Happy Hockey Holidays: A Time to Reflect, Reset & Improve as We Look Back at 2025

By Scott Lowe – MYHockeyRankings.com

Every year when January 1 arrives, we get to start over.

No matter how good or bad the previous 365 days were for us or the world, the new year provides an opportunity to reset and bring a fresh attitude and approach to the year that is in front of us.

It’s an exciting time that also carries a hint of sadness. The winter holiday season provides us with an opportunity to slow down for a few days and spend time with those who are close to us reflecting on the year that is behind us and thinking about what might lie ahead.

While we can’t wait to see what the future holds, we often marvel at how quickly the year passed and wonder where the time goes. As we get older, the years come and go so quickly that they tend to get lumped together in our minds, and we often find ourselves reflecting on the past in general instead of just the one single year that is winding down.

We all have fond memories to fall back on and turn to no matter what life throws at us. The best part about reflecting is the emotions that can surface from the process. Thinking about people and pets who have come and gone in our lives, the events that have impacted us over time and how our kids are no longer kids or how fast they are growing up can elicit smiles, laughter or tears in a matter of minutes.

That’s healthy and should be part of the yearly cleansing process as we prepare to hit the ground running on Day 1 of the new year.

As legendary basketball coach Jim Valvano said, “To me, there are three things we all should do every day … Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think; you should spend some time in thought. And number three is you should have your emotions moved to tears. Could be happiness or joy, but think about it. If you laugh, you think and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. {If} you do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special.”

What a powerful statement, and it came from someone who knew he didn’t have much time left to live. It’s even more powerful to watch the complete speech, which I urge you to do if you haven’t.

That speech was made in 1993, more than 30 years ago, but his words have withstood the test of time. It is replayed often on ESPN and probably will be long after many of us are gone.

Imagine how healthy it would be to take a few minutes for ourselves to reflect daily instead of waiting for the end of the year. If not every day, how about on a Tuesday in February when the glow of the new year has disappeared, the sky is gray, temperatures are low and we are back to slogging our way through daily life?

Instead of just going through the motions, maybe dreading going to work or school and just settling into a daily routine that quickly can become stale or maybe even makes us miserable, what if we just watched that speech or spent 15 minutes reflecting and having our emotions stirred in that manner?

It’s possible that in the hectic world that is 2026, a time when many of us are stretched too thin and are running from one activity or responsibility to another while constantly feeling rushed, stressed out and frazzled, taking time to reflect seven days a week is too much to ask. Perhaps we can start with one day a week to see how it goes.

Here’s an idea; instead of spending Sunday evening dwelling on the week ahead and possibly worrying about what the work or school week might hold or dreading what Monday might bring, consider watching that speech. It’s 11 minutes long and is guaranteed to make you think while also moving you to laughter and tears.

That would be a heck of a start to the week.

No matter how many times I watch Coach Valvano stand up in front of that audience and the millions of others watching at home – after literally getting up from his death bed to be there – it cleanses my soul. If I’m flipping through the channels and I see him on that stage – whether it’s the beginning, middle or end of the speech – I stop to watch.

And every time I’m thankful that I did.

This isn’t about new year’s resolutions that we never keep; it’s about making a change to our routines that can have a positive impact on our quality of life as well as those we interact with daily.

Wouldn’t it be cool to feel an excitement and desire to tackle life every Monday similar to what we feel on January 1 instead of progressively getting more bogged down with everything we have to deal with as the year progresses?

Maybe the process would be so fulfilling that we would make a point to find the time to reflect in a similar manner twice a week, or three times or perhaps every single day. Instead of 15 or 20 minutes, maybe on other days we could find five or 10 minutes to spend on improving our mental health. That could be a huge win for us and others in our lives who we care about.

Then, if we were to run into others in need of a pick-me-up or who are struggling with their day-to-day situations, we could just mention our approach and suggest that they take 15 or 20 minutes on a Sunday to try it out and see how it goes. If 10 people read this and give it a shot then pass the idea on to two or three others and they do the same, imagine the positive impact that could have.  

This is just a suggestion during what has become an uncertain time for many of us.

In the United States, we seem to be more divided as a nation than at any previous point in my lifetime, and there seems to be a stronger feeling of anger among the general population than I ever can remember. For those of us with children – even kids who have graduated from college and are pursuing their careers – the feelings can range from concern, to worry, to fear when we think about what the future may hold for us and them.

You might ask why this is being posted on a website that focuses on hockey. Well, sports long have been seen as an escape from the day-to-day grind for those who participate and spectate.

For the participating athletes, leading an active lifestyle, competing and being part of a team provides physical, mental and emotional benefits that have been proven over time to improve their quality of life. And for spectators and fans, sports can serve as a catharsis and escape from day-to-day life that can elicit feelings and emotions that, as mentioned previously, are healthy for us to experience.

The problem is that much of the same anger and division we see every day seems to have infiltrated the sports world at all levels. Instead of being a healthy escape, sports have become a reflection of what we are trying to get away from for a few hours. It seems like almost every week a video is posted somewhere showing fans at a sporting event fighting or parents of young athletes threatening each other, a coach or an official.

Most of the hockey families I talk to or work with seem to almost always be mad about something. Sometimes they are mad at the coach and their child’s role on a team or playing time. Other times it’s the teammates who don’t care as much or get preferential treatment. If they aren’t angry about those things, it might be the organization their child plays for or the officials or the scouts and coaches for the teams they want their kid to play for in the future.

These feelings of anger trickle down to the kids playing the sport.

Kids are sponges who often form their thoughts and opinions based on the behavior they observe among the adults in their lives. Those thoughts and opinions can be carried to the locker room and infiltrate a team rapidly. If multiple parents are impacting multiple players on a team in a negative manner and those players are bringing that negativity to practices and games, we all know the likely outcome for everyone involved – and it’s not good.

Too many young hockey players who I observe are angry, miserable or both. These players are not the youngest as they generally are playing because they love to compete and spend time with their teammates on and off the ice.

Something changes at about age 13. For boys, checking becomes a larger component of the sport around that age, and some kids just don’t enjoy the contact. That’s also about the time that parents start pushing kids to play year-round and seem to be constantly talking about what summer teams or showcases their kids are attending, what tryout camps they are going to and what teams they are getting offers from for the following season. Just like with the anger and negativity, these conversations begin to creep into the locker room.

The positives of sports participation tend to get lost as players get older and everything becomes a little more serious. Some players naturally begin to separate from the pack in terms of their skill and ability, throwing new emotions into the mix.

As players get more outside attention – and they and their parents flaunt that publicly – young athletes may begin to experience new feelings such as being jealous of their teammates and fearing that maybe they aren’t good enough to keep playing with their buddies. The more-skilled players might feel pressure to perform for the first time and start to worry about not living up to expectations or letting their parents down.

An activity that at one time had provided an escape for the players who looked forward to going to the rink and playing a sport they loved in an environment where everyone was accepted and considered an equal, easily can morph into just another activity that simply isn’t fun or even becomes stressful. This can happen to both the weaker and stronger players for different reasons and is something that should be monitored by parents and coaches.

It’s imperative that the adults in the room behave like adults, remember how much influence their actions and words can have on their children and keep the focus on the positives that sports participation are supposed to provide. Parents of young athletes can spend at least a few minutes of their weekly reflection time thinking about how their actions might be impacting their children and the joy that they feel – or perhaps once felt – from simply seeing them compete and have fun participating and being around their teammates.

Have those feelings changed for either the parent, the child or maybe even both? If so, what parental behaviors might have contributed to the changes and is a reset needed?

If there are concerns that the child isn’t happy or having fun playing the sport, maybe the solution is as simple as setting aside some time to reflect together and remind each other that hockey is a game and should be fun first and foremost. Talk about all the good things that happened on the ice during the past week and how fun it is to watch and play in the games while avoiding analysis and criticisms.

Maybe even consider throwing that old video from 1993 on, watching it together and talking about how awesome it is just to have the opportunity to participate in something that brings – or once brought – so much joy to the parent and child.

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As we discuss the importance of reflection and how it can improve our mental health and quality of life, it’s time to take our annual look back at the year in hockey.

And what a year it was.

For hockey fans, 2025 brought us three back-to-back champions: the Florida Panthers in the NHL, the Minnesota Frost in the PWHL and Team USA at the World Junior Championship.

An aging Russian became the greatest goal-scorer in NHL history and continued adding to his record with regularity during the first half of the 2025-26 season. Will 2026 be the last year we get to watch Alex Ovechkin score and celebrate like it’s the first goal of his career every. single time?

Meanwhile, Ovie’s longtime rival and partner in serving as the face of hockey, Sidney Crosby, continued to play at an all-star level while climbing various lists of all-time league and Pittsburgh Penguins leaders in too many categories to list here.

Crosby’s former teammate and Stanley Cup winner, the beloved “Flower” Marc-Andre Fleury, made his farewell tour and even returned to the ‘Burgh for one final preseason appearance.

Last year, as Fleury was skating off into the sunset, we wrote about a potential last dance for the Penguins’ trio of Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris LeTang. But the Pens have been energized by a new coach and Crosby is producing like he’s 25 again, so maybe we’ll get a few more years to enjoy their skill and prepare to give them a proper sendoff?

Players we once considered young such as Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon continued to mature and dominate the sport while those next in line to achieve superstar status such as Macklin Celebrini, Connor Bedard, Jack Hughes, Cale Makar, Nick Suzuki and Lane Hutson proved they will be more than capable of carrying the torch going forward.

And in Boston, some guy named Geekie teamed up with a dude they call Pasta to tie MacKinnon for the most goals in the 2025 calendar year.

Another player who spent part of 2025 playing in Boston and is the face of women’s hockey in the United States – as well as one of the greatest international players of all time – Hilary Knight announced that she would be retiring from international competition following the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics. She and her longtime Canadian rival Marie-Philip Poulin, the International Ice Hockey Federation’s Player of the year in 2025, will battle it out one more time for gold in February on Italian ice.

Thanks to those two and a host of other amazing talents and trailblazers, the Professional Women’s Hockey League enjoyed another successful, record-breaking season in Year 2 and expanded by two teams. The 2025-26 campaign has gotten off to yet another spectacular start, with the league showing no signs of slowing down and already talking about expanding again.

Jumping back to international hockey, the 4 Nation’s Face-off began amid some skepticism among hockey fans who wondered how seriously National Hockey League players would take a stand-alone international tournament played in the middle of their season. Those questions were answered quickly by a line brawl between the United States and Canada and some of the best, most intense hockey we’ve ever seen in that type of setting.

It all points to a memorable 2026, with the best players in the world assembling to compete at the Winter Olympics in February.

As always, we would like to recognize those who provided us with so many great hockey memories in 2025 – and to remember those who are moving on from the sport and who we lost – by wishing them Happy Hockey Holidays.

 

Happy Hockey Holidays to:

Alex Ovechkin and Wayne Gretzky – the “Goats”

Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang, Evegeni Malkin and Mike Sullivan – Pittsburgh icons

Marc-Andre Fleury, Pat Maroon, Max Pacioretty, Tyson Barrie, Derek Ryan, Cam Atkinson, Erik Johnson, Chad Ruhwedel, Tyler Johnson, Craig Smith and Sam Rosen – thanks for the memories

Zdeno Chara, Duncan Keith, Jennifer Bottterill, Brianna Decker, Alexander Molgilny and Joe Thornton – Hall of Famers in anybody’s book

Hilary Knight and Marie-Phllip Poulin – once more on the biggest stage in 2026

Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, Kirill Kaprizov and Nathan MacKinnon – today’s torchbearers

Macklin Celebrini, Cale Makar, Jack Hughes and Connor Bedard – tomorrow’s torchbearers

Matthew Schaefer – welcome to the club

Matthew Tkachuk, Brady Tkachuk, J.T. Miller, Brandon Hagel, Sam Bennett and Colton Parayko – the rivalry is real

Sarah Fillier and Taylor Heise – the other rivalry is in great hands

Paul Maurice and Jon Cooper – is Florida the new hockey capital of North America?

Jake Oettinger and Peter DeBoer – we pay to see the players

Mark and Brad Scheifele - $55 for 55

Brad Marchand, Seth Jones and Nico Sturm – right place, right team, right time

Morgan Geekie and David Pastrnak – Beantown buddies

Tristan Jarry and Stuart Skinner – just leave your pads in the locker room

Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews – the last links

Steven Stamkos and John Tavares – that’s a lot of goals

Mitch Marner and Jack Eichel – hitting the jackpot

Mikko Rantanen and Martin Necas – a change can do you good

Detroit Red Wings and their fans – welcome back, Hockeytown

Tom McVie, Shawn Simpson, Mike Lange, Mark Laforest, Greg Millen, Ray Shero, Ed Van Impe, Phil Roberto, Murray Anderson, Alex Delvecchio, Bobby Rousseau, Lyndon Byers, Wayne Thomas, Ken Dryden, Bob Goodenow, Ed Giacomin, Bernie Parent, Leon Stickle, Mel Bridgman, Larry Brooks, Richard Zamboni, Paul Gagne and Guy Chouinard – RIP; gone but never forgotten

 

Happy New Year from all of us at MYHockey Rankings!