Intro: This is for the sled dogs in the trenches. Real hockey parents, real stories. The Good and the Gong Show. No filters, no sugarcoating, no politics, just straight hockey talk, and the best guests around the barn. Welcome to the Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast.
Alright, boys. Grind them corners, chirp responsibly, and bring that savage fire.
Scott: Alright, everybody. Welcome back to episode 66 of the Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast powered by Pacific Rink, the unfiltered podcast for hockey parents. No politics, no sugarcoating, just real talk for hockey parents in the trenches.
Jamie: Powered by Pacific Rink. That's what's up. Love
Scott: it. Yo. So listen. Over the next few months and moving forward, you're gonna see Pacific Rink woven into the Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast. Oh, yes.
Yeah. I mean, it's a company built on premium gear, understand rink life and all the chaos that comes with it. We couldn't be more excited to have them
Jamie: part of the brand. Yes. We're very excited. You have no idea. It's been a bunch of months in the making.
Scott: Yes. It has. And shout out to Brad and Jack Serkin.
Jamie: Serkin, yes. Thank you so much. We are so excited.
Scott: And for any of you that are unfamiliar with Pacific Rink, check them out. They make high quality hockey bags, apparel.
Jamie: Best gear bag in the business.
Scott: Hands down. No question.
Jamie: In any for any hockey. Don't use those stupid hockey bags that you get from your from your organization because they suck. They fall apart. It's all shit. Go buy yourself a Pacific Rink bag.
Scott: Absolutely.
Jamie: Wait. And then you can put all your other cool shit in that Pacific Rink bag.
Scott: Yeah. You know, that just made me think of it. Made me think of, you know, like the oh, whatever.
Jamie: Don't know you're No.
Scott: There's that that commercial is like, what's in your wallet?
Jamie: What's in your Pacific Rink bag?
Scott: What's in your pack rink bag?
Jamie: That's exactly right. I mean, we should be a segment. What's in your Pacific Rink bag?
Scott: Absolutely.
Jamie: Dominic's been using Pacific Rink since he's like six.
Scott: Yeah. And and Otto less more recently. Yeah. But he's rocking he's got one of the pawn packs that he wears to school. Awesome.
Yeah. He loves it.
Jamie: They have awesome shit. Yeah. The zippers don't break. The it it I've flown I've been to Nashville, Chicago multiple times, Vegas. I've been I Tampa.
I've I've taken it on planes. No issue. Yeah. At all. Stick bag.
They have a stick bag. They have the
Scott: Oh, you're talking about Dom's hockey bag.
Jamie: Oh, Dom's hockey bag. And and Pacific Ringer also has a stick bag for your sticks when you travel. So for those of getting on on an airplane, you know, you need a stick bag. I suppose you could just tape them together, but you don't want to do that. I would put them in a Pacific Rink stick bag.
So we've flown with this stuff many times, never had a problem.
Scott: Yeah, know it's great gear. Awesome.
Jamie: Go check
Scott: it We'll put the website up in the show notes.
Jamie: From now on.
Scott: Exciting stuff. Welcome Pacific Rink. Happy to be a partner and looking forward to the ride.
Jamie: Speaking of flying, did I tell you that our team is going to go out to Notre Dame this year for a tournament?
Scott: No shit.
Jamie: Yeah. So
Scott: Wait. Is it very beginning of the season?
Jamie: Like way It early. Yeah. It's it's in early it's not it's in September, but it's in, I wanna say the twenties it's September. Yeah. So so I'm gonna have to tell everybody to go get their Pacific Rink bag so the bag doesn't get shredded on the airplane because Pacific Rink bag will not get shredded because it's made of high quality stuff.
Yes. So so I'm ready to go because I have
Scott: all the stuff. Well, despite premium quality, question for you is have you really seen a hockey bag get shredded?
Jamie: Oh, yeah. Really? They're pieces of shit. The ones that you get from the organization.
Larry: I guess
Scott: I haven't flown so much with hockey bags. Yeah. I've had my my Otto's stuff has
Jamie: gotten lost. Those bags fall apart all the time. They're pieces of shit. Those like shitty canvas bags that they give you,
Scott: they're all crap.
Jamie: Know what I
Scott: don't like about
Jamie: the The plastic zipper breaks, it has no compartments. Pacific brake has compartments. They have spots for your skates. They have stuff for your clothes, like wet, dry.
Scott: It It's section just makes sense.
Jamie: Correct. It just makes sense.
Scott: It just makes sense.
Jamie: Yes. High quality stuff.
Scott: So, yeah, before we, get on, let's, give a shout out to Howie's Hockey.
Jamie: Howie's Hockey, Crazy ten. Go to howie'shockey.com, check out all their stuff, their tape, their laces, Scott's favorite, the candle, my favorite, the yellow handled scissors. They have awesome stuff. So go to howieshockey.com and use the discount code crazy 10 for 10% off your Howie's hockey gear.
Scott: That's it. And now that the off season is well underway, if anyone has not yet, check out hockeytraining.com. Coach Kevin, he's got a wide range of stick handling drills, off ice, speed strength and agility drills. And just the perfect complement to any off season training that your kids are getting up to. You can do it from your home.
You know, you take the your phone, your iPad, take it to a local, like high school track, wherever, wherever you wanna get in some reps and use hockeytraining.com for, you know, exercises and drills that are just gonna really translate to on ice performance. And it's not just for kids, also for adults. Anyone looking to sharpen their beer league game, take a look at men's league domination. It's a program built for adults and it's also something that's gonna translate to on ice performance. So can't say enough good things about Coach Kevin and hockeytraining.com.
Jamie: Yeah. And then we have Titan Battle Gear. So check out titanbattlegear.com or go to our show notes, titanbattlegear.com backslash Crazy Hockey Dads. Scott and I trust our kids in Titan battle gear. We think it's the best stuff on the market.
As far as protecting your kids base layer wise, you don't want to have them have a run-in with escape blade if you can avoid it. So go check out titanbattlegear.com or in our show notes, titanbattlegear.com backslash crazy hockey dads. Use the discount codes crazy dads 10 for 10% off your Titan battle gear.
Scott: Yes. And athletic performance insight for those coaches, managers, anyone listening that is preparing for next season, their upcoming hockey season, and are looking to integrate video review for your team, if you haven't done that yet already, forget Live Barn, forget trying to piece these clips together. Use athletic performance insight API for your team next season. You'll be able to get all the under the hood analytics. You get game film, send it over to them, they break it down, then you're gonna have all different video clips that are ready to go, you know, different, you know, on ice scenarios, power play, penalty kill
Larry: Mhmm.
Scott: Look at individual stats, goalie save, goalies their saves, their goals allowed, goals whatever. All of it's available. You can also hook up three different video views. I don't think I say that enough but you can add
Jamie: Yeah, you showed me that.
Scott: The center ice camera which you get from wherever you get your center
Jamie: ice And then one behind
Scott: each net. Then you can hang up a camera behind each net. As you review all the clips whether it's a team performance or individual stuff you can get behind the goal and center ice view. It's unbelievable. So use the contact form at athleticperformanceinsight dot com, reach out to Eric, he'll give you a demo and then he, I'm sure he'll be happy to break down a game for free and make sure to check him out for your video analytic needs.
Jamie: Yep, dollars 100 value and go put that toward a Pacific Rink bag.
Scott: Yeah, mention Crazy Hockey Dads, get a 10% discount.
Jamie: Yes. So speaking of traveling, so I was mentioning we're going to Notre Dame, where that's the plan.
Scott: We're going to Notre Dame. It's not, not.
Jamie: No, it's paid for. I'm pretty sure it's paid for. So it's like, so we're like looking for flights. But then I don't know which parent or Mary was our team manager, had the idea of renting a like a like a Greyhound bus. Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
Scott: You know what the first thing that came to my mind? What? Give that bus one hour, the smell on that bus is gonna be terrible.
Jamie: You think so?
Scott: Oh, with teenage boys just farting and
Jamie: You're be ripping it up?
Scott: Oh yeah. I suppose.
Jamie: No? I haven't been on a bus in a long time, buddy. My buddy had his bachelor party out there, so we flew into Chicago, stayed at, I wanna say, where do we stay in downtown? House of Blues,
Scott: I wanna
Jamie: say? That sound right? House of Blues in Downtown Chicago? I wasn't there. And then we took a Greyhound bus out to Notre Dame for the Penn State Notre Dame football game.
Scott: Sick.
Jamie: It was pretty sweet.
Scott: I'm not
Jamie: gonna lie.
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: So that was only a couple a handful of hours on the bus. But but this would be a like a I'm gonna guess, like a twelve hour ride out from this area to That's a long time. To South Bend. You know, so, and it would be for like 40 or 50 people. So like on one hand, I'm like, ah, you know, don't wanna be on a bus for that many hours.
But on the other hand, I'm like, it's probably fun, especially if get along with the parents. You
Scott: know? That's true.
Jamie: It's probably not, it's probably not bad, to be totally honest. Like, I'm I'm actually kicking it around. Like, it it'd be a cool experience. Don't have
Scott: it's to drive. Long long. I know it. That's the process.
Jamie: Be we would leave at like 6AM on Thursday. We'd be there
Scott: in the in the evening sometime. But you you have to make a few stops.
Jamie: So it's it's a 10 if you if you weighs it. Yeah. It's ten hours and fifty seven minutes, like, in the evening when there's no traffic. So it's probably all of twelve or thirteen hours with stops and shit like that.
Scott: Yeah. That's
Jamie: long. You know? I mean, there's a bathroom
Scott: I bad for the bus driver that they that you land.
Jamie: That we hire? Yeah. Yeah. Listen. Yeah.
You're not wrong. But, like, I I I'm not gonna lie. Like, if if all the parents and kids did it, probably would be pretty cool. Like that, I was not on board with it at first, but now I'm like, okay, listen, if you get along with the parents on your kid's team, it's probably fun. If you don't get along with them, probably you wanna fly.
Scott: Yeah, but I mean, there's certain, like, I would imagine that certainly every Wait, let's time out for a second.
Jamie: I'm listening.
Scott: Greyhound bus.
Jamie: Yeah, or whatever, whatever bus. You're gonna No, no, no, get it.
Scott: I'm just thinking about like how many total, not 100% of the people are gonna it, probably.
Jamie: I would it wouldn't be great if they all did. Right. That'd be tremendous.
Scott: So then you're looking at, like but then if there's, like, siblings that are also going. I'm just wondering, like, how quickly are gonna fill up a bus?
Jamie: So funny you said that. I actually don't know how many seats there are. Know? I mean, I know I know it's, like two on either side of the aisle. So you have four seats in an aisle and then going all the way back.
Yeah. Or four seats in a row, then going all the way back. I'm assuming you probably have like 15 ish rows. Right? It's got to handle like 60 ish people.
No?
Scott: I'm sure that's something that the internet knows.
Jamie: Good.
Scott: Go ahead. Look it up, Jimmy.
Jamie: I can't.
Scott: What do mean you can't?
Jamie: My fingers aren't on the keyboard. Yours are.
Scott: You you have a computer right in front of you. What do I what's going on here, bud? What's going on here?
Jamie: I mean, listen. Listen. I can't do two things at once, so you talk.
Scott: Can I?
Jamie: How many people fit on a greyhound? Right?
Scott: Yeah. Let's see. This is less complicated than a Google Calendar invite. So Shut the fuck up.
Jamie: So it says 47 to 55 people.
Scott: Yo. High five. High five. Get up there, dude. You did it.
Jamie: So alright. So proud of you again. So so you're I mean, you'd be listen. Would the whole family be able to go? Probably not.
You know? But maybe they would actually. You know?
Scott: Either way, but you you're not gonna get a 100% in your pocket.
Jamie: I don't think so either. I don't think you're gonna get a 100% either. And I guess we would need I guess the bus drivers need to take us back and forth to the question is, I don't even know what hotel we'd be staying in at South Bend. Like, are is there I guess you could always DoorDash food in, but, you can't go anywhere. Oh, you have to rent a car when you're there.
I don't know. I don't know what the situation is. I don't.
Scott: Yo. Turn off It's your
Jamie: like a fucking It's scam like call.
Scott: Dude, just turn it off.
Jamie: I have no idea. But yeah, so we may actually wind up doing that. So we'll see. We'll see if we actually wind up doing it. Can I tell you what the ball bust about this is?
Is you can't fly directly into South Bend. There's no direct flights.
Scott: Okay.
Jamie: So the only direct flights go in is to Midway and O'Hare. Okay. So and they're not close to South Bend. So you have to drive. You have to rent a car and drive a ton.
It's not like, you know, you get there and it's like twenty, thirty minutes away. You have to drive a shitload. So it's annoying.
Scott: Okay. How long is the drive from the air from an airport to South Bend?
Jamie: I think it's a couple hours.
Scott: Okay.
Jamie: You know? You know?
Scott: Oh, shit.
Jamie: You know? So it's
Scott: Oh, shit.
Jamie: Oh, shit. So, yeah, I yeah. It's two hours, dude. It's two from mid from mid from Midway to Notre Dame is two hours. Okay?
And and then O'Hare I mean, I I I think it's like an hour and a half. It's the same drive. They're both two hours. They're both hour and fifty five minutes. Hour and fifty minutes.
Wow. So they're both two hours. So you're, like, screwed. You know? See, you it's great.
You know, you sit on a plane for two hours at Chicago, is not bad, but then you have to drive. You You actually fly over Notre Dame when you go to Chicago and then have to drive back east. It sucks. It's so annoying that you can't fly.
Scott: No, you've got real fucking problems, buddy. I mean, seriously.
Jamie: Mean, everybody should have their problems, but my point is that it's annoying.
Scott: Okay, fine. I'll give you that. So how about a bus?
Jamie: Maybe. So I have something for you.
Scott: You do? Like literally a present? I do. No way.
Jamie: Are you ready?
Scott: Oh, no. This is not gonna Is it? Hold on. Let me get it. Okay, get it.
Let's see. What could this possibly be?
Jamie: I have some info.
Larry: You know
Scott: what I was expecting? I was expecting you to pull your middle finger out of your pocket.
Jamie: I should have.
Scott: I should have. That's a total move that I've
Jamie: So for you that listened to last episode.
Scott: Uh-uh. What is it?
Jamie: I have.
Scott: What's this? Wow. So you that listened
Jamie: to last episode
Scott: Woah.
Jamie: About the, with the Jones boys about the chicken, the the
Scott: No way. Fried chicken ice cream. Wait. This is the fucking thing you waited in line for hours for?
Jamie: I'm pretty sure it is.
Scott: Wait. What do you mean you're pretty sure?
Jamie: For those of you look. So it's it's sold in a bunch of retail places. I got this from, where'd I go? I got it from a deli in, in Nutley.
Scott: Wait. You're telling me a deli in Nutley? Wait. Hold on. Hold on.
You're telling me Like
Jamie: a deli
Scott: in you're telling me a deli in Nutley has inventory of this, but the fucking Yankee Stadium?
Jamie: No. Yankee Stadium had inventory. They just they just ran out of this shit.
Scott: With that that So wait. No. No. No. If you have inventory, you don't run out of it.
Jamie: Listen, bro. I don't know what to tell you. Like, thousands of people are buying this shit.
Scott: I was just saying. There's there's something
Jamie: So suspect. So, from what I
Scott: understand So I get to eat it now?
Jamie: Yeah, man.
Scott: Oh, man. Chicken flavored ice cream.
Jamie: It's not chicken it's it's it's it's not chicken flavored ice cream. It's just ice cream to look like a drumstick.
Scott: Let's see.
Jamie: Like a piece of of fried
Scott: chicken. Oh, wow.
Jamie: So look. Here you go, everybody. That's what it looks like for those of you who are watching YouTube.
Scott: Wow. Now now now How do you see what mean? Listen. Now I know why you can't keep these in store shelves. It looks like a fucking chicken nugget.
Jamie: Oh, wow. This is legit.
Scott: It's legit. Wait. You didn't have one yet? This is your first time?
Jamie: Bro. Like I said on last episode, we made it to, like, seven people away from the counter.
Scott: Oh, but you but you've been to I I I was assuming you've had it before.
Jamie: New for this year, bud. Oh.
Scott: Oh my god. Holy fuck. So
Larry: Now I get it. For you, who's the chef?
Jamie: I mean so what what's in there? It looks like a like a pretzel rod. This is good. Is that a pretzel rod, anything?
Scott: Yeah. It's a pretzel rod. It's a chocolate covered pretzel rod right down the middle.
Jamie: As a bone.
Scott: You know what I like? So it's got cornflake crunch on the outside.
Jamie: Yep. Talk me.
Scott: That's a good call.
Jamie: Talk to me, chef.
Scott: The initial the initial bite I got popped with a bit of salt Mhmm. Which I enjoyed a lot. Followed by the sweetness of this creamy, delicious chicken leg, whatever the fuck I'm eating.
Jamie: Tell me more. Mhmm. I'm getting caramel too. No? Mhmm.
Scott: Yep. No to caramel. No doubt.
Jamie: Right? Mhmm. Now do you like salty and sweet same time? I do. I normally don't.
Scott: No. But you like this?
Jamie: It's alright. I can eat out the salt.
Scott: You know what?
Jamie: Because I'm assuming this the pretzel has salt
Scott: on it. The pretzel flavor is coming
Jamie: through Right.
Scott: Which I like.
Jamie: Is that where that's coming from?
Scott: But let me tell you something. Yeah. Well, there's probably some salt on, like, the cornflakes or whatever on the outside. But let me tell you what I like right now. What I like is the textural difference.
Like, there's the, you know, obviously ice cream versus, like, all this crunchy stuff. There's a lot it's very crunchy.
Jamie: There's a lot of crunch crunchy.
Scott: Yes. Which is nice. Yeah. I like the fact that I can actually taste the pretzel.
Jamie: That's nice. Like, nothing's overpowering? Just It's fell out of the pretty legit. Not gonna lie.
Scott: I would say this is definitely not about the ice cream itself.
Jamie: So what is it about? Is it about the presentation of it?
Larry: Well, I mean, I it's
Scott: actually the the despite all my, like, you know, like, comedy about eating this.
Jamie: About busting my balls about it?
Larry: No. No.
Scott: I mean, like, I it's it's
Jamie: It's good.
Scott: Right? It's the texture. It's definitely it's it's about the texture, the the contrast, and temperature. It's good.
Jamie: Now I I don't know who Life Raft. Life Raft makes it. Life Raft treats. It says eat quickly. Handcrafted in Charleston, South Carolina.
Okay. Got it. So I'm guessing there's a couple companies that make this. This one happens to be life life raft crafted in Charleston, South Carolina. I know it.
So This ice cream, not fried chicken. For those of you who are watching on YouTube and for those of you who are listening, I'm just holding up to this to the to the camera here. Yeah. Charleston, North Charleston, South Carolina.
Scott: So when when you first I mean, obviously, it's a a novelty ice cream.
Jamie: Did you read the ingredients? No. Caramelized white chocolate, corn flakes, waffle ice waffle ice cream, don't know what that is, and chocolate pretzel bone.
Scott: That that mean that that was that was a smart move. That's I like that. I like that. Like, it's
Jamie: an idea. So so you who made a doughnut shaped like a hotdog, you like what they did here?
Scott: I do. I think it's good. And what I also like is the it's not like having ice cream that's got like a thin layer of something around the outside. Right. Like that the the cornflake, like exterior Yeah.
Is like it's a very solid, like, coating. Like Yeah. You're definitely, like, biting into something first, and then you get the ice cream.
Jamie: No. It it's good. I mean, Vallardo I got a Vallardo's deli Vallardo's Italian Deli Nutley. Really impressive deli, by the way. Yeah.
Like, really good deli. I so they have they I bought 10 of them. Well, listen. Cheap either. How many do think 10 cost me?
Scott: How many did 10 cost
Jamie: you? And let me let me ask you. Let me how many do think 10 cost me? And then I wonder how many 10 cost at Yankee Stadium. But what do you think they cost me at at Villaardos?
Good Delhi, by way. Not in New Jersey.
Scott: This cost you after tax
Jamie: 10 of them.
Scott: 65 You
Jamie: were in the ballpark, yes. It cost me like just under $60.
Scott: Under 60?
Jamie: Yeah, you were right. Like 5 ish apiece, give or
Scott: take. I think they could get more than 5.
Jamie: At Yankee Stadium, I guarantee $12. And they have to be so
Scott: much more. And wait. This is but it's like the same portion size at
Jamie: Yankee Stadium?
Scott: This is it.
Jamie: The the what you're busting my balls about last last week, the chicken bucket
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: Was tiny. It was like this size with like a little handle. And the two drumsticks kind of sat inside. You only got two. So whatever the portion, it was two per portion size.
There's two, I bet they sold that thing for like $15, 16, 17 I mean, that's my guess. I I don't I don't know because I didn't get up to the front of the line when they had them, but I was going to.
Scott: No. In in in all in all honesty, I'll I'll forget all the ball busting. Yeah. Like, that's that's a pretty
Jamie: You liked it?
Scott: That's a that's a pretty good execution on their part. Yeah? Yeah, think so. I'm assuming. But it's not about the ice cream.
Like, I don't even like, okay, waffle flavored ice cream. Sure it's just like, you know, they infuse like the milk with like
Jamie: Right. Some waffle ish type of syrupy stuff.
Scott: No, Well, not syrupy stuff. Probably, well, what I would have done
Jamie: is With batter? I would make that.
Scott: Take waffle, that's already been made. Right. Right? Then you can just like
Jamie: Equify it?
Scott: Then you can pour like milk or the ice cream mixture into it, blend it, and then strain
Jamie: it. Yeah.
Scott: I should say.
Jamie: Oh, got it.
Larry: But
Jamie: But you like this.
Scott: I yeah. I definitely liked it.
Jamie: Okay. Well, I have, like, seven more. Domi had one last night. He wanted Dominic loves them. He wants to eat he wanted, like, four of them yesterday.
Scott: Might think no. I would love to give one to Otto.
Jamie: Know, I forgot to bring more.
Scott: Oh. Oh. Oh, god.
Jamie: I I only brought two.
Larry: I I I
Jamie: have have more. I'll bring.
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. I bought like I I bought 10 of them. Dom ate one yesterday. He he may have eaten two. He may have eaten another last night.
Scott: I will say this, though. So maybe there's six left. So I'll say this. As interesting and as well done as I think this is
Jamie: Yeah.
Scott: I I don't know that I would wait two hours for it or whatever the
Jamie: line So now that I have had it, I will not be waiting on the line of Ankusdin if they get them back. No. I'm good.
Scott: But what I would consider though, is if they came up with like, if they had different flavor combinations, I would be interested in trying other ones because I again, I think it was it was it was fun to eat.
Jamie: It was fun to eat.
Scott: It was fun to eat.
Jamie: I agree. It definitely was. It was cool. And then the and it looks very realistic to a drumstick. It does.
Like, it looks like a piece of fried chicken. I mean, it looks like a small drumstick.
Scott: Yeah. No.
Jamie: They do. Like a like a wing.
Scott: They did. Right?
Jamie: Like a like a fried
Scott: Speaking of buffalo wings, you know what's so funny? I was watching the, Buffalo, Montreal game last night. Oh my god. Yeah. You know, like, at games when they have, like, the you know, they try to get crowd pumped up and they have the noise meters.
Jamie: Sure. Like you go louder and louder
Scott: and louder. So the the the camera angle had caught the jumbotron in the background.
Jamie: Right. Right.
Scott: And it was a chicken wing.
Jamie: Okay.
Scott: And you know like how like on menus they have like the level of spiciness.
Jamie: Oh yeah, goes like it's level of heat. Mild to like extra It's like ridiculous. As the
Scott: crab hotter, the chicken wings started getting hotter. Getting hotter? Like hotter, like you know what I mean?
Jamie: Yeah, yeah.
Scott: It was was like that is hysterical.
Jamie: So do you like do you like heat?
Scott: I do. You do?
Jamie: Oh, that's right. We talked about
Scott: this earlier. I like heat. Yeah. A 100%. Right.
I have my I have my limits though. I'm not like a
Jamie: Like a codex pepper guy?
Scott: No. I don't get I I don't like dabble in like the world of extreme heat.
Jamie: Right. Don't eat the most
Scott: of those like packy, like one chip challenge guys, like not even a little bit.
Jamie: Right.
Scott: And then even when we get to like authentic like Thai food and even some like South American food or Indian food for that matter. Like, I don't get it. If I start
Jamie: You're not down with that.
Scott: If I start to focus more on how hot it is than what it actually tastes like Understood. Then that's where I'm kind of like, this isn't for me anymore.
Jamie: Right. Understood. So you would not go on that Hot Ones show?
Scott: I don't think I've seen the Hot
Jamie: Ones Oh, you don't know Hot Ones?
Scott: No. Oh my god.
Jamie: It's they put, like, a bunch of wings in front of them. Yeah. Let's just call it eight of them or
Scott: 10 And of
Jamie: each wing has a different heat level on it, It goes from one to 10 or one day, whatever the number is. But it gets from mild Yeah. Or nothing to like I would do it. To like you're gonna die.
Scott: I would listen. I I would do it because there's a progression.
Jamie: I would do just to see how I did.
Scott: But I I wouldn't I'm not interested in like that like one chip challenge. Like, you
Jamie: I don't like that shit either.
Scott: But I've watched videos. It's quite funny. I know. Saw that.
Jamie: I know. Almost died.
Scott: And then he was like, and then he, like, coughed. And then he was like, no. No. I didn't
Jamie: I didn't He's like, like fine. I'm fine. Charles Barkley's like, yeah. Sure.
Scott: Yo. There's some people that are immune to that shit.
Jamie: I I'm not. I've seen someone I like eat, but I'm not immune to that stuff.
Scott: You're you're not. No. Neither am But some people are. And I've seen people eat, like, one, like, Pocky another Pocky. If anyone hasn't seen this like Pocky one chip challenge, I don't think they've
Larry: It's eaten just a a
Jamie: bag with one chip
Larry: in it.
Scott: With one chip in it. Yeah. Like I think someone actually passed away from like Stop it. I swear to God.
Jamie: Like they had like a heart
Larry: attack
Scott: or something? They had there was something that like It just didn't
Jamie: work with their something. Is that right? Somebody died from that?
Scott: I think so. One Jesus.
Jamie: That's scary. I must say like
Scott: Here, look. So on September 23, a 14 year old died from cardiopulmonary arrest following the consumption of a Pockey One Chip Challenge-
Jamie: What did it do to his insides that he died?
Scott: Which contained high levels of capsaicin. Capsaicin is like the compound that produces the heat. Doc. Oh, okay. So not everyone knows what capsaicin is.
Larry: I don't know what it is.
Scott: That's what
Jamie: I'm saying.
Scott: Thanks doc. Do you know the unit of measure to measure the heat from You the chemical know Scovilles. Wow. Fucking doctor over here. Fucking Doctor.
Trebe. Wow. Don't ask why
Jamie: I know the measures of heat.
Scott: I had a long conversation with shout out Jeff Held. I'm sure he's not listening.
Jamie: I remember Jeff Held. Didn't we go to high school? Are you in high school?
Scott: No, no, no. He's someone I met like
Jamie: years later in the kitchen. Oh, me. Oh, okay. Then I don't know my life.
Scott: So but but here's the thing. An autopsy revealed the teen had a preexisting congenital heart defect with a high concentration of of spice triggering the fatal event.
Jamie: Okay.
Scott: So it wasn't
Jamie: His his his his makeup did not sit well with what he ate.
Scott: No. Okay. Got No. To say the least.
Jamie: That's a shame. Sorry to hear that.
Scott: Yeah. It's awful.
Jamie: Yeah. I I don't mind heat, must say. It's funny. We're talking about wings.
Scott: So why don't we do that?
Jamie: You wanna do what you want?
Scott: Me and you. Let's see who's got more bigger cojones.
Jamie: Okay. How do we do it? We just have to go buy different levels of heat.
Scott: We'll have to video something, me and you on location at a wing spot.
Jamie: Then we'll just do a progression. Is there a wing spot that has all these different levels of heat? We'll find one. Okay. It's it's not We should we should actually reach out to the hot ones, guys.
Scott: I I did They might
Jamie: be wanna come on your on your fucking show.
Scott: Sure. Do
Jamie: it. Do you know who crushed on that, by way? Who? Fucking Gary V, dude. Did he?
He, bro, crushed it. Like, dude, he it's almost like he was, like, immune to it. Like, he I've seen people, like, big time athletes that are fucking chugging water and milk.
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: Even, Gordon Ramsey had a hard time. He's a fucking chef. Gary Vee fucking killed it. Dude, it was go watch Gary Vee's Hot Ones interview. Fucking killed it.
Scott: That's amazing.
Jamie: Dude, I don't know how he did it. But if we could do that, that'd be cool. I would do that with you. That that would be fun. Alright.
Look. I'm down for you.
Larry: Set it up.
Jamie: I don't even know where to do that. We have to we have to look for that. Okay. We'll have our producer we'll have our producer go look for that.
Scott: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott: We'll get on that.
Jamie: Yeah. Definitely will. That's a cool idea, though.
Scott: Alright. I'll fire
Jamie: that up. Hockey. Hockey. Dom was at a three on three last night.
Scott: How'd you do?
Jamie: Good, actually. You know why he did well? Because there's no pressure. No pressure, no, like, expectations, no nothing. Yeah.
I was watching. I didn't say boo. You know?
Scott: Oh, good for you.
Jamie: Yeah. So, like but he he actually performed very well. That's awesome. Which is kinda cool. It's it's a three on three team that a a big makeup of the team are his teammates from his club team.
Scott: Okay.
Jamie: So there was a one, two, three, four, and the goalies. There was there was five of them.
Scott: Wait, are they in a league or are they just in
Jamie: They're a one in a league and Dom I did not like I've said many times in this podcast, I don't do spring teams. You know what mean? But they needed people last night, they're like, Does Dominic want to play? Stacy asked me if Dom wants
Scott: to Oh, really? Shout out Stacy.
Jamie: Shout out Stacy Larry. I had a beer with Larry last night.
Scott: Oh, yeah?
Jamie: Good dude.
Scott: Yeah, Tom and
Jamie: Alex, our goalie, went to the three on three last night. Oh, nice. After they went to a carnival. Oh, that's awesome. A carnival in Hillsdale.
So Larry and I dropped him off and went ahead of beer.
Scott: Oh, sick.
Jamie: It was good. Nice.
Scott: It was
Jamie: cool. Yeah. But so our team, a lot of our team, which is a little strange because there's kids that are on this spring team that got cut from our club team.
Scott: Was that a weird dynamic?
Jamie: So I'm sure I was there just for the first time last night. I didn't see these two parents, but I don't think so. I I like these two parents. I wouldn't have an issue with it whatsoever. They may not wanna come.
I don't know what the story is
Scott: there. Right.
Jamie: You know, they may not wanna show up because they feel a little awkward, which they shouldn't, you know? And I, I actually would've loved to have seen these two parents too, you know, but, you know, so, so there's, so it was a majority of our club team jumped on this three on three spring team. Normally they have like, you know, three lines of three.
Scott: Yeah. Right? So what did they roll with
Jamie: last night? They were short. So it was just two lines of three.
Scott: Oh, that's great. Yeah.
Jamie: Other shifts. That's perfect. Was fantastic. And our goalies, there were four forwards from our, our club team and our goalie. And then a couple of kids kind of sprinkled in there.
It was cool.
Scott: That's great.
Jamie: Yeah. It was and it's it's funny too because, the so Dom played with a guy who he plays
Scott: with So the three v three is one of those three is the goalie, so it's two v two No.
Jamie: No. No. No. It's three v three
Scott: and then goalies. Right. Right. So you had two lines of two, you said?
Jamie: No. We had we had we had two lines of three.
Scott: Two lines of three.
Jamie: Two lines of six three. Kids. There Six six skaters and a goalie.
Scott: Yeah. Got you.
Jamie: And the other team didn't have a goalie, so the kids were shooting on a shooter tutor for
Scott: that first. Why didn't and then why didn't your other goalie go? Oh, you didn't have two goalies there. You just had one goal.
Jamie: Just had one goalie. Yeah. But another goalie did show up. So he jumped in net. It was good.
So it worked out perfectly. But but it was funny because so it was it was Dom and another kid that's that actually plays on his who's he gonna play with for the season. And then the other two kids are gonna play together for the season, I'm pretty sure.
Scott: Got it.
Jamie: Know, because they're good buddies off the ice. So it was funny, like you watch these four kids play, it was good. It looked good.
Scott: That's awesome.
Jamie: Yeah. It was fun. You know? So no expectations. Just, you know, no structure.
Yeah. Just go have fun. Do your thing. Yeah. It was it was it was cool to watch.
Sick. It's cool. It's I I think that kids, when they don't have pressure on them, they look different on the ice.
Scott: Yeah. Well, listen, that's also
Jamie: Right?
Scott: I'm not Yeah. That's definitely part of it. It's like playing pickup, right? And then you're also like Correct. Can, what am I trying to say?
Chances that Right, you may be right. The consequences are less and like there's no coach that's like breathing down your throat if you fuck something up and
Jamie: Unfortunately,
Intro: all that
Jamie: I think the creativity gets coached out of a lot of our players these days. I think that kids are are are are a lot of kids lot of co no. Wanna say a lot of coaches are trying to put kids in a box and kind of coach the creativity out of them. I think that's I think that's a problem.
Scott: That's an interesting thing because on one hand, like, need to start learning. Like, I think, yeah, I don't think creativity should be coached out, but I think you also need, there needs to be time and to be creative. Like if you have a kid that goes on the ice every shift is trying to do something that's like very individual and very like maybe Agreed. Like like for example, like a kid that's gonna try to pull a Michigan every time he's behind the net like that that that Gets to be a little much. More than a you know, that's not that's not the right right way to play the game.
Quote, unquote right way.
Jamie: Right? You can be creative in a lot of other ways, passing or like whatever it is, you know, weaving with your teammates. You can be creative in a bunch of ways.
Scott: Right. So there there there's like an art to, like, coaching creativity.
Jamie: I think
Scott: that's true. I agree.
Jamie: As opposed to just putting in a box
Scott: and saying, just do X instead of Right. Whatever the system is, like, just be a robot, do this every time. There needs But to be I think, you know, at certain points along the way, like nothing's a perfect, like a straight line. Agreed. There needs to be times where it's like, guys, listen, this is what I need from you.
You guys need to get good at this. Once we get good at it,
Jamie: then we'll Then you can start
Scott: being creative. Then start doing this.
Jamie: Agreed.
Larry: So you
Scott: have to put guardrails around all of it just so they learn like good foundations.
Jamie: No question about it. I don't think I don't think that the creativity I don't think kids should be penalized for being creative.
Scott: Right.
Jamie: When they do. I mean, I know it's easier said than done. But I think I I think
Scott: I don't know, man. I mean, like, let's just say you have like you're a two on one and then someone decides to like, you know, pull some when the right play would have been to pass or to create movement at least with like, you know, the goalie and the defenseman. Right. And the kid just decides to do like, you know, treat it as a one on one v one, lose the puck. I think there's times where you can tell a kid to have a seat for sure.
Jamie: If you're trying to
Scott: do Yes. Stuff that's like a
Jamie: Well, guess I guess that's would that be considered being creative or would that be considered like
Scott: But that's that's where it's like in certain circumstances is being creative in other circumstances. Like you got to know when to apply it.
Jamie: And that's
Scott: where the art of the coaching comes in.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. Fair. Fair. I think I early on in our when we started this podcast, I think I told a story.
I'll tell it again just in case people haven't haven't heard it. I I I read a study years ago, about, soccer. You read studies? I read a study about soccer.
Scott: Really?
Jamie: Yeah. And basically what it said is that for soccer players coming up, so you have a lot of kids in The UK or wherever it is that grow up in these academies from a very young age. Super structured, very regimented. And then you have kids that come up in the favelas of Brazil.
Scott: They're just
Jamie: playing on a dirt field. There's no structure. They're just being creative out there with their buddies, just kicking the ball off the wall, whatever they're doing. Right. And it it's, it was shown that the better players, not, not all, but it's, it's shown that over time, the better players are the ones that did not grow up in an academy style structured, you know, like, you know, super structured.
The better players were the kids that, you know, were more creative, that grew up in an unstructured, just kind of playing to have fun. You know? So that was that was it was an interesting study. It was with soccer, but I would think that that would apply to all sports. Right?
Yeah.
Scott: I see I see that. But they're,
Jamie: like, super structured these days.
Scott: That got me thinking about how certainly when you get to, like, upper levels, when you start having roles on the team, like you're gonna get kids out of like a more structured environment that are gonna be better suited for certain roles while kids that grew up in a less structured environment. Like, I I I
Jamie: That's probably true. There's probably a a a a there's probably a good point for each side of that.
Scott: But I think if you're always in an environment from a young age that lacks the freedom to be creative, I don't think that that's just as every year goes by, it's harder and harder to develop those skills. Whereas if you grow up in a pickup environment where you're always able to be creative, once you get into the levels or you have a coach that is system oriented and there's time to learn that stuff, it's probably easier to put like the creativity in a box. You what I'm trying to say? It's probably, I would think easier to kind of put that away and learn systematic play and then rely on your creativity when you need it versus someone that never even developed that muscle. Fair.
Jamie: Fair.
Scott: That's what I would think.
Jamie: Yeah. Listen. I mean, listen, I'm not saying that kids don't make it from each side of that coin.
Scott: I know. Right? No, no, no, of course.
Jamie: But it was, I thought it was an interesting study about like the killing creativity. I forgot what it
Scott: was called. And I bet the kids that, you know, also would talk about fun and love for the game. Like, which one sounds more fun
Jamie: when you're at the younger ages? Clearly. Clearly.
Scott: Clearly the one where you can be creative and like, you're like, and just hanging
Jamie: out with your buddies and just doing whatever you need to As
Scott: opposed to being over coached and over, you know, professionalized
Jamie: as Yeah.
Scott: Well, we've a talked
Jamie: about that a couple times.
Scott: Yes. The
Jamie: professionalization of youth sports, you know, talked about it a couple times. So Dom was in a three, it was fun. He threw the legs a couple times that went up into like the top corner. It good, was fun.
Scott: Yeah, that's awesome.
Jamie: Yeah, was good.
Scott: Well, speaking of youth hockey and someone who's making a splash,
Jamie: No pun intended. Well said by you. That was very well done by you.
Scott: No pun intended.
Jamie: Done. And normally splash comes from waves? Waves, water. Water. Surf.
Surf.
Scott: That's right.
Jamie: Got it.
Scott: Yeah. So in any event, we have our guest today. Yes. Is someone who's seen hockey from basically every angle possible. I mean, And for those of you who are not familiar with Larry Robbins, he spent decades coaching, building programs, developing elite players and raising hockey kids of his own.
He has spent a lot of time with the North Jersey Avalanche. He was owner of Chicago Steel. Chicago Steel, yeah. Now he's building hockey in Florida. He's been around some of the top players, elite players in today's game.
You know, he mentioned Celebrini, Fantilly.
Jamie: The Hudson boys.
Scott: The Hudson boys, no doubt. Powers. Powers. The list goes on. Fantilly.
That's
Jamie: Fantilly. Coronado. I mean, was dropping some very cool names.
Scott: Yeah, so in anything, so Larry Robbins has Longwood Academy down in Florida, which he just started a hockey academy. He started AAA Charter down there, the Florida Surf.
Jamie: They're cranking back there.
Scott: They're cranking. Yeah. Thing's exploding. I mean, this guy comes from, like, years of dedication up here in North Jersey. Just an unbelievable individual, unbelievably generous.
You know, I'll never forget when when I started coaching.
Jamie: Very philanthropic.
Scott: Very philanthropic. And he just does it for his passion for the game.
Jamie: Loves it. How much His story was pretty cool.
Scott: The game teaches kids
Jamie: how
Scott: to be adults when they get older. And he's raised like seven boys now.
Jamie: A lot of kids.
Scott: Some are older. Some are much younger. But I'll never forget. So this guy has got plenty on his plate.
Jamie: Mean Oh my God, that's putting it mildly. Putting it mildly. Like super mildly. But back like,
Scott: I don't know, must have been 20
Jamie: Owns a whole another company on this side. I mean, is like his, just his passion. These are his passion. He has like a real job.
Scott: Yeah. But I'll never forget, you know, talking about, you know, someone who's just like dedicated to giving to the community. When Otto was with the Avalanche and I started coaching there, I hadn't coached before and I just, we were going over to his rink at his house called Longwood, which is unbelievable.
Jamie: Which we were invited to for a very cool charity We'll share
Scott: more of that. Yes, will. We're definitely doing that. 100%. But I remember, I was just talking with him and he invited me And
Jamie: thank you for the
Scott: Yeah, no doubt.
Larry: Yes.
Scott: But no, he invited me over to his place.
Jamie: Yeah, yeah.
Scott: And we went over, we're at the rink and he's got this amazing setup, like above the rink where it's got like, you you can have like, there's a bar and like, you know, whatever. And we're sitting up there and we're just, you know, we're talking shop. And he took time out of his busy schedule for me who like barely knows him at that point. And just like we sat down and we talked hockey and we talked teaching young kids. And he talked about his experiences coaching and like, you know, things that worked well for him and things that didn't.
Just an unbelievably generous person, salt of the earth guy, and couldn't have been happier to have him on the pod.
Jamie: It was great. We could have talked to him for five hours, like easily, and not even scratch the surface stuff. Yeah. I mean, he was he's so good. I mean, his game was getting late too when we actually got off with him.
Larry: Yeah.
Jamie: Like I said, we literally could have gone for like another five hours.
Scott: It was it was a great conversation. Yes. And looking forward to sharing it with all of you.
Jamie: Yes. You guys are going to love this interview.
Scott: Absolutely. So, yeah, I don't know. I I don't think there's any more words say.
Jamie: There's not much more say other than enjoy the interview.
Scott: Kick it over to Larry Robbins, everyone. Here we go. Alright, everybody. Welcome to our next interview, and tonight's guest has seen youth hockey from just about every angle imaginable. Coach, mentor, hockey dad for sure, and one of the guys behind some seriously successful development programs, North Jersey Avalanche, Chicago Steel, and now the Florida Surf, the Longwood Hockey Academy.
Larry Robbins, a pleasure to have you on the pod tonight.
Larry: Scott, Jamie, thanks for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to chat tonight.
Scott: Oh, a 100%. So one of one of the things we always like to to kick things off with is just kinda setting the table and let let your audience know what you're up to now and and, then, you know, a little bit would love just to hear about like your journey as a youth athlete and, we'll take it from there.
Larry: Sure. So, I'll, I'll go out of order. I'll start with my journey as a youth athlete because it's the simplest thing. I grew up as a bad hockey player. I like, like most kids, you know, I got dragged to the ice rink because my sister was a figure skater.
She was a few years older than me back in that now now she's younger, but she back then she was a couple years older than me. And so I went to the ice rink and decided I wanted to skate and then, played house league at age six. And then my dad was working and my dad thought, it might be a good idea for me to go to the tryout clinic, knowing that I wasn't gonna make the team for the travel team. So, but it'd be good experience and stuff and no cell phones back then. So my mom calls my dad on the pay phone and says, hey, Shell, Larry made the team, I'm buying him a jacket.
I'll talk to you later. Bye. And like, my dad didn't even want me playing travel hockey for all the reasons why parents who aren't hockey parents kinda get get get scared of it. And my my my seven year old year, the coaches thought that it would be a good idea that we play in two leagues. And we played 87 games my first year.
What? Wow. Yeah. So so like, it was not like there was no glide path, you know, it was not a Wow. Not a gentle easing into hockey.
So I played hockey in Glenview, Illinois for a team humbly called the Glenview All Stars, which I guess meant like the 14 families that were silly enough to play hot, to play hot. You know, AAA hockey, I'm a dinosaur, but AAA hockey didn't kind of exist back then or it was just getting started. But I was never a triple a caliber player. I played for Glenview. I played for Franklin Park and Schaumburg and just a couple other organizations bounced around.
The highest level I played was double a, but I was mostly like a single a player. And, but I just always loved it. It was always passion. I loved it. My high school started a team for my junior and senior year.
I got to play high school hockey and kind of be one of the cool people in high school because I, you know, I played football and was a backup backup, but in hockey, I actually knew what I was doing.
Jamie: And then
Larry: I, I always figured my future was from my neck up. And so I went to university of Pennsylvania for school, not even knowing that they had a club hockey team. And, they used to have a division one team when title nine happened to make an equal number of men and women's sports. Unfortunately Penn did what many schools did instead of opening up opportunities for women, they canceled opportunities for men. And so they had a beautiful rink, 6,000 people that held and they turned the division one program into a club team.
And that was pretty sad for, I guess the people that were involved. It was great for me. I never would have been good enough to play D1. So I got to play intercollegiate club, went to Penn for five years, got a couple of degrees, was able to play all five years and you know, 30 game schedule, club hockey, and it was a way to keep me connected with the sport. So, you know, out of that 6,000 seats, I think we had about five or six fans.
So it was pretty pretty equity building. We played at the interiors of Pennsylvania, but again, some of my best friends are the, some of my hockey teammates from, from Penn. Then I took thirteen years to get out of shape and earn a living and go to New York and do that whole finance thing. And then when my oldest was six years old, he, unfortunately I made one mistake. He's a goalie.
I didn't, I didn't know how bad being a goalie dad was. I accidentally bought him the pads because he was fascinated with the pads and twenty one years later. The rest is history. Right. That part.
So, but, so I started, you know, started assistant coaching, opening doors and, and then kind of got, kind of got into it, started playing mentally again over at the ice house where Scott, you and I met each other in Hackensack, New Jersey and, kind of got reconnected to the, to the game. And what I would say is, you know, my older four boys are now between ages of 22 and 27 who are hockey for the guys. They're 99, 103. And looking back on it, an absolute cheat code as a father to become teammates with your kids through the hockey journey. And whether you are a fan, which I'm a fan of my kids, whether I got lucky enough to be a coach or whether I was just a dad, you know, that, that journey together feeling like that I could advise them about office issues or character issues or interpersonal issues or how to deal with failure and make sure that if there's an obstacle in their way, that they're not going to turn around and run away from it, but they're going to find a way over it and how to ask for help and how to be a good teammate and all those things that, that sports team sports give you and hockey in particular gives you, man, what a gift it was for, for, for me and my four older boys to go on that journey together.
And so I ended up, you know, throwing myself into coaching, you know, volunteer. I still run a hedge fund or a financial business, but always had a passion for coaching. And, you know, again, having, you know, four kids in five years, kind of wanted to try to stay one step ahead of them. So I was never the head coach of my goalie, my older son, Justin's teams. I did not want the pressure of deciding who was gonna play starting goalie.
It wouldn't have been fair to the other goalie or the other parents. And it wouldn't have been fair to me if it wasn't Justin's turn, like, know, that makes it a long ride home. So, so that, that was Justin was the only one who I wasn't the head coach for, but, you know, starting at 12 years old with with Adam in the two thousand group, I I became the head coach of that team for three years and then dropped down to the o ones and then dropped down to the o threes. And, you know, got to learn from some unbelievable coaches in in in in at the New Jersey avalanche and the community is so cool. You know, people are there to help.
You know, they, they said, we all complain about these stupid USA hockey modules where we gotta sit there in class or take the online test. But when I was a new coach, like being able to hear from the USA hockey development guys about here's some small ice games thrown at practice, and here's ways to make it more fun for young kids. And like, actually was super useful. And like, I'm super grateful to the USA hockey guys for doing that. And, you know, I'm a sponge.
I like to learn. And so, you know, whether it was learning from, you know, Jimmy Cahill and Mark Latito and Vinnie Smith, who were the kind of the more experienced coaches at Dads, who were all unbelievable coaches and continue to do great things in youth hockey. Or learning from Dan May, who ran the program about just how to manage people and manage youth hockey logistics, etcetera. And so, so, so that kind of continued the journey and Avalanche got pretty good. Like they were Yeah.
When Dan May, who runs the program, he was head coach of the midget team, they were pretty good. They always went to nationals. Then there's a lot of years where they weren't and they invested in some coaching and we had a cheat code because Scott, as you know, I got so into hockey that in my backyard in Cresco, New Jersey, I built a two thirds size ice rink that we call Longwood for the Longwood beams that go overhead and kind of a field of dreams. And I joke around that the best coach I ever met was open ice and, know, the kids in Toronto and the kids in Minnesota and the kids in Michigan are also good because they can just go out into the pond or the backyard or whatever and just skate. And, we don't have that luxury.
Have an outdoor rink in New Jersey, it rains, you lose the ice for five days. Yeah. Right. So I did that when my tennis court, when I bought a place in Jersey in 'six, learned that lesson. Then I put a bubble on top of it.
My neighbors didn't really like that when my eight year old goalie also happened to have a cannon of a slab shot. So Justin would make slab shots against the glass and sound like somebody was hunting. So my wife, Sarah Mae, is an unbelievable architect. And so she hand drew and then built a facility called Longwood, that, that, became kind of the home of hockey players in New Jersey for about fifteen years. Hosting your son and my little guys for, you know, their four or five or six year old skates and just pushing a puck and let them have fun, or whether it was, you know, serving as a training facility for some of those, you know, unbelievable avalanche teams that went to nationals every year and produced some unreal players.
It was just kind of a kind of a field of dreams. And so, you know, between the coaching, the players there, and then we ended up building, we started out building two kids in the 99 group because we were two sticks away from having a competitive team for my son. Given the fact that he was a goalie, he wanted to have an ability to compete in front of him and stuff. And all the way up to the COVID year when we had 18 billets, which was probably a bad idea. Wow.
Jamie: We were
Larry: the only game in town. So we had quite, quite a number of people skating at our rink and, you know, that's the year they have won won won nationals at sixteen year level. You know, the, you know, the extra development they were able to get, the the and the culture. Like, the kids could themselves by other kids that were unreal and work hard. And then like the big brother relationship, not just my family in terms of, you know, I got remarried, almost fourteen years ago.
Sarah May and I have three children together, aged 10, seven and four, Xander, Calvin, and Della. They're all playing hockey now. And not only having like the actual brothers and the Billet brothers that they could look up to and see how hard they worked or whatever, but just that, like that informal relationship where they would mentor your kids or our kids and those, you know, year olds who knows how to play hockey gets on the ice with a five year old. They think that they're on with an NHL player. The kids are so good.
They want to get an autograph from a 14 year old. And so that, that, just kind of family atmosphere, the ability to pay it forward and pass it down. Like, it, it was pretty incredible. That Longwood facility, like, you know, we host hockey in Harlem there every year comes practice fours or four or eight times before they get their own eyes. We we've done stuff with the sled rangers where the sled hockey kids, who are probably the bravest athletes I've seen and the, and unbelievable athletes.
You know, we've had them come out and play against our avalanche team. We try to get in those sleds and it's real humbling when you got, you know, a, you got a kid who's an absolute D one stud who's in the, absolutely looks like he's never played hockey. Totally different, totally different approach. And so just like those, those experiences to connect our hockey community together, you know, that, that Longwood facility was an almost religious place for us in terms of the, the, the religion of hockey for those of us that are dedicated to it. And so, so I got to do that journey and then, wanting to stay one step ahead of my kids.
You know, I heard that everybody goes out to the USHL before they go to college. And, you know, I had dreamed someday of being an NHL owner, but the prices of franchises outran my own, you know, resources to do that. And so, but I said, you know what? I could, I could always own a junior hockey team. Those aren't that expensive.
And, I took a money losing Chicago steel franchise and managed to double the losses because I'm not a very good businessman, but, we had an interesting run for eight years. I bought them in 2015 and, sold them to the Chicago Blackhawks in 2023. And again, as an education lab and the ability to, you know, now that I've learned everything I could learn from the youth hockey guys, to be able to learn about that development path for kids, high level players before college, before pros. And, you know, everything that we thought in terms of creating a team and family, a culture, a growth mindset, a true commitment. We decided we would take it to Chicago was had missed the playoffs for seven straight years.
If you know anything about the USHL, two thirds of the team make the playoffs. It's really hard. Like it's, it's like flipping a coin and having it come up tails seven times in a row. Like it's hard to do. You gotta really work at it to miss the playoffs that much.
Everybody told me, don't, you know, don't, don't, don't buy Chicago. It's the worst franchise in the league. I was like, well, at least I can't hurt it. Right? Like you can only sideways.
But like, the ability, the ability to, the ability to have my kids, you know, maybe someday then play in the town that I grew up in, in Chicago, in the suburbs, thought it was kind of, kind of cool. But then, you know, it ended up being an unbelievable journey. And instead of learning from just the best youth organ hockey guys I could find, I was learning from Dan Muse, who's now coaching the Penguins and is up with the Jack Adams award in his first year. And I was learning from Ryan Hardy, who's this, you know, put together that that legendary o one NTDP team that had so many great players on it. And now he's assistant general manager of the the Maple Leafs.
And, that, he's done a great job with their, with their, with their Marley's organization. It's not his fault to the NHL one, but, he's done a great with their organization. They're like, you know, how do you teach a defenseman how to defend in a modern way? And, you know, Brock Sheehan was our coach. Now he's head coach at Notre Dame and like probably the best defenseman coach I've ever seen and just watching
Scott: Wow.
Larry: How he teaches people how to defend. And like, again, you know, I got to get a, you know, a master's in hockey from, you know, just being being around those guys. And, you know, then the trust in the the trust and faith that so many families showed in us and send their kids. I mean, the the Fantilly family, Adam Fantilly, who went number three in the draft, Owen Powers, who went number one and is playing a playoff game tonight with with Buffalo. Buffalo.
Yeah. And, of course, Maclin Celebrini came came out. And all those guys obviously could have been number one in the, you know, in the OHL draft or whatever Canadian major junior draft they were eligible for. And they all parents wanted them to go to college and they wanted them to be in a development environment. And they all took a chance on, you know, on on me and us and our culture that we were really just kind of committed to developing those kids.
And wow, you know, that, that steel group was incredible because same thing happened with the Avalanche. You put a bunch of great kids around, you put a bunch of great coaches around, and you just let them focus on just hockey and being good people. And you hold a high character standard. And that, that, that group ended up being so prolific, not only in terms of what they did in junior and college, but like, you know, what they're doing now at the, at the pro level. So I'm just really, really grateful that I could be on this journey as a passenger.
I could be on this journey as a a learner. Then, you know, hopefully people would say that I've been a little bit on the journey as a contributor. And so you know, I guess I don't know how to do something halfway.
Jamie: Not a bad trait to have.
Larry: Yeah. One of my phrases we have in our, in our Florida SURF organization is we fully commit and, you know, there's difference between committing and fully committing. I've been supporting the KIPP charter schools in New York City for twenty five years, and they have a sign in their high school that says, I fully commit, and it's got a bunch of things. And we take our players there, avalanche players there every year to volunteer, help in the school before the kids come. Also to, to look at that I fully commit statement and be like, what's the difference?
And, you know, you gotta find extra. Like, you gotta be all in. And, I've taken that to heart and, kind of everything I've done hockey wise, which leads me to now what I'm doing now. So my, Sarah Mae and I moved to beautiful Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, almost two years ago, August '24. And the only thing that was keeping us from going down to Florida, in addition to my aversion to humidity was was the fact that I wasn't for Xander and Calvin and Della.
I wasn't going to be able to have the same hockey journey, not in terms of the achievement. My older boys were fortunate enough to work hard and they played division one hockey and they're playing pro now. But but but it's not about the achievement or the level, just like the friendships, the character development, the experiences, the grit, the determination, all those things. And so, we decided that we would, we literally picked Palm Beach Gardens, Florida to live because they had a permit ready, you know, shovel ready permit to build a two sheet ice facility here. And, and then, I was able to rent a single sheet for, for a while until we got into a new building and take over a tier two program called the Palm Beach Breakers and kind of went, hired some fancy lawyers to get past all the red tape in Florida.
And we got our got our AAA charter, even though for twenty years, people tried that and failed. But you know, when a, when a New York hedge fund guy with a unlimited passion and a healthy, healthy, willingness to invest, you know, finds a, finds a series of rules. We find, we find some ways to get it done.
Scott: You fully commit.
Larry: Yeah. But also like, I think the, I think the commitment we showed in Chicago and in New Jersey, I think the powers that be knew that we were going to take this seriously and that we were going to honor the ideals of the sport in a positive way. And even, you know, the organizations that I don't think we're that excited to see us now, we've had a handout in partnership, and we really, really do hope to build something that's special for everybody. And, you know, we're in competition, we're in cooperation, we're trying to do that. And so thrilled now in Florida, we got our AAA charter, the Florida surf.
I launched that program a year ago, super successful last year, three teams in the top 20 in the country and are, you know, nine year, ten year, eleven year. And so, and then the other three teams also competed much better than people thought they were going to. And then those kids improved a lot and we've added some kids in the roster. So like, you know, I think in a two year period, people understand that we built a nine U through 15 U program. It's a real program.
And, and then the Tampa Bay Lightning got a AAA charter now and the Panthers got AAA charter now. So maybe we can actually have a local game. You know, we can drive some place instead of flying someplace. So,
Jamie: that's right.
Larry: It's been a it's been a whirlwind tour, building the two ship facility. It's open at the end of the year. We'll be hosting, you know, teams from out of state in January there. Oh my goodness. And, you know, launching, you know, 14 teams, including our tier two teams.
We're doing, doing the last night of tryouts tonight, literally. And, and then we, you know, so we say together we build. And so that that's been the journey. Everybody says, hey. Are you enjoying the Florida lifestyle?
Is it more relaxing? I've never been busy. I've never been more exhausted.
Jamie: I was just gonna say. Right.
Scott: That's unreal.
Jamie: That's why,
Larry: you know, the viewers don't know, but that's why I told you I I could do it at 09:20 tonight. That was my first first availability was after That's right.
Jamie: That's true.
Larry: I've got to coach my 20 eighteens, my 20 sixteens, and evaluate our 14 new double a team.
Scott: Oh my Lord.
Jamie: That's unbelievable. So so Longwood was maybe I'm when you were in Jersey with Longwood, was it one of the first, I wanna say, like academies, Larry?
Larry: Does that sound overstatement of the formality of it. So what we did is, again, you know, when there's a, when there's a, the first thing you gotta have is you gotta have a, you gotta have a commitment to development and you gotta have a commitment to invest. And so many of the great programs, I mean, you look around the country and there's some programs that just absolutely, you see the brand and you know that people are going to have a good experience, right? There's multi, I don't want to leave anybody out. We all know that you go up to the HF league in Boston and there's just some franchises up there and you go out to the, know, what used to be the high performance league in the Midwest.
There's so many great branches out there. And so, and, and, you know, and so you see, you know, what the Pittsburgh Penguins elite has done and you see what, you know, Little Caesars has done and you see what, you know, Bay State and the Terriers and, yeah, and the Boston Eagles, whatever. And it's like, you know, it starts with development. Right? Like, they they they obviously are attracting coaches and they're developing their players.
And then at some point in time, it also has to be well, you know, for those kids to continue to develop, you need to be able to connect kids who are also as passionate and as talented. And so, you know, given the density of triple a hockey that that that that that's up there. Right? You know, if we wanted to get to that next level, we said, oh, gee, if what if a kid lives two hours away, the parents would really like to play with us, but you're not gonna go back and forth two hours in a car, every day through Northeast traffic or whatever. And so in, when Justin was a a 16 player, you know, the avalanche coaches asked if we would consider billeting two kids.
And Jordan Seaford and Tyler Gratton, and then Tyler's older brother as well, who's on the eighteen team, and Chris Gratton. And so we we literally said, alright. And so we I couldn't be a full time billet dad because I had children of my own and some business interests and stuff, etcetera. But we said, all right, well, got this great Longwood facility. They can come, they can live there, they can skate and train during the day.
And so it started out, we hired a guy named David Ardoin, who's now running Bishop Carney's program up there, hockey program up there. We hired David to be our bill of dad trainer rink guy. And, and he was, and so he, lived with Tyler and, and, and, and his brother and Jordy. And that's how it started the first year. It was very successful.
Those kids, because they got twice as much ice and they in Rye Land and they were doing an online school, but their parents arranged the school and, and, you know, David Arderwin would proctor it, but like, he wasn't an educator. He was just an responsible adult to make sure that the kids were staying on task and on time.
Jamie: Right.
Larry: And then the next year we said, well, gee, that worked out pretty well. Maybe there's stuff that we can do to help the eighteen year team and the sixteen year team. And again, it's gotta be mostly local kids, but can you add one or two or three kids or whatever on each team? And so the program grew and it grew pretty substantially. And so while it was never a formal academy in that we weren't running a school.
Right. So it wasn't like South Kent. It wasn't like Carmel. It wasn't like BK or certainly not like Shattuck.
Scott: Right.
Larry: What it was was people who are homeschooling their children. Instead of homeschooling them at home, they would basically functionally homeschool them, but they would live at at a house and at our place. And so we ended up purchasing a home right next to the backyard rink that the people thought that they sold it to us. They thought it was a tear down and that they didn't wanna live next to an ice rink, even though the ice rink looks pretty nice. You wouldn't know it's an ice rink outside of it.
Scott: Yeah, it does.
Larry: And, and so, so we ended up doing that and then the program kept growing and growing as my older boys, covered more teams. And ironically, best, most accomplished team I coached as a youth team was my 2,001, 15 youth team. We were number one in the country going into nationals. And that's, that team had no billets. Like, we was all local kids.
Had no billets.
Jamie: Oh, wow.
Larry: And so it was funny, like all the teams that, uh-
Jamie: All local.
Larry: Teams that my kids played on when, when they were playing with other head coaches had a lot of billets. I, I understood that and I appreciated that. Either nobody would send their kid just to play for me or, or I kind of more believed in the organic model. And so we kind of took a series of local kids and we just trained them and they became the number one team in the country. And unfortunately Pittsburgh got us in the quarterfinals there or whatever.
We didn't have a, didn't have a party, but that group, was special. Alex Farrier, who's now playing for the, LA Kings.
Scott: Yeah, sure.
Larry: Was part, was part of that group. A number of kids went on to play division one, but just a really, really great group of young men to do that. So it does, you don't need to bring in kids from other places. At the same point in time, by the time we got to COVID year where Canada was shut down or whatever, I mean, we had, you know, Quentin Musty and Nick Moldenhauer and Mick Thompson came from Buffalo in Canada to live in New Jersey to play hockey. Like, if you would have told me, you know, a few years before, that someone's gonna leave Toronto to come to New Jersey and AAA hockey.
Right? Travis Traylor moved from either Sweden or Norway. I forgot which place he was living at the time. Moved here to play with us and billet with us for a year. Then he became a Chicago steel player the year after that.
And then he went out and had a really great college career. And he's playing pro now. Like I never would have believed that kids like that would leave their beckas of hockey. Right? We had kids come And then of course, the Hudson family moved in with us.
And to think that, you know, Lane and Quinn and Cole and Lyers, obviously, you know, a storied hockey family now. They they dad dad owns a rink in Chicago. They were playing in in Detroit for HoneyBaked. And again, to think that a family of that caliber and Rob, who's obviously an amazing coach, that they would pick up and come to New Jersey. But they saw the culture of what we were doing and they wanted their kids to be a part of it.
And obviously there's no better example of what happens when you take high character kids who have an absolute passion for the game at a young age and you put them in that environment. And, you know, to think about that, you know, what, what that looked like. I mean, you know, I met Layne Hudson as a 14 year old and I swore he was gonna be a top 15 NHL pick. Was completely wrong. He went sixty third.
I was completely right. He should have gone top two. Yes, absolutely. But like, but like when I met him as a 14 year old, he was the most professional 14 year old ever. Some kids were playing video games and he had a weight vest and he was running up the hill outside of our, he was running the mile up straight up the hill outside of the rink that we have.
You know, to be able to put a kid, kids like that and families like that together in this environment was just kind of a unique thing. And so down here, in the new rink, not only are we building two sheets, but we built space to have an actual school and an actual academy. We have four teachers. We're launching it next year. We are going to proctor and develop the education.
We want to take seriously the fact that if we're developing student athletes, we need to develop their athleticism and their hockey IQ. But if we want athletes, we really need to contribute to their education and to make sure that they're not sacrificing something educationally by choosing a flexible model that does allow them to commit to their passion. And and so it'll be our first year next year. We've got about 30 or 35 kids that are going to sign up for between fifth and tenth grade. Like anything else, we're going get on a journey and we're going to learn and grow, grow.
And, but I'm, I'm, I'm proud of the starting point and I'm super excited about where it's going to go. And then, you know, the ability for that, know, they're gonna go to school for four hours. They're going to train on the ice for an hour and a half. Some of that times can be unstructured. Like we really believe that like hockey time is valuable.
We'll do an hour and fifteen of structured. We'll do at least fifteen minutes of just fun. And we're going to have high performing, you know, performance group do the dry land training. And so those kids are going get twice as good in a year as they otherwise would. And it's going to take some time.
You know, one of the things we found in Florida is the best 12, 13, or 14 year olds used to leave the state. Used to leave and go out and bill it at places like New Jersey or like other places. And we want to change that equation and allow the kids and families that really want them to stay connected and stay connected to this beautiful environment we have in Florida. We want to make sure that they have an opportunity to live and train and do that as well. And so, you know, we're early in our journey, but you know, every four weeks, my phone rings from some other former NHLer, former hockey guy that wants to move down here with his family, but for.
And so, we're not joking that I just gotta make sure I don't recruit my kid off my team Cause, cause there's a lot of people who, have figured out that being able to golf on these courses and enjoy this weather and their wife not be so mad at them for the snow shoveling in the snow all the time, and they can still have their hockey journey. It's a pretty good gig.
Scott: On a lifestyle. Very nice lifestyle. You're talking about the the Hudson's, I remember when when Otto was on the ice over at Longwood once and, Lane was there and obviously Rob was on the ice with the boys and at the time, you know, you know, I I didn't know, you know, who you know, the caliber of, you know, hockey, you know, person that was on the ice with my kids. I do the one thing I do remember is him skating around without his, skates.
Larry: Without his laces.
Scott: Yeah. Yeah. Without his laces. Like, literally no laces in
Larry: the skates. Would throw this on. Don't try this at home, but, know, so Rob Rob Hudson is unbelievable hockey coach, on on the bench and in individual skills and, and a great human being. But he's somebody who absolutely was willing to think for himself and be innovative. And, you know, when he was coaching before his kids were, you know, grown up, you know, he contributed significantly to Clayton Keller's development, when when when he was young and so many others that, you know, just that's the name that comes into mind.
But like, but one of the things that Rob believes is that you gotta find your balance, you gotta find your edges and you can't cheat. And so for the first fifteen minutes of practice, and he did it to your kids, he did it to my kids. I personally never tried it because I don't really want
Jamie: to be
Larry: on crutches for six weeks, But, to have them skate without their laces tied, just literally. And, and when he does it with like, you know, kids who are really, really elite 16 new players, first couple of times they do it, they they they are they're they don't believe that they really could do it. Right. And then literally they saw like my son's Andrew was not a great skater, but had been doing it with Rob for a little while. They saw him do it.
And they're like, all right, I'm a little bit embarrassed that this five year old is they still take over to do it. 16 year old high end trying to get recruited for college hockey player. And I can't do this. And, but, but obviously you can see the fluidity and agility with which, all the Hudson boys skate. And, and so it was this unbelievable cheat code to make sure that you absolutely find the center of your blade with your foot and there's nothing supporting you.
And so, yeah, it's one of many really super creative ideas he had. And, obviously if you look at the finished product, probably tomorrow morning after this is there, there's gonna be a bunch of parents. You know, I'm going help the ankle doctors around
Jamie: the country. Totally.
Scott: And then a bunch of parents
Larry: were like, untie your skates, I'm stealing your laces. Skate like lace at all.
Scott: Well, it's, it's funny. So, so we had, so we had and Lane was there one day, and I remember some of the dads standing around the room like, that's Lane. He's committed to be you. Mhmm. And and a lot of the parents who had smaller children or or, know, I I understood their kids were not gonna be very big human beings.
You know, they were looking at Lane and be like, so there is a chance. Oh, you're saying. And then and and then fast forward fast forward a couple years, we were up in Boston. We actually played at Agenus Arena. And then we we played the Boston Americans with the Avs team.
And then afterwards, we stayed and watched the game. And it just coincidentally was like family weekend. And it was both it was Quinn and Lane. It was be and they were just skating around the ice, like, with friends and family after the game. And we stuck stuck around because we wanted to get autographs or whatever.
And sure enough, the the both of them were skating around without their, you know, their skates totally undone. You know, just, you know, friends and family skating around. So, it was just remarkable to see, you know, the the caliber of talent that's come, you know, through the Longwood doors and just having an opportunity to be exposed to that. I mean, like you said earlier, the hockey community is a small one and it's a generous one. And, you know, we have to both Jamie and I, you know, thank all the folks that have, know, come on the pod and, you know, just because exactly that, they want to help the hockey community, you know, and you're such an example of that.
It's it's been unreal, you know, just seeing all the all the success. But I do have a question here and and we talk about development and you clearly been around all this elite talent. But like, what do you if you were to, like, guide parents, generally speaking, who are just like getting into into hockey or maybe their kids been doing it for a little while, either way. But like when when people talk about like, need my kid to develop, I want my kid to develop, what what would you recommend they're they're really looking out for, whether it be in an organization, in a coach? Like, you know, how would you best guide people who are who are determined to, like, give their kids the best development options?
Larry: Sure. So the first thing I would say is that, particularly when they're young, there's only one measure of success. Right? And and that is at the end of the season, do they love hockey even more than at the beginning of the season? If the answer is no, it's not the right development.
Right? And I do see a bunch of parents, who are super committed to their kids and they're trying to do the right thing. And we all get caught up in an, oh, my kid's gotta be in in the brick tournament so he can be in the Quebec tournament. So he can be in this. He can be in that.
Oh, well, it'd be a brick tournament. I gotta have him at seven years old, to the pre brick tryouts or whatever, etcetera. And it's like, you know, I think one of the organizations on the West Coast Of Florida put out something on April Fools saying that they were having a twenty twenty three development camp or whatever, etcetera. So we were going to come back with like the, you know, Longwood introduces the in utero, you know, we're going to show Hockey Podcast. We're going to have the, the miracle speech, you know, put, put, you know, through the belly buds, you know, into the expecting hockey moms.
The, you know, there, there is a lot of pressure to try to keep up with the Joneses. And it it it it is a sport where there is some truth to the fact that there is an advantage in starting young. Now starting young does not mean you gotta start at two and a half. And it doesn't mean that you have to be the best player on the ice at age eight, but there is there is a sub, some benefit of starting young. But the first thing I would just remind everybody is if you're in a program where your kid at the end of the year, just really doesn't like hockey and believes that it's a chore, then I think you're going in the wrong path.
And I think you gotta find an environment which makes them feel differently. Now, there are certain kids that need something that's more serious for them to love the game more. And there are certain kids that need something that's more recreational or less serious in order. And so got to meet their kid, your kids where they're at. And we talked about the North Jersey Avalanche and Dan May's program.
Had tier one, tier two, and functionally tier three. Like, you know, my kids' journeys were all different. My son, Dylan, who ended up playing, you know, for the Chicago steel for a couple of years and at Sacred Heart Division one for a couple of years. And then he's finishing his career Division three at UMass Boston. And and then he played in the SPHL pro pro league for nine games at the end of the season.
He played Pee wee B and Pee A and he just, he wasn't athletically. He was kind of before puberty. He was kind of just like a gawky kid and just kind of all limbs and, you know, just like his body didn't quite come together if you were. And so he just, he didn't have that confidence in the coordination that maybe a couple of his older brothers did. But then the puberty gods were great to him.
Now he's the only guy with an NHL body. He's six foot or so long and he's, you know, he can handle himself. And, and so like, you know, but but the most important thing was in his hockey journey is that he's he still loved it enough that he stuck with it. And then as he got older, he said, you know what? I need something more serious for me to love it.
And so he went to something more serious. And he did push himself and climb the ladder to single A, double A, and then eventually triple A by the time he was 15. But like, it's got the development has to be something where the motivation has to come from the child and it can't come from the parents. And it's it's really hard because the parents are so dedicated. People spend a lot of money, the enormous amount of time.
Moms are freezing in the rings. Dads are getting up early after, you know, a long weeks of work and moms will have to long weeks of work. Like it's it, it, the sacrifice that hockey parents make, I understand why people feel like they are participants in the journey and not just passengers in the journey. But like, we all got to remind ourselves that we got to meet the kids where they are. And just because your kid's less serious right now or wants more recreational or something that's more fun does not mean anything in terms of the ultimate destination.
Eventually it does, but this had to come from them. The second thing is, we believe that a hockey coach's job is to teach skills, strategy, and character. Right? And, and, and, I don't know exactly what the pie chart looks like as to how much skills or how much strategy or how much character, but it, but it's not like 90% skills and 10% other. Like it's gotta be a balance of it.
In my first journey with my older boys, I always wondered, could you teach a really great athlete how to think the game when they're older? Or can you teach a really smart hockey IQ competitive kid, can you help him develop his body to be competitive? And you look at Lane Hudson's journey, and obviously, it took a little while for his body to get there, but his mind and his compete were always there. And they were always elite since he was a six year old is what I'm told. And, and, so I, I think that we got to feed all sides of that.
Right? So, and by the way, it takes a team of coaches. So when I was coaching my older boys, I was fortunate enough to have a bunch of guys that were in their, you know, mid to late twenties that had played division one. Maybe they played in the coast or the A. They were then going to use their degrees to go into the business world.
They came to work for me at Glenview, my hedge fund, doing, some investment research, but also kind of as part of the deal, they would be assistant coaches for my team and they could, you know, not only keep up, but outskate. And so when you get guys, you know, Anthony Iello and Dougie Rogers and Bob Burns and so many guys that, Peter Haffner, many guys that that that went out there, and and that it played high level hockey, but also could teach the kids skills. And let's be honest, like, I'm an out of shape dad. I'm not going to teach the kids, you know, how to accelerate out of a punch turn and have the right form. But like, you know, some of these guys were NHL draft picks, they're going to, right?
Like they're
Jamie: going be able to do that. And
Larry: so if you're a coach that can really add to, you know, other aspects, then you got to bring in people who can augment what you can't. There's other people who are great skills coaches. But like, they may not have been the most analytical about thinking about like, how do you think the game? And the one thing I will compliment social media on, right, in addition to bringing people like us together for affinity groups to be able to connect here, is, you know, its ability to give you highly specialized education. There's some unbelievable Instagram accounts and ex Twitter accounts that do really, really high level hockey analysis, but like, job the kid to find those, like, but like it's out there for any coach who wants to do it.
Like, you know, I went to school on Steve Valiquette teaching about the Royal Road and the slot line and, and, and how to reverse engineer, what's hard for a goalie in order to create scoring chances. And now you can go out and you can hear Chris Crider, who's now playing for the Dads talk about how he was a 60 goal scorer in New York after having plateaued much lower because he spent some time with Valley and Valley taught him how to score. And that strategy piece, how to think the game, how to find space, how to, you know, suffocate and take away space, take away time. Like that stuff, you can learn it in a younger age and some kids, that's where they have the passion. And if your kid gets there before their hands and feet get together, that's great because eventually their bodies are going to get there.
If their mind's already there, like it's what makes it. And then the final thing is, you know, we've all heard about the locker room vampire and the energy vampire and the, you know, you guys are the Crazy Dad Podcast. But like, I take that as a compliment, which means that, you know, you're really a podcast representing just how passionate and committed the community is. I think we also know that there's some people who are trying to recreate their own childhood or right the wrongs of something that happened to them. And they're trying to live vicariously through their children.
And, know, it's really important that we all create these environments, which are being a positive teammate and being a positive person, supporting one another. Yeah. We gotta make sure that the star of the team, Billy, you can go end to end, and Johnny, you can, you know, make all the saves. They gotta have the right development. But you know what?
Like, they can't be, you know, they have special rules because, know, their teammate who might be the thirteenth guy on the roster or the goalie who's just more in development, like the team needs them too. And, and everybody's
Scott: gonna
Larry: be better off if everybody gets better because that's what's make practices better. That's what's to make the development environment better. And so just having that character component and that's something that like, how did we take the Chicago Steel from missing the playoffs seven years in a row to winning a Clark Cup in our second year? Dan Muse was hired because number one, he's a hockey genius. Number two, he's a workaholic.
But number three, he absolutely knew and was dedicated to the fact that it's a character journey. It's about getting better every day. It's about a process of the growth mindset and rewarding that and honoring it and living it and showing it by example. And, you know, I see it. I'm on the board of CVS Health.
We're trying to turn around that company and that culture. We're off to a good start after a year and a half being on the board. I don't care what endeavor you're in. It's a collective endeavor. It could be corporate.
It could be philanthropic. It could be religious. It could be athletic. You know, you gotta have that passion and purpose culture aspect. And if you do, you'd be amazed how much progress you can make.
And so I would say that if parents look at the organization their kid's playing for, and they don't see any kind of commitment to skills and strategy and character, number one, talk to your coach. Like, you know, say, Hey, look, like how can I get, you know, I think you're great? You're creating this great environment, but like my son needs some extra skill work. Like, where can you refer me to? Or how can we get a little bit more intensity in practice, whatever.
Is there a power skating coach or somebody else who coach a different team that could like help my son with this, that, the other? Can we bring in a shooting specialist or whatever it may be? You know, start by asking and try to be part of the solution. But then also there's some times in which you got to find a different environment. And, you know, one secret sauce we have is, you know, hockey is a business for some people and it's a passion for me.
And, we are very not for profit. Like, lose money everything I do in hockey. It was a passion project for us. But we've been able to bring together, like, so many people that are just absolutely committed to the development of young men and young women and their growth in the sport, that that I've been fortunate to be able to to to always find myself in that positive environment and that positive culture. So it's benefited my kids and I hope it benefits the kids in our in our organization.
Organization.
Scott: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I want to switch gears a little bit and and just get your take on the the change with the the open borders and the NCAA and the CHL and how that's affecting junior programs and, you know, college, etcetera. What are you seeing from your perspective on how this is kind of starting to shake out? Because I know that there's parents that are listening that probably feel pretty overwhelmed that, you know, if they have got kids in a position that are going to be playing junior or maybe go, you know, try to figure out what path is gonna be best for them. So what's your take on how that's kinda shaken out?
Larry: Yeah. It is, for those of us who've been around sports for a long time, it still feels like chaos. So for those parents who go through it the first time, like, you know, again, you know, to the extent that your podcast is hockey therapy, like, alright, let's all hold hands. We're not alone. I wanna validate your feelings.
I also feel anxiety and uneasiness about this. Look, I I I grew up as a Blackhawks fan when I was a child. Right? My dad went and got to he knew somebody there. I got to go to Gate 3 And A Half and get into the United Center.
And I got to be able to see when the Hawks were playing against Wayne Gretzky and that storied Oilers team, whatever. And I got to to to sit and watch that or whatever. And when I owned the Chicago Steel, we had this advantage, which was, we created a development environment, which to many outside observers looked like the NTDP or looked like what you'd find in a at a high level OHL development place, but our kids would be college eligible. And even that and you could be a Canadian kid and still access it. You couldn't do that from a yeah, NTDP is obviously just for The US kids.
And so we were able to get a Fantilly and a Celebrini and an Owen Power and, and so many others to come across the border to play in the USHL. That I don't think that'll ever happen again. I just, I don't think it will. Like, I think the power and draw of being able to play Canadian major junior in and around your hometown and get paid for it, by the way, the higher level players get paid pretty well-to-do that. The ability to do that is, it's just, it's a nostalgia and a draw that is, that is pretty powerful.
So I think we got lucky in terms of when I owned this deal. And I've raised the Blackhawks thing because, you know, one, we, we not only were producing great players, but we were producing great coaches and great equipment managers and great strength and conditioning coaches. And so many of them then went on to the AHL and to the NHL franchises. And it became dizzying that every two years I'd have to go out and hire a new coach. And some of those guys would of course get hired in like August and I've got kids reporting to camp in four weeks.
And it's not like I've got an extra USHL ready phenomenal head coach just sitting there waiting for me to call them in the August. And so I thought, Hey, wouldn't it be great to combine that with the Chicago Blackhawks? Because that way it was a built in pipeline that could feed the Rockford team and the AHL, that could feed the NHL franchise, that they could have commonality of development and coaching, goaltender development, and all those things. And it could almost be just like a minor league for the hockey professionals. And I feel badly that literally, as I transferred ownership of that, the game changed on, I didn't see that coming.
The game changed dramatically for those USHL franchises in terms of their ability to acquire that type of talent. So it's a different it's a different thing now. We can't talk about the NIL things and the Canadian Major Junior things without also talking about, what may happen with college where they may put in a rule that says that your five years of eligibility starts at the earlier of high school graduation. And it may not even be high school graduation. It may be four years after you started high school.
So you can't like sneak a PG year in there. And, and, or the, the earlier of that or 19 years old. And a lot of those junior leagues, including USHL and NAHL and, and, and NCDC and other things, etcetera, really are designed for the 16 to 20 year olds, but a lot of them are older leagues. Well, now that those changes may limit somebody's eligibility chronologically, those leagues may get, may get younger. Right.
And so the, the, the pace of change in junior hockey, the pace of change in college hockey, the pace of change, in that development path is truly dizzying. And then also the USA hockey is considering this national development league, for '72 and for '15 U, which I think is both a reaction to, but also a dedication to try to make sure that we're still trying to create the best development path for not only the top 23 players that get to go to NTDP, but that next generation of players. I personally think the system we had worked pretty well. Like, personally believe that we, you know, that, that, if your kid got to go to one of those top fifteen, twenty programs that were perennial, where there were coaches that taught skills, strategy, and character, where you were surrounded by elite athletes, I did think that, you know, majority of the USHL teams had, you know, really great development and obviously could could go major junior, but but, and lose that eligibility. But I thought there was a great development path that we had.
I kind of thought that we had that right. And sure, there's always the kid like Matthew Coronado that we got to take that didn't make NTDP, but then ended up being the thirteenth overall pick in the first round of the NHL draft.
Jamie: And went to Harvard, right? Harvard guy.
Larry: Now he's, he was the leading scorer on Calgary this year. Yeah. But like, even though they didn't judge him in 16 years old to be like one of the top 23, there was still a great available development path that obviously worked for him and through his own work ethic and his own dedication, look how far he rose. So I have a lot of empathy for anybody whose kids are twenty ten or 2,009, who's like trying to sort out this landscape. Because even the most experienced people here are saying, I've never seen this before.
But my advice is a little bit simple. Right? I've never seen a hockey player who is so talent, who is really talented, that just didn't get picked because they weren't discovered. Right? There are so many scouts out there.
There is so much communication and now there's so much video, there's so much Live Barn, there's so much tape, there's so much whatever. If we spent all the time we had investing
Scott: in
Larry: our kids' skills and knowledge of the game and character and off ice conditioning, and spent less time worrying about, do they go to this right camp or are they going to get seen or whatever, etcetera? The reality is there's a little bit of exposure or whatever that at the margin is maybe going to get them included in a conversation. But I gotta be honest with you. If your kid is talented and destined for greatness in hockey, the hockey world's gonna find him. The hockey world's gonna find him.
In the NFL, there was a draft, and I think he may have gone in the seventh round of somebody who just never played football before, but he was just an absolutely unbelievable athlete. And the NFL decided they'll do an international combine combine with just athleticism for people that might wanna play football that have tremendous athleticism, have never played the sport before. The sports are designed to find the right people to play them. Trust me, there's big enough business now in college hockey that if your son or daughter is meant to be discovered, they're going to be discovered. So within that construct, right?
I think you need to play where they're going to get the right support, where they're to have the right role, they're going have the right development and honestly, right balance for themselves. And there is no correlation between how many games your kid won as a child, and how far they went in the game of hockey. Like, it's just, it's not, it's not there. And so, what do I believe? I believe that at the ultra elite level, the kids who are otherwise gonna go the first round in the draft, we all know it at 16 years old, there's gonna be a competition and a real confusion.
Should they go to the Canadian major juniors? They go to the USHL? Should they go into college when they're 17, like Salabrini did? Like, you know, what, what should they do? And they can get paid now in college to the NIL deals.
May we all wish that our kids are so talented?
Jamie: Absolutely.
Larry: I think at that point in time, CAA and, you know, Pat Person are gonna advise you exactly what to do. But for the other 99 and a half percent of us that don't have those kids, If your your son looks like he's gonna be the bubble ist kid on the team, I wouldn't chase it. I would just have him play where he's gonna touch puck, where he's gonna develop, where the coach knows his name, where he's not gonna be sitting in the stands. You know, Nikki Abrazizi, played nine games for Toronto Maple Leafs, and he's got a really good AHL career. He was an avalanche kid that eventually played for the steal.
And we had a coaching change because Dan Muse had been hired by the, Nashville Predators as an assistant coach. We had a coaching change late, and, there was a coach who, we changed mid year. But that coach put Nikki Abrazee in the stands because he missed a penalty shot and he was supposed to be an offensive player. He didn't like any benched him. He benched him for a lot of games.
Like, he just didn't play him. And this is a kid who, a year later led the USHL in points, like led the entire league in points, had a fantastic hockey career at Harvard. And, I'm sorry, maybe it was UNH. I forget which one he went to. He had a fantastic college hockey career.
And then he has had a great career with the Marlies and I was with Tampa Bay's organization. He played nine games in the NHL. The fact that we had a coach put a kid in the stands for multiple games because he thought he was supposed to be a skill guy and he missed a penalty shot. Like, obviously I made a change in the coach for a lot of different reasons. But like that, that's just like, we, that, that was an example where we weren't living our own values and we had to make a change because we need people to live our values.
You need to find an organization that's gonna value your son or daughter, that's gonna, put them in a position where they care about his development. And whether you're talking about a 13 year old as to whether they're playing A or AA or AAA, or whether you're talking about whether they're gonna play this junior league or that junior league, or whether the team's gonna be making the playoffs or not. Trust me when I say, if they work on their game, they're gonna be discovered. You know, Prince, Providence College, a kid named Johnny Mustard, just was named athlete of the year, male athlete of the year by the whole school. So it's all the sports they play.
And he's a hockey player.
Jamie: Jersey guy. Right?
Larry: The guy. Right? Yeah. Fourteen u Avalanche AA. Right?
Yeah. Once again, I own the Chicago Steel. Anthony Day, who's with me now building our Florida Surfranchise, begged the Steel guys to take Johnny Mustard. Right? They they didn't take him to the futures draft.
He was available in the thirteenth round of the phase two draft. Begged him. They didn't take him. Waterley took him. Right.
He ended up being, I believe rookie of the year in the USHL. I believe he's a Chicago, Blackhawks draft pick. If, if the kid's good enough, they're gonna find it. It didn't matter with he didn't go so he went to Waterloo, which wasn't winning as much as other franchises in the USHL. So he played 14 double A instead of 14 triple A.
He didn't go to Brick or whatever. Like, didn't matter. Right? What mattered is what, how he built his skills. Teddy Merrill just won, you know, a character award from the USHL.
He was a good drill finalist in the year before that. He's going to go off to Arizona State. He had a great career at Des Moines. Came to us as a billet, just kind of a, you know, kind of an all over the place kid. Didn't have his hockey game quite together.
Didn't have his thought process quite together. But like he worked on himself and he's became this great human being and this great hockey player. And now he's going to one of the great, you know, places to play college hockey in Arizona State, which, you know, many people from both a lifestyle perspective and education perspective, hockey perspective, like, wow, that's like an unbelievable experience. So I would just say that that having seen this with the older kids, the billets, the junior kids I've been around with, just everybody should focus on their own journey. Be the best version of yourself you can be.
Find somebody who's going care as much about you and in your game and align yourself with that. And then eventually somebody's going to find you. And, you know, it's not about making the right decisions. It's about making the decision you make right. Whatever team you're on, make that the best situation for you by what you do once you get there, by being the hardest worker, being the positive teammate, asking for additional help, asking for additional coaching and support.
And trust me, that coach is going to make sure that everybody at the next level knows who you are.
Jamie: Right. Just make the best of whatever situation you're in and at that time when you're in it. You know, it's so funny, Larry, that you brought up college hockey because, and it's funny you brought up Johnny Mustard because I saw him play at Providence this past season, when we went to see BC play Providence at Providence. We were in the area for a tournament and I knew he was a Jersey kid. So it's funny.
I I and he's a he's a good little hockey player. It's impressive.
Larry: Yeah. He's an unreal hockey player, but but not on anybody's radar screen. And again, it's the craziest thing. He's not the first one that we couldn't, you know, I, and the agreement was I own the steal, but like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna overrule the professional staff. I'm gonna give my thoughts.
Early on, I had one pick in the futures draft. They gave me one. But but that was it. And, and then and then eventually, they said, no. We we, you know, we had enough professional staff, that that they gave me zero.
And I was like, okay. I I respect it. But, like, you know, sometimes I wish I was a little bit more vociferous than we could've had Johnny in a black and red jersey there.
Jamie: Right. Like Jerry Jones, you kind of on the team and kind of the GM at the same time.
Larry: Yeah. Well, you know, I'm not Jerry Jones in so many different ways. The program wasn't with them. Right? And I and I and I wasn't and I wasn't, refusing to pay my stars, what they're worth or whatever, etcetera.
But, you know, Jones is done okay for himself, so I don't think he's gonna do
Jamie: a little
Larry: bit for me.
Jamie: Yes. Yes. I think you have too. You have as well. So but yes.
You know? But, you know, it's it's funny you talk about college hockey because it's I love college hockey. And in and a lot of the the parents that follow us, you know, they're looking for their kid to play, whether it's Division one hockey or D or D three hockey or they want to play club hockey. Right. And in my opinion, and you tell me if I'm right wrong here, but because of the shakeup that's going on right now and you have Canadian kids coming down to play in US universities now, so a team like Michigan got rid of a lot of US born players brought in a bunch of kids from, you know, from overseas or from Canada.
Right. I mean, as a hockey fan, as a college hockey fan, the product is getting so much better. And I know that they're trying to put right to put more D one, you know, hockey programs out there. There's a, you know, handful. You keep hearing about the Alabamas that are possibly gonna come online, hopefully down the road.
But as a college hockey fan, I mean, it it it seems like that's gonna explode down the road. Am I wrong about that?
Larry: Look. I hope it does. Right? You look at the fans that some club teams get. Unbelievable.
Yeah. Which are unbelievable. They they they're they're they're more than most junior teams get. They're more than many professional teams get. And and then just the willingness of the the the university community.
I mean, universities increasingly will need to sell something beyond the education they offer because that education can be offered online. So you're really offering the convening in the community and the social experience. Right. And, and all the things that come with that. And so, like the SEC schools, obviously they all have tremendous, football string and they have tremendous financial resources and they have tremendous market power with television deals, etcetera.
But like,
Jamie: I
Larry: saw something the other day that said that there's the average WNBA franchise is worth $450,000,000 And the reason that those franchises are so successful, and remember they pay their entire team of athletes $7,000,000 a year. So, you know, the athletes aren't quite making the money, even though they're the ones in the entertainment. The reason that they're so successful is because those, those franchises can, can use their market power and say, if you want to support our NBA team, you need to also support our WNBA team. If you want to, you know, host and be the home of our NBA team, then you're also going to host our WNBA events. And, it would not take a very big leap of faith for the SEC schools to say, you want our football programs to be on your network, you're also going to televise the SEC, hockey league And to get 6,000 or 7,000 people in their night and to develop those things.
And who wouldn't want to I mean, here's a trivia question for you, or just a trivia observation. The last 10 Stanley Cups have been won by the Southern 16 teams out of the 32 teams in the league. Right? There's been nobody North Of Pittsburgh that's won it in the last decade. Right?
Because people wanna live down South because the chances are lower. And because in general, people want warmer weather. Like, this just that's the the the that's been the human experience. I had a group in Chicago. I would, I wish never, I would never replace it.
Raise my children in New York and New Jersey. Really, really appreciate those opportunities. But we can't ignore the fact that like the population really, if they had a choice, a lot of people would choose to live in lower tax jurisdictions and more sunshine. And what would be. So in the event that the SEC and other places went division one hockey, I think it would take them a short period of time to be as competitive as the big tennis.
Just, I, I just, believe that. And so yeah. Is it gonna happen instantaneously? No. People told us, you're not gonna have triple a hockey in Florida because there's only one organization and there's been no triple a hockey in twenty years.
You know? We we gotta, like, break that break through that mold. There's now four teams, and NEST hockey has a prep team, so there's five. And and and and and Florida's hockey crazy. I hope that the Florida schools end up with division one division one team.
Absolutely. I also was a product of I got to play club hockey, which was the right thing for me, at my talent level. I was never good enough to play division one, but it was a wonderful experience. It was 32 games in a collegiate. It kept me healthy and happy and gave me friendships and experiences that I treasure forever and, you know, fostered my love of the game.
And so, look, what I would say is, I think parents should remember that even if you played professional hockey, you know, I'm very close friends with Carl Hagland who had a storied career, started out as a ranger. He was halfway between the AHL and the NHL when the lockout happened in 11/12. He was looking for ice to train because he was a dedicated guy. I was a guy with an ice rink in my backyard in New Jersey. I did a deal with him.
I said, it'd be nice to my kids. I'll give you the ice. So I got to know him and Zuk and and Derek Broussard and others. And, and we're still very close to Carla's day. And like, you know, he, he went to, he went to University of Michigan, got his degree, great four year college player, had a great hockey career.
But then, you know, at 34, 35 years old, he unfortunately suffered an injury that ended his career a couple of years too early. But like, that's a flash in the pan. Most of us have forty year careers from, you know, the time we had exit high school or college to the time that we stopped working, it's forty five years. Even if your kid's doing professional at the highest level, he won two Stanley Cups. At 34 years old, for the next thirty five years, he got to do something else.
Right? So like the habits he got as a hockey player, the skills he got as a human being, like that's what's going to determine his success and his happiness. And everybody else is in the same exact position. That's for somebody who is at the pinnacle of sport. And most people, if they're almost there, maybe play hockey to their late twenties, trying to get into different leagues under the NHL.
And, you know, maybe they do that. But like the most important thing is we got to make sure that our kids' skills are not just that they can toe drag and that they can do a punch turn, but also that they can, you know, handle adversity, that they can lead and develop relationships. They can think critically that they can have an analytical mind. And whether your kid plays d one, d three, club, rec, whatever, etcetera, there's nobody I know who went through the journey whose kid kept loving the game at the end more than they did at the beginning of the season, who doesn't think that their kid's a better person now and more capable of attacking life because of that experience. Like I just, that's what we should all be in it for.
And I think you're right. Like if it's not D one, it's not D one, because let's be honest, there's 63 or 64 programs in D one. There's 20 that are really feeding the NHL. Maybe there's an occasional kid from one of those probably below
Jamie: the smaller schools.
Larry: Like, you know, like anything else, like the big keep getting bigger, you know, we were fortunate enough. Was rooting for Michigan at the end of the playoffs. You know, we had like six or seven kids that were on that team from the came from Longwood programs or whatever. Were rooting for them. But like Michigan reloads, like, you know, they just keep getting the kids.
Keep getting whatever, etcetera. The big 10 schools get it, you know, Wisconsin's coach is unbelievable. Like, like the big 10, the Hockey East, like, you know, obviously Denver has been a franchise year in year out, NODAC. Just like there's these schools that are iconic that are going to continue to feel that claim. And so whether your kids play in program 55 and D one or program 20 and D three, or whether he's playing club, you know, hopefully they're learning the lessons out of it that are really going to lead to their success.
I mean, my, my investment firm is called Glenview Capital, because I believe that half the stuff I needed to be successful in business was stuff I learned at Wharton Business School and at the University of Pennsylvania. But the other half was stuff I learned on an ice rink when I was a kid. Like, and I would say that, you know, we just celebrated our twenty fifth year anniversary as a firm. What I would say is that it was probably more like ninetyten. It's probably 10% what I learned in college and 90% what I learned from youth sports.
Just the ability to react, interact with people, the ability to learn, ability to face adversity, overcome, stay focused, like all those things, man, like, it's it's worth a lot more than the than the academic tuitions that we pay.
Scott: Wow. That's a that's an unreal thing to say ninety ten. Wow.
Larry: Or I could be like Yogi Berra and say like, it's 90% physical and 50% mental or whatever, but I am. So I'll quote him.
Scott: The Yogi isms. I I just wanted to bring it back hockey dad style, and then we can we can start wrapping up. It's getting late. But, you know, it just, you know, we all go through tough times in this journey, this that roller coaster. And as I mentioned to you before we started, you know, that Jamie and I just this podcast started just feels like a therapy session, but just curious from like, you know, having all these experiences as a hockey dad, can you recall or share some of the harder moments that you've gone through?
Larry: Sure. Harder moments. Yeah. You know, I'm gonna start with, I'm gonna start with COVID. Alright?
Mhmm. The season being canceled, the chaos that ensued. You know, we had this legendary team at the Steel that won the Anderson Company, and they won the regular season. They're probably destined to win, but you never know. Like, it's a you never the favorite doesn't always win or whatever, etcetera, but it was pretty legendary group there.
I felt so bad for those kids that they couldn't, like, continue. Obviously, in the middle of this human journey, there were so many things that were more important than the hockey disappointment. Right? So, like, obviously, we were scared for people's lives, the elderly, the frail, the people who lost their jobs and livelihood. Like it was, it was, I think when we, I think when I look back when I'm an 85 year old, I look back at that COVID year is probably the strangest year of my entire life.
But whether it be, and that year afterwards, you know, kids having their Canadian hockey leagues canceled, the state of New Jersey making 18 year old boys get undressed naked in the zero degree weather in the parking lot of ice house because they weren't allowed to use the locker rooms. Like, I'm sure that's not the most healthy thing either to have kids like doing that. It's just like the the and then the the follow on chaos of having five years of hockey talent try to squeeze into teams that were built for four years. The number of kids that thought they had a commitment to college, then but everybody got extra eligibility and then suddenly they got decode and pushed back. Then the D three kid who didn't get the D three opportunity and so on and so forth.
Like, I would say that that environment was, was super frustrating because there were so many good kids who did it right. Like, they sacrificed, they did it right, they did everything. They got a commitment from somebody that they thought it was, like, real commitment. They trusted it. They believed.
They celebrated. They whatever. And then through no fault of their own, it was just kind of like, I don't know, just ripped away from them again. Yeah. Many bigger, horrible things that happened in COVID, but just from a hockey perspective, I would say that that was something that was, that that that was frustrating.
My son, Justin, battled, some real injury issues in college. He was a kid who's an undersized goalie, so committed to his craft. Honestly, the hardest working kid I've ever seen play hockey. And I don't mean to insult all the yeah. Lane Hudson or any of it.
Like, he he's an undersized goalie, and there's no such thing as an undersized goalie. But just through sheer force of will, willed himself to be an incredible goaltender. And, you know, he finally was in a situation he had an unreal year his junior year. He had a really bad injury at at at Arizona State that prevented him from playing his freshman year. Came back, you know, won his first start on the road in Notre Dame.
So kinda it was on NHL Network. It was like a storybook thing. And then they ran through other teams in the Midwest, and it was less storybook. But he he went to Sacred Heart and he had this great season, you know, beat BU on the road, shut out Maine and Maine's first game since COVID year. He had he was just like he was on a roll.
And then and then in the second game, he got he broke his ankle and tore three ligaments and was just, and was out for almost, he tried to get back without surgery. Couldn't do it. Fractured a bone in his vertebrae in his back when he was coming back from it. Just like the injuries. And I'm sure that his story is personal, but not unique.
I'm sure that many families and kids who've had career ending injuries or season ending injuries or things that have just prevented them from being their best selves. And again, to see the sacrifices kids get and then not be able to, for not through them, their own dedication or whatever, but just because the random luck of somebody rolled on your ankle and you're whatever, he literally finished the game against Holy Cross on a broken leg, won the game on a broken angle for the last minute and a half. And, just you, you, you wish as a parent, not for Disney moments, you wish for the Disney moments, but you just wish that they could take it as far as they could take it and that they don't have horrible luck along the way.
Jamie: That's all
Larry: part of it. Right? And again, that's part of the journey and that's part of the, you know, like at the end of the day, we play for the respect of your peers and like, yeah, I know so many people look up to him and his journey and what he did as a, as a goaltender is just so committed. Like, again, those things as a parent, as a coach, as somebody like you just, you wish you could, we wish you could rescue everybody and write their, write their stories. We lost an overtime to my eighteen year team lost in overtime in the national championship to South Kent.
What a game. What a game. Like super happy for the South Kent kids. Super happy for the experience. Man, I wish I could have that, you know, what they're supposed to go in.
You know what I mean? It's like, you just Yeah. Just want it. You know? Like, we're all we're all there.
We're all human. Right? Like, it's not Yeah. We're we're not we're we're not talking about somebody, you know, whatever, etcetera. Right?
I would also say then that there's some things that happen in hockey that bring you the human perspective. I had a player named Maurice Campbell, who came to me as a 15 year old, and I took him sight on scene as a fifteen year team because I only had five defensemen that I liked. And there was a lot of other defensemen at the tryouts. I just didn't like any of them. And I just, I thought we needed something.
And so I kept calling around to find people and everybody told me about this kid, Mo Campbell, an African American kid who's just like a great kid. And so I was like, right, you know, I'm gonna hold spot for him. So he came out to Longwood to our backyard rink the first time we practiced. And I absolutely fell in love with the kid. Like he was, he was awesome kid.
Tough hockey player, good hands, good head, knocked the kid on the ass and then smile over him and help him up. Like it just like a really awesome kid. And so that was in April. And, by July, unfortunately, we found out that he had stage four cancer
Scott: of the
Larry: SRP. Jesus. He, he lived for four and a half years. He had an incredible journey and a brave journey. Unfortunately, he's come to it when he was 19.
Like, I always wonder what it was that like made me hold out. Like I've never held out for anything. I've just, you pick the teams at tryouts. Like, I don't know why I'm not like a super religious voodoo, whatever person, but like, I don't know, whatever reason I think I was meant to to know Moe. And and then, you know, you get these frustrations, right?
Like, God, like, why this kid? Like, why why is she why this family? Such an unbelievable family. But then you see the beauty of the hockey community. Right?
Like, he he he played one game for us that year. We played against the little capitals. He was going in for a major surgery. It was a ten hour surgery the next day. And I had joked around with his parents.
I was like, if you ever, you need to tell me that you got a doctor's approval. If he ever wants to play a game, we'll put him in for his shift just so we can feel a part of it. Cause he would come in sometimes and put on a red jersey and he didn't have much stamina with all the chemo he was going through and all the other stuff, whatever. But like, but the, but he was there to be an inspiration for the boys. We, we were trying to be an inspiration for him and turns out that he was just being an inspiration for us.
But anyway, so against the little caps, the coach couldn't have been better. The kids couldn't have been better. Two thousand and three group. We had had some success against him on the Saturday game, then we're playing them again on Sunday morning. So the strategy was not to be egotistical, but like, let's get a lead and then let's put in Mo.
And, but we can only play him in the first and third period because he's such a disciplined kid that he'll never get off the ice in the second period. If you get caught in our own zone, because he's depressed and he just won't do it or whatever. And we just, so, so the kids are like gripping their sticks so much that like we're eleven minutes into the game and, we, we can't score. We put up 11 the day before we cannot score. The kids are so nervous because everybody knows that they, we got to score so Mo can get in and everybody was getting their stick so much or whatever, etcetera.
And so, you know, I looked at my assistant coach and I was like, screw it. And offensive zone face up. I was like, Mo, just go like, go. It's just like, let's get him in there. You know, bring to ice house, play special notes, everybody knew the refs, whatever knew and the other team was great.
I was like, you can't hit number 76. That PGA was favorite play, Can't hit 76. They would ever think me better about it. So, anyway, as it happens, right, and I can send you guys a video tape later, in the zone for about, twelve seconds, Paul comes back to his d partner, d to d, most shoots and scores. Right?
To this day, I get chills every time I tell you story.
Scott: Wow.
Larry: And the place goes nuts or whatever it's at. The ref immediately goes against the puck, comes down the line. The other team's clapping it up. Like they couldn't get more classy people at the little caps. Like it was just, it was an unreal youth hockey moment.
And so then, in, like, in the third period, I was like, Hey, Moe, you want another shift? And he's like, Sure. Right? And so, but like, the hockey player took over and he's taken a three on two and he absolutely blows the kid up. Right?
I've I've told them, I've told them like, don't touch him.
Jamie: Not to hit him.
Larry: Yeah. The kid's coming down on a three on two. We're up by like six goals and he destroys the kid with a hip check into the wall. And like very good technique for a kid particularly who hasn't played a game all year. Right?
But just like, and I'm like, and everybody's like, oh, and I'm just, I'm looking at the coach and the other bench, like, I'm sorry, you're whatever.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah.
Larry: It could've been better sports, but I'm like, oh my God, gotta be kidding me. So anyway, so that was the other that happened. And then like with a minute and a half left, I was like, you know what? Let's just put Mohit forward. He was exhausted.
Put it forward. Just go stand in front of the net. We'll see what happens. And he scores with eight seconds left. Right?
Immediately, like, again, we can't hit him. Wow. His teammates mobbed him. Like, they Yeah. Like, you know, I think eight of the ten hours of surgery was to put him back from what they did to him when they Right?
Moe's story was the worst thing that ever happened to me in hockey. Mhmm. And Moe was probably the best thing that ever happened to me in hockey. Like like, we we do this That's true. Moe Smiles event every summer in in in Longwood in New Jersey to raise money.
We had 650 kids come out. Lane Hudson came out. Alex Farrick came out. Dan Muse came out. Like, we've had so many guys donate their time and and and and and notoriety or whatever, etcetera.
We play youth games all day. We play pont hockey all day. And then we do you got college and pro game at night or whatever, etcetera. It was just really a celebration of Moe's life and what he stood for. And then the money goes to Memorial Sloan Kettering, which was an unbelievable institution that did everything they could to, to, to get him there.
And by the way, Moe got into the University of Pennsylvania and his grades went up, not down when he got sick, which is the craziest thing in the world. And he said to me, he said, it's the only thing I can control. I can't control my body. I can't control my hockey.
Scott: I can
Larry: control my grades. And again, in terms of like thinking about like, what are the lessons we want from our kids, whatever. So what was my worst and most frustrating moment? Like the day I heard that news. Right?
But again, like it's it's what you make of it or whatever. Like Mo gave all of us who knew him a gift. His family continues to give us a gift. I mean, able to kind of carry on his legacy and his story. Like, in nineteen years, like he lived more life than most of us will hope to.
And like, again, like, that's where like the borders of the hockey world go thrown out the window, and we're all one big family. And like, you know, and I'm sure there's a different town and a different story and a different kid that also sounds similar to other people that are listening to this or whatever, etcetera. One of my most proud about most proud of the fact like our sport comes together when it's time to come together. You know what I mean? Like, just like, that that's the beauty of it.
So for every frustrating thing that's ever happened to any of us in hockey, just look around. Right? You could, your kid could have this devastating thing, but like the doctor that treated him could have been, like the coach that helped him through that, the friend or teammate that tapped him on the pads, whatever it is, etcetera. All we got to do is look around and see kind of the beauty and what's out there. And hopefully people keep that positivity because that's what makes us all worth it.
That's why we're all hockey moms and hockey dads. And that's why we can call ourselves crazy, but we're not that crazy. I think we're on to something.
Scott: No. I mean, that's unreal. And I remember at the ice house, you know, when when you walk in and, you know, they got the TVs around and there were, you know, photographs of him on the ice Yeah. You know, with his teammates and just I'm getting the chills thinking about it. Just, well, what a what a story and
Larry: and So 07/16/2026. If anybody wants to come right, you know, find me on social media, along with hockey, whatever, etcetera. Come on out, bring your kids, and we'll celebrate Mother's Life and we'll have a good charity tournament. But like, again, the other the the events raise like a $100 each year to go to Moralsville and Kettering. Honestly, the gift that we can give to his family to to make sure that we, you know, that that they know that we carry around Moe around with us, like, you know, and and that he could have that place in hockey.
Like, you know, anyway, it's been it's been a really cool it's really, really cool event. And, again, I I didn't think I was gonna show for a charity event on your on your podcast, but now we find ourselves here. Listen. We can do anything. Here's here's what I would summarize it at is, we're all nuts doing this stuff.
Yeah. And, but like, I I I am so grateful to the parents that like aren't hockey people that have gone on this journey. I'm so grateful for the people, whether you're in Florida and you agreed to like get on a plane six times and fly north to play teams that you'd never even heard of before or whatever. If you've entrusted your kid to move from Toronto or Sweden to come to New Jersey to get better at hockey or whatever it is, etcetera. But like also, it's the, you know, it's the village.
It's the parent who takes your kid home when you can't or travels with you or lets them crash in your bed because we can't all make the away tournaments or whatever. And, like, you know, with all the things wrong in this world, man, this sport's right. And Yeah. I appreciate you guys celebrating it on behalf of all of us.
Scott: You know, well, listen, Larry, thank you so much for joining us tonight. This was unreal getting to know you better, getting to know more about all the endeavors that you've undertaken. And, you know, before we before we drop, just, you know, for anyone that's listening and, you know, wants to learn more about Longwood and what you have going down on you know, going on down in Florida, you know, if you could just share that with everyone, we'll also put it like in our show notes before, you know, when we publish the episode.
Larry: Great. No. I appreciate that. You know, the the AAA organizations of Florida Surf, we're also Longwood Hockey. You can find it on Instagram.
Or if you're ever down in Palm Beach, we're open in the, you know, Palm Beach Gardens Ice Arena is gonna open up in December. But right now, we're at Palm Beach Iceworks. But, you know, I feel like we put up so much stuff on on Instagram. You can't possibly miss us. But Yeah.
Yeah. Or hopefully we we hopefully we see each other in all the rinks that we're at. You know, we're we're gonna we're gonna field, I think, 14 u through mites in in in the tier two category. We're gonna field, you know, seven and eight year old AAUs, triple a's, and then the nine nine through 15 USA Hockey triple a's. And so we'll we'll all see each other in and around the events or whatever, and we're gonna be in your neck of the woods.
We, in honor of Moe, we run we run the Surf's Up Labor Day Classic for our nine, 10, 11, 12 year olds. We rent that ice house. We have all the local teams come and play for that, and all the money goes to Morris Campbell initiative at MSK. And so we'll be in your neck of the woods in in Labor Day as well. And again, just like finding a way to, you know, not only create awesome hockey opportunities, but like, again, reinforce like why we're all doing this.
You know, it's, it's, it's been a fun journey, so I'm sure we'll all see each other, many times along the way.
Scott: Absolutely. Right. Well, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Absolutely.
And thanks again for everything.
Larry: Take care, Jamie. Take care, sir.
Jamie: Thank you, Larry. Have a nice night. Thanks so much. This was wonderful. All right, everybody.
Welcome back from our interview with Larry Robbins. It was so nice of him to take the time to speak to us. You know, I mean, because he is a very busy man, but he loves talking hockey, loves talking shop.
Scott: But that's like so true with us. It's like so That's many of why we have a podcast.
Jamie: I was just going to say, why do think we have this podcast? Because we all love talking shop and listening to shit. It's crazy, but we all are like, I don't want say obsessed with talking hockey, but we all like live it.
Scott: Some more than others. Can you imagine? He's lived the dreams of like
Jamie: A gazillion people.
Scott: The rink that he has on his property.
Jamie: I've never even seen it, but I know, I've heard from multiple people. Know, so I
Scott: know it's It is next level. Oh yeah. When you drive down the street, it's in a residential neighborhood. And it's It a wealthy neighbourhood. Yes.
And there's a lot of large houses with a lot of nice landscaping. And when you drive by, it just looks like you're driving by yet another mansion that's got
Jamie: His wife a lot built a house over it. Built the house on top of it. Right?
Scott: No. So so basically what their their their home is like the is like one piece of property. Right. And then as you mentioned that he bought the house next to them.
Jamie: Oh, thought that was for the billets.
Scott: It was for the billets. So this is like
Jamie: a third house on the property. Got it. So
Scott: it's basically an assembly of three different, very large houses, some much bigger than others. Right? I understand. But it's unreal. But in any event, but like if you were to drive by, you wouldn't think anything except for the fact that it's yet another house on the block that's just like, you know, very high end.
And there's a lot of landscaping in front. You can't really
Jamie: get a
Scott: good view
Jamie: from street. From the street.
Scott: And then when you walk in, like, you know, the presentation of like, you know, when you walk in, everything is upscale. The locker room's upscale. The seats around the rink. And there's like, there's all, he has all this.
Jamie: Didn't he build the ABS locker room too? Didn't he find this the ABS locker room?
Scott: I don't know about that. I certainly could be.
Jamie: Thought he did. Maybe I'm wrong about that.
Scott: Haven't I've asked never been in that locker room.
Jamie: I haven't either. No. But I know somebody put money into it. I thought Mr. Robbins was the benefactor.
Scott: It could be.
Jamie: Maybe I'm wrong.
Scott: It could be, but
Jamie: He, like I said, super generous. The gentleman is, I think he was actually also, if I'm not mistaken, I want to say he also had, a hand in, Sacred Hearts ring, if I'm not mistaken.
Scott: I think that's true. Yeah. Because one of his boys played Sacred Heart.
Jamie: Yes. Super generous.
Scott: No doubt. So in any event. Very,
Jamie: very, very nice man. My first time meeting him, really a lot of fun. Like really, he's so easy to talk hockey with. Like so easy.
Scott: And I remember when I was sitting with him and he was showing me a play of his son. I think it was Adam, who was playing at Princeton. And he showed me a clip. And he's like, I sent this clip to my son. And this clip was something that was just like, I forget the words that he used, like it was it was such a like a straightforward play.
Jamie: Right.
Scott: But like it wasn't like him like a dad showing me like, oh, look at my kid do a Michigan or look at my kid do this like fancy thing. Like my kid is such a stud. He was just showing me a clip of his son playing hockey the right way. And I forget exactly but what it it was just solid fundamentals, just like a hard working shift, did the right things. And he's like, this makes it all worth it.
In so many words. I was just like, it's just eye opening for me in so many ways just to start to understand, first of all, how important it is from the younger ages to develop good fundamentals and how strength is highlight reel society. It can be really The Instagram.
Jamie: Yeah, it's
Scott: crazy. But nonetheless, it was an amazing interview.
Jamie: Yeah, was great. Thank you so much for taking your time to come out
Scott: with Listen, in the beginning of the whole episode, when we're just talking about the difference between committing and being fully committed.
Jamie: Oh, yeah. That's like the catchphrase now.
Scott: 100%. Talk about fully committed. Mean
Jamie: Listen, he's fully committed to this stuff. I mean, in my opinion, the academy that he's starting down in South Florida is going to be a destination for many hockey players. Over the next ten years, you're going to see that thing explode. Explode.
Scott: I'm telling
Jamie: you, you watch. It's going be like the next IMG Academy. You watch. It's going
Scott: be massive. And him and his boys, all the hockey resources you could probably imagine.
Jamie: And
Scott: ultimately, he's like, if your kid's talented or destined for greatness, the hockey world's going to find you.
Jamie: We'll find him.
Scott: You know what I mean? And this is coming from someone. So for anyone out there who's and we all have our moments of being concerned about whether or not our kid's going to make it to the next level or whatever the case might be, it's just like, keep working hard, stay committed, stay disciplined, don't ruin it for your kid. Make sure they're having fun, make sure they want to keep coming back. They're destined wherever And they end up next, there is not is because they want to get there.
It's not necessarily because of a parent like pulling this string or that string. Yeah, are there instances of that? Sure.
Jamie: Of course there
Scott: are. But like even talking about Lane Hudson, like when the Hudsons were at the house. Yeah. And like when the kid was, I don't know, 15. Yeah.
And he was just like running up and down.
Jamie: And not playing video
Larry: to Longwood, you have to go up
Jamie: a long Yeah, he's
Larry: on a hill.
Jamie: A long hill.
Scott: And like just running up and down with a weighted vest. That's what Lane Hudson chose to do as opposed to other things like playing video games or whatever when he was that age.
Jamie: No, listen, it's actually not far from here. No? Not far at all. No. Yeah.
No, I know that town. They have a good hibachi place in that town.
Scott: Yes, but this is like closer.
Jamie: Yes.
Scott: Yeah. It's literally like, I don't know.
Jamie: Yeah, there's a good hibachi place on, was it 9W?
Scott: 9W, yeah. It's like a three minute drive from here. Longwood.
Jamie: Longwood, yeah, his rink. Yeah. No, he was, I gotta tell you, it was, I guess, my first time ever meeting Larry and he was very, very cool to talk to. Yeah. Yeah.
And again, and thank you very much for inviting us to your your charity, the charity, almost say charity event, charity outing that he has in July, we will definitely be there. That is for sure. I mean, if we can help raise money for a good cause, like in hockey world, 100%
Scott: We'll share more about that in the future.
Jamie: Coming in a couple months, but I actually looked at my schedule. I want to make sure that I was here for that. And I am. Yeah. So I was worried that was going be away from like Tom's hockey camp or something like that.
Yeah. Good. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to that.
Scott: It'll be good. That's awesome, man.
Jamie: So I'm curious.
Scott: What else?
Larry: Do
Jamie: you think the hurricane are going to wind up closing the door on the flyers today?
Scott: Yes. Yes, I don't think there's a question. 100%. Agree. Dude, I was watching a clip of Slavin.
Jamie: They can't hang.
Scott: He's so good now. But dude, like they're man on man. So they were on the PK and like Slavin, who's a defenseman was like defending against Drysdale all the way. Drysdale, right? That's a kid's name?
Drysdale? Yes. I keep on thinking when I say that, I think I'm making I'm a mistake because of the
Jamie: pretty sure Drysdale was the defenseman for the Ducks. Was the defenseman for the Anaheim Ducks got traded, I wanna say, am I wrong about it, in the Zigris trade? Am I wrong?
Scott: I don't know.
Jamie: I'm pretty sure Drysdale was on the Ducks. Oh, a
Scott: No, he's a flyer now. Oh, got switched. No, they're on the same team. Drysdale's on the Flyers.
Jamie: Yes. So is Eagles. And I'm pretty sure that they were in the same
Scott: So they both came from Anaheim?
Jamie: You know, I'm going look it up while we're talking. But tell me what you're saying.
Scott: No, I was just saying like watching Slavin, like playing defense against the Flyers. As a defenseman, he's in front of like his opponent's goalie.
Jamie: Right.
Scott: Like just keeping a stick in passing lanes like on the I think they were on the PK the hurricanes were and just literally shutting down this guy. And again, just remember, he's a defenseman. He's playing man on man defense on the PK in front of Philadelphia's goalie. It's just unreal.
Jamie: I'm wrong, by the way. It wasn't. I think I was wrong about that. I wanna say it was so the zebra strip was somebody else. Alright.
So so what are you saying? Like so so you're talking about Slavin at first.
Scott: I was talking about Slavin and just just like how they, you know, listening to other podcasts and just watching them play, like, clearly, they, like, they smother you, right? Like they just talk about how they're, you know, like a wet blanket on other teams and they can't get anything accomplished. And just watching how like their man on man system is just like it's unreal.
Jamie: Yeah, he was with Anaheim. Jamie Drysdale, right?
Scott: I don't I don't know. You tell me.
Jamie: You're. No, I'm I'm telling you. He was he was on he was on
Scott: But they didn't come together.
Jamie: Let me see.
Scott: Separately, they both made their way to Philadelphia.
Jamie: Oh, okay. My fault. So, Zebras was another trade for that guy, Ryan Polling. That's actually his name. Drysdale was in the Cutter Gauthier trade.
Scott: Oh, that was a
Jamie: Cutter fucking Gauthier got drafted by the Flyers. Then like refused Didn't to want to go. So it was, sorry, I had my mind mixed up. It was Drysdale for Gautier.
Scott: Got you.
Jamie: That's how he got to Philly.
Scott: Got you.
Jamie: Okay. Listen.
Larry: I mean,
Jamie: yeah, no, listen, the the Flyers have some good young players, but the the Hurricane are just a wagon, dude.
Scott: They are so good.
Jamie: I mean, they're such a wagon right now. I mean, it's
Scott: I can't imagine that. Like
Jamie: Such a wagon.
Scott: You know what's you know what surprised me though was like the Montreal game last night. Boy, did they bounce back?
Jamie: Game one didn't look so hot, right?
Scott: Yes, correct. But now they totally bounced back. Totally redeemed themselves. Sorry. You go and totally redeem yourself.
Jamie: Our pet's heads are falling off. Unreal. Pretty bird. Pretty bird.
Scott: You sold PD to a
Jamie: blind kid? What was the other one? Yeah. Like, something he says, he's like, I got taken by an old lady in a motorized cart. I didn't even see it coming.
Scott: Don't you go dying on me.
Jamie: Don't you go dying on me now. That's right. That's why you say like, watch this.
Scott: Hold people,
Jamie: although slow something
Scott: dangerous behind the wheel can serve a
Larry: purpose. Yeah.
Jamie: Something like that.
Scott: Yeah, totally.
Jamie: Good lines, dude. Really good lines. But so, yeah. So so you have a, so you're what? So you're one one in that series, right?
Yep. Going today? No. Going tomorrow. So today you have what?
You have hurricanes flyers at six.
Scott: And that might be the only game tonight.
Jamie: And there's a nine. Avalanche Wilder at nine. So you have a three o hurricane over the flyers and you have a two o avalanche over the wild. The wild are disappointing.
Scott: I I well, is it they're disappointing or
Jamie: I'm or not I'm not disappointed, but I'm they're I think I am disappointed in this series.
Scott: So far. Let's let's see what happens tonight. Yeah.
Jamie: They win, it's a it's a different a different totally different situation.
Scott: But I mean, it's been it's been a total goal fest.
Jamie: Dude, the first game was like a Yeah. But then the second
Scott: game, what did they score? Six in the second I think going into the last game, I think they had scored 11 goals in like four games.
Jamie: I mean, yeah. Yes.
Scott: No. Including last year.
Jamie: Yeah. Because they yeah. Because they were rolling before that. Yeah. You're not wrong.
Listen. They beat the wild nine nothing. Right? Game one. Right?
Scott: I'm gonna be interested to see
Jamie: And then listen. They they won their home games. Right? They won their home games.
Scott: They say they're back in Minnesota.
Jamie: So now the wild need to their home games.
Scott: So we'll see what happens.
Jamie: So yeah. It's
Scott: gonna it's gonna be tough. I mean, they're
Jamie: That so team is that team is frightening. I mean, I think Like, they're scary.
Scott: I don't I don't I haven't seen enough of Buffalo. I don't think if Montreal were to get past Buffalo
Jamie: I would
Scott: like that. I can't imagine
Jamie: I would like to see Montreal get past Buffalo.
Scott: I would like to say that too, but it's just hard for me to Suzuki's not firing yet. Caulfield's getting Caulfield in the beginning of the game last night, literally off the hop, had his back completely turned to center ice. Puck ended up along the boards and like was just like looking to see how the play was gonna shake out. Buffalo, like absolutely, someone on Buffalo like cross checked him, like totally bowled him over from behind. Like no penalty was called.
But then it's like they are just like on him and
Jamie: They're just trying to throw him off the game you
Scott: think? Dude, I mean, but that kid, Newhoak, not even his kid, Newhoak had
Jamie: like two goals last night. Did he? Yeah. Oh, nice. That's a nice day
Scott: for me. Nonetheless, don't know. I think it's going to be, you know what, the Vegas Ducks series, mean, Vegas is up two to one.
Larry: Two to one.
Scott: Did Marner have like a natural hat trick?
Jamie: Did he last night?
Scott: Think he had a natural hat trick.
Jamie: You might be right. Yes, he did. Yeah, he had three goals, one to 64 points last night.
Scott: That's like, you know, that's that's what that guy needs to do in the playoffs if they're gonna like take it to the next level.
Jamie: So, would you so I'm curious. So, would you be surprised if he like went to the Stanley Cup final like now that he's not in Toronto?
Scott: Right and wins.
Jamie: Yeah. Can you imagine that shit?
Larry: Yeah. I
Jamie: know. And and they were all busting his balls.
Scott: But now Toronto's got the
Jamie: number one pick. Dude, that's fucking
Scott: And San Jose's got number two. If you think
Jamie: Which I think is awesome, by
Scott: the way. Is unreal.
Jamie: Was so excited to see that. I was so excited to see the Sharks get the number two pick because I wanna see them do well. If you I mean,
Scott: it's hard not to cheer for Celebrini.
Jamie: A 100%. Obviously, they're gonna take they're gonna take what? A McKenna. They're gonna take McKenna one. With don't dude.
You don't think Charles gonna take him
Scott: I'm not saying they're not.
Jamie: Is going to take the other dude?
Scott: Stenberg? Ivar Stenberg? Listen, I don't know. Both
Jamie: teams are going get a good hockey player.
Scott: That is true. 100%, I think.
Jamie: But you don't think Toronto's going to take?
Scott: I didn't say I don't. Truth is what I'm saying is I don't know. I think people are making
Jamie: They're comparing who?
Scott: No, the comparison of like, you know, when Bedard was selected over Leo Carlson. Okay. Bedard was a next generational talent.
Jamie: Okay.
Scott: And then Leo Carlson at this point, I think people, there's plenty of people that would want would rather have Carlson on their team than
Jamie: just He's Very legit.
Scott: But now like McKenna, apparently, whatever he did in the OHL, like in terms of points per game, like he he was even more dangerous than Bedard. But then he goes and plays college hockey, right? Then Penn State.
Jamie: One year Penn State.
Scott: One year Penn State.
Jamie: Right.
Scott: And like it took a while for him to get going. That's fine. Like not a knock on him. But there was talk in the middle of the season before World Juniors that during the World Juniors that Stenberg was like, maybe he's the new number one now.
Jamie: Stenberg was good.
Scott: I mean, look, ultimately, don't know. But I don't think it's as-
Jamie: You don't think it's clear cut? As you might think. This is not Jack Hughes and Kapokako. That was clear. At the time, I don't think it was so clear, but it's clear now.
Now. Right. It's very clear now.
Scott: Well, listen, think also the fact that Leo Carlson's panned out the way he is and both of those, but he was lighting it up in the Swedish league.
Larry: True.
Scott: Stenberg is also I don't think anyone can really just like I don't think you can just, know
Jamie: You don't think you'd say that McKenna's the consensus is number one.
Scott: You can't look off Stemberg as being like a a I real wonder
Jamie: what the what the brass in Toronto think. I'd be curious to hear that.
Scott: Well, I mean
Jamie: You don't think they're going to take the Canadian?
Scott: Being a Toronto team? Asking. Do you have any money? I think the commercial aspect of it has a ton of weight.
Jamie: I do too.
Scott: And I think that it would be I would be surprised, I think, if he didn't go number one.
Jamie: Me too.
Scott: But I wouldn't be surprised if the conversations were really difficult.
Jamie: If a US NHL team had the number one pick, if the Sharks had the number one pick, I'd be curious to see where they would go with it. As opposed to a Canadian team, especially Canadian team like the fucking Maple Leafs, which like it's super hard to play there. Like you gotta have thick skin. Listen, know Gavin McKenna has thick skin because you say something about his mom, he'd beat the shit out of you. That's true.
Scott: He'll fucking knock you the fuck out.
Jamie: Or maybe he doesn't have thick skin, take it back. Maybe he does not have thick skin. Oh. That's saying something because somebody said something about his mom and he fucking clocked the guy.
Scott: I mean, that's true. Did you?
Jamie: I read something this morning. Did you read that this morning about Gavin McKenna's mom?
Scott: No. What?
Jamie: You didn't see that? No. Hold on. Hold on.
Scott: What? Where are going with this?
Jamie: Hold on. I could've swore I saw something. Yeah, dude. Listen to shit. What?
This morning, I read this. Yeah. Gavin McKenna's mom charged with same weekend that that that Gavin clocked the dude. Yeah. So this was from that weekend.
Gavin McKenna's mom, this morning, I saw this, charged with furnishing liquor to minors.
Scott: Really? This morning, bud. Yeah. Okay.
Jamie: Again, don't know how, I mean, it's it's in it's it's in a lot of different places. I don't know how true it is, but that was a headline this morning. The mother of Penn State sergeant Gavin McKenna was charged last week after investigators said She supplied her son and two others with alcohol just before the incident of Gavin breaking the kid's jaw.
Scott: Oh, so now the mom's being charged?
Jamie: This is for the mother. Is Gavin's mom. Wasn't he at a bar? Crystal McKenna, 44 of Canada, was charged and summoned with two misdemeanor counts of furnishing alcohol to minors after liquor control enforcement officers said she was seen on video buying or distributing alcohol inside a doggy's pub, which I'm assuming is where
Scott: the Oh, so the mom bought it and was getting it
Jamie: to somebody. It's on video. Wow. Yeah. So I don't know what's gonna happen there.
I mean, I'm assuming I'm assuming Penn State will make that go away. Some
Scott: can imagine in the back room, you know, they're like, Alright, listen, we need to get Gavin off the board, but mom, you're gonna have to bait the bullet
Jamie: on this You're gonna have to take one for the team.
Scott: Listen, are the options.
Jamie: Is This there Gavin parents or you is do. I
Scott: was like, Okay, I'll deal.
Jamie: I would think that, know, funny Penn State has a funny way of making things disappear.
Scott: I don't know Rick Paterno. Joe Paterno? Joe Paterno, whatever the fuck his name is.
Jamie: Rick. Oh my goodness. Oh, that was awesome, by the way. That was awesome.
Scott: What? Rick Paterno?
Jamie: Yes. That was awesome.
Scott: Listen, first names are not my forte No. All the
Jamie: my point is, so maybe Gavin does not have such maybe he would not be a good fit for Toronto. I don't know. Listen, the kids are hella hockey player.
Scott: That's true. So listen, we're gonna we're gonna see. I think
Jamie: you were thinking of Rick Pettino, by the way. No. Was thinking of Rick Pettino in basketball.
Scott: No. I wasn't thinking. Think you got no.
Jamie: I know you're thinking about Paterno, but I think you got Rick Paterno and Joe Paterno
Scott: That could be true. And I'll take that. Thank you for giving me some kind of plausible
Jamie: Rick Paterno used to live in our town for a short bit of time, I figured you may figured.
Scott: Oh, you know what? Actually, that's definitely what happens.
Jamie: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. I gotcha. Yeah, I'm here with you, buddy.
Scott: Yeah, thanks. You got my back.
Jamie: Yeah, do. But yeah, so yeah, don't know, man. But I would think that Canadian team would not turn down taking a Canadian player like him. It's not just any Canadian. He's a legit hockey player.
Scott: Yeah. But so here, I'll throw this at you. So you had Mitch Marner, right? Like total stud on the wing. Now you have another young stud on the wing.
And that's
Jamie: you're talking about McKenna.
Scott: I'm talking about McKenna. But like, is that
Jamie: really It's almost like a replacement.
Scott: But is that what they need? Is that is that really what they need?
Jamie: Probably not.
Scott: Is that what they need?
Jamie: Because if you couldn't do it Marner then or do you think Marner just couldn't play under the pressure?
Scott: I don't know. Whatever it is. I'm just
Jamie: saying. The teams might not be able
Scott: play Defense under defense is a problem for Toronto. Right? I think that's like.
Jamie: Yeah.
Scott: Good point. They have offensive firepower.
Jamie: They've got they've golden now.
Scott: So, maybe listen, maybe you draft McKenna or maybe you trade your draft pick and you for a boatload.
Jamie: Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. Listen, I guess depends what they're going to get. Can you imagine if the Toronto Maple Leafs move out of that number one spot and and bring in like some sick defenseman?
I mean, it'd a good move, but I don't think that would go well with the fan base.
Scott: I think the fan base wants to I think they wanna win a Stanley Cup.
Jamie: I think they want
Scott: a team that's better than what they put on the ice last season.
Jamie: I read something like
Scott: But they'll sell a ton of jerseys. Anyone who gets McKinnon's gonna sell a ton
Jamie: of It's it's like it's like Bedard. It's like Celebrini. Same shit. Yeah. But, I I read something that like the last time the Toronto Maple Leafs had the first pick overall.
Yeah. Which I guess was was that Matthews? Has to be.
Scott: I don't know. I'm not
Jamie: The next nine or ten years
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: All first round exits.
Scott: Mean, that's just Isn't that nuts? I mean, it just goes to show that a lot of things have to go right.
Jamie: Listen, it's a hard game to win. And also, mean, hockey is a tough game to make this Stanley Cup. It is. It's hard. It's not easy.
Like, you have to have a certain makeup of a team to get there.
Scott: But, like, you have to have a lot of other things going your way. Like, you need to not be, like, super injured or you need to be less injured than the other team. You know, you need to have like your top players like firing on all cylinders when playoffs come around. Mean, you know, as much as Marner was like, you know, getting heat for like kind of disappearing in the playoffs. I don't know.
Like, I'm just looking at recency bias right now. Looking at the Toronto I mean, the Montreal Canadiens, like Suzuki and one hundred Point Guy Caulfield, they're not dominating. They're not. So I mean, like it happens, right?
Jamie: Yeah. I don't know.
Scott: McDavid, was scrolling through again. He had his fractured ankle at some point. But I was scrolling through the stats of point leaders in the playoffs. And I was scrolling so far down and then I was like, Wait, I must have missed McDavid. But it was like all the way down in the 30s.
Granted Was he? Yeah, like six points. Now look, we've moved on
Jamie: from the first think round. Had one goal, five assists, I think it was. It wasn't much.
Scott: What did he look like? Right. Right? But also, case in point, like, you you can have, like you need to have some luck on your side. Need Yeah, to,
Jamie: you need, yes, yes, you do. Yeah, you're not wrong about that. I mean, at the Florida Panthers last year with Matthew Kacchuk.
Scott: Right.
Jamie: You know, I mean, he
Scott: But it's also a problem when you like rely so heavily on too few and you don't have depth.
Jamie: You pay them both $70,000,000
Larry: Or
Scott: enough depth.
Jamie: $50,000,000 a year. I don't think McDave's gonna be an oiler very much longer.
Scott: Well.
Jamie: I just don't. And I think you have to trade him because you can't let him walk out the door
Scott: and get something. Let me ask you a question. If McDavid's making demands.
Jamie: Do you think he is?
Scott: No. I don't think so.
Jamie: I don't think he's that kind of type of guy. You think they call him be like, Hey, listen, we're thinking of doing this move. What are your thoughts? Do think they run things by him?
Scott: What if he's like, I want to go to Toronto?
Jamie: He's a cot in the GM's office.
Scott: What?
Jamie: He's got a cot next to the GM's desk.
Larry: Man.
Jamie: GM's on the phone with somebody and Connor leans over says, yeah, don't like that idea. No. Doubt it's like that. When I try to James Hanks phone up, the end of toilet, Jim's like, sorry. Gotta go.
Scott: Yeah. I don't know.
Jamie: No. I'm sure it's not. I'm sure he does not do that. But I don't think he's gonna be an oiler.
Scott: The runway is even just listening to other pods and where
Jamie: do they go
Scott: from here? What do they need to do to that team? They need goaltending. I mean, I think that's a They've
Jamie: been trying for years.
Scott: Jari didn't work This is a thing. Jari did not work out.
Jamie: I expected that to work out better. Not gonna lie. Expected that to work out
Scott: so much. With the Jari trade? Yes.
Jamie: I thought Jari was going be really good in Edmonton.
Scott: So I think Skinner had a better regular season than Jari, but then you get to the playoffs, he ends up getting pulled also.
Jamie: Yeah, I was very surprised. Expect that to work out. I did. I expected Jari to be the stud and really push them over.
Scott: Dude, as soon as he got to Edmonton, he was injured.
Jamie: Listen, maybe it's bad luck, but I expected more
Larry: of it.
Jamie: I did. I expected them to be another Stanley Cup contender because
Scott: of it. So do you think, gun to your head, who's the Stanley Cup finals right now?
Jamie: I'm just going keep with my what I picked when we first did this. I think you got Hurricane Avalanche.
Scott: Yeah. I think so too.
Jamie: The Avalanche play next, it doesn't, that doesn't gonna matter. And I think the Hurricane are just, they're both wagons. I think they're both, I think the
Scott: most Who would rather expensive see? Would you rather see play Anaheim or Vegas?
Jamie: So I think Vegas would be the better series,
Scott: but
Jamie: I'm going to say Anaheim because I like the young crowd. And also why I like the Montreal Canadiens. I like the young up and coming players.
Scott: I like watching them. Yeah, I hear you.
Jamie: So that's my that jockey is like a fucking Arbor jockey? Oh my God. I love watching him. He just wants to fucking kill him.
Scott: You see how he was slashing that dude repeatedly on the fucking arm? Speaking of slashing, what about McAvoy's two hand at the end of the Boston series? That was fucking clobber. You Didn't know
Jamie: he punch again in the face?
Scott: No, he took a two hander and swung his stick.
Jamie: Didn't he also punch her in the face?
Scott: Mean, maybe right after.
Jamie: I think he pretty sure he ran over him.
Scott: He two handed him and then he attacked him after getting slew footed.
Jamie: Which again is not
Larry: Oh, yeah. I mean, it
Scott: was definitely a slew
Jamie: No. You're right. You're not wrong about that.
Scott: And his fucking wires got crossed.
Jamie: I I think I've never seen him do that before.
Scott: Dude, but like to two hand someone like that, like, that's like It's aggressive. You're fucking seeing red.
Jamie: Oh, yeah. You have no you have no control over your you have no control over your body whatsoever. Yeah, that was surprising from him. You know what I mean? I've never seen him do that.
Scott: That was unreal. Anyhow.
Jamie: Yeah, so that's my Stanley Cup final. I don't know, we'll see, but it doesn't look like those two teams
Scott: have If out of you could choose your biggest what would be the underdog Stanley Cup finals? Final that you would like to see?
Jamie: Oh. I would like to see Ducks against the Canadians.
Scott: Yes. Yeah. I'm with you on that.
Jamie: That would be a cool Stanley Cup.
Scott: You'd rather see that than Minnesota over the Canadians?
Jamie: Yeah. You mean Buffalo or Philly?
Scott: No, no, no. So Minnesota Minnesota's in the West. In the West. So versus the Canadians. Right.
Oh, so,
Jamie: yeah, no. Don't need to see Minnesota. I mean, it'd be cool because Quentin Hughes, but I if we're talking like an underdog
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: Because I don't think Minnesota's really an underdog. Like, the
Scott: The way it looks right now.
Jamie: While playing against the Avalanche, anybody looks like an underdog. But, like, but, like, young up and coming teams, I would love to see the Canadians play the Ducks. Yeah. That'd cool. And I hope next year the Sharks are in
Scott: Yeah. Well, they'll definitely make you know, definitely. Hopefully.
Jamie: They didn't didn't miss by much this year. It wasn't awful.
Larry: No. You know? But you
Scott: gotta think next year also, like, obviously, they're in the West, so it's a different story. In the East, like, have to think Toronto, like, Toronto and were making comebacks. Don't know.
Jamie: Barcoff's gonna be back. He was out the whole season, you know? Yeah. I think it's gonna be different.
Scott: Yeah. I would
Jamie: love to see Brady Kochucka traded too. Just saying.
Scott: Yeah. There's a lot of talk about that.
Jamie: Yeah. So I keep hearing that he's gonna move this offseason. Is it true? I don't know. New Jersey's nice in the summertime.
Just saying. I'm pretty sure he's got a house down in
Scott: Jersey Shore.
Jamie: Just saying. Does he? Pretty sure. His wife's from Jersey.
Scott: Oh, right on. Yeah. Sonny Mehta, reach out to the Ka'Chuck team.
Jamie: And fucking what's his name? Connor Hellebuck.
Scott: Not from New Jersey?
Jamie: No. But you need to reach out to him because he's a fucking USA goaltender. Yeah. I mean, listen,
Scott: versus Carolina or Anaheim versus Montreal. Which one it would you know, whets your chops more?
Jamie: So I think the better series would be the Avalanche Against a Hurricane. I think the better television series would be that. Just because of the superstars that you have on the Avalanche. Have some guys on the hurricane, but the hurricane are more of like a gritty team that play together. You know what mean?
They don't have
Scott: They're a team.
Jamie: They've got they've got don't get me wrong. They have stars, but not like the avalanche do. Right. Agreed? Right.
You know, so I would I think I would like to see I think I think the hurricane will give them it will be the best viewer wise Stanley Cup finals. Yes. Right? Like excitement wise. I would I'm
Scott: You mean the avalanche?
Jamie: I would let yeah. The avalanche against the hurricane.
Larry: Yes.
Jamie: I think that would be the best to watch as a fan. But I would love to see the Ducks play.
Scott: Montreal? Alright. So then here's like a stupid, like kind of a stupid one. Maybe soup is not the right word. Which would you rather watch?
Would you rather watch Avalanche versus Montreal or Anaheim versus Carolina? I
Jamie: don't think I'd want to watch either of those.
Scott: Montreal, I would definitely want
Jamie: to Montreal and the Ducks?
Scott: No, Montreal. If I had to choose between those two, like the mismatch.
Jamie: You want, oh, oh, I see. Right. Okay. So you'd like the Avalanche. Okay.
Scott: The Avalanche against the Canadians or the Ducks versus Carolina. Which series is more interesting to you?
Jamie: So I, again, so I think the better series would be, I think that the avalanche would, would wipe the floor with the Canadians. So I think the better for viewers would be, the ducks against the Hurricane. That would be the better series to watch. The other one may go four-zero.
Scott: Right, right, right. You know
Jamie: what I mean? So that's, yeah.
Scott: I wonder when the last time the Stanley Cup Oh wait, what was Four-zero? Yeah, was a sweep. Do you know?
Jamie: Did the Devils do it?
Scott: The Devils swept the Red Wings.
Jamie: They did, right?
Scott: Yeah, but I don't if that was the last time it happened.
Jamie: Oh yeah, that's a good question. I don't know. Anyway. Why you flip that up, Scott? Don't We
Scott: should probably wrap
Jamie: this up. Was an awesome episode.
Scott: It was, dude. Yeah. Yeah, good shit.
Jamie: And now I'll bring Otto a ice cream fried chicken next time.
Scott: Yeah, and so I just want to go on the record for saying
Jamie: that That you like this shit.
Scott: That I am You're on board. I'm on board. I think it's very good and it's worth a try. I don't think you should wait.
Jamie: Don't wait online forty five minutes for it. You don't have to. Just go to Vallardo's deli in Nutley, New Jersey. But now we both agree that we see why they ran out of it at Yankee Stadium.
Scott: I do see why. Yes. It's fun. It's a fun thing.
Jamie: It is fun. Yes. Was good. I enjoyed it. And you being the chef, you enjoyed it.
Scott: Yeah, I did. I'm glad you liked it. Yeah. It's definitely more about all the other things besides the ice cream.
Jamie: I'll have to bring something fun next time too for next episode.
Scott: Yeah, we should do this more often.
Jamie: We should. We should do that hot wings thing too, by the way.
Scott: I'm gonna fucking crush you. Yeah. Just I'm not so sure about that, actually.
Jamie: I don't think so.
Scott: You you what? You have a really high tolerance?
Jamie: I think I'm pretty decent at it.
Scott: Yeah? Yeah. If I gave you a raw jalapeno and you took a, like, a healthy bite,
Jamie: It wasn't you're me. It was a gel Jalapeno.
Scott: I don't even know what
Jamie: that's Zach Galvanakis in some movie. It wasn't me. It was the Jalapeno.
Scott: Do you have a bank of pay phones?
Jamie: Did Caesar really live here? This is Caesar's palace. Great movie.
Scott: Yeah. Wait. But could you, like, like
Jamie: I think I can hang.
Scott: Yeah. You could eat a jalapeno?
Jamie: Raw? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Jalapenos?
Scott: Like snack snack on a raw jalapeno.
Jamie: When I when we go when we're do Mexican Yeah. I I I have no problem at eating jalapenos, just popping right
Larry: in.
Scott: Like raw dog? Problem. Zero problem at that. So I will definitely take the challenge but you seem to be a formidable opponent. I have
Jamie: no problem. Actually, like Nate's like, do you want me to leave the jalapenos off? I'm like, no.
Scott: So I also leave the jalapenos in. 100%. And I'll eat them, but I also am cautious about how big of a bite I'm taking.
Jamie: Oh, I will eat an entire, like, they come in like discs, good sized discs. I eat all of them. No problem. All right.
Scott: Well, yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. When I, when I go to, when I, so if we're talking about Vallardo's Italian deli, I did not get one there because I had to go, I had to pick Dom up from school and the line was formidable. So they let me walk right up to the front since I called ahead for the ice cream. Really? Oh yeah.
Scott: Oh, that was the
Jamie: ice cream chain. Yeah. It was so perfect because the line was huge. Line was enormous. I would have been there for not forty minutes, but I would have been there for a while.
Scott: It was the biggest line.
Jamie: It was the biggest line ever. When I normally I've
Scott: never quite seen a line that big before.
Jamie: But when I normally go to Italian delis, I normally will get an Italian hero with everything on it and I ask for hot peppers, like I want hot peppers.
Scott: Yeah, got you. I do the same thing.
Jamie: And I will come home and I will go into my fridge and I will take out a jar of hot peppers and
Scott: I will add more onto it. You're a fucking savage.
Jamie: I'm assuming you do the same thing.
Scott: No, don't necessarily add Why wouldn't you just get enough from the sandwich place?
Jamie: Because they
Scott: never add enough. So tell them to add more.
Jamie: They never add
Scott: enough. So then tell them to give you some on the side.
Jamie: It's never enough. I have them a whole jar at
Larry: home.
Scott: But it's not the same as what they're putting in
Jamie: the No, it's the exact same thing.
Scott: Oh, is? Yeah. Okay.
Jamie: Because I buy from there.
Scott: You're in the know. Yeah. Okay.
Jamie: Yeah, I'm a big fan. So yeah, try Vilaro's for the ice cream chicken that Scott and I just tried.
Scott: It's like bucket head. You know the guitarist Buckethead?
Jamie: I don't.
Scott: There's a guitarist named, he's like a metal Oh,
Jamie: this guy has a bucket on his head? Anyway. For those of you who are listening to us, the rapper of this not fried chicken ice cream, the chicken has a bucket on his head, which looks like a popcorn bucket, Here On his head. It was good though.
Scott: There's Buckethead.
Jamie: Oh, he's scary. He actually looks like a combination of like Blue Man Group and like a KFC junkie.
Scott: Well, he's a seriously good guitarist.
Jamie: Yeah. He is a frightening looking human being.
Scott: He was in Guns N' Roses for a minute.
Jamie: Was he? Yeah. He's a frightening looking person. Yeah. Like, I'm not really a fan of his look.
Scott: I mean, but he he wears a wears a bucket on his head.
Jamie: He looks like he belongs in a fucking horror movie.
Scott: Yeah. But he's a super talented
Jamie: I'm sure he is because you have to be super talented to look like that.
Scott: Check out Buckethead.
Jamie: Like, nobody nobody in their right mind would ever look like that unless you're super talented.
Scott: Unless you're a Buckethead.
Jamie: Because if you're not super talented, they probably think you're just a fucking serial killer.
Scott: Yeah. That's not
Jamie: Look at the dude.
Scott: It says KFC funeral. Like I
Jamie: said, he'd like a fucking serial killer. You know?
Scott: Yeah. Anyway, that's exactly
Jamie: And that's episode 66, folks.
Larry: Alright.
Scott: Let's get it. Okay. That was fun, buddy. See you. Later.
Larry: Later. Hi.