To be sure this is the crunch time. The final camps are on the go and the chase of the dream is entering its last phase for the coming season.
So what happens when you get cut from the team tryout?
There is no time to sit and cry over the milk that has been spilled. With an average of twenty players competing for every open spot on the roster, you begin the tryout with a five percent chance of making the team. If you drafted or tender player you have much better chance, but you too can be cut.
Open your eyes and look at the numbers. If you did not do all that you could have done in the camp, and did not treat every game as if it was a championship game, you will not make the team.
So get over it and move on.
It is now getting close to August. The season will be starting in some six weeks or so. The tryout camps are winding down, and rosters are being posted. So you didn’t make the team that you wanted to make. Are you going to let that disappointment break you, or are you going to continue to look forward?
It is now time to put the “backup plan” into action. If you don’t have a backup plan with another team, in another league, at another level, then you are behind all of the smart hockey players in the world.
Right now we are near the end of NAHL tryout camp times. If you do not have the backup plan in Canada Tier II, the WSHL, Tier III or a Midget backup plan in place by now, you may not have a team to go to.
If your plan has not work out, you must take responsibility for that. The player must remember that there are only so many spot on so many teams and too many player to try out for those spot.
You will have to work hard now to create the plan, a plan that will actually work, and one that has realistic goals.
There is no time to worry over the disappointment any longer. You got cut, so what.
Nearly every player in the world get cut in their career. The best player is the one that turns getting the cut into motivation to perform better.
The smart player can look in the mirror and say “I could have done this better” or “I should have done that better”. The smarter player can say “I am not quite ready for that level and I need to got to the other team to get ready.”
If you are player, not just person who plays the game of hockey. You self examine you play and you know others were just a little better. When you see this, and you see that summer is almost over, it is time to make the backup plan work. Don’t be the player who has no team to go to in September because your ego don’t allow you to accept what you should have accepted long ago; the odds are always against you.
You do not build a house by building the roof first and then raise the roof to dig a hole to build a basement. There is an order to building, and it is time to make a plan to determine the correct order for you.
Coach
