Over the Boards by Hayley Wickenheiser

Author:Hayley Wickenheiser [Wickenheiser, Hayley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Canada
Published: 2021-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

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As a kid, I didn’t regulate my emotions very well. I was undisciplined, hot-blooded, impulsive. I had big highs and profound lows. When things were hard for me, I didn’t wallow; I got angry. I got so wound up one time that my mom sat me in a chair in the kitchen mid-tantrum, pulled out the spray hose from the sink, and hosed me down to cool me off. You remember the story from the first chapter: I didn’t stay sad when we lost in Nagano, I was boiling with rage.

Shannon Miller, my first coach on the national team, used to tell me that I was like a wild horse that needed to be tamed. I had so much emotion bubbling away inside me, threatening to explode. I thought that being a little wild on the ice made me a good player. I was right, to an extent. I would never have become the player I was had I been emotionally flat. I needed to play with passion to be at my best. But strong emotion is a double-edged sword. It can be harnessed as a force for good when you need to light a fire in your team. But a lack of control can be a detriment. When I was full of passion and playing physical, I could get too riled up and take retaliatory penalties. I chirped the ref. I couldn’t get a handle on myself and it hurt us.

When Wally Kozak, my X-Treme coach, saw that happening, he intervened. He could see that I was letting my emotions get the better of me. We sat down together at the rink watching a practice, talking it over. He told me that he was worried that I was too focused on who I was as a hockey player. It wasn’t good for me or the team. Having only one focus, centring myself solely on hockey and not having any other outlets, was okay when things were going my way on the ice. When they weren’t, my reaction was disproportional. It made every failure on the ice momentous. He was right: all I cared about was winning and improving my game. It wasn’t healthy, nor was it sustainable. Wally was gently pushing me to take a wider approach to my life—to find passions outside the rink, to recognize that I was more than just a hockey player. He knew it would help me dial back my fiery reactions on the ice.

“Watch guys like Mark Messier,” he said. “Watch his demeanour in a game. Looking at Messier on the ice, you’d never know whether his team was up by five goals or down by two.” Under pressure, Mark was always steady as a church. I realized how valuable that was for his game and his team. When I was yo-yoing between joy and rage, my opponents knew when and how to get under my skin. I was becoming my own worst enemy by giving the opposition a soft spot to target.

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