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A relatable and honest podcast about the highs and lows of being a youth hockey parent. Join us as we share real stories, struggles, and wins from the rink, offering insights and support for parents navigating the world of youth hockey.
Alright, everybody. Welcome back to the Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast, the unfiltered podcast for hockey parents. No politics, no sugarcoating, just real talk for hockey parents in the trenches, and you can wipe that smirk off your face.
Jamie:What's wrong with you?
Scott:Jesus. What
jamie:a rough
Scott:start. I I opened
Jamie:my mouth.
Scott:I my mouth for like a second and like this kid's already got like
jamie:I thought I was hiding it. Well, Why would you even need to hide it? I don't know. I was trying to not throw you off of your, of, of your,
Scott:No, you can't.
jamie:You're opening monologue.
Scott:You can't do that. No, that doesn't work.
jamie:Oh, I was dying, dude. Was Why? You did very good though. You did very well. Yeah.
jamie:The fact you got through that without laughing yourself, I am impressed.
Scott:Well, because I take I take I take my job seriously.
Jamie:I'm like you. You clown.
jamie:I was trying not to throw you off your game. Impressed. Passed. Wyatt, you are an oak.
Scott:I'm your Hockeyberry.
jamie:Ah, you know who Mundo is from? Very nice. Well done. Well done.
Scott:Anyway, welcome back. Thirty six homie.
jamie:Thirty six, buddy. Crazy. I mean
Scott:And what a great interview we have today.
jamie:Oh, my goodness.
Scott:Start by saying that. Yes. Doug Christiansen.
jamie:Doug Christiansen, commissioner of ECAC hockey.
Scott:The commish.
jamie:The commish. He looks like a commish, by the way. That's very appropriate.
Scott:Yeah. I know. He's what a what a career he's had. I mean, for those of you who get to know him a bit more when we, get to the interview, but he's had he had a long playing career at division one collegiate athlete union. Went on to play pro in The States and in Europe as well, coached in Europe.
Scott:Yep. Director of player development, I believe, for the USHL at some point. He was the deputy commissioner of the USHL.
jamie:Guy's done everything, man. He
Scott:is now the commissioner of the ECAC, which, you you know the teams better than me. So so what collegiate what d one teams are in the ECAC?
jamie:So, like, union where Doug played.
Scott:Right.
jamie:Right? Doug played in union. So you have union, Saint Lawrence, Clarkson, Quinnipiac, Cornell, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown. I'm sure I'm missing a couple, but I don't know. There's not many.
jamie:Colgate, Cornell, right? I mean,
Jamie:it's a
Scott:lot of the high end academic schools as well.
jamie:Correct. Yeah. It's almost like Ivy League. It's like, you know, you know,
Scott:it's Ivy League plus Dartmouth.
jamie:DCA Dartmouth. Exactly. Brown, like those guys. It's impressive. He is a he's a very impressive position.
jamie:But again, you know, it's it's probably very warranted because if you look at his elite elite prospects page, like I was saying the other day, it reads like the naughty Santa's naughty list. I mean, it's like it just goes forever.
Scott:Yeah. Mean, he's had he's he's been on multiple teams. Yeah. Varied experiences. Like, it's it's really what a wealth of information this guy is.
Scott:And and if anyone's seen it all, he's certainly one of them. So we're super psyched to have him on as our guest today.
jamie:Yeah. Impressive, impressive interview.
Scott:Yeah. Well, who do we need to shout out? Shout out Stacy, right?
jamie:No, Rachel. Oh my. Stacy, Rachel, Rachel, Stacy.
Scott:My bad. Sorry, Rachel.
jamie:Yes. Yeah. Rachel, Rachel, Crazy Hockey Mom. Rachel, just kidding, Rachel. You're not Crazy Hockey Mom.
jamie:No, but Rachel is the one that kind of got us in touch and yeah. And I Rachel's
Scott:the best. Met her the other day. And Rachel, I apologize for messing up the
jamie:name of Oh her my god, you have to call her Stacy now when you see her in person.
Scott:Maybe. That would be funny, perhaps. Anyway, but it was her and her husband are wonderful. Really great to meet them.
jamie:Yeah, husband's a good dude.
Scott:And thank you, Rachel.
jamie:Yes. Thank you. Yes. This was it was an awesome interview. He is a very impressive human being.
jamie:I was very impressed and you'll hear it in the interview. But Scott, I was very impressed with how he. How he looks at things. Right, right.
Scott:How he like the backward engineering,
jamie:the backwards engineering is very impressive. He he looks at things. I think our parents that listen to this are going to get a pretty good glimpse of like, in my opinion, how a real hockey mind looks at everything around him.
Scott:Yeah, it's impressive. Analytical.
jamie:Different than where logical. Yeah.
Scott:Different than
jamie:what a lot of us do, I think.
Scott:Yeah. But listen, so before we go any further with that, let's just circle up on our partners real quick.
jamie:Yeah.
Scott:Let's do that. And then we can catch up on the weekend. Yeah. So Howie's Hockey, Crazy 10.
jamie:Crazy 10. So I I
Scott:got a box. I got a box of goodies.
jamie:A Howie's Hockey Box?
Scott:I bought tape. Tape? And some more tape.
jamie:And more tape.
Scott:And another kind of tape.
jamie:Another kind of tape.
Scott:And laces.
jamie:And laces. Sounds about right. Listen, they are, that is, I think pretty sure they started as a tape company and they've kind of branched out into a lot of other stuff. They have a lot of really cool stuff, but their tape is And
Scott:what I will say is that when I got the box and opened it, everything was very like thoughtfully placed. There was like appropriate like separators between the different tapes. There was a combination of like
jamie:I can paper
Scott:promotional goods, marketing goods. Then there was like some of the tape was in a hockey tin, some was loose. Like, was just like it it even though I got like basically two different things, tape and laces, it felt like I got like 17 different items.
jamie:Right. Like a Christmas box.
Scott:No, totally.
jamie:And it
Scott:was but no, but like in all seriousness, like at the end of the day, it's the way they differentiate themselves. Right? And I think also the customer service piece and I'll post the transcript. Think because they left a voicemail that, you know, after I made my purchase, they called to check-in.
jamie:How cool is that by the way? Yeah. What company calls, calls you to say, thanks. Thanks for the order.
Scott:Who does that anymore? Who? No.
jamie:Scott, I've never seen a company do that period.
Scott:Not And it goes a long way in like creating You're brand
jamie:talking about above and beyond stuff.
Scott:You know
jamie:what I mean? I mean, nobody does that. Right. Listen, that's, but that's why they're awesome. You know, not only do they have awesome things, but
Scott:And enter in the Christmas ornament. Yes. Howie's hockey face head thing.
jamie:Face head. Exactly. Yeah. No, they have awesome stuff. They really do.
jamie:And clearly, you know, they're very thoughtful in packaging and they're very thoughtful and they're appreciative of the customer base because like I said, who calls to say thank you for the order? Yeah. I hope everyone arrived okay.
Scott:Was awesome.
jamie:I'm pretty sure their shipping is pretty quick too, if I'm not mistaken.
Scott:Yeah. Was quick. Yeah. I I I don't know that I had, like, a my order was under the minimum for free shipping, but it can't I don't know what I maybe it came like two days, something like that.
jamie:Right.
Scott:So, you know, it came quick.
jamie:No. They're great, man. It's a I'm a I I love the company. One of my favorites in all these hockey by far.
Scott:And that says a lot. I mean
jamie:And that does say a lot.
Scott:A discerning customer. You are someone with high standards. Damn right. You are like, a a ringing endorsement from you is like might as well be the president of The United States.
jamie:Yeah. I I listen. I don't think you're wrong. What you're saying makes a lot of sense to me.
Scott:Yeah. Anyhow, so moving on. We also have little Angelo Circe and Pro Elite Skating. Yeah. CHD ten.
Scott:Clinics, I'm sure, are popping up. I got some marketing emails from them advertising Thanksgiving, so check them out. CHD ten discount code for 10% off at Pro Stride Elite Skating. So check them
jamie:out devils trust him, so should you.
Scott:That's what's up.
jamie:Zach's using Jasper Brad, a pretty impressive skater. It's just saying.
Scott:Not too shabby.
jamie:Not too shabby at all.
Scott:Not too shabby.
jamie:No. Definitely
Scott:not. And then we got athletic performance insight, also known as API for short. Yeah. Any listeners, if you're still thinking about video analytics or game tagging for your team, you know, check them out for sure. Fill out the contact form.
Scott:Get in touch with Eric. He'll do a demo. He will tag you in for free, and you can take a look at some really robust reporting, some game analytics that can help, you know, your your team learn visually. We started using API like Otto's. This is his first year of 12.
Scott:He's 11 you now. We started when he was like eight you. Go back a couple of years with Eric and but it's, you know, it's a great it's a great tool for kids to learn, you know, more about positioning and but look, that's just for the very young kids. Get, you know, the collegiate teams are using API as well. So, it's got all the bells and whistles for heavy duty use and for high end, high performing teams and for, you know, lower age groups also very useful.
Scott:So check them out. API.
jamie:A $100 value. Boom.
Scott:Oh yeah. Mention Crazy Hockey Dads for your 10% discount on a season subscription.
jamie:So our favorite our favorite hockey mom actually asked me why we're not why our team is not using API.
Scott:Oh, well, that's a great question.
jamie:I and I said I didn't wanna, like, push it onto the coach. And I wouldn't be pushing it, but I don't know. Felt that
Scott:you wouldn't be pushing it. You know, wouldn't be pushing. I know. Listen. Suggested.
jamie:I know. I and I probably I'm probably going to do that. I was gonna text him today and then I I'm like, you know, I'll text him later. I should come.
Scott:That's good. Nothing like kicking the can down the road.
jamie:Procrastinating is my special. No, that's not, that's actually not true. No, no, I will. I, I, I definitely will do it.
Scott:Oh yeah. Okay. We're going to hold you to that.
jamie:Listen, I, I, I was doing other stuff. Listen, I was doing other stuff, not only, you know, was doing other stuff.
Scott:I
jamie:have, which I told you about already a pretty impressive interview lined up that you and I have to find some time to do with a very impressive mental performance coach.
Scott:That is something I'm really interested to hear more about. So, that's, that's, that's on the horizon. Not exactly sure when that'll come out, but
jamie:very impressive mental
Jamie:performance coach.
Scott:Yeah. That's gonna be really, I think eye opening and insightful.
jamie:You're going to want to hear that interview people.
Scott:Yes. But before that Before. We you want to hear
jamie:Before that, you want to hear Doug Christensen, commissioner ECAC Hockey. Yes.
Scott:That's right.
Jamie:So So,
jamie:the two bounce off each other nicely in my opinion because they're both very impressive dudes.
Scott:Yeah. Well, listen, before that also just quick check-in about weekend hockey and then we'll kick it over to Doug. Yeah. Why don't you go shoot Saturday, Sunday? We lost draw.
Scott:What happened?
jamie:So we played a team on Saturday away, a team that is kind of like the bottom of the barrel type for our league. So we won. I think we actually went down one nothing. Well done. Whatever reason, our kids, you know, how you you kind of play down to your competition type stuff.
jamie:So our kids seem to do that a lot. So we did. We went down one nothing and then we came back to one seven or eight to one.
Scott:Yeah, but that's not uncommon when kids play down a lot of times, especially if they know they're going against a team that's not good. Exactly. A lot of a lot of like the teamwork and other things can kind of go out the window. Right.
jamie:So Dominic had a phenomenal game. And when I say phenomenal, I mean phenomenal, like this is your line phenomenal with a capital F because that was his effort level, You a capital
Scott:got an F for phenomenal.
jamie:Was that kind of phenomenal. Yeah.
Scott:That's a rough phenomenal.
jamie:It it was one of those days, so that did not go so well. He was not happy with himself after. Need to bring our mental performance coach on in a couple weeks and have them talk to my child.
Scott:The whole episode is just gonna be a therapy session with Coming Dominic and a mental performance
jamie:soon. But so Saturday, so we won, which is awesome.
Scott:Good. Most important team victory.
jamie:Yep. Yep. Exactly. He was not happy with himself, but we won. Okay.
jamie:And then Sunday, we played a very good team in our league, kinda like a rivalry game, I guess you'd say.
Scott:I was there. I saw it.
jamie:You were there. Right. So there's a lot of, like, intertwining with the kids.
Scott:Right. Like they had played former teammates and now played against each other type of thing.
jamie:One of the defensemen was on that team who actually played with us last year and we love this this family. I'm really sorry that they're that they're not with us anymore. We were talking to him and his wife in the the lobbies. I'm sorry that they're not with us anymore. So there's a lot of like inter intertwining between the two teams.
jamie:You know, one another candidate team played for our team like two or three years ago. So there was a lot of, you know, a lot of a lot of everybody knew each other. That was and you could feel it. I don't if you could feel it, but I could feel it in the building.
Scott:Like kind of the tension.
jamie:It was intense. Yeah. There was definitely some, some intense, you know, you could hear the parents were cheering louder than normal, I would say.
Scott:Yeah. There was a good I mean, listen
jamie:Wouldn't you agree with that?
Scott:Yeah. It was a good energy. And also, you know, it helps kind of like promote that, I think, was the fact that we played in the or we I mean, I played after you. Otto played after Dominic.
jamie:Yeah. I said you.
Scott:But, that rink is smaller and it kinda creates atmosphere because there's you know, people kinda have to stand on top of each other to some extent. So
jamie:That is true.
Scott:That that helps create atmosphere.
jamie:Yeah. And, yeah,
Scott:there was a good turnout.
jamie:It was a decent turnout.
Scott:I mean, that certainly better than Yeah. Don't even know what I would have thought, but it was a good turnout and the game was pretty intense.
jamie:Yeah. The game was pretty intense. Back and forth. Bunch of hitting. Yep.
Scott:Back and forth.
jamie:We went down o two. Yeah. Right. Not a good spot. And then kind of came back with four unanswered for a four to final.
Scott:Let's go giddy up.
jamie:That was a, that was a nice W. That was pretty cool. Yeah. So I guess we moved up into my hockey rankings as somebody texted me this morning and told me that we moved up.
Scott:I've not looked once this year.
jamie:Oh,
Scott:yes. I formerly would, and I didn't realize, whatever, it doesn't matter, but like I used to look all the time, like every fucking Wednesday.
jamie:No. You know, it's
Scott:I wake up. I'm still like, kinda blurry eyed, I'm like, oh, my hockey rankings now. No.
jamie:You hear Hey, Siri. Siri. You heard you heard our buddy Ben DeBloc last week in their, know, interview, and he was like, people wake up fucking 02:30 in the morning. They're refreshing their screen. I told you it was a thing.
jamie:I wasn't kidding when I said it. Dude, this
Scott:I know it's a thing because I've been there, done that, but it also, I didn't realize it was that early in the morning. I thought it was 8AM.
jamie:I think it's like three in the morning or something like that.
Scott:Whatever. Fuck that. Yeah. Fuck that.
Jamie:But, you
jamie:know, it's funny. So, yeah. So my so my hockey rankings comes out on Friday morning. I'm sorry. On Wednesday mornings.
Scott:Yeah. You
jamie:know? So our our episode will be released Thursday morning this week, not Wednesday, which I'm sure all of you have noticed if you've been looking for it. This morning you guys got up and you did not see it. And that's because Scott and I fucked up the audio yesterday when we were trying to record this. Now, when I say Scott, I mean me.
jamie:It was really
Scott:No, it wasn't. It was we just tried a different setup and it didn't work.
jamie:But I think your body was for whatever reason.
Scott:Yeah. But that's not because of the way you talk. We did the test run and then we listened to the test run. Sounded fine.
jamie:Yeah. It did. The test run sounded fine.
Scott:But then it didn't.
jamie:Then when we recorded, so Nancy said to me, she goes, James here, didn't you guys do a test run? I said, course we did. I can be recorded like five minutes. I go when we played it back and it sounded fine. So we're like, okay, let's just go with it.
jamie:And then, then when we listen to the audio, when we were when we were going to upload it last night, it was not up to par subpar. It was subpar. So we want to make sure that we give you guys good audio and not shit. So yeah, so we have a Thursday, which I'm sure you're all noticing because you're gonna see a jump on your phone today. So you have you're having a you're having a Thursday and not a Wednesday morning.
jamie:Sorry. We'll go back to Wednesday or we're still trying to figure out what day to release. Right? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Right?
Scott:I think whatever. Yeah. Wednesday seemed to be fine. Wednesdays. Well, part of it is also our personal schedule.
Scott:Anyway, this is not important stuff.
jamie:True. So sorry about the delay, the day delay in release. Yes. That's where I was going.
Scott:There you go. Yes.
jamie:But other than that, yeah. Oh, yes. So and then and then so we had a decent hockey weekend and then and Dominic played better on on Sunday.
Scott:Good. Rebounded.
jamie:So we won both. That was a that was actually a nice W. Like I said, I think we moved up into my hockey ranking. Somebody told me. So yeah, it was cool.
jamie:Good. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott:We were away Saturday, home Sunday, just like you. We won both games. Saturday, we played a team that we had lost to, like, maybe two weeks ago, something like that.
jamie:Right.
Scott:Apparently, we had spotted that team about four goals, like, in short order. Okay. And that we just never crawled out of that. The first game, this game, we did not spot the many goals to start, which was nice of us. And then we came in with a victory.
Scott:Auto played pretty well. He actually was asked to play defense. That's right. On Saturday.
jamie:Right.
Scott:And he did he did well. I mean, he played a bunch of defense last season. But towards the at the end of last season, he he asked he wanted to go back to forward after playing probably two thirds of the season, if not maybe more on defense last year.
jamie:That's right. Okay. But
Scott:then he wanted to get back to offense, and certainly, you know, this season was his expectations were playing offense. You know, he coach asked, you know, for him to play some d. He did. He scored a goal towards the end, so that was good going on the score sheet. Felt good about that.
jamie:From the defensive spot?
Scott:No. It wasn't from the blue line, but like he he rushed the puck. Was more
jamie:Okay.
Scott:It more like a, like yeah. He rushed the puck and then, you know, did a nice little TDR and put it low and away. Nice. Beat the goalie.
Jamie:It was
Scott:a nice goal.
jamie:Why don't you tell our our listeners what a TDR is?
Scott:Toe drag release.
jamie:There you go.
Scott:Toe drag release. I think that's a coach chippyism.
jamie:Yes. Yes, it is. Yeah. Toe drag release. Toe drag.
jamie:That's the that's with him and Bedard. That's how it started.
Scott:Like maybe three years ago. Listen, three years ago, I think our squirt minor year
jamie:I know what you're gonna say.
Scott:We One of the coaches reached out to coach Chippy.
jamie:Yes.
Scott:And he recorded like a he did a video for us, a post or whatever.
jamie:He said to Dean guys, right?
Scott:I think it actually was like four years ago. It was when we were full ice mites, I think.
jamie:It was when he was still Yeah, accessible because
Scott:we were the blizzard, not the avalanche, and he called us the blizz show.
Jamie:Did he?
Scott:He called us the blizz show and we, that was a great nickname. And then the following year when we were squirt minors, we Right. When we became regular avalanche and not Right. Blizzard, I had a hard time shaking the Blizz Show in my like communication to the kids because it was so much fun.
jamie:Oh, that's awesome, dude. Dude, did you see the the Instagram post that coach Chippy did with with Jeremy from what is his Instagram?
Scott:How hockey?
jamie:How to hockey. Yes. Yeah. Did you you see the one with him and and Jeremy?
Scott:I don't know. I think that was a
jamie:few. Tryouts. It was recent.
Scott:Oh, I don't think I saw it.
jamie:So they're both looking like, I guess, like, Jeremy is, like, the head coach of the team, and they're in the and the shot is they're looking down on the ice. Okay? And coach should be like, so, you know, a lot of kids came out this year. He's like, you must have like 100 kids out there. And coach Jeremy's like, yep.
jamie:He's like, man, he's like, must be pretty hard to like, pick the team from all these kids. He's like, not really. Could you be like, he's like, He's like, how do you mean? He's like, I just take the same kids I did last year. And he's like, really?
jamie:He's like, so why do you have all these kids out there? And he pulls like,
Scott:a wad of cash out of
jamie:his He's like, because you'd be like,
Jamie:gotcha.
jamie:Which makes, which brings me to my next point.
Scott:What?
jamie:Is it me or is tryouts not just a fucking money grab? Come on, dude. Think about that. How much is tryouts? Let's tryouts.
jamie:Let's call it $170.75
Scott:is like $150.
jamie:It's more than that.
Scott:Called $100. $100. I don't know.
jamie:And how many kids do you think you get on average? You get a 100 kid you get a 100 kids, it's $15.
Scott:It's not yeah. Yeah.
jamie:For one team.
Scott:Yeah. That's a good return on that ice.
jamie:$15 for one hockey team.
Scott:Yeah. Dude, listen, they gotta make listen, rings are a business too. They need to make their money.
jamie:That is true.
Scott:But listen, so just then finishing up for the weekend, we ended up also then with a w on Sunday. Nice. Otto back and forward, got on the score sheet a few times as well. Nice. He was happy.
Scott:He got player of the game, got this, like, three d printed chain that gets circulated, like, game to game for, like, whoever the coach nominates as, like, the player of the game, I guess.
jamie:Right.
Scott:So he was stoked about that, and they beat a team that they had formerly beat and also lost to. So they're ahead on that series two wins to one.
jamie:Nice. Very cool.
Scott:So that was good. Yeah. So all in all, it was a a good weekend for the boys. Yeah.
jamie:Yeah. I like it, man.
Scott:Good stuff. Great. So that was the hockey weekend. We're back at it this week. I got a showcase this coming weekend.
Scott:So we got two games on Saturday, two games on Sunday. Check out this bullshit. We have a game set
jamie:four games this weekend?
Scott:Yeah. Showcase.
jamie:Oh, I'm sorry. You're a showcase.
Scott:My bad.
jamie:My fault.
Scott:Listen. The the we're but we're okay. So the ring's only an hour away. So you'd say, okay. Not bad.
Scott:Right? Yeah. But then our game on Saturday north of Listen, our game on Saturday starts at 12:40. Gotta be there at 11:40. So, we gotta leave at like 10:30, 10:40 latest.
jamie:Yeah. Now you have awful times.
Scott:But listen, then our next game isn't until 08:10 at night.
jamie:I know dude, that's awful. That's an awful time.
Scott:So we basically have to leave our house at 10:30 in the morning and realistically, we're not getting home until 10:30 at night for two hockey games. Yeah. That.
jamie:Yeah. That's not that's not a that's that's poor scheduling.
Scott:Well, you know, I think it's that's like the league. It's league scheduling. It's not even like it is. I don't know. Maybe we
jamie:Don't get me started with this league. Anyway.
Scott:Yeah. Know.
jamie:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll that for another episode.
Scott:Alright. So let let's so you wanna get into, the interview?
jamie:Yeah. Yeah. Here it is. Doug Christiansen, the commissioner of ECAC hockey. I hope you guys enjoy because, I was very impressed with it.
jamie:So enjoy everybody. All right. So here we are with Doug Christiansen, the commissioner of the ECAC. Doug, thank you so much for being here. It's a pleasure to have you.
Jamie:It's great to be here. Thanks so much for the opportunity.
jamie:So, our parents, you know, are clearly, you know, interested in different paths for their kids and what they should do, what they shouldn't do. Why don't you just kind of tell us, you know, how your youth hockey journey started and kind of up to where you are now?
Jamie:First of all, it started with my parents were season ticket holders to the University of Wisconsin for football and hockey. And so I grew up going to Dane County Coliseum, at the University of Wisconsin. And this might surprise people, but I was a bit of a rambunctious kid, but it was the only place that I really sat down and watched and I loved it and I wanted to play it. Neither of my parents had played hockey. And I they were like, well, let's see if there's a hockey rink near our house.
Jamie:And there was a state fair rink near our house. Hockey in Milwaukee was not huge at the time. And it was big enough of course, but it wasn't Minnesota or Massachusetts. And my parents do nothing. I mean, they put literally the wrong my feet on the wrong or skates on the wrong feet.
Jamie:That's awesome. And I mean, if you see the pictures, I mean, it looks nothing like what hockey looks like today. And I played from the local county youth hockey organization until I was in eighth grade where I went to a high school, a local high school. I played all four years of high school. I never played AAA in anything until the spring of my senior year of high school.
Jamie:I played two years in Green Bay in the USHL. And then I played four years at Union College before playing afterwards. But my playing journey was what I think hockey probably should be. In many ways, There were pluses and minuses. I had some great coaches.
Jamie:I had some I made some really good decisions along the way. There's probably some things that would change, but it was I I loved it. And I think that that's the one thing that's really important is I just really like playing hockey And I did it all the time. And that's what made it so enjoyable. And that's what kind of probably helped me have some success along the way.
Jamie:Got you, Scott.
Scott:No. I was just gonna say it reminds me. I I I didn't play on certainly to any of the levels that you did, but I just remember as a kid, we're about the same age and just like being out in the driveway until it got dark, putting on rollerblades and just going out there because I wanted to be out there. My parents weren't saying you have to go to this skating clinic or you have to go to this skill session or you need to do yet another thing. It was all simply because I love to be out there.
Scott:And I and I see the pressure, the pressure that parents put on kids and myself included, sometimes guilty as charged, no doubt. But 100% couldn't agree with you more. The sports landscape nowadays is so much different than when we were kids, and it just feels so crazy. And then but in any event, I don't want to digress too much. But so in any so so your your journey to playing college hockey was organic.
Scott:It was not because you had parents pushing down on you, you did you did play at very high levels. I'm curious as far as like your parents, I know they didn't know too much about hockey, but just broadly speaking about like either like competition in the house or, like, kind of, like, how you were raised. Was there anything that, like, your parents did that were, like, really helpful in terms of, like, promoting, like Love of the game. Level of competition or love of the game?
Jamie:I would say that there was a standard in my house for everything that we did. And that that was very much whether that was I mean, I remember I was in maybe college or just out of college, And my mom was walking by the kitchen table and I was eating by myself and I was chewing with my mouth open. I'm in my twenties and she's out walking around and tells me to chew with my mouth open. Yeah. Always a pain.
Jamie:There's scan for everything that we did. And I think so that was part of it. So it was, you're gonna work hard. You're gonna do these things. But there really wasn't a lot of, you have to go do this.
Jamie:You have to go do And and what I would say is that doesn't mean that they didn't push. That doesn't mean that they didn't encourage me to work hard. And that didn't mean that they didn't give resources. I mean, later on when I got further along, did I do skating lessons to learn how to do, to skate better and things like that? We did.
Jamie:Did I go to summer hockey schools? We did. I mean, this was not just some sort of like, we never threw any extras at it because that would be disingenuous. We definitely did. But the one thing that I would say is regardless of where you are in the marketplace, at some point in time as a player, it's hard.
Jamie:And it hits people at different points of time. If you're Conor McDavid, it's hard in the NHL. It might've been easier for you at different points in time, but at every single person in that food chain and that ecosystem, there's a point where it gets hard and it hits you at different points in time. It could hit you when you're 10. It could hit you when you're in high school.
Jamie:It could hit you when you're a junior. It could hit you in college. Same thing, men, women, same thing. It gets a point where it's hard. And the reason why I bring that up is if you don't love it, when it gets hard for you, it's no longer going to be something that you're going to want to do.
Jamie:You're going to immediately be deterred because the price of admission goes up. The amount of lift weights you got to lift, the mornings you got to get up, the pucks you got to shoot, all of those things.
jamie:Everything increases.
Jamie:You don't have that on your own. When you hit that point, it's just not going to really suit you anymore. Right. And that doesn't mean that that's, you're not, it's going to hit you at different points. That doesn't mean that you just quit and it doesn't mean you just, you know, pack it in, but there's a point and you have to have that desire to really want to keep doing it.
Jamie:And the problem that I think parents don't see is does the kid like it because they're good at it and are they good at it because they've had resources thrown at it? Or is the kid good at it because they love it? And the answer to the question is usually if they've got an hour of free time, what are they doing? Right. And that doesn't mean that they're always going out and shooting pucks or lifting weights.
Jamie:It might be that they're watching hockey. It might be that they're, you know, talking about it when they're going to school and they're saying, hey, did you see the Ranger game last night? Or did you see the Bruins game last night? Or dad, look at this sweet, you know, hockey stick. They're gonna give you clues that they really like it, and they'll probably give you some clues that they don't.
Scott:That makes a makes a lot of sense. And I think one of the things when he talks about things getting hard, you know, for both Jamie and I are both our kids are now playing tier two, but had played tier one. My son's 10 going on almost 11. Jamie's is 13. So we've seen like early success, you know, as Okay, you know, success at the age of eight, nine, 10, like what does that really look like?
Scott:But, you know, whatever. There's there's a higher level and then there's a lower level. You know, our kids are playing at a higher level and they've gone down to tier two for various reasons, for different reasons. But ultimately, you know, it's gotten in some ways easier for our kids because they're playing against kids that are not as good. But it's gotten, I think, harder in some ways because they recognize that they've gone from a higher level to a lower level.
Scott:Now, I guess my question for you in regards to tier one versus tier two, and it doesn't have to be at the youngest of age groups, but for any parent out there that has a kid playing tier two and has aspirations or the kid has aspirations, let's just keep a focus on the kid, of playing, let's say, Division I college hockey or just getting to AAA. What's your take on that movement from tier two to tier one? Maybe a parent's thinking, Oh, my kids play tier two. He's never gonna get up to that next level. Do you see a lot of movement or, you know, players that end up playing in the, you know, collegiate levels that have longer careers in tier two than tier one, for example?
Jamie:Like a couple things. I think people look at it wrong. Like you have to reverse engineer everything backwards.
Scott:In order
Jamie:to play division one college hockey, you have to have so many things go right for you. You have to have health. You have to have health at the key moments in time. You have to have like right now, if you wanna play division one college hockey, if you don't have good grades, there's just over 60 division one schools. If you don't have good grades, there's about 45 division one schools for you.
Jamie:So you've shrunk your options just by those basic things. So you wanna have the widest group of options that you possibly can. I also think that parents can help to stack the deck in their favor if they have means to be able to pay for some of the college because there's a finite amount of scholarships too. That doesn't mean it has to be folds or halves or whatever, but just thinking about, okay, if my kid really wants to play at insert school.
jamie:Right.
Jamie:What is the path to get there? So starting to look at it from basically 20 years old backwards, how do you get there? To me, the entire process is actually stacking years of growth of development on top of each other. It's not about where you're playing or what you're doing. It's about incremental growth over time.
Jamie:It's it's it compounds no different than an investment does. So I get less hung up on tier one, tier two, triple A, best team, worst team. I sit there and I break it down this way. So let's just say you live in New York and you are going to drive an hour and a half to practice three days a week, right? That's nine hours sitting in a car just to practice.
Jamie:Never mind jumping on a plane, never mind anything, but just nine hours for the practice. So if you said I'm going to play locally and I'm going to invest three to four hours in private lessons, or I am going to shoot pucks or I'm going to be purposeful at that time and I'm going play locally and get the same amount of ice. Will I be better over the course of the year with an additional three hours per week of practice training all of those things than I would be by playing on some other team with potentially better competition. And I think at different points in time in the latter, you have to think about those things because if you are a triple a player and you are driving four hours to a tournament on a weekend, that's eight hours of sitting in the car and there's an opportunity cost that you've given up. And on top of that, what are you gonna have the puck on your stick for four minutes over the course of the weekend?
Jamie:Maybe. Yeah. And now I think that there's lots of situational stuff. I think that there's lots of benefits to playing against good competition. And what I mean by that is you have to track pox.
Jamie:You have to get to the net. You have to do more little things. But that doesn't mean that that's everything. And so I just think that people have to think about how they're allocating their time and how they're putting their resources in. And that doesn't mean AAA is bad.
Jamie:That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just saying that you you need to be purposeful with what your plan
jamie:is Spending your
Jamie:time on.
jamie:Right?
Jamie:Because if you're missing school twenty days a year to play hockey, are you reducing your number of division one schools from 60 plus to 45? Academically. And Academically. God forbid you have a sibling who also has interests in life. So to me, I think that where people go awry is they think about things differently.
Jamie:And like, I think about stuff totally differently with my kids. My kids are very young. They're five and three, but I attack that differently. And I'll come back to that in a minute. But, and, but I think that that is the problem that parents have is they don't, they aren't thinking about where you're trying to get to.
Jamie:They're trying to think about what's being done now. And I, and I'll take this a little bit differently. If you're thinking about retirement, you have a path to get there and you change strategies when you're in your fifties versus your forties versus your thirties, right? In your sixties. This isn't that dissimilar, but at the end of the day, you know that you have to put things in for it to compound over time.
Jamie:It's no different.
jamie:You know, it's interesting that you say that because we've talked about this on a couple episodes. We've talked about in the spring, you don't need to go traveling to play on 10 spring teams. You should be home and working on skating and using your time wisely, right? Skating, shooting pucks, stick handling. You know, we've touched on that a lot, Doug, on our podcast, a bunch of episodes.
jamie:Kind of one of the reasons why Scott and I took our kids from, you know, tier one to tier two was the travel back and forth. We were both driving an hour and change to the rink, Now it's more local, know, so it's ten minutes as opposed to an hour and five minutes or an hour and ten minutes. So we've done that with our kids and we've been trying to tell our audience to do the same. You don't need to drive so far. Speaking of, our last podcast, we actually had a guy on from Binghamton, New York, who comes all the way down to New Jersey.
jamie:He drives two and a half hours each way to come to New Jersey to play for practice, you know? And we've been telling our audience kind of, you know, you don't need to do all that stuff. Now, I'm not sure. Maybe the landscape is different up in Binghamton hockey wise, his kid's very good, But still, you know, you make a very good point. You know?
jamie:Are you using your time wisely? Right?
Jamie:Yeah. Yeah. And I and I I don't wanna get into individual families and the decisions that they make.
jamie:Of course.
Jamie:I I I I I think that the bar to play division one hockey is really high. It's really high. And thinking that you're gonna play your kid's gonna play division one college hockey is very difficult. It's like sitting there saying, you know, my kid's gonna be a CEO of a company when they're a young kid. It's like that that's it's a high bar.
Jamie:It's a it's rare error to get there. I think the part that is more important, and I'm gonna use this as an example. So I'd coached profession, coached pros for seven years. In my seventh year, I came home, my dad had passed away and my mom had terminal cancer. And at the time I coached a youth team in Milwaukee and I, there was a dad who had two sons, one who went out and played college hockey, another one played on at Ohio State.
Jamie:I said to the dad, I was coming off the ice, I had my skates on after practice. You got to be really excited to go to Detroit again this weekend. He said, Doug, you have to understand it's a highlight of my week. I get five hours with my son and all we do is just talk. And if that is your attitude, you're going to get a lot out of those five hours.
Jamie:Just don't know how many people have that attitude, right? They're tired, they're grinding, they're taking vacation days. They're not doing other things that they'd like to do. And I think if you have that attitude and your kids are going to enjoy it, I think that that's really, really important. The one thing that you, you said James, and you talked about spring hockey.
Jamie:So let's just go back to reverse engineering it. And I'll ask you this. If you know your kid's gonna play division one college hockey, are they a good hockey player? Sure. K.
Jamie:There's other skills to learn by playing baseball that are going to become really valuable. And what I mean by that is odds are if you're a really good hockey player, you might not be as good as a baseball player. And you might have some old for four days and you might be a player who's got to come in off the bench. You might not be the best pitcher on the team. And learning how to deal with some of that is important because when you would get to division one college hockey and you're in your first year, whether you're a women's player or a men's player, you're probably not playing that much.
Jamie:You're not going to have the puck on your stick. And the skills that you learned as a baseball player or soccer player or whatever else it is that you did, those are actually translatable skills. And it makes it more likely for you to be excited about playing hockey again in the summer, whether you go to a camp or whatever else that you do and you go to the fall. And I think that that's good. And I think that that there's real value in that and giving a little bit of a break for your body and your mind and working on something else because those are actual skills that help you in hockey, especially as you go.
Scott:Yeah. That's the mental side of it. That's really interesting piece because you're not even necessarily focusing on like the, what you just said wasn't just about like, you know, exercising different muscles. It was more about the like the in between your ears piece on down with adversity, which, you know, certainly like if you're a top player and maybe like you said, you gave the some examples earlier, but that's that's something I'd never would have never I didn't even think about it in that way. That makes a ton of sense.
Scott:But something I wanted to to bring up, I know part of your story, your journey was the director of player development at the USHL. And you had mentioned earlier before we started recording that you had spoken with thousands of families in person about, you know, I'm sure, like everything under the sun. If you could share some of the maybe either some of the recurring themes, some of the things that you feel were like some of the most important conversations you had with parents that were, you know, had kids trying to or playing juniors? Because now, again, we're talking we're not talking about college level. We're talking about, you know, precursors to college from from your time in that position.
Scott:What what are some of the things that you think would be important for some of our listeners to to know?
Jamie:I think parents doing their due diligence in understanding what they're trying to achieve and getting a real good sense of what are the one of the options, but be also understanding where am I in this marketplace. Because at some point in time, there's, it's counterproductive to keep going and swimming upstream. Everybody's who's got kids is, they want to do everything that they can. I mean, I don't love my kids any more than you love your kids. We all, you know, it's the most important thing that we do.
Jamie:But I think at some point in time, you're wondering what you're doing. And I think that parents trying to, whether it's something like this or doing research and understanding that, okay, what are the different paths? Like if my kid is really good, what does that look like? If my kid is on the fringe of being really good, what does that look like? And if my kid's a nice player and they're a pretty good player, what should I be doing?
Jamie:And and and I think that being honest with yourself as to as to where you're at in that, think is important because the the emotional rent that is due in hockey is really high at the highest levels. Right? If you use the men's side and I'll use the women's side too, there's an element of like, if you're the best player in the country, you're going be asked to, if you're the best player in the country, there's a question of, am I gonna leave home to go live in some other place to go play hockey? That's a that's an emotionally high bar. Right?
Jamie:And to what end? And if you are the twentieth best player and if you are the fiftieth best player, these questions get asked to you based on where you are in that space at different ages. So I think it's really trying to understand where you are, what you're trying to do, and then, you know, why am I doing what I'm doing? Is it the most important thing? Because I think most parents, when their kid is born, they're like, we want to help them be well rounded.
Jamie:We want them to be able to have a really good set of standards and expectations, and we want them to be driven. We want them to be doing things that they really enjoy. We want them to be educated. And then somewhere along the line, hockey gets injected into this and people just took a crazy pill and they have lost all of those things that they'd already thought about. And they haven't realized that there's other ways to grow and to develop and that you don't have to just make every radical decision to give yourself a marginal increase because I don't think that that helps.
Scott:Interesting. So so if if I'm a parent who's got a kid that shows a lot of promise, maybe it's not the top player on their team, but there, they might have an opportunity to play junior. Maybe it's local. Maybe it means, you know, moving away from home versus staying local and playing, let's say, like midget with your, you know, your club and, you know, not not going to junior straight away. I guess what I'm what I'm hearing you say is that thinking critically about that and understanding, being taking, getting an honest assessment of where your kid is in the mix as opposed to maybe the family thinks that junior is like the the higher end, the like the better hockey and like forcing their kid in that direction potentially or a kid, you know, wanting that more than is maybe going to help their development.
Scott:Is that kind of what I'm hearing you say in that?
Jamie:I think there's different ages. I think there's different spots where you are on the pecking order. Yeah. USA Hockey, you know, at 15 does their first national camp. I know before that, they do regional camps.
Jamie:Yeah. I think you start to get a pretty good sense at 14, 15 where you are in this whole stratosphere. And you know, if you make it to the national camp at fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen, by the way, that number turns over by 50% every year. Just because you're there at fifteen doesn't mean they're there at sixteen, doesn't mean you're there at seventeen.
jamie:Right? Interesting.
Jamie:That those are huge. And that's a little bit of a loaded statistic by the time you get to 17 because you have some players out of the marketplace because they're at the development program or they're playing junior. So there are other pieces to consider that. But if you're in that group, you're sitting there saying, okay, there's probably something here. And if you're right on the outside outskirts of that group, there's probably time to get to where you want to be.
Jamie:You're in a pretty good spot. But if you're not in that high end, high, high end player nationally in your teens, you got to jump a lot of players to get to where you want to get to by 20. And that's where you have to start making those decisions, right? And that's something that every family's got to go toward. But I think that the hard part is if you are in that top 200 or top 300 in a birth year, what decisions are you gonna make?
Jamie:And I think that every family's gotta go through that individually and answer those questions. You know, I look at the junior hockey landscape right now. There is clear cut, some great junior hockey options. I mean, I obviously came from the USHL. I mean, the USHL is harder to play in than division one college hockey.
Jamie:There's only 16 teams there. So if that's an opportunity for you, that's probably a little bit different than other junior options and following that path.
jamie:Doug, what, what does, what does the player that's in the top two or 300, what does that player look like at 15? How, how can you get a good sense of what that looks like compared to, you know, kids that aren't? Like, what what is that supposed to look like? What are the optics supposed to look like? I mean, like Obviously, every kid's different.
jamie:Right? But I'm just curious what that kid is supposed to look like. You know?
Jamie:Okay. I'll try to answer it a little bit differently. Right? If my kid is having a ton of success against pretty high level kids and is driven and is out shooting baskets for if they're a basketball player or they're shooting pucks.
jamie:Right.
Jamie:Or they're going and lifting weights. And they're doing a lot of that on their own. Not only is that the player at 15 that's gonna be good, but that's a player at 17 who's gonna be good because they're already finding that within themselves. I cringe to think that if I said to you skating, they gotta be a great skater. Well, I was six one, two ten pounds as a freshman in high school.
Jamie:I'm six five now. Right? Nobody would have ever said, oh man, that's a great skater. Know, you know, I turned like a cruise ship. So like, but I had other attributes as a player, my size and you know, my puck handling ability that allowed me to over the
jamie:course to Right.
Scott:Of
Jamie:But I was having success at young ages. I was, you know, developing as a player and I was driven and I was, you know, in a position where I cared about it and I had family support to help me care about it. So to me, what that player looks like isn't an individual on a skill. It's a package of what are they wanting to do and is this something internally they're wanting to do because somewhere between fourteen and seventeen, 18, it's gonna get hard.
jamie:So it's not necessarily a kid. So you're not necessarily equating it to points. You're talking about the overall package. What's between the kid's ears, that type of stuff. How driven is he?
jamie:That type of stuff. Also on ice. But the entire package is what you're looking at.
Jamie:Yeah. I care a lot less about points.
jamie:Right. Exactly. That's what I thought you were gonna say.
Jamie:You know, like, okay. I'll do the NHL version of this. Right? Versus the college hockey or the junior hockey one. Okay.
Jamie:Alright? I'll ask you. I'll put I'm putting you on the spot. To be a top six NHL forward? Yeah.
Jamie:What do you think that that is? Wow. In terms of numbers.
jamie:Oh, okay. We're just talking points.
Jamie:Oh, no, not points. I have a clear putt, but I'm gonna let you kind of go on that. What does that? You're trying to do the math on that. What does that look like?
Jamie:What is, when you're looking at the global marketplace to be a top six NHL forward, what does that mean? Man. Totally putting me on the spot.
jamie:Mean, you know, I mean, so, all right. So I'm not talking points at all. So, okay. So a top six forward to me, I'm sure I'm gonna screw this up, but I think a top six forward to me looks like somebody who has the grit to give all they have on every shift. Right?
jamie:Doesn't necessarily like an Andre Palat type player. Doesn't have to be, you know, putting points on the board, but just doing the little things correct that impact the game that don't show up on the score sheet.
Scott:Yeah. As a two hundred foot player.
jamie:Right. Two
Scott:hundred player that's got the details dialed in.
jamie:Right. That knows that has good hockey sense and always puts himself in the right position, whether it's offensively or defensively. Is that terrible?
Scott:And play multiple roles. That's terrible.
Jamie:I I I just asked question. I mean, I I distill it differently. I think you're in the top 200 players over the course of 10.
Scott:Oh, okay. That, oh yeah,
jamie:got it. Okay. I wasn't there. Gotcha.
Jamie:Okay. No, no. Right? So when we're talking about points, points are irrelevant in so many ways, Because as you go further up the ladder, everything becomes more specialized. You, no matter how good you are coming up, you will never take Sidney Crosby off the power play.
Jamie:It's never gonna happen unless you're Connor McDavid. Right? Right. That's probably the list. Right.
Jamie:And so therefore, to try to be thinking about developing a hockey player through skill and only skill ignores the fact that greatest access to the NHL is not being a top six forward. It's being a bottom six forward. Good on face offs, getting above pucks, skating well, being like if you are the best four checker in the New Jersey Devils organization.
jamie:Right.
Jamie:And the best face off man in the New Jersey Devils organization, That's a very finite number, and that is a tangible skill that works everywhere.
jamie:It's like the long snapper it's like the long snapper in football. Right?
Jamie:Yeah. But I mean, like, think about a best of seven playoff series. If the best person on face offs in the entire series is on your bench, not their bench, what's the value of that?
jamie:It's true.
Jamie:Every five on six, every six on five, every power play, every penalty pill kill. Yeah. You start with the puck at a disproportionate level.
jamie:Yeah. Yeah. It's true.
Jamie:So to me, when you're sitting here and you're talking about the development of your child as a hockey player, like them thinking about their ability to play at high levels through points is inaccurate because it's the same elite bar that you have to be a top six forward. At college hockey, obviously lower number, lower percentages, birth years, etcetera.
jamie:Right.
Jamie:But it's the same concept. But if you are the, a player who does the little things right and you are good offensively, can't have zero offensive ability.
jamie:Right. Right.
Jamie:You add value in a different way. And those guys carve out careers
Scott:because
Jamie:they do the right things. And therefore as a parent, and you're talking about what is gonna make you valuable to your hockey team, Let's just use offensive defense. Let's say you have two in a lineup in the NHL and you just kind of go through college hockey. Like that's really hard. Like you've narrowed your scope versus just being somebody who can do all of the right things and being in the right spot.
Jamie:That's a lot easier to focus on and to teach. And as a dad, you can sit there and watch a hockey game and pause the game and ask your son or daughter and say, what do you think about this situation? What should this player do with the puck? Why? Are they in the first fifteen seconds of their shift?
Jamie:Are they in the last fifteen seconds of their shift? Is it, is it three-two? Are you winning? Are you losing? All of those things go into what you're developing as a hockey player.
Jamie:And those are all the things that as you go up the ladder, become more and more valuable.
Scott:You know, as you're saying that, what what really I started thinking about was like, there's not many parents have that thought process. Yeah. Not at Right? And so it kind of makes me think like, who's my kid's coach? Who's my kid's coach and what are they learning from being on that team?
Scott:And so I wasn't necessarily planning on asking this, but we talked about due diligence earlier, maybe about like what path to take. But then let's even say like, you know, if I'm, you know, thinking about my kid's development, to what extent should I be thinking about who's my kid's coach? Do I move organizations because next year's coach doesn't seem to be as good as the other guys, the other team, the other organization? Should I travel a little further for a quote unquote better coach? You know?
jamie:I was gonna ask you that too. I was gonna say with your kids, what are you gonna look for in for for your kids when you put
Jamie:them into Yutaaki? I don't want them in lines. Yeah. I don't want them standing. I want them moving.
Jamie:Right. Yeah. Obviously, at different ages, different things happen. I think, like, I think he can teach to his own coverage on a basketball court. Don't think you have to waste ice guy to do that.
Jamie:I think he can do it in the I think he can do it at the parking lot of the rink.
jamie:On a on a whiteboard. Right. Standing. Oh, just literally
Jamie:on literally outside. Think you can literally put people and I stole this from the Chicago Blackhawks a few years ago. You can literally do it. They did it at the Bulls facility. You can teach D zone coverage in a basketball court.
Jamie:It's easier to talk there. Right? Players, they had their sticks. They showed where they wanted. They had them go into their spaces.
Jamie:They didn't waste any time on the ice. Right. That's great coaching. That's thinking differently about the exact same thing so you're not wasting time. So to answer your question, would I travel for my son or daughter to play with the right coach?
Jamie:A lot would depend on what am I giving up and what is the difference. Right? I went to a high school that was thirty minutes away from my house, and my coach played sixteen years in the NHL. And to this day, he was one of, if not the best coach I ever had. Lowell McDonald, his son Lane won the Hobie Baker Award at Harvard.
Jamie:The other one, played at his other son played at Colgate. So, and it was very much a reason to go to that school was to to play for him. And that was a greater sacrifice for me and my family to do that. So I think that there are times where it's worth it. But I don't think that if the margin was the coach at my local high school was the same or just a little bit below, is it worth it?
Scott:There would have to be a significant difference.
Jamie:Yeah. And you and you have to like, what are the other pieces to it? Right? Like, you going for a better coach, but a way worse team or way worse experience or parents that you just don't
Scott:No, connect there's obviously so many variables and so many things to consider. But I think the coaching piece is something that, you know, at the end of the day for families that, you know, that is not something that they have the luxury of choosing in a lot of ways. Right? Like they're, you know, the closest rank, you know, so but it just got me thinking about that. And perhaps, you know, it's something that families should give more thought to or at least do their diligence, like you said, with respect to other things before making a decision.
Scott:Because the coach at the rink, like one rink over, might be that much better where it is worth it, you know. But obviously, you have to weigh all the other things alongside of that. And, you know, one of the other things that you were talking about earlier and we're talking about family, and you had mentioned also that your family, there's, you know, between your immediate family and extended family, you have a lot of Division I athletes. And you mentioned that there were some themes there
jamie:Oh, yes.
Scott:That, that you thought would be worth talking about. If you wouldn't mind, digging into that a little bit, that would be great.
Jamie:Yeah. I mean, my brother and I both played at Union, played junior. We had the same process. We played all four years of high school in Wisconsin. Multisport athletes, then we both played junior, we both played at Union.
Jamie:My wife and her three brothers, they all played division one basketball. And, you know, they and I didn't know my wife's scenario a bit more, but she was, you know, on an AAU team on Long Island. And her dad was like, listen, if you want to be the player that you say you want to be, you know, she's a in playing varsity basketball as an eighth grader. Oh, wow. So she, you know, and you're gonna have to go, we're going to New York City and you're gonna play on, you know, the top AAU team in New York City.
Jamie:And we're gonna do that from Long Island, right? So, and that my wife, if we pull her into this conversation would say that was the most important thing for her and her development was that switch was realizing that there were players that were way better than her and that it was, it was important. The second thing that I thought her family did a really good job of in comparison with mine was they are very strategic with how they wanted their kids to what they wanted their coach to say to to schools. Their father was NYPD cop. My my father-in-law was like, if they can go to the Ivy League, they're going.
Jamie:So anytime someone's in the gym from an Ivy League school, tell them we're coming. And two of the three of them did that. And the other one went to Northwestern, which is obviously an elite school as
jamie:well. Yeah.
Jamie:So they are purposeful with the recruitment piece when they got to that level. They are purposeful and strategic with what they did. But I would say that the part that was continuous about all of it is all five of us. Like my brother and I played hockey all the time in the driveway in the basement. All the time.
Jamie:We, because that's what we wanted to do. We have family videos of my wife and her two brothers playing basketball in their driveway all the time. And that's, you know, at some point in time, things just kinda keep adding up. You know, you take enough jump shots, you shoot enough pucks, things just start coming together for you. And it doesn't have to be scripted.
Jamie:It can just be outside or on a pond or for my brother and I, it was our basement. We played it for hours. And those skills became big parts of what we were good at. And I think that that's the stuff where it doesn't always have to be organized. Sometimes it just has to be go play and have some fun.
Scott:The creative piece. Like, right. The the freedom just to do as you will and try things on and not have it like try to become a robot, so to speak, and just follow, like, the exact prescription for whatever that day's practice or whatever is.
Jamie:Yeah. Yeah. And and I don't want to like this to sound like that what we do in in youth hockey is bad. I don't think that. I think that there are fantastic triple a coaches.
Jamie:I think there are fantastic prep schools. I think there are unbelievable junior organizations. Like, I think that the the marketplace to service the top players is there. Like the opportunities are there for you. Yeah.
Jamie:The question is, what do you do to get there? And I go back to reversing it from the top of like, if this is really what your goal is, some people might say, if my goal is to play division one college hockey, my kid needs to skate this many hours. They're going to do this, this year, they're going to do this, this year, this year. Well, God forbid, what if they get a girlfriend in high school and they become less interested in hockey or whatever it is, what the passion and the energy and commitment has to be is consistent over time. That's theirs.
Scott:Right. And you take ownership for it.
Jamie:Yeah. And that doesn't mean you can't pay. That doesn't mean you can't hold them accountable. That doesn't mean you can't push them from time to time. That doesn't mean you can't be like, you know, remind them of what their goals are.
Scott:Sure.
Jamie:But at the end of the day, it will come down to them.
jamie:You know, it's funny. We we talk about pushing a bunch on this podcast. What's pushing gonna look like for you and your wife when your kids start playing sports?
Jamie:Well, we're already there. We
jamie:watched Oh, you are? Okay.
Jamie:Yeah. I watched the I watched the Olympics with my daughter, and there was a a woman who won three silver medals in the and I I wish I knew who the swimmer was. And the broadcaster said, like, what's it like to get so close? Whatever. And the one and she gave this great answer, but then she said, I'm not a quitter.
Jamie:And I just turned to my daughter, and I was like, you heard that. Right? I'm not a quitter. And we talk about it all the time. I'm not a quitter.
Jamie:I'm not a quitter. I'm not a quitter. And that's everything. That's not it has nothing to do with sports. When it's Yeah.
Jamie:Applicable But when it's applicable, you know, like just yesterday we were, you know, playing tag in the backyard and, you know, she was like running around, wasn't going well. And she's like, just storm off. I was like, you're not a quitter. Get back out here.
jamie:Right. Right.
Jamie:It's a lifestyle.
jamie:Right? Yeah.
Jamie:Correct. So that has nothing to do, like, with what them being a good athlete or sorry. Excuse me. Hockey player. But it has to do with them being a good athlete.
Jamie:And that's, like, what I'm focusing on is athletic development and the mental piece and the because that's gonna suit you far more.
jamie:So the mental piece, we also talk about a lot. What what are you gonna do with your kids as far as the mental piece goes? Because I have to tell you, a kid can have all the ability in the world. If they don't have it mentally, it everything falls apart.
Jamie:Yeah. One thing I will say, like, going back is, you know, I found with my kids at really young ages, and I think that their parents who listen to this are gonna have kids at different ages. Yeah. I do sport and listen, I'm not saying what we do is right. I wanna be very clear that there are so many parents that are phenomenal at what they do.
Jamie:This is just one parent in one random sliver of the world. This is an idea that maybe somebody likes, right? And is I do sports camp with my kids multiple times a week. And that is literally where because like right now, if we wanted to take my kids to play soccer, they're three and five, they're gonna lose interest after ten minutes. And then I'm gonna be frustrated that they're not doing soccer because we're supposed to be doing soccer right now.
Jamie:So literally, what we do is we'll, like, throw everything out. We'll have, like, a pickleball. We'll have a tennis ball. We'll have a football.
jamie:Just anything. Everything. Any sport.
Jamie:Yeah. And when they get sick of playing hockey after three minutes,
jamie:we don't have something Yeah.
Jamie:We go do something else. And then, like, you know, what was funny the other day was we were playing football in the backyard. And my daughter's, like, doing jukes, like, you know, the whole thing, the deception But it was because we eat during playing tag, which we do way too much, and my heart rate pounding. But like we talk about, like, you know, varying your speed and changing direction and doing those things. And, like, the teacher, first first of all, I'm the worst person in the world to teach that, but, like, somebody's got somebody just happens to be the one who's there, I happen to be the one who's there.
Jamie:But the but you could see how us playing tag and talking about, like, faking one way going the other way, and then we're playing football, and she's doing it. You could see just Awesome is that. It's great. Right? Yeah.
Jamie:But it's just that's now a skill whether it's basketball or hockey or whatever we're talking about. You're gonna go this way and then you're cut that way. You're gonna vary your speeds. You're gonna do different things. So that's something I do there.
jamie:Sports camp. Awesome.
Jamie:And it's just so easy. And you know what? You know the amount of times that it lasts twelve minutes and we're done with it?
jamie:I'm sure. Yeah. Because your attention spans are not much, but it doesn't matter. It'll it'll.
Jamie:And then our times are last an hour and a half, and we've played three sports. Right? Yep.
Scott:Right. Right.
Jamie:And and the other thing is is like when we go to the school playground, I'll bring a ball at all times. And sometimes it's a football, sometimes it's soccer ball, sometimes it's the basketball. And sometimes we play, sometimes we don't. But it's there if they want to do it.
jamie:Right. Right.
Jamie:So the mental piece talking about game and situation development, think goes to having conversations far more easily about other people doing it versus your kid in what breaking down video. I think breaking down video could be great. But I think it can be just as fun where, and I was saying this before, where you're watching a game, you're watching you know, here's for New Jersey. And you're sitting there and you're saying, okay. What should he be thinking in this situation?
Jamie:They're up three two with a minute left. What do you think?
jamie:I think he should be oh, I say wait stalling to waste time, but I think he should be, you know, smart with the hockey puck, not looking to turn not do not do
Jamie:anything Turn it over.
jamie:To turn it over. Correct.
Jamie:Yeah. Don't turn it over. Play behind their defenseman. Like, I mean, listen, I just need to put, you know, like
jamie:I'm stressing out.
Jamie:All of that. Right? Put put make good puck decisions. Yes. Do all the
jamie:things that
Jamie:you're supposed to do. Yeah. And if you do that, you're gonna be in a really good position to have success and understanding. And so why, and then you'd say your kid, well, why do you think that that's the case? And let them answer.
Jamie:And it could be the same thing about if you're a right wing and you're in a D zone face off, where are you going right now? Who are you covering? If you lose the face off, where do you go if you win the face off? That's things that you can do. And you don't have to do like three hour video sessions.
Jamie:It could literally be you're watching a game and you do twice during the whole game.
jamie:Right.
Jamie:Boom. Done. And you move on to something else. And like, that's the stuff where I think that there's mental development and growth that isn't just always having to be that, like, I'm sitting down in a room and breaking down film like you're Ron Jawarski. Right?
Jamie:Right. Can just be little small stuff. Right.
Scott:Yeah. And that and that makes it so much like, I guess, more like light. Like we talk about and I say, do I mean by light? Mean It's casual. The early professionalization of children is like so abundant and so common where it's just everything is so serious and parents and some coaches take it too seriously at the younger ages and lose sight of the fact that some of the stuff can be done in alternative means, like you were just saying, that it can be equally or if not more effective because you see a kid watching someone else make the mistakes and not themselves and which is harder for them to do and, you know, so on and so forth.
Scott:So
Jamie:How many times you get an email and you it's too long and you don't read it?
jamie:Right. Exactly.
Jamie:Every every single day you get an email and you're like, I'm not reading this right now.
Scott:Totally. Too many words.
jamie:Yep. Right? Too many words.
Jamie:Where well, but if you got an email that had one bullet point said Yeah. 03:00, you gotta make this phone call. Like the email you sent me, right, where we we had one email that had one, one out of the other one. But point is if we only had one, I would have gotten.
Scott:Right. But
Jamie:the point is is, like, your kid's the same thing. Right? You're like, this is the face off. Serious going, right wing's going there. Okay.
Jamie:They're they're covering the defenseman on D zone draw. Great. Okay. Done. Done.
Jamie:And that's it. And now they're marginally better just right there. It doesn't have to be over and over and over.
jamie:Right.
Jamie:And it could just be like you're watching a game at a rink and you're the next team that's up. And you're like, watch what this defenseman's doing. Watch what watch what's happening here. I think that these things are, like, just easy things for them to understand and purposeful mental pieces. And I would also say that, like, it's really good when your kid fails and has bad days.
Jamie:It's totally okay.
jamie:Absolutely. Better to do it now than when they're 19. Figure it out.
Jamie:When they're 19. I mean, the Philadelphia Phillies.
jamie:You're right. But at least they know
Jamie:how to do happen when they're at the top of the top of the top. It's gonna happen.
jamie:No question.
Jamie:So, like, insulating them from that, I don't think does them any good, and it's okay for them to go through that struggle. And it's okay for their coach
jamie:Yes.
Jamie:To be hard.
jamie:Yeah. I think a lot of parents try to insulate their kids from failing, and I don't I don't think it's helpful at all. I think you let them fail as much as humanly possible because that's where the growth comes from.
Scott:Right. That's what you learn.
Jamie:I mean, I told both of well, I told my kids' teachers. I said, you'll never hear me complain if you
jamie:push them.
Jamie:Right. Yeah. Right. And I and I mean that because I just think that people choose these professions and allocate this time for a reason. Sometimes it's money.
Jamie:They they they want a second job. But more often than not, they could have done something else to make similar amounts of money. And as a result of it, they're choosing to do this because they want to help people, and they wanna help them get better. And Right. Obviously, there's a line.
Jamie:There's plenty of stories of coaches who have gone too far. But that's the extreme minority. Let's focus on the majority who are there to try to help kids get better.
jamie:Yeah, exactly. So, all right. So I'm going to go in a different direction now because I have a so the ECAC has some of the oldest rinks, I'm pretty sure, in old college hockey. So my question for you is, which one is your favorite and why?
Jamie:Jeez. Put me in a hard spot there.
jamie:You guys have a lot of really old I mean, I'm pretty sure that you have, like, six or seven that are, like, top ten, fifteen in all of The United States that are I'm talking, like,
Jamie:you
jamie:guys
Jamie:have
jamie:some heavy duty rinks. I mean, Yale, Princeton, RPI. I mean, you guys have some some impressive buildings. You know,
Jamie:the one that's most unique is Saint Lawrence. Saint Lawrence is the most unique. Okay. You there's Hockey Baker's unique. Yeah.
Jamie:The whale is unique at Yale.
jamie:Oh, the whale is so cool.
Jamie:Lina is fantastic. I mean, you go through our whole league, our whole league's full of it.
jamie:You guys have everything
Jamie:you about, you know, when you think old school hockey, Saint Lawrence's rank is really, really great. And, you know, there's different pieces of different ranks that I would probably take over one over the other. But I think Oh, that's interesting. You know, but I think that, you know, when you go into Saint Lawrence, it's got the wooden seats and they're all benches and, you know, the dark wood and all that stuff. It fits really well with their campus.
Jamie:It fits really well with their program. And so it's a pretty fun, unique place to play in. You know, I had the fortune of, or misfortune, I should say, of playing in two playoff series is there. As there and did not go well, ended our season both times.
Scott:Oh, no.
Jamie:But it was a fun atmosphere to play into. Yeah. And so I think that, that's what makes it unique. And, you know, again, you just kinda keep going through it. I mean, Union just got a new building.
Jamie:Colgate's got a new building. I mean, they're just they're different things, but that historic piece is pretty good. Now Matthews Arena, I think this is the last year for Northeastern for their new build or for their building before they
jamie:Oh, it is.
Jamie:So that's a 100 plus year old building.
jamie:So So then RPI's gonna
Jamie:be That's obviously not us.
jamie:Yeah. Right. Then RPI's gonna be the oldest, because I'm pretty sure that theirs is older than RPI. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I know that
Jamie:I don't know. I don't know what that feels like. We need some listener to to comment in the chat.
jamie:To comment about that. Yes. Alright. No. That's good answer.
Scott:Alright. Another another question, not not about, college hockey, getting back to, like, your career and one of the standouts for it was the Danbury trashers. I saw that you had a season there. What what is your top Danbury trashers story?
jamie:That must have been an experience. I mean, my goodness.
Jamie:Yeah. I mean, was. I I would say a few things. Number one, when I first heard that they were doing a documentary, I asked how many parts. And I know it was just the one.
Jamie:Yeah. Could it could have been thousand? It it could have been yeah. Could have been however many episodes you wanted.
Scott:Right.
Jamie:The one thing I'd say about the Galante family is they treated us players so well. They I mean, they really gave us everything. I mean, it really was not an inaccurate portrayal of how the team was. I think the thing that just, like, stands out to me was just the characters that we had. And, like, every single day was something different.
Jamie:And, like, my best stories I can't use on here, but they were like it was just every day there was something different. But I will just say that, like, for me, my time there was good. I will say as a player, it was the it was the best team I was on, and it should have won a championship. Like, we should have won and we didn't. Not Amos Falls, was just hockey.
Jamie:Right? We we really good team. But like, you know, in the history of hockey, we had more penalty minutes than any team that had ever played. That's like a that's a really hard stat to beat.
jamie:I guess it is.
Jamie:And I don't think it you know, that's kinda like, 56 games. I don't know if that gets beat, but it it was I had some great teammates. We were treated really, really well. We won a lot of hockey games. It was unconventional in a lot of different ways.
Jamie:But I mean, I was I mean, I'm six foot five. I was probably like the eleventh or twelfth toughest guy in the team. Really? You know, there's the one story I will say is my roommate who's now passed, a guy by the name of Jerry Hockey. So before the game, he'd go to the opposing tough guy and say, like, you're gonna have to you're gonna have to fight tonight.
Jamie:You can either fight me or you can fight somebody who's got a nickname. Like Frank the animal by the way. I mean, just and he would start listing, the nicknames of the guys that on our team, and he was pretty successful at the other guy choosing him over the rest over the over the That's crazy. He's like, beating
jamie:him in to fight him. I love it.
Jamie:Yeah. Yeah. He's like, listen, you're gonna have to. You may as well, like, you're I'm your best option.
Scott:Right. So That's great.
Jamie:Choose me. So that was I always found that which would be pretty funny. But it was a it was quite a quite a year.
Scott:That's amazing. What a story. I mean, just wow. Just wow. Alright.
Scott:And, you know, we're we're kind of close to time and I think we should wrap it up. But one of the things I wanted to ask is in terms of either as a player or a coach, or maybe you want to answer it for both, but like if you reflect on all the things, like in terms of any mistakes that you've made, what stand out to you as something that you would do differently as either a player or potentially as a coach that you think would have been better, you know, like served you better in your career?
Jamie:As a player, there's probably two examples. And one is people are gonna sit there and say, well, that's a little bit hypocritical based upon some of the things I said earlier. But, you know, the best one of the best life decisions I ever made was staying my senior year of high school. It was also probably the worst hockey decision. I got myself I was six foot five.
Jamie:I was a a college football recruit too. I loved football. I loved my high school. You know, I'd made it to the as a 16 year old to the top 68 players in the country and as a 17 year old to the top 200. And and I was, you know, in my high school wasn't, you know, we were powerhouse by Wisconsin standards, but we weren't, I was probably ready for the next level.
Jamie:And I think I never dreamt in a million years I was going be a pro hockey player. I never dreamt that that wasn't my what I was thinking about at all. It's just playing hockey and then enjoyed it. But I think in retrospect, had I known that I was gonna go on and play pro hockey, that that would have been a beneficial year of my development that I didn't maximize. Interesting.
Jamie:So I think that that's, you know, we go back to at what point in time do you make decisions? But keep in mind, I said it was one of the best life decisions I ever made. Right. It was one of the worst hockey decisions. So I think that that's applicable.
Jamie:I would say from a coaching point of view, I think you run a couple different races and sometimes it you just trying to get yourself out of day to day survival and thinking about the bigger picture. And at the end of the day, it's not about you. You get it takes a while to get there, especially at higher levels. And I I would say that that's probably something where recognizing every team is different. Every team has got a different path.
Jamie:And the quicker you figure out what that team's path is gonna be, the better off you're gonna be. And I I use the analogy when I coach that every season's a human life. You have a birth and a death. You just don't know when it's gonna happen. You don't know what's gonna happen in the middle.
Jamie:Trying to recognize what those are gonna be, those moments are gonna be. Yeah. And what and understanding that each team's different. Yeah. And I I guess the final piece as a player I would say is just understanding how much taking care of your body off the ice is imperative to success.
Jamie:Rest, stretching, all of those different things. It's it it it's not just shooting pucks. It's not just going to a skating instructor. It's it's it's all of those pieces come into performance.
jamie:Yeah. Wow. Awesome. This was fantastic.
Scott:Thank you so much. This was such a wealth of information.
jamie:Yes. We're gonna have to have you on again. This was wonderful. Thank you so much.
Jamie:I I I'd be happy to do it. And, you know, I think I I really will say that I think what you and, you know, groups like the the Hockey Think Tank and that that talk about the path and development and try to educate parents, I think, really important. And it's a great game. And I'll end with by saying, you know, ninety three percent of players who play Division one college hockey in the men's side graduate. Ninety eight percent of the women graduate.
Jamie:It's the sacrifices that parents make that when at the end of the day, all is said and done, has done a great job developing good people.
Scott:Yes.
Jamie:And that's going to continue. Just recognizing that the light at the end of the tunnel is there and it's gonna be really good. It's just a matter of ensuring that you enjoy that journey and so does your kid. Cause if you do that, the the the rewards are there. It's a win.
jamie:Very well said.
Scott:Awesome. It's a win
Jamie:for everyone. So Yes. Thank you guys. I appreciate it. Have a great weekend.
Jamie:Guys, Doug.
jamie:Thank you so Take care. And we are back from an awesome interview with Doug Christiansen. I mean
Scott:Yeah.
jamie:Need I say more?
Scott:No. No. I thought I thought the there are a few things that stuck out. Well, a lot did, but like the the part when, you know, we were talking about the backwards engineering, you know, you know, and staying like, okay, there's, like, 60 d one teams and, like, about 10 kids per season, you know, join each team and, like, half will be Canadians. So you're,
jamie:like, a top
Scott:300. But then the part when he went on to say, he's like,
jamie:but if
Scott:you don't get good grades
jamie:Yeah. He's like, you limit your teammate teams limited to
Scott:Like 45.
jamie:45. Yeah. And then That's crazy, dude.
Scott:So for like, you want to cast the widest net possible. I think those were his words also.
jamie:Yes.
Scott:And it's like, okay, if your kids aren't getting good grades, it's even that much harder. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, just wow. Right?
jamie:Yeah. Yeah. No, he's an, he's an impressive dude. No, for sure. I have a feeling, this was another level interview from a guy who who just thinks the game differently.
jamie:You know what I mean? Yeah. It's impressive to listen. We have to have him on again. It was he's he's he's a special dude.
jamie:You know, this was cool.
Scott:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. Yeah.
Scott:So that was a that was awesome having him on. Just trying to think what a
jamie:Yeah. Thank you so much to Doug for coming on and thank you, Rachel, for making it happen.
Scott:Yeah. Yeah. No, that was great. Shoot, there was, oh man, the The trashers? Oh, the trash.
Scott:Yes. Thank you. Duh. That's that's where I'm blanking. Like, can you believe you played for the trashers?
Scott:Like, sick is that?
jamie:Dude, that story about him when he was in the trashers. He's like, yeah. He's like, it's probably one of the only stories I can tell. It's, it's it's, you know, the other ones are probably not exactly appropriate for our show.
Jamie:But
jamie:that's exactly saints here, you know? So you can imagine what those stories are like.
Scott:Yeah. Playing for the trashers. Yeah. That's like on what a story. So we we went through this the other day, what it's, untold.
Scott:The Netflix special is untold.
jamie:Yes. Yes.
Jamie:If you
jamie:wanted to say true crime, it's untold. You're absolutely
Scott:right. Yeah. Check it out.
jamie:If you if Crime and penalties?
Scott:Something like Yeah. But anyone that is not familiar with the Danbury trashers with a t, trash, like garbage.
jamie:Like, look at kid playing like trash. Right.
Scott:I bet you've never said that before.
jamie:Never.
Scott:Never. Not once. But look up the the Netflix special.
jamie:Not my kid like that?
Scott:And and what? No. Never. Not once. Not once.
Scott:Yeah. No, you're a saint. Yeah. Never. But don't keep You won't be disappointed.
Scott:It's a phenomenal documentary. And then once you know that Doug that Doug played for them, you're gonna be like, wow, that is
jamie:He said he didn't he say he was on the promo for it? What did he say?
Scott:I think for like a hot second.
jamie:Yeah. Yeah. It's it. And he said they could do like multiple episodes of that. Like he, they could have kept on going with the amount of content they had from that.
Scott:Oh, for sure.
jamie:I mean, yeah, you guys want see a good hockey documentary?
Scott:Watch that one. It's also very different.
jamie:Crime and penalties, untold Netflix. Wow.
Scott:Just
jamie:wow. I think I was telling you, have a, I know a hockey dad who played on the trashers team, and I forgot to ask Doug if he knows him. Was a mistake by
Scott:me. Did you ask him if he knows Doug?
jamie:I didn't.
Scott:I didn't So you can.
jamie:Yeah. I I would think they probably do know each other. That's my guess.
Scott:I don't think Doug only played there one season. But if they didn't, who knows?
jamie:Yeah. I have a funny feeling that they would know each other. Yeah. And I totally forgot that. That was my fault.
Scott:You know, and something else that, you know, listening to other podcasts, you hear a lot of people talk about, like making sure that kids have passion for the game. Yeah. And and while I've heard it before, hearing him say it in the way that he did when he said, if like that your kid doesn't love the game, if he's not passionate about it. And for him playing hockey, practicing, it was like it wasn't work. Like you hear like Greski say the same things.
Scott:Lot of like super nice. Like, it's not it's not practice. How is it practice when you're just like it's what you love to do. Yeah. And it was the same for Doug.
Scott:But when he was saying that, like, if your kid doesn't love it, like, hockey is gonna get hard. Right? It's gonna get hard at some
Jamie:the point. Interview.
Scott:Yeah. If your kid doesn't love it, the price of admission to keep going just gets really high. And to keep on going, it gets tough, if not impossible for some kids if they don't love what they're, you know, love doing it.
Jamie:If you
jamie:love it, you won't have a problem doing the hard. If you don't love it, he was saying you're going have a problem when you get older.
Scott:Yeah. I mean, it's a grind.
jamie:It is. Yeah.
Scott:So, you know, just hearing him say it, like, just like when specifically the part about like the price of admission, like when things get tough, I was like, yeah, that that just like really resonated. So,
jamie:yeah, he's a wealth of knowledge, man. He is. He's, that was a special interview. I would like to have him on again, multiple times. Unfortunately, he's a pretty busy guy.
jamie:You know, but, you know, and we have to take him up, Scott, on his, on his offer for us to go up to Lake Placid.
Scott:Oh, we'll go.
jamie:I mean, how could we not do that?
Scott:Yeah. No. That's that would be amazing. And you went. You went.
Scott:You went there when? Last year or two years
Jamie:ago?
jamie:Two I years went to ECAC men's ECAC championship. And it's funny because I think he was telling us before we got started interviewing him that they just moved the women's there.
Scott:Oh, that's right.
jamie:Which is cool. He said it was on campus before that. Right?
Scott:Right.
jamie:It was on the high, the top seat campus. So now they have the men's and women's.
Scott:Yeah. So a lot more going on. A lot more hockey.
jamie:Championship, you know, up in Lake Placid at We Herb Brooks were there two years ago. Phenomenal, phenomenal place to go watch hockey. If you love like college hockey or talking in general, and you want to take your family someplace cool for hockey weekend. It is awesome. I mean, it's such a cool place to go.
jamie:It's a magical place. If you like to give everybody's hockey,
Scott:You know?
jamie:Yeah, so we have to take Doug invited us to go broadcast from the ECAC conference tournament. Let's do it. We're in. Percent. Already talked Lock it in.
jamie:Right. Can't let that opportunity go by.
Scott:No. No. No. Not at all. A 100% will be there.
jamie:That'd be awesome.
Scott:I'm looking forward. Else? Thank other housekeeping things before we wrap this one up?
jamie:Housekeeping. We haven't done geography in a while, right?
Scott:Yeah. We can do that next time.
jamie:We can.
Scott:But but but to that end, we can also just say thank you to all of our new listeners. We know that they're they're sprouting up abroad.
jamie:Yes. Are.
Scott:A lot. So that's that's amazing. Well, So shout out to all of you that are just listening for the first time, second time. Thank you so much for tuning in. That's amazing.
jamie:You're listening. Yeah.
Scott:So that's good. And then, listener write in. We'll do maybe we have a couple in the hopper. We'll do that next episode perhaps.
jamie:Okay. We can. Yeah.
Scott:Definitely. So we can do that. Yeah, I think that's it, man.
jamie:All right. I hope everybody enjoyed today's interview. I know I did.
Scott:Yeah. Likewise.
jamie:It was awesome.
Scott:Good stuff.
jamie:Good stuff, So Yeah. I really appreciate that. And we have some really cool things coming on the on the horizon here like interview wise, we have some really cool stuff for you guys. So stay tuned because Oh, my goodness gracious. The content that we have is where this where this podcast is going is is very cool.
Scott:Yeah, dude. We're meeting a lot of great people. Yeah, learning a ton of great stuff. So everyone enjoy
jamie:so much info.
Scott:Yeah. Yeah. Thirty six is in the books, my man.
jamie:Thirty six. All right, buddy. Sounds good. I'll see you for thirty seven homeboy.
Scott:That's it. Take it easy.
jamie:See you later.