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Goldman: How do you handle the day-to-day emotions in terms of confidence? How do you gain it internally? Are there certain things that you do to motivate yourself and help you gain confidence? Backstrom: “Confidence is something that goes up and down during the year. It doesn’t matter what kind of year you’re having so it’s something you work with every day. For me, it’s not about just a game. Sure, you gain confidence when you make some saves, but for me, I get confidence when I do everything as well as I can, and especially when I practice and prepare correctly. I can get it from a good game, but for me, confidence comes from knowing I’ve been doing everything I can to prepare the right way. Eating well, sleeping well, and practicing well. Then I have games where everything goes my way and then I gain even more confidence. But the basic confidence for me comes from knowing what I’m doing. I know if I have a bad week or practice, or have been a little lazy, I don’t have confidence, even if I play well. So for me, it’s more how I prepare and how I’m doing everything.” Goldman: Sometimes I feel like you can’t always control confidence because if you can’t control what happens on the ice, there will be bad bounces that take away from your confidence. So when your confidence is high and you’ve done all those things you talk about, when do you feel like you’re in the zone? Backstrom: “It’s something you’d like to feel every night, but it’s like you said, something where you almost know every puck is going to hit you. You can’t see a shot from the blue line, but I know if I put my glove in the right spot, I’m stopping it. I don’t have to think about it, it’s something weird. Some nights it’s just there. You just have the feeling that you’re not telling yourself you’re going to stop everything tonight, it’s just a calm and comfortable feeling where you know they’re not going to beat you tonight, no matter what. For sure it’s something that probably comes by the way you prepare and practice, but on the mental side you have to be strong and really sharp so that your mind is ready for these types of games. You always feel like you’re one step ahead all the time.” Goldman: Do you ever try and make it happen consciously, or do you just hope it happens and try to hang onto it as long as possible? Backstrom: “Sure, you try it every day and every game [laughing]. It’s weird to explain. It’s just a feeling that comes from inside. It’s not something you’re telling yourself in your mind. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s a great feeling though. I feel like if I go out there on the ice and I have to think, then I’m too late. Everything should just happen by itself and you’re not thinking about anything, you just have a clear mind and you just react by yourself. Some days that happens, other days it doesn’t. I don’t know the reason for that, but when I’m in the zone, I don’t think about making glove saves, it just happens.” Goldman: Do you feel like you do a good job of not thinking? Like you said, the moment you spend thinking about making saves, the time it takes to think is the time the puck is going right past you. Backstrom: “I think I’m pretty good at it, but I think it’s like I said, it’s all about the process from the start of exhibition and training camp, even in the summer. I try to see as many pucks and play as many games because I feel the more games you play, the less you have to think. If you take a break or get hurt or sit on the bench for a week, at the beginning it’s a little tough, but once you see a lot of shots, it’s easier to not think. But when you see fewer shots and you have more time, you start to think more.” Goldman: One thing I’ve heard you say a number of times is that it’s a challenge. So a lot of these mental obstacles you seem to treat it like a challenge. Is that a part of who you are mentally? Backstrom: “Yeah, I’d say that’s something I always try to do, to challenge myself every day. If this is the level I’m at today, I want to push it a little higher. Even in a game where you see a few pucks, it’s not going to be like that every game, but it could happen in a Stanley Cup Finals game. So you better practice staying focused now, so you know what you’re going to do when it comes.” Goldman: When you’re away from the rink, what do you do to train your mind or enhance your mind-body awareness? Backstrom: “I’ve been doing Yoga, not like every week, but for a couple of years now. I feel it’s good for your body and good for your mind, too. But I learned when I was younger, it was more like every day you’re taught about hockey, so at some point it can become too much. So I learned to know when I should think about hockey. I know I need to be mentally sharp and focused on game day, but if I feel like I’m doing that seven days a week, it’s just too tough. So for sure there are some guidelines I try to follow so that I can leave hockey behind me. When I jump in the car and leave the rink, I leave hockey behind and get mentally charged when I show up for a game. It’s easy when you have a good game to move on from it, but when I have a bad game, I try to watch the goals at the rink, then make sure I go through in my mind what I should have done differently, then move on from there. Sometimes after a bad game it’s easier, but some nights I still think about it when I’m going to bed. I like to say, if you don’t have dreams, you were never meant to earn them, so for sure, every player has dreams of wining something, so it’s nice to dream about them too.” Goldman: So does that mean you do a lot of self-visualization? Backstrom: “I do some, yeah. Hockey is a big part of my life, so for sure it’s something I do.” Goldman: Talking to you here during lunch, it’s easy to see that you’re very calm, relaxed, and laid back. But on the ice, you have this very intense and fierce stare behind the mask. I see it with a few other goalies, like Nikolai Khabibulin. How do you put yourself into that mindset without over-doing it? Backstrom: “Well, I think it’s probably the way I feel like I need to be in order to be at my best and help the team win. I think every goalie prepares differently, and that’s the way I prepare. I like to focus and be by myself, and that’s part of my game. I know if I try to be mentally at my peak on game days, then in between be more relaxed, I would burn out if I was always trying to be fierce or intense. So I feel for me, I need to do this to be where I need to be.” Goldman: Is there one thing you want readers to know about the process of becoming an elite goalie? Backstrom: “I think it’s going to take time for everyone to learn about themselves and what they need to do to be mentally tough. I think one thing is that you have to start by being honest with yourself. That’s something that hurts for sure. It’s easy for a goalie to blame a goal on the defense or just bad bounces, but I think you have to be honest and ask if you’ve done everything right in the crease. I think that’s a big step, to be honest with yourself, and from there it becomes easier. Then you don’t have to hide anything, and even though it will hurt, so what? It will only make you better.” *Author’s Note: See our chapters on “Truth” and “Being Wrong” for more insights on this topic. Goldman: Do you feel like you weren’t always honest with yourself when you were younger? Backstrom: “Probably not, so it was something I learned along the way. I think it’s still something you have to work on. It’s never easy to blame yourself for a loss. It’s easy to say that, but it’s another thing to mentally accept that maybe you were the reason your team lost. It’s tough, but it’s going to make you stronger too, so accept it, and do what you can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Goldman: In closing, what’s the greatest lesson you’ve ever learned about being a goalie? Backstrom: “There are a lot of good lessons I’ve learned. From my family, I’ve learned about the work ethic, to work hard and never give up. But Mike has taught me before to never get too high and never get too low. I don’t know if there’s just one that sticks out, but you learn a lot of lessons as time goes on and you try to live by them and learn from them.”