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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.
Alright. We are live for episode one, the pilot of the Crazy Hockey Dads podcast. Take four, five.
Scott:Sounds about right, but now we're ready. Now we're ready. All right, all right, so yeah, let's kick it off.
Jamie:Go ahead, you introduce yourself.
Scott:Hey, everyone. Scott here. James and I, known each other for a long time. Long time. Kids, public school, sports, all of it, did it together as kids.
Scott:Fast forward many years later and we got kids that are now playing the awesome game of ice hockey. And even though they're not that old, there's been plenty of excitement.
Jamie:Plenty of stories.
Scott:Plenty of stories, excitements, highs, lows, good, bad, and all that stuff. And I think I can speak on behalf of both of us when I say that we're putting this together to share our experiences, good, bad, and otherwise with a broader audience, because these conversations that we have with each other happen countless numbers of times every day.
Jamie:Absolutely, tons.
Scott:There's people that you just don't know until you know and some of the things that we've experienced, I think can help others kind of navigate difficult situations.
Jamie:In the youth hockey space.
Scott:Yeah, yeah.
Jamie:Yeah. Hopefully this podcast starts helping people. And I guess you and I have talked before, maybe it's gonna be a little bit of a therapy session for people.
Scott:Sure.
Jamie:Including you and I, know, because I mean, you and I have been talking for a while now, you know, saying that, you know, when you actually speak to another hockey parent about like, if your kid is struggling, it just feels better, You know, it just does. Like to talk it out with somebody who's living in the world.
Scott:Absolutely. Right? Yeah, for sure. I think, you know, and it's not just limited to hockey. A lot of times, you know, you go through challenging situations and, you get into some spaces where you're like, Oh my God, I can't believe this is happening to me.
Scott:And then once you talk to someone else, they're like, Oh, that's happening to me too. You're like, Oh my God.
Jamie:It's unbelievable.
Scott:Everybody feels the same way. It's helpful. Even just talking things out, getting ideas out of your head and putting it out there, whether it's, some people might like to write it down, some people just talk it out.
Jamie:Yeah, it's true.
Scott:These conversations really help give perspective and things that I've struggled with. Your son's older than mine. You've been around the block longer than mine. Couple years, if you will.
Jamie:Just a couple years longer.
Scott:Yeah, so I mean, I've benefited a lot from your experiences. No, no. I think I have enough at this point where it could potentially be beneficial to you as well in certain situations. %. Yeah, absolutely.
Jamie:Or even to talk people off the ledge. You know, that seems to be happening a lot this time of year, which we'll get into.
Scott:It is silly season.
Jamie:Oh my God. It seems to happen earlier every year, dude. Like it used to be like new year's after new year's. Yeah. Now it's like before Christmas, like parents are having heart attacks, like before Christmas.
Jamie:Isn't it funny how, like all of the, like, especially now around this time of the year, how like, all of sudden people are like jamming into like power skating clinics. You're like, God, like you're, you missed the boat. Like, you it's not gonna help you right now.
Scott:Like, you
Jamie:should have been doing this, like, six months ago.
Scott:No. But all the skills coaches clean up.
Jamie:A %. They all clean up. A %.
Scott:But it's funny because you would share with me when my kid was was was Mike, You know, and like six you, even eight you, and you would say, Oh my God, you won't believe how crazy these parents are. And I was just starting to get into the throes of it, I'm not even that far down the road. And yeah, man, I am like, I have You don't know until you know. Until you know. And you would tell me these stories.
Scott:I'm like, come on, that can't be real. And now I
Jamie:Now you have your own stories. 100. An awesome world for those of you who are gonna listen to this. We can have some fun, right? Entertain and, and help, you know, people that maybe you're in a tough spot and maybe listening to us just makes you feel better or kind of like, for some strange reason, people in the hockey space, like talking about the hockey space.
Jamie:Right?
Scott:I mean, you see it all the time. Dads just wanna talk about it.
Jamie:It's and moms wanna talk about it too.
Scott:Yeah. But I I I mean It's nuts. I don't know why. It's, like, addicting. I'll tell you why or at least why what
Jamie:I think.
Scott:I think it's because people spend so much time, effort, money, resources. To the extent with which it's just like you take a step back and you're
Jamie:like, okay,
Scott:wait, this is like 10 year old, 12 year old hockey and they're like,
Jamie:It has a life of its own.
Scott:Yeah, for better and for worse. Yes, for better or for worse. This is right. For both.
Jamie:Don't get wrapped up whenever you do.
Scott:No, also it might be the time of year and even if I rewind the tape a couple months, I think there's some pretty prominent podcasts that have really picked up on youth hockey and the excesses. Yeah, PowerTech and Think Tank. Yeah, love those podcasts. Yeah, no, great. Those are two very good ones.
Scott:100%. And they've done deep dives into some of the craziness and it's real. I think just picking up on what you were mentioning before even just about the ID skates, like right now, so tryouts tier one start next week, tier two the week after. Some places have already had tryouts, if I'm not mistaken. Have they?
Scott:Think because maybe Connecticut would always have trials.
Jamie:They were always early. That's true. No, you're right. No, no, you're right about that. They do go early.
Jamie:Yeah. No, you're right about that. I forgot about that. Yeah. Listen, it's a very cool space.
Jamie:It can be tough to navigate, you know, obviously, you know, you've been through it already, but tough to navigate if you don't know what to do. You know, so hopefully this, you know, this podcast will entertain, we'll have some laughs. It'll be fun, but like, you know, hopefully we, we enlighten people and kind of educate about the space.
Scott:A %.
Jamie:Maybe it helps, you know, maybe avoid a little bit of heartache or, you know,
Scott:or just maybe
Jamie:a hockey dad fighter too. That what doesn't happen because of our podcast.
Scott:Maybe forecast what's coming down the road a little bit.
Jamie:Right. Exactly. So, So, all right. So, and just to tell the audience, your son
Scott:is a twenty fourteen, 14 year. Right?
Jamie:Right.
Scott:Playing triple a, ten, playing triple a.
Jamie:Mine is a twenty twelve used to play triple a. They had a bunch of things. Used to play high end triple a and then, and then kinda had some issues. I don't even know how to describe them. Had some medical issues, some like, you know, some issues, you know, probably some maturity things too, that kind of, you know,
Scott:all hit at the same time. Yeah. So took him down to single a, but he's done very well. So I can't complain. You know, now we're moving up to double a next year and listen, we'll see.
Scott:See where it goes.
Jamie:We'll see
Scott:how, you know, see how does, you know, so that's the plan.
Jamie:But, but yeah, the space does not change from one level to the next. That's what I have realized because I was never in the tier two world until this year.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:You know, we was always like triple a and high end triple a. It was never like, you know what I mean?
Scott:So Yeah. But you would, if you would say here and there that like parents that have not necessarily been on both sides of the tier one and tier two coin, if you will, that some of the conversations that you've been a part of or heard or whatever the case is, you're listening in and you're just like, Oh my God, really have no idea. No idea. And which is not necessarily passing judgment, but just some the way they think about either like, you know. Anything.
Scott:Anything. Anything. Yeah. You can speak to it better than practice.
Jamie:From practice to sticks, to skates, to gear, to, power skates, to like off ice, ice clinics to like, skills coaches. I mean, do you camps, you name it. They just don't know yet. Right. Especially, and obviously, you know, the lower you go, you know, you go from, from, you know, triple a double a, single a, it's Nancy and I would w we giggle to each other because, know, you listen to what they say and it's just, it's very comical.
Jamie:Like some of the shit will have you like in stitches. They just don't know.
Scott:Right, and then that's part of what we're here to do is not necessarily, know Educate a little bit. Yeah, or just share experiences on going down different paths.
Jamie:And hopefully it helps some people navigate the space. Because the space is not easy to navigate. You can get lost quickly.
Scott:Yeah. Right? I mean, hopefully this helps, you know?
Jamie:And at some point in time we'll take questions and stuff like that, but, yeah, no, it's, listen, it's, it's a lot of fun. And I think youth hockey is exploding in The United States,
Scott:especially after the four nations.
Jamie:How good was that? Amazing. So good. I cannot wait for the Winter Olympics now.
Scott:Yeah. And that's So good. Well done.
Jamie:Oh my God. The NHL hats off. So, so good.
Scott:The only thing that I think would've made it better is if there was more than four nations involved.
Jamie:So it's funny you say that. I was gonna say Russia needs to be involved in some capacity next time.
Scott:Think they're out for the winter Olympics, think.
Jamie:Which is a shame, you know, because how do you have like a big time hockey, international hockey tournament without Russia?
Scott:I think that's where politics and other things outside of the scope of hockey come in, which, is a whole other story,
Jamie:you know, but it was phenomenal. It it was phenomenal. Yeah. Mean, so much better than the all star game. Like, in my opinion, the all star game should never be played again.
Jamie:Yeah. Like, it was that good.
Scott:But then but but, like, the but is, like, those guys were going hard, you know, and then the injuries, Ka'Chuck's out for the, you know, Matthew Ka'Chuck's out
Jamie:for rest the season. Yeah.
Scott:Yeah. Looking at playoffs coming back. Charlie McAvoy also Also done. He's done for the season?
Jamie:I thought so. I think it was like a shoulder, like a like There's definitely a shoulder. Infection? Like a, like a bacteria in the shoulder or something like that, that he's like a, that was strange.
Scott:Yeah. That I don't know too much about.
Jamie:That hurt the U
Scott:S in the finals against Canada. No doubt.
Jamie:Not having him. And listen, Quinn Hughes was done, was out too. That was kind of a bummer. You know, it's funny.
Scott:But I think just more to the point about not having an all star game again, if this having something like this that is so, I guess, granted that best on best hadn't happened in a long time, but then you have, you know, these guys going all out representing their country, which they haven't done in like ages, something
Jamie:like ten years. I thought this is what you're saying.
Scott:Yeah, it was something like that. And, you know, just to see how passionate they were and, you know, but then you end up with injuries and you, you know, that takes this toll.
Jamie:I know it's definitely listening to the NHL clubs. I'm sure that are losing guys. I'm not happy about it. No. Right?
Jamie:No. But you know, it's funny. I I just wanna mention something about Quinn Hughes, Steven. I'm just curious to hear your thoughts. So Quinn Hughes was hurt.
Scott:Yeah. And
Jamie:but he could have played, he said. And then Charlie McEvoy goes down. Yeah. And I heard, like, a couple interviews that said, like, Quinn was going to come.
Scott:Yeah.
Jamie:It was actually Brady Kochuck said it. Was it on Spin Chicklets? I think it on Chicklets, but they were interviewing Brady Kochuck and he's like, listen. He was like, was gonna come. He's like, but he's like, he didn't wind up coming at the end.
Jamie:And he and he said this, like, it was like the quickest little thing in passing, but he said, he's like, yeah, he's like, he's like, you know, he's like, they didn't let him come. Like almost like the club didn't let him go.
Scott:Right. And then we know who they were
Jamie:rooting for. Oh, so you heard it. That's exactly what he said. He goes, cause you knew who they're rooting for. I was like, shit, man.
Jamie:I didn't even think about that. Yeah. Fucking Canadian team. Like they don't, they're not going to help The United States. Makes you wonder doesn't it like, you know?
Jamie:Fair.
Scott:I mean, it's sure. Right. It's provocative.
Jamie:Oh, a %. You know, now listen, I don't know if that was true, but
Scott:there, there was something about like, you can only replace after you were short, a certain
Jamie:number Something like that. Yeah. Two knee, the one more needed to
Scott:go down and then he could have come or something like that. Yeah. I don't know exactly.
Jamie:I don't either. They need to fix that next time, by the way. Like, they like, if somebody goes down, you should be able pull somebody else. They need to fix that.
Scott:Yeah. I don't what what were I don't even know. Like, those are, like, Internet like, there's
Jamie:a NHL rules.
Scott:Don't think
Jamie:it was NHL rules.
Scott:But NHL put it on. No? For the most part?
Jamie:I think there were you at, like the governing body rules. I think the governing hockey bodies, USA hockey. I'm you know, I don't know either.
Scott:But yeah, is interesting that he threw that out there.
Jamie:Right. You heard obviously, know what I'm talking about. When he said that, was like, holy shit. He has a point. Yeah.
Jamie:You know? I mean, because listen, you know, it's know, that franchise was not rooting for The United States to win that.
Scott:Absolutely not.
Jamie:You know? So hey. Listen. It is what it is. But, yeah, man.
Jamie:I I'm a I was a big fan of
Scott:this. I'd be I'd be curious to know whether or not, like, upper management and the Kinects organization, what what what if they're American or Canadian only or I'm guessing Canadian. Yeah, probably.
Jamie:That's my guess. Their front office is probably not American. Maybe I'm wrong, but listen,
Scott:you never know.
Jamie:No, you don't know.
Scott:I find that out pretty quickly too.
Jamie:Yes. Yes. I'm sure if we look into it, we
Scott:find out.
Jamie:But but it was tremendous. It was it was awesome. I hope they do it again. US is definitely I mean, you know, Biz from spitting chicklets was all jacked up when they won. And rightfully so, listen, you gotta give them credit.
Jamie:I don't know why the fuck you leave McDavid open in the
Scott:Jesus Christ. I didn't watch it. You didn't watch it? No, no,
Jamie:no, no.
Scott:I watched it. I didn't finish my thought. Was a breakdown of the play where that hard rim to the far side, like part of the and again, I could be botching this, but the idea was that the hard rim is gonna pull gonna pull Matt Hughes off of McDavid.
Jamie:Wasn't Hughes on the ice too? Wasn't Jack on the ice also? I know. I guess there was Jack and Matthews
Scott:and Trent, who else is on Either way, there was I saw some headline or read a little something or saw a little something that was like basically that hard rim behind the net up the far side is gonna bring Austin off his guy and then Was somebody supposed to rotate down to
Jamie:McDavid? What? Was somebody supposed to rotate down to McDavid? Dude, they left him.
Scott:Yeah. I know. Well, whatever whatever happened, it worked. Dude, Ken Hunt's favorite.
Jamie:Who passed it over to him? Who was I who actually gave
Scott:him the look? Was it was was it Crosby? No. It was Marner. It was Marner.
Scott:It was Marner. That's right. Marner and McDavid.
Jamie:Dude, we're watching the game and Dominic's like, dad, dad, dad, dad. Like what? He's like McDavid McDavid McDavid McDavid McDavid McDavid.
Scott:He's watching
Jamie:this unfold. McDavid's on ice. McDavid's on this McDavid's like, oh my god,
Scott:McDavis.
Jamie:For that. Yeah. Fucking wild. You know what was just as wild? The Halibug didn't have a chance.
Jamie:Dude, listen. The
Scott:game against The US with the first game, the Canada US, when it was like the
Jamie:early on power play,
Scott:was like it was like, Crosby Oh. McKinnon. Oh. When they scored? Whatever that, tic tac toe
Jamie:was. When, when when, that wasn't against the United States. I thought that was against, like, Canada, Finland.
Scott:Oh, am I messing it up?
Jamie:Yeah. I think so. I know that when, when Crosby like backhanded it across the crease, it was a stupid goal.
Scott:Oh, that was against Sweden? Bro, it was so good.
Jamie:That looked so good.
Scott:That was just the first game. It wasn't against The U S
Jamie:no, it wasn't. It was like, I wanna say it wasn't because Makar didn't play in that game, but I want to say it was like somebody down to Crosby. Crosby put it back up top, back down to Crosby. And then Crosby turns like backhanded across the crease to fucking, I mean, it was so good.
Scott:But that was Canada's opening game.
Jamie:Yes. Want to say it was like Sweden or Finland. It wasn't United States. Yeah.
Scott:Right. No, that's right. That's right.
Jamie:So that looked so good.
Scott:That was like from, for the four nations, that was like the opening play. Yeah. And then fast forward to the end, the end of it, which is like wild.
Jamie:It was great. Was even Sweden and Finland, we're not, we're not bad, you know? I was sorry as a Devils fan that Mark Schumm didn't get to play.
Scott:You know? That that would be For sure.
Jamie:Yeah. You know? So, but, no, it was awesome, dude. It it was again, I I would scrap the the NHL, the All Star game, and do that every year.
Scott:Yeah. Well, what everyone's been like everyone. What I've listened to, they're just saying it's like a one and done tournament.
Jamie:They said, like, 16,000,000 viewers turned into it?
Scott:Yeah. It was big time.
Jamie:It was huge. Yeah. Unbelievable turnout. Yeah. Again, that's gonna be a it's gonna be a warm up
Scott:less
Jamie:Like they throw you out of games if you get, if you, yeah.
Scott:So it'll be like tamped down.
Jamie:I hope the NHL gets involved in that and like injects their rules into it if they can. May not work.
Scott:No. But the, the point that was made on the body goes something along the lines of like, you know, you should follow the rules of the best league in the world.
Jamie:Think that was brilliant. Right?
Scott:Yeah. Something like that.
Jamie:Yeah. Or or Biz said it. Somebody said it.
Scott:But yeah.
Jamie:Listen, it was, it was good.
Scott:I'm looking forward to another one. Yeah. Let's go.
Jamie:Yeah. So yeah. So listen, so, so hope so, and we'll, we could, we'll talk about youth hockey. We'll roll some NHL and we'll roll some college hockey and stuff like that experiences and all that fun stuff. But where do wanna start?
Jamie:You wanna start with the crazy season now that you kind of Yeah,
Scott:think so. We're the middle of it. My kid's at clinic right now.
Jamie:Oh, is? Yeah. He's at the power skater. What's he doing? Sticking him?
Jamie:I don't
Scott:even know how my wife took him.
Jamie:That works. You know what's funny? Because Dominic's at practice and Nancy took
Scott:Yeah, that worked out nicely. So in any event, yeah, so he's doing that. What is silly season? The time after the end of the season and before tryouts is like crazy time.
Jamie:Although I feel like silly season, like we were chatting off air.
Scott:It starts earlier.
Jamie:Oh my God, every year.
Scott:Yeah, but this is really where people mean, start go back This
Jamie:is meltdown This is total meltdown mode now.
Scott:Yeah, and people are just like, I've had several conversations with different parents at different ages and different skill levels, tier two, tier one, I don't know what my kid's doing next year, haven't gotten any assurances, did you get any assurances?
Jamie:Don't know. Is my kid gonna get cut?
Scott:Yeah, maybe she'll get cut, what should we do?
Jamie:Was there like a private ID skate that we didn't get invited to?
Scott:No, %. I had a parent that said to me, he's
Jamie:there was
Scott:this ID skate and we didn't get invited, so the writing's on the wall. And I'm not saying that he's wrong, you know, like I'm not even passing judgment on that, but the fact that this is like part
Jamie:of Those private ID skates, man, they happen everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. Listen, so our coach had one. Yeah.
Jamie:Our coach had one because he's looking out, you know, we're going from single A to double A.
Scott:Yeah.
Jamie:So he had, he wants to bring a bunch of kids over and he had one and Dominic was invited. He invited Dominic Argolli and one of our other forwards to skate with like, I don't know, like six other kids. And dude, the crazy part about it is, is he had it like, like two hours before, like our team practice.
Scott:Yeah.
Jamie:Okay. So there was enough tonight. Even said, I remember saying to him, I'm like, you know, listen, you know, you're, you're pushing up against like, close to, like, teen. He's like, oh, this should be time. And he was right.
Jamie:There was time in between. Right? Yeah. But what happened was is that we were in the lobby after the skate. Yeah.
Jamie:And our coaches, Tyler's talking like a bunch of the parents trying to, like, you know, sway them, you know, trying to just give information about the team and what we're gonna do next year and all this stuff. You know, recruiting. Right? And, and one of our dads walks in because he he's got little guys who are on the ice.
Scott:For the skate in between or whatever?
Jamie:Correct. So he walks in and he's like, wow. You should dude, you should've seen his face was priceless. He walked in. I'm like, fuck.
Jamie:I'm like, oh my God. I'm like and it to be honest with you, it was the worst parent to walk in. This is a dude who at tryouts last year. Yeah. Okay.
Jamie:Literally was passing around a depth chart. He's like, this should be the first line. This should be the second line. This should be a third line. This is your first D pairing.
Jamie:This is your second, this is your third. Like he was, cause this dude isn't wasn't, he panics. Okay. He likes, he like he did last year. He, I remember he was
Scott:passing People on board with his agenda.
Jamie:No, no, not so much, but he's like, he's trying to figure out where his kid is in the, in the
Scott:midst. When he's like passing it around to see who agrees and doesn't
Jamie:and to see if that's like
Scott:what he thinks is reality or not.
Jamie:Right. So he's going, this is what it should look like if it all according to plan. And he's trying to figure out like where his kid and if his kid's gonna make the team. And I remember his kid had like a fever and he brought him, with like a one or two and a half fever. He like pumped a pool like Motrin or like town.
Jamie:Listen, I've done it too, you know, for that, that quiet ID scan I was telling you about Dominic having a one zero three and a half fever, but I could not bring him. You know? So I'm like,
Scott:You could not bring
Jamie:him. Yeah. But like Dominic is a selling feature, you know? So
Scott:like, you
Jamie:know, so
Scott:you're talking about your kid's health.
Jamie:Listen, he was fine. He, he had, he had a one zero three fever every two weeks this year. I mean, like whatever was going around this year, like quad virus, COVID flu, the neuro virus, like you name it, whatever it was this year, he was sickly every three weeks.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:You know? You know, so, you know, so we like pumped the phone motion. I'm like, Dom, like I need you for like forty minutes. Like the coach needs you for forty minutes. I go, just see how you do.
Jamie:He looked terrible. Like not a smart dad move. I gotta tell you, you know, like, not my best. I don't know. I'll let you know.
Jamie:It depends if the one kid comes, if the one kid comes, then good. Yeah. No, this, If this other kid comes, this kid will play on the line with Dominic and they will be dangerous. There'll be something.
Scott:That's awesome. Well, I hope he comes.
Jamie:Yeah, me too. He led this team in points last year. I think he was like, trying to think was, like, 10 overall, something like that, you know, for the the AA team he was playing for. So he he's decent. And and Dom, you know, they will be they'll they'll be dangerous next year.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:So I'll let you know. Yeah. Awesome. Fingers crossed.
Scott:Right? Yeah. No doubt.
Jamie:But yeah, you know, so silly season is, is in full swing, you know? I mean, it's
Scott:Yeah. You know, and, and like part of, part of navigating all that. Right. I think, you know, the, anxiety, look, and I think people that are super anxious and nervous and concerned, because it's impactful to the family, right? And it's also like your kid, everyone else wants what's best for their kid.
Scott:And I don't think, well, are some, but I wouldn't want to necessarily put my kid in a situation that wasn't, I wouldn't want to put him in a situation that wasn't good for him. And so some of these conversations can be hard if your kid's playing like tier one and maybe like that's clear at this point that they shouldn't be tier one, but you got to have that conversation with your kid. So there are some things that I can understand why people get anxious about, but I think as parents, and again, it varies by how old your kid is, but we're talking about like 10 and 12 year olds. As the parent, you got to lead and direct the show and you got to set them up for how to handle adversity if that's what comes your way or celebrate successes if that's what comes your way. But at the end of the day, think that there's a lot of people that are, in my opinion, chasing things that are not, they seem important at the moment, even let's say going from tier one to tier two, AA to AAA, right?
Scott:There are plenty of families that could probably stay on a really solid AA team and play tier two, but instead they're going crazy trying to find that triple A. And there's plenty of, there's a lot of watered down triple A teams. Especially
Jamie:around here.
Scott:Especially around here. And so you'll have a family that's like, oh, but we could go over there and play triple A, but the drive is like, we're going to be like an hour drive to practice. Now it's gonna be like a two hour drive to practice. And you're just like, you're scratching your head and you're like, wait, but you're gonna spend all that time, effort, energy to travel further to go to an organization that might not be as good. Just so you can say you're on AAA?
Jamie:Yeah, it's unnecessary. Took me a couple of years to figure that out, but it's unnecessary.
Scott:It's unnecessary. And look, there's no, this isn't necessarily a one size fits all. There's certainly exceptions to all the rules. I think we're talking about most people, most places, most of the time. And I'm sure there's plenty of situations where like, yeah, know what, that makes a lot of sense for your family.
Scott:Like go do that. I'm not saying don't do that, but I think that especially for the younger age groups before there's body checking, some of the most important things are just how your kid is going to develop, which has a lot to do with the coach
Jamie:and the was just gonna say that the coach is so big.
Scott:So big. Right? So If you have
Jamie:a good person running your kid's team is it's worth its weight in gold. It's so important. Because we've all had shitty coaches for our kids. It's so important. So important.
Jamie:I mean
Scott:And it's not always, and again, for the younger ages, it's not necessarily about Xs and Os. It's about like, how good of a communicator are you? Like if my kid's in a bad spot, is he getting the Are
Jamie:you gonna yell at him or are
Scott:you actually gonna feel your wrath? Are you gonna like help him pump him up and it gets complicated.
Jamie:Yes, it does. Different kids respond to different things, but for the most part, you're right. The coach is the most important thing in my opinion.
Scott:Yeah. Yeah. A %.
Jamie:You can find a good coach. I don't care if you guys lose every single game. It doesn't matter. Nobody's going to say, what was your record? Your squirt minor year or your, you know, full ice, my year, nobody gives a shit.
Jamie:Right. You know, it's so unnecessary, but you get wrapped up in it when you're young. When you're, when you were a kid for and your kid's decent, like I get, I got wrapped into it. It's so easy. Right.
Jamie:I mean, you know, I mean, it's, you know, so, and it's funny once you have more, if you have more children that play ice hockey, like you, you see the, like there's a couple of dads on our team Who's kid who have older kids that are like high school seniors, high school juniors, and they know cause they've gone through
Scott:it. Right.
Jamie:Right. So they know the game, you know, so it's, just don't know until you get roped in and that's when you figure it out And it takes time to kinda figure out the lay of the land and what's important, what's not important. Right. If I had to do it over again, I would've done it totally different. Totally different?
Jamie:Yeah.
Scott:So we're talking about like tier one versus, okay, right now tryouts are coming up, we're talking about tier one versus tier two, we're talking about some of the things that might make a parent crazy, whether or not they should go after trying to play AAA, navigating that. So you're coming from the perspective of I had a kid playing triple A, he went down to single A and now they're going up to double A. You've been through all of those different levels to some degree. When you say you would have done it differently, how would you, what is it in particular that you would have done differently?
Jamie:So I probably would have, sorry, so here's the thing. So the first organization we started at was, was a good organization. They didn't manage our birth year well.
Scott:Okay. But for a listener that doesn't even know what, like, what does that mean? Didn't manage the birth year?
Jamie:So we had a very good coach. Okay. All through mites. Yeah. Full ice mites was, was great.
Jamie:We had a phenomenal core of kids. You saw the talent level was great. Like we, like I was talking to, I was talking to dad today, my buddy, Chris. And he's even said to me, he's like, Jamie, he's like, he's like, did you just, you remember what we had there? And it was awesome.
Jamie:I mean, we were playing full ice mites or whatever, triple a, you know? And it was great. And we had a lot of talent and unfortunately they, the organization yanked our coach and they gave us this young knucklehead. So again, here we are about, about the coach. Right.
Jamie:You know, so we had this great coach, great skills guy, great skater, great power skater. And they gave us this young kid who didn't know his ass from his elbow. And he was, he was not a good communicator, you know, to what we were saying before. Rubbed some parents the wrong way. He was dropping like F bombs, not at the parents, at the kids.
Scott:And they're how old? They were eight.
Jamie:They were full eyed mites, last year mites, eight years old.
Scott:So not exactly appropriate.
Jamie:Of course. Right. I mean, you know, so, and a bunch of our parents heard it. I remember we were down playing in Princeton, playing with Chiefs. Right.
Jamie:And, he pulled the kids into like on the other side of the rink and parents heard a bunch of F bombs getting dropped. You know, our kids just didn't show up that day for whatever reason. Right. But listen, I
Scott:don't know. It that they were like, he was like reprimanding them with F bombs, not saying let's fucking go guys. You guys
Jamie:fucking saw this after a game that we just lost like five two and our team was far superior. The kids just didn't wanna play for this guy.
Scott:They're eight.
Jamie:Right. And listen, we were beating teams like, not say this is right or not, but we would beat teams like 20 nothing. We were very good. And then we lost to a team.
Scott:We had no business losing to. That happens.
Jamie:Right. And listen, I think our kids were a little bent out of shape going from a really good coach to this dude, you know?
Scott:And that's the way he responded?
Jamie:Yeah. Didn't go well.
Scott:Yeah. That's not great.
Jamie:So, so that's when, so that's when we, I wound up leaving. Right. And with a couple other kids and then, the year after that, you know, a couple others went up leaving, know, so no, again, so my buddy and I were talking earlier today, I spoke to him around like noon. And we were saying like, what a mess that was. How we're talking about mismanagement of a birth year.
Jamie:Right. So the crazy part about it is, is for you people listening. So they yanked the coach from us. They gave us a shit coach. Right.
Jamie:And then like the team kind of fell apart and then that same good coach that we had came back for two years and they lost some more kids. Right. So they weren't, they didn't, he didn't exactly build it up. They lost more kids and then he just left again.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:So, I mean, and we were talking like, how how much can you screw a birth year at that one bill in that one building? Like, they just kept shafting for some reason. The 02/2012 birth year was terrible.
Scott:So so let's just take a step back. Right? And you're talking about the coaching. Like, so have a group of kids, you got the birth year.
Jamie:And the guy that's coming in is a train wreck.
Scott:Okay, okay. But before we even get to that part, but like what should parents expect in terms of like when you are eight years old and you're on a team, like, do you expect to have the same coach for one year, two year, ten years? Like what do you think is realistic?
Jamie:So what was kind of nice about what we had is there was no dad coach. Like our coach, it was great. Right.
Scott:You and I were talking
Jamie:about that before. No, no dads. Right. Just, which was wonderful, you know? So there was no dads.
Jamie:I don't know parents getting bent out of shape about like, oh, they're rigging the lineups or like there's influence. It wasn't, it wasn't a thing. Right.
Scott:So that was not like part of the,
Jamie:it was great. Right. You know, but the problem was is that, you know, when he wound up leaving, you know, this young kid took over and it wasn't his fault. He just didn't know. Right.
Jamie:But what was surprising, he was actually supposed to be like a, like a teacher. So I'm surprised he didn't know how to communicate with kids well, you know?
Scott:But he could have been like a high school teacher.
Jamie:No, no, no, no.
Scott:He was like an elementary school teacher.
Jamie:Not only that, but it was like special ed elementary. So, like, you're supposed to be a little softer. No?
Scott:Or at a minimum thoughtful.
Jamie:So Nancy was in the was in the parking lot, and she just happened to sitting in the car before a game, like doing something in the car. Yeah. And our kids were warming up, like not far from where our car was parked. And night just happened to have the windows open. And she heard him talking to the kids.
Jamie:She goes, Jamie, she goes, are you sure he's like special ed, like elementary school teacher? I'm like, I'm pretty sure, Nancy. She's like, well, what I just heard was not coming from a teacher. Nancy's a teacher. My wife's a teacher.
Jamie:Right. So she knows how to speak to children in the correct manner. And this was not it.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:So, and listen, and my kid was immature at the time that we're eight. Right. You know, and he had another buddy who was also mature. So like he had a bullseye on our kids. You know, so he gave, you know, listen, we didn't leave because we didn't leave because he was giving my kid a hard time.
Jamie:That's not why we left because, he wasn't, he's not like a real hockey coach.
Scott:It wasn't the right environment. Yeah.
Jamie:Right. You know? I didn't, I didn't have a problem with him getting on my kid. I really didn't actually, you know, cause I, cause I listen, life is hard and, know, sometimes things are gonna go your way, sometimes I'm not, and you need to adapt to try to deal
Scott:with it.
Jamie:And maybe that's asking too much of an eight year old. Maybe I'm, you know?
Scott:Well, listen, I think it's I think it's to what degree. And like things are relative, but like dropping f bombs and reprimanding
Jamie:kids when
Scott:they're eight, that's a %. That's I don't care how immature or mature your kid is. Like the kids shouldn't have to deal with that.
Jamie:No question.
Scott:That
Jamie:was right. That was over the line and, and, and know our, our parent, you know, one of our parents of our goalie, like called, called him out to the, to the, to the organization and he wound up getting let go like mid season. Like I want to say like a year later or something like that. Didn't end well.
Scott:It wasn't a year later. Yeah.
Jamie:Right. Right. You know, yeah. Right. So it was a year later, so it didn't mid year didn't end well.
Jamie:Nice kid, just not right. I think he needs to be an older kid.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:That's just my feeling.
Scott:So so, alright. So then, okay. So now you are a parent, young kid joining an organization. What do you think? You'd expect to have the same coach for one year, two years?
Scott:And that's a hard question to answer and I understand that. But I do think like my situation this past year, the coach that coached my son, he had been with the same group of kids for, I think, about five years actually. Oh, that's long. Long.
Jamie:Yeah.
Scott:Long.
Jamie:Do you like
Scott:that? There's definitely some stability there. I think it depends. There's stability and, know, again, there's a lot of variables that go into that. But in the beginning of the season, we joined on, it was communicated to us that this is my last season, just managing those expectations that like, Hey, listen, you're joining a team.
Scott:We've been together for a long time. Next year, I'm not going be the coach or this is going to be passed So why was he leaving? Why did he step down? I think it was I don't know 100%, but I think like anything else in life, sometimes you just need a new voice, the kids need a new voice. He's a parent coach getting old enough where you probably wanna start looking to move on from parent coaches.
Jamie:Oh, okay. He was a parent coach.
Scott:Parent coach.
Jamie:Okay. Didn't didn't, I didn't know that. Okay. That makes sense to me. Cause your kids are gonna be first year Pee Wee.
Scott:Gonna be first year Pee Wee. Right. But And I can even speak from my own experience. I think that certain people have different temperaments. The coach you were just talking about, sounds like putting aside how much he knows or doesn't know about hockey or how skilled or not skilled he is, He might just be a better communicator for an older group, an older audience and maybe not
Jamie:great for
Scott:a younger
Jamie:100%, much better with older kids. And I think that's what they wind up doing with him, if I'm not mistaken. Right. He went with older kids,
Scott:not right. Which, which is probably where he belongs. Right. And then the, then the inverse could be true. You could have coaches that are really good for the younger kids and just can't like, you know, figure it out for older No question.
Scott:You know, so
Jamie:I think organizations need to listen. I know it's listen, this sport is also driven by money. So, you know, these, these organizations start to just keep packing teams in there because the demand is there in our area. We live in the Northeast. Right.
Scott:So don't grow on trees.
Jamie:Exactly. So they're just, you grab just to fill a void.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:Right. And sometimes it doesn't work out well. And then the other organizations, so as a parent, you know, the buyer beware, you know, do some research of the organization, try to get as good of a handle on who's going be coaching your kid as humanly possible.
Scott:Right. That's, and I think that's the point well taken is that like circumstantially you might not be able to like get such a good read on all of it, but at least do your diligence.
Jamie:Yes. Try to, you're not gonna get all of it. You're not gonna, cause you're not gonna have time. Right. But you got, but I would ask questions as much as you possibly can about the coach.
Jamie:And you want to find out if he's good. And if he is, and the practice is important too. Yep. Right. I mean, you know, that, that the young kid we're talking about, I remember, you know, the coach that was leaving was up behind the glass watching, watching our practice and like taking notes and like, like, and he was gonna like dictate to them, like what he was doing wrong.
Jamie:Like, so when I saw that, was like,
Scott:oh, this is not going
Jamie:to go well. So that's why that's when I knew it was time to walk, to walk out. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, and I heard the practices were not good when we left after that for that full ice my year.
Scott:You know, that's like a whole another can of worms practices. Yeah. It's important
Jamie:because that's where your development's going to come from. Right?
Scott:Yeah. And, and To the
Jamie:coach and developing. It's all that matters in this game.
Scott:And even as
Jamie:And it's kids having fun.
Scott:And then, but as we have this conversation, like there, there are a lot of variables that are not necessarily gonna line up the way you might want them. You have to prioritize certain
Jamie:things. It's like buying a house. You're not gonna get everything you You're
Scott:not gonna get everything that you So to that end though, it's pre tryouts. You've got families that have uncertain Is my kid gonna be back on the team that he was on this past season? Are we looking for a new organization? Unless you have assurances from an organization that you're a lock for the team, And part of the challenge is that all the tryouts happen on the same time. So it's not like you can go to one, if it doesn't work out, you go follow it a week No doubt.
Scott:Could you imagine if it was, I thought about this, could you imagine if it was the other way?
Jamie:It would be a free for all.
Scott:It would be It would
Jamie:be bad. Yeah. Would be bad.
Scott:I mean, I haven't thought it through to the point where I feel like I really have my head wrapped around it, but it would
Jamie:have to
Scott:be worse
Jamie:than what it is There's no question. It would be a bad situation. Yeah. This is is the most organized way to
Scott:do Can you imagine if it wasn't all on the same night and the organization that had the first tryout, you're all fighting for that first tryout most likely because if you're a coveted team, for example, right? That's why the Connecticut thing's not fair because they get
Jamie:No, that's true. They go early. Now I will say you do have parents going to the first night of one place and going to a second night at another building. You do see that.
Scott:That does happen. But that also shows your hand. If you're not there for the second night and you have to make a selection.
Jamie:No, it's true. You're right. I've never done that, but I know I hear people do it.
Scott:Well, it usually happens when they go to the tryouts on the first night and they get told that night you might wanna, if an organization is decent and, you know, they'll give you the heads up like, hey, listen, you're making this team. So you might wanna go to another tryout tomorrow night.
Jamie:Have you seen the Instagram clip? The guy's got like a long hair and a beard. I think he's Canadian. It's it's a it's a he's like a funny, like he's a comedian, but he does, like, a lot of hockey stuff.
Scott:I don't think I know. I'm not I had
Jamie:send it to you because it's it's like it's so he's standing outside the rink. And a dad comes up to him and he's like, Hey, coach, can I ask you a question? He's like, About my kid? The coach is really aloof. He's like, Which one's your kid?
Jamie:He's like, What color jersey was he in? What color pin he was in? He's like, Oh, we didn't get him. He's like, not good. He's
Scott:like, What's his name again? He's like And he
Jamie:said his name, he's like, The kids call him, like, Shit
Scott:for Brains or, like, something like that. Something like that. So he's like, you
Jamie:know And the coach is like, You know, can I be honest with you? And the dad's like, yeah, sure. You know, please. Absolutely. And he said something along the lines, I'm going butcher it, but something along the lines of like, you know, he's got like hands of stone, Like, he turns like a
Scott:like, he's like, he's turning a canoe. Like, like, he's like he's like he's he's something something something along the lines of, like, he had, like, two points last year, and he put one in our own net, like, something along those lines. So it's such such amount of penalty minutes, and he's like, where else
Jamie:are you looking? And the dad's like, you know, here in the stars. And he's like, stars. He's like, you know what? He's like, don't even get out the car.
Jamie:He's like, go there. Don't even get out of car. Then the dad, like you see dad, like, going back to the car. He's like, hey, buddy. He's like, put your shit back in the car.
Jamie:He's like, he's a good buddy. He's like, he's like, he's like, alright, thanks, Appreciate that. He's like, he's a good buddy. He's like, buddy, come back. Get your shit back in the car.
Jamie:We're gonna leave. I'm gonna send it to you. You're gonna fucking die. It's it's it's tremendous. Yeah, so yeah, I guess people go
Scott:one Yeah, usually if you know, if you're not gonna make the one team, then you end up going to another place the next night. But I think, just like kind of navigating this part of this time of year and if you're in a situation where you don't have assurances, you're going to tryouts, not necessarily knowing if you're going to make it or not make it, then you really got to say, you need to put yourself in a position where it's like, okay, can my family make this commute? Can my family afford this organization? Is this coach or at this organization someone I'd want to coach, my son or my daughter? And you kind of go through that checklist of things of your priorities as a family, and then you try to line those priorities up with the organization that checks most of those boxes or as many
Jamie:competitors as And
Scott:that's, and then that's what you go for. Right?
Jamie:The grass is not always greener somewhere else. All these hockey organizations are the, for the most part, same. It's really about the coach in my opinion. You can latch on with a good coach, even if it's like a subpar organization, it's all about the coach. Right.
Jamie:You know, and listen, hopefully you have him for as many years as possible. And the nice thing about youth hockey is, you know, your contract is up at end of the You're not stuck. You can always go somewhere else.
Scott:Well, I want to give an example about finding a good coach. Here's an example that I had from last season, which I got really excited about. It was during tryouts. We had just moved from one organization, we're trying out at another organization. It was maybe at an IDScape.
Jamie:Right.
Scott:Right? And we're there before tryouts. And I was looking for assurances to see whether or not he was going be on
Jamie:the And
Scott:we got them.
Jamie:Which is nice.
Scott:Which is nice. And in talking with the coach, was saying, Listen, one of the things that I really pride myself on is that I really think I can get the best out of kids. And he's worked with the same group of kids for four years at that point in time. Here I am as a parent with a kid who's looking for a fresh start at a different organization that was dealing with some confidence issues and nothing abnormal for a nine year old kid. But hearing a coach tell me that he prides himself on getting the best out of kids, I was like, Wow, That's awesome.
Scott:Now the proof is always in the pudding and you could talk to Andy, talk is cheap. So you really don't know until you're in the thick of it. 100 What that's gonna look like.
Jamie:No question. All bullshit until it's not.
Scott:But I mean like, look, you have to make decisions based on certain things. So when I heard that
Jamie:Yeah, sounded good to me, it's just curious. Right.
Scott:Yeah, 100%. It
Jamie:should be.
Scott:So that would be an example of where like vetting the existing coach or talking to a parent about the coach who might have been there the year before, try to ask some questions that are important to you as it relates to your child. Not necessarily like, Oh, what was the record last year? Who's the top scorer on the team? That shit doesn't matter. That type of stuff, I don't know why you'd necessarily ask some of those questions, but the idea is don't go finding the closest AAA club because you want to play AAA.
Scott:Why don't you include tier two programs in your search and do a little digging under the hood and be like, okay. I was even talking to a dad last night who I play men's with and his kids, I've skated with them before. One of them played club at Michigan and they're fantastic hockey players. And he was like, Yeah, they played tier two their entire career. And he said that at one point when they were a little bit on the older side, their AA team beat that organization's AAA team for
Jamie:his birth year.
Scott:And he's like, kids had a blast. For a lot of people, it's hard to see the forest through the trees. Maybe that's an appropriate
Jamie:expression, but
Scott:it's not all about As. And I was telling his dad
Jamie:It's not the letters. And I was telling his
Scott:dad who was like, listen, we're on the A team this year. He should have really been on the double A team, but he was on the A team. But now we wanna play AAA, but I'm not getting any assurances from this club about him being on AAA. So we might go to the other organization to play AAA. I'm like, wait a second, time out.
Scott:You were just telling me your kid played A this season. Yeah. Now He wants to jump to AAA. Wants to jump to AAA, which, okay, maybe your kid's good enough to do that. But if you're at an organization where you know you're locked for going from A to AA
Jamie:That's a big move.
Scott:What are you rushing for?
Jamie:There's no rush.
Scott:How old
Jamie:is the kid? 10? Is your kid's age? No, he's younger. He's younger.
Scott:Younger.
Jamie:Oh, so it's even more ridiculous.
Scott:It's even more ridiculous. That's part of the point of this whole thing being silly season. I'm like, look, is this good organization for you? Did you like this past season? Oh, yeah.
Scott:It was good. Is this a convenient ring for you and your family to get to on a regular basis? Yeah. And it also has two kids. Now you guys are like, well, you're gonna move one, then you're gonna move both, you're gonna be in two different buildings.
Scott:It's like, listen, your kids are young.
Jamie:People don't get it.
Scott:It's a slightly different conversation. There's different circumstances where it might not be as an obvious answer, at least to me, but the point is like, there's time.
Jamie:There's lots of time. Kids that have played AA hockey that are playing D one college right now.
Scott:A %. I mean, come on.
Jamie:I mean, every, everybody has a different path in this game. There's no one path. Right. Like everybody has a different path in this game. People are going to mature at different ages, you know?
Jamie:And what I would say to parents is do what works for you and your family. Right. You know, make sure it's, it's, it's, it's good for you and your family. Yeah. You know, it's, you know, you know, we'll wind down here, but make sure it's good for you and your family.
Jamie:Make sure it's, make sure your kids having fun. Try to find a good coach, Try to, you know, as long as the practices are good, he's smiling. He's having fun. He likes the kids. Listen, there's gonna be problem kids.
Jamie:There's gonna be problem parents. Don't let it consume you unless it's a real, real problem. Right.
Scott:Yeah.
Jamie:You know? And as a parent, don't be fucking nuts because that's also part of the problem. Some of these parents don't realize that they're the problem.
Scott:Especially in situations where you see families, like you're in a building where there's, let's just say your family's goal, your kid's goal is to play, like go from A to double A or double A to triple A, and you look at what those kids are doing and they're doing all these extra clinics, these extra privates, all this skating coach and this coach and that coach. It's really easy to feel like you need to keep up with the Joneses if you want to be a part of that situation, that team, etcetera. And I think that people overextend themselves. Some people from a financial standpoint, from a convenience standpoint, circumstantially, they just can do it easily. Maybe only they're a single income household.
Scott:They have a lot of disposable income. They have someone who's always available to drive. But then you have parents being like, Oh my God, that's what Johnny's doing. So now I gotta do that. But wait, both parents in my household work.
Scott:We don't make as much money as that family. We're overextending ourselves here. We got someone that, you know, before you know it, you're just like going totally mental.
Jamie:I know it's, it's, it can get out of hand quickly.
Scott:It can get out of hand. Quick. Get out of hand.
Jamie:Yeah. It snowballs very quickly, you know, very, and you get, you get roped in very easily. Yep. Especially if a kid has some talent at first. And again, and I talk about this, your best mites won't be the best squirts or screws.
Jamie:Best squirts won't be the best Peewee's best Peewee's won't be the best Bantam, especially when you start hitting right in Bantam, you know, so it just let your kid develop. Try not get out of your kid's way. Let the coach coach your kid, you know, don't tell them to like go off sides if the puck doesn't get passed to them for the, before the blue line.
Scott:Cause that's never happened.
Jamie:We'll get into that next episode. You know, I mean, don't, don't be an asshole. Don't and stay away. Like if you don't watch practice, if you can help it, right? Like, you know, just don't let the coach coach, let your kid develop.
Jamie:Every kid develops a different, different time, different speed in different ways. If your kid likes the game, let him just do his thing.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:Like you can correct certain things here and there. Like if he's not being a good teammate, that's another story. Right. But like, like skill wise, just let him develop, you know, because I've, I've heard stories and I almost ruined my kid at a young age. You know, I had to step back.
Jamie:I figured out really early that, Hey, listen, you know, need to, yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. I dialed it back big time. You know, now I watched practice in like three years, three years.
Jamie:When I, last night I was at practice. I'm sitting outside with one dad who has like an 18 year old hockey player. So he knows, he knows he doesn't have to watch practice and all these other yo yo dads are in there with their faces pressed against the glass. They came out all pissed off. I'm like, what are doing?
Jamie:Like, why'd go in there? He's like, why not? Like, he's like, why don't you go in there? I'm like, why?
Scott:Look at the way you're coming out.
Jamie:Yeah. Why, why do I go in for what? Like, what am I, I'm not gonna, don't hover. Don't be a helicopter. Don't hover over your kid.
Jamie:Just let him do his thing. Make sure he's in a good situation with good coach. If you can with good kids, if you can with good parents, if you can. Right. And everything else is easy.
Scott:Yeah. And just, just to, just so I'm clear, I wouldn't want someone to take away that I don't think doing anything extra is a bad idea because I think in a lot of ways it is important for your kid to hear from other coaches. Sure. If you take your kid to a skating clinic where they
Jamie:work in And experience other kids.
Scott:Yeah. A %. So it has its place. But you don't need It's just to what extent are you like Willing to go. Or making it a part of your routine.
Jamie:Don't go broke.
Scott:Don't go broke, don't go crazy.
Jamie:There's stuff you can do at home. Your kid can stick handle at home, your kid can shoot at home. There's plenty of things you can do at home.
Scott:Right, and I'll give one quick example.
Jamie:So
Scott:in years past, I might've insisted that my kid go to a power skating clinic. Same. And he would've gone and he would Usually, I don't think I've had a situation where he's come off the ice and been like, that sucked. It's usually like, I don't wanna go and do that because it doesn't sound like fun.
Jamie:But normally after they come off the ice, they're like, oh, that was fun.
Scott:That wasn't so But just recently
Jamie:He says it all the time.
Scott:So my son was like, he's like, I wanna go do three V three. That's And I was like, you know what, go do three v three. And I was there and so I decided to watch because honestly, part of me wants to get better at watching and not Understood. There's also practice me.
Jamie:Listen, you're 100% right. Do that during games, so I get it.
Scott:Yeah, I saw him make a few good plays and I was like, you know what, if this were to end right now, I would be like, hey buddy, proud of you. That was something we talked about, or you've mentioned to me that you wanted to get better on. And I saw you do that. In this situation- Curagement's big. Wanted to do extra hockey, so he's getting extra reps.
Jamie:He's awesome, yeah, he's He's
Scott:doing three V three in an environment where he can be creative and blah, blah, have fun. He was psyched to do it.
Jamie:Then he would- Home run.
Scott:And he did some things that he was having trouble doing.
Jamie:It's a home run.
Scott:Or I could have been like, no, you go to a power skating clinic and he'd be like, hell no. And then it's a fight. Then it's a, this and a-
Jamie:Home run. Home run. It all should work out like that every time. You know what I So, alright. So before we wrap this up, should should we should I tell my story now or should I save it for next time?
Scott:You know what? We're
Jamie:at fifty three minutes. Should we save it for next time?
Scott:Oh, your call.
Jamie:Okay. I'll tell, I'll tell quickly. All right. We'll go quick. We'll go quick.
Jamie:We'll go quick and then we'll stop. All right. So, so we'll do a story, a good story, like at the end of every episode, and then we'll have people call and give their stories. So cause their stories in youth hockey community are legendary. I have some phenomenal ones.
Jamie:So including the one where one of our dad's broken to a pro shop, but we'll get to
Scott:that another day. So, all right. So the one, the one I'm going
Jamie:to tell just happened last weekend. So, you know, cause you saw it on Instagram, so you know what I'm talking about. And that's unbelievable that it's on Instagram because it just travels, right, in the hockey community. So, so we're down in Flemington.
Scott:Sorry to interrupt.
Jamie:I'm so sorry.
Scott:But like, the part part of the point of this is that for families that might be just getting into it, you have to assume you're always on camera and there's Live Barn and there's other cameras that pick up audio and you don't always know where they are, so you gotta be careful.
Jamie:And I'm pretty sure Live Barn caught this, right? Is that where that, that video
Scott:came pretty sure the video that I saw was
Jamie:Live Barn. It has to be Live Barn. That was, that was zoomed in.
Scott:Yeah.
Jamie:So, yeah. So they have Live Barn in, in, in Flemington. We were there for the, for the playoffs for our league.
Scott:Yeah.
Jamie:All right. So what was it? Was it four teams, eight teams? No. It was top four top four made it or top five.
Jamie:There's a play in for the for the four spot.
Scott:Yeah.
Jamie:So if there were four of us and we're I wanna say it was Friday before our first game and there was, older kids in front. Are they older kids? Maybe it was sing, maybe it was B level. It was, it was some, it was a game.
Scott:You guys are waiting to get on the ice.
Jamie:We're waiting to get on the ice. So, so the, our kids are in the locker room, parents are watching and it was the flyers against
Scott:Jersey Wolves, something like that. Yeah. Yeah.
Jamie:Whatever. Or something. Or or, like, Cranford. Some other team. It it doesn't matter.
Jamie:But the game goes into, like, double overtime.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:Double or triple overtime. And and I forget that it was our penalty or something like that. Something happened where the obviously, the parents in front of us were pissed off. Like, I was watching, but not watching. You know what I mean?
Jamie:Like, I was standing, off the boards because his parents were having absolute meltdowns behind the glass. Like just again, crazy hockey parents. Right. So, and again, you don't want to be a crazy hockey parent people. So, something happens, you know, a penalty gets called something like that by the ref.
Jamie:Parents are yelling at the ref coaches yelling. The flyers team winds up losing.
Scott:Okay.
Jamie:Okay. Kid comes down and, you know, bangs with it. So, we were just kind of bouncing around the rink, I guess. So apparently after the game Yeah. On the other side of the ice where we were not standing, the Flyers coach goes into the ref's locker room and starts scuffling with the ref.
Jamie:And this guy apparently played like minor league hockey. So he was like six, six on skates. Like he was not a small dude.
Scott:The ref was a big man. Right.
Jamie:Okay. So apparently this dude, the flyers coach
Scott:was a, who was a, yeah, it was a, you know, it was a, was a, was
Jamie:a parent. Oh, was he a parent? I'm not sure. I think it was a parent, but anyway, so the flyers coach goes in and he, and he confronts the ref, which I've never heard of in the ref locker room. So, you know, so I guess they started like, they were, they were together scuffling in the ref locker room.
Jamie:And I guess it spilled out into the hallway. We're right where the rink is. Right. Spilled out of the locker room and in right, the boards are right there. Right.
Jamie:You saw, you saw the video on clank on media. So it spills into the hallway and one of our dads or one of our forwards dads, who's an FBI agent in Manhattan. He tries to break it up because he's happened to be over there. So he tries to break it up. And I, so I guess the coach swung at the ref, you know, and connected with him a couple of times, like in the, in the locker room and it spilled outside.
Jamie:So Seamus goes and grabs the coach to pull him off the ref and does. And and the way he tells a story is then all of a sudden, the coach, like, focused on him. Like, what are you doing? Like, what you know? Like, what's
Scott:Like like, he was like,
Jamie:Like like The coach
Scott:is now defending himself from He was the problem.
Jamie:Right. Right. Right. And meanwhile, all his dad was doing was
Scott:just pulling him off of
Jamie:the rep. Jesus. So, so, yeah, so he proceeds to like right hook this dad in the side of the head. And it just kinda like glanced up like the bed, the back of his head, but apparently like apparently then he ran out the back of the, of, of the, and the cops came and we're in this, he was standing right to my race.
Scott:Did he get arrested
Jamie:this guy? So no, he ran out the back door and I'm assuming left and went home. Right. And you wonder the, the irony about it, which is on the Instagram clip is the, the, the clinical media posted like, The, the Twitter or the Instagram, snapshot from the flyers organization saying like, you know, parents behave yourself this weekend. You know, we want to conduct ourselves with dignity and with class, you know, don't be, don't, don't do anything that's foolish.
Scott:And the coach winds up fighting a rep.
Jamie:I mean, you can't make this stuff up. And then and then it salts an FBI agent, our our kid's father in the in the process. Right? I mean, it's and and so many people have seen that video, by the way.
Scott:So many. Like I mean, a a dad on my kid's team sent us the Instagram post. It's it it went When you told me that you were there Dude. I would my mind would
Jamie:go Again, our father was in the video getting punched in the head. That was one of our dads, one of our wingers' fathers. So he was standing next to me. My buddy, Matt was standing to my left and this dad, Seamus, was standing to my right. And when the cop came in, because the cops got called, when the cop came in, they came up to the they came up to Seamus and had him come down and give a statement.
Scott:Oh.
Jamie:Oh, yeah, man. It was wild, wild. So it's so,
Scott:I mean, so that's obviously not a crazy dad, but that's a crazy hockey I'm
Jamie:pretty sure his kid was on the team. So it's a crazy hockey dad slash coach. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott:Yeah.
Jamie:I mean, it's worth talking about Crete again.
Scott:No, but look, but that type of thing. I mean, there's been plenty of situations where it hasn't initially broken out into a fight, there was multiple games this past season where parents were getting into it. Oh, a %. It's
Jamie:a %
Scott:like wild stuff. I would, during my son's playoff games
Jamie:I'll tell another story next episode. Have another story about parents fighting. I have multiple stories about parents fighting actually.
Scott:But parents, here's something that I did 100% this past two weekends ago. At playoffs, there was a parent from the other team that couldn't have been any louder, any more obnoxious, that was yelling and screaming to the point where it really felt like he just wanted everyone to look him. And it turns out apparently this guy was like a competitive cheerleading coach and so he's very good at being very loud. Honestly, that doesn't even matter, but the point was this guy was so obnoxious and I was getting so angry because I'm trying to watch the game, enjoy the game, it's a playoff game, and this guy is so distracting and it's so frustrating. I put in my earbuds, ear pods, And I listened to like metal music.
Scott:While you're watching Pretty loud while I'm watching. So I couldn't hear you You tried
Jamie:to drown him out?
Scott:I was getting so angry.
Jamie:Yeah, that's tough. That's listening. So the moral of this is parents, whether you're coaching or watching your kid, you got to conduct yourself with class. It's a kid's hockey game. It's not about you.
Jamie:It's not about you. The refs need to keep the kids safe on the ice. Other than that, they're going to miss calls. They're not professionals. They're people that are getting paid $50 for a game or $45 a game.
Jamie:You need to cut these people some slack. It's children's sports. Fucking relax. Like all of you just fucking relax. I mean, there's no, there's nothing good that comes out of starting a fight with another parent or with a kid on the ice.
Jamie:I got another story for you there. How about a parent trying to rush, get on the ice to get to a kid that also happened to our team in the beginning of
Scott:the season.
Jamie:Yeah. That's wild, but there's, there's nothing good will come out of it. So with that, you know, we'll, we'll put a cap on the first episode. Not bad.
Scott:Not bad.
Jamie:You know, we went a little over, but not bad at all. And, you know, so hopefully people enjoyed this and put, hopefully they learned something and, that's the plan every week. We're gonna come to you. We're gonna give you some information, little, little, layout of the youth hockey landscape, how to navigate it. And we'll have fun doing it.
Scott:Let's go.
Jamie:Sounds good, man.
Scott:Yo, man. All right. Good stuff. Sounds good. Later.