Tiny improvements add up to giant leaps — in hockey and in life
Hey Hockey Family,
Are you going the extra mile?
(Or for our Canadian friends, the extra kilometer…)
If there’s one thing I learned in my hockey career — playing at every level that exists from house league to the NHL — it’s this: the ones who go the extra mile are the ones who make it.
And the crazy part? It’s not one big thing. It’s the tiny improvements stacked over time that turn into giant leaps.
I remember my first year pro with the Binghamton Senators. We were dead last in the league, getting bag skated almost every day. Most guys just wanted to survive practice, hit the mandatory lift, and get out of there.
But then there was this one guy. After practice, after the lift, he’d lay on the locker room floor and do 30 minutes of abs and core work every single day. Nobody told him to. Nobody was watching. But he knew a strong core was the foundation of his game. And he built it brick by brick, in the shadows.
That’s the extra mile.
I saw the same thing in guys stickhandling in the empty corridors of arenas. These were the concrete warriors — mythical creatures who existed in the shadows, chasing the dream one rep at a time where nobody could see.
For me, the extra mile was conditioning. I made a rule: any time I stepped on the ice — practice or game — I would end with pushups or burpees, no matter how gassed I was. That was my trench work. My edge.
Your extra mile might look different. Maybe it’s 15 minutes of stickhandling in the garage with a Puckaround. Maybe it’s closing your eyes and visualizing Game 7 while keeping control of the puck. Maybe it’s balancing on one foot while you dangle. Maybe it’s pushing past the voice in your head that says, “Enough, I’m done.”
But here’s the truth: if you want the hockey dream, you’ve got to find your extra mile. That’s where players separate themselves. Not under the lights, but in the shadows.
And when you build that habit on the driveway, in the garage, in the basement — it doesn’t just change your game. It changes your life.
See you in the shadows,
—Bobby Robins, savage motivator, ex hockey pro