Intro: This is for the sled dogs in the trenches. Real hockey parents, real stories. The Good and the Gong Show. No filters, no sugarcoating, no politics, just straight hockey talk, and the best guests around the barn. Welcome to the Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast.
Alright, boys. Grind them corners, chirp responsibly, and bring that savage fire.
Scott: Alright, everybody. Welcome back to episode 71 of the Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast powered by Pacific Rink, the unfiltered podcast for hockey parents. No politics, no sugarcoating, just real talk for hockey parents in the trenches. In the trenches. Trenches.
Jamie: Here we go. Episode 71. And do we have an episode for you guys?
Scott: Yeah. We pee wee.
Jamie: Pee wee.
Scott: Pee wee.
Jamie: Yes. Yes. Yes. We have a great a great interview that we've been trying to get for
Scott: Months on months. I'm gonna say nine.
Jamie: Nine months. Yeah.
Scott: Nine months.
Jamie: That's a long time.
Scott: Yeah. But it was well worth it.
Jamie: It was worth it. He was great,
Scott: by It was it it was like an instant classic in my mind.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. I know. You you as soon as we got off the list, that was amazing. Yeah.
Gotta do it again. We could've gone I I know I say this a lot, but
Scott: we do say that a lot.
Jamie: I do. We
Scott: could And you also say, we gotta have you back on.
Jamie: Well, we've talked to a lot of really good people who we do have to have back on and we could have gone another gazillion hours with all these people.
Scott: A 100%.
Jamie: You're like one ish plus
Scott: a fun guy to watch the Knicks game with.
Jamie: You're not wrong about that by way. I didn't even think about that.
Scott: Dude, that would've been sick.
Jamie: I actually didn't even think about that. That's actually a very he's a big sports guy. Yeah. Yeah. And for those of you who don't know who we're talking about, we have Pee Wee's author Rich Cohen on for our interview today.
And for those of you who don't know the book Pee Wee's, shame on you and you go get it. It's a phenomenal book about youth hockey. Rich is a writer. He he's he's written a lot of sports books. He followed the 85 around and wrote about them.
Scott: And he Wait. Did he literally follow them around?
Jamie: Oh, yeah. Well, may remember he was talking about Jim McMahon?
Scott: Yeah. I know. But I I I didn't Oh, yeah. No. I don't know that he actually was, like, with them.
Jamie: Oh, yeah. No. He he was he was
Scott: He was in the trenches with the bears? I'm yes. Yes. So cool. Yeah.
I loved McMahon when I was a kid. Yeah. It was him him and Joe Montana.
Jamie: Yeah. How could you
Scott: And then Phil Sims.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. Local boy. Yeah. Well, yeah.
Well, yeah. Anyway. Yes. But, yeah. No.
So so so the book Pee Wee's Rich Rich, he chronicled his son's son's Pee One his boys. Yeah. One of his boys Pee Wee Year. He has four boys. Right?
And he followed this particular one, his son Micah, and he wrote about it. And in my opinion, he was the original Crazy Hockey Dad.
Scott: Yeah. And he just had it in book form.
Jamie: He just put it on paper.
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: You know? So it was very appropriate for us to interview him. And like I said, we've been trying to get him for it has to be 09:10 months.
Scott: Yeah. And it finally
Jamie: worked out. Finally worked out.
Scott: And it was well worth the wait.
Jamie: Yes, it was.
Scott: Yeah. And it was also cool like just talking to like an author and just like Yeah. You know, it's just it's a slightly different type of like conversation.
Jamie: Yes, it was.
Scott: There's in any of yeah. I mean Yeah.
Jamie: It was great though. You you guys gonna I think you guys are gonna really enjoy the interview. And you guys need to go buy the book because the book's fantastic. I we Yeah.
Scott: Well, listen. I think we well, you know, so speaking of the book Yeah. We are going to it's not finalized yet, but as you know, we are going to be having some giveaways.
Jamie: We are.
Scott: I don't know what shape or form it's gonna be coming out as, but we're checking our Instagram, Facebook for more information. Yes. But we have, our Some
Jamie: contests. Right?
Scott: The contests, including we'll so we'll be giving away copies of Peewee's by
Jamie: Rich Cohen. Couple copies of Peewee's.
Scott: Right? And if I'm not mistaken, we do have a Pacific Rink
Jamie: We do. We have a Journeyman Pacific Rink bag.
Scott: That we're gonna be giving away also.
Jamie: Mine and Scott's favorite bag to carry. Yeah. So, yes. Which is awesome. Any of you hockey moms or dads that travel for tournaments or anything, it's a phenomenal way to pack your clothes.
Yeah. You know? Yep. It's should we do an unboxing on it when it comes? Should do like an unboxing and re box it and send and give it away?
Can let Yeah. Yeah. We can let yeah. Someone just Yeah. Open their own stuff.
Yeah. We don't open it for them and then
Scott: like yeah. And then like Yeah.
Jamie: Tape it. That does look creepy. Yeah. Yeah. Don't wanna do that.
Scott: Yeah. Unless you're gonna put in like a personalized note. Perhaps you could do it for them.
Jamie: So it's funny. So Jack Serkin from from Pacific Rink, when he reached out to me to say like, do want us to send you a bag for you guys to do a giveaway? He wrote, so you don't have to give yours away. And I wrote back, I'm like, I would never give it away.
Scott: No. They're great. They're great.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So shows out to Jack and Brad Serkin. Yeah.
This morning Pacific Rink.
Scott: This morning, I was, Otto and I played some pickup this morning. Got got the little guy up at five, 05:20.
Jamie: Right. And I
Scott: was at the rink by six.
Jamie: Nice.
Scott: And then hit the ice at 06:30. Woah. And Early morning. Yeah. No.
Was good. He he did well. I mean, like, listen. I it's pickup. It's early in the morning.
It's not like anyone's going that hard. Right. And like
Jamie: But still.
Scott: But like, you know what I noticed, like, the last couple times, like and we haven't done it too often recently, but people are needing to like, you know, like let up on him less and less. You know what I mean? Like there's definitely
Jamie: Well, they see that he can play and they see that they own
Scott: the game. At the at the end of the game was actually kind of funny. Mhmm. So he was he was coming down and he put the puck, know, like under like a dude's triangle.
Jamie: Mhmm.
Scott: And then he and then he picked up the puck, got a shot on goal, and then the rebound popped out and he's like stuffed it back, know, it's not that fun. And again, was towards the end of the skate, but like immediately after that, the goalie just skated off
Jamie: the ice. He's like, I'm done.
Scott: And someone someone went up to Otto like those on our
Jamie: team and
Scott: goes, Otto, I think you just broke the goalie.
Jamie: Yeah. It was really funny. It is cool.
Scott: That's that's fun. But he is fun and he likes to it so
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. No. It's great, man.
Scott: But anyway, what I was gonna say was Yes. I was noticing a couple of guys, at the rink had Pacific Rink bags.
Jamie: Ah. Yeah.
Scott: Yeah. My eyes my eyes got like a
Jamie: Now you have a I got a vision for it.
Scott: I got pack rink eyes.
Jamie: That's right. Listen, for those of you who have not explored Pacific Rink yet, go check their stuff out. They make in our opinion the best hockey bag in the game, period.
Scott: Period. Stop. Period. Stop. Period.
Stop.
Jamie: Yes. And the journeyman bag that we're gonna give away again for any of you parents who travel for sports, their Pacific Ring journeyman bag is awesome.
Scott: Amazing. Yes.
Jamie: I took it to I I took a bunch of places. We took it to Lake Placid.
Scott: Yes. We did.
Jamie: And I took it to Atlanta.
Scott: Yes. You did.
Jamie: So easy to fly with too, by the way. Yep. Like, not need to check it. It goes right in the overhead.
Scott: Perfect.
Jamie: So easy.
Scott: Slam dunk. Speaking of slam dunks, let's give a little shout out to the Knicks.
Jamie: Yeah. That's crazy, man. Yo. You know, that was wild. Yeah.
I'm shocked shocked they put one. Why? I because they haven't won in forever.
Scott: Fair. But like, you know, it is it it it was bound to happen at some point.
Jamie: At some point. Yeah. I'm a jet fan, so I'm not so sure about that.
Scott: It'll happen. You think in your In my lifetime? If it doesn't happen in your lifetime, are you like will you be like on your deathbed just like Really? Like, is this something that is that close?
Jamie: Gonna say that on my deathbed, I will probably not be thinking about the New York Jets. If I am, there's a bigger problem.
Scott: That's that's very reasonable. Yeah. Okay. It's not
Jamie: that important to me, but I am not expecting the Jets to win a Super Bowl until Woody Johnson sells the team and Gary Vee buys it.
Scott: Okay.
Jamie: I've said that before in this podcast, Gary Vee buys the Jets, they win a Super Bowl, period.
Scott: What if someone else buys the Jets? Nope. And only only Gary Vee can do it? Yep. He's the only one that can reverse the voodoo?
Jamie: I'm telling you, Gary Vee buys the Jets, they
Scott: win the Super Bowl. Okay.
Jamie: Yeah. Nothing else.
Scott: Well, I think you're probably
Jamie: Woody Johnson stays as the owner or the Johnson family
Scott: No go.
Jamie: They'll never win a Super Bowl because the fish rots from their head down. Mhmm.
Scott: Is that the way the way
Jamie: it goes? That's how it goes. That's what they say at least.
Scott: Oh, okay. Who's they in that sentence?
Jamie: They. The fishermen? They. Is that
Scott: you hang out with?
Jamie: You know they? Yeah. They. They say it.
Scott: Yeah. They do.
Jamie: They. You wanna hear something funny? What? I'll tell you something funny.
Scott: What?
Jamie: So I you'll get kicked out of this. So Dominic had a, remember that remember that pickup game they had two weeks ago?
Scott: Yes.
Jamie: They had another one yesterday.
Scott: You know, and I we didn't even talk about that yesterday.
Jamie: Yeah. Very last minute. Yes. Right?
Scott: But I didn't even ask you about so tell.
Jamie: Okay. So, so we that same team reached out to us from Brewster, New York and they said, you know, you wanna bring whoever is available to come up and play. Yeah. So we played them again. We had six forwards and four d.
Scott: Perfect. That's perfect.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. The kids were gassed at the end
Scott: of But that's that's perfect.
Jamie: Every other shift they went on.
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: Exactly. I'm sure they like that although in the third period they looked a little heavy. The legs were not coming up as much as they did in the first two periods. So so I'm in the stands talking to talking to one of our goalie dads. Yeah.
Okay? And he he obviously listens to the podcast and he was talking about the episode with Ben Sire from Princeton.
Scott: Yep.
Jamie: Princeton head coach. Which was 69? Episode 60 Correct. If you haven't checked that out, go check Ben Sire out, Princeton head coach. Awesome awesome interview.
Scott: Go Tigers.
Jamie: Episode 69. So, so he's sitting there talking to me and he's asking about, remember how coach Sire brought up John Gordon, the author of Hard Hat
Scott: Yes.
Jamie: And Energy Bus?
Scott: Yes.
Jamie: So he mentioned he mentioned it, to me. And I'm like, oh yeah. I'm like I read those books forever ago. And he goes, Jamie, did you read them or did you listen to them? Exactly.
Exactly. Well, was just saying it because he obviously heard on episode and he heard you busting my balls about me listening to them not reading Yeah. But he said that, thought you'd get a kick out
Scott: of Well, that's what I'm saying. You didn't read them.
Jamie: Shout out Johnny Mac.
Scott: Yeah. You see Johnny, we're on the same page brother.
Jamie: My man. I thought you'd get a kick out
Rich: of that.
Jamie: Yeah. Well, it's true. Yes. Johnny Mac, you see, he said it to me yesterday.
Scott: Good. Good for Johnny.
Jamie: Yeah. But the game was the game was the game was
Scott: What is it? I mean,
Jamie: we we lost two one.
Scott: You lost?
Jamie: We lost.
Scott: Long ball.
Jamie: Listen, the goalie stood on his head. Which one? The the other team's goalie. Our goalies were good too. No.
Scott: No. Was was it was this the same goalie that you played last time? They brought in a ringer.
Jamie: Don't I so I I'm because that does happen. I'm like so they this team, they did it they did it the first time too. They they brought kids that were not are not on their fall Right. Right. So apparently, of the parents said that they did this again yesterday.
Yeah. I was not paying attention.
Scott: It doesn't matter.
Jamie: It's a it's a scrimmage a y type thing. That wasn't important.
Scott: Yeah. You
Jamie: know? But it was just for the kids to go out there and have fun and fuck around. Right? Yep. So and their goalie played well.
The goalie kept Good. We shot the puck on him a lot.
Scott: Yeah. That's good.
Jamie: Right? And he kept the puck out of the net. But it's funny. They're like, I was talking to Nancy, and Dominic is having this like it's like every other year, he has like a major like issue. You know, like two years ago, was his skating.
So now the skating looks better, but now his hands and his shot on the ice are like what's the word I'm looking for? They are I won't say well, they're definitely inconsistent, but they're sloppy. Mhmm. Right? Like, loses the puck a lot Yeah.
When he's stick handling.
Scott: Is he over stick handling?
Jamie: Maybe. Yeah. But he's he's so he's he and and the shot is like the puck's like floating toward the net again. It's not like so sometimes it goes on the line, don't get me wrong, but like some I don't know if Dominic's getting in his own head Yeah. Or what Yeah.
But like every like every every other year Dominic has like an issue with like mechanics or like something I'm noticing. And I'm pretty sure it's mostly mental. That's my guess.
Scott: Okay. He is a growing kid. So limbs could be different lengths.
Jamie: So you're not Like shit
Scott: like that.
Jamie: I I thought that as well. I thought that could be cause he is growing, know, he keeps he keeps and he keeps whenever Dominic's heel hurts him, he has this thing called Sever's disease Sever's disease Sever's disease, I think you call it. So Sever's disease, I think I've talked about
Scott: on podcast
Jamie: before. Right? It's the growth plate and the heel.
Scott: Yep.
Jamie: And when you do like impact sports and you're pounding on it, right? It starts to hurt. Mhmm. Especially when the growth plate is open and the kid's growing.
Scott: Right.
Jamie: Right? So like every once in a while, his heel hurts him. You know, so he is growing because he's been saying that his heel and his shins are hurting him.
Scott: Okay.
Jamie: So he's obviously growing. Right? And he is getting bigger. I mean, the kid I can't keep the kid
Scott: How much weight did he put on since he started Parisi last year until now?
Jamie: You know, that's actually a very good question.
Scott: Did it even go up? It must have gone up.
Jamie: He did go up. Yeah. No. There's no question about it. He he probably put on like, I would say like eight to ten pounds of muscle.
No shit. He I think he I would wanna say when he when he when he went in, he was like hundred pounds and now he's like one eleven, something like that. So no, and he looks physically bigger. There's no question about it. I mean, he's also hitting puberty so everything is kind of growing.
Helped. Right?
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: No question about it. Yep. Right? All all the workouts that he's been doing is is definitely helping. But yeah.
So so he's growing. So so he is getting longer. So I'm not sure if it's a that issue or if it's a confidence issue or if it's a whatever. But the problem with Dominic is is that when he when things and I'm sure some of our listeners have this problem with their kids too. When when when he, like, when he flubs a shot toward the net Yep.
He gets pissed.
Scott: Yeah. Sure.
Jamie: You know? And we're trying to teach him to not get pissed. Easier said than done.
Scott: No. Yeah. Well, yeah. Definitely easier said than done. You know, listen, it'll come with time.
Jamie: I I really think, like,
Scott: you know, not a guarantee.
Jamie: I hope so.
Scott: But look, I
Jamie: I hope so.
Scott: I don't know. It's part of it's a maturity thing.
Jamie: I hope think so? Yeah. Right? But I guess we're gonna find out.
Scott: Who were we talking about? Yeah. Who was I talking to about this? Maybe it was you or maybe it was even on the last podcast. Who was talking about, the commencement speech with Roger Federer?
Jamie: Oh, that wasn't me.
Scott: That wasn't you. No. Yeah. He did a commencement speech and it was pretty much he asked like the audience. That was my brother-in-law yesterday.
Jamie: And he
Scott: was like at some commencement speech and I and I could be like you know messing it up. I didn't hear it myself but he was just telling me and like you know, so it's anecdotal but Right. That he asked like you know the audience or the crowd or like graduates or whomever. Mhmm. Like, you know, what percentage of my shots do you think that I won?
My lifetime. This is, arguably the greatest player to ever play the game. Right?
Jamie: Can I guess?
Scott: Yeah. Yeah. I guess. And I could my my I could the stat could be wrong Out of
Jamie: out of all of his matches, the percentage of Points. Of points he won.
Scott: That he won.
Jamie: Won and lost. These are the ones that he won.
Scott: Yeah. Just what what percent did he win?
Jamie: I'm gonna say, like, 51 or 52%.
Scott: Very close. If if my brother-in-law was recalling correctly, 54%. Okay. Right. But he won 80% of his matches or something like that.
Jamie: No. He was she's a tremendous tennis player.
Scott: So Tremendous. So and it's like the same thing like Michael Jordan says, you know, like how many shots did he miss?
Jamie: Yeah. You know? Yeah. It's true.
Scott: So like once once I think once you have like this like understanding Mhmm. And whatever like, you know, baseball too, what percentage like what, you know, guys that are like getting a hit like hitting the ball a lot, what what's their batting percentage?
Jamie: I mean, today Yeah. A guy today in baseball, like, a guy that a guy that hits 300 is like a unicorn. Like, you don't have guys hitting 300. You have a handful of
Scott: guys hitting 300 anymore.
Jamie: So the And those guys are basically hall of famers now.
Scott: And and those are like so we're not talking
Jamie: succeeding three out of 10 times.
Scott: Three out of 10 times.
Jamie: Which is not a lot.
Scott: Right. So the the whole point is that, like, you're gonna miss a lot more than you're gonna make. Yeah. So once you come to terms with this and you understand that, I think that there's like Yeah. Per perhaps you don't get as angry.
Jamie: My child or me? Your child.
Scott: No. But like what no.
Jamie: I I don't know. I'm talking
Scott: about I'm talking about generally speaking.
Jamie: So how do you tell that to a fucking 14 year old?
Scott: What do you mean? You don't even have to. Just let him listen to Roger Federer. Be like, dude, this is the greatest player or one of the greatest players of all time.
Jamie: I I see. I've shown him those videos. I've shown him those videos about Michael Jordan saying like he's like he Listen. He lost more than he won and yada yada yada. Right?
Or whatever it was. Or he missed missed a gazillion shots. I agree with you.
Scott: But it's and listen, you can get mad. You can get mad, but it's we tell our kids What you What you do What you you do dude.
Jamie: Right. If you slam your stick and you stop scamming
Scott: You're be a shithead? Then get off the ice. That
Jamie: 100%.
Scott: You're gonna be a shithead, get off the ice.
Jamie: I'd tell Tomo Tomego, get the fuck off the ice. Like, off the ice. You're gonna you're gonna pout and complain, get off the ice.
Scott: A 100%.
Jamie: You know, get off the ice. Put somebody on that's not gonna do that. Yeah. You know? Mhmm.
Mhmm.
Scott: And that's all yeah. Like and and and that's why I think like, you know, the effort piece is also like oftentimes tied to Mhmm. Like confidence and tied to
Jamie: Yeah. It is.
Scott: Like, you know, the stories that kids tell themselves like Yeah. You know, if you really think that like you can get the puck back from someone, you're probably gonna slam on the brakes and like, you know, get it back. But if you're like have a if you're defeated, if you're giving yourself negative self talk giving up based on the play. And then you see
Jamie: What the hell good is that? No. You're no good for anybody.
Scott: No good for anybody.
Jamie: Literally, you're no good for anybody.
Scott: You lose the puck, you go on what's my job now? Your job is to get that fucking thing back.
Jamie: And that's what I keep I keep waiting to see my kid do that. I have not seen it yet.
Scott: You're not the only one, dude.
Jamie: It's it's an awful feeling, Scott.
Scott: Yeah. It's an awful feeling. You know what, like, pissed me off today? What? And like this is
Jamie: Was this in the game this morning you guys played?
Scott: Yeah. And it's, you know, I think, Topher and, the they have a lot of sayings, you know, the on their pocket. One of them is, how you do anything is how you do everything. Yes. I'm watching so Otto made a great pass to spring a guy in a breakaway this morning.
And I'm just watching and like there was there was it it was the guy's on a breakaway. There's one d trailing him trying to like catch, you know, back check and pick him
Jamie: up. Yeah.
Scott: And like Otto lets off the gas. Like, dude, you gotta crash the net, bro. Like, what good are you on the blue line if the puck is sitting in the slot and like, someone blows a tire and it's just sitting there. Well, you know, like, me a break, bro.
Jamie: You gotta be in the right position.
Scott: But like that that type of stuff like, you know.
Jamie: I know. It's awful. It's rare.
Scott: I just wanna see stops and starts. I just wanna see you get get after it. I just wanna see you like Yeah.
Jamie: Stops and starts, by the way. That's a very good point as opposed to just helicopter turning. Like, actually, like, put on the brakes and go the other direction.
Scott: Stops and starts.
Jamie: Yeah. Exactly. And stops and starts are I think Jamie Dads said stops and starts are huge.
Rich: Of course.
Jamie: They should have doubted that. But I my kid doesn't stop and start. My kid just helicopter turns.
Scott: No. Stops and starts.
Jamie: Yeah. I'm with you, buddy.
Scott: That was interesting. So a guy that was on that we played pickup with this morning Yeah. Apparently played in the East Coast Hockey League.
Jamie: Mhmm.
Scott: And and he was good. Yeah. And I don't know how far
Jamie: How old the guy is he now?
Scott: He's definitely old. Are he 30? 40? No. He's I would say in his forties probably.
But you know, he's you know, it's like the thing that is just so obvious playing against someone that's played at that level. Mhmm. And I'm sure he was going like at a a fraction of what he could probably have done with us, you know. But it's just like when you hear p like the broadcasters talk about details
Jamie: Mhmm.
Scott: And when you're playing against someone who has all the details dialed in
Jamie: Yeah.
Scott: It's like it's just like the the positioning and like Yeah. With the puck, without the puck. Like going wide, how are you getting your you know, like you're just boxing out
Jamie: Yeah.
Scott: Like where you where you're stick
Jamie: He plays the game the right way.
Scott: But like all like
Jamie: I know.
Scott: There was it's almost like he he handcuffs you with like everything you try to do just because he's got like all the details dialed in.
Jamie: And it's probably all on autopilot with him.
Scott: No doubt. And it's just like
Jamie: It's all just second. It's it's just like a it's just force of habit, like, which does it.
Scott: Right. Everything is tight. Everything is controlled. Everything is, like, with purpose. Yeah.
And it's just
Jamie: Yeah. I'm sure it looks awesome too.
Scott: It it it's yes.
Jamie: It does. You were playing against him or he's against you?
Scott: No. He was yeah. It was just like a pickup. He was on he was on the other team. But, you know, it was cool to play against him.
Mhmm. Yeah. You just to kinda see some of it. But, yeah, details are dialed.
Jamie: Did he come down on you on a breakaway?
Scott: No. But he got around. He he beat me wide, beat me wide, and then he ended up going back, you know, hitting someone backdoor for a goal.
Jamie: Ah. Where was the offside defenseman?
Scott: Well, in when you played pickup at, 06:30 in the morning
Jamie: Yeah.
Scott: Like, So
Jamie: he was he was sleeping with his coffee?
Scott: No. He was probably still trying to score a goal on the other end.
Jamie: He was on the side the ice.
Scott: Dude, I I play with we play with this guy. I I won't say his name, but like he's a little older also and he plays defense. Mhmm. But like if you were to look at his his heat map for the game, like as a He's defense
Jamie: one area. He's in the neutral zone.
Scott: No. No. Like as a defenseman Yeah. Like it is flaming red behind the offensive goal, like the opposing goal. He's over there.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. He's like he's the defenseman that play he like sets up shop behind the other like Gretzky's office.
Jamie: I was gonna say, he thinks he's like Kal McCarr.
Scott: No. He doesn't. He definitely he definitely is
Jamie: He tries to
Scott: be Kal McCarr. He takes he takes liberties in the offensive zone.
Jamie: So the the so the other defenseman has to be like the stay at home guy?
Scott: I I mean, you need like your center to then become your defenseman.
Jamie: Oh, yes. Or the winger to drop back. Right? It
Scott: doesn't matter. But that's the thing of like, you know, pick up in the morning is like, people's back check is not exactly Listen. And then the annoying thing is and then you have people that just kinda like hang Yeah. And they're looking to get sprung on a breakaway
Jamie: Right.
Scott: Because they know that one of the defensemen is like pinching up. It's like at the same time also it's like as annoying as is sometimes if defensemen are just playing offense the whole game. Yeah. Yeah. It's like at the same time if you're like also having people just hanging and like pick up, it's like come on guy.
Jamie: Yeah. That's true. I could see that a lot in pick up especially at that time in the morning by the way. Yeah. That's not easy.
Scott: What? Getting up that early?
Jamie: Yeah. To play a well, what what time were
Scott: you up? I got up at five.
Jamie: Oh, that's not bad.
Scott: No. Sunday. The Sunday one's better. The time on the Saturday Yeah. Saturday one is like a it's a it's a 05:30 start.
So it's like a 04:00 week.
Jamie: Oh, even earlier? Yeah. Okay. Were you local? How far from the rink?
Scott: Oh, it's twenty minutes. The Palisades.
Jamie: Oh, the mall. Gotcha. Oh, nice. Alright. Cool.
Nice man.
Scott: Very cool. Yeah.
Jamie: Shove it. We actually didn't know our partner. Should we do that? Should we roll into that right now?
Scott: Yeah. Go for it.
Jamie: Alright. So we'll take care of little business. So, Howie's Hockey. Crazy ten. Crazy ten.
Go check out howie'shockey.com for any laces, tape, candles, scissors, Stacy's son's favorite, is it blue t shirt or is it yellow?
Scott: Blue.
Jamie: It's blue, isn't it? Blue.
Scott: It is blue. Yeah. She's got a yellow t shirt.
Jamie: Yeah. I yellow one.
Scott: I think I need a yellow one.
Jamie: You do need a yellow one.
Scott: I do.
Jamie: They actually have really cool vintage looks. Yeah. Like that's my that's my favorite stuff that they have.
Scott: Is it?
Jamie: So go check out howieshockey.com. Use the code crazy 10 for 10% off your Howie's hockey gear.
Scott: That's right. And as many of us have kids that are already finished with school, are finishing school at least here in the Northeast, it's time to get your training done in the garage at the local school yard in the backyard. We're talking about off ice, speed, strength, agility. We're talking about in the garage, on the tile, stick handling. Gotta get after it using hockeytraining.com and check out coach Kevin on Instagram, hockey training HQ.
And he's got a awesome library of videos that are all geared to improve performance on the ice with your off ice stick handling, speed strength agility training. So check it out. Coach kevin at hockeytraining.com.
Jamie: Nice. And then we got Titan Battle Gear. So Scott and I trust our kids in Titan Battle Gear. Go to titanbattlegear.com or check the link in our show notes, which is titanbattlegear.com backslash crazy hockey dads. Use the code crazy dads 10 for 10% off your Titan battle gear.
Again, Scott and I have our kids in it. We think it's the best stuff on the market, so they now have their cut resistant base layer three point o out. So go check out their Swanky. Not only is it the most protection on the market, but also looks insane. They have some some unbelievable Insanely good
Scott: you mean?
Jamie: Yeah. Looks insane. Of course. Yes. No, they have some unbelievable colors and styles.
Obviously, you can just go with the straight black, you can go with the camo, or you can get a little creative and you can go with the Miami pink and white. I mean, they have or the palm trees. Dom's got the palm trees. Although, he just grew out of it because again, my child is growing like a weed. But yeah, they have awesome stuff.
Go check out the stuff at titanbattlegear.com. Use the code crazy dads 10 for 10% off your Titan battle gear.
Scott: Yes. Yes. Yes. And moving on to athletic performance insight. Coaches, managers, anyone thinking about introducing video analytics to your team this season, please check out athletic performance insight.
Go to their website, fill out the contact form, and we, Eric will get a demo done for you. He will happily break down a game for you. I'm sure of it. But his platform has all the other under the hood analytics and his team can break down tape for you and your team and you can go over, you know, situational gameplay, offsides, failures, you know, breakout failures, breakouts, you know, successful breakouts, all all the things you might wanna look at from, like, you know, as young as mites all the way up to college. But athletic performance insight is a wonderful platform to introduce your team to help them with their off ice hockey IQ learning.
Jamie: Yes. Alright. But that was good. That was actually really good reads. We're getting good at
Rich: this.
Jamie: Oh, yeah? I think so.
Scott: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know
Jamie: be We'll doing it long
Scott: enough for Christ's sake. You get some repetitions.
Jamie: That's for sure. You know? But, and thank you to all of our new listeners, by the way. Like, we have a, like, all of a
Scott: sudden But listen, Paul, before we thank the listeners Yeah. We also need to mention Thank ourselves? No. BJD sucks. Oh, sorry.
Yes.
Jamie: Our awesome intro. BJD. Sorry, BJD. Go check out Big John Dangle's Instagram. He does our intro and we love it.
So go check out Big John Dangle's on Instagram. You may be surprised at what you see.
Scott: You just
Jamie: hear it, you may be surprised at what you see on the other side. And you see it live.
Scott: Listen, if if if he's listening right now, I am I am officially requesting a six pack of dangle juice. I I just I need a six six pack of dangle juice.
Jamie: I'm not gonna lie. I also want the triple a, like blinged out
Scott: thing around the neck. It's baller.
Jamie: I will wear that on the podcast if it comes.
Scott: That would be baller.
Jamie: And I'll wear it on the first podcast, then I'll hang it behind me
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: For, like, for, like, the rest of It'd be sick. For the rest of our podcast, however long that goes.
Scott: CG grills. Ridiculous.
Jamie: That would be ridiculous. Could you imagine how ridiculous that would be? That would be pretty interesting looking.
Scott: That would be ridiculous.
Jamie: That really would be.
Scott: In a bad way, probably.
Jamie: Well, hey, listen. But yeah, go but thank you Big John Dengles. Go check his Instagram out. Big John Dengles on Instagram. Like I said, he has some really cool stuff.
Scott: Yeah, man. So so and you were saying thank you to listeners?
Jamie: A lot
Scott: of new listeners?
Jamie: You know, yeah. Thank you for we have a bunch of new people that have found the podcast. Our social media seems to be cranking along. So welcome all you new people that just found us on our social medias and all you new people that started listening to the podcast. We really appreciate it.
Could not do this without you.
Scott: Definitely not.
Jamie: If you like what you're hearing, go leave a review on Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to us on because it really helps us in the Instagram algorithm or not the Instagram. And the Any of them? The podcast algorithm ranking system. Whatever. Whatever it is.
Scott: It just helps.
Jamie: Whatever that is. It just helps. So thank you so much for doing it, in advance. Yeah, man.
Scott: It's good stuff.
Jamie: Yeah. So we got a lot of new people that have been finding us, is pretty awesome.
Scott: No. It's really great. Facebook's blowing up. Yes. Love it.
Check us out. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, wherever.
Jamie: Wherever is right.
Scott: So yeah. So you got some hockey under your belt, which is nice.
Jamie: We did.
Scott: Otto is going to play in a tournament this coming weekend.
Jamie: Right.
Scott: He's got a couple games. You know, he's excited to, you know, have some games. Sweet.
Jamie: Yeah. The games are fun
Scott: for him. You know, he's he hasn't it'll be the the first game will be the first time like this group has been on the ice together. And Okay. You know, it it's it definitely meant to be, you know, more teachable moments. That's at least the coaching staff's mission like going into
Jamie: they're saying to you.
Scott: Yeah. So we'll see.
Jamie: Do you think it's just a selling feature?
Scott: Oh, listen, I'm gonna find out.
Jamie: Well, let me know.
Scott: I'm curious. Yeah. I'll I'll, you know, I'll talk to Otto and see what kind of feedback and instruction he gets on the bench. Hopefully, it's I'm curious. It's a lot for him to think about and like he goes out there and actually tries to execute some things that maybe he's not used to executing, you
Jamie: know? Right.
Scott: So whatever. That'll be interesting. But I'm just happy that he's gonna be on the ice in a game situation. It's been it's been a minute and he's looking forward to it. Nice.
Happy for him.
Jamie: Yeah. That's awesome, dude.
Scott: Yeah. But That's great. Matt, he hasn't no no like clinics, no
Jamie: No? No skating?
Scott: Like really not not that much. I mean, I feel like I've been saying talking on both sides of my out of both sides of my mouth. Right. But like, he's had they they've had a few practices
Jamie: Mhmm.
Scott: As team practices, but there's only been a handful. He finished up You're
Jamie: still doing team practices?
Scott: He had one last week.
Jamie: No shit.
Scott: I don't know that was the last one. We might have one more.
Jamie: We've been done with that for
Scott: a while. Purposely pushed it down the road.
Jamie: Did they? Yeah. We've been done for a while. Like a long while.
Scott: Yeah. Know. He had practice And last then I think he's got another maybe I don't know about this coming week. But at this point, like no clinics, no we haven't been dropping in anywhere really. No.
It's just been like, you know Right. Like once a week has been on the ice. Right. The last
Jamie: couple Okay. Weeks. All right. Well, just once.
Scott: Yeah. So he was on the, like twice a week when he was doing a spring clinic. Right. That came to an end. And then it was like once a week with his team practice.
Jamie: Okay.
Scott: And then, you know, when the summer comes around, he's in a few camps that's like
Jamie: Right.
Scott: For a couple hours except for Princeton. He's the hockey that he's enrolled in is just like a couple hours in the morning here and there.
Jamie: Right.
Scott: So it looks on the calendar, there's a lot of hockey. Yeah. Yeah. But ultimately, it's not like these are full days of hockey camp.
Jamie: No. No.
Scott: They they
Jamie: I think they're on the ice in the morning for an hour and a half and in the afternoon for an hour and a half or something along
Scott: those
Jamie: lines in camp. Right? And then they take them to the pool, they take them to like go bounce around outside and Yeah. Off, Perfect. Like, off a lot of off ice stuff outside.
I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. That should be fun.
Scott: No. Me too. I also, I walked by the other day, so Otto, you know, he's
Jamie: Go check out princetonprincetonhockeycamps.com.
Scott: Is that the website?
Jamie: I think so.
Scott: Yeah. You're just throwing a .com at
Jamie: the end the sentence. I'm I'm keep talking. I'm gonna look it up. But I'm pretty sure
Scott: Princeton It's in the show notes. Episode
Jamie: 60 show notes. Yes. You you put it in episode 69. That's right. Yeah.
Hold on. Am I right about this? Shit. What'd I say it was?
Scott: You said princetonsportshockeycamp.com?
Jamie: Know what I say.
Scott: I don't know. Did I
Jamie: say princetonsportscamps.com?
Scott: Maybe.
Jamie: It's princetonsportscamps.com.
Scott: Okay. Well, if that's in fact what you said, you did it right.
Jamie: Maybe. Well, I corrected it then if I didn't do it right. Well,
Scott: either way.
Jamie: So check out princetonsportscamps.com. We need to sell out the hockey camp.
Scott: It's not sold out?
Jamie: I think when we had coach Sire
Scott: You said there's a few spots.
Jamie: Said there was a handful of spots. So go to princetonsportscamps.com and put your Are you on Princeton's payroll? Maybe. Either that or I'm just a big fan.
Scott: Yeah. I know you're a big fan.
Jamie: Yeah.
Scott: So Gonna get you a tiger tail that you can wear around
Jamie: They are the d one program in our state.
Scott: That's true.
Jamie: So I have to support them. I just happened to be taking Dominic there since he's like six. Yeah. You know? So we've been going for quite some time.
Listen, and I I like the town of Princeton.
Scott: Yeah. I know you do.
Jamie: You know, I like I we stay at the Nassau Inn Mhmm. Over on Nassau Street. Mhmm. In is it Palmer Square, I think it's called?
Scott: I don't know.
Jamie: Yeah. So if you ever guys ever go to Princeton, check out the Nassau Inn at in it's in Palmer Square, right on Nassau Street, right off Nassau. It's based around the border of the campus. You you stare at the campus.
Scott: Can you blow me where the Pampers
Jamie: is? PCU?
Scott: You show Can me where the Pampers you show me where the campus is?
Jamie: It's a great movie. Great movie. Great movie.
Scott: That was very appropriate. Speaking of like being like really high.
Jamie: Yeah. They were supposed to talk about Revenge of the Nerds now. That's what I feel like we're supposed to talk about.
Scott: I love that movie. When I was a kid, I loved it. Great movie. But ogre.
Jamie: I was just gonna say that. Yeah. It's so funny you said that. I was thinking the same thing.
Scott: No. But So there was
Jamie: Ogre Louie.
Scott: I saw I saw a clip of Avery. Yeah. Sean Avery. I I think there's a podcast, Puck Stories.
Jamie: I think that's a podcast. Okay.
Scott: Anyway, so he was it was a clip on YouTube and he was saying how, when he had first started, he was playing for the Red Wings. Right. And Brett
Jamie: Is that Hull where he started?
Scott: I think so.
Jamie: Okay. I think
Scott: that was where he Red Wings and Brett Hull. Right? And so Brett Hull was on the team and Brett Hull took him under his wing.
Jamie: Oh, okay.
Scott: Interesting. So he I think he lived at Brett Hull's, like, house, but maybe, like, there was, like, a detached garage and he lived above the garage or maybe that doesn't matter.
Jamie: Something like that.
Scott: Yeah. Something something like that. I don't know. So so apparently, Hull had gone up to Avery's, like, room or whatever, and there was a kitchen maybe there somewhere. And Avery and so he wasn't there, but, like, Hull took like, ate, like, a couple brownies out of his refrigerator.
Oh my goodness. Hot brownies.
Jamie: Yeah. What I gonna
Scott: say. Yeah. And apparently He
Jamie: was all banged up?
Scott: Apparently, like, I think Avery said something along the lines of, like, like, Hull like his Hull's wife was saying that he was lying in their closet just doing snow angels.
Jamie: So it's funny. Speaking of that Yeah. We didn't talk about it with Rich Cohen when we were interviewing him for Pee Wee's but there's a passage in Pee Wee's where one of the hockey dads from his son's team gives him gummies, marijuana gummies and he's like fucked up for like three days. It's actually a really good passage in the book. It's earlier on in the book I think.
Yeah. So that's it's funny you said that and it's just kinda reminded me of a of a passage from Pee Wee's. Yeah. Yeah. With our with our interview Rich Cohen today.
Yeah. Yeah. Very good stuff. It's very It's actually on Avery. Interesting.
Scott: Yeah. Totally interesting.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. You know?
Scott: Alright, everybody. Welcome to our next guest on the Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast. We have the one and only Rich Cohen, author of Pee Wee's Confessions of a Hockey Parent. I know a ton of you out there have read the book, myself included, Jamie included, and we couldn't be more thrilled to have you on, Rich. Thanks so much for joining us.
Rich: Yeah. Thanks for having
Scott: me. Our pleasure.
Jamie: So I'm curious, Rich. Tell us, like, what you're doing today, kinda how you started writing Pee Wee's, and then we'll dive into you as a kid and you as a player.
Rich: I well, I'm not a, you know, a hockey writer, obviously. I I'm a nonfiction writer mostly. I've written a lot of books about all different subjects, And the only thing that unites them is there's something I was just super, super interested in exploring and writing about and thought was good material. The reason I wrote Pee Weeze is because when I was that that those couple of seasons, it was so intense. I haven't cared about anything that deeply since I was, like, 15 years old.
You know? I was trying to get a girl to go with me to the prom. I mean, it was like the experience was so intense. I'm like, this is the most intense thing happening in my life right now. This is the richest material in my life, and this is what I wanna write about.
I should say the book is called Pee Wee's. When I sold it to my editor, it was first called Squirts. Oh. About the squirt season. But as I was starting to get ready to write it, the pee wee season was unfolding, and I'm like, the pee wee season was nuts, man.
Is like and it was it was I I thought I ended up thinking it was super interesting because when you write something, usually, you have a lot of things, information, but you haven't processed. You haven't thought about what it means. When you write about it, you start thinking about it, and it felt like a microcosm of everything right and everything wrong about America at that time. And one thing that was super interesting, which is why I started the book with the cars in the parking lot, is there's this huge mix of different economic status. Some people are very successful.
Some people are just hanging on. Some people are coming to pick up trucks. Some people come in, a, you know, a Tesla.
Jamie: Ferrari. Yeah. Yeah. What the hell's
Rich: car is that? I saw a guy pull up at a hockey rink in Darien, Connecticut, like, a in a clown car, like a like a funny car from, like, the demolition derby where the top comes up like that. So, anyway, it was just and I was I cared way too much about it, and I made every single emotional mistake that a parent can make. Even though I knew it was a mistake, I couldn't help myself. It was like a Jacqueline Hyde kind of thing.
Jamie: We know all about them. Totally get that.
Rich: I mean, sometimes I drive by the rink still because I live right near the rink, and I sort of get a cold shiver as I go by, and I think of all the good and bad things that happen in that rink.
Jamie: Do you miss it? I'm curious.
Rich: I do miss it. First of all, I hate the you know, I grew up playing hockey, and I grew up in a very cold place, but I hate the winter. I hate being cold. And for and it's dark, and it's cold, and the days are short. And my son's hockey life gave the winter a meaning, man.
It made me look forward to the winter, and it carried me through the winter, organized the winter. You know? So it made life in winter much better and more and more interesting. So I I do miss it.
Scott: That that that makes so much sense. And though and just putting it that way, like, it's like, yeah. That's a that's so spot on. And, you know, I'm I'm just wondering, and I'm I'm I'm thinking about my own childhood and when I would play and go to the pond, and we'd go there right after school just so you get as much daylight before the, you know, the sun went down. And, you know, the for you, when did well, I you know, we're gonna jump around a little bit because we wanna hear about, like, you know, your own hockey playing history.
But since we're talking about your son at the moment, when when did he start playing? Like, how many years of hockey did you have under your belt with him?
Rich: Well, it's funny because it might we I have four sons. And Okay. We have a big gap. I say, second family, first wife. There's a gap between there's, like, a a eight year gap between our our actually, when when our youngest who's 10 years old was born, the other the next youngest one asked him, are you still the youngest?
And I said, you'll always be the youngest of group a.
Scott: So but but, basically,
Rich: our my old when we moved I moved from the city where I've been working in magazines to Connecticut. I live right down the road from a rink. I started playing adult hockey. And my oldest son, I really tried to get him involved in hockey. I coached, and I was trying to get him to do stuff.
And it was just like I don't if you ever seen this Sylvester cartoon where they try to get a cat to take a bath. It was just freaking impossible. Like, come on. You know? And I was on the ice with him sometimes as a little kid, and I would get really mad.
I would get mad at him. Like and I remember once before they had goal before they had goalies, you know, like, the youngest year Yeah. He was standing around where the goal would be. And I said, what were you doing? You're just standing there.
He said, I was protecting. I was like, what were you protecting? Protecting what?
Jamie: You said in the book. That was in their book. Yeah. You said in the book. Yeah.
I remember that.
Rich: Base I gave up. It was like, this is not working. You got and so I sort of put all the stuff in the garage, and then our our youngest of group a, he said he wanted to play hockey. And I said, well, the stuff's in the garage, and I completely ignored him. And this is in the book, which is he started to play, and I wasn't really paying attention at all.
I thought, you know? And then one day, I went to pick him up, and he was late. So I went inside, and there was some kid, like, skating through everybody, making an unbelievable play. And I said, well, how's that? I'm like, that's my kid.
Jamie: That was Micah. Right? That was Micah. Yeah.
Rich: And I was like, wow. I and I got excited. It was like, okay. Now I have I'm like an agent. Now I have something I can work with.
You know?
Jamie: Sucked it sucked you back in. Yeah.
Rich: Yeah. He was like five or four or five. I he was like, whatever the thing is before mites, you know, whatever they call it.
Jamie: Yeah. It's like a yeah. Like mini mites or whatever they call it.
Scott: Yeah. Yeah. Learned to play or whatever.
Jamie: Yeah. Right. Whatever it is.
Rich: And then he played mites, and then he played there was, like, a travel team for mites, which was ridiculous. So and then they started dividing them up, you know, and and all these different things. And the divisions when he were were arbitrary. I thought the divisions were based on the parents' friend groups. You know?
Like, I would see kids not make a teen because they didn't like the mother and didn't wanna hang out with her, and I got it. You know? I understood it at a at a social level, but so there were some kids that were really, really good on the wrong team. Not my kid. And it kinda was really weird because it you know, hockey, you start to realize when you watch it as a parent, you see it in a different way, and you realize how important it is to play with kids at the same level.
It's like musicians playing with musicians who can play. You bat you'd be you'd be a team with a bunch of mediocre players almost would beat a team with one really good player and a bunch of mediocre players and one really bad player because they couldn't play together. They were all at different speeds. Never they didn't couldn't pass to each other. You know?
So it was interesting because it made me even though one thing I like about hockey is a sport for kids. I always thought it's still recognizably hockey at every single level. Like, I could see an NHL game and a kids game, and I still recognize it as the same sport. When you see kids playing football, it's not the same sport. Something different.
Right. You know? Right. And even baseball is kinda not quite the same sport, but hockey is hockey all the way through. Interesting.
Jamie: Alright. Yeah. So I'm I'm curious. So let's jump back to you as a kid and how you fell in love with the sport. So tell us about, like, your where you where you started, what age, and where you finished.
Rich: Well, you said that you played hockey in the nineties. Is that right?
Scott: He did. Because I did.
Jamie: I I did. I never played.
Rich: He did. This is a sign of my age. I was playing in the seventies. '79. I started So, in the by the way, just like my son, I I had a I was on a team, a MITE hockey team that won the state championship.
And we have the picture. I have the picture still of the team, and I look like I'm about to cry, okay, in the picture. And I know why. I still remember why, which is the kid the shortest kid on the team went on the left, and the second shortest one on the right on the bottom row. And the coach looked at both me and this kid that I thought was shorter than me and said to me, you you're the shortest.
You go to the left. You go to the right. And in the picture, I look like I'm gonna cry, and he looks like he just won the lottery.
Scott: So Unvoiding.
Rich: In in Illinois. And my brother I have a big brother, and he started playing just think my dad knew nothing about hockey, which was an advantage because my dad was a basketball coach. And if you wanted to play any kind of basketball, he would coach you and drive you crazy and hide one arm from the back and make you run wind sprints and shoot from one exact spot and teach you how to shoot a hook shot and come to the game and yell at you and all that stuff.
Scott: But hockey, he's like, I
Rich: don't even know. And then also, he was separated by glass. You know, he couldn't get at you. He couldn't yell at you. You couldn't hear him.
I would say my dad only came to one hockey game in my whole life, and he yelled at that game when I got knocked down. Get up. You're not hurt. That was the extent of his his vomit.
Scott: Alright.
Rich: So my I just started going to the rain. There was nothing to do. It was in Illinois. Hockey was a smaller sport in America. Not as many kids played.
We had travel hockey because you had to travel to play other kids that were serious about it. We had a house league, which was really good. The house league isn't vibrant like it was. The house league was really good, but then you travel. And when I grew up, we still had the rink that we were on was an outdoor rink originally, and it had didn't have glass.
It had still had a chain link fence. They put the glass Yeah. The first, a chain link fence. You wore half masks, like shields. In Spring League, we didn't wear masks.
Played without masks. Oh, wow. Wow.
Scott: And I'm not
Rich: I mean, I'm 57. And we had mouth guards, exterior mouthguards. I don't if you've ever seen them. But they would go on the outside of your face. And Okay.
One of the things, they had this little notch in them, and you'd always stick your tongue through it because you kind of felt the texture. My brother doing that bit his tongue in half during a hockey game. No. And they didn't even pull the whistle.
Jamie: He just He just ushered him off to the bench. Yeah.
Scott: He's like, kind of like
Jamie: he came off, he took him
Rich: to the hospital, and they stitched his tongue back on.
Scott: No way. That's unbelievable.
Rich: He would go to the rink. I was a little brother. I would go with him, and I was with the other little brothers, and we would play, you know, hockey with tape balls in the locker room. Like, that was my best sport, probably, tape ball hockey. And then whenever they would I was five years younger, where they sometimes they would need an extra body.
I would probably like the young Tony Espisode or something. You know? I would get pulled out and thrown out on the ice with these older kids, and and I started playing, you know, in that way, just getting picked up and pulled into games all the time. And I remember when my bro my brother actually taught me to skate. I think this is in the book too, which is I went out on the ice, and I was, like, kinda skating on my ankles.
Right? And my brother knew the guy who did the zamboni, and I had this fear of the zamboni was gonna run me over. It's on my biggest fears. So my brother got the guy in the zamboni to actually take the zamboni out and kinda ride behind me, and I got so scared that I immediately got up and was like a rocket. My name Figured it was rocket because of Maurice Richard.
My name is Richard. Yeah. But also because I was so fast, especially on that occasion because of fear. So for me, the love of hockey has always also been associated with the fear of death, you know, getting run over by the Zamboni. And and then I just started playing.
It was deer the Deerfield Falcons in in Suburban Illinois. Yeah. And that's where, you know, I played and whatever. I just played one way or another up until I went to went through high school and in college. I actually played a year in college.
I didn't play. I went to Tulane, so there's no hockey. Actually, it's interesting because I wanted to play club hockey at Tulane, and they said there was club hockey, and there was a rink. And when I got there, they said the rink had been destroyed over the summer by a hurricane. Oh.
Scott: Oh, thought you
Jamie: were gonna say.
Rich: Later, my son, who didn't go to Tulane, was applying, and he asked if they had any hockey, and they said yes. And then later, he he didn't go there. He heard that the rink had been destroyed over the summer in a hurricane. So I think that that's what they tell all the kids from the Northeast and the Midwest. Yeah.
Jamie: Oh, it that funny. They they told you both the same thing. Yes.
Rich: That there was a rink, and the rink was destroyed in a hurricane. But I went I went abroad to Oxford, England, like, an abroad program, and they had open tryouts for the Oxford hockey team. And me and this other kid who went to Denison, who's really good, we went and tried out thinking we were gonna be, like, the best hockey players because they are kids from England who don't play hockey. They play soccer or rugby or whatever. But, of course, we got there, and they were all Rhodes scholars from Canada or whatever who were Oh.
Division one hockey players who were in graduate school. And that was, like, the best hockey players I'd ever played with.
Jamie: Wow.
Rich: And it was really fun and really cool to play there, but it was, like, the game beyond my where I could keep up with them. They were just, you know, whole different level.
Jamie: But you were on the team. You were on that Oxford team. Yeah. I got the
Rich: jersey, man. I got the jersey, and Brad Blow had a movie out called Oxford Blues, and it was very cool. And it was it was, like, 4AM. You gotta wake up with your bag and walk through Oxford in the dark and go play. It was very cool.
It was very
Scott: It was like a badge of honor. Yeah. Yeah. So, like I mean So after so did you stay connected to the game, like, in between, like, when you when you kinda, like, hung it up, if you will, and then, like, fast forward to when you had
Rich: kids Because the old time, my brother's older than me. He came to New York. Yeah. He had basically joined an adult league hockey team and then somehow took the team over. Okay?
And the team was my brother worked worked at the US attorney's office in New York. But the team was a district attorney's office, and somehow he got on that. These are not connected. And then he through the force of will, personality, maybe some degree of bullying, he took over the team. So he brought me out of that team.
Scott: Nice. And
Rich: there's actually a guy who you should have on who has a a hockey book coming out called Nick Palmgarten. Okay. He was on that team, like, at the end. I was I'm older. I was on at the beginning, and at the very end do you guys know who another writer is named Ben McGrath?
He wrote Oh, no. He He writes to the New Yorker, but he I brought him out of the team.
Jamie: That sounds familiar, Ben McGrath.
Rich: He was he played, like he was a good hockey player, but he was, like, fifteen years younger than everybody. So he was like, we brought him onto the team, and we won the championship because of him. And at that point, I basically hung it up because, first of all, the games were sometimes this is in New York at Chelsea Pierce. Right?
Scott: Yeah.
Rich: So sometimes the games are, like, at a like, midnight.
Jamie: Yeah. I'm telling
Rich: you. So you get home, like, at three in the morning. Okay. That was bad enough. Then my brother was using me as an example of what not to do.
Okay?
Jamie: So he was
Rich: blaming me for he's like, well, you see what my brother did? My brother totally messed that up. Do not do that. Okay? Or I would like, look what he's doing.
He's not even hustling. Look at look at my brother. He doesn't even work. So I would get home, like, at three in the morning. I was really pissed, man.
I would come over there. Just damn it. You know? Like, my and so then I couldn't fall asleep till, like, six in the morning. So Yeah.
It took me, like, a week to recover. Like, I was I had to hold it all nighter, and I was angry. Angry a lot. So and then I saw this great thing, and and it's in the book because it's one of the greatest things I saw in my life, which is we were in a game. It's, like, one in the morning, and a guy a guy on our team got a penalty, rightly, tripped somebody.
They sent him into the box, and he's screaming at the ref. It's one in the morning, screaming at the ref. It's totally cocky. And he says, you're a disgrace to that uniform. And the ref skates over and very calmly says, it's one in the morning, and I'm refing you idiots.
I'm a disgrace alright, and it has nothing to do with this uniform.
Jamie: When you wrote that in the book, I almost so fell
Rich: sorry. I'm so sorry I said that. I'm such an asshole.
Jamie: That's one of the best stories, by the way, in your book. That that the screen story is phenomenal. I'm I'm curious. So alright. So now when did you stop playing men's league?
I'm curious. So that was men's league in, like, Manhattan. Did you play men's league when you moved to Connecticut?
Rich: I did. You did? I did for a bit, but it was I I I didn't like it because it was Sunday night. Okay? I love to watch a Sunday night NFL game.
It's one of my favorite things. It was always the best game. I don't know if it's still is, so I'd miss that game. And then I I feel like there's a bear in my backyard. Hold on.
Scott: Oh. It's Does that happen?
Rich: I don't know. It's my kid doing lawn work. Okay. So Which is good. So, you know, I don't know about you, but I I can't play hockey once a week because every time I haven't played in a while, I get really sore when I play.
Scott: Yeah.
Rich: Sure. And then by the time it's like breaking in your arm at the beginning of the baseball season. And then a week goes by, and I get I have to go through it all again. I need to play if I'm gonna play, I need to play at least twice, and I wasn't playing enough. And then the it was whatever.
It was just too much, and then I got older. And then one of the one of the great things I saw in that league, though, is there was a guy who was really, really, really, really, really overweight. Okay? And he somebody brought him. And he skates around.
He comes off the ice, and he looks like he's gonna have a heart attack. And the guy who brought him turns to him. Meanest thing I've ever seen him say is, would you consider this a warning sign?
Jamie: Oh my god.
Scott: That's unreal.
Rich: And then there was another thing in that league where I remember somebody did something to me I didn't like, and I thought, I'm gonna catch that person and do something to him. I'm definitely much faster than this person. And I skated as hard as I probably had in twenty years. I caught him. I thought, now I'm here, but I'm too tired to do anything.
I have to go to
Jamie: the bench now
Rich: and sit down.
Jamie: Oh, that's been so that was the beginning of the end of of the men's league career. Right?
Rich: Yeah. And then the guy who was my friend who was running it died. So it's a sad thing. That's the other thing. I'll tell you one more really funny thing about the first time I played in that men's league, afterwards, go, we all go out to this bar called the Ancient Mariner.
This is Ridgefield, Connecticut, and get a beer. You should come over there. So I go over there. There's and I go sit down with some of the guys, and they're really not friendly at all. Like, I'm talking to them.
They look creeped out by me. They're not talking to me. And then my friend comes in and he goes, hey, Rich. What are you doing? Those guys aren't with us.
Jamie: You were talking.
Rich: Just two random dudes getting into here, and I sit down and started talking to them.
Jamie: Thinking they're on the team. That's fantastic. I
Rich: do ride. They're all in helmets. I'd never met any of them before.
Scott: That was So I have I have a story that is hockey related, although it wasn't me. But a friend and we're going back, I don't know, must have been like, call it ten years ago or so. And he's from Australia and fought in the special forces over in Australia and was, you know, living in in New York. And he and a bunch of his buddies had gone out for some Australian festival. Don't know.
Was like Anzac's Day, I think, is maybe the thing or what I don't even I don't even know if it was that. The that doesn't even matter. The point is that they're at a bar, and they're just, like, you know, talking. They're all in their uniforms and, like, blah blah blah. And not in, like, the combat uniforms, but they're, like, whatever you call the the nice gear they you know, nice attire they wear when they're out and, you know, in as a marine or whatever.
Rich: On their dress.
Jamie: Their dress. Their dress. Yeah.
Scott: Sure. Their dress. And so they're at a bar, and they're all having a good time. But they're, you know, they're a bunch of, like, you know, special forces Australian men. You know?
And they started talking to some guys at the bar. And the the one guy, you know, they were asking him like, oh, like, what what do you do? You know? And it was it was clear what they these guys did. But like, what do you what do you do?
And and the guy's like, oh, I'm I'm the captain of the rangers. And but but but these Australian guys were rangers.
Rich: Right.
Scott: And they were thought this guy was saying talking about hockey? Yeah. No idea. And they were ready to murder. I I don't I don't I forget who it was.
Like, maybe it was McDonough. I I don't know. I I don't but the point was is, like, in the case telling me the story in his in his Australian accent, like, how him and his boys are ready to, like, put a beat down on this guy. And he's like, no. No.
No. No. No. The New York Rangers, I play ice hockey. I'm the captain of the Rangers.
Right. And they thought they were try you know? It was, like, really funny. Actually,
Rich: I think that the original the re reason the Rangers are called the Rangers is the guy who started the team was a Texas Ranger.
Scott: I think no way.
Jamie: Oh, I didn't know that.
Rich: There is a connection. It's not I mean, it's weird that there's a team in New York called the Rangers, but I think the first guy founded the team was a Ranger.
Scott: How about that?
Jamie: I didn't know that either. That's awesome. I didn't realize that.
Scott: You learn something new every day.
Jamie: Yeah. You're not kidding.
Rich: As a you know, grew up as a Blackhawks fan, but when I moved to New York
Scott: Oh, sure.
Rich: It was just as they were putting that team together, and it was so exciting watching that team. And so I became a Rangers fan as a result watching.
Jamie: Still today?
Rich: I mean, they're, like, my second team. My first team is the Blackhawks. But, you know, when I go see it but the Rangers, again, it's like, this Knicks are playing in the finals right now, and they're like I don't know if you looked at the StubHub, but there's seats for $200,000.
Jamie: Yeah. They're going for huge Yeah.
Rich: It's gross. So, like, if I say, like, you go to get a beer and take a leak, and you just spent $30,000 of your money doing You know? So but
Jamie: I
Rich: I think, like so the Rangers, it's too bad for, like, my kid. Like, I can't really bring my kid to a Rangers game because it's too expensive. And the games end too you know? If I bring him to a game, I'm more likely to bring I just brought him to an Islanders game.
Scott: Oh, that's good.
Rich: Yeah. Actually, I was kinda hoping the Islanders would make the playoffs because we watch them. That's a good team, and I like them.
Scott: Yeah. They're exciting.
Jamie: Good young team.
Scott: I mean, they got a lot to look forward to.
Jamie: Yeah. Similar to the Blackhawks, the young players, you know, Bedard and you know? I would think if they start building around him, the Blackhawks will be real good.
Rich: Yeah. I think Nasar is player. Happen if we have it here, which is talking about hockey is that I don't have it here. Dennis Hall just died. I thought I had his card.
You know, Dennis Hall?
Jamie: I saw that. Yeah.
Rich: So when I was a kid, I I had his hockey card, I guess. I grew up I was born in 1968, so, like, the mid seventies were kinda like now. And everything was kinda seemed like it was falling apart, and everything sort of sucked. And we kinda got the backside of everything, sort of felt like. So, like, five years earlier, they had Bobby Hall.
And by the time I showed up, we had Dennis Hall. Now Dennis Hall was great, but he wasn't Bobby Hall, man. And it was like the Blackhawks, first of all, in that era, which people don't really realize, it's like when they played without helmets, it was great. You really identified with those players. And I remember the first black hawks game, I saw a friend of a friend of mine's father took me down, you could see where they came up onto the ice.
And the black hawks in the old Chicago Stadium, the locker rooms were under the rink. Do know that? So they'd come up a flight of stairs.
Scott: Stairs.
Rich: Yeah. So when they introduced him, and this is, like, Dennis Hull, Tony Esposito, Keith Magnuson, Stan Makita, Cliff Coral. I can remember a lot of them. Pitt Martin, I think. It was like they were ascending from the depths of hell.
That's what it seemed like. Because they're like, you know?
Jamie: Right. Coming up the stairs. Yeah.
Rich: Between periods, they were all sweaty and bloody, and it was like they're going back down into hell. So it made hockey super, super, super exciting. And, anyway, just very different now, obviously. It's much better game probably, but it's something something of the the storybook quality of it's not quite the same.
Jamie: It's definitely changed. That's for sure. You know, this the skill that's there today and, you know, the guys that the guys that that couldn't escape back then that would make the league for fighting, you know, I don't think that's a thing anymore. I think, you know, I think you have to have a lot of skill to play in today's game. Right?
Rich: Yeah. But that's just recent. I feel like that's not the premier
Scott: Yeah.
Rich: Where they changed the rules. They opened the game up. So Yeah. Can't afford to carry a guy who can't skate. It's just, like, waste of a roster spot.
You actually know a guy who can fight and skate. You can have that right.
Scott: Yeah. Yeah.
Jamie: Which is hard to find. You know? That's I mean, it's it's it's it's it's definitely interesting. I wonder if they're doing that for marketing purposes. You know, the game is they're changing the game to be more of a skill game.
More goals, more butts in the seats, you know, similar to, like, more home runs, more butts in the seats for home runs Yeah. In baseball. That's that was I was always curious if they're kinda changing the game to try to make it more appealing to the masses. I don't know.
Rich: If sometimes you get to, like, the playoffs and you like, I remember watching the Rangers with McDonough when he was on the Rangers, and it was like, how is this team ever gonna score a goal? You know, you it's like become like a soccer match. It'd be like nobody can score.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Rich: And now very frustrating too. It's like and sports is the only thing where you can invest four hours of your time, and at the end of it, you're gonna feel terrible.
Scott: You know? It's true.
Rich: You never watch a movie where you're gonna pay you and gonna spend all this time, and at the end it, it's just gonna kill all your favorite characters, and you're gonna go home pissed off. And that's how
Scott: Totally. Think about season ticket holders to the Rangers this past season. What the start that they got off to. Lord.
Jamie: Oh my goodness. Yeah. My goodness. Want me to go?
Scott: You go.
Jamie: You go. I'm just curious. What made you I mean, obviously, you said when you started writing Pee Wee's, you were just kind of writing because that was your world at the time. And I'm just curious. Were you worried you were gonna, like, piss anybody off on the team?
Because I'm sure they all read it. Right?
Rich: Yes.
Jamie: I mean
Rich: Well, I was worried. I was mostly worried that I was gonna make my kids' life hell, honestly. They're gonna be pissed off at him. And I had this plan anyway, I had this plan of him ascending out of our town into the triple a ranks anyway, so we'd be gone. I did, of course, worry about pissing people off.
I tried to disguise everybody. And, you know, it's like I didn't tell everything that happened. You know? Sure. And it's like a blues song.
I'll tell you, but I won't tell you everything I know. You know? So, yeah, it's always thing to think about nonfiction, which is, you know, you're you're always worried about pissing people off. But I would think I always thought that even people that might be pissed off about this book when they read it the first time, they would come to appreciate it. You know?
And they would realize that the good heartedness behind it. And they and it's not a mean book, and it doesn't tell anything like gossip about people, people's purr there's none of that. And I would think that over time, when they're especially when they're kids because none of these kids are gonna be playing division one hockey or anything like that. And over time, they would sort of be happy that the season that we lived through had been in some way preserved. You know what I mean?
Scott: Yeah.
Rich: Yeah. Wouldn't it be cool if your kid was on that team to be able to show a book when to your kids, say, was on this team, and a guy wrote a book about it? Mean, would that be kinda cool? That's right. I kinda thought that it would be preserved, and even the people that might have seen it differently or not love everything in the book would ultimately come to realize it's kinda cool that this book exists.
Jamie: Yeah. Totally. Yeah. I feel like we when we started this podcast, we had a very similar feeling. You know?
So we tread lightly as well, you know, about what we we we talk a lot about our own kids and and, you know, in our own situations and what what we're doing. You know? And we leave people out and stuff like that and and parents out and funny stories. Sometimes make it in, sometimes don't. Sometimes they get changed a little bit, you know, but we're in a very we're in a very similar situation.
Rich: Yeah.
Jamie: You know, you you just did it before us, and you put it on paper. You know?
Rich: And I also have the ability to, you know, you we I have to rewrite and to edit, which you guys don't as much. You know? So Right. Like, I can show this to my wife, and she can say, what are you Nazi can't put this in there. You gotta get rid of this.
Jamie: So You know? It's funny you say that because I had a question, and one of my questions was, what didn't make it into the book that you wish did? That was one of my questions that I wrote down for you.
Rich: I don't I you know what? It's this is the thing about a book like this, which is it's can't remember what I did put in it and what I didn't put in it.
Scott: You know
Rich: what I mean? Like, it's hard to remember, you know, you get so the the crazy thing about being a hockey parent is you can be I'm a little bit older. Now I'm a bunch older. I'm not one of the super young parents. And I've seen sports parents as a person playing hockey and as somebody going to games, And I would laugh at those people, and I would pity those people, and I would not understand those people, and I would judge those people.
And as soon as my kid was playing, I acted exactly the same way. And what's worse is I knew that it was stupid, and I knew that it was wrong, but I couldn't help myself. I just couldn't help it. It was like and there's a thing you don't understand, which is if you're if you're a hockey fan and you're a fan of, like, the Rangers, and the Rangers score and Marc Messier scores a goal against the New Jersey Devils in game six in 1994. Okay?
You think that's the most exciting thing you can ever see. When your kid scores, it's 10 times more exciting than that. Right. It's completely messed up. It's like a biological thing.
It's the most exciting thing in the world. It's more exciting than when you're a kid and you score. More exciting is when you see your kid score. It's like unbelievable thing. And then once that just becomes addictive, and then you're at every game.
They're playing a meaningless game at six in the morning, and you're there. You're there, you know, to watch it and to judge it and everything else. So I think that the book, you know, it says a lot of things about a lot of people, but I think it's most critical of of myself. So Yeah. You know?
And it's true. It's like it it's true. And it's funny. Like, my father, like I said, was a basketball coach, and he's 93. Okay?
He's 93
Scott: years I
Rich: took him to my son's, like, middle school basketball game being coached by high school kids. And the t it's not serious, and the kids are not good. The score was, like, 15 to 13. You know? It's like that
Jamie: kind of game. After the game Princeton offense.
Rich: Right. After the game, my dad, who's, like, at this point, like, 83
Scott: Mhmm.
Rich: Says to me, do you mind if I have a word with the coaches? Yes. I do mind.
Jamie: Yes. Don't do that. Please, god. Don't do that. I would have loved to have heard what he what he was said to them, by way.
Totally. I would have loved to have heard what he was said.
Rich: But Just if they weren't high school kids, I think it would have scared the crap out of them. If they were, like, in their twenties, maybe would have said go ahead, but they were, like, 17 years old.
Scott: Wow. You know what's so so interesting and, like, with, like, the stories that you're telling, what we're talking about right now and then also in the book, like, how like, the the emotional investment is, like, so often, like, disproportionate to, like, what the kids themselves are experiencing. You know? And I think that's just, like, a fascinating thing to kinda, like, really, you know, give some thought to and, like you know, because here we are, you know, just, like and and, you know, for some re you know, we talk about this on the pod, like, you know, why is that sometimes? And, like, of course, part of it's, like, maybe I'm trying to, you know, relive things through my kids.
Part of it is nowadays, it's so expensive. Like, I I want my ROI on this one. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But, like, it's it's just it's it's really it's it's a fascinating thing because, like, they're you know, the kids, like, at certain ages, they're just so young and just doing their thing.
And like you said, like, you're you're judging parents, and then you become that parent. And
Rich: it's Yeah.
Scott: It's just like, you know, just to to really stop and think about that is a pretty wild it's a wild thing. Right?
Rich: Well, also, I realized this thing, which I'd always heard that the reason sports parents are the problem with sport parents is that they're trying to live through their kids. Right? They're trying to and often, it's like the Mickey Mantle thing, k, which is, like, Mickey Mantle's father pushed Mickey Mantle because Mickey Mantle himself didn't succeed. He played minor league baseball, and he wanted his son to to do what he had never been able to do. He was having his son live his dream vicariously.
Mhmm. And so I thought that that's what that's what it is. I thought that it's, like, mostly gonna be parents who played, who got to a certain level and weren't very good and now pushing their kids. And I found that that wasn't the case. First of all, a lot of the people weren't didn't play hockey.
A lot of them never played, and a lot of them had they had well, it's like when I played first played adult hockey in New York, it's a little bit of a tangent, but a lot of the people who had played roller hockey or rollerblade, they never played ice hockey. And they mostly knew hockey from the Nintendo game Blades of Steel. So they thought at some point, like, every four or five minutes, you drop your gloves and get into a fist fight on the ice. And I'm like, that's actually not a part of the game of hockey. I mean, maybe it is in the NHL or whatever, but we're playing adult league hockey at night.
We're wearing face masks. We're not getting into fist fights on the ice. You know? So this I just remember there was a kid a parent who wanted to teach the kids slap shots when they were, like, mites. And I'm like, that's insane.
First of all, they're not legal. You can't take them.
Jamie: Right. Right. That's right.
Rich: They they don't have the ability to take a slap shot. It's silly. It's stupid. You know?
Jamie: That's right. Yeah.
Rich: But what it turned to what I found, it it wasn't like parents trying to push their kids beyond where they went. It was the fact that the kids who did well gave status to their parents now.
Scott: Mhmm.
Rich: Like, to be the parent of a hockey superstar gave you status in the rink and made you important and put you with a, quote, unquote, higher class of other parents with the double a parents instead of the single a parents, blah blah blah blah blah. So that that shocked me, and that also I definitely was surprised by and made fun of. But then there was a game where my it was like a tie game, and Micah, right up at the end, my son made this very clever play. That's what he was just good at, being clever, where he you know, at an older you'd know that this play would happen. The kids hadn't seen it, which is he went around the goalie and then stopped and came back and scored because the goalie followed him around and didn't even think that he would come back.
Okay? And a parent actually came across the rink and shook my hand and hugged me. I'm like, oh my god. This is terrible. I'm like, Mike can make more gold and score more goals than I could become mayor of this town.
Scott: You know?
Jamie: That's right. It's true, though. It it mean it's and and you're right. You, like, can't help yourself. And Scott and I went down that road for a long time, and that's one of the reasons why we started this podcast because we knew that we were kind of broken.
Right? And we needed to fix ourselves. And for some strange reason, when you talk to another hockey parent, it makes you feel better because you know you're not acting the right way. Right? You know, so that's kind of one of the reasons why we started this, Rich, because it it was part therapy session for Scott and I to try to fix ourselves.
And by having these conversations and doing it through a podcast, you know, we bring on people like yourself who have experienced this and hopefully, and I think it's kind of working. I know it's working for Scott and I, and hopefully it's working for a lot of our listeners is it again, they don't like Scott said before, they don't know what they don't know until they know it. And from hearing from all these hockey personalities, the people that have gone through it, I think it's starting to sink in. So hopefully, we're doing some some service to the hockey space by Yeah.
Rich: Kinda taking crazy hockey lives.
Jamie: Trying yes.
Rich: Yes. I just remember being at a game once where me I was behind the goalie, and me and another hockey parent were just talking shit about every other parent on the team and every other kid. And the Goldie's parent came over, and he had a GoPro set up to watch his son, and we were like, oh,
Scott: He picked up everything.
Rich: No. I never heard about it again, but I was terrified for about three weeks. It was gonna do me a transcription or something.
Scott: Well, you know, and it's so funny. We've been in rings, not Jamie and I necessarily, but, I'll be with my wife. And then, like, look, we all go through stuff, and, like, one of the first questions if we're if we know we're starting to talk about, you know, whatever, like, you know, people, parents, kids, whatever, it's like, where's the Live Barn camera?
Jamie: Where's the Live Barn that.
Scott: You know?
Rich: I know. Everything was recorded. Live Barn was there, but it wasn't even in every rink yet.
Scott: Right.
Rich: Right. You know, I wrote a book about the 1985 Chicago Bears, and I interviewed Jim McMahon.
Scott: And he's used to wear the headband.
Rich: Yeah. I fucking love McMahon is my favorite player.
Scott: A 100%.
Jamie: Not to.
Rich: Yeah. Starts talking to me about his kid playing hockey in Glenview, Illinois, and he was a crazy hockey parent. He almost got in a fight with another parent. Can you imagine going to a hockey game, watch your 10 year old, and you get in a fight with Jim McMahon?
Scott: Jim McMahon. Guy's a legend.
Jamie: That's what
Scott: made me think of Fridge Perry. Wow.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that that those that team that you covered was that was, like, the Walter Payton D. I mean, those were, like,
Rich: those were major majors. In my opinion, the great well, it was the greatest defense of all time, and it was
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. That was an unbelievable defense. Unbelievable. Unbelievable football team.
Rich: You know? Yeah.
Scott: One of the things also that, like, I know resonates loud with our parents, and I'm sure you got plenty of stories, was just the tournament lifestyle. Yeah. You know? And and and, like, what that's like. And, you know, what's what's interesting, and, you know, I'll share my my bit a little a little bit about it.
When my son started playing and at least more competitively in travel, like, I was coaching him. And that that really did happen organically despite the fact that it probably sounds like a lie since I'm on a podcast called Crazy Hockey Dads, but it is pretty true. Nonetheless, I was more than happy to do it. But I also I also, because of that, distanced myself to some extent, you know, from being really, like, kinda, like, in the trenches with the other parents. So, you know, when Jamie tells these stories, I'm like, wow.
You know, I kinda feel like I missed out on stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Because I I I really wasn't He was hiding. Yeah.
Yeah.
Rich: It's funny because the this is so this is from a season after the book. So it's like there's many seasons after I wrote the book. So my son was on a AAA hockey team, and they had him playing, like, the best teams in the Northeast, but they weren't very good. It was like they made this promise to parents, and they the team wasn't should not have been playing the poo we were playing. So we'd lose very badly, but it was catch a really fun season.
But there was a goalie on the team, and the goalie, every time he got down by five goals or more, he would hurl his equipment across the ice.
Jamie: Oh my
Rich: god. And it was always kinda very entertaining. And I always say the bad news is we're losing four to nothing. The good news is if they score one more goal, we're all gonna get to see that big blocker get thrown across the ice.
Jamie: He would just toss his gear?
Rich: Go crazy. Take his glove. He throw it. He throw it. And he was the only goalie, so then he'd have to go put it all back on.
We usually got a penalty for it. You know?
Scott: Delayed game.
Jamie: Oh, so somebody had to go in the box. Oh, that's fantastic. Oh, god.
Scott: Yeah. You know, that just made me I don't know who we were talking to, and it's not necessarily about a I don't think it was a parent that we spoke to, but you just made me think of, like, you know, like, it made me think of, like, what would be, like, a suitable punishment? Why my brain's going this direction? I don't know necessarily. But who do we have on James that, like, when the goalie got a penalty, they'd make the goalie go serve the penalty in the box?
Rich: God. I don't remember. Maybe just have the empty empty net.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. They place yeah.
Scott: The goalie the goalie would have to serve the penalty.
Rich: By way, when I was a kid, I always wanted to be the goalie. I always wanna play goalie, and they never would let me to play goalie. And one one time, the goalie didn't show up. And so I've said, can I please play goalie? And they said, yes.
And this is outdoors in in Glencoe, Illinois. There's an outdoor rink called Watts. And I'm playing goalie, and I never really thought through what it means to be a goalie. Okay? Which is it was very cold out.
It was, like, five degrees out. Then and our team was pretty good. So the other they're pinned on the other side of the ice. I'm just sitting there. Totally.
With, like, nothing to do and freezing cold. And then all of a sudden, everybody's skating at you, and you have to just stand there. You know? And then somebody took a, like, a slap shot and hit me in the ankle, and it felt like my whole ankle shattered like glass. And I thought this is a terrible, terrible position.
You know? I wanted to do it for the face masks, really, because that was the era of, you know, the Jason kind
Scott: of Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. The scary mask. Yeah. That's right. That's right.
Scott: It's it's funny you bring that up. I remember not not a hockey one. I was kid. I also played soccer, and I was a goalie in soccer. And I remember, similarly, I was it was cold.
It was like I don't I don't know. It was like it was like fall bore. Like, it was like an early fall freeze or whatever the deal was, and I was literally standing there. I have such vivid memories of my dad running out into the field and giving me his jacket just so I could put something else on because I was just stand standing there absolutely freezing. But, yeah, that's a that's a
Rich: It's funny the things you remember. So, like, just talking about this, I'm remembering this outdoor rink I played at, which was at where you played house league. Yeah.
Jamie: And what
Rich: I rem this is, like, what you remember from hockey as a kid, which is there was a Coke machine which still had the thing where it the the thing The door. Poured the syrup and poured the the cup would come out. And then and then and every now and then, you'd put a quarter in, and this syrup would come out, and the soda would come out, and then a clump of ice, and then the cup. You know? And you learn, like, you can get screwed in this life.
You know? Totally. I used my one quarter, and the cup came out after the drink.
Scott: Oh, god. That's like, you know, that's like when you put when you get something from a vending machine and the two little corkscrews stop and the thing's still there.
Jamie: Start shaking the machine, try to get it out.
Rich: The hot chocolate machine, the cup would come out upside down, and you try to like and the stuff was like 150 degrees when it would come out.
Scott: Was totally someone messing with the, you know, messing with the people using the machine. I'm gonna turn these cups upside down.
Rich: Right. But, also, I remember as a kid playing hockey, after you played, you'd go out to that machine and get a a payday bar. And that payday bar, after I played hockey, was the most delicious thing to this day I've ever had in my life. You know? Like, you never feel better than after you play.
Jamie: And it's funny. That that's the stuff that the kids remember when they're young. Yeah. And I think parents forget this. They remember, like, what they ate with their buddies running around the hotel.
They When the game ends, for the most most part, most of them don't even remember who won or lost. Right? The memories are with their buddies eating food like that or hanging out in hotels, playing knee hockey in the hallway. Right? Like, that's what these kids remember at the younger You're
Rich: getting yelled at by some person who stupidly booked the Hilton at Lake Placid in November and has no idea what the hell they're doing, and they wind up ruining their second honeymoon and maybe ending their marriage early because of it.
Jamie: I wonder how many marriages have been ruined by by ice hockey, by the way. You know? That's actually I I think I think that's a thing, by the way. I mean, we've we've talked to a bunch of of parents that I think one in particular, I think he actually said on our podcast early on, it was very early on, Scott, I don't if you remember it, but he said that hockey had tested his marriage. You know?
Mean, stressful. And you get in like you said before, Richie, you get involved in it. You get emotional, and that's one of the things we kind of try to tell people, just to let your kid have their journey and try not to scream at them in the car on the way home. Right?
Rich: Oh, yeah.
Jamie: So like I said, I I think I'm hoping that we're
Rich: Now you just brought up a lot of memories that make that I'm ashamed of. The younger We we've all done it.
Jamie: Car, right? We've all done it. Yeah.
Rich: We've all been there. Explaining what you did wrong and all that kinda crap.
Jamie: Right. We've all done sorry. So so that's a question for you, Rich. What would you change, Ray, if you're going back, you know, when when your kids were playing, what would you do different? If you get to pick one So
Rich: so much of hockey for kids as a parent is based on as soon as they make a team, you're already focusing on what what team will they make next. Mhmm. It's all based on climbing this ladder, and the ladder goes mostly goes nowhere. It's like, you know, so you're you're you're focused on where your kid's gonna be on the next year, the next team, the next team. And you it's kinda like your hockey your kid's hockey career, if you can call it that, is happening now.
This is it. You know? So, like, when they're a pee wee and they're playing with their friends, that's the thing. Like so I think I would focus more on this this moment and, like, not focused on, like, your career where you're like, what job am I gonna have next? Because you're you're missing it.
Your kid isn't missing it. Like you said, as a kid, you remember. It's like hockey's so great as a sport. It's such a great sport to play that parents almost can't ruin it. You know?
So what you wind up doing is you're usually, your kid has to put up with some shit and stuff from you, and there's maybe some things you're ashamed of, but your kid's still gonna have a great time. But you miss it as a parent. Right. And that's probably for all of childhood. You miss it because you're so focused on the like, the goal.
There is no goal. Not really. I mean, the the goal is to play hockey.
Jamie: Right. Right. You know? I yeah. I I I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this, Rich.
I I was playing pickleball recently with a girl who's really, really good. I mean, impressive, but we got to talking, and her her son just graduated high school. And his hockey career is now over. And she looks at me and she goes and she knows that I have a 2012, so I have a handful of years to go until I get to, you know, the point where Dominic stops playing hockey. But she looks at me, she goes, Jamie, she goes, I can't even tell you how badly I miss it.
She's like, my husband and I don't know what to do with ourselves. That's what she said to me.
Rich: Right? It's like in the movie Raising Arizona when he starts driving by convenience stores that aren't on the way home. You start driving by rinks where your kid isn't playing and slowing down.
Scott: Right. Right.
Jamie: It's it's real. Right? It really is. It's unbelievable.
Rich: Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's a huge, huge part of your life. But, you know, it's just a metaphor for being a parent, man, because your kids will go off to college or their lives, and it's sad. I mean, but it's so that's why it's important not to, like, focus on where this is going because it's happening right now.
Jamie: Just live in the moment.
Rich: Yeah. I mean Yeah. Know? But your kids really, you can't really wreck it for your kids, I don't think, because it's just it's such a fun sport. And by the way, hockey has the advantage of the parents are at a safer move on the other side of a thick piece of plexiglass.
They can't get at the kids. The kids can't usually hear them. You know? Of the funniest moments I ever saw in as a as a youth hockey parent, I this is in the book, is a kid vomited on the ice. I mean, that's not funny, but no one would clean it up.
And the coach is saying to the ref, you gotta clean it up. The ref's like, I'm not paid to clean it up. I'm paid to ref a hockey game, not to clean up vomit. You have to clean it up. Like, the game came to a stop because of the fight over who would clean up the puke on the ice.
Jamie: So who wound up losing that battle? The coach.
Rich: Parent came out. The ref would not do it. The parent came out and in a huff, you know, slipping all around in his street shoes in, like nothing like seeing somebody have a temper tantrum on ice and sneakers.
Jamie: You know? That must have been a sight.
Scott: Total sight. Oh my god. So was was your was your was your wife along for, like, the ride just as much as you were, or was no. Not as much.
Rich: She would come sometimes. Yeah. The worst is when you I remember I was complaining about something. I was talking about how great the game is and everything. And I had this friend, and I got him all excited about hockey.
Like, it's so exciting. I was explaining how exciting these games are, and his his kids played were very good basketball and soccer players. And I got through my language, I got him so excited about the game. He showed up at, like, our squirt game, and he's like, what the hell? This sucks.
Like, he's expecting,
Scott: you know,
Rich: like, the rangers and the devils, and he's got a bunch of kids who and he looks at me like, you've gone nuts. Like and I, like, saw it through his eyes, I was like, oh my god. It really isn't that great. You know? So so my my wife always, I think, saw it as it as it was more, and I sort of saw it as
Scott: I wanted it to be. It's a little
Rich: bit like the emerald colored glasses. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Definitely by by the time they're in high school, they're genuinely good.
But Yeah. In those first years, it's it's exciting when you see a two line pass, like, successfully executed. You're ready to pass out from it.
Scott: Totally. You know? A 100%.
Jamie: Were were you ever thinking about doing a sequel to the book? Was that ever an option? Like, a a season two?
Rich: No. But I'm thinking about turning it into, like, a a TV show or a movie. That is something I wanna do.
Jamie: Oh, that's interesting. Is there any is
Rich: this hockey show, I have no sex scenes at all.
Jamie: Is that Yeah. Yeah. With, like, 12 year olds or whatever.
Rich: Yeah. My hockey life my hockey experience, there's no sex in it. It's completely g rated. So I know this show. I haven't even seen it, but I remember that show over the winter that was everybody's going crazy about.
Jamie: Oh, the one on HBO?
Rich: You did rivals or whatever it was called. Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. I haven't seen it either, but everybody talks about it. You know? Right.
Rich: When when when Scott and
Jamie: I opened up our business bank account, we're sitting in front of her, and she's like, so what's what's the podcast about? We're like, it's about ice hockey. She's like, oh. She's like, even rivals, we're like, what?
Rich: That's exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah. I'm like, I realized somebody's like, somebody said, see, so you really showed that there really is a big main extreme market on TV for hockey. I'm like, for sex?
Jamie: Right. I mean,
Rich: it's like if you can it's not the hockey that they're there for. So
Scott: Yeah. Well, that that's when you make the tournament weekends a little more explosive or have some more fireworks, you know,
Jamie: because I'm
Scott: sure there's plenty of crazy stories that circle around too many drinks in the hotel lobby.
Rich: I know. You know? I I I never really saw that, but I would own it for it. I guess I would go to sleep kinda early.
Scott: Yeah. You
Jamie: know? I never saw it either, but I can almost guarantee you that there have been marriages ruined from youth hockey. I can I can I can guarantee you?
Rich: I heard a story. This is like a story of, like, a couple years older than my kid that the coach was having an affair with one of the mothers. Mhmm.
Jamie: I've heard that as well.
Scott: And the
Rich: theory was it was really about ice time. Like, you wanna get your kid ice time? So and then the father left, and the coach moved in, and now this kid is living with his mom and his hockey coach.
Jamie: No. That's unbelievable. How awkward is that?
Scott: Hey, coach.
Jamie: Yeah, dad. Guy. I have heard stories about that too, Rich. That is a thing. There's a lot of people giggling listening to this interview right now, that's for sure.
Scott: Unbelievable. Yeah. So one of the things we were talking about also was just like when you were talking about your memories of, like, you know, what it was like back then for you and, like, your experiences. Have you and and have you ever, like, kinda, like, reconciled some of your memories against, like, your child and, like, what what it was like for them? Like, you know, oh, if if you were like, oh, do remember the time when this, that, and that, like, is it you know, I think that would be, like, an interesting thing, like, down the roads, like, when I, you know, like, relive things with my kid and just be curious to see, like, what are the things that I remember versus what he remembers.
You know?
Rich: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. I I used to wanna do this whole thing because there's a change in sports parents. Like, I always thought there was two models, which was from the old model of sports parent is like, there's a movie about Lou Gehrig, you know, pride of the yankees, famous movie with Gary Cooper, and also the newt rockney story is another one where Lou Gehrig's parents hated sports and thought sports were a stupid waste of time. You know?
And the whole story is, like, he'd go out in his nice clothes and play baseball and have to come in and his shirt would be ripped, his mom's like, Lou, are you playing that baseball again? You are a punnett. You know? And and then you get to, like, Mickey Mantle, like I said, whose dad is like, what are you doing wasting your time at school? We gotta go out and teach you to hit lefty.
You know? You gotta start throwing. You gotta learn to throw it both hand. And it's like this shift. So I think my father was more like the Lou Gehrig parents.
Even though my father, I sit as a basketball coach, and he did not care. He did not think I was gonna play college anything. He did not think he liked that I was playing hockey because he thought it was good to get exercise, and it would kinda toughen you up a little bit, and it's good to get knocked down, and it's good to get checked, and to learn that you could get hit, and it's not really that big a deal and all that. He liked all that, but he didn't really care about my progress or the game. He didn't come to the games.
He couldn't stay in the games. And then so my ex my memory of hockey is kids and brothers, you know, other kids and some coaches. And the first time I really noticed this with the changes, I took my son to one a hockey game, and I went into the locker room, like, with his bag, and all the parents are in the locker room. This when he's a little kid, and they're staying in the locker room. And the coach comes in, and there's, like, 12 kids and 12 parents.
Yeah. And that was just mind blowing to me, like a complete cultural shift of the involvement of parents. You know? And I can imagine what it's like to be a coach. I mean, I'm one of the parents bitching, but, basically, to be a coach, to wanna coach little kids to play hockey, and you have to deal with all these angry parents.
Like, you know, some are protecting their kids' positions. Some are angry that their kids aren't getting enough of this or that. Or and in our case, where we played, there's a parent board. It's run by a parent board. Mhmm.
Jamie: So the coach
Rich: doesn't wanna piss off the parents, you know, the parents of the kids on the board.
Jamie: Because they're calling the shots. Yeah.
Rich: They could fire them.
Scott: Sure.
Rich: You know, which is actually so these jobs matter to these people to people. You know? So it changed. It became more professional. It continues.
It becomes you know? So all the way up to now when you think of what's happened with football, because that's the most visible to me in the last ten years with the portal and all that in college football, it's like they somehow turned all of amateur sports into minor leagues for the pros.
Jamie: That's right.
Rich: And it's way more efficient for developing players. That's for sure. You know? So if your goal is to develop great players for the pro leagues, it's much better. But if you wanna give an interesting experience to these kids and then ultimately to the people who care about the game as fans, you've destroyed the game.
You know, you've created a feeder system for the NHL or whatever it is. So No doubt.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. That's unfortunate. When I
Rich: was when I was a kid, I played Deerfield Deerfield falcons. We had a great team. The whole organization was great. And and now all those all those double a teams are completely hollowed out because of all the triple a programs. You know?
Yeah. And one of the things that one of my criticisms, even though I had fun, was like I said, when I was a kid, we traveled because we had to. Because there's not a lot of kids that played. You had to go to find the kids that played. But, like, where I live in Fairfield County, Connecticut, there's, like, a good hockey team every three or four miles.
You know? Yep. I always thought it would be very helpful if they just scheduled a lot of local games, and you could get local rivalries going. Like, bears packer style rivalries where we played the team from New Canaan as youths six times instead of traveling to Southern New Jersey and spending many, many hours in the car when you could be playing hockey. You know?
Yeah. So whatever. So that's just a way to, like you know, if you wanna get I always said, if you wanna get rich, figure out a way to charge for something that's always been free, that's how you can get rich. So if could charge for water. You know?
Right. So literally, like, when I grew up, I played travel hockey, and I would go play house league hockey. The best kid I knew, the best hockey player, the best athlete, he played house league hockey. Because his mom is like, I'm not gonna drive 10 miles so you can play hockey when we've got a perfectly good rank right here in town.
Jamie: She was smart.
Rich: $5. You know? Yeah.
Jamie: She was smart. She was onto something.
Rich: Yeah. But now when I go to my older son wanted to play the house league, they don't even have enough kids for two teams.
Scott: Right.
Jamie: Yeah. It's true. Well, that's House league for us is these little kids. Right?
Scott: Yeah. But it's interesting you say that because, like, one of the things that I was surprised at like, my son doesn't play baseball. But around here, a lot of if you're gonna play travel baseball, you have to play rec baseball. Like Yeah. And so you're automatically on two teams.
And so a buddy of mine who I played hockey with, and we still skate every now and again, he's just telling me his kids are into baseball, and he's like, you know, he's coached them also. But he's like, he's got two kids and four baseball teams. Yeah. You know, not that he's coaching all of them, but he's like, it's it's crazy. It's it's not nannas.
Rich: It's the same role here. And, actually, that's another thing, which is my son also played baseball. He's really good at baseball. And at some point when the hockey got more serious, he had to tell the baseball coach, I have to be late for these practices because of the hockey practices. And Yeah.
The coach said, okay. But it was okay for, like, place, and then he wasn't playing, and he was getting yelled at. And he had to, like, choose. Yeah. Yeah.
You know? It just sucked that he had to make this choice, like, adult choice, like, choose your sport at, like, age 12 or whatever it was.
Jamie: Yeah. They all say that. They're like, they it's okay until it's not okay. Right. It becomes And by
Rich: way, thought baseball made him a better hockey player because he was great at, like, tipping in pucks and all that stuff, you know?
Jamie: From the hand eye. Yeah. From from baseball. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Scott: That's like a common a common thread. Like, I was talking to a parent who's actually had on the podcast, but his his kids are very high level athletes. Like, d one d one lacrosse, one's going to, like, the, you know, USA, like, development team. And but he was just talking about, like, he was a football guy growing up and just like, you know, it was his kid was maybe in, like, I don't know. Let's call it seventh grade at the time.
It could be mixing up mixing up. It doesn't matter, but he's just like, there's only my son is the only kid on the team that still plays two sports. Yeah. He's like in seventh or eighth grade. And it's like, like, what?
Rich: They make it very, very, very hard.
Scott: Very hard.
Jamie: Sport. Percent. Every sport. Wants you to be twelve months out of the year.
Scott: Yeah. But but it's not only but, like, part of the problem is is that it's not just that, like, the the circumstantially, it gets difficult. It's that, like, if you actually wanna play another sport, you're competing against kids that are playing it year round. You know what I mean? So that, like, your your actual skill set needs to be that much better if you even wanna play, you know, a site.
It is just it's bananas, and it's real it's really, you know, it's really unfair in in so many ways. And and you you mentioned the portal. You mentioned, you know, like, the the, you know, the the development path and now that there's money with the NIL money. Like, the downward pressure that it puts on youth sports, I think, is absolutely insane. That not it used to be, you know, kids or, you know, parents are like, oh, maybe my kid will get a scholarship or get some of his school paid for.
But now that you can go to college and you can actually make, in some cases, like, millions of dollars
Jamie: There's money. Yeah. Like, it is Yeah.
Scott: It is so bananas, and it's just not fair to the kids because they're put in situations where, like, you know, they're if we talk about the love for the game. Right? Yeah. And I always say this because I'll probably never forget this, but Doug Christiansen, who I mentioned earlier, put it so well, and he said that your your children need to love the game because like anything in life, the price of admission at some point is gonna get very hard. And if they don't love it, they're not gonna pay.
And it's like you put all this downward pressure on, like, kids that aren't, like, don't their their brains aren't even developed enough to handle, like, you know, some of this stuff, and it's like, what what what are we doing? Like, are we
Rich: doing here? Well, that was the thing, and I think I wrote about it in the book, which is like it's like what people think skill is. You know? So they're like, he's what always drove drove me crazy, and this goes even up to the NFL, to my bears book, which is people would say, like, he had so much skill if he just had could stick to it or just had a work ethic or just practiced or but that that's the skill. You know what I mean?
Like, that stuff that you think is just an extra thing would be good if the person had it, that stuff's even more rare than what you're calling the skill, and it ends up being more important. And, like, that's the love of the game, whatever. You so you'd see these kids that they're really, really have these skills, and that's what they measure for, because the tryouts, they break it down, and they measure for the skills, but they don't like hockey. You know what I mean? So they're gonna quit.
Right. You're looking at this kid's great, but this kid's gonna quit because the kid doesn't like hockey, and you're pushing him harder and harder and harder. So you wind up with these teams with, like the teams that win as little kids used to be full of kids that wanna be there, and they're having a great time, and they love hockey. You know? Yep.
And and so you're measuring it's interesting because it so it it does it is a downward pressure because you get, like, the skills you measure for at, like, say, the NFL combine or something, right, which those skills don't really mean anything. But whatever the so, basically, the stuff that gets valued is only the stuff that you can count or measure. And the stuff that's in in that you cannot measure, it's like it doesn't exist. But often, a lot of that that turns out to be the most important stuff. They call it hockey IQ, but no one really knows what that means.
It just means, like, a kid that wants to win and can figure out creative ways to get the job done, basically, in some way. So and they will figure it out. That's like what the book Moneyball, to me, is about, which is they figured out a way to measure a bunch of stuff that wasn't being measured.
Scott: Right. Right.
Rich: You know, let's say there's theoretically 100,000 things you can measure about an athlete, and a 100 of them are getting measured. You know? And the rest, it's like it just doesn't exist. And as a parent, watching it, when they make these selections, you can see that they're missing. You're they're missing it.
You know? And they're often missing the kids that are really good because they don't have these kind of concrete measures, which turn out not to be important, and you wind up with these kids that are kinda, like, maybe very skilled or have a very hard shot, or they're fast, but they don't wanna be at the rink, they don't like the game, or they don't want any physical they don't want any physical contact.
Jamie: Yeah. That's can't put them in a
Rich: crowd around the front of the net. They won't go there. They don't wanna be touched.
Jamie: It's funny you mentioned that. So my my my son just finished his first year bantam year where they started hitting. And wow, what a difference from from our our PR last Pee Wee year to our first bantam year. They were kids that wanted no part of contact.
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: I mean, zero. And they were not small kids either, and they were like this.
Rich: It was funny. I used to joke I used to joke about it because the idea that you don't check until ban them because rights ban them year that they start checking.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah.
Rich: And when I was a kid, you checked as a might you got checked.
Jamie: You always Right.
Rich: You know? Right. So I it like, I thought, well, it'd be fun to play as a kid with nobody can check you. You know? That was smart.
Jamie: Right.
Rich: But then you think sort of, like, adding in Banham here is kinda cruel. It's sorta like saying, like, when somebody's 20, oh, we forgot to tell you something important about life. You die. We didn't mention that. You'll die at some point.
You'll get sick. It's like the hockey oh, it's just good. One more thing we didn't mention, which is anyone if you have the puck, anyone around your team can come and just lay you out. It's okay. That's allowed.
Jamie: Yes. Yeah. And and you could see that there that was a very real thing. The kids were not expecting to get, you know, to get clipped on the way to the net, and all of a sudden, they're getting laid out when they're they thought they had shed a clear lane to the net, the and kid was just gonna stick a stick out. Now they're taking the body, and it's a totally different world.
And, like, guys again, you see some kids that want no part of it, and it's blatantly obvious.
Rich: I mean, my my son is really lucky. It was during COVID that he became a Bantam. He had this great coach in Brewster, New York, who'd been a state trooper and a hockey player, and he just taught them how to get hit. Like Right. The stuff you kinda do instinctually if it happens when you're a kid, which is how to move so you only get the glow you don't get the full blow and how to and how to how to you know, it was just really good.
Like
Jamie: How to glance off and stuff like that.
Rich: Yeah. Like, lot of those not how to hit, but how to get hit. And Right. You feel like when we when he came back to our after COVID and played with the kids in our town, those kids had never been taught, and they were getting hurt.
Scott: Sure.
Rich: You know?
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. That's why Curtis Martin had such a bit a long career, and so he rushed for, you know, a thousand yards a year for ten plus years, whatever it was, because he knew how to not take a hit head on. He would always glance off. Right?
That's a skill.
Rich: You know? Yeah.
Scott: And it seems also so unfair on, like, a a bunch of different levels. And I know there's reasons behind it. In USA Hockey, you know, you know, they do a lot of good things. But, like, you're you're not only introducing it at a time, like, when there's, you you know, these big gaps in terms of size. Right?
Like puberty is, like, in full swing. So you have, like, tons of mismatches everywhere. But then, like, all of these years of being on the ice and, yes, I know body contact is part of USA Hockey's, like, prescription. There's no doubt about it from eight u where they talk about angling and and body contact for sure. But because it's also not such a part of the game, like body checking, like, don't know how much investment there really is in teaching younger kids how to at least in this area.
I know USA Hockey's got a stronger grip in different parts of the country, but my experience over here in New Jersey in the Northeast has just been like, you know, you you're setting these kids up in some ways almost to fail because you're all these years, they could be, like, getting used to it, you know, and and and learning how.
Rich: Kids you see kids that, like, they're peewees, and you like, that kid's great, but that's never gonna it's not gonna work next year.
Jamie: No. You know, all these
Rich: kids doodle and doing all this stuff. And Yep. You just know this kid's whatever. This kid's developing a whole bunch of skills that's are not gonna go past high school. You know?
Right. That's right. And and the the the hitting before you said the body contact, it's more like basketball. That's what I always think of. It's like you bang into people when you play basketball, but Yeah.
It's different. It's the idea that you can if you catch somebody with their head down, you can actually try to, like, knock them out, basically.
Scott: Yeah. Right.
Rich: You know?
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. Right. I think one of our parents, Scott, the one you were talking about whose child's gonna go play US national development team, I think he said something to the fact of it was something like, you know, when you teach a dog not to bite from through, like, mites, squirts, peewees, and all of a sudden, need to teach them how to bite all of a sudden. Like, you say, don't bite, don't bite, don't bite, and all of sudden, need them to bite.
Like, a lot of them don't want to or aren't used to it or just don't. Right?
Rich: But it's interesting. Like, I haven't really thought about it, so this is gonna be completely wrong. But a lot of the changes that are made are not are about the parents. Like, you know, it could be that watching squirts check, the parents just you're not getting the kids to play the game. You're not getting them you're not being able to get the kids in the programs because the parents don't wanna sit there and watch their kids get hit.
You know what I mean?
Jamie: Sure. Sure.
Rich: So and then at some point, obviously, it's like in baseball. Like, if you're going to the major leagues, you're gonna have to hit with a wooden bat. That's what they use in the major leagues. And at some point, if you're playing hockey and you're gonna go play in college or whatever, you have to introduce checking. So the question is, like, where?
And probably Bantam is the worst for all the reasons that you said. There's kids that don't grow until they're 17 years old. You know? And by the way, a lot of those times, those kids because I also wrote a book about the nineteen eighty seven, eighty eight NBA basketball season, which I thought was the best season of all time. And you realize that a lot of the players that were the best were small, and they grew in college because they developed all these skills.
You know? Like, you develop skills not how not to get hit, how to shift around, and then you're suddenly big. You know? So, like, I wrote about I'm I'm from Chicago. So Scottie Pippen
Scott: was
Rich: six feet tall point guard as a freshman in college, and he developed all these point guard skills, and then he ended up to being six grew ten inches in college.
Scott: That's crazy.
Rich: So he wound up as this very tall, big person with the skills of a very of a of a normal sized person, basically. And so Rodman, same thing. He grew after college.
Jamie: Yeah. Yes. That's right. Dennis Robin got enormous then. Enormous.
I think he's six ten, if I'm not mistaken, Dennis Robin.
Rich: He was, like, six he didn't make his high school basketball team because he was too short.
Jamie: That's right. Just like Michael Jordan. Very similar situation. Yeah. Freak.
Those teams, were those, like, the John Paxton, BJ Armstrong, Bill Cartwright, like, Bill Wennington days? Is are those all the guys Yes. Who were on that
Rich: The team the team I wrote about on the Bulls was the it was like I wrote about 8788 season because there were four recognizable dynasties all playing well
Jamie: The Lakers, the Bulls, the Celtics, and
Rich: The Pistons.
Jamie: Oh, Isaiah Thomas. Yes. I forgot about the Pistons.
Rich: Yes. And in a lot of ways, the book was sort of trying to reclaim, like, restore Isaiah Thomas to where he belongs, which is right up there in the pantheon, which is what how I always felt watching him play. And he's sort of sort of been left out of the conversation partly because of, you know, his bad time as the GM of the Knicks. But that has nothing to do with his career as a player. Right.
You know? And his career was cut a little bit like, in that year, wrote about '87, '88, The Pistons went to game seven in the finals and lost to the Lakers, and they really were the better team and all this
Scott: stuff. But
Rich: there were three different times during that postseason that Isaiah Thomas was on the floor unconscious.
Jamie: Yeah. Those were those were hard those were hard times.
Rich: Those were yeah. Isaiah was five eleven.
Jamie: He was a little guy. Yeah. But he was tough as nails.
Rich: Yeah. And he would go inside and, you know Always. And they would knock him to the floor, and he would be out cold. You know, there was a great there was a game as a Bulls fan, so off the subject of hockey. But Isaiah Thomas was really badly hurt, like, knocked out, okay, at Chicago Stadium.
He left the game and went into the locker room, like, not to come back.
Jamie: And he came back.
Rich: The bulls came back with Isaiah, and they took a lead. Isaiah did not wanna come back, but there had been a bunch of robberies at Chicago Stadium. So when he got to the locker room, it was locked. He couldn't get into the locker room. So he came back to the bench, and the coach is like, are you okay to play?
He's like, well, I don't know. I'm kinda like I do not don't really know where I am. And so they were telling me, can you go back? And he was okay. And he went back in for, like in, like, three minutes, he scored, like, 15 points or something and ended the game and ended the season for the Bulls, but it was like
Jamie: Yeah. He was a heck of a basketball player. He was some basketball player. My goodness. Talk about an underrated guy in, like, NBA history.
My goodness. Yeah. Right? Well, that makes me
Scott: think of, like, Paul Caria, right, when he got knocked out
Jamie: Yeah.
Scott: And then he came back. Absolutely. Then, you know, jeez. You know, Scott Stevens. Wow.
That's just, know, like, a big Eric Lindros fan. So also, you know and grew up a Devils fan, so there's a little bit of unethical difficulty there.
Rich: Seemed evil to me. I mean, it just because I he well, it seems like he would end people's careers.
Jamie: Oh, yes. Many of them. In some ways.
Rich: You know, I was I did a story for a long time ago for I think it was GQ or something about Keith Kochuck.
Jamie: When he father. When he was young.
Rich: When he was young, and he was the captain of the Phoenix Coyotes. And I hung out with him for, like, a week in Phoenix, and he had two young sons, age two and age four. You know? Right.
Jamie: And John Brady. Yeah.
Rich: But what I remember is I went with him to the rink, and Matthew Barnaby was hanging out. Okay. Remember Matthew Barnaby?
Jamie: Yeah. He played for the Islanders. Right?
Rich: Well, at this point, he played for Buffalo.
Jamie: Okay.
Rich: And he was, like, very, very, very hated because he was kind of he was like like Avery or something. He was like a dirty player.
Scott: Yep. Yep.
Rich: And he was small, but he was just so strong. You know? And he had threatened the Dominic Hockey was the goalie was the goalie of the Sabres, and Dominic Hockey had set did basically push the coach out. I forget. He somehow got the coach fired.
And Barnaby loved the coach, and Barnaby said he might make a run at Hockey, his own goalie. So everybody was really mad at Barnaby. And then when I went to the game, at the game that night, somebody passed the puck. It was like a buddy pass. It was in center ice behind Barnaby.
It seemed like it was on purpose, man. You know? And they all were mad at him anyway, and he reached back to get the pass, and somebody hit him, and he, like, helicoptered in the air, and, like, he was unconscious, and he was not big, and his teeth were all over the ice. And I it was I was it was very violent, and I felt like I've just seen the end of someone's career. And he goes in the locker room, and I look up, and, like, five minutes later, he's back on the bench, and he has two swabs up his nose, like, with blood.
And they put him on the big monitor, and they start playing Bad to the Bone
Scott: Oh, that's
Rich: the monitor. And he plays air guitar, and then he goes back out on the ice and immediately gets in a fight.
Jamie: Only hockey players.
Rich: All of you. Then later on, I interviewed him. I so I spoke to him then just talking to him. He's a very friendly person. And I spoke to him when he was then later on the rangers.
And I spoke to him again. I don't remember. Must have been doing another hockey story. And I asked him about Nintendo hockey, about the fighting in Nintendo hockey if it was realistic. You know?
And he said, no. It's not realistic because in real life, you can never hit anyone that clean.
Jamie: That makes sense.
Rich: Also, he was talking about get talking shit to other players, and he gave this whole thing about how it's gotta be true. Like, if you gotta know would you if you tell if you say to the guy, your wife's a lesbian, who's talking about slapshot, and the guy's wife is not a lesbian, he does not care. But if you say your wife's a lesbian and is a lesbian, then you can get the guy out of his game. You know?
Jamie: Oh, that's very funny. And so
Rich: he said every time the a player would be traded to the whatever team he was on, he would ask to get out to dinner and go out the note cards and just ask about every player on the other team and write down all the gossip and all the shit
Scott: that he used. That is so smart. So smart.
Jamie: That's so great. My goodness.
Scott: It's funny that you bring that up because, like, I I listened to Spin Chicklets recently, and I think it was on Chicklets, but just talking about how players and their injuries, especially in the playoffs, and that, like, if you got a buddy on a team that just got knocked out, like, you're asking, like, what are the injuries on that team so you know what to go after. If someone's shoulder's hurting, I'm like, alright. I'm going after that dude's shoulder. And those are real text threads that get passed around, people trying to get the competitive advantage. It's unreal.
Rich: Yeah. It's a cruel world.
Jamie: Yes. No doubt. That's no doubt. So I know we've kept you for like an hour twenty so far Rich. We want to be mindful of your time.
So I have one more good one for you. All right. Finish this sentence. Youth Youth Hockey is blank.
Rich: The best.
Jamie: Oh, there you go. It is. I second that. That's a perfect spot to end, because I don't know how else you end it. And tell everybody where they can find you, Rich.
Rich: Yeah. I have a website, which is authorrichcohen.com, and I'm on Facebook and Instagram. And I'm around, and I'm easy to reach.
Jamie: Go go go download Pee Wee's. Go buy it in Barnes and Noble or wherever you could find it. It is a phenomenal book for any hockey parent, period.
Scott: Must read.
Rich: Yes. Thank you, Rich.
Jamie: Definitely. Thank you, Rich. This has been an unbelievable treat. It was worth the nine months waiting. Thank you so much for coming.
Scott: Absolutely. Guys. Well put, James.
Jamie: Yeah. Thank you, Rich.
Scott: All right, Rich. Thanks so much, man. Have a great night.
Jamie: Have a good night. Alright, everybody. Welcome back from our interview with Rich Cohen, the author of Pee Wee's. And if you don't have the book already, I highly recommend you go buy it and read it or download it and listen to it.
Scott: Listen to it.
Jamie: You can listen to
Scott: it too. You
Jamie: don't have to necessarily read it, but you could tell people you read it even when you listen to it.
Scott: Yeah, I guess.
Jamie: Yes. No. It's it's, it's funny. I I I listened to it again before we
Scott: had question. You would never say
Jamie: I can hear Jimmy. I can hear Jimmy. It's Glassman, the Pips.
Scott: You you if you actually read it, you would never say I listened to it.
Jamie: I consumed it.
Scott: There you go. There it is.
Jamie: I consumed it. The book, which just sounds weird because it sounds like I ate it.
Scott: That's true. Anyway, enough of that stuff.
Jamie: Anyway, the book is really good. So I I listened to it again before our interview with him. It's it's so good.
Scott: It's so good.
Jamie: It's I mean, again, you hockey parents, if you have not read or listened or consumed the book Pee Wee's
Scott: Yep.
Jamie: We highly recommend it. It is you will find yourself smiling and giggling to yourself while you're reading or listening.
Scott: Totally. And it was one of the parts that really stick out about the interview was when he when he was you know, I I don't know if it was like one part, but like at at some point, like, he's chronicling like, you know, his kid's journey and then it's like, it's really a lot about, you know, parenting.
Jamie: Oh But,
Scott: just just how like he even said himself, like, would like be there like before a game while his kids getting dressed or whatever and he sees parents down there like doing their like crazy hockey parenting.
Jamie: Parent stuff.
Scott: And he would look at them and judge them and like all those things and the moment the puck dropped, up there doing the same thing. The same guy, yeah. I think we can all relate to that,
Jamie: you know. There's no question about it, most of us can, right? Mean, all it's true. We always make fun of the guy who's doing that and then you turn into him and you're like, oh shit. That's where the self awareness comes in.
Yeah. Well Or lack thereof.
Scott: I really try to keep myself on mute. Not that I feel like don't even fight it. You know what I mean? Like when I'm at games, I honestly I never find myself wanting to like yell and scream and like I
Jamie: don't yell
Scott: and that's not even like
Jamie: I don't.
Scott: Remote. Sometimes if there's like a like a bad call or whatever, like Right. You'll see me like, I'll throw my hand up in the you know a funny story.
Jamie: You mean for like a penalty before?
Scott: A penalty? Yeah. Yeah. So I think I told this on the pod before, but when like last not this past season, the season before. It was early on.
We were at a tournament. It was very early on. Very beginning of the season. We're at a tournament up in, where's the Tim Hortons, rank? Buffalo?
No. No? No. Not Buffalo?
Jamie: No. No Buffalo, Tim Hortons? It it No.
Scott: We're in Rochester.
Jamie: It's the it's at Tim Hortons rink?
Scott: There's Tim Hortons that's something to do with it.
Jamie: Okay. Got it.
Scott: It was Rochester. I'm pretty sure.
Jamie: Okay. Nor yeah. They're looking state New
Scott: York Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. Company. Yeah. So that makes sense. Or or are they Canadian.
Canadian company. Canadians. They came down into The US.
Scott: Yeah. But it's, I mean, close enough
Jamie: when you're up there. North in The United States. They don't have a They don't have any by us, do they?
Scott: One's one's opening I think one's was opening up in the city.
Jamie: But they're just coming here now is coming. I think just now. Like, they're down from from up north.
Scott: But it's like this I don't I don't know. I I'm gonna say what I'm gonna say, and I'm sure people are gonna, like, be up in arms about it. But it reminds me of, like, it's like the the Canadian equivalent of Dunkin' Donuts.
Jamie: I thought so too.
Scott: Like, I'm not saying one's better and
Jamie: like and breakfast y stuff. No?
Scott: Yeah. I haven't been to one in a long time. You know what? They have one in Penn Station, or they used to before they redid it. Yeah.
A 100% they did.
Jamie: I see them a lot upstate, like, Buffalo Yeah. Area. Right?
Scott: Canada.
Jamie: I know there's one in the, there's one attached to the Leecom Harbor Center, the Marriott, Leecom Harbor Center in in Downtown Buffalo. Yep. Highly recommend you stay there if you're playing in Buffalo, by way.
Scott: Downtown. Yeah. Anywhere you go, Jamie recommends downtown.
Jamie: I do.
Scott: I know.
Jamie: Fuck yeah. I do.
Scott: Downtown kind of guy.
Jamie: I do. Speaking of
Scott: Wait. Hold. Let me just finish what I
Jamie: was gonna say before.
Scott: My bad. Seriously. My bad. You know, it's the it's the rink where, oh, now
Jamie: Oh, right. You're talking about Rochester. Timberwolves rink.
Scott: No. But it's all the same rinks are, Bishop Kearney, plays out of.
Jamie: Oh, BK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Scott: Anyway, so we were at that rank and it was way early on and I was like, you know, keeping to myself and I was like on the other side of the rink and Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. And so you can imagine if I'm like on one end and we had parents on the team on the other end, but like opposite sides. So Right.
Looking at
Jamie: you You're staring
Scott: at them. Like like from like, you know Across the the ice. Yeah. And it was so They
Jamie: were in the other opposite end all the
Scott: way across. So so we could see each other through the glass But
Jamie: far away.
Scott: Right. But anyway, so the play is like it's like coming towards me. Yeah. And there was like a penalty.
Jamie: Right.
Scott: And the ref hadn't and immediately I threw my arm up like this.
Jamie: Yeah. And You saw another dad across the way.
Scott: And so then like it was like a moment or two later than the ref throws his his arm up and the Dads were saying, he's like, you totally got the ref to call the penalty.
Jamie: Oh, yeah. We're we're watching Yeah. Right. Oh, that's funny. Yeah.
Listen. You influenced the game.
Scott: But so but that said, like that's what I would Probably shouldn't
Jamie: be a thing.
Scott: No. But all
Jamie: the time. When people start yelling
Scott: But that's the kind of stuff that
Jamie: puts his arm up.
Scott: But that's the kind of thing I would do. Like, I'm I never really got big into yelling and
Jamie: Do you know what else I noticed? But speaking of like a delayed call from a ref.
Scott: Yeah. What?
Jamie: What I noticed from Dom's first year at hitting with our first year at Bantam, I noticed that when, sometimes when a kid gets hit
Scott: Only if he gets hurt, they call a penalty?
Jamie: When he doesn't get up
Scott: Then they call a penalty.
Jamie: Immediately. Sometimes in arm not all the time, sometimes.
Scott: That's bullshit.
Jamie: Of course it is. It's a like, you're like, dude, like, you didn't call like, you weren't gonna call it. Yeah. But you see because the kid's staying down. I gotta tell you, sometimes kids stay down.
Scott: Right. Right.
Jamie: Exactly. Because it's that We all know that kid. That kid who just whenever he gets hit he doesn't get up. Right. Right?
Then the coach has to walk across the ice. Yeah. Or the coach is like, Johnny, go fucking get the kid. You know, like the assistant coach because they're like, I'm not fucking walking across the ice with this kid again. We all know that kid.
Know what I mean? Especially when you're younger, the kid that goes down.
Scott: Most definitely yeah.
Jamie: And he's fine, he's always fine. For the most part.
Scott: For the
Jamie: most part. Yes, for the most part he's always fine but yeah. But yeah. Yeah. No.
It's a that's funny. So you influenced the game.
Scott: I believe so.
Jamie: Yeah. Sounds like you did.
Scott: Yeah. But why did we even talk about that?
Jamie: Why I
Scott: think why do I think to mention that?
Jamie: I'm not sure. Were talking
Scott: with Rich Cohen?
Jamie: I was gonna say, were talking about Rich Cohen. You know, why we went off
Scott: We were talking about yelling and we're that was when
Jamie: Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, right.
Because because Rich was saying how how he turns into that lunatic.
Scott: Yeah. Yeah. A 100%.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah.
Scott: No. That's definitely not me.
Jamie: Me neither, by the way. I I don't do that. I I say very little. I'll be standing around other, hockey parents up in the stands, and I I don't say like, I'll give, like, a shoot, you know, like or if somebody gets tripping like trip, but I don't like yell it. I just say it Yeah.
Out loud.
Scott: I'm not overly vocal.
Jamie: No. Me neither.
Scott: No. I keep to myself. Quiet. Quieter.
Jamie: You still putting on your earphones in the corner?
Scott: I haven't been, I haven't been at a game recently.
Jamie: Gotcha. But
Scott: if I was at a game
Jamie: That's I'd I'd
Scott: I'd on my earphones.
Jamie: But you would?
Scott: 100%.
Jamie: Oh, so you still do that? Yeah. Interesting.
Scott: Yeah. Listen You're like a loner in
Jamie: the corner.
Scott: No. I don't even go in the corner. I'll do it in like I'll sit in this stand in the stands.
Jamie: Oh, do you?
Scott: Yeah. Put up my hood and put in my ear pods and then I'll listen to like Metallica. Interesting. Specifically, Injustice For All.
Jamie: Oh, you just let that keep playing?
Scott: Yeah. Just listen to it. On the loop? Well, I mean, it it usually get through the whole album and then a little bit.
Jamie: Oh, you'll do the whole album?
Scott: Yeah. Just play from the beginning to the end.
Jamie: Oh, no shit. No. Okay. Did and does it does it finish perfectly with the end of the game?
Scott: No. No? No. But I actually
Jamie: What's longer? The game or the album?
Scott: The game is longer than the album. If I wait, wait. No. Well, that's a good question because on Spotify, have like a remix, like master, like mastered remix and then it goes into no. Like When I would listen to like Lincoln Park, the Lincoln Park album would always finish before the game ended.
Jamie: You listen to some heavy shit. Lincoln Park, Metallica.
Scott: Yeah. I like that.
Jamie: Heavy earth. I like
Scott: heavier stuff. Was so funny.
Jamie: You still like that stuff.
Scott: I still like that stuff. Yeah. Do. So but I don't I don't listen to it all the time. No?
No. Like, the we're listening to, like, Dave Matthews and like
Jamie: Oh, that's
Scott: a big difference. Jack Johnson.
Jamie: Oh, they were gonna say Janet Jackson. I was like, no. No. We're
Scott: listening to the Jackson five.
Jamie: Okay. Jackson five, good.
Scott: Yeah. But then Yeah. Yeah. So that we, you know, wanna get in the car. Everyone like, you know, not all the time, but like, know, take a turn on what to listen.
Like Noah was like, oh, let's listen to Jackson five. And I was like, I don't
Jamie: really care.
Scott: Jack's not good. Let's just like listen to whatever.
Jamie: Right. A
Scott: b c. It's a great
Jamie: song. Easy as one. It's great song. They were tremendous by the way. Tremendous.
Oh, speaking of Michael Jackson's got a thing out on Netflix. Did you see it?
Scott: Yeah. No. I didn't watch Did it
Jamie: come out yet or it's or it's coming out this Tuesday?
Scott: I'm not sure. But I know
Jamie: it's coming out. I saw it on
Scott: the I'm kinda interested.
Jamie: I am too. I'd be curious to hear that.
Scott: I heard the Rafa
Jamie: is good.
Scott: The Rafa Nadal documentary is good.
Jamie: Oh, really?
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: Oh, okay. Oh, I'd watch that.
Scott: But so we're in the car it was my turn to play music.
Jamie: So that's what guys do? You guys take turns
Scott: to trolling Sometimes. It depends on everyone's mood. Got it. And so I was like, oh, I got something that everyone is going to
Jamie: The whole family's in the car?
Scott: No. This was, no. Orly wasn't in the car.
Jamie: Just you and the kids?
Scott: Just me and the kids. Last time Orly was in the car, put on Method Man. Wow. And just to
Jamie: Okay.
Scott: They were no one except for me was really feeling it.
Jamie: Not surprised?
Scott: No. Not surprised at all? Never. Yeah. But I put on, I put on Slipknot.
And then the the opening, there's a song called Duality.
Jamie: Okay.
Scott: And the opening the opening line is, something along something like I put I stick Oh, now I feel like an idiot that I'm messing up. It's like I I something about sticking his fingers in his eyes.
Jamie: Oh, lovely.
Scott: I stick my Now I gotta look it up.
Jamie: I was gonna say. That's lovely by the way.
Scott: Yeah. Otto Otto was like, no. No. We're turning this off because I would make him listen to it sometimes.
Jamie: Right. Do it. That's actually pretty funny. That's actually pretty funny.
Scott: But I went to a Slipknot concert by myself actually, not too long ago.
Jamie: When are you going to that didn't you mention when we did the, you did Otto's going to a hockey tournament? Is it this weekend?
Scott: Yeah. This weekend. Slip not playing?
Jamie: Dominic was invited to the exact same hockey tournament.
Scott: So is he gonna come? No. Why not? Yeah. There you go.
I pushed my finger into my eyes. That's what it is.
Jamie: That's what it's lovely.
Scott: Yeah. But look, I pushed my fingers into my eyes. It's the only thing that slowly stops the ache.
Jamie: You listen to such lovely music, Scott.
Scott: Listen, I and whatever. I enjoy the song. It's a good pop up song.
Jamie: You like Slipknot.
Scott: Have you ever listened to this song? No. It's a good pump up song. Yeah? Yeah.
Totally.
Jamie: I'm gonna give a hard pass to that one.
Scott: Yeah. I listened to it on the way home. Yeah. Indoctrinate you to Slipknot. No.
No? Okay.
Jamie: You know, you listen to heavier stuff than I do. I was I was never like a
Scott: big fan. But that's not the only stuff that like I was telling you, like, I I don't
Jamie: Then you said Dave Matthews, which is
Scott: like a one
Jamie: eighty from Slipknot.
Scott: Jack Johnson, we were listening to
Jamie: Another one eighty.
Scott: Yeah. You know who I actually like?
Jamie: Who?
Scott: That that spitting chicklets, biz is like big into. The is it I think they're I don't know if they're Irish or English, it's called Tenfe.
Jamie: Okay.
Scott: T e n, second word is f e. Tenfe.
Jamie: I don't know them.
Scott: It's chill.
Jamie: Is it? Yeah. What kind of music?
Scott: I don't know if it's like kind of folky, a little I don't
Jamie: know. Country ish?
Scott: No. No. No. I'm not I'm not like a good like music describer Neither am But
Jamie: like Yeah. Yeah. I know I know what you mean. Okay. Interesting.
10 Fe? 10. Yeah. I don't know.
Scott: Yeah. All that.
Jamie: Give me a give me a for instance. Is it like a Blues Travelers? Is it like a Maroon five? Give me I'm just throwing I'm just throwing groups at you.
Scott: Neither.
Jamie: Neither. Is it like a Bon Jovi? Is it like a
Scott: Bad medicine.
Jamie: Is it like a Billy Joel? Like give me like a like a an example. You're looking it up? You're gonna say what is 10 like? Give me like a for instance.
Scott: It's a London based band whose music falls under alternative indie rock, indie pop, synth pop. What the fuck is synth pop? Because there's some I don't know.
Jamie: People just keep making
Scott: sounds out atmospheric synths and urethral guitars. Jesus. I don't know what that means
Jamie: But Oh, it's at Fleetwood Mac down there. Hold
Scott: on. Often compared to the mix of the war on drugs and Fleetwood Mac.
Jamie: Okay. So it's like Fleetwood Mac. Okay. My brother likes Fleetwood Mac. I'm was never a big fan.
Scott: Yeah. Zach Zach Attack?
Jamie: Yeah. He does.
Scott: Yeah. Zach's a man. He used to like Metallica.
Jamie: He probably still does.
Scott: Good.
Jamie: Yeah. Should. No. He probably still does.
Scott: I'm gonna see Metallica in the sphere.
Jamie: In Vegas.
Rich: I'm gonna
Scott: try to go.
Jamie: When is it?
Scott: Starts in October.
Jamie: Have you been to Vegas? Once. That's it? Yep. Nice.
Once. Bachelor party? Negative. Tony Robbins. You went to Tony Robbins?
Scott: Yeah. We got we got like a free ticket.
Jamie: Got a free ticket to a Tony Robbins convention in Vegas?
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: How'd you do that? My buddy Tony Robbins is great.
Scott: Yeah. I went with my buddy Ron. Shout out Ron. And he had a one of his friends was like in the business of selling like Something. Something.
And, like, he just got he was able get
Jamie: free ticket.
Scott: He got us two tickets to go to, like, some, like, business master class by Tony Robbins.
Jamie: Oh, no shit. Where was
Scott: it held?
Jamie: Was held at MGM. So stayed at MGM, it was held at MGM. Exactly.
Scott: Yeah. It was great.
Jamie: Okay. How long were you there for?
Scott: Couple days. You like it? Yeah. I thought it was great.
Jamie: How long ago? Long time?
Scott: Maybe like ten,
Jamie: eight Oh, ten. Years ago.
Scott: Gotcha. Maybe at this point.
Jamie: Alright. No. MGM's nice.
Scott: Yeah. It was good.
Jamie: Yeah. Was a it
Scott: was a good it was a good thing to, like, go check out.
Jamie: Oh, yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. No.
Vegas is fun.
Scott: Now my buddy Ron lives there.
Jamie: Does he? Yeah. Listen. I I'm not surprised actually to hear that because the outskirts of Vegas are are exploding. Yes.
And everything looks brand new, and it's it's nice. Yeah. I what. It's fucking hot there in the summer, dude.
Scott: I can only imagine.
Jamie: Dude, I was there. I would Yeah. Dominic played the Oh, the pre break? The pre break in Vegas. Was It like right after Killer.
After the fourth of July. I think was the week after fourth of July.
Scott: Dude, it was Like you can't you can't stay outside.
Jamie: It was I know they all say like, oh, it's dry heat. I don't give a fuck how dry it is. It's hot as fuck. When it's a 118 degrees, you don't give a shit if it's dry or moist.
Scott: But you listen, if you were if if you went between the two, you would notice a difference and you would care. I'm I if you were in a 100% humidity and it was a 100 degrees I versus 100 degrees and dry.
Jamie: I'm assuming I would just be dripping as opposed to not dripping. But I have to tell you, regardless of whether it's dry or not, it's fucking hot.
Scott: Yeah. No doubt.
Jamie: Like, are misters, like, on the street.
Scott: I thought when you said misters, thought you were talking about like men.
Jamie: No. No. Not not misters like men. Misters like apparatus to throw like water into the air.
Scott: Oh.
Jamie: Yeah. And can I tell you like when you when you go when you go to the pool like, you cannot take I was telling a story yesterday? It's so funny. Don't how this came out yesterday. But you cannot take off like your flip flops because the by your chair and walk barefoot down It's
Scott: too hot.
Jamie: Because it's too hot. Yeah. You will burn the shit out of the bottom of your feet. I have to tell you, even even in a pool I
Scott: could have way worse problems than being concerned about whether my feet are gonna get burned on my way into a pool in Vegas.
Jamie: I mean, okay, fine. But my point is is that I'll say this. Our buddy Chris Volmer and
Scott: I Yeah.
Jamie: When we were there for the for the pre break in, in Vegas, I think it was called Kings of Vegas if I'm not mistaken.
Scott: That sounds right.
Jamie: Yeah. Because I think Dom still has a sticker somewhere in his room. But and I gotta tell you, I I flew our I flew our Pacific Rink bag there, no problems. Zero problems. I think travel's like a fucking rock star.
The the Pacific Rink hockey bag, like
Scott: Rockstar's travel.
Jamie: We've taken that thing all over the place. What? Yeah. Anyway, go on. But yeah.
So so we're sitting in the in Caesars in the in the water.
Scott: And Caesar really live here?
Jamie: Does Caesar live here? He's like, this is she's like, no. He's like, oh, I didn't think so.
Scott: Where's your bank of pay phones? I actually it was so funny. So when I when I was at when we're there with
Jamie: the Not getting a sig of my beeper. That's what he says to her.
Scott: Between two ferns is so funny. Anyway, I love the one with Jennifer Lawrence, and she basically
Jamie: Oh, when he was interviewing her? Yeah. And She's so mean
Scott: to him, dude. I know, he goes you said to her, see, she goes, you shouldn't say that. That's off putting. And she goes She
Jamie: She goes, you should be off putting.
Scott: You're fat. So cute. He's like, I
Jamie: know. He's like, I know what you're saying. I know. She's like, you should be off footing. You're
Scott: fat.
Jamie: Because you're fat. He's like, I know what it means. Yeah. He She was she
Scott: was Dude, I have I'll have a Yeah. So funny. Yeah. No. He's good.
Yeah. Anyway Yeah. But I have a picture of myself. So when we're at the pool like at one of like near one of their bathrooms over there, they still had a pay phone. Right.
So I have a picture of myself on a pay phone and In Vegas? Yeah. Just because we were thinking about the Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. That's funny actually that they pay phones. But yeah, don't go there in July. No. Anyway.
Highly recommend you don't do that.
Scott: Yeah. But Yeah. Oh, so we have a poof, NHL.
Jamie: We do. Can I get something before we get to the NHL? So I I don't wanna this. Would you? So our friend Keith Mondillo
Scott: Yes. Who we had
Jamie: on Episode sixty seven?
Scott: Sixty something.
Jamie: Something like that. So so our buddy Keith Mondillo is a division three basketball coach and he's also the athletic director, of a school in the Philly area. So Keith is really good as far as like recruiting, you should go check out his stuff, keithmondillo.com. He's got a lot of really good stuff about like recruiting and college athletes, stuff like that. But he's been following this five for five rule, okay?
Which the five for five rule was what episode was he, Scott?
Scott: He was He was 67.
Jamie: Yeah, think so too. So Keith Six seven. Six so he's been following this five for five rule.
Scott: I can't believe I just said that. Yeah. Know. You should shoot me.
Jamie: So the the five for five rule was saying that your eligibility clock Yeah. Starts Nineteen. When you graduate high school Mhmm. Or the
Scott: Your nineteenth birthday.
Jamie: It's the academic school year after your nineteenth birthday, whichever comes first. That was the original thought on it. Okay? So we were talking about how it was giving it was it was there were issues, right, with junior hockey, right, and people taking gap years or prep years. So apparently, it was just revised.
So the new rule says that your eligibility clock starts when you enroll in college. Okay? Mhmm. Or the the start of the school year after your nineteenth birthday.
Scott: You just said that. No?
Jamie: No. Oh. What I said at first was
Scott: Oh, the difference.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Got you. Got you.
Got The difference is the the nineteenth birthday part is still there.
Scott: Mhmm.
Jamie: What changed is if you graduate if you graduate high school as an as an 18 year old, it doesn't start right then. Okay? It starts when you enroll in college on campus. Okay? Or the school year after the start of the academic school year after your nineteenth birthday, again, whichever comes first.
Scott: Okay.
Jamie: So apparently, hockey went to war with the NCAA when this came out. And they said and and apparently, there were apparently, like, the USHL commissioner, Glenn Heffern, who we have had on this podcast, and the NAHL, the commissioner, like and apparently, all the commissioners from all the hockey conferences, like, signed letters and went after the NCAA, like, big time. Keith said that they went after them big time about how this is not gonna work and this is gonna crush junior hockey. So now you have a little bit of a window. Okay?
So it's not as aggressive of a start for hockey players as it was gonna be. It's still aggressive, but it's not as aggressive. Right?
Scott: Okay. Well, that's that's good.
Jamie: Right. So so but again But your clock will start. Okay, when you when you enroll in college or the the start of the school year after your nineteenth birthday. Your clock will start, period, end of story, there's nothing you can do to stop it. So it's up to you on how many prep years, how many gap years, how many juniors years you play.
Right? So for like, for Dominic, for instance, Dominic's gonna graduate high school because I'm holding out because he's doing two eighth grade years. Dominic is gonna graduate high school as a 19 year old. So Dominic's window, if he wanted to play college hockey, will start the the start of the school year after his his nineteenth birthday.
Scott: Okay.
Jamie: So when Dom graduates in May, whatever it is, May, June in high school, the window will start that following year.
Scott: So if he were to play junior, then he's just losing eligibility on So at NCAA.
Jamie: Plays one year of juniors. If he goes to if he if he stays and and does four years of high school, right, in a local high school, he'll have one he'll have one year of juniors to go play, and then he'll have four years of eligibility. Or you could leave after your junior year in high school, go play your senior year, and another year
Scott: At junior.
Jamie: At juniors, play it. So you get two years of juniors under your belt, and then you go
Scott: Right.
Jamie: Play four years, or you'll still have four years of eligibility left. So parents need to know this stuff Right. Because it's gonna affect, you know, prep schools and it's gonna affect colleges and eligibility. There's no more waivers for hardships. There's no more injury waivers.
There's no more any of that. Your clock is your clock and it's gonna start regardless of whether you're on campus or not. Right? Whether you're enrolled or not, if you if you wait till the start of the academic school year after your nineteenth birthday, your clock starts no matter what, they don't care, you can't go to them and ask for more time, they're getting rid of all that stuff.
Scott: Wow.
Jamie: Yeah. So it's changing, college sports is changing and stuff's gonna filter down
Scott: Yeah. It will.
Jamie: You know, to division two and division three, and it's it's gonna it's gonna be interesting. So, you know, you guys check out Keith Mondillo. Again, we had him on episode 67. We should have him back on, I was thinking, to talk about the five for five. You think it's my move?
Scott: Yeah. No. I think I think continuing to stay current, stay updated with it, and bring people in that know, know more about it than we do Yeah. Would be helpful.
Jamie: Very much on the ball with, with, you know, recruiting and and getting your kid into school if they wanna play college sports. And, again, he's he's on the ball with all stuff. Right. Keith's great. Yeah.
Go go check out his 67 if you haven't, if you haven't heard it already.
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: Keith's great.
Scott: Sweet, dude.
Jamie: Yeah. Good update. Yeah. Sorry. No.
We're gonna roll to some NHL.
Scott: Oh, yeah. NHL. So we have game six tonight and this man, I would love to see Vegas win just so we get one more game of ice hockey. What do you think about that?
Jamie: I I think Vegas will win tonight.
Scott: You do think so?
Jamie: I do. I think they'll win tonight
Scott: You think Ichel's gonna like, steal the show?
Jamie: I think Vegas wins because they're at home. Okay. I misspoke by the way on our last podcast.
Scott: What'd you say?
Jamie: I said that that, that neither team won a home game.
Scott: Oh, you did. I was was watching When
Jamie: I got home when I got home, I I was like, what the fuck did I say? I was wrong. They split.
Scott: They split.
Jamie: They both split at home. I don't know why I said that. When I got home, I'm like, holy fuck them. Did I did I really say that?
Scott: You can just make stuff up. Doesn't Apparently not. Yeah. Make stuff Apparently,
Jamie: could just say whatever I want.
Scott: Well, you can. Yeah. You Yeah. Can. You're clearly
Jamie: You do. Clearly, I do. Yeah. So sorry. I I stay corrected.
So I think that I think Vegas is gonna win tonight, but I have to tell you, the Hurricanes goalie, the new Bussy.
Scott: I gotta tell What a story, man. A story. Not to cheer for this dude.
Jamie: Shit. They put a 111 AHL games.
Scott: Unreal. I
Jamie: mean, the guys talk about like a I don't wanna say journeyman, but talk about we always talk about like a different path. Holy crap. Yep. That guy's path's ridiculous.
Scott: No doubt. He just didn't give up.
Jamie: He just kept cranking, man.
Scott: And and yeah. And it comes back to like, you know, when you're not giving up because why? Why are you not giving up? Now he's giving up. You probably gotta love it, don't you?
Jamie: You do have to love it.
Scott: You gotta love it.
Jamie: Doug Christians just says all the time.
Scott: Otherwise, you're gonna move on to different pastures.
Jamie: Right.
Scott: And that's like what even when talked to Zachariah Thomas when he was playing in that league and he was just saying like, I'm playing with like men that have families and they love it. It was clear they loved it more than I did.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. No. That was pretty eye opening for him.
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: You know? I think Pat Shea had the realization of that too when he was playing in the
Scott: Didn't you get the the sense from him that it was like, that he well, yes. But I I it had to do with, like, how he had to take on a different role at Maine. And then he said when he after he finished up and he was out, then he like, you know, it just like, f it. Yeah. I'm gonna play my game.
Jamie: I'm gonna go do my thing.
Scott: And and he started to enjoy it more, but I think that some ships might have sailed by like, you know
Jamie: By then, yeah.
Scott: I forget exactly why.
Jamie: But Yeah. But you could see he maybe wasn't I think he actually said on on our on our podcast in the interview. He said like, you know, he's like, it was always the dream to get to the NHL. He's like, but was it my dream?
Scott: Or
Jamie: was it somebody else's dream?
Scott: Well, look. I know, but that's also kinda like society too a little bit. Right? Because like you always see you see commercials of like little kids dreaming of being in game seven Sure. You know, whatever series and like, you know.
So that's oh, you know, that's just the way also kids talk about like, how many how many kids when you're young and you're playing in the in the, you know, maybe it's different now but like, oh man, this is, you know, like, I can't wait to be in juniors.
Jamie: Right. Yeah.
Scott: You know, like, I I can't wait to go to Yeah. No, you don't hear that. I can't wait to go to the OHL. Juniors. I can't wait to go play d three club.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. No. You're right.
Scott: You know, it's always like, I can't wait when I'm in the NHL.
Jamie: No. It's true. Listen, it it takes there's a lot of like stick to itiveness that's there. You know, you gotta
Scott: But that's what Zachariah Thomas said also and that's like, you know, part of like the differ, like what what differentiates people is not necessarily the skill on the ice, it's what you got between your ears. It's true. And like the skill is developing your ability to like continue to keep on keep going.
Jamie: Yeah. No. It's Keep going.
Scott: A 100 the mental toughness.
Jamie: Not easy. No. Definitely not easy. Yeah. Zachariah was a good interview.
Guys should go listen to episode 70.
Scott: Swift hockey. You'll learn learn a thing or two about hockey sticks.
Jamie: Yeah. That was
Scott: cool. That was cool.
Jamie: I I was talking yesterday. Was telling you we had a game yesterday. I was talking to, like, the goalie dad, John Mack. And I mentioned to them, so he brought up the interview, right? So he was talking about it.
I'm like, oh my god, I'm like how funny was the goalie stick party? He's like, dude, how nuts was that? He's like, they put out 200 stakes and they all broke? In like twenty four hours.
Rich: He's like,
Jamie: they all just broke? That's nuts by the way. And I'm like and I remember asking Zachary, I'm like, where did they break? He's like
Scott: everywhere. Everywhere and
Jamie: And anywhere.
Scott: But then look, then then two years of development, two years later he sent everyone new sticks.
Jamie: Which is so stand out by the way. They refunded and sent the new stick. Like, so stand up.
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. Cost them a lot of money.
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: Did. But super stand up. That's the right way to do shit.
Scott: No doubt. But I guess just like more to the point is that, like, two years later
Jamie: Yeah.
Scott: It's like came through. And it's not like two years later, here's like the bag of chips that we didn't get right. It's like here's a brand new hockey, like goalie stick.
Jamie: Right.
Scott: You
Jamie: know? You know what that makes me think? When we come out with our CHD merch which is coming soon Oh, good drop. We have to not have it be defective. Why why would what?
I'm just saying.
Scott: Well, that would be true for anything that you Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. But that's Put our names too. Makes me think of, like, we have to make sure it's not defective gear.
Scott: Yeah. Well, that's that's an important check
Jamie: to box. Luckily, we're not doing like
Scott: Or box to check.
Jamie: Oh, yeah. That too.
Scott: I said check the box.
Jamie: Yeah. I gotcha. It happens. Yeah.
Scott: Yeah. It does.
Jamie: Yeah. It does. You know? But, yeah. We have to make sure our gear is not not that defective.
Scott: Yeah. That that's a good good point. Captain Obvious.
Jamie: We don't our stuff we don't want our stuff to break.
Scott: No. Listen. When was last time you broke a hat? What planet do you come from?
Jamie: I'm trying to think I've ever broken a hat. It depends on the hat.
Scott: I guess.
Jamie: Like, I have I have baseball hats. I have the snapbacks, which you know, sometimes you pull too much and this the things pop off.
Scott: Why do you have to adjust it? Your head grows? You fucking get like I mean, that's I'm at the rink and my brain is swelling. It hurts so bad from
Jamie: seeing the need shit in the
Scott: to make room for my brain to explode in my hat.
Jamie: So alright. So I will say
Scott: this. Yeah.
Jamie: I have had to adjust a bunch of my hats because I'm growing my hair out. Okay. And I have actually had to do it recently. I have not broken any of the snaps. Fair.
But do remember back in the day when you were a kid, you break the snaps?
Scott: Yeah. Sure. Sure. Sure.
Jamie: Yeah. That's a good point. Why would you break the snap? Why would why or or was it just like a fidget thing that you were just
Scott: when you were a kid.
Jamie: Yeah. Because those things broke easily.
Scott: When you get older. I've I've adjust my hats when my hair has gotten shorter in the back.
Jamie: Yeah. That that I that I had to do. Yeah. There's no question about that. Growing your hair out is an experience.
Scott: Mean I mean How long are gonna let it grow out?
Jamie: Super awkward phase right now.
Scott: But what are you going for?
Jamie: I'm not really sure. I'd
Scott: be honest. Yeah. I'm not sure.
Jamie: I need the sides to get longer, you know? So I'm I'm it's it's it's a it's a it's a work in progress at the moment.
Scott: Still have a nice thick head of hair. I do. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice.
Jamie: You're a
Scott: lucky guy.
Jamie: No complaints.
Scott: Not everyone can say that.
Jamie: They can't. No. No complaints. You know? My buddy, Matt, he's like he's like he he talks about balding all the time and I'm like, I can't relate.
Scott: I've been using Rogaine.
Jamie: Have you?
Scott: Yeah. Come on. I swear to To help with my see how my hat's pulling, like the receding hairline situation here.
Jamie: Okay. I mean, listen.
Scott: But I will say, yo, here's a here's a hack.
Jamie: But you have a thick head of hair.
Scott: No? It's not and my hair's not very thick.
Jamie: It's No. It's it's I mean, it's not bad.
Scott: No. Now I'm getting all messed up here.
Jamie: So you're using Rogaine? Should we reach out to Rogaine
Scott: to be
Jamie: a No. Sponsor on the
Scott: here no, dude. This is this is the trick and I think I actually think this is working better.
Jamie: Right.
Scott: Working better because you get the foam
Jamie: You're not gonna get the plugs? What? The plugs?
Scott: Go on like some Hair plugs? Some Turkish like
Jamie: Don't they have like implants that they could do?
Scott: Yeah. But that that's like they insert like individual hairs into people's heads.
Jamie: That's what I'm talking about.
Scott: Yeah. I'm not doing that. Do you
Jamie: need to do
Scott: I don't need to do anything.
Jamie: Oh, okay. So is the road game working? I've never used it, so I don't know.
Scott: So so I originally started using the foam, which is just like, you know, like a moose. It's like a moose.
Jamie: Okay.
Scott: And like you put it in your for the well, whatever moose.
Jamie: And is it supposed to like initiate hair growth?
Scott: Yes. It's to stimulate or whatever it
Jamie: does In areas that's not growing?
Scott: No. Only in areas that
Jamie: Wait. What was that word? The what? Monoxidil? Monoxidil.
What's the That's
Scott: the active ingredient in that. Here.
Jamie: Yeah. Got it. Learn something every day.
Rich: Yeah.
Jamie: There you go, parents and dads. I'm assuming I'm seeing moms that use Rogaine. Yeah. Right. And moms use Rogaine too?
Scott: They can.
Jamie: That a product for men?
Scott: It's not just for men because just for men's
Jamie: a whole another product. I was just gonna say we just dropped maybe Keith another Hernandez. That's Keith Hernandez. Wait a minute. Just for men.
That's another product.
Scott: It is just for men.
Jamie: And it's a hair product.
Scott: No. It's not just for men. God. I'm getting confused. But isn't just for men a
Jamie: hair product as well?
Scott: Yes. It it dyes your
Jamie: hair. I'm talking about a robe. A robe. Oh, it dyes your hair.
Scott: Dyes us. Come on.
Jamie: I haven't done that, by the way. Well, neither have I. Why do Yeah. Yeah.
Scott: Yeah. Anyway, you got you do different hair care treatments to yourself.
Jamie: I do. Yeah. Anyway, no. I just take the hair down on my on my body. Yeah.
It's super long. It's called manscaping.
Scott: Manscaping. Okay. Well, that's a whole another episode we can get into. Anyway, so this is let me just finish my goddamn Gotta
Jamie: make sure you mow the lawn.
Scott: Oh my lord. Oh my lord.
Jamie: Go ahead.
Scott: Fucking Christ.
Jamie: Go ahead. Rogaine.
Scott: You mow your lawn.
Jamie: Your ma mahmoxidil. What'd you call it?
Scott: Minoxidil. Minoxidil.
Jamie: Go ahead.
Scott: So in any event, this is the hack. Okay. The hack is I would I I first got it in the foam, the mousse, and I'd spray it I got And then you like I would just like massage it into my head. Know, like in the spots where you know, the receding hairline
Jamie: or Got it. Whatever. Got it. It's not supposed to be all over or it's just in the
Scott: Goddamn areas where you it.
Jamie: Let me I'm just trying to learn about rogium.
Scott: You're not if you would, if you close your ears
Jamie: hear Jimmy. I can hear Jimmy.
Scott: Listen, you know, for someone that says they listen to audiobooks, I'm not so sure how much you actually take in.
Jamie: I do.
Scott: Okay. Listen. So I started with how many times have I said this? If you had a like a dollar for every time I said it, you'd at least have lunch money right now. So listen.
I started with the moose. I put it in my hand and read the directions and it just says to like, you know, work it into the area where you need a treat. Right? And then my wife was like, you really need to like get it in there. And she was she's like, you should use a toothbrush.
I think she saw it like on, on Instagram or something like, you know, using a toothbrush Yeah. To kinda like
Jamie: To get in the fine areas.
Scott: And I actually tried that and it was not very pleasant. Toothbrush bristles, didn't like it, whatever. And then I was like, you know what, f this. If I'm like putting this in my hair to like help like have a fuller head of hair Right. I just like went whole hog and I put it like all in my head.
Jamie: Like your shampoo. Like like I just Like your shampoo
Scott: filled in my hand like I had and I just like Everywhere. Worked it. Oh, Jesus.
Jamie: Just everywhere.
Scott: I worked it in everywhere. Right.
Jamie: And then Just went to town.
Scott: And then fine. So but then it's like a little so now, I have that was like going through a lot of product. Mhmm. You know? I like I can imagine.
Yeah. So then my wife got they have like liquid form that doesn't like foam up and you can get you can get like these like from Amazon just like, you know, ever see deodorant that has like the the ball at the end of it like the Yeah. So you can buy a little like little rolly ball things and you can fill it up with liquid. So now I have a rolly ball thing that I filled with like the liquid version of Rogaine and I apply it much more easily. With the roller ball.
With the roller ball because the mousse kinda like, know, it kinda sticks to your hair and it doesn't go all the way down to your
Jamie: easily. Easily. Okay.
Rich: A lot
Scott: of it's just getting caught up in my hair. Mhmm. So with because it's liquid form and the rollerball, dude, this is the one two punch.
Jamie: The rollerball's the way to go.
Scott: Rollerball's the way to go, homie.
Jamie: Got it.
Scott: That's what I'm saying.
Jamie: Okay. Got it. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.
So there you go, boys. Just in case you need the little Rogaine tips.
Scott: There you go.
Jamie: So is it working?
Scott: I think a little bit. I'm not like
Jamie: You notice hair growth in areas where you didn't have?
Scott: Like a little bit. Like, nothing that made me think this is a miracle drug, but enough to think like, I'll keep doing it because it looks like something is is a little better than nothing.
Jamie: Got it. Maybe we'll do a segment on, you know, man care.
Scott: Balding?
Jamie: No. Just man care.
Scott: Man care? You wanna do a segment on man Just for
Jamie: men, just color the beard and then we'll do can do
Scott: the You're road game gonna color your beard?
Jamie: I wasn't going to. No way. I wasn't going to.
Scott: Don't do it.
Jamie: I I wasn't going to. I wasn't planning to.
Scott: No. Me neither.
Jamie: When people ask me when I'm gonna dye my hair, I'm like Why? I'm not.
Scott: Why would you dye
Jamie: your hair? I don't know. Not. Don't know Who
Scott: asked you that?
Jamie: The the this chick that used to cut my hair. She's like she's like, she's like, are you gonna come in and have it dyed? I'm like, never. Yeah. She's men do it?
I'm like, okay, not this dude.
Scott: She's trying to upsell
Jamie: you, homie? I was like, no. She's
Scott: trying to upsell
Jamie: you, It's very possible. You know, can I just tell you like she does not cut mine and and Dominic's hair anymore? Can I just tell you? Oh my god, Scott.
Scott: You're going through barbers a dime a dozen?
Jamie: Can I tell you like, I remember Dominic got his haircut by her one day?
Scott: That came out like Lloyd Chris's at Domino's. Bro.
Jamie: He had Dominic had bangs like Straight bangs across his And I look at her and I go
Scott: What what are you doing?
Jamie: I go
Scott: I'm not paying for that.
Jamie: I go, he looks like a girl. She goes, don't say that. That's not true. I go, yeah. I Yeah.
I go, he has bangs. I go, what the fuck is that? I was like and that was the last time I went to her. Yeah. Was not But there
Scott: this was this was a new woman after the other woman.
Jamie: Yours? No. Mine? Yours.
Scott: No. Like, you had a woman that's is that why she stopped you stopped working with her?
Jamie: Stopped going there. Yeah. Dom's hair was pretty jacked up.
Scott: Oh, wow.
Jamie: Yeah. So we we
Scott: Otto's going for a new haircut.
Jamie: Is he? Yep. Oh, he is.
Scott: Oh, yeah.
Jamie: He he mentioned it here.
Scott: He is. He's committed to he's gonna he's gonna buzz.
Jamie: He said
Scott: that. Buzz buzz the head.
Jamie: Right.
Scott: Not not to the skin.
Jamie: Not only is he gonna buzz it though.
Scott: But then he's gonna bleach it.
Jamie: Right.
Scott: And then he's gonna
Jamie: He said this. Like tint it pink. Yes. He said this.
Scott: And I said, okay.
Jamie: You did?
Scott: Yeah. Sure. I don't give a shit. Interesting. It's hair.
Jamie: It is
Scott: hair. I mean, he wants It does grow back. If he just wants to I don't care.
Jamie: It definitely does grow back.
Scott: I don't care. Have fun with your hair. Yeah. I mean, did I'm not going to the salon with you, but like, you know, have Oh,
Jamie: I guess that has to be done by your wife's not doing it?
Rich: No. She's doing that.
Scott: No. She's not she's not she doesn't
Jamie: Professionals do bleaching that. Hard and not Interesting. Listen. So we'll put a picture up of auto on
Scott: Before and after?
Jamie: Yeah.
Scott: Yeah. We got long hair Otto, short hair Otto.
Jamie: And pink hair Otto.
Scott: Pink hair Otto. Yeah. He's dyed his hair before. Like he
Jamie: Well, his hair's dyed right now. No?
Scott: Well, he put like sun in.
Jamie: Okay. It's bleached.
Scott: It's like it's like it's like orange y, yellow y,
Jamie: orange y. Yeah. It's that sun in That sun in look. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Which is cool for the summer. Nothing wrong with that.
Scott: That's whatever.
Jamie: Oh, it's gonna be pink for the summer.
Scott: Apparently. Lovely. But not for that long either because when you cut it short, it's just gonna start, you know, you'll see the roots quickly.
Jamie: Real men wear pink.
Scott: I see that. You're wearing pink today.
Jamie: I am actually. Yeah.
Scott: There you go. Handsome.
Jamie: Yeah. What can I tell you?
Scott: I don't know, man. What do you think? You wanna wrap this one up?
Jamie: We can. 71 in the books.
Scott: Oh, boy. Hold on.
Jamie: We do. What do do?
Scott: We do. Let's just finish up with the NHL. We got so sidetracked. So game game six is tonight. You think you think Vegas is gonna win?
Jamie: I do.
Scott: I also think Vegas is gonna win.
Jamie: And then who wins game seven?
Scott: And then I think game seven Mhmm. I think In Carolina. I think it's gonna be Carolina.
Jamie: You do?
Scott: I do. I think
Jamie: Vegas is gonna win in Carolina.
Scott: You think they're gonna win these next two games?
Jamie: I do. I think I think they're gonna find
Scott: out That would be really rough. Bussy. That'd be rough.
Jamie: It would be rough.
Scott: Oh, we're gonna find out tonight.
Jamie: Listen. I did say it was gonna go seven when we started this. I'm close. Yeah. But listen, Caroline is also playing very well, so nothing surprises me.
Scott: Jordan Stahl is like, what a story, this guy. There's so many good stories like the like No, it's very cool. Like the Marner thing Yes. Like like even if they don't end up winning it, You know, all that stuff like he's just proven he can be an elite player on the biggest stage.
Jamie: No question
Scott: about So like good on him. That's great. Bussy, great story.
Jamie: Great story.
Scott: Stahl, great story. Yeah. Yeah. Like all of it.
Jamie: Yeah. And Tortorella's done after this.
Scott: Tortorella's done.
Jamie: Which is wild. Yeah. He's gonna hang it up after this. I mean
Scott: I mean, who knows? I mean, guess
Jamie: you can always change your mind too.
Scott: You can always change your mind.
Jamie: It'll be interesting.
Scott: Yeah. Anyway I'm looking forward to it. Let's I'm just cheering for a game seven.
Jamie: Yeah. Me too. I'm looking forward to more hockey. Alright, dude. That was fun.
71 in the books? In the books. See you next time.
Scott: Yep. Thank you, Juan. Thank you all for listening. Later.