Sunday’s Olympic Gold Medal battle between the U.S. and Canada was one of the best hockey games I’ve ever seen. I was disappointed that the Americans couldn’t pull it out, but it’s hard to complain about a game like that. Hopefully the excitement will drive more deserved attention to the greatest sport on Earth (and most other planets too…).

I was fortunate to watch at least part of every hockey game during these Olympics. Hopefully hockey players and coaches around the world were just as fortunate because there were a TON of great hockey lessons to be learned.

1) Hunger Eats Talent. Two of the best games I saw during the Olympics were the Czech Republic vs. Latvia, and Slovakia vs. Norway. Both games had one thing in common, one team was DRASTICALLY outmatched by the other. Norway had 1 NHL player on its roster. Latvia had two. I’d be surprised if you’ve heard of any of them. Despite the lopsided rosters, Norway and Latvia battled to the end and almost pulled out INCREDIBLE upsets. They were hungry. They wanted to win more. To be more patriotic, this is the same reason that the U.S. beat Canada in the preliminaries AND the 1980 USSR team (the greatest sporting event ever). Never give up on a game. Be a “hungry” player every shift of every game. That type of attitude is contagious. Hungry teams win championships. You want that.

2) Throw everything on net. The announcers said early that Luongo didn’t look steady. He didn’t. Every shot had a rebound. The U.S. scored two suspect goals that resulted from just throwing pucks at the net. Of more interest to my Canadian friends, look at Crosby’s last goal! Ryan Miller was the Olympic MVP. He was almost unbeatable on first shots. Crosby threw a quick, but generally unimpressive shot on net and won a Gold Medal for his country. Too many players try to get too fancy around the net. Wayne Gretzky wisely pointed out that you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. Throw it on net, especially in big games and towards the end of the game. Nerves are high. Goalies are tired. A goal is a goal. Don’t miss an opportunity to score.

3) Speed dominates. Zach Parise stood out every shift he was on the ice. He wasn’t the biggest player. He didn’t have the hardest shot. He stood out because he was ridiculously fast. I don’t want to under-emphasize other skills like having good hands and being able to read the play, but if you’re too slow to create enough time to use your good hands, it won’t matter. To compete at the highest levels of hockey, you need to be fast. To dominate at those levels, you need to be faster.

Play fast. Play smart. Play hungry. Win.

-Kevin Neeld

P.S. If you want to follow a specific training program to help you develop game-changing speed, register for a membership with Hockey Training Expert. It’s only $9.95/month and has training programs you can start to follow immediately, straight through until next season.

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Wow! What an incredible day to start the Olympics. USA won. Canada won. Russia won. Results as expected so far. I’m really interested to see how Sweden looks today against Germany. Peter Forsberg has always been one of my favorite players; we’ll see if he’s still got it!

As I alluded to in a previous post, I’ve officially added THREE incredible experts (Jeff Cubos, Mark Cardillo, and Jared Beach) to our team at Hockey Training Expert.

Among them, Jared beach fills a much needed gap in the world of youth hockey. Check out this excerpt from his bio:

“Jared combines his personal experiences playing Prep and Junior hockey with the knowledge gained from his extensive network of Division I Prep, Junior, NCAA, and National and International Pro Hockey Coaches to provide hockey players with advice on how to maximize their potential.  Over the last 5 years, Jared’s guidance, training and mentorship, has helped over 150 players advance to compete at the prep, junior, college and professional levels.”

Over 150 players in 5 years! That’s truly amazing. Jared and I spoke for an hour yesterday about how misinformed players are about how to approach elite level coaches and how making the wrong moves (such as constantly emailing the coach) turns coaches off, even if the player is qualified for that level! Jared and I also discussed a future project we’re going to work on outlining EXACTLY how players and parents should go about connecting with high level hockey programs. I’m really excited about it.

In the meantime, I’m going to pick Jared’s brain about a few of the BIG things players should know and put together a mini-interview in the couple weeks.

Dr. Cubos sent me a great article on neck exercises for hockey players. Admittedly, this is not my strong point, so I was really interested to see what he had to say about the topic and to test out the exercises he recommends. He’s going to send me some pictures in the next couple days then that’ll be up at Hockey Training Expert too!

Effective programs. Innovative exercises. Great information. Updated constantly.

YOU NEED TO JOIN THE HOCKEY TRAINING EXPERT COMMUNITY TODAY!

Give it a test run for $9.95. If you don’t think getting access to dozens of training programs and hundreds of exercises are worth less than $10, then cancel. It’s that easy. Of course, as an intelligent person, I know you’ll see the incredible value of this site. But you have to become a member before you can start enjoying all the incredible benefits!

Click the link below!

I’m ready to join Hockey Training Expert!

To your continued success,

Kevin Neeld

P.S. Your opportunity to get a FREE copy of Breakaway Hockey Speed, Hockey Nutrition 101, and Hockey Training Expert’s Mental Performance Package is rapidly dwindling. These FREE bonuses will only be available until Friday! Click here to become a Hockey Training Expert member today and get instant access to these three incredible bonuses!

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