one plus one becomes three.
“At events like this, the expertise is not on the stage – it’s in the audience. Use these connections, get together. Find people in your situation, get advice from people who have been there before you. The collective wisdom in this room is far greater than anything I can offer. We’re the catalyst for you to go and make those connections,” said John O’Sullivan, Founder of the Changing the Game Project.
No child picks up hockey to become a professional player. They fall in love with the fastest game on earth because it’s challenging, fun, and makes them happy. Too often that is forgotten in organized sports. These days, youth sports are not only a business—it’s a huge business, said Tom Farrey, founder and executive director of the Aspen Institute's Sports & Society Program, and author of Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children.
“The youth sports industry is worth $40 billion, which is twice as much money as is flowing through the NF, the richest sports league in the world, and six times as much as is flowing through the NHL,” he told IIHF.com.
“What do children want out of a sport experience? They want to challenge themselves with friends, have fun—even win—but that’s not the most important thing. If you let kids design sport environments, they usually look a lot different from what adults would do. Do you think kids put all the best players on one team? No, they don’t. Why? That’s boring,” he added.
Once the game is on, another thing adults often bring into sports is talent scouting. A talented kid is recruited to another team, given more and better coaching, even though research shows that scouting too early doesn’t work very well.
John Lind, Director of Research & Education at the Swedish Ice Hockey Association, drove that point home by showing how late bloomers make up 40 percent of Swedish NHLers, even though their share in the under-16 national team was only 19 percent.
Bio-banding – a method of grouping players based on their maturity rather than chronological age – is one way to level the playing field, so that maturity isn’t mistaken for greater talent.
Whatever talent is, we’re not very good at finding it, because talent is a complicated and complex phenomenon that can’t be distilled into a single indicator or measure, noted Joe Baker, Tanenbaum Research Chair in Sport Science, Data Modeling, and Sport Analytics at the University of Toronto. Instead, it’s a mixture of different physical, mental, psychological, and cognitive variables.
“Athletes who get selected are offered developmental advantages over their peers,” Baker said, echoing Lind. “Evidence indicates that if we allow our system to have multiple entry points, athletes can enter later and still be successful.”
On the other hand, Associate Professor Billy Adamsen of Zealand Academy of Technology and Business in Denmark said that labeling athletes talented can reduce persistence and proactive learning behavior.
“The most important thing is to see the players thrive. Sometimes we only see the unicorns, but my proudest moments as a coach have come with kids who make the A team after having been cut first. They learn that if they invest in themselves, if they do the work, good things happen. That’s not a hockey lesson – it’s a life lesson,” O’Sullivan says.
“The number one thing that makes a great coach is caring. They love their players not just as hockey players but as human beings. When you invest in the human being, you get better hockey players. Yes, you have to know the Xs and Os, but relationship skills are the key to everything.”
The Global Hockey Forum was organized with the support of Région Sud, an official partner of the IIHF for this event. The IIHF would like to thank Région Sud for their valuable contribution.
“Our job is to provide opportunities and find ways of improving the environment in which our athletes and coaches operate,” says Kalle Valiaho, IIHF Development Manager for Europe and Africa.
“At the Global Hockey Forum we were able to provide various insights on how to build a structure that keeps players in the game. Our speakers shared the latest findings from their research and explained how to implement them in practice.”
When those experts meet a curious audience, such as the one in Nice, France, one plus one becomes three.
“At events like this, the expertise is not on the stage – it’s in the audience. Use these connections, get together. Find people in your situation, get advice from people who have been there before you. The collective wisdom in this room is far greater than anything I can offer. We’re the catalyst for you to go and make those connections,” said John O’Sullivan, Founder of the Changing the Game Project.
No child picks up hockey to become a professional player. They fall in love with the fastest game on earth because it’s challenging, fun, and makes them happy. Too often that is forgotten in organized sports. These days, youth sports are not only a business—it’s a huge business, said Tom Farrey, founder and executive director of the Aspen Institute's Sports & Society Program, and author of Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children.
“The youth sports industry is worth $40 billion, which is twice as much money as is flowing through the NF, the richest sports league in the world, and six times as much as is flowing through the NHL,” he told IIHF.com.
“What do children want out of a sport experience? They want to challenge themselves with friends, have fun—even win—but that’s not the most important thing. If you let kids design sport environments, they usually look a lot different from what adults would do. Do you think kids put all the best players on one team? No, they don’t. Why? That’s boring,” he added.
Once the game is on, another thing adults often bring into sports is talent scouting. A talented kid is recruited to another team, given more and better coaching, even though research shows that scouting too early doesn’t work very well.
John Lind, Director of Research & Education at the Swedish Ice Hockey Association, drove that point home by showing how late bloomers make up 40 percent of Swedish NHLers, even though their share in the under-16 national team was only 19 percent.
Bio-banding – a method of grouping players based on their maturity rather than chronological age – is one way to level the playing field, so that maturity isn’t mistaken for greater talent.
Whatever talent is, we’re not very good at finding it, because talent is a complicated and complex phenomenon that can’t be distilled into a single indicator or measure, noted Joe Baker, Tanenbaum Research Chair in Sport Science, Data Modeling, and Sport Analytics at the University of Toronto. Instead, it’s a mixture of different physical, mental, psychological, and cognitive variables.
“Athletes who get selected are offered developmental advantages over their peers,” Baker said, echoing Lind. “Evidence indicates that if we allow our system to have multiple entry points, athletes can enter later and still be successful.”
On the other hand, Associate Professor Billy Adamsen of Zealand Academy of Technology and Business in Denmark said that labeling athletes talented can reduce persistence and proactive learning behavior.
“The most important thing is to see the players thrive. Sometimes we only see the unicorns, but my proudest moments as a coach have come with kids who make the A team after having been cut first. They learn that if they invest in themselves, if they do the work, good things happen. That’s not a hockey lesson – it’s a life lesson,” O’Sullivan says.
“The number one thing that makes a great coach is caring. They love their players not just as hockey players but as human beings. When you invest in the human being, you get better hockey players. Yes, you have to know the Xs and Os, but relationship skills are the key to everything.”
The Global Hockey Forum was organized with the support of Région Sud, an official partner of the IIHF for this event. The IIHF would like to thank Région Sud for their valuable contribution.