Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast

From Queens to the NHL - and why most of youth hockey is overthinking it.

Scott and Jamie sit down with Angelo Serse - ProStride Elite founder, New Jersey Devils skating coach, U14 Youth Devils national champion, and Ozone Park kid who nearly quit hockey on Day 1.

Angelo shares his unique path: immigrant parents staring at a $2,500 AAA bill, his mom driving to Plattsburgh in snowstorms because he loved the game, and a late-blooming college opportunity that didn’t hit until his senior year. From there, he breaks down what families misunderstand about skating, development, and the “race” they think they’re in.

In this episode:
  • Why mite kids quit when they can’t skate and how games like tag and Superman dives keep them hooked
  • Sweden & Finland’s model: three sports, one club, no team-hopping
  • Figure skating vs. hockey and why the mechanics don’t translate
Concise, sharp, and myth-busting, this is the skating conversation every hockey family needs before spending another dollar.

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What is Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast?

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

Scott:

Alright, everybody. Welcome back to episode 43 of the Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast, the unfiltered podcast for hockey parents. No politics, no sugarcooting. I can't do it.

Jamie:

Could I do it? Can I do it?

Scott:

I said cooting. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. You should do it.

Jamie:

Oh my goodness gracious.

Scott:

Cooting. No sugarcooting.

Jamie:

No sugarcooting. Ready? Yep. Ready? That was awesome, by the way.

Scott:

So good.

Jamie:

Alright, everybody. Welcome back to episode 43 of the Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast. The the podcast for hockey parents, no sugarcoating, no something, just real talk for hockey parents in the trenches. Can't do it from memory. Doesn't work.

Jamie:

Doesn't work.

Scott:

No, you can't do it from memory.

Jamie:

No, I can't. I don't know why I can't do it from memory.

Scott:

Well, it's sugarcoating. Unlike what I said was sugarcoating.

Jamie:

Sugarcoating. Yeah.

Scott:

Also not correct.

Jamie:

Also not correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie:

Yeah. God, you are unfiltered hockey podcasts for parents.

Scott:

No politics.

Jamie:

No politics. No sugarcoating. Just real talk for hockey parents in the trenches. Right?

Scott:

That's it. Yep. Yep. Collectively, two minds are better than one. Just did it.

Jamie:

Yeah. You know what? Very well said by you. I must say that's three weeks in a row that we've screwed that up, which I feel has to continue. I feel like we

Scott:

can't keep screwing it up.

Speaker 3:

You know

Jamie:

what I mean? I feel like we really can't do it the correct way or else something will be missing in my day.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Jamie:

You know what I'm saying?

Scott:

Yeah. Well, well, you know, honestly, I kind of do hope I get it right sooner than later if I'm being honest, but whatever.

Jamie:

Same. I'll actually memorize it between now and our next episode.

Scott:

No, you won't.

Speaker 3:

No, I

Scott:

won't. No, you won't.

Jamie:

No, I will.

Scott:

Oh, okay.

Jamie:

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, how are you doing?

Scott:

What's up? Happy post Thanksgiving, belated Thanksgiving. How was yours? You eat a lot of turkey?

Jamie:

You know, I'm not a big turkey guy. I mean, I this can sound strange. I like the dark meat from Turkey.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

I don't really have a lot of it. Be honest with you, it's really everything else.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

It's really kind of like all the sides and stuff like that that that I like look forward to.

Scott:

Agreed.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Agreed.

Jamie:

You know, I don't really do a lot of turkey.

Scott:

I Listen, I I like turkey sandwiches, but usually like the deli meat turkey, not like fresh turkey.

Jamie:

Same.

Scott:

Same. Same. Same. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott:

I don't dis I don't dislike it per se. I just don't ever find myself craving fresh turkey, really. And then No.

Jamie:

Me neither.

Scott:

And then when I eat it on Thanksgiving, I usually I get an assortment, light meat, dark meat, but then when I eat it, it's like with a combination of the other things on the plate. Know, it's you kinda like add the stuffing and like Yes.

Jamie:

And everything else

Scott:

on top of it.

Jamie:

Cranberry sauce. Whatever you got. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie:

Yeah. Do you want to hear something really funny? And you probably will be able to talk more intelligently about this since you Maybe

Scott:

because I just said sugarcoating.

Jamie:

Well, yeah, but good point. But but the fact that you were a chef, you actually might be able to shed some light on this. Yes. So I never liked Turkey Turkey because it was always really dry.

Scott:

Okay.

Jamie:

Especially the white, the white meat, white meat, in my opinion, is drier taste than the dark, which is probably why I like the dark meat, not the light.

Scott:

Okay, fair.

Jamie:

So when my wife and I first got married, we hosted our first Thanksgiving. Right.

Speaker 3:

And

Jamie:

one of our parents pick up the turkey and we we started cooking it and like our parents came over, I don't know, call it around like 02:00. This was probably like, yeah, fifteen years ago. Right. Right. We were like, was our first Thanksgiving.

Jamie:

We had no idea what we're doing. Right. And the funny part about it was is when my father-in-law came over, he opens the oven. Right? Yeah.

Jamie:

And like, I remember it, dude, like, I was like, I was doing all the fancy stuff. Like I was stuffing the bird. And I was like, making like little slits on it and put like pats of butter like underneath the skin. Right? Like, just like, right.

Jamie:

And and so he comes over and it's been cooking for like a couple hours at this point.

Scott:

Yeah,

Jamie:

right. So he comes over and he opens the oven and looks in and he goes, Hey, Jay, I was like, Yeah, what's up, dad? He's like he's like, you know, I don't mean to like rain on your parade. He's like, but your turkey's upside down. And I was like, what?

Jamie:

He's like, your turkey's upside down. So I was like, okay. Didn't know that. Right. And can I just tell you, yeah, it was the most moist Turkey I've ever had?

Jamie:

And ever since that day, we cook, we cook it upside down.

Scott:

That's awesome.

Jamie:

That's funny.

Scott:

That's a hack.

Jamie:

It's not funny, bro. Total, total accident. And then apparently like Nancy was talking like all the hockey moms for Thanksgiving. And it came up like the Nancy cooked the bird upside down, you know, fifteen years ago. And apparently a bunch of them did it and they said it came out wonderful.

Scott:

Well, do that. I mean, look, ultimately the whole the whole cooking process is about time, time and temperature. But so if you cook it like without without overcooking it, know, you'll end up with a better product. But I don't know. I've never I don't think I've ever like had a culinary conversation about that.

Scott:

If I had a guess, it just might have to do with the fact that like any fat that's like when you cook it upside down, the breast is on the bottom. Yes. A right side up turkey in this context would be the turkey's lying on its back and the bird's like breast

Jamie:

in Correct. The Exactly. So,

Scott:

know, obviously

Jamie:

So, the breast

Scott:

is down. Correct. The breast is down.

Jamie:

That is exactly

Scott:

right. And the juices

Jamie:

And everything runs down.

Scott:

Is running down.

Jamie:

Yes.

Scott:

So, that probably has something to do with it.

Speaker 3:

I think that's exactly

Scott:

what it is. That's interesting. Feel like maybe I wanna try that next time.

Jamie:

You should, by the way.

Scott:

A 100%.

Jamie:

I'm telling you, Scott, it was a total mistake and we have not cooked the bird right side up since.

Scott:

That's so funny. Yeah. Yeah. You know, my mother-in-law, she cooks her turkeys in a bag. Can get like oven bags.

Jamie:

Okay. Does that keep the moisture in? Is that what it's supposed to do?

Scott:

Yes. But at the same time, doesn't safeguard against like the meat drying out because ultimately the longer it cooks, like it'll leach out, like, the liquid and it just ends up collecting in the bag as opposed to, like, evaporating.

Jamie:

Right.

Scott:

In any event, yeah, man. That's interesting. I'll tell you Charlie. You could probably do the same thing with, I bet you the same would be true with, if you roasted a whole chicken too.

Jamie:

I would think so. I think it's the same general, you know, principle. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie:

Because I never liked I never liked turkey before because it was always dry. The especially the white meat, kinda like Clark Griswold's on National Airborne Christmas Vacation.

Scott:

Punctuate and like it just like deflates. It's just

Jamie:

it's fine. It's fine. It's just a little dry.

Scott:

Grace passed away thirty years ago. God bless. God

Jamie:

bless. Great.

Scott:

So funny.

Jamie:

She passed away thirty years ago.

Scott:

Yeah, man. No, but like the breast meat, the white meat is the driest because it's like under it doesn't it's not very exercised. It doesn't have a lot of connective tissue because it doesn't exercise as much. It doesn't have as much fat near it, around it, whatever. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Jamie:

Intelligence on the culinary scale.

Scott:

Well, you know, I've been there, done that a little bit.

Jamie:

Yes, you have.

Scott:

Anyhow. Yeah, you should

Jamie:

try it. By the way, I would actually like to see you try that and actually have like a chef. Like, well, try that and tell me what

Scott:

you want. I will tell you that the best result that I've had cooking turkey turkey is one year when I was working at a catering company, we did a lot of, like sous vide cooking, which is basically, you know, cooking

Jamie:

in Got it.

Scott:

Anyway, it doesn't matter. The point is that like I didn't cook the turkey whole. I broke it down into like parts and I

Jamie:

So you pulled it apart?

Scott:

Yeah. I butchered it down into individual parts and I cooked them all like for different times so that none of it would get dried out. And that worked well. But it's also whatever. So, you cooked them all individually?

Scott:

I cook the parts individually.

Jamie:

So you take all the legs off and the wings and then and then you cook the breast and the center of the turkey as one whole piece?

Scott:

I didn't even cook the I mean, I might have cooked the I cooked the carcass. I was working at a catering So I doing professional stuff.

Speaker 3:

Like, yeah,

Scott:

I took I took like the carcass and I hacked it up and I roasted it and I made turkey stock to make gravy and.

Jamie:

Oh, okay. So you used all the parts. I gotcha.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Yeah. But I just

Scott:

didn't cook it altogether.

Jamie:

Interesting. All right. Listen, I would like to see you do that and let me know your thoughts after. Sure. Yeah.

Jamie:

Sure. Actually, a culinary savant.

Scott:

I don't know if savants the wrong word.

Jamie:

I'm just a cooking piker.

Scott:

I've I've been there, done that a little bit.

Jamie:

Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah,

Scott:

man. Anyhow.

Jamie:

So, So our Thanksgiving was good.

Scott:

Awesome, dude. Yeah. Great. Likewise. We were out of town.

Scott:

Airbnb. Yeah. That was nice. Not too far from here. How was the

Jamie:

fishing off the back deck, by the way? Oh, it was horrible. Yeah. And I know they had like a really nice big flat screen TV in the basement too.

Scott:

Dude. So real quick. I know I shared this with you. So, I saw, went there separately. I went from work.

Scott:

My kids and wife went together. Everyone was at the house. My sister in law's family was there. My in laws were there. And I walk in the door and it's kind of quiet and which is not typical.

Scott:

And this was

Jamie:

up on a lake. It was a lake house.

Scott:

Yeah. I got there at night. The first thing the first thing that was brought to my attention and I walk in, it's like, it's quiet. And I was like, that's weird. There's like five kids and like they're, you know, whatever.

Scott:

It should be louder.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Scott:

My daughter comes upstairs, like, crying. Like a 50.

Jamie:

Oh, you just got there and it

Speaker 3:

happened?

Scott:

I literally walked in the door. I took I grabbed a plate of food and I started talking to my father-in-law who's

Jamie:

Oh, you literally just got there and

Scott:

I walked in the door and then, like, it was quiet. And then my daughter comes up. She's like crying. And then it turns out a 75 inches television fell off the wall and almost almost hit my daughter and my niece, you know, who are not capable or strong enough of lifting or getting a 75 inches television off the wall anyway. So, that was number one.

Scott:

Then number two, I hear about the fishing, which Otto was psyched for because it was like on the lake.

Jamie:

Fishing right off the And there was

Scott:

like a dock. Yeah. He's like, Oh, just gonna get up early. I'm gonna grab a chair. I'm gonna sit outside.

Scott:

I'm gonna fish.

Jamie:

For hours, just throwing the line in and out. Dude,

Scott:

next morning, sunrise, I look out the window. They drained the, like, part part of the lake. Like I was looking at tree stumps on the bottom of like a lake floor. Like I

Speaker 3:

was like, what? Yeah.

Jamie:

And the water was nowhere near the dock, right?

Scott:

So the owner of the house ultimately said, he's like, yeah, they do this apparently like once every five years.

Jamie:

They do it to fix the docks.

Scott:

To fix the docks and to like whatever level up like Dredge, whatever any dredge.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Scott:

Anyway, so that was a fail.

Jamie:

Just unlucky. Just bad But

Scott:

other than that, was perfect. Refund? No. Don't think a refund's in order.

Jamie:

No money back for, I don't know, 75 inches TV falling off the wall and almost killing your niece and daughter?

Scott:

I, you know, I don't, I think, I think it's worth

Jamie:

calling Free night. Them a Just saying. What? Free night.

Scott:

No. I, you know, I'm not, I'm not that conversation. I understand. Long as we don't have to pay for it and they're not giving us a hard time, I think everyone's okay with that.

Jamie:

No. I think the least they could do is not have you pay for it. Don't you think?

Scott:

I agree. And it was funny you as were though like

Jamie:

have to pay for that, I would be not a happy camper.

Scott:

So, the owner came to the house the following day to check it out and he explained to us, I watched him take a smaller 55 inch TV off the wall and he's like, the brackets that we got to hang the TVs on the wall, he's like, I purposely got ones with child locks on them. And I watched him take it off. He's like, you need two people, one person to pull down like the clip on each side. Yeah, I know. I

Jamie:

I have my my TV's too.

Scott:

Okay. So apparently that was on the back of this 75 inch TV, which fell off. Don't

Jamie:

know faulty bracket

Scott:

Faulty installer. Faulty owner

Jamie:

or a faulty owner.

Scott:

I'll say faulty installer.

Speaker 3:

I don't know who put it

Jamie:

on the wall. Assuming he installed it. No?

Scott:

I don't know. Anyway, enough about this Thanksgiving stuff. Was a good it was a good, it was a good food. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was totally it was all good.

Speaker 3:

Nice. Nice, man.

Scott:

Very cool. So that said, Otto had a so we're recording Sunday. Otto just finished up with his game. Yes. So they won.

Scott:

I wasn't there. Nice. Here podcasting with you.

Jamie:

Yep. Yep.

Scott:

But it seems like they they put the hammer down on this Danbury team, like nine to three. So Cool. Very good. Good on them. Way to go, Saints.

Scott:

Woo.

Jamie:

Nice win.

Scott:

How about you guys? You guys played yesterday, right?

Jamie:

We played yesterday. We played a triple a team, like just from north of us that probably shouldn't be a triple a team. Right?

Scott:

Should not.

Jamie:

Probably should not. They're probably more like a double A squad. But, you know, crazy parents that are chasing the numbers, letters, you know, just want to say triple A and the kid plays triple A. So we beat them nine seven.

Scott:

Sheesh.

Jamie:

We were actually up five one. And then like our our team decided to not play.

Scott:

That happens. Does. That happens when you get a big lead and you think you got in the bag and then all of a sudden it's like,

Speaker 3:

oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jamie:

Dominic was on the ice for a handful of the goals. Good. No, not the greatest. No, no, no.

Scott:

Oh, goals against

Jamie:

their goals and not our goals and their goals. Yeah, I think his plus minus was probably not the most attractive that day.

Scott:

Okay, but beginner defenseman against a quote unquote triple a squad.

Jamie:

Yeah, you know, I think it was just a lack of effort type thing. That's my opinion, You know? You know? I I didn't

Scott:

say Could do that too.

Jamie:

Listen. 13 listen. We were saying bunch of the dads were saying after, our kids are they do one thing consistently, and that's be inconsistent.

Scott:

Know? Listen, man.

Jamie:

Welcome to youth sports, baby.

Scott:

Look, and you know, I will continue to say things that touch upon the idea that as adults, kids, we all watch all these highlights. It's a highlight society. A highlight culture. We don't watch people's lowlights unless we're watching like somebody fails or whatever. And so it's like, it's so easy just to be like, oh, well, know, all kids your age are always giving a 100%.

Scott:

It's like, no,

Jamie:

No, that's not realistic.

Scott:

That's not realistic.

Jamie:

That's not a realistic thing, you know, but I think you got to give a little bit of effort here and there. Right? So I agree with you. You can't give all effort all the time. That's not a realistic thing at this age.

Jamie:

Right?

Scott:

No. And even at the professional level, don't look at the Edmonton Oilers. They're horrible.

Jamie:

Yeah. Which is shocking because they were in the finals last two years.

Scott:

Last two years.

Jamie:

Dude, and and McDavid just signed an extension with them. Like, how is that gonna look?

Scott:

Yeah. He's he'll be traded by the end.

Jamie:

Like think so too, too. By the way. I think

Scott:

He's out of here. Win or lose, he's out.

Jamie:

I agree. I mean, he's he's yeah. That is not a good situation over there.

Scott:

No. Don't get that. Ronald's not looking good. No. So so the point about giving effort all the time, you have, like, just take Florida and and Edmonton.

Scott:

Two teams that have put forth arguably the most effort, like, for the last two seasons. No. It's true. Like, don't have it together right now. Of course, there's injuries and other, like, factors, but you can't, it's not, you can't give it all the time.

Scott:

Even if you are, there's a breaking point. Right?

Jamie:

True. It's very true. It's funny you mentioned, yes, it's funny you mentioned, you know, about like, kind of like an Instagram world, like a social media world where you see all the highlights. I think our guest today actually mentioned that during our interview.

Scott:

A 100%. Yeah. So let's talk about that for a second. So I'll let, I'll turn this over to you because it was weeks and months of, of going back and forth. Yes.

Speaker 3:

Finally, finally, you got

Scott:

your neighbor down in the chair.

Jamie:

It's here. Finally. Yes. It was definitely not his doing that. That was difficult.

Jamie:

But yes, today we have Angelo Serse, the New Jersey Devils power skating coach. He was willing to do it, but we needed to go through the proper channels with the New Jersey Devils to request a, an official, you know, interview to make sure that they were okay and that they signed off on it because we don't want to get Angelo trouble. But yes, finally, we have our interview with Angelo Serse, which happens to be my neighbor. Yeah, man. He's a very accomplished power skating coach in our area, which most people know, one of our partners, you know, Pro Stride Skating.

Jamie:

Yeah, no, it's it's finally here. Finally, we have Angelo's interview, and he was a lot of fun. Wouldn't you agree?

Scott:

Oh, absolutely. I mean, the guy's obviously a wealth of a wealth of knowledge. You know, he skates with kids from all ages up to professionals.

Jamie:

Oh, yeah.

Scott:

You know, played at high levels himself. And it you know, again, we've been so lucky to have some folks on recently that have just, you know, experienced hockey in all its facets and, you know, from coaching to skills, to playing and all the things. He's just yet another one that's got like an awesome perspective on the game of hockey. Yeah. A 100%.

Jamie:

And he Yeah. Does the thing that is most important for all of our children to do. I mean, skating. If you can't skate, you can't play.

Scott:

Yeah. Well, what I so he even mentioned, like, in the in the in the interview, and, you know, I won't give too much away, but, he even made a mention that he made an argument for that, like, skating might not be the most important thing.

Jamie:

Listen, if you have a shot like a Vetchkin, right?

Scott:

Yes. But ultimately, you know, look, there's the the skating piece, the professionals, they also have skating coaches. They're, you know, professionals continue to work on their skating and there are certainly guys that get to the the bigger stages without being the best skaters on the team. I So, think that there's obviously a baseline that you need to have in order to keep on progressing through the ranks. So, for sure, it's a super integral part.

Scott:

And yes, if you've if you're so handicapped with skating, you're you're only going to get so far. Yes. But at the same time, you know, there's it's it's not like, you know, people that get to the pros are the best skaters, you know?

Jamie:

No. They generally have other attributes that kind of set them set them apart from their

Scott:

peers. Right.

Jamie:

Whether it's a sick set of hands, whether it's a shot like a vet skin or whether it's, they're just like a face off stud. Right. We've talked a couple of times on these last couple of interviews. I want to say it was with Doug Christensen. We talked, and I think Alex Kim, actually, we touched on this as well.

Jamie:

There are guys that make careers out of doing certain things, right? Face off guys.

Scott:

For sure. Yes.

Jamie:

Yes. Guys that can kill a penalty, right? Guys like Ovechkin that just can hammer the puck into the back of the net, you know, that maybe is not the prettiest skater. You know, listen, there are roles, especially as our kids get older, right? There are definitely roles that people can make careers out of.

Scott:

Yeah. That's what that's how people do make their careers is by being a role player. And, you know, I think that's something that also, you know, for parents of kids at younger ages, you know, before that starts even creeping into the game, I mean, your like kid might not have realized what his best attribute is, you know, because it's the team they're on, the age they're at, it's not what they're, you know, they're still learning things in a more general purpose format, right? Like playing the game, learning the fundamentals, the nuts and bolts, some of the details. And then after that, they'll build on other things.

Scott:

So, who knows? You know, like, Jaeme, you could have like, you know, a fourth line enforcer on your hands,

Jamie:

for example.

Scott:

You know what I mean? Like, you don't No,

Jamie:

it's true.

Scott:

Yeah. So in any event, what do you think? We can, kick it over to our interview with Angelo?

Jamie:

I think so. I think we'll let everybody listen and then we'll catch everybody on the flip side.

Scott:

Perfect. Let's do it.

Jamie:

Here is Angelo Serse, New Jersey Devils power skating coach. I hope everybody enjoys.

Scott:

Enjoy.

Jamie:

All right. Here we are finally with Angelo Serse after a while. We've been we've been Angela. We've been pushing this for a while now. So to finally have you on is wonderful.

Jamie:

We are here with Angelo Serse Pro Stride Elite owner and New Jersey Devils power skating coach. Man, thanks for taking the time.

Speaker 3:

No, thanks for having us and glad it finally worked out.

Scott:

Yes, I will no longer bust Jamie's chops because for the longest time it was a work in progress.

Speaker 3:

It was where we're getting it done.

Scott:

That's what he would say that more or less and I'd be like, okay. Okay.

Jamie:

So at least I look like I know what I'm doing at this point.

Scott:

No doubt. You've redeemed yourself.

Jamie:

Yes. Yes. But so Angel, you had a playing career. Why don't you talk about like how you kind of came up in the game? I'm curious to hear that.

Speaker 3:

I had somewhat of a playing career. I actually, we were just talking about it, how, the New Jersey area, we had some unbelievable players come through, with my '85 birth year, guys that should have played in the league for a long time. And, we might've had one guy play in the AHL and that's about it. So, I mean, I I'm from Ozone Park, Queens. My father, was off the boat from Italy.

Speaker 3:

Didn't speak English till second grade. So it was actually my uncle who got me into hockey. He brought me and my cousin to Long Beach, and we did learn to skate there. My cousin got off the ice. He didn't like it.

Speaker 3:

And then apparently I wanted to get off too. My dad still to this day will be like, there was a coach there. He doesn't know what he said to you, but after he talked to you, you never got off the ice. So whoever that guy is, I appreciate it. Because it led me to my

Jamie:

career in it. Yes.

Speaker 3:

But we we moved, we moved upstate, to Monroe, New York, and I would travel to Inglewood to play for the Mavericks. I did that for a year, and then they're no longer there. Then then I was told that, like, I'm kind of decent at hockey that like, hey, you should try out for this triple a team and called the colonials. So we went over to colonials for my, Pee wee year. And then when I was there, some of the parents were like, hey.

Speaker 3:

Like, your kid's pretty good. Like, a bunch of us are going to the youth devils. So I went over there. We won a national championship there by u fourteen year.

Scott:

That's awesome.

Speaker 3:

We beat team Alaska in the finals. Brandon Dubinsky was on that team.

Scott:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

That's cool. That kind of changed a lot for us where a lot of us started to get talked to, but not much still. We still didn't get too much respect. But then there was the festival from there and, high school hockey at Bosco. Then it was off to juniors when, when I was in high school and there was a Chicago showcase was really what helped me in my career.

Speaker 3:

We had a great showing out there. We were out there for way too long. Some great stories that we can't tell, but that's maybe for spitting chicklets. But we had a great time out there. And there was some teams in the EJHL, which I didn't even know what the EJ was at the time.

Speaker 3:

And my dad was like, juniors? No, my son's going to college. Like, I was going to be the first child to go to college. Like I'm going to college. And every parent was like, no, no, no.

Speaker 3:

He, he will go to college, but like, he is going to go play juniors. And so I made a rule with my dad when I played juniors up in Boston for the Harbor wolves, in the EJ, I would have to take community courses. So I did go to college, kept some credits. So I was actually considered transfer when I ended up going to college, which definitely helped me because I was able to lighten my load for hockey to play college hockey at Stony Brook University. And then from there, I thought my career was done.

Speaker 3:

And I had some coaches ask me if I wanted to play in the minors, and, I got a random phone call and went down to Texas, made that team, played there for a little bit in the CHL, and then played in the Federal Hockey League for a little bit, played some men's league there. And then, it kind of was like, all right, I'm done with hockey. I started coaching. So that was, that was my kind of path. I think one of the biggest things, and I obviously know what you guys do here is, I talked to my dad recently, about when was it that I really wanted to go play college hockey?

Speaker 3:

Like when was it in my mind that that's what I wanted to do? And it was not until my senior year at Chicago showcase in high school, I thought that was what I was playing for.

Scott:

Wow. Interesting.

Speaker 3:

Not long into your prior career. I obviously always, maybe I was naive. Maybe I just love playing a game of hockey. I was okay at it. There were guys way better than me.

Speaker 3:

I just worked hard and it, but it taught me a lot more life lessons, I think, than, than just skills, right? Just becoming better at hockey or whatnot. I was definitely a late bloomer as well. Size wise. I mean, my freshman year at Bosco, they were like, yeah, you're too small to be a defenseman and made me a forward.

Speaker 3:

And I told some of the guys here in the locker room and they're like, just roll in their eyes, like please, like that was the dumbest thing you ever did. But that's, that was hockey back then. Right? Like it was true. I saw scars on my wrist from being hooked and slashed and that wasn't a penalty.

Speaker 3:

So it was different.

Jamie:

That's true. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

But it was, it's very interesting. Just knowing a lot of parents and kids, and obviously that's what I do for a living. It's very nice if you can play college hockey or any sport, right? It's really nice. But at the end of the day, now that I have kids, I got my daughter's eight years old, my son's six.

Speaker 3:

Why are they playing sports? It's to learn life lessons and to get out of the house. Yeah. And I think, I don't, I don't know. Is it, and you guys probably have talked to guys, is it because it's so much money now that parents feel entitled?

Speaker 3:

But I will tell you, like, I'm from a blue collar family. My father worked his butt off to get every dollar he earned. And I can tell you right now, can vividly picture is probably, what was it? Maybe '94, '95, '96. When I made my first triple a team and he got that bill, I can remember him.

Speaker 3:

I made the Colonials triple a team and him looking at the paper and being like, are you sure you wanna do this? Are you sure? It was $2,500 for the season.

Scott:

Yeah. It's an expensive sport. I remember so like when I was when I was playing, I played for the Saints growing up and the last team I played for was, Rockets, the junior B team. And I remember when the tuition piece came around, there was talk about just how to kind of like raise money if you can't afford it to like, you know, whatever you need to do to kind of help offset the costs, you know, fundraisers, whatever it was. But yeah, man, it's a I think you're right as far as the entitlement piece that you were like alluding to, but it's not only like the financial bit, it's also like the time commitment because like parents are also, and you know, like they go to your clinics and they go to your privates and like they're spending so much time with their kid for this game, time, effort, energy, money.

Scott:

Like they want to see some kind of ROI and like, I get it, but at the same time, that's not where their head should be if they want to have set their kids up for long term success.

Speaker 3:

We should have had my mom on as well to see what, why she was driving from Washingtonville, New York to Bridgewater, back with the colonials, back with the Colonials, if there was not ice, we would practice down at The Rock. Really?

Jamie:

That's the two hour. That's gotta be a two plus hour ride down

Speaker 3:

from Bridgewater, right? It was far.

Jamie:

Because Washington Mills an hour north of me and the rockets are an hour south. So you're at least two hours.

Speaker 3:

So why was my mom doing that? Why was why was my mom driving up to Plattsburgh in snowstorms? Like getting lost. There was no MapQuest. There was no

Jamie:

No GPS.

Speaker 3:

Ways. Like, she had printouts. Like, we talk about it all the time. Like my mom just like driving us because my dad was working. Like he had to work.

Speaker 3:

And so I don't think my mom never, I mean, I may be putting words in her mouth, but I don't think she ever did it for any other reason because I loved it.

Jamie:

Right. You know, it's interesting, Angelo. I think parents do feel a little entitled. I also think that the. The area that we live in, I mean, you live down you live down the street from me, right?

Jamie:

Scott lives over in Cresco, you know, the area that we live in is super competitive. Yeah, right. I mean, I don't know if you've ever heard Why?

Speaker 3:

Why do you think so?

Jamie:

Yeah, let's hear.

Speaker 3:

Oh man, we're going to piss a lot of people off.

Jamie:

That's okay.

Speaker 3:

Why are they so competitive? Art of people who are competitive, like guys that never played ever a sport.

Jamie:

Right.

Speaker 3:

Like, I don't know. I want

Jamie:

my living vicariously through your kid.

Speaker 3:

Maybe like, I think about it with my kids. Right. And me and my wife debate about it all the time, like with my daughter. Am I, am I holding her back a little bit? Or, I mean, we have so many studies here.

Speaker 3:

At the, our sports science team here is so smart. There are so many studies proving that overuse of a sport, how much it could damage you, not, not even forget about mental wise, forget about burnout, literally physically hurt you to where you get injured, literally physically stop your growth from developing, because you're overusing these muscles and they don't ever get to relax. Like I read a book I was given by one of our sports guys, a youth player should take two to three months off that certain sport per year.

Jamie:

To let whatever heal.

Speaker 3:

Yep. But now, but now that's physically impossible with every sport. Baseball, right? Like I was way better at baseball than I was at hockey. But I just enjoyed hockey way more.

Speaker 3:

So at, high school, I stopped playing baseball and I just focused on hockey. That's when I had to really decide. But like, if you look at baseball, it's year round.

Jamie:

I think every sport can be right now, to be honest with you.

Speaker 3:

Is. And if you look at, if you look at hockey specifically, it makes sense because if you're a business owner of a rink, when's your dead time during the summer, I have all this ice. But what can I do with this ice? Well, what if we charge these parents more and we offer them more and we get paid, we get paid off of dead ice. We could, well, all right, we charge 4 or 5,000.

Speaker 3:

Well, let's double that. And we go year out. Now what they're doing is hurting not only the players, which that's what you guys think of. You mentioned the parents, that's burning the parents out. Forget about those two.

Speaker 3:

It's killing the coaches. No coach wants to do this year rounds. I know for a fact I was at a local rank. I won't say what it was, but I would be, leaving the rank, watching the coaches come in in March, like zombies. And they're like, season just ended last week.

Speaker 3:

We had two days off and now we have tryouts.

Jamie:

Yeah. Tune up, tune up to

Speaker 3:

tryouts. Ridiculous. And that one building, I don't think they have one coach that has been there since maybe even after COVID. Right. So you're talking about five years.

Scott:

They turn over. And

Speaker 3:

then the biggest problem too, with hockey use sports is like, okay, people are blaming parents for running all over the place. I don't blame the parents. It's the organizations because I get it. Like you need to make sure you're going to a place where you have a good coach. It's not the organization.

Speaker 3:

It's the coach that like maybe at that level, like that coach isn't good. We need to leave like no offense to the organization, no offense to the building that level. The coach isn't good. Hold on guys. I got to plug this in apparently.

Jamie:

Oh, yeah. We don't want you to die. We definitely don't want your feet to die.

Speaker 3:

I thought it was plugged in.

Jamie:

That's interesting as well. You know, it's funny, Scott, you know, it's, it's, I was going to say before about, you know, the competitive nature of our area. Right. Angela, I think that, you know, not only what I was saying before is the competitive nature of our area. And have you ever heard anybody talk about like colleges around here?

Jamie:

Oh, my kids going to do my kids going to UNC. My neighbors are like struggling. You know, with with their kids' friends getting, you know, big time offers. And if your kid's not going to one of those schools, they feel, you know, I don't say let down, you know, but but they, you know, it's and it's real.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. You know,

Scott:

James, you're talking about on academic sports or both?

Jamie:

Both. It doesn't doesn't necessarily have to be sports.

Speaker 3:

You know, my

Jamie:

kids getting into Yale, my kids getting to UNC. Right. I mean, it's real in our area.

Speaker 3:

And well, I think that's everywhere and I've been seeing a big, big issue. And I mean, we can go on a tangent with this one too. Social media is the number one problem of that. Right? So like, I've had girls, I've had guys, that I've been working with who everyone has a different path.

Speaker 3:

I've worked with, two different kids. I've literally worked with them every single week together for years. I've taught them how to skate. They both played at a very, very good club team. They grew up playing together.

Speaker 3:

They went to high school. When it got to high school, that's where one of them started to really excel. One of them ended up going to the U S national team, playing D one hockey now is drafted.

Jamie:

I know you're talking about

Speaker 3:

the other one. And just as good, maybe didn't grow as much as quick, but now he's massive as well. Took a different path, went to prep school, grew a little bit. Now he finally got his D one ride. Right.

Jamie:

Well, maybe I don't know who you're talking about,

Speaker 3:

they, they, you won't know the second kid, you know, first kid.

Jamie:

I know the first kid. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. The second one, I mean, now he's, he's got a D one ride now he's,

Jamie:

but

Speaker 3:

for a long time, there's a lot of resentment there. Right. There's a lot of jealousy and I get it because, oh, you put this post and this, and you're seeing this like, okay. Like it's such a facet lie. I mean, that's the best word for it.

Speaker 3:

Like no one ever, there's so many things out there that no one ever puts the bad stuff out there on social media.

Scott:

No, we talk

Jamie:

about that a lot.

Speaker 3:

Like, Oh my God, I'm on a trip. Look at me. Oh, Like I love when my wife is like, you never post anything about me. I go, do you understand that there are studies out there that show that like, if you post things about your significant other, there's proven facts there that like, that's because you're not doing well. And then I've had buddies who have always posted stuff and then you find out like, oops, they've cheated or they're divorced and like like, no effect.

Speaker 3:

Like, that's fine. Like, I'm not judging at all. Yeah. But like this whole time you were showing that you had this fantastic marriage and now you're divorced? Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Okay. And then my wife gets mad because I don't post happy birthday to this one here. Right. So like kids all the time and, like, especially with the girls, they're a little more sensitive, but the boys are too. Like all the girls are posting their D one offers and then to this school and to this school.

Speaker 3:

And then I do have parents who want their kid to get that Ivy school.

Jamie:

I

Speaker 3:

mean, how many CEOs are not from an Ivy league school? There was an article that just was out the other day. I forgot the exact number, but they're not from Ivy league schools. You'll be okay if you don't go to Ivy league.

Scott:

There's different paths.

Speaker 3:

Like, listen, it's cool if you do, but like understand too, that if you go to an Ivy league school, you better hope you get financial aid because they don't give scholarships. Right. No, that's true. And you have to understand when you go to those Ivy league schools, they actually don't care about sports. They only care about academics.

Speaker 3:

So you are like pushed to the side. I have a, my, my best friend, his brother was a Cornell lacrosse coach for a long time. Just won, they just won nationals last year. And he's like, I'm, I'm done. Because it's, it's tough.

Speaker 3:

They don't get what they need. And the school fights on them on it. So I don't know. Is it cool and pristine to get that Ivy league? I don't know.

Speaker 3:

I don't know why so many people care what other people think.

Scott:

That's that's a good point. But let let me, you know, in talking about

Jamie:

what It's a very real thing. No,

Scott:

it is. But like in terms of like what other people think is kind of like a good segue and I just, you know, talking about skating. Right. And I just want to like bring it back to kind of like your bread and butter and, you know, what's, you know, brought you so much success. But in terms of, you know, like, the great skaters that you've coached Mhmm.

Scott:

Like, are there what are are there certain characteristics that you would say that like they all have in common? And kind of like a follow-up to that. And you'd mentioned kind of like late bloomers yourself. I think you said that you were one yourself. That the timing with it also.

Scott:

I'm saying the timing because when we talk about skills, you know, so many parents and whether it's bro science or it's for real, they're like skating, skating, skating. You got to become a great skater at a young age or they're just not gonna be able to play. Now, maybe I'm oversimplifying it, but just kinda like, you know, what are the things they have in common and and what do you what do you have what are your thoughts on like the timing of it all?

Speaker 3:

So the first question, what they have in common, they're athletic. They're, they're freaks in nature. They're animals in a gym. You look at guys like Chris Crider and the guy can jump out of a pool.

Scott:

Seen it really?

Jamie:

Yeah. I've seen the video.

Scott:

Yeah. Are you serious?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I'm standing.

Scott:

It's crazy. It's fucking insane.

Jamie:

Yeah. I've seen it. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Like Jesper Brad, was talking about how he played soccer. Like that makes sense. That's where you got your quickness from. That's where you got your speed, like running, like you have to, they're, they're all athletes.

Jamie:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

They're athletic. I mean, you, you can't harp that enough. The NHL has done a study. This is my favorite, study. They studied Sweden and Finland.

Speaker 3:

Two countries have the most NHL players per population. So they've studied Y Xs and O's nothing too different. Skating skills, nothing too different. Two things stood out one. They play three different sports.

Speaker 3:

And as soon as that sport ends, they go to the next one. And they do that till high school. Number two. Now this is tough and we already talked about it. Victor Hedman's and prime example.

Speaker 3:

Victor had men has played for three teams in his entire life, his town, his country and the lightning. They do not go running around looking for teams. So that one, that one's debatable now.

Scott:

Is that like a stability, like a mental stability type of thing, or it has to do with like the training at those respective places potentially?

Speaker 3:

I would assume the training that you're just consistently building and there's no need to go running You don't deviate.

Jamie:

Yeah. You're not deviating. You have this skill and you

Scott:

work on it. Period. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And then what was the third part of that? I know there's a third part to that question.

Scott:

Like the timing of it.

Speaker 3:

It's the timing. Everyone's different. When you, when you hear the guys on Chiclets, a lot interview guys and they're like, yeah, I was a late bloomer. Yeah. I was playing for the US national team, and that's where I really I go, well, how'd you get there?

Speaker 3:

You're not a late bloomer if you ended up on The US like, stop. Alright? Like, I was a late bloomer. That's why, like, I got to like a point where guys were like, yeah. Like, where did you come from?

Speaker 3:

Like, oh, like, all right. But you don't have the red playing resume. So like, you're gone. I I think up until high school, nothing matters. And I'm not saying when it gets to high school, that's, oh my God, like now it's urgent.

Speaker 3:

No, like play three different sports. Like look at prep school. If you go to prep school, if you go to a Hockey or a Loomis or whatever it

Jamie:

is, you have

Speaker 3:

to play three sports. Right. And some of those guys have gone on to have unbelievable careers. I mean, it's you think Brian Leach, Mike Richter, some of those guys who have gone through that route and have done so well. The timing, the timing, I just think is different.

Speaker 3:

I know for, my son who's now just turned six, he needed to learn escape before he even touched a stick. So I had him and six other kids, from his preschool out on the ice, thirty minutes. And we just did some fun stuff, skating wise, like jumps. And I had every single one of them going forwards, backwards, and somewhat stopping after six weeks. Right.

Speaker 3:

And so we were only on the ice for three hours in total. Right. Every single one of them could do that except for one. And that was my son. My son had a really good snow angel going.

Speaker 3:

And, like so I had all these parents come with their kids, and I felt bad just, like, spending time with my son while he was doing his snow angels. So I left him and it would help the other kids. So I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna pay the money, but I'm gonna learn to skate. So, Jason Briggs over at Sporto is unbelievable.

Speaker 3:

He actually coached me at Bosco for one year. And so I showed up. Briggs was like, Hey, oh, you want to jump on the ice? I go, I just paid you so I didn't have to. I go, he's not listening to me.

Speaker 3:

I apparently don't know what I'm doing, so you need to teach him.

Jamie:

Of course not, dad.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And, and Briggs did an unbelievable job. I don't know. One day, like it just clicked for him and he ended up loving it. It's almost similar to what happened with me.

Speaker 3:

And so now all of a sudden, like he's a hockey player and now I'm his coach and I'm like, buddy, you barely know how to skate. You're lying. And so, but it's so cool to see him now have the confidence once he has the stick in his hand now at six. And now he's in learn to play where I had one of my best friends. He put his kids in learn to play and they hate hockey.

Speaker 3:

They never played it. They're they're older. And I'm like, did you put him in learning to skate? He's like, no. I'm like, well, yeah, like I even, okay.

Speaker 3:

So this could show you how crazy it is. There are people who are playing Myths who also bring their kids to learn to play, to get more ice time. So now my son who is at learn to play is going against kids who are a lot better. And they're way better with the puck and like, he doesn't know how to stick. Emily's got worse hands than I did, which is crazy.

Speaker 3:

And so he. He's starting to get a little deterred from it because there's some good kids, but now obviously the coaches that learn to play this, the one kid, I don't recall his name. He's so good with the kids. Right. And, some of the games that he's playing is great.

Speaker 3:

And so he'll, we obviously like start pushing the puck towards my son a little bit when he's going against the better kids. Like we do it for everyone. Right. You want to make sure that they're having the best experience because the NHL has, has found that at the mite level, that's where the biggest drop off is. Obviously.

Speaker 3:

I don't think that's a secret, but why it's because they're deterred because they can't skate.

Scott:

That makes sense. Yeah. My son did learn to skate before he started. As like, we were in Manhattan. It was over at Chelsea peers, like the cyclones, like prep.

Scott:

Oh yeah. But he was, yeah. And we, we had a, started off in like just regular, like the figure skates, the rentals, and then he

Speaker 3:

graduated I, to didn't do, I never did figure skates. Couldn't do it.

Scott:

Yeah. I'm doing it

Speaker 3:

for my son.

Jamie:

Never done it either. Offense.

Scott:

Don't take it. It's all good.

Speaker 3:

It's just, I know it's

Scott:

his, his path.

Jamie:

And do know people that have done that? You're not the only one, Scott.

Speaker 3:

Well, because yeah. It's wide it's a wider blade, so it's easier to balance.

Scott:

So and and in complete honesty, when I took him there, it was to go skate with his cousin who wanted to learn how to skate. And it's just like the two young kids were just doing the same thing. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Scott:

And so it was just like, alright, just go out there with your cousin. You know? Just And do your then when he showed interest in the hockey that was happening down there, I'm like, alright, dude. There's different skates. Let's get those and blah blah blah blah.

Speaker 3:

How was that transition going from the figure skates to hockey? Not bad at all?

Scott:

No. It wasn't it wasn't bad. I I mean, it was definitely like, he wasn't a super proficient skater when he moved into hockey skates anyway.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Scott:

It was definitely different. But, like, we're talking, like, he

Speaker 3:

was just, I don't know, four. Yeah. So one skate he's just It wasn't.

Scott:

Yeah. It wasn't so much of a, you know, so much of a difference. And, you know, he's since obviously figured it out. But yeah. Yeah.

Scott:

And I yeah. Yeah.

Jamie:

You know, it's funny, Angela, you just mentioned like kind of like the retention rate of mites, right? You know, because, you know, to make sure they're having fun or else why would they hang around? We had Bob Mancini from USA Hockey. Yes. And we had him.

Jamie:

Matter of fact, the episode came out this morning and one of his big thing, one of USA Hockey's big thing was the retention rate of their younger players. Yeah, right. And he said it used to be like 45%, and now it's upwards of like 87 to 90%. And he was talking about fun, how it's important for the kids to enjoy and love what they're doing. Or else why would they hang around for this?

Speaker 3:

Yeah,

Jamie:

right. So I give USA Hockey a lot of credit for, you know, for kind of formulating a program where the retention rate has, has essentially doubled. Yeah. And it's all, it's, and it's all based on fun.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it has to be there's well, that's the one thing too, where like, haven't worked with a younger player like that in a long time. And there's just some games that they implemented that like, kid loves it. And then just as simple as like, he loves a Superman dive,

Jamie:

like literally under the, under the, under the bar. Right.

Speaker 3:

He loves he like, he's like, can we just do a Superman dive? Like we're scrimmaging during a scrimmage. He's asking for a Superman dive. I'm like, buddy, just go to the corner and go do it. Sure.

Speaker 3:

Whatever you want, buddy. Like, but it like, they'll do a simple drill where they have all the pucks in the middle of the ice. The nets are facing the other way and let's clean your room. Go get a puck, put in the net, go put. Like, it's just so simplistic and so much fun.

Speaker 3:

Like even playing tag, tag is probably like, I will always, I probably have done it with Dom. I will always be like, alright, you can't leave until you tag me. And what am I doing the whole time? I'm just turning. And what are the kids doing?

Speaker 3:

They're doing tight turns to follow-up.

Jamie:

But they're playing a game. They're working.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Not a clue. Right? So like literally tag. It's but that's that's awesome to hear.

Scott:

That's, so that you brought up a few things. And on one hand, we're talking about playing tag with, like, with young kids as a way for them to learn tight turns. Yeah. Clearly, you're coaching at the professional level skating. And just before we even started recording, you were mentioning how some of the if, you know, there's a lot of drills and technique that you're going to teach at all different ages.

Jamie:

Yeah.

Scott:

As far as skating goes and just from like your own experience and how you go about things, kind of like what changes, you know, from the younger kids up to pros? And obviously, there's communication pieces that change, of course. But in terms of like the actual skating instruction, what to focus on, like is there like clear clearly defined like stages like this is like all edge work, then we move into like strength and speed agility, kind like what's the progression and how does that change if at all from the different age groups?

Speaker 3:

You should see some pro or junior guys play a game of knockout. It gets intense. He gets intense. I am telling you, there was one time with the junior team that I work with once a week. I was like, alright, we're gonna do, some talk protection, some shuffle stride, to work on lateral movement.

Speaker 3:

And I was like, alright, I will see how this goes. We're we're gonna play a game of knockout. And they're like, all right. And then they finished. They go,

Jamie:

we're going again. We're going again. Oh my goodness. That's awesome.

Speaker 3:

Fifth or sixth game. I was like, guys, I gotta go get my kids. Like, you can keep playing, but

Scott:

I gotta go. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And I it, like, blew my mind that they wanted to play it so bad. There is the the biggest difference from a younger kid to an NHL player, skating wise when working with them is with a NHL guy will work on one thing and that's it until they can do that simple thing savagely well, whether it's their forward stride, their tight turns, their crossovers, fundamental things with a younger kid retention, or like just there, you want to keep them engaged. You have to move on. You're not going to spend as much time, but that's fine because you have so many more years to work on that, to do it correctly.

Speaker 3:

The biggest thing and the biggest problem is, I had one of our last year, had one of our development coaches at the devils asked me, he goes, have you talked to a bunch of different skill coaches? They're all on the same page. Pretty much here or there, there might be with a skill coach underhandling overhandling in certain situations. Goalie coaches, certain things here or there that they may not agree on, but pretty similar. He goes, why is skating all over the place?

Speaker 3:

And I go, it's a simple, simple question. We shared ice with two different sports. You got hockey, speed skating, and figure skating. Now, if you think about figure skating and speed skating, they don't have that many players. We do business wise.

Speaker 3:

They'll make more money teaching us. Well, I could teach hockey players. All it is is a little different body angle and the same put no, it is the biomechanics of how you work wearing a figure skate or a speed skate to a hockey skate is completely different. There was one time I was working at a college, and we spent the week there. And so me and my business partner were just walking around.

Speaker 3:

We ran in, we're shown being shown the school. We ran into cross country team. And so I asked the cross country team, I go, Hey, do you guys have the same coach as the sprinters? And they laughed at me like I was an idiot. And I was like, what are you talking about?

Speaker 3:

It's running. Why is it? Why is it different? They go, it's completely different. I go, I know.

Speaker 3:

I just wanted to hear you say it. There's different mechanics to how your body works when you're sprinting or you're running a longer distance. There's diff we just talked about it. There's a different blade. Do you know that figure skates figure skaters only sharpen their skate at like an inch?

Speaker 3:

They're super dull. They are on top of the ice more, but they have a wider blade. They have a longer blade. They have a toe pick speed skaters. They have a longer blade.

Speaker 3:

They have a longer wide. So you have these people trying to teach how they skate to a hockey player. The biomechanics are different. Then you have some hockey coaches are that will just be like, all right, this is the old way of skating. This is the new way of skating that Ryan Reeves interview on Checklist the other day.

Speaker 3:

I've never been sent a video more in my life. Now you're I I literally had someone go to me and be like, I am trying to visually picture skating upright and being on my toes at the same time, because I just can't grasp the concept. And then you see a video of Matthew Schaefer on a back check body angles forwards at a 45 degree angle, good arm swing, long stride catches a guy, picks a guy on a breakaway. It goes the other way. I think Matthew Schaefer is doing pretty well.

Speaker 3:

Right?

Jamie:

Yeah. Oh yeah. Number one pick overall.

Speaker 3:

I guess he can't skate though. Cause he's not upright. He's not running on his toes. Like, are there times where you're going to, I kind of know what they're talking about. I think it's more of the McDavid, like short, choppy crossovers with the ladder mobility.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. That's, that's different, but you're also not Connor McDavid. What Connor McDavid does. Nope. Oh, but there are people out there who say you just got to do one drill and you'll skate like him.

Jamie:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Just one drill. Sure. You're good. But there's times where McDavid will shorten up his stride and then change it immediately.

Speaker 3:

Mid shift, mid game. Like that's, there's only two people I've seen do that. It's McDavid and Eric Carlson. Eric Carlson, I've seen change his stride mid shift to where like, he's wide, he's he's really wide based and he's kind of delay. It's their way of delaying.

Speaker 3:

And then when these guys want to go, then they get to full extension. So is there one way to skate? No. Is there one way to skate at your top maximum speed? Yes.

Speaker 3:

And that has to be taught. That's a lot harder than doing these little tiny crossovers that anyone could do. My son can do that and he can't skate very well at all. So there's, there's definitely to, to kind of sum it all up. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

You, you want to build that good foundation at the beginning. And then it's just going to make it easier when you get that stick to be able to stick him a little better and have more confidence with the puck, have more balance. Cause even at the NHL level, we're still working on guys that are, we got 18, 19 year old kids. They're still babies. They're still growing into their body.

Speaker 3:

And they're sometimes like Gumby Bambi out there. Right.

Jamie:

And they're like,

Speaker 3:

there, we have one player that I've worked with who this year he's looks so much better. I go, what did you do differently? He goes, nothing. He's, he's just stronger. He's older.

Speaker 3:

He's more balanced now. And it looks fantastic.

Jamie:

Interesting. Right?

Scott:

And

Speaker 3:

it's he's still developing.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

I'm curious, Angelo. Would you would you to our young parents who have young skaters, right? Would you recommend because I never did the figure skating thing. Right? I I we went right into learn to skate and then learn to play.

Jamie:

Would you, would you recommend kids go learn from a figure skating coach or would you say,

Speaker 3:

Well, I sent my son. Right? I mean, Jason Briggs is a figure skater. He's

Jamie:

Oh, I didn't know that. Okay. I didn't realize that.

Speaker 3:

Okay. A figure skating coach. Got it. They, I mean, were, there were also people on the ice with hockey skates. I think just at that point, when you're learning, you're, you're just working on fundamentals and everyone's kind of following a checklist.

Speaker 3:

Like can they, they hop on one foot or two feet or can they, can they do a stride on their right foot? Like, that's fine. Yes. I'm not saying that like, you can't go work with a figure skater

Jamie:

or a speed skater. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

There are people who have worked with them and have made it to the NHL. Like it's, it's doable. But like the biggest thing I get in our area, because I mean, especially with my daughter, she's into soccer. A lot of the parents don't know hockey And they're like, what do you do for a living? You you you teach NHL guys how to skate?

Speaker 3:

Don't they already know how to skate? Like, yes. Yes. They do. But what I am doing is I am trying to find 10% more efficiency.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So they become a little bit faster. So we have an edge on the other teams. And then I'm all, that's going to give them more confidence. Sure.

Speaker 3:

Cause I I've had one guy here who's played over a thousand games. I, we were working on tight turns, which we will work on with the youth players. Like not nothing changes from youth to NHL. The terminology changes, like you kinda, appointed to, and how we progress. Right.

Speaker 3:

It's a lot slower with an NHL guy because of bad habits, lot quicker because with younger guys, because they don't have those bad habits, but you want to make sure that when you're starting to go and you're going through this whole process, that you're just trying to do it to the best of your ability. And, but then we'll get guys here that like, like I was saying, we worked on tight turns. He goes, I have never felt more confident and better to do it. He was like, where were you ten years ago? I was like, we're the same age, buddy.

Speaker 3:

I was still playing too. But me, it's on the level. But it's crazy to see that like some of these guys would have their taught incorrectly, not taught it, but still get to this level because they're just, they do so many things so well.

Jamie:

They do other things well.

Speaker 3:

And I think the biggest thing is just the hockey IQ. Could it be more important than skating? I would say so.

Scott:

Really interesting.

Speaker 3:

Right. You, you have, you have guys in the league who've and Alex Ovechkin.

Jamie:

I was just gonna say, look at Ovechkin. He's an awful skater.

Speaker 3:

His crossovers are really, really good.

Jamie:

Yes. But everything else looks odd.

Speaker 3:

Oh, he's a train wreck on his train

Jamie:

somebody like you who, like, breaks down skating strides. You must watch him and go, oh, god. Oh, god.

Speaker 3:

Well, like, we were actually talking about it with, this year's draft. Like, it I was involved with it, and it was cool to be a part of it. And like, if this was back in, I think we'll worry, 2003, I think our draft year was because Ovechkin's my age. Like, if that came across my desk, I would have been crossovers

Jamie:

Pass.

Speaker 3:

Pretty good. Over. It's a lot of work. That's just They wanna pass on this one, guys.

Jamie:

Well, I

Speaker 3:

would've been like, he's gonna be a little bit of a project. But then, like, the skills coach would've been like, he could score. Yeah.

Jamie:

He's got to shoot. He's got to shoot like a motherfucker. We need to get it now, and

Speaker 3:

you figure out how to teach

Jamie:

him how to skate to the best

Speaker 3:

of your ability.

Jamie:

Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So he probably, don't need to skate. I score goals.

Scott:

Right. But so is it but that's I mean, that's so interesting because I think if you ask any, like, average person about, like, who doesn't know hockey in great detail, they would just assume that because he's the the the best school schooler of all time that he's like a a proficient, fantastic skater. So, like, that said though, are there as, like, common, like, mistakes or maybe even, like, misconceptions in terms of, like, skating development that people have in that, like, when approaching it, like, I don't and I I don't know what they would be, but, like, is there things that, you know, that you see often that people are just, like, wrong on when it comes to, like, either learning or developing skating?

Speaker 3:

Oof. When you say that, like the first thing that comes to mind is, we get a lot, parents are like, he needs to work on his 10 and twos. He needs to work on his mohawks or

Scott:

like speed versus technique maybe as an example. Right?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I mean, could you teach the technique incorrectly for hockey? Technically. Yes. But could you still skate down the ice?

Speaker 3:

Yes. It just won't be as efficient. And we've had, so I, I, we had, been introduced to it about seven years ago. We have the ten eighty sprint. You get attached to the back of your pants and you take off, us at ProStride, we actually have one now.

Speaker 3:

If you go to prostride.com, we have a leaderboard. You can see your results. You can compare yourself to yourself. If you've done it multiple times, you can compare yourself to peers. You can compare yourself to everyone.

Speaker 3:

And we have some NHL guys up there as well, which is, it's cool to see. And we do have some guys who have beat our NHL guy that's on there, which is fun to see. Our one player who is on the top of that leaderboard played division three hockey.

Jamie:

Oh, wow. Interesting.

Speaker 3:

So why didn't he play D one if he's a fastest he's faster than an NHL guy? Cause he's going in the wrong direction. He doesn't know that there's a lot of times where you need to slow down and go half speed. So it's actually funny, like my father, I remember there were some games where I didn't have any points, any goals. And he was like, you played really hard.

Speaker 3:

Great job. And then I remember there would be some games where I had three goals and he was like, you look like shit. Were lazy as hell. I was in position. I was in position to get those pucks.

Speaker 3:

I was in those lanes. I had to slow down. That's the hockey IQ. Right. And then gimmicky or not, I don't think it is.

Speaker 3:

But what we've been calling it is hockey skating IQ as well. Right? You have your hockey IQ, that's your X's and O's where to be, but then you also have hockey skating IQ where, all right, here's your, here's your toolbox. We're giving you all these different tools. You got to figure out when to use them, especially for defensemen.

Speaker 3:

Are eight different ways I will teach you going forward. So backwards there's a ninth way. It's forget what the push is. It's a figure skating push with your outside edge and it's fine. I'll use it.

Speaker 3:

I actually kind of like it as a forward. If you're just trying to get a little bit of space, like to get a quick shot off. But I got guys being taught to do that forward to backwards on transitions. And then they're getting blown past by a forward. And it's like, yeah, probably not the right tool in that right situation.

Speaker 3:

You weren't going fast enough. Then there are some times where you see it a lot in youth where, all right, that player was going a 100 miles an hour the whole time. That's why the pass was behind you. You weren't in the passing lane, right? So it's hockey skating at you where to know what to do, what.

Speaker 3:

And that kind of goes back to Eric Carlson and McDavid, where they have two different styles of skating, where they have a style that will shorten up. And then they'll have a style that lengthen out. Well, why are they shortening up to delay, to slow down, but to keep moving, then they have their bigger engine where, okay, now it's time to go. And then that's when you see Connor McDavid split for New York Rangers and go in for a goal for, I mean, a has a highlight real goal every single year is backhand the other night. Like was crazy.

Speaker 3:

This guy's not human.

Scott:

No. But that, you know, that's something that you see a lot. And and and just because you're talking about McDavid and the wider stance and getting low and the just this is a very specific question. But a lot of times you'll see, players like kinda like when they're, like, turning, they'll have both skates on the ice or Mhmm. But they'll pick up one, like toe their toes on one skate and kinda like they're kinda riding their heel a little bit.

Speaker 3:

So, that is that on a tight turn or is that going down the ice?

Scott:

No. It let's just say that I I'm like picturing it kinda like in close, like to the net and you're kind of like, you know, you're in

Speaker 3:

So a little bit of we call that an anchor.

Scott:

I would

Speaker 3:

say an anchor. You're using that heel to anchor in to the ice. And with your other foot, with your other foot, you're going to push and you're actually pulling yourself in that direction with that heel. That's something that, so that's something that we will do with the little kids. We'll call it shuffle stride and then using that anchor to pull you.

Speaker 3:

And then we'll do knockout and they can kind of use that to be a little more fluid and have more agility. And then we were doing that with NHL guys the other day. Right. You're gonna, you're gonna do it in, in a tight spot in traffic. You're going to do it on a breakaway.

Speaker 3:

I think it was a couple of summers ago. I believe it was I called during a summer skate. Faked right, faked left, and then tucked it in. And the goalie was in the corner.

Jamie:

And he

Speaker 3:

just, he just used it so well. Yeah. It's, it's something that like, we've worked on with some guys at this level and they, they can't do it very well. And so it takes them a little bit to get it to click. But again, do you need that tool?

Speaker 3:

No. Is it nice to have? Yeah. Yeah. Jesper Bratt can do it very, very well.

Speaker 3:

He did it on his shootout goal the other night.

Jamie:

I was just going to say, against, was it Montreal or was it against,

Speaker 3:

was the shootout was winner against.

Jamie:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

Was it Montreal? Yeah.

Scott:

I wanna say it was Montreal. OT winner.

Jamie:

It was the overtime. Oh, Scott, you were

Scott:

at the I was at the game. Yeah. Scott, that's what we're talking about.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Well, he did. And then he did it again on shootout where him and Cotter did the same move, But they

Jamie:

looked different.

Scott:

So

Speaker 3:

they were different because the footwork was different with Brad. Yeah. They were both the same exact move. They both went the same exact way, same shot, but it was just skating wise different.

Jamie:

That anchor, Kale Makar does that anchor very well when he comes out, when he retrieves the puck behind the net and he comes out and he starts cross over around that to gain speed and then he anchors and makes the footwear of the four checker is missed.

Speaker 3:

Now here's the thing. So you're seeing that one thing and you're going to be like, all right, Hey, I need Dom to be on the ice with you. I need to teach her.

Scott:

You need to teach her the anchor.

Jamie:

That's right.

Speaker 3:

I, yes, I will. But do I need to spend an hour on it? Do I need to spend? No, no. Like at their age, at the youth level, like, can they do a good stride?

Speaker 3:

Can they do a crossover? Are they quick? Like being a part of the draft this year was awesome. It was just so cool to break down. And so what did I do?

Speaker 3:

I just literally looked at their fundamentals and then their quickness. That's it. Right. And to be honest with you, one of the kids that we, were looking at, I loved him. He had, he was so fast.

Speaker 3:

He was so good. His points were great. His technique was terrible.

Scott:

Skating technique.

Jamie:

But he was fast.

Speaker 3:

But he was so fast. Was an he was an athlete. Give me that kid. Because you could teach him. Could teach Ike could be even faster.

Speaker 3:

Right? So he's not he's not efficient, right?

Jamie:

He's probably very low as far as efficiency goes. But when you actually get a hold of him, because like you said, these are still young kids. Yes. You could still mold them. Yes.

Scott:

So, but with that said, though, so all right. So we we live in a day and age where there's like so much extra above and beyond like the tuition for like the the club, whatever the team my kids plan on, Jayme, Don, whatever. You know, there's, like, the different skating schools, program, whatever. Yeah. What, in your opinion, is there like and I think you you probably answered this before, but maybe I'll just I'll ask it again.

Scott:

But in terms of putting in extra work, going to like the before school skates or the extra clinics, at what age do you think it needs to be kind of like a have to if a kid wants to play high level hockey? Or maybe that's not even the wrong way of putting it. Maybe just like take himself, like level up himself. Right? Like it doesn't have to be high level.

Scott:

Go from A to double A or double A to triple A or whatever it is. Is there like a a window there where you're like, yeah, you should really start thinking about it now?

Speaker 3:

I want to say earlier to better.

Scott:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

But, but in saying that in moderation, there

Scott:

are,

Speaker 3:

there are times where we'll get, four registrations in a row for ProStride and it's the same parent and we will avoid them and we will call them

Jamie:

for the same They want to go back to back back to back.

Speaker 3:

They want to take every single clinic that we have for the entire And they're going to take four different camps. That's too many. That's too many. We're in a business. We have a business.

Speaker 3:

I still, I have bills to pay. I didn't, I never got into coaching to become rich. Right. You see some of these coaches that are driving around and having these lavish lives as a coach. That's, that's interesting.

Speaker 3:

They must get their money from somewhere else. Like, I don't know. There's, I don't know. When you're going and you're doing this, it's moderation, but like even looking at my son, right. I go to our skills coach here.

Speaker 3:

I'm like, oh boy, Murph, you, you, you need to work with my son. He's he's got my hands, but I just want to introduce him to something. Right. And it's not like, Oh man, like I see the other kids and I know it's hard to compare your, your child to another person. But like everyone's got their own path.

Speaker 3:

So I think in moderation, younger, the better. There are so many, so many kids, guys here. I've had one guy tell me, where were you ten years ago? I had one guy tell me, where were you when I was 16? I had one guy tell me, where were you when I was 10 years old?

Speaker 3:

Right. They're still here though.

Jamie:

Right.

Speaker 3:

But what are we trying to do at this level? We're trying, well, I want to win a Stanley cup. It's plain and simple. So I want to make this team the best that they possibly can so we can get that trophy or I want to, and then individually I want to prolong their career. Right.

Speaker 3:

So we had one guy who was probably at eight, nine hundred games. He ended up playing over 1,200. And I'd like to think I had a little, I don't know, it would be interesting if I wasn't there, would he have played those games? But I know for a fact he felt more confident. So maybe it allowed him to play at a higher level.

Speaker 3:

But if you can learn to do it at a younger age, where maybe it's like we say like the perfect happy medium for us is three clinics where you take our winter clinic. It's a good kind of refresher for in season, because you're always going to regress when you're not working on something. And it's, it's three days, but it's a good reset. Then you, then we come to the spring after season's done, get a nice little skate, a little, a good refresher before tryouts. Then during the summer is a great time.

Speaker 3:

That's going to be a little bit longer, a little more extensive. It's good to kind of get back on the ice, but it's also good. Now we're going to really put in the work so that when you go into the season, now you're feeling good, But then you, you do have like, that's, that's on the high end. Two, two clinics are fine. Right.

Speaker 3:

If you do a winter and a summer or winter and a spring or a spring and a summer, whatever it is, that's fine. But don't forget about your skills. So I always say there's three S's, right? You have your skills, your skating and your strength. Now with the strength, that's not my expertise, talking with, I mean, Jerry at the ice faults is like talking to our strength coach at the devil's seat.

Speaker 3:

Those both of those guys are unbelievable. They know exactly what they're doing. It was, it was pretty crazy. Even like for my eight year old, she's a little bit slower And I text him, I go, all right, I'm going be one of those crazy parents. Should my daughter be doing some workouts?

Speaker 3:

He goes, no, she shouldn't be. He goes, but if you want to do like some stuff, like just some simple stuff, but but you have to be careful with the body weight stuff. Plyometrics are not good for kids.

Jamie:

Jumping is explosive on the joints at too young of an age. Yeah, I get that. I meant more like pushups, sit ups,

Speaker 3:

squats, squats.

Jamie:

Yeah. Plios are all. Yeah. I could see Plios being a problem because you're, you're really, you're stressing joints, right? Well,

Speaker 3:

like, I mean, think about a couple of years ago, I don't know, take five years ago, not even five years ago, like two, three years ago. How much did Dom weigh? Like just a kind of average, like

Jamie:

probably like sixty five pounds.

Speaker 3:

Okay. If you, if you squat the bar, it's 45. Yeah. If you do a jump squat, you're landing with 65 pounds on your joints.

Jamie:

That's right. Right. Think about that. Yeah. That's exactly right.

Speaker 3:

And when he's told me that I was blown away because what everything's oh no, lifting is not good. All body weights, all jump squats, broad jump. Your joints are going to be awful. It's not really, they're still growing.

Jamie:

We know when you're doing that stuff, it's yeah, no, that, that plios. Yeah. I don't know, Angela. That's a good question. What age does, well, let me ask you a question.

Jamie:

What age do they say that plios are good to kind of start? Know,

Speaker 3:

that I don't, that's a good question. Yeah. I know. I would have to go on the other side of this room.

Jamie:

Yeah. But

Speaker 3:

yeah, no, it's a, it's a good question, but I know even for my daughter, like, and I even know with a lot of, hockey players, right. Even at the higher levels, they want quicker players. Okay. So my, my child is not as quick. How do I become quicker?

Speaker 3:

Push or pull heavy things or hill sprints. So your slide pushes, pushing heavier objects will get your engine bigger. You're going to get more power. And then once you take away that resistance, now you're going to move your feet a little quicker and push this as powerful.

Jamie:

It's like the weighted bat when you swing a weighted bat before you get in, get up to the plate.

Scott:

Yeah. So that's like an Oh, sorry. Go ahead, James.

Jamie:

No, no. I just had a quick question. You know, we're talking about like, you know, you mentioned a bunch of NHL guys and you were mentioning the draft.

Scott:

So, before you go there, sorry, I just want to pick you. Just because you're talking about like the training, but you're differentiating between on ice versus off ice. Right? And so obviously you're not gonna figure out your edges necessarily off ice. I'm assuming on ice is better for edge work.

Scott:

Although, you tell me. But I guess, just if you could quickly kind of like differentiate like I think everyone is just like, you need more ice, more ice, more ice when in fact you can probably improve your skating a lot by doing off ice stuff. Like, what are some of the main things people could do off the ice to improve their skating or what's gonna give you the most bang for your buck if there are

Speaker 3:

such level?

Scott:

Yeah. For, I guess, for the younger ages. I mean

Jamie:

Or is it just all on ice? Is it all time

Speaker 3:

on ice? Play another sport.

Scott:

Okay. No, that's a great answer.

Speaker 3:

Could you do things off the ice to work on your, your skating? Yes. You can work on your strength. You can work on sprints. You can work on something that was never ever talked about when we grew up playing your ankle mobility.

Scott:

Sure.

Jamie:

It's huge these days.

Scott:

Jeff Lavecchi always talks about that on, on Think Tech.

Jamie:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Your, your ankle mobility being a, you talked about working on your edges. Okay. You need to strengthen your ankles. How can you do that?

Speaker 3:

Like the thing with Hudson came out, like that's an old Russian like thing where he unties his skates. I probably have done it with Tom. I've done. I a 100% have done it with Tom. Right.

Speaker 3:

That's like,

Jamie:

I'm sure you

Speaker 3:

have. That's an old, great Russian story, that they would do

Jamie:

ankle strength.

Speaker 3:

Yep. And then people often think about your, you gotta get your ankle flex forward to get your knee out in front of your toe. Like that's why sometimes guys tie their skates a little different, a little looser, but it's also in and out, right? You want to be able to roll and have that strength there. So that's some things you can work on off the ice to work on your skating technique.

Speaker 3:

That was something that obviously during COVID, we had a lot of time to think about and work on. We teamed up with Mars Blades. I haven't had a pair of Roll Blades since I was 12 years old. I got like, Jamie lives down the road. Thank God he's far enough.

Speaker 3:

Because he would have been outside his window dying laughing. I was so psyched to put these rollerblades on. My road was just, like, paved in front of us before COVID. So I put on these rollerblades. Everyone's outside.

Speaker 3:

It is this is the height of COVID. Everyone's home.

Jamie:

Yeah. Because there's nothing else to do.

Speaker 3:

Nothing to do. And so my kids are outside. My wife's outside. I roll down my driveway and I go to make a left turn down to your, about I actually, I think I eventually skated down

Jamie:

to your house. I'm sure you did.

Speaker 3:

I went to go cross over. I curled up my toes inside my boot. I went to land on my toe. It's just natural habit. I face planted so hard.

Speaker 3:

And I was like, I'm not on the ice. Oh my god. And, like, I'm just laying there on my face. My wife die laughing. If my neighbors knew what I did for a living, they'd be like, oh, I can do this too.

Jamie:

Yeah. They'd be like, man, he sucks at his job. Look at this guy.

Speaker 3:

That's the oh, okay. I can do this. But roller skating is so different. Your edges are different. The grip on the ice is different.

Speaker 3:

It's not the same. We tried synthetic ice. Synthetic ice is not the same. Could it work? Could rollerblades work?

Speaker 3:

Sure. Me and my son probably twice a week, we'll go play roller hockey. He loves it. I do remember though, like it was probably around high school, maybe end of middle school. I used to put love, they used to have the, Bauer breakout roller hockey tournaments.

Speaker 3:

They would go into parking lots, throw up these blow up like rings.

Jamie:

Right.

Speaker 3:

That was the greatest time ever. Like I still talk to buddies all the time that I played with in there. My coach reached out to me the other day. Like, I remember at one point my dad was like, okay, you're done. He goes, if you want to play roll hockey, you can, but you're now doing ring turns out on the ice.

Speaker 3:

You're passing up pucks. You're not stopping on pucks. You can see you're getting bad habits. That was at an older age. My son, like I said, my son's playing roller hockey.

Speaker 3:

He loves it. Right. And then he'll even like eventually take his skates off play, just ball hockey with the stick, which that's what he needs, but he it's, it's unorganized. And it's the crazy thing is we'll be up in Maui. Everyone will be like, oh my God, what rink are you at?

Speaker 3:

I'll post like a video on social media. And they're like, what rink are you at? Is that in your house? Like, it's not in my house. I don't have that kind of money.

Speaker 3:

I go, like, no one is there ever. It's so sad. Right? Why not, why not just go there? And I know, like, I've been, talking with the NHL, they want obviously, hockey is kind of expensive.

Speaker 3:

I think everyone listening to this kind of knows that. The fact that the skates that I have on right now are like $1,500 I would never pay that. That's insane. That it like, I can't fathom that. Yeah, go play roller hockey.

Speaker 3:

Why not? Like, go, just go, go play ball hockey, go buy a $25 stick from Dick's. That is a street hockey stick and go have fun. Like, I don't do kids go play unorganized sports anymore.

Scott:

That's a great question. Not as much as we did when we were kids. That's for sure.

Jamie:

Yeah. Well, nobody goes outside anymore. We just talked about this with with Bobby. Was it Bobby and Sydney or was it Vinny Maltz Scott? We literally just had this conversation about unorganized sports.

Jamie:

I think it was Vinny Maltz.

Scott:

Yeah, I I think

Jamie:

performance coach. Yeah, we probably we've probably touched on with multiple people. But we always talk about Angelo, the fact that there's way too much structure for these kids. Matter of fact, Bob Mancini was saying he wants his kids to I think Bob and Vinnie both said they want to hang hang their kids hockey bag when seasons over. Right Jason Franzon says it and and Bob Mancini was like the only thing I'd let my kid do is buddies wanted to go play like an unorganized three on three on the ice.

Jamie:

He's like, yeah, go do that. Yeah. Yeah. But they they don't want they don't want the organized hockey, but they want the fun creative. Just go do, you know?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Why not? Think the only thing to kind of add to that though, and kind of going back to another question, the summer should be off the ice and keep in mind, I don't make my living off of working for the devils. I don't make my living is camps. That's what pays my bills.

Speaker 3:

I am telling you like, don't take every single camp, but during the summer, that's when you should work on the specific needs and skills that you need to work on personally. Right. So right now for my son, is this skating great? No. But am I going to really focus on like his forward stride?

Speaker 3:

No. I'm gonna bring him to a prostride clinic during Thanksgiving, but I think like my I was like, my wife's gotta come. I don't know if he can spend two hours on the ice and like, he's coming for one day. That's it. We're just gonna ease him into it.

Speaker 3:

Right. But he does need stick handling. Right. But am I going to do it organized right now? I think I'm lucky enough to like primitively be able to teach him some stick handling stuff or to put him through some very simple drills.

Speaker 3:

But like, why not go work with a skills coach for two to three days or. Right. Like, and then I think also the biggest thing too, and this is probably a touchy subject as well is the difference between private lessons and cramps and clinics. There's pros and cons to both. That's the answer.

Jamie:

Let's hear

Speaker 3:

pros to, some private lessons it's catered and altered to you, to your needs. But to be honest with you, ranks are not making it easy. We know this to do private lessons.

Jamie:

Right.

Speaker 3:

Especially now we're in November. So high school started, so suffering. So all the ice is gone. Right.

Jamie:

It's awful now. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Unless you're a billionaire and have your own rank or something. So, it's hard to be consistent. That's kind of a con of a private lesson, but with the limited space, when you can do a private lesson, it's very hard to do a one on one because if you're a good coach, you have a good following, you know what you're doing. You're going to have a bunch of clients. You may have two to three kids on the ice, maybe sometimes up to five or six.

Speaker 3:

Is it really altered to their needs, their specific needs? Or are they just going through drills that that coach decided that he wants to work on that thing?

Jamie:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Right. The pros of a clinic or the cons of a clinic sometimes are okay. It's not one on one. Okay. All right.

Speaker 3:

At ProStride, we do stay, we have a six to one ratio. That's what we try to stay at. We try to do it better, but we say six to one because that's our bare minimum. So you're, that's a small group lesson. Now the pros of a camp is we have a structure and we build, and because it's two to five days in a row, you don't have to spend time to review.

Speaker 3:

If we did a lesson, like I'll work with the Hitman team, their junior team. So we'll have a theme of the day, whether it's forwards, backwards, crossovers, a game situation, there'll be one theme. So we do forwards, on one week, the next week say we do backwards. Then we do crossovers. Then we do a game situation.

Speaker 3:

We've now gone four weeks without doing forward stride again.

Jamie:

Right.

Speaker 3:

That's a long time. And there are some times where I've had guys during private lessons be like, come to a camp and they'd be like, we never worked on arm swing. I'm like, what are you talking about? How have we never worked on arm swing? Like we literally do it every day.

Speaker 3:

He's like, no, but in a camp, because of the structure, we focus on a little bit more where for me as a coach, doing a private lesson, I'm like, all right, this kid's so sick of doing this. We're not even going to touch it. But then, but then there's some times where like, even working with Dom, like, maybe we haven't worked on backwards enough where that might become a problem down the road where maybe as a coach that it's very defensive team and he wants the forwards coming back. Right? Like he's playing D now.

Speaker 3:

Perfect. See, it's been a minute. Perfect example. Dude, it just happened like

Jamie:

a week ago. So yeah, you didn't miss much. Trust me.

Speaker 3:

When was the last time we worked on backwards skating? I don't think I've rarely have done it with him.

Jamie:

Probably not. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

It's been a lot of tight turns because that was his specific need. Right? It's, that's at any level. So there there's pros and cons to both. And I think a happy medium is the answer for that, because I know in our area, maybe it's different for other areas.

Speaker 3:

You have September to November for lessons.

Jamie:

For lessons. Yeah. Cause when high school starts, it crushes everything.

Speaker 3:

Then you have March till, I don't know, with me, you have March till maybe June. Right. Because then June till September, those are my camps. That's, that's, I'm gone. I'm gone every week and we have something going on.

Speaker 3:

So like, and that's what pays my bills. The other thing too, that, like, we've talked about, like, hockey is expensive. If, if I'm living off of just private lessons, how am I affording to feed my family? You're like, there's some rings around here that think you're, you're making so much money on private lessons and it's like, okay, yeah, you could charge, say you charge a $100 for a private lesson. You owe $30 to the rank.

Jamie:

That's light. That's light by the way.

Speaker 3:

I just used simple numbers, simple numbers. Right. But okay. Swaggy P charges 8 and a quarter for his private lesson. Wait, what?

Speaker 3:

$8.25 an hour.

Jamie:

You're joking, right?

Speaker 3:

No. Who fucking pays that? Who's gonna go fucking pay that? A lot of people, lot of people, a lot of people when he comes down to those people

Jamie:

are fucking stupid. Sorry. Woah. Yeah. Fuck for a one on one.

Jamie:

Yep. Those people are fucking stupid. Sorry.

Speaker 3:

And you're watching the guy just do cool drills the whole time. That's all

Jamie:

I A thousand bucks for an hour

Speaker 3:

to be with an influencer. Not a coach.

Jamie:

Those people are idiots. Sorry. Guys, even listeners are doing that. You're an idiot. Sorry.

Speaker 3:

But like how, how much could we charge as a coach for a private lesson until it's out of control? $300 I hear that all the time. Adam Moats is charging $60,000 for the year.

Jamie:

Yeah. I've heard that. I know he's got like a package deal and he's in NHL or so I guess that's a whole nother.

Speaker 3:

Get it. It's worth his time, but like, at what point as a person, are you like, okay, this is, I can't be charging this for, for a person. Like I think for, I'll be honest for you, you're grandfathered in, right? I think I charge a $100 for a lesson.

Jamie:

It's been a while, but I think you're right. Know?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Like could I charge more? Why?

Jamie:

Yeah, you definitely could. I know. But how much? I understand.

Speaker 3:

I understand. What's the number till it's out of control and parents have to be like, okay, this is. And the funny part too is obviously I, my sister had not obviously, but my sister has a 2011. I always forget what year.

Jamie:

Yeah. He's an 11.

Speaker 3:

So he's a twenty eleven. So my sister has told me that for prostride that we don't charge enough for our area and people don't think we're good enough because of how little we charge.

Jamie:

Woah. Is that right? Oh, that's just foolish. Clearly they don't know

Speaker 3:

what they're talking about then. We I mean, we're not the highest at all. I mean, if you go with that, you could put this out there, that idiot I train hockey who has no idea what he's doing. And it he the only thing he knows what he's doing is marketing and good for him. Good for him.

Speaker 3:

I praise him.

Jamie:

Yeah. Yeah. But he's not a skating coach Angelo. He doesn't do what you do. Does he does he market himself as a skating coach?

Jamie:

Does not.

Speaker 3:

He does everything. He does skating. He said that the difference between a double a and a triple a player is when a a double a player goes to skate to the boars, he takes five strides. When a triple a player goes to the bores, he takes 10 strides. Well, that to me is called the inefficient.

Speaker 3:

I would say it's the other, what do I know? Right? I don't know.

Jamie:

It's just the power skating coach for the New Jersey Devils, but shit, some influencer knows more than I do.

Speaker 3:

I'm just a doctor. But he's charging a $100 per hour for his clinic and it's just him. And then he will email you guys as parents that signed up. Hey, do you have skates? Do you want to come out and bring a $100?

Speaker 3:

So he has no help out there. And I've seen his clinics. I was at one down in Holly Dell. He had 70 kids on the ice. So you have a one to 70 ratio.

Scott:

Jesus.

Speaker 3:

Okay. And he's charging a $100, but hour

Jamie:

per kid. I listen, I call that in my opinion, I call that uninformed parents,

Speaker 3:

but you get to take a picture with them.

Jamie:

Anybody who thinks that that's like,

Speaker 3:

but he he's selling out. But if you go up to Toronto, I have buddies up in Toronto. They're like, yeah, everyone knows. He's like, everyone knows he's full of poopy up there.

Jamie:

So he comes down to The States and he fleeces the people down here. Hey, he's

Speaker 3:

making a living and he's doing an unbelievable job at it. Just to inform parents that he, what he's teaching is completely incorrect. And it's not even skating wise, it's stickhandling wise. Like, I mean, some of the videos you'll listen, he's teaching, but you're, he's teaching for a half an hour with kids on the ice and he's filming the whole time. Like we're never at ProStride, like we're trying, but we're never going to have that much social media presence.

Speaker 3:

It's actually funny. Forget about ProStride. If you go look at Belfry or you look at the Skinners, or you go look at some of the biggest skills coaches in the world that have been around for so long, the Robbie Glances, they don't have that many followers on social media now.

Jamie:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

Maybe you could say it's because they're older. They don't know how to do it. I mean, the guy I train hockey is not that young, but he, he knows how to market. Right.

Jamie:

Yeah. No, he's good at social media. Well, like you said, Swaggy P is the same general idea. And I'm sorry for our listeners. If you're paying $8.25, you're a fucking moron.

Speaker 3:

Hopefully I'm hopefully I'm wrong on that, but that's what I've been doing.

Jamie:

I mean, and you know what? Thank God that we're here doing this podcast because people need to realize that that is not something you should be

Speaker 3:

But you have a lot of people charging $3,400 an hour for lessons.

Jamie:

That's fucking absurd too.

Scott:

It's a ton of money.

Speaker 3:

That's absurd too. So why not take a camp? That's $50 an hour. And you're getting a six to one ratio at worst and it's progressing the whole time. And we've had, I I've had, I had Blake Montgomery right now.

Speaker 3:

He's, he was, he's been taking our clinics forever. He, he went to the London nights. He now is at Wisconsin. He got big 10 player of the week as a freshman.

Jamie:

Nice.

Speaker 3:

He he's drafted by the Ottawa senators. We have done, maybe three hours of lessons, his entire life. He has only, he has only taken our clinics. He's from Maryland.

Scott:

Right.

Jamie:

So when you go down there, he does your clinics

Speaker 3:

and every single scout ever since this kid was younger and his brother is no slouch either. His brother also played at London is in the Carolina hurricane system. He's playing for the Chicago wolves in the AHL. That's a tough lineup to break as a defenseman. But again, he can skate like the wind, right?

Speaker 3:

Maybe three less. The only time I've ever given them lessons was during COVID. They would, they would drive up here because they had nothing else to do.

Jamie:

He would drive up from Maryland.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Oh, you, you have to talk to their dad. Their dad's a beauty. He put over 500,000 miles on his Yukon.

Scott:

How long?

Jamie:

That's a All hockey

Speaker 3:

hockey miles. Y'all yell. Yeah. Like is daddy's auntie. He's oh man.

Speaker 3:

He's a beauty.

Jamie:

Dude, we, I have one fifty on my Yukon and I'm like, time to go. I'm not joking. Like literally it's coming at Christmas time. I'm like, it's time to go.

Speaker 3:

My wife has 60 on hers and she's already ready for a new one. That's different now. Can I tell

Jamie:

you if COVID didn't hit, we would have had a new one four years ago?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. You know, we talked about how ridiculous that was.

Jamie:

Yes. Did. That's that's for sure. Don't even get me started. We can do a whole episode on like, on like, on like swaggy pee and all those dudes like that.

Jamie:

That's a whole bunch.

Speaker 3:

But here's the thing like to inform parents, it's an expensive sport. The extras costs more money. Do you have to do all of them? No. But there are some that you have to do, but it's also, we were talking to a guy the other day and he was like, how do you inform parents of who knows what they're doing and who doesn't?

Speaker 3:

And it's just like,

Jamie:

listen to Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast. You'll figure out who's good.

Speaker 3:

I think, I think that's, that's what it is. Right. But then also some of the guys that are really good, like Ryan Murphy is the best skills coach in our area. By far. Sorry.

Speaker 3:

He's so involved here. He's he's our devil skills coach and he's he's he's got a family as well. Right. He's got kids now playing, learning to play and learn to skate. And, so a question we have for ourselves is right, like my wife would give me crap all the time.

Speaker 3:

It's like, God, like why can't you bring Luna to soccer? Okay. Do you, do you understand that what I'm bringing her to soccer, she's doing a skill session, that's what I do for a living. And they happen at the same time. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

How Yeah. Do work that like, it's honestly where like it's hard to do lessons as well as a coach because I'm not single. Like I'm married with two kids and I love watch. I love watching my kids participate in their sports. And that was actually, another thing too, that we were kind of talking about.

Speaker 3:

My wife sent me something, I forget, it was a women's Ivy league coach. I forget what, what sport I want to throw out Harvard soccer or something. She was like, parents have to stop watching their kids practice.

Jamie:

We say it all the time.

Speaker 3:

I love watching my daughter practice.

Jamie:

Do too. I don't do it anymore.

Speaker 3:

But I just sit there. I don't say anything.

Jamie:

Oh, so that's not

Speaker 3:

I'm not judging. And I literally, or maybe I judge a little bit, but, but it's, it's so cool to just be there, but, I, I know that there are kids that I I've seen kids practice and play and constantly looking over at mom or

Jamie:

dad. Correct.

Speaker 3:

So do I disagree with her saying you should not go to practice? I agree and disagree. I think there's a way to do it.

Jamie:

There probably is.

Speaker 3:

There's a way to do it and it, but okay. So if you don't think you could just sit there and be a parent and enjoy watching your child,

Jamie:

then stay out. Or sit in the lobby, something. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Go do some work, watch, watch a YouTube or Do watch a something. Agree. But I, I don't know. I just like being there. I mean, that's what my mom was able to do.

Speaker 3:

She would, I think she would watch, actually, I don't even recall what she did. That's a great question too. We needed that. We needed to have that lady on

Jamie:

here. What

Speaker 3:

did you do the whole time by the way?

Jamie:

Got to tell you, listen, I'm just, I love watching my kid practice too. I don't do that at all, but I found him looking up at me

Speaker 3:

way too

Jamie:

much. And that's when I I said I couldn't. And it's funny. Bryce Salvador actually said to me years ago, he said, you know, he had that oh nine team that Alec Marsh, who we also interviewed, took over.

Speaker 3:

I coached with, I coached him with that team.

Jamie:

Oh, you were there the year before. Totally forgot about that.

Speaker 3:

I coached them I coached them there. Peabody Quebec here.

Jamie:

Totally forgot about that. All right. So you know exactly what I'm talking about. Oh, yeah. So Bryce said to me, he's like, our best year for development was during COVID when the parents couldn't come inside the rink.

Jamie:

Interesting. And none of the kids could look up in the stands because their parents were outside the fucking parking lot.

Scott:

All right.

Jamie:

So could come in.

Speaker 3:

Maybe I need to go home. Well, no, no, I don't think I'm you're searching lessons again.

Jamie:

I gotta tell you, I don't think you're wrong, Hazel, because I love watching my kid practice too.

Speaker 3:

But I know that I can Maybe from afar? Hide.

Jamie:

If my kid doesn't know I'm looking for hiding the rafters, then it's fine.

Speaker 3:

So like Luna's playing soccer, right? So they're playing in Malwa at Rabbit Poe College, like off the campus. Yeah. I I literally hide in, like, the tree line.

Jamie:

See, that's smart.

Speaker 3:

And I just sit I sit on a rock. Yeah. And my son's running around like a maniac, and, hopefully, you don't get hit by a car, and I'm trying to watch both of them.

Scott:

You know, it's it's funny. I I I stopped watching auto auto, practice, like, this year more than last year a little bit too. But he tells me, he's like, he's like, he wants me to watch him practice. And quite honestly, the reason why I I don't watch practice sometimes is because I get frustrated when I see things that I don't wanna see and that's my own issues and that's my own insanity. Yeah.

Scott:

But, you know, just to so I don't have, you know, so I don't get wound up sometimes. And it's not just about his performance necessarily. It could be like the drills they're doing or whatever it might be. Yeah. But then he's like, no, come watch.

Scott:

So, I said, okay, fine. I'll, you know, I'll come and watch for a little bit. I'm not gonna watch And the whole then I'll come and I'll check you out because I do. I I wanna see you play. And the fact that he wants me in there, like, I don't know.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. You like that either. You know? Yeah. Totally.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Scott:

I had I we've been we've been this has been great so far. We're almost we're we're going a little bit long. I had one one other question I wanted to ask just kind of circling back to some of like the the skating development. Yes. You see a lot now the Helios as a technology that's on the market.

Scott:

You see, NICE is like an ambassador there. I've got one for my kid. You know, just curious about About

Jamie:

swears by

Scott:

it. Well, let's just I'll tell you what I like about it in a second, but well, okay. So, what I like about it is that, like, when we have conversations, like, you know, it doesn't look like you were, like, trying that hard today, for example, you know, and you can can debate whether or not that's the kind of conversation you wanna have with your kid. I get it, like, all that stuff.

Speaker 3:

But Yeah.

Scott:

You know, it gives you some form of metric that's like, you know, you can look back and be like, look, you you know, your effort was high here, it was not so high here. Your your average speed was like 14 miles an hour in this practice, but it was only eight miles an hour in the game. Like, what's up? You know, type of thing. So, it it so for better or for worse, that's why I have it.

Scott:

That's why I've used it. But I'm just curious as far as like your take on it as like a a tool to develop skating and if you see it as a relevant tool, a useful tool or if if not that, is there other technology out there that might be worthwhile in terms of skating development?

Speaker 3:

So, I've been helping the NHL out with their technology. Oh, wow. And so a lot of it's come through here and there's a lot coming out. There's a lot new stuff coming out. We use the ten eighty sprint.

Speaker 3:

That's our thing. It is limited, but it is pinpoint accurate. It will tell you exactly how much distance power force you use on every single stride. And it'll immediately give you a printout. Now with the Helios, how long has he been using it for?

Scott:

Probably like four years at this point. Wow.

Speaker 3:

That's impressive. Would wonder what their, their average person uses it for.

Jamie:

I would say a lot less than that.

Speaker 3:

Would say that's very long. The easiest way to explain it, think is it's got the cool features, but it it's like a, a Fitbit. Going to have that Fitbit for a month and then it's in your drawer and you're not using it. The biggest problem I think with the Helios is what, what is the leaderboard for them? What's their biggest subject that they have highlighted there?

Speaker 3:

It's their strides. The amount of strides you've taken. Why is that their top thing?

Scott:

Yeah. Good question.

Speaker 3:

Because what if I am way less efficient than you and I took 500 strides this practice and you took 50. Well, does that mean you're not good? And I worked harder or am I more efficient and then, okay, then you're going off a speed. Okay. So what a lot of the new technology is doing, because now coaches are looking to this, which this has now become the problem at the NHL level with the NHLPA.

Speaker 3:

Why players hate wearing all this technology is because now coaches are using it against them. Okay. Why are your numbers down here? Okay. All right.

Speaker 3:

Well, maybe it was a practice that was a smaller area. It was small area games. So now his numbers aren't that high. Maybe you're doing a flow drill. So we use catapult here, which isn't the greatest thing either because now guys are, doing a skate and they need to hit a certain number.

Speaker 3:

Right. So they're whatever their metrics are, their, their workout rate, they need, I get a guy, okay. He needs to hit one hundred and twenty, one hundred and twenty to 150. Okay. I know easily how to get that.

Speaker 3:

We do a lot more stops and starts, but the day before, and then he hits 175 and it's like, Oh my God, it was such a hard day. But then the day before we did a lot of flow drills and now his numbers are way lower, but he still has cast, but we literally had him doing lengths of the ice,

Jamie:

just a different type of workout. So

Speaker 3:

you're telling me that was it's, it's the whole big debate between it's a money ball. Are you going to look at the analytics stack closely and live and die by it or not? I think it's cool to have, Is it worth the money? If you have it, do you need it? No.

Speaker 3:

Could you use it? Yeah, it's cool. It's got the cool features for sure. And it's awesome that you've been using it for so long. I would love actually to see the kind of data that you've collected and to see also what have you done during those four years?

Speaker 3:

And have you done something to see a spike? Have you done something to see a drop in on the average? Right. Cause I wouldn't go and be like, all right, on Monday, you're so much better on Tuesday. You're so much lower that fluctuation that could be there.

Speaker 3:

There has to be a curve to it, right? Where it depends on the type of practice type of drills. It's the big debate anywhere, right? Like, do we just go off analytics? There, there have been some decisions based off analytics that you're like, you just scratch your head and you're like, I don't know.

Speaker 3:

No, maybe it was because the goalies were playing better. Maybe we got a better goalie. That's why the D played better. Like, right. So this, the skate, that's why I do like the ten eighty, because it's just clear cut.

Speaker 3:

Like here's your top speed on that rep. Here's your power. Here's your force. Here's a distance. Your left foot is weaker than your right.

Speaker 3:

We get that, but it is limited because now you only get two to three reps where there's technology coming out that may be able to do that over the course of an entire Yeah.

Scott:

Know, I think my experience with it, just to kind of wrap this piece up, short term, like looking at it, like I don't look at it closely week to week necessarily. It's like over time and just seeing are we trending in the right direction. And, you know, for that, you know, it's look, I definitely don't take the information from one practice or two practices and be like, okay, we need to make this adjustment. Like, that's not happening. My kid's 11 and, you know, whatever.

Scott:

But I you know, just as a for a general purpose tracking to see, you know, the things I mostly look at, to be honest with you, is like the hustle score is interesting, although I think it's flawed for sure because Well, what is it

Speaker 3:

is it off of heart rate?

Scott:

No, it's off. I honestly, I don't know the algorithms. You know, it probably takes stride and time on ice and a few other things to figure out whatever.

Speaker 3:

It's not attached to your feet.

Scott:

No. It's I don't know how it works.

Speaker 3:

That's like right here, chest. So a lot of questions there. You're not going off a heart rate, you're not going off a stride, power, force, like Right. A lot of questions.

Scott:

No, no doubt. No doubt.

Speaker 3:

I'm sure I they're listen, they they've been around for a bit. Is it gimmicky? I don't think so. There are some things out there a 100% that are gimmicky. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And that you don't want to waste your money on like that whole,

Scott:

that whole power,

Speaker 3:

that power stride thing. That's a thousand dollars. I literally just had a buddy of vine text me this morning about it. Like my father wants to buy it. I'm not spending a thousand dollars on it.

Speaker 3:

I go, go get some resistance bands.

Jamie:

Scott, don't you have it?

Scott:

Yeah, we do. We totally have it. No, it's all good. Or

Jamie:

I was like, he fucking has that thing.

Speaker 3:

So there, I talked to the strength coach, there are pros for it. And there are also cons, right? The fact that it helps you and assists you on the recovery, that doesn't happen on the ice.

Scott:

Totally.

Speaker 3:

But at least you're getting the push. But then the other thing that I was debating with him was there's a lot of things that he does off the ice in the weight room where, okay, every forward stride push has to start and end in that V and that's the position that you're in. So now you're pushing out, you're recovering. That's how you have to be on the ice. In the gym, he has them do resistance stuff with their feet straight ahead parallel.

Speaker 3:

And I'm like, why are you doing that? And he goes, because it works other muscles around the one that you're overusing during a season.

Scott:

That makes a lot of sense. Sure. Like the, yeah, but

Speaker 3:

there, there are pros. He did say he did like it. I forget what the reasons were for off ice. I think it's just load management or something, but he does he does like it for certain things.

Scott:

You know, and and it was so it was interesting about all this stuff and, I I like tools and gadgets and all that stuff. But part of it is also to try to find ways to, like, to, you know, for like, I wouldn't get him something that I would think would adversely affect him, obviously, my son and I've hopped on the thing too, you know. Yeah. But but just finding different ways to see if like, is this something that like he might take to and he might enjoy doing versus if if he's not gonna do that. So, it's more like a trial and error thing than it is like finding, you know, trying to hit my head, my kid over the head with all these different things.

Scott:

You know what I mean? And just kinda see see what works. And he hasn't used it that much. I've used it more than him. And, you know, it's it's fine.

Scott:

But, you know, again The

Speaker 3:

two the two questions I would ask is, could you get a good body angle on there or are you upright?

Scott:

It's so, you you have because you you you're you're standing flat, like on your flat feet, it's hard to get like, know, the upper body angle. You're

Speaker 3:

more That's upright for a huge problem at the youth and NHL level. And then the other thing is, okay, so if you're pushing with your right foot, how much weight do you have on your left foot? Which would be lot of gliding foot.

Scott:

So then

Speaker 3:

you don't, then you don't have a 100% of your weight on your pushing leg.

Scott:

No, you definitely don't.

Speaker 3:

That's a bad, bad habit. Interesting. When you go to skate, you're on one foot. Right. That was another reason why, going back to like the COVID thing, we were trying everything to help players.

Speaker 3:

We were, we were doing zoom calls with kids playing roller hockey. We weren't charging them. Like we, we did, we put out videos for roller hockey. We were even trying to do like things with furniture sliders or like, even, even, but everything we did, we could pick out some really bad habits that you could develop.

Scott:

Right.

Speaker 3:

But it was COVID like, yeah,

Jamie:

so you make do,

Speaker 3:

this was when the back door ring, the back door of the ranks were not open. Yes.

Jamie:

Right.

Speaker 3:

Right. There was no ice. Yes.

Jamie:

I remember, I don't know if you remember Angelo, but I remember going to a parking lot and you gave me a tripod and I put, I put my phone on the tripod.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Jamie:

And Angelo would watch Dominic on rollerblades stride away from the phone.

Speaker 3:

And an air pod. Yeah. And you could talk to them the whole time. We, we actually started to do that quite a bit with some of our, players where if, if they have free ice, and they're in California or Florida or up in Canada, as long as they know our material, they've taken our clinic and they like, if we tell them to do a drill, they're going to be like, wait, what is that? No, they should know.

Speaker 3:

Like, put your phone on the dasher, put an AirPod in your ear, not obviously attached. And we can talk to you through it the whole time. We have a kid in Florida that we do it all the time with.

Jamie:

Cool. And just go

Speaker 3:

to it like a public session or stick time or whatever. We can like, you're not spending an hour lesson doing it, maybe fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes, but, that's, that's something that you can do. Nice. That's cool. I didn't know

Jamie:

that. Yeah. That's awesome.

Speaker 3:

And that's all from COVID.

Jamie:

Yeah, no, that, that was a strange time. I'm glad that's gone.

Scott:

No doubt.

Speaker 3:

I don't know. I think we could use one every once in a while. Give us a little break from work, you know?

Jamie:

Well, that, that, that I will say this, that afforded me the ability to do everything from home. So you're not going to get any complaints from me. Yeah. Zero. Dude, this was, this was wonderful.

Jamie:

Thank you so much for

Speaker 3:

this. We

Jamie:

could have gone for the next three hours, man. No,

Speaker 3:

it was great. Just, just to kind of inform parents. I know it's like, I look at some kids and compare them to my daughter, of course, and I'm like, oh my God, they're so much better. And then you find out what they're doing and it's just like, okay, they won't be playing high school sports. And I just hopefully they will, maybe they will, you know, and I mean, there's some players who just play one sport and I think it was what Patty Cain, I think is one of them.

Jamie:

Yeah. But there's not many of

Speaker 3:

them. They're handful.

Jamie:

Yeah. Those

Speaker 3:

are, those are different breeds, right? It's like, maybe that's your kid. Maybe it is, but I don't most likely not.

Scott:

Right. You know, chances are

Jamie:

the overarching theme that we get, right, Scott, from all the people we talk to, whether it's Vinny Malts, Doug Christiansen, Bob Mancini, every single one of those people, Alex Kim, all of them have said that you should be a multi sport athlete. Right, Scott? Not one of them has said,

Scott:

absolutely.

Speaker 3:

But the parents know better.

Jamie:

Yeah. Which is why we have this podcast to inform. Before

Speaker 3:

you even started this podcast, I wanted, there was a topic I honestly forget what it was. And it was just going to start off like, I know 99% of your parents are not going to listen to me and that's okay. But for the 1%, like, this is what I want to inform you about.

Jamie:

Yeah.

Scott:

Like,

Speaker 3:

it's it. It's crazy.

Jamie:

There's a need for it. That's for damn sure. You know, there's definitely

Speaker 3:

the crazy parents.

Jamie:

No, there's a need for this in the space. The conversation. Help To the crazy parent because there's a shitload of them out there.

Speaker 3:

Just let your kids be kids and stop. I don't know. Just let them have fun.

Scott:

It. Amen to that.

Speaker 3:

I mean, I try to ask my, my son and my daughter, after every time they come into the car. Do you have fun today? Good. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Good. That's it. I don't know. And I listened. I'm not going to be the perfect parent.

Speaker 3:

Maybe, maybe, maybe I'm not pushing them as hard or I'm not as competitive. Like I should be in instill that into them, but I don't know. Let them do what they want and we'll see.

Scott:

Yeah. Listen, day at a time, a year at a time, things will change, you know? So what's working now might not work in the future. And the good news is that you can make those changes when you need to.

Jamie:

Yeah, exactly. Nobody's got this as same. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this.

Speaker 3:

Yes, no problem. Thank you.

Scott:

So good to see you.

Jamie:

Yeah, we're gonna have to have you out again. Thank you, Angelo.

Speaker 3:

No problem. I'll talk to you guys.

Scott:

See you later. Alright. Alright, everybody. Welcome back from our interview with Angelo Serse. Dude, yet another interview that has just been

Jamie:

awesome. Yeah. Yeah. He's good stuff, man. Very good stuff.

Scott:

Dude, I mean, you know, one of the things that, like, I it is so true and I think this is none I don't know. Actually, I take that back. It's not what happened with my daughter. But, like, when he was talking about how most you know, a lot of kids when they're learning to play hockey, that there's a lot of drop off because like, you know, parents are throwing them right into hockey without learning how to skate and then they get out there and they have to do all these things while skating. Yeah.

Scott:

You know what I mean? And it's like

Jamie:

It get a little frustrating.

Scott:

It's it's a super frustrating.

Jamie:

Especially for the little guy.

Scott:

No doubt.

Jamie:

Little girl. Yeah.

Scott:

No doubt. And then how he was saying how it's like, you know, his dad tells him how there is like that one coach, like whatever his dad's whatever that coach said to you that kept you going.

Jamie:

That's right.

Scott:

Oh, like everything to him.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Right?

Scott:

Because after that, he was like, never got off the ice.

Jamie:

He enjoyed the game as a little guy. That's for sure. You

Speaker 3:

know? Yeah.

Jamie:

Yeah. He definitely did. And now his little guy sounds like he's enjoying the game.

Scott:

Yeah. Well, I'm at the at a at a minimum doing Superman celebration.

Jamie:

I was just gonna say, at least a Superman dive. You know what I mean? Which also I I seem to remember Dominic loving the Superman dive too.

Scott:

Yeah. Otto, you said he would he would do like a semi private class with with a coach, a skills coach, and they would they they would collect the the pucks in the net.

Speaker 3:

Mhmm.

Scott:

And just kind of drag the net to wherever he wanted to set the pucks up and push the net back. And so Otto would just, like, crouch down, like, in the net and have the coach drag him in the net to like with the pucks.

Jamie:

It's so funny to watch the little guys, man.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jamie:

They the little guys were were we were in the lobby like a week or two weeks ago and the little guys were getting on to like rank one, I think. And just watching them like they walk through the lobby to do it, you know, and watching them walk through the lobby, dude, they're so tiny,

Scott:

so tiny,

Jamie:

like four and five years old. Like you forget what it was like back then, man. When you weren't a crazy hockey parent, you know?

Scott:

Or a budding crazy hockey parent.

Jamie:

Or a budding, gets right, well said, a budding crazy hockey parent, because that's where it all starts, you know?

Scott:

And it's interesting also, like I remember a parent was telling me when we and I'm sure it's true for other sports where you're in like full gear and helmets and all that other stuff. But like you see these kids out on the ice and, you know, because they're, you know, they're taller and they're bigger and then what they are without the skates and equipment on. And they have a helmet on. It's like sometimes you just lose track. It's easier to lose track of how old these kids really are.

Scott:

Know? Yeah.

Jamie:

Didn't is there a story of, weren't it like you didn't you walk into a rink with another dad and God, I'll let you tell the story because I don't wanna ruin it. Go ahead. Yeah. There's two stories I wanna tell. This is the first one.

Jamie:

Go ahead.

Scott:

You tell them. So so Otto is was playing I don't know. It was probably squirt, first year squirt, you know, triple a.

Jamie:

Was not long ago. Yeah.

Scott:

No. Not long ago. And so we walked into a rink and there was a a like a learn to a devil's learn to play. And so, like, all these young kids and these young parents with all these little kids on the

Jamie:

ice and they're

Scott:

yeah. They're they're watching and like, oh, look at Timmy and look at Tommy and like, you know, these kids are falling on their butts. And I'm walking behind this another dad from Otto's team and just like we weren't even having a conversation, but like he just looks over his shoulder to me and he looks at me and he goes, suckers.

Jamie:

You have no idea what you're getting Yeah,

Scott:

it was it was so like the timing of it was great. Contextually was great. It was so funny. I was like, yeah, totally.

Jamie:

It's so true. When you look back, you're like, wow, you're like, holy shit. Now you're knee deep in it where you can't get out. You know what I mean? Not in a bad way.

Jamie:

Just can't get out. You know?

Scott:

Yeah. Look, you know, it's interesting. Like when you say I never thought about that really about like getting out and not that No, me neither. No, but I think even if it wasn't hockey or like whatever, you know, sport thing, activity that my kid was into, it's like if they've shown like passion for it along the way and they've shown proficiency, you know, even if Otto didn't wanna play, like, really competitively, it's like you'd be playing another sport, dude, because it's important to go out and be active. And it's like if you just wanted to play hockey at, like, a much like No.

Scott:

A very noncompetitive level, like, we can keep on doing that. You know what I mean? Like, we'd adjust some things. But you know, it's in any event.

Jamie:

You have to play sports. Sports are important for kids.

Scott:

Yeah. But like part of like, I think what we're touching on right now also in the Angela touched on is just like the amount of like the entitlement that he's experienced with parents, you know, and how parents can also like overdo it. Like he was saying with one of his his clinics that maybe he had multiple sessions throughout the day, they would have a parent or a family sign their kid up for like back to back sessions, which were probably like long. He's like, it's just too much.

Jamie:

Think he said he canceled them.

Scott:

He canceled the second one. Yes. Yes.

Jamie:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. He canceled the second one.

Jamie:

He's like, nope, sorry. Totally. Yeah. No, no. He's got a nice little he's got a nice little power skating company and they do they try to do right by the kids that come through their their doors.

Scott:

Yeah. And yeah, the coach to skating, to skater ratio is good. It was really good.

Jamie:

That's one thing that they pride themselves on. You know?

Scott:

Yeah. And, you know, and being a skating coach himself, and I think a lot of parents have also been in circles or talked to other parents about having their kids learn more advanced skating techniques as they get better, like by working with figure skating coaches. And he also makes out a point that like not every figure skating coach is going to be a great coach for Like a hockey the mechanics are different. I didn't even know this until this interview. I swear to God that the blade thicknesses were different.

Jamie:

And I knew it was a little different. I knew that it's a I

Scott:

didn't even think of it.

Jamie:

Yeah, no, I did know the skates not the same. Like Andrew was saying, it's got a toe pick. Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that the sharpening of a figure skating blade is much different than the sharpening of a hockey skate. Like I think it's much different. I don't, I don't think it's the same.

Jamie:

I'm pretty sure the sharpening of a figure skate and somebody sent us a comment on this, but I don't think it's the same. I think the sharpening of a figure skate is

Scott:

It's much more of a straight line. It's not like a rocker.

Jamie:

I think it's much different. Yeah. You know?

Scott:

Now look, that doesn't mean a figure skater doesn't, you know, there aren't transferable skills. But like if you're relying on a figure skater that doesn't have hockey skating understanding or at least the biomechanics.

Jamie:

Yeah.

Scott:

So, I mean, that's also interesting because there's a lot of people in our area that go specifically to see a figure skater.

Jamie:

They do. She's also

Scott:

out there in hockey skates, you know, and she's got

Jamie:

Yes, yes, they are.

Scott:

And then she's also, she also has like family. At least I don't know if it's her fit. I think it's a family member that, that coaches, hockey players also. So, you know, she's, she's great for hockey players, but having been a figure skater herself, but that's not everybody.

Jamie:

Yes. No, you're right. No, a lot of people do go to figure skating coaches. You're right. You know?

Jamie:

Yeah. A lot of hockey players try, you know, or a lot of hockey parents try to, you know, make their kid better by sending them to Dominic. I can't say he's never done it because he has, you know, but not what's that? Not we didn't work with a figure skater when he was younger.

Scott:

Otto has.

Jamie:

Not when he was younger, when he was older, we tried it.

Scott:

Right.

Jamie:

You know, Did it work? I don't know. You know what I mean? Who knows? You know?

Scott:

Yeah. Well, I'll definitely say that when Otto was working with, like, skating specific coaches, you know, like, you're like, it's not going to be like a switch overnight. It's like anything else. But like, the more the more reps you put in and you work on edges and you work on moves that are going to require, like engaging your core and overall balance and all that other Like, yeah, it's consistent practice over time that's

Jamie:

going to make

Scott:

a difference. And I definitely think that I've seen improvements at the time at least. Yeah, I think so for sure. Mean, look, just it's ice time,

Jamie:

right?

Scott:

Yeah. But you can have bad ice time also. Like you can go out there and just like, you know, work with coaches and read, you know, have bad habits reinforced theoretically.

Jamie:

Yeah, that is true. Yeah, I just Googled if their skate sharpenings are different and they are.

Scott:

Yeah. Well, okay. That makes sense. Different skills, different whatever. Makes sense.

Scott:

Yeah. And just one other thing that stood out for me, which I wouldn't have thought, was when he was talking about plyometrics and that plyometrics are not great for younger kids.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And

Scott:

that's, I would have thought for sure it was good because it's

Jamie:

Body weight stuff.

Scott:

It's body weight stuff.

Jamie:

It's not

Scott:

gonna be under load, but like you actually are. Like body weight, the joint and yeah, so that was that was interesting also.

Jamie:

Yeah. Another thing that Angel touched on, which which I don't want to forget, you know, Angelo kept saying, you know, I have to ask my mom, I have to ask my mom, I have to ask my mom. Remember that he kept wanting to like, oh, it's oh my god. It would like jog his memory. He was like, I have to ask my mom about that.

Jamie:

Yeah. Why did my mom drive me to all these places? What was she thinking? Right? So after we were done with our interview, he actually asked his mom, right?

Jamie:

He's like, mom was like, why, why did you drive me like all over the place? Like, what were you doing? Like, what was your, what were you thinking? And she said, why would I not? She's like, it's time that I got to spend with my kids that I could never get back.

Jamie:

So she was just interested in doing it because her kids liked it and she wanted to spend time with them. And that was her way of doing it. Pretty cool, right?

Scott:

Yeah. Pretty cool. But also like, that's something that we take for granted.

Jamie:

True. I think, I want to say it was, I want to say who was our interview? I want to say Doug, but I don't think it was Doug. We had an interview and somebody said, I'm driving out to like Pittsburgh with my kid. And the guy was like, why would you, why would you drive all over the place, you know, for this game?

Jamie:

And he says, it's the highlight of my week and it's five hours that I get to spend with my son in the car

Scott:

just talking.

Jamie:

I don't remember who said that. I want to say it was Doug, but that might not be right. I don't remember, but the point is, is that, you know, spending time with your kids, I think we all take it for granted a little bit because once that time is gone, it's gone.

Scott:

Yeah. That's when you really need to like, you know, check your why. Like, why am I doing this?

Jamie:

Right. Cause they're only little for so long. Right. No doubt. I mean, cause when they're out of the house, that's all she wrote.

Scott:

At least on that chapter. Yes. No doubt.

Jamie:

You know, but you'll never get that time back. So, you know, time is the one commodity that you can't buy.

Speaker 3:

You can't. No, the one thing

Jamie:

that you cannot throw money at to get more of.

Scott:

So enjoy it.

Jamie:

Yeah, exactly.

Scott:

Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, listen, why don't we wrap it up on that note?

Jamie:

Don't you put partners first so we don't forget that?

Scott:

Howie's hockey, Crazy ten. Crazy ten. Yep. It is shopping season. Use

Jamie:

it. Buy

Scott:

stocking stuff.

Jamie:

Everything.

Scott:

Gift wrap, all the things. Howie's hockey, get some Buy

Jamie:

everything. Make sure you use Crazy Hockey.

Scott:

Yeah. Crazy Hockey. And then Angelo, Pro Stride That's

Jamie:

right.

Scott:

Awesome interview. Awesome guy. Hopefully now anyone that hasn't checked them out yet after this interview, you're even more inclined to like take a look. So do it. CHD ten gets your discount at any prostrate elite power skating clinic in your neighborhood, your area.

Scott:

Check them out online. See what's happening near you. Got some holiday clinics coming up for sure if you miss Thanksgiving. And then we got Athletic Performance Insight API. Go please take a look at their website.

Scott:

It's never too late to start looking at the analytics and getting some games tagged so your kids team can start getting a better understanding of, you know, some of the things they're doing well, not doing well on the ice. Coaches, managers, take a look, reach out to Eric, use the contact form, he'll tag a game for free, introduce you to his platform. It's a great tool for youth hockey, college, high school, you name it. Video analytics from athletic performance insight API. Check them out.

Jamie:

$100 value.

Scott:

That's it. Mention Crazy Hockey Dads. Get a 10% discount.

Jamie:

And I just wanted to update our, geography. We added another country. Did you see it by any chance?

Scott:

I'm pretty sure I did.

Jamie:

Oh, you did? Yes. Okay. So you know who it is.

Scott:

But unless we're, go ahead.

Jamie:

I believe it's Italy.

Scott:

Oh no, I didn't see that.

Jamie:

You did it? No. Oh, interesting. Where did you, where did you think we added? That's 31 countries.

Scott:

Oh, great. Awesome.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Yeah. Ciao.

Jamie:

We added Italy. So yeah. And then we added a bunch of other spots of areas that I cannot pronounce.

Scott:

Oh, did we already mention Aruba?

Jamie:

We did.

Scott:

Oh yeah. That stuff is on vacationing. We already mentioned that.

Jamie:

You would think so. We keep, yeah, we keep adding in Finland and in The Czech Republic. And if you, if you look at the drop downs on them, they're extensive and I can't pronounce any of them. Sweden, Finland and The Czech Republic, we keep adding. And again, the regions we are adding, I cannot pronounce, not even close.

Scott:

All good. But thank you everyone for listening.

Jamie:

Yes, we really appreciate the support of everybody. Thank you so much. Thank you for downloading. Thank you for sharing. And please somebody send this to somebody in Idaho and Alaska for Christ's sake.

Jamie:

I mean, my God, we're two states shy of being in every state in The United States and one region shy of Canada. We have all 10 and we have two of the other and we're missing like not none of that is the territory we're missing. Yeah. So and if you if you Google it, it's not very populated. So I see I see why we're missing it.

Jamie:

So yeah, well, will say Alaska and the that non event region of Canada, not exactly the most populated areas.

Scott:

Yeah, but listen, we'll get there. We will. If you like the show, others about it, subscribe, leave a comment, please write in if there's anything you guys want to listen, hear about, talk about, mention,

Speaker 3:

bring up

Scott:

all of it. Yeah, please don't be a stranger. We'd love to hear from all of you and

Jamie:

Yeah, and leave us a review too, please. Reviews are impossible to come by. If you guys like the content, if you like what we're saying, leave a review because it helps us with the analytics behind the scenes.

Scott:

That's it. All right, guy. One Yep. Of

Jamie:

Here we go. See you in 44.

Scott:

44 is up next.

Jamie:

All right, homeboy. I'll talk to you later.

Speaker 3:

All right.