Hockey Tough 2nd Edition by Saul Miller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I received an copy of this book from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
I’m not a hockey player (anymore). I’m not going to make the NHL, but damn, did I start to have creeping thoughts of entering the 2017 draft.
If this book had been around when I was a young hockey player, I would have devoured every single bit of it, dreaming of skating with Cam Neely and Adam Oates. I would have practiced my breathing, focused on my goals, and had a more level-headed approach to playing the game.
There is a fair amount of repetition of the core concepts that Saul Miller preaches, but I think that’s because (as he says up front) he intends for you to skip around the book a bit, pick up a few chapters here and there, do the homework he assigns, and then come back to chapters as need be. The real life anecdotes from players help inspire kids and give them a target.
As a volleyball coach (and former player), I think he’s got a lot of great stuff in here to mine for athletes of all stripes — it doesn’t have to just be hockey tough, though the sport certainly has more of a rep for toughness than, say, volleyball.
The only two issues I have with the book is 1) a minor one, but my first impulse, warranted or not, is to chuckle a little at a book with Sidney Crosby on the cover labeled Hockey Tough. Now, I know they guy is tougher than I am, but as a non-Pittsburgh fan our impression of Sid is not exactly tough. Unfair, I know. The second, more major issue, is that Matt Cooke is in the “Checking Tough” chapter. His on-ice behavior and the way he carries himself is no model for younger players and that type of dirty, over the edge play shouldn’t be rewarded with any kind of spotlight.
But that was my only issue, and it came late in the book. Overall this was an excellent primer on an oft-neglected side of training for any kind of sport.