Many hockey players find it challenging to play consistently with confidence in pressure situations. Mental Toughness Training wants to change that! MTT Hockey helps you build your confidence and excel under high-pressure situations. So you can be at your best every time you step onto the ice.
Develop a Mental Preperation Process
Create your own mental preperation process for practices and games that will move you closer to your dream and mission. Planning, instead of hoping, and learning to focus on the right things at the right times will eliminate the worries, fears, anxieties, and obstacles that are a part of life and hockey.
Build Your Confidence and Perform Your Best Under Pressure
Every hockey player on the planet struggles with their confidence at times; it doesn’t matter what level of hockey you are playing. Your greatest challenge is to perform consistently and confidently in high-pressure situations. Get powerful solutions to improve your confidence and perform under pressure.
Understand & manage your emotions
Apply the same mental toughness strategies as elite hockey players and Olympians to manage your emotions and perform well under pressure. When managed properly, your emotions are valuable tools. Recognize unhelpful emotions, manage them, and redirect to powerful and productive thoughts that help you play to your potential when it matters the most.
Mental Toughness Training (MTT) is your A-to-Z blueprint for building confidence and improving your mental strength.
Your Coaches
Dave Jones
Super Dave is a hockey and sport psychology coach, with two national championship rings at the ACHA and Youth levels. Super Dave has coached multiple National Championship winning teams. From ACHA Division 1 Women Ice Hockey National Championship in 2019, to U14 Tier II Junior Hurricanes National Championship in 2019. In 2019, he coached six teams, where four of them went to National Tournament, and two of them won!
Before coaching championship winners, Dave spent most of his early childhood and adult life in and out of hockey rinks around the world. His love and skill for hockey led to a professional career in Europe playing in many countries, including Luxemburg, Russia, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Germany.
With his years of hockey experience and Masters of Science in Counseling Sport Psychology from California Southern University, Dave is dedicated to bringing out the best in athletes. Dave has worked with business executives and athletes in the NHL, NFL, and CrossFit to achieve their vision by developing mental skills training and enhancing emotional awareness techniques.
Dr. Wally Bzdell
Doc Wally has spent a lifetime in our game. He played junior hockey in the BCHL (captain his final season) and college hockey at Union College.
Doc brings 24+ years of mental toughness training experience in hockey, to this program. His work includes teams making the NCAA D1 tournament 11 times, advancing to the NCAA Division 1 men’s ice hockey Frozen Four in 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2019; and winning the National Championship back to back in 2014 and 2015!
NCAA D1 teams he’s worked with have won regular-season titles in the ECAC and Hockey East, as well as four ECAC tournament Championships (three men’s and one women’s title).
At the pro level, Doc served as the sport psychologist for an AHL team, and he’s helped over 20 players advance to the NHL (including a Stanley Cup finalist). He’s worked closely with three American Hockey League all-stars (including a league MVP winner) and seven players who have represented their countries in the World Junior Hockey Championships.
Doc Wally is a NYS licensed psychologist and USA Hockey level 5 coach. He’s coached a team to a NYS championship and currently coaches at the 14U AAA and high school levels.
Hear From The Pros
“Mental toughness is essential to every athlete who wants to be the best they possibly can. Every athlete faces adversity throughout their career, and the one tool you can always rely on when things go south is your mental toughness. Working with Wally has made me aware of what kind of mental state I was in and how to get my mind back to where it needs to be. Wally taught me to use trigger words such as reload after every shift to make sure I’m living in the present. He gave me resources to overcome mistakes quickly, and I’m able to move on to the next play.”
- Nick Saracino
“I’ve been playing pro hockey for the last five years, after playing four years at Union College. I met Doc Wally at Union College and started working with him on a team and individual basis. Using some of the mental toughness exercises, we were able to achieve our ultimate goal of winning a national championship. Doc Wally was able to help me become a pro hockey player, and I know he’s worked with several guys that have made it to the NHL. I highly suggest using Doc Wally’s mental toughness training.”
- Matt Bodie
“Moving up the ladder from prep school, junior hockey, college, and then to pro, you realize your mental toughness is just as important as your physical tools. Working on my mental toughness with Doc Wally has helped me with dealing with the ups and downs that come with the season. Having the tools and abilities to stay in the right mindset during the year is a necessity and truly separates players who move on and from players who get left behind.”
- Jeff Taylor
“I’m currently playing for the New Jersey Devils. Before going pro, I played high school hockey there for three years, and then I attended Berkshire School for two years, and then ended up going to Providence College, where I played under Nate Leaman. That’s where I first met Wally Bzdell. As you move up in the hockey world, the margin for error gets so slim, and skill level gets so close. Mental toughness is a way that you can help separate yourself from the rest of the pack and is a skill that can be taught and learned over time. When working with Wally at first, I was always frustrated during games, trying to do more than what I needed. Wally helped me take it one shift at a time. That didn’t happen overnight; it took a ton of practice. Now, I continue to grade myself after all practices and games to guide myself into the next game.”
- Kevin Rooney
“I’ve spent the last five years playing pro hockey with the Montreal Canadiens organization and the Vegas Golden Knights organization. Before that, I played at Union College, where I met Doc Wally. I’ve spent the last nine years working with Doc, and he teaches you mental toughness skills that you have to work on yourself, but those skills serve you during times of adversity. The skills you learn working with Wally serve you to persevere through adversity. I’ve been fortunate enough to play in the NHL and to get there you get tested, and the skills I learned working with Wally was one of the reasons I was able to get through it.”
- Daniel Carr
“Over the past few years of Dave coming to Liberty University to teach MTT Hockey, it has drastically changed the way I think about the game of hockey. In the beginning, I thought it was kind of pointless. I wanted to play how I like to. It wasn’t until I fully bought in that I started to notice differences in the way I thought and acted. I was always the player that had to have the last word and would end up getting penalties because of it. Last year I had four penalty minutes the whole season, and I believe that if it weren’t for the MTT Hockey, that stat would never exist. I am a firm believer that being able to control your emotions on the ice is a huge competitive advantage. Dave is not only teaching us how to be better athletes, but he is preparing us for real-world situations where our emotions need to be in check.”
- Josh Hamilton
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