Full Transcript for Creating Clarity and Stability in Team Culture - With Travis Crickard

think of players maybe doing their their visualization or thinking about what's gonna happen in the game as they get ready for the game. Well, while that's happening, he's in the coach's office preparing what he's gonna say to the players. And and it doesn't just stop at what he's gonna say, there's also components of how he's going to deliver it. His body His body language, his tone, his pace. There's a lot of forethought that's gone into it. And I I I've definitely not seen a coach put that much time and effort into messaging like that, but it's something that among many things with working with him that I I took away to try to be better in some of these aspects for for my players because I I've seen firsthand that it has a very positive impact. Dennis Kubat: So just you talking about continuing to improve as a coach, is there some things that maybe you're doing this off season to better yourself? Travis Crickard: Yeah, actually I I think the one thing that I'm spending a lot of time on is my my response to my language and my decisions when things are not going well or potentially getting out of hand in the moment. so so I'm talking about in a game when maybe you know get down by a couple goals or maybe even down by four or five goals. because it it it happens and it's a very real thing. I always feel this kind of inner discourse of what needs to be said, who needs to hear it. how it needs to be delivered, 'cause like you and I have come from playing days where if something's not going right the coach just yells basically. And and that was kind of the mechanism of trying to fire the team up to to turn the tide. Dennis Kubat: Yeah. Travis Crickard: Whereas now that that doesn't necessarily work, so I'm constantly thinking about what can work and For me I've probably been a bit too guilty of changing lines too quickly in honor of trying to maybe create a shake up among the group. so what I've been doing to learn more about that is I always watch like a lot a lot of NHL playoffs, but I'm usually watching it for systematic play, because as a coach you need to know a lot about that. but this year I've I've spent like no time thinking about systematic play. And I've only been looking at like player deployment and when there have been momentum shifts in games How are coaches deploying their lines? Are they making major adjustments, throwing like all lines in a blender? Or are they maybe just moving one guy down, one guy up? And it hasn't been just exclusively NHL. I've been very guilty in the past two years when my team has been knocked out of the playoffs. I don't watch any more of my league's playoffs because I'm kind of spiteful that way a little bit. but this year I've I've like forced myself to do that, to try to think more about these things, to almost like experience these things vicariously. to the point where I've been in New Brunswick for past two months and I've gone to Moncton a few times to watch the Wildcats play their playoffs and and kinda be in the ring to experience these momentum changes and see what coaches are doing to maybe tinker a little bit with their lines rather than maybe just blowing it up. and and and what I've learned is very small adjustments can make potentially very big momentum shifts in games. so it's something that this coming season I'm gonna be working toward a lot. because like I say, I think at the beginning of my response, I'm always kind of feeling this discourse of What should I say? Who should kind of hear it and how how does this need to be delivered? I think for me as a coach, that's the area that I'm trying to improve the most. Dennis Kubat: I think as like coaches, if you're just a spectator, you think they're just, hey, I just got a coach. There's maybe not as much of the details that go into it, then what really all you're thinking that you have to do, especially with players today, that response is so big how you respond to them, how you talk to each one of them might be totally different. when we talk about player development, what does success look like for you out of your players? Travis Crickard: So I think the first thing that needs to be established is everyone wants to win. Everyone goes into a game wanting to win. And and I don't hide that from like the players or the coaches, like doesn't matter who we're playing against, we're like we're there to compete. But that like i i for for us running like a a program that's not kind of the goal. That's not the only thing. because I think if I'm only coaching for wins, I think I'm optimizing kind of the wrong thing. because I can't control the outcome, I can play a factor in it. And neither can the players. They can play a factor in it. But what I can influence or the coaches can influence is whether a player leaves the team or the program more competent, more resilient, more self-aware, more capable than they were when they entered. So all of that is improvement. So my belief is that if you can get kind of those parts right, the the score will usually take care of itself, the winning will follow more often than not. 'cause if if you kinda do it the other way, you probably have failed the failed the player in a sense. So if you have a player who is improving daily in some of these areas that I've quickly mentioned, it's highly likely that they're gonna leave your program feeling like they were successful. And and like I said, if if you do those things well, the wins will usually follow and then they'll they'll leave probably feeling like they had a very good chance to compete for a a a championship or or go on deep playoff runs or these types of things as well. Dennis Kubat: I even look at your program you're starting with the Swift Current Broncos, you've already hired a nutritionist, you've already hired a mental performance coach. why are those important to have in your program right away? Travis Crickard: I think that the player the player development experience now needs to be more

holistic in nature. And by holistic I mean it it's not just kind of refined to the to the ice. It's it's an all encompassing thing because high performance athletes, I I've I've talked a little bit about this already, about this idea of can of control. High performance athletes don't really control that much. But what they do control is their nutrition for the most part. their mindset, their recovery, their sleep, their attitude, their work ethic. Like for me, those are things you absolutely can control for the most part. Everything else, can't control. Can't control what the coach does, can't control what the opponent does. So to help with these controllables, I think if we're able to provide resources in the form of sports dietitians, sports psychologist, strength and conditioning coach, all these additional resources, it's only going to help the player get better at their controllables, which will ultimately help improve everything else. Dennis Kubat: a big topic even when I'm working with athletes, just like you said, controlling the controllables. What you can, what you can't. And so many of these athletes focus so much on the things they can't control. How do you go about addressing that and having those conversations with them? you talked about points or ice times, power play, penalty kill, and so on. Travis Crickard: Yeah, it's a it's a very real thing. it's I would say it's ongoing. I find myself constantly learning about this or or trying to find ways to help them understand that the the the focus on the the process piece is far more important than the outcome. And and really Some of the best times to help them understand these things are when they've had success rather than when they're shooting for the success because Once you've had success, you wanted to do it. So and and and in a in a player's from a player's standpoint, success could be a lot of different things. It could be a hat-trick, it could be a shutout, it could be player of the week honors, it could be winning a championship or like defenseman of year or something. So one of the things I try to do is whenever those things happen, is quickly ask them the next day. How satisfied they are. Because we're so so outcome focused that we forget that if we achieve that outcome, there's still work to be done. It's not it's not final. If you achieve the player that we honor, and you got you saw it on social media on a Sunday, well, Monday we have practice and we have games to be prepared for. So I often try to catch them in those moments after they've had success to learn a little about the about their mindset and what they're thinking going into the next practice for the next day. Because usually what you've done the day before when you've had a lot of success probably not going to help you on that next day. But same same goes for if it's like an unsuccessful day. Maybe, maybe you were minus three. on Saturday night, or maybe you were you got pulled. You you gave up six goal six goals on twenty shots and you got pulled. Like that's probably not gonna help the next day either if you're just constantly focusing on something now that is out of your control. It's done. So I often try to always pull things back to this idea of start again. It's something I always tell my players but to to circle back on question, it's very much trying to catch someone they've had success. And I find that's usually the best opportunity to to teach these things rather than when they're they're really down about, like you said, points as an example. 'Cause boy, that's a hard thing to get out of sometimes for for for guys. Dennis Kubat: Yeah. a quote that you said in a previous podcast was the more we as coaches can be quiet, the better off the players are. Can you explain what you mean by that? Travis Crickard: Yeah, okay. I I I could probably talk about two things here in this. So I think that every time I talk as a coach, I'm making a decision for the play. Every time I stay quiet and kind of let them figure it out, they're making decisions for themselves. And usually the decisions they make are the ones that stick in their minds. so for me, the silence piece isn't like being passive. It's more it's more restraint in a way. Because if I fill every every gap with instruction, I'm basically training the players to wait for my voice before they act. on the ice, my voice isn't there. It's it's them in the moment. so the more that I can almost build their internal decision making in practice or in games by staying quiet and let them kinda make the decision in the moment. And sometimes even fail a bit, the more it it transfers to moments where I can't help them at all. So one thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is this idea of like The first decision is the players. meaning it's it's their it's their instinct, it's their intuition. And it could be positive, it could be negative. The second decision is a trained one by the coaches. Meaning You come off the ice from a shift and maybe it was a really bad shift. This is where the training is here. Are you gonna allow that really bad shift to carry into the next one? Or are you gonna use more of a trained response to it to prepare for your next shift? Or same thing if it was a very positive shift. You scored a goal and you came off and you weren't starting again, so to speak. You were maybe just replaying your great goal in your head and by the time it's time for you to play again, you're now ready for for your shift. So I'm really kinda trying to improve my language around that to help my players understand that when you're out on the ice, like yes we're teaching systems and all these types of things, but I'm gonna stay quiet, use your instincts and Whether it's positive or negative, when we come back to the bench, now these aren't instinctual things, these are train things we're doing on the bench to prepare for the next shift, so to speak. The second part is Also somewhat of an experim

experiment I've been doing. I've been on a lot of a lot of practices with coaches and players and I always hear the same thing around communication. Call for the puck. coach blows the whistle, brings everyone in, says we we have to communicate more, like same same thing all the time. So what I've been doing lately is completely removing the whistle from practice. So I don't start the drill, I don't end the drill. It's on the players to start and end drills. So let's say I'm in I'm in one corner and you're in the other corner and it we're the first ones up. It's on us to like communicate across the ice to one another, of like, okay, now we're gonna go. And then the next guy's up, it's on them to communicate, now we're gonna go. so What I've learned in experimenting with this a little bit is now they communicate. It's almost like forced communication. I haven't done it enough to maybe see if it becomes habit, but my early inclinations in the small sample size is that it it it simply forces communication and now we don't need to kind of do these blow the whistle and bring everyone in and talk about communication because they're they're doing it. Dennis Kubat: That's awesome. Do you ever second guess yourself as a coach Or are you a person who has like that strong belief, that strong mindset that if this is for the players or goal is to develop the players, I think this is gonna help? Travis Crickard: I second guess myself all the time. Especially in maybe more when things aren't going well and And I probably do that just because I've read I I I read a lot about how people think and and and I I don't love how there's these labels on like gen Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z, etc. But I also do think there's a little bit of merit to it just based on like how people like the environment that people grow up in. So like our our our our age group of growing up, we we probably weren't introduced to cell phones till we were I don't know fifteen or sixteen or something. so we had a lot of free time in our own our own minds and our attention spans were probably a little bit longer, whereas now the the athletes that we work with on a daily basis, they they have their phones all the time. So they're con they're they're consuming so much content and so many new things on a daily basis that That's probably where I find myself second guessing, is that if if things aren't going well over a stretch of time, maybe a week or two, I start to wonder about messaging or what we're doing. Is it stale? Does it need to be spruced up? Does it need to be from someone else? So that's kind of where I'd probably do some some second guessing as a result of just just knowing this about the the athletes, how they're they're constantly consuming new things every second basically. Dennis Kubat: Getting back to your practices, from an outside perspective they think it's pretty straightforward how a coach plans a practice, but you've said it takes you a long time to plan a practice. Can you go into

details on that? Travis Crickard: Yeah, I'd I would equate it to the the lesson plan for for for a teacher so to speak and then I'd break it down into what actually happens in the practice. So think of think of a practice and drills that are happening. And and and this is where the the idea of taking the whistle out of the equation for me and and putting the onus on the players to begin and end drills. Because I look at that as like Operating the practice, so to speak. And if if if if you the coach are spending a lot of time thinking about blowing the whistle, how long the drill is. That's kind of just that's just operating a practice. There's no teaching going on there. So the the the the practice planning, that's for me that's programming. So I'm thinking about sequencing. So what skill or concept has to come before the next one for it all to make sense. I'm thinking about load. So are we asking for too much decision making after maybe a physically taxing drill? Are we thinking about where we are in our schedule? I'm thinking about transfer. Does the drill actually look like the problem we face in games, or does it just look busy? I'm thinking about individualization. So does the rep Work for each player or each position. also thinking about like repetition and variability. And I'm also thinking about checking for understanding because I think that the one of the ultimate hallmarks of a coach's teaching ability is not in the moment, rather the day after. Or two days after. So what I mean is this. Any coach, I think, has the ability to stop a drill and correct a player or players. And then they're more than likely gonna do it right the next right. And then it's kinda like did did my job, like they're they got it. But Can they come back the next day or the day after, the day after, whenever you want to kind of come back to a topic that you were working on? And can they still do it as well in that time as in the in the initial time? So here's an example. Maybe you're working on a sequence in the defensive zone where you need the players to identify certain triggers of when to be like really, really quick to close on the offensive team to get the puck back. So you spend all Monday working on like identifying these triggers. Spend like 20 minutes on them. A couple different drills working on it. And then maybe you come back to it on Wednesday. But you don't tell the players, hey, remember on Monday we worked on this? We're gonna work on it again. You don't tell them that. You just tell them kind of what the drill is. Here's the drill, here's how you get from point A to point B. And then they do it. So now you're checking for understanding. Do they remember what we worked on on Monday? Can they execute what we worked on on Monday? And here's the, as I said, the ultimate hallmark of a coach. Are they doing it as well on Wednesday as it were on Monday? If not, that's okay. Like everyone's ability to learn is very different. But this is where you're you

really need to check for understanding because you now kind of put it in almost like a game scenario. In the sense of cannot tell a player Every instruction before they go out to play. You need to trust your training that you've done to then go out and execute in the game. So it's the same kind of concept in the practice, that idea of checking for understanding. I know I'm being long-winded, but that's why this this takes so long for me. the other thing is like What can be taken out of this practice plan? So that's almost like a a writing thing. Like great writing is rewriting. And oftentimes like great writing is omitting things to like be more concise and to the point. So it's the same thing in practice. Maybe sometimes the best practices feature drills that were in there but they were taken out. So that we can get more to the point of what we're trying to work on. Dennis Kubat: How would you incorporate like the mental performance side to your practice? Travis Crickard: I think I think in general my interactions with players are usually pretty conversational, whether it is simply just a conversation or it is feedback. Because the the way I try to approach feedback is before I like I I think I think there are certain moments for certain types of feedback. In a game, there's a lot happening, so you need to be very direct and concise. In a practice, you probably have a little more time. So I always try to be more conversational with players in that environment. So whether I'm just trying to learn about their day or I'm trying to give them feedback, it's a conversation. So I always try to start with understanding what they were thinking on the rep or what led them to that decision that they made before I may offer some guidance. and and usually Circling back on the man of performance piece. That usually helps me understand if the player's having a a good day, a bad day, somewhere in between. Because if they're conversational, they're probably having a good day, they're they're into it. If they're short with me. Probably something bother them bothering them. It could be me, could be the rice time, could be something at home. So that's usually how I'm able to decipher that. And then if I do notice these things, then I can follow up like maybe when we're off the ice or maybe at the end of practice. hey, I I noticed when we were chatting during that drill, like you were pretty short. is there is there a reason for that? And and in general, usually you can find out a little bit more. what's what's happening. Or if a player's down about their performance, or something's bothering them. Dennis Kubat: at the end of each coaching year, you ask your players to complete a reflection survey. What have you learned from doing those over the years? Travis Crickard: the the probably the number one thing is you're never gonna please everybody. Dennis Kubat: Yeah. Travis Crickard: It is astonishing to me that How people can perceive the same thing so differently. That that is probably been the the biggest thing that I've taken away from these things. I asked questions like, what's something that we did this year that helped your development? what's something that we did that maybe got in the way of your development? what do we do to help you feel confident this year? what do we do this year to maybe like hurt your confidence? was there something you needed that we didn't do for you? how would you describe our team culture to someone on the outside? And I always find that People's perception of the things that we do is not uniform. It's not always the same. And as a result of that, it's really helped me understand that Messaging cannot always just be for an entire group. messaging so much of this what we do, it's a team sport. But so much of the messaging needs to be individual as well. Like way more than the team. So that That clarity is created. Like I mentioned at the very beginning, I think they're close to it with Dan Lambert and Kelowna creating clarity. Because yes, we're we're constantly addressing a team and we're trying to improve the performance of the team, but the more we can work with and speak with the individuals about their role, about what they need to improve on, and and and probably most importantly, how how much value they bring to the team and their role, the better off we will be in trying to accomplish our our goals as a team. Dennis Kubat: Let's shift focuses here. First year head coach, GM of the Swift Current Broncos. What's Travis Kricker's mindset going into that first season? Travis Crickard: clarity is probably the word. It's it's it's all new for me. I I think the only thing that is not new is that I've coached in the Western Hockey League before. and I've remember it vividly. Like I really enjoy my time in the Western Hockey League and I'm I'm super excited to be back in the Western League. But I have never lived in Swift Current, albeit I will be in like a week's time. I've never coached in Swift Current except for when I've been on the visiting bench. So I don't need to have every answer on day one. I think what I do need though is like to be clear on what the values of the team are, how we treat everyone, what the standards are, and then be very, very consistent over time so that the group can feel trust in it, because that kind of stuff is not built from like me addressing everyone at training camp. That is more over time. and and it's what gets Kind of reinforced and what we don't let sli. So I think that's number one. And then underneath that is this idea of Correct and stabilize. And what I mean by that is the team had a rough season in the standings and performance wise last year. And I think that after listening to a lot of people in Swift Current, it's really important for the team to be competitive on an annual basis. So we need to correct that and then create this stability of of of the team always being competitive. Dennis Kubat: we often say you have to model

the behavior you want from your team. So how would you answer this, coach? So if I want my team to be blank, I have to be blank. What would be the word that would come to mind? Travis Crickard: I actually have two words so I'll say it twice. if I want my team to be coachable, I have to be coachable. So that means Dennis Kubat: Yeah. Travis Crickard: showing that I'm willing to take feedback from the staff, from the leadership group, even if like a rookie sees something that I missed. And and maybe most importantly, if if I make a mistake and I notice that I made the mistake, own the mistake in front of the team. Because I want people to feel safe to like own their mistakes. And the second one would be If I wanted my if I want my team to be fit, I have to be fit. And this is a this is a high performance sport. These are high performance athletes. And in order to be successful at this level now, you have to be fit. It it's virtually next to impossible to do this without being fit. There are some anomalies but for the most part it's virtually impossible. So I think that it it's kind of like a practice what you preach type thing where i if I'm talking about the longer we play the better we get meaning when teams are starting to get tired in the third period we're we're just getting going so to speak because of how hard we train, how hard we work in practice. how much we pride our ourselves on our fitness. U I I need to be doing that too. And the players need to see that. So those would probably be my two if I want my team to be this, I need to be this, so to speak. Dennis Kubat: speaking of being fit, your wrestler's stone cold Steve Austin. I know you love wrestling. Why wrestling specifically? What what do you love about it? Travis Crickard: So it's for for for those who actually watch wrestling, they will understand what I'm talking about. And for those who don't, they're probably gonna think that There's something wrong with me, but I think it's a combination of like the storytelling, the psychology of it, and the physical component of it. so if you watch wrestling regularly, it's very much like a television show, basically. There's like each individual wrestler has their own gimmick, so to speak, their own character. And the character's arc is like it's built through like conflict, adversity, success, reinvention. and then there's like a an emotional response to it from the crowd. And then you get to kind of see this all unfold over the cup over the course of like a few months, sometimes a year. And then you add in like the the physical component of it where there are some like absolutely drop like jaw dropping moments. Some inquisitive moments, like I I I like wrestling so much to the point where I think it's truly remarkable what these people can do without hurting themselves for the most part. Especially now with with some of the high flying things they're capable of doing without hurting themselves. That really amazes me. It's it's very acrobatic in a way. So I think that's probably w w why I like it, but if I was to say it was any one thing, it's really just an escape from reality. Because you know, spend all day working with high performance athletes, come home in the evening with like family and kids, and then when there's maybe a little bit of downtime Everyone kinda maybe has their show or something that they do to escape from reality. That's mine. Dennis Kubat: Do you bring any of the wrestling to your coaching? Maybe some of the sayings the guys have or anything along those lines? Travis Crickard: yeah. Yeah, like I I I was told early on in like my coaching career when I was aspiring to continue to move up that you really need to be yourself. because if you don't the players will they won't believe you, they'll see through you so to speak, and I have made that known to the players that I'm like a big wrestling fan. And yeah, I always do try to incorporate some different wrestling elements into into the dress room, whether it's some sayings that certain guys have or Ric Flair robes or like championship belts. I do a few different things. Dennis Kubat: Yeah. I guess I'll end with this question, coach. Is there any books or podcasts that you would recommend for my viewers dealing with mental performance? Travis Crickard: No. No. say no because Dennis Kubat: Nine. Travis Crickard: I'm sure most people out there are already consuming a lot of content as I've already alluded to. but I will say that I recently read this book called Rest. And I'm not promoting the book, so to speak. I'm more promoting the information in the book. There was a bunch of information in there about how like When you're resting, that is when sometimes when your brain does like its best work. so there was there were some statistics in there that like when you're resting the brain uses about like ninety-five percent of the energy as it would if it was working. so There were some studies that showed that I think it was like a a group of scientists and they put them into a few different groups. There was a group of scientists who worked 20 hours a week and then they did a lot of resting. There was a group that worked 50. There was a group that worked 60. I think it was some or 20, 40, 60, something like that. The group that worked 60 had the worst output. The group that worked 20 had the best output. And The the book talked about what rest is and it's not just like lying on a couch and scrolling your phone or or things like that. It's exercise. Going for a walk. And this idea of like play. So the play the play part is the play part is interesting to me and the walking part is interesting to me. Because it kind of detaches you from the possibility of like consuming more information. If you're like walking or running, you're probably not gonna go on your phone and start scrolling your phone or or reading text messages. If you're like playing something like maybe you're playing like men's league hockey on a Tuesday night or maybe you're in a group that plays like tennis or pickleball at lunchtime or I don't know, like something like that. You're you're really detaching from your work and you're detaching from like consuming more information, so to speak. so I would say that that probably needs to be something that like leaders or like people working in like high performing jobs and and these types of things need to be spending more time thinking about because ultimately it leads to more productivity. And a good example of it is I don't know if you've seen it, but I always try to look at some things from High performers in other industries. There was a documentary on Chef Gordon Ramsey opening up new restaurants in London, England on Netflix. It was like an eight-part series. And in one of the shows, he kind of talked about this idea and how he got to a point where he was like working insane hours. Not eating well, gaining weight, and something just hit him. maybe a health scare or something. And now he blocks off ninety minutes every day where like no one can get in touch with him. It's just ninety minutes for himself of like exercise, swimming or running or in the gym, completely detached from consuming information. or work output and I really do see a lot of power in that. So I've been trying to like do more of that myself, in honor of maybe bringing new ideas 'cause sometimes I'll go on these runs and something like I wasn't even thinking about will just come to me because I'm running in silence, so to speak. And I'm just it's just me and my thoughts rather than me and my phone or me talking to someone else. so again, long winded answer. But I'm not gonna I'm not gonna I'm promote any books or podcasts right now, except for this podcast. I'm gonna promote the idea of rest. Dennis Kubat: Thanks. I love that. Just based on your answer there, like how powerful do you think it is to just have a good routine Like you have to have your morning routine to have success? Travis Crickard: Yeah, yeah. Like I I have certain things I do. I actually find that routine and like the idea of like having a plan actually helps you so much more when things go awry so to speak because when you already have a plan you've kind of freed up headspace to make it available for things go awry. You already have your plan in place. You don't need to think about it. It's just habitually what you do. So if something changes in that plan, now you have like freed space where you're not thinking about what your plan was. You can think about, now I gotta do this instead. So I see I see a ton of value in in that in that routine for sure. Dennis Kubat: But hey, I knew you when you were nineteen and twenty. appreciate you answering my text to come on the show with me. So Travis, thanks a lot. Best of luck in Swift Current this year. When you're in PA, like I said, I'll be there rooting you on. Travis Crickard: Thanks for having me on, really appreciate it.