Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast

Why doing less - more often - actually works

Scott and Jamie sit down with Coach Kevin, founder of hockeytraining.com, for a much-needed reset on youth hockey training. Kevin shares his own winding path getting cut late from AAA, stepping away to play football, finally breaking through at 20  and how those experiences shaped his no-nonsense approach to development.

The conversation centers on one simple idea: most kids don’t need more sessions, more teams, or more chaos...they need consistent, manageable work they’ll actually stick with.

In this episode:

- Why 10 minutes a day of stickhandling beats marathon workouts
- The hidden downside of too much ice and too little free play
- How training should change as kids get older without burning them out
- Why road hockey, off-ice work, and lower-commitment programs still matter

Simple, practical, and refreshingly realistic - this episode gives parents a better plan than just adding another skate.

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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.

Noah:

Welcome back to the Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast, starring by Jamie and Dad.

Jamie:

Episode 48, the unfiltered hockey podcast for parents. No sugar no it. No no politics. No sugar coating. We don't have earmuffs.

Jamie:

No no sugarcoating. Wow. No my god. No politics. No sugarcoating.

Jamie:

Just real talk for hockey parents in the trenches. Oh my god.

Scott:

You know, it it must be what you're wearing

Jamie:

on It has to be. It's squeezing my head. It's squeezing my head. It is, by the way, it is, it is quite tight. For those of you who are, who are, who can't see me, have, I have Noah's headband on and it's a rainbow sprinkled headband, which is pretty awesome.

Scott:

Look fabulous.

Jamie:

Thank you. It makes me want to have ice cream with rainbow sprinkles.

Noah:

He's a barfed up unicorn.

Jamie:

Okay. Whatever that is, that's what I am. I'm going take this off so it doesn't squeeze my head. Special guest. That's awesome though.

Scott:

We have here Oh, no, I'm getting the sprinkles.

Jamie:

We do have a special guest.

Scott:

Noah Levine.

Noah:

Second podcast in a row.

Scott:

Well, that's actually your first.

Noah:

No, I was here yesterday.

Scott:

We practice recorded yesterday. Now we're doing it for real now.

Jamie:

That's

Scott:

right. Yeah. Know.

Jamie:

Yesterday was just a yeah.

Scott:

It was a practice run.

Jamie:

Was a practice run.

Scott:

Yeah. So any event. So you're Otto's sister. Yeah. Yeah?

Scott:

And what have you been doing as far as hockey goes in your life?

Noah:

Watching my brother and my dad play hockey.

Scott:

So you've watched us play hockey. Have you played hockey?

Noah:

Yes.

Scott:

And what do you think?

Noah:

No.

Scott:

No. Not for you?

Noah:

Yeah.

Scott:

No. How why why not for you?

Noah:

I don't know. I just don't like it.

Jamie:

No. You were saying something about your feet hurting?

Scott:

But so but you you

Noah:

I was running my brother's old hockey skis. Yeah. And then it was giving me blisters and crimps. And I was like, why can't you buy me a new hockey skate to figure it out? If I'm not gonna play for it anymore, why it would be a waste to buy new skates.

Jamie:

It's true.

Scott:

That's true. So but if you had better fitting skates, would you want to try hockey again?

Noah:

No. Okay.

Jamie:

I guess that you said hard no.

Noah:

So Oh, yeah. Hard no.

Scott:

Hard no. There you go. So what was it besides the skates, if anything? Was it only the skates or there was something else that you didn't love about playing ice hockey?

Noah:

I just didn't fall in love with it.

Scott:

You didn't fall in love with it. Okay. That's fair. It happens. Now, you have done a lot of ice skating in your

Noah:

life How

Scott:

old are you again? Eight. You're eight? Yes. You sure?

Noah:

I've been skating since I was four.

Scott:

Since you were four. Wow. So that's for four years, but you prefer doing more figure skating?

Noah:

Yes.

Scott:

Okay. And what is it that you like about that that you don't necessarily like about hockey?

Noah:

I don't

Jamie:

know. Do your feet hurt in figure skates?

Scott:

Oh, why do you like figure skating and don't like hockey?

Noah:

I don't know.

Scott:

Okay. Well, here's another question for you. I'm gonna put you on the spot. Alright. If you could change one thing about playing hockey that might make you enjoy it more, what would that be?

Noah:

Figure skating instead of hockey.

Scott:

Oh, so just not doing it would make it better for you?

Noah:

Yeah.

Scott:

Okay. Well, that that makes sense. Alright. Fair.

Jamie:

Yeah.

Scott:

Right?

Jamie:

Now, now, I heard that you're a pretty impressive swimmer.

Noah:

Yeah.

Jamie:

Yeah? Like, I heard you were like competing and everything. Yeah. At a young age, right?

Noah:

Since I was four.

Jamie:

Because you're eight right now and

Noah:

you're the youngest of my whole swim team.

Jamie:

That's what I heard. So what happened to swimming?

Noah:

I don't know.

Noah:

Okay. Can I tell you how we started?

Jamie:

Definitely.

Noah:

Okay. Let

Jamie:

me get

Scott:

quick. Okay. You

Jamie:

can. Just make it really fast.

Noah:

Yeah.

Noah:

Okay, so When I moved here, I started to I went to the three sixty and then we had swimming class, and then my teacher told me that I'm very good for my age, and then I started to move to the Big Pole, and then he wanted me to go on the swim team, and then I started on the swim team, and that's how it started.

Scott:

Yep. That's That was fast. That's

Jamie:

true. Yeah.

Scott:

Yeah. So she's a she's kind of a natural swimmer. Like, you throw I heard. She she just it looks right. Yeah.

Jamie:

I heard. Yeah.

Scott:

I think though, you know, I want her to, like, stay connected to swimming.

Jamie:

Yeah. I would.

Scott:

She's she's pretty good at it. Yeah. I think part of the issue with swimming is that, like, it's very even though you're on a team

Jamie:

Mhmm. It's an individual sport.

Scott:

Yeah. And it's also, like, you're in the water. You're, like, you're half in the water. Like, you know, it's very

Jamie:

Half in the water. I'm pretty sure you're all in the water. No. But water.

Noah:

Yes. You're all in the water.

Noah:

I have to weigh, like a minute, like twenty five, like each race. I do have to wait 25 other races until I have to do it. I'm just like waiting out of the pool mostly.

Jamie:

It's like a wrestling, it's like a wrestling tournament. Yeah. For your heat and stuff like that, Yeah. That's hard.

Scott:

But, you know, I think it's, you know, it's not like you, you know, you're in a pool, like it's very, like, you're very within your own head.

Jamie:

Yes. Yeah. No, it's an individual sport. No. Right.

Scott:

But like,

Jamie:

yeah. Hard to lean on teammates, I guess if you're doing like a relay, other than that, it's pretty individual. No.

Scott:

Right. For sure. But like, even I think about like tennis, right? Like tennis, like, you know,

Jamie:

you're playing

Scott:

a team, very individual. Observing like what's around you.

Jamie:

Sure.

Scott:

Like you're interacting with your opponent. True. Maybe you're playing in front of other people.

Jamie:

True. True.

Scott:

Swimming. Like, while that's all you know, you're you're not talking to anyone. You're not like you don't have eyes on the person in the lane next to you necessarily. I mean, some do, but all I'm saying

Jamie:

For the most part, I'm pretty sure you're really

Scott:

isolated activity.

Jamie:

Yeah. I think it's true. I'm assuming track and field would be a similar situation. Right? You're in lanes.

Jamie:

Right? Yeah. Like runners. Like, I'm talking like sprinters and hurdlers and that type of stuff.

Noah:

Except you're not wearing a very, very, very uncomfortable swim hat, which is made out of rubber, which pulls your hair out, and you're not wearing a very tight swimsuit.

Jamie:

But you know how you you know how you could change that? Just shave your head. No. Okay. I don't like my hand.

Jamie:

Listen, was just giving you an option.

Noah:

Oh, and we I think we wear tight bathing suits. It's like a reason why we wear tight bathing suits, Wyatt.

Jamie:

I think I know why. Yep. Why? Why do you think it is?

Noah:

I don't know.

Jamie:

Do you think it's like just a fashion thing?

Noah:

I think it's like tight so it hurts. You go fast so it's done then you can fix it.

Jamie:

Because it's tight, right? So you don't have a lot of like loose material on your swimsuit.

Scott:

Nothing dragging you back.

Jamie:

Right. So less drag equals faster. Right? So that thing's probably really skin tight. Do you have a tough time breathing when it's on?

Jamie:

You're like this. Hi, dad. Hi, mom.

Noah:

I could stay in the water for, like, at least thirty seconds.

Jamie:

Can you get out of town?

Scott:

Unreal. Unreal. That's impressive.

Jamie:

That's really impressive. I can't do that.

Noah:

How long? I'll stop it.

Jamie:

I could stay underwater for like two seconds max max. Maybe three. If I take a really deep breath maybe three

Scott:

he's lying he's actually a very good swimmer also good at diving he's Jamie's a good diver he could do all kinds of different diving

Noah:

the first time I died in competition

Jamie:

I used

Noah:

to be

Jamie:

very sad what?

Noah:

First time I died I was very very sad Why? The first time I dived.

Jamie:

Oh, you you were sad when you took when you dove the first time?

Noah:

I was very, very

Jamie:

sad. Did you hurt yourself?

Noah:

I mean, let's just say it turned into a belly.

Jamie:

Oh, it did? Mhmm. Red Flops. Nice red skin after that one?

Noah:

Yeah.

Jamie:

Yeah. Well, let me ask you a question. It only stinks for, a second. Right? Or not.

Jamie:

Or multiple. Or multiple seconds. Or multiple seconds. Maybe you're so scarred that you literally just can't talk about it so much.

Scott:

Now, she she was over the summer, we would go remember we went to that place and you would you you jumped off of that, like, 12 foot diving board?

Jamie:

Oh, you said you guys went to, a big, like, a a swimming hole, like, like, big I wanna call it like a It's

Noah:

called a wibbet.

Scott:

It was a quarry.

Jamie:

A quarry. That's what I wanted to call it. I wanted to call it a quarry. A quarry that they filled with one. Right?

Scott:

The wibbet's the one where it has like the obstacle course.

Noah:

Oh. So there was an obstacle course in the water and there was a 12 feet diving board.

Scott:

No, not on the obstacle course.

Noah:

There was an obstacle course. Then we went to a different place. I thought it was the

Noah:

That was a different place.

Noah:

But then there's something called the quarry, but it didn't go so well.

Jamie:

It didn't?

Scott:

Oh, no. What happened there?

Noah:

Instead of doing a straight jump, I did a straddle jump and it hurt.

Scott:

She kinda jumped, landed in a seated position. Yeah.

Jamie:

Hurt your rear end a little bit?

Noah:

Not my rear end.

Noah:

The other one. It. Yeah.

Scott:

But I gave her a lot

Jamie:

of It happens. Credit to To the best of

Scott:

The courage to jump off. It was like a weekend, two weekends in the making and she finally did it. Okay.

Noah:

Do want

Scott:

do it again?

Jamie:

No. No? No?

Kevin:

Come on. No. Maybe.

Jamie:

I was gonna say, if you're there, you might change your mind.

Noah:

If my dad would catch me.

Scott:

I don't know.

Jamie:

Okay. Mean, he could be in the water.

Noah:

Like, you can stand, like, for, like, as long as it's stable, but then the next step, it just, like

Jamie:

Goes it. Falls down.

Noah:

25 feet.

Jamie:

Yeah.

Noah:

Just sinks down straight away.

Jamie:

Because you're you're jumping from a 12 foot diving board or a 12 foot

Scott:

It was, like, 10

Jamie:

or 12. So I would think the I would think the water's gotta be considerably deep to

Scott:

Yeah. Accommodate that.

Jamie:

I would think so.

Scott:

Yeah. No. It was definitely deep. It was a no. It's a great place.

Jamie:

Could you see underwater? Like a double

Noah:

bag.

Jamie:

Did you see underwater? Was it clear?

Noah:

No. Oh, there's also tadpoles. There's also tadpoles. They said to not hold them, I

Noah:

was

Noah:

trying

Noah:

to, like, keep them.

Noah:

I don't really listen to rules.

Jamie:

Got it. Good to know. All rules? Like, what about rules for your mom and your dad? You know, dead air is a great thing for a podcast, by

Scott:

the way.

Noah:

Yeah. Nice. But then I'm good.

Jamie:

Doing good. Dead air is a great thing.

Scott:

There you go. Room breaker right there. Anyway, so listen, no. We're gonna

Noah:

start talking about hockey

Scott:

now. Okay?

Noah:

Can I stay to hear some?

Scott:

Yes. But I'm just gonna ask you to slide over there because I need to use the headphones. Is that cool?

Jamie:

Thanks for coming on, Noah. That was awesome.

Scott:

Thank you, sweetheart.

Jamie:

Thanks for doing thanks for doing the introduction, and thanks for letting me wear your your your headband. Yeah. Because rainbow sprinkles are my favorite. Right? I mean, how cool is that?

Scott:

Alright. Right?

Jamie:

Yeah. Got it. Super cool.

Scott:

Super cool. Anyhow, so that was fun. Yes. Noah, thank you for for hopping on the podcast. And, you know, James, we wanna have okay, Noe.

Scott:

Alright. Yeah, man. So we I wanna get, we need to get Dom on.

Jamie:

We do. One of these days.

Scott:

Children, need hop on here.

Jamie:

Yes. My younger one definitely will will wanna come on. My older one?

Scott:

Not so much.

Jamie:

Probably not. Listen. You never know. I'll ask him. Ask him.

Jamie:

I will.

Scott:

I'll definitely ask him.

Jamie:

Maybe you will. Maybe I'm totally wrong.

Scott:

Yeah. Anyway. Right. So thanks everyone for tuning in again for another episode. Just want a quick shout out partners, Howie's Hockey.

Jamie:

Yeah. Howie's Hockey Crazy 10

Scott:

Crazy 10

Jamie:

Crazy 10 Crazy. Go get all your laces, wax, tape, Scott's favorite, the candle. Oh, candle. Again, I love in my opinion, I like their like vintage looking like gear. Yeah.

Jamie:

I like the vint, like the the the like baby blue, like the washed baby blue. I like like the the gray, the dark gray. They have really cool. Dark gray what? Sweatshirt.

Jamie:

Sorry.

Scott:

Oh, sweatshirt.

Jamie:

Yeah. Yeah. I like I like their the baby blue sweatshirt, baby blue hoodie with the logo on the front, the dark gray with the logo on the front, the hoodie. Big fan.

Scott:

Yeah. Big fan. Great stuff over there. How was hockey? And then we got Angelo Yeah.

Scott:

Sers and Pro stride elite skating.

Jamie:

If the New Jersey Devils trust him.

Scott:

So should

Jamie:

you. Dominado were there over the break.

Scott:

Yeah, they

Jamie:

were. A little skating over the break. I think we touched on that on our Christmas episode, if I'm not mistaken.

Scott:

And parents out there, if your kid's going to a skating clinic, don't forget your skates. Because that is not a recipe for success. Do

Jamie:

not forget your skates.

Scott:

I mean, really, but yeah, you know, the fact that it was a skating clinic also was just like,

Jamie:

There's a lot of things. There's a lot

Scott:

of things

Jamie:

you can forget. That's a tough one. Yeah. That is a tough one. There were options to kind of make do and get by for the hour and a half, but it was they weren't good options.

Scott:

They weren't great and No. No. We did the idea anyway.

Jamie:

They were not great.

Scott:

But but Otto so I you know, Otto finally got on the ice the next day and the following day.

Jamie:

Yeah.

Scott:

Yeah. Yeah. And for a kid that has traditionally not been really enthusiastic about skating clinics, like, he does them, you know, periodically and whatever. And he's had his moments of doing them, like, more often than not. But in any event, he came back and he's like, Yo, sign me up for the next one.

Jamie:

Yeah, you said that. Yeah. Which is crazy that he was so down with doing a power skate. Because he wasn't the biggest fan back in the day.

Scott:

No. Right. No. You know what's interesting? The first time I ever took Otto to skating clinic was actually Angelo, but it was when he

Jamie:

was Loris Dam.

Scott:

And I remember at

Jamie:

the end of

Scott:

that, he was like, he was not into it. That was like, was also like Listen.

Jamie:

For young kids, it could be a little monotonous, you know, but as the kids get older, Angelo starts breaking their chops and it's like a whole different ballgame, you know, because Dom said Angelo was messing with him a bunch, which he does all the time. Yeah. You know? Did I ever tell you what he calls Dominic?

Scott:

Dahmer?

Jamie:

No. That's Johnny Hero. Oh. Or Dominator, whatever it is. He calls him Dominic DiCoco.

Jamie:

Do you know where it's

Scott:

from? A good movie. Such a

Jamie:

good movie. My god. Such a good movie.

Scott:

That movie is Dominic DiCoco.

Jamie:

So good. Gorelami. Gorelami. What's your name? Gorelami.

Jamie:

What's your name? One more time.

Noah:

Korlami. And

Scott:

what's his face? What's his the guy that plays the

Jamie:

Christopher Walts.

Scott:

Oh, so good. That dude

Jamie:

is amazing. That was the first time I ever really saw him. That and he was in Django.

Scott:

Oh, yeah. Both of those. I mean, Tarantino.

Jamie:

The guy is such a good actor.

Scott:

Such a good actor. So good.

Jamie:

I mean, him and inglorious bastards, he was. Didn't he win an he should have won an award. Gonna call the bear. The bear. I like how you said that.

Jamie:

Donnie? Donnie's Donnie something.

Scott:

I forget.

Jamie:

Yeah. That's right.

Scott:

Donnie.

Jamie:

Donnie. What what do you say? Oblige him. Oblige him. Oblige him.

Jamie:

He wants to die a forgotten country. Oblige him. Great movie.

Scott:

I wanna watch that again.

Jamie:

It's a it's a great movie. Yeah. It's it's like a, it's a phenomenal movie. If nobody's if you haven't seen Inglorious Basterds, which I'm assuming most of you have. Yeah.

Jamie:

I mean, our our demographic is normally men like 30 to like 55. Like I have a feeling that the majority of you have seen in glorious basketball.

Scott:

So good

Jamie:

because it's just a it's a sick movie in multiple ways. Sick, Sick good and sick like sick sick.

Scott:

Yeah. No doubt. Well, so thanks for doing that. That was fun to think about that

Jamie:

That was fun. How do we get on that, by the way? Where did where did that go off tangent?

Scott:

Oh, because you were talking what

Jamie:

Oh, Angelo. Yeah, yeah, Dominique de Colco.

Scott:

That's so funny.

Jamie:

Yeah.

Scott:

All right. So Angelo, Cirrus Elite.

Jamie:

Pro shot Elite. Pro shot Yeah. CHD 10.

Scott:

Yes. The final.

Jamie:

Wow. Wow.

Scott:

We're off on a tangent there. And then we got Athletic Performance Insight. Eric. Eric, yeah, please check out Athletic Performance Insight. Any of you managers or coaches, take a look at the website Athletic Performance Insight for all of your analytics, video tagging needs.

Scott:

He's built a robust platform

Jamie:

Yes.

Scott:

He has. That has that can, you know, track all the under the hood analytics

Jamie:

Big time.

Scott:

Can break down games. He's you know, you'll send video clips over there. He's great. He'll break one down for you on the house. You know, use the contact form.

Scott:

Reach out to him. He'll give you a tour via the platform. But if it's not this season, you maybe you're thinking about next season already, check it out. Reach out to him. Yeah.

Scott:

Mention Crazy Hockey Dads. You get a 10% off the season subscription. A

Jamie:

$100 value.

Scott:

Yeah. And It's money. Yeah. It's it's worth a look. Please check out athleticperformanceinsight.com if you're interested in any game breakdowns, analytics, video needs for your team.

Jamie:

Yes. Well done. I want to shout out Stacy before I forget.

Scott:

Oh, Stacy.

Jamie:

You know, we got a shout Stacy. We forgot to shout Stacy out when we were doing our end of the year. That was my bad.

Scott:

Definitely your bad.

Jamie:

Totally forgot. So Stace, I apologize. Stacy is the catalyst to all this, I guess you could say.

Scott:

Well, not to the podcast.

Jamie:

Well, no, but Stacy turned us on to, She made a great introduction. She made a great introduction.

Scott:

She opened a bunch of doors for

Jamie:

an interview. And that just snowballed into an insane couple months. Yeah. Which we have done very well in growth wise.

Scott:

Yeah, yeah, no, it's been great being able to connect with so many more people, you know, bring on, you know, really, really great guests that have a lot of insight and, you know, it's it's been yeah, no, for sure. She opened up a door that and it's been the gift that keeps on giving.

Jamie:

So thank Thanks, Stace. Stace and you Shout out. You have a wonderful husband. Yes. Very good people.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

Good hockey good hockey parents.

Scott:

Shout out Larry. Yeah.

Jamie:

Shout out. I'm joking, Larry. Stacy and Larry? We have to call him Stacy and Larry

Scott:

for now. No. I know. That's I know.

Jamie:

That's great, by the way. We didn't have one for him.

Scott:

I know. Now we do.

Jamie:

Stacy and Larry.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

Oh my God. That is wonderful, by the way.

Scott:

Yeah. Good.

Jamie:

Right? I like that. I like that a lot. I like that

Scott:

a lot. I like that, buddy. Every now and again, I can pull a rabbit out of a hat.

Jamie:

You. You're good, you.

Scott:

You're good. You. So anyway, thanks, Larry.

Jamie:

Yes. Thank you, Larry and Stacy. Wonderful hockey parents. Yeah, man. So it's, it's funny.

Jamie:

We were, I know we were touching on, like, silly season coming. Do we talk about that at the I'm trying to think.

Scott:

No. No. No. We no. We we started that we started that conversation yesterday, but it

Jamie:

We did.

Scott:

Yes. Yeah. Let let We could touch on that. Before we get

Jamie:

to that. Before we do that. Yes.

Scott:

Or or we can yeah.

Jamie:

Let's We can touch on this

Scott:

past weekend because we just had the holidays have passed. Let's. Back in the saddle.

Jamie:

It was a rough go.

Scott:

Oh, it was terrible.

Jamie:

For both of us. Terrible. Yeah. Terrible. Rough go hockey daddening.

Scott:

All of our kids were still drunk from the holidays.

Jamie:

Sure seemed that way, didn't it? It was a rough go. God, you describe yours first, then I'll do my train wreck.

Scott:

Well, we had three games, which is which is great. You know, we had a Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Jamie:

Yeah. You guys had a triple header.

Scott:

Yeah. That which was nice, you know, especially with the holiday break. Yeah. But, you know, we ended up playing it. We played a triple a team on that Friday.

Scott:

Right. And there was a moment in time where I think we were pinned in our defensive zone. You said that. It must have been at least five minutes. Yikes.

Scott:

Like, shift. Like five minutes at least.

Jamie:

Long shift.

Scott:

So that wasn't great.

Jamie:

Far bench for a change?

Scott:

Yep, far bench for a change. So we did get it over the blue line, but never across the red line.

Jamie:

So it actually changed?

Scott:

It was enough for the other team to change and get fresh legs. But you guys couldn't. That didn't go so well. And then when we tried to clear it the was magic. I've never seen anything like this.

Scott:

We passed tape to tape to their defense.

Jamie:

To their tape.

Scott:

To their tape.

Jamie:

Isn't it funny how that works? You're like, wow, that was a really nice pass if it wasn't to the other team. No doubt. I

Scott:

was like, you've never seen such

Jamie:

That an accurate would have been a serious pass if it was not to the other team.

Scott:

Yeah. So there was a few of those. Yeah. It happens. No, but in all seriousness, it was a tough weekend.

Scott:

We played AAA team. That score didn't get out of hand, thankfully. The following was

Jamie:

a close game, right?

Scott:

It was. But one of our goalies was injured. Had a backup goalie, you know, that was fill in goalie played really well in that Doing

Jamie:

some work.

Scott:

Yeah. Kept you guys in the game. Just in the game. Then the next two games we ended up losing, I think it was seven one and then eight two.

Jamie:

Got it.

Scott:

Yeah. The last of the three games, it was against a twelve year team.

Jamie:

You were saying.

Scott:

We're eleven years. So, okay, also better comp. But the one in between is a team that we had gotten smoked by, then we beat them and then I got smoked by them again. But, you know, it's like at this point, it's almost like Yeah. It's tough.

Scott:

It's it's tough to see when the kids are just not clicking, you know, and on one hand they're kids and that, you know, there's plenty of mistakes that are going to be made. But, you know, it's also like it gets frustrating because you want to see some, you know, you're looking for the bright spots and when it when it becomes, you know, I don't know, dude. This weekend it was hard to find, you know?

Jamie:

Yeah. Unfortunately, know what you're saying. We also had a rough go. Yeah. You know what mean?

Jamie:

Similar to what you guys our scores wasn't weren't so lopsided, but we had a rough go also.

Scott:

Yeah. Yeah. You lost the teams that you should have beat. Both. Both.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

Both were teams that we we have beat. We beat one three times and the other two, I think. Yeah. Listen, just shows you that you don't play the game on paper either.

Scott:

Right? A 100%.

Jamie:

Right. I mean, and when you, when you decide that you really don't want to go maybe as hard as you should be going and the other team is getting up for it, things happen.

Scott:

And one of the things that happened for us, yeah, what happened for us, and I know you've seen it and so many of the listeners have also, but you know, like when the wheels start falling off, then kids start becoming they want to be the hero. And then what's already not great play turns into even worse play because it's very individual trying to, like, take it the full length of the ice. Inevitably, you end up trying to, like, dangle or a stick slip and then do it again and turn over at the blue line. The team goes the other way. And then to add insult into injury, you're upset you're losing, you're upset that you didn't make a play and now you have to back check and you're like, And then you see kids that are just half assing on the back It's just all over the place.

Scott:

I think I was telling you, but at a certain point, I kinda wanna see if these fundamental things are not being done. Right? Such as, like, give it all It's frustrating. Give it all you got. Now listen, if you're on the ice for a five minute, like

Jamie:

That's a whole another story. A

Kevin:

good story.

Jamie:

That's a good story.

Scott:

You know, I think just generally speaking, like, you wanna make sure these kids are back. You wanna develop good habits. Right?

Kevin:

Like

Jamie:

You wanna try.

Scott:

If you're getting smoked, I get it. Kids wanna be heroes. But, like, they need us they need to move the puck. Like, that's how they're gonna that's how the things are gonna start going their way.

Jamie:

It's two games playing.

Scott:

Spread out the play.

Jamie:

Yeah. Sure.

Scott:

You know what I mean? Like, if you're gonna carry the puck and you don't have a play, like, don't try to go through two players. No. Escape turn, put on the brakes, take it behind the net, regroup in the trailer. So in any event, there was so much of that.

Scott:

I was thinking, if it was me behind the bench, I would be sitting kids at And this why do I say that? And I say it strictly because it's like we're not talking about sitting kids because we're trying to win. No, no, no. You're

Jamie:

talking about just straight developing.

Scott:

You guys need to learn that if you're not going to play the right way,

Jamie:

you're going to sit.

Scott:

Well, but you're also just continue to develop these bad habits, further develop

Jamie:

bad And as you get older, they're gonna be harder to break. Mean- Yeah, no, no, and you're not wrong. Don't think you're wrong You know

Noah:

what I'm

Scott:

saying? And I'm not talking about isolated incidents either.

Jamie:

You're talking just want to be clear about this.

Scott:

There's patterns of behavior, listen, like,

Jamie:

well, you know what I mean? Yeah. No argument here. I get it. Listen, it's frustrating.

Jamie:

It's very frustrating. And I wonder when the kids actually get it, you know? And I also think different level kids get it at different times.

Scott:

Well, define get it because, you know, because I guarantee you, if you asked any kid on my son's team, when you back check, should you be giving it your all? Yes or no? The answer is gonna be yes.

Jamie:

Okay, so fair. So you're right. They all know the right answer.

Scott:

Right. So is hockey a team sport or an individual sport?

Jamie:

They all know the

Scott:

right answer. Oh, it's a team sport? Okay. So in team sports, should you be passing the puck? Yeah, we should be passing the puck.

Scott:

You know what mean? They all know the answers.

Jamie:

They do. It's funny. The selfishness, you know what? Somebody wrote somebody wrote us in on Instagram. Scott was talking about that.

Jamie:

I was talking about exactly what you're saying. How the kids try to, like, be the hero and and and not and they look off their teammate because they wanted the puck on their stick. Right? A lot of kids haven't have not figured out yet that it's a team sport. They haven't.

Jamie:

It's true. I see it on Dom's team.

Scott:

But like, how about this? No. Listen. And there's people that are much older that haven't figured it out. True.

Scott:

Like, you know, if what you're doing isn't working, you know, what's the definition You of

Jamie:

know, you're not wrong.

Scott:

No. You know what I mean? I don't know, it's just like there's part of this in terms of development and you listen to podcasts and you hear about development all the time. And right now I feel like I'm right in the centre of, okay, my kid should be getting better at fundamentals, right? If displaying he's certain things, I want to see him start to make improvements.

Scott:

And they're the kind of obvious ones that other kids on this team are also sharing, you know? And like, of course, not everyone's the same and like some kids are better at other things than others and they all have their own things to work on. Sure. But like, come on guys, like we need to be moving the puck. What mean?

Scott:

You need to be giving your all to be on your back check.

Jamie:

Yes.

Scott:

Right? Like that's not too much to ask.

Jamie:

No, I don't think so. But I think I think some kids are more engaged than others. You know what I mean? So I think some kids are gonna back check harder because they're just engaged and they had to they just have a different mindset than others. Some kids just do.

Jamie:

Right? I mean, you know, some of these kids, you know, are gonna be playing like high school hockey and that's it. They're gonna play like, you know, regular and that's fine.

Scott:

But listen, for any kid, right, that that isn't like as engaged as you say, right? Yeah. Fast forward the tape, like, let's say two years. Right? Let's just say two Then

Jamie:

you're now you're hitting.

Scott:

Right. But not I'm not even talking about that part. I'm just saying that that kid who had the coach who relentlessly told him, you need to skate harder on the back check or you're going to sit. And at times that kid was sat. Two years later, he's gonna reflect and be like, Dude, that was a solid coach.

Jamie:

Yeah. Because you learn something.

Scott:

Because you learn as opposed to just letting kids get away with it.

Jamie:

There's no question. Listen, it's the path of least resistance. Coaches do it. Parents do it. You know, everybody wants the path of least resistance because it's easy.

Scott:

But dude, it also just

Jamie:

happens to It's easy not to sue.

Scott:

It's expectation

Jamie:

them do their thing.

Scott:

But it's expectation management. Listen, you don't need to yell at these kids and that's not where I'm coming from either. It's very simple pregame talk. Hey guys, listen. We gotta start, you know, getting back to some winning ways.

Scott:

We're gonna go back to the fundamentals. This is what I expect from you. If you guys don't do that, I'll give you a warning. And if you do it again, then you're gonna sit. I'm just letting you know, heads up, like giving you a So up when it happens on the bench, you're not being taken off guard because, and this applies to everyone on the team.

Jamie:

Yeah. Listen, you know, you know what, you know what, you know been funny, Scott? I asked Dominic yesterday. Yeah. This is, this is how, how Dominic thinks, which is drives me wild.

Jamie:

So I asked him yesterday because I'm debating taking him up to like triple a next year just to to get him. What's the word I'm looking for?

Scott:

Is it a word or it's like, you want them to be playing with like higher skill level kids? Want a higher level of play competition, hockey IQ? Correct.

Jamie:

Yes. Yes. To all

Scott:

those. Yes. Okay. Positioning. Yeah,

Jamie:

everything. Right. So I'm not, we're kicking that around.

Scott:

Okay.

Jamie:

Okay. You know, and if Dominic was still on his old Rockets team. Okay. I can almost guarantee you that if Dominic was not busting his rear end, he would be sitting.

Scott:

Okay.

Jamie:

And he would be sitting for the whole game.

Scott:

Right.

Jamie:

Okay. And I said to him, you know, Dominic, I said, let me ask you a question. I said, let's just say that you were there this year or you go there next year and you have to earn your playing time.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

Right? I mean, now you're going to be a second year bantam. Right? Like you have to earn your playing time. Right?

Jamie:

I mean, that that's coming whether it's next year, the following year, it's coming high school. Right. That that's all coming. So I said to him, I go, I go, if you, I go, go, tell me your mindset. Go, if you're not playing, right.

Jamie:

I go, let's say you're not playing well in practice, you're not hustling practice. The coach is not gonna give you a lot of playing time, you know, in the game and you go into the game and you show, you demonstrate that you're not into it and you're in your mad because you're not getting a whole lot of playing time and you know you're not gonna get a whole lot of playing time and you don't skate hard. And then the coach sits you. Okay. I go, what's your demeanor going be on the bench?

Jamie:

I said, what are going to be like, Dom? And he's like and he's like, I'm going to be angry. I go, and that's the problem right there. I go, Dominic, I go, you should be up there rooting your team on, giving high fives, talking to guys that are playing, banging on the boards when somebody blocks a shot. I go, that's the problem right there.

Jamie:

I go, you're gonna sit there and you're gonna sulk and you're gonna say, woe is me, instead of going out and busting your hump and earning more. It's showing the coach that you want more playing time.

Scott:

Well, let me just say this though.

Jamie:

That's the conversation I had yesterday.

Scott:

Well, and that's, it's very valid.

Jamie:

I don't know how to change his mind.

Scott:

But, but, but let me just, listen, listen, but both can be true. He can be angry he also can do all those other things. 100%. So But what

Jamie:

he does, what he's demonstrated in the past

Scott:

Right. The pat the behavior has been

Jamie:

He goes out there and he he gets pissed off that he's not gonna play and he he mails it in.

Scott:

He shuts it down.

Jamie:

It is an awful, awful attitude.

Scott:

Right.

Jamie:

It's just awful. Yeah. And I don't how to change it, Scott. I do not know how to

Scott:

change Well, listen. Let me tell you. Let me let me tell you something.

Jamie:

We're working on, like, mindset stuff. We're working on, like, you know, positive self talk. It fucking doesn't work.

Scott:

Listen. Listen.

Jamie:

Think I each needs to get more mature.

Scott:

You you yourself can't

Jamie:

You change

Scott:

you yourself can't change it. It's an inside job. I honestly think that it's part maturity and part, like, he has to feel the burn. And if your hand touches that flame enough,

Jamie:

like So that's my feeling.

Scott:

No, that's the way it works a lot.

Jamie:

That's where my head is at. So I'm saying, you know what, Dom, maybe we go up next year because you're skilled enough to make a triple A team. No question about that. And if you don't perform, your ass is gonna sit on the bench. Right.

Jamie:

And I will like that.

Scott:

Right.

Jamie:

As a parent, I will like that because he will he will have to learn a hard lesson. And I'm okay with that. Yeah. Said, I said to my go, Dominic, I I don't care if you don't play the entire season.

Scott:

But does he wanna play AAA?

Jamie:

Listen, I think he wants to be around more, Diehards? Maybe that's the word.

Scott:

Maybe that's too extreme.

Jamie:

Yeah. Whatever it is.

Scott:

Anyone that's take, like that's, more passionate perhaps.

Jamie:

Yeah. Fine. Whatever the word is.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

You know? But but I I and and and and I I love Dom's coach right now, but he he he can't sit him for an entire game.

Scott:

No, he can. No, he can. No, can.

Jamie:

He can, but can't.

Scott:

No. Listen. It's a choice.

Jamie:

Listen, it's a hard choice. Listen. Oh, well. Listen, can't suppose can. You know, suppose you can, you know, but so that that's where that's, that's where I'm kicking around.

Scott:

But what I'll say though, that like, look, know, if you're

Jamie:

DM us a few years having the same problem.

Scott:

Yeah, no doubt.

Jamie:

Yeah. We'll be miserable together. No, I'm not miserable. Actually. I actually don't mind it because Dominic is learning.

Scott:

Right.

Jamie:

And he's learning a hard lesson, which I like.

Scott:

Listen to those are the best

Jamie:

lessons learned at 13, 14. Then when you're in your twenties,

Scott:

no doubt about it.

Jamie:

I keep telling him, I go, dude, I go, you have to earn your playing time. Yeah. Period. End of story.

Scott:

So you want to hear something funny I

Jamie:

like funny.

Scott:

Ish.

Jamie:

Curious where this is going.

Scott:

Was on the phone with Orleanato earlier and they were at a clinic yesterday. Dom was there.

Jamie:

Dom was there.

Scott:

I was I hadn't seen oh, I saw him briefly last night, but I was just, like, catching up with him, Otto, on the car.

Jamie:

Oh, when he came home?

Scott:

No. No. No. This was on the phone earlier.

Jamie:

Oh, gotcha.

Scott:

And, you know, I was just know, he was getting ready. He was going to practice, and he wears Helios, the Helios, the tracker. Right. And Orly just mentioned, he goes, Oh, you got a high hustle score yesterday.

Jamie:

Oh, for last night?

Scott:

For last night.

Jamie:

Oh, cool.

Scott:

And I said, Oh, dude, that's awesome. And Orly said something like, you know, about giving it your all. He goes, Oh, I didn't give it my all. And I was like, Let me ask you a question, dude. I was like, If practice is not a time to give it your all, when is a good time to

Jamie:

give it that's your such a thing to say right now. Go ahead.

Scott:

And he didn't say anything. I said, I've been telling you this since I was coaching you a full ice mite. And I would tell your entire team constantly, I would skate around the rink and I would say, You play like Exactly you

Jamie:

what I was gonna say. You you practice. Play

Scott:

Hey kids, guess what? You play like you practice. 100%. So I'm thinking to myself, you

Jamie:

know, maybe

Scott:

just maybe you should be giving it your

Jamie:

all. You will not get to a game and all of a sudden flip the switch.

Scott:

You never rise to the level of the competition. You will fall to the level of your training. Period. End of story. And if you're not giving it your all Now look, I also said to him, I said, Dude, you're gonna be at certain clinics or certain like, there's gonna be times where there's not gonna be high tempo.

Scott:

No, And you're not gonna be doing things that are maybe more technical and it's not like an all out sprint. Or

Jamie:

you have to go slow because you're doing a certain drill.

Kevin:

Have to

Jamie:

dial it back. Fuck.

Scott:

I'm not talking about

Jamie:

that. I know what you're talking

Noah:

about.

Scott:

You know what I mean? And so we ended up getting off the phone pretty quickly thereafter.

Jamie:

Your choice?

Scott:

No. They started talking about what he was gonna eat for dinner later. I was like, alright, I'm out

Jamie:

of here. I gotta go.

Scott:

But yeah. No, no. But you know what I'm saying, dude?

Jamie:

I had that conversation yesterday. You play the way you practice. You play like you practice? Thousand percent. Know?

Jamie:

Thousand percent. And these kids just don't get it. Not at all, but a lot.

Scott:

But listen, I don't know. Otto's 11, you know, this is what I'll say, though, also, and I think I'll give my son credit for. And, you know, it's like sometimes you're just not ready. True. And as a parent, planting seeds early and often

Jamie:

is the right thing to do.

Scott:

You don't know when it's going to Yeah, blossom and and come to fruition. And bear fruit. So here's just one last example, I'll shut up. Like, you know, let's just rewind the tape like two years ago. And like teams that Otto was on, like some of his teammates were like higher performers, like they're watching a ton of hockey.

Jamie:

Yeah, yeah,

Scott:

yeah, watching games. Different mindset. Otto was not super into it. I was watching a couple of years ago. He would watch.

Scott:

Now he's Changing all a little bit. About

Jamie:

Yeah, you could see it.

Scott:

And part of this is like, listen, I've been telling him, dude, listen, you can't just watch highlights. I mean, like, I if you're gonna if you if you're gonna show me a highlight, I don't wanna see it. Unless you're gonna show me a highlight of, like, Matthew Schafer back checking against the Flyers and catching the guy on the other side. Like, if you wanna show me that and be, like, like, starstruck. Great.

Scott:

But I don't need to see another toe drag like Pavel Barber, like Flippsy Doozy, Dazzle Wazzle, Wally Pop.

Jamie:

Wally Pop. You remember his name, right? Yeah. Wally Pip. Nice.

Jamie:

See? Now you learn something. Yeah. And you know who John Reagan is?

Scott:

Yeah. Played for the Redskins. Duh.

Jamie:

And who was he drafted by?

Scott:

Yeah. Other team?

Jamie:

The No. No. Yes. See? Learns from it every day.

Scott:

No doubt.

Jamie:

Right? That's what this podcast is about. It's a learning tool.

Scott:

It's a learning tool. Yeah. For even for children who went to the school.

Jamie:

Wait, what is it? I'm not sure where you're going with that.

Scott:

No, no, no. It's from, you know, I, I went to the school for children that don't read so good.

Jamie:

What movie is that from?

Scott:

Blue Steel. Really? Yeah.

Jamie:

Wow. I need to brush up.

Scott:

It's like at the end when he's I like building a

Jamie:

do not remember that.

Scott:

And I, and may, unless I'm mistaken, I'm pretty sure that there's like a, there's like a school for children that don't read so good.

Jamie:

Dude, I do not remember that. I need to go back and brush up. That's my bad on that one. Anyway.

Scott:

Yeah. We talked a lot here.

Jamie:

Yeah. Listen, talking is good. We're here to entertain and educate. Yeah. Now most of you know who, who Wally Pipp and, John Riggins are.

Jamie:

Lollipop. Yeah. And you know who who are the main stars of things like Inglorious Basterds?

Scott:

Yes. Right? Very good movie Yeah. And

Jamie:

Oh, very important. Oh, by the way, can we please just talk for one second?

Scott:

About what? Oh no.

Jamie:

Please. Can we just talk for one second? Are like two dudes in our comments section

Scott:

that

Jamie:

are saying that I know a guy, kid

Scott:

from Minnesota.

Jamie:

He's six years old and he's shooting snapshots from the top of the top of the circle. Yeah. Guy. You do not know a six year old that's shooting snapshots from the top of the circle. I'm sorry.

Noah:

You

Jamie:

don't. That's bullshit. Sorry, bud. No fucking six year old is shooting snapshots from the top of the fucking circle. They're not.

Scott:

Unless it's like an AI.

Jamie:

Fucking six? No. Sorry. No fucking way.

Scott:

What a six year old with a blue puck.

Jamie:

Not even with a fucking blue puck.

Scott:

Not even a blue puck.

Jamie:

Snapshots, like triggering the flex? Fuck no.

Scott:

Yeah. No. I know. I'm giving you I'm giving you my Six?

Jamie:

Like, dude, you wanna be a little, like, you know, Donald Trump y and kinda, like, exaggerate a little bit?

Noah:

That's like

Scott:

in your life?

Jamie:

You're way out of the fucking ballpark with that one, though. That's like if you had said,

Scott:

like You know what's gonna happen?

Jamie:

Eight, I'd be like, okay. Fine. But I know a six year old that's shooting snappers from the top.

Scott:

That? Who's who's who's that, that voice? You sound like Kermit the frog.

Jamie:

Hi. I'm Kermit the frog here.

Scott:

You know who sounds like Kermit the frog? Who? Jordan Peterson.

Jamie:

I could see that. I I could see that. I definitely could see that. Yeah. But, yeah, snappers from the top of the circle, bro.

Scott:

Anyway, that really got to understand. Listen. You know what's gonna happen? Horseshit. But what's gonna happen is we're gonna in our inbox, we're gonna end up with video.

Jamie:

What's gonna happen is other people are gonna look at the comment section. They're gonna be like, why is my kid not shooting a snapper from the top of the circle at six?

Scott:

Oh, well, that's also true. So I guess fair for calling that out. Right? Yeah.

Jamie:

I mean, we need to be realistic about this shit.

Scott:

Did you but did you see what at the bottom of, like, his post, it was a link to sign up for his shooting clinic?

Jamie:

Free coupons?

Noah:

Free coupons. Right.

Jamie:

Well done. Well done. Yes. Anyway.

Scott:

So speaking of hockey training.

Jamie:

Hockey training and shooting and stuff like that and off ice.

Scott:

Yeah. So today's guest, coach Kevin from hockeytraining.com.

Jamie:

Yeah, man. Hockey training HQ Instagram.

Scott:

Yeah. Check that out. But for any of you that don't know coach Kevin, and I'm assuming most of you have come across hockeytraining.com Yeah. The app, the website.

Jamie:

He's pretty legit on Instagram. He's got a pretty serious following.

Scott:

Well, listen. He's got a massive library of, like, you know, sick handling, off ice training Yeah. That you can use and access, you know, any time of the year. Yeah. It's great, you know, for anyone that doesn't have access to like a skills coach necessarily, but is looking for different drills and different, you know, guidance or guidance on different, you know, know, drills that you can do at home to improve your Yes.

Scott:

Accuracy. Yes. Stick handling.

Jamie:

Yeah. He's really good. He said some really, really good things in the interview.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

They were talking about, like, not overwhelming kids by by doing too much training because their their brains only can take so much, you know, so in, short intervals, you know, he's great. And he and he he tailors things toward kids, like, you know, from young ages, you know? I think he was doing it with his girls. Like young age stuff, like, you know, having to throw like a, like a ball, like stuffed animals, like having them like work and they don't even know that they're working.

Scott:

Right.

Jamie:

You know, which is great. Cause like he was saying during the interview, gotta keep him engaged. He's great. Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie:

He's he's he's I think I mentioned I I think he I I call him squared away. Yeah. Because I think he's pretty, like I think he gets it. Well That's my feeling on Kevin. That's what I get from him.

Scott:

Listen. He's he's passionate about hockey. He's passionate about helping develop, younger kids. 100%. He's got a wealth of videos that are great, easy to follow.

Scott:

The app's great. Hockey Training TV, I think, is part of the app. I could be mistaken on that.

Jamie:

He's got a lot of stuff going on.

Scott:

Check him out. He has

Jamie:

a lot of stuff going on. And his Instagram library is tremendous, like you were saying.

Scott:

Then he's also doing Zoom like, you know, Zoom courses or

Jamie:

classes where

Scott:

you can, like, work with him remote.

Jamie:

He's great.

Scott:

And he's got, a bunch of kids and they're doing different stick handling drills. Yeah. Start building a bit of a community.

Jamie:

No. He he's he's got some he's got if you go to his Instagram he has some very legit stuff.

Scott:

So what's the what's the Instagram handle again?

Jamie:

He's hockey training HQ.

Scott:

Right. H

Jamie:

because his Instagram. Yeah. He's hockeytraining.com. Yep. But his Instagram is hockey training HQ.

Scott:

So Yeah. Why don't we turn it over to him? And for any of you that haven't checked out his Instagram or his website, do it. It's great. And also I'll say this for myself, as an adult that got back

Jamie:

to hockey later in life,

Scott:

he's got programming for strength and agility, All ice training

Jamie:

for men's league

Scott:

for men. You know, I think he calls it men's league domination.

Jamie:

Right. That's right. Men's league domination. He said he did it for himself. Right?

Scott:

He did it for himself.

Jamie:

Yeah. When he started playing men's league.

Scott:

Yeah. And I got it. Yeah.

Jamie:

Yeah. Yeah. You said that.

Scott:

Yeah. That was like back in '23, think.

Jamie:

Apparently, he was a pretty legit football player too.

Scott:

Oh, he he took a break from hockey, think, to play football, but his passion brought him back.

Jamie:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You you guys are gonna like the interview. I thought he was great.

Scott:

Yeah. Yeah. So let's kick it over to coach Kevin. Alright.

Jamie:

See you on the other side.

Scott:

Alright, my man. Alright, everybody. Welcome to our next interview. Today, we've got coach Kevin, founder and coach behind hockeytraining.com. And if you haven't been to the website, definitely have to check it out.

Scott:

It's a platform that's all about getting hockey players a competitive edge using off ice training so they can perform better on it. And Kevin, so glad to have you on the podcast today. Thanks for making time. This is like this is awesome.

Jamie:

Thank

Scott:

you. This is so awesome.

Kevin:

Yeah. My pleasure, guys. Exciting to be on here.

Scott:

Sweet. Yeah. So, kinda like kick things off as we do with like a lot of folks, you know, you know, super interested in kinda like your background and how you got to where you are. But maybe just before we even get to, you know, to that, if could just maybe just share a little bit about little bit about hockeytraining.com, kind of like what the platform's all about from, you know, in your words and just, you know, to give our listeners a context if they're not familiar with who you are.

Kevin:

Yeah. So, I started hockey training over ten years ago. The idea started off mainly workouts. So it was a way to get kids following hockey specific workout programs at their local gym or at home. If they didn't have a trainer, they couldn't afford a trainer that specializes in hockey training.

Kevin:

We've evolved a bit over the years where we're doing skill training as well. So we've got stick handling, coaching lessons and that kind of stuff that you can follow along at home. Now with the synthetic ice and like just dangle areas set up in kids' basements and garages becoming pretty popular. We found that that's a good way to train as well. So that's kind of the the main idea, but it just gives, kids a way to train at home if they don't have access to a personal trainer.

Scott:

Yeah. That's, you know, and I'll also say that there's also programming for adults too, not just for kids. I I am the owner of men's league, men's league domination, 23 I think. So Oh,

Jamie:

you bought that? Oh, nice. A 100%.

Scott:

Oh, very cool. Yeah. I've been subscribed to the app since kids. Okay. No.

Scott:

For sure. And listen, I was like, you know, for for me who's been in and out of shape, but like, you know, my journey back into hockey, and I'm digressing a little bit from the intro, but, I had played as a kid growing up through like high school and then pretty much stopped playing when I got to college. And like fast forward twenty four five years later, I have a son that's, you know, starting to play hockey and now there's the stick and puck and we never had stick and puck when I was a kid. I was like, oh shit, I can go out on the ice and practice hockey with my kid. This is sick.

Scott:

But then I'm like reading like you need to have the full equipment. So then I get all the gear and then we moved out of New York City into New Jersey and I see my gear sitting on the floor and I'm like, shit, I can like start playing again, you know, and it was like then I start getting back into it, join a men's league team, blah blah blah, but I'm like fucking out of shape, you know, and I'm just like, shit, I need help here. And I'm recent just, you know, researching stuff for my kid and I came across, you know, hockeytraining.com and then men's league domination.

Jamie:

That's

Scott:

Yeah, a 100%. So, anyway, digress a little bit, but the platform's awesome. And so then, like, your journey kind of like, you you know, what it was like for you growing up in the Toronto area and just like what hockey was like, maybe what it was like then, what it was like now, your your parents, how how that what that was like? Were you did you come from a crazy hockey parent household?

Kevin:

I didn't come from a crazy hockey parent, but, I would say my dad was a big hockey fan, so he built us a outdoor rink when we were younger. So I'm the youngest So of I think I was about two. I don't think I was quite three yet when I put on my first pair of skates. I went out on the backyard rink and just kind of fell in love with it on the backyard rink. And then I joined our, we call it tight hockey.

Kevin:

So I guess that would be like, mites or whatever.

Jamie:

Yeah. Sure.

Kevin:

Yeah. So I joined that a year early. So I think usually about five years old is when he used to join it. Now I joined it when I was four, which was kind of rare back in the in the day. I was just I loved hockey when I was little.

Kevin:

So he threw me out there with my brother for a year

Jamie:

Oh, nice.

Kevin:

Before he moved up. So, yeah, I got started pretty early and just kinda fell in love with it. My dad was a big fan, but he wasn't he was a he was actually a great hockey dad. He he supported me a lot, but he didn't push me too hard. He kinda anytime I wanted to go into like power skating and stuff like that, he would let me go.

Kevin:

He didn't push me like my brother was kinda not as crazy. He liked hockey, but it wasn't as crazy and he didn't really wanna do the power skating. So my dad was just like, okay, we'll just throw you in hockey, you play your normal stuff. So yeah, I was really lucky, to have a good hockey dad, kinda let me do my own thing and I kind of I'm a very competitive person, so I kinda did push myself. At the same time, I wish I did push, kind of get pushed a little bit harder.

Kevin:

I think if I've, I don't want to say anything negative about my coaches growing up or anything like that. But if I ever had like someone who like really kind of pushed me more, I'm the type of person who like, I'll go all Yeah. In on something that Yeah. So, I feel like I kind of missed out a little bit there. And that's one of the things with me being a coach now.

Kevin:

I want to help those kids. Like you can, you can spot the kids who really, they do want to improve. So, I wanna be able to spot those kids and, kinda help them out. But yeah, I grew up playing, locally. Tried out for triple a every year here.

Kevin:

It's pretty competitive now. I feel like there's there's more options for triple a with some other leagues popping up and stuff now, but back then there was basically one AAA team I could try out for in my, kind of zone and, it was one of the last cuts pretty much every year, like I would, they would do cuts throughout and I would get to the last cut every time, get pulled in the coaches room. Sorry, we can't take you this year or whatever it was. And I would crush me every year and I would go try to work hard. Back in my minor hockey team and I was always kind of like near the top or at the top of my minor hockey team, but could just never really break through that triple a level.

Kevin:

Ended up getting to junior c hockey. Back then it was called junior d, now it's they named it junior c. So it's kinda it's like OHL, then it's junior b. So the guys who are kinda on the fringe for OHL go to junior b and then it would be the next level down from that. So it was pretty good hockey, nothing crazy.

Kevin:

Played there for two years. Then I went back, played high school hockey. I got into football a little bit. I was a pretty good high school football So I got Nice. Kind of recruited to my local university here.

Kevin:

Played a year of, university football just on the practice squad. So I had taken a year off hockey and I wasn't kinda even thinking about hockey, but I started playing with my buddy, some pickup hockey in the summer who played Junior B, which is just a step below the OHL and I didn't really think much of it, but I was playing with a lot of the guys that played on this local Junior B team. Was 20, went to university for football, but kinda dropped out because I knew I wasn't really gonna ever really play. It's really tough to kinda get on the field there as University of Western here has a really good football team. So I dropped out of the football thing and I the one of the coaches saw me at pickup and was like, hey, why don't you come try out for junior b?

Kevin:

So when I was 20, I tried out for junior b and then ended up making that team. Pretty crazy turn of events, ended up getting released, like, three quarters of the way through the season. We were on a 17 game winning streak. Like, we had a really good team and for whatever reason, crazy GM. Like, I was I I was 20 year old, so I was kind of one of the leaders on the team.

Kevin:

Like, one of the I'd say, like, one of the glue guys. We always all hung out together and stuff. So it was a crazy turn of events, got released. That team, we were like top of the league. They ended up losing in the second round of playoffs, like just a disaster.

Kevin:

Like some of my good buddies were on the team too. And yeah, it was a crazy turn of events and that's kinda how my career ended, which left a sour taste in my mouth, but I still Yeah. Right. I think I feel like a lot of guys would probably like wanna almost just quit hockey altogether after that. But I still just loved it.

Kevin:

So I kept playing men's league after that and yeah, kinda got more into the training side of things and yeah, if you wanna get into like how hockey training started, that was about four or five years after that, I'd say.

Jamie:

Yeah. I'm actually curious. Keep going. I'm I'm curious how like, how it evolved from playing men's league

Noah:

to what you

Jamie:

kinda have now.

Scott:

I also just wanna call out one thing and it's like, you know, James and, you know, Kevin, we we've talked about this a bunch and, like, we're not the only ones without, you know, without a doubt, but, you know, just developing the love for the game. Right? And we've heard in different shapes and sizes and, you know, whatever from different people that like, you know, you have a parent that's overbearing, that's pushing the kid and then like, you know, you you set up a recipe for burnout. Right? Because it's not necessarily something that they wanna do.

Scott:

It's something they want mom mom and dad wants them to do and they're trying to please them and like, you know, they they burn out. But here you are who's like clearly battle like adversity or disappointment, but like, you know, you didn't have a parent that like pushed you. You had a parent that supported you and like, here you are like say. After Yeah, man. I I mean, I think it's remarkable and I think that's just like Yeah.

Scott:

You know, great evidence that, you know, you know, for just having a parent that's supportive and allowing you to do you and love the game and you've created an amazing career so far. So anyway, I just wanted to call that out because it's pretty awesome.

Kevin:

No. Yeah. I appreciate that. And I I feel lucky and like my dad is awesome. He would support me all the time throughout, minor hockey and all that.

Kevin:

And to this day, he's still coming to some of my men's league games. Just enjoys just enjoys watching. Nice. One of the only people there watching, so

Jamie:

That's awesome. Yeah. Not many people in the stands in those games.

Kevin:

No. Especially the late ones, but no, it's kinda it's That's true. It's, kinda rubbed off on me because that's that's kind of how I am as a parent and how I wanna be and I'm trying to be. So, yeah, I feel I feel very lucky that I had a good dad, but I'll get into the just kind of how hockey training started. So Yeah.

Kevin:

Yeah. After, junior hockey, started working out a little, like I was always into the gym throughout high school, going to the gym and that kind of stuff and training and I would do my own research and stuff. I was trying to become a better hockey player and I would always Google stuff like hockey training workout programs, all this stuff. And we're talking back like twenty twenty years ago or so. So it a long time ago.

Kevin:

So there wasn't too much information back then out there and the stuff I did get, the stuff I got my hands on was it was pretty much a football program disguised as a hockey program. So it was a lot of like muscle building stuff, which I liked at the time. So I was a teenager, the girls obviously, you know, was

Jamie:

it. Yeah. Yeah. I remember those days.

Kevin:

Yeah. Sure. So I didn't mind it at the time, but just knowing what I know now, like this stuff that I was doing

Jamie:

So not good for a hockey player?

Kevin:

No. Not great.

Scott:

So Yeah.

Kevin:

My idea a couple years into like playing men's league and stuff, I learned how to build websites and I was just like, there's no real website that I know of that is teaching hockey players how they should be training. So there's gotta be lots of other kids, teenagers, whatever, are who in the same boat as me. Like they don't, they can't really afford a personal trainer or they don't have a personal trainer in their area who specializes in hockey performance. So let's start putting out some good information to help players and see where it goes. And I started off with this kind of like, just like a passion project with a couple buddies.

Kevin:

They ended up going off to do their real world jobs and I kind of stuck at it a little bit on the side and, Right. Got another partner at a time and he really helped take things to another level as well. And then like, both three or four three years ago, I think, he he, left the business and he's doing his own thing now too. But, yeah, just over those, like, ten, twelve years, just continued to grow and put out as much information as we can to help help hockey players who who need the the help with whether it be they can't afford a trainer, they don't have a trainer in their local area. Right.

Jamie:

Yeah. Right.

Scott:

So the, as far as like the the in terms of your, like, education or background with respect to, like, the, you know, physic you know, training, physical training on all the off ice stuff, it's so it sounds like a lot of it was I shouldn't say it like that because you didn't question is, how did you kinda choose where you were gonna, like, learn from, lean into, like, kind of get get that information from you? You partnered up with people that kinda helped help write like hockey specific stuff?

Kevin:

Yeah. So, I I didn't have like a education background in anything, exercise science or anything like that. I knew I had to partner. I wanted to partner with people who knew what they were talking about. I knew from experience, which I think is honestly like 70 to 80% of it.

Kevin:

No question.

Noah:

Maybe more.

Kevin:

Yeah. Studying textbooks is very important and stuff, but, I think experience is a big thing. So I did have some experience, but I wanted someone who actually had the, you know, the research and all that and The background. With players and stuff. So, I partnered with a guy named Coach Dan, Coach Dan Garner, who knew a lot of knew a lot of stuff.

Kevin:

He's a really smart guy. He's he's moving on. He's working with professional athletes now and Okay. Doing like blood testing stuff and all this crazy stuff that Oh, I he's just getting getting into like

Jamie:

heavy duty, like big time.

Kevin:

Yeah. Was great to partner with for the first little while. He created all the training programs. I did like the videos and I would do some of the skill stuff. We didn't do too much skill stuff back then, but and then now, when he left, I knew I had to find someone else to kind of help me.

Kevin:

So I got coach Tim LaBossier from, LaBossier from the Boston Bruins. Yeah. So he's the assistant performance coach there. So he creates all the training programs and I kinda So, do the skills I had to lean on. I I try to lean on some smart dudes that, know what they're talking about to create the actual training programs.

Scott:

Yeah. Because I I remember when I got the men's men's league domination, like at first, I was like, you know, I was super pumped to, like, get going. And then, like, I'm starting to look at the program. I'm like, damn. This is like a lot.

Scott:

It you you know, and it was intimidating at first to be totally honest with you. And, like, I would pick and choose some things that, like, know, were either more familiar or I didn't have to spend a lot of time in the gym really kind of, you know, you know, figuring out. But, I mean, there's no doubt there was a ton of thought and like a ton of information and I was like, I wish I could spend all day in the gym and just like do this, know, because I I it seems so clear that there was exercises that I should be doing that like I had never even thought to do.

Kevin:

Yeah. I think that's something we've battled over the years is trying to make it simple, but we also want to have the best product. Like we stand behind our product, we want to have, so it's, it's tough because you do want to get like, obviously it only works when people follow through with it. Right. So, we've been working as hard as we can to try to make as many videos and we've got like the PDF guides to like really explain everything.

Kevin:

And we're there now with the new Hockey Training HQ app, can like DM me and I'll answer questions. And we've got like this AI bot who has all of our knowledge stored in it. That if they want like an instant answer

Jamie:

They get something. Yeah.

Kevin:

They can get something right away until we are back on the computer. Right. So yeah, I think, I think it is, if someone looks at it for the first time and they've never followed a training program, it, it will look confusing. And we tell people like it probably takes about an hour or two of like reading through the watching the video. To

Scott:

get familiar.

Kevin:

Yep. To get familiar. But in the end, it's definitely worth it. Like I've been on like Dan's, programs in the past are awesome. Then coach Tim has really stepped it up with some awesome programs too.

Scott:

Yeah. So, so one of the things that came up, James, sorry if I cut you off,

Jamie:

but like we were

Scott:

talking to is, to Angelo Sers, a skating coach of the Devils, he was talking about plyometrics And that was something that I thought was interesting. Yeah. Yeah. No. And like how just like, you know, the idea of like that it's not not the best thing for younger kids.

Scott:

Now I'm not saying it is or it's not. But I guess like one of the things I wanted to just ask you about was, like, you know, you young kids and starting to train. Like, you hear people say, you know, different philosophies about it. Kind of like, where where what's hockeytraining.com's, like, perspective or, you know, philosophy when it comes to getting young kids doing like, you know, physical training, when do you add weights, just body weight, like kind of

Jamie:

like, how

Scott:

do break that up? Yeah.

Kevin:

So I have a little bit of an interesting take and background kind of with this stuff. So I actually recently I've got two daughters of my own, five and seven. And so I'm trying to get them to start, enjoying sports and like being physically active and all that. So I've taken like this other side passion project is just, figuring out ways that I can help kids be active in a fun way and get started with like train, but not really training. So, I try to like disguise training within games and stuff.

Kevin:

Right.

Scott:

Yeah.

Kevin:

So, I've got Yeah, I've got this little side business thing going on where I post, I'll send you guys the Instagram later, but it's, it's a way for like young kids to kinda get into just athletic development. Because if if you look at the numbers, the kids who stay in sports are the kids who are performing better at younger ages. So if you can Yeah. If your kid is one of the top soccer players or the top hockey players or top basketball players, there's much higher chance that they're gonna stick with that sport or any sport throughout. So the kids that are dropping out at younger ages are the kids that aren't just can't really keep up type thing.

Kevin:

So I really want every my kids especially, but every parent, I want to help them out, get their kids physically active so they feel confident and they want to, they can stick with sports. So, my whole thing is from like two to, let's say like eight, you want to make things just as fun as possible with any type of training you do. So like, I don't ever call my stuff training, but it's where I do like games where like chase games, tag games, like if I want to teach them throwing, it's like throw a dodgeball at these stuffed animals and try to knock them off. So everything is really fun based and then

Jamie:

Yeah, they have no idea that they're working out.

Kevin:

Yeah, exactly. Like my, yeah, my girls do like little warrior, a Ninja Warrior stuff in our basement and running around and jumping and stuff. And then they get on the ice. We'll get in, we can get into that stuff after, but they're only on the ice like once a week and we have a short season and they're really good for for how much ice time they get just because they're doing a lot of these athletic stuff. So I think my philosophy is like zero to eight, completely fun.

Kevin:

Nine, ten, eleven, twelve is when if the kid starts showing like, wanna be a better hockey player. I wanna be like McDavid. I wanna be like Bedard. And you kinda say, hey, if you wanna be like Bedard, he was training when he was about your age doing some fun stuff at home or whatever. So you guys should like come check this out or whatever and that's when you throw on my video or someone else's any type of fun video and for the younger kids, I this new this new platform I have, we do like thirty minute workouts, body weight only and I try to be really encouraging, motivating.

Kevin:

So I think at that age, it's more about like you introduce it in a fun way. It's still the workouts are a little bit more intense, but they're fun and I try to make them like hockey specific so they can see the transfer if we're doing like jumps, the skater jumps. I talk about like, let's pretend we're on a breakaway now, let's go really fast. So that type of thing where you're just making it engaging for the kids and not too long, because 30 is about anything over 30. I've found they start to get

Jamie:

They they don't have the bandwidth. Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin:

So I think, yeah, that age range is just kind of introduce it in a fun way. Body weight is great. Like there is, there's a lot of science coming out now. Like back then we used to say like, you don't want to start them with the weights until they're 14, but now there's nothing really showing that they can't, they can't start training at like 10, 11, 12 if it's in a safe way, but I feel like 10, 11 is kinda maybe a little bit too early for weights. You can have them hold like dumbbells and do like lunges and stuff.

Kevin:

That's not gonna hurt them, but at that age, you can stick with a lot of body weight stuff and do, and get a lot done. Then, yeah, like 13, 14 is when you really, in my opinion, would wanna kinda introduce them a little bit more structure and get a little bit more serious as long as they're kind of willing. You never wanna push it too early. That's a big thing too, is if you're pushing them into it, they're not gonna stick with it long term because eventually when they're 18, 19, 20, it's gotta be coming from within. They're not going to have someone to push them.

Kevin:

So you don't want to, you don't want to set that negative, relationship with training too early. So you want to always try to make it fun and engaging, especially anywhere under like 14 years old.

Scott:

And that's guys and girls. You wouldn't differentiate between men and women or

Jamie:

I wouldn't think guys would. Right?

Kevin:

Yeah. I don't think so. There is like a little bit like the girls obviously go through the puberty earlier. So things might get a little bit different, but I think just like maturity wise and stuff, the same age group age range is fine. Like you might see nine and 10 year old girls are ready to start introducing same with boys.

Kevin:

That's when you can kind of introduce a little bit of structured engaging stuff.

Jamie:

Right. So, so Angelo was mentioning that I guess the sports science guys at the Devils didn't like plyometrics for young kids because of the impact of the joints, you know, like the box jump when you're landing, you know, like 65 pounds on like the knees or the ankles, right? Do you see any of that? Or I'm just curious is we weren't sure if that was true when you said it because so I'm curious what your thoughts are on playing at a young age.

Kevin:

That's yeah, that's something I always have to run by coach Tim. He probably has looked into it a little bit more, but he he does, he programs it for the younger kids and I do a lot of, digging into research too and I haven't really seen anything about the negative effects. Too much of anything isn't gonna be great, but if you if you're playing basketball, if a kid's playing basketball, like if, I don't know, like the AAU in The States and they play like four games, five games a weekend, there's jumping up and down like crazy.

Jamie:

Was gonna say they're basically doing those high impact things regardless of the sport. Right?

Kevin:

Yeah. And some of those kids might get overuse injuries, but I think, yeah, just moderation. I don't think plyometrics a couple times a week, would do anything, but obviously, you know, check with your doctor or whatever.

Scott:

Don't wanna give up bad advice. Yeah.

Jamie:

I wasn't putting you on the spot. I was just curious.

Kevin:

If you go to if you go to a playground and you'll see kids jumping off like the highest thing Right? And

Jamie:

I mean, we were leaping off, you know, like monkey bars when we were younger, the tops of monkey bars. And it was like, we, you know, we didn't give a shit. It was like, you know, he didn't think twice about leaping off something that was like, you know, 10 feet off the ground.

Scott:

You

Kevin:

know? Yeah. So my my opinion on that is kind of just in moderation a couple of times a week, but if you went like crazy with it, I could see some overuse injuries. Sure. Yeah.

Jamie:

You know, it's funny. Speaking of overuse injuries, I'm curious, you know, there there's a lot of talk these days about like, hockey players and the hip flexor, you know, do you anything, you know, kinda in your daily kind of roundabouts with the hip flexor for hockey players, like overuse injuries on the hip flexor?

Kevin:

Yeah, personally, luckily we haven't had like many kids that are following our programs ever come to us any that I can recall for hip injuries. Lot of like, if we do get injuries, it'll be like a fluke, like broken arm in a game and they'll ask for recommendations. But, yeah, as far as like overuse injuries, personally, haven't, but from talking with other coaches and just people who are, see a lot of kids like physiotherapists and stuff, I know that's a huge issue and I know it's just gonna keep getting worse with the amount of times like, it blows my mind how many times some kids are on the ice. Like, like, honestly, I've heard of players that are on the ice twice a day, like six days a week, and that's like year round. Like, once they get to 18, 19, 20, I mean, their body's not gonna probably not gonna be in the best shape.

Jamie:

So We have some parents we can introduce you to that you'd find pretty interesting.

Scott:

It was like a we had a one of the, like, the player the director of the player director. I forget what's Alex Kim's title. He's a skills coach in for the Anaheim Junior Ducks.

Jamie:

Yeah.

Scott:

He's I forget his title, but he coaches, like, like, the fifteen u and the sixteen u triple a team. He's part of a hockey academy. Dude's been there, done that. But he was saying that, like, around the rink, like, the number that people throw around is, ten hours. You you get your ten hours this week.

Jamie:

I mean, hit ten

Scott:

hours ice time.

Jamie:

The

Scott:

ice. You know? And it's just, like, wow. Ten hours. I'm, there's only seven days in a week.

Jamie:

Mean, should wonder.

Kevin:

My thoughts on that are like, first of all, it's not gonna be great for your hips, that much skating over a long period of time. If you do it for a couple years, I'm sure you're gonna be fine. But once you add up twenty years, like you hear about guys, I don't wanna name drop, there's a couple big NHL guys that have been on podcasts and they talk about they've got a double hip replacements and stuff. It worked out for those guys because they're in the NHL. I would take that any But the kids who maybe they get those before they make it to the NHL or they never make it to the NHL and they're dealing with those problems.

Kevin:

I just think personally, I would rather have kids doing like off ice stuff, like, you don't see road hockey as much anymore. No. You could have your you could have your team yeah. You could learn like the Hockey IQ stuff just by playing road hockey with your team and you're not 100 muscles the muscles are working differently. So you're not having to skate.

Kevin:

You're saving a ton of money on ice time. Is it fun for the kids? It's good for them to get outdoors? Like something like that. Like if I was running a AAA program, I would try to get kids off the ice and do like team team bonding.

Kevin:

I'd play like capture the flag in the field for like conditioning instead of going on the ice. So I think it's crazy how much they're on the ice and it's probably gonna hurt a lot of kids in the future.

Jamie:

You know, it's so funny that you just said that about like road hockey. So we had Vinny Maltz on I think it was episode 41 a couple episodes back, who was the NHL's first mental performance coach. And he tells a story. He grew up in Philadelphia, like Downtown Philly. So, you know, he outside of his parents house there where he said he's like, Jamie's like, went back there with my and my like kids, I put my arms out.

Jamie:

He's like, and I could literally almost touch the cars on both sides of the street. He's like and it was just me and my buddy in the street. He's like we were stick handling in this little tiny area, right? And he had to figure out as a kid how to get around his buddy with within a very little tight space, right? Just playing, you know, road hockey.

Jamie:

So it's funny, you know, he was kind of forced into that just because of his environment that he was in, but it's funny how kids don't do that these days and and and he was, I mean, in his hands were sick. He said after that, right. So it's funny how something like that kind of transfers into the sport that he was playing, right. Just by sticking your sneakers on and going and getting a street hockey ball.

Scott:

Yeah. It doesn't always have to be like the super high end structured, like, best coach, like, in the region.

Jamie:

Right.

Scott:

For sure. But, like, kinda like on that note, we're talking about, the off ice training. And one of the things for me personally is, like, you know, that I, like a crazy hockey dad wants my son my son to build a bigger engine. Right? And I know we've been talking about strength, but what about like on the conditioning side and building up like a cardio engine and, does that something that is, you know, like when doing off ice training, or is that kind of go hand in hand with it all or is that like kind of like, would that be a separate, like separate program to work on like your endurance versus, know, I guess like explosive strength for example?

Kevin:

Yeah, so once they get into the more structured workouts, so we're talking about like probably twelve, thirteen, even within our body weight programs, we program the conditioning at the end of the pro, end of the workouts. So it's kinda like the the speed, strength and conditioning all in one. So yeah, the kids can definitely get started with the conditioning. Find that usually kids should should get an aerobic base built up just because they're being kids running after each other at recess, playing a lot of hockey, playing whatever they're doing, they're building up that aerobic base. But yeah, we do we do include, the conditioning work towards the end of the workouts and that could look like, like a sprint shuffle, like you might sprint 25 yards, sprint back 25 yards, could be if they're getting into the more structured stuff, heavy like sled pushes, start pushing some weight around and do like the shorter reps too.

Kevin:

So yeah, I do think the young kids can start introducing some conditioning. The same thing applies with you want them to have a good relationship with training.

Scott:

Right.

Kevin:

They're probably not gonna love conditioning. Right. But if they do want to become a better hockey player and they, they're kind of say like, Hey, do want to train. You can kind of introduce that and just say like, this is one of the ways you're going be able to last all game long. And once they get that mindset that it's helping them, as long as they, they are in it for the right reasons, they want to become a better hockey player.

Kevin:

It's not someone pushing it on them. Usually kids will stick to the conditioning. So yeah, those are my kind of thoughts.

Jamie:

I'm curious. What's something that you hear parents kind of saying these days kind of within your industry that you just totally disagree with when it comes to hockey players? Is there anything that kind of sticks out?

Kevin:

I would say the biggest thing is just like what we talked about being on the ice way too much. Okay. You ask them, they kind of say like, I'm on the ice doing this, this and this. Then you say, okay, what's their what's their training schedule? Like, what type of, like off ice work are they doing at home?

Kevin:

And it's usually like, oh, well, they're not really stick handling at home. They're not shooting at home. We're they're on the ice so much that they don't really want to. Right? Or we don't have time.

Kevin:

Like they go to school, hockey skill training, and then it's their team practice or something like that. So I think that's the biggest thing that I think a lot of parents might be getting wrong in my opinion is just too much on ice skills training, pay all the money for all these skills training, which is great, that it's gonna help a lot. But if the kid isn't working at home doing their ten minutes a day stick handling or shooting pucks or whatever on their own, all of the skills training in the world probably won't get them there if they can't do the stuff like at home, especially, and like, I mean, parents are going into debt, putting their kids in hockey and

Scott:

No doubt.

Kevin:

Skill session and stuff. It's like

Jamie:

It's unbelievable, isn't it?

Kevin:

It's crazy. So like Yeah. I would start that would be like my base would be just start playing whatever two, three times a week, like their normal schedule and get them stick handling at home every day, ten minutes a day, make it a game with you, like, you guys go back and forth, see how many make a game or something. That's like where you start. And then eventually, maybe they work their way up where they're, they want that extra skills working and stuff.

Kevin:

I just think, yeah, everyone's going all in a little bit too early before the kids are are really ready and they want it themselves.

Jamie:

FOMO is a real thing.

Scott:

So is. But, so you just, you you mentioned it twice just now, which I thought was really interesting. So, you said ten minutes and and that that's not a lot. Right? No.

Scott:

So, or or or it's enough, you know. So, if you could just maybe expand upon, like, you know, the amount of time because I I think for sure there's, you know, doing something consistently, you know, over a longer period of time is gonna be who's gonna be more beneficial than like, you know, going bananas for like two weeks and then not doing it again. But like, yeah, in terms of that timing, ten minutes, like, what's kind of that that range of training that you would recommend for let's just take the stick stick handling and shooting for example. Right? Like,

Jamie:

Yeah.

Scott:

Yeah. What would you say about that?

Kevin:

In an ideal world, I I would probably recommend twenty minutes would be kind of where you're gonna like, personally from what I've seen, twenty minutes may be ideal but for kids especially, short attention spans, they're already on the ice a lot. They've got other stuff going on. Ten minutes if you do the way I do it, the way I've found to be very effective is thirty seconds on, thirty seconds off. So you're actually only doing five minutes of actual work. So it keeps them focused for one thing.

Kevin:

They're getting a little bit of a break. So they're only working for thirty seconds, so they can go pretty quick and get that quick twitch going where it's not just like they're tired and they're sick and like for ten minutes straight. They can keep their head in it. When they're doing it for just ten minutes, they can stay focused. And then yeah, like you said, it's like a habit stacking thing.

Kevin:

If you, if I asked you to work out every day for thirty minutes, you might not do it. You might stick

Jamie:

If you to it tell for some somebody ten or fifteen, it's different.

Kevin:

Yeah, if you only have to work out for ten minutes every single day, but if you stack that over a year, you're gonna be in pretty good shape. Right.

Jamie:

It's not as daunting. Yeah.

Kevin:

And like, yeah, you can get a lot done in ten minutes. I know it sounds like such a short period, but you can get some good work in ten minutes and then I usually tell kids like, if you guys wanna stack, do 10, my most common is like the ten minute workouts. That's what a lot of kids are watching. I say like, stack two of those, like go one back to back, get twenty minutes.

Jamie:

There's your twenty.

Kevin:

Usually that's, yeah. And that's, I like the daily thing. If you can make it a daily habit, that's awesome. And I tell kids like two to five times a week is good enough up to daily if you want.

Jamie:

And what about shooting? What's your thoughts on shooting?

Kevin:

Shooting, I think is a little bit different. I tell kids, my advice is like about three times a week max.

Scott:

Okay.

Kevin:

I'm not against like the younger kids shooting every day. I know that's a big thing. A lot of kids just want to go shoot pucks a ton. I'm not really too much against that, but you are, when you are shooting, if you're doing it with max intent, it is a little bit tiring, plus you're probably on the ice, you're doing gym class,

Jamie:

you're Yeah.

Kevin:

Got all this other stuff going on. I think if they do a, like a thirty, twenty to thirty minute shooting session two or three times a week, they're gonna be a little bit more focused than doing it every day. So that's kind of where I sit with it. I try to get kids, I don't want them to overdo things just because like, hopefully they're gonna be doing this for ten, if they started like 10 years old, the next ten years of their life. So you don't want them to burn out, you want them to stay focused when they're doing these trainings and enjoy it too.

Kevin:

So that's kind of where I sit shooting a couple times a week.

Jamie:

So I have a question for both of you. My child

Scott:

Me too.

Jamie:

Yeah. So I'm curious to hear both of your thoughts because Scott, I've never talked to you about this. So my child shoots pucks regularly, right? I can probably count on one hand the amount of times he's actually gone outside with hockey gloves. He shoots with no hockey gloves.

Jamie:

And I'm like, dude, I'm like, when you're in the game, I'm like, do you have your gloves on? He's like, yeah, I go. Well, so does it matter? Yes. No.

Jamie:

I don't know. I I I in my mind, I think he should be putting his hockey gloves on, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm curious to hear both you boys.

Scott:

Well, I'll be quick. I think the answer is yes. I think for for no other reason than like it's easier to develop blisters and my son's done that and be like, dad, look, I'm like, yeah, no, no duh.

Jamie:

Oh shit.

Scott:

But there's something about like, if you're, why would you do it any other way? You know, clearly you're not putting on your skates, like standing in the garage unless you have glice, but you know what I mean? So that, that I would say, I always tell him to put his gloves on. He doesn't always listen.

Jamie:

I'm just curious, Kevin.

Kevin:

Yeah. No, I I would agree. I think I don't think there's that, I don't think there's a huge issue if he doesn't. Like, I don't think it's gonna

Jamie:

Right. Right.

Kevin:

Be that, once once he gets on the ice. But Right. I was thinking right away the blister thing, like my practice gloves have holes all over them that, so now I'm starting to get blisters when I shoot with those gloves.

Noah:

Yeah.

Kevin:

So, I think the blister thing is more important and just, yeah, I don't know, I like the feel of having the gloves on when you're training, it just feels better.

Scott:

What I like.

Jamie:

To the ice

Scott:

the smell. I mean, you have this smell like for a couple like hours afterwards, like just to enjoy the aftermath of your the fruits of your labor.

Jamie:

His stuff's not gross just yet. He's not no, it's not.

Scott:

No. Seriously. No. I know you're I'm just thinking about my gloves.

Jamie:

Well, that's a whole another story. Yeah. My kid's stuff's not disgusting just

Scott:

yet. Gnarly.

Jamie:

Coming So

Scott:

it's like on this, so obviously we're talking about, you know, people training at home, they're not necessarily they're not in the presence of someone that's like a professional. One of the things that I have thought about is like, okay, if my kid if I tell my kid to go out there and shoot pox or go out there and stick handle, he's just doing it the way that feels comfortable to him. It doesn't mean he's like has good technique. Right? So it's like, do I really want to him to spend thirty minutes out there shooting with, you know, before he knows how to shoot or you you know what I mean?

Scott:

So what what are your thoughts about, you know, going out there, I don't know, let's call it flying blind or just going by feel or instinct. Right? Like, is that something that you would recommend against or like really not that big of a deal, it'll just, you know, things will come with time.

Kevin:

Yeah, I think, I think, some work is better than no work. So, if he was doing like incorrect form, I think he's still working the muscle patterns and the coordination and getting the conditioning effects. So I would say like no training is better or some training is better than no But yeah, you obviously wouldn't want someone doing something extremely like harmful to their technique or some forming like a really bad habit. Sure. But I couldn't see like, I've never really seen a kid, like I do some live training on the app and I've kind of watched some of their reps and I've never seen a kid who like does like really poor form that I would want to stop them.

Kevin:

I just kind of let them do their thing and I'll give out some tips as we go. I'll say like, Hey guys, try this out. I don't usually point out, I don't want them thinking too much about what they're doing at the, in the moment. I'm a big, big believer in like, kids are gonna, you kind of show them the technique and as long as they're watching you do the good technique and you kind of give them a few pointers, you don't wanna correct every little thing because if you look at like someone like Bedard, he looked at he was what he was studying Matthews and it looks similar to Matthews, but he has his own style where he's got this crazy pull to it and he's got his hand up really high. He's got a long stick.

Kevin:

So he's created his own thing. So if a coach came along and told him like not to do that, he wouldn't be the type of shooter he is today. So

Jamie:

Right. That would

Kevin:

be great. Yeah. So I don't I try not to mess too much with technique besides the basic stuff. Yeah. That that's my thoughts on it.

Kevin:

But

Scott:

No. That I mean, that that that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah. You and then so that's the kind of conversations that that that we have.

Scott:

Like, you you know, and it's just like, oh my god. Like, my kid's out there and he just shot like 500 pucks and he didn't look at the net once, like, oh shit. Is he ever gonna look at the net? You know?

Jamie:

They do eventually.

Scott:

No. I I know he does eventually.

Jamie:

Well, when they're doing it and

Kevin:

No. But the

Scott:

top hand in particular and and and I think that's part of where it comes from on my end because when I was a kid, that was I never learned how to shoot like that. And then I tried it and I was like, geez, this is impossible because it feels so far. And, you know, and then when my kid's not doing it, I'm like, oh, man, he's gotta get that top hand out, but I can't even like coach him on it and like, quite frankly, I don't even

Jamie:

know how to

Scott:

do it. So, you know, it's, that that's kind of where my thinking was there. But yeah, no, I so so with that said, I mean, I guess like we're kind of differentiating between just maybe like un I'm not unstructured is not the

Jamie:

right word.

Scott:

At what age, I guess this is more of the question, at what age do you you you start saying like, okay, let's get maybe more intentional or let's start focusing on like some of like some more details. Like, is there like an age range where you're like, alright, like at this point we should be looking on like the finer the finer points of whether it be stick handling or shooting or even even, a form when you're doing like a box jump or running for example?

Kevin:

Yeah. I would say maybe like the high school age, like once you get around 14, is kind of when around that age, it's going to be different for every kid, but their maturity has to be there and their coordination and being able to connect their mind to what they're doing. So I would say like, yeah, 14, 15 is when you kind of really dial to kind of start to dial things in a little bit more. That's not to say that you can't like work on technique and stuff when they're younger, but it's more, I think it's just more broad getting them to do like the right movements and that kind of thing at younger ages and then dial it as they get older.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

I'm curious. You mentioned that you were coaching too right now, right? Like, are you coaching a hockey team?

Kevin:

Yeah. So I started a nonprofit girls, club for my two daughters.

Jamie:

Oh, nice. Nice.

Kevin:

We just started up like, yeah, I've got an interesting story if you want to get into that.

Jamie:

Yeah. So

Kevin:

my daughter, she's, she was five when when I took her out for her first hockey, just locally here. And the first practice was like, they called it a conditioning skate and these are five year olds who a lot of them haven't played hockey before. Yeah. I think they're

Jamie:

I see where this is at.

Kevin:

Really, I think it was just kinda like conditioning meant like get them back on the ice because it was the first skate, but it was it was almost around like a conditioning skate. Like the coach was like, alright.

Jamie:

They were like bag skating the kids?

Kevin:

Pretty much. Not bag skating, but like

Jamie:

But like something There along those

Kevin:

was kids crying and they had them in like five lines and he's yelling like, alright, it's time to do this. Anyways, my daughter just it was her first experience and

Jamie:

She probably hated it.

Kevin:

Didn't love it and I knew like she's not gonna really love that style. And yeah, it was just a lot for her at that age and I know how important your first experience is with a sport to if you have a bad first experience, you're probably not gonna fall in love unless you get lucky and your second experience or whatever is good. So I knew right away after that first practice, was like, I gotta do something different with her because I I love hockey. I want them to give it a try. Yeah.

Kevin:

I it's okay with me if they if they give it a try and they eventually don't love it and they maybe find something else. But I I do want them to start in it and enjoy it when they start out. So I took her out right away and I just found a few parents that weren't in, didn't have their kids in hockey yet and I just said, I'm starting this little co ed league or not like the hockey session, teach kids how to play hockey, just called the intro to hockey. And started off with just eight kids the first year and everyone had a really good time. They learned some skills, had a lot of fun.

Kevin:

I'm pretty sure I can think about it. Yeah. Seven of those eight kids are still in hockey. The one kid just didn't love it. His feet were cold.

Kevin:

Yeah. Wasn't So for my goal was to get eight of eight back and loving it, but yeah, the one boy was maybe, yeah, yeah, maybe he'll be back, you never know, but, then the next year we had like 20 something kids and

Jamie:

Oh, nice. Very nice.

Kevin:

Yeah, as far as I know, like almost all of them or all of them are in hockey as well, so they all enjoyed it. We just did a lot of fun, very basic skating drill, like not drills, do like activities, we call them. We try to make everything as fun as possible at that age, they're five and six year olds,

Jamie:

so Right.

Kevin:

Everything was really super simple, fun and it was one time a week, sixteen weeks for that one. And that was it. So it's kinda like, you introduce them to hockey, hope they fall in love with it and they wanna come back for more. And then now, this past summer, I started a girls only program. My daughter's expressed interest in girls only cause they started doing girls only soccer.

Kevin:

So I was like, okay, I'll switch it to girls only. We've got Do they have 40

Jamie:

girls only at such a young age in Canada?

Kevin:

So they start at eight years, seven years So

Jamie:

they don't have girls only here in The States at that age.

Kevin:

Really? Yeah. So what we call like our youth seven, which used to, when I was younger was Tyke. So five and six year olds, it's co ed and then they have the option at seven and eight. So U9, they have the option to go girls only.

Jamie:

That's wild.

Kevin:

Yeah. So I started.

Jamie:

We don't have that.

Kevin:

Yeah, I started this program. So right now we have about 40 girls, it's five and six year olds and then seven and eight and some new nine year olds.

Jamie:

That's great.

Kevin:

And essentially it's, it's another option for girls who don't wanna dive headfirst into a full hockey season. So here where I live, you can you can go play girls hockey, but you have to you're practicing and playing about three times a week, two to three on average. Yeah. Somewhere in between there and it's a seven month season travel. So there's a lot of girls who haven't played hockey before and they don't know if they're gonna love it.

Kevin:

They don't wanna the families don't wanna dive fully into it. So I started this league we call it the ice puppins. We've got colorful jerseys and awesome logo. Like, the girls just love it.

Jamie:

That's very Yeah.

Kevin:

The families, everyone's like, just yeah. Everything is positive feedback and it's only an eleven week season for the fall season. Right. We've got

Jamie:

nine More casual version of like, hockey. Right?

Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's like rec hockey girls only and it Right. House and we week, break up our season. Yeah.

Kevin:

And we break up our seasons. We've got fall season, a small winter season and a summer season. So they can sign up for all three. They could sign up for just one. A it's just a way to introduce kids to to hockey, but like That's great.

Scott:

My goal

Kevin:

is to get as many people and as many girls to love hockey. And then eventually, if they want, they maybe they'll go play competitive, whatever it is, wherever it takes them, I just want them to have a good experience. So I, yeah, I've got a unique take on how I would run and how I do run like the five, six, seven, eight year old type hockey.

Jamie:

Right, I see that. That's, I must say that we see we don't have we don't have enough girls here in The States to do that. Right? Like generally when our kids, right, Scott, tell me if I'm wrong, like when our kids were younger, you know, there'd be a team of like 18 kids. Maybe there'd be like one, two, right?

Jamie:

Two, three girls. You know, there's not here in The States. There's not enough girls that play, you know, and you guys are like the mecca of hockey. So it's a little different. But here, I want to say here, they don't Scott,

Scott:

I don't think it's till like thirteen. Yeah. Around thirteen, twelve, thirteen.

Jamie:

Yeah. They're playing with the boys up until then.

Scott:

And there are there are some families of girls that are like, very talented that they'll wanna keep them with the boys for as long as possible just because of, like, the the the level of play and the physicality. Yeah. Because they also have girls in, like, in in high in the high schools. Right? The high school teams are coed.

Scott:

And so you'll have girls that are playing hockey, you know, on, like, a mixed team at older ages also.

Kevin:

So Yeah. Wow.

Scott:

But, it's not as it's not yeah. We don't have it at the young ages. But what I what I love what you just said was just about, like, making sure that all these kids have, like, a positive experience. And, you know, it's un unbelievably like, I coached for a little bit. I coached I coached my son.

Scott:

And, you know, if I had to do it over again, I probably would have been softer in some instances for sure. But, you know, you live and you learn. But he's gone on to have, like, you know, he's he's had coaches where even like older, like, I don't know, like, nine, ten, even last year where it was like, it was just like too too harsh, like, treating kids and like, yeah, he was on a very competitive team. Right? Like, you know, and it was like triple a and blah blah blah and like, I get it.

Scott:

But at the same time, like, I think that there's a lot of coaches that when, like, winning becomes like the focus and like, win it all costs, like, you lose sight of the fact that you're dealing with kids and like, like, you know, it's so interesting. By the end of last season, there was a moment where my son was actually rethinking whether or not he wanted to keep on playing hockey. And then we made a change. We took him you know, we went from tier one down, like, triple a down to double a, and we are playing closer to home. And the coach that he has is, like, a younger guy that's, like, not the polar opposite of, like, his coach from last year, which side note, when he first my son's first started practice this season, he goes, he goes, yeah, you know, coach should be harder on us.

Scott:

I was like, dude, he just almost like quit Hockey's dude. No. I don't I don't think he was like really almost quit, but like that talk started coming up. So like same thing with like teachers in school, it's like so important to like make good impressions on children. Just like hats off to you for doing that, man.

Scott:

That's like, that's excellent. Yeah.

Kevin:

I'm trying my best. I'm learning as I go. Like, I don't have a ton of experience with the a big group of kids at once, but I think yeah. I think I'm doing an okay job. One of the things I've learned is like, you do have to have rules and be somewhat strict as to make sure that they follow those rules, but girls are a little bit better that way.

Kevin:

They'll follow

Scott:

the rules a

Kevin:

little bit better. So you set them out and then they usually stick to it and yeah, it just like our my ice times are all based around fun, but I want hockey development too. I'm always thinking, I'm creating these activities that everything has a plan, like the parents watching might be like, why are they doing this?

Noah:

Right,

Kevin:

they're all the kids are moving, they're dodging, like we have this one game we just played, I forget what I named it, but me and another coach were in the middle, the neutral zone. We laid out like 25 stuffed animals on the ice and we had we had pool noodles and they were on separated on their two teams and they had to get into the neutral zone, pick up a stuffy and get out without getting tagged. So they're just like going, not skating fast, dodging us and like dodging each other like they're bending over stopping, doing hockey stops when some of them at it's their first year playing hockey and they can't

Jamie:

do hockey stuff. Change the direction stuff.

Kevin:

Yeah. They just naturally do a hockey stop because they need to. Right? And it's like, oh, I can do that now. So that type of stuff is just like and they're just love it.

Kevin:

They're like laughing and it's awesome. But in my head, I'm like, look at that hockey stop. Look at that sharp Yeah.

Jamie:

Yeah. They have no idea that they're working, which is awesome.

Kevin:

Yeah. And then I always we always do some, like, half ice hockey. So we'll have, like, stations. So one one group will be doing half ice hockey, because we're we only have eleven weeks too, I do have to make sure I get that in every practice, but I think if I did have a hockey team, I would make sure that they're playing like three on three or four on four every practice. Like, the kids want to play the games.

Kevin:

That's why they're there and it's gonna develop them. So at least let them play some hockey in every practice, some form of it.

Jamie:

That sounds great. By the way, you sound like you put Taylor a nice little program.

Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah. I know. I'm extremely passionate about it and Yeah.

Jamie:

I can tell.

Kevin:

It consumes a lot of my mind, like thinking of fun ways to make hockey exciting while also developing these players. So, yeah, it's fun.

Jamie:

Do you have a hard time renting ice during this, like, club season? Do you have a tough time getting ice time? Are they sticking you like Friday night? Like, when, like, nobody's on the ice? Like, what kind of ice time is it like there?

Kevin:

We did. Yeah. We were lucky the city gave us a pretty good ice slot, but it's at the worst arena in the city that doesn't have a warm it doesn't have a warm area for the parents to watch. It's a freezing, it's a really cold rink, but I was really thankful that they got us two hours at Sunday at 11:30 in the morning. We didn't we were pretty strict.

Kevin:

We didn't want early mornings. That's one thing I'm kind of against is like kids want need their sleep during in school five days a week. We want

Jamie:

it It's when they grow too. Yeah.

Kevin:

Yeah. We want to try to give them a slow morning. So I was really hopeful that they wouldn't like, I kind of told them like 10:00 or later. And they were able to give me a Sunday slot. So I was happy with that.

Kevin:

I'll take any rink at that time.

Jamie:

That's great.

Scott:

That's awesome.

Jamie:

That's actually, mean, I mean, you're talking, that's like, you know, Sunday at that time is like major club hockey team time. Right?

Kevin:

Yeah. I'm

Jamie:

surprised they gave you that time slot. That's wild. Yeah. I would have thought they would have stuck you with like Friday night, you know, from like, you know, six to

Scott:

eight, you know? That's what my son has practice.

Jamie:

Well, exactly.

Scott:

I wanted to, I wanted to, oh, go ahead. No, sorry. I finished with that.

Kevin:

I was gonna say, I was nervous waiting for the schedule because you submit your times that you want and then they send it back what you got. So I was nervous waiting out waiting for that, but it was it was good.

Scott:

That's awesome, man. It

Jamie:

worked out nicely.

Scott:

You know, just switching gears a little bit, just, you know, back on on the training piece, what what's your take on, like, some of the the technology that's available, like, the the one that, like, I have, my son uses a Helios, you know, which I'm sure you're familiar with. But in terms of, like, the technology and and, you know, I guess for the off ice training, you know, using like their Apple watches or like, know, apps to kinda track like heart rate and all those other things. Do you do you put much value on using those in conjunction with the off ice training and on ice training if you're using Helios for that matter?

Kevin:

Yeah. I've never tried the Helios. I think it could be cool, especially once kids get a bit older. I think it'd be more as a parent, I wouldn't put too much into that. I feel like it's just another way for parents to be like a little too hard on their kids or whatever.

Kevin:

But at the same time, it does give you some good information. But yeah, think I think you would want like the the kid to be the one, like the teenager. I could see like a 14, 15, 16 year old be like looking at his stats and be like, okay, gotta work harder or whatever. Gotta seat more. Yeah.

Kevin:

That type of thing. I think there yeah, I think there's some benefits to it, but it's the same, like I always come back to like, you want it to come from the kids. So Yeah. You can kind of, would, the way I personally would deal this when my kids get older is, I would recommend like, hey, you guys, you wanna be the better, a better hockey player, right? You always talk about it.

Kevin:

You always say you wanna play in the NHL when you're older or whatever it is. Here's something that, here's a tool that can help you if you wanna check it out and like, kind of show them but not push them on it too much. Yep. That's how I would go about it. I do think they are, they can be useful.

Kevin:

But nothing like if you don't have the money or you don't want to spend the money, it's easy to not easy, but you can ask your kid like, how are you feeling? You can check what they're eating, making sure that their nutrition is on point, but I feel like I don't have, my kids are only five and seven, but so I'm not really at that stage, once they get to like the teenage age, I feel like as a parent, you can kind of tell if they're starting to get worn down and like, oh, maybe we do need to sleep, get a better sleep or we need to work on your nutrition a little bit or make sure you're drinking lots of water, that type of thing. So I don't, I don't think you need those, but I think they can be handy.

Scott:

Yeah. Yeah, know it's a, it's something that's interesting because I, I'm like into like when, you know, I use an Apple watch, I used to do like a lot of tracking of like, you know, all the things like I was checking my blood glucose, would test test my ketones, I was doing ketosis, like all that kind of shit. And so yeah. Anyway, I guess it's it's interesting, but nonetheless Tim Ferriss. Is well, I mean, I did listen to Tim Ferriss a lot for a while.

Jamie:

That's what I mean.

Scott:

But what I was gonna say was the, you know, for for this is there's a hustle score in this Helios thing and we're like, hey, you see, low hustle score, not good. You know, but like, you know, but see, like on one hand, like, but that's kind of, we've laid off of that honestly because you know, I think there's diminishing returns on something like that if you're gonna beat a kid over the head with that kind of thing constantly. But you know, I I think one of the things that we struggle with and Jamie and I have talked about it a bunch is like, you know, kids kids need to be pushed to a certain extent, right? Like as an adult, as a parent, like you need to, you know, help your kids realize the best version of themselves and you know, they don't necessarily know what it means to push themselves and there's this, you know, always a struggle like, should I push harder now? Do I lay off?

Scott:

You know, and some of it's obvious, right? Like, oh, my kid's crying. I'm not gonna be like, end you, end you. But like, know, so I guess I'm just curious on like your take and not necessarily from your own kids, although if there's, you know, you have, you know, stories about that, but just from like working with kids and like talking with parents and kind of like when to push and when to pull back, you know, any any kind of like either like best practices or any advice that you give to parents who are like not seeing what they're expecting to see out of their kids?

Kevin:

Yeah. I think, with my kids being young, I don't have too much of a say on this yet, but I think, if you're if you're asking these questions and if you're listening to podcasts like Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast, I think that you're probably you're probably thinking of these things and you're probably doing a pretty good job. Like, you're thinking about, like, am I pushing too hard? The crazy parents that aren't thinking about what they're doing to their kid, those are the ones that are gonna be pushing them way too hard. So I think if as long as you're kinda thinking like that's going through your head, you're probably doing a pretty good job to begin with.

Kevin:

But I think in general, I think parents are maybe a little bit harder, like from what I see it, like parents are pretty hard on their kids even at young ages. So Yeah. I'm trying to be very cognizant of what I do. Especially at the youngest ages, but I do wanna, I don't wanna be just like, let them do anything. Right?

Kevin:

Because I know, especially my older, I can tell she's competitive. So I do wanna help push her a little bit and like kind of explain like, you wanna do this, you gotta maybe think about this type of thing. But as she slowly gets older, she's obviously still really young right now. But yeah, it's something like, as long as you're thinking about it and like you're asking a question and a lot of these people that are listening to this podcast probably are mindful of that. And I think as long as you're mindful of it, you're probably doing a pretty good job.

Kevin:

That's kind of how I think it's the people that don't think about their kids' emotions and like how it's going to affect them down the road. Those are the people that are in trouble with how they're affecting their kids.

Jamie:

Right. Most people that are listening to this, think are trying to figure out a way to fix themselves so they don't wind up hurting their kids. Right. You know? And that's kind of one of the reasons why Scott and I thought this would be beneficial to people, you know?

Jamie:

And you're right. The the parents that are not listening to this or the parents that listen to it and are like, Oh, that's bullshit. You know, listen, I hope they're not crushing their kid, right? Because the overarching theme that Scott and I are hearing from basically everybody we speak to is, you know, parents ruin it for their kids. They just do.

Jamie:

You know, One

Kevin:

thing like I'll say, like there's, I've heard before, like, well Tiger Woods, his dad pushed him like crazy and look how good he is. But then you look at his like personal life, that's not going too well. No.

Jamie:

No, it's not. I love

Kevin:

the guy, like I love he's he's had some he's had some problems there, so you can't even

Jamie:

really That's use putting him mildly.

Kevin:

You can't use him as an example saying like, if you push your kid like that, he's gonna be pro, but then you gotta think about for every Tiger Woods, how many kids were there that were pushed that hard that are now like not doing well because of that.

Jamie:

Correct. There's always the outlier. Right? Right.

Kevin:

Yeah. So I think it's, it's a fine line. You want to push your kids to be the best they can, but you got to really, every time you do it, you got to think about, is this the best for them in the end? Right. That's my thoughts.

Kevin:

It's tough. Parenting is tough. I'm only seven years into it and every day you're, like, thinking of something.

Scott:

And and, like, what's interesting also is, the maturity piece because, like, what doesn't work yesterday might work tomorrow and vice versa, you know. So, like, you also can't just you can't just throw out a strategy because you deployed it too early. Right? Because maybe it's just the timing was wrong. You know, it wasn't a it wasn't a bad decision, just like a bad outcome type of thing.

Scott:

And it's yeah. It's exhausting. It's exhausting to go through all this. Sure. But one of the questions I I I like to ask because I've I I've I don't wanna say struggle, maybe struggled with it, but just never really had a clear clear thought on it.

Scott:

I'm starting to get a better one. But, you know, a lot of a lot of the folks we we talked to, you know, certainly encourage multi sport athletes for as long as possible. You yourself played hockey, played football, you know, Jamie and I, we played all different sports when were growing up. But in terms of like what constitutes another sport, you know, so like there's clearly hockey available year round if you want it, you know, like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But, you know, in your opinion, you know, when you, if an athlete is playing, you know, a multi sport athlete, like things that are not team sports, like martial arts or like rock climbing, Do, you know, do those fall into like a secondary sport, like in your school of thought or do you do you put a lot of value potentially on the importance of like having

Jamie:

Structure.

Scott:

Like either structure or like the team aspect when it, you know, is it transferable to hockey for example?

Kevin:

Yeah. I would include like anything physically active if you're looking for carryover. So like the rock climbing, be great for strength, grip, everything like that. If you look at things like gymnastics, I know probably if you look at it, a lot of parents of dad or parents of boys probably don't either don't put their kids in gymnastics or only do for like the toddler stages and they don't keep them. Gymnastics, I would if I had boys, like my girls do it a couple times, a couple months of the year, if I had boys, I would push them into gymnastics if I could, it's excellent, like fitness, just general coordination and that kind of stuff.

Jamie:

All that stuff, yeah.

Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah, but I think like any, any activity, physical activity would be great for your kid. If they wanna be a better hockey player, I still wouldn't allow them wouldn't allow my kids to be playing hockey twelve months a year. Would have them out at least a couple months, maybe one or two months minimum and then have them in something, whatever they wanna do. Like it could be martial arts.

Jamie:

Something else.

Kevin:

Climbing. Yeah. It could be just anything like whatever they like doing, just get their mind off of it and drive that passion for if hockey is their true number one, like taking a little bit of time off and doing something else can only be beneficial for them.

Scott:

Sure. Yeah. That makes that makes sense. I I agree. I I because my son loves to to go mountain biking and clearly biking is like good for you, but I was always concerned that because he's not, like, playing another team sport with at some level, like, some competitive level, you know, that he's not a multi sport athlete.

Scott:

You know? And the more I've talked to people, the less concerned I am about it because but nonetheless, that was something that I for a while was like, shit, man, he needs to get going on something else.

Jamie:

He asked that question to multiple people, Kevin. Yeah.

Scott:

He just because he one of his guys. Yeah.

Kevin:

I've heard it in one of the ones I listened to, but it's a good question. I like it and that

Jamie:

He did.

Kevin:

Yeah. I think, yeah. Multi sport is good, but I don't think it has to be a sport. Just really anything. Like if he if hockey is his number one, then he's gonna learn what he needs to learn like Hockey IQ wise.

Kevin:

I know I'm a big believer that like other sports can teach you, can help with Hockey IQ, but if you're playing hockey a lot, you're gonna learn that Hockey IQ anyways, like spacing and scanning and all that stuff. So yeah, other sports can help. But if if his other passion is like mountain biking or something, that's great. He's gonna build up the leg strength, the endurance, the aerobic conditioning. He's gonna get his mind off hockey.

Kevin:

He's gonna get outdoors. Like, there's lots of benefits for that. So Totally. He's playing enough hockey. He's gonna yeah.

Kevin:

I wouldn't worry about that. And I think any parent who is questioning like, should I have my kids in other sports? I would say yes. Like any type of physical activity other than their main sport is just gonna be beneficial down the road.

Scott:

Yeah. Totally makes sense.

Jamie:

So I I have a crazy question for you. So wide receiver or quarterback when you played? Am I close?

Kevin:

Neither. Neither. No. Really? Running back.

Jamie:

I was not gonna guess running back. I I was gonna go to like outside linebacker when you just said no. Okay. Gotcha. Alright.

Kevin:

I'm like shorter and stockier, so don't have that good of an arm. Although I did throw a couple passes on trick plays, but no, I'm more

Jamie:

of You have a that toss passes?

Kevin:

Yeah. When I played hockey, like I was a physical guy and like when checking got introduced, I was just all in for that and

Jamie:

Right.

Kevin:

So that's yeah. I just like to run Throw the body around. Run some kids over in high school.

Jamie:

I get it. I get it.

Scott:

That's awesome.

Jamie:

I was way off. Way off.

Scott:

Well, so listen, we're we're about like an hour into this and, you know, I don't wanna take up much more of your time. So, you know, like, I just I thank you so much for, like, you know, sharing everything that you've brought to the table tonight. This is gonna be I can't wait to release the episode. It's gonna be fantastic. I just wanna make sure, you know, be before we wrap up, just if you could please just let everyone know the best places to reach you, like, you know, and you know, Instagram, whatever they are.

Scott:

How can people get in touch with you?

Kevin:

Yeah, would say the main way would be download my app Hockey Training HQ. That's my new app. So I've got like a community within that app, you'll be asked to put in your, put in like a name and password or email and password, whatever it is. And then you can ask questions there. You can join our live training.

Kevin:

I'm kind of just testing out a lot of different things, but that's the best way to reach me. I find like my goal is to help as many kids as I can and get introduced them to hockey training in a positive way that they kind of wanna train themselves. Because I what I see, what we kind of talk about tonight is a lot of kids have to be pushed into this stuff and that's not the best way to start. So I really think my app, I'm hoping it takes off because we do like these live trainings and the kids that join, we've got kids from like eight to older, but like the main range is like eight to 15 and, Nice. From what I've seen, they're like loving it, their parents message me after and like my kid loved it and it's a great first impression for him for training.

Kevin:

So, yeah, the app would be where I would start if I had a younger kid and then we've got some men's league stuff there too. Didn't really touch on this earlier but but the men's league, so the men's league started because I, it was pretty much for me, like, want a product. Sure there's some other guys I'm sure there's other guys out there that are going to the gym that love hockey and they wanna program and it's actually been very popular with a lot of men's leaguers so.

Scott:

That's awesome. Yeah. Know. As soon as I saw it, was like, need that.

Kevin:

Still doing them to this day, like, I just finished our ML MLD 25, so it keeps me in the gym and motivated.

Scott:

Yeah. No. I I saw the the more recent releases. Yeah. For sure.

Scott:

Yeah. That's so cool. How's your how's your men's league team doing? How's beer league?

Kevin:

We're good. We're in first place now after a big win last week. So

Jamie:

Nice. I

Kevin:

think we won the I wanna say we won this no. We we won the our last winter season lost in the finals this summer. So we're usually near the top. So I I started like, I sponsor our team. So we're hockeytraining.com on the on the leaderboard.

Kevin:

So I have to if we get ever get down towards You the bottom of

Jamie:

guys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't wanna you don't wanna show poorly.

Kevin:

We might have to move up to like the 40 eventually if we're getting down to the bottom of the rankings there.

Jamie:

Right. Right. Right. That's cool.

Scott:

That's awesome. It doesn't feel good to be at that age. I'll tell you that much.

Jamie:

Thanks, Kevin, thank thank you very much, man. This was great. Really appreciate you hopping on with us. We're gonna have to have you on again. This was a lot of fun, man.

Scott:

Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin:

My pleasure, guys. It's awesome podcast. I'm, I'm glad I came across it here. It's it's been fun to listen to so far.

Jamie:

Appreciate it.

Scott:

Keeps doing what you're doing, man. You know, like Yes. Yeah. It's amazing.

Jamie:

You have your head screwed on straight with it with with everything. Nice job with everything.

Kevin:

Yeah. Appreciate it.

Jamie:

Right. We'll see you soon. Thank you, Kevin.

Scott:

Have a great night, man. Thank you.

Jamie:

Thanks, man. See you. Thanks.

Scott:

All right, everybody. Welcome back from a fantastic episode with coach Kevin from hockeytraining.com. Dude, that was great.

Jamie:

Kevin's great. Yeah. Yeah. Very dialed in, dude. Like, very dialed in.

Scott:

Yeah. So when you say dialed in, you you when you say dialed

Jamie:

in Super squared away.

Scott:

Squared away.

Jamie:

Be more

Scott:

specific. What what are you talking about here, buddy?

Jamie:

He just has all of his ducks in a row. He's got a lot of different he's got a lot of, like, lot of, irons in the fire. Right? He's got a lot of stuff going on at once, and he's very, like, meticulous about what he starts. He's very meticulous about why he starts it.

Jamie:

I mean, he's just very on the ball. He's a very on the ball guy. Yeah. You know, you know, when you just get a feeling about somebody like he I almost feel like he was in the military back in the day because he's like, he's structured like one of those guys.

Scott:

Yeah. He's, you know, he's very organized. Extremely. Yeah. I know with all of his, like, you know, his processes and thinking.

Scott:

But just from out of the gate, the fact that he's built something that provides accessible training for all ages is huge. 100%. What I also liked, and this is again, I don't know how many guests we've had, but he when he was talking about his youth career and, like, growing up playing the game, like, had supportive parents, you know, when he was coming up.

Jamie:

Yes.

Scott:

And and that was something.

Jamie:

Yes. He did.

Scott:

Yes. Yeah.

Jamie:

And you can tell it filled her down to him, by the way. No. With You could tell who he is with his kids. Like, he he's, like you said, extremely squared away.

Scott:

Yeah. No. Of course.

Jamie:

It's the girls program he started with so far.

Scott:

And and again no. Without a doubt. And it's like about

Jamie:

When they come to puffins? So Oh, yeah. Something like that. Right? No, he's a very squared away kid.

Scott:

No, then He's

Jamie:

not a kid, man. Sorry, Kevin.

Scott:

But what was I gonna say? Oh, and just like the emphasis on consistency of training versus like the intensity or volume necessarily. And of course, you need to have like a combination of all those things, but ultimately, a huge proponent of doing some more often than a lot less frequently is kind of like, and so even if it's just for like ten minutes a day, just do some stick handling. Who can't find ten minutes a day to do it?

Jamie:

So easy. No, I know. There's no reason not to.

Scott:

No. And, and what he offers is a, is a great way just to, to, to get that done. Yeah. You know, and, and also learn a few things.

Jamie:

Yeah. And, and he, and like you said before, his heart is in the right place. Like he wants to help. He's a genuine dude. That's something that very much came across in this interview when we talked to him even before.

Scott:

And he too also is like in terms of like the crucial ages for kids, 14, 15, like age range, which seems to be like, you know, a post puberty. Yeah, Like early post puberty, like timeframe is when most all people we talk to are like, that's the time to, you know, to ratchet things up and really get, you know,

Jamie:

Definitely not a crazy hockey dad. He's like a very dialed in meticulous hockey dad.

Scott:

Yeah, but it's about process, you know, on his end as opposed to, you know, like he's seeing the bigger picture.

Jamie:

He does see the bigger picture.

Scott:

Yeah, a doubt. What, you know, the other thing that also, that he said, if I'm not mistaken was something, you know, alluding to the idea that your first experience into something is important, right? Because how many people might have gone into something for the first time if it's like a sport or activity and you have a shitty coach or a shitty teacher or shitty this and you're like, No, I'm good. But if you and that's true for so many things, but like think about how important like a good teacher is, right? Whether it's a hockey coach or a teacher in school.

Jamie:

And I think he gets it. He gets the bigger picture. He gets the long term development. Like he gets that. We talked about burnout.

Jamie:

Like he gets it. Yeah. He does. There's a lot of knuckleheads, like on our Instagram that write in things like,

Noah:

I don't

Jamie:

know, like just silly things like, oh, like, I know, you know, a six year old that can, you know, snap the puck off from the top of the circle. Sorry, bud. Like, I'm going to call bullshit on you. Like, stop it. A six year old that could snap the puck off from the top of the circle, snap the puck off.

Jamie:

That I have a hard time believing.

Scott:

I mean

Jamie:

I have a hard time believing that. Sorry. I do.

Scott:

But what's the point?

Jamie:

Well, the point is is that, you know, you know, they they Kevin is very dialed in and he's very focused on long term. And I think a lot of, a lot of crazy hockey parents, you know, they start getting a little wound up at young ages and they don't see the forest through the trees. And the burnout is a real thing for some of these kids. The six, seven, eight, nine year old hockey player, you know, may not be the man at 10, 11, 12, 13. Like, it's a long, it's a long process.

Jamie:

And Kevin gets that. Yeah. You know? Yeah, done that. He's talking like the Jeff Lavecchios, Doug Christiansons, the Bob Mancinis, the guys we've had on.

Jamie:

You know, he speaks like those people.

Scott:

Yeah. You know? No, it's yeah. In any event, that was a great interview. Super glad to have him on.

Scott:

I thought it was awesome. Great to meet him. I mean, yeah. It was great. Yeah, it was awesome.

Jamie:

He was fantastic. We meet him on again.

Scott:

Without a doubt. So, want to just take a minute in terms of like some housekeeping stuff on our end. We do have some things coming up in terms of interviews. So we have a goalie interview coming up. So we talked about that earlier in

Jamie:

the Yeah.

Scott:

No, without a doubt.

Jamie:

That's gonna be an awesome interview for you goalie parents out there. Oh my goodness. Yeah. You're gonna get a truckload of information from that guy. Yep.

Jamie:

I mean, he played many years in the NHL.

Scott:

Yeah. So that'll be that'll be great. So goalies, goalie parents Stay tuned. Stay tuned. Yeah.

Scott:

We have another skills coach coming on, Ryan Murphy, skills coach from the New Jersey Devils. So he's gonna be coming up shortly. Yes. Also to talk about, like, his take on the game at the professional level. Mhmm.

Scott:

His experiences.

Jamie:

He was great. Yeah. Super smart guy. Yep. Super smart.

Scott:

And then

Jamie:

We have Andrew Stavillier.

Scott:

Yes. From Titan Battle Gear.

Jamie:

CEO of Titan Battle Gear. I'm sure you guys that have watched that just watched World Juniors probably noticed the Titan Battle Gear being won by guys like James Hagans.

Scott:

Yeah. No. They're I think they're the official sponsor.

Jamie:

Did they have it too? Official? Oh yeah. Correct. Sorry.

Jamie:

Thought I

Scott:

meant for

Jamie:

Yeah. Yeah. Titan bow gear is sponsored by USA Hockey. Yeah.

Scott:

Correct. Just talking about like, you know, cut resistant gear, protection, you know, all those things that, you know, that help keep our information on the episode. Learning more about the difference between

Jamie:

Cut resistant fabrics.

Scott:

Exactly. It really

Jamie:

Different levels of cut resistant fabrics.

Scott:

And I'll say this for people listening. I will be the first one to say that like I balked at some of the prices for some of this And then once you learn a bit more about where certain things are lacking or You're paying for quality. And when it comes to your children's safety, It's yeah. That's not something you wanna mess around with. Unfortunately, bad things happen.

Scott:

And, you know, this is a this was a great interview to learn more about that space in terms of He what we're going

Jamie:

was great.

Scott:

And then we have another mental strength and performance coach coming on the pod as well. Sandy Collin.

Jamie:

Sandy

Scott:

is Also super Very knowledgeable guy. Yeah. Great interview. Yep. So yeah, coming down the pipeline, a lot of great interviews, more beyond that, but that's what's a

Jamie:

yes, we have a lot more beyond that, but we'll, we'll drop that at a, we'll drop the rest of those at a different date. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott:

We have

Jamie:

a ton coming for 26.

Scott:

Yeah. A ton.

Jamie:

Our guests are, listen, the past guests were phenomenal. The guests we have coming are phenomenal. It's, we have an, we have awesome stuff lined up for 20

Scott:

And we should also, in terms of like housekeeping stuff, spring talk is, is a plentiful. So the it's already like end of season, like conversations are popping up.

Jamie:

Funny you say that as soon as Christmas New Year's is done. Spring tryouts. It's when people fucking start freaking out.

Scott:

They start, they start freaking out.

Jamie:

I don't know about you, but there's parents on our team that are freaking out already. Yeah. A 100% there.

Scott:

You hear like, you know, the talk of like skates and all the other things. So

Jamie:

Silly season is coming.

Scott:

Yeah. We'll a little bit more into that next weekend and talk about our experiences on this time of year.

Jamie:

Yes. Our Silly season episode last year was pretty good from what I remember. Yeah. Now we can do another one. Absolutely.

Jamie:

For the people that didn't catch last year's.

Scott:

Yeah. Well, it'll be a year for dude.

Jamie:

Yeah. That's right. I forgot silly season is is coming. It's not upon us yet, but it sure is.

Scott:

But it's starting to gain some momentum,

Jamie:

some serious momentum because there are already parents on our team that are having meltdowns. It's here, dude. And I always say this every year probably, but it feels like it comes earlier every year. Every year.

Scott:

Yeah. The other thing I'll say is that our kids both went to a clinic tonight, but the coach they were skating with, I remember him last silly season. And I was just talking to him, like, how are holding up, man? And he's like, dude, it's so crazy because so many people just cram

Jamie:

Jam in

Scott:

all of these clinics right before tryouts. And it's like, he's saying to me, I like, where

Jamie:

have these people been for the last ten months?

Scott:

Exactly. Yeah.

Jamie:

It's too late. Once you start jamming in before tryouts, you've already missed the boat. Yeah. Cause all these other kids have been doing it for the last ten months. Right.

Jamie:

So like, all you're doing is making the skills coaches.

Scott:

Well, listen, they're, they're not, they're not well. Yeah. Yes. But at this time of year, think that's how it's just like interesting, you know, Craving before the test.

Jamie:

100% craving So, for the

Scott:

yeah. So maybe it might be good to start getting some sessions a little earlier if you're you're thinking about, you know, next season already.

Jamie:

Yeah. No. That's a good idea, Scott. We should

Scott:

Not too late to

Jamie:

No, we should get into that. Didn't even think about that. That's a very good point actually. That's a good idea. So next episode, we'll We'll

Scott:

touch on it.

Jamie:

Yeah, we'll touch on that. And we'll also touch on a little bit of the transition from Pee Wee to Bantam a little more.

Scott:

Yeah, sure.

Jamie:

For that one person that wrote in that was looking for

Scott:

Yeah, no doubt. All right, dude. This is solid episode. Good to

Jamie:

see you, man. Always. I'll talk you later.