Ahead Colorado Hockey Night, presented by Toyota, the Avalanche\u00a0partnered with 1616 and the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association\u00a0(CAHA)\u00a0to host a special\u00a0event to promote\u00a0the mental development of youth hockey players.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe find value in developing players not only on the ice but as teammates and leaders off of the ice and the 1616 program helps us to do just that,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0Taylor Patrick, Event Manager, Youth Hockey Development for the Avalanche.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before the Avs faced the Pittsburgh Penguins on March 16th, the\u00a0players from\u00a0Arapahoe Lady Warriors and Vail\u00a0Mountaineers learned about improving their\u00a0mental skills.\u00a0This event was sponsored by Toyota and the Hard Hat Heroes fund, where Toyota donates $100 to youth hockey in Colorado for every\u00a0goal\u00a0the Avalanche score.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At this pregame event, the players heard from\u00a0Meredith Wolff, Executive Director of the Ladd Foundation,\u00a0about the importance of resilience and controlling the controllables in both hockey and life. During the activity, the players were asked about experiences on the ice that were difficult for them and how they responded.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Next, the teams were joined by Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog for a Q&A session. During the session, he talked about leadership, being\u00a0positive\u00a0and\u00a0his family becoming his team throughout his injury recovery. Additionally, he explained the importance of spending time working on what is between the ears (the mental side of the game) and how having\u00a0dialogue\u00a0and letting people in is important to him.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
1616 is a nonprofit organization founded by two-time Stanley Cup champion Andrew Ladd and his wife Brandy. The\u00a0organization\u00a0offers a\u00a0virtually delivered youth hockey program that\u00a0shares\u00a0true stories from professional hockey\u00a0players to inspire young hockey players to focus on connection, confidence\u00a0and character, both on and off the ice.\u00a0Over the past four seasons, thousands of teams from across the United States, including teams in Colorado, have\u00a0participated\u00a0in the program.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey really saw a need to bring proactive mental health and mental performance skills into the youth hockey atmosphere,\u201d\u00a0Wolff said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Neesha Lenzini,\u00a0Safesport\u00a0Co-Director,\u00a0said\u00a01616 provides CAHA with a tool to build healthy hockey players, teams and programs.\u00a0She\u00a0said that she\u00a0wants\u00a0to ask all of the more\u00a0than 160\u00a012U teams in Colorado to participate in the program.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lenzini\u00a0also emphasized the\u00a0importance of the mental aspect of playing hockey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you don\u2019t put time into\u00a0the mental\u00a0and\u00a0the character\u00a0development, then all the money you spend\u00a0everywhere else is wasted,\u201d Lenzini said. \u201cBecause you may have a kid who plays some hockey, but you\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0truly have a hockey player\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0a member of the team in the moments that matter the most.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Colorado Hockey Night was\u00a0a great experience\u00a0for the Avalanche and the youth teams as they continued to promote the importance of the mental side of being a hockey player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ahead Colorado Hockey Night, presented by Toyota, the Avalanche\u00a0partnered with 1616 and the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association\u00a0(CAHA)\u00a0to host…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,192,144,5277,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-521915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-avalanche","8":"tag-avalanche","9":"tag-colorado","10":"tag-colorado-avalanche","11":"tag-coloradoavalanche","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116289755651455473","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}