The Ride To The Rink: Turning Mistakes into Fuel for Momentum with Danielle McDonough

In this episode of The Ride to the Rink, we’re joined by mental performance coach and former professional hockey player Danielle McDonough to help young athletes develop a winning mindset before they even step onto the ice.

Feeling nervous about a big game? Stressed about a mistake from last time? Danielle shares simple but powerful tools—like breathing techniques, visualization, and superpower statements—to help you stay calm, confident, and focused. She explains how practicing mental skills is just like practicing stickhandling or skating—the more you do it, the better you’ll be when it matters most!

Plus, we tackle how to reset after a mistake, overcome peer pressure, and get back to having fun on the ice. This short but powerful episode is packed with real-life strategies that can help you in hockey, school, and beyond.

So sit back, relax, and get ready to breathe in confidence and skate out stronger on your next Ride to the Rink!

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Transcript

Lee MJ Elias [0:08 - 0:31]: Skaters and goalies around the world. Welcome back to another edition of the Ride to the Rink. It's Lee and Christie. Here with you today, we have our friend Danielle. Danielle played professional hockey. She played college hockey. She was a captain of her college hockey team. And she is a mental mindset expert. And we are here to talk to you today about some tools and things you can use in your game to make youe Life better. And Christy is going to lead it off with our question today. 

Christie Casciano [0:31 - 0:37]: Danielle, thank you so much for joining us. We're so excited to have you on our episode of Ride to the Rink. 

Danielle McDonough [0:38 - 0:41]: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. 

Christie Casciano [0:41 - 1:22]: And as kids are listening to us in the car on that ride to the rink, they might be feeling a little anxious right now. Maybe they're worried about a big game that's ahead. Maybe they had a bad game last time and they're afraid of repeating those mistakes. Or maybe they're anxious about going up against a certain player that they've had a bad experience with. Or maybe there's some kids on the other team that, you know, have got them into a bundle of nerves. What can kids do to relax and enjoy the game and think about being their best self out there on the ice? 

Danielle McDonough [1:22 - 3:43]: Yeah, absolutely. It's a great question. So the ride to the rink is a really powerful time for you. You ha. You have so much. You're not driving yourself, right? So you have so much time to just kind of sit and refocus yourself if you're starting to feel a little bit nervous. The first tool I always teach my athletes is breathing. And so a way that you can kind of start to introduce yourself to this is imagine your. You could say maybe last year's birthday. Imagine your birthday last year and when they brought the cake out to you, right? And you. When you get the cake in front of you, you usually make a wish, right? And then you blow out the candles. So I want you to take a deep breath in, as deep as you can, and then I want you to blow out all of those candles. Make sure you get all of them. Don't miss any of them, okay? And then do that again. And maybe you do that two or three times, maybe five times. Take those deep breaths in and out, and you can think about the birthday cake sitting in front of you if you want. Okay? And what you'll notice happening now is now you're thinking about birthday cake, right? And you're, you're, you're. You're feeling a Little bit more calm. Right? And so from here, now that our mind is calmed down, now you can imagine or maybe picture in your mind the things that make hockey so fun for you. What's so fun for you about this game? Maybe you think back to when you first started playing. What got you so excited to go to the rink? Is it skating fast? That was always something I really loved. Feeling the wind in my face, I was skating so fast. Or maybe it's taking a big slap shot from the blue line. Think about what's so fun for you and just focus on that and feel what that feels like to just think about having fun playing this game. Okay. And then from there you can transition into maybe saying some, what I call superpower statements to yourself. Like, I've got this. Today is going to be awesome. I get to play hockey today. I'm so excited. Right? And now we're thinking about all these fun things that you're going to do when you play today. If those little thoughts creep back in, get you nervous. Right. Just go through this process again. Birthday cake playing, blow out the candles. Think about the fun things that you love so much about playing and say, I've got this, I can do this. Today's gonna be great. Okay, so that's, I think that's a good starting point for you. 

Lee MJ Elias [3:44 - 4:24]: I love that, Danielle. And here's a follow up question. So I completely agree with you that on the way to the rink, we all should be doing this. Even your mom and dad, kids should be doing this as well. Now we get into the game and you talked about in our main episode this week about that mental tornado that can happen in your head and things start spiraling out of control. What is now the advice or continue upon the advice when it's the third period and you made a mistake and those negative thoughts are starting to creep into your head and even you might even be thinking, I got to do this breathing. But your brain goes, that's stupid. Don't do it. Then what do you do? How do the kids approach that? 

Danielle McDonough [4:24 - 8:51]: Yeah. So remembering to do these things is really difficult. It's sort of like I'm trying to think, you know, you have certain power plays or certain face offs. Right. When we were in college, we got this whole book of sort of like a football guy, but it was all face offs. Right? And so you got to try and remember these things the more you practice it. So I will preface this by saying practice your breathing at home. And I know that sounds really funny when I'm telling you to practice your breathing. But if you think about why we practice things, right, we practice things to get better at them for the games, right? So if you think about why you practice certain things in your hockey practices, you practice breakouts, you practice power plays, it's so that you get a handle on it, you feel comfortable and confident doing it, so that when you go to the game, you do it right. It's the same thing with our. With our mental toolbox, our mental skills. You want to practice them before you get to the point where you absolutely need them. If you start practicing this breathing that I mentioned, the. I'll call it the birthday candle breath. If you start to practice that every single day, just do it first thing when you wake up in the morning. Maybe do it on the way to school. You know, do it before you go to sleep. If you're practicing that, when you get to that point in the game where maybe you've made a mistake or maybe you're going into overtime and you're starting to feel nervous, you're just naturally going to transition into that breathing, it's just going to become a part of what you do. It's automatic. It's kind of like looking both ways before you cross the street. You don't think about doing that anymore. At this point, probably those who are listening now, you just get to the curb, you look and you cross, right? It's going to be the same thing with here. So I would suggest practicing it now. When you get to that moment in the game where you just made a mistake and you come off and you're kind of beating yourself up, first of all, that's. That's normal. It's okay. Okay. You're allowed to be disappointed. Okay? But what is most important is how you choose your next step, right? The. Your reaction is a choice. So you can choose to stay stuck in this, or you can choose to make this mental pivot, this reset, okay? That's where you start with the. You do the birthday cake breath. Take a couple of those deep breaths, calm the mind and body down. Because when you try to insert another tool, when your mind is sort of in this brain tornado and you're thinking all these thoughts about yourself and you're beating yourself up. It's. And it's not going to do anything. You're going to stay stuck in this place. And the breathing is really the superpower tool that allows you to calm that mind down so that you can move into the next thing. So you take maybe a couple deep breaths, another breath. I can Kind of teach you real quick is called box breathing. It's pretty popular. People use it, you know, all the time. But it's basically, you make the shape of a box with your counting. So you inhale slowly for a count of four, hold, hold for a count of four, exhale for a count of four, hold for a count of fourS, and you just repeat that. And what's so powerful about this is you're focusing on the counting and the numbers while you're breathing, which is going to pull your focus away from those nasty things that you're saying to yourself and replaying that mistake in your head. So focus on the breathing and the counting as you do this breath. Then from there, I would say that superpower statement to yourself, the next shift is going to be better. Right? I've got it. I've got this. I've, you know, say what you would say to your best friend if your best friend was sitting next to you and he was beating himself up, she was beating herself up, what would you say to get them to believe in themselves again? Okay, you can say that to yourself. And then from there, here's, here's a really important part, identifying exactly what the mistake was. And then the correction. And I don't mean the mistake is, oh, they scored a goal. That's the outcome of the mistake. What was the actual mistake? Let's say I just worked with an athlete the other day who made a pass up the middle and it got intercepted, and they went down and scored a goal. And this athlete's a junior. He plays junior hockey. So this happens at all age groups, right? That. That pass. So what was the actual stake in that case? He didn't look. Right? He just. He didn't look before he passed. So what's the correction? Have my head up maybe before I receive the initial pass so that I know what my options are. Do you see how specific that is? And from there, now you're focusing on the next thing and how to improve. And you're. You're really, at this point, becoming a student of the game. And we're transitioning from this is so terrible to this is what I'll do next time. Does that make sense? 

Lee MJ Elias [8:51 - 9:31]: It makes perfect sense. And it spawned one more final question, I think, actually for all of us, because I know there are athletes listening to this of, like, I can do that, but I'm terrified of what my teammates are going to think if I'm breathing on the bench or if. If the peer pressure sets in of I can't let them See me do this. And, you know, I'd love your thoughts on this, because, you know, this is one of those things. Kids, someone's got to lead by example, all right? And. And if you're afraid to do that, you know, there's a good chance the person next to you is also afraid. The people who lead with this tend to really trendset for their whole team. But can you talk about the peer pressure of that? Of, oh, I don't want my teammates to see that I'm vulnerable at the moment. 

Danielle McDonough [9:32 - 9:59]: So here's the thing about this. It's just breathing, right? Honestly, no one knows you're doing it. Like, you. You don't even have to close your eyes. You. It could just be you're trying to catch your breath after a shift. Truthfully, no one knows you're doing it, honestly. So don't let that come in to play here, because really, it's just breathing. And that's what makes this tool so special and powerful. Is that it? It's really. We do this all the time. We're doing it right now. 

Lee MJ Elias [10:00 - 10:06]: You can say that, too. Like, with somebody, if you're afraid and someone does say, what are you doing? Just go. Just breathing. Because say, I'm just. Just breathing. 

Danielle McDonough [10:06 - 10:35]: I was working hard last shift. I worked really hard. I'm out of breath, right? Yeah. And also underlying knowing to yourself, like, you're setting yourself up for success, right? It's like if you. You know, everybody sprints in practice. You do, like, the lines or whatever. Are you. Are you not gonna take deep breaths when you're done? Like, that's how we recover, right? It's a. It's how we recover from working hard. So what do you. Are you not gonna allow yourself. You need air, right? 

Lee MJ Elias [10:35 - 10:36]: Some air. 

Danielle McDonough [10:36 - 10:48]: Yeah, same thing. It's the same thing. You're just taking deep breaths to recover, and nobody has to know if it's recovered physically or mentally. It's. It's actually both. It works for. In. You know, for both in this case. 

Lee MJ Elias [10:49 - 11:24]: Well, Danielle, I love advice. Yeah. And I'll say this, too, that every technique that Danielle just shared with his friends, it's not limited to hockey. You can do this in other sports. You can do it in music. You can do it in school. You can do it when you become an adult. The last thing I'll say is that the sooner you learn to practice this, the actual further you'll get ahead with everything that you do, because it's like a secret you get to have that other people don't have. That we. Trust me, none of us had this when we were kids. So take the secret and run. All right, Danielle, that's going to do it for this episode of the ride during. You are awesome. Thanks so much for sharing some of that wisdom with the case. 

Christie Casciano [11:24 - 11:25]: Thank you, Danielle. 

Danielle McDonough [11:25 - 11:28]: Yeah, absolutely. It's my pleasure. Good luck, guys. 

Lee MJ Elias [11:28 - 11:38]: All right, kids, remember, no matter where you're at on your hockey journey, we believe in you. You should, too. All right, Remember to have fun, skate hard, and as always, enjoy your hockey. We'll see you on the next ride to the r. 

Danielle McDonough [11:44 - 11:44]: SA.