Climbers Who Care

Climbers who Care

Separating yourself fm the pack

Every person on this earth has a right to advance in life. While it’s your right to keep climbing, it’s also your responsibility to care about others in the process. How you climb is the issue. You have every right to separate yourself fm the group and MHC is the first to want you to do just that. Each year, usually around the end of February, players who improve start to separate themselves fm the group. This should be your goal. There is a way to involve the team in the process and it has to do with sharing.

Climbers who Care fit in the locker room and board room. They are detail people who care about their teammates and co-workers before any personal gains. Climbers who Care fit nicely in to companies. They are authentic, do everything with purpose, for a reason, and their self-esteem rises to unimaginable levels. Keep Climbing, Keep Sharing, and Keep Caring before Carrying and Climbing.

Climbers who Care are not something new to the scene. Its part of your upbringing that needs to be revisited with frequency in team sports to stifle greed and ensure success in a team setting whether on ice or off.

There is such a thing as good greed in a game and we believe there is not enough good greed. Good greed is an average of three (3) shots per game by defensemen who can shoot (finesse defensemen). If a defenseman has a great shot, teammates have to set them up and encourage shooting; especially if they like assists and winning.
We have no statistic on forwards but a low percentage of completion on shots means the wrong person is shooting or shooting too much. When you get that opportunity in front, have the mentality to bury your chances with zero inhibitions. Don’t look surprised it’s happening in front of you.

People who care find it tough to focus on the task @ hand when people they care about suffer. When part of your head and heart are with the other person, it’s tough to focus on your vested interests; tasks @ hand. This takes an adjustment on the part of the Caregiver. This means you need an awareness of how it works and then you adjust.

Tell me a fact; I will learn. Tell me the truth; I will believe. Tell me stories related to truthful experiences; I will treasure them the rest of my life. This is the foundation for the trust that helps develop players and build teams.

Players need to put the words smart or smartly before or after technical and tactical levels of the game. Well rounded players shoot smartly when they should shoot, pass smartly when they should pass, carry smartly only out of necessity and move pucks smartly to get them back by smartly going to an open area. This will give you a higher completion rate in your passes because you will be unconditionally moving the puck to an opening the split second that opportunity is there. Bad passes are a direct result of failure to trust your instincts; most often a split second too late.

This also includes smart anticipation, smartly competing, smart take-outs, smart hits, smart checking forward or back and there is much more as you go through each skill.

Talented players, coming thru the ranks, are used to carrying before sharing because it was easy and they may have been one of a few go to guys or the go to guy. It gets harder moving up because critical moments are what they are; split second moments that close up fast. All of a sudden the strength that made you a great prospect in your early years becomes a liability that stifles growth as a pro.

“Execution in critical moments is a skill and true measurement of player performance.”

Great mentors embolden players to have the boldness and courage to make plays in grey areas that make most coaches cringe. We believe players given a license to make plays in the grey areas will improve more than peers who are forced to chip pucks out and get it deep. Once acquired, these plays become part of the player’s arsenal and the conversion percentages continue to go up.

“Grease wheels, versus reinventing, set guidelines and let instincts take over.”

We judge people and players by their deeds. Appearance, color, ethnic background, or status is not an issue. People are authentic when what you see is what you get.

Being a pro is like being in some weird bubble or fantasy land. There are both real and bogus experiences, so beware of the “false blessing of success”. There have been too many examples out there of too egotistical, too unethical, too uncaring and narcissist behavior types. It happens every season. Learn fm it and bring yourself to the level of authenticity, purpose, reality, reason, substance and self-esteem you will need to succeed.

Society’s ills are prevalent everywhere we look. Corporate climbers are in abundance these days. Sort them out, expose the problem, create awareness, correct it, or move on to what is right. Make a special place for Corporate Climbers who Care.

Corporate settings are a breeding ground for perception, deception and greed. There are agenda driven people who are “politically correct” with “corporate bedside manners” who “articulate” well with “sound bites” that make people giddy. Smart owners sort through this behavior prior to promoting.

Solid companies are built on authenticity, purpose, reality, reason and substance. Teams are part of a company, have similar issues in the locker room and on ice, but are built the same way. The players are “real people” in that locker room.

The difference is deception, false information, hand drops, fakes and good greed done in concert when passing, carrying and shooting on ice is acceptable in a team setting because it enables you to complete plays. It is fun to be deceiving when it’s recognized as a skill and leads to success.

 Keep Climbing with Authenticity
 Keep Caring with Purpose
 Keep Giving; it’s Reality
 Keep Sharing with Reason
 Raise your Self-Esteem to unimaginable levels
 The rest will fall nicely in to place; with Substance being your common denominator. Your career will go in the right direction.

The revered words are:

“We love your son/daughter because he/she is a detail person who cares about his/her teammates, and others, before any personal gains. This is living life, playing and working with purpose.”

Copyright by Chuck Grillo, Minnesota Hockey Camps, 24621 So Clark Lake, Rd P.O. Box 90, Nisswa, MN 56468-0090 Phone 218.963.2444 Fax 218.963.2325

Email: chuck@mnhockeycamps.com - All rights are reserved. No part of this book, blog OR template may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without permission in writing from Minnesota Hockey Camps