How to Move Forward After Losing a Championship
Image Credit: Associated Press
It goes without saying that losing a championship is never easy, or fun. You know how much effort and sacrifice you put in getting ready for that game, that moment, and you still didn’t end up winning. That’s life, and that’s sports. But, particularly as goalies, we feel like a loss is on our shoulders more so than it is other players. In our minds, if we never made any mistakes, and the other team never scores, they can never win. That is incredibly tough to deal with.
As much as we wanted to win, we now find ourselves facing the fact that we didn’t— we came up short. Even though it obviously would have been much better to win the championship, there is nothing we can do about it now. So the next best thing we can do is to learn from the experience, and use it to make ourselves better. As much as we’d like to turn back time and go back to that game or series, we can’t. Since the most productive thing we can do is move forward and improve, let’s look at the best path forward after facing such a difficult loss.
Evaluate Your Game
Whether you lost in a series, or you lost in the championship game of a tournament, there is always something you can take away from your performance to make you better in the future. It would be easy to say “just let it go”, and move on from it. But, for someone who genuinely cares about what they do, it’s not so easy, is it? As much as you don’t want it to, it will linger in your mind, and overstay its welcome. It will probably be something you think about every day. The loss, and what you could have done better to give your team a better chance to win, will be on your mind until you have the chance to play in a championship game again, which may not be for a while. That’s ok. You are a human being who cares about being the best they can be. The next best thing you can do to ease your mind and learn from the loss is to evaluate it in a journal or notebook. Write it down on paper to help relieve the pressure on your mind and conscience.
Here is a list of things you should write down one by one to evaluate the game or series you just played:
What you did well— What parts of your game worked? Where did you feel really good about your game, and what can you take confidence in moving forward from this experience? No matter how bad a game or series went, there is always something you can find that you did really well. Start with this.
Where you could improve— Obviously, unless we get a shutout every game, there are parts of our game we can always improve. Even if you didn’t get scored on, you may remember situations from the game that you thought you could’ve played a little better. Write those down as well. When you are evaluating where you could be better, it’s easy to become negative and frustrated, and that’s ok. Write down those frustrating thoughts on the paper. Get them out. But when you are done, move forward with a positive mindset now that you have gotten your frustrations out on paper and let them go.
How they scored and how you could have stopped them— You should not be trying to analyze their goals during the game, so now is the time to do it. Write down how they scored their goals, and what you could have done to stop them. Watch video of them if you can.
How you felt about your preparation— Did your body feel warm and ready to play? How was your warm up routine? Did you get enough food, sleep, water, and electrolytes to play at your best? What did you like about your preparation, and where did you feel you could have been more detailed? What might you add or subtract from your pregame routine?
How was your mental focus?- Where you confident? Did you feel like you put too much pressure on yourself, or were you not engaged enough? Did you allow your mind to relax so it could focus, or did you try to force it to be focused since it was such a big game? What would you change for the next championship game you play in?
Writing these things down may take a while, but it’s worth it in the long run. What you learn from the biggest games will pay off when you play in them again down the road. Now that you’ve evaluated your game, take the lessons you learned so that you can:
Make a Specific Plan to Improve
Now you know what you need to improve, so how are you going to do it? This is where you need to make a specific plan for how you are going to improve yourself, and then work that plan. You want to have a system to follow so that you know for sure that you will improve going forward, and you know what to change if you are not.
Setting up a system for improvement should include:
What you want to improve
How you are going to improve it
How many times a week you will work on it.
What exercises you will do to improve, either on or off the ice.
How you will focus on it when you are on the ice in practice or in a goalie session.
For instance, let’s say you thought your tracking could have been better in that game, series, or tournament. So you would set up a system to improve your tracking.
A system to improve your tracking may look like this:
Tracking:
I will spend 10 minutes doing ball tracking drills before every ice session. If I am not skating, I will set aside 10 minutes during the day to do ball tracking drills. I will do ball tracking exercises at least 5 days/week for 10 minutes each time.
On the ice, I will have coach give me 10 glove and 10 blocker shots before practice starts, and I will work on tracking them intently all the way into my glove, and all the way to the face of my blocker, off my blocker, and into the corner.
During practice, for the warm up shots in the first drill, I will track every puck off the blade and into my glove/blocker/pad, and all the way off my glove/blocker/pad.
It doesn’t have to be anything super complicated. This is a measurable system to improve this part of your game, both with different exercises, and intentional focus. After you get off the ice, you can evaluate whether you worked your system for improvement or not. If you did, great, you know you did everything you can to improve. If not, then evaluate why you didn’t work your system, and what you could do next time to make sure that you do.
You can do this for any piece of your game you want to improve. If you’re not sure what to do to improve a certain part of your game, ask your goalie coach what you can do to improve a certain skill or piece of your game. There are many ways to get better.
Now, it’s up to you to be committed to working this plan every day if you want to get the most out of yourself, and be best prepared for your next game or championship.
Remember the Pain
For the days, weeks, or even month after a championship loss, it’s easy to work your system of improvement because you are highly motivated by the pain of loss. But after a couple months, life will go on, good things will happen, and this pain will fade. When this happens, it becomes easy to slip up, and become inconsistent with your plan. At this point, you’ve done so much work, that it’s easy to start making excuses for why you don’t need to work your system, because the work will become monotonous, and you won’t feel like doing it anymore. You will start rationalizing with yourself. You may think “I’ve done ball drills so many days.. it’s not going to hurt if I skip them today. 10 minutes won’t make a difference.” Or it could be something like, “I don’t need to get up early to workout today… I have been working out a lot lately.”
But it is at points like these that you have a decision to make: are you ok with being inconsistent, or are you going to push yourself to get better? One of the things that can push you to go do your ball drills, or get out of bed early when that alarm goes off, is remembering how bad that loss hurt, and how you felt in the days following it. Remember the state you were in when you made that plan to improve, because you never wanted to feel the pain of losing another championship again. Just acknowledging the pain you felt can help you remember why you made this plan in the first place, and the work you committed yourself to doing so that you would be even better the next time you step on that ice, particularly for a championship game.
Working a plan of improvement is never easy after a while, because it becomes monotonous— another workout, another round of skating drills, more ball drills, etc. But it is committing to those monotonous tasks and doing them with high focus and intent every day that will get you better. It’s not always easy or fun, but it is worth it.
So remember, when that alarm goes off early in the morning, and the last thing you want to do is hop out of bed and work on ball tracking exercises for a few minutes, how bad that loss hurt. Bringing back little reminders of pain will push you through these moments of decision, when your mind rationalizes all the reasons you should sleep for another hour. Don’t let it. You have committed to something bigger, something more, and you have to trust it.
Work this plan through until your next series of games, or you recognize other areas of your game you need to improve. Then, do the same thing- evaluate them, and figure out how you need to alter your plans so that you improve in all areas you want and need to improve at.
Look Forward
Now you have evaluated your game, and made a plan for improvement. All that’s left to do is work it consistently. Now it’s time to turn your eyes forward and work towards your goals. You have gotten all you could from that loss, so although you should remember the pain you felt, mentally, let it go from weighing on you. This is easier said than done, but focusing on doing your best to get better every day will help.
But none of this works if you don’t believe in yourself. Choose to believe in yourself. Move forward with confidence. Work your plan consistently, and do everything you can when you are on the ice, and off the ice in workouts, to get better every day, so that your confidence is backed by work. Confidence without backing is feeble. Confidence backed by hard work is strong, and will be there for you when you need it.
If you commit to getting better every day, keeping in mind that you are preparing for your next game or championship, you will be more than ready when you step on the ice the next time you are playing for one.
