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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, everybody. Welcome back to the latest episode number 41 of the Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast, the unfiltered podcast for hockey parents. No politics, no sugarcoating, just real hockey talk for parents in the trenches.
Jamie:Did you just f that up? I did. You did?
Scott:I did.
Speaker 3:But it's okay. Go with it.
Scott:It's just real Nobody would
Speaker 3:have known unless I exactly.
Scott:For hockey parents in the trenches.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. It's it's listen.
Speaker 3:It's it's all good.
Scott:It happens.
Speaker 3:It does.
Scott:Mistakes. They do happen.
Speaker 3:And you roll them
Scott:allowed when my kids playing hockey and they're on the ice. They're not allowed to make mistakes.
Speaker 3:Isn't it funny how true that is?
Jamie:That is such a true statement.
Scott:Do as I say not as I do, man. Come on.
Speaker 3:Isn't it awful? That's such a bad thing for a parent to say, but
Jamie:Which part? Both. All of
Speaker 3:it. Everything.
Scott:Anyway, so there it is. I made a mistake.
Speaker 3:No. Listen. It's all good. What's going on?
Scott:Yeah, man. Not a whole lot.
Speaker 3:Starting
Scott:a new, a new job this week. So, that's got me, on a new schedule, which I'm still adjusting to, but all is Nice. So that's new. Also Throwing a little
Speaker 3:wrench into our, into our, our interviews. That's okay.
Scott:Well, yes. Yeah. I mean, ultimately it's it's
Speaker 3:It's not a bad thing.
Scott:No, but nothing's nothing's changed on or doesn't matter. Maybe it
Speaker 3:has. No, it hasn't.
Scott:Oh, yeah. I'm sure
Speaker 3:it will. Just logistically, we just need to figure some other things out.
Jamie:Yeah. It's not
Speaker 3:a problem,
Scott:you know? It's good to see
Jamie:you, man.
Scott:I feel like it's been a minute.
Speaker 3:Likewise, buddy. Likewise. How was your weekend?
Scott:Yeah. My weekend was a first. And what is that first? It was Orly took Otto to his showcase, which was I
Jamie:don't know.
Scott:They were the where were they? Revolution Ice?
Jamie:Okay.
Scott:In Pennsylvania. And not that she hasn't taken him before, but I also I was with Noah and she had a super busy schedule. I I I did not even see three of his games. Got it. Out of the four.
Scott:And then I watched Wow. The last one. Okay. So, yeah. So that was that was different.
Speaker 3:Nice, man.
Scott:Yeah. My daughter's cheerleading. She her her town team is going to the Super Bowl of the local
Speaker 3:Super I heard that actually. I was at the skills competition last skills skills skills session last night and I actually got to sit with your lovely wife for an hour and she mentioned that to
Scott:me. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I did know that.
Jamie:I did.
Scott:That was a yeah, that was good. Whatever. But as far as hockey goes, I don't know. Otto, the team did not have a great weekend, I mean, it just continues to be
Speaker 3:He mentioned it to me yesterday, yeah.
Scott:Yeah, tough. The kids are not necessarily gelling.
Speaker 3:Okay, still early, not even Thanksgiving yet.
Scott:No. Listen, it doesn't mean they're not gonna be much better by the end of the season. I just Right. Think I I would have thought by now there would have maybe been a little bit more chemistry there, but
Speaker 3:Okay.
Scott:You know, I think they went one and three on the weekend if if I remember correctly.
Speaker 3:Tough teams?
Scott:I didn't even see three of the games, man. I don't know. I you know, they definitely spotted one team a couple goals, like, off the hop, which never helps.
Speaker 3:That's tough.
Scott:I think so they also have and you you had mentioned your upcoming Dom's upcoming showcase. You have the same schedule. They had 7AM and then 4PM.
Speaker 3:We do have, like yeah. We have a bad schedule.
Scott:So, that was both Saturday and Sunday. And so, it's like they got out late the late ish on Friday, early game Saturday. Then they have the whole day. No pool. No pool.
Scott:Not allowed on this team.
Jamie:Not allowed to go to the pool.
Scott:And maybe you can go, but you can't go in.
Speaker 3:Gotcha. Says the coach or says the parent? Says the coach. Okay.
Scott:Got The pool. But but probably running around playing two hand touch and top golf all afternoon is probably okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Doesn't make any sense.
Scott:No. Not really. But yeah, don't know about that. But anyway
Speaker 3:You know, it's funny. I used to be a real stickler for like no pool. I'm not so sure it matters now.
Scott:Well, look, I will say unnecessary expenditure of energy or an excessive amount of energy expenditure in between games is not great. But I mean, if you're not going to allow pool, then you should really think, I shouldn't allow other things either.
Speaker 3:Yes, I agree with that. I agree
Scott:with that. You know,
Speaker 3:we have
Scott:to that. That's my thought.
Speaker 3:We should do an episode or like a segment on that.
Scott:From a pool? In a hotel? I mean, I
Speaker 3:suppose we could do it from a pool. I meant just I mean, we could. I I meant we should do a segment like, listen, what you're saying right now is not a bad idea. That's not a terrible idea. We should do it from a pool and hotel on a hockey weekend.
Scott:And see how tired we are to record a podcast afterwards. And if we have juice, then the kids should be allowed to do it too.
Speaker 3:That's right. And they should be allowed to do it. No, but we should actually do like a like a myth episode, like dispel the
Scott:myths. Busters.
Speaker 3:Like a myth buster episode. Right? Not the worst idea. I know. I know.
Speaker 3:I'll be here all week.
Scott:I'm going to put on my tinfoil hat and I'm going to figure out all the myths.
Speaker 3:Listen, I mean, it wouldn't be the worst idea, you know, and kind of listen, cool idea though for, right?
Scott:No, I hear you, man.
Speaker 3:You like that?
Scott:Yeah, you know, I think part of what we're talking about right now is just like there is a, there's certain things that probably get singled out and it's not like a, oh, I'm not finding the right words, but like, you know, comparative or substitute activities are like not Yeah. When they're maybe just as much, if not more taxing. Anyway
Speaker 3:I mean,
Scott:Maybe nutrition too. Maybe nutrition too. Orly Orly was mentioning to me that
Speaker 3:Maybe you shouldn't go to McCharles and Birkin while you're away on a right?
Scott:Now, what about Skittles for breakfast? Like, that fall into a positive nutritional plan?
Speaker 3:No.
Scott:No. Doesn't. No. Not not ideal.
Speaker 3:Do you know somebody that eats Skittles for breakfast when they're on a hockey weekend?
Scott:Anecdotally, I understood that there were people, kids eating Skittles for breakfast.
Speaker 3:Got it.
Scott:But then, so here, so hold on for a second. So let's also put this into context. Mythbuster Jamie. I'm listening. So, Skittles, we could probably look at the nutritional facts of a pack of Skittles.
Speaker 3:And Probably then we could probably the
Scott:also look at what a waffle out of the waffle machine with like whole shitload of whipped cream plus plus. Also probably not the calorie count looks like.
Jamie:And like,
Scott:are we really any different?
Jamie:No. I don't think In part.
Speaker 3:One, you're gonna have a massive sugar crash from the other, depending on how much sugar
Scott:You're gonna vomit and have a sugar crash.
Speaker 3:Right. Right.
Scott:Know? Honestly, dude, last season
Jamie:Yeah.
Scott:The waffles that some of these kids would make at like whatever hotel, like the amount of whipped cream and nonsense that went on top, I was I was shocked.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember our Ben DeBlocke episode?
Scott:How could I forget? Exactly.
Speaker 3:Right. I don't remember if we brought up the the waffle the waffle batter guy from the waffle
Scott:batter guy is awesome.
Speaker 3:No idea. All right. So, so I thought we mentioned it on the podcast with Ben, but maybe I'm wrong. So my older one was with us at New England Sports Center. Think we were up there for like the flame showcase.
Speaker 3:The Miniman Flame Showcase in Massachusetts. So we're at the Marriott right across from New England Sports
Scott:Center. That's a sick commute.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Walk right across the street in the rink because not the worst thing in the world. But one morning before one of our games, my older one, Luca turns to Ben and goes, Hey, DeBlockey goes, check this out. And he pointed out a guy that was literally like dispensing the batter from those, you know, from those machines that you're supposed to then pour into the waffle maker.
Speaker 3:Right? Well, he was dispensing the batter into the little cup and just shooting them right down. That is disgusting. Right down the gullet, man.
Scott:Right down the hatch.
Speaker 3:Dude, Luca actually took a video of it. I there's actually a video I saw.
Scott:Can we post that? Sure. Why not? We should.
Speaker 3:I would.
Jamie:Was gross.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure it was a hockey parent. It might have been. It wasn't one of ours. I can tell you that. But yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So shooting waffle batter, raw waffle batter.
Scott:Gnarly. Gnarly.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I see what you're saying. The difference between a bag of Skittles and one of those waffles. I'm not a nutritionist, but my guess is they're probably both not the greatest for you.
Scott:No. No. You could eat equally as poor at one of those, you know, breakfast buffet situations as you could at like convenience store candy counter.
Speaker 3:You're not wrong about that.
Scott:Probably.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah.
Scott:It's true. Yeah. Before we go any further, let's call it partners, right? How is hockey? Crazy ten.
Speaker 3:Crazy ten. You get your gear.
Scott:Oh, holidays are upon us. Yo. Check out Howie's. Get some gear for your kids, for your family, your friends, your loved ones.
Speaker 3:Love it.
Scott:Christmas time is coming.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Scott:What?
Speaker 3:Christmas time is coming.
Jamie:Know, the
Scott:place are out and the facts, man.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Right? I mean, go get your gear, go get your stuff, go stick some stuff under the tree for the boys and girls. Right? That's it.
Speaker 3:You know, but yeah, man, crazy 10. Love Hockey.
Scott:Yeah. And then, oh, Prostride.
Speaker 3:Angelo Surce.
Scott:Angelo Surce. Finally did it. You done did it, sir.
Speaker 3:We did do the interview with Angelo Surce.
Scott:You finally recorded it. Came through.
Speaker 3:It did. And, let's see. We're not sure when we're gonna re when we're actually gonna drop it in what episode, but it is in the queue along with a couple other people. Yeah.
Scott:Yeah. Know. That was great interview. Looking forward to releasing that. But yeah.
Jamie:That
Scott:was CHD ten, fifteen 10% off.
Speaker 3:10% off. Yeah.
Scott:Yep. 10% off of clinics. Yep. Check it out. Thanksgiving is around the corner.
Scott:Probably might or you might have one in your area, so check them out. Prostride Elite Skating.
Speaker 3:The New Jersey Devils trust him.
Scott:So should you. So should you. You gotta get the scoop on Jack Hughes, brother.
Jamie:Dude. Dude, what
Speaker 3:the started. Like what he's such a bonehead. I mean
Scott:Listen, it was a freak accident. Yeah. A freak accident can happen to anyone, bonehead or non bonehead.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Freak accident. Mhmm. I believe I believe Your audio just got
Scott:yo, your audio just got much louder. Did you change something?
Speaker 3:Actually, I do.
Scott:For the better, whatever.
Speaker 3:Did it? I don't know what I did,
Jamie:but
Speaker 3:I'm glad that it got louder. Nice.
Scott:The universe needed to hear you call Jack Hughes a bonehead at Yes. Full
Speaker 3:Yes. I will believe that that was a freak accident when Jack Hughes plays a full season.
Scott:Okay. Well, listen, he's, you just gotta drink Gato and chill. If anything bad happens, you just gotta drink Gato and chill.
Speaker 3:Oh, feel like I feel like Quinn needs to come here in the worst way to, like, curb his younger brother. I feel like that has to happen. Am I wrong?
Scott:Can you imagine if all three of them were on the same team? That'd be pretty
Speaker 3:I think it's gonna I'm pretty sure it's gonna happen. Pretty Pretty sure it's gonna happen next season because Quinn is a free agent and he is not going to re sign back where he is. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think that's coming.
Scott:Okay. Well, let's, let's hope. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Fingers crossed, man.
Scott:And then athletic performance insight, API. Eric. Yep. All the listeners out there, if you're still thinking mulling over video analytics, data for your team, give them a call or send them an email or fill out the contact form. Whatever you gotta do, check out athleticperformanceinsight.com.
Jamie:Mention crazy hockey games.
Scott:Get in touch, for no other reason, just to learn about the system. That's right. It's a they'll tag tag a game for free, give you a tour of the platform. Super helpful. We're using it for Otto's team.
Scott:Coaches love it. Really helps organize, you know
Speaker 3:That's great.
Scott:You know, clips, you know, you can aggregate all of like yours your breakouts and your zone entries Yeah. And turnovers and you can kinda look at those on a loop. Right? So you can see one after another and you can see patterns. It's awesome.
Scott:So athletic performance insight API, check them out for all of your analytic needs.
Speaker 3:That's right. A $100 value. Right?
Scott:Yep. So just mentioned Crazy Hockey Dads and you get that 10% off. Yep. So those are our partners.
Speaker 3:Nice. Yeah. What else is going on? Hockey wise, other than Jack Hughes being out for two months.
Scott:Well, I, what else hockey wise? My beer league team is off to our worst start ever.
Speaker 3:Are you?
Scott:Ever since I've been a part of the team. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh, for the century. What are you guys?
Scott:Right now? I think we're one in five.
Speaker 3:Yikes.
Scott:Yeah. It's not good. We won the, we won the league, last season, quote unquote season, two seasons per year.
Speaker 3:That's right. You did. You guys like the blue condors or something like that.
Scott:Just Thunderbirds. Get with it, dude.
Speaker 3:Sorry. Thunderbirds. Thunderbirds. Blue though. Right?
Speaker 3:Blue?
Scott:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Right. Because why else would a what other color would a Thunderbird
Scott:be? Only blue.
Speaker 3:It's clearly kind of what
Jamie:I was thinking.
Scott:Anyway. Yeah. So, but no, in all seriousness, hockey wise One
Speaker 3:and five, One and
Scott:five, Dude. And you know what sucks? It sucks when you have a game and you got like, we literally had five skaters. One, not my lap, not this past week,
Jamie:like two
Scott:weeks ago. That sucked. So there's only so much you can do when you got five skaters for the whole game.
Speaker 3:Bud. That's definitely tough.
Jamie:Yeah. You know,
Scott:we're fighting for some players. So in any event, we should, we should come good by the end of the season, but not off to a great start. How about you? How about you? What's up with the dominator defenseman?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we played this past weekend. We had a tough game on Saturday. Didn't go so well. Really got outplayed, you know
Scott:The team at this point. You're talking about you're not talking about Dom specifically. The team
Jamie:at large.
Speaker 3:He he was the the entire team did not wanna show up for whatever reason.
Scott:And was the other team far superior or it was more like they were a little better and we didn't show up like
Speaker 3:they a better and we didn't show up. Listen, we we lost to them like four three, like,
Scott:that's close.
Speaker 3:No. At the beginning of
Scott:the season.
Speaker 3:Yeah. This time I think we lost five three or six four. It was by two.
Scott:That's I mean, that's not
Speaker 3:Yeah. Listen. Listen. It's not a shellacking. It's not.
Speaker 3:But if you would seen the game, it was not as close as
Scott:The score reflected.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Correct. Know, it it was definitely not, you know. What was Ducks plus minus?
Speaker 3:You know, I don't know actually. He didn't play well. He was he was very out of sorts, you know. He's been out of sorts a lot recently, you know, it's funny.
Scott:Wait, you're talking about pre and post move to defense? Because pre move there was Yeah. Yeah. And then that hasn't necessarily changed.
Speaker 3:Correct. It's he's still not. And he he'll tell you, you know, he says, you know, like I have a hard time, like, you know, handling the hockey puck, you know, so something's something's going on with him. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's like an anxiety thing or something like that.
Speaker 3:But what we're like, you know, remember I I don't remember what episode it was, but it was an episode when I told everybody exactly what happened to Dominic when we were down at the Rockets. Yeah, that seems to be creeping back into the situation.
Scott:Really?
Speaker 3:Yeah. There you so much.
Jamie:Sorry to hear that, dude.
Speaker 3:Well, listen, we gotta figure out what the story is. Now, Nancy and I are not sure what the deal is. On Sunday, he played better.
Jamie:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right? We against a team we should have beaten, like, 10 nothing. I think we won like three nothing.
Scott:That happens, though.
Speaker 3:It does. No question about it. As coach was not happy with with with the overall team, Dominic is, is not thrilled about the position at the moment.
Scott:You
Speaker 3:know, he actually asked mid game to go back to He did.
Scott:And he got a fat, big fat, no.
Speaker 3:Big fat, no. So Dominic is not a happy camper. And it's funny, too, because I remember that we did an episode where I think we did an episode where, you know, your kid got moved from, say, forward to D or D to forward.
Scott:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right. And what how to handle that as a parent. Right. Yeah. So I was definitely on board with this at first.
Speaker 3:I was. I was on board with it at first, but the role is not being clearly defined.
Scott:Well, defense has a pretty specific definition, you're saying within the context of being a defender?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think where Dominic is not happy is, so I think I think the idea was was for him to go play defense and be able to be offensive.
Scott:Oh, and they're
Speaker 3:right. And now all of a sudden that seems to, you know, be getting questioned. You know, Dominic got sacked twice, you know, because of he was pushing the puck too far, you know, so. So he's not
Scott:like he was rushing the puck and he was playing too advanced.
Speaker 3:He was getting offensive, you know, so he's listen. So he's not happy camper. So he's gonna talk to the coach himself though. I told him I said, go. I said, go.
Speaker 3:I said, next time you see him, I said, you go have a conversation with him. And you guys figure it out. Well,
Scott:he's he did. He's okay with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Hey, it was his idea. He knows he knows I'm not going to do it. He knows that's not that's not my he knows that that's not my, you know.
Scott:It's not the way you roll. Right. Gotta handle your business. Right.
Speaker 3:You know? So yeah. So listen.
Scott:Shit.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. Listen, you know, he'll he'll he'll figure it out, you know? But I think it's good that he's handling his own stuff.
Scott:Yeah. I totally agree. Real quick though. It doesn't have
Jamie:to be real
Scott:quick, but you had started talking about how we had addressed when, you know, when players get moved from one position to another. Yeah. Like as a parent.
Speaker 3:Yep. How Absolutely.
Scott:You know, what that's like. I went through it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Sure.
Scott:Otto, that was self inflicted on his part. Yeah. And that worked out for, like, at least two thirds of the season. But my question to you is, you started saying you're on board with it at first and now you're questioning it. What is that is this because of Dom's response to it or likewise that you see the offensive, the fact that he was sat like you're kind of taking issue with that it was like mixed signals or maybe
Speaker 3:So you have a kid learning a new position.
Jamie:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right? Literally learning a new position. He's never played them before, you know? So, you know, instead of sitting him, maybe it's a conversation. Hey, listen, I need you to not rush the puck so much or only in certain situations.
Speaker 3:You know, I would have thought that that would have been a learning.
Scott:I think a teachable moment.
Speaker 3:Teachable moment. Right? As opposed to just, you know, sitting him on the bench.
Scott:Well, did Dom did Dom say that?
Speaker 3:He's very confused.
Scott:Has has there was no conversations leading up to sitting him? Like, did he get warned?
Speaker 3:Do you know? I don't think so.
Scott:Yeah, that's weird.
Speaker 3:I could be wrong, but I don't think listen, he's gonna find out. Gonna talk to this coach and he they'll figure it out and they'll figure it out, which is kinda how I like it. You know?
Scott:Okay.
Speaker 3:But as a parent, you know, it's it's it's an interesting situation.
Scott:Do you feel well, look, it's all very new. We're only talking like a handful of weeks, a handful of games.
Speaker 3:Like Still sample sizes very, very new. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott:You know, and and just to maybe, my my my first thought was like, well, do you are you starting to think, like, he's wasting his time back there if he's not being allowed to see the offensive side of the game? But then, like
Speaker 3:I don't know, Scott.
Scott:My follow-up. I
Speaker 3:can almost guarantee you that my kid is not a stay at home defenseman.
Scott:Okay. Fine. But what my my kind of butt there and not not having seen it, not knowing, not being too aware is that like
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Scott:If I move a kid to defense Mhmm. Like there's a lot to like kinda get used to and reps that need to be put in to kinda learn the defensive side of the game. Yeah. 100%. So if if it's like, listen guy, I don't want you to necessarily rush the puck so much at the moment.
Scott:I need you to focus on these defensive things during the game. Once you get a little more comfortable, like, yeah, we'll take the leash off. I I again, not I don't know if that's the kind of thing that's going on, but yeah, man.
Speaker 3:You know, I don't either. You know what I mean? You know, you know, I'm not I don't we'll see. Listen, like anything else.
Scott:You're going to find out.
Speaker 3:We'll see what happens. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, so awesome. It is what it is.
Scott:Yeah. All right.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, so we had a rough hockey weekend. The team didn't play great either game. Listen, there's a big showcase this weekend. So the team has an opportunity to kind of like,
Scott:Oh shit, you're out of town this weekend. Maybe not. You're gonna pull a Scott and stay home with Luca.
Speaker 3:We'll see. You know, so so the team has the team has a team has four hard games this weekend. So that's like four parental. That's like eight parental meltdowns.
Scott:Like, that's the math on that. It's like fucking dog years.
Speaker 3:I gotta tell you, I've been getting better for some reason as
Scott:Yeah. The gray hairs on your chin tell a different story.
Speaker 3:I know. Seriously. I mean, it's just me being lazy.
Scott:Yeah. Old
Speaker 3:man. Yeah. Know. Right? But, yeah.
Speaker 3:Like, you know, I've been getting better with watching games. I actually don't mind it. Yeah. When you have a blindfold on. No, even if he plays bad, it is what it is.
Speaker 3:Know, like that's kind of where what I'm realizing from all of the interviews we're doing is the the the overarching theme, which I hope that the listeners are getting is, is everybody's on their own path and 13 new hockey doesn't matter. 14 new hockey doesn't matter. 15 new hot, right? Like it doesn't it doesn't matter until they're older, like older, older. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right. And nobody's watching what our kids are doing at this point.
Scott:Right. And even if your kid is not going to be like it, not a standout as long as like every year, I think Doug Christiansen put it like, you know, like compounding, what does he say? Compounding development.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Right.
Scott:That stacks. If you're right. If you're just getting better year after year and you don't quit and you keep with it, like, yeah, your journey might take longer to wherever you're trying to go, whatever.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And that's fine. Right?
Scott:Right. No idea.
Speaker 3:You know, but yeah, so, so watching wise, I'm actually not having an issue.
Jamie:That's good.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. So that's yeah. So listen, hopefully, hope this, again, said, they have four tough games this weekend. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Hopefully they go well. Hopefully the kids show up because kids for some reason didn't want to show up last weekend. Listen, it happens. They're 13. You know?
Speaker 3:Yeah. It is what it is.
Scott:Yeah. One thing I didn't mention, but I also didn't see him with my own eyes yet was that in one of Otto's games, there was a pushing and shoving that led to fist to, like
Speaker 3:Oh, nice.
Scott:Fist swinging.
Speaker 3:Oh, boy.
Scott:Two players got ejected. Yeah. The one of the the top players on the team, he's actually leading the team in scoring
Speaker 3:points. He got tossed for the next game?
Scott:For two games. Yeah. So he didn't play on Sunday. It happened Saturday night. He couldn't play on Sunday.
Speaker 3:He got tossed for two games or one game?
Scott:Well, you know, good question.
Speaker 3:Out of the game he was in and then couldn't play the next one.
Scott:But then so I don't know.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Scott:I it could it could be I was I don't know who told me. Someone said it was for two games, but or it was that he was out for the next game and he wasn't gonna be at the second game on Sunday because he had to go to a soccer game or something. So either way, he wasn't playing the second game on Sunday, whether that was also part of a suspension, I'm not sure. So nonetheless so that that flared up this weekend. So, yeah, I don't know.
Scott:I don't know why I mentioned that other than it was just kind of a thing that the team hasn't experienced yet. First objection, probably Yeah. Not the best choice, but, you know, kids are kids and they lose their temper just like anyone else. Oh my god. Speaking of which, you saw the OHL, that dude on Brampton that took a two handed baseball swing and hit his opponent in the temple.
Speaker 3:I did not see that actually.
Scott:Bro, ski. You gotta So look at there was a Stop it. No. I'm not kidding, dude. I'm not kidding.
Speaker 3:Wait. What happened?
Scott:In the OHL I'm looking
Speaker 3:it up as we speak up.
Scott:Player a player on on a team from Brampton. They were playing, I think, Oshawa or Kitchener.
Speaker 3:Right.
Scott:One of the two. Maybe Oshawa. But nonetheless, they he got body checked behind the goal. Right. And then when he got up, he tracked down the guy that hit him a couple of paces.
Speaker 3:See it right here.
Scott:And then he's two handed swung swung the a stick like a bat and hit the dude in the temple.
Speaker 3:But is the guy alright? Did he hit?
Scott:Yeah. I think he's alright, but like, that's like next level shit. Right?
Speaker 3:Oh my lord.
Scott:Yeah. That was vicious. Right?
Speaker 3:Dude, there's oh my lord. He hit him right across the cheek and then oh. Whew.
Scott:Yeah, man.
Speaker 3:Wow. I mean, please tell me that that guy is out for like
Scott:Life? Probably.
Speaker 3:The remainder of the season. I mean I'm sure
Scott:at least.
Speaker 3:I mean, how old are those kids?
Scott:Juniors. So I don't know if they and and the OHL I think 20? I I think, the youngest you could be is I think 16.
Speaker 3:Right.
Scott:And you're probably there until like you're maybe twenties when you age out.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Scott:Anyway. Wow. That's That was crazy.
Speaker 3:That's pretty vicious, buddy.
Scott:So the other thing that was vicious watching McAvoy
Jamie:slow Oh mo
Speaker 3:my god. Getting Take a puck to the chin. Oh my lord, man. I I mean, like, again, I I I didn't watch the whole video. I just saw the highlight of that.
Speaker 3:But, like, where he where is that puck being shot? Please tell me how he's deflected.
Jamie:Because I I
Speaker 3:don't know. If that's case, that defense should not ever be able to shoot the puck
Scott:But you know what he's know he looked like when
Speaker 3:he was falling over? Outside of the net, it was not even funny.
Scott:Dude, when he was falling over, like, it's like watching slow mo when a boxer Yeah. Gets, like, you know, like
Speaker 3:Like, knockout.
Scott:Takes takes a haymaker to the head and just kinda like got seizes up and just kinda falls over.
Speaker 3:No. Listen. Jesus. It it was it was bad. No question about it.
Scott:Rough sport. Rough sport these these people play.
Speaker 3:I'll say.
Scott:Alright.
Speaker 3:I will say.
Scott:So what do think? You wanna kick it over to our interview?
Speaker 3:Yeah, man. Here we go. You know, this was a very fun interview. This is our boy, Alex Kim from the Anaheim Junior Ducks.
Jamie:Yep.
Speaker 3:Alex had a very interesting path to get to where he got, wouldn't you say Scott?
Scott:Yeah, no doubt. And you know, he
Speaker 3:All over the place.
Scott:All all over the place.
Speaker 3:All over the place. Like, talk about a path, man. This dude had a path.
Scott:But he's like he's like our age. So Yeah. He's born late seventies, early eighties.
Speaker 3:Seventy seventy nines.
Scott:Yeah. Southern California. Yeah. Southern California boy. Yeah.
Scott:So that was already, like, a unique situation. So that's kinda, like, played into, like, why you had to do the traveling, but played center
Speaker 3:Nine
Scott:traditional hot rod. Undersized, five ten, one seventy nine.
Jamie:Yeah. Yeah.
Scott:Stats. Played d one for
Jamie:Couple places.
Scott:University of Miami, Ohio and also Colorado College.
Speaker 3:Colorado College.
Scott:And apparently, his final year, he was a point per game player. Almost nearly a point per game legit. Yeah. No. Totally legit.
Speaker 3:He had
Jamie:a Yeah.
Speaker 3:He was a player, man.
Scott:Yeah. Eleven season professional career. Took him across North America, the AHL, ECHL, Asia, Europe. Europe. Yeah, man.
Scott:Yeah. So he was all
Jamie:over the
Scott:place, and then he's gone on to and then he even said he never took a break. Right? After he was done playing for eleven years, got right into coaching, player development with the Junior Ducks
Speaker 3:while he was playing actually.
Scott:Oh, yeah. That's definite right.
Speaker 3:Right? Totally. No. He yeah. He he's he's been coaching forever, man.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And Now he's and he runs, you know, their academy.
Scott:Well, it's not the Ducks Academy. Isn't it his own academy along with one of
Speaker 3:his I think think so. Yeah. And it's right now.
Scott:It is or is not affiliated with the Ducks?
Speaker 3:I thought it was.
Scott:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:I could be mistaken. Thought it was and he ran it with his buddy.
Scott:Okay. So there
Speaker 3:can actually clarify that, you know.
Scott:Right. But there is a hockey academy that he's a part of over in California. He's he's coaching tier one.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Scott:15 fifteens and sixteens.
Speaker 3:He's coaching his kid too. He's a little
Scott:Just starting coaching his kid. Right? Yeah. Or is, you know, not too far into it.
Speaker 3:Mistaken. Yeah.
Scott:Yeah. A lot going on for that guy. But so if anyone has been in a situation, this guy has.
Speaker 3:Oh my.
Scott:So really looking forward to sharing the interview with everyone.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's a fun interview. He's a he's a fun dude. We actually could have gone for another gazillion hours with Alex.
Scott:Well, I'm sure we'll talk to him again.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Oh, a 100%. We will. We definitely will. But yeah, this was a fun one.
Speaker 3:He's he again, he's it's a he comes from a non traditional area hockey wise and definitely a non traditional type. I mean, the abacus with the harpsichord. I mean, he was like, he had such a cool upbringing. Yeah. Going out to, like, Minnesota was it Minnesota?
Speaker 3:Michigan. Wherever he Michigan. Sorry. Wherever he billeted and then eating rabbit. Oh my god.
Speaker 3:It was it is a
Scott:In medicine.
Speaker 3:Yeah. In medicine. He has some cool stories.
Jamie:So it
Speaker 3:was fun.
Scott:Well, ruin too much there, buddy.
Speaker 3:Sorry. Sorry. My bad. Yeah.
Scott:All right. Yeah. So go ahead.
Speaker 3:Go ahead. No. You can kick it over him.
Scott:Yeah. All good. So, yeah. So we're gonna kick it over to our interview with Alex Kim of the Anaheim Junior Ducks.
Speaker 3:Enjoy everybody. Enjoy. Alright. And we are here with Alex Kim. Alex is with the Junior Anaheim Ducks.
Speaker 3:Alex, man, thanks so much for, taking the time to chat with us today.
Jamie:No. Thanks, James. Scott, appreciate you guys having me. Excited for this and really, intrigued by what you guys are doing and feel that's a very good platform to kinda educate the families and kind of inform them of what's kinda going on within the hockey world. And it's also a great place to vent.
Jamie:Yeah. You know? I think it's, you know, you can't really vent to a coach. Let's just vent on this or let's hear about the other people. It's not just, know, woe is me.
Jamie:Yeah. But it's it's really it's hey, you know what, they're they're going through the same issues or similar issues. And maybe let's just share their perspective.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, it's funny you say that, you know, this kind of developed into like a little bit of like a therapy session for hockey parents, right? Yeah. Like organically. So listen, if we can help out in any way, whether it's information or like value to be like a therapy session, you know, I got to tell you, people love hearing from people like yourself, you know, who are prominent in the hockey space. So with that being said, Alex, why don't you tell us about like your like, how did you start playing?
Speaker 3:Like, let's hear where you started.
Jamie:So I grew up in Southern California and at the age of five, I followed my sister to the ice rink in Norwalk. And she was about five and a half years older and she was figure skating. And during public session, I went out and the general manager, I guess, of the program, just watched me skate and asked my mom if I was interested in playing hockey. And she said, no, it's too dangerous. So, you know, within a week, I kind of negotiated with my mom to, hey, no, do this.
Jamie:I don't know, part of negotiation is my most strong personality, which I still have. I think that's where kind of that that's the starting point of of that personality. And it kinda just kinda just gravitate to playing hockey. And, you know, I was fortunate though to play other sports growing up as well. So I played, NJB.
Jamie:I played AYSL, Little League Baseball. I played, golf. I played for North Orange County Tennis Association. So I did multiple sports, about six or seven different sports growing up, while being able to play the harpsichord, playing the piano, and using an abacus. I yeah.
Jamie:So I and I yeah. I did speed reading as well. So I I took a speed reading class. And this is like before I was like 10. What?
Jamie:So it was a lot of stuff. Yeah. It was, I I culturally, like, Tiger mom. It's real. I think my mom is probably, like, queen Tiger mom.
Jamie:So I she was able to kind of, I guess, expose me to a lot of different things. And so hockey was one of those things that where I kinda took the ball and ran with it. You guys there?
Speaker 3:Did we lose him?
Scott:Not sure it did cut out.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I can't tell. It's funny when he was saying he could probably hear us clearly too, like Ben, you know?
Scott:Oh, it could be.
Speaker 3:Yeah. His internet connection was so good right before we started. Right? Yeah, he'll come back on. But I gotta tell you he what he was saying about like Southern California hockey before before we actually started recording was very cool.
Speaker 3:Like I he'll come back on this
Scott:part
Speaker 3:how they fly everywhere, where how there's no, you you were talking about like, you know, the Northeast and and how they have to get on plates. I mean, he was in South Dakota last weekend. Appreciate it. You know, he'll touch on that when we get him back on. But, yeah, he, you know, I mean, I think Florida is a very similar situation.
Scott:I bet Texas is too.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think you're right about that. Arizona. I was going to say Arizona. I, all those, all those areas, you know, like in Minnesota, they don't have to go anywhere.
Speaker 3:Right. Boston. Yeah. All those teams. We have a bunch of teams around us.
Scott:Yeah. Ohio's dense Ohio, St.
Speaker 3:Louis, right? I don't think there we got you. Yeah. Sorry. Got you now.
Speaker 3:No.
Scott:No worries.
Speaker 3:You were just saying about speed reading in the Abacus.
Scott:Oh, and Alex, if you oh, could just sorry. Just before you keep going, if you could just close, I think you might have more than one tab open with the I just haven't there's a notification on the side saying that
Jamie:Now we're Florida.
Scott:Might have Riverside open in other tabs. If you do, if you could just close any extra ones.
Jamie:How's that?
Scott:Yeah, think we're good.
Jamie:Nice.
Speaker 3:You were saying about speed reading.
Jamie:Yeah. So my mom, she she had me do, you know, assortment of things, from the harpsichord, like piano, speed reading, and kind of exposed me to a little bit of everything. And Wow. Hockey was one of those things where, you know, every sport I I played too, I would bring the sign up sheet on because my mom's English wasn't great. My dad was busy working too.
Jamie:And so I was fortunate to to have a mom that was able to kinda take me everywhere and, you know, my sister and I. And so we just kinda started playing hockey in California. It was so I guess the sport itself was just like an anomaly to have an ice rink in California at the time.
Scott:How far was the rink from home?
Jamie:You know, it was close. It was about maybe ten, fifteen minutes away. Yep. You know? And so, yeah, it's one of those things where you just kinda you gravitated the sport and had to cough.
Jamie:I I wasn't very good in the very beginning, but I I knew I I I enjoyed it, and I started playing it. I began to love it. And, you know, I'd go to the rink sometimes, you
Scott:know,
Jamie:at 05:30 in the morning. Yep. I would wake my parents up. Yeah. And the the director of the hockey program at the time, he just took a liking to me, and he invited me to come out.
Jamie:You know, just like kind of on my own. My parents. That's awesome. Yeah, it was memorably. I mean, we find the Bee Gees and staying a lot.
Scott:That's awesome. Whatever works, man,
Speaker 3:as long as you get the ice time, right?
Jamie:Yeah. 100%. So
Speaker 3:what club was that? Like where, where, what was the name of the club?
Jamie:I was in Norwalk Honduras. So you you see like Norwalk, you're thinking Norwalk, Connecticut sometimes. You know, and they're no, no, not that not that Norwalk. We're from California.
Scott:Nice.
Jamie:Oh, they go, oh, you're from California. Guys play hockey. And you'd hear quite a lot of that. And, you know, you you play for an assortment of teams from like the, Team California to the Wildcats to the Junior Kings. And then, you know, later on, was it was the Junior Ducks for me until I got, you know, 15.
Jamie:And then and then I left home. So you played for an assortment of teams growing up. And, you know, California hockey is much different then, but there's some similarities in terms of, like, your best athletes aren't playing hockey.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:In California, your best athletes are playing sports that are more traditional. Right. So that's kind of the challenges that we face. And, you know, I I kinda look back and I'm like, man, I played all those sports, and I think it did help me as a player. You know, you become a little bit more aware of how your body works, the movements, and and, you know, I see the benefit for that.
Jamie:And I I understand where parents are coming from these days where it's like, well, how do you mix that in? Everything's everything's become full season.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:Even speed reading is full full season. So, yeah. You know, and you're up in California, you know, I think when you at at the onset of it, the teams weren't, you know, very good, but you you you played for your local team and then you had a travel team. And that's kinda how the setup was was. And, you had some really good teams.
Jamie:I think just off our p v two team, we had maybe six or seven division one kids. Wow. Yeah. You know, two NHL draft picks. Wow.
Jamie:Yeah. In the in the in the little little pocket of 79 birth years.
Scott:So Wow. That's that's like that's like uncommon regardless of being in Southern California. No?
Jamie:Yeah. I think so. Regardless, I think it you know, now in coaching, you know, you look at it and if you can move on 25% or have 25% of one of your rosters end up getting to those levels, then it's usually a success rate. Yeah, absolutely. It's very difficult.
Jamie:And with today's landscape, it's, it's obviously much more challenging. So Sure. We'll talk about that later. But, yeah, growing up in California, you you you did that and played for the Junior Kings, played for the Junior Ducks. And, you know, my you look at the sacrifices that my my parents made to to do it.
Jamie:And, you know, we would travel to Fresno. And so for those that, you know, aren't familiar with California, Fresno is like in Central California. A lot of like horticulture farming, you know, it's more of the bit like seems like a Midwest. It's a solid, like, three hours, you know, drive, and we would go just for a practice to Fresno. And then we would go to Lake Arrowhead, which is, like, an hour and a half, two hour drive up the mountain just for practice because just limited availability.
Jamie:Unbelievable. Yeah. And so it it I mean, there's so many memories and, you know, for parents out there or for people who are out there, is my son a deer forward? You know? Know, because I, I mean, I go through that all the time.
Jamie:And I remember when I first started playing, you know, I've seen Norconers were playing Culver City, which was at the time the LA Kings, like practice facility, which is no longer there. But, you know, it was one of my first games and that, you know, my dad didn't really take a really keen interest in the beginning. And and we played, you know, in Culver City and playing defense and, you know, the first period goes by and my mom told me like, hey, your dad's gonna come to this game. And it's like the first game you really kind of came to. And so, in between, you know, periods, I, you know, I, I see my dad kind of stroll in, and he walks in and I go coach, you know, put me at center, dad's here.
Jamie:I want to go score. Yeah. So the first shift I get the puck boom, go down and score.
Scott:Oh, no way.
Speaker 3:That's awesome.
Jamie:Last time I ever played defense. Literally in figuratively. Like, if you ask former teammates, like, Cameron didn't play defense.
Scott:That's amazing.
Jamie:Well, that's So that's I get, that's kinda where I was incepted, I guess, in California where I really began to love it and I did things and, you know, I wanted to make my dad proud and I really, you know, looked at my dad and grateful for what he did and, you know, for a lot of my teammates too with what their parents had to do. Because it takes it takes a village. Right?
Speaker 3:It's Oh, yeah.
Jamie:One player might make it, but but it's off the backs or off the support of that, you know, core group that they had. And I think there's a testament to that to be grateful for it too. So in the journey, you should be grateful. And I'm fortunate because I still I coach with, know, one of my closest friends who we grew up playing together. And our That's cool.
Scott:How nice.
Jamie:Our dads are really close together, and you guys should have him on. He's great. Doug Christensen actually knows him as well.
Speaker 3:Oh, Right on. Okay.
Jamie:Yeah. So Noah Clark's you know, he he he coaches with us and he's been great. You know, it's we were live mates, you know, you know, as p p p p players, and then we both were live mates to college hockey together at Colorado College.
Speaker 3:And then talk about your high school and college career. And when you went away from home, talk about that stuff.
Jamie:Yeah. So at 15, you know, you start to go to the U S USA national camps and back then they didn't have the U S national development team program. Back then they invited, I think, 240, 300 players to St. Cloud, Minnesota. From there, they they picked 40 kids to go to Colorado Springs each year at 16, 17.
Jamie:I was fortunate to make both, to to to make the 40 man for both years. And at one of the camps, one of the coaches from Michigan, you know, reached out to my dad and I was going into to be a 16 year old and he asked, you know, would you be interested in coming to to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan? And my dad said, sure.
Scott:Amazing.
Jamie:And yeah. And we played for the Junior Ducks growing up in like, for about two years prior to leaving. And so it was the first time and I went to the Sault To The Sioux, what they call it, and I lived on the inside. And this is about the time, like, Joe Thornton and Rico Fata were playing for the Sioux Hounds on the other side of the river. And played in Michigan, and it was a great league.
Jamie:You know, you played against Little Caesars, Compuware, and, you know, GPD at the time, the Fraser Falcons. It it was your best league because you played TI down in Chicago and all the Illinois team. I didn't know, though. I had no idea what that was. Right.
Jamie:Coming from California, like, hey. You hear, like, Detroit, you hear all these things. But at the time, I was like, oh, it's okay. Just moving. And I moved by myself though.
Jamie:So that was hard.
Speaker 3:You build it with a family.
Jamie:I did. That was a very first build experience. So like, you know, for, for what it's worth, a lot of families out there that might have had that experience or, are going through that experience or have to go through the experience, you know, past, present, and future. And, you know, that first one was very difficult and it it tests your mental mental fortitude of how, like, you know, when they talk about being mentally strong, it's yeah, within the game, but it's also like the exterior, you know, the environment. And so, it was hard.
Jamie:I went to a school where I didn't know anybody. You had some teammates. It wasn't a problem, but it was a problem. I I was you know, you you normally see, like, you're you're you're talking like Hispanic or you're you're talking African American, you know, within the school and maybe you're talking Asian person. But I was the only token there.
Scott:Wow.
Jamie:Yeah, first day of school, you you you get dropped off and, you know, you remember Dukes of Hazzard?
Scott:Sure.
Jamie:Yeah. We all grew up watching that.
Scott:So Oh, absolutely. Great show. You know, Daisy, my girl.
Jamie:Dixie Flag. And I mean, there are, like, four trucks, like, with, like, flags galore. Oh, yeah. And I'm Really? Dude, where did I just
Speaker 3:What am I getting myself into? Like, what is happening?
Jamie:Yeah. And, you know, for every day, I I hear it every day. Because in in California, grew up going to high school where everything was outdoor. And so you walk towards no, like, enclosed hallway. The hero is enclosed hallway, one way direction.
Jamie:So you'd see the same characters. Like, you'd hear You'd hear this the remarks and the yeah. After two months, I like, okay. Enough is enough, dude. Like, I got in an altercation.
Jamie:I and I grabbed the guy and lift him up to locker. I just say,
Speaker 3:this Set him straight.
Jamie:It's not gonna happen anymore because I didn't choose this. You didn't choose you. Like, let's just let's just get along. K? I look the way I look and you look the way you look.
Jamie:Right. So that that was probably the the the probably the most challenging time. Like, I cried a lot at home, with with, you know, unbeknownst to my parents or my family or even the Bill family. Interesting. Yeah.
Jamie:It was hard.
Scott:And, you
Jamie:know, I always remind myself I'm doing this because, you know, I love the sport and I just wanted to play hockey at the highest level, not knowing what college hockey was, you know, what was gonna be behind in two years, time. So at the time in Michigan, it was great. You know, the Bill family, they were awesome though. Know, they tricked me into eating rabbit. They're like, it tastes just like chicken.
Jamie:No, it's like crock pot, right? Wow, like a stew. Yeah, they leave it there all day. And like, the house mom at the time, she's like, yeah, she leaves a note, a nice little note like, hey, there's food for you afterwards, after school when you get back, all you have to just take it out. Can I take it out?
Jamie:And like, it's around 04:00. She comes home and I'm eating this and I'm like, man, this is really tough. You know, this is really rough. Do I say anything? And I and I asked her, I go, you know, this is rough.
Jamie:My is this supposed to be like, you know, a little tough?
Speaker 3:So chewy?
Jamie:This chicken's really tough, you know, like, I used to be that tough. She goes, you know, it's actually rabbit. So my bill of brother, he hunted. So that was foreign to me too. Interesting.
Jamie:Younger than I was. And he hunted and he caught that rabbit and his rabbit tree. Wow.
Speaker 3:I don't think I've ever had rabbit now that I think about it.
Jamie:Yeah. You know, venison was new to me at the time and it was like venison is it right? And to me, I was like, what's venison? And they're like, deer, I'm like, why don't you just call it deer? It was venison.
Jamie:I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3:that's true. That's
Jamie:a very good point by the way. You wouldn't. You know, what in Rome do is a Roman zoo. Right? Right.
Jamie:I get, I get home one day and like, usually go through the garage And in California, you don't go through, you just go through your front door. Right? Typically, but here it's, you know, wintertime and there's this all this like plastic sheeting, like covering the garage floor and like, I see this blood all over and then
Speaker 3:and then you can't really see. Right? Like,
Jamie:can't really see that because it's, you know, there's another like, I guess, you know, painted light, you know, plastic that you can't see, but you see something hanging. And I might do. What's going on here?
Speaker 3:What am I doing? What has happened to me?
Jamie:A person. And then I can I keep walking? I peek and I'm like, oh, thank God. It's just You're hanging there. Like, that's the first time you see that that too.
Jamie:Right? And so like later that night, there's a pool table downstairs in the basement and we go, you should play pool downstairs with my house brother. It's the house dad, Larry, it's time he he's like, Alex, come downstairs, look at this. You know? And so he opens the refrigerator and it's just like stacks and stacks and stacks of meat.
Jamie:It's like venison sausage, venison burger, venison steak, you know, whatever you want, venison, we got it. And this is what we're eating all winter.
Scott:They were like stocking it. Learned to love venison.
Speaker 3:For the winter. I mean, think about that. They were stocking it.
Jamie:Yeah. Right. Oh
Speaker 3:my goodness.
Jamie:Yeah. At the time, you know, so like that, you know, I mean, I I have so many, stories. I just go for hours and hours, but the I think the reason why I went to the Sioux is because they were protected by Des Moines in the USHL. And that was, I think it was a selling point to my dad, I guess, but my dad didn't even know what the USHL was either. You know, my dad's English was he was fluent, so he understood what's going on.
Jamie:Right. But he just like, do you want to go? I'm like, sure. And like at the time two colleges were calling too at sixteen. And my dad would ask me and then, you know, what do want to do?
Jamie:I'm like, ah, it's too hard of a school.
Speaker 3:Like which schools? Which schools did you knock on?
Jamie:Harvard and Brown and some other Ivies. And so, like, I go and I told my dad at the time, I go, listen. Like, you know, I wanna be good at both. Right? And I'm not confident that I could do be to do to excel in both.
Jamie:So if if I'm gonna play hockey, like, I'm gonna put everything into it and I may fail out of Harvard, you know? You know, if if I go all in, you know, and if I go all in academically, then why did I, you know, why did they bring me there? You know, that was
Speaker 3:Hockey's gonna suck or something
Jamie:like that. It's not a fair deal for them. So Interesting. I wanted to find something where there's a balance, I think. And, ultimately, that's kinda, you know, what led me to to, I guess, turn them down at the time, and then went to Des Moines after the SEAL and played the USHL as as a 17 year old.
Jamie:So
Scott:Yep. Let me just ask you a quick question as you're going through this. So, like, during this progression, they was the original, like, before moving to Michigan, was the was your the idea I'm gonna get into this hockey is gonna take me to college. Or did you have your eyes on the NHL and going pro? Or, like, kinda like, where was your mindset, like, at this step along the way, like, going to college?
Jamie:Individually, I I didn't really think of anything. I yeah. Honestly, like, I think at the time, like, I think Brian DeRoche, he was at Boston University at time. He coached, women's hockey now. And I think he was Jack Parker's assistant coach.
Jamie:And he was he made a speech in Colorado Springs and it was at the top 40 camp. And one of the things he said was was very interesting to me was that he said, you know, hockey is a vehicle and it will take you places. Where it will take you is kind of up to you and, you know, it'll take you to different places. And that framework alone, like, I think it's it's still applicable today. Right?
Scott:Sure.
Jamie:It is a vehicle on whatever your expectations of where you want to be the final destination is kind of up to you. I didn't have a final destination as a player at the time. For me, it was just like, you know, I'm gonna just ride my vehicle as I possibly can because I love I love doing it. Yeah. And it was awesome.
Jamie:So I I really enjoyed it. My I think there wasn't very much college hockey, you know, I guess exposure in California. So, like, one was they used to have a tournament at the Great Western Forum. And I think Michigan State was playing at the time. I think Anson Carter, Kit Miller, I think they went to go watch those guys play, which is really awesome.
Jamie:Yeah. Stevie Sockey was on that team. You know, Michigan State had a powerhouse at the time. And so I remember watching them and then maybe Northern Michigan one time because we knew Eric Lemarque, who played at Northern Michigan because he was, like, a hockey school's instructor. And we watched him in Denver.
Jamie:I think it was I don't wanna say McNichols or it might have been at that arena. But those are the only two college hockey things I thought about or knew about time you did hockey night in Boston.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:You know, around fourteen, fifteen, I did that. And like, I was still really naive to the whole thing.
Scott:Got it.
Jamie:Yeah. I was just like, let me just try to go score as many goals as I can. That's honestly, that's all I thought about. Like, let me let me go score. Yeah.
Jamie:Just just living in
Speaker 3:the moment. No plans for the future. Just kinda like,
Jamie:Which is kinda careless and risky too, when you look at it.
Speaker 3:Also kind of freeing and not pressure, right? I mean, it's two sides of that coin, right?
Jamie:Yeah, but the pressure I think came from within too. Just always wanting to be the best, right? And not realizing at the time, like there is no best. Because it's when you do this for a long period of time, start to understand like there are best, but they're best in terms of like certain rules or categories or facets facets of the game. Right?
Jamie:Like your best offside, you know, power play flank guy is who? You know, it's very specific. Right? Your best net front. It's not gonna be a Vetchkin.
Jamie:Right? You would put somebody else there. You put like a hymen in front, you know, and Eric's an Eck. Right? He'd put him in front.
Jamie:Right. It becomes a little more rule defined. I think that's, you know, a little more, I guess, deeper conversation. But, yeah. So going back to Des Moines, like, that's kinda how it they they said we're we're protected, you know, we're a protected team from Des Moines, for Des Moines.
Jamie:And I'm like, okay, sure. I guess whatever that means. Alright. But you're up there. Yeah.
Jamie:And I played with a lot of guys from Fairbanks, Alaska too. So that that team that in in the Sioux, like, it was kind of a concomitant of different, like, players from everywhere. It was a it's kind of a build a team and go to Des Moines. I try out just kind of a blind tryout. Like, they just invited me to try because I was on their roster or the protected roster.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Right.
Jamie:Not really knowing who I was, and I had a good season and led the team in scoring, but no one really talked to me. And then, Klage Cable, was a captain at the time, played at UA. Great guy. You guys should have him on too. He's unbelievable person, but he was captain.
Jamie:He kinda, like, took a liking to me and told the coach, like, hey. Like, why don't you watch him a little bit more? And, you know, while I was watching, ended up having, like, two goals, two assists. And it's hard because there's, like, 10 teams playing.
Speaker 3:Right.
Jamie:You know, things haven't changed in that regard. I don't wanna say 10, maybe like probably six teams. I felt like there was 10 teams.
Speaker 3:Right.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:It was just an army of kids and like, I'm like, how how are they gonna figure out who's who? I'm like, I know they're gonna figure me out because I know I look
Scott:You have a defining characteristic. Exactly.
Jamie:And so, you know, to some degree, I guess that's like a double edged sword. Right? Like it's, you know, it's, you can use it to your advantage, but you have to, you have to be able to back it up. Right. Right.
Jamie:And I think there's a, you know, a stigma too, like, oh, he must be really good at math. Maybe you'll do my math homework for me. You've kind of roll with the punches and you build a callus to it, you know, and I think that's kind of what happened over the years, but yeah, Des Moines was interesting. The USHL was awesome. Like, you know, I obviously work for the league now, but was fortunate to play there and I went straight from one year of junior hockey right into college hockey.
Speaker 3:With the Miami, Ohio. Is that where you are?
Jamie:With Miami, Ohio. Right. I just turned 18. Know, through that process too, I was looking at like four or five different schools.
Speaker 3:What are those schools? You don't mind
Jamie:There's me a bunch that reached out and I took like, I think I wanna say Ohio State. Miami, Saint Cloud, and then there's a couple more, but then I didn't just take I didn't take those visits. Interesting. Miami was a beautiful campus. You know, like, yeah, the ratio was like five to one.
Jamie:Right. And I see why you went there. I see exactly why you went there.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm telling you, that's the first
Jamie:thing they say
Speaker 3:to you. You. Well, it's a selling point.
Jamie:Right? Well, at the time, that's what they told you. It's a feature, selling feature. I it was, I didn't know, like you come from California and like, you know, women here in like in California, like very attractive, right? You think of like California beaches and you think that that's Hollywood, right?
Jamie:And that's what you're accustomed to. Then you go there and like, wow, where these people come from? Midwest type of people. It's different. Yeah.
Jamie:Kentucky, you know, Central Ohio, like
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah.
Jamie:Right? And it's like, that was like the draw for a lot of the, for the hockey players really at the time. And like, I it wasn't a draw to me, but like they said it to me and I'm like, I just want an opportunity to play. Right. And you know, like, they're gonna, you're gonna play.
Jamie:I'm like, okay, I'll play. Great. Good. Done. And so that was for me.
Jamie:In the campus itself was beautiful. Like the brick, you know, brick and mortar for three, you know, all like Ivy and brick, stories. That's thing. Nothing extended over three stories. I loved it.
Jamie:And it was a college feel. You felt like you were at college. Right. So I did that and, know, scored my, you know, six goals in the first six six games. So one goalie game, you know, as a freshman.
Jamie:So I came out hot.
Speaker 3:Oh, very nice. Very nice.
Jamie:Yeah. And I ran a little trouble at Christmas. I I got, I got suspended. I thought it was Superman. You know?
Jamie:And and years later, people don't realize, like, I didn't, like, you know, implicate that some of my teammates were involved, which they were, but I just didn't, you know. You kept it quiet. Yeah. And I got penalized and it was my draft year. It was it was hard.
Jamie:Oh, jeez. Yeah. And I was doing really well at the time. So, you know, I played another year there at Miami and grateful for the opportunity and the coach left, you know, after my sophomore year. He was leaving, so he's like, hey.
Jamie:You know what? It's you might, you know, wanna reconsider what you wanna do. And, you know, I was fortunate to have, you know, my former junior coach. I I went back to to Des Moines. So I was it was favorable for me to go back.
Jamie:Right? It wasn't like a really huge character thing. It was just like, hey, you know what? There's some something happened. It was just Yeah.
Speaker 3:Made a mistake. You're a young kid. Yeah. Sure.
Jamie:Yeah. And so that's, you know, you make a mistake and Yeah. You kind of move on and, you know, I was fortunate to go back to Des Moines and then it was around Christmas time and I'm like, man, this is this I got no offers. Right? And I'm 20 years old, and I'm a proven college player at the time.
Jamie:You have, good numbers at the collegiate level. It's not like you weren't doing anything. Right. And I was like, maybe I should quit hockey. You know?
Jamie:And and I I loved golf at the time. You know, I was probably a good single handicap at the time, like, probably nine. Right? Eight, nine. And I said, maybe I could do this.
Jamie:And so I started to kinda train a little bit. And I was like, want to go see some people, you know, over over break and maybe she you know, you have a chance at it. You can you have some potential. But then I was like, oh, the only, only the top 150 people in the world make money.
Speaker 3:That is true.
Jamie:Yeah. So I stuck, I stuck with hockey, came back. I mean, after break and then, didn't have anything. It was very nerve wracking too, not to have any offers, you know, after doing two years of it. And you're going back to play junior hockey where, you're playing with players that are all trying to get to, you know, where you just
Speaker 3:To where you were. Yeah. Where you just came from. Sure.
Jamie:So it's a little it is a little mind boggling at the time, you know, and I think that's, you know, it's perplexing as a player because you're the only only one going through it. Right?
Speaker 3:And you lit it up back when you were in Des Moines. I'm looking at your elite prospect right now. You lit it up when you went back to juniors.
Jamie:Everyone thought I was gonna get over a 100.
Speaker 3:I mean, listen, you had a season.
Jamie:But yeah, but they they they like they a lot of my teammates at the time expected a 100 because of the numbers of college hockey and like the numbers after leaving Des Moines. Like the first year I had 25 I had 20 some odd goals as a 17 year old.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Jamie:But yeah. And that you go through that process and then like, you're sitting there in March and nothing's coming. You're like, man, maybe
Speaker 3:this is the end of it. Right.
Jamie:Right. So the adversity starts to kick in and you still you you keep working, and you're in the playoffs and, like, you know, I was four I I got lucky one night. I got four goals and every d one program was in the building. So Oh, wow. Wow.
Jamie:Yeah. After that game, there's a long line. So from there, probably like fifteen, twenty schools and of 40 at the time. So it was a lot. You know, from there I started taking my visits And
Speaker 3:you settled off Colorado? Yeah.
Jamie:I ended up in Colorado, but like I did the whole, like, transfer portal, like before the transfer portal, I was I was one of those players. You know, there's there's a number of us, but there's not a ton. And then, you know, what does it visit? Well, I went on nine of them. I'll tell you.
Jamie:You know, because reality is like, you can only take five, but I cycled back. So it is this the clock started over. Oh, okay. Got it. Yeah.
Jamie:So that was the interesting part. Like, and not many players go through the pathway I took.
Speaker 3:Twice. Yeah.
Scott:On the second time around, like you must've been so relieved after like all these offers started coming in and you're going on visits again. What was the approach the second time around? Was there something in particular that you wanted to make sure of or you were just looking for, you know, something that like, what was like the checklist of things you were looking for in your next school?
Jamie:Well, it was, there are a lot of good schools. So that was the hard part. Right? So BU, Denver, UNH at the time is a powerhouse. You know, Colorado college, state college jumped in again, Ohio state jumped.
Jamie:Like a lot of schools jumped back in Providence, Clarkson, everybody kind of jumped.
Speaker 3:All big time.
Jamie:Yeah. All big time. You know, and like, going as a transfer player, like that was hard because it was, it's like, okay, now you gotta think about, like, it's a short window. Like you may only have, you know, 10 games to prove your worth to the coaching staff. If you don't perform in that 10, like they'll just wash it off clean because they'll just work with a freshman or sophomore.
Jamie:Right. Right. You you you calculate that and they and then you calculate like, okay, pro visibility at that time. So at that time you start to think about like, you know, you should be thinking about that, but I didn't think about that. Right.
Jamie:That's kind of the mishap, you know, with the numbers that I had, they were decent enough, to at least get something in the American league deal right later on.
Speaker 3:Right.
Jamie:But you don't think about that. And yeah, I think for me at the time, it was like, Kate, I can transfer him to school where I used to play for that coach. And one of, and two of my closest childhood friends or teammates are at that school.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's cool.
Jamie:So that was the easiest segue for me. And it was like, it was like a blessing in disguise. And, know, I had another childhood friend that was at UNH. So that's, you know, what drew me to that. And BU was just BU.
Jamie:And then Denver was was in the mix too at the time. Ended up going to Colorado College
Scott:and yeah. That's amazing. And then from the, you know, and, you know, because we do wanna also obviously get to, like, your, you know, your current coaching and and with the youth with the youth program with the Junior Ducks, but, like, you went on to play pro and had a a pretty lengthy career there. Just in terms of that transition, what was that something that looks like you played internationally, you played domestically, you you you've been kinda all over the place. What were some of the highlights from your pro career?
Jamie:Highlights or lowlights, but like wow. I mean, listen, they're all
Scott:learning experiences.
Speaker 3:Yeah. There are
Jamie:a lot of learning experience, but like it's, you know, it's fine. Mason Lowry plays for the Boston Bruins, right? And so I remember little Mason running, like running into the locker room, like as a three year old. Right? Yeah.
Jamie:Like two, three years old. And, you know, you see him later on, I saw him at the USHL fall classic and you know, his dad was our coach at the time and you look back and like, oh my God, like this happened in the East Coast Hockey League. That was my first year. Right. And that's, you know, I don't know about low lights highlight highlights.
Jamie:I think overall, just like it goes back to like what, you know, the mission of playing was to take a vehicle. Right. And take it as far as you can and, see as much as you can. Cause it's a, it's a interesting journey. It's very colorful.
Jamie:There's a lot of things, you know, that you went around the way. Like, I got to live in The UK, you know, in Scotland, you know, pound
Speaker 3:Germany. Right?
Jamie:Yeah. Germany for, like, a minute. You know? That was an interesting year too because I I ended up going to The UK and and Scotland played in Edinburgh.
Speaker 3:I see that.
Jamie:Yeah. It it was I mean, I could go on for stories for that one, but, like, my coach thought, you know, he was a drummer from Nickelback apparently because ended up telling people that at a bar. Oh, that's funny. Mean, we're gonna be on the scene for hours and I'm fine. I love this thing and you guys can edit what you want, but like, you know, we end up winning two games and long story short, like, well, like, hey, do you want to go out coach?
Jamie:No, I'm going to stay home. We see him out at the second bar. Right? And he's there talking to some girls and he ends up going home with them and a couple of guys too. And so it's like, oh, it's harmless.
Jamie:Right? Lo and behold, like next, he told the girls that he was a drummer from Nickelback and they're all like, that's awesome. And so she takes pictures and whatnot. And like, he didn't know that that was like the booster club, like president, like the one big financiers. Right?
Jamie:And they go to Brumpton the next day and like, Hey, dad, guess who I saw. I saw the, you know, I met the protagonist from Nickelback. It's on my phone. See, right. He's like, no, that's the head coach.
Jamie:In The UK, this starts to go around and this is, you know, pro hockey and I guess if you will, right? You know, that's, you know, go to every barn and they're playing Nickelback, like for twenty minute warmup.
Speaker 3:Oh, is that so funny? How great is that?
Jamie:I mean, that's to me, like you can't write a better script. I mean, that's just, you see that happen and going to Korea was awesome. I was just gonna ask you about that.
Speaker 3:What was that like?
Jamie:Well, the whole thing, going overseas though, too, like they say you're an import player and like, as a foreigner, you're like, okay, import, it's just something different. Right? But in Germany, learned like what import means. And they're like, we ended up in a shootout and they're like, Hey, you're going. And I go, I'm not great at shootouts.
Jamie:They're like, you're an import player. And I'm like, yeah, I know I'm an import player. No, you are an important player.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah.
Jamie:Yeah. So I, you know, I'm like, okay, I guess I gotta go. Right. Cause I'm only, you know, one of two import players.
Speaker 3:That's great.
Jamie:And I bury one right in the corner. Right. Just high up in
Speaker 3:the corner.
Jamie:Right. Just completely missing that. And I go, I told you. Oh, you missed. Oh, missed.
Jamie:I'm not good at this thing. I told you. In a breakaway, I'm great, but not in a shootout. Don't give me time, to think too much. So that was, yeah, you learn as an import, but in Korea, that was kind of probably the most memorable outside of San Diego.
Jamie:So San Diego's were awesome, you know, beautiful. But in Korea, I got to learn more about my culture.
Speaker 3:That's cool.
Scott:And do you, did you, you speak the language fluently?
Jamie:I don't. You don't. Okay. But I, I get by now. Okay.
Jamie:You know, it's probably elementary. Some more advanced words, probably a little bit here and there, but it's kind of mixed. And then my wife actually speaks, you know, she from Korea, so it's fluent. Okay. So I When you were
Speaker 3:out there, you couldn't speak the language. Yeah. You Or just minor things.
Jamie:You could read the language. I mean, kids would read, you know, wear, you know, shirts with fuck on it. Right? And like,
Scott:I love to say that.
Jamie:I'm just reading what this Yeah. Can say. We swear. Yeah. It's apparent.
Jamie:It's apparent. No. Korea is very westernized. It's more so than any other, like, I think Asian country that I'd seen. You you had your Burger King.
Jamie:You had like, they try to bring it in and out burger. I don't know if
Scott:you're familiar with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure.
Jamie:But they brought it off for like a day. Right. They did a pop up shop, in McDonald's, everything. But like the the fast food there is actually very good.
Speaker 3:Like Yeah.
Jamie:Yeah. And Japan, the fast food's excellent. Not that I want to eat fast food all the time, but like quality of the fast food is actually that much better. Right. But in Korea, yeah, it was, you know, you look like coffee, you smell like coffee, but you don't taste like coffee.
Jamie:Meaning like I look Korean, I kind of act Korean, but I don't think Korean.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:Right. And that's kinda one of the struggles I had as a player a little bit and, going through the experience and but I really appreciated the whole, like, time that I was there because it was very humbling. Like, I don't know how to speak very well. And like, you know, my dad always said when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Right?
Jamie:So I had to it's not I'm gonna speak English. It's like, I gotta pick up Korean quick. So yeah. That's when the dating the dating game started. So that's the best way.
Scott:Oh, yeah. There you go.
Jamie:You start to kinda like yeah. But it was interesting in Korea because like in Korea, it was very like normal to have like blind dates.
Speaker 3:Right.
Jamie:And so your teammates would like, hey, and it was like, almost like, like the fifth degree of separation, maybe if you will, or the sixth degree of separation. Right? And like first year, like I went on like five or six blind dates and like, and just, you know, nothing just more than coffee, maybe a dinner. That's it. Right.
Jamie:And just to kind of get to know people on, I guess that's, it was part of networking and it's like, there's hit or miss.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Jamie:You know, but one, you know, that ended up in like a, you know, it was it was a hit. Right? And then you learn the language and whatnot, but it you don't know, like, who you're meeting really. You kind of get to see a picture and they tell you more about that person. And like my teammate, you know, set me up.
Jamie:Yeah. So it's very normal. And I was like,
Speaker 3:right. Yeah. Being from The States, we're like, what are we doing Yeah.
Jamie:Sure. I'm in. I'm in. That's Yeah.
Scott:Yeah. Yeah. When they do this though, I mean, they're they're doing it with like sincere intentions or like sometimes they're doing it like they're setting you up with someone that's like a total gag.
Jamie:No. It's sincere. Like, someone that you yeah, you actually, you know, because I was at the age too, right? Like in Korea time, I'm 27, 28. And like, you have to start to think a little bit more like, hey, about life, like that you're gonna be And that's more like the age you get married.
Jamie:Right? Like, okay. So it was a little bit more formal, more more serious, right? It wasn't just like, let's just have fun.
Scott:Right?
Jamie:Got it. More in the notion of like, hey, it's, you found it in different suitors, right? And like different like, you know, personalities, like what would match well and stuff like that. It was it was definitely different. The hockey was different.
Jamie:The teammates were different. Like, I had a lot of young teammates. I still keep in touch with those guys.
Speaker 3:That's cool. That's very cool.
Jamie:I mean, it was so hockey has been very, very great to me in terms of my playing, career. I was fortunate and, you know, I ended up in Austria, you know, my last year, for a time for a little bit too, I
Speaker 3:did get hurt because that was a short stint there. Did you get injured?
Jamie:No, I was just hanging out. Oh, I got you. I was just coaching and I was waiting for an offer. Right. I kind of wasn't waiting for an offer because I was kind of tired.
Jamie:And I'm like, you know what, maybe I want to try to play Tom forty.
Speaker 3:Oh, wow.
Jamie:You know, if I can and, you know, see what I can do with the game. Right. And, you know, it didn't work out that way. And I always said, if I ever got a chance to go to Austria, like I don't care what league, how much money like I'll go.
Speaker 3:You would do it.
Jamie:Yeah. And I was kind of coaching a band double a team at the time was helping out.
Scott:Oh, nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Back in The States, right?
Jamie:Yeah. For the Junior Ducks. Was helping. And then I got an offer to go there.
Speaker 3:Oh, so you were with the Junior Ducks while you were playing too.
Jamie:Well, not necessarily like, yeah. For that hiatus. Right.
Speaker 3:For that one little short stint. Okay.
Jamie:Yeah. Because in the lockout too, think in like an 2005 or four, whenever the lockout was like, I was coaching at LA hockey club too. Yeah. LA hockey club was a powerhouse as I was I was co coach for the sixteen triple a team and fourteen double eighteen.
Speaker 3:Oh, so you've you so you coached. You've been coaching for a long time now.
Jamie:I have like, you know, when I went yeah, I did the LA Kings pro camp. I did, you know, number of things. At that time, was still even their development camps. I was still working, like teaching lessons.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Scott:Wow.
Jamie:Yeah. And running camps because I was always in the back of my head, like, man, I know I'm, you know, I know I'm pretty good, but like, there's guys that are really good and like, this is gonna be hard. And like, I need to have a backup plan and I don't wanna work, a normal, like
Speaker 3:Nine to
Jamie:five. Nine to five, like, part time job at over the summer. Right. Right. I have flexibility.
Jamie:I can, you know, do an hour lesson and then work out and go skate and do what I need to do. Right. Yep. So that's what I was doing. And, you know, I ran some caps and fortunate to work with, like, yeah, the '92 birth year.
Jamie:You know, Matt Niedo, who just played for the pens, right, last year and the year before, like, he was one of my students.
Scott:Wow.
Jamie:Yeah. Emerson Needham and like, you know, I think Trevor Moore used to treat with us. He's with Kings now.
Speaker 3:Right.
Jamie:So '92 birth year, '95 birth year. So I was able to work with those kids in the summer. Amazing. That's cool. So I was doing that and then, you know, kind of playing too.
Jamie:Right. You know, all along. Yeah. Was training in the summertime. So that, that was my job in the summer.
Jamie:Right. Yeah. On a, on an East Coast lead contract, like you're almost paying to play.
Speaker 3:Yes. You have to find some other way to supplement your income somewhere, right? Yeah. Now that makes perfect sense. And and now you're a full time junior Ducks coach, like you said, running the academy.
Speaker 3:So what do you think of the landscape of hockey now? I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are because I'm curious if it's similar to where we are in the Northeast.
Jamie:Yeah. I think it's just everything's on overdrive. I think a lot of people are looking at social media and it's very accessible. From there, you start to form these ideas and opinions and whatnot, right? And in your own little circle, your individual circle, right?
Jamie:Wherever you are in the country or in the world. And you see this and it's constant, right? And it's easy and it's addictive. Like your screen is, you know, flip, flip, flip, slide, whatever you need to do. Like it's at a finger, you know, finger touch away.
Jamie:Right? And because of the accessibility, the parents are compare comparing, I think. You compare a lot. And you're like, what's next? Like, oh my god.
Jamie:Like, he's he's doing this. I gotta do that. Yep. I think social media does play a big part of it because you you're able to see the world now and your counterparts. Right?
Jamie:So it's kind of ramped up to more competitive environment, which is good and bad. I think the landscape itself is very competitive, You know, and sometimes it's the blind leading the blind, unfortunately. Because I think a lot of families too, like and people just in general, and it doesn't have to be hockey, but you we're guilty of this because we form opinions based on opinions or form a mindset based off an opinion, you know, or an experience like of someone else, third party, if that makes any sense.
Scott:No, it totally makes sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Scott:Yeah. Mean, like, you you watch you watch the highlights, you watch the young kids that are playing brick, you're watching the Pee Wee Quebec, you're seeing these skill sessions, you're seeing these like achievements, you know, and then, you know, Jamie and I have talked about it a whole bunch, just like, you know, you talk to parents like, well, what's the fastest way to get my kid to like, to that? And like parents opinion, maybe they have an idea about hockey, maybe they don't, but it's like, they see certain milestones like the be all and end all, you know, and they'll do whatever it takes to kind of get their kid and, you know, to that point. But like sometimes at all costs, you know what I mean? And like, so you see a lot of real overindulgence sometimes.
Scott:And again, it's, and people want to copy that because they think that is what success that's, that's what's going to drive success. And I don't know that that's, that's what was my, kind of my thoughts based on what you just said. I don't know if that, if that is in line with what you were saying.
Jamie:Yeah, it is. I think it's just an alignment of expectations and how you define success. I think that's, I think you have to really start almost work backwards a little bit. You have to understand like, you know, every family is gonna be a little bit different. As boys get a little bit older, like some parents are like, you know, I just want my son to go to a really good school and enjoy the experience and to, you know, go play ACHA and that's fine.
Jamie:Could be like their final destination and that's okay. And you have to be able, and I think that's more on ego, right? People have ego. So it's like, you have to be willing to accept that. Each family's goals are going be a little different.
Jamie:Some families might, you know, there shouldn't be in the NHL, you know, there's, and when they say like, Hey, it's, yeah, you know, it's not about pro hockey. Well, yeah, it is about pro hockey. That's exactly right by the way. And I think you have to just enjoy the experience. I think that's the biggest thing.
Jamie:It is an experience. And why are we in such a rush to your point? Like it's, I think it's going be the same as on the East Coast and the West Coast because spring hockey, that's what, you know, I'm sure I'll see you guys. I'm
Speaker 3:sure. You know, it's funny, Alex, you said something to me when we were on the phone last week talking, you know, you said like, because you just mentioned being in a rush, right? And you I remember you saying something to the effect of, oh, these like you 16 parents are saying like, like you were saying like, what's the rush? They're they're you 16. They have so much time and then you're like, well, they do have so much time, but the time goes quickly.
Speaker 3:Right? Like, you know, it's
Jamie:Yeah, this runway, everyone's on the same runway. There is an expiration date on it. There's a shelf life, right? And this is something that we all know. And because the runway, is long because you look in years, right?
Jamie:And you look at time, but that runway you're flying. You are at light speed. That season goes by so quickly. Those kids, they're 10, now they're 15. You know, so I, I can kind of, I empathize with the parents because I'm a parent now too.
Jamie:You know, my son plays and, I do get FOMO every now and then, and I have to like remind myself or talk to my counterparts or my colleagues, just tell me I'm being crazy. And yesterday I go, am I being crazy for thinking this? Like, yeah, I'm like, dude, come on, can't you see this reason that you're being crazy?
Speaker 3:You fit in perfectly with our podcast. It's perfect.
Jamie:So, know, and it's what is the rush? Like, it's just, you know, at the end of the day, like the crux of it, it's just a sport. And, you know, the hard part is that it's a sport that is not accessible to all. And they say it's hockey for all, but not everyone can afford it.
Speaker 3:Awesome. That's for sure.
Jamie:You know, they don't have the means to do it and or the exposure to do it. And you wish it was a little bit more global, but it's not. And, you know, we work with what we have and, you know, I I think because of the fact that it it is a little bit more of an investment Right. The parents internally think, and it's human nature, well, I'm paying X amount, right? Or I'm doing this, you know, why am I not getting my return?
Scott:Right. They want the return.
Jamie:You know, and the return ice time, you know, cold word ice time, you know? And there's only so much for it to go around, but like, it's almost asinine too. Cause I think about it like, and I'm going to do it too. I'm going to travel to play some good competition, but like when I really break it down, let's just say there's forty five minutes in a game. I think that's how much time is in your kid's games, right?
Scott:Three fifteen minute periods.
Jamie:Three fifteens. There's three fifteen minute periods and your child will play how many minutes of that? Fifteen at the most. Right?
Scott:Right. Probably. Yeah.
Jamie:Fifteens a lot in a forty five minute game.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Jamie:Yeah. Yeah. It is. It's it's probably what it should be. Right?
Jamie:And you play four of those. And this is where my abacus, you know, that's one hour and you and it's over three days and it's one it's only one hour of hockey and you're flying, we're flying.
Scott:Yeah.
Jamie:Right? Well that way and you're driving all that way. Does it make sense? No, it doesn't. And this is why we're on this podcast because it's crazy.
Jamie:Right?
Speaker 3:That's right. Now Minnesota does it in my opinion the right way, right? Because they are all in the same area and they also have a lot larger of a pool of players to choose from. Right. You know, whereas us in the Northeast, we have a pool of players, but not like Minnesota.
Speaker 3:But then I would argue that California probably doesn't have the pool of players that we have here in the Northeast. Right. I kind of look at California where you are like Arizona, Florida, right? I look at you guys have to travel to play, especially to play good competition. Right?
Jamie:Right.
Speaker 3:That's hard. I mean, you know, white Nana in Hackensack for a reason.
Jamie:Why? If you don't know white Nana, you gotta know white Nana.
Speaker 3:You do. They're they're some
Jamie:tasty burgers. That's for sure. Six sliders there. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So good. But like, so you guys have to you guys are forced to travel. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I played the Cal bears up in like New Hampshire.
Jamie:Yeah,
Speaker 3:I want say I mean my kid, right? Like but like, you know, it's I mean, you guys have to travel because you don't have that concentration of ice hockey in Southern California. Right?
Jamie:We do a little bit now. I think it's different from it's not as concentrated. So it's just I think what ends up happening is the cream. It's so I guess, minimal. Right?
Jamie:And so that, you know, mall pocketed players, like, you can't form four teams to play. It's gonna be two teams. Right? And I and I think California, like, you're accustomed to it. You know what you're signing up for because we we were doing it.
Jamie:We were going to Montreal. I was going to Toronto as a kid. Right. So we were accustomed to that. And, you know, I knew that I had to go to Toronto to train.
Jamie:So I would do it, you know, as a player, you know, for two months at a time. Yeah. I would live in Toronto. Yeah. When I was 10, 11, and 12.
Scott:Wow.
Jamie:Yeah. So I did that and, yeah, it's funny. I asked my mom too, and I go, Hey, you know, like I used to be on the ice six hours a day, five days a week, ten minutes breaks in between after the third hour, I'd have an hour lunch break. And I would do this, you know, Monday through Friday and I would ask for more ice at night in Toronto for three more hours. Yeah.
Jamie:Wow. So, and I said,
Speaker 3:the summertime, I'm assuming right summertime.
Scott:Yeah. Was it with Doctor. Schmushkin?
Jamie:I was with, I did six hours of Schmushkin and I did, three hours with EuroCan in Chester.
Scott:That's crazy. That's wild.
Jamie:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's, that's unbelievable. And you, your mom, your dad was working here. Did your mom bring you out there or did you go out there?
Jamie:No. My mom brought me out there and Wow. Yeah. And then, like, we we we had a good friend, Steve Nobredor, who's actually he's out from Connecticut. He's he's a woman's d three coach.
Jamie:Mhmm. Runs a Yale Yale hockey. So you guys know Yale. Right? The Yale one?
Jamie:So he does that. And his mom would take us too. So we go to Boston. I I I would do Paul Vincent's camp, you know, for weeks at a time in Saugus.
Scott:Uh-huh.
Jamie:So I I I was a little more exposed to the more more than than a typical California player at the time. So that's, I think, why Sure. Have a good understanding of, like
Speaker 3:Yeah. The
Jamie:second landscape. But like
Scott:Yeah. As you were saying just about like the, you know, doing the math on like traveling to a tournament and playing four games, reduce that down to an hour, reduce that down to how many like minutes you might have the puck on your stick. Right? Like now as a dad, still, you know, heavily involved with youth coaching, but would your approach for your own kid potentially be any different in terms of like, you know, being, you know, doing it differently with the time that you have, like maybe not going traveling as much at certain ages to just stay more locally and work on skills, for example. Is that, like, what kind of like, how does how does that like factor into like your ideas now as a as a parent?
Jamie:It's hard because if you don't do it, then the next guy will. The next guy might take those kids. Right. So that's where, you know, it becomes challenging. So I try to reduce it.
Jamie:Like, I want them to do maybe two, two things in the spring. Yep. Maximum three. And that's it. Like, you know, I think I did take a different approach.
Jamie:Like, I didn't have my son try out for the Brick team.
Scott:Okay.
Jamie:At all. Whether he was good enough or bad enough, like, it didn't matter. He just didn't do it. I went to I went to one one event, like, two years prior to the RIC just to kinda see what it was like. And Yep.
Jamie:Because I didn't know spring hockey. I only coached older kids. I know what this environment was like, and I just wanted to learn what the environment was like. So I just signed up and, didn't do anything else. So, you know,
Speaker 3:Which one did you go to?
Jamie:I went to the one in Boston, the memorial, I think, memorial not
Speaker 3:the more Boston showdown or
Jamie:the Boston showdown. Think so.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure. At, at new England sports center with the 10 rings.
Jamie:Yeah. With the masters brothers. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So place is sick. Isn't it?
Jamie:It is. And what Peter's doing now next is, is yeah, Pretty, pretty sick. Like he was talking, I would talk to him about it a little bit, when I was out there, but yeah, it kind of, it shed some light onto how like spring hockey worked a little bit and like, you know, I was kind of a traditionalist like, Hey, you know, it's, they should be doing other things. It's gonna be overnight. But I think it's just, it's, it's case to case by case.
Jamie:I think every player is different. And I think if your player just wants to keep playing, let him play. Right. But it's like, if he wants time off or he kinda, it's okay. Let him relax.
Jamie:Cause that runway is long. You know, he might fall.
Speaker 3:But it goes quick.
Jamie:Yeah, it goes quick. Goes.
Speaker 3:That's right. We define print as well.
Jamie:Yeah. And that's it shed some light into spring hockey. So I did a little bit differently and like, he'll do some stuff with his buddies and like his teammates and this summer, like maybe, you know, and I did have him do some randoms with some random kids because I wanted to see how he interacted with other kids. Right. Yeah.
Jamie:And we got, and we got worked. Right. These all star teams and I'm like, you know, we're kind of a put together team. So, yeah, that's kind of how I trade this spring and then this spring it'll be different Cause it's a little more serious now or in terms of like, I just, I use the word serious. We all do.
Jamie:So I understand it. Won't do it now. It's never going to happen. Yes. In the grand scheme of things, it's not, but in our little world, it's serious.
Jamie:Oh man, it's a nonstop. But like, what I'm finding now, like with his team, like we just do local things and we have a couple of like travel tournaments. Next year, like they're gonna play AAA, you know, in California, you only have ten, eight, you don't have 10 AAA where everywhere else in the country seems to have 10 AAA, which I'm not opposed to. I don't care. Like, it's fine.
Jamie:Like label it that.
Speaker 3:It's Yeah. It doesn't matter what you guys are labeled.
Jamie:There's nothing wrong with it. Right? It's like, so, you know, as far as like, how is I don't know what you're doing for your kids, but like, yeah, I mean, kids are, you know, if he wants to watch video, sure. I'll show you some clips. Yep.
Jamie:You know, it's he, he has the access to a lot of things.
Speaker 3:It's yes, he does. That a lot of kids don't know. So You know?
Scott:Yeah, for like for my kid, we have we use Helios and so like after each game, we'll have his shifts. Since he was, I think, a full ice mite and I was coaching, we've had video review, like we've used different yeah, I'm not joking. And and part of the thinking, it
Jamie:I'm not kidding.
Speaker 3:He's joking.
Scott:I'm not
Speaker 3:kidding. So,
Scott:we did.
Speaker 3:We did a whole episode on it.
Scott:We did. We did, like, we would do, like, twenty minutes before, a game. And, you know, part of the thinking was that, like, you know, you see kids and and it really wasn't coming from a place of of being, a lunatic even though it sounds that way. But, like, you know, like, these are kids, they're now playing full ice. The idea of positioning is gonna start coming into play, you know, and so, like you see kids on their screens all the time.
Scott:It's like, guys wanna watch screens? Alright, come. We're gonna watch a screen and you guys can see a little bit of what it looks like when we're saying on the bench, you know, do this. This is what it looks like. Well, you know, we didn't we we didn't go crazy with it, know, but we did show them, it was really just on like mostly breaking out, like how to break out of his zone, where to go, where to be, twenty minutes before a game.
Scott:But yeah, the, like, I would do that with him and this is something I I kinda kinda wanna talk to to you about also, just all the extra stuff. But then for like, for most of the time he's gone to, like once a week, he'll skate before school. And recently this year, once a week when he doesn't have practice on Thursdays, he'll do off ice training. It's like thirty minutes in like a shooting lane with a coach one on one and then do thirty minutes of like conditioning, you know, strength, agility. But, you know, so, and my son just turned 11.
Scott:Okay. The video stuff at home with Helios, like he's starting to ask me for it. And sometimes I'd like, listen, I think it's really important you just watch this thing because we've been talking about it a lot. But from your perspective and, you know, what do you think for the younger age groups? And then obviously you're coaching the older age groups, but the extra stuff, the stuff that doesn't come with like the club tuition, right?
Scott:Like, at what age do you think it's worthwhile? And I get it, every kid is different, you know, like, so like, let's just, that goes without saying, but like from a broader philosophy, like 10 year old is too young to look at video and have extra skating lessons or you think, no, go get after it if that's, if the kid's down with it.
Jamie:More is better. Okay. I, no, I, I, it, then less is more. Said, but it's, that's kind of where it's, it's a fine line. You have to kind of figure out where your child is at.
Jamie:Right? And I would emphasize, like, they say you if you can't skate, you can't play. You can still play, but it's just harder, right, to pull. If you can't pass, you can't play at the highest level. Yeah.
Jamie:Like, in terms of, like, your passing proficiency. So, you know, tidbit there, it's like this, you know, for your for your own son. Right? And both of you guys, like, anytime they have the puck, just think of themselves as a quarterback. Okay.
Jamie:You're Tom Brady, you're the pocket, boom, you're gonna find someone. Right? You're you're always delivering. Right? And I think passing is a very under underestimated skill set, like the passing because it's an art form.
Jamie:And I think that like, if you're going to spend time, if you're asking, like, I think that supplementary work helps. I do it for my kid. Like it's not, yeah, it's not taxing on the body. It's just you're working on touches. You're working on like reps.
Jamie:Yeah. You know, this is for more of the advanced player. Right. And I hopefully all the listeners are out there. Like you guys are diehard fans, right?
Jamie:Like go on. Right. If you're not, you'd think I'm nuts. Right. But like for the elite players, I know, and I don't want to say elite, but like the players a little more further along the curve.
Jamie:Yeah, you can kind of, you can kind of give them little tidbits here and there. Like we show video to our kids too. A 10 year old team. And what we're trying to do is instill like, you know, they showed video at school and in class while they're sure video like on, you know, like Abraham Lincoln.
Speaker 3:Totally. Why not a breakout? You're a power player, penalty kill.
Jamie:You know, I'm like CPA, that's not an accountant. That's change of point of attack.
Speaker 3:So like
Jamie:that's you start to like to build the habits and I think at this age, I'm just I think it's just, you have to know the audience of the kids and it's tough to do a team because when you're doing a team that all, the individuals are going be like minded, they're not going to have the same learning apparatuses. They're not going to retain the same amount and the same amount of time. So when you're talking about on an individual, like the supplementary work, like the skating, you know, everyone thinks that my kid skates a ton. Right. He's only there three days a week.
Jamie:Right. You know, but right now, like he's there Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, You know? And he has his team practice Saturday and, you know, team practices. But I do compound it. But I I let him pick and choose, like, what kind of what session do you wanna go out to?
Jamie:Right. You know, where it's there's other and a lot of people are compounding too. So, like, why not make it a two hour trip instead of a one hour, right?
Speaker 3:More efficient.
Jamie:You have to know what that first hour is and what the second hour is. Yeah. Right. So it's fine, but make sure you're going in planned. And I think this is helpful for anybody because you're, if you're going to do it anyway, you're all crazy.
Jamie:Right. So do it. Let's be efficient about it. Right. Be efficient
Speaker 3:as well. Right. We're going to do it.
Jamie:Yeah. Like I would do your work. You have to look at the workload. Right. And like, you know, do I recommend it doing all the time though?
Jamie:Like, I, I think the skating is very important. You know, come to my hockey camp this summer, Scott James, you guys are more than looking to bring your kids out. Amazing.
Speaker 3:That will be awesome by the way.
Jamie:Watching me on the East Coast too, for a little thing out there.
Speaker 3:Are you where?
Jamie:Yeah. Think we did a cab at Taber. So we did a cab at Taber and like, it was Okay. Like an overnight boarding camp, but it was kinda cool. But that's the time I got out of Houston.
Jamie:But the skating to me, it's imperative that, like, your edge work and you're diligent about it because that's Yeah. It helps you. I mean, it doesn't necessarily gonna make you a great hockey player. Mhmm. But it's gonna allow you to play with good players.
Scott:They'll give you the platform.
Jamie:They'll give you the platform. And from there, let's see what you can learn. Right? And from there, like, you know, weight, strength, strength and conditioning. I think it's fine for kids to do sprints and stuff like that.
Jamie:I would probably encourage like mixing in other sports right while you're doing it too. Because I think it's just, they need some time to decompress. Right. I'm a big fan of MMA or not MMA, but jujitsu. Mhmm.
Jamie:Well, I I you know, my kids
Speaker 3:Both of our kids do it.
Jamie:Yeah. Both my kids do it too. And Yeah. They take golf lessons now too. And
Scott:Oh, nice.
Jamie:So something a little bit different. You you mix it up and they're so young, we don't know what they're gonna Right. Know, we don't
Scott:What's gonna stick? You know, I I actually have my son, he's gotten into, it all started with wanting to learn how to do a standing backflip. And I don't know why he thought that was like the thing that he needed to do, but he has to do that and so he's been, we've been taking him to a gymnastics place nearby and he goes works out with, you know, like one of the coaches there just doing like tumbling and like, you know, other type of like work and he loves mountain biking, you know, so like those are
Speaker 3:Other stuff.
Scott:So like we tried lacrosse, you know, baseball he was never interested in, you know, we've tried a few things, but those are the things that like his gymnastics and and mountain biking are the two things that are sticking with him now. So we're like, yeah, go go do that. Yeah. You know? 100%.
Speaker 3:My kid didn't wanna do anything else other than hockey. We tried lacrosse. It didn't work. We tried baseball. We tried soccer.
Speaker 3:He does Brazilian jiu jitsu, and he plays ice hockey. That's his thing. And he likes to work out.
Jamie:Yeah. I think it depends on what stage they're at and it's not necessarily an age. Right? I think it's where their mindset is at. Like, I know my kid's a little bit further behind, like, terms of like his maturity level feels like where I see another player on his team, their maturity levels, you know, amplified by 10.
Jamie:Right. It seems like, you know, and like there's one that are, negative 10. So I think each player is going to be different. Like each family is going to be different in what you can do. And I think a lot of it too, you can do it at home.
Jamie:Right. Yeah. And I think that's kind of like the, that's where the really good player comes out. It's the one that just does it on their own.
Scott:Like, no one's looking.
Jamie:And I know as dads, we yearn for that.
Scott:Totally.
Jamie:A 100% we do. Please go do it without me having to ask you.
Scott:Let me catch you shooting pucks.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You wanna
Jamie:come home and you wanna see them like cranking shots off swagging and fender jumps and pots in there. Yeah, they're working. You got the meat.
Speaker 3:Dad that you get your
Jamie:your chores light and you're good.
Speaker 3:That's right. You know,
Jamie:that's how we go through it. Like it's for for real. It's it's it's for real. It's every day. It's like it's but why?
Jamie:Like, why did we go through it as dads? And it's just human nature because you wanna see your kids do well. I'm like, but is it their is it your thing or is it their
Speaker 3:thing? Right?
Scott:That's such an important piece. Yeah. Such an important piece because so many it seems, especially with the younger kids that like the parents are just living vicariously through their children, you know, and some are some of it can be pretty obvious and then sometimes it's less obvious and like for myself, you know, that's that's the whole like push pull thing. It's like, you know, my kid doesn't know what he doesn't know and as a parent, I'm here to like help him realize the best version of himself and that's gonna be to help push him beyond what he would probably do on his own. But when when am I doing it for like for my reasons or for like his best interest and you know, it's it you know, the number of times I go back and forth being like, just back off.
Scott:Oh, no. No. I gotta push. No. Just back off.
Scott:No. No. No. Push. You know, and that's like every week.
Scott:It's like, Oh my God, I'm exhausted. Scott
Speaker 3:seesaw it's a lot like that. Yes.
Scott:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3:That is true. It's like you think, you know, and you're like, no, no, I gotta put my foot down on the gas pedal. Like, no, no, I'll get my foot down by the gas pedal.
Jamie:Yeah. Yeah. It's hard. Like I am now I'm coaching my kid too. Like I'm assistant.
Jamie:And you know, my good colleague and my one of my best friends, Noah Clark, he's coaching it. I mean, it's hard. It's dealing with that. Like
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah.
Jamie:When you and people hear hard, it's like, it's hard in the the normal like, I guess the prereqs of it being hard is that, like, you have to deal with your kid and, you know, the ice time and this and that. Right? And make sure you're teaching to other kids, which I feel like I am. Yeah. The hard part is, like, the relationship that he and I have.
Jamie:Mhmm. Right? And then parents kinda gay getting to see me in my workplace and how I respond to my kid in my workplace.
Scott:Yeah.
Jamie:With their kids in my workplace. Right. And that's stressful. And like every decision you make, like, it doesn't really matter. It's like, well, he gets it well, it's because it's Alex.
Jamie:Right.
Scott:And like, what are the optics?
Jamie:Yeah. And no matter what I do and however I flip it, like it's always going to be, there's gonna be a hater. Right. Yeah. And plural plural plural.
Jamie:Yes. No question about it. Yeah. And that that's what I have to deal with as a dad and being a coach and, within the organization and, yeah, having an academy too. Right?
Jamie:That's, yeah. We we have a lot of ice and we train a lot of players and, you know, kind of, you know, things are a little bit under microscope to some degree.
Speaker 3:Those academies are popping up everywhere. Do you guys do ice then school? Is that how it works?
Jamie:We do school that ice. School and ice.
Scott:And what's what's the name of the academy just so our listeners?
Jamie:Optimum Hockey Academy.
Scott:Optimum Hockey and where in California?
Jamie:It's in Irvine, California. Awesome. And the,
Scott:and so as far as the academy goes, what, what age group is it for? Is it what, when is it, what's the youngest, what's the oldest kid you're going have there?
Jamie:So our academy is different too. Cause like we offer like after school programming too. So we have to like, yeah, kids that go to traditional school and kids that wanna do full time school. So it's typically the grades five to 12.
Scott:Five to 12. Okay. Wow.
Speaker 3:Have through high school. Got it.
Jamie:Yeah. And we have figure skaters at the academy now this year as well. Okay.
Speaker 3:You do both hockey and figure skating. How many kids do you have total in the school right now?
Jamie:Probably around 30. So that
Speaker 3:sounds about right. That doesn't surprise me.
Scott:We were at
Jamie:75 and then we, we downsized everything like staff. I just, it was a lot and I don't think we were ready for it. Right.
Speaker 3:Do you, do you, do you guys have, is it like online schooling that you guys bring in or do you guys have teachers in the building?
Jamie:So we partner with the charter school, which is online, but we bring in teachers.
Speaker 3:Very cool.
Scott:Amazing.
Speaker 3:Nice. My son did the X Hockey Academy out of Bridgewater for the Rockets from fourth grade through seventh. And then this year I took him closer to home and doing something a little different. Still an Academy, but it's called Parisi Academy. It's not focused toward ice hockey.
Speaker 3:It's focused toward like athletic training, right? You know, but very similar. Yeah, they're the the non traditional schools, in my opinion, are popping up all over the place these days. Right?
Jamie:They are. Yeah. And I think this is more prevalent anyway with the school system the way it is. I think it's
Speaker 3:absolutely.
Jamie:Yeah. Running for alternatives. So
Speaker 3:Correct. I agree with you.
Jamie:Yeah. I, yeah, I wonder too, like, what you know, why are we going through all this, like, as parents and, you know, people within the hockey world, like, you know, your expectations, James, might be different from mine for your kid. Right? And Scott, you know, not even so much the kid. Right?
Jamie:It's the expectations from, like, doing this. Right? And the experience. You know, and I look back and like, you know, I always go back and because history has a tendency to repeat itself and there's good things to learn from history, although it's, you know, that's in the past. I just remember, like, when my dad and I went through it, like, I don't really remember any the games.
Jamie:Yeah. I remember like the food we ate. Because I love food and I love white
Scott:manners.
Speaker 3:If you have
Jamie:any good diners out there, let me know.
Speaker 3:Alright. Will do.
Jamie:Well, it's like just the memories and like the teammates that you you kinda, you know, got, you know, got to know along the way, the relationships that you've built, that you forged over the years. And, you know, if you're good, you're good and you kind of move on. Kind of works itself out. Like, I think when you look back, but now that I'm going through it now as a, as a coach, Without, without my kid, it was kind of the same thing. It's just like, it kind of works itself out like the good or the good, but those players did invest a lot of time into their game.
Jamie:Sure. I will, I will tell you that, you know, to your point, Scott, like you're asking like, what's too much. And at 10, those kids were skating a lot, Yeah. About five, six, seven, eight hours a day, ten hours a day, not a day, but like a week.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Jamie:Right. Yeah. Ten, ten to 12 a week. And I hear a lot of parents talking about like, did you hit the ten hour mark this week? I'm like, Like there's a mark out there?
Jamie:Right. Yeah. I'm like, I find myself, you know, did he hit ten hour? Did he hit ten hours this week?
Scott:Right. Right.
Jamie:So it It's changed a little bit in that regard, but, like, you know, ultimately the good players kinda they find their way. And, yeah, I think that's how it'll work. But now with the landscape changing, I I it's sudden you're going to have to go to the library today.
Speaker 3:Right. Exactly.
Jamie:So we
Speaker 3:could we could literally go with you for hours and hours and hours. So we have to kind of wrap it up a little bit. But is there anything you want to leave like our parents with? You know, something that like, I don't know, a nugget of wisdom, you know, from you and we're going to have to have you on again because this is a phenomenal conversation. But is there anything you'd like to leave our parents with that maybe, you know, they should know before you get offered us?
Speaker 3:Not to put you on the spot.
Jamie:It's it's it's very simple. Right? I to me, even in California with the weather being, you know, notably as nice as it is. Oh, yeah. You have bad weather too.
Jamie:Right. You have good weather, but you get through it. Right. And it's like day to day. And I think that's ultimately, I mean, we're not in dire straits.
Jamie:So it's like, let's be grateful for, for the moment that we have with our children. Let's be grateful for the air that we breathe. Right? Like the simple things to be grateful for. I think ultimately, like, we lose sight of what we're what that is, in the midst of like chasing something and what are we chasing?
Speaker 3:That's true.
Jamie:Right? You're chasing greatness. Like for what? Right? It's what, what is greatness to your child?
Jamie:And have you ever asked him, what does it mean to be great? Right. It could have nothing to do with sport, you know? And I think that word great is a great thing to have because you have to be grateful too, to be great. I think it works hand in hand.
Jamie:You know, ultimately, like, I think we lose sight of that as as parents, as coaches, you know, as parents, it's hard. The, for all the parents out there or the dads or whatever moms were resisting, by the way, Crazy Hockey Mom is coming up next.
Speaker 3:So it kind of all encompasses. You're not wrong about that.
Jamie:Well, for all the parents out there, like it's, you know, you're in a vehicle, just enjoy it. You know, it might rain. It might, your car might break down. It might be smooth sailing, but you know, you're in your vehicle, enjoy your vehicle, be grateful for your vehicle and like, yeah, enjoy the journey because it's, you know, something that it's gonna create memories that are good and bad and memorable. Yeah.
Jamie:But enjoy it and be thankful for it because you only get to do this once.
Scott:So true.
Jamie:So true.
Speaker 3:Alex, man, this was awesome. Thank you so much for
Scott:hanging out with us. Alex, this is great.
Jamie:Well, thanks, guys. Sorry. I went through so many rabbit holes.
Scott:No, man. No. No.
Speaker 3:Our our
Jamie:only way to pick up more, though. Like, we gotta do this again. Like,
Scott:will 100% do it again.
Jamie:Because I don't think we, like, hit, like
Scott:But There's bunch of things we didn't hit, but but but what we we dove deep. We dove deep and it was super insightful and and just hearing your story, you know, is just, is amazing. Congratulations on all your successes really and truly. Good luck to your boy. Yeah, how many children do you have?
Scott:I'm so sorry, didn't ask it.
Jamie:I have two. I have a son and a daughter.
Scott:Okay. Right on. Well, best of luck to both of them with what they got going on right now. This coming weekend. Have fun Halloween tonight.
Jamie:Tonight Halloween. And we're going to Phoenix tomorrow on a flight on a flight to go play three games.
Scott:Shocking.
Jamie:Things we do. I mean, we don't have any games this weekend. That's the hard part. Like we're in that situation. So, but to the players out there too, like to make sure to the parents, I think for the players, particularly like this is one last thing, is that every parent gets a supply list, right, from their school for their child.
Jamie:Correct? I would I would assume. Yeah.
Scott:Yeah. Yep. Totally.
Jamie:Yeah. You need every player needs a supply list too. And what that supply list look looks like is is very different for everybody. Yeah. And what you wanna put on your supply list.
Jamie:Because some might not be aligned with, hockey goals.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:Right. What do they want in life? Like, what are these things? And, like, that's kind of for me, like, I asked my older players that, you know, from the player's perspective, like, you have to think deeper. What is success to you?
Jamie:Right. Why do you feel like failure is failure? You know, I think that's the one thing I would encourage you to as well. Like when you get, when your kids get a little bit older, talk to talk about the more of the emotional IQ and like, you know, you're doing video right now with your kids, Scott. Like, I would like in that moment, like when they make a mistake, how did you feel?
Jamie:Like, what was your emotion?
Scott:Like, yeah. Well, he usually says like, you see that? That was Bun's dad. That was buns.
Jamie:Maybe, yeah. See when they're a little bit older, say, I was scared to turn that over there.
Scott:Sure. No, no.
Jamie:Why are you scared? Like, so those are the things that like little tidbits for you guys. Yeah. That I would start to kind of like solely dive into because the emotional part, like I was nervous. Well, I didn't.
Jamie:You never talk about nervous. Like, oh, I didn't, I just don't want to make a mistake. That's usually the comment. The mistake is not a feeling.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:Right. It's you have to get behind the feeling. Okay. I'm nervous that, you know, I was going turn it over. Well, let's talk about your nervousness.
Jamie:Don't talk about failure.
Scott:Right. The failure is like the symptom of like the emotion.
Jamie:Yeah. People decide that a lot. So I think that is an extra, extra tier, extra level. This is more for you guys. And like, if there's anything to this, like, I, I, I'm finding it very helpful where my older players, because we broke down video and like, was a, a weak side deep pinch.
Jamie:James, I think I talked to you about this. Right? And like, you did. Forward comes up and like, he's about to get hammered and we freeze frame it right there. And then we're like, what do you feel?
Jamie:He's like, I'm going get killed. Right? Well, getting hit is not really an emotion. So what's what's your feeling?
Speaker 3:Right? Right. Right. He was probably afraid at the time. I would think right?
Jamie:Yeah, I'm scared.
Speaker 3:Right. Next time we have you on, we need to dive more into that because like you said, you and I chatted about that on the phone. So next time we have you on, we're going to have to go more into that side of the game because that's the side that is very real. You know, we talked about the emotional part of the game a little bit Scott and I. That's a very real thing.
Jamie:Yeah. Yeah, it is. Because when you talk to the players too, you're like, even like I'm coaching older players. So like, and I asked them like, and I'm like,
Speaker 3:who
Jamie:feels like they have to play hard for their family? And like a lot like, or their parents and like, Yeah.
Speaker 3:A lot of them put their
Jamie:hands on. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, it's real. Like it's not just when they're young, right? Who, whose parents are harder on you?
Jamie:And like, kind of know. Yeah. Right. Right. And like, Hey, I'm like, you know, just enjoy the game.
Jamie:And he's 16. Yeah. Yeah. So, and that's, you know, my last event, that's why I was talking to the players about, like in the locker room when we were playing before we started the weekend. Said, listen, I know you guys have a lot of stress and a lot of pressure from your parents because I'm a parent and I hammer my
Speaker 3:kid. I was gonna say, I kind of think I do too, which I,
Jamie:No, but that that that stuff is real. So just for you guys to know later on to get it stays. It doesn't go anywhere.
Scott:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I appreciate that.
Speaker 3:Alex. Thank you so much.
Scott:Thank you so much. Pleasure to meet you.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And we're gonna, and I'm, I'm coming to Taber by the way. I will take you up on that and, and we'll definitely gonna have to have you back on and do this again, man. This was great. Thank you so much for your time.
Jamie:Awesome. Thanks guys.
Scott:All right. Take care,
Jamie:Alex. See you.
Scott:All right. Everyone welcome back from that interview with Alex Kim, dude, this guy's something else.
Jamie:Mean, he's
Speaker 3:fun. He's a fun dude.
Scott:Yeah. So much, so, so much knowledge just, and, and has, you know, kind of seen all the different things from from billeting, from nontraditional hockey,
Speaker 3:like blind all
Scott:of it.
Speaker 3:I mean, like
Scott:playing in Asia.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Blind. Right. Blind dating in Asia. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Eating rabbit. I mean, yeah, man. He he had a very, like I said in the intro, he had a crazy path. Yeah. You know?
Speaker 3:No. Guy to chat with that man. Real fun guy to chat with.
Scott:Yeah. No. The, especially like that that time when he went off to junior you know what? I thought it was interesting when he said, we were just talking about, like, when he kinda knew that, like, college was kind of like the next destination. And it was just interesting to hear him say, like, for someone that was, like, so, you know, invested in the game that like it just it was it was he wasn't looking too far
Speaker 3:in front of himself. He had no idea what was in front of him. Yeah. No clue. It's almost like he was oblivious to it the entire time.
Scott:Yeah,
Speaker 3:you know, because he said, I think he said during the interview, he's like, I just want to go score as many goals as I can. Yeah. And like, and like everything else was, then he started getting invites, like development camps, stuff like that. And then like colleges started knocking on his door. And then like that fell by the wayside.
Speaker 3:Then the colleges came back and started knocking on his door again. Like I think he said he took like nine official visits.
Jamie:Like nine.
Scott:Right. That's a lot.
Speaker 3:Because he got started over again. Right. I mean, he went to some crazy places. I think he said like Ohio State. He mentioned like Harvard Brown,
Jamie:like,
Speaker 3:yeah, I'm like blanking on which ones he took visits to, like Minnesota Duluth, I think was one of them. Denver, I think was one of them like, man, he. He said a great, and I think he said like, one of the funny things we're talking about colleges now, I think he said like one of the selling features, well, I called it the selling feature. One of the things that they were telling him when he was gonna go to Miami, Ohio, was that the, the ratio of girls to guys was like five to one. Right?
Scott:Yeah. And he even he he referred didn't he refer to it as a selling feature? No.
Speaker 3:I think I did. I think he was saying that he's like, yeah, think he said they were like, they were telling you about it. I'm like, of course, why wouldn't they
Scott:Yeah. Right.
Jamie:Right. Right.
Speaker 3:But but yeah, man. He's he's he made the college rounds. That's for sure.
Scott:But, like, also, like, a story of, like, resilience, like, you know, especially, like, when and obviously, don't know the details of kind of, like, where things kinda went sideways a bit in college and he kinda had restart. And he was one of those like rare transfer portal, like, you know,
Speaker 3:players
Scott:back in the day. But so like, you know, maybe it would have been easy for someone to kind of hang it up. But no. You know, like, kept on going. And then not and then also the way he decided to choose where he went when he went to Colorado.
Scott:Right? Because he had, like, friends there and he wanted to play with his boys. And, you know, it wasn't about seeking out the you know, if you were to, like, translate that right into, like, what kind of we talk about all the time, it's, like, not necessarily chasing the letter. Like Right. Probably could have gone to a better hockey school.
Scott:Right? And then at the same time, like, he chose like, he prioritized, like, fun and enjoyment, like, being with, like, with people that he wanted to play with. And, you know, like, that that was I mean, that's Yeah. Kinda like what we talk about parents, like, prioritizing now. Like, prioritizing the passion, the fun, the love for the game, and you don't need to chase the letters and it's about development and look, then he went on to play pro.
Scott:Like, sounds amazing.
Speaker 3:You know, I I think it's funny you mentioned that about like like what was important to him, like when he was going to pick in colleges, I think, you know, Harvard was one of the first colleges that came knocking on his door. Right?
Scott:Yeah. Yep.
Speaker 3:And when he said that, I was like, ah, no brainer, right? Go there. Right. And he said, he said, like, I didn't think it was fair and I didn't want to go to Harvard because I knew I wanted to go like all in on hockey. And I thought that I was going to fail out.
Speaker 3:Right. And then he said, he's like, so I didn't want to go there because I knew I was going be all in on hockey and I didn't want to flunk out of school. Right. Cause Harvard was probably going be challenging, you know, academic wise. Well, because
Scott:they care about the grades too. You know, what mean. Right.
Speaker 3:Exactly. Right. So it was probably more the more challenging school academically, but then he said like, and I didn't want to go there and just put all my time into all my studies, get good grades because then my hockey would suffer. And then that's not fair to the hockey team. Right.
Speaker 3:Right. So that was kind of like an interesting kind of like conundrum that he found himself in, you know, right?
Scott:Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, look, there's, there's obviously plenty of, you know, players that go to Ivy Leagues and they have elite hockey careers and they also like, you know, you know, play out their eligibility.
Speaker 3:So Yeah.
Scott:Like but that he's highlighting the fact that like it's it's tougher, I think, ultimately at an Ivy League school. Yeah. He also, you know, it's also money thing too because they don't give scholarships for sports. So like that's another angle, you know. So Yeah.
Scott:Look, I I mean, just again, there's like, everyone's gonna have a different path and clearly, you know, he was passionate about it and his passion hasn't wavered, like, immediately into coaching, working with youth, developing kids, a hockey academy. You know, and like, I was thinking about this also, and this conversation made me think of that and you know, as I've gotten older and gotten back in touch with the game, like this is my way of kind of like staying connected and like, you know, I'm not calling this a career, but what I'll call is like, I'm involved with like hockey vis a vis this podcast and like, you know, I'm having these conversations with people and so I'm getting like it's scratching that itch of wanting to be a part of like the quote unquote game broadly speaking. Right? I still play. But, you know, I was just even thinking about like Otto.
Scott:Right? And, you know, encouraging him when the time is right. Like like, why you maybe like look into becoming an official. Well, take a coaching class, you know, or like whatever the things are because you never know how this is all gonna play out. And like the earlier you kind of get your foot in the door with some of this stuff, cause it's hard, like you heard Bob Mancini and of course, super unique.
Scott:There's very few people working at USA Hockey broadly speaking, but the to have a job in hockey that like and to be able to make a living out of it,
Speaker 3:like Yeah. It's pretty cool.
Scott:It's cool and it's doesn't unless you're a pro.
Speaker 3:Doesn't suck.
Scott:You know, it's not it's not that easy. Even Angela was talking about how it's not easy.
Speaker 3:That's true.
Scott:You know? So I all all I'm saying is it got me thinking just to like the conversation with him and how he's continued to go right into coaching that like kind of planting some seeds early, you know, for anyone that's passionate about the game. Yeah. Like, you know, it might come in handy when a playing career is finished and you might make some connections early on. Anyway, stuff that I just started thinking about honestly.
Speaker 3:No. No. That makes sense to me, you know? Yeah, man, that was it was a fun interview. I enjoyed talking to him.
Speaker 3:You know, he likes to we have we have to do we do a whole nother episode on like, just like, like traveling, like hockey places and eating like good food in the area. Like he mentioned White Manna when he comes here to Jersey.
Scott:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, anybody who's been to White Manna? Yeah. Sure, dude.
Scott:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:Just making sure. Course, I've been a white man. And anybody who lives in the North Jersey area that hasn't been to White Man, I mean, shame on you.
Scott:Should go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you should go. Yeah. I mean, there it is. Yeah. I'm not even gonna I'm not even gonna tell you what it is if you don't know about it.
Speaker 3:If you're in the New York Jersey area, go to white man and Hackensack. Yeah, you won't be disappointed.
Scott:Yeah. Well, you might be disappointed with a line
Speaker 3:that you might be disappointed with, but you won't be disappointed with food, you know, but but like, yeah, so he likes to travel to like play hockey and go find like, like the local fun foods to go get to go like sample. Yeah. Yeah. We do a whole episode of just that.
Scott:100%,
Speaker 3:you know? Yeah. He's a he's a fun dude. I enjoyed that interview.
Scott:Likewise.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. We're going to have to go to his, think his name is coming out here for to run a power skating clinic.
Scott:Yeah. Oh, we need to like figure that out. Yeah. We got to go.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think you said Connecticut. Is that right? Is that right? Something like that.
Speaker 3:New York, Connecticut, wherever it
Scott:Somewhere.
Jamie:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So as we get closer to that, we need to, we need to do that because that sounds cool.
Scott:Yeah. We should actually post that.
Speaker 3:We should post that.
Scott:Yeah. Yeah. 100%.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. So how
Scott:do we're posting dude?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we do. Yeah. We'll, we'll clean up our social media a little bit and, you know, and and start start cranking it out more.
Scott:Cleaning it up would imply that there's a lot there to be organized and I I think I think I think we need to, feed the feed the monster.
Speaker 3:Fair. Yeah. We yes, we do need to feed the monster actually because we we keep getting
Scott:more. The Monster.
Speaker 3:Yeah, man. The Hockey Monster. Although Jamie has not been feeding the Hockey Monster recently. No. Jamie has been Jamie has been taking it easy on the Hockey Monster.
Scott:Okay.
Speaker 3:The Hockey Monster has not been has not been clawing in my wallet recently.
Scott:No. Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, I haven't sharpened my kids skates and like,
Scott:Well, this might answer all of your skating questions and concerns.
Speaker 3:I haven't sharpened my kids' skates in like
Scott:Why?
Speaker 3:Like a month. Why? Because he never tells me that his skates are bell. Like he never says anything about it. So this was my experiment.
Scott:Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this one must have been Scott had to be five weeks. Had to be five, six weeks. So just literally just the other day comes to your stat. Yes. I think you're sharpen my skates.
Speaker 3:I go, yeah, let say that. He goes, I don't know. I think the right one's dull. I go, oh, yeah. Okay.
Speaker 3:I go, sounds good, bud. Free skating next. We'll sharpen them for you. Dude, six weeks?
Jamie:What the fuck?
Scott:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it's actually funny you say that.
Speaker 3:That was my experiment.
Scott:The it's funny you say that because we had a second set of blades with Otto's last pair of skates. We all we didn't had get a second pair of blades. And Right. So I was just in the habit of, like, regularly changing them.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Scott:And that's not happening because I, you know, as soon as I take off like the dull ones, I'd put on the sharp ones, get the dull ones sharpened and then, you know, like, it's not like I even needed to ask him, whatever, would just change the blades. But now that I'm not doing that because there's only one pair and whatever, he also is not asking me about his skates. So I feel like Dude. Similar.
Speaker 3:I need him to start being like accountable for his own shit.
Scott:Yeah, man. Well
Speaker 3:I need you to start like, I will say this. He doesn't lose shit. Like, there's kids on his teams that like in the fucking team thread, right? Every week, who's got our Polo who's got our left glove who's got our right shin guard,
Jamie:who's got a helmet, our
Speaker 3:water bottle like funny you said water bottle actually, dude. So I'm sitting there with your lovely wife. And Otto comes out and Otto wanted to go out for the next. So he sat in front of me and your wife was sitting across me, your next Otto and he and and he took his jersey off. We didn't take his gear off because Dom he was waiting for Dominic come out of locker room.
Speaker 3:And one of Otto's parents was like this, like looking around and he's like, you know, and Orly's like, you all right? Like, did you lose something? And he's like, oh, such a fast loss is water bottle. And and I don't turns around. He goes, he's got the small one, doesn't he?
Speaker 3:And the guy's like, yeah, he goes, yep. This is it. He was drinking it.
Jamie:He had the kids water bottle.
Scott:Would check the other kids water bottle. Was
Jamie:drinking it.
Speaker 3:I was drinking it. Yeah. So so so yeah, that was very funny. That was last night. So but but I will say this with Dominic, he doesn't lose his stuff.
Speaker 3:But like, I like, I'll give you a perfect example. Recently Dominic's been touching his face mask a lot.
Scott:Okay.
Speaker 3:And he's like, and his hair is longer. Right? So he's like, hair comes down and I have to push it up. So my hair goes out of my eyes. I'm like, okay, Dablin like, so I'm like, so either we need to tighten your helmet, so it doesn't come down or we need to push your hair back.
Speaker 3:And if that's not working, we need to cut it. Or we need to like push your hair back with like something. Right. Right. Like not difficult.
Speaker 3:So I gave him the something to push his hair back wanted no part of it. Right? Okay. So what's he doing in the next game? Pushing his pushing his face back and push it push push his face back up, pushes the helmet up, which then apparently the hair goes out of his eyes.
Speaker 3:Like, I mean, I'm like, Dominic, I'm like, you need to start like, like, you need to start fixing these things if they're a problem, right?
Jamie:Like, you
Speaker 3:need to be responsible for your helmet, you'd be responsible for your blades. Like if your blades are not sharp, like you have to say something,
Scott:right?
Speaker 3:You know, like, and number one, you need to figure out when they're dull and go, Okay, something's not right here. So he didn't tell me for like six weeks. I was like, bro, what do you like? Oh, oh, your right one's a
Jamie:little tall. Okay. We'll get it
Speaker 3:taken care of. Like, seriously, buddy?
Scott:Like You should have been like, alright, we'll get the right one sharpened.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Exactly. You know? So like, did Scott tell you, it's been like six weeks. Has to be five, six weeks at least.
Speaker 3:It just come it just comes to me literally yesterday. Oh, by the way, dad. He goes, I played pretty well. And my right skates old, though. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay. Yeah. Okay. Right skates still got it. Check.
Speaker 3:We'll take care of it. That's why. Funny. Right?
Scott:Well, listen, man. He's turning a corner.
Speaker 3:Fingers crossed, Scott.
Scott:So listen, if next time it's only five weeks and then four weeks and then three weeks, then, you know, you're moving in the right direction.
Speaker 3:Yes. And it's funny. I was actually on the Sparks website this morning. Just kinda poking around, you know. But I'm telling you, the hockey monster is not getting in my wallet right now.
Speaker 3:No.
Scott:Keep keep keep the vaults closed.
Speaker 3:Not letting do it. Locked. I've just been spending way too much money on this game. Unless it's really necessary.
Scott:No. Go take you and your lovely wife out to dinner.
Speaker 3:That's the idea, buddy.
Scott:Instead of a sparks machine.
Speaker 3:Are you saying the Sparks machine costs the same as a dinner these days?
Scott:I'm just saying that you could take her out to a very lovely evening and, you know, I'm not saying they're equivalent in cost. Although surely you could spend that much money on dinner.
Speaker 3:You definitely could. No question
Scott:about But
Jamie:I'm just saying
Speaker 3:You as an ex chef know that well.
Scott:Yeah. You can.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Especially if you have anything with truffles on them.
Scott:Truffles, especially if you're drinking wine.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah.
Scott:Have a cocktail or two before dinner. Oh yeah. Maybe do like a five to seven course tasting menu.
Speaker 3:And you're at a Sparks machine in a heartbeat.
Scott:You'll get there. No problem.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly.
Scott:Yeah, anyway. Alright, dude. Well, listen, let's wrap this one up. Was a great one.
Speaker 3:41 in the books.
Scott:Yeah, man. 40 one's in the books, 42 up next and we're 50? Gonna keep plugging
Speaker 3:We're closing in on 50?
Scott:Yeah. Well, yeah, a 100%.
Speaker 3:Dude, it's wild.
Scott:It doesn't feel like that long.
Speaker 3:No. We are closing in on eight months.
Scott:It doesn't feel that long.
Speaker 3:No, it doesn't. I agree.
Scott:And we definitely started talking about it like last September, if not last August.
Speaker 3:Is that what it was?
Scott:Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But we're doing good. Yeah. A lot of really cool interviews coming for you guys. Please share the show, subscribe, leave us a review please.
Speaker 3:And God for please somebody send this to somebody in Alaska. My God.
Jamie:Alright, dude. Alright, buddy.
Scott:Good stuff, man.
Speaker 3:I'll speak to you later. Alright. See you later.