Legacy

Boys,

Welcome to the St. Ignatius Hockey Blog. This will be a resource for us to motivate, teach, and prepare. 

For those of you who are not familiar, I would like to introduce you to the New Zealand All Blacks. They are the national rugby team from New Zealand. They are known for the "haka",  the highly ritualized challenge thrown down by one group of warriors to another.  

 

The following excerpt is from the book Legacy by James Kerr.

 "Opposing teams face the haka in different ways. Some try to ignore it, others advance on it, most stand shoulder to shoulder to face it. Whatever their outward response, inwardly the opposition know that they are standing before more than a collection of fifteen individual players. They are facing a culture, an identity, an ethos, a belief system – and a collective passion and purpose beyond anything they have faced before. Often, by the time the haka reaches its crescendo, the opposition have already lost. For rugby, like business and like much of life, is played primarily in the mind. The All Blacks are the most successful rugby team in history. They have been called the most successful sports team, in any code, ever. In the professional era, they have an extraordinary win rate of over 86 per cent and are the current World Champions. How do the All Blacks do it? What’s the secret of their success? What is their competitive advantage? And what can we learn from it?" 

Below is one of the All Blacks' motto's:

Sweep the Sheds - "Never be too big to do the small things that need to be done"

I love the following except from Legacy. This is after a big win against the Welsh Rugby Team. 

"Two of the senior players – one an international player of the year, twice – each pick up a long-handled broom and begin to sweep the sheds. They brush the mud and the gauze into small piles in the corner. While the country is still watching replays and schoolkids lie in bed dreaming of All Blacks’ glory, the All Blacks themselves are tidying up after themselves. Sweeping the sheds. Doing it properly. So no one else has to. Because no one looks after the All Blacks. The All Blacks look after themselves" 

They know who they are, what they stand for, and why they exist. 

 

                                          

If we can apply some of the principals that the All Blacks employ, we will be able to achieve impressive gains as a hockey team and as people this season. No one is more important than anyone else. Sweep the Sheds.