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Time to set aside the turkey and sugarplums dancing in your head. Jan Snyder offers food for thought for hockey brains out there. And it comes via a book titled The Outliers.

 

 

 

 

The Outliers

 

 

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by Jan Snyder
Monday Dec.29th, 2008

The month a hockey player is born could be essential to their success

Feeling hungry this holiday season?  If you want some real food for thought, pick up a copy of The Outliers – The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell


First of all, like me, you may not know what an outlier is, but it’s a scientific term used to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience.  In this case, it’s people who are out of the ordinary compared to the rest of us.


And why am I writing about this on a hockey website, you might ask?  I’m talking about this book because Gladwell, who was born in England but grew up in Ontario, devotes an entire chapter of this book to hockey players.  Now do you see the method to my madness?


Gladwell wrote two other books you may have heard about since both were best-sellers.  The Tipping Point – How Little Things Make a Big Difference and Blink – The Power of Thinking Without Thinking were all written, according to Gladwell, as an attempt to make us think about the world a little differently. 


If you are the parent of a hockey player growing up in Canada, this book will certainly give you pause.  On his website, Gladwell states, “I think that we vastly underestimate the extent to which success happens because of things the individual has nothing to do with.  Outliers opens by examining why a hugely disproportionate number of professional hockey and soccer players are born in January, February and March.”


In the book, he says, “Those born in the last quarter of the year might as well give up hockey.”  Gladwell’s reasoning is that players born in the beginning of the year are a little more mature, a little bigger and a little stronger than the others.  Consequently, they are moved ahead more quickly, they are paid more attention by coaches and they have more ice time.  This pattern continues all the way through their hockey careers. 


Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.  Although Wayne Gretzky was born in January, Mario Lemieux was born in October.  For every Sidney Crosby born in August, there is a Simon Gagne born in February. 


Gladwell also notes what he calls the 10,000 hours rule.  According to this thinking, anyone who devotes 10,000 hours to anything will most likely succeed.  He offers as an example the Beatles.  While they eventually became huge stars, when they started out playing music together, none was particularly remarkable.  But in order to make money, their agent sent them to play small clubs in Hamburg, Germany, where they were often onstage eight to ten hours a night.  They were forced to start writing original music to fill all that time.  Years later when they came to the United States as megastars, they had put in the requisite 10,000 hours.


I remember reading Jaromir Jagr’s book several years ago.  He mentioned that although he went to school and worked with his father, every single day, no exceptions, he did a phenomenal amount of leg exercises.  He knew he wanted to play hockey and he know the importance of strong legs to the sport.  With that drive and determination, the hours he put into practice and exercise, he surely reached his 10,000 hours when he came to the NHL.  Similarly, Alex Kovalev, a brilliant puck handler, talks about how many hours a day he spent as a boy doing nothing but puck possession drills. 


Gladwell says that while talent may play a big role in what makes someone an outlier, other traits are important as well.  Hard work, good fortune, and the support of a community help the cause.  His premise is that without all these things, success might not happen.  Maybe someone who is really good at something comes from a family that needs him to work after school, taking from him the precious hours he needs to spend on hockey, math or music.  Will he succeed in spite of that?


Gladwell cites the story of Bill Gates.  Because he was good at math, highly intelligent, and interested in computers, we can surmise that those traits made him successful.  Gladwell takes it a step further though.  Had Gates lived in another decade before computers were so important or had he not lived close to the university where he was able to log thousands of hours on the supercomputer, would he still have become the man in charge of Microsoft? 
See what I mean?  Food for thought!  Step away from the fruitcake, cookies and buffet and pick up a book on your time off from work. I really recommend this little book.  If nothing else, it will make you wonder about the world.

 

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