I recently wrote about the importance of taking some time for self reflection during the season.

It’s important to take a step back and give yourself an honest assessment of how the season is going so far.

What is working?

What isn’t working and can be improved up?

While this is an incredibly valuable exercise to follow through with, there’s also another component that is incredibly valuable for success.

Taking a break.

While it sounds simple in theory, I think for some players and coaches, it’s a tough task to follow through with (myself included).

The truth is we all need to take breaks during the year where we forget about hockey for a day or two during the season.

Spend time with your family and friends and get out and experience life outside of hockey (yes, such a thing does exist, haha).

It’s important that we all do things like this for a couple reasons.

1. It’s a way to clear your mind from the stresses that come with playing a competitive sport. For players, there’s the rigors of workouts, practices, and games. And on top of that there’s the mental strain of making sure that you’re ready to play and perform on a day to day basis. For coaches, it’s a way to escape the daily challenges of managing 20 plus players and personalities on a day to day basis. To go along with managing the scheduling and performance of your team.

2. It allows you to change the routine and gain some perspective on the game. We’ve all heard the saying that “distance makes the heart grow fonder?” The same is true with hockey. It’s amazing what a few days away from the rink will do for you. For many, you’ll start to miss the rink and the routine after a few days and by the time you need to get back to work, your reinvigorated and can’t wait to get back on the ice and get back around your team.

So as the Christmas holiday rolls around, I hope you all get to take a brief break from hockey and spend some quality time away from the game.

Don’t worry, you’re not going to miss out or fall behind from taking a few days off.

If anything, you’ll come back with a new sense of energy and excitement after the holidays, and honestly, that’s incredibly valuable to a team.

So enjoy time with your family and friends and make 2019 the best year yet.

P.S. As a way of practicing what I preach, I will be taking the entire next week off from posting. I wish you all a happy and healthy holiday season and can’t thank you enough for the continued support of the past year.