My biggest regret as a coach.
After my playing career ended in 2015, hockey took me somewhere I never expected.
To the Pyrenees Mountains in northern Spain.
Near the French border, in a beautiful little town called Jaca.
And for the first time in my life, I wasn't going there as a player.
I was going there as a coach.
Or, as they called me in Spain…
El Entrenador.
I have to admit, I was intimidated.
I had spent my entire life being the guy putting on the equipment, listening to the coach, and going over the boards.
Now I was the guy standing in front of the room.
Even though this was a lower-level professional league in Europe, it was still professional hockey.
These guys were looking at me for direction.
I knew I had better bring my A-game.
So I did what anybody desperate for coaching knowledge would do.
I thought about the best coach I had ever played for.
For me, one of those men was Bruce Cassidy.
Bruce had coached me with the Providence Bruins in the American Hockey League. He would later coach the Boston Bruins and eventually win the Stanley Cup with the Vegas Golden Knights.
I thought about everything I had learned playing for him.
How he commanded a room.
How he communicated.
How organized his practices were.
How every drill seemed to have a purpose.
How he demanded excellence without making you afraid to play.
So I took out a notebook.
And I started writing.
I wrote down drills.
Practice structures.
Systems.
Teaching points.
Anything I could remember.
There's an old saying that imitation is the highest form of flattery.
Well…
I imitated the best coach I knew.
I tried to coach the way I had always wanted to be coached.
And from the beginning of that season, I had my eyes on one thing:
Winning the Spanish championship.
That became the mission.
We trained.
We practiced.
We battled.
And we made it all the way to the championship finals.
Then…
We lost.
I was crushed.
I can still remember standing in that locker room afterward.
The guys were drenched in sweat.
Some had tears in their eyes.
Others were staring at the floor.
Everyone knew how close we had come.
And at first, all I could think about was the trophy we weren't bringing home.
That may have been my biggest mistake as a young coach.
I was so focused on the destination that I almost missed what had happened during the journey.
Because then I started watching my players.
One by one, those men began getting up.
Handshakes.
Hugs.
Pats on the back.
Guys embracing teammates they had battled beside for an entire season.
They were disappointed.
But they also knew something.
They had emptied the tank.
They had given everything they had.
And standing there watching them, something changed inside me.
I realized I had never been prouder of a hockey team.
We didn't have the trophy.
But those players had become better hockey players.
They had become better teammates.
And I believe many of them became better men.
That's what great development is really about.
One of the biggest things I tried to bring to that team was something I had learned during my own climb through professional hockey:
Your development cannot stop when you step off the ice.
We incorporated off-ice training.
Plyometrics.
Strength work.
Mobility.
Conditioning.
Movement.
Anything that could give our players another small advantage.
Because over both my playing career and my coaching career, I noticed the same pattern over and over again.
The players who go the extra mile keep getting better.
Not overnight.
Not because of one magic workout.
But incrementally.
A little stronger.
A little quicker.
A little more skilled.
A little more confident.
Day after day.
Week after week.
Season after season.
And eventually, those little improvements can be what allow a player to make the jump.
So wherever you are in your hockey journey right now, don't think your development ends when practice ends.
That's often where the opportunity begins.
What can you do today that nobody is requiring you to do?
Ten extra minutes?
Another hundred puck touches?
Some mobility work?
A shooting session in the driveway?
That's how players separate themselves.
The extra mile is where the gains are hiding.
Keep those knuckles up.
Bobby Robins, Boston/Providence Bruins Alum
P.S. You don't need an ice rink to keep developing your game. That's exactly why Wraparound builds off-ice training tools. Protect your stick with a Wraparound, grab a Puckaround, and get those extra touches in the driveway, garage, basement, or wherever you can train. Small improvements, repeated consistently, can completely change the player you become.