Competitive Edge, always!

Competition makes us better, that is what you always hear, it creates more skill, makes you harder to play against, allows you to make plays in pressure situations. 

Let's take it one step further and discuss what one of if not the most important attributes of being a Great Athlete is....and that is being Ultra Competitive in sport and life.

Great athletes are competitive, make no mistake but they don't just like to win, more importantly, they HATE to lose. 

You see everyone likes to win, it's fun, you feel good being on a winning team, your coach is happy, teammates are happy, Mom and Dad are happy, you might get an ice cream...heck you might even be presented with a trophy, ok, who are we kidding, everyone gets a trophy nowadays, even if you didn't win. 

Now that takes me to my next point, being competitive means HATING to lose or even finish second, it gnaws at you, it drives you to practice or play harder next time. It makes you train harder or longer at the gym, it causes you sometimes to have a restless night. 

"We always sit with each other, and he has to win," Fleury once said of Sidney Crosby, arguably the best NHL's best player for the last 10 years. "At anything. Throwing a ball of tape at the garbage can. He wants to win that and if he doesn't, he wants to play another game. Fleury joked that "sometimes, it gets annoying," Fleury learned long ago that he shouldn't take Crosby's fierce desire to win personally, after all, it's not only about video games, training camp scrimmages or who can fling a wadded-up piece of tape most accurately. Put Crosby in any setting in which a score is kept or a winner can be determined by any means, and he'll respond the same way. "He doesn't like to lose ... at anything, really," winger Beau Bennett said. "All the best players really have that in common, that competitive edge. Not just in hockey, but whatever they do, they want to win. "Even when we have a three-on-three game and say his team is down or something, we'll take it from a best-of-three to a best-of-five". Crosby's competitive ferocity can't be quantified, but probably contributes as much to his on-ice accomplishments as his exceptional hand skills, instincts, and conditioning. What's more, teammates say, his attitude can go viral. "It pushes everybody else in the room to play hard, in practice or in games" Fluery once said. Crosby said he isn't sure precisely when he realized the passion to compete had consumed him but vows that it's not a trait he plans to shed. "As you get older, you realize that some people shake stuff off a little easier than others," he said. "I just didn't like to lose at all. I didn't really accept that."I'm not saying that it's not going to happen, but I'm definitely going to do everything I can to avoid it".

While there are many attributes that makeup greatness and all of them are important I would argue that the most important one is the will to not lose.

BE EXTRAORDINARY

Looking forward to seeing you at camp!
Coach Vaughan Rody

BE EXTRAORDINARY!