Questions to Ask Hockey Players
Questions for talking with hockey players, whether you are a new teammate, a parent, a coach, or writing about a team. They start with how someone got into the game and move toward the parts of it that never show up on a scoresheet.
The questions
Open any question for the note
How did you end up playing hockey?
Why ask it
The answer usually splits into two kinds of player: the one who followed a parent or sibling onto the ice at four years old, and the one who picked it up late and had to catch up. Late starters tend to talk about skating first, because that is the gap they felt.
What position do you play, and did you pick it or did someone put you there?
Why ask it
Plenty of players were assigned a position at eight and never moved, and goalies in particular often got there because nobody else volunteered. Someone who chose their spot can usually tell you exactly why, which opens the more interesting conversation.
What is your team like this year?
Why ask it
An easy question with a revealing answer, because players describe either the roster or the room. Hearing about the room first, who shows up early and who pulls the group together, tells you what they actually value about being on a team.
What does a normal week look like in season?
Why ask it
Practice count, game count, travel hours and gym time make the commitment concrete in a way that saying it is a lot never does. It also surfaces the schooling or work they are fitting around it, which is where the real strain sits.
What is the worst ice time you have had to show up for?
Why ask it
Every player has a five in the morning story, and it is the quickest way into the unglamorous side of the sport: the drive, the frozen car, the parent who did it with them for years. It usually loosens up an interview faster than anything about games.
Is there anything in your pre-game routine you would not skip?
Why ask it
The answer separates superstition from preparation, and most players have both. Taping sticks, a specific order for gear, or one song is habit doing the work of calming nerves, and players are often aware of that themselves once asked.
Which piece of your gear will you not replace, no matter how bad it looks?
Why ask it
Skates, gloves and a specific stick pattern all come up, and the reasoning gets specific fast: the break in period, a blade curve nobody makes anymore. It is also a low stakes way to ask about equipment without turning into a shopping conversation.
What do people who have never played hockey get wrong about it?
Why ask it
Fighting and toughness usually come up first, and then the real answer arrives: how much of the game is positioning, reading a play, or how short a shift actually is. It lets a player correct the record instead of answering another question about highlights.
Who taught you the most about the game?
Why ask it
The name is rarely the most decorated coach they have had. It is often an assistant, an older teammate or a parent, and what they taught, usually something about work rather than skill, is the part worth following up on.
What have you worked on this season that nobody watching would notice?
Why ask it
Good players answer with something small and unglamorous: crossovers on their weak side, taking a pass in their feet, keeping their stick on the ice through a change. A player who cannot name anything is usually not working on anything specific.
What is the hardest part of playing your position?
Why ask it
The answers are position specific and rarely physical: defencemen talk about being beaten to the outside and having to trust their gap, goalies about the minutes after they let in a soft one. It gets you past what is fun to what is difficult.
What actually happens on the bench between shifts?
Why ask it
Outsiders assume it is quiet recovery, and players will tell you it is information: who is on the ice, what the other team is doing, a defenceman correcting the forwards. It gives a listener a picture of the game that broadcasts never show.
How do you handle it when your mistake leads to a goal?
Why ask it
Listen for whether the answer includes what happens on the next shift, since the players who last are the ones who describe getting back out rather than replaying it. An answer about never thinking about it is usually either a very experienced player or a defensive one.
What is the most physical game you have played in, and how did you feel the next day?
Why ask it
Framing it around the day after gets past bravado and into the honest part: bruises, sleep, missed work or school. It also lets a player talk about the cost of a game without being asked to describe an injury.
How does your team handle a losing streak?
Why ask it
This exposes coaching and leadership at once. Extra skating drills, a shortened practice, or an older player calling a meeting are three very different cultures, and the player will tell you which one they think works.
Aside from skill, what makes someone good to play with?
Why ask it
Answers tend to be about reliability rather than talent: being where you said you would be, taking the hit to make the pass, not sulking after being benched. It is also a quiet way of learning what they think they bring.
What gets said in the room that a coach would never say?
Why ask it
Teams run on a second layer of communication, and this asks about it without asking anyone to break confidence. The gap between the two, or the absence of a gap, says a lot about whether the room is honest.
Is there a game you still think about?
Why ask it
Left open, this pulls up losses at least as often as wins, which is the point. The detail people remember, a specific shift or a call, is usually more telling than the result they can recite.
What has hockey cost you?
Why ask it
Money, time, school, friendships outside the sport and injuries all sit behind this, and asking it plainly gives permission to answer plainly. Players who have thought about it can usually say whether the trade still makes sense to them.
Where do you want this to go, and what does it look like if it does not go that way?
Why ask it
The second half is the real question, and it is the one almost nobody asks. Someone with an answer about coaching, officiating, playing beer league at thirty five or a career outside the sport has thought further ahead than the players who only have the first half.
Talking With Hockey Players
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Pick the Moment
Not in the twenty minutes after a loss
Anything about mistakes, coaching or the future lands badly straight off the ice, especially for a goalie. Wait a day, or ask about gear and routines instead. Players who will not discuss a bad game on Friday will often talk about it in detail by Sunday.
Gear is the easiest opening
Sticks, skates, tape jobs and the smell of a bag are common ground for anyone who has played, and they carry no risk. Two questions about equipment will usually buy you a real answer to a harder question later in the conversation.
Ask about the shift, not the season
Big questions about a season produce summaries. Asking what happened on one specific shift, or what the bench was saying during a penalty kill, produces detail. Detail is what makes the rest of the conversation possible.
Follow-Ups by Position
- Goalie: how they reset after a soft goal, whether they watch video of themselves, how they handle a screen in front of them.
- Defence: how they choose when to step up at the blue line, how they talk to their partner, what they do when they lose a footrace.
- Forward: what happens on a line change, how they read a defenceman's stick, what changes when they get moved to a different line.
- Any position: what the coach asks of them that they find hardest, and what they do well that does not show in the box score.
What Not to Ask
Do not open with injuries
Injury history is medical, and for anyone still competing it is also strategic information. If it comes up in their own answer, follow it. If it does not, leave it alone.
Do not compare them to a professional
Telling a junior or amateur player they remind you of someone in the NHL sounds like praise and usually reads as either flattery or pressure. Ask what they are working on instead.
Do not ask a player to grade a teammate
Questions about who the weak link is, or who should be getting more ice time, put someone in a position they have to live with tomorrow. Ask what makes a good teammate and you will get the same information without the cost.