Confidence in sports is one of the things that kids struggle against within themselves throughout their childhood. When they lose their confidence, it can causes the child to feel like a failure and lose the game.

This can leave them with a painful experience that they can carry with them throughout their entire sports careers.

This is Part 2 of a series from an interview with Jamie McKinven, who is the author of the book, “So You Want Your Kid To Play Pro Hockey?”

In this video, Jaymie shares with us his biggest frustration as an athlete and how he was able to overcome it.

“The biggest thing for me had to have been my size growing up. I was born later in the calendar year, and always behind a lot of the players I was playing against because of my size.

As a kid, once you lose your confidence, it can be one of the toughest thing to get it back.

I went into my first year in high school only 5’3” and 98 pounds playing on teams and against players that were approaching 6 feet or moreand almost 100 pounds more than me.

So it was tough, but my father was always a good influence. He said, “Do you like playing hockey? Do you love it?” I said, “absolutely.” Then he said, “don’t worry about that stuff then, just have fun.”

My father was 6’3”. My uncle was 6’5”. I was just a late bloomer. I ended up growing 10 inches in grade 11 and gained 60 pounds. Once that happened, then my confidence got up a little more swagger.

My message to kids is not to worry, just keep working hard and concentrate on your own game and good things will happen when you do that.

When you put your mind to something, don’t let anybody tell you it is not going to work. There is always another way to reach your goal. You might have to take a bit of a detour, but you can get there.”

“The biggest thing for me was always, knowing that I loved doing what I was doing. I was having fun with it and I had a really good group of players around me.

I was playing on a team that had a really top defensive player, when I was in college. We played against Phil Kessel, who is now with the Toronto Maple Leaves. Phil Kessel is a dynamic offensive guy and I am going to be on the ice against him. I didn’t want to get embarrassed by him.

I had to go into the game with a certain mindset.
I would create a character for myself.

For me, for example, that character and mantra for that game might be WARRIOR. I am going to go into every situation as if it is a battle. I am not going to lose this battle. I am not going to get beat.

I know I’m going to have to stay on the defensive side of the play and I said to myself, “He is not going to score while I am on the ice.” So that was how I kind of created this character for myself. That was how I was going to approach the game, it gave me a level of focus.

Rudy was a movie when I was a kid that I could really relate to because Rudy was small. He was an underdog. People said he couldn’t do things.

I was small and I was an underdog. People told me I couldn’t do things.

So I really related to Rudy when I was growing up through my teenage years. Being 14 and 15, this was a movie that I would watch over and over when I was down.

It really uplifted me to know this was a guy that came out of nowhere, that was so small and that people thought there was no way he could play football. But there he was achieving his ultimate dreams, so it really gave me a lot of inspiration to push forward with my goals.

Click here to go watch the next video in the series.

building self esteemJamie’s book is an examination of hockey’s truly unique culture. “So You Want Your Kid to Play Pro Hockey” aims to take you on a journey from childhood to manhood, from hockey aspirations in small town Canada to hockey oddity in Eastern Europe and the Southern US. You will learn more about the sides to hockey that people don’t talk about or most people don’t examine.

Hockey is more than just glitz and glam, fame and fortune. For most hockey players, reaching the top of the mountain is only a pipe dream. For those lucky enough to get close it is an accomplishment. However, just like climbing a mountain, the closer you get to the top, the rockier and more volatile the trek becomes.