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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.
Episode seven. Welcome back, everybody.
Scott:Yo. What's up, everybody?
Jamie:Episode seven. So playoffs are in full swing.
Scott:Oh my Lord.
Jamie:Oh my goodness. You guys watching at home?
Scott:Totally watching.
Jamie:Yeah.
Scott:Yeah. It's it's it's like must watch TV. Some of it.
Jamie:It's great.
Scott:Oh, so good.
Jamie:I, other than the devils, it's great.
Scott:Oh yeah. Well, yeah, that's rough. Yes, it is. So we'll spend a little bit of time The EECS went out. The EECS went out.
Jamie:You know, it's actually funny. When, they were up to nothing.
Scott:Yeah.
Jamie:And, you watching the game? What'd you watch on?
Scott:Are you talking about the score or
Jamie:the, game, devil's one.
Scott:Did you watch it? Yes.
Jamie:Yeah. So when they were up to nothing and then I want to say Seegenthaler had a penalty. I don't know if was interference or like a, whatever it was. Seegenthaler, you know, had his penalty and they scored on the power play. It's two to one.
Jamie:I look at Nancy and I'm like, yeah,
Scott:this is not good. Is not good. If
Jamie:you remember, if I'm not mistaken, that the two goals of the devil scored Nico, he sure scored and like, almost like miss hit
Scott:the one for sure. Was not a clean goal. Right.
Jamie:And then I want to say Dawson Mercer was the other one also not clean.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:You know what I mean? So it's not like they were like, you know, in control of the hockey game.
Scott:Right. You didn't feel like they were right.
Jamie:It didn't feel good. Right. So when Siegenthaler made that first, the first penalty and they scored, and then I want to say, was it was Dougie? The other one was Dougie Hamilton. Yes.
Jamie:Somebody, at least somebody launched it into the stands.
Scott:Yeah.
Jamie:When they tied it at two two, I turned to the anti. I go, yeah, we're not winning this game being the fair weather fan that I am. Listen, it's not a matter of being
Scott:a Fairweather fan.
Jamie:Like,
Scott:like, they just they're not up for the task. It's terribly frustrating.
Jamie:It really is. It it makes you realize as a Devils fan that we have no offense other than Jack.
Scott:But yeah. And even when he's in the lineup, like they're they're they don't do a great job.
Jamie:They were no. And and they have no third and fourth runs.
Scott:I I think, O'Keefe was saying, like, took a a shot at management. Over Savage again? No, at like Devil's Management, like saying that basically, like, we haven't had depth. Look, I don't know exactly what was said. I was reading a headline and it was more or less
Jamie:He's not wrong.
Scott:No, no, no, he's not. They don't have depth. I was just reading today that I think their fourth line has contributed exactly zero points the entire series.
Jamie:I'm not shocked. I'm not shocked at all. They don't have a third and fourth line. You know, they didn't, I, that was a big problem that, you know, Fitzgerald was trying to address for the trade deadline and he got that, he got that dude glass.
Scott:Yes.
Jamie:Who's not bad. He he'll give you the, they went and got the guy sprung Like it's, but these guys aren't going to, these guys aren't like
Scott:real
Jamie:NHL, like third and fourth on guys. You know? And I don't know. I remember when the devil's, the sales guy called me like The sales tickets. Yeah.
Jamie:He called me like right before playoffs. Because we had tickets to the Markstrom bobblehead game, the last game of the season. Yeah. He's like, so you want, you want to buy a package for the playoffs? And I look at him and I go, no.
Jamie:He goes, why not? Goes, we're in the playoffs. I go, I go, Jack's out.
Scott:I know.
Jamie:I go, there's no I go, they didn't address any, any depth, you know, at the trade deadline. Go, why
Scott:am I spending money on
Jamie:my product? Money on? Like, come on, dude.
Scott:I know my sister texted me yesterday and she has a friend or she's on some like group chat or whatever. And they were trying to offload devil's tickets for the Sunday afternoon game. And I wrote back, I'm like, yeah, I'll pass.
Jamie:Yeah, no thanks. Hard pass.
Scott:Hard pass. I
Jamie:feel bad saying that.
Scott:I I don't know that I feel bad saying it's just unfortunate. It's unfortunate that the product
Jamie:is not good.
Scott:It's not good.
Jamie:No, it's not.
Scott:But look, they are but at the same time they are in the playoffs.
Jamie:They limped into the playoffs. Okay.
Scott:Fair. Sure. But they're in the playoffs. Okay. So like, I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying.
Scott:Listen, there's how many other teams would like to be in the devil's shoes and have a chance?
Jamie:I mean, listen, listen, obviously, your team's not in right now, you're obviously, you
Scott:know, you're on the outside looking in. But it's also another thing to go into the playoffs with, you know,
Jamie:not With like somebody, mean, it's rough right now.
Scott:Different. But look at the East versus the West, right?
Jamie:Yeah. We were just talking about that.
Scott:Yeah. Like the East, East has been pretty, I don't want say predictable, unlike the West where in the beginning I was like, Oh, I see where this is going. Then you're like, wait a second.
Jamie:No, no. I mean, picks, we were talking about it before we got on the air. I mean, we thought we had like Winnipeg, St. Louis pegged. We thought we had Dallas you know, the Dallas pegged and Vegas and even Oilers Kings.
Jamie:All
Scott:those are question marks
Jamie:very much. So I mean, very, they're all series now. Whereas on the East, it's not so much of.
Scott:All right. So here's my question. What series are you the most excited about right now? The one that are currently playing, not a prediction about next round.
Jamie:All right. So like Tampa and I like Tampa and Florida. I do. Because we're like big, like Ka'Chuck fans now.
Scott:So that's your like, that's much
Jamie:watching TV for you. Yeah. We like, yeah, we like that.
Scott:Okay.
Jamie:You know, like Nancy's at with, with Dominic right now at practice and that game started, you know, thirty three minutes ago and she's like, tape it.
Scott:I saw, I saw like a record the game.
Jamie:Sound so old record it.
Scott:Totally, totally old. I saw there was like some post that was like, imagine, imagine this being your line, Chuck Bennett and Marshawn.
Jamie:So, so dude, speaking of, of Bennett, did you see the goal, where he took the puck out of the air? I want to say it was like game one or game two. I want to say like Mackie Samuskevich threw like a saucer, like that was like hip high. Yeah. He took it out of the air.
Scott:I did not see it.
Jamie:It was ridiculous.
Scott:There's so, I mean, not to take away from that, but there's just the talent level
Jamie:of some of these
Scott:players is so unreal.
Jamie:The skill is nuts. I want to say it was Bennett. It was Bennett Ryan. I want to say it was Bennett. It was a, it was a Mackie Simiskevich.
Jamie:I want say it game one or game two. It was, it was awesome, dude. It's it's been, and I mean, so I like that series and I like Montreal, Washington. Yeah. I've become a closet Canadians fan.
Scott:Well, you don't need to be in the closet about that.
Jamie:Well, like, you know, obviously I'm a devil's fan, you know, but, but I do like watching the Canadians and Dominic's favorite player is Cole Caulfield.
Scott:So, but, but Lane Hudson.
Jamie:Meanwhile, did you see their power play last
Scott:night? It
Jamie:was Lane. It was Lane Suzuki. No, it was Lane Caulfield, Suzuki, Demodov.
Scott:Oh yeah.
Jamie:Slat the guy, the winger who I
Scott:can't I
Jamie:mean, all those kids, those kids are all what? 22, three, four ish.
Scott:Suzuki is older.
Jamie:Suzuki is older. Right. But Demodoff's what? I'm assuming similar ish age. That was their power play last night.
Jamie:It was ridiculous. It looked awesome.
Scott:Dude, also Zeebooyum in in Minnesota. He's on the PP.
Jamie:Are you surprised? I mean, Zeeb's a stud.
Scott:Okay. I I yes. He's a stud. Yeah. But at the same time, like, his his first his rookie his first game in the NHL is game one playoffs.
Scott:And the dude's and the dude's getting like
Jamie:Listen.
Scott:Playing time and he's on the PP.
Jamie:Like Mccar did it too?
Scott:Dude, yes. I it's just
Jamie:it's awesome. Next level. It's so cool to watch these young players coming up through like college hockey and doing really well.
Scott:And making an impact.
Jamie:Yes. And making an immediate impact. Matter of fact, it's funny, know, we're talking about the Canadians. Nancy just showed me before she left. Did you know that Netflix is doing a series?
Jamie:I guess they're filming it as we speak on the Montreal Canadians.
Scott:It doesn't surprise. I didn't know that, but it doesn't surprise me.
Jamie:I didn't. She just showed it to me. It drops like August 15.
Scott:Did you that, that, so I'm super looking
Jamie:forward to that.
Scott:But did you watch the Maple Leafs documentary that was on
Jamie:Prime? Need to. Mentioned So
Scott:that was like a unique behind the scenes, but it was just like, that was, Up until then, I had not watched much of that behind the scenes stuff. I know that Pittsburgh had done it for years. Think they
Jamie:Awesome organization.
Scott:Totally. But yeah, no, it was super fascinating to watch. If there's something coming out with the Canadians, totally going to tune into Like
Jamie:August, apparently they're filming it as we speak.
Scott:That's sick.
Jamie:Yeah. I think it was, I want to say it was Netflix, but it's, I didn't know what was happening.
Scott:Just, I mean, talk about things that are also being documented. Gabe Landis Gogs, Rhodes recovery and
Jamie:how he's back and he scored a goal. Did he score? Yeah. Scored a That was cool watching him come back though.
Scott:Like what a story. Dude. What a story. Three years, like it was over a thousand days of not playing hockey he's Can
Jamie:you believe that? Mean like, it was some knee injury,
Scott:right? He had cartilage replacement in his And like I'd listened to an interview that was on Spitting Chicklets. He was on there. And if I'm not mistaken, it all started with like a laceration, like on his
Jamie:That's how it
Scott:started? Yeah, which is something that was Nothing that was terribly serious at face value when it happened. But then like one thing led to another and then needs cartilage replacement and now he's out and he's got pain. I don't know. Three years?
Scott:Yeah. Like three years.
Jamie:I that's I didn't know you can come back from something like that.
Scott:I know. Talk about
Jamie:you know, persistence and like resilience. Mean, my God, you know, we talk about, you know, trying to get our kids to, you know, have even a little bit of that. I mean, that's, that's like next level stuff. Next level, just not giving up and just keep plowing through whatever's in front of you. Just knock it down and move past it.
Scott:Yeah. Amazing. And then comes back playoffs after not playing three years and makes an impact captain. Yeah. You know, amazing stuff.
Scott:It's pretty good captain material. I will I will say on my end though, must watch, for the playoffs, Kings Oilers. Like, it's it's only That's
Jamie:my other series.
Scott:It's like must watch because it's it's almost mind bending that the Oilers are still in it and that they've pulled it off. I mean, McDavid does McDavid things and that is just so unreal. But they have had such a hard time with the Kings and now they're going back to Los Angeles. The series is tied two-two. And it's like any one series right now, but I'll tell you, they're getting it done, but they're grinding so hard.
Scott:It's hard to imagine that they're going to be able to keep on doing that series after series and find themselves in the Stanley Cup finals.
Jamie:It's unlikely that
Scott:it seems unlikely
Jamie:that's a hard slog to kind of like, you know, and listen, they have to be, you know, they, if they, if they beat the Kings, they're going to have to beat the, you know, the winner of Minnesota Vegas, which listen, maybe is not the hardest road. Right. But again, but at some point in time, you're going to have to come in contact with the avalanche if they, you know, yeah,
Scott:no. Or winniquet. Yeah.
Jamie:It's going to be, I must say the, The West is not as interesting to me as the East this year, The East I'm paying. I don't know. So the only, the only, I'm paying attention to the avalanche cause I think it's cause I liked the, think they're, they're a cool team to follow. And I, and I obviously picked the Kings over the Oilers, so I have to pay attention to that. And do you remember who I told you to pay attention to on the Kings?
Jamie:I see he's coming into his own. He's Byfield. Did you see the goal he scored in game one? So he's facing the goalie. If you're facing the goalie, he was, he was, I guess he was like, almost like the, the left wing.
Jamie:Yeah. Okay. The puck gets shot at the goalie from call it the opposite point. Yeah. Okay.
Jamie:He's like, he's like to the, he's off, off the post, but he's, but he's kind of away from the goalie. So the goalie blockers it away. He catches it with his left hand, drops it and then shoots it off the back of the goalie like that. Unreal.
Scott:It such a
Jamie:sick goal. He's always on the ice for points. The guys, he is
Scott:What about what's his face? Who's that?
Jamie:Kemper. They're all playing out their minds. That's why I'm not gonna lie. I'm surprised. I'm surprised that the Oilers came back and actually like started making this a series.
Jamie:I, after the Kings won game one and game two, thought it was over.
Scott:It certainly looked that way.
Jamie:It did. Yeah. And listen, the Oilers are obviously a very tough team. So, but I, I, so I'm, I'm paying attention to Kings Oilers cause I need the Kings to win.
Scott:Well, I don't know that that's going to happen at this point.
Jamie:No, no, me neither. But, but it's going to be. But yeah, so, I'm, we're very glued to the NHL playoffs in my household, you know?
Scott:Yes. So,
Jamie:so we'll see, we'll see how that goes. But, but yeah, so that's that. And now I just want to shout out quickly. See, I actually didn't tell you this yet. Picked Yep.
Jamie:Picked up just for serving kind of knows where we're at. We picked up, so we've been picking up States and we've been picking up like Canadian provinces. We picked up another Canadian province. So we were at four. We now we added Prince Edward Island.
Jamie:So we're in five Canadian provinces and we picked up, four States.
Scott:All right. That's amazing.
Jamie:We picked up four of them, four States in The United States. We picked up my home state of Florida. Sweet. We picked up Iowa. Nice.
Jamie:He picked up Texas and Vermont.
Scott:Amazing. Yeah. Any state's amazing.
Jamie:Yeah. You know, so yes, listen, that's saying something, you know, so we, we, we keep picking up followers and all the, which is awesome again. So our goal is all 10 Canadian provinces and all 50 states.
Scott:Yeah. And shout out to everyone. That's been listening, continuing to listen. Really appreciate the support. Thank you so much.
Jamie:Yes. Thank you. Appreciate it. Share the show, download, subscribe, tell your friends about it. Like I said, we have lot of fun doing this.
Jamie:All right. So you want to get onto our topic for today for our kids? Anything going on with with auto, by the way, hockey wise?
Scott:No, we have practice this week, a spring practice. But other than that, he has just been doing some clinics.
Jamie:Nothing
Scott:that's like out of the ordinary, super noteworthy, just getting on the ice.
Jamie:For power skating.
Scott:Regularly. And what do I mean by regularly? He's going like on the weekends, he's skating on the weekends. Then there's a newer training facility that's got dry land. They also get some ice nearby.
Jamie:Oh yeah, that's right. You said you were doing that.
Scott:Yeah. And so he's gone out there and it's just, he's having fun.
Jamie:Good.
Scott:And it's great to see, not that he wasn't having fun before, but I definitely get the impression that he's having That's just like he doesn't have as much pressure or he doesn't feel as much pressure and he's out there just being him. Look, I'll be honest as a dad and still comparing him to like his other kids that are out on the ice, it can be such a mind fuck just watching. Because on one hand, I'm super psyched to see him out there having fun and one thing that he's starting to really come in on his own with is the slap shot. He's starting to finally get that down.
Jamie:Like get into it?
Scott:Yeah, yeah. And so wouldn't say it's
Jamie:He's not shooting like Ally Fraedi laser beams to the net yet?
Scott:No. It's like every time he winds up, he's gonna get it off the way he'd want it to, but it's starting to come off more often. Nice. And that's great. But I was watching him on the ice the other day and he had two sleepovers and he was tired and I knew that and whatever.
Scott:But I'm watching him and his effort level and I'm still watching others that are just, and I don't mean built different as in like the kid is like the other kids that I'm looking at are like necessarily studs.
Jamie:I understand.
Scott:But like there's some kids that just have like, you know
Jamie:They're keyed in better.
Scott:Or like they're just always moving their feet. Some kids are more analytical, some are way more just reactionary just go go go. And they're all different types of players. We're talking about the Oilers, and you look at someone like Evan Bouchard on defense and you look at Connor McDavid and I'm not saying
Jamie:No, no.
Scott:But there's one that can move their feet like you've never seen And then you look at Bouchard and a top, top NHL defenseman. At least when I watch him, I'm like, I don't think he's really skating very hard.
Jamie:It's a lot of guys you could say that about.
Scott:Fair. But like, I'm just saying, like, for him in particular, he stands out to me as someone who's like, it comes off as like he almost looks lazy. I'm not saying that he
Jamie:is a no, understand.
Scott:There was also like, it reminds me of Stryker for Tottenham Hotspur and then United Berbatov. And Berbatov had like this laziness about him or perceived laziness where it didn't look like he was actually running as hard as he could or working as hard as he could. The dude was prolific, just like Bouchard. He netted two yesterday. I think the tie and the winning Yeah.
Jamie:Just levels of talent And get it done.
Scott:Yeah. But like, so can
Jamie:you imagine if he actually tried hard?
Scott:But I'm not saying he's not trying hard. That that that's kind of like my point. Like, don't know, like the analytics and the end of the hood above all that other nonsense. Or statistics stuff. But all I'm saying is that when you look even at professionals, you can look at professionals that are very good at their craft, at their sport, and you look at them and you're comparing them to others and they look like they're less interested, less motivated.
Scott:And the same is true for obviously kids. And all I'm trying to say is that I'm not saying my kid is like a lazy player
Jamie:or Right. I gotcha.
Scott:But I have to remind myself that just because he's not kicking his heels as fast as the kid next to him, it doesn't mean he's not out there trying to do his best or working that hard. And when I said it's a mind fuck, I'm watching this and you see qualities in other people and you're like, Oh, I just wish this or I just wish I don't wish my son to necessarily
Jamie:I know.
Scott:You know what I mean?
Jamie:I know what you're saying.
Scott:I want to see sometimes what I think
Jamie:I know. We all do as parents.
Scott:You know what I mean?
Jamie:Yes, I do.
Scott:And so in any event, you asked me about how week, you know, hockey and what he's been up to. Yes. So we had a weekend just on the ice. You know, I just
Jamie:That's what he's up to.
Scott:Yeah. But I think part of it just, again, is like a parent trying to go through this with like a level head. I think to myself, okay, you know what? You know what? No.
Scott:No. Even though he's 10, we need to do more. And when I say we, I really mean him. Yes. I'm obviously driving him.
Jamie:I say it too. I say we too.
Scott:I understand you. But it's like, dude, no. No. No. No.
Scott:I I have to go home and I have to say, nope. Enough's enough. Enough's enough. You are not working hard enough. Like, I go through that and then I'm fighting it.
Scott:And then I'm just like, Yeah, but he's out there, he's having fun. Then so It's a delicate balance. So then when I came to the I've thought this several times and it might even still be too early, maybe not, but like really, and maybe less important for me, more important for him. Although as a parent, you need to steer your child. They don't necessarily know what's in their best interest or how to approach certain challenges or whatever.
Scott:But I'm trying to think like, really, what's the goal here? What's my goal? What's his goal? Maybe is he too young to legitimately have a goal in all this? If he doesn't have a goal now, is that okay?
Scott:If he just wants to have fun, does he need to say to me, hey, dad, listen, my goal is have a 60 mile an hour shot by the time I am 11, and I want to go play division one college. Are those the things that need to be discussed right now? And if not? Probably not. But when?
Jamie:Know what? I don't know the answer to that. That's a good question.
Scott:I don't know. Some point, obviously the kids need to take ownership for what they want to achieve in this sport. Agreed. And we as parents want to give them the resources. Agreed.
Scott:But I mean, I do struggle with like how hard should I push because some kids are very receptive to being pushed and that's the way they're built. Like some
Jamie:kids are At a young age, yes.
Scott:Yes. And like, you can do that. I'm not so sure that Mike is the one that's gonna be able to sustain like long periods of me, like hammering him.
Jamie:Mine is not. Kind of part of Dom's problem, with our rockets team and why he had like a meltdown is because there was too much, there was too much pressure on him.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:That's really, I really believe that that's one of the major things that kind of took him down. I think, you know, he was playing very competitive hockey with every single kid on the team was super type a right. And the parents were all super type a, I mean, that we all were, it was very competitive. And he could not handle it as a 10 and 11 year old, which I can't blame him because he's 10 and 11.
Scott:That's okay.
Jamie:Right. You know, but he, and listen, you know what, Scott, Failure, I don't think is necessarily a bad thing, you know, especially when, when, when, you know, cause we, we told, when we left the team, we talked about it, you know, we said, listen, this didn't go. He, he quit. He straight up quit. Like he just didn't wouldn't move his feet anymore.
Jamie:Like he just literally packed it in.
Scott:He opted out. Totally opted out, packed
Jamie:it in. Right. So, you know, we talked about, you know, hanging it up at the end of the season, you know, he failed. It was, it did not go well. Right.
Jamie:And we talked about, you know, you know, you have to fail to learn, right. You have to fail to grow, you know? So even though it was hard to go through for him and as a parent to watch him go through that last year or two years ago and fail like that. He grew from it. I'll say that.
Jamie:He definitely grew from it.
Scott:And he had a tremendous season last year.
Jamie:Last year was a big bounce back.
Scott:Right. So, but the growth that you're talking about is how did that present itself? Is it like he had a great year? Like that's how he grew from it? He like bounced back he
Jamie:was pretty low when we, when we left the rockets. So just kind of coming back, I don't know, I'm sure you remember his skating style just broke down.
Scott:Yeah. You would, you would tell him
Jamie:just totally broke down, you know, so, so just to bring that back and now he's skating like he used to skate, you know, still not a %, but he's darn close, you know? So just bringing that back from the bowels where we were,
Scott:right.
Jamie:Is it is something You know what I mean? So, you know, you know, so he listened, it was, it was considered we failed, but a lot of growth came out of the failure, I think. That's awesome. You know, so that, that, that it, you know, it was hard though.
Scott:I could imagine a young kid could be like, you know what, I'm done.
Jamie:It was, I thought he was going to pack it in, but he loves the game of hockey so much that he's, he wasn't going pack it in.
Scott:Right. And that, and that's really, that's really a big part of, of not wanting to push something on kids so much so that they're like, I hate this.
Jamie:Yeah, correct. And I also backed off big time.
Scott:And that's probably even more important because at a young age, they haven't had so many years of experience where the game is chew them up and spit them out. It's probably more so, and I'm just hypothesizing that a parent would ruin it for their kid more than the kid being upset about playing the game. I could imagine kids just being like, I can't, I don't want to hear my dad say this to me again. Like, I just don't want to be in a situation where my parents or my dad or my mom is gonna one more time tell me I'm not good
Jamie:at it. That's right. Correct. That's the thing is, is parents watch how you talk to your children.
Scott:Yeah.
Jamie:You know, saying you can't, you don't, you never, you know, that stuff gets ingrained in these kids' head and they start to believe it. You know, you gotta
Scott:be, you
Jamie:gotta be real gentle with how you deliver some things. I had to figure that out. That my delivery was poor years ago.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:And I had to figure that out and change my delivery, you know? It takes a toll.
Scott:Let me ask you a question. You, you, you, you, you put that interestingly saying about being gentle and for sure there's information that's better received if it's not being hit over your head with a sledgehammer. But I think another piece of that that popped up for me was also like having it balanced.
Jamie:Like you
Scott:need to have that ying to the yang. If it's always negative feedback without any positive feedback, like that's probably your recipe for something that's not great. Right? But making sure to balance. And I went through this in my head before, like after Otto got off the ice.
Scott:Like again, I said, he had to sleepovers, he was tired. I was like, I started the conversation by listen, during the skating drills in the beginning, like your edges look really good, solid. There's one drill that you were doing and I was really impressed that you were able to do that so well. And then I said, but then you got to these other drills and the puck was getting away from you a few times. I said, listen, something that we've talked about, look, always try to bring your highest compete level.
Scott:It wasn't there every single shift. It's not always going be there every shift, but just continue to work on that. And then I also told him, yeah, he can at times, like when he's passing the puck or trying to snap it around or even like stick handling, he sometimes gets, he angles his blade so that he gets under the puck a little bit and it pops up and it's not like flat. It's not great to be on the receiving end of a bobbling or a muffin. And it's also not great if you're trying to stick handle and the puck is like up on its end.
Jamie:Dominic used to throw those passes And you know why? It's cause you're not getting down and bending your knees and snapping the hockey puck. It's a lazy pass. That's all it is. That's why the puck was tumbling across the ice.
Jamie:I I I Dom did it for years. Right. Years. It's terrible to watch as a parent.
Scott:Well, I was watching that this weekend and I want but like, here's the thing.
Jamie:You're like, why aren't you passing the puck? He's like, I don't know.
Scott:But but like, I I also I wanna make sure that he understands, like understands isn't the right word. I wanna make sure to point out to him because it's to some end, I think it's important for me to continue to say hold up that mirror. But it also can't be so much so that it like totally crushes the kid either. Agreed. I'm trying to
Jamie:like Needs to be gentle.
Scott:Gentle, balanced. Like both of those come come to mind.
Jamie:There's no question about it. The way you deliver something to a child. And again, I had to figure this out. Right. You know, I, you know, I needed to, I changed my delivery and now it's, I'm a totally different hockey parent, but I was, I was at the rink last Monday and I'm watching a dad pulled his kid off of the ice and brings him into the lobby and starts like chewing them out.
Scott:That's so bad on so
Jamie:many levels. I'm sitting here and I'm watching this parrot. I wanted to say something so badly, Scott.
Scott:I
Jamie:wanted to be like, dude, what are you doing here? The kid was like seven, eight, you know, maybe like eight, nine, something like that. But I'm watching him like, like, guy, what, but again, here we go. You know, and I've said before, don't watch practice, just go away. It's not helpful.
Scott:I thought about this as well.
Jamie:I told you, I stopped me if I've, I know I've told you about tell her, I'll tell everybody that's listening. So what I, so Bryce Salvador said of his Oh nine rockets team. Okay. He said the most growth he's ever seen in one of his hockey teams was during COVID. When parents not allowed in the rink.
Jamie:Right. Where you just had to drop your kid off. Your kid went, you maybe tied his skates in the, in the lobby and then went to your
Scott:car.
Jamie:Cause you were not allowed in the rink. Right. Right. He said it was the most growth because the parents were not there. Right.
Jamie:There's something to be said for that. You know, that's not by accident. There's a reason why that is because the kids not, how many kids do you see on the ice when they do something wrong? Where do they look? Where do the eyes immediately go To the parents, the parents in the stands
Scott:constantly
Jamie:like that. It's like clockwork. Right. You can almost time it to a watch mistake. Eyes go up into the stands.
Scott:Right. It happens all the time.
Jamie:All the time.
Scott:But listen, before we keep going down this road, do want to like get back or start part of our conversation that we wanted to talk about today. And that was about managers. Yes. Managers, because I know you have a lot of experience doing that. It's that time of year when managers are like, they've got plenty to do.
Scott:Yes, they do. They're probably still waiting to hear back from the organizations about scheduling, waiting to get those league schedules. They're dealing with coordinating spring stuff. Some fall teams do things in the spring together. I know we did when we were at the other club.
Scott:What's this time of year like for a manager and what are maybe some things that should be kept top of mind?
Jamie:So I'm not doing it anymore. I have retired. Okay. I retired once Dominic had his meltdown at our other team. I retired.
Jamie:I'm like, I don't want, I just want to be a hockey dad. I just want to watch my kid. I don't want to have to deal with parents. I don't have to deal with organizations. I don't want to have to deal with, tournament directors.
Jamie:I don't want to have to deal with, you know, refs. I don't want to have to deal with, you know, like, you know, so I, I hung it up this year, after like, I would say two, like heavy, heavy years, like really heavy years, abnormally heavy, like, because we were, we put together, a very like intense triple a high end triple a team.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:You know, and, and, and really it was me and two other dads who literally put this team together from scratch. Right. With a little bit of help from a couple of here and there. But so I, so this year I packed it in. I was like, you know what?
Jamie:I just want to be a hockey dad. And the team manager actually, when he found out that I had experience with this stuff, it was his first year doing it. He came up to me. He's like, he's like, so do you want to help? I looked at him.
Jamie:I was like, Nope. No, no, no, Just say Raymond. Well, we're going drop movie lines for you guys throughout our episodes. See if you guys can get them. So, yeah.
Jamie:So you look at it. He's like, Jay, he's like, do you want to help? I'm like, Ron, I'm like, I want no part of this. I'm like, sorry. I'm like, you can bounce things off of me.
Jamie:I'm like, but I want zero part of this. I'm like, I don't want to find hotels. I don't want to do tour. I don't want to talk to tournaments. I don't want to do anything, but that, that I just want to be a hockey dad.
Jamie:So he bounced a lot of things off me during the year and he did fine. I have to tell you. But I don't miss cause you managers out there. I give you guys a lot of credit because you deal with, I think most hockey parents don't understand what the managers actually go through. They just think that like, they keep the team posted on like team snap or like, I don't know.
Jamie:They schedule games here and there. Like the managers have a very hard job.
Scott:I'm sure
Jamie:they earn their free tuition, which they should get. I don't if they do, but they should, but they earn the free tuition for their kid. If that's what they're getting, because it's. It's so you were obviously a head coach, so you come, you come from, so I come from the manager spot of it and the kind of team builder. You come from the other side of it, which is the coach.
Jamie:It's not easy.
Scott:No, no, it's not. And I think, you know, just reflecting on when I was coaching and the managerial responsibilities, certainly this time of year comes up because you're waiting for the fall schedule. First of all, the old organization did not have like a formal spring program. So we would take the fall team after tryouts. We would get our spring practices that come with the team, which is unrelated to any spring program.
Scott:It's the fall team and they have some spring practices, but we wanted the kids to start gelling and start, you know, like getting on the ice together. So we would enter the fall team into spring tournaments.
Jamie:Oh, you would?
Scott:We did. Yeah.
Jamie:That's hard.
Scott:Yeah, we did that.
Jamie:Cause those, those, cause it's hard to take a fall team into a spring hockey tournament because those spring hockey teams are all all star teams.
Scott:Yeah. So we did this was like pre break.
Jamie:How did you guys We
Scott:did you know, the first tournament we ever entered, we won.
Jamie:Boston showdown? Did you?
Scott:Yeah, but it wasn't a super competitive tournament.
Jamie:Oh, okay. So it wasn't a
Scott:It wasn't super competitive, but it's fine. Whatever. But it was a great experience for the kids. Sure. And then we played in a second tournament that spring and then we went to the finals and lost.
Scott:Gotcha. But nonetheless
Jamie:Okay, you guys entered like, okay, got it. Got it, got it,
Scott:got No, but we did enter not last season, the season before, we entered in, in my mind, I'm forgetting which tournaments, but super series tournaments were out in Pittsburgh. Heavy duty ones where there was Toronto Toronto teams.
Jamie:How'd you guys fare in those?
Scott:We did all right. I mean, we certainly didn't win we were, cause we were not an all starts.
Jamie:Yeah. Well, that's what I mean.
Scott:We did play against some like super.
Jamie:All those spring teams are a conglomerate of kids from everywhere. Playing like
Scott:Minnesota, Minnesota, like, you know, select teams. Yeah.
Jamie:Yeah, that's hard.
Scott:It's hard
Jamie:to take those teams and do a tournament like that.
Scott:Yes. But we wanted it
Jamie:for a Unless you're like a super elite team. We did that, but we had a super elite team.
Scott:It's different. Well, listen, our kids were really good too. We fit pretty well, but we were not of the same count. Like we're not a top 10, my hockey rankings team. But that aside, whole point of what I guess I'm trying to call out is that this time of year, there's like a lot of moving pieces.
Scott:You're getting to know a whole new team, families. You're getting all that contact information. You're sending out all these expectation emails. You're talking to tournament directors. You're talking to the organization trying to figure out all these things, ice time.
Scott:I think we were also always asking, can you get us more ice? Get us more ice. I know there's a lot and there's probably a little bit quiet before the storm hits at the end in August. But this time of year seems like it's a managers, like they're in full, full gear.
Jamie:So I would, yes, I would say that managers, if you, if you're doing anything now, you know, tournaments or find good tournaments for your families to go to. Right. Don't you think that's important?
Scott:Absolutely.
Jamie:Yeah. You know, like experience tournaments, like not just like, cause we we've done the things where we've been out. I'm sure you've done them too. When you're out in like the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania, and you're staying at like, I don't know, like a courtyard Marriott in like the middle of nowhere, you know, like, like that's like, listen, I know that money's tight sometimes and like, you know, but, but generally your organization is supposed to give you two or three tournaments. Right.
Jamie:For the most part, depends. It's supposed be built into your tuition ish. Right. Even if you guys need to go and raise. You know, $150 a family to go to like a cool tournament, like try to managers try to pick.
Jamie:Try to pick a cool spot for your knowledge for the kids, for the parents, because the parents are the ones that are footing the bill for all this stuff.
Scott:No doubt.
Jamie:Right. Like, you know, do something fun, like a cool destination. Just don't go to like the middle of nowhere. Like, you know, for you to play hockey, like the Midwest or even out on the West Coast, I mean, go someplace fun.
Scott:Yeah. I think that there's, you know, we, we, until this year, the mindset was always let's go play in tournaments where we're going to play the best competition we could possibly find. And there are some tournaments that those teams just go So we would go to those. So it's not like we were thinking about, and I have something to add to this, which I think is a great pro tip, but we would just go where the best comp was period, end of But what I will say is we had an amazing experience and this was like two years ago now where one of the other teams up in Massachusetts, I went to Boston University undergrad, so I love Boston, shout out to the Terriers, blah, blah, blah.
Jamie:Cool city. City. But
Scott:what we did was we had a weekend, we didn't have any games scheduled, so we connected with a team up in Massachusetts and we said, let's play each other two games. We did one at, again, a Serena, Boston University. We got ice. Awesome. We played.
Jamie:That's what I'm
Scott:talking We played and then we stayed after the game. We went to the locker rooms, not the players locker rooms, but the extra locker rooms. The two teams together, we did like a pizza party. And the families hung out, the kids hung out and then we went to a game afterwards. The next day we went to Baylor.
Scott:Baylor? I'm blanking. But we went to another Hockey? Hockey school. We Baylor up there in Boston?
Scott:Yeah. Honestly, Baylor doesn't sound right,
Jamie:but No,
Scott:know. I forget.
Jamie:But somebody up there, like Holy Cross ish, like that type of stuff?
Scott:It wasn't Holy Cross, but-
Jamie:Something like that up there.
Scott:At the bottom
Jamie:of D1 hockey?
Scott:We went to another D1 hockey school and we played hockey there against the same team. It was like, we had two games over the weekend.
Jamie:Oh, that's cool. Wonder, I'm curious where you I
Scott:have to look it up. Yeah.
Jamie:Get it. I'm curious where you were though, but that's an experience.
Scott:Is something that you can do.
Jamie:Go watch a BU game, play on the ice.
Scott:A %.
Jamie:See, that's a cool spot. That's a cool setup for a manager.
Scott:That's what I'm talking So go to any university that's got D1 hockey.
Jamie:See if
Scott:can get ice there, try to find a team that's nearby. Or even if you're traveling for a little bit, play at that rink, stay for the game. And you can make weekend out of it. That wasn't a tournament though.
Jamie:But
Scott:you can do those things even in lieu of tournaments.
Jamie:Listen, see, that is what I mean for an experience. Totally. Just don't do some like tournament in Bumblefuck, Pennsylvania, you know, go do something. I mean, I remember we played, we played a game at sacred heart at their new rank in Connecticut. We went to, we went up to Albany to, to, was it RIT, Rensselaer or RPR, RPI, Rensselaer Polytech.
Jamie:We played a game there. We played against them. You know, I mean, we, just like you, we went to Boston and we played it. We had a tournament in Boston and we looked it up and BU was playing the U S men's national development program. First game of the season.
Jamie:That was when, Lane Hudson and Macklin Celebrini were there. Yeah. We watched a game against, you know, BU against the U S men's national.
Scott:Yeah.
Jamie:But that's see, those are experiences. That's what I mean. Managers go do something cool. Like we went and saw, we stayed in Downtown Providence for a tournament, you know? And again, you, if you can stay downtown in a city, in my opinion, that is better than staying on the outskirts in some random hole in the wall joint, you know, downtown there's cool places to walk to sports bars.
Jamie:There's just so much downtown when you stay in a city, we stayed in Downtown Providence and we went and saw, the Providence, friars play, UNH. Matter of fact, UNH guys are staying in our hotel.
Scott:No way.
Jamie:Yeah. So, know, like that stuff's cool, but that's an experience for these kids. So go find cool tournaments in cool cities, in my opinion, you know, where you can create an experience, not only for the kids, for the parents who are the ones footing the bills for this stuff.
Scott:No doubt.
Jamie:Right. I mean, listen, we need to enjoy this too, because we're spending all this time and money on it. We might as well do some stuff for the hockey dads and hockey moms, you know, you know, Lake Placid, right? I don't know. Buffalo is cool.
Jamie:Say Downtown Buffalo, stay in Lake Placid. You guys can go in Lake Placid. I know that Lake Placid doesn't do tier one hockey tournaments for some strange reason, but if you guys play tier two, go check out Lake Placid. It's an awesome place to go play hockey. You know, I mean, there's history.
Jamie:The town is cool. You can do anything, go up to new England sports center and play in, you know, the Boston showdown or not the Boston show, the Boston breakout to start the season and go stay, you know, across the street for the new England sports center, which has 10 sheets of ice. And there's a Marriott right across
Scott:the street. Places. I mean, it's massive.
Jamie:Another pro tip for everybody. If you go to new England sports center, okay. You walk in the doors, do not try to find the rink that your kid is playing on from the bottom level. You walk into doing the sports center because it is like a maze. Will get lost.
Jamie:You will get lost in a maze of locker rooms and hallways and rinks. You'll have no idea what rink you're in because the rinks just kind of flow one into the next. So you walk into New England sports center. It has 10 sheets of ice, walk up the stairs, and then look down at the rinks. You'll be able to find your way.
Jamie:No problem. So pro tip, do not try to, to try to access the rinks from the lower levels. Go upstairs.
Scott:Dude. So just to, just to correct myself, Babson College.
Jamie:Oh, okay.
Scott:Definitely not Baylor.
Jamie:You guys played on the rice?
Scott:Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, I know it was awesome.
Jamie:Yeah. That's an experience though.
Scott:Just wanted to correct my
Jamie:But that's an experience. Go somewhere where you can go play somewhere and try to go to like an NHL game, try to go to a college game. Wherever we go, We'd look up what local D one colleges are in the area. We've been to tons of games.
Scott:College hockey is great.
Jamie:It's awesome. You know, so that's, that's, that's my, listen, I know managers is diff it's difficult to find stuff these days. If you don't have to do a stay and play, I think you should try to find really cool tournaments to go to, even if you need to raise money, like $150 per family ish, you know, give or take. And if some parents, you know, can't do it, other parents can get together and they can finance the other parent, put them on scholarship. It's not a lot of money.
Jamie:You know, we spend enough money in this game already, you know, a couple more dollars here and there just to have a, you know, a tournament paid for, for your, for your kids. And it creates, it creates memories.
Scott:Yeah, no, it totally does. And to that end, I think there was one season we, we did, we collected extra cash to go to another tournament. So the point is just, I mean, look, I don't want to minimize the cost of the sport. That said, if it's within reach and there's a good experience that families are considering or want to do, there's nothing necessary. Save for the schedule and having a free weekend, that's also what plays into it.
Scott:There's no reason why you can't seek out an awesome experience. Managers. And the truth is that's what the kids are going to remember.
Jamie:They are not going to know if they won or lost the They're not going to have any idea whether they won or lost. All they're going to remember is them kicking around a hotel, playing knee hockey with their buddies.
Scott:Totally.
Jamie:Right. And managers speaking about hotels, do not pick a shithole hotel.
Scott:You know, that sounds like such obvious advice, but it happens time and time I
Jamie:will say one thing with the Rockets, we never stayed in a shithole. Well, were really good about that. I mean, really good.
Scott:That's awesome. Yes. Look,
Jamie:I've stayed in some shitty hotels.
Scott:Likewise. And the thing that's so frustrating is those stay to play situations where we are at a situation where it was stay to play. There was a miscommunication between the organization and our manager. The tournament director never got our check or whatever, or we never got the email saying whatever. And then we had to take the scraps.
Scott:And so we stayed in some place that was like horrible.
Jamie:So bad. That's like when you guys went up to Buffalo and you stayed by like the airport.
Scott:But the hotel wasn't bad.
Jamie:No, no, that's fine. You're in the middle of nowhere.
Scott:Okay. That's I don't disagree with that. I don't disagree. I will say
Jamie:forty minutes from every rink.
Scott:I would rather be, I would rather be in the middle of nowhere in a good hotel than in the middle of it all in a shitty hotel.
Jamie:Fine. But if you stay generally, if you stay in a downtown area of a city, it's really hard to go wrong.
Scott:No. That's fair.
Jamie:Yeah.
Scott:That's fair. And the only other thing I'll throw out there is that, like, we we have young kids. It's not like that we were staying look, we weren't staying up late. The kids weren't either. So like not being in the middle of downtown wasn't necessarily a Right.
Scott:Anyway.
Jamie:Just managers, please try not to stay in a shithole. I mean, that's not a good situation.
Scott:No. And like, okay, so fine. So that's, I mean, okay. So don't stay in a shithole. Yeah.
Scott:Got that check, but like, what are some of the things that you did to like, kind of vet out?
Jamie:Staying for in a shithole? Yeah. So we would stay in major cities. We would, we would stay for the most part in major cities or we would, or we would. All right.
Jamie:So number one, you go on trip advisor. Okay.
Scott:Yeah. So this what I want
Jamie:to know. You, and you Google, you Google earth it and you, you literally can, you put yourself on the street level and you go up and down the blocks and you see what's in the area. You'll know really quickly if what kind of an area you're in really quickly.
Scott:Yeah.
Jamie:I mean, and again, TripAdvisor sometimes can get a little dicey, but for the most part, it's hard to go wrong. I'm going to tell you a story. Okay. And we'll end our episode on my story. All right.
Jamie:So the team that Dom started playing for last year, the new team, I felt, I felt really shitty doing this as a, as a hockey parent. So we were doing a tournament in Utica.
Scott:Okay.
Jamie:Okay. And I have to tell you, I was, I was, I w I'm like, oh my cool, let's go play hockey in Utica. Right. That was, that was my main thinking. It was one of the coolest tournaments I'd been to.
Jamie:Because the rink in downtown Utica is awesome, by the way.
Scott:Yeah. Sick.
Jamie:Neither. Until I went, the place was awesome. I was really impressed, like shockingly impressed. Was not expecting it. Very impressed.
Jamie:So, so our manager brand new this year picks, a hotel outside of like Downtown Utica. Now Utica is a, is a depressed it's not totally, but it's not what it used to be. Okay. But the downtown still has like a lively downtown. Right?
Jamie:So I see this hotel that this, that our manager picked. It did not look good. Like I, I
Scott:mean, like you went online and you, you did your,
Jamie:it did not look good. It did not Scott. This did not look
Scott:good. Yeah,
Jamie:this was like I told you before, this was a, a motel, like a drive up motel where the doors on the exterior that they glassed in.
Scott:Okay. Been, been, been to one of those.
Jamie:Yeah, me too. You know, me too. But the one I was at was not this bad. So, so this, this one was not, it was not, it was not a good situation. Okay.
Jamie:So again, and I felt really shitty about this because here Dom is a brand new player on this team and some of you hockey pitts may be like, wow, he's a real dick. It's it's possible. I mean, this was, this, I mean, it's, this was not, but I wasn't wrong. So, so, so I looked at this hotel, I looked at my wife and I go, yeah, no, we're not staying here. So we stayed in, Downtown Utica, which was the old hotel Utica.
Jamie:It was literally right across the street from the rink. I kid you not when I say we walked across the street to get to the rink. Okay. They stayed kind of outside town a little bit. The place that they stayed was, was not a good situation.
Jamie:I brought Dominic there. So I didn't want Dominic to miss out being with the team.
Scott:So I felt perfect. So
Jamie:I didn't want him to miss out because that was bothering me that I didn't want him to miss out hanging out with the new kids. I didn't want them to think that we thought we were better than them because I didn't, but I, I know hotels from doing this for a while, you know, and managing and doing it, picking hotels. So I know what is, and what is not a good hotel.
Scott:A really shitty hotel can really ruin the like weekend.
Jamie:No, a % or make for really crazy stories.
Scott:Yeah.
Jamie:So, so I, so I, so I brought Dominic around to the hotel to hang out. Okay. You walk in this place, just look at the chick behind the counter and you're like, okay. You know, that was one thing. Then you kind of bend around to like the lobby and the lobby was fine.
Jamie:But like, it was just not a good situation.
Scott:I think you were telling me like molds, like missing ceiling tiles, maybe
Jamie:the kids are playing like knee hockey on, on like a, I'm pretty sure the vending machine was leaking and they're like, they're all like playing knee hockey and their pants are like soaked in this like moldy water. Like the back door to the place was wide open. Like anybody could have walked in, you know, the people outside of the area were a little seedy. Like it was not a good situation. Like it was just not, you know, like I know this one mom, she said that she would literally sleep with like stuff pushed up against the front door of the room.
Jamie:Slept fully
Scott:clothed by the That's next level.
Jamie:Yeah. Fully clothed, like fully clothed she slept.
Scott:Right. Like on one hand
Jamie:She told her kid not to take his socks off in the room. My God. Because she'd want his bare feet touching the Oh,
Scott:I can only imagine what those like bathrooms are probably like too. And it's not even that you're necessarily in the hotel that much. Sometimes your schedule is like you're just out all day and you're going home to sleep, but you're exhausted. You want your kids to get a good night's sleep. And if you're worried about who's gonna come in the hotel or if you're going to catch like something from, you know, mold or bedbugs or whatever, it's like, that's Scott, it was bad.
Scott:It's not ideal.
Jamie:It was, it w it was not good. It was not a good situation. You know, so, so we, again, I felt shitty. I felt shitty staying in this other hotel because we did not stay with the team. I did.
Jamie:I felt like a total dick. I'm not going to lie to you. You know, but at the end of the day, I'm glad I did it because I did not make the wrong choice. Yeah. You know, so managers, I guess that's the kind of lesson do not stay or try not to stay in a shitty hotel.
Scott:Yeah. And, and, and to that end, if it is a state of play, there are, there are oftentimes, better little, hotels. So as a manager, you probably want to be super on top of like communicating. You want to be early.
Jamie:So you
Scott:get, you know, you're getting the,
Jamie:don't want to get shut out of the best hotels.
Scott:Yes. No doubt. No
Jamie:doubt. Like in Utica and in Buffalo, I remember we got shut out of Lee Com Harbor Center, the Marriott downtown, in Buffalo. And we had, we wound up staying again. We stayed downtown at like a, I don't know, Holiday Inn Express Suites or something like that, which actually was fine because it was downtown.
Scott:Yeah. No, I know what you're saying.
Jamie:Normally if you stay downtown in a place, it's hard to go wrong. When you start staying on the outskirts,
Scott:you can run into problems. Yeah. No doubt. So there you go.
Jamie:So managers, please don't pick shitty hotels.
Scott:Listen, sometimes that's easier said than done or not.
Jamie:We were at another one down in South Jersey. We tried to stay on the, at the Marriott at Rowan college, which is the general one of the only places to stay when you're playing down South in South Jersey or on the Philly area. So, It was like, it was like, it was like two, three days after a really nasty storm came through. And again, we got shut out of the Marriott in Glassboro. Okay.
Jamie:We walk into this hotel. First of all, there was a wedding there that weekend. So you, you pull up to the hotel. And when I say that everybody was smoking right outside in the parking lot, walking into the main doors of the hotel, like 40 people out there. Yeah.
Jamie:Dom's like, dad, what's that smell? I'm like, nothing. Come on, bud. Let's go.
Scott:Are you smoking cigarettes
Jamie:or smoking weed? No weed. Oh yes. So that, so there was, so that was, it was a huge wedding there that weekend. And then you walk into the place and every hallway from in Levels 1, it was a three story place Levels 1 And 2.
Jamie:There were, humidifiers in every hallway because there was water leaking from the ceiling. Cause they just had a major storm, like major storm call it like Tuesday. We were there Friday night. There were crickets in the air conditioning vents. You're you cannot sleep because crickets are going off in the air conditioning vents
Scott:and the hotel stayed open.
Jamie:So first of all, yeah, they did. So Nancy's like, Jamie, I'm, I'm not sure we're, they all stuck us. You know, when you're staying with a team, they all stick in the same hallway.
Scott:So you're going to call
Jamie:us cash. You go out to cash in hallway. Nancy's like, Nancy's like, Jamie, I'm not staying on Floor 1. I'm not staying on Floor 2. So we stayed on Floor 3.
Jamie:So all the water is dripping down from us.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:So, but people had water running down their walls in their rooms, you know?
Scott:Well, you know, you say this like this is what happened to to us is that we got to a hotel and it was total this past season, it was total like the the the Ground Floor lobby reception
Jamie:Just a mess?
Scott:Meeting area. No, it was all under construction.
Jamie:Oh, I've been in those.
Scott:That's And no one broadcasted that. And I'm not saying from our end, I mean, hotel didn't even have
Jamie:They should
Scott:have mentioned that, yes. Okay, but you can't trust anybody. So as a manager, you probably also wanna ask if there's any scheduled renovations, if there's any construction. That's true.
Jamie:Good Are
Scott:all the facilities available? Yes. Your amenities.
Jamie:Yeah.
Scott:Exactly.
Jamie:Yeah. You shouldn't be swimming in tournament weekends anyway. We'll get into that another time. Only if you lose and you're not gonna be in the finals, you go swimming. We'll go well, I have a story about Vegas at the Kings of Vegas pre break tournament about that.
Jamie:We'll we'll touch on that next time.
Scott:Active recovery. Yes. This is active recovery.
Jamie:You generally don't wanna swim and play a hockey tournament. You know? As long as you're not worried about winning the tournament, I guess, then it doesn't matter. But, but, yeah, that's another story. But but you make a very good point.
Jamie:You know, make sure you're early, make sure you're make sure you ask questions in the hotel, and call and try to get a room block. Normally it's a little cheaper, a little cheaper. And you'll kind of secure stuff for your, for your families. So I hope that was helpful to everybody. This was fun, man.
Scott:Always, always a pleasure. Yes.
Jamie:So I will see you later and, catch you on episode eight, bud. You.