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About

Bloodline Hockey

The Bloodline

Philosophy

For players to reach their full potential, they must make mental conditioning an integral part of their training regimen. By increasing awareness, harnessing your instincts, developing the right habits, and conditioning your mind, you will reach peak performance as an athlete and a person.

The Bloodline

Mission

Our mission is to enable good hockey players to become great players by unleashing their true potential through mental conditioning training.

Our Team

Vinny Malts

Founder / Coach

Who We Work With

Our Services

mindSET Method ™

Private Coaching

Keynote Speaking

Team/Organization Consulting 

Testimonials

I have been dialed in.

Jared S. | Athlete

I Know

Remmy M. | Athlete

It has translated onto the ice.

Ian D. | Athlete

My self awareness has completely changed.

Bryce H. | Athlete

I have a conscious mind.

Nick S. | Athlete

More confident and focused

Steve N. | Director of Yale Jr Bulldogs

Follow Us

First time in almost six years. ⠀ 20 players. U1 First time in almost six years. ⠀ 20 players. U15 and up. Three months. Starts November 8th. ⠀ Confidence. Pressure. Emotions. Leadership. Character. The perspective no one is actually teaching players right now. As far as we know, this combination of teaching and mentorship doesn’t exist in the mindset space yet. That’s what makes this opportunity different. ⠀ One guarantee: there will come a moment in this group where we will shift your perspective for good #iykyk ⠀ If this message is speaking to you, DM me for more details. ⠀ #play4THATfeeling
One of our favorite mindset performance exercises One of our favorite mindset performance exercises for building communication and critical thinking. We hear a lot of coaches say, “Players today have great skill, but they can’t think the game.” Try this. STEP 1: Pick a structure that fits the nature and style of your team. Is your team fast? Do they battle hard? Are they more passive? Build the structure that suits who your team is, so they think less and do more. STEP 2: Let the players create the plays inside that structure. What forecheck plays can we create off our forecheck? What neutral zone plays can we create off our regroup? What D zone plays can we create off our D zone coverage? What faceoff plays can we create off our faceoffs? etc… We don’t hand players a blank canvas. We give them a clear framework, then teach them how to think, communicate, and create solutions within it #ATP STEP 3: Give them a prompting system to collaborate and think through it together. IDENTIFY: What are we going to do? DIRECT: Let’s go do it and see what happens. OWN: What did you see and learn from experiencing it? Afterwards, we’re closing the gap between what we did and what we wanted to do. Without intention and intervention, that gap is hard to find. You need to know what we’re thinking collectively, not just what each player thinks about the process individually. There is no such thing as too young to express and test your own thought process. I’ve run this exact exercise with pros and with mites #iykyk Imagine if we consistently created the conditions for players to experience this kind of collaboration and accountability. How much would it benefit their mindset? How much would it benefit the team’s mindset? Think about it. Identify the play. Direct the play. Own the play. I am what #IDO #play4THATfeeling
Date night with my Princess🥰 Date night with my Princess🥰
You’d never lift for an hour before puck drop. S You’d never lift for an hour before puck drop. So why are you scrolling for one? Your legs and your brain run on the same tank. Here’s the difference most players miss. There’s thinking you choose, and thinking that chooses you. When you scroll, you’re not picking anything. The feed picks for you. Every video, every swipe is a thinking rep you didn’t choose. You still paid for it mentally. 48 of those before 3pm, and you show up to the rink a step slower. Not empty. Just a step slower. Then you’re half a step late on a loose puck and blame your legs. It wasn’t your legs. Choiceful thinking is a different game. Film. Visualization. Thinking about your next shift on purpose. Those reps cost you too, but they build you. The scroll just costs you. That’s the work. Learning to choose what gets your attention instead of letting it get chosen for you. If you don’t train your choices, your choices will train you👀 Protect the mental tank. Save your reps for the ice. Send this to a teammate who’s on his phone right now. #play4THATfeeling
I am who I am, and I get to choose who I become. I am who I am, and I get to choose who I become. We all do. That’s what I love about the interplay between us. We impact one another while each of us is learning to be at peace with who we are. I didn’t choose the life I was born into. I didn’t choose this time, my family, or being a man. I didn’t even choose hockey. These were circumstances I was given. That’s the dance between me and Hashem. The Talmud says, “Everything is in the hands of Heaven, except for fear of Heaven.” I used to think I had control over everything. Now I see it differently. I can’t choose where my story begins, but I can choose how I meet it. I can choose how I live, how I treat people, and who I become through those choices. As an older man, one of the biggest things I’ve learned is how to recognize who I already am. To accept myself. To become familiar with myself. To believe in the person I was born with the capacity to become. And the irony of those who tried to break me? They didn’t build me. I did. What happened to me didn’t decide who I would be. How I responded did. I don’t need to expose them. Who I became already did. It’s as simple as that. #play4THATfeeling
“I told him so many times.” Okay. But how did “I told him so many times.” Okay. But how did you tell him? How did you teach him? This is the challenge we all deal with as coaches, and we definitely don’t put enough emphasis on it. Making sure our message is actually understood. That responsibility is on us #facts Every player on your roster thinks differently. That’s why we always use the sandwich analogy. Once I figure out if they’re a cheesesteak or a PB&J type of player, then I make sure the message hits their mental taste buds in that way #iykyk That’s the work from a leadership standpoint. Not getting frustrated with them because they’re not understanding it my way. Really leaning into how THEY understand it. This is something I’ve worked very hard on over the years to challenge myself on. What are all the different ways I can help a player understand information? Is it a voice text I can send them? Is it a regular text message written out? Is it an infographic? Is it an interview of somebody else talking about it? Is it a story, a narrative I can create for them? Is it a song I could create for them? With one of my pro players, I tried so many different ways for him to mentally taste what we were working on. Ultimately, what I realized was he loved positive highlight-style clips. As soon as we landed on that, we just kept doing it over and over and over again. The more he saw the positive plays he was making, instead of always hearing about the negative ones, the more confidence he began to feel. He doesn’t need anything more. The nature of the game is always changing. New opponent every night. So he’s always getting fresh new positive looks, and he loves it. That’s the sandwich analogy. Figure out the best way a player learns, then hit it over and over. And trust me when I tell you, I’m not perfect at it. Right now I’m trying to teach this way to 10-year-olds, and it is extremely nerve-wracking lol. But I know the responsibility lies on me, not the other way around. So next time you hear yourself say “I told him so many times,” ask yourself one question: How many different ways did I teach my player? #play4THATfeeling
Seven ASU hockey players challenged their universi Seven ASU hockey players challenged their university’s account of what happened to their teammate and asked for an investigation outside the university. The facts deserve that review. I’m not here to judge the outcome before it’s in. ⠀ But it made me ask something bigger. ⠀ This is complex. There are a lot of good people inside these institutions. People work incredibly hard just to get in. Years of sacrifice to earn a spot, a job, a role. ⠀ And once you’re in, the size of it can be overwhelming. It can feel impossible to challenge something that large, especially when your future depends on it. Most of us know that feeling. I’ve got my own stories I kept close because I understood who held the power. ⠀ So the question isn’t only what an institution says it’s here to do. It’s what being inside it does to us. ⠀ What does being part of that culture turn us into? Does it bring out the best in us, or the worst? ⠀ And if it’s bringing out the worst, we have to ask why. Why do the standards, the behaviors, and the influence of that place pull that out of people? Can we build systems that get to the core of it, instead of waiting for someone brave enough to say it out loud? ⠀ This isn’t about going soft. Be demanding. Hold a high standard. Give tough love. ⠀ High standards need high care to match. That’s the part we’re questioning. ⠀ We’ve all watched families walk from a team. Players leave a program in waves. One exit is a story. A pattern is a question. And too often, we don’t ask it until someone is forced to. ⠀ We hide way more than we seek.
The slides make the argument. Here’s the part yo The slides make the argument. Here’s the part you can use. Two kinds of tight. Social cohesion: how much the group likes being together. Task cohesion: how committed the group is to getting the job done together. Both matter. You can be high on one and low on the other and not know it, because the room feels great either way. Three questions to check which one you’re carrying. 1. When a rep breaks in practice, does anyone say run it again, or does it get laughed off? Why it matters: the laugh-off is where the standard quietly drops. Not in a game. In a Tuesday practice nobody remembers. What to do: be the one who says it. Once. Not a callout, a habit. What it buys you: a team that runs it again in October isn’t figuring it out in a tied game in March. 2. Do you know what your linemate is going to do before they do it, or do you find out when they do it? Why it matters: guessing costs you half a second. That’s a clean breakout or a turnover. What to do: after practice, ask your linemate one question about one play. What are you doing when the puck goes there? What it buys you: you stop reading each other and start knowing each other. That’s when the game slows down. 3. When the room feels tight, is it because of something you did together, or something you did instead? Why it matters: both feel the same in the moment. Only one holds when you’re down two in the third. What to do: ask what the good feeling is built on. If it’s dinner, go earn the next one at practice. If it’s we just executed something hard together, you’re on Team 2. What it buys you: the beers on the other side of the work taste different. Not because the beers changed. Because now they mean something. Your feelings are fine. Commit to the task. Watch it hold. The feeling comes after, and it’s the one that lasts. Send this to your captain. #play4THATfeeling

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