Otto: Welcome back everybody to the Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast Episode 45, the unfiltered podcast for hockey parents. No politics, no sugarcoating, just real hockey, just real just real talk for the hockey parents in the trenches.
Jamie: Very well done, buddy. Very well done. Nice dude. Very well done. And if you guys didn't know, that was Scott's son, Otto, the all star.
Yeah. Yeah.
Scott: Alright, dude. So what so this morning well, first off, James, good to see you again.
Jamie: Likewise, Thanks for swinging by. Yeah. Hope so.
Scott: Otto, good job on the introduction.
Speaker 4: Yes. I'm sure it'll be the
Scott: first of many. You'll you'll that dialed in, no doubt.
Jamie: Oh,
Scott: yes. But why don't you just take a moment to say hi to everyone. And what did you get up to this morning, dude?
Otto: So this morning, I well, not this morning, but a little while back, I was invited to the Ah F? Ah Ah All Star Game. And it was this morning. And I scored a nasty goal.
Jamie: Yeah, you did.
Otto: I think it's going to be on the Instagram, you guys should watch that. Yeah, it was really fun. I got to play with all the best kids in the league.
Jamie: Did we put it on our story? Is that there? Is his goal on our story?
Scott: I don't know if it's there yet, but maybe we'll put it up there. Are some of the teams that you got to play with?
Otto: I got to play with Who
Scott: were players? What teams did they play for?
Otto: Well, were no kids on Avs, which are one of the best teams in the league. But there were like Delaware Ducks, Holly Dell Hurricanes, Jets Wait, who else? I think those are mostly kids that were like, on my team.
Jamie: Sweet.
Otto: There were a bunch of kids from Delaware Ducks.
Jamie: You made a buddy from the Delaware Ducks, right? Yeah. Nice. It's cool. Those games are awesome for that.
Scott: Know. For like hanging out. It's really cool to see
Jamie: Yeah, meeting people.
Scott: Right. And so when we got back from the game, Otto was already on a call with
Jamie: Oh, how funny.
Scott: Kids from the Ducks. Waste no time. Waste no time. I mean, that's one of the cool I don't know how likely it is they'll stay in touch. But you never know when you're gonna cross
Jamie: paths They start following each other on Instagram, and that happens all the time. That's the cool part about this All
Scott: right, Otto, so this is your first time on the pod. What do you think about us doing a podcast about hockey? What do you think?
Otto: I mean, I think it's cool. I think when it gets more big and then lots of people know, I think it will be better. I think Jamie got at the Red Bank game. He got noticed and people wanted to shake his hands. So hopefully he felt pretty good after that.
Jamie: So embarrassing. Yes. How did you know that? Oh, were you in a car when I told your dad?
Otto: No. I was just I my mom took me. Oh. Oh. I I think my I think you told my dad and then my mom.
Jamie: I gotcha. I gotcha. Yeah. That was yesterday.
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: You guys were there, like, two hours before us. Right?
Otto: Yeah. We won in overtime. One of my teammates got tripped up and penalty shot in overtime, and we won.
Jamie: What was his move in did he did he pull, like, the Dadsuk? And and
Otto: Forehand, backhand, but the goalie totally bit, so he had the hole.
Jamie: Did? I see the whole net to, to play around with. Nice. How'd you play yesterday?
Otto: I played good. I had I had a I think it was the tying goal to tie at seven seven.
Jamie: Sweet.
Otto: Yeah. Then I played in overtime, but
Jamie: Yeah? It was Getting shots off in OT? Yeah. Nice. Okay.
Otto: We had two on one in OT, but it didn't go.
Jamie: Did you? Was it like a one timer, like a saucer for like one two? What was it?
Otto: I took it wide, and then I tried to pass for my teammate in the middle, but it didn't go through. It just slid across the crease. I had two wraparound chances during the game, though.
Jamie: Nice.
Otto: Got denied on both.
Jamie: All right.
Scott: What about your penalty? Oh.
Jamie: Nice, dad.
Otto: So I of hit a kid because he was kind being annoying. Oh. And then, like, when he was down, I said, you're fine. Just get up. And then I went to the
Jamie: And then you went to the What'd you get called for? Like, a roughing?
Otto: No. Body check.
Jamie: Oh. Even better. Nice. All right. So let's see.
You've had an eventful forty eight hours, right? Game down, an OT game, and then Yeah. An All Star game this It's exciting.
Otto: All fun.
Jamie: It's great, man. How do you think the season is going so far?
Otto: Not good.
Speaker 4: Why not?
Otto: Because we're, like, seventeenth in the league.
Jamie: Okay. Alright. So alright. So let me ask you this. How so you're gonna play on teams that sometimes are different levels.
Right?
Otto: Yeah.
Jamie: So but you as an individual, how are you playing?
Otto: Very good.
Jamie: You're playing very good. Right. Yeah? All right.
Otto: Well, I have so much more time and space compared to last year. And it's just, I guess, easier is a word to use. Yeah.
Jamie: So think there's a lot more time and space now that you're on AA as opposed to AAA?
Otto: And my lineman's really good. Usually how I score all my goals is it's well, our left winger, it's a good breakout. And then we can move real fast. We just go down two on one. He feeds me a puck.
And I just beat the goalie on that side
Jamie: of it. So you guys play well together.
Otto: Yeah.
Jamie: That's pretty cool, isn't it? You know? That's good. Yeah.
Scott: All right. So I got a question for you. So Jamie and I, when we talk about the weekend and our kids playing, we're often sitting here saying to each other, I need more effort from my kid. My kid needs to skate harder, needs to skate faster. Do you think that we're out of our mind?
Do you think that we're just too hard on you guys? Or what do you think about when we're telling you things like that?
Otto: If it's I know I did bad, then yeah. But when you leave the rink during practice, that's a little
Jamie: Oh, you don't like when You know, it's funny you say that. So you don't like when dad leaves the rink during practice. You know, it's funny, Otto, because I have done the same thing to Dominic. I'm trying to stay in the rink, and I have actually, last weekend, I stayed in the rink.
Otto: Congrats.
Jamie: Thank you. Biting my bottom lip, but I stayed in. I did. I stayed in. So we normally tell dads that have a tough time with that to remove yourself if you were screaming at your kid on the ice.
Right?
Otto: That's during practice?
Jamie: Or game.
Otto: Oh, okay. Well game is more understandable, but during practice then you should definitely leave.
Jamie: Listen. Now your dad has mentioned to me a couple of times that you like when your dad watches you practice.
Otto: Yeah.
Jamie: You like that, What do you like about it?
Otto: I mean, like, I like I don't know. I feel like it's good to have well, if he leaves, like, he'll leave, like, in the beginning of practice and then, like, there's nothing to talk about in the car ride home. It's just well, so,
Jamie: So what'd you do today at school?
Otto: And then I think when we watch, we can go over all the good stuff and the bad stuff, not just when he doesn't watch. And then I ask, why'd you leave and where were you?
Jamie: Interesting.
Scott: So Otto has said this to me before. He said it to me. He's like, he said he wants me to watch.
Jamie: Yeah. I've heard you say it a couple times.
Scott: Yeah. Yeah. No. And what I think is interesting about practice, you know, and quite honestly, there's certainly times when I have to step out to take care of some work stuff.
Jamie: Sure,
Scott: of And for Ottawa, been different because I coach for a while. And so I always
Jamie: You were always there.
Scott: I was always there. Last season, I would do work sometimes while he was practicing. Sure. But they had a cafe that overlooked the rink. So sometimes I would go up But I think that this season, it's not the same kind of setup.
You know, it's interesting And to hear his perspective. Because like sometimes Yeah. Like when when I'm watching, you know, look, it's it's not even necessarily about you when I see you doing stuff out there. Sometimes it's like, you know, the team The team. The the team or or yeah, like, you know, it it could be a bunch of things.
And so, you know, I I think sometimes it's hard for parents to to sit to to watch when they expect more. But parents also don't always have realistic expectations. And so True. It's not always a it doesn't always mean that you or your team is doing bad. A lot of times, it just has to do with me as a parent, like, just taking care of myself and just being like, listen, whatever for whatever reason, I'm I'm annoyed, I'm just gonna go step out and grab a cup of coffee.
Jamie: It happens. Parents get annoyed with kids. It's pretty normal.
Scott: Yeah. But I appreciate that feedback. Else do you think us parents get wrong when we So talk to you mentioned the car ride home. What's the car ride home been like for you?
Otto: Well, it's a lot shorter than last year because last year we had to drive like hour fifteen really far. I feel like, wait, what was the question again?
Jamie: Car ride home.
Otto: Oh, I feel like, usually during practice, while on the car ride home, it's more just like, how do you think you did? What do you think you could have done better? And
Jamie: Okay. Yeah. Constructive. Yeah. Right?
You like that? You like having those conversations with It
Otto: Depends on if I know I did good or if I know I did better.
Jamie: Ah, sounds like my child.
Otto: If I know I did good during practice, then I'll be open talking to you.
Jamie: Isn't it funny how that is?
Otto: And like the sick kids are talking to me, I'll kinda just like look at
Jamie: them and just ignore you. Yes. Yeah.
Scott: So so just so the car ride home is a big talk topic for parents. So question for you is, obviously, you're more open to talking about things when you know you played well or you had a, like, whenever you're happy about it. But when it comes to giving, like because not everything is good. There's plenty of op there's learning moments all the time when you're playing the game. So when when I bring up or your mom brings up talking about things where you have an opportunity to improve, is that something that it's like, you don't like talking about?
You're open to it? Do we do a bad job of, like, bringing that up to you? Like, what what How does that feel when we talked about things you could work on?
Otto: Well, it's like if you're coming to me and it's like, let's say we have a game, I do get some points, then when you come to talk to me, I know he's gonna make sure to go over the good stuff and then then go over this stuff that we can, like when we watch film upstairs. But I feel like sometimes I like it and sometimes I don't. It's kind of just like
Scott: Interesting. And is that because of the way I'm talking to you? Or is it more about the way you
Jamie: just Or just feel your mood.
Scott: The way you feel about
Jamie: things Sometimes
Otto: it's each.
Jamie: Sometimes it can be both?
Otto: Yeah. Okay.
Scott: So here's your opportunity. What can I do better as a hockey dad that would maybe make things I don't want to say easier, because I'm not trying to make things easier for you? But make our conversations more I
Otto: feel like, well I know your job's further away now, but we haven't gone over video in a while. I feel like when we go over video, then when we have talks, we've already gone over it, and so we know what we're gonna talk about, and we know what I need to do better. And yeah, that's probably it.
Scott: So something that I could do better is go over video with you more?
Speaker 4: Is
Scott: that So what you're that when we talk about things from games or whatever, you've already watched it and you've seen it?
Jamie: Yeah. You like doing video with your dad?
Otto: Yeah, it's fun.
Jamie: Yeah? That's cool. Because he's a key coach, so he actually knows what he's talking about. I have no idea what I'm talking about, so I defer to Alec Marsh. Marsh works with Dominic.
Scott: So listen, I will make a promise to you to watch more video. And I will say this though, part of watching video, know in the beginning when we first started doing it, I think it's harder for kids when they're younger to watch when they're not doing great, or it's harder to watch yourself. It sounds like you're more open to it now. And I've intentionally not pushed it on you because I want you to think that I'm just trying to be all hockey all the time. But we can certainly do it more if that's something that you would like.
But when we do it, can we talk about the things where you have an opportunity to improve as well as the things that you're doing really well?
Otto: Yeah.
Jamie: Fair?
Otto: Fair.
Jamie: That's fair.
Scott: All right. Cool. That's So
Speaker 4: I have
Jamie: a good question for you. I'll do a little lighter question. So you're coming down on like a one on one. What's your go to move to beat the defender?
Otto: I don't know if we can it's probably how I scored my goal in
Jamie: the online Okay.
Otto: So it's like, pull in, push out, and have his stick out of his mind, and pull up, through his stick, go and around.
Speaker 4: Like put it under
Jamie: his stick?
Otto: That's how I scored my goal.
Speaker 4: And you
Jamie: windmill your stick over his stick and you catch the puck on the other side? That's how you scored this morning.
Otto: And there was another guy behind me pressuring me.
Jamie: I saw that. Was pretty impressive, man. Pretty nice goal. You should feel good about that.
Otto: I do.
Jamie: It was a doozy. It was definitely a doozy. Was that the first goal of the game for your team? First.
Otto: And last.
Jamie: Okay. Alright. So the the end result was not the greatest, but individually, were you happy with how you played?
Otto: Yeah. It was fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah. Nice.
Otto: I like, like, playing with more I like I don't know how to say it. Playing with more not more skill, but playing with more I know the people out there. I know that they're all better. That's why they're there. So I feel like I felt more confident in making passes and knowing that they can get it That
Jamie: they in can catch more areas. Yes. So I have another question for you. So when Scott and I first started this, we figured that you and Dominic would listen to this from time to time. Right?
Otto: I did.
Jamie: And you do, right?
Otto: No, I don't.
Speaker 4: You
Otto: don't? I did. It was one card, I listened to three of them. Haven't listened to one since episode eleven, twelve.
Jamie: Oh, so you've missed all the good ones. Okay. Alright, so my question for you is
Otto: I haven't listened to any interviews yet.
Jamie: You haven't? No. You've to get on that, buddy. They're getting really good, by the way. They're getting really good.
So my question to you is, do you have a problem with and I'm gonna ask Dominic the same question. How do you feel about your dad and I talking about like you, Dominic, how you did what you guys do good, what you guys do badly? How do you guys feel about that? Does it I bother like it,
Otto: I also don't like it because like I don't want people to get the idea that, like, oh, they're here just to talk bad about their kids and, like, see what always talk, like, what they did wrong, I guess. I had something like that.
Jamie: I I understand what you're saying. We definitely don't talk. We we go we we do mostly good. When you say, Scott, like, we we talk about things. It's basically it's more us.
Scott: Yeah. So so I I would say that we we look, everything else in life, there's, you know, there's good and there's bad. Yes. And, like, we I think we're pretty good at making sure to call out when our kids do things good. And also call out when we see things where there's an opportunity for improvement.
And part of us doing this, Otto, is less about you and Dom. You guys can be the subject sometimes, but it's more about how as a parent it makes us feel watching our kids. When we so and
Jamie: Right.
Otto: When we do so
Jamie: and so so. Is what you're Right, yes. Because I'm sure there's other hockey dads out there whose children are doing the things that you and Dominic are doing, and we're trying to get them maybe to react in a better, more positive way to those things. Yeah. Because everybody's seeing the same stuff.
Otto: Yeah. Right? Instead of like, after a game, just waiting in the car and the second they get in, just like, screaming at them.
Jamie: Right. Don't wanna do that.
Scott: Wait. But do I do that?
Otto: You used to.
Scott: I used to. Did I do it a lot?
Jamie: Used to. Not really. I used to too.
Otto: You stopped like not too long. Like you did in the beginning of the season this year a little bit. Now you stopped.
Scott: So basically the podcast Is working. Has has reformed my behavior?
Otto: Yeah. Yeah.
Scott: Yeah. And is that good?
Otto: Yeah.
Scott: Yeah. All right. So I'm going in the right direction.
Jamie: Yeah? Which is exactly why we started this thing.
Scott: Exactly. So it's kid approved.
Jamie: I was just going say this is working.
Scott: Kid approved.
Jamie: Because I have totally I think your dad and I have totally revamped the way that we deal with both of you guys. And look at this. And I have to tell you, Otto, you said you haven't been listening to the interviews. The interviews and Scott, you tell me, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but the interviews, in my opinion, have helped me tremendously. Right?
With how to deal with you guys.
Otto: By like, like it helps you, like, not learning, but hearing what
Jamie: Kind of,
Otto: yeah. Hearing what the people who are doing good at
Jamie: it Correct. 100%, buddy.
Scott: Yes. So, you know, if you decide to listen to some of the interviews, what you'll hear is a reoccurring theme.
Jamie: Similar theme. Which is
Scott: the most important thing that for kids is to make sure they're having fun. Because if you're not having fun, that at when things get hard and inevitably it's gonna get hard, you're gonna get, you know, not you necessarily, but a kid's gonna get cut from a team.
Jamie: Doug Christianson.
Scott: Like a kid's going to not get as much ice time. He's gonna get moved off the power play. Yeah. So you get less ice time, for example. So when it gets hard, if you don't really love the game or, like, you know, have fun out there, like, why would you wanna go back?
Right. So so it's a as far as, like, you know, what we're trying to do and what people say, you know, many of our guests, is that really try to ensure that your kids develop a passion for the game so that they always wanna keep coming back. And if you have a parent that's just screaming at your kid in the car or whatever, at some point the kid's gonna be like, what am I doing this for? This isn't any fun. Yeah.
Otto: That's what happened to me last year. So I don't know if you said, but last year I played on a really elite triple a team. And like I wasn't really getting the playing time like, not that I wanted but I wasn't getting much playing time and like then after like a practice where like I had a new gun or I got yelled at, then like getting into the car and like I don't want to hear it and it's like yeah, well, maybe that's why I'm not and that's why I think I took a break from AAA.
Jamie: Makes sense. I think we were in a very similar situation while we took a break from AAA. Right?
Scott: Yeah. And I think part of it's also the it's twofold. Because on one end, the coach that Otto had last year, he could be great, but he could also be pretty hard And on the he didn't hold back. He held back for some. In my opinion, I think that there were they would play favorites sometimes.
There were certain kids that were immune or would never get yelled at. But other kids would get yelled at more easily. Yeah, I can imagine. And so it graded on him. I think by the end of it, was like, this is no fun.
And then as far as so that's on the ice and at games. Then I come to him with something and be like, dude, what's going on here? It's like a double wham.
Jamie: It piles on. Yeah. I was doing the same thing.
Scott: Yeah. And Otto, there was a point where you were you had a lot of questions about what you were doing about hockey at the end of last season. And I think this was the best move to play tier two.
Jamie: Agreed.
Scott: And not that you're having Well, let me ask you this. Are you having more fun this season?
Otto: Yeah. Because I'm scoring every game.
Scott: Wait. So that's the only reason why you're having fun?
Otto: No. It's fun because, well, let's say, well, I played, like, in yesterday's game, like, it went to overtime, and I, like, played the whole overtime until I got tripped.
Jamie: So you get a lot of ice cream.
Otto: Teammate got tripped at, like, forty five seconds left, so I played two minutes and fifteen seconds of overtime. And like, I feel like if I was on, like last year, I probably, like close to the end of that game, I probably wouldn't have played like the last six minutes including overtime. Like they've only they would've just cut lines and then they would've because like it was a tied game. Like it was like back and forth. At some point they were up two and then we scored.
And then I scored to tie it and then yeah, like that wouldn't have happened.
Jamie: So you liked the playing time. You liked the time on the ice. Yeah.
Scott: Yeah. Yeah. And and and so I I think this was like a great move for us for a few reasons. One, he's having more fun. He's getting more ice time.
It's a closer commute. Yeah. And and, you know, there's a lot of parents out there, Otto, that like don't like, they just all they care about is their kid playing like triple a. Triple a. It's gotta be triple a or nothing.
And what what do think about?
Otto: It's not the right priority.
Jamie: That's
Scott: right. It's not the right priority. But listen, every kid like every kid's different. There are probably kids that like respond to criticism differently and maybe like are okay with it. Maybe Yeah.
So there's some kids that might like not get not play for the last six minutes and that's that's like fuel to their fire. I'm gonna I'm You know, it gets them all pumped up. I'm gonna prove them wrong. I'm gonna do whatever I can and at some point Well, go ahead.
Otto: Like, my dad happened, like, it was me and one other kid that we didn't get played, and, like, it was just like, he's like, he was like, like, really, really short. Like, he would like, it was like he would like not play, and then like, the second he gets out, he wouldn't stop moving. Keep going, keep going, keep going.
Jamie: This was last year, right?
Otto: Yeah.
Scott: Yeah. So anyway, I'm glad to hear that you're having fun this season. Yeah, that's important. And then you're getting more ice time. So with more ice time, you're also getting more puck touches.
You're in different situations. You have more time and space.
Jamie: Yeah, you're learning.
Scott: You're being a bit more creative. So overall, do you like playing against competition that maybe isn't as skilled? Right? Tier two, you're not playing as against as many good teams, as many great players. Do you feel that if you it's you would be learning more if you were still on a better team with less playing time or this situation, like, your your skills, you're learning more?
Otto: I think I'm learning more this year in different ways. Like, I'm learning like like now I know, like, let's say let's say for triple a, if like if I play triple a right like at the end of the season, next year, I'll know what to do if I have time and space, and what to do with the puck, where people are going to be, and all that.
Jamie: Maybe more confident, too?
Otto: Yeah, definitely more confident.
Scott: Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing is the more confidence because Huge. Look, you go into a situation even next year or I don't know about next year. We don't know about next year. But if you were playing AAA, you're going to have less time and space. And the thinking is that with more confidence, you're not going to necessarily get rid of the puck so quickly.
Or you're going to hang on to it, make a move, get your head up, and not make a play as opposed to when you have less confidence, maybe you want to get rid of the puck Get nervous. Yeah, whatever the deal
Jamie: is. Yeah.
Scott: Anyway, right, Otto. So any last words that you want to share today?
Otto: Not really.
Jamie: You I we're gonna come
Scott: don't have to.
Jamie: Otto, what do you think about our interview that we have coming up today?
Otto: Oh, it's going to be good.
Scott: All right. So tell everyone who we interviewed and who's going to be on this episode.
Otto: So we're going to be well, they're going to be interviewing Jeff LoVecchio.
Scott: And who's that?
Jamie: What he does.
Scott: The Have you heard Hockey Think Tank? Hockey Think Tank. Who's the podcast? The podcast? So you know about that podcast.
He's a co host.
Otto: Okay. Now I'm informed.
Jamie: Now I know.
Otto: Yeah. So Jeff LoVecchio, a cohost of the Hockey Think Tank.
Jamie: Yeah. Played college at Western Michigan, who just won a national championship last year.
Otto: Oh my god. Oh, they were the one
Jamie: That's who beat Denver last year. No, they beat BU, sorry.
Otto: Denver won.
Jamie: No. Western Michigan won last year.
Otto: Wait. What's his name? Zeeve Bouiem didn't win?
Jamie: No. They lost in the finals. No. Wait. They lost to BU.
Sorry. Western Michigan beat right there Western am I wrong? Did Western not know. Beat
Otto: Did BU won.
Jamie: No. I don't think so, bud. I'm pretty sure that Western Michigan won last year, and I wanna say they beat BU in the yep. They beat BU six two last year.
Otto: Wow. That was that's
Jamie: a Yeah. Zeeve Zeeve Booyah. Zeeve from Denver, they lost. And then Ryan Leonard, who's now out in the NHL, They lost too. So BC and Denver both lost.
Otto: So Ryan Leonard, who is in that game, he is out injured.
Jamie: What happened to
Otto: him? Oh, coming around the net and Jacob Truba kind of like destroyed destroyed him. He's getting facial and shoulder surgery and then Zeeb Bouillom played great nothing.
Jamie: What happened to Zeeb? Zeeb was in the news yesterday. Did you get nah. Do you know what happened to him yesterday? He was in the you heard that Quinn Hughes was traded?
No. You didn't? Quinn Hughes
Otto: No, no,
Jamie: yeah, yes.
Otto: They're playing together now?
Jamie: So Quinn Hughes was on the Canucks, is now on the Minnesota Wild. Zeeb Bouillem was on the Wild and is now on the Canucks. He was in the train going the other way.
Otto: Oh, that's good for Minnesota. That's it, I think.
Jamie: So you do you think that you think that Quinn Hughes going to Minnesota is gonna be like a stud there before he comes to New Jersey? Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
I had something in my throat. Just need to clear it.
Otto: Well, I'm not saying, like well, Zeeve Boyle, my Quinn Hughes is, what, like, maybe five years older? No.
Speaker 4: Like
Jamie: Quinn's 27, 26? And Zeeve's gotta be five years. 20. Yeah.
Otto: Like, six or seven.
Jamie: God. You can do it. So we
Otto: like, Zeeves Booyum was a rookie last year.
Scott: Yes. He was.
Otto: So he's still getting, like Yeah. He's still getting, like
Jamie: Frozen? Yeah. I don't know. That's alright. Scott's video's frozen?
It's alright.
Otto: He's still getting like the hang of everything and like getting into like
Jamie: Zeeves gonna be a good defender. Yeah.
Otto: He's really good.
Jamie: Yeah. He's gonna be like a top four defender moving forward. Yeah. He's a stud.
Otto: Luke Hughes is number one right or Quinn Hughes, sorry. Wait.
Jamie: Oh, as defenseman, I think him and Makar are 1A, 1B. Makar's pretty nasty.
Otto: Makar is great.
Jamie: If Makar wasn't in the NHL, I would say that Quinn Hughes would probably be the best defenseman in the NHL.
Speaker 4: What do
Jamie: think, Scott?
Otto: Well, who else plays
Jamie: Right? Who else has I got? They're both
Otto: Matthew Schafer.
Jamie: He is coming on very strong. Have you seen him dance on the blue line?
Otto: Oh my god.
Jamie: It's filthy, right? When you played D, did you do that?
Otto: When I played D well that was last year, right?
Jamie: Yeah? Were you dancing on the blue line like I Matthew was
Otto: turning over the
Jamie: buck. It's okay. Listen, then you're learning, right? Yeah. It happens.
You know? It happens. It's normal.
Scott: I think you're being a little hard on yourself. You really that's you think about last year that you think were like
Otto: you were really good last year.
Scott: Well, listen, I will tell you this much. Last year when you ended up playing defense, I will say that you surprised me in terms of your ability to play defense. I mean, were playing against top 10 teams in the country and you were holding your own. You know what I mean? Like, were you the best defenseman on the team?
No. But were you learning how to play the game? Yes. And did you do Well, also never played defense. Like Go ahead.
Otto: I also never played defense before.
Scott: Right. But you were a Listen, if you were a dumpster fire back there, the coach would have pulled you off a defense and put you, you know, back on forward. But clearly, you know, you you played probably like almost two thirds of the season. So you played Most of season. Most of the season on defense.
Jamie: On
Scott: d. And if you Right. If you were really bad, you would have probably not stayed back there too much. But that would be my guess. Don't know.
Anyway, dude, listen, this was awesome having you on the podcast.
Jamie: Yeah, thanks for coming on.
Scott: Maybe you'll do it again.
Otto: Definitely.
Jamie: Definitely. You did well, buddy. You did really well.
Scott: Awesome. Well, thanks for introducing LoVecchio. It's going be a sick interview, and thanks for coming on. Congrats on your your all star appearance today and netting a filthy goal. It's pretty ew.
Is that what you say? Ew. Ew. Ew. Nice, dude.
It
Jamie: was pretty ew.
Scott: It was pretty ew. Alright, dude. Thank you so much. Nice job, Good job, buddy.
Jamie: See you, buddy. Good job. Really well done.
Scott: Alright. My man's out of here.
Jamie: That was fun.
Scott: Yeah. Good job, dude.
Jamie: Nice job, Otto.
Scott: I'm gonna try to get my That was fun. Yeah. It was good. Yeah. I don't know why my my video camera died.
Jamie: It's alright. The people on YouTube will just be cursing
Speaker 4: you out.
Jamie: It's all good. Well As long as the audio is there, doesn't matter.
Scott: It says it's connected.
Jamie: Alright. So you hopefully, you're good to go. Are you still frozen?
Scott: This is ridiculous.
Jamie: It's alright. We're gonna throw it over to our interview, and then we can figure out the technical stuff on the other side?
Scott: Yeah. Sounds like a plan.
Jamie: You wanna do that?
Scott: Yeah, dude.
Jamie: So here we are with Jeff LoVecchio, the one and only GMBM Jeff LoVecchio. Absolute stud of a guy. I don't know. I I mean, what else can you say about him? I mean, he's got so many different businesses.
He played very high level hockey, big time college player, big time pro career. You know, a lot of concussions kinda, you know, took know, kind of like, I think probably shortened his what should have been, you know, probably a heavy pro career with the Bruins. Wouldn't you think?
Scott: Yeah. I I mean, that's certainly the, you know, the way it sounds. But, you he did go on to play overseas which was interesting when you talked about like going to play over in Japan.
Jamie: The Nippon Paper Cranes may be the best name in all of pro hockey. The Nippon Paper Cranes.
Scott: But yeah, and what I find just remarkable about him is that he clearly just wants to help people become better versions of themselves. 100%
Jamie: he does.
Scott: This guy works tirelessly. He's an absolute workaholic. Doing
Jamie: He just wants to get back to the game.
Scott: Yeah, no doubt.
Jamie: Which is so cool. Talk about having your head screwed on straight. I mean, it's an awesome interview. I hope you guys enjoy it. The guy's he's an absolute stud.
Scott: Yep. Total stud. I think probably enough said about that.
Jamie: Hope you guys enjoy it.
Scott: Enjoy, everyone. Here we go.
Jamie: That was good, man.
Scott: Alright, everybody. Welcome back to another interview here at the Crazy Hockey Dads Podcast. We are super thrilled to have Jeff LoVecchio on. Jeff, what's happening, man?
Speaker 4: Not much, guys. Just put my daughter down so I could hop on the pod, so I'm excited here.
Scott: Yeah. That's awesome. For any of our listeners that don't know Jeff, he's a former professional ice hockey player. He's one of the most respected performance coaches in sport today. Played a high d one NCAA Western Michigan over a decade pro, played AHL, Coast, Europe, and now you've transitioned to being a full time player development coach with the with GMBM, which I can't wait to hear more about and off and obviously, the think tank, which, you're a cohost on, which is just it was major for me when I started listening or getting into hockey with my kids.
So And Dude, if you just take a moment to share with our audience kinda, like, what you're up to and kind of, like, where you're at now.
Speaker 4: Yeah. No. I mean, that's really cool to hear you guys listen to the show. I mean, Toph and I started that show right after I retired, and I was also actually going through a divorce at the same time too. So Oh, wow.
Yeah. So it's you know, losing your I I don't like losing your identity, but, you know, all I did with my whole life was hockey. You know? It was my first job was signing in the NHL. Real job.
I ref'd kids hockey, you know, like, when I was a little kid with my dad. But other than that, like, my my first real job was was signing with the Boston Bruins and then playing ten years professionally. And and so we started the podcast. Same same intentions as you guys, just trying to give out as much information, help as many people as we possibly could Yeah. With the things that we learned and the guests that we brought on.
So I I love that you guys are doing this. Yeah. Right now so I retired after the 1718 season. I was playing over in Austria because I had built up my company to a pretty pretty good size, and I because of my concussions and injury history, just decided it was a lot smarter for life and life after hockey for me to retire when I did, even though I was still making pretty good money over in Austria, and started running my company. It it used to be called Rip Hockey.
Now it's called GMT, Give More Training. So I've got I I run that. So now in St. Louis, we have five training centers that my company and my coaches run. Oh, nice.
Yeah. We've got between 3,504,000 players in season that were in charge of training here in St. Louis. Yep. And then, you know, I've I've the strength coach for a division NCAA division one team online because they couldn't get a strength coach up to Alaska this year for Anchorage.
And then I work with, you know, USHL, NAHL, NA three, all the way down to kids teams online in season. I also started GMA, give more advising, call it actual advising. You know, I I had so many clients over the last eighteen years that were getting ripped off by some of these advisers.
Jamie: Agents and advisers. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Quote, unquote advisers, and it's it's always the guys who are going after the not highest end talent. The highest end talent are getting real agents.
Jamie: Right?
Speaker 4: And then that funneled down to the players on their teams thinking, oh, well, my kid needs an agent, an adviser too. It's like,
Jamie: well Yeah.
Speaker 4: It really doesn't. Like, that kid's gonna get drafted in the NHL. It's a lot a lot different, but that just changed the whole landscape of youth hockey. And for almost two decades, I saw so many of my guys getting ripped off by these guys. And finally, now that I have four coaches working for me and I have a little more time on my hands in season, I started getting more advising where it's not the typical advising.
It's more of a mentorship program where we do we break down four individual clips every shift of the player's video, four games a month. They get two calls a month with me. I run their off ice strength training, nutrition, you know, mindset. One of my former pros does all the video, and it it it's it's just a really cool thing. So I've got the in person.
I've got online. I've got get more advising and then, you know, working with hockey companies on social media and things like that. And then, like, you guys talked about the podcast, the Hockey Think Tank Podcast that that we do. We drop three episodes a week doing the same thing. You are just trying to make the hockey world better.
Scott: Dude, that's unreal. And you dude, there's only twenty four hours in
Jamie: a day, gonna say, when when you sleep?
Speaker 4: Not not enough. Not enough. That's for sure.
Scott: Dude, so so if you wouldn't mind just rewinding the tape back to, like, when you were growing up. I mean, obviously, are so different now. But, like, for for any any guests we have on that have gone on to play, like, know, accomplished careers, like, you know, I I think a lot of us assume that, you know, like, peep like, these people were just, like, complete studs from jump, you know, or they were just on the ice constantly, and which may have been true for you, but I know it's not true for everyone. So what was like growing up? Like, when did you start to really find your own with hockey?
What was your, like, your parents' situation like where you know, and all those things?
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you guys can see it right now because I'm in my my office in my basement, and I got a gym in my basement. Oh, nice. Right now, but that right there, that signed. That that is my dad's only advice to me my entire hockey career.
Hard work, patience, more hard work. As all he ever said, that's it. That's it. My dad's an entrepreneur, still owns his company. Pretty much, like, the only guy in his company too.
I mean, he's had a few people working for him here and there throughout the years, but he's probably had his company forty years. And and my my dad also refed world juniors in Finland. He refed the OHL. Oh, IHL, AHL, you know?
Jamie: The CCAJ.
Speaker 4: Ref. Yeah. He's a big couple. He was the president of Missouri hockey refing for over ten years. Got So so he was involved in the game.
He was my coach up until I started playing AAA hockey. But with that, not a crazy hockey dad at all. Zero craziness. Nice. You know?
I think he probably was too busy with his own business and things like that and having two kids and a wife and supporting everybody to to be a crazy hockey dad, but
Jamie: Right.
Speaker 4: Not crazy at all. My mom, not crazy at all. They were, like, you know, the one of best things that ever happened to me. I I can't remember if I was 10 or 12, but I got cut from, like, one of the first teams that was, like, a higher level team, you know, quote unquote. Yeah.
Around it was probably 12. STL Elite, I got cut, and, you know, best thing ever. And this is when they put the the list in the lobby. So it wasn't like you get to go home and you don't feel shame leaving the room.
Scott: Yeah. It's right away.
Jamie: You get in
Scott: front of everyone.
Speaker 4: Yeah. You gotta take it like a man and and and, you know, learn learn a tough lesson there. But I did not have my best tryouts at all. And I remember crying and walking back to the car, we got in the car. My mom looked at me and said, Do you think you had your best tryouts?
And obviously, I was like, Yeah. And she's like, No, Jeffrey. Do you think you had your best tryouts? Do you think you worked as hard as you could? And I was like, no.
And she was like, well, you gotta learn. Tryouts are for the best players that come to tryouts. You need to have better tryout the next time if you wanna make the team. And from then on, like, I was always one of the best players in tryouts every single place I went. I was I was one of the last cuts for the Bruins two years in a row, you know, not an accident.
Like like, every tryout I went to, it was like, I'm gonna do everything I can to make this team wanna take me or at least, you know, look at me for the future here. And so those are the type of parents that I had.
Scott: That's unreal. So, like, with that, like, just, you know, the idea of confidence comes to mind. Right? And, like, I can imagine there's plenty of kids out there or that are gonna get cut, and, like, this is gonna totally eat away at their confidence. Others is gonna inspire them to, like, you know, step on the gas.
Like, kinda, like, what what was it like? Were you just, I'm it sounds like you were just, I'm stepping on the gas, but I'm sure you've come across kids that are like, oh, man. I, you know, I suck, you know, start telling themselves that negative, like, story and all that shit. Like, what what so for you, was it I I'm stepping on the gas?
Speaker 4: I don't I don't yes. A 100%. But my mom was like, you didn't like, she made she didn't tell me. This So is I think this is a big difference between, like, good leadership, good mentors, especially with youth athletes. It's not being like, you sucked.
You didn't have a good tryout. She led me to me realizing Yeah. And, you know, I not a soft person at all. I want kids to want to win at all cost all the time. But me being the adult in the room, 10,000 foot view, I know up here, it doesn't really matter if they win or lose at those younger ages, but I want them to think that it matters and do everything they can to win.
And if they do lose, it's up to me, the adult from the 10,000 foot view, to help them learn the lessons and understand every time you fail, it's not actually failing If you learn, adapt, apply, and you immediately get better. And looking back, you know, that's what my mom and dad did anytime that I hit, trouble, anytime that I got cut, anytime that I had things where I needed to persevere through. They never tried to, like, give me the answers or tell me I wasn't good enough, but they did help me look
Jamie: in
Speaker 4: the mirror and be honest with myself to figure out, you know, what I needed to do and things like that.
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: I'm curious, Jeff. So so did you always play triple a, or were you a double a kid? Like, go through, like, your path.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, you know, hockey's a little different now. You don't start True. Didn't start playing triple a when you were out of the womb back in the the the early nineties. So the landscape was different.
I believe triple a the first year you could play triple a hockey was in sixth grade for me. Okay? So I was I would have been, like, 12, I guess. Right? Right.
Scott: This is Chicago. Right?
Jamie: Just say, Illinois. Lewis.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I was born in Chicago, but then we moved here when I was four. So it. So I actually played, like I played house, house, house, and then I think I played, like, squirt a two, and then squirt squirt double a. And then I played up a year, actually, because I think I played I think I played up a year in squirts, and then I played up just so my my dad was gonna be a coach.
So I think I made the a one team, I believe. And because he had already agreed to coach the a two team, I played on the lower team. I played a two. Oh. You know, nowadays, people are, like, crazy for the opposite.
Jamie: They sure are.
Speaker 4: Right? Right? And so I played on a two, and then I played up a year playing Pee wee double a. The rule was that you had to be at the top three ranked player in the tryouts by all of the other coaches to be able to go up a level. And so I played up a level that year.
And then the next year, that was the second year you could play triple a. It would be my seventh grade year in school. That was my first year of triple a. And so I I kinda my trajectory in hockey was very wave like. I would I would come in at the bottom, and I would work harder than guys.
You get to the top. And then be at the top of the level, then I'd go up in age group, and I'd be at the bottom. Interesting. You know, coming off that p wee double a year, you know, played really well, Top three scorers on the team as an underage Pee wee. You know what I mean?
And first year of hitting puberty, big difference. Yeah. Was in fifth grade. Fifth and sixth grade, everybody else is in in seventh, eighth, ninth grade. Talks in the locker room.
Like, I look back. I'm like, wow, man. I shouldn't have been hearing that stuff in fifth grade. Like, honestly. But I was the coolest kid in school because of stuff I was hearing.
That's for sure. But, yeah, I I played my first year triple a, I, know, I do a lot of you know, I do keynote speaking, and I do speeches all around the country. I do Zoom calls for teams weekly, organizations, things like that. And I tell everybody, you know, my first year at triple a, I played, like, one to two shifts most games, not periods. Like, most games.
Like, I was brutal. I was afraid to get hit. I was scared of my shadow. I wasn't strong. I had no confidence.
And, you know, one of the pivotal moments in my career, again, it's, like, three things that that really helped in my career is one, getting cut that I already told you about. My parents made me look in the mirror and be like, No, you know what? I didn't come and work. I thought I had it in the bag. I didn't give my all.
I didn't execute, so I did not deserve to make that team. The second pivotal moment was during my first year of AAA, and I barely played. At the end of the year, you know, we're deciding, okay. Am I gonna keep playing AAA? Like, is this worth it?
I've been I'm barely playing. Like, I'm I'm not getting better. You know, I'm not having fun. And my mom was like, well, if you wanna be on the team next year, you need to grab a notebook, go into coach, ask to have a meeting at the end of the season, and ask him, what do I need to do so that I can be a better player to help this team win more games? Mom and dad did not call Scott Sanderson, my coach, and say, why isn't Jeff on the power play?
Why is Jeff only playing two shifts a game? Why? Why? Why? Why?
My kid? My kid? No. It was not it. I went in there alone, and it was scary.
I was sweating. I was nervous. You know? Like, it was one of the hardest things I ever did, but I wrote down everything you said in the notebook. I worked on it seven days a week all summer long from seventh grade going into my eighth grade year, so over that summer.
And I came back, and I played second line. Had an unbelievable season. And then the next year, did the same thing, first line. Got my name in the in the NHL Hockey Hall of Fame for being MVP of Silver Sticks with all the kids that that we looked up to here in St. Louis because, you know, like, everybody was better than St.
Louis back then. So all the honey baked kids and all these kids were amazing around the country, and I led Silver Sticks in scoring and got my name on the Silver Stick and in the Hockey Hall of Fame. And and you know? So, like, all of those things started by the way that my parents made me approach getting better and pointing thumbs at myself, not pointing it's a coach's fault. Let's change teams.
You, it's you. It's not my kid. No. I was like, no, Jeff. If you want this, you gotta work harder.
You gotta work smarter.
Scott: Oh, what what would you say to, like, a parent who's like, dude, that's unreal, but that's not my kid. Like, my my kid is not the one that's gonna step on the gas. Like, my kid's the one that's going to, you know, like, talk down to himself. Like, do you think that, like, the mentality that you that you came with is something that's teachable? Do you, like Yes.
Would you advise a parent? Yeah. So so Well, that's awesome to hear. How would you go about that?
Speaker 4: 100%. I mean, I so I started my training company for everybody. For pro pro and college guys used to pay to work out with me right when I started right when I turned pro. And then two years later, I opened up and started training everybody below pro. So it's been eighteen years that I've been training athletes, thousands and thousands of athletes in person, and I used to train everybody.
Could be a house league player. Could be an NHL player. Know? Now I have coaches who work with the lower level kids, and I work with pros and college and junior and mid to triple a and things like that. But within that, like, I have a ton of experience, and I don't look at what I do in the gym as only I'm not only a strength coach or a performance coach.
Like, I take it as a very serious mentorship role. All of my clients can call me, text me anytime. I want them to. If they're not playing, if they need to go in and talk to coach. So, like, I I have a lot of reps in this.
And, yes, there are some kids who naturally, they they wanna go for the jugular if something happens. They get cut. They wanna prove the world. They wanna set the world on fire. They wanna prove to everyone that that, you know, they they can play.
And there's other kids who go into their shell. What I think the biggest difference is is quality mentors. Now it could be it could be a it could be a parent, could be an older player, could be a coach, could be a mentor that you that you go out and pay for. Yeah. But I like, literally, quality mentors is one of the most important things I've seen, honestly, to be successful in any avenue of life.
I have business mentors. You know? I have strength coach mentors. I had hockey mentors. You know?
Like like, quality mentorship because wisdom I look at you gain wisdom from experience. And if you're somebody who can understand at least a little bit of psychology and parlay that into helping a younger person, younger version of yourself, younger player understand that the tough times are not gonna last forever and that failure is not final. And it's like all these cliches, but they really are true.
Jamie: -CRAIG:
Speaker 4: Yeah. They really, really are. Like, you know, I if I told people, you know, I'd I'd told a few people going into college, like, Yeah, no, I'm not gonna be there four years. I'm gonna sign in the NHL and leave early. And I wasn't cocky, and I was not, like, some heavily recruited prospect.
I think I was 12 of 13 signings at Western Michigan going into my freshman year. We had 13 freshmen, and I was the twelfth signing. So, like, they they weren't like, Oh, this guy's gonna go to the show. You know? But in my head, it was like, This is what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna make this possible. And I had people laugh at me. You know what I mean? And it's like going through all those trials, tribulations, hard times, finding a way no matter what. I I can now help so many other players on their journey, whether it's cut from a double a team, cut from a triple a team, in a scoring slump, going into tryouts, you know, which team to pick.
I just think that when you have people who have earned that that wisdom through their experiences, and it doesn't have to be just hockey, it could be somebody who's gone through stuff in life that can mentor a kid to go through something in sports. You know what I mean? It it is it is a massive, massive, massive game changer. And the other part of that too, I think one of the reasons that that I don't know. I think so many people trust me is mom or dad, it's really good when it comes from them.
But if you also can get somebody else, and I call it, like, the fun uncle effect, like, you know, like, I'm sure you you guys have told your kids, like, you gotta eat your broccoli or spinach, and they're like, no.
Jamie: Yeah. When it comes from somebody else, they do it.
Speaker 4: But then, like, somebody that, like, walks in in a leather jacket or, like, you know, is a fun uncle or or whoever. You know, uncle Joey from Full House comes in. Uncle Jesse, I mean.
Jamie: Great show.
Speaker 4: Great show. You know? And he's like he's like, eat your broccoli. They're like, dad, I like broccoli now. I can't tell you how many times.
Yeah. Sorry. Can't I can't tell you how many parents over the last eighteen years have been like, I've been telling my kid to do x for five years. He works out with you one day, and now he's asking to do x. Right.
And so, like, I've just learned over this long career of doing this and mentoring and helping players that I think that the mentorship, getting somebody that's outside of the family or outside of the team, I think that stuff can really, really help because it's like, you know, the it's not somebody who's controlling their playing time, or they're afraid to talk about what's actually on their mind and they're nervous about or scared about or you know? And if they know that, oh, yeah. Well, you know, Jeff got cut here, and Jeff got injured and missed half a season here, and, you know, this coach didn't like him and he still persevered and this happened and then I can do it too type of thing. You know? Right.
Jamie: So with that being said, who was your mentor as a kid other than your parents, or was it just come coming from your parents?
Speaker 4: Well, so I've been on a lot I do I do a lot of podcasts. Obviously, my own. We've done, like, I don't know, 400 episodes now. Right. But then I I I guessed on a lot of podcasts too, and I was on a really good one.
And you guys should have this guy on if you can. His name is Larry from the Dad Edge Podcast. He's one of the best podcasts I've ever heard. It's great for your audience, too.
Jamie: Okay.
Speaker 4: Awesome. Yeah, Dad Edge Podcast. And he was grilling me and asking me about my background, my home life, how did I become a pro athlete, train pro athletes, And just kinda really dug into, like, what it looked like from my dad. And, you know, my dad was a gangster. That guy worked so freaking hard.
I mean, he'd be he'd be getting home at dinnertime. He'd eat dinner with us. You know? I go downstairs, work some more. On weekends, he's up in the morning working.
He's up at three, 4AM every day working, owning his own business. Never missed anything important in my life. I don't know how. Always made time to come on the trips that were the big ones and things like that, and I and supported our family. And I just think that me seeing all that Mhmm.
And Larry said this to me from the dad edge, the best lessons from fathers are caught, not taught. Right. And, like, I just always saw my dad like, Oh, you need me to do something? Here I go. I'll go do it.
Oh, I just got home off the plane working two weeks, you know, out in Louisiana. Okay. I'll come home, and I'll go mow the lawn for three hours because that's what dads do. That's what I gotta do. So I think I just, like, caught that from my dad.
It's like, whatever needs to be done, you have to do it. Right. And then my mom actually worked for a junior team here in St. Louis. It was called the St.
Louis sting. They were in the NAHL, and this was right around the time where I was, like, starting to get serious about hockey. Fifth grade through ninth grade, we housed players. So she she was a secretary for the team and ran the housing program. So we had, like, two players living with us for, you know, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grade, ninth grade before I left my sophomore year.
And so always around those guys. I'd always be hanging out in the locker room. I'd see the guys who were moving on and how hard they were working and working out. And I think, again, you know, just like a lot of lessons that I caught that weren't really taught.
Scott: Wow. So your environment was just like ripe for like hard work and like just like learning best practices, good lessons.
Speaker 4: And I just dude, I loved hockey so freaking much. And when I would get cut or not play well, I would go work on hockey because I wanted to. My parent you know, I think that's part of it where that I was lucky looking back that innately, whatever my genetic makeup is, it's like if I'm not good at something and it's something I wanna be good at, I'm gonna go work at it. Very, very diligently, very hard, and and as I got older, more intentionally. So not just hard, also working smart.
Scott: Right. So you you just mentioned, like, fifth, sixth, seventh grade, like, is when you really kinda turned on the gas. But, like, you know, I I think, you know, you see parents of kids that are, like, eight, seven Yeah. Nine that are just, like, you know, going around God's creation to get them to every, like, you know, clinic, whatever. If if you could like just like broadly kind of bracket out like or maybe just like when when when does it start to become important?
And I'm sure this question become you guys get this question all the time. But, like, you know, generally speaking, it seems like puberty. Puberty is like the time where it's like, if your kid is still into it and they wanna, like, get after it, then, like, that's the time, you know, that you can really start sinking some more resources into it. Do would you say that's, like, that's fair? And and just to piggyback on that, like, do you would you apply the same thinking to both boys and girls?
Speaker 4: Yeah. It's a good it's a really good question. Part of it and, you know, it's almost like every answer. It depends personality. Personality is really important.
I played one of my linemates in the American League, Florida Panthers' farm team, A. J. Jenks. He didn't start playing hockey till he was 11 years old, and he he got drafted at 18 in the NHL. Yeah.
That normal? No. Is it possible? Obviously, yes. Alright.
So, like, there's no one right path. So so first and foremost, but, like, what a lot of people lose sight of is that it it's all about development. And I mean development as a hockey player, also development as a person. And if you listen to any elite athlete from any sport, almost all of them say the same thing. Play as many sports as long as you can.
Now why? Number one, because you're going to create a much bigger toolbox of movement, thinking, skill acquisition, ability to understand team dynamics, a baseball locker room, a football locker room, a volleyball locker room, a jujitsu locker room, a hockey locker room, none of them are the same. So when you're put into all these different environments with different types of coaches, different, you know, socioeconomic backgrounds, different cultures, all these things, you're gonna help your child be a more well rounded human being and a more well rounded athlete. I'm not saying that you need to play three sports until you're a senior in high school. I know in Minnesota, there's a lot of two sport athletes.
And if you look at the data, Minnesota's killing everyone.
Scott: That dude that just won the national football championship with his team.
Speaker 4: Right. I mean, Unreal. They're they're unbelievable. And per like, the amount of players that are coming out of Minnesota versus Massachusetts over the last twenty years, it used to be like this, and now it's like this. I mean Yeah.
We did it we did a massive episode deep dive on on a hockey think tank, and it's just wild to see. And their their Minnesota's structure is, like, compared to the rest of the country, less serious for
Jamie: more So different. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Right. It's working. I'm not saying, you know, you don't you don't get serious about it. And when I said, like, it got more intentional for me, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grade, I would also say that's what I would look at as stratified intentionality and intensity by age. So at fifth grade, yeah, I started caring more, but I was still playing baseball.
I was still doing Taekwondo. I was still playing with my friends all day every day. You know? I'd go to maybe two hockey camps this summer, and I wouldn't skate in the summer. I'd rollerblade.
I'd play baseball. I'd play other sports.
Jamie: Anything else.
Speaker 4: Right. Right. You know? And so I say, like, two camps a summer, you know, maybe max, maybe, you know, a skill session once a week, once every other week. But the people who are on the ice three, four days a week, all summer long, you're nuts.
You're wasting money. You're wasting time. You're you're gonna help your kid be the best 12 year old, but it's gonna hurt him in the long term athletic development at 18, most players, when it really matters because of all the things I just said. Like, to make it to higher level hockey, it's not just, are you a good hockey player? Are you a good teammate?
Are you a good person? Are you learning to get better? Are you learning to, you know, push yourself through hard and uncomfortable situations? Because if your mom and dad are driving you to every skill skate and every practice and you don't know how to interact with others, what's gonna happen when you leave home for junior hockey? Like, you you're you're not gonna be able to succeed.
You're not gonna be able to fight through those those getting sat for your first time and healthy scratched in your first year. So it's like a lot of people shortchange, and they wanna, like, bypass all of this needed development from other sports and other things and getting off the ice and making kids miss hockey. You know, I took I took a minimum month to two months off of hockey every single year my whole career, from little kid all the way till my tenth year pro retiring.
Jamie: Wow. We hear the same theme from everybody we speak to. Right, Scott? Yeah. Weird.
Right. Exactly. Exactly.
Scott: Exactly. And that's where, like, the big disconnect is is because, like, you know, like anyone that Like, it's when you're at the rink and you're talking to people, it's Yeah. Like one's sitting around there being like, oh, I I can't wait for my kid to get some downtime.
Jamie: Right. Exactly.
Scott: You know, mean, it's so opposite. Yeah. And it's so, you know, so just thanks again for, like, share sharing that because people really need to hear it. But it's it's one thing to hear, it's one thing to actually do it. Right?
And, like, like, when you're in the thick of it, like, when when I listen to podcasts, when I listen to you and Tof or people listen to this, it's like, yeah, it makes sense. And then when you're in a situation where it's like you're evaluating your environment and kids around you and the families around you, you're like, oh, shit. I don't wanna miss out. It's like that FOMO stuff, and it's it's it's it's real. It's real.
Speaker 4: And I think a lot of the hockey's expensive. Ice is expensive. Rinks are expensive. Electricity is expensive. So I get the clubs need to make money and things like that.
But I I I really don't like the clubs that are like, Well, you know, if you don't play in our spring league, then it's gonna you're probably not gonna make the team. And it's like, Get the hell out of here.
Scott: Fuck off.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Like, come on. It's like, let the kid go play basketball. Let the kid go play, you know, jujitsu, wrestling, MMA, boxing lessons. Like, don't say you -CRAIG: have
Otto: to do this. Because if it's the best player, I guarantee you're taking him back. No, how do set that
Speaker 4: how do you become the best player? By developing. Do you develop everything we just talked about?
Jamie: Yeah. You know, it's so funny that you just started mentioning, like, you know, organizations. I'm just curious. What's your thought on, like, youth hockey in general? Like, you're like, I don't know what it's like in St.
Louis, but I know what it's like here, and you got a lot private equity starting to come into the game. I'm just curious on your thoughts of the youth hockey game as a whole right now.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's tough. It's tough. I mean, I know we're losing numbers, so that's not a good thing. It's too expensive. So we're we're pushing people out, and I and, you know, like sticks, $400 a stick.
Jamie: Skates I know.
Speaker 4: It's crazy. $100 for the best skates. Like, I mean, ice, our game is expensive. So to push more people away sooner is just stupid and shortsighted. And and pushing this whole, you know, narrative of, oh, you gotta do all these things, and, you know, you gotta play triple a for nine year olds.
Get the fuck out of here.
Scott: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Nine year old triple a? Stupid. Everyone should boycott it. No. Why are we doing this?
We can Our nine year old, it doesn't matter who they're playing against at nine, okay? Like, come on. All we're doing is making it more expensive, meaning it's more stressful for mom and dad because now they're looking for a return on investment, which I think is a lot different than what I played. Absolutely. It wasn't like, Well, what am I getting out of this?
What's my return? Because when I was coming up, the return was, I'm learning how to be a good human. I'm learning responsibility. I'm learning, you know, the life All of these things that are the reason I'm successful in life after hockey, I literally learned every single thing from hockey. And now because of that over seriousness way too early, a lot what I'm see what I'm seeing and talking to a lot of people, you know, with our podcast and stuff is that a lot of these life lessons and all the coaches that I had that constantly were were hammering into our little brains, it's not it's not happening anymore because it's all about winning, and it's all about the club winning and parents wondering what they're getting out of it.
And, what are we ranked? We're we're we can't play that team because they're not ranked, and then they're they're four. Shut up. Like, what do you mean, man? What do you mean?
We're here to teach them real life lessons, and and then the best players that will keep going on, we're laying a foundation for them to be quality sound human beings at the higher levels of hockey and not crazy because of the things we taught them early. And the kids who stop playing the game at whatever age it is, they still love hockey forever. They're still playing men's league. They're still going to NHL junior and college games, so the money stays in the game. It keeps growing the game.
They wanna give back and coach because now they're successful in life after hockey because of all their great experiences as a youth hockey player. And, like, that's what it's about, not this crazy race to who's the best 11 year old.
Scott: Yeah. And that that's, like, everywhere.
Speaker 4: Everywhere. Everywhere.
Scott: But let me just, like, getting back to just, like, performance training. Right? And, like, like, from from your experience and, like, having, like, you know, working with so many people, like, what what are some things that, you know, like, maybe, like, transfer versus, like, what's just noise? Right? And, like, you I'm sure you'd work with kids that have worked with different skills coaches or talked to different organizations who've got different protocols for, like, what kind of training they want their kids doing on on eyes, off eyes.
But is there any, like, things in particular that, like, you would say, like, is really, like, worth the effort to do, whether it's from a team perspective, off ice, or from an individual training off ice? Or what are some things that just, like, you know, might be all hype and, like, it's just noise in the background?
Speaker 4: I mean, at the youngest ages, it's obviously the fundamentals. It's skating, passing, shooting. Skating around the ice with your head up all the time. Not letting the kids have their head down. Like, little details like that.
You know, over the last eight, ten years, the power edge pro stuff, I think it's starting to fade a little bit because now so many people are talking about, Well, yeah, maybe we have the most skilled individual players in the game right now coming up, but none of them can pass the puck anymore. Because all they've done is individual skill work, skating through trash on the ice and cones and sticks. And and, yeah, their individual skill is money. But then they play the game of hockey, which is not an individual game. And they have no idea, like, how to play the game of hockey.
And so I don't care. Like, you know, it's like some of those, like, super famous guys on Instagram that have unbelievable hands, but, like, none of them played hockey at any type of level because that isn't hockey. You know what I mean? And it's what they can do is amazing, and it's so cool. I'm jealous.
I wish I could do that.
Jamie: -SAMANTHA: Same.
Speaker 4: If you ask me, Would you rather be doing that or to have your ten year pro career? I'm a ten year pro career. Yeah. Every day of the week, you know? I was a better hockey player.
So number one from the on ice, skating, passing, talking on the ice, you know, not teaching kids how to play a two on one. No. Foundational skills that you then layer on top of each other year over year over year. And every organization should have at least some type of blueprint and somebody overseeing, okay, at, you know, six u, we want them focusing on this. At eight u, they should be able to do this, and then we want them to learn this for nine u and 10 u, and and you should literally have, like, an organizational chart so that all the coaches are on the same page from a developmental standpoint.
Yeah. So it's like, okay, are we working on this at this? Okay. They came to us. They all knew it.
Okay. That's working. Let's keep that going. So moving up levels, they they are getting better and better and better, and we can track it and see if it's working. So from an on ice standpoint, there's that.
Off ice standpoint, again, I cannot stress this enough. For the younger players, get off the ice in the summer. At least do other sports. Even even if the we're not saying organized sports. Get the kids together and play basketball game, you know, half court basketball game at the park in in your driveway.
Touch football in the backyard. You know, I I tell every single parent of young kids because they that's the question I get probably asked the most, especially in my DMs. What should my kid do to get better at hockey? How old is your kid? If they're under 13, jujitsu, boxing, wrestling, gymnastics.
You do those things, they are getting they're gonna be a way better athlete, a way better hockey player. Some track and field, some sprinting. Just do those things right there. I think that because the game of hockey is a team game, I think that if you do have your kids do something where they're gonna lose and it's all on them, like wrestling, boxing,
Jamie: juvenile Individual stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Maybe not maybe not boxing. Like, I I wouldn't have them box. Like, I don't have my guys box, like, actual boxing matches, but, like, hit pads with a coach, you know, maybe body sparring because, you know, obviously, I've had 14 concussions. I I wanna keep kids breathing safe because I because I can. But but if if you lose in wrestling, you got nobody else to look to other than yourself.
You gotta pick yourself up. You gotta learn. Okay. How am I gonna learn, adapt, apply, get better for my next match? And if you can do that, I think that that will translate into hockey.
I know that it does big time once you go into a team locker room. Those guys are gonna be the leader on the team because he knows how to pick himself up off the mat after a loss, after getting pinned, embarrassed in front of a gym, and he's gotta, you know, walk out with his head high still and learn to go to practice on Monday and get better. And so, like, all those things, you know, are will move the needle the most. And then as you get, you know, older, that's when you get into more and more strength training and things like that.
Scott: So so with that said, like, if you if you take, like, let's say, strength, speed, and skill, is there, like, a hierarchy there for you in in which you'd wanna, like, build on that, or it's kind of like it ebbs and flows?
Speaker 4: Yeah. It's a good question. When I was playing speed, speed was, like, the number one thing, but the game was way more linear. Right? The game was way more north south.
Now, it's not the game. At the higher levels, like, yeah, okay, if you're faster than everybody else at 10, you can just skate around everybody. Yeah. But again, we're not trying to make the best 10 year old. Hockey IQ, thinking the game is the most important thing in hockey.
The absolute most important. You know, because as you get older, the game becomes chess, not checkers. When you're younger, it's checkers. It's play fast. It's, you know, blah blah blah blah blah blah.
But you get older, it's you're manipulating space and time all over the ice. I'm gonna go this way to suck the demon to me because I know a guy's coming here, and I'm gonna place it behind him, and then he's gonna do this and that. And and it's literally just manipulating space and time and and, you know, outthinking your opponent, getting them to to bite on a fake and things like that. Very, very about deception. So hockey IQ is number one, and then I would say agility, on ice agility, which is different than off ice agility, on ice agility is more important than overall top speeds top speed.
You have to be fast to be agile, but you don't have to be agile to be fast. Yes. Yes. You you straighten straight line speed. Yeah.
I'm beating almost everybody. But agility with the puck, cold call field, you
Jamie: know, like agility to yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: That's the game now is stop, start, make a play, spin, create deception, hit the hole, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah. And so, like, top speed and agility are not the same thing.
Jamie: Right. So I'm curious. So you can teach agility.
Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
Jamie: How do you teach hockey IQ to a kid?
Speaker 4: A, watch more hockey. Okay. Watch more hockey. Like, watch your your games. I mean, obviously, if they're young, it's it's not as much about watching their games.
Once they get to be a teenager and they can understand concepts and and what you're trying to do on the ice. But literally just watching hockey and and watching your position and, like, little details. You know, obviously, a six year old's not gonna do this, but, you know, a 13 year old might. Okay. I'm a left winger.
What does he do on the face off when the puck's dropped? What's the first thing he does? Is he oh, lost you. There we go. I got you back.
Okay. Oh, yeah. We're good. Yeah. We no.
No. We gotcha. Alright. So, obviously, a six year old, you know, them watching hockey is gonna be different than a 13 year old who can understand and look for more details, but, like, really learning the details. Like, where are your toe caps pointed when you're standing in the d zone?
Are they facing your own net? Are they facing the wall? They facing the middle? What's your head doing? Where's your stick?
Is your stick on the ice? Is it in the middle? Is it on the outside? Why? Right.
What's the what's the the route that the left winger is taking on the breakout? Is he standing against the wall the whole time? Probably not because then he can only go to the middle of the ice. He only has one way to go if a four checker comes at him. So, like, really watching the game, breaking it down.
I mean, honestly, like, you know, bringing in somebody who knows the game and can talk to players about, like, hey. You know, if if you would've went to the boards to pick up this puck and shoulder checked right here, you would've known that you have a guy here, here, and here coming at you. So what's your out? And you ask him, oh, I could do this. Alright.
Well, you would only know that if you would've shoulder checked. Right. So it's again, like, I think mentorship is a big part of that. Watching hockey. Like, the tough part about, like, increasing hockey IQ is, like, kids gotta love hockey Yeah.
To increase their hockey IQ because, like, you gotta kinda nerd out.
Jamie: Yeah. Right? On video.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
Scott: Yeah. There's no doubt. So so in terms of, like, you know, watching film and going over those concepts within, you know, what you do, when when is that something that really comes into play? You said, like, around 13, 14, around that
Jamie: age.
Speaker 4: Yeah. That's that's when I think it becomes a lot more a lot more teachable moments, and they're actually gonna listen, you know? Again, if it's a 13 year old house league team, they probably don't care as much, but their goals don't reflect needing needing really that type of video. Or maybe it's a little video, but it's not as intense, and it's gonna be a lot different things than a 13 year old AAA player, right? So, yeah, I think I think, like, sixth, seventh, eighth grade around there personality, you know,
Scott: team Team
Speaker 4: plays. Team maturity level, you know, kinda depends on how deep you go, what type of philosophies, and things like that. It's a balancing act. You know? Like, it's it's we wanna teach, but also, like, do these kids wanna learn this right now?
Can I get them to understand how important this is? Is this age appropriate for them to be able to understand that? Right. Because if not, okay, well, let's work on other things that move the needle now.
Scott: Right.
Speaker 4: And then we'll move that to later in the year or next year, and then it's just, you know, like an ever evolving process. What's working? What are they understanding? What are they not? Okay, this is too high level.
Let's dumb it down a little bit for them at this age, see if they understand that type of thing.
Scott: Yep. So so one of the things that we also always, like, are complaining to each other about, like, we'll watch our kids and be like, dude, no effort. We don't see any effort out there. No effort. Not enough effort.
It's never enough effort. No one's ever got enough effort out there. And then, you know, but And then, like, you talk to other parents. Yeah. You know, they're always like, yeah.
The one thing is effort. If they're not giving effort, that's when I'm gonna come down on them. Okay. So you have all these parents that don't see effort out on the ice. Alright.
In terms of, like, coaching kids up on effort. Right now, maybe a parent's just being batshit crazy, or maybe they're being, like, they're on on on point. But, like, how do you coach kids, up on effort? And, like, what are some of the things that, you know, you find to be successful in either, like, either pointing out or sharing with them?
Speaker 4: I have a couple of different things that I use. Like, I number one is I always have everyone compete at everything. Every having kids learn the value of competition and the value of wanting to win. Not not yes, winning, but also, like, at the younger ages, it's wanting to win. I don't care if you lose as long as you work as hard as you can to try to win.
Right. Because if you do that, you are 100% getting better every single time you do that. And then if you think about and learn, okay, why did I lose? What do I need to work on? Then you're really getting better.
So number one, I make my guys compete at every single thing we do. Every I'm talking jumping, running, lifting, sports. You know? It doesn't matter what it is. Rock, paper, scissors.
Oh, if you lose, you got push ups. And the guy who won, I want you chirping the guy who lost while he's doing his push ups. Because I want him to hate losing. Yeah. And we do that every single day, and I have for almost twenty years.
Jamie: In the gym. That's awesome.
Speaker 4: So getting kids comfortable with competing, because something that I've seen probably over the last ten eight years, kids not wanting to compete as much. I've noticed, like like, innately wanting to compete as much. Yeah. Like, they're okay with losing. They're okay with not going as hard as they can.
And that's you don't continue to work out with me if you're okay with that. Again, me in my head and higher level, I don't I'm not upset if they lose. I'm upset if they don't sell the farm to try to win. Yep. Right.
Right? And and then getting them to understand, okay, if you lost, well, that just means we gotta work on this, this, this. But by you going all out, you just got freaking better, and I'm proud of you. And so, you know, kind of that that positive feedback loop of pushing competition, making them wanna compete with each other because that's how you get better. And when they're a little bit older, you know I don't know when I start giving this speech.
Probably 12 years old and up, I tell them all the time too. Like, your real friends wanna compete against you because they know that you're they're making you better, and you're making them better by going as hard as you can. That's a real friend. Yep. Somebody who lets you win isn't a real friend.
They're not helping you get better. Right? So you wanna find people who do that, and I also tell them, guess what? By you learning how to do this in the gym or on the ice or whatever, whenever you're done with hockey, and I tell him, you know, I have one client who made almost $80,000,000 in the NHL during his career. Guess what?
He still works life after hockey. You know? Like, you're gonna you're gonna have to work no matter how much money any of you guys make playing hockey. Yeah. And if you wanna get better at hockey and you wanna be successful in life, you have to wanna compete.
You have to wanna be your best every single day. That's how you become successful and support your family. So, like, I'm putting these life messages in every workout we do. And, you know, on the ice, it was the same thing. This is why we're doing this for hockey, but guess what, guys?
You guys battling each other and almost killing each other in this drill, even though it's a lot harder of a practice, it's making you all better, and it's teaching you how to be successful at everything.
Scott: Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Scott: So just even talking about, like, the the longer the longer game here, like health, durability, longevity. I mean, these are all things that people need in order to, like, go on to have long flourishing careers. What are some of the things that you think might be not talked about enough or maybe missed, you know, in terms of supporting, like, you know, overall health and longevity in the game?
Speaker 4: Strength training in season. Now, obviously, this is for a little bit older players. I mean, I think young people should be should be exercising. Age appropriate is a little bit different. It's all about athleticism and movement capabilities at the younger ages.
But in season, so many hockey players, like, they don't they don't lift. They do nothing. And it's like, well, youth hockey, almost all of youth hockey plays games only on the weekends. Most of youth hockey. So if that's the case, you know, when once you hit 11, 12, 13, 14, depending on, you know, puberty and your team and your organization and things like that, like, you should be working out.
You should be lifting weights at minimum twice a week. Twice a week, every week. I mean, bone density, you know, just like I just there's just there's so many reasons why you should be strength training, and and mom's dad should be doing the same thing. One of the number one overall predictors of of living quality years towards the end of your life is like bone density, muscle mass, grip strength. All of those things come from lifting weights.
So, I mean, it's it's super important. It's the reason that I've kind of built my business model the way that I have to work with so many players of all these clubs here in St. Louis. My goal was always to have a gym in every rink in St. Louis and haven't accomplished that yet, but we're we're working with a lot of a lot of players here in most of the rinks here in St.
Louis. And and, you know, we we charge way less than than we should to work with all these kids, but, like, it's it's I know that it's helping the kids who wanna be hockey players, but it's helping all the kids for the rest of their life learn to love exercising, learn the foundations of movement and strength training and things like that. And I think that those are invaluable for all freaking human beings. And now with PE being less in school, it's a way for me to help clubs offer more to all of their customers and families and things like that.
Jamie: You know, it's funny, you you mentioned strength training. What age so we we also had a recently a conversation about, like, plyometrics and when kids should do them when they shouldn't do them, you know, too too early of an age. Kinda dispel some myths about, like, plyos and strength training at certain ages because I think there's some confusion still out there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, everybody's like, Oh, they shouldn't be lifting weights at a young age. That came from one study of factory working children in China in, like, the '80s or '70s or something. So, like, that's not true, but I look at it as a as a hierarchy. Movement and athleticism should be the base foundation. Right?
Like, it's way, way harder to turn in turn a a muscular kid from only lifting into more of an athletic kid, which is what matters in the higher levels of hockey is athleticism. It's not just overall strength. That's why all these teams barely test strength qualities anymore at the highest levels. It's athleticism. So, like, you wanna lay the foundation.
I look at training as a pyramid. The foundation of the pyramid, the longest, thickest part of the pyramid, the base of the pyramid is movement competency, you know, movement quality, agility, understanding spatial awareness, balance, vestibular system, things like that, you know, controlling your body while moving. All of those things are the most important. And then as you get older, it's that's when you start to layer on, you know, strength and power and speed and all of that stuff. But when you're training kids, like, I mean, if you guys had never heard of Jeremy Fritsch, I would a 100% advise you to have him on your podcast.
I think he puts out by far the best content on Twitter and Instagram for young athletes in the world. It doesn't look like what anybody thinks youth training looks like. It's a lot of games hiding the skills and qualities. Tag. Tag for kids is one of the most important things you can do.
If a young team said, Oh, we're just gonna play tag for ten minutes before every practice Right. I guarantee you that team in two years is way better athletes from six to eight than any other team doing anything. Like, because you're working on so many different really, really important qualities. And the kids are having fun.
Jamie: They have no idea they're working.
Speaker 4: They have no idea, and you get them to chirp each other. And, you know, somebody gets a trophy at the end of every one. Now now they're looking forward to, quote unquote, working out. Right. Which, again, like, that's what really matters, number one, first and foremost, is are they excited to be in the gym?
Number one. Because if they are, then we can start to add, you know, more complex things as the years go, and they want to be there. If they wanna be there, they're gonna be getting consistent workouts. If you get consistent workouts, you get consistent results. So plyometrics for these kids, like, it might be tag, jumping and rolling on a on a wrestling mat.
So it's like it's not like, oh, I'm just doing squat jumps eight in a row. Like, that's not Right. At the younger age, it's not really structured. Yeah. Structure.
You need a little bit less structure. Yeah. As they get older, more structure is fine. Right.
Scott: That makes sense.
Jamie: It's gotta
Speaker 4: be fun. That's the thing, man. Like Right. Business is as big as it is because I kill my guys. Like, we do we work we're out we push the line of of how much intensity, time in the gym, overall volume.
I push the line, and I always have. But the guys get the results they do because they love being in the gym with each other. They love chirping each other. They love pushing each other. They love competing.
You know, we've got belts. We've got, you know, trophies. We've got all this stuff. They wanna be in there. And if they wanna be in there, they're gonna get more results over time.
Scott: Yeah. So so, you know, your career obviously went overseas. You know, you played domestically pro overseas, bro. Like, what are some of the realities? And it's not just from, like, your pro careers necessarily, but going from, like, NCAA to pro domestically to pro overseas.
Like, what are some realities that people might, you know, like, might not understand or might not be aware of? You know, I think families, kids, they want their, you know, oh, I want my kid to be in the NHL. Want my kid to play d one. Whatever the goal is. Right?
But are there, like, some realities that, like, people just don't really have a sense for that, like, you think are are worth sharing of what it takes to have a career like you did?
Speaker 4: Well, as hard as you think it's gonna be to get there, it's harder. Right. A lot because of social media, a lot of people think it's a lot easier to get there because they see the best players in their city or state getting tendered, getting committed, you know, do doing this. So, like, other players are like, oh, well, he did it. I played against him last year.
I can do it. And it's like, well, yeah, but you didn't see why that player's so good. You don't know what he's doing every day, what he's eating on top of his natural ability that maybe you don't have. So number one, if you want to play higher level hockey, and I'll I'll even call include, like, USHL major junior in higher level hockey. You wanna play that level or above, like, a, it's hard to get there.
It's even harder to stay there. I remember when I was talking to different NHL teams after my sophomore year. I had a really good sophomore year at Western. And so, like, a bunch of teams were taking me out and and bringing me to games and, you know, interviewing me and things like that. And I remember Wilson from the San Jose Sharks at the time, he said to me, you know, the first contract's the easy one.
It's the second, the third, the fourth that you gotta earn that are a lot harder for you to get. Interesting. You need to be focusing on bop bop bop bop, and he gave me some advice. Right? Getting there is the easiest part, and it's not easy.
Staying there is is the hardest part in staying relevant. The other thing too is there's lots of opportunity. You know, when I was playing, if if you went overseas, like, people that don't know hockey were like, oh, like, do do you get paid to do that? I was like, yeah. More than you.
You know? I'm doing it's I'm I'm doing alright here, you know? And there's there's tons of opportunities. You know, there's tons of leagues. Funny story, when I decided after my third really bad concussion in The US was when I decided to go overseas and start my training company in the summers.
And I had my agent call me, and he's like, Hey, I can get you to Japan.
Jamie: Dude, I was just gonna ask you about that. Maybe the best hockey name for a team, the Nippon paper
Speaker 4: Paper crates. Yeah. They were owned by Kleenex, the brand.
Jamie: Right? Really?
Speaker 4: Yeah. Right? Yeah. I don't have my jersey down here. I think I gave them all away.
Yeah. But, like, my so my agent called me. He's like, I can get you to Japan. And it was my first year going to Europe. And I'm thinking Germany, Sweden, Finland, Yeah.
Czech you know, Russia, like, something like that. And he's like, I can get you to Japan. And I was like, He's like, Listen, you'll have an absolute blast. You'll be a god. And if you stay there for, you know, six to ten years, you're gonna bring back a million dollars tax rate.
Jamie: You'd make a lot of money. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And I was like,
Jamie: Sounds good. A lot
Speaker 4: of money. I'm not going to Japan. Well, guess what? Four years later, I was begging to get to Japan. Yeah.
And wound up getting there. I had a really good year where I scored a bunch of goals Austria, which is one of best leagues in Europe, one of the highest leagues, and had a connection who played for a coach there, and he told him, hey. This guy will come and score goals for you because they only take three imports. And so, you know, the one year, my other two linemates or my other two teammates, one was Canadian, one was American. Like, both had a bunch of NHL games.
Like, it was really hard to get into that league. And I'd come home and tell people I played in Japan. They're like, This guy probably sucks. And I'm like, Dude, it's actually it's really hard to get there. The hockey's way better than you think.
And if I knew what I knew after being there, I would have taken that first offer and stayed there my entire rest of my career because it was the best I was treated other than in the NHL. I got treated better than when I was in the AHL. Yeah, there are things that are way different at the rank that you gotta deal with that are not America, not Canada, and how they, you know, do things from a professional standpoint, but the money is green, the people were awesome, I got my own suite on the road every single place we went. We flew to every team. The league was Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan.
So we flew to every game, got my own room on the road. I brought home 16 brand new sticks both years I was there. Oh, I mean, it's just like, in the AHL, they might give you, like, four. Right. And it's like, 16.
I'm going right to play it against sports and throw it on black here.
Jamie: Do do you know Alex Kim? He played for South South Korea.
Speaker 4: I probably played against him Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there the years I was there. If he played on the Olympic team, then he most likely played for Ahn Young Hala, which was the best team there.
I had I had three buddies who played on that team that were American or Canadian that played on the Korean Olympic team because Korea knew that the Olympics were coming and whatever that was, 2018, or I don't know when the Olympics And so they were they were getting a whole bunch of, like, really good players for, like, really good money because they were naturalizing them so that they wouldn't get just absolutely dummied in the Olympics.
Jamie: He did play for that team.
Speaker 4: I just looked it
Jamie: up there. Okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I'm sure I played against them. There's a lot of Kims in Korea, so And he's supposed to be He's He's going to Southern California.
Jamie: Oh, okay. Yeah. He's a California kid.
Speaker 4: Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. It was awesome. I loved my time in Europe.
Jamie: Mean, like,
Speaker 4: if you're not in the NHL
Jamie: Yeah.
Speaker 4: You know, not when I was playing in the AHL, like, there was only a couple of guys on on the you know, my first year that were making over 200,000 on an AHL salary. Right. Now, like, everybody's making, you know, really good money in the AHL unless it's your first contract. Back then, if you wanted to make, you know, way more than you could in the AHL, you kinda had to go to Europe. But then you're not one call away from the NHL, you know, so it's a little bit different.
Right.
Scott: So just one last question on that, and then we'll we'll start to wrap it up. Thank you so much for taking all this time, dude. Yeah. Course. But in in terms of, like, you know, advising players, do you or do you advise people to, like, perhaps, like, skip domestic professional hockey and, like, go right to Europe when, like, they finish up with, like, junior or college or anything along those lines?
Is that is that a route that, like, maybe more people might be taking?
Speaker 4: I usually reserve that for the players who need money right away. Like, their family has no money, and they don't wanna go to the East Coast League and battle it out. And they're like, I don't care. I need to make money. I wanna do it now.
I don't care where I play. I just need to make money. Well, yeah, then you should if you had good numbers in college, you can get paid way more your first year pro if, you know, somebody you have a good agent or somebody watched you, you know, and and you go over to, you know, like a a higher level European league, mid to higher level European league. Yeah. A 100%.
And you can always could always come back from that now too. I mean, the world is so connected. If you're a really good player and you're playing in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Russia, and you crush
Jamie: find you.
Speaker 4: Yeah. You can always come back. I'd say most guys, though, the dream is the NHL, so they're gonna they're gonna try to Right.
Jamie: Do whatever they can
Speaker 4: in in North America first Yeah. Before they head overseas. But there are guys who go right from college right to overseas, but Yeah. It's not as many.
Scott: Got it. Alright. So we had some some people write in with some questions. So we got one here from Mid Michigan Hockey. I guess that's their Instagram account.
And the question is at age 15 in the tier one triple a circuit, are you better off being one, a third line player on a top 10 ranked team? Here we go with the rankings. Right? And with an unknown coach
Jamie: It's a good question.
Scott: Caveat. Yeah. Or two, top player on a top 50 team with a well connected coach.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't care about the connected coach. I care about is the coach making my kid better. Better. Right? All that matters.
Is the coach make again, it comes down to mentors. Yeah. Is the is the coach preparing my kid with the skills needed to play at the next level?
Jamie: Right.
Speaker 4: I don't care. Like, my last year coaching so I coached the first two years that I retired, and I coached u eighteen triple a the first year, u sixteen triple a the second year. Our first practice, U16 AAA, all the coaches walked in the locker room, and I we looked at each other. I was like, we might not win a game this year. And so we were like, we don't care.
We're just gonna try to make these kids all better. That's all Have fun, get better, and let them know, like, we're gonna lose a bunch in the beginning of the year, but we're not gonna change our philosophy. The goal is to get better. Think we were, like, one in ten or one in 11 to start the year. At the end of the year, we went, like, 11 and o or 12 and o, and we were top top ranked team in the country.
Scott: Unreal.
Speaker 4: Again, don't care about the rankings, but the difference in one in 11 to 11 and o going into, you know, regionals, nationals, and all that stuff, and then COVID happened, so the season got canceled at the end there. But Right. But, like and so many of those players moved on to higher level hockey when if you watch that first practice, you're like, I don't know if anybody's gonna gonna move on. Like, that's what I care about is is the player getting better? Is he in a situation where he can move up the depth chart, or can he move down the depth chart?
Because if you have a player who plays first line who's comfortable and knows he never is has any you know, he plays a bunch of bad games. He's not getting pushed down. That's not pushing that player to get better either.
Jamie: Right.
Speaker 4: So it's like, I care about not the coach's connections. I care about the coach mentorship, coaching my kid, all of those types of things. Is he getting better? That is literally all that matters. That is it.
That is all.
Scott: Well, so so so on that question, though, let's just say like, take it back for a second. Let's just say your kid has an opportunity to be on a a better team with like higher skilled players. Exactly. The coaching is the same. Right?
But that that kid's a third line player and is gonna get less puck touches, less ice time, less special teams versus playing on a team with less skilled players. Maybe it's the difference between tier one and tier two where that kid's gonna get more puck touches, more ice time, more special teams, situational play. What what do you what's your take on that?
Speaker 4: Again, I
Scott: It depends.
Speaker 4: It's it's a really good it's a really good question. Usually, at the younger ages, you're looking for more puck touches, more opportunity, playing power play penalty kill, you know, having a little bit more time on the ice if he's a kid who doesn't have as good a vision and stuff is gonna help him get confident and comfortable with holding the puck. But then at the same time, there are people like me who I would rather play on the higher level team Yeah. Where it's pushing me every day in practice to get better. Like, I don't care about losing a bunch right away if Yeah.
If I'm able to at least play at that level. You know what I mean? Like, if it's like, I'm the worst player on the team, I'm barely playing. Okay. Like, I look at my first year of juniors where I lost all confidence.
You know, I wasn't ready to play at that level. Looking back, if I could make a decision right there to go back and play another year of midgets, I would have played another year of midgets bef instead of playing in the USHL at 17. I would have went in at 18. Yeah. But at the same time, I get injured.
Best thing that ever happened to me. That's what got me into working out and strength training, and that's what changed my career. So It's funny how things work. -CRAIG: The the other part of that is, I I tell kids when we do this, when kids come to me with, because I get these types of things all the time. Should I play for this junior league or this junior league?
This team or this team? Colleges. Should I go to this college or this college? They have this many left wingers leaving next year. This team only has one leaving.
You know? And I tell them, piece of paper, Venn diagram. What's the best about this one? What's the best about this one? What's the same in either?
Write every single possible thing out that's good or bad about each, and then let's look at them, and now let's take your personality into account. Let's take into where does your girlfriend live? Can your parents come see you? All these other factors that maybe aren't just hockey. I ask them all the time.
What's the off ice training situation? Because between 12 and 18, that's a really big thing. The better team has no off ice. You're not working out all year, but the worst team gives you two or three workouts a week. Go to that team because that is really gonna move the needle over the next two, three, four years versus the guys who are doing their own thing randomly, or they've got no type of training.
So it's it's a tough question because there's so many factors that go into it.
Scott: Yeah. Right. Yeah. That makes sense. The the CHL versus the OHL.
Now that the, you know, players can go from the OHL to d one or to college, Are you seeing a lot of American kids wanting to go play in the OHL versus the the that's that's a big draw for them.
Speaker 4: Yep. Yep. A 100%.
Scott: And is the the advantages of kids going to play the the CHL, I should say, versus the USHL? What like, what, like, what are you taking away as, like, some of the top like, the pros and cons of that?
Speaker 4: Well, I well, again, I don't think it matters where you play. It matters, are you getting better? And that's Yeah. That's when it always comes back to you. Right?
Yeah. It's hard for people to see that. You know?
Scott: No doubt.
Speaker 4: Between everything. And and so it's it's really hard. But what's cool is that it's great for the game, but it's gonna take a few years here for it to get figured out. What is this what is this flow look like now? Because it used to be okay if you're going The US college route, you're going this way.
If you're going the major junior route, you're going this way. And this is these are the options. If you okay. You go to OHL. You don't get signed in the NHL.
You you know, you can start out in the coast. You can go to CIS and start there. You know? Like, you you can't go to US college. You can go to European pro.
Okay. If you go to US route, you've your tree looks like this. Well, now the tree is completely shaken, and we don't know what these paths are gonna shake out to look like.
Otto: Right.
Speaker 4: So I think that time is just gonna kinda tell. You know, the the may CHL is trying to buy the USHL, I've heard. So
Scott: Oh, no way.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So, you know, like
Jamie: It's interesting.
Speaker 4: These next couple years is gonna be kind of the Wild Wild West and just see, you know, who's doing the best development. That's what it's gonna come down to. Who's developing players better and are moving more players on to higher level high? To the
Jamie: next level. Right?
Speaker 4: Right? And and and then it's gonna be like, you know, okay. Well, man, it's crazy. It's crazy. Yeah.
If if it was me now, I'd probably try and go major junior because if you don't sign in the NHL I don't know, though, because they play so many games. It's it's I've had this conversation with, like, USA strength coach Brian Galvin with the amount of games, major junior versus, like, NTDP, and what's the better route, and every kid's different. So it's it's a really tough one. But over the next five, six years, we're gonna see.
Jamie: Everybody's got their own path. It's unbelievable. Nobody takes the same road.
Speaker 4: Yeah. It's up to you to make it the path that works. That's what it comes down to.
Scott: That's fairly well said. Alright. So this might be the most serious question we got.
Jamie: Oh, is funny.
Scott: This is from surplus strength.
Jamie: Which I think you know well. Yeah.
Scott: How does one become a male model?
Speaker 4: Well, he hired me, so he can tell you. No, that's Jason. He is really cool. He's a military veteran, hockey dad, business owner of Surplus Strength. All of my gyms, I use all of his equipment.
Awesome. Just a great guy. I actually just did a Zoom call for his 10U Nashville Junior Predators team two nights ago.
Scott: Oh, nice.
Speaker 4: In Nashville. So, yeah, he thinks he's funny.
Jamie: There's another one too.
Scott: James, you want to take the last one?
Jamie: Yeah. So this is from, I think, somebody else you also know, Pilch Films. So his question was, is it possible to do a sit up if you can't see or hear? I'm assuming there's an inside joke there somewhere.
Speaker 4: It's from heavyweights, the movie heavyweights.
Jamie: Do you see that? Yeah. It's been a long time since I've seen that. That's what that's from?
Speaker 4: Yeah. It's from heavyweights.
Jamie: Normally, movie game is pretty legit, and I did
Speaker 4: not know that one. Yeah. That's Ben when he's on the mountain. He takes all the kids on the mountain, and he he asked the kid. The kid says, Can you do a sit up if you can't see or hear anything?
So they blindfold him. And then one of the kids pulls his pants down, and when he sits up, he sits up right into the kid's butt cheeks.
Jamie: I gotta go watch it again. My mother's enjoying it. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't I don't like having any fun. These are the questions people are asking me. Yeah.
Scott: That's so awesome. Dude, Listen, I think I think now's a great time just to wrap it up. But, you know, before we go, if you just wanna, know, plug all the places where people can find you and, you know, check you out, where would that be?
Speaker 4: Yeah. I appreciate it. Our podcast called the Hockey Think Tank Podcast. I just direct people to my Instagram. It's my name at Jeff LoVecchio.
Especially in the summer, all I try and do is give out free info and show what I do with all of my clients. I I train between, like, a 140 to 200 players a day in the summer, all higher level athletes. And with my Instagram, literally just try and show people the things that move the needle for me in my career, all of the thousands of players that I've worked with in person and the tens of thousands online. I have online training that any hockey player can do in season as an individual or as a team if teams wanna reach out to me. And I also do off season programming where it's the whole program for not even what it costs for what would it be?
It's like a week and a half in the gym for me. With me in the off season, you get the whole off season program for the summer to do on your own. There's videos of me demonstrating, coaching, everything, direct access to me. It's always me answering. It's not AI or my coaches even though people have tried to sell me on that.
It's not what I'm about. If you work with me, I'm there to help you any way I can. And I've had almost 34,000 athletes train with me online now since '20 So just that that thing that, you know, it's cheaply priced because I just try to help as many players as I possibly can who who can't afford or don't have access to quality off ice coaches.
Jamie: That's through Train Heroic.
Speaker 4: Right? That's through Train Heroic. But you can go to my website, gmbm.com, and find all of this stuff. Okay. Or just reach out to me on Instagram at jeffloVecchio.
Ask anything. I try to answer every DM I get. Sometimes they get lost, you know, I get a lot of them, but I try to answer as many as I can.
Jamie: Yeah. You're an Instagram stud, dude. Thank you
Speaker 4: so much. Appreciate it, guys.
Jamie: Thanks for having me on. Thanks for
Speaker 4: doing. Thanks so much,
Scott: Jeff. Thank you.
Speaker 4: Thanks, bud.
Scott: Alright. Everyone, welcome back from a tremendous interview with, well,
Jamie: It was one so worth the wait.
Scott: My son first, and then Yes. Then LoVecchio.
Jamie: Yes. It was and Jeff was so worth the wait, man. I mean, it took a little time. It took a little time for us to kind of get that kinda going, and thank you to him for actually spending the time with us. And thank you to his daughter for actually, giving Not us
Scott: waking up
Jamie: Yeah. During
Scott: the interview.
Jamie: Giving us time to actually get it done. So yeah, thank you to him for that and his daughter for giving us time because that was worth the wait,
Scott: man. I mean, just to talk to someone like him in detail about his experiences growing up and what it's been like for him as a professional and now post hockey just training all these kids and all the conversations he's had through the think tank just all the people
Jamie: that he's and spoke to. And now he's mentoring people. I mean, the guy, he isn't asleep.
Scott: Oh my god. No.
Jamie: And he's got like a a a 15 old, 16 old?
Scott: Something like that.
Jamie: How's he I think I actually get, like, cracked I was on a podcaster before we started. Like, when when do you sleep? Yeah. You know?
Scott: You know, just So much going on. But when he was telling you, right off the hop, when he was talking about how, you know, his parents didn't, you know, fight Yeah. Any of his battles for
Jamie: him. That was cool.
Scott: That he was the one that, like, you know, took the feedback and when his parents or his mom, I think, in the the one story about post tryouts. And he was ultimately conceded that it wasn't my best tryout and that from there on end, he was always the best player at tryouts.
Jamie: Yeah, that was cool. Was cool. That fueled
Scott: his fire.
Jamie: It's cool. His mom was talking to him after that. She's like she's kinda like like, you know, did you give your all? Right. Right?
Scott: But but that's not that's not that's not a parent berating
Jamie: the child
Scott: thing. You suck. That's just
Jamie: It's teaching a lesson. Like,
Scott: Yeah. I he even said it's like holding the mirror up in front
Otto: of your chest.
Jamie: Was just saying she was throwing the ball into his court. Be like, Hey, listen.
Scott: Yep. No doubt. And that part of it when he then had this like not, I want to, maybe the right way, maybe a good way of saying it, it wasn't linear. Like he would say like, you know, if you're playing like two years within like a certain like, you know, two years squirt, two year peewee, two year midget, whatever.
Speaker 4: Right.
Scott: Phantom, you know, that he would like rise to the top and then he would come back down.
Jamie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the roller coaster that he was on.
Scott: The roller coaster.
Jamie: Yeah,
Scott: yeah. But he just persevered and just kept on going and gave it his all.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Jamie: I think that he mentioned during the interview, and he said the only advice that his dad ever gave to him was hard work, patience, and more hard work. And then he spun if you guys watch the YouTube version, gonna you're see on the audio, but he spun his computer around.
Scott: Right. And he had it,
Jamie: he had it in a neon sign that kinda lit up that wasn't lit up, but he said, know, hard work, patience, more hard work came from his dad. He's like, that's the only thing my dad ever said to me. You know? And in my opinion, Jeff, you need to sell that sign. Right.
You need to make it and sell it. Because people will buy it.
Scott: Yeah. No, without a doubt. Yeah. Just from like a training perspective, you know, his focus on agility, deception, decision making. Obviously, those are things that are those aren't the goals.
Those aren't the assist. These are the things that in the modern game, these are the things that are gonna separate players as well as like the Hockey IQ piece which you're talking about teaching it through watching film, encouraging your kids to ask questions, talk to the coach and mentorship. That was one of the big takeaways that he He's big on that. How much he stressed mentorship.
Jamie: Huge.
Scott: Yeah.
Jamie: And I think you and I took a lot away from that. And now we're kind of having some mentor type people on our or we're looking to have somebody like that on our podcast. Yeah. He's big into mentors for everything, not just hockey.
Scott: No, but it makes a ton of sense. 100 it does.
Jamie: Yeah. Very important for just life. Yeah. I mean, it was a cool interview.
Scott: What about the piece when just making it
Otto: is
Scott: the easy part? Staying there
Speaker 4: is Yeah. What it's
Jamie: You know, it's funny. It's funny. When he said that, it brought me back to was it Doug Christensen when he was talking about The US development camp? And he said that just because you get there, doesn't mean you stay there. Right?
I wanna say it was Doug, was Doug or Bob Mansini, I'm not sure. But it's funny, like, right, like getting there is right? Getting there is not the hard part. The hard part is staying there.
Scott: The hard part is staying there. Yeah. And that was oh, I think when we were talking to my buddy Brad who
Jamie: coaches Yeah. Premise Mahwah Linhurst.
Scott: Yeah. Like Yeah. Even just saying how kids are I think it was him. But when kids are going to the private schools to you get recruited to play at one of the better prep schools.
Jamie: In our area.
Scott: Or not prep schools.
Jamie: The private Catholic high schools. Yeah.
Scott: And it's like you have to look out for who's coming up behind you because you make the team. But the class from next year
Jamie: is be
Scott: loaded with people that are gonna take your position.
Jamie: No question about it.
Scott: Know? Just because you make it doesn't mean
Jamie: That's right.
Speaker 4: The hard work
Jamie: doesn't stop. Hard work continues.
Speaker 4: No.
Jamie: Right? Yeah. Because somebody's always looking to take your spot. Yeah. You're always looking to get Wally pipped, and you do not wanna get Wally people.
Scott: No. No Wally pipping. I've never heard that before.
Speaker 4: What the hell is that?
Jamie: Oh my god. We fucking Did
Scott: just embarrass myself? Again. Again? I embarrassed myself again? Again.
No. Really?
Jamie: Just Google Wally pip. I'm just curious to hear. Just do me favor, Google it for me and tell me what you find I'm actually just curious what what you Google why Wally Pip is
Scott: He played Major League Baseball.
Jamie: Okay. Continue.
Scott: Yeah. I don't like baseball.
Jamie: I understand that, but you still need to You
Scott: also asked me about a fucking football player that played before I was born and you looked at me like I should know who he is.
Jamie: Wally Pip is famous. So now, the saying, you don't want to get Wally Pipped?
Scott: Yeah. What happened Oh to
Jamie: my god. So Wally Pip came out of a game because he had a headache. Okay? Yeah. And
Scott: he never played again because he had a headache.
Jamie: No, no, no. He never played again because the person who was behind him was Lou Gehrig. Yeah. Yeah. So he Lou Gehrig started playing because he had a headache, so Lou Gehrig went into the game, and Wally Pip never played that position ever again.
Scott: Not even for another team.
Jamie: For the Yankees.
Scott: Okay.
Jamie: Yeah.
Scott: Yeah. Well, Okay. I'm going to call you Wally Pip from now on.
Jamie: Yeah, that doesn't make sense.
Scott: It doesn't, but it's just yeah, Okay. Anyway, great talk.
Jamie: Now everybody that doesn't know who Wally Pip knows who Wally Pip And I'm sure a lot of other people are gonna be making fun of you.
Scott: Me? Yeah. That's fine.
Jamie: But it's good.
Scott: Yeah. Okay.
Jamie: It's all in good fun.
Speaker 4: Great.
Scott: Yeah. Anyway.
Jamie: First, John Riggins, now Wally Pip. Let's see who we can get on the next episode.
Scott: Yeah. I'm gonna find some obscure fucking athletes.
Jamie: Obscure? These are major sports figures.
Scott: Okay. So then I guess I'm just That's alright.
Jamie: It's alright. We still
Scott: love you. Need to I need to catch up on my my sports trivia video. Listen. Whatever.
Jamie: It's all that.
Scott: It's just,
Jamie: listen, you learn something new.
Scott: That's true. Either winning or learning.
Jamie: 100%. Yeah. Which one of our which one of our, interviews just said that? Was it it was LoVecchio. Yeah.
LoVecchio said it. Yeah. We've had so many interviews. It's like it's all like, melding together. Yes, he said that.
If you're not winning, you're learning.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Jamie: And I've said, meanwhile, can I just tell you, ever since we've done that interview, I've said that to my kid like seven times?
Scott: That's good. Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. It's tremendous advice.
Scott: You're calling him a loser.
Jamie: I don't do that.
Scott: No, I know.
Jamie: Just saying. Yeah. And if you hockey dads are out there, do not do that. Don't call your kid a loser. That's not a good thing.
No, but he's that was cool, man. I enjoyed it. He's a very cool dude. We have to have him on again. He's very what's the word?
Approachable. You know I mean? He's a very outgoing dude. If you wanna use him for any training, he will get back to you. He does not pay somebody to do it, like you said.
Even though he's been approached for a service to do it, he's like, No. He wants to do it all himself, is awesome. Yeah. He just wants to give back more to the game, which is awesome. He just wants to help people, which is a phenomenal thing.
It's noble, it's it's wonderful. And I don't know about you, but I've noticed that a lot these hockey guys that we're talking to, they all want to give back. You notice that?
Scott: Yeah, no doubt.
Jamie: I mean, all just want to give back
Scott: to the I think that's part of what makes them successful.
Jamie: So cool, though. I wonder if all sports are like that. Right? Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Scott: Think there's a lot of people that
Jamie: are would would hope so, right? Yeah. You know? But it's no man. It's listen, it's very cool.
He's a very impressive human being.
Scott: Yeah. Alright. Well, I don't know what else. I think we need to wrap this one up.
Jamie: Yeah. I know. You and I actually both have somewhere to go, which is crazy, we know. But we have some very cool interviews coming up, so stay tuned. Keep subscribing.
Our Instagram is exploding, so thank you for all the new people that are jumping on. We have a ton of new downloads, which is also wild. So thank you for those people that are downloading and sharing and writing reviews and kind of coming on board. I don't know if you saw, but we added Denmark and Scotland.
Scott: Fantastic. Yeah.
Jamie: And a bunch of places in like Finland, Sweden, Czech, but I can't pronounce. Awesome. Yeah. So, it's all good. We're having a lot of fun doing this.
I hope you guys enjoy it. I hope you guys we're trying to get better every episode.
Scott: Check out our partners. Don't forget that. Howie's Hockey.
Jamie: Yeah. Crazy ten. Yep. Yeah.
Scott: Prosprite Elite Gaming.
Jamie: Christmas and Hanukkah are are barreling down and oh, actually, one of them is Hanukkah's tonight.
Scott: Starts tonight. Right? Yeah.
Jamie: Right. So so if you haven't, go buy some stuff from Howie's and overnight it. You'll have it for the next night. And you'll have it for Christmas, for those of you celebrate Christmas. But, yeah.
Angelo Circe, Pro Stride Elite, we had him on a couple episodes ago. Tremendous. These episodes have been phenomenally. CHD10 for 10% off. And then Eric API.
Scott: Yep, athletic performance insight. Yeah. Yep, use the contact form, reach out to Eric, let him introduce you to his platform, let him tag a game for you so you can get some analytics for your team and really help improve your players IQ.
Jamie: Yeah, some sick interviews coming up. I mean, some sick interviews coming up. Again, his Instagram, he's very, very reachable if you're looking to train.
Scott: And we'll put his socials
Jamie: in there.
Scott: Socials in
Jamie: Yeah. In the description.
Scott: Show notes in the description, whatever. Yeah. All right, dude.
Jamie: All right,
Scott: That's a wrap.
Jamie: That was fun. Right. See you on All the next
Scott: right. Thanks out.