Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast

In this episode, we dive into Domer’s challenges at a middle school showcase as he prepares for high school hockey. Plus, some Frozen Four discussion and a few hilarious stories from around the rink!

What is Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast?

A relatable and honest podcast about the highs and lows of being a youth hockey parent. Join us as we share real stories, struggles, and wins from the rink, offering insights and support for parents navigating the world of youth hockey.

Jamie:

And we're back.

Scott:

What's up?

Jamie:

Episode three.

Scott:

We made it. We made it past two.

Jamie:

It is crazy, isn't it?

Scott:

Dude, it's pretty awesome.

Jamie:

It is pretty awesome. The first two came out really good. I'm pretty happy. Yeah. Seriously, I'm really happy with it.

Jamie:

I think, and as long as everybody likes our content, we'll see how we do. 20 subscribers. No, no, no, no. I take it back. Seven subscribers.

Scott:

Seven.

Jamie:

Sorry. 21 downloads.

Scott:

Do you know how fast you were going? Seven. Seven. Seven miles an hour. Seven.

Jamie:

What movie? Anybody? Listeners? Put in the comment section that we don't have but we will at some point.

Scott:

Yeah,

Jamie:

man. So episode three, we are officially international. Yeah. Two listeners from Canada. Listen, that's amazing.

Jamie:

Listen, it's awesome. I can't wait to see where this thing goes. So excited.

Scott:

Yep. Yep.

Jamie:

Well, so excited.

Scott:

So get diving into the meat and potatoes of things.

Jamie:

Yeah. How was your weekend, sir? My weekend. I swear this game's gonna put me in the ground like early.

Scott:

Well, do tell, tell.

Jamie:

So where to start. Okay. So, this weekend at a local rink, we had the middle school showcase. Are you familiar with this? Your son's two years younger, so you might not be.

Scott:

No. Definitely not familiar. And I just learned a bit this year between, to be honest with you, I just learned this year that middle school hockey was a thing, if I'm being totally honest, because that's I had no idea. Yes. Some towns

Jamie:

put a middle school team together in the spring.

Scott:

Right? It's only during the spring.

Jamie:

I believe so. I've only seen it in the spring. I mean, Dominic played,

Scott:

That was already

Jamie:

a year ago. He wasn't considered middle school, though. He was considered just like like town. Was he Like like, so high

Scott:

Did Dom play the other like,

Jamie:

couple months ago? Couple years ago, he did. I mean, he played as a might in the sport.

Scott:

Didn't he recently play in a game that was like during our, like the regular season?

Jamie:

For middle school?

Scott:

Yeah. I could be making it up, I thought that was I

Jamie:

don't think so.

Scott:

Alright. Either way, that's fine. Yeah. High school, I mean, middle school hockey is a thing. Yes.

Scott:

You had a showcase this weekend, but he's not yet in high, it's a middle school.

Jamie:

It's it's sixth, seventh and eighth grade.

Scott:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie:

So there's like two sides of it. So I was learning from some of the people who have older children. So I found out about it a couple of years ago. I don't know how I found out about it. So it's six, seven, and eighth graders in the area.

Jamie:

So the place in Wayne puts on like a they host it.

Scott:

Right? So the rink itself hosts it.

Jamie:

Correct. Yes. Okay. And like, I don't know how it started. I'm not sure how that actually happened.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

But it's a Saturday and Sunday, it's like three games. You get one practice, which we missed, unfortunately, because I didn't know how I missed it. I put it in my calendar and I literally forgot about it, which I normally don't do. So I apologized up and down, left and right about missing the practice. It's one practice, three games.

Scott:

Yep.

Jamie:

Okay. So I think what it was originally designed for was local towns who have, know, obviously a high school, who have players coming up in the pipeline, right? So they can get an idea like who's coming, who they have coming into their building.

Scott:

Got it. Right? Because like most hockey is just club based. Yes. Very little town hockey, if anything, outside of spring teams.

Scott:

Correct. So for those coaches, they can see who plays ice

Jamie:

hockey. Correct. Now there are a handful of town teams that actually have had, I mean, I guess it's rec hockey, right, that have, like like, Mawa had a team, Wayne Wayne has, like, three teams.

Scott:

And that's when, I guess?

Jamie:

This is spring. It's all spring hockey.

Scott:

So we're only talking spring hockey.

Jamie:

Only spring.

Scott:

Got it.

Jamie:

It's all spring. Like, Highlands has a team. Yep. Ridgewood has a team. Mhmm.

Jamie:

Wayne has Wayne has, like, Wayne Black, Wayne Green, Wayne White. Like Yeah.

Scott:

Why do they have so many teams?

Jamie:

Because it's a huge town. If you look on have you ever seen Wayne on a map?

Scott:

It's fucking enormous.

Jamie:

It's It's massive. Mean, has two high schools. Technically it's got three. It has two public, one private, and may even have more. Okay.

Jamie:

I mean, So you have Hills and Valley and then you have DePaul. You know, but so it's a huge town. So I get why they have multiple, you know, like spring teams. So, so like the town that we live in, so Highlands actually had, which I give the coach a lot of credit, right? The varsity high school coach, a lot of credit.

Jamie:

He actually has like a mite program, a squirt program, a Pee wee program. And then I think after Pee wee, I want to say you start, you go to like, they call it middle school.

Scott:

Right.

Jamie:

You know what I mean? So they actually, again, I give him a lot of credit. They actually have like a structure to push kids through. So they know who's coming up in their town. Right.

Jamie:

Right. So, and they have a good, they actually have a, as far as public high school, I don't know, you know, we're, our listeners are all over the place, but as far as, you know, public high school in our area, generally public high schools don't fare so well. Right. It's there's right. It's generally more club here.

Jamie:

Right. But the Highlands has actually a very good public public school team. Right. Like very good. It's like them, Randolph.

Scott:

Mean, it changes over the years, but they've been pretty consistent. Correct. Right?

Jamie:

Yeah. I want say they won three state titles since like twenty eighteen ish.

Scott:

Well, good for them.

Jamie:

They're good. They're actually a good public school hockey team and a very good high school academically overall.

Scott:

Right. Okay.

Jamie:

So they are one of the rare towns. Like, Mahwah does it. I've noticed Mahwah has from MITEs all the way up.

Scott:

Yeah, but now they're co opts. The high school is

Jamie:

Who did they join with? Mahwah?

Scott:

Mahwah, Paramus, Lyndhurst. Paramus and Lyndhurst, I think were already co opts, and then Mawa just joined the fold this past season.

Jamie:

Interesting. So it's funny you say that because Indian Hills, my old high school, heard combined with Ramsey.

Scott:

Which is wild considering.

Jamie:

I mean, that wasn't when we were kids, you, you played against Indian Hills. I mean, you, wasn't an issue fielding a team back then. I'm pretty sure we had a JV team.

Scott:

Mistaken. But that aside, mean, like we said, the numbers change year over year. I understand the need to co op. But more specifically, why they didn't co op with the other, like.

Jamie:

Oh, you mean with roundabout? Yeah, no, that,

Scott:

I, that was interesting.

Jamie:

Well, you know what? Roundabout Propriet doesn't need to is my guess. Right. They can stand on their own two feet. I'm guessing.

Jamie:

Right. Other than that, why would they not do it? My guess is they don't need to. Fair. Right?

Scott:

Yeah. Yeah. That, I mean, that makes sense.

Jamie:

Without knowing any any logistics behind it, I'm assuming they don't need to. So they didn't do it.

Scott:

Yeah, no, that makes sense.

Jamie:

Listen, that school was always more of the athlete school anyway. Right? So would you be surprised that they're not having a problem fielding a hockey team?

Scott:

No, no. I guess just you and I clearly knowing like the way the town works.

Jamie:

The dynamics, yeah.

Scott:

It's just interesting that's the way things unfolded, but totally get it.

Jamie:

Yeah, yeah. So the middle school showcase, right? So you have a lot of public schools that put it to you, Paramus was there, Glenrock.

Scott:

No, I'm gonna interrupt you, please forgive Yes. So just so I have this clear.

Jamie:

Yeah, yeah.

Scott:

You're at a middle school, this is for high school, but it's middle school kids that are playing.

Jamie:

Yes. So these kids are either on some sort of club team, right? Somewhere in New Jersey or they're playing rec for their town in spring.

Scott:

Got it.

Jamie:

Right. So the, the level of talent is all, is all over the place. You have from kids that don't play club to kids that are playing AAA. So you see everything, you see all helmet stickers, you see all different pants. It's wild.

Jamie:

Right?

Scott:

But

Jamie:

again, it's all kids that are going to go to XYZ high school. Right?

Scott:

So let me ask you a question. Sorry.

Jamie:

No, no, go ahead.

Scott:

But, there are signups for this. There are invitations. Like, how does that work?

Jamie:

So there's, so it's invitations. So the towns are sending out emails. Yes. Right? So like I got a Northern Highlands hockey email saying they're putting, you know, a team together for this.

Jamie:

Right. But then I also got, emails and phone calls from, the private school teams in our area.

Scott:

Got

Jamie:

it. So you have like, do you have towns like Pylons, Ridgewood, Paramus, Glenrock, Maui, right? And then you also have Don Bosco, Brigham Catholic, St. Joe's had two teams. Bosco had

Scott:

two teams. Another question is, so how are you on the radar? Seton hall

Jamie:

prep, right?

Scott:

For the public schools, I understand that. There's like a school system in your input. Right. Right. But for the private schools that are fielding kids, you know, even just on academics from all over the place.

Scott:

Right. How how is a a kid on the radar of a high school team who clearly they're not playing for or against?

Jamie:

So the private schools.

Scott:

Yeah. Like like how like, do they have scouts? Like, do you know how that whole process works? Like, how is Dom on anyone's radar?

Jamie:

So so, so St. Joe's, obviously he's been doing, he knows he's known that coach since he's like nine.

Scott:

Okay. So that's one relationship.

Jamie:

Right. So then, so we, he played for St. Peter's prep because the Bergen Catholic coach knew him before this, which trying to get him to go to Bergen Catholic. Then he left Bergen and went to St. Peter's Prep.

Jamie:

So, so we decided to play for St. Peter's Prep just because he got to his first.

Scott:

And just so everyone knows, when did, how old was Dom when these conversations started?

Jamie:

You want to hear a funny story? Do you know the story? Are you teeing the story up? Do you know

Scott:

the Yeah, maybe.

Jamie:

Okay, all right. So if you teed up, good job. It's actually a very funny story. So I was skating with Angelo, right? Who's my neighbor who lives down the street from me.

Jamie:

Angelo is a very good, Angelo owns Prostride. Right. Used to be Laura Stamm owns Prostride. Angelo is one of the best power skaters in the area. Right.

Jamie:

Would you agree? Yep. He's very, Angelo is very good. He he's just the guy just glides around the ice. So Dominic was skating with Angelo at Sporto.

Jamie:

Okay. He was probably like, man, I don't know. Nine.

Scott:

And and so just so we're clear, when Dominic was nine, he was skating privately with a skating coach Yes. That owns a skating school.

Jamie:

When you say it like that, it sounds so bad.

Scott:

No, I'm not. Yeah. No, listen. I that's part of the reason why I'm saying it. Yeah.

Scott:

Yes. But look, I'm not I'm not judging. I'm just saying like it it's yeah.

Jamie:

Okay. Yeah. Was. I'm I'm you. Yes, he was.

Jamie:

Yes.

Scott:

Good copy.

Jamie:

Yeah. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie:

Yeah. Okay. I'm with you.

Scott:

I'm with

Jamie:

you. So, so he, so at, and at the time, Angela was the Bergen Catholic Assistant Coach. Okay. Okay. So he knew Tom, the head coach very well.

Jamie:

And what was funny was is that, so Dom was on one side with Angelo and the head coach Tommy was, he was like in the mid, his son was on the ice in the middle with somebody else. His son was on the ice and he was looking at like another kid coming in as a freshman for Bergen Catholic. So he obviously knows Angela well, right? Angela's his assistant coach. So when they got off the ice, he came over to Dominic and he's like, Hey, how's going, bud?

Jamie:

Because he was talking to Angela. He's Hey, how's it going? Because he saw Dominic had some ability at a young age, right? So he gave him like a fist bump. And I'm standing there listening to the conversation because they just came off the ice.

Jamie:

And I knew who he was. I knew he was the head coach at Bergen Catholic. And at the time we were playing out of the Ice Vault. So Dom Bosco has a presence in the Ice Vault. Right?

Jamie:

Like that's where they play out of, right? So that's like pipeline for them. Like there's, so Dom, the only Dom McNew was Dom Bosco. Right? So, Keo's talking to Dom and he's going, Hey, know, where you from?

Jamie:

And Dominic's like, Oh, I'm from Hohokas, you know, and he's like, Oh, he's like, Northern Highlands. And Dominic's like, yeah. He's like, yeah. He's like, he's I'm not sure where I wanna go play hockey. And and Keo's like, what do mean?

Jamie:

He's like, you don't wanna go there? He's like, no. He's like, I'm going to Dom Bosco. He says this says this to the Bergen Catholic head coach. He goes, no.

Jamie:

I'm going to Don Bosco as a nine year old kid saying this to the Bergen Catholic head coach. And and you should've seen his face. He's like, wait. What? What?

Scott:

That was probably the last thing he expected year old.

Jamie:

And I was just kind of like cringing in the background.

Scott:

And just so people know Bosco and Bergen are Super rivals. Rivals.

Jamie:

I was like, oh, shit. Like, really bud? Like, had no idea.

Scott:

Of course, was totally innocent.

Jamie:

His situational awareness is even to this day is suspect. Listen, of course

Scott:

it He was not

Jamie:

gonna be innocent. Yeah, of course it was. Listen, he had no idea. He's a little kid. But yeah, so

Scott:

So funny.

Jamie:

You know, so yeah, so again, he had no idea.

Scott:

But so he's nine and he's like Nine. This is part of like the craziness of youth sports and I'm sure like hockey is ice hockey is not the only place where this is happening and I'm sure the example we're giving there are people that are listening that are thinking themselves like yeah, duh, of course. But at the same time, even for me who's been out of the hockey game, mean now it's a couple years my son's been playing but for a long time I was out of since I had played. And like none of this, a lot of the stuff that we talk about, like non existent when we were kids.

Jamie:

It's new. Yeah.

Scott:

It's new. Yeah. Like the crazy world of youth sports and you have like a nine year old being like talked to by a high school coach. Even though I understand circumstantially, like it made sense. It's not like the guy was recruiting and he wasn't like out there watching a nine year old hockey game, but still Right.

Jamie:

He stumbled across him.

Scott:

So within your, like, at home, like high school has been a conversation to some level since he was nine.

Jamie:

You know, it's funny, when we started playing out of Wayne and Don Bosco played out of the building, And, if I'm not mistaken, that first year, we had a 02/2013 playing up with us whose father was the Dom Bosco head varsity coach. Oh. So I didn't know that. Yeah. His youngest son was playing with us.

Jamie:

He was at 13 playing up one year with us. So Dominic was exposed to Dom Bosco at that age. It was our first year. It was a squirt minor.

Scott:

Right.

Jamie:

Right. So, first year squirt. So, you know, so he was exposed there. So we started seeing the Don Bosco place in the building because the kid, the son was on our team. So they would go up to the locker room, you know, the Donbasco locker room because it was in Rink 1.

Jamie:

Right. So, you know, so, so he, that's how he found out about it.

Scott:

Right.

Jamie:

You know, so we were kind of like close to

Scott:

it. Right.

Jamie:

Right? So when the Bergen Catholic head coach said, you know, you know, oh, what town do you live in? And he's like, oh, know, he's like, oh, you're in Northern Highlands, and Tom's like, yeah. He's like, wanna go to Don Bosco. Keel's like, no, he's like, oh, you don't wanna go there.

Jamie:

Ever since he was paying attention to Dominic. We would run into him when we were skating with Angelo, we'd run into him all over. We ran into him like American dream with Top Line. So we'd run into him. Okay, so that's how Yeah, no, I'm saying we'd run into him at a bunch of spots and he remembered Dominic and you know.

Jamie:

Well, would be probably hard for him to forget. Yeah, it's a funny Yeah, yeah, it is a funny story.

Scott:

Okay, so that makes sense as to how Dom's been on his radar and how that invitation came.

Jamie:

But let

Scott:

me ask you, before you continue with your story, let's just say, I'm sure local coaches of especially private schools keep some tabs on kids that are getting close to high school age and understand who they are, where they live, and finding out email addresses.

Jamie:

Yes, and making phone calls.

Scott:

But let's just say, and again, I don't know how the whole system works, if you're like, I don't know, middle of the pack player on a double A team, for example, are you getting on the radar of a private school, do you think, that you might be considering? Or do you have to send a highlight reel?

Jamie:

No.

Scott:

Do you know families that are doing that sending reels off to high schools at this point? Is that something you've crossed?

Jamie:

If they're doing it, I don't know about it. I have not heard anybody. You know, it's funny this year was the first year that like the parent groups are talking about high school a lot.

Scott:

Yeah. That makes sense.

Jamie:

I really wasn't paying much attention to it, but our parent group this year on our team, they talked about, cause they're all, I think they all come from the same area. It's like Pascack Valley.

Scott:

Okay.

Jamie:

And they're, they all, it's like a, like a big topic this year. Like they all talk about it. They all talk about it to the point where, you know what? I take back that middle school is only a spring thing. It's only a spring thing for Northern Highlands.

Scott:

Okay.

Jamie:

Because now that I think about it, Pascagouac Valley has been playing throughout the season, middle school.

Scott:

Yeah. I thought

Jamie:

at some point that he got Daunton, he got invited to a place a % right. Totally forgot about it. Totally forgot about it. Played with Lakeland.

Scott:

Okay.

Jamie:

Because they needed kids and one of our kids on our team were on it. So the dad's like, Hey,

Scott:

that was it.

Jamie:

I'm sorry. You're a % right. I forgot about that. Yeah. Well, I think I played like two games with them.

Jamie:

One was great because there were like nine kids and we got like tons

Scott:

of Tons ice.

Jamie:

And the other one, there were like 40 kids on

Scott:

the bench. But that is like, not that, I know 40

Jamie:

is an

Scott:

exaggeration, but why was there such a discrepancy?

Jamie:

It was one of those weekends. I'm pretty sure it was over like Christmas, new years where like nobody's played hockey for like two weeks. Like, this was on like a Sunday evening where a school was starting up again on Monday and everybody's home from going away and you haven't played hockey in two weeks. So everybody and their sister just piles because nothing else to do. Right.

Scott:

Oh, when it was really busy. Before that people were still away or something

Jamie:

like So, so, so there was no hockey for like last week and a half, two weeks. So everybody came back, school was starting up the next day. So everybody was home from break and stuff like that. And they hadn't played hockey in like two weeks. So everybody brought their kid and there were like, there was, they barely fit on the bench.

Jamie:

Maybe he got like two shifts a period and it was not good. And my kid gets off the ice. My kid goes forty five seconds and off. That's what he's used to when you play like high end triple a. A lot of these kids down for like three minute shifts.

Scott:

Crazy. But but the

Jamie:

I'm like, Dom, don't get off. He's like, what do mean? He's like, I'm supposed to get off. I'm like, yeah, but this is different. I'm like, don't get off here.

Scott:

Just stay.

Jamie:

Well, because

Scott:

cause you need more than one shift a period.

Jamie:

I'm telling you, Scott, these kids in the thing, the Lakeland, I'm I kid you not Dominic would go up, down, up off. Yeah. But these kids would, these kids would stay on like until the whistle. And sometimes the whistle's like four or five minutes in.

Scott:

Sounds like my men's league.

Jamie:

Yeah, exactly. There's not exactly changing on the fly in this stuff. You know what I'm saying?

Scott:

Okay. So I know we're jumping around a little bit, but before I forget, so taking him so there one of his teammates is playing on Lakeland. Yes. Then Dom gets an invite. So are you saying that, like, anyone could just show up and play on a high school team?

Jamie:

It wasn't a high school. Was

Scott:

middle school. You know, I'm having such a problem because middle school hockey just doesn't even register in my I just keep on thinking high So

Jamie:

our town doesn't have middle school. The only thing we have is during spring. That's it. We don't have a during the season thing.

Scott:

But during the season,

Jamie:

guess it's thing. That weird

Scott:

that the coach was allowed, like a random to

Jamie:

like, yes,

Scott:

I mean, I get it. Dom's good.

Jamie:

Like, but I have to tell you some, some of these kids never show up and there's like, we played against a team that lit, I kid you not. They had one kid on the bench. Like there were five kids on the ice and one kid on the bench. So they played like Ironman hockey. So I think these teams are like struggling to get kids sometimes.

Jamie:

They're like, just, I don't think you can play in the playoffs, but like during the season, they're like,

Scott:

just

Jamie:

fill the ice. So we don't have to forfeit.

Scott:

So even if you're out of district, you can still either okay. Got it.

Jamie:

Scott, when I when I tell you that this is like it's like rec hockey, like super rec hockey. No.

Scott:

I get it. I get know

Jamie:

what I mean? This like I said, there's no changing on the fly.

Scott:

I imagine the quality.

Jamie:

Yeah. It it it's like, like, listen, Dominic played one game where he was like him and two triple a hit men kids on the other team. So they were just kind of going back and forth trading goals.

Scott:

Right.

Jamie:

Right. So it was like that, you know, so again, the level very similar to this showcase that we played in this past weekend, you have top to bottom, a very wide top to bottom. Right.

Scott:

Okay. So now, so, so it's bringing this back. So, okay. Middle school Dom is okay. Getting back to Yeah.

Scott:

This past weekend. Mhmm. Middle school kids playing in a showcase Yes. On teams that are being coached by

Jamie:

The varsity coach.

Scott:

The varsity coach.

Jamie:

The varsity staffs. Yeah. Of all the Of these private and public schools.

Scott:

Right, because my buddy who used to coach, he's now on the coaching staff for-

Jamie:

Mawa, right?

Scott:

Mawa, yeah.

Jamie:

You said that.

Scott:

For Paramus, Lynnhurst, Mawa, Pete and Oates.

Jamie:

Oh, so I'm sure he was there?

Scott:

Oh, was definitely there. I was texting with him, trying to get him to play some pickup and he was like, Dude, I'm so busy with the showcase.

Jamie:

Yeah. I saw a buddy of mine whose kid plays from Mawa, so I know they were there.

Scott:

Yeah, they were definitely there. And so Dom, now, okay, so who's Dom playing for?

Jamie:

So the so he was asked by a bunch of people, but he, he played for St. Peter's prep because they got to they got they just got to him first. Okay. They and that and again, this is the this is the Bergen Catholic Coach who Dominic said he's going down Bosco.

Scott:

He left Bergen and

Jamie:

then he's Yeah. This is his first year at St. Peter's prep.

Scott:

Okay. Got it.

Jamie:

So he's, he's turning that entire team around, which

Scott:

is They had a good season.

Jamie:

So, I think they did have a good season. Oh, nice. Yeah. Compared to, I think they were kind of down before that. Yep.

Jamie:

I don't know who's the coach before at St. Peter's. But he Tom came in and and he he redid the helmets. He redid the jerseys. Like he did a really nice job.

Jamie:

They're playing at American dream now.

Scott:

That's their home rink?

Jamie:

They have a whole locker room. They they

Scott:

No way.

Jamie:

Somebody put a truckload of money into that. You know where the locker rooms are under the rink? No. Okay. American never skated American Dream?

Scott:

I took Otto to a birthday party once.

Jamie:

Okay. So you know there's staircase that comes up right next to the rink?

Scott:

Honestly, I really have no idea.

Jamie:

Okay. There's a staircase that comes up right next to the rink. If you go down, it's like two flights of stairs. The locker rooms are under the rink.

Scott:

Okay.

Jamie:

Okay. There's like four or five, whatever it was, but, some booster, somebody put money into it because, St. Peter's has a, like heavy duty locker Wow. Yeah. So they carved out a locker room for them down there.

Scott:

No way. Yeah. So they'll have like home games during mall hours when like people are walking through?

Jamie:

Oh yeah. No way. A %. And people just stop and watch.

Scott:

That's so cool.

Jamie:

Wow. I was very impressed with what he did. He's really like, he's good at that. I remember when he took the Bergen job, promoting, he's really good at, gear. Like, he's really good.

Jamie:

I don't say marketing, but he's really good at, cause I remember when he took the Bergen job over, I'm pretty sure he redid the logo and the gear. Like he, I'm pretty sure he did the shiny gold helmets. Like he's really good at that. Like really good at, at, it's like college football, how

Scott:

these branding.

Jamie:

Yeah. Right. You know, the college football, they all have these like fancy helmets that are really loud and like kids like it because it's brash and it's cool. He's good at that for ice hockey, Like really good. So he so he took over St.

Jamie:

Peter's and he retooled their entire they have this shiny silver helmet now. It's awesome. It it he he did a sick job with

Scott:

some excitement around the the brand, the school, the team, all

Jamie:

So they're St. Peter's. So he took the Canadian Petersboro Pete's.

Scott:

Okay. Yeah.

Jamie:

Jersey style. And he redid the St. The, the, the St. Peter's logo in the style of the St. Petersburg Petersboro Pete's.

Scott:

Oh, interesting.

Jamie:

It's dude, it's very cool. You should look it up.

Scott:

I wonder how many people make that connection.

Jamie:

That's a good question. If you've played them, you'll recognize it. You know, I would, I would go to the, I would go to his Instagram page. I would go to St. Peter's hockey.

Jamie:

You'll see, he did such a cool job. The gear is insane. He totally, he changed the color scheme. He put like the, he put like the, their crest on the shoulder. Like it's, he did a really nice job.

Jamie:

I must say he, he really did. I think that the, the marauders, that sound right?

Scott:

I have, I have no idea.

Jamie:

I'm pretty sure they're they're the marauders, but he, he did, again, I give him a lot of credit. He's very good at at at the gear package. You know what I mean?

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

Like he like when you talk to people that know that he's the new head coach there, they all mention the gear. It's cool. Did you find it?

Scott:

I mean, there's probably better things to be known for, but listen, I mean, at least they're being talked

Jamie:

about. Listen, no, no. He's, he's a good coach too. I mean, listen, he, he, Aaron Meniedem played for him.

Scott:

Oh really?

Jamie:

Yeah. I mean, we're gonna talk about the frozen four show.

Scott:

Totally.

Jamie:

You know, Meniedem. Oh yeah, you see it?

Scott:

A %.

Jamie:

Isn't it cool? Yeah. He did a nice job. No, no, he's legit head coach. He's a nice guy too.

Jamie:

And Dominic loves his son, loves a kid. Tommy junior, he loves a kid.

Scott:

So now, so okay, so you got the email. Yeah, he texted me. Okay. Or whatever. Right.

Scott:

But he got in touch with you and you're like, yeah, I'll

Jamie:

do it. Yeah, yeah. He got to me first, you know, so I said, sure.

Scott:

So a question is like that conversation, okay, you had a relationship. However, did you get like any idea of what those, I'm assuming they were formal invitations that went out that said, Hi, this is so and so from, you know, so and so high school. Here's a little bit about our program. Here's a little bit about

Jamie:

Yeah. The other ones were like more email y. You know what I mean? Okay.

Scott:

Yeah. But like, were there like attachments, like PDFs of like, about

Jamie:

the school? You know, like some did two teams, some did one team, like Don Bosco had two teams, St. Joe's had two teams. So St. Joe's had an eighth grade only and then had a sixth and seventh team.

Jamie:

Don Bosco, think had similar. So Joe's I know did that St. Don Bosco, think had similar, They had two teams. I think one was an older, one was younger. Right?

Jamie:

So the team Dominic played on is he was the only seventh grader on a team of eighth graders.

Scott:

Oh, that's cool.

Jamie:

Kids were enormous by the way. He was Were

Scott:

they good?

Jamie:

Yeah. Yeah. They were big.

Scott:

How does Dom respond to that? Because that, and I don't want to totally digress from this conversation, at some point we should talk about just you're further, well, I mean, even at, you know, he's a Pee Wee Miner now, auto is, so we're going to start seeing some much bigger yes. But that's, we should talk about like how he responds to that if he rises to that occasion or if he kind of how he responds to bigger bodies on the ice.

Jamie:

So, so it's funny you say that. So so he so his weekend, so he had two games Saturday, one game Sunday.

Scott:

Okay.

Jamie:

He woke up Saturday morning, just ripping pissed at the world. Okay. I don't know why. He was just not in a good mood when he woke up. Okay.

Jamie:

Now he does that from time to time.

Scott:

Okay. It happens.

Jamie:

Right? He's walking on the wrong side of the bed.

Scott:

He's allowed to have a bad, be in a bad mood.

Jamie:

It happens. Yes. Everybody's allowed to be in a bad mood. He seems to do it not more often, but he, I think Dom has, because of his ADHD has trouble regulating his emotions sometimes.

Scott:

He was nervous?

Jamie:

Maybe. Yep. You know, probably didn't get much sleep the night before.

Scott:

Because he was nervous?

Jamie:

Yeah, maybe.

Scott:

Like ruminating, like He

Jamie:

wants to perform. Yep. Right? You know, he knew there were going to be older kids. He knew he was the one seventh grader on a team of eighth graders.

Scott:

So he could have been scared.

Jamie:

Maybe. You know? So Saturday he was horrendous. I think it was a rough one. Oh, sorry.

Jamie:

So he woke up angry. Right? So he wakes up angry. So we, so we get to the rink and he comes out of the locker room and I knew this was going to happen. I didn't say a thing to him, but I knew it was going to happen.

Jamie:

I knew his jersey was going to be like, like a king-size blanket on him. I knew it because my kid is small, you know? And every time he goes to any of these things he gets, dude, it's funny. I actually have his Jersey in the other room. It says medium, but it's like an adult medium.

Jamie:

Yeah. It's not like he'll fit in a youth medium. This is an adult medium. So he comes out of the locker room and he looks at Nancy and I, and he's like, what am I supposed to do with this?

Scott:

So funny. Meanwhile, the kid's like nervous, didn't have much sleep.

Jamie:

Scott, think you not, you couldn't see his pants. It's like salt in

Scott:

the wound kind of probably for this kid.

Jamie:

Scott, it was so big. You lit when he, when he didn't tuck it in, you could not see his pants. Like, and he's like, dad, am I supposed to do? So yeah, So I was, so I'm like, you know what, Nancy had a hair tie on her wrist. So I was gonna like, was gonna like,

Scott:

in back.

Jamie:

He's like, he was like mortified that I was gonna do that.

Scott:

Right. Cause

Jamie:

he's yeah. He's like, dad, are you out of your mind? You can't do that. I'm like, why? He's like, cause it'll look terrible.

Jamie:

Go, I go, is it gonna look any better than

Scott:

me wearing,

Jamie:

right? You look any better than you wearing like a nightgown. So we settled on like just tucking it into the pants.

Scott:

Which- lasted how long?

Jamie:

No. No. It stayed.

Scott:

Oh, it did?

Jamie:

No. It did stay. Scott, it was so big. It could not stay. Dude, Otto's jersey

Scott:

from tryouts that I showed you, that didn't stay in and we tucked it in.

Jamie:

Oh, really? No. This stayed. There was so much material that it couldn't not you literally could have reached up the bottom of his pants and pulled it Yeah.

Scott:

Like, So

Jamie:

it was tucked in? It was, like, it was not going So

Scott:

like, very top of the numbers, and that was it.

Jamie:

So I was telling you, as you pulled into my driveway, I was telling you that I was on the phone with the other coach who played in that Sunday game. And he was like, what number was your kid? And I told him, he was like, really? Like, yeah, I'm like, but you I'm like, but it doesn't matter. I mean, you wouldn't be able to see the numbers anyway.

Scott:

It was tucked in.

Jamie:

Like, all you saw was, like, the tip of the one and the tip of the six.

Scott:

Right.

Jamie:

Like, he's like, number was he? I'm like, 16. He's like, was like, I was like, he was the kid that stick lifted a couple of your kids in the first, in the first period. He's like, oh, okay. You weren't seeing his numbers, you know?

Jamie:

So, so he was like, so, so he was like bent out of shape about the Jersey. So he walks away and I look at Nancy and I go, this is not going to go well. Scott, I have the ability. Okay. And I'm curious if all of you other hockey parents out there have this ability.

Jamie:

I have a special power. Special. My special power is I can speak to my kid before the game. Or if I don't speak to him before the game, I can see him as soon as he steps on the ice. Yeah.

Jamie:

I can tell in a lap from the blue line behind the goal and back, I know exactly how my kid's going to play. If I speak to him before and I hear how he's talking.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

Or if I see him do a lap around the ice, I know exactly how much energy he'll have and if it's gonna be a good game or not. That's amazing. I can tell

Scott:

I don't have that power.

Jamie:

I look at Nancy and I go, this is not gonna go well. I'm telling you, ask Nancy.

Scott:

And this is based on the conversation you had

Jamie:

This is

Scott:

Even before the jersey or this

Jamie:

is like after the This is from when he woke up to he was very quiet in the car on the way there. Okay. Super quiet. When we got there, the jersey being too big, I I knew that we were like spiraling downhill, like, battleship type stuff,

Scott:

you know? Yeah. Totally.

Jamie:

Yeah. So, and, and once my kid goes down, we can talk about this with our hockey parents too. Cause my child has a, a flaw built in flaw where when he goes down, he's not coming back

Scott:

hard to recover.

Jamie:

And this is a skill that we've been working on. Right. Trying to lift yourself up when shit goes sideways. And it could be something as silly as your jersey not fitting or your elbow pad moving around, or you saw lightning.

Scott:

I thought I wasn't

Jamie:

sure what that noise is. It was lightning and thunder. Yeah. Yeah. And so like the littlest thing throws my kid for a loop and once something is off, we're working on it, but I'm assuming a lot of other parents are having very similar issues.

Scott:

There's probably a lot of adults

Jamie:

that are A %.

Scott:

So it's not A %. Like an No. No. An abnormal thing.

Jamie:

But an adult can deploy strategies.

Scott:

They have more tools generally.

Jamie:

To deal with said situation.

Scott:

Yeah. Right?

Jamie:

Listen, I'm not saying that kids can't deploy strategies, but my kid, when my child sees red and when things go south for him, because he has a hard time regulating his emotions, he has a very difficult time thinking, oh my God, I need to use my strategy. And I had to take some deep breaths. He just can't, at the moment, all he sees is shit going sideways and he's going downhill. And then he starts ruminating about it and then he's, he ain't coming back. Right.

Jamie:

And again, it's a skill, something we're working on on the outside. Yeah, exactly. But I, but I have a, that is my superpower. Ask, ask my wife about it. My superpower is I can watch him.

Jamie:

If I don't talk to him, I can watch him take a lap

Scott:

and figure out how it's gonna go.

Jamie:

I know exactly how he's gonna play very rarely am I wrong. Okay. Wow. Very rarely. And once he goes down, very rarely does he come back.

Jamie:

It's something that we need to work on and we are working on it.

Scott:

The question about like, okay, so let's just Okay, this past season playing A, he's clearly on a team, I mean, led the league in scoring. So clearly could have his way in a lot of situations in terms of like, I'm wondering if you saw a difference this season compared to two seasons ago with him. Okay, maturity's part of it, but did you see him better able to recover from this going Yeah, this year. Like, because, and I say that because he probably had the ability to, you probably had more, I don't know, feel good moments in games or where he was able to do something that might build momentum or confidence or he would be happy about?

Jamie:

Yeah. There was more time and space, so stuff was not as difficult. Right. Right? So yeah, I think that had something to do with it.

Jamie:

When you're playing against like the best of the best triple A kids in the country, like we were the year before with the Rockets when shit went sideways, there's no breathing room.

Scott:

Right. Hard to like kind of those moments can be fewer, further between those feel good Absolutely.

Jamie:

Yes, you're 100% right. And that's why I think that this move for us was good this year.

Scott:

Right, but did that help him? So my question is when he, let's say in the game something, or you saw a bad lap and it didn't get off to the best start. This past season, did you find more instances where he was able to come out of it? Maybe only because he was had more time and space, he was better and maybe he would be, you know, find a goal or an assist more easily or have some type of, you know, stick lift

Jamie:

or So I'm gonna say it was better than the year before with the Rockets. Was, it was Wow. I wonder if that came across on the podcast.

Scott:

That was loud.

Jamie:

That was a serious clap of thunder. So it was better. Right. I'm not sure it was better. It was definitely better, but again, my Dominic, I'm trying to know how to say this.

Jamie:

He. It was better. It was, it was, it was, it was, listen, was it much better? It

Scott:

doesn't need to be much,

Jamie:

but it was a little bit better. It was. Yeah.

Scott:

So moving in the right direction.

Jamie:

Yeah. Definitely on the upward swing. Right. Okay.

Scott:

So at the, at the showcase extra large Jersey tucked in. Doesn't have, so you, you, you have your superpower predicting not good things.

Jamie:

And what else did not help the situation is that there were like 14 forwards.

Scott:

Interesting.

Jamie:

And it was a two twenty five minute running clocks. How many kids are on the bench?

Scott:

There were 14. No way.

Jamie:

Yeah. It was, it was, it was not the most efficient thing. Probably should have been two teams with some kids floating between the two. This was. So he, I'm pretty sure he got like three shifts per right again.

Jamie:

And he goes up, down off. These kids could change on the fly. Some of them, cause some of them were better than your, you know, but was a mixed bag of kids. So, so it was a lot of whistles, you know, changes on whistles, but there were some kids that were changing on the fly, but, there, so that was, that did not help the situation for him because again, his ADHD, he needs to be constantly going, which is why the sport of ice hockey works for my kid.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

That's why he doesn't play baseball or football because

Scott:

was downtown

Jamie:

Dominic needs to be going constantly. So, when he, I, Nancy and I were actually looking at the clock, it was like eight minutes in between shifts. Wow. That's a lot of time.

Scott:

Wow. Let me ask a question.

Jamie:

That's a lot of time. I'm pretty sure there was one, like half of twenty five minutes where he got two shifts.

Scott:

Yeah. That's wild.

Jamie:

So it wasn't the most efficient situation. So that did not help his psyche.

Scott:

And let me ask you a question. Did you get a sense from, like, the parents? Like, did you overhear parents in the crowd or even talking to their kids before games being like, okay, this is your shot. You're in front of the high school varsity coach. Go out there and do everything you can to impress them.

Jamie:

So I'm sure that conversation was had.

Scott:

Right.

Jamie:

I did not hear it because, you know, the only reason why is because when we got there Saturday, Nate and I just hung out in the lobby. We went inside to get something to eat like the, the snack bar in there.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

We really weren't hanging around like anybody that was on our team. We talked to one parent who was on the avalanche with us years ago. But it was a very quick conversation. And then we kind of sat by ourselves in the restaurant.

Scott:

So you really didn't see like, did you see crazy parents out there? That's really my question. Because I'm imagining parents that this is somewhat of an unofficial. This is like an ID skate, Like a formal

Jamie:

ID skate. 100%.

Scott:

And I can

Jamie:

imagine parents being is idea skates for kids to show what they have to XYZ coach. Right. That they wanna go down.

Scott:

So there must have been crazy parents out there that were just totally pumping their I'm sure. Listen, kid, if you don't go out there and give it 110%,

Jamie:

I can almost guarantee you there was, We were pretty insulated from it. I don't wanna say by design, but like we kind of kept to ourselves.

Scott:

Listen, I would've done the same. I probably would watched on live.

Jamie:

I also didn't know anybody else on the team because a lot of these kids are from the city. So don't St. Peter's prep is

Scott:

in Jersey City

Jamie:

down on the water.

Scott:

So

Jamie:

there were not, I'm pretty sure Dominic was the only Bergen County kid. Most of these kids are from the city. Like I didn't recognize the helmets. I didn't recognize the pants on a of our kids.

Scott:

Interesting.

Jamie:

So these were kids from not like an hour area. So I didn't know any parents. I, it's funny. I ran into one on Sunday. I thought his kid was playing for the other team that we played against, but his kid was actually playing for us because they live in Manhattan.

Jamie:

Got it. They're twenty eleven from the avalanche.

Scott:

Got it.

Jamie:

Or we knew them from the average they played at Woodbridge last year.

Scott:

Oh, you mentioned that.

Jamie:

So I didn't realize they were on our team. Cause again, I just couldn't tell when the kids were. But yeah, so I'm, I'm sure those conversations were had about like, you know, crazy parents being like, Hey, listen, like this is your time. You need to show them what you got. You know, I'm sure that that conversation was had.

Jamie:

We didn't hear it because we didn't really know any of the parents. So I didn't know who was on what team.

Scott:

Got it.

Jamie:

Like I didn't know what parent belonged to what kid.

Scott:

Fair. You know what I mean?

Jamie:

Yeah. So that was kind of that. So it was, know, it was listen, it was fine. It worked. He performed, I didn't wanna say admirably.

Jamie:

He like I said, Saturday was a little rough around the edges. You know, not a whole lot of effort, not a whole lot of energy. So in that respect, it wasn't, it wasn't great. You know, the fact that he had, like, three shifts, two shifts in that twenty five minute period was not the best either. But, yeah, listen, you know, sometimes you gotta make do with what you have.

Jamie:

Right? And I told him, you know, kinda when he came home, you know, he he was not happy with how he played and he didn't really touch the puck much. He also didn't go after the puck either, you know, so he he wasn't very aggressive. He was waiting for people like pass him the puck. And when you don't know anybody and there's no system and, you know, you know, you don't know how to play with people.

Jamie:

I told him, I'm like, bud, sometimes you just gotta go get it and do it yourself and make stuff happen. You know? So that was kind of part of our conversation. But yeah, it, you know, it, it, Saturday did not go so well. We had an 8AM and a 10:45 and, yeah, definitely not so hot.

Jamie:

So when he came home, we had a conversation. I'm like, they did listen to me. Like, you know, you know, like, you know, you have to come with more energy. You have to come with, you know, a little more aggressive, you know, so, it was, it was tough, you know, it, it, it, it was, it was not easy. The conversation after the games was a conversation that had to be had because his energy and his, and his, and his, his effort was super low, like super low.

Jamie:

So listen, you know, listen, it is what it is. The effort was what the effort was.

Scott:

Right.

Jamie:

And, you know, but then on Sunday, was a rockstar, I, but I have to tell you, Which is why we're doing this podcast is I was having like a mini meltdown in my head. It was bad. Do tell. It was bad. I was having a mini meltdown because I know the Because of the effort?

Jamie:

Yes. I know the ability my kid has. I know what he looks like when he decides to play hard. Right. When the energy's there, when the aggressiveness is there, when the effort is, is through the roof.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

And listen, every kid can be off. Right? I mean, I say it all the time. My kid is consistently inconsistent. Right.

Jamie:

You and I talk about that a

Scott:

lot. Totally. I know about that.

Jamie:

I think most of us do. Right. You know, but it just, it, for whatever reason in my head, I was melting down and that's something I need to work on. So that's one reason why we're doing this podcast is because I need to fix myself.

Scott:

Yeah. Fair.

Jamie:

Likewise. And I'm sure there's a lot of hockey parents out there that need to fix themselves. So hopefully we can help you out.

Scott:

Yeah. A lot of it's our own egos and all of Yeah.

Jamie:

Getting in the way. And sometimes you bury your kid with it, which I'm trying not to do.

Scott:

But my question is, so, okay, effort wasn't there where you wanted to be on Saturday and you're having this mini meltdown. You've clearly been there, done that with not seeing effort or we've all seen our kids not live up to their or play up to their potential, find their kids. That's what happens.

Jamie:

That's the

Scott:

way it goes. But what was it? You think you were possibly feeling any pressure about the fact that it

Jamie:

was high schools? Yes. No, not about the high school. About what then? You know, it's funny.

Jamie:

I pride myself on not giving a shit what anybody thinks of me. That's one the things that I am pretty good at. Like, don't give a shit what anybody thinks of me.

Scott:

Okay.

Jamie:

Because like, you're not in my, like, inner circle, like if you're not a family member or a really good friend of mine, like, I don't care if you don't like me. Like go fuck yourself. I don't care. Like, how is that going to, that doesn't affect me at all. You know?

Jamie:

So I pride myself on, for whatever reason I have like an outer shell where I don't care if you don't like me. If you don't like me for me, then don't like me for me. Like, listen, there's people, some people that I just don't like for whatever reason. And you don't have to like everybody in the world. Right.

Jamie:

It just, sometimes people aren't compatible. Right. Whatever it is. And that's fine. I have no problem with that.

Jamie:

I don't have problem with you not liking me. I don't take offense to it. Like you don't have to like me. So I pride myself on having that for whatever reason that works for me. Right.

Jamie:

I have that ability, which some people don't, but I do. I ran into a lot of people and I knew I was going to run into a lot of people. I ran into a lot of people who Dom has played with since he's like seven, eight, nine. Right.

Scott:

And

Jamie:

their kids are on like an upward swing. And I think, and my kid was on a downward swing.

Scott:

You're talking about specifically in this game or over the last, like last year

Jamie:

or two. Yeah. Over the last couple of years.

Scott:

Got it.

Jamie:

And that, and, I won't say it bothered me. A little

Scott:

ego, maybe Got bruised. Maybe. No, because

Jamie:

when Dominic played with these kids, he was like heads and shoulders.

Scott:

Right.

Jamie:

And then all of a sudden he had this massive, massive setback. Like when with the Rockets, he had a massive setback. Like I was telling you, I'll say it again. Like, you know, he went from like line one to line two, line two, line three, line three to like barely playing and his stride changed. Like I've never seen Scott.

Jamie:

I've never seen a kid's stride fall apart. Like Dominic was always the best skater on the ice. Always the fastest kid with the best stride. His shit fell apart. I didn't know it was possible.

Jamie:

I mean, I would say to Nancy, I would come home and I would be like, Nancy, how does his stride come apart? Like he started looking straight down, his stride literally shortened and he had no speed anymore. Shit was crazy. I would say to Nancy Scott, I thought we were at a bottom. Like, I was like, okay, we're as low as we can go.

Jamie:

We can't go any lower. And we would always test that. We would always go lower.

Scott:

So what's interesting as you bring this up.

Jamie:

Yeah. Yeah.

Scott:

No, look,

Jamie:

Didn't even think it was possible

Scott:

for that to happen. Sure there are other people out there that they've experienced it.

Jamie:

I would think so.

Scott:

And what's interesting about this, and I haven't necessarily gone through such a change like this, at least in terms of biomechanics, if you will, but like these are young kids, they're gonna grow, they're gonna, all of a sudden they'll have growth spurts and legs are gonna be longer than they were five days ago, whatever it And I don't know that you know

Jamie:

that you're sure, but

Scott:

I wonder how much of it had to do with like a changing body

Jamie:

and growth. You know what I think it was? I think it was anxiety. Amazing. Because at the time It's

Scott:

not amazing good, but that's just an amazing thing to He

Jamie:

was failing, and he was failing over and over and over. Scott, he, he all of a sudden couldn't turn to the right. Like he would go to turn to the right and he would rock back and his toe would come up like, and I, and it's funny. I remember him doing it. He, he started, he would notice that he was rocking when he returned to the right.

Jamie:

Okay. And he got uncomfortable knowing that he couldn't like manipulate a right hand turn all of a sudden. So what he would do is he would start, he would hockey stop on one foot on like the outside foot. And then when you're playing against, you know, best kids in the country of your birth year, you can't stop in the corner. Like once you stop, you're finished.

Jamie:

Yeah. Cause that kid's not stopped. The defender's not stopping or the winger's not stopping. So he would, he, he, made it worse by not like trying to

Scott:

like his coping mechanism.

Jamie:

It didn't

Scott:

really didn't help.

Jamie:

Yeah. So he would stop on the outside foot instead of turning to the right. You know? So, so he would, he would compound his problem, but then cause then he would get caught in the corner and then the puck would get taken or he would be in a battle now, you know? So it was like, it was like, it was bad.

Jamie:

It was a bad It was a very bad year.

Scott:

So sorry, dude.

Jamie:

Yeah. So like the stride shortened, it got very slow. Helicopter turns, like straight legged, like just not bending the knees, standing straight up, not ready for the hockey ball. Like confidence was at all time low. It was, it was Scott.

Jamie:

It was crazy. I've, I never thought that this could happen to a child, but I witnessed it. Right. We went through it.

Scott:

You did.

Jamie:

Oh, it was. And again, every time I thought we were at the bottom, we would fall through it and create a whole new I

Scott:

can only imagine how stressful that was.

Jamie:

Dude, it was fucking bananas. I'm telling you, Nancy and I would talk about all the time. I'm like, Nancy, how we go lower? And then we did. We kept going lower.

Jamie:

It was rough, dude. It was a very rough year. And part of this podcast is trying to figure out what that was and how to, I don't want say fix it, but like how to realizing what it was. I'm still not sure. I have an idea, but I'm still not a % sure figuring out what it was, how to prevent it if possible.

Jamie:

Right. And if it does happen, how to deal with it because it was rough. I don't want that for any hockey parent.

Scott:

So that last part I think is really important because a lot of what goes into this is outside of people's control. And so whether it's stress, coping mechanisms, if it's young kids growing, that stuff that you can't control. But what you can control to an extent is how you deal with it and how you recover and not just how you as a parent deal with the stress or the anxiety that something's not working well for your child and having to deal with that. There's also the kid who's realizing a change in his own ability which obviously is gonna have an effect on that, on him or her. So I think this idea of how do we deal with adversity, kind of smacks you in the face.

Scott:

And this is a kid

Jamie:

who was not used to failing. He was always like one of the best kids out there and all of a sudden shit falls, shit goes sideways. And he, and again, when you're playing on a super competitive team, like there's no room for you then. Like you, Right.

Scott:

And you mentioned that that's the way

Jamie:

it went.

Scott:

It went from one to two to two to three to three to not much playing time.

Jamie:

I give the head coach a lot of credit and he's still one of Dominic's favorite head coaches to this day.

Scott:

Which is says a lot about him.

Jamie:

No question about it. I was shocked when he, and he'll say, if you bring him in here, he'll tell you. And I'm shocked to hear him say it because you would think you would hate him. Right? Cause he was, it was such a rough year.

Jamie:

But I remember him saying like, where do you want to play Dom? Tell me what you want to do. Jason would actually tell him, I don't want you don't even play position. Just go out there and skate like your hair's on fire. He's like, just be disruptive.

Jamie:

He's like, just, he's like, I don't even care what position you want. Just go out there and be disruptive. Cause when he's disruptive, he's filthy. Right. I mean, that was his thing.

Jamie:

But he, I'm telling you, he went, it was, it was not good.

Scott:

Wow.

Jamie:

It was a rough one. Yeah. And I have to tell you as a parent, I did not deal with the correct way. I did.

Scott:

So I'm telling you,

Jamie:

we're also getting part of this podcast because I did not handle that well.

Scott:

Listen. Yeah. What not not to

Jamie:

Like, I'll fully admit, I did not handle

Scott:

that well. Okay. But I I also and listen. I think this just opened up, like, a can of worms is not the right way to put it, but, like Pandora's box. We need to, I think Unpack it.

Scott:

Put a little bit of this in the parking lot for now. Yes. But I do just wanna make sure that like we we we started talking about this when you were mentioning about that you were having a mini meltdown.

Jamie:

Yes.

Scott:

Okay. And so we will definitely get back to how to deal with adversity, changes in the kid's game, kids losing confidence. Like these are all things we're going to touch upon throughout this podcast. Not this one necessarily today, but just getting back to that and you were saying that you pride yourself on not being sensitive to what other people think of you and now here you are, you're at a showcase for middle school kids, you're amongst parents and players where Dom once shined, their kids are now maybe shining more than him.

Jamie:

These are a bunch of kids that went to Peely, Quebec and I didn't take Domik to Peely, Quebec because that was when Domik was at his low point. So I didn't bring him to any of those tryouts. He probably could have got onto somebody's roster, but I wasn't doing it because he was a mess at

Scott:

the time during those So right now, why this weekend are you having this meltdown and you're not feeling great about things? I mean, like, understand if your kid's not playing well, like it's, yeah. Okay. It's annoying, it's frustrating, but it sounds like something more was going on.

Jamie:

Maybe. I'm not sure. You know, I'm not sure. I honestly don't know yet. Knew this

Scott:

weekend was different than other weekends. When he's not had a great game,

Jamie:

you know, he was back playing, you know, honestly, I'm not sure. I haven't figured it out yet.

Scott:

Okay.

Jamie:

But I, I was not, wasn't uncomfortable. I definitely wasn't, you know, like, I was talking, I said hi to all the parents. I hadn't seen a bunch of them in a long time. But I, but I wasn't, I don't know if it more me frustrated with, with Dominic and his attitude because his attitude was so bad. That Saturday was so bad.

Jamie:

And it's such, I won't say it's an easy thing to listen. I always tell my kid that the things you can control are your effort level and your attitude. Yep. Right. So, and he did, he did not do well in either of those two spaces.

Scott:

The one thing I do, not that what I want to say, some things are simple but not easy. Yeah. Okay. So Yes. Yes.

Scott:

And just what I think I try to do when you talk about this is I try to put myself potentially in Dom's shoes even though there's I'm way, way older. But I'm just trying to imagine in some sense as a kid, we talk about emotional control and how you respond to adversity that's within your control and 100% true. I guess really what I am doing is thinking when you say some of these things, I mean, I, as an adult, have a problem conjuring up the ability to respond to things to the best of my ability. Sometimes it's just hard. I'm not saying you said or did anything wrong.

Scott:

I'm just saying as a parent, something that I try to do is try to remind myself when my kid is having a hard time with something or isn't doing what I think he should be doing. It's like, oh, he's young. He doesn't have the toolbox that I have. Even when you coach kids, I might say, Okay guys, I need you to forecheck hard. Let me make sure these kids know what forecheck means.

Scott:

We say it all the time. You know what I mean? There's just like

Jamie:

No, you're right. Sometimes things have not been explained. You're right. Right. You make a very good point.

Scott:

All I'm calling out is that when we talk about our kids, yeah, 100%, he might have handled it really poorly And even for his age, he might've known better on what to do, but let's also, you know, try to

Jamie:

Listen, at the end of the day, I should not have, I cannot expect a 12 year old to be on all the time. You know, as much as I would like him to be, it's not realistic.

Scott:

Right. And that's a good point.

Jamie:

And that's me not, I don't say being a shitty parent, but that's me not

Scott:

understanding

Jamie:

the situation

Scott:

or not Or just having your own, that's your own stuff.

Jamie:

Correct. Correct. And listen, it's easy to Monday morning quarterback and go, you know what? Like I should have done X, Y, Z. And listen, I've gotten a thousand times better than what I used to be.

Scott:

Were you a nightmare?

Jamie:

I would yell at my kid pretty good when he was younger.

Scott:

Yeah. Think it

Jamie:

was so shitty. Even to this day, I feel shitty about it.

Scott:

Do you?

Jamie:

Yes. Which is part of the reason why we're doing this podcast. Cause I don't want other people to do that to their kid, you know? So I, I, I am thrilled at how far I've come with my kid. Listen, I'm not a % there yet, I'm nothing's a %, but I'm a bazillion times better than what I was.

Scott:

Eternal white belt. Do you hear that expression? No. I haven't. Yeah.

Jamie:

It's emotional. We're talking like karate, like white belt? Like are we talking that

Scott:

type of Yeah. Like you're a beginner.

Jamie:

Oh yeah. Right. Right. Yeah.

Scott:

And you're a student.

Jamie:

I like

Scott:

that actually. Eternal white belt. You're always in the process of learning, getting better, improving. You've never gotten to the point of complete mastery. And I think that's, you know

Jamie:

No, I like that a lot actually. I like that. It's mindset. I like that. But yeah, so I'm getting better.

Jamie:

So, but again, so part of, again, one of the reasons why you and I have kind of done this, this podcast is to maybe we can help other parents out there that are having similar problems. Cause I guarantee you people are having the same problem.

Scott:

For sure.

Jamie:

Right. You know, they are, you know, and again, maybe listening to this makes them feel better so they don't explode on their kid. Or maybe they hear the different strategies that we use to not blow up on our kids and kind of look at in the rational kind of, you know, the way to look at your child. And maybe they use that instead of kind of what they've been doing, which maybe is not working.

Scott:

You know what, for me, one of the things that I came to realize and I coached Otto for several years, so I had a unique experience of being behind the bench with him, which was a lot of lessons learned. But for me, got to the point where what I was doing in terms of like I wasn't always super hard on him and I think I was somewhat balanced in my approach, but I certainly leaned into my frustration more even a year ago or two years ago. And what I found with time and seeing how he has or has not responded, I've come to the point where I know that giving him too much of a hard time,

Jamie:

he doesn't respond. It doesn't work for him. Doesn't work for most kids, by the way. Okay. It took Maybe some, but I would think the majority does not work for

Scott:

him. But part of it, this is like, it's taken time for me to really realize

Jamie:

that.

Scott:

Oh yeah. No. And then see it like, okay, so I've been hard on him. Other people have been hard on him. And he's gotten a good dose of having a coach be hard on him.

Scott:

And I see that it's I'm being very thoughtful because

Jamie:

I see your gears I see smoke coming out of your ears.

Scott:

Yeah, because I don't wanna say like I'm not hard on him or I won't be hard on him.

Jamie:

It's okay

Scott:

to be hard. But it's fewer and further between. And there are times when like I know after a game or after something if I might be disappointed, upset or angry that like, you know what, this time today, I'm just gonna treat it with a smile and I'm making a commitment to myself that I'm not gonna say anything on the car ride back. Yeah, that's well done. Because he's probably not thrilled either for whatever reason.

Jamie:

I guarantee you, they know when they're not.

Scott:

They know. And so sometimes I can't help myself.

Jamie:

I understand that too.

Scott:

But I've grown to the point where without a doubt, much more measured, I think, and far from perfect, you were saying.

Jamie:

But

Scott:

it doesn't always have to be, you know, pointing out all the negatives.

Jamie:

Oh yeah. And no question about it. Listen, I hope that this helps, you know, other parents that are listening to this Because I'm sure most of us are going through the exact same stuff because we're all Uber competitive. Right. I mean, we all want our kid to be the best, you know, and.

Jamie:

Or the best version of themselves. Correct. Yes.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

Right. Cause some kids have higher ceilings than others, right. Which is normal.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

But you know, yes. Yeah. No, you're, you're a %, right. You know? So I'm hoping that this helps people out there because I am far from perfect, but I'm getting better.

Jamie:

That I will say I'm making a ton of progress from what I used to be.

Scott:

You know what? You know, it's,

Jamie:

you know, now I'm a totally different parent than I used to be. Totally different.

Scott:

Well, look, you've also had some experiences that have certainly changed your perspective. Yeah.

Jamie:

Yes. Yeah.

Scott:

But you know what I was going to say? You talked about strategies and one of the things now, and this happened maybe in several games at the end of last season and even in some of these tune up skates and even in tryouts, there's just been little things that I've seen him do and I try

Jamie:

You're talking about Otto?

Scott:

Yeah, yeah. And not that I try, what I've been able to do is, and I said to Orly, she was standing next to me at one of the playoff games and Otto did something and I was like, if this is his last good shift for the game, I'm super happy.

Jamie:

You're good with it.

Scott:

I'm good

Jamie:

with it

Scott:

because of course I would want him to continue to play well for the rest of the game and he but I'm seeing growth in areas that have been a major talking point over the course of the last two Nice.

Jamie:

It's all I can ask

Scott:

for.

Jamie:

It's all I can ask

Scott:

for. What I'm saying is my expectation previously might have been, I want to see that game in and game out. Which is not realistic. Well, proved that it's not realistic. So when it does surface, it's like, you know what?

Scott:

Amazing. Amazing.

Jamie:

Love that you did that.

Scott:

Love that you did that.

Jamie:

I try to do, and I got this from a sports psychologist. It's like the sandwich effect. You give two good, one bad or two good. And one thing you could work on type stuff in

Scott:

terms of giving feedback.

Jamie:

Yeah. And I gotta tell you, I even got away from that and just did not all good, but a lot of good. Like, it was a lot like I would, I would, I would purposely just kind of like, but that's maybe that's also detrimental, you know, to a certain point.

Scott:

I mean, look, if you're just pumping your kids' tires and there's no, and that's not good. And that's, and you're delusional

Jamie:

about what things Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm I that's one thing I pride myself on. I think I am very bluntly honest about my child and what he does and doesn't do. Yeah.

Jamie:

I'd like to think so at least.

Scott:

No, I wouldn't think

Jamie:

so. I've heard other hockey parents and you look at them and they're like not on the same wavelength.

Scott:

You mean in terms of their perception

Jamie:

of their child.

Scott:

It's they think they're better than they are. 100%. Not that there are some that just can't

Jamie:

I always take the other side of the coin. I'm always on the other side of

Scott:

the coin. I was more on that side too. I still am. Yeah.

Jamie:

Yeah. Well, listen. But yeah, so, but listen, so I guess coming back, you know, kind of tying a bow on this thing. So we were rough, We're we're rough on a, we were rough Saturday. And, and Sunday he was a rockstar.

Scott:

That's awesome.

Jamie:

Yeah. So Sunday he came out. I told him, I go, dude, I could just come out with energy. Right. Just come out with energy, you know, and effort level.

Jamie:

Go, everything else will be fine. That's all you ever need to do. And he came out like his hair was on fire. And he was a stud.

Scott:

You know, it's amazing.

Jamie:

Played really well. Yeah. Like really well.

Scott:

That's great. Yeah. So he totally rebounded. Do you think it had to do like, so he got two games or quote unquote games under his belt on Saturday. So he knew what he was getting into on Sunday more or less.

Jamie:

Maybe there was an adjustment period that he didn't know what to expect and didn't know the kids. And listen, I'm sure a lot of that goes into it. Yeah,

Scott:

no, totally.

Jamie:

Right. Right. I mean, so, yeah. But so, so that, that that's my, that was my, so obviously I, I felt much better on Sunday, which is so bad. I'm such an asshole.

Jamie:

It's like,

Scott:

you're not, you're not being,

Jamie:

you're not. No, no. I gotta stop having mini meltdowns in my own head. Listen, again, it's, it's, it's my own, like, you know, I don't know what it is. We need to figure it out, which is why we're doing this podcast.

Jamie:

Dude, listen. One

Scott:

of the things that I regularly say to my kids is that, it's okay to have whatever feelings you're going through. Typically this conversation comes up when they're like, there's like, in my opinion, unnecessary tears, sometimes they're not, blah, blah, blah, blah. Sure. And it's like, it's okay to feel your feelings. That's fine, but it's how you No, no, no, no, no.

Jamie:

No, I'm with you. I know sometimes different

Scott:

things. Okay. But how you deal with them is what is Well, that's important on on what you on what you do with them, how you deal with them. It's okay to be sad. It's okay if you're hysterically crying right now.

Scott:

It's okay if you're over the moon. Although if they're over the moon, you're generally not trying to tamp things down or change their, perspective on But when they're really upset, it's like, okay, I see you're having a total meltdown right now, but what's important is feel those feelings and then what are you gonna do with those feelings? Because continuing to behave in a certain way, that's not

Jamie:

in your best It's working.

Scott:

It's just not in your best interest. Let's try to get it.

Jamie:

It's not working. See, it's funny. You come at it from a little bit of a different perspective than I do because your feel your own feelings statement. I am more, and I say this to my wife all the time. I can't wait to hear this.

Jamie:

Yeah. I don't think you want to hear it. You know, I come at it as

Scott:

There's no crying in baseball.

Jamie:

Sort of, kind, sort of, I'm not gonna lie to you. And it's not, there's no crying in baseball, but it's more of a long lines of your feelings aren't real.

Scott:

Well, your feelings are not facts.

Jamie:

That's what I'm talking about.

Scott:

That's fucking true.

Jamie:

That's what I mean. Right? And listen, and most of the time your brain is fucking with you.

Scott:

It's always worse in your head

Jamie:

than it is in reality. Absolutely. Totally. When stuff like that happens, I gravitate. And I even said to my wife, and for the longest time, would say, Nancy, why are you feeling like that?

Jamie:

She's like, well, that's just what I feel. I'm like, well, it's not real. She's what do you mean? How can you tell my feelings aren't real? I'm like, well, they're not.

Jamie:

I'm like, it's what you're feeling. I'm like, it's not reality. It's what you're feeling. Right. You know, and she, for the longest time she would fight me.

Jamie:

She's like, well, how can my feelings not be real? They're my feelings. And I was like, okay. And then all of a sudden recently she came around, she's like, oh shit, see what you mean. Right.

Scott:

Well, I mean, we don't need to get

Jamie:

into this. No, no, no. We can go down a rabbit hole.

Scott:

But yes, feelings are not facts, but I think the sooner, but that's what I'm trying to say. Like facts

Jamie:

don't care about your feelings?

Scott:

I'd have thought about it that way, but maybe that's true.

Jamie:

Of course it is. If you're playing like shit, right? Like the fact is you're playing if you're not giving effort, you're not giving effort. Like, so when Dominic comes off the ice and he's all pissed off, okay, like who did it? Who was somebody making you not skate hard?

Jamie:

Was somebody making your feet not move? Like the fact is that you weren't giving effort. You didn't wanna go into the corner. You know, you didn't something stopped you from going into the corner. Yeah.

Jamie:

Something stopped you from trying to to contest the kid. Yeah. Or you could have stick lifted him or you could have put a body on him. Right? Like the simple fact is that you didn't do those things, right?

Jamie:

You

Scott:

could have. Taking ownership. Yes. Yeah. And that's part of

Jamie:

it. But then being pissed off about it after the fact is.

Scott:

Yeah, but that's also like, you know, probably a sub level of misdirected hostility and like

Jamie:

emotions and not being able to regulate a %, you know, listen, when they get older, that's a totally different conversation

Scott:

for sure.

Jamie:

But yeah, man, kids are a conundrum.

Scott:

Good word. Good word.

Jamie:

Yeah. With that being said, shall we change topics? We can. All right. So that was actually pretty good.

Jamie:

I hope that helped people, you know? No,

Scott:

it's all good stuff and I'm sure we'll end up talking about the same topic with different situations. Yeah. But yeah, no, because it happens week in and week out. There's always ups and downs, highs and lows. It's crazy.

Scott:

Building resilient kids is part of what we're talking about, and through the lens of playing sports and ice hockey specifically and when things don't go your way and when you're feeling upset or when you've adversity smacking you in the face. How do we move past these things? Not easy. Or before we even move past them, how do we identify what it is that's really going on here? Because it's not your stick that's the problem.

Scott:

No.

Jamie:

It's generally you that's the problem.

Scott:

Identifying what it is, what do we want to change? How do we get there? What are the steps? What are we going to do? And then starting to go through that thinking, which is, we're adults now obviously, but when we talk to our kids, these are not things that would come to them necessarily.

Scott:

And so going through all these scenarios and what you were dealing with coping mechanisms for feelings and all this stuff is stuff that we've both been dealing with as our other parents and how to navigate these

Jamie:

situations. No, no, you're a % right. It's yeah, listen, I think we should have like a sports psychologist on down the road and actually like start asking them questions, and see what their takes are on this, you know, and, and maybe that'll help our audience kind of give, you know, other coaching,

Scott:

a professional

Jamie:

perspective. Correct. Somebody actually does this for a living who deals with, you know, youth athletes and college athletes and high school athletes. I think that's going to be a, just to give other perspective on kind of maybe kids and sure. I'm also reading a good book.

Jamie:

It's a, you should read it too, actually. It's by a gentleman who he practices here in New Jersey. It's about so again, my my child has ADHD, and the book is called He's Not Lazy.

Scott:

Oh, you mentioned that to

Jamie:

me. By Adam Price. He's local?

Scott:

Oh, yeah. That was like the

Jamie:

just happens to be local, which is phenomenal. Interesting. Yeah. So I'm I'm I'm gonna finish the book, and then I'm probably gonna reach out to him and try to see if I can get, like, some sessions with him.

Scott:

Yeah. You had mentioned, like, the idea of opting out. Right? That was that came from that book? Correct.

Jamie:

The opting out. Yes. Yes. So as I, as I read it, I'll, I'll, as I finish it or get further into it, I'll update you guys on.

Scott:

Bring some

Jamie:

stuff up. Yeah. We'll talk about it more as I, as I go through it. I would love to have him on. How awesome would that be?

Jamie:

We can actually try to do that. Cause he's a local guy. Sure. You know, I think he's got an office in, I think he's got an office in the city, but he's somewhere out in like Short Hills ish. Okay.

Jamie:

Not far. Westfield. Right now, not far. Yeah. So, but yeah, so we'll, we'll have some guests on here down the road that hopefully again will help our

Scott:

audience deal with the stuff

Jamie:

and us as well. So let's change gears. So we made our frozen four picks last episode and I was absolutely, and we don't have to go over like who, who, what they were, but mine were absolutely got off.

Scott:

Well, I think that I am faring better than you, but

Jamie:

dude, fairing better is not fairing better is not even fairing better. I think I have like one team. Wait, hold on, hold on. Do I have anybody in the final four? No.

Jamie:

Wait, wait. Did I Denver? No, no, I didn't know Denver. If this was for money, I would be, I would have been out a long time ago. You're not doing poorly though.

Scott:

Well, listen, my predicted finals was Denver BU.

Jamie:

My predicted finals was Michigan state, BC and both teams

Scott:

are out. Both teams are out. So let me see. Yeah. Yours is So first so real quick quick recap.

Scott:

Yeah. So BC, Bentley, we both had BC. Yeah. Denver, Providence, we both had Denver. Denver.

Jamie:

Yeah.

Scott:

Western You had Western Michigan, I had Minnesota State. You had Minnesota State.

Jamie:

Yeah, that was not good. That's when I started going off the rails.

Scott:

UMass, Minnesota, we both had Minnesota. On the other side

Jamie:

How Minnesota didn't win that game is beyond me, by the way. Credit to UMass, though.

Scott:

Oh, without a doubt. Coach wait. Credit to UMass. Carvel, have you ever heard have you ever listened to his he spoke at some engagement maybe two years ago about the culture of his team and

Jamie:

UMass. UMass. Is this when Kale was there?

Scott:

Could be. I don't know exactly. But for anyone listening or even for you, I'll send it to you. It's well worth a listen about

Jamie:

This is the head coach now. Yeah. Carvell. He's good?

Scott:

Yeah. No, they won a national championship.

Jamie:

Well, they did.

Scott:

As matter of

Jamie:

fact, I'm pretty sure that Kale won it and then was on a plane that night to Colorado. If I'm not mistaken. And I'm pretty sure he played the next night and scored for the avalanche.

Scott:

Oh, really? It was that wild.

Jamie:

I'm pretty sure they won and he was on a plane like several hours later.

Scott:

So maybe it's team closer Maybe it's Cal Mccar. I don't know. Or both.

Jamie:

Speaking of Cal Mccar, do you know Cal Mccar's brother? I'm pretty sure was on UMass and transferred to Maine. Does that sound right to you?

Scott:

I really don't know. Could be. Okay, going to the other side. Maine, Penn State, we both had Maine over Penn State. Then Yukon, Quinnipiac, we both had Yukon.

Scott:

Michigan State, Cornell, we both had Michigan State. Yeah. BU Ohio, we both had BU. Yeah. Then

Jamie:

Yeah. This is where I

Scott:

This is where things kinda went off the rails. Yeah. So then had, let's see, so BC Denver, you had BCI Denver?

Jamie:

Yeah. I knew that was gonna be a problem, by the way, because Denver owned them last year. I knew that was gonna be an issue and I was not wrong.

Scott:

But then we both had Minnesota coming out.

Jamie:

And Western Michigan. Look at that. First time ever Western Michigan and Penn State. Never made it to the Frozen sport. Never.

Scott:

That's great for the sport. Then Maine, Yukon, we both had Maine. And then let's see. Pretty sure I had Michigan State coming out. Michigan State.

Scott:

Yeah. And you had Michigan State, I had BU.

Jamie:

Yeah, yeah. No mistake on my part. I'm telling you, I I my I need to step up my college hockey game next year because this was woeful.

Scott:

Listen. But that Listen. If it was that easy to to, like, pick pick winners Yeah.

Jamie:

I'd on a beach in Tahiti somewhere.

Scott:

So would a lot of other people, but that's just the way it goes.

Jamie:

Yeah. So so so and now do you so give me mine's totally busted, but yours, did you have what you did in Western Michigan? So you had Denver and who? Denver and Minnesota?

Scott:

I had Denver, Minnesota.

Jamie:

Okay. So you're, so, and then you had, we didn't have, didn't have Penn State.

Scott:

And then I had Maine, Maine, BU.

Jamie:

BU. So, all So you have two left. So you have BU and you have Denver.

Scott:

I have BU in Denver.

Jamie:

And that was your final BU Denver?

Scott:

That was my final.

Jamie:

Oh, so you actually could fare pretty well

Scott:

here. Mean,

Jamie:

Denver beats Western Michigan and Penn State loses to BU. You're smooth sailing. I have to tell you, if Denver gets into the finals, Denver's not losing.

Scott:

Well, listen. They're they're a wagon.

Jamie:

Oh my god. I'm telling you, That Matty Davis, the goalie for Denver Yeah. That dude just does not lose against BC. The guy shuts the door constantly.

Scott:

That was quite a game. I mean, he led up he led

Jamie:

up one five hole to, Stiga. Was the

Scott:

if I'm not mistaken, because I missed some of it, but didn't that he didn't even see that. It didn't was is that am I thinking of the right goal where it, like, it went five hole Second breakaway.

Jamie:

Oh, that one. Oh, no. The first breakaway, he was rushed, and he kinda shot it,

Scott:

I wanna say to It was low.

Jamie:

Yeah. This, he actually made him, it was low left, low goalie, right. Our left. Right.

Scott:

Yes. Correct.

Jamie:

Yep. Which I'm not

Scott:

sure if it was blocker.

Jamie:

It was blocker. Right. Yeah. Was blocker.

Scott:

I think.

Jamie:

Yeah. I'm not sure if it was right or lefty, but I think it was blocker

Scott:

either way.

Jamie:

Yeah. But it was that side. Didn't bury. Yeah. So, and then the second thing he actually stick handled and put one five hole, which was a sweet move.

Scott:

That was.

Jamie:

I mean, it was, it was very, it was actually very similar to how he won the gold medal for team USA.

Scott:

Didn't they show the replay during the They

Jamie:

sure did. Yeah. Also five hole. Also. Like, like that kid's a good player.

Jamie:

That kid's a very good player.

Scott:

No doubt.

Jamie:

But yeah, that Matty Davis man, he just shuts the door on and the coach, I called him Eric Karl, it's David Karl. I called him Eric on the first or second episode. It's David. That guy is ridiculous. He's ridiculous.

Scott:

He's done a fantastic job. Dude. Fantastic job.

Jamie:

I'm pretty sure that they have like five national championships to BC's four. And I'm pretty sure they've all come in the last like six years?

Scott:

They have the most titles since 2010. Is that correct? I think so. Or maybe February, it could be even 2,000. I forget what the status is, but they're the winningest team in NCAA since something like the year February potentially.

Jamie:

I'm telling you, I they have more national championships than BC does.

Scott:

Listen, that's probably the reason why he got hired as the world junior coach.

Jamie:

The guy's

Scott:

a rock star.

Jamie:

I'm so curious when he's gonna get the call to the NHL. He probably already has. You think he's gonna keep turning it down? You think he's gonna go?

Scott:

Listen, Ben.

Jamie:

He should just stay there. Just become the Joe Paterno of Denver. Know?

Scott:

Listen, who knows what his personality's like?

Jamie:

I'm sure they're paying him well out at home.

Scott:

I bet you the NHL could pay better.

Jamie:

No question.

Scott:

But there's so many variables that go into a decision

Jamie:

like But you could stay there for forty years.

Scott:

Yeah. Like Jerry York or,

Jamie:

Yeah. You'd likely have you staying in the NHL for forty years is small. You can stay there for forty. You could be the Joe Paterno of Denver or the Joe Paterno of college hockey.

Scott:

No doubt.

Jamie:

You can go wherever you want. You know, you could, I mean, you could go to North Dakota, you can go, you could Yeah, they've got a long career. And they would pay you well, because if he's not the highest paid college coach in the game, he will be soon. I would think he's young.

Scott:

I

Jamie:

don't think he's 40.

Scott:

He doesn't look good.

Jamie:

I'm pretty sure he's like 36. I don't think he's 40.

Scott:

Yeah. He's young. Right. I don't, I'm

Jamie:

pretty sure he's not 40. So listen, the guy's

Scott:

stud. So you're telling me that if they get to the finals I

Jamie:

don't think they're losing.

Scott:

They're not losing.

Jamie:

As much as I want BU to beat them, listen. Right now, think I have to jump

Scott:

Hold on. On. You just said you want BU to beat them insinuating that BU is beating Penn State.

Jamie:

So I was so I was just gonna say that I I have to root for Penn State just because of who Dom's teacher is. I Played four years Penn State ice hockey.

Scott:

I know you've got friends that went

Jamie:

there. Have to Penn

Scott:

State, man.

Jamie:

I have get on Marshy's side. Listen, I like Penn State hockey, you know? So I'll root for Penn State, but if you won't

Scott:

be heartbroken if BU wins.

Jamie:

I won't be. No, because I like Cole Hudson. I do always did. I listen. And they have two, two Devils draft picks.

Jamie:

Have that kid, LeChance, Yep. Who the Devils had the rights to just recently they traded for. And there's

Scott:

a man Eiserman.

Jamie:

And the goalie and Eiserman's nasty. He's team USA. Cole Hudson team USA. You know, the older Hudson. You know?

Scott:

You know who's, oh god. One of them Devin Kaplan on BU. On BU. I'm pretty sure he played Colonials.

Jamie:

Oh, he's local. Oh, I didn't know that.

Scott:

Yeah. He's a Jersey guy.

Jamie:

Oh, yeah. So yeah. No. Haven't listen. I have a thing for Boston hockey teams for some strange reason.

Jamie:

I I What do

Scott:

you by hockey?

Jamie:

Dude, I gotta tell you. Boston's my favorite city. Love I love the city of Boston. Love it.

Scott:

Yeah. It's great.

Jamie:

In my opinion, it's the best city in this country. Wow. Love it. Wow. We live right outside Manhattan.

Jamie:

Wowzers. Listen, Manhattan's fine, but Boston is an awesome city.

Scott:

Yeah. Boston is great.

Jamie:

It's an it's my favorite by far. It's I'm telling you. It's my favorite city.

Scott:

Dude, going there as

Jamie:

a

Scott:

student was amazing.

Jamie:

You're right, because you're a BU kid, right? I'm telling you, if

Scott:

I had to

Jamie:

do it all over again, I would have gone to school in Boston. Interesting. Yeah. I'd move there tomorrow. No way.

Jamie:

Tomorrow.

Scott:

Well, is good youth hockey up there and crazy hockey dads do things like that. They pick up their entire family and they relocate so your kid could have the best bantam minor year on planet earth.

Jamie:

So do you mean kind of like, oh, I don't know, taking your child and moving to Toronto for the season?

Scott:

Like that. Do you happen to know anyone that relocated with their twelve year To

Jamie:

Greater Toronto area. I do actually.

Scott:

You know someone.

Jamie:

I do know someone. Interesting. Yes. Left, left his lovely wife and two daughters. And he's like, see you.

Scott:

Not left as in indefinitely.

Jamie:

No, but said, Hey, listen, I'm going up

Scott:

and

Jamie:

I'm renting a place in Toronto for the hockey season. I'll be back. Can I just tell you Nancy would not have been okay with that if I had done that? A lot

Scott:

of people wouldn't

Jamie:

have done that. And my wife is phenomenal. My wife doesn't give a shit about anything. She lets me do and doesn't say boo. I'm telling you that would not fly.

Jamie:

Well, listen. Like, if I even approached her with that, she'd be like, are you out of your fucking mind? Like, that would not work. Like, I did it, if I did it, she would not be here when I got back.

Scott:

But I

Jamie:

would come back to an empty house.

Scott:

So those are the

Jamie:

ends to Like I robbed.

Scott:

But those are the ends to which people like do crazy shit.

Jamie:

So I'm gonna, oh, so let's finish the Frozen four, and I'm gonna end on a story with that parent. Okay. The story is legendary.

Scott:

Okay. Okay.

Jamie:

Alright. So alright. So I think we got to the

Scott:

the end. So so, basically, we are cheering for me because I have

Jamie:

because I'm out. Because you totally dropped Shit the bed.

Scott:

The ball. Yep. That's one way of putting it. And then what I also heard you say is that you want BU to win the whole thing. That's what we're going with.

Scott:

So let's go Terriers. Let's go Boston. Listen, It is your favorite city. You said nothing about whatever town Penn State's in.

Jamie:

Listen. Happy Valley?

Scott:

Is that really what it's called? Yeah.

Jamie:

No way. Nancy has a sweatshirt that says Hockey Valley. Not gonna lie. It's pretty cool.

Scott:

I mean, okay. Happy Valley. Like that's what like

Jamie:

You didn't know that that what Penn State is called Happy Valley?

Scott:

At the risk of sounding a complete moron.

Jamie:

Well, I guess she didn't go to school out there, so it makes sense.

Scott:

I I don't know.

Jamie:

Yeah. So be it Penn State is in Happy Valley.

Scott:

So if I wrote a letter to the admissions office at Penn State, I would write like 123 Main Street in Happy Valley. Like that's what I would write?

Jamie:

I I mean, listen, I mean, I've never tried to write a letter

Scott:

to them. Wait, how bad did I just date myself? I talked about writing a handwritten letter to the admissions office.

Jamie:

You're like, wait, a what? Wait, like one of those like VCR things? Like is that what you mean? Like one of those those boxes that were blue that you, like, put, like, paper into? Yeah.

Jamie:

Yeah. I mean, listen. I I again, I alright. So hold on. So I'm sorry.

Jamie:

It It is known as Happy Valley. It's state college is the town. State college

Scott:

is the name of the town.

Jamie:

Yes. But it's known as Happy Valley. So that's why they sell sweatshirt.

Scott:

Penn state is a state college. Yes. It's a state college that's located in State College.

Jamie:

The town of State College, Pennsylvania. Yeah. Yes. No, that was misleading. It is known as Happy Valley.

Scott:

Either way, it's also kind of,

Jamie:

yeah. It's strange town. There's no question, but so they, so, so they sell sweatshirts with, let's say hockey valley.

Scott:

Okay.

Jamie:

Nancy's got one. It was white and I think she put it in the wash with like some of her underwear and now it's like pinkish white.

Scott:

You mean it's like red and white, like the terriers who are gonna win everything?

Jamie:

If you say so. Listen again, I would not be If Penn State loses, I will not be sorry if I do not want Denver winning, period. Okay. Because somebody else needs to win.

Scott:

I have to say, a B Bouiem fan.

Jamie:

Zeeves great. I like the goalie too, man. I like that Matty Davis.

Scott:

Yeah. Don't think

Jamie:

he's been drafted, by the way. How that kid's not been drafted? I'm I'm confused. I looked up last night. I could not find a draft for the kid.

Scott:

Well, that that might change soon.

Jamie:

I would

Scott:

hope so. That little send off, the salute to

Jamie:

the That was pretty filthy. You know, and again, dude, he played with all those kids. He played, he won two gold medals with a bunch of them. He, so Ziv was on the, the, the juniors team with Leonard, with Gabe Pro, with Minetian, with Fortescue, with Jacob Fowler. I mean, he was on with Stiga.

Jamie:

He was on he

Scott:

on they're all teammates.

Jamie:

They're all teammates. And for him to get They

Scott:

went after him, man. Hard.

Jamie:

Well, listen. He's the best player on that team.

Scott:

They went after him hard.

Jamie:

He's gonna be a good NHL defenseman, by the way. Dude. He's nasty.

Scott:

He is pretty nasty.

Jamie:

I I like watching him play. Yeah. But that salute was pretty filthy. I'm not gonna lie. The only other time I've seen a salute like that, I was at a West Point game, army game.

Scott:

But they salute like on their day to day.

Jamie:

So I was in an army game and they were playing Niagara.

Scott:

Okay.

Jamie:

Okay. We were sitting on the glass, like staring at the

Scott:

benches. Is in any way, shape or form a rivalry since they're New York?

Jamie:

They're in their, they're in their league, they're in their division, but I don't think that's maybe not. Okay. I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that their rivals air force.

Scott:

Yeah, that makes sense.

Jamie:

Right. And then I think, there's a team that comes down from Canada. They're like the Canadian. I'm going to get this wrong. You can Google it.

Jamie:

Maybe, they're like the Canadian version of like our coast guard and they have a hockey

Scott:

team. I

Jamie:

don't remember what they're called for the life of me. Again, if had a comment section, I would say somebody put it in, but we don't have a comment section up yet because it's only a third episode. We will, but there's some Canadian hockey team that comes down to also play them. So I'm pretty sure that those are the two like rivals.

Scott:

Okay.

Jamie:

I'm I think. I'm pretty sure. So they're playing Niagara in West Point. Right? Again, if you have not been, what a sick place to watch a hockey game.

Jamie:

I mean, West Point is a tremendous campus period, and it's just an awesome place to watch a hockey game. So, and it's very reasonable to go get tickets. It's have you been?

Scott:

Not recently.

Jamie:

But you have

Scott:

been? I went when I was a kid.

Jamie:

Oh, you so you have.

Scott:

I mean, I played

Jamie:

a have not been with Otto. No. Oh, dude. You have to go.

Scott:

I know. I know.

Jamie:

I know.

Scott:

We'll get tickets for Football game too.

Jamie:

I've been to a football game also.

Scott:

Yeah. I'm sure it's

Jamie:

pretty nice. The place is tremendous. West Point is a is a special place. But, so they're playing Niagara. And, I don't know if the kid put in an empty netter from Niagara or what, but he goes by the bench and he salutes.

Scott:

Oh boy. That sounds like a no bueno idea.

Jamie:

That a mistake. That was a mistake. The entire building turned on this kid.

Scott:

I could only imagine.

Jamie:

I mean, the players, like, jumped off the bench and went after this kid.

Scott:

It's not the most sportsmanlike thing to do to begin So

Jamie:

funny you said that they threw him out of the game because of it.

Scott:

For unsportsmanlike conduct?

Jamie:

I'm pretty sure.

Scott:

You can't do that. Were they hometown reps?

Jamie:

Probably. But I'm I have to ask Nancy, but I'm pretty sure he was not in the game.

Scott:

Can you really get thrown out of the game for I mean, I can understand.

Jamie:

I'm pretty sure he skated off the ice and didn't come I'm pretty sure

Scott:

they put him in like witness protection.

Jamie:

They should have, because he was probably like, they were trying to kill him.

Scott:

Right. Jesus.

Jamie:

Dude, that did not go over well. The salute. When I, when I saw Zeeve salute the BC bench, that's what I thought of.

Scott:

Yeah, I'm sure.

Jamie:

Yeah. Yeah. So again, special place, go see a game there. Place is sick.

Scott:

Copy. Yeah.

Jamie:

All right. So we're getting a little long in the tooth again. So should I save my story for next time? I mean, I told a pretty good story earlier about Dominic.

Scott:

All right. So save it for next time.

Jamie:

Right. So save So save it next time.

Scott:

Yeah. No, that was good stuff. Think, you know, yeah. Looking forward to the next one. Yeah, man.

Scott:

And,

Jamie:

this was a good one.

Scott:

Yeah. A %.

Jamie:

Yeah. Now you guys know how much I suck as a parent.

Scott:

Oh, give me a break. Stop it.

Jamie:

I'm just joking. No, I've gotten so much better, but again, this is why we're doing this. We're trying to. We're trying to help other hockey parents not have such hard time with this stuff. And I think it's going work.

Jamie:

I do. We're going to help a lot of people. I'm looking forward to it, dude.

Scott:

No doubt. Yeah. Amen to that.

Jamie:

All right, bud. Until next time. Later.