Stockholm old town seen from the south.

Discussion with Christian Yngve,

Director of Coaching, MYHA Girls Program:

Stockholm on the Potomac

By Anna Caraveli

To hear Christian Yngve describe his childhood in Sweden, one can be easily transported to towns with grey skies, red and black sloping roofs, tall church spires and water everywhere—rivers, seashores, lakes and ponds.  You begin to think that skating on frozen ponds, spontaneously forming teams when enough of your neighborhood peers are around, and staging impromptu hockey games is as natural as walking and breathing. And this is precisely at the core of Christian’s coaching philosophy: Emulate as much as possible the natural conditions that in certain regions make playing hockey effortless and innate to one’s way of experiencing the world. Provide a sound framework and guiding path but allow, above all, children to have fun on the ice, learn, experiment and own the experience. The rest will fall into place naturally.

I had known about Christian’s accolades long before coming to this club in the fall. Parents and coaches from other clubs seem to me to speak about him with a mixture of awe and envy. I knew that he had been Head Coach of Sweden’s Olympic Team, and the person who led them to their Bronze Medal victory at the 2002 Salt Lake Games. He was involved in International competition for over 13 years, and is regarded as one hockey’s brightest talents. He became MYHA’s Director of Coaching for the Girls Program, and Head Coach of the 16U National Bound team, in 2003.

Montgomery is a well established club that has been around for over 40 years. Among the pioneers in developing a comprehensive and sizeable girls program, and a leader in nurturing girls’ hockey in the region, the club has had a girls' program for 10 years now. With the incorporation of Pride in its fold, one of the nation’s leading 19U pre-college programs, and a senior team of highly acclaimed and visionary�coaches, Montgomery’s girls program is charting a new ambitious course for its future. Still, Rockville is a long way from Stockholm.  I was curious to learn what brought such an accomplished coach to this region, what his impressions have been and what kind of vision he may have for the future. In my hour-long interview in his office, tucked away at the corner of one of the two rinks in Rockville, Christian Yngve generously shared his philosophy, experiences and vision for the girls’ program.

Born in Stockholm, Christian started playing competitively at the age of 6. Hockey is one of Sweden’s 2-3 major sports. The biggest difference he sees between Swedish and US youth hockey is that in Sweden “young players are given more time to develop. You are not expected to be a star by the age of 9. You are not judged by the team you play on—at least not before your mid or late teens—and there is no push to land a spot in a prestigious team.  Players develop at a more natural pace.”

“Hockey is expensive. In the US parents look at it as an investment and expect measurable returns on it.”   Christian continues.  The pressure to succeed along certain tracks, he believes, is driven by adults and not kids. It gains momentum with time and escalates expectations to the point where they are no longer in sync with reality. After all, he points out, there is no pro hockey for girls. A limited number can play college hockey, but even then so much depends on factors that may have nothing to do with skill, such as what slots are available for a certain position at a particular college at a particular point in time. “It comes down to how you measure success,” Christian reflects. “And if you want to apply the exact same measures for everybody.”

While aiming at building one of the top girls programs in the nation, Christian applies different metrics for judging success. His goal is to create a hockey program that builds character, social skills and team work. “A wolf is not strong without a pack,” he concludes. “It takes more than a star for a team to win.” And this is perhaps the most valuable skill to cultivate. “Everyone brings something to the team.�Girls learn a great deal from understanding how their individual skills and functions contribute to the team; how to recognize what others bring; and how to help each other maximize the team’s potential.” It is this learning process that develops competencies that are transferable to all aspects of life, such as self knowledge, social skills and confidence.  

From the time of his six-year old debut as a competitive player, Christian played until an injury ended his career at the age of 24.�Coaching was not a sudden change of direction for him, however. He started coaching at the age of 13 as an assistant coach, and continued in a variety of coaching capacities ever since.

He became involved with women’s hockey through serendipity when a friend, who coached a girls’ team, asked him to help with the goalie. The rest is history. In 1989, he was asked to help coach Sweden’s national team.

In 1990, he completed training in higher coaching levels and became Head Coach. Under his direction, this team earned an Olympic bronze medal in the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake,.

Consulting and running a camp for Norway women’s national team 

Paradoxically, in spite of his stellar rise and international acclaim in the sport, his current position at Montgomery is his first full-time, paying coaching job. “Up to the 2002,” Christian muses, “all of us were volunteers. The (Swedish) federation only paid for the 20 days it took me to process paper work before the Olympics.” How a bronze medal changes things! Christian sounds amused when he describes the current full- time head coach and staff of assistants that Sweden has been supporting since his Salt Lake City Bronze medal.

Having served as key architect in the development of women’s hockey in Sweden, Christian is now focusing his amazing combination of talents, experiences, energy and enthusiasm to building Montgomery girls’ hockey into one of the premier clubs in the nation.�To my questions, “why the US” and “why Montgomery,” Christian simply answers: “I was ready for a new challenge.”

His links to the region can be traced to his relationship with Pride’s head coach, Kush Sidhu, since 1997. He met Kush when he started spending summers in the US, coaching summer camps. The relationship grew over the years as Christian helped set up games for Pride in Sweden, and Kush invited Christian to coach at his summer camp in Colorado. Meeting Pam Weiss at the Southeast District Development camp, when the Montgomery club was looking for a director of its girls program, took Christian’s relationship with the US in a different direction. He was offered, and accepted, the job and started a new chapter in his career in September 2003.

So what is the challenge that drew Christian here and continues to energize and excite him? “It is to develop,” he explains, “a premier hockey program in a region where hockey is not natural—is not a part of the growing experience.”

Explaining how he plans to meet such challenge brings out a glow of excitement in Christian’s face. A key to his approach is to create the conditions that will nurture love for the sport in kids, and will make hockey skills feel like second nature to them, rather than memorized responses. Formal and rigid practices are not the best tool for ingraining hockey skills in young players.�“When you do everything strictly,” he says, “especially in the case of inexperienced or inadequate coaches, you impose limitations on players’ development. Kids do not get the chance to experiment, create their own challenges and learn from each other.”  Top down teaching is not effective in developing players’ instincts and abilities to choose among various options, according to Christian. His coaching emphasizes interactive learning over imparting information; nurturing players’ ability to recognize what they need to learn and how to correct a mistake. In Christian’s coaching philosophy, coaches facilitate but kids drive their learning. Two values, in particular, are the foundation of his philosophy.

“First and foremost kids need to have fun playing; really enjoy the sport,” Christian asserts with conviction. “It is love of playing hockey that will motivate them to want to improve and learn.”

Secondly, “kids need to learn from each other and through experiences they drive and challenges they set up, rather than only through fixed drills and assigned positions.”

Asked what his dream hockey program would be, Christian offers a vision and strategy he has clearly worked long and hard to develop.  

In an ideal scenario, kids would be on the ice 5 days a week rather than 2. The emphasis would be on enjoyment and development, rather than the number of games teams played. He envisions three possible approaches for achieving this objective.

1. Creating a prep school for hockey players on site. Rockville has considerable space, especially on the second floor that could be developed into a wonderful learning environment and accommodate tutorial sessions, group projects and seminar-style teaching.�The school would combine a stimulating and innovative curriculum with the ability to intersperse hockey development and integrate hockey with academic learning seamlessly, throughout the day.

2. A type of extended school program, with players coming to the rink each afternoon after school between 1 and 5pm. Their time at the rink would include supervised study, hockey practice and socializing with peers. On- ice time would emphasize large blocks of time in which players would be free to enjoy the ice as if they were skating on their neighborhood ponds: improvising hockey games, practicing on their own and having fun. Adults on the ice would monitor and facilitate but not coach in the traditional sense.

The rink would be fashioned into more of a hospitable place for the whole family, for example featuring computer work stations where parents could do work while waiting.

3. Both of the above options or a combination of aspects from both.

Christian and other coaches at the club are considering these and other options and improvements and are developing a long-term strategy. I asked what would be indicators of success five years from now and Christian answers:

“I want girls and all players in general, when they look back at their experience with this hockey club, to think of it as a wonderful, golden period in their lives. There are clubs where kids are so obsessed with winning that they barely talk to each other. The most valuable lesson to learn in this club is how to work together—for each other and with each other.

I want the girls program to be competitive at the MWEHL and the District levels. But if you do the right things, motivation and confidence will increase and skills will improve naturally.

I want the program to be recognized, not only for results in competitions, but also for the way we do things; not just the wins, but the basic set of values, philosophy and development principles that are at the core of what this club is, and set us apart from others. In Sweden we call this, ”the red thread”—the shared values that run through all the different functions and activities, give us identity and make us a community.”

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Christian and the coaches are also working on defining the best strategy for developing physical, emotional and mental competencies in players on a long-term trajectory—from initiation to pre-college playing.�Echoing some of the most recent thinking among educators, Christian recognizes differences in learning styles. He understands that for effective learning, he has to address the motivations and interests of each individual player and is guiding the development of effective coaching methods.

Christian is well on his way to accomplishing his goals:
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Montgomery has had 3 of its 4 girls teams advance from the Southeast District to the National Tournament.