The Hockey Director Who Doesn't Mind Surrendering Control

The inspiration for Jim Haverstrom’s foray into coaching hockey wasn’t Herb Brooks in the 1980 Olympics or some dazzling display of puck control from Wayne Gretzky.

It was when The Mighty Ducks movie came out in the early 1990s, and his 10-year-old son decided he wanted to dive into the sport.

“I thought I would start off just helping out, but the bug hit me," he said.

Haverstrom is now a youth director and coach developer for USA Hockey and has worked with thousands of players of varying levels in his three decades on the ice.

But he takes as much pride in helping coaches evolve their training methods as he does in cultivating young talent.

“I always wanted to have total control over things, because if I didn't do it, it wasn't going to get done,” Haverstrom said. “But you need to allow coaches to make the same mistakes you're going to allow your players to make and be there to guide them.”

Best of 7 spoke to him about creating practice adversity, cultivating coach buy-in, and appropriate levels of leadership delegation.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Coach, I’ve heard you use the phrase “Teach problem-solving.” What does that mean?

I remember coaches telling me, “My team can't pass in the game.” Then I'd go watch their practices, and they were passing with nobody in the way — there was no problem to solve. If you give them a problem, players are going to solve it differently based off of their individual skillset, their size, their experiences.

Let’s say we're having a problem getting what we call net front presence in hockey, with a player in front working on rebounds. I’ll create a game where they can score any way they want, but they get more points by having it off a tip or deflection or a rebound.

A big kid may plant himself right in front. A smaller player may move in and out. They're figuring it out without me telling them what I want them to exactly do.

How do you get coaches who have been at it for years to embrace newer ways of teaching, particularly if they’ve had past success?

It's very uncomfortable for coaches, because you're surrendering a lot of control. But when I teach classes for USA Hockey for their coaching certification program, I bring up how a few years ago, two players in the NHL had 100 assists. I was at the game where Nikita Kucherov got his. He came down the wing, kind of going really fast, and he curls back, finds somebody. Connor McDavid is not doing that. Connor McDavid is really, really fast. He’s going to take off, go around the guy and then set it up. So, there was a problem to get the guy the puck in the middle of the ice, but they both solve it differently. Why should I try to pigeonhole my players into, “This is the only way to solve the problem?”

I think the other part of it is that we make it fun for coaches, in a sense, because all of a sudden, their minds are going a different way. What can I do to create the problem that my team needs to work on? Some coaches refuse to do that. They really, truly believe that you have to be in this certain structure. But the problem is that structure is always going to break down. We want to try to build an adaptable player instead of one who can do the same thing over and over again.

What’s a good messy practice vs. bad messy in your eyes?

A good messy practice has to have intent. This is what we're actually working on — because if they do it beautifully, why are we even doing this? There has to be a function on what are we trying to accomplish in this environment? You can still work on structure. It's just more of an adaptable structure instead of, “You stand here, you stand there.”

(A bad messy) is where there is no intention or there’re too many intentions. You tell them, “We’re going to work on this part offensively. And we’re going to work on this part defensively, and I want you to do this, and I want you to do that.” Also, a bad messy practice can be where it's not engaging for the players, so they're just kind of messing around. The effort’s not there. They’re just kind of going through the motions because they're not engaged.

How do you cultivate resilience in young athletes?

All of my practices are competition. Even at the 10U level, we have a little scoreboard, which they love. They’re learning to compete at a young age, and if they fail, we don't get on them. It's like, “Hey, what did you learn from this?”

We'll also try to create situations that are unfair, like we won't call penalties, or we will call penalties that aren't there so that they learn to build their emotional capabilities. A lot of times, along with that messy and un-messy, coaches don't want kids to be losing their tempers or acting out because that destroys my practice. Then, the first time they have to handle those emotions is during a game. Why don't we create some of that emotion in practice so the kids can practice emotional stability as well as technical and tactical stability?

I’m curious — what’s the most meaningful failure you’ve had and what’d you learn from it?

I had one place where I didn't get my contract renewed. I thought I had done a really good job, but one of the reasons that I didn't get my contract renewed was I don't think I communicated enough of what I was doing behind the scenes. I also think I gave the coaches, in a sense, too much autonomy. I didn't want to step on anybody's toes, as opposed to saying, “Look, this is the way we need to do it. These are the things I expect of you. I need you to change the way you're looking at practices.”

I didn't want to offend people, and I wasn't assertive enough to say, “We need to change this,” and then also tell them why we needed to change it and help guide them through.

It’s such a challenge. Delegation is usually viewed as a positive, but you can also over-delegate, right?

My last few years, I was much better at assembling staffs I felt comfortable with and I knew were willing to learn. Sometimes, they were younger staffs because they wouldn't be so entrenched in certain ideas. Allow them to go, but be there to guide them, almost in a grandfatherly way. “Have you tried this?”

I want them to disagree with me, because it helps me learn. With the position I have now, I'm more of a coaching director and a consultant to help them go through things and understand that certain coaches are still going to coach a certain way. That's O.K. All I can do, in some ways, is maybe open their eyes to certain things. It's O.K. that you don't believe exactly the same thing as me, but I just want you to look. I want you to be curious.

What’s one piece of advice that you give to younger coaches you work with?

Be willing to fail. When I first started, if I made a bad drill, I would never tell them it was bad. I'd get annoyed at them for not executing it the right way. As I got older, I was like, “No, that was really bad.” They know that I'm accountable, and they know that I'm going to make mistakes too.

When you're an environmental architect, you're going to design some bad buildings, and it's O.K., because you're going to learn the same way that they're going to learn. Then, do something that's really hard for us as coaches: Admit it.

What I learned…

One of the more insightful parts of the interview was when Coach Haverstrom highlighted the juxtaposition between the short and the long-term approach to player development.

“A lot of the parents have a short-term vision, which is understandable. They want to see results now. But what we have to do is try to educate and inform,” he said.

“I'm trying to develop the best 17-year-old out of your 10-year-old, not the best 10-year-old.”

Haverstrom said that approach requires extensive support from higher-ups and frequent communication of his larger methods.

It also entails self-awareness on his part and an emotional maturity to not overreact to external perceptions.

“You’re not always going to get the parents on board. Do I change what I think is good because there are complaints?” Haverstrom said.

“We tell our players there's no perfect game. Well, there's no perfect decisions you're going to make for your organization.”