Oct 11, 2014 | khutton | 1118 views
Mental Preparation
What is Mental Preparation?
To be mentally prepared means preparing ahead of time to be your best. This increases your self-confidence and keeps you focused during the game because you will have thought in advance about what you want to do in any situation. This in turn will improve your performance. Just as you exercise your body to be in shape to play the game, you must exercise your mind to be in shape to play the game. If your body is ready but your mind is not, you will probably not get the results you want. Mental preparation for a game should start long before the puck drops. It means thinking about how you will position yourself, challenge your opponents and manoeuvre the puck. By the time the game begins, you should already have visualized your performance. Both players and coaches need to have a personal mental game plan, which means a personal strategy on how they intend to perform during the game. As you go up in levels, you will encounter more and more talented athletes. While team skills are equal and player skills are comparable, the difference between success and failure will be found in the mental game.