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Goldman: How did you become an athlete and a competitive goalie when you were growing up? Vokoun: “I think it all started with doing something I loved doing. Especially at a young age, I think it’s very important to try sports, because if you really enjoy doing it, obviously you don’t see it as hard work or something hard for you to do. You can’t wait to wake up in the morning and go to practice, and if you don’t like it, obviously it’s not for you. When I was a kid, I played soccer and all the other popular sports. When I was six, I went with my friends to try ice hockey. Obviously I was playing street hockey and stuff like that before then, but I tried it on the ice for the first time and really enjoyed it. It’s a funny thing to start, but it’s almost the most important thing because if you don’t like playing the game, I don’t think you can ever really be good at it. I think for me, all the hard work is really something I enjoyed doing. I’m really lucky I get to play a game for a living, and I’m real appreciative of that.” Goldman: We all know that handling pressure is one of the biggest hurdles of being an elite goalie. How do you handle it? Vokoun: “If there was no pressure, winning wouldn’t matter and hockey wouldn’t be fun. All of these things go hand-in-hand and you have to tell yourself that you want to play under pressure. People like to think that if you always deal with everything that comes your way, you’re always going to be successful. I think that’s a misunderstanding though. You can deal with pressure if you can adapt and learn every day. That’s how you’re able to overcome it. As I got older as a goaltender, I just found ways to put a positive spin on stuff. There’s all kind of pressure out there. When you’re young, you feel pressure because you want to play in the NHL. When you’re older, you feel the pressure of providing for your family because it’s your livelihood. So you’re always going to feel different types of pressure and that’s how it’s supposed to be. If it matters to you, you’re going to feel nervous and feel pressure, I don’t care who you are. There’s no escaping it. So for me, it’s just being positive and knowing that everything in the world is not life and death situations. Hockey is a game and it is pressure, but it’s also fun. If you learn and work hard, that’s what separates you from other people. If it was easy, everyone would be professional athletes. You have to work hard and have a gift, and you have to be smart and learn and study the game, and learn from your mistakes. If you don’t fix them, you’re not going to be around for very long.” Goldman: Can you reflect a little bit on who you were in your mid-twenties compared to who you are as a mental warrior today? Vokoun: “Well, when I look back at everything, one thing I know that you must have is life experience. If you’re young, you just don’t have it. You may be quicker or have better reactions, but you don’t have the experience. You get that experience over the years when stuff happens to you, and then you try to deal with it and overcome stuff. It’s a huge boost for your state of mind as a goalie to experience things. I always worked with a lot of sports psychologists and stuff like that, so I have routines and things I do, just as much as anyone else in the game. But while I have been trying and doing everything, and while it has been helpful, you just have to take what works for you. Sitting in a room and talking about something is never going to give you the confidence. You get the confidence from playing and succeeding, from overcoming things and sometimes failing and then coming back.” Goldman: I know before we started this interview you mentioned that you were willing to open up about a major mental obstacle you’ve faced throughout your career. Is now a good time to talk about that? Vokoun: “Sure. I mean, I have OCD, so when I was young, I was battling that problem in the early stages of my career when I was in Nashville. They helped me control it and I talked to the doctors there and they helped me with it. When you’re young, you’re almost too much into hockey and you almost literally live and die by it. When I played bad, I was always down on myself and it was really hard to come out because I was depressed even away from the rink. But once you get a little older and you get kids and settle down, you do stuff differently. It’s still so important obviously because it’s your job – you want to do well because you’re in front of a lot of people, so you want to be successful for those reasons. But on the other hand, it’s only a game and you kind of have a bigger view of life once you’re older. Even though I still love the game and I’m sitting here talking about it but not playing right now [due to the lockout], it’s going to be really hard to walk away from it when I’m done. But on the other hand, it’s just a game, and we are such a resilient species, so we can deal with a lot of different stuff. Some people choose not to, but if you’re strong enough, then you can overcome a lot of things. It makes you not just a better player, but a better person. That is why you must learn from your experiences and see everything as a challenge.” Goldman: So with someone who has battled with OCD, how did you learn to keep things positive and not get depressed when things went wrong? Vokoun: “When I was younger, I was making mistakes by not letting things go. That’s one of the hardest things to learn as a goalie. It’s different as a forward or a defenseman because you have support, and you can make a mistake and it may not cost a goal or you likely don’t get singled out. As a goalie, you don’t have that luxury. When you play bad, it’s so obvious and everyone is looking at you and blaming you for the loss. So for me now, it’s just about being able to let things go. That was the hardest thing to learn as a player and a goalie with OCD. Because if you’re not able to do that, sooner or later you’re going to drain yourself so much that you’re not going to be able to play at your best. If you can’t sleep because of a loss, you’re dragging after a couple of bad games and you can’t free yourself from that issue and start over, then you’re not going to be able to be a successful goalie in the NHL.” Goldman: This is a tough follow-up question, but how do you let things go? Vokoun: “Well I always admired goalies like Dominik Hasek – when he would give up a bad goal early in a game, he would find ways to stop the next 45 shots. That’s a prime example of what you need to be doing. You just have to have a short memory. Sometimes you have to remember that and use it as a constant reminder by saying, ‘Listen, I’ve done this before, there’s no reason why I can’t do it again.’ I think letting things go is a lesson that takes time to learn. That’s why when you’re young, you don’t even know how. Then you learn a little bit, and you start to think you know. Then you go a few more years and one day you’re like, ‘oh man...this is what it means!’ It’s just a process, you know? But you can’t learn and can’t get to be where you want to be until you go through the process. You know, it would be so easy to just read it in a book and then know everything when you’re 21 or 22. But it doesn’t work that way. You have to listen to your own experiences and be able to use it to your advantage.” Author’s Note: See our chapter on the Four Stages of Development for a great example of what Vokoun just discussed. Goldman: So once you joined Nashville and had this new approach, how did you become more consistent? Vokoun: “For me, it was just a process. In my first two or three years, I battled inconsistency because I was young. I would have unbelievable periods, then very average ones. I think now that I look back, that’s what I did to be really steady – I just kept playing and played for 10 years under different teams and in different systems. That’s what I’m most proud of in my career. Of course I’d like to be talking about having three Stanley Cups, but I’m proud that I have been able to play at a high level for so long and in so many different situations, because for a goalie it’s a very hard thing to do. Not everything goes perfectly or smoothly. Sometimes you run into problems and injuries or you play behind bad teams. But how you’re able to respond and how you can come back says a lot about what you’re doing and who you are.”