Confidence isn't given - it's built shift by shift

Every team has that player.

The one who looks calm in warm-ups.
The one who wants the puck late in the game.
The one people say was “just born confident.”

But hockey tells a different story.

Confidence isn’t something players bring with them into the rink. It’s something the rink builds - slowly, quietly, over time. Not in highlight goals or big moments, but in ordinary shifts that don’t make the scoresheet.

Sport psychology backs this up. Confidence is not a fixed trait. According to psychologist Albert Bandura, belief in ability - what he called self-efficacy - develops primarily through repeated successful experiences, not personality or raw talent.¹

In hockey terms, confidence doesn’t come from thinking you’re good. It comes from knowing you’ve done the work.

Young players don’t need to be told they’re confident.
They need enough reps to trust themselves.

Hockey is repetition disguised as chaos.

Breakout after breakout.
Forecheck routes run again and again.
Shots taken from the same spot until muscle memory takes over.

To an outsider, it looks boring but to a developing player, it’s everything.

Repetition builds familiarity. Familiarity builds comfort. And comfort is the foundation of confidence.

Bandura’s research identified mastery experiences as the strongest driver of confidence - moments where effort leads to improvement.¹ In hockey, those moments don’t come from one great game. They come from hundreds of ordinary reps stacked on top of each other.

When a player has taken that faceoff a thousand times, have practiced that retrieval under pressure and have failed at a skill and returned to it anyway.

They step onto the ice with quiet confidence - not because they expect perfection, but because they recognize the situation.

Confidence is knowing: “I’ve been here before, I can handle this shift.”

Before a player can play confidently, they must feel safe enough to try. It’s important that they feel safe to make a play, to take a risk and to make a mistake without fearing embarrassment or punishment.

Psychological safety is a well-established concept in performance research. Studies published in the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology show that athletes develop higher confidence and perform better in environments where mistakes are treated as part of learning rather than personal failure.²

In hockey, this shows up quickly.

A player who gets yelled at after every mistake stops playing free.
A player who gets benched without explanation starts playing scared.
A player who feels watched instead of supported tightens up.

But when mistakes are met with teaching instead of anger, something changes. Confidence can’t exist in constant fear. It grows in environments where effort is protected.

There’s a difference between praise and encouragement - and hockey players feel it immediately.

Praise sounds like:
“Great goal.”
“You’re a natural.”
“You’re the best player out there.”

Encouragement sounds like:
“Good effort on that backcheck.”
“I liked how you stayed with the play.”
“Keep attacking - it’ll come.”

Research from Carol Dweck’s growth mindset studies shows that athletes who receive process-focused feedback develop stronger confidence and resilience than those praised only for outcomes.³

Encouragement teaches players something stronger: Confidence doesn’t disappear when things go wrong. The most confident players aren’t the ones who never struggle.
They’re the ones who learned that effort still matters when results don’t show up immediately.

Every hockey player makes mistakes.

The difference between confident players and hesitant ones isn’t error rate - it’s response.

Neuroscience research published in Nature Neuroscience shows that the brain learns most effectively when errors are recognized and corrected, not avoided.⁴ Mistakes strengthen learning when athletes are allowed to process and adjust rather than shut down.

In hockey, confidence is built when a player:
Takes the next shift after a bad one
Touches the puck again instead of hiding
Learns that one mistake doesn’t define their value

Mistakes are not a detour from development. They are the development.

A player who’s never allowed to fail never learns to trust themselves under pressure.

Ice time matters. But environment matters more.

Research published in Sports Medicine shows that athletes develop stronger confidence under autonomy-supportive coaching - environments where players are encouraged to think, adapt, and take ownership rather than simply avoid mistakes.⁵

In hockey, coaches are confidence architects. It matters how they react after a bad shift, how they talk between periods and how they explain decisions.

Coaches have the power to shape or shatter a player’s confidence without ever raising their voice. A glance after a shift. A crossed set of arms on the bench. Silence where guidance should be. Players notice everything.

The best coaches understand that confidence isn’t built through control or fear. It’s built through guidance, consistency, and trust. When a coach believes in a player - especially after a mistake - that belief becomes something the player learns to carry themselves.

When confidence is built the right way, it doesn’t stay on the ice.

Research on positive youth development through sport, published in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, shows that athletes in supportive, mastery-focused environments carry confidence, resilience, and emotional regulation into life beyond sport.⁶

These players don’t just believe they can play hockey. They believe they can learn, adjust, and respond when the game speeds up. They trust themselves in uncomfortable moments - after a bad shift, under pressure, when things aren’t going their way. That belief isn’t loud or flashy. It’s steady. It comes from knowing they’ve faced challenge before and come out stronger on the other side.

That confidence doesn’t stay at the rink. It shows up in classrooms when expectations rise, at work when responsibility increases, and in leadership roles when others look to them for direction. It appears in difficult conversations, in moments that require calm instead of reaction. When confidence is built shift by shift, it becomes part of who you are - not just how you play. 

This article blends lived hockey experience with insights supported by contemporary research in sports psychology and athlete development

¹ Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. W.H. Freeman & Company.
² Fransen, K., et al. (2017). “Psychological safety and confidence in team sport environments.” Journal of Applied Sport Psychology.
³ Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Random House.

⁴ Schultz, W. (2016). “Neural mechanisms of learning from errors.” Nature Neuroscience.

⁵ Ntoumanis, N., et al. (2017). “Autonomy-supportive coaching and athlete confidence.” Sports Medicine.

⁶ Holt, N. L., et al. (2017). “Positive youth development through sport.” Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology.