Danny Taylor is a 21 year old second year pro with the Los Angeles Kings. He plays for their AHL team, the Manchester Monarchs. Danny was born in England, but grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. He played three years in the OHL.
Here is his entry:
I wake up an hour before I need to be at the rink for the morning skate. I eat a solid breakfast and read the paper. When I get to the rink I warm-up as I do every practice with 15 minutes of stretching and 5 minutes of working on my eye-hand coordination with a squash ball.
I don't have any superstitions with getting dressed. I just like to make sure my skates are sharpened well. I approach the morning skate the same way I do for practice. I treat it as if it was a game. I make sure that my focus and technique is strong. The skate lasts a half hour. I like to stay out a little longer to work on a few power play situations.
Danny Taylor - Los Angeles Kings Prospect
Afterwards, I watch a DVD of my last game and make notes on what I will need to focus on for the game that night. There are two areas I focus on for game night - technical and mental. Technical things include ice awareness (i.e. who's back door, how many players are on the rush), communicating with my defense, challenging and making sure I'm always centered and square. Those are the main technical aspects of my game that I rely on when the game gets intense. I like to keep things simple which helps when the game is on the line. The mental things I focus on are breathing smoothly and visual attachment on the puck. Breathing smoothly is key when I get nervous at any point of the game and start to get anxious. I write these notes in a book and I re-read them before the game and before every period.
After taking notes for the night’s game, I like to clear my mind of everything and go eat some pasta with my teammates. The game is stressful enough so I don't like to think about it anymore until I get back to the rink for the game. I normally nap from 2-4 pm depending on game time. I prefer not to sleep longer then two hours because too much sleep makes me feel tired coming to the rink.
I get to the rink two hours before the game and make sure my sticks are taped and ready to go. After taping my stick I check my gear and make sure everything is in working order. The team has a meeting about an hour and a half before the game to go over some team strategy. After the meeting my teammates and I are put through a dynamic warm-up. Then, I work on my eye-hand coordination for about five minutes or however long I need to feel ready.
As I mentioned before, I don't have any superstitions with getting dressed, but I do like to keep lose by listening to music or talking to teammates. I'm ready with at least two minutes before warm-up and head on the ice with the team.
After warm-up I make sure I'm hydrated and in the right frame of mind by reading the notes I took after the morning skate. I'm ready to go out on the ice two minutes before the puck drops with my team. As I head onto the ice I tap my stick twice on the boards and take a couple hard strides towards my goal. I skate toward the left post and stop on the post with my left leg making sure the water bottle is on my net facing toward me. I shuffle the crease facing the same direction going forwards first once, and backwards once noticing any bad ice. There is usually a minute before the puck drops and I quickly do some movement drills on my feet and then head into my final stretch. After the stretch I do a couple power slides, get up to my post, take a drink of water and I'm finally ready for the game to begin.
Danny Taylor
