In this episode of Our Kids Play Hockey, we explore the evolving landscape of hockey training, emphasizing the blend of physical and cognitive skills necessary for modern players. We dive into the discussion with Justin Scott, a renowned power skating specialist and certified hockey skills coach, to understand the global perspective of hockey's growth and how it translates into local training methodologies.
Key Points Discussed:
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In this episode of Our Kids Play Hockey, we explore the evolving landscape of hockey training, emphasizing the blend of physical and cognitive skills necessary for modern players. We dive into the discussion with Justin Scott, a renowned power skating specialist and certified hockey skills coach, to understand the global perspective of hockey's growth and how it translates into local training methodologies.
Key Points Discussed:
Our Kids Play Hockey is powered by NHL Sense Arena!
NHL Sense Arena, is a virtual reality training game designed specifically to improve hockey sense and IQ for both players and goalies. Experience the next generation of off-ice training in VR with over 100+ drills and training plans curated from top coaches and players.
Use Code "HockeyNeverStops" at Hockey.SenseArena.com to score $50 off an annual plan!
Hello hockey friends and families around the world, and welcome to another edition of our kids play hockey, powered by NHL sensorina. I'm Lee Elias, that's Christy Cash, you know burns. That is also Mike Benelli, and today we are joined by Justin Scott, a professional power skating specialist, certified hockey skills coach and charted professional coach who has traveled all over the world to several continents to coach the game. Yes, I said continents, including Asia, africa, oceana and, of course, north America again Oceana. For those who don't know, it's the Australia, new Zealand area. We don't say Australia anymore, you got to be worldly nowadays. Anyway, he works with hockey players of all ages through his program performance edge hockey development and all of his experience has earned him a healthy following across the social sphere via his account at hockey underscore sportist. We're always excited to speak with the skills coach that has seen hockey all over the world. Justin, welcome to our kids play hockey.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. It's I'm glad to be here. Thanks again.
Speaker 1:No, thank you for being here. My first question I had to ask is you know I do the research on you before and there's a lot of hockey skill based questions that we want to dive into. But I have to ask you've traveled all over the planet for hockey. Let's start the episode. What are your biggest takeaways, from a global perspective, of the game?
Speaker 2:I think one of the biggest things to take away from is it has just the game is growing so much worldwide and then the love for the game is just continuing to grow, not only just, you know, in youth sports, whether it's at the U7 level, but the amount of people in these different continents and the places that I've been at, where you know you get 20, 30, 40 year old, you know, just you know, starting to. You know they've been watching the game, whether it's on the NHL network or whatever they see on on YouTube and are on social media and and them going like I want to put on a pair of skates, and so it's nice, especially from a coaching perspective, just the amount of love that that these people have for the game and the amount of knowledge and information that they want to collect as much as possible, like they may want to just play. You know, like said, at the 30 year olds, you know, plus age, they just want to play beer league hockey with their buddies, that they realize that there's a rink somewhere in Sydney, australia, or you know, cairo, egypt, and and so that's. That's very cool and just for me it's just to be a being a part of that I'm always that type of coach that wants to be a piece of the puzzle and whether you're just, you know, a U7 kid, a U20 kid, you know wanting to make pros or your recreational battle, you know, just wanting to learn and play the game and have fun, because that's what it's definitely all about, right? So, yeah, that's kind of the things I definitely take away from from those experiences.
Speaker 1:Taking notes, sorry, one of the things that I wrote here and all of us on this panel have been blessed with seeing hockey in other countries and you're right, the great unifier of the game is that passion for the game. It's not just the playing of the game, and I think sometimes, especially in the North American area, you know, even on the East Coast, we get this kind of weird, you know, bias for some reason of like it's ours, it's our. You don't understand the game. Then you go to another country where maybe they have a lot of access or limited access, and you realize, man, they love this, like their fandom is just as passionate as someone in New York City or Philadelphia or Seattle, wherever right. You start to realize like they love this game as much as I do or we do, and it really changes your perspective on it and, if anything, it makes you want to help these people. Especially, like I said, if you go to a country with really limited resources, man, they might even have ice right and being able to share it and they're hungry for it. In some ways they might even appreciate that more.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I think a lot of it has to do with, you know, I think, the media front. I think the NHL has done a really good job, like you know, promoting the game globally with their global series games. You know social media too. You know being able to have this type of access. You know, pretty much right at your fingertips now and you're seeing. You know guys from, or you know players from, mexico right from. You know, like the southern states and we're not southern states but southern countries where you know, maybe in line has been really popular and now they go on. You know how can we get ourselves, you know, an ice rink facility to help grow that area of the game of hockey. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would have went to Cairo, egypt, one of the hottest places in the world. You know to run skill development practices, and you were absolutely right. You know, like they do have limited access, limited resources, so being able to, you know, give them as much information as possible in such a short amount of time, you know, not only speaks volumes to how much they want to learn, but it speaks volumes as to you know, like I take pride in the fact that someone has asked me from essentially you know another country to help you know grow the game and help them get better in all areas of the game of hockey.
Speaker 1:You bring up a great point too about the NHL kind of series that they do in other countries, and every once in a while I'll hear why are they going there? Well, they're not going there for just today, right, and again there's fans there. There's obviously enough interest there for them to want to put an NHL game in that country or in that region. But I remember and I'm going to brag a tiny bit here about a program I've been involved with they put an NHL game in Puerto Rico, not not that long ago, you know, maybe 15 years ago, and everybody was like what are you going to San Juan to play a hockey game? For, right, it was the Rangers and the Panthers. Well, puerto Rico has a national ice hockey association now, right, I'm privileged to be involved with it and there are NCAA Division 1 players in this program and I'm not sure if that happens, if the NHL doesn't go to San Juan. However many years ago that was right, that was like the starting point for that entire organization's belief. And, like you said, they go to other countries and look, look, you go to Prague, you go to, you go to Scandinavia. These are areas, like you know, in Europe the hockey's flourishing there. But I love any initiative, not just the NHL, but people traveling to Egypt, like you said, like you've done, to share the game, because when you start to see the game as a global game, it just gives you perspective, it probably gives you more gratitude, right? I mean Mike and I again. I'm Philadelphia, mike is is is New York, connecticut, christie's up in Syracuse. There's no shortage of ranks here all right, I can. I can tell you right now that there is at least 15 sheets of ice within 45 minutes of where I'm sitting right.
Speaker 2:I doubt that's true in Egypt, so absolutely, yeah, I mean out of all of Egypt. I think there was four ice surfaces in total, two of them in the country yeah, in the country. Two of them are in malls you know large, right, you come all as well and the other ones were like, literally were like these little communities have tried to make you know an ice surface in a. I've got some pictures where it's like it's kind of like in a plastic tarp tent and and they've been able to create ice. And then to it's funny, they one of the, I guess one of the memories that I have there is to keep the ice facility inside cool enough. They're keeping it at room temperature. Now room temperature for us is like plus 21 right so to think that you know a ice surface here in Canada or the United States, you need to keep it. You know, you know, at plus 10. I know this is Fahrenheit, so I don't know the it's about 70 conversions, about 70 to 71, you know like to be at, you know, at freezing temperatures, to keep the ice cool and not, you know, yeah, and to have it at plus, you know, 21 degrees Celsius inside of a rank. It's tough to top to do and you have to. You have to adjust and you have to be creative in in what areas of the ice you're working with, because you may have one section of the ice might be hard, you might have it softer, you might have it, you know, a pool of water, even though it's not in there, right? So so, yeah, it's gotta be creative. That's again we're we're trying and that's the, you know, that's the least, very most they can do to to get on the ice.
Speaker 3:Right, that's where we could dive in about the, because you've got your own dimension hockey now, the program that you developed, why you developed it and how it can benefit a skater If we can talk about that as the parents are listening in trying to navigate this crazy world of hockey and figure out what kind of development.
Speaker 1:And Justin before you dive in. Just to add on to that, christy, to give you an idea of what Justin does, I mean a lot of camps, right, including power skating, preseason prep, shooting stick handling, body contact, the ring at camp, and there's a lot more. So I'm just again just tagging on to you because, like Justin, does a lot, a lot of different things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So I kind of give it a little bit of background as to when and where I started and that kind of leads into, like my, my Instagram handle on the sport test side. So always been a hockey guy my whole life. 2009, I became a professional power skating instructor through the Can Power Skate program here in Canada. I wanted something here in my hometown where we're able to create a non-biased approach for assessments, not only for like assessments in the game of hockey, but in other sports as well. So not only that, it helped. The data that came from the sport testing side of things was able to help not only myself as a coach, but also helps the athlete as well understand where they're at. So we would test I would test an athlete at the beginning of the year, mid-season, end season, probably mid-summer, and you're able to see that progression and see how much they've improved over time. Now for me, if I was in a bigger center in a place like Calgary, edmonton, toronto, it would work, but in my smaller community it didn't. So I had to step away from that to still be involved in the game of hockey. So, yeah, after becoming a power skating instructor, I worked towards that and then became a certified Hockey Canada skills coach back in 2021. During COVID that got canceled so I had to get pushed back in my certification in 22. But with that, that has allowed me to essentially broaden my approach, different areas of the game where I know I'm really strong at. There's a lot of things that I'm really good at. I pride myself on the skating aspect. I also pride myself on the shooting, the passing, the body contact. But there's some other things too where I'm always I mean, just like the three or just like the four of us. We're always, always, always learning. But it's those specific types of skills where I feel that I'm, you know, call myself an elite coach professionally. I pride myself in how much information that I'm able to provide. Like I said, you seven kids all the way up to the pro level. So that's kind of how I've developed as a coach and, like I said, I'm always continuing to learn and grow and learning from guys like yourself. That's what the game, in my opinion, as a skills coach, is all about. You know, being able to tap into different areas of expertise so that it's like oh, lee, you do something different, mike does something different than what I do, like that's, that's the beauty of what we do as coaches.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've always said my little saying when I teach coaches is look good, coaches know everything, Great coaches know nothing, right Because?
Speaker 2:you have to keep learning. And the best coaches steal drills.
Speaker 1:You have to and I don't want to borrow. We borrow drill.
Speaker 2:But yeah, no, you know, and that was that came from, you know, that came from Mike Babcock, that's. That's who I literally got that quote from. It's like the best coaches in the world of the coaches that borrow and steal drills and ideas and what you make of it, so absolutely.
Speaker 3:So for parents who are just on board, they're just learning hockey and they got little kids and they're listening and you mentioned you're an expert at power skating. What if you could define that for the parent? What is power skating and why is that something that kids should start developing, and at what age? You know?
Speaker 2:I kind of want to take power aspect of the power skating. Skating is a skill, just like anything else. It's one of the is, in my opinion, one of the most important skills. I was always told that if you can't skate, you can't play the game, and it's so true. If you can't get from point A to point B, it's hard to be a good hockey player, and progress as a hockey player, power skating, or the skating skill, like I said, is the most important. Being able to, you know, let's say, at the very, very young age, getting the fundamentals and working on the fundamentals is so, so, so important, and what tends to happen is they do a great job at that. You know, five, six, seven, eight year old age. But as soon as they get to like nine, 10, and as they get into um, into like their preteens and they're starting to grow, it's so important to utilize a power skating coach or a skating coach to correct some of those bad habits that we get into um as as skaters, as hockey players, because of how we grow, our body's changing and we need to adapt as um, adapt in our growth, like as, as our bodies grow, so um. You know, there's a lot of times where I'm working with the. You know, I may work with a 10 year old and he's small. And then next thing, you know, like a year or two later, he's like sprouted and it's like and now he's like standing up, nice and tall. He's, you know, he's really yank, lanky, he's. You know, he hasn't really like developed and grown into his body yet. Here's where I can step in and be like okay, we need to correct and we need to work on those body mechanics, because the body mechanics is so, so important when it comes to, uh, being a good skater. And and after, you know, after being a good skater, then you're progressing into these other skills. But or or.
Speaker 3:How long does it take and might you can chime in here to break the bad habits.
Speaker 2:Could be a quick fix. It really can be a quick fix. If, uh and that's something that I do too and I really haven't added to it yet is, you know, like, I take a lot of video of some of the kids, so I'll see, I'll, I'll have video of them. I'll be able to essentially dissect what their stance looks like, what their stride looks like, what's you know all this stuff skating wise, and then maybe see them, you know, a year or two, down the road again and go, okay, no, we need to get you back to where we were when we had you at a really good hockey stance, where you had very powerful strides. Cause you get some parents that go, man like my, my kid's not getting power out of his stride, he's not getting faster, he's not agile enough, Like what's, what's going on? Well, I could go back into some of the video and go, okay, this is how we broke things down back a year ago. This is how we can tackle it now, and it may be just a quick fix. It may be, you know, a um. It may be something where we're working on mechanics, where it might be just something as simple as like activating the hips more, getting more knee bend, getting good ankle flexion, you know all that sort of stuff where we can just go boom, like I can pinpoint something in particular and I could tell you. I could tell the kid okay, this is how we can fix it. We can literally fix this now, or maybe taking a couple sessions, but it's then up to the child and that is at the end of the day. If the child does not want to take that information and utilize it to his advantage, you, if you don't use it, you lose it Right.
Speaker 1:So it's it's true when you're over 40 as well, for everybody. I'll say this too. You know, to your point, buddy, is that you got to meet these kids where they're at Right. I think this is where a lot of coaches end up missing things, right? So I'll give you a good example. I was coaching a tour of it over the weekend. I had a seven year old and I told them a very basic thing. And I looked at him and I said, hey see, tell me what. What did I just say? And he looked at me and I don't know, right. And I said okay. I said no worries, I'll tell you. I told him again his parents are right there, like, listen to him, listen to him, okay, it's okay. I told him again and I said what did I just say? And he goes I don't know. And I'm like I didn't get mad. I'm like, okay, you're seven, you're, you're engrossed in this experience. Just go out and play. I understand where this kid is at Right, and this is not the moment to maybe teach him what I'm trying to teach him Right, right now. He just has to go out there and skate Right Again. Very young, right. But to add on to that the amount of 11 year olds, 12 year olds, 13 year olds come in, toe drag release, toe drag release, toe drag release. And I see that, hey, there's some, there's some fundamentals on your shot that are really missing. You got that toe drag down, but your shot wobbles or there's no accuracy. You'll know right away if a kid wants to learn or not, because if they want it, they're going to tell me please teach me Some kids don't want that, I know, I know. I think as coaches we have to be careful. You can push a little bit, don't get me wrong. Parents listening, coaches listening, but if they're not there yet that it's okay. Like you got to understand that you cannot put that into a kid, right? I always said you can't create that drive, but you can cultivate it, absolutely. I always appreciate when parents say to the kid after hey, that you know that guy's trying to teach you something, right? And it's like, yeah, I'm here, I'm always going to be here for you, right? But it's not anyone's job to create that drive. That comes organically and I think sometimes the less you try and make that happen, the more it ends up happening at the right time, right.
Speaker 2:And if I can add to that, and as the skills coaches, yeah, we appreciate obviously the income that comes in from, because guess what? The parents are paying for it and what drives me bonkers?
Speaker 1:let's, let's let's, let's, let's, let's, let's not use that Right Same one there, yeah.
Speaker 2:It is. It's just like. This is what the parents want. Parents want the kids to go power skating, power skating, power skating, or shooting coach, shooting coach, shooting coach, like two, three times a week. And and then you get, you know, little Johnny or a little Molly comes home and mom and dad goes, so what did you learn? And? And they go. Well, I can't remember. I skated, I skated, I skated, yeah, you know. And then they get frustrated because they're all you know, they're working out the money. But again, you have to like, it's a relationship building that we, as skills coaches, have to develop and have to have that rapport with those kids, because I want to make sure that I can give as much information at them so that when little Johnny or little Molly comes home and says you know what, dad coach Justin, I had so much fun with him, this is what I learned. Right, you know what this is. This is what I'm going to do now and that, to me, is very rewarding as a coach. And then having little Johnny and Molly going, when are we going? Like, when can I go back? Right, that that, to me, is. I want a kid to come and want to learn and want to be on the ice, not because mom and dad said that I have to improve on something.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a recipe for burnout If you're not careful with that. And again, we're not talking about it's Tuesday and they don't want to do it that day, we're. You know that that happens to everybody, right? And parents I always said look, you made the commitment, you made the commitment. Right, we're all going to have days we don't want to do the work, Um, but that's your chance. I always say, like, success leaves clues, right, you can say, like, you know, hey, if you want to get better, here's the steps you can take. But you got to want it. Um, you know, if you can get your kid to organically want to go, here's the deal. And and you know, Justin, I'm not, I'm not, um, broadening this for no reason. But if you want to find someone to teach you, you will find someone to teach you. Absolutely Right, there, there's enough people out there willing to do it. Um, I'd say that the pool of people striving to do it is actually so, it's actually smaller than people realize, right, but it's a data time process of meeting kids where they're at. Um, and again, success leaves clues. When, when, when, a kid says on my team, why want to be better? You know, ask great questions, You'll get great answers. Well, well, how can you get better? Well, I, I can practice more. Yeah, that's, that's right, you could practice more. You know what else? Maybe we could find someone you can help develop that. Another one, um, Justin, that my dad used to do that was really looking back kind of a brilliant suggestion was when I did go to specialized coaching or practices, he suggested to me why don't you, when you get home, write out the drills that you did? And, man, that had a really positive impact. Uh, not, not only did I get a lot of drills written out, like you know, which actually benefited me when I was coaching later on but, right, the process of writing the drill made me think about what was the purpose of the drill. What did I learn in this drill? Right, and then it created some, some mental muscle memory of why we were doing something. The the why, is so important if you want your kids to remember something, Right I? It actually brings me to another question. I wrote here, Justin, about just kind of muscle memory in general. Right, Sometimes muscle memory drills are not fun because you're doing the same thing over and over and over again, Right? So I'd love to know your process of whatever you want to put it, making it fun, or or you know the the why behind it and how you encourage kids to kind of make progress within those drills?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So to go back to your first point journal, journal, journal, journal, journal, journal, journal, everything, if you can, because and especially as you get older, because you will you know like I'm, and I'm going to use the 12 to 18 range, where you're getting kids that are will go to a skills coach on a Monday, or, sorry, let's go to a skating coach on to a Monday, a shooting coach on Tuesday. You have practice on Wednesday, thursday, you're back with a skating coach. Friday. You've got game. Saturday, you've got game Sunday. You have off and you can't even remember what you just did. And on any of those days, journal, journal, journal. And that's so important because not only it does that help you to remember what you did, but it also helps to remember like, okay, what in that drill or what in that skill were we actually breaking down Right and why? And you're absolutely right. So what I also like to pride myself on is being able to teach the skill but give them the understanding of why you would need it in a game like situation. So, yes, repetition is repetition.
Speaker 1:Repetition is. It's also important to write out what you didn't do well, like that, that was another benefit of it. Like, oh, I struggled with this, so now. I've identified something that I have to work on. It's really easy to forget that if you want to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And then that also helps me as a coach because I could then go hey, can I remember? You know, let's look at your journal as to what we did on the Monday. It's now a full week. You know rotation in the week and I'm like, okay, we struggled on. You know this specific skill and we can now either go back to it and then take that as a progression moving forward. Because, again, I think progressions is super important in the sense that we may be working on one skill two days. We may be doing another skill. Could we have made a progression in between to help you understand that drill even better and utilize it in a game like situation? And that's where the why comes in right. So, but yeah, the and again you ask the skills coaches, skating coaches. It's super, super important to understand that these are kids. They are kids. They're going to forget their. You know they've got so many distractions throughout the day. They just did a full day of school. You know whatever happened at school. And then they literally jump on the ice for you for an hour and then they go to their home life, their back at doing homework and all that stuff, and there's a lot that goes on, for, you know, six to nine, and even older, you know.
Speaker 1:I've maintained. Their schedules may be busier than yours, as an adult, I think. I think we look over that a lot, but I mean they're in heavily structured classrooms and then a structured practice, structured homework. You know it's a lot. I I I'll maintain I don't think we give kids enough credit for all they're doing right. They just don't have as many responsibilities.
Speaker 2:And we don't know what they went through right Throughout. You know, throughout that. You know that that the course of the day. So again, you're going to, you have to read the kid, you know you have to read the athlete and be like, okay, are we having a good day, having a bad day? And then you know, asking them about school. There's nothing wrong as a skills coach for them. You know, while you're warming up to ask how was school today, you know what happened in school because probably nine times out of 10 hockey being at the rink is there out. Yeah, that is their. You know this is their fun time, this is. You know they want to learn this stuff. You know, let's be honest, because you know they just had a rough day. They were learning math and language arts and science and all this stuff. I get to, I get to do what I love to do for an hour and that's where that relationship to just like have that conversation. You know how was your day. You know what happened at school today. And then you're you want to be their friend. Yeah, at the end of the day, you want to be their friend and if you have that relationship with them, I guarantee you. You're going to get more out of that kid than just being a skills coach.
Speaker 1:Look, I'll affirm you right now, the greatest coaches I ever had did what you just said. They met me where I was at. They understood I had the life and they made it fun Right and I felt like I could go to these people right About, about different things and, like you said, I always wanted to be at the rink but sometimes I had more energy than other days and you know the really great coaches would understand. Okay, I need to make this a little more fun for you today than I had planned, just because you need that today. And it was still got the work in. Don't get me wrong, but we said it earlier, you have to meet these kids where they're at Right. Sometimes it's as simple as just asking right, how was your day Right? Not assuming anything. I wanted to turn the conversation a little bit to you and Mike here. You're both heavily certified and it's funny when I talk about certified coaches or coaching certification, this conversation can go all over the place. You know I've had coaches that kind of roll their eyes at certification in the sense of it's just something I have to do. But my belief is this especially when you're highly certified, like both of you, you get out of these programs what you put in. If there is a yearning for knowledge, these certification programs are highly valuable. And again, I'm not so much like for USA hockey, I'm not so much talking level one, level two, which is very base, and I understand completely why it is that way, cause I think a lot of times, you know, some of us come in with a lot of hockey experience going. I know all this but you forgetting there's a dad or a mom somewhere that has done nothing Right and we all have to kind of start. But I'd love for you to both talk because again, you know Justin Heavlin, involved in hockey, canada, mike, obviously USA hockey Can we just discuss for a few minutes about the certification process and the joy of it, not so much the need for it but the joy of it and how it's helped you both?
Speaker 2:I guess, for me, I think it's the word accreditation, I think just means a whole lot when it comes to being certified. I think that holds that. That word itself holds a lot of weight as, as a coach, I'm not a, not a YouTube coach, I'm not a. You know, yes, I'm a parent to you know, my own kids. But there's something to be said for you know, for us, certified skills coaches, that you know, take pride, like actual pride. Like, for some of us, this is our full-time jobs, you know, like this is what we do on a daily basis. We work with thousands, you know hundreds and thousands of kids, you know, worldwide, and, and for me, whether I'm locally or globally, I, for me, I would want, I would, I don't want to say the best, but I want to have someone that's, you know, really understands the game. Like for us I'm not totally sure I'm the USA hockey, but for us, as hockey Canada skills coach, we go through it's not just like showing up for you know, a three hour, you know, seminar we're not there for a weekend seminar, that process, like we're, us as skills coaches, we're there all week in Calgary. We spend all day, every day, with each other. We are learning from each other, we're teaching each other, we're excuse me, and then from there we have these different tasks. I think there was like 20 to 25 tasks that we have to do within our branch. So for me it's hockey Alberta. So I got to do all these different tasks in order for me to be certified, to be qualified as a hockey Canada skills coach, and the amount of work that is done, that it takes to complete that is, is huge, and so that's where the pride comes in knowing that I spent that amount of time. I've invested a lot of time, not only into my, like my learning, but investing into the game of hockey itself, right, right. So, like I want, I want to give, I want to receive as much information, and I want to give as much information as possible so that it's not just about me, it's about what can I teach Mike, what can I teach Christie, what can I teach Lee? Because we're all different, we're all learning from different. You know different spectrums of the game, so. So that's where it's like and that's also kind of developed where it's like I spend, like I work with a couple of associations in the United States as well, so I'm like you know what I want to do my level one, want to do my level two, my level three, I have my level four and I'm just waiting to do a do my level five. Course, you know, hope I think it's it won't be this year but it'll be next year. So it, like I said, to have that on a resume for me is is rewarding, it's. I take pride in that and, like I said, to have that accreditation I think speaks volumes.
Speaker 1:Mike, I do want to throw it to you. Sorry, we always joke. You are here, but, mike, you've been involved in the USA hockey side of this for a long time and I'm interested to see if you feel like it's similar to what Justin's saying at, maybe like the higher levels of accreditation and certification, or what you think we can do better.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I probably have a different view of it only because I think from the USA hockey perspective and Kale could bleep all this out later if the, the, the.
Speaker 1:Buckle up everybody. Now just go ahead.
Speaker 4:The piece that we do in the US, I think, is more checking boxes. Oh right, I think it's just, I've got to get it, I'm mandated to have it, I don't really care about it. And if you want real certification, go to Justin's Instagram, which I do every day. Steal as much as you can from him. Listen to what he's saying, watch what he's writing, go to coach them, take his drills, use those pieces around like why do I learn this? Because I look at guys like him and I say, okay, well, I don't know, he must be on the right page. He follows guys like JB Spiezo and watches what he talks about. As far as motivation he's, you know you're using these great tools like coach them, like the same things I would use In Canada. There is another level of skills coaching. You can't just say I'm a skills coach, pay me $120 an hour and do no continuing education. What I love about what Justin does and he is the epitome of what I aim to wanna be and the people I mentor and the young guys I and girls I mentor now is like and we talk about this a lot like be a lifelong learner. The certification doesn't mean crap If you have. If you have. I've got 50 level five coaches right now. I could write down I would never allow to be on the ice with my kids ever. And they've done it. They've checked all the boxes. They've gone through eight years They've done. Now, what USA Hockey is doing better is now they have, like this, continuing education credits and you could go get your goalie certification. You could do a seminar on defense, you could go and listen to a, you know a TED Talk type thing and get credit for that. But what they're trying to do is catch up right, and you're a trainer like you're a little a teacher Like you can't step on the ice and say that you're a coach without being an actual coach. Like going through all of the resources they're at to learn. You know what is physiology and psychology and I think a lot of us in the US coach because we played. You give a guy a whistle and a clipboard and he feels like he's a coach. And I again, the certification is great. It is. I mean, I think the most beneficial thing for a new coach in the USA Hockey system is level one only, because it sets the groundwork for what USA Hockey is now. It wasn't what it was Like even now. Like if you're a pro hockey player and you want to get a certification, you can't get waved through without going to level one. You must take level one. Like it's the bare bones. But as far as like certifications, accreditations and I do all that and I only do it not for the stamp, I think I do it, I know I do it for the access to other people's thoughts and other people's way of teaching something or somehow somebody's. Like you know, justin knows Mike Weaver really well, right, and guys like Mike is like well, like way he speaks and talks is different than almost anybody else I know from a defensive positioning. So I'm like, okay, well, I love how he's using this and I can now attach this in my like my accreditation every day is self exploration of new education and that's why the world is so different. Like, if I had Instagram when I was 23 years old, I would have never screwed up as much as I screwed up. Like. I'm like this is like you're making it so easy. Like how do you go out and find you know again, youtube videos are great. Instagram videos are great. I love how you know guys are now learning how to you know, pan the camera in and make a player look like they're better than they are At the end of the day. Look for professionals that go out here all the time and improve what they're doing. Speak about something they don't like. I posted something last night on Twitter and somebody chimed in like well, I don't like that, I go. You know what? That's a great point. What you just make like that's actually a good, a better way for me to think about that, because the way I'm presenting it is out of context to the way you're reading Go ahead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Lee, I just want to kind of, when you're done there, I'd like to chime in on what Mike was saying too.
Speaker 1:You know what, buddy? You're the guest, mike. I just want to let you know. We don't have to bleep any of that. That was well done. Yeah, justin, you're the guest. Yeah, yeah, that's why I tossed it to you, mike. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, go ahead, justin. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I agree it needed to be fat. I'm glad you spoke up. In order for me to become a Hockey Canada certified skills coach, I have to go through the whole process whether I had, like, the coach level one and work my way to my high performance one. I can't move on. I can't do my Hockey Canada skills coach without getting my high performance, my HP one, right Now and again. So, like Canada's perspective is like that's your elite coaching right there. And so, just like Mike had said, it's like you get all these guys that learn from YouTube, instagram, all that stuff, and go. You know what? I can be a skills coach. I'm just going to put my name and my bio on Instagram as, hey, I'm John Doe skills coach, but all you are is just a self-proclaimed skills coach and I kind of look at what we do is the same as a teacher in elementary school, in middle school, high school, like, I've spent my hardworking hours learning this craft. It is a craft and so no different than a elementary school math teacher. Your craft is math. Like you may have a general idea of like, like your general education, you are, you know, you graduated in education, but where is your craft? Your craft is math, your craft is science, social, all that stuff. That's similar to what we do here as skills coaches. And then, to add to what Mike had said, you know using coach them and it hasn't happened recently, but I've had a couple of instances where you know, and I'm just going to use Mike for an example, I may go on to Instagram and I see, mike, I like your, you know, I liked Mike's drill. So I take Mike's drill and I use it in my practice and I post it on Instagram. I've literally had guys and I'm not saying this like it's not Mike, but I've like I've had coaches. Go, well, that's my drill. How come you didn't ask me? That's my drill.
Speaker 1:You didn't tag me bro.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, you didn't. You didn't hate me Like Mike. You can't hate me Like.
Speaker 4:I'm like so yeah, I'm going to re. I got to look at my Instagram post now, but I think it's but, but, but this is but this is, this is this is this is the point, right, that anybody. It's like you know. I think it's even harder for sport coaches and specialists because you're not sitting in the stands in the back of the classroom in math class with your kid. The parent is literally at the glass like watching everything and then, and I laugh and I sit there and go. I go are you watching this? Like like you're not. You and we've said this a couple of times adjusted on the show, like if you go, if you go to a skills coach and they never ask you what you want to work on, what your position is, how, where you play, what you play, what your coach wants out of you, where your deficiencies are, where your you know strengths are, like run away from that person If that person doesn't, if they're just going to go. Hey, you know, we're going to do a 25 minutes of drills and we're all going to stick handler on a couple of deviators and you're going to get a lesson plan. Okay, what the hell's that? Like there's no plan, like it's not a one and done, it's a process and just like you said earlier, it's okay, let's figure out where we're at. We've got 11 weeks to fix this and we're going to get from 8.8 to 0.Z doing it this way and I'm going to give you a prescription of what you need to work on. And if you and I think you get that in other countries, I think you get that, frankly, in other sports, like soccer is so much more advanced than us in the certification process and the training process and the teaching process, like that's why we're all stealing from soccer all the time, like, oh my God, these guys are doing this and they're doing this and they're doing true agility training and they're doing, you know, constraint-based learning and they're doing, like all these different things where for years and years and years and years, we've been just drilling. And I think now you're starting to see the specialists, like I mean, I mean football from the beginning of time has had specialists right. They've had a defensive coordinator, an offensive coordinator, a special teams coordinator, a kicking coach, and now hockey's just getting into that. And now it's starting to seep down to youth level, which I think is a great thing. I think it's a great thing for a lot of young guys and girls that want to get into the profession. But you can't just be a generalist and say you're great at everything. You just can't-. Let me dive in here. I want to-.
Speaker 1:I wrote some notes down here I want to share, and I think it's really important we express this to the audience. Two words I'm going to talk about right now Ego and how that's the enemy of evolution. All right, and I will fully admit, ego is something I am always working on. I'm working to rid myself of it. We all have it right. And when I was a younger coach man, I had an ego Like I remember scoffing at level one, like I don't need that right, and it's like me now would slap myself in the face, right, because what I was really saying in that statement is I don't want to learn anything. I know because I know what I'm doing. And then you go to level one. Some of it you do know, some of it you don't. The difference was when I removed the ego from the equation, I had a willingness to learn. Right, you take the ego away, you want to evolve, you want to learn. You, you know, growing up a basketball's stupid. Basketball players transition way more than hockey players. There's something to learn there. Baseball players there's something to learn there. Other coaches, same sport you know there's a lot to learn. When you can remove the ego, man, it opens up your world and again, we talked about before the NHL being a copycat league, people learning from each other. I got two great examples, really like strong examples. One Mike and I, many years ago, had a real great opportunity to sit down with Lou Vero, who's basically the godfather of USA hockey, and I remember we were asking him questions about where he learned. I'm expecting to say something within USA hockey he goes. I went to Anatoly Tarasov, the godfather of Russian hockey in the Soviet Union, like the biggest enemy the USA had at that time, and they were friends, like really close friends, and he was nice enough. You can listen to this episode, by the way, everybody. It's one of the Arkads Play Hockey episodes, but you can listen to him talk about the learning and how they would challenge each other and look at the systems in different ways and different, but that affected heavily USA hockey at the time by going to Soviet hockey. Another one this is one that's like forgotten. Many of you that are a little older will remember in 2005, there was no NHL season, it was an NHL lockout, and I remember that right before that lockout, the New Jersey Devils, detroit Red Wings I mean certain teams that were just dominant at that time the Avalanche Dallas Stars, like they were the teams that everyone was looking at. Then the 2006 final was the Edmonton Oilers versus the Carolina Hurricanes. No one, nobody, would have predicted that at the beginning of the season, and it's because what happened in 05 during the lockout is there were several rule changes and those two teams adapted to those rule changes better than any other team in the league, because when everybody came back, you guys will remember they played the exact same way they played prior. But when you take away the red line and you change the rules, those two teams figured it out and suddenly everyone and everybody wanted to be the Carolina Hurricanes after that. But those two teams opened their brains and learned from something. I don't know where they learned it from, but then we evolved. So the process of evolution is removing ego. That will allow you to be in a position to learn, first off and then borrowing, and borrowing and learning. I've used this before on the show just in many times. My son's a goaltender. I must be the most calm goaltending parent in the world because I love learning this position with him. I'm learning a whole new aspect of hockey that I've never learned before. I've jumped on NHL Sensorina many times to get in the net and I love it and it's a wonderful process because I don't identify any kind of happiness by how many pucks go in the net on my son. I love that we're learning something together. I think he does too. So anyway, I'm going to get off the soapbox for a minute. You're the guest. I was getting passionate there, but go ahead, jim.
Speaker 2:But again, just to add to that, it's like OK, so you watch one of my videos and a lot, and again this will differentiate between a well-known, certified coach versus just a coach that goes, hey, that's a cool drill, I'm going to use it in practice. So he goes and does it out in practice and because he's like, oh, Coach Justin had a super fun, super cool drill, but then doesn't understand the why. Why did Coach Justin do this drill? Why did he turn one way, pivot one way, transition another way? Why did he do that versus going? That's a really cool drill, super speed, Like Mike had said, had the camera super close and it made the kids super fast and wow, it's a great video. But if you don't understand the why you've gone nowhere. Oh, it's all context-worthy.
Speaker 4:It's like looking, I mean the reason why, when you look at, somebody like you and you can collaborate with so many other coaches is because you've found the secret sauce to work with other coaches Like. It's like if we all just kind of lay down a little bit and be like, listen, I'm just trying to learn here, and if I can get invited and go work with another coach and be on the ice with that coach, what a great opportunity this is for me. And if that coach is not intimidated by me being there, what a great opportunity it is for them. And I think that's like and that's what really I think when you start watching coaches and you don't. And again, when you see guys like Justin and their sites, they're just pumping the tires of everyone. They're not beating anyone down and chiming in saying how dare you do this kind of a drill. This is blasphemy to the sport you stole, that, yeah, or you stole that drill. And I think that and I think looking and looking at drills and then manipulating them the way you want to manipulate them and use them in the context that you need them in, that's the key to anything and I think that's where that's why, really, I think good coaches I'm certified in a very high level certification lacrosse, in soccer not basketball, because I hate basketball, but any but all these other sports I really go out and I really try to learn the sport and what, why we're teaching the way we're teaching and try to get ahead of the game on what other people are going to teach in the future. And I think once we start doing that and we start looking ahead and saying, wow, where, if you're coaching your nine-year-old to play like you played, then that nine-year-old will never be ready for today's game, because today's game is so far advanced than chipping and chasing and we might like chipping and chasing because that helps me win at nine, 10, 11 years old. But the game is no longer chip and chase and it's just flow and it's just movement and it's just freedom. And the coaches that find that out earlier and earlier and earlier and aren't afraid to lose because of giving that freedom, because the less the skill level is right, the less freedom we want to give kids, because the more risky it is. So if we just can get our egos out of the way and say, I don't care about the risk, I just want you kids to play, but again, that's where you've got to have parents on board. You have to have you know to Christie. He's always talking about like do your research, don't join a program you don't want, that doesn't allow you to do that. And then you're yelling and screaming in December whoa, it was me. This coach doesn't understand my kid.
Speaker 1:Trust and verify. Yeah, you signed up for this.
Speaker 4:You knew this ahead of time. And again, you can do all that kind of stuff. So I just think it's like when you follow guys like Justin and his journey, I got whatever the things he's doing now. Obviously there's a business piece of that, but the piece that I love is finding those little nuances of how he's teaching, maybe looking at the way somebody else is teaching, looking at this way, this thing, and then going, wow, I can kind of take all this and make it my own. I think actually Rick Tuckett just talked about it and he's done pretty well in coaching this year and he'll say I think a little bit of this and a little bit of that guy and the influence of this guy and the influence of that guy and then on me, but all these other pieces that I've learned, I'm going to let you guys try them out. Thanks, rick Donateeli.
Speaker 3:Thanks. Okay, I got a question for you and this popped into my, my head as you're talking, mike, about you know chip and chase and how the game has Changed. And just a not just curious are are you teaching kids?
Speaker 2:I'm the concept. Well, the concept of hockey has changed in the sense, like you know, just like what Mike had said. You know, I'm it. It varies and it's all gonna depend on, obviously, the age group that I'm working with, because obviously the progressions are going from, you know, might squirt hockey to pee, we's bantams, and so, again, you, you have to adapt, you know, accordingly to your teaching methods, based on the age group. Now, you know, as they get older, you know, we go from all this ice that we had in mites and squirts because of how big the ice is and how small we are, to now, oh, now the ice is more Constricted because we're bigger, we're faster, and now it's like, okay, maybe we, maybe it's not so much a chip and chase but more now it's and it's all gonna depend on Coaching, strategy and whatnot at that, at that age of like, okay, possession, possession, possession. Because you hear now, or you're hearing now, especially like NHL guys, you know, whl and CAA guys, you know, and it's filtering down on how important possession is, right to the amount of possession time that you have, the more opportunity you have to, you know, score goals, let's, let's use that, so, so, being able to, you know, have that possession In tight spaces, so in a five-foot area, whether you're at that half wall in the corner Blue line, and how you're, because every situation is different. I'm just gonna use those three areas of the of the offensive zone the inside, the blue line, half wall at the corner. The amount of Skill work that could be done in those areas to help you continue to gain possession more for your team is Like the sky's limits really, with with how much, with how much you know different skills that you can now, with that being said, and I'm I like using deviators you know whether it's like the triangles or whatnot but using them in the rights, what would be the right word to say it? So I don't want to use them all the time because I want to make sure that they're yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I go when it's conducive for the area, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Because if you. If you continue to use that, then you're taking away the creativity of it, and the creativity also is Far more important in my well, I would say far more important than the skill, but it acts as a you know, a huge. The kids have to be creative, right? If, if you're going around the same thing over and over and over again, yeah, then it's like what coaches, what coaches told me to do over and over and over again, versus being able to use this In in those different areas.
Speaker 1:So I think that, so that's just an anchor, is the, you know I think one of the words we don't talk enough about in coaching is environment Right and creating the right environment to be creative. And I'll give you a great example of how. This is my opinion, and you can feel free to agree or disagree with me on this. When you look at like a u8, even you 10 level right or 10, you whatever we're saying nowadays right, I always tell the players I want you to be creative within the, the Environment that I'm creating, right, so like this is what I want you to do, but I want you to be creative in that environment. And when you get to the younger levels, so much fear of failing, right, so you brought up possession, which is something I've been really trying to teach these young kids, because young kids tend to get the puck and throw it Right, and so what I told the kids and you like this, christie is that listen, yeah, this is how I kind of, I've kind of curtailed the fear of making a mistake. I said I want you to hold that puck as long as you can Like by making a good decision. There are times you should be passing the puck. I don't want you to fear someone taking it from you, right? And the way I explain possession to young kids, as I say, if you just throw it to them, you gave it to them. But if they take it from you, they've earned it and that's okay with me, right, because you're gonna learn, slowly but surely, what's you know, okay, it's too long, it's too short, I'm learning. Good, go ahead, go ahead, justin, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, to add to that, we still also have to and I'm just gonna use a, you know, a chip like a puck. You know a puck gets thrown into a corner and you're chasing it. It blows my mind and I do this so well. It blows my mind and I do this so often with, like my U9. So that would be like your Kind of like that in between, between squirts and yeah, and yeah lights and squirts and and being able to shoulder check before, because that's what it is they go into the corner Right, they chase after the puck and they don't know what's going on behind them. They're scared spitless because they're anything. They've got this pressure. So what do they do?
Speaker 3:Oh man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, throw it up the wall or throw it down the middle of the ice and Like that I hockey, iq stuff can be taught right at you, I'm being able to shoulder check and scan the ice can be taught. I will repeat, it can be taught at you seven and you nine. Does it take a little bit of reminding? Ever so often, hey, the amount of times that I yell at my own son, I yell out, but you know where he's going and doing a puck retrieval in the corner and I go shoulder check, shoulder check, shoulder check, just to get that. You know that that little, you know. Reminder in the back of the head, going oh I have to shoulder check because look what I can see now, you know. Or taking at it, taking the puck at a different angle versus, you know, taking it straight on. There's these little Skills that we could be working on to help prevent just throwing the puck away. Because, you know, we've now just went from half ice hockey in you seven, you nine to or squirts and Mites and squirts to. Now we make that jump into Peewee's Bantons where it's full ice, and we're doing the exact same thing and coaches are, like you know, losing their hair not Mike, because Mike has a ton of it, but you know.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna keep my hat on first.
Speaker 2:You know being able to teach that skill early. Yeah and so that when they transition to you, know Peewee's, you 11, that they will feel comfortable in doing their puck retrieval and then and gaining possession of it. And then what to do with that, with that puck, do I hold on to it? Do I make a player? Sorry, buddy.
Speaker 3:Well, this is the beauty of hockey and evolution.
Speaker 4:Pendulums going the other way. Now the possession piece is not as important as putting the puck somewhere when then you can gain possession again. All our kids don't have to go through a deviator and they go, go score goals. I'm like, yeah, but if you're a defenseman and you make a move, you're not scoring on your own net, so why are you even going that way? Like, like all of this stuff, like I, like I, I basically like eliminated drills out of my, out of my repertoire of plays, like where a Player gets the puck, passes to a forward, the forward regroups and comes up against them. I'm like, well, because that never happens, like this is not real. It's like, why would I defend against the guy I just passed to? Like I would never want to do that, but it takes a lot of effort. It takes like you have to think about the drill, right, but even knowing now that all this you know Defense, have to jump up into play. They're getting in the top of the circle, they're coming in his own. Well, now, there's a great skill on be able to you know, I have kids that can't ship the puck, but that's a skill putting the puck to open ice where these speedy, fast kids could go get it. That doesn't have to be tape to tape. It could be a recycle, it could be a regroup, it could be just a run and gun, but like that's where I think great coaches don't get themselves locked in the saying Like, oh, this is what you always do, because it's not always what you do and and and to the least point about the creativity, like at the youth level, I don't want kids to be creative, I want them to be fundamentally sound. The fundamental piece of being good at pulling a puck and then and then creating the space they need and taking that you know one or two steps Then allows them to say, okay, well, you just did something where I wouldn't really love for you to do, but you were successful doing it, and if you weren't, you're not gonna get punished. But there's still a piece of like. Again, I used to fight the deviator thing too and we could have. You know, you could have a hundred people on it would say the worst thing you could do in sport is put equipment on the ice. It's the worst thing you could do. I go. Well, I don't know. I think it's the way. I Personally like it because it allows me to isolate the skill that I want to teach in a place where I don't have to stand there and Get my shins knocked around like I like. I just want to create an environment when they can like. I know, like when I use deviators if you watch my deviator drills, it's like push, pull, done, it's done. It's not push, pull, curl, push, pull, curl, push, pull, curl, push girl, because it never happens. It's not a skill. I don't care if a kid can do that. I care if the kid could go on Justin, come caught, punch, step gone, drills over, because you've done your. You've done what you needed to do and I think that's right. We, you know we can evolve to now you got Justin chomping in the now.
Speaker 2:That's fine because like and that's where I think progression, I think in the progression in that specific drill I think, is also important. So 100%, mike, I Totally agree with getting that fundamentals and being able to utilize the, the deviators, for the fundamentally sound. But then at some Point we have to take that deviator away, right and oh right. And that's where it's like we can do. We could do that drill. Let's say five repetitions, or you know, I'm just gonna use that number for an example, use that five repetitions, but the next five repetitions let's take that deviator away and see what that does to that scenario. And then we take that one step further. Well, now we've got Fundamentals, we now have creativity. Now we have fundamental creativity, add stress, and so now we throw, you know, a chaser in there, and so I think that's super important too, to Make sure that they're kind of getting everything you know.
Speaker 4:Out of that, one drill on the ice at six o'clock in the morning and watch it. A kid in the corner in five foot spaces Go through two deviators for an hour, like that's where it has to end with a pass. It has to end with a play. It has to end with a dump. It has to end with a, you know, it has to end with an escape. It has to end with something that looks like the game of hockey, so that we don't produce a lot of kids with their heads down, that when you you're yelling and screaming and get their heads up and look for a play and they have no idea that there's four other players out in the ice with them. And you know that may not be great. In my cross-eyed hockey which I think is is is hurting us a little bit. Gotta be careful there, right. But it's hurting us a little bit because the best kid in cross-eyed hockey still is the best kid. It just keeps getting better and better. But he's got it means it's good. So how can we get him to say oh, you know, in cross-eyed hockey the end game can't always be a goal. It could be, hey. I pulled the puck out of the corner. I looked up, I made a pass to the guy here and that's a point like Mike, I want to move pucks.
Speaker 1:I want to support you with something you said on a show earlier for the coaches listening you should do an audit of how many of your drills end in a shot. How many of your drills are ending with a shot and not a different way of you know winning the drill? You can tell you right now, with kids, if you end with a shot. That's what they're focused on, right. The other thing too is you know I'm not gonna pull the statistics right now Like, if you look at a 60 minute game or a 45 minute game, how many seconds you're playing and then how many seconds you have the puck. Like, if you're not focusing on coaching without the puck, I mean I might be failing the kids, right. Like, and you have to be able to praise a kid when they're going to open ice, even if they don't get the pass. Like that was a great play, you're in the right spot, right? I watched the player this year used to go to the net perfectly, wasn't getting classes. No one was praising the effort for that. They stopped going to the net. It was like, and it was like, that's the middle.
Speaker 4:And that's my point right, I have a kid doing a certain deviator drill or some kind of a corner pullback or a punch step for some, the other player that's not sitting in the line, the other player, is mirroring that player and being and they're not even up, Like they're not even part of the drill, but they're just there mirroring and supporting and being in a position where you know we always give them and I'll give them a lot of credit Like all of a sudden, hey, if you get that puck because the player lost it, I want that player to feel the confidence that they can lose it because you're there to support them, Like you're supporting the puck character. It's not just standing in the line going, oh, when am I up? And watching the kid go through the thing. And you start adding in to Justin's point. You know, now you take the deviator away, Now you add a constraint, Now you add a different outcome, and then now you can, now you're coaching, Like now you're in a place where you're like, oh, that was a great move. But guess what, Today we're not gonna end it with a shot, we're gonna end it with a pass and a pass, Then a shot, Like but again I think we all get into the mode of I'm working with one kid and that's why I love working with like, if you're gonna do a private lesson with me, I want you to bring four of your friends.
Speaker 3:Like give me a punch.
Speaker 4:Oh, absolutely, give me a lot of kids and I can then create pressure. I can create, you know, a little bit of contact I can create. You know this kid's gonna steal the ball from you. So you gotta you know there's a little competitiveness there in some competition. You know it's just is all that easy. It's very, very hard. It's hard and that's why people don't do it. But I think that's where our focus needs to be, you know. So if you're out here and you're a parent, you're like, oh, I gotta get my kid in some spring and summer lessons. Go get four friends. First of all, it's gonna save you a lot of money. Second of all, it's gonna give you a lot more. You know there's a reason why families of big you know big families that have like five boys in a family like why all the kids are so good and they wanna kill each other it's because that competition is what builds, you know, the strength of the player, and I think you know if you're gonna be that parent that hides your kid in a private lesson environment, get them out of that. It's gonna benefit them to be in a place where they're competing against kids that are better or worse or the same, but, more importantly, there's another body out there that they can fight against.
Speaker 2:And to add what you were saying there, mike, from a skating standpoint it's a little bit different because and it depends on again you have to figure out what works for the kid. So you may have a kid that just you can't have that one-on-one, you has to have, you know, a couple other buddies with him, or there's he may be that kid that can't be in a group with his buddies because he doesn't focus enough. So then you have to like maybe Well, skating is different too, right.
Speaker 4:Because you might have to fix a certain like, a one thing, like when you see kids that can't pivot, one way that could take like hours and hours and hours of, you know, of deliberate training, which I get, that's 100%. I get all that. But don't expect your kid to be a great skater if you're gonna put him in a class of 60 kids because he's not gonna get that instruction.
Speaker 2:And that's where I was gonna add to that too, where it's like having because I call it a pod. So a pod is anywhere between four and six kids, right? So having four to six kids absolutely might. It helps with you know the cost of you know the training, the ice, et cetera. But then you know it's you have that four to six, you know to one ratio. So four to one ratio, six to one ratio, which is a lot better than you know expecting your son to learn a specific skill with 40 kids on ice, right?
Speaker 1:Or worse. Yes, it works, great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it works great in my wallet, but at the same time, too, I'm not like. I'm here for your child, right, and that's really like it's you, as the parents Like the kid needs to be there, the kid wants to be there, right, and all you're doing is just paying for it.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say through.
Speaker 2:Make sure that you're getting every element of that coming out of me. That's the expectation from me.
Speaker 1:We've also seen the parents, mike, that are like well, I don't tell anybody else about these private lessons because we get a one up with this guy by ourselves Like what are you doing on Friday mornings?
Speaker 4:Nothing, my kid goes to the gym?
Speaker 1:No, we're not there. We're not there. We're not there. We're not staying in coached Justin, but again coming back full circle here with like, when you have multiple kids out there, now you have an environment conducive of better learning. I'm not saying you can't learn one on one. I'm not taking that away from any skills coach or coach. I'm just saying that the environment changes when there's three or four friends that all want to win Justin. We're running out of time, so I had just had one more question here. We talked about your account, which has grown pretty large, the hockey underscore sport test account and I love the way you've done it, because it's a very organic channel. You share a lot of just. You're just sharing info, right, and great messages too. Like the account's not limited to just hockey. There's a lot of mental team training in there as well. Just want to know what are your goals with that? Going forward and going forward, excuse me, and where are you trying to take that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've used that platform to educate coaches and or coaches, parents, players, because, again, we can all learn something from someone or a clip of some sort, so there's always something to take away from it. Yeah, if I could add something to that social media, it's just. You'll see. If you hop onto my account, probably three or four deep in there's a clip of me falling on the ice.
Speaker 1:I saw that. I saw that. How's your head?
Speaker 2:Head's fine. Head's fine, yeah, but if I could add, it's just I know it's kind of a cliche thing to say, but it's like, if you don't have nothing nice to say, don't say it at all and you can look through all the comments. I hit the ice hard, you did. Yeah, it hurt. I took some time to gather my thoughts. Yeah, I laid on the ice for a couple of minutes, but I'm like my ears are ringing, I'm seeing twitty birds in my head and it's like, okay, I still have two sessions to do after that. So I'm like I need to gather my thoughts and collect myself. Up in. The amount of negative comments is just mind boggling, mind boggling.
Speaker 1:I tend not to read comments for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I try not to too, and it takes, you know, like it's kind of one of those things where it's like you know you have to comment or reply to help build.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when it's your account and all that stuff. When it's your account, you should read your own the comments on your own.
Speaker 2:But yeah, you know at the same time too, and I actually I bumped into a kid, you know I was in a drive-thru at a McDonald's and the kid was there was a kid that follows me on Instagram and he, you know, he was taking my money from me and he goes. And he goes like how's your head? I'm like oh, thanks, like I'm good, thanks, you know, I appreciate it. And he's like are you okay? Like there's a lot of like he goes. Ah, the comments on there is unreal.
Speaker 1:I'm like you know what.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I said you know what. Look, you know, I can only control what I can control. I can't control anybody else. I can't control what someone says to me, you know outside of, you know the rank or whatnot he goes. You know what. That person that made those negative comments would never say it to my face, right? But at the same time too, it's just like why be so negative? Well, it doesn't have to be, doesn't have to be negative. And to add to that, it's like you know what Mike, you know he's got something that you know. Let's just say there's something that, mike, I don't agree with Mike. It doesn't need to, I don't need to say it. It's just one of those things where it's like maybe I'm like I may, you know, I have that relationship with Mike where I could say you know what, mike, you know maybe you could have done something different or whatnot, but not like the negative comments, cause it just everybody reads that.
Speaker 4:It's ego, yeah, but the best is when you reach out to somebody, not publicly, but say, hey, listen, I really like, why are you teaching it that way? Like I'd really, like there's a lot of it. Like I posted something literally last night about another product and and and there, like a little edge boss hockey thing, and I got this comment like if you, well, this is horrible for kids cause kids want to score goals all the time. Like it's, it's, it's. I go, yeah, but you don't know the context of the drill and I did a poor job of framing it right. I wanted to create the whole drill was to create rebounds so kids would go to the net and not just shoot from the blue line because it went in Big curl. Like I didn't want it curling, I want them going there and then stuffing it in Like I want. I want the drill was to create more play at the net. The only way to do that was to put a barrier in there that the kids couldn't get through easily. So and I said, I understand, I listen, I want, I want every six year old to score a million goals too. But if their goals are scored because they shot from the top of the circle, it kind of went in the net and then they curl to the corner, then we're also teaching a really bad habit there that the only way to get rid of it is to go to the CU and spend thousands of dollars. Because I don't want to do for my teenager, right, I want, I want to fix that early so we can create so again that. But that's the context. Like with that that individual could have just sent me a. That's what great about, that's the good and the bad, right. But that's what's great about social media is you could just private message somebody say holy crap, mike, that is like the worst thing I've ever seen. And I can say well, do you know why I did it? Oh, I didn't realize why you did it and you know what. Now I understand that. So now I can look at this in a different way.
Speaker 1:Mike, are you saying that that when you communicate clearly, that things resolve themselves, and that 10 out of 10 problems are involving bad communication in some form?
Speaker 4:No.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying that, don't communicate.
Speaker 4:Communication just gets you in a bad, gets you having to talk to people more, so let's just post yeah.
Speaker 2:And I mean, like the thing is, is the social, like social media is? Yes, it's supposed to be social, but it's supposed to be entertaining or educational. Am I, too, thinking it should be Right?
Speaker 4:Not unkind.
Speaker 2:It should be. It's not supposed to be unkind, it's not supposed to ridicule, it's not supposed to bully, you know, kids or adults or whoever it might be. Like it is. It's information sharing and that's what I love about social media, because the four of us, in my opinion, I would have loved to have that prior to 1995.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:When the internet came out right, you know, like 1995 is when the internet came out I'm just in the middle of, you know, playing high school hockey Didn't really know where I was gonna go after playing junior and it's like now, it's like we have all this information where I could literally Google I want to play hockey in Australia. Geez, there's leagues in Australia. Oh, leagues out there. I would not have known that prior to 1995, whether there was a, you know, a league there at that time or not. But at least, like I always tell kids, you may not make junior, you may not make WHL, you may not make the pros, but there will be some place for you to play Somewhere in this world. There'll be a place for you to play. You just have to search for it. You have to, you know, find someone that knows where to go, how to get there and the process of doing that. And then to finally finish off on social media front, I've now taken, like I've always wanted to do, youtube, and it's taken a lot, you know me personally to kind of get myself out there. Believe it or not, I hate being in front of a camera. So, yeah, I've now developed my own YouTube channel, and so that's at Hockey Coach Justin. You can reach me on YouTube there and again I'm gonna have drills that will essentially help the parent, player and coach, right from the squirt U7 level or the might tiny might level all the way to the pro level. So I want to get this is all about, you know, delivering my knowledge, what I'm able to share, and hopefully my goal is, like I said, we talked about this at the very beginning of this podcast Either lose it or, sorry, either use it or lose it. So take what you want, take what you need you know, build off of whatever drill I have, use it however you wish. My drills aren't patent. My drills are there for anybody in this world to look up, use and hopefully it helps you to either become a better parent, better coach, better player within the realms of the world and congratulations on your YouTube.
Speaker 1:Well, I cannot wait to read all the comments on how awesome this podcast was, because that's what's going to happen, because, justin, you've been a fantastic guest.
Speaker 2:Thanks, appreciate it. Thanks so much. There'll be lots of YouTube stuff coming out this spring, so now that hockey's slowly to come to an end here, it'll give me a little bit more time to do some editing and all that stuff for YouTube.
Speaker 1:We're coming to our dormant season, where we're still alive, but there's a lot less.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's really no. Like spring is a little bit like I will start doing like my private and you know my pod lessons. Hockey Canada will utilize me lots to do all these what's called POE programs. So it's the pursuit of excellent programs where I'll go to different provinces throughout the country and working with their top U-14, top U-16, top U-18 players, and that's but, nuts all just before my hockey camps kick off, you know, during the summer.
Speaker 1:So season never ends, brother, never season ends.
Speaker 2:Never season, never ends, and I love it. So that's what I do. I love the game of hockey, I love coaching, I love educating. It brings so much joy to me and just being able to see a coach, coach or player you know, leave the rink, smile and knowing that they learned something just warms the heart. I know that's we're finishing off on a soft note, but that's it.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's nothing wrong with that, that's the audience, and I'll tell you, too, that you know we've come a long way from me scouring VHS tapes from a local rental place to try and get any kind of hockey footage to walk at home when I was a kid You're right with, and that's why things like this podcast and your channels and everything that we see out there is so great. You know, I would say it, remember you're not crazy. The hockey world is crazy, right, or people are crazy, and I always say this too. When it comes to social media, you know the negative stuff, the dark stuff sticks out, but you know what, when you get thousands of hearts or you get so many people complimenting, you can see that you're having a way more positive impact than negative impact on anybody. I mean, there really is no negative impact, right? So yeah, that's been awesome.
Speaker 2:They'll never, like I said, they'll never say it to my face, you know. Like you know, I always remember that. You know those comments is temporary. Yeah, you know, the negative stuff is temporary. You know, nobody actually gives a crap about you Sorry, if I could use that word. Sure, no one really does. They just want to do it because they have that free time to throw, you know a quick little Justin.
Speaker 1:I think that says a lot more about them than it does about the channel.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely 100%.
Speaker 1:Justin, you've been awesome. We have to have you back because this is one of the conversations We'll be out by this time and the time is coming up in about a minute here, so I just wanted to thank you, man. You've been a wonderful guest, appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, thanks for meeting you guys and love to be back on this podcast here shortly.
Speaker 1:Oh, you will be back soon, I'm sure. So everybody listening again. Make sure you follow Justin at hockey underscore sport tests on Instagram, and he gave you the YouTube channel. This is someone that can help you be a better coach, be a better parents, be a better player, I mean whatever you want to look at. That's fantastic, Mike. Christy. Any final thoughts before I close this out? You, christy.
Speaker 4:Yeah, awesome stuff, you know, use Justin as your continuing education source. That's not bad.
Speaker 2:I won't start up you won't get credit.
Speaker 4:You won't get credit, you just get credit with your kids.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Appreciate it. Thanks, Mike.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's going to do it for this episode of Our Kids Play Hockey, powered by NHL Sens Arena. Remember, you can see or listen to all of our episodes at ourkidsplayhockeycom. Before Justin Scott, mike Vannelly and Christy Cashing and Burns, I'm Leo Elias. We'll see you on the next edition of Our Kids Play Hockey. We hope you enjoyed this edition of Our Kids Play Hockey. Make sure to like and subscribe right now if you found value wherever you're listening, whether it's a podcast network, a social media network or our website, ourkidsplayhockeycom. Also, make sure to check out our children's book when Hockey Stops at whenhockeystopscom. It's a book that helps children deal with adversity in the game and in life. We're very proud of it. But thanks so much for listening to this edition of Our Kids Play Hockey and we'll see you on the next episode.