Canada is eager to have a strong showing at the World Junior Championship set to take place in Helsinki, Finland, between December 26th and January 5th. Heading into the tournament, the staff of Team Canada has encouraged their players to stay off of social media throughout the duration of the tournament in order to keep their focus on hockey and only hockey.
Connor McDavid advised the young skaters to stay away from social media, as seen on TSN.ca.
“Turn your phones off, turn Twitter off, turn Instagram, whatever you’ve got, turn it off. Just try to make the world you live in as small as possible.”
McDavid’s advice echos that of Canada’s director of player personnel Ryan Jankowski.
“It was great to have Connor say that because it reinforces our message. We want to be in a little bit of a bubble there, especially being in Europe with the time difference. Everybody’s supportive back home but sometimes they don’t understand that that support can be a disruption.”
McDavid went on to add that during a previous tournament he was reading everything people were saying about the tournament and that made it extremely difficult to focus.
It doesn’t sound like Canada has an official policy against social media usage, but instead they’re suggesting heavily that the players switch off during the tournament. This all sounds like great advice, but it remains to be seen if the young hockey players will be able to follow it.
[ TSN.ca]
