The Podolskiy Method: Parenting an athlete
There is no roadmap for parenting. No "one size fits all". Together we will learn what works and what does not work. Join and listen to doctors, coaches, athletes, parents, and many other guests of all walks of life. Lets take "parenting an athlete" to the next level and give them the right tools for the job.
The Podolskiy Method: Parenting an athlete
Gliding Beyond the Game John Sacco's Tale of Hockey and Humanity
As the chill of the ice melds with the warmth of nostalgia, John Sacco, my special friend, and I skate through a tapestry of life lessons interwoven with the sport of hockey. Our hearts are laid bare in stories of resilience, from John's early days in Southern Brooklyn to the present, where his roles as a police officer and a revered USA Hockey Master Coach converge. We traverse the path of community building and personal growth through hockey, while also honoring the deep connections and memories that the sport creates.
Feel the pulse of the hockey family in this episode, where the raw emotion of loss and the complexities of raising young athletes come to light. John's narrative not only captures the essence of coaching but also the delicate balance of mentorship and leadership that shapes young lives both on and off the ice. Witness the love stories that emerge amidst adversity, and the unexpected ways in which hockey can write its own version of a fairy tale.
Join us as we wrap up the conversation with a reflection on the camaraderie that defines hockey culture, the surprising connections that can surface from a shared love of the game, and the life lessons that resonate far beyond the rink. Our journey with John Sacco is more than an exploration of a sport; it's a celebration of the human spirit, showcasing how hockey can truly be much more than just a game.
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Hello everybody and welcome to the Podolsky Method Podcast. I know it's been a while, but we have a great show for you today. Before we jump in, just wanted to reintroduce our sponsors. Print only with us full printing shop here in New York City for all your printing needs. Workgate Hockey. For those of you who like your visor and like to protect your teeth when you play hockey, workgate provides the bottom of the base protection. How is hockey 10% off with them If you use code PODOLSKY10 or 10% off with that group? And then the NHLcom Junior Rangers Programming is always a wonderful program which, within 300 dollars, you get full gear and 10 lessons to break into the game. It's a wonderful starting place for other kids.
Speaker 1:I'm your creator and host coach Oya. I'm a level 4 certified USA Hockey Coach. I'm a CPA and I coach travel hockey with my guest here who is a very special friend of mine, john Sacco. John has actually been a part of my coaching career since I started. He's one of the first people I met when I started coaching. So, john, thank you so much for jumping on. John is an assistant director for Hockey Coaching Administration. He's a level 5 USA Hockey Master Coach. He's a retired police officer. You've done so many things over your tremendous career, so can you tell a little bit about yourself and just tell folks a little bit about you?
Speaker 2:Let's say I'm old, I've gotten old. It's always fulfilling something. Somebody has a need, you fulfill it. Somebody comes to you with an issue, you help them out and you wind up getting involved in so many things. Just hockey has always been a big part of it. Since I was about 10 or 11 years old, I've grown through the sport. It's always been there. It's kind of like the glue that has bound us as a family in a lot of areas.
Speaker 2:I always call it the frozen river that flows through our life, which is true, because you can never you know. But, as always, the al Pacino is a. I keep trying to get out, but they keep dragging me right back in. So it comes down to it. So, but you wake up, you do hockey, you brush your teeth. You're getting phone calls, you're eating dinner. You tell them I'll call you right back. Give me a few minutes to finish. By the time I go to bed, I'm up very early and I'm in bed very late. In between it is family hockey, music and whatever has to be done in the house generally. So that's, that's my life. Yeah, I did retire twice, just to let you know that. So there's no such thing as retirement in the 21st century.
Speaker 1:It's not I retired from the police department, I retired from, you know, from so many things, and it's just I'm busy and out and I've ever done which is yeah, can you talk a little bit about growing up, because I know you played a ton of sports growing up and you know we'll lead into how how that changed from when you know you were young and being an athlete to how it is now and what you're seeing in the coaching world now. Maybe you could talk a little bit about yourself and growing up and all the things you've done.
Speaker 2:Well, I grew up in Southern Brooklyn, that's South Brooklyn. For those who don't know, south Brooklyn is really Western, northwestern Brooklyn. South Brooklyn is in the south of the borough and down in the sheepside bay area in Garrison Beach and it's. It was all sports. If you didn't play sports, there was something wrong with you.
Speaker 2:And in the 60s you know it's a very tough time to grow up you know all we had was sports, playing outside, playing games, school, whatever your religious responsibilities were very close knit community. Everybody basically knew each other or knew of each other. It was like living in a town, in a small town, which basically it is, and you know we had hockey during the winter and basketball during the winter, football during the winter, during the summer it was, it was baseball. And you know, as, as you grow up, you know it's very competitive because you're going to school with the people that you play sports with. So everybody had stats on each other and who did this and who was good and who was bad. And you know, and they they call you out on it.
Speaker 2:It was very, you know, very competitive childhood. You know, I didn't understand there were other places and things to do until I was old enough to leave the neighborhood and you know it, it was just very, very busy. We had it's actually they're defunct right now it's the Kings Bay Boys Club Roller Hockey. We didn't have ice hockey like you have now. There were two ranks, one in one in Coney Island, which is still there, and one in Manhattan, and Long Island wasn't the hotbed of hockey that it is now. There were maybe one rank in Suffolk County and nobody knew where Suffolk County was when I was a kid. It was like going to the, you know, going to the moon. So it was. You know it was idyllic, it was competitive, there was a lot of pressure as a kid and everybody played, Everybody played. Hockey was something that I got into by accident. You know I knew about it. I didn't know. Yeah, I knew of it, but really didn't know about it.
Speaker 2:Let me digress, so you know it was a chance meeting with a very good friend, a lifelong friend of mine, who played his brother played some of the cool guys in the neighborhood played, you know, I knew about it but I didn't know about it, you know, and he was skating down the block from my house. You know, in those days there was no delivery service. You went to the store, you bought your groceries and if you were under the age of 14 or 15, you were mandated by the child labor laws to go out and pick it up for your parents. You would go with a note, with an envelope or, you know, like a change purse full of money. You go to the store, local stores, because everything is local.
Speaker 2:Everything's walking distance from your left and including two super markets, two barb is, two churches, you know two schools, to this, to that, to playgrounds, on and on and on. So you never had to leave the neighborhood. So you know I'm, I have to go around to the butcher and I'm coming back and you know you have the two paper bags full of food and you know about yay, high and struggling, and I see Richie Galvin skating down Allen Avenue near my house and he goes. You know they called me sack in those days. He goes Sack. What's going on? This is nothing. What are you doing?
Speaker 2:He had skates, he had gloves and he had a stick. They were the quads, not the inline skates like we know today. He says what are you doing? He goes I'm going to go play. I'm going to go up to the park and play hockey. You want to go? I says, well, I don't know how. So we talked, we went on and on about the Rangers playing last night. Remember, at that time there was only how many teams in the league you know, was in original six.
Speaker 2:I'm not that old, but you know it was pretty close to it. So you know we started to talk, I started to learn. So you know I begged my parents, please, I get a pair. I got a pair of skates. I learned how to skate Within the next season. You know, if I skated through the summer into the next season, I was playing I'll hockey for the first time and playing competitively, and it was extremely competitive, extremely competitive. There was a lot of players from outside the neighborhood, people we didn't know. You know you do.
Speaker 2:You grew up in Brooklyn at that time or anywhere in New York City and you thought everybody was like you in your neighborhood. And they're not. So it was interesting. You know I had to learn how to fight. I had to learn how to. You know, we were young, we were hitting each other, we were checking.
Speaker 2:At that age, you know, we did not wear cages, we did not have mouthpieces. I had numerous trips to the. We didn't go to the emergency room in those days, only if you were dying. You went to your local doctor and I can remember going in there. I had got hit in the eye with a stick and it sliced my eye, I I would open and I was gushing blood and my mother screamed. I thought everybody thought I was so cool because I had this badge of honor, going to school that the following Monday and going to the doctor's office and he says, why don't you just get a room in here? Yeah, you know, it was. That's how it was in those days, but it was great, we had fun, it was romantic. There was no, of course, there's no, internet TV. You had the Ranger game on on a black and white TV sounds so far better, doesn't it on?
Speaker 2:a black and white TV on Channel 9, wl on New York, which is still there, and that was it. So if you slept through it, you had. There was no replays, there was nothing, so you couldn't talk about the game in school the next day. How many people stood up and watched a late game or whatever? And you know, we had no access to hockey whatsoever. You know, the access to hockey was going to the library. Now the kids don't do this. Now I'm going to say, but you know who is brave enough to go into the library and steal the hockey digest? And then there'd be five of us like fighting over it to read it. We'll go to.
Speaker 2:We had candy stores in those days. So instead of having you know, it was like you know, we went. You got the newspapers. Very, we don't have them in Brooklyn, very few in Brooklyn. Now you know you get. You could sit and have lunch, you could, you know, but all the magazines, and you had hockey digest. You had hockey illustrated, you had sports illustrated, you had sport magazine, you know, and once in a while they'd have something on hockey, or you had the daily news and the post, and that's, that's how we, we paid attention to hockey, plus word of mouth. But at the end of the season you put your gear away and you played baseball or, you know, whatever else was around. Some people played soccer. There wasn't much of it at that time. So you know, and if you didn't play baseball, there was something wrong with you. If you didn't play, you know there was, you know so.
Speaker 1:So when you were growing up, were your parents involved in in, like bringing it to the rink or bringing you anywhere. It wasn't all on your own, nothing, no, it was all on your own.
Speaker 2:Everything was all on your own. You know I'm paying you a playing to carry your own stuff. That's not my problem. So you know, both my parents were depression children, so they didn't have things like that. You know there was times in their life when they had to steal to eat. So you know, not everybody was rich in Brooklyn and especially where they grew up, it was hard living. So to them. You know, a five dollar bill. You had a five dollar bill. You were rich, you know you were rich. You got to put that in the bank, you got to save that. You got to. You know, and now it's.
Speaker 2:You know you can't go to the. You cannot go into a hockey store and spend less than three to four hundred dollars on a pair of skates. And sometimes when I go into the stores and I'm looking at the prices, I said could you imagine? God, rest my parents all, all souls. You know they're such good people and they encouraged us to be active and they would have just no, no, not happening. You know that's a month worth of your father working, you know.
Speaker 2:So it was different times, but it was great. It made what we have now made me made my children because you know I spent a lot of time with my children. You know, going to hockey coaching them. You know, when need be, teaching them how to take care of their gear and how to, you know, do all that kind of stuff. You know it makes it that much better and as adults now they're both adults. You know we share this, we share it together and it's still something magical. You know it's just a great, great, great. It's the greatest game in the world to us it's the greatest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I completely. I couldn't agree with you more in terms of just, you know the cost is in. You know, when I joined the Rangers as a lead instructor for the Junior Rangers programs you know I was it was so exciting to see that they're making it a little bit more affordable for people to get into the game because, like you said, with the Rangers you get full gear and I think 10-1 is for like under 300 bucks. I know my friend, our friend Max, cool, coaches with us. It helps out with the Rangers. He calls me, he goes okay, I went to the store and he's kidding, I think it was five and he was like I bought him all this gear and I was like, why didn't you just do it through the Rangers? He's like well, I was already in the store, I just bought it. It wasn't not to bad 600 dollars.
Speaker 3:He's like 600, you spent 600 dollars for a five-year-old to try hockey. He never skidded.
Speaker 1:It's amazing, unbelievable, but it was definitely one of the most expensive sports that we're in now. Yeah, and I also like playing a role hockey growing up as well. You know my mom was a single mom raising me my brother. I've never immigrated with us, so we were here same way. You know, I remember I got an aluminum hockey stick for Christmas, which was like right at that time like was 15, 20 years ago I was like the thing I think I played with it for like 10 years, I think at some point.
Speaker 1:It never broke it bent.
Speaker 2:I'll put somebody's head on.
Speaker 3:The top point just came out, but it never broke. I was like this is the most durable stick I've ever played with. It was literally it's an aluminum.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so, speaking a little bit about I know you touched a little bit about your kids and I know you know Dom obviously, like, played very well in college and now helps and coaches with you now and he talked a little bit about you know, raising those kids. I know you mentioned you were also a single parent for some time, right, and so what was that? Like you know now transitioning your knowledge and your experience to them.
Speaker 2:Well, rob and Dom are six years apart. My late wife, jocelyn she had, she had, she was, she'd come from a family of 12 children in the Philippines and they were all a year apart. Their births were a year apart. So she was an ER nurse and I was a police officer sounds like a real cop nurse story but which I met her in the emergency room, believe it or not, and she said she wanted to have 12 children and I said I'm you have to carry them. I don't, you know, that's your body. So you know, whatever you want, you know. And I said but why don't we just go? We just had a kid, we bought a house, everything at the same time. So it was kind of like, you know, it was like a rollercoaster, so let's take a step back and take a breath. I said why don't we wait a little while? And so we waited, we had about every year and she goes okay, let's, you know, let's have another child. And she couldn't get pregnant.
Speaker 2:And being, you know, being an ER nurse, she was very well, she was very highly educated, I should say, and she knew she was very good at what she did, she was brilliant actually. And she says it's, there's a problem and I know it's me and, like a very long story short, she had a one of taking hormonal injections which she gave to herself. And you know you get those little, those little pamphlets, and you know you get exegeronomy, you get Tylenol and these are the. You know, every throm away. She used to read them and I'll never forget this because we had to go to a fertility doctor that other doctors and nurses went to. It was like the top fertility doctor in the nation or in the east coast, they should say one at the top in the nation and she says you know she's reading, and she's reading and she looks at me. She goes you know, there's one in the 600,000 chance that I could, I could develop from taking this, from injecting this, some form of cancer. And she won the lottery.
Speaker 2:She developed breast cancer while she was pregnant with Dom the younger boy, and she says well, they told the boy, the child, and we'll save your life. She laughed, she actually laughed at the doctor. She says you're not taking my child. So she went, she had him, she went through treatment, she had, you know, the stem cells and the whole nine yards, but it wasn't her time, it was her time to go, so we lost her in 96, so now I have a six year old and a one year old, basically, and you know now what do we do?
Speaker 2:She always wanted she loved hockey. Think about the Filipinos, the Filipino people when you bring them to their first NHL game, they're hooked for life because they don't have anything. That's speed and that it's amazing. And she was hooked, she was hooked. She was actually buried with a range of puck from one of her coworkers because they used to listen in the emergency room. They used to listen to the games as they were working and they were all addicted. And you know, now I have. You know I want to fulfill her wishes. She wanted our children to do what I did, to be involved in things. So we started playing hockey. They loved it. Rob was the first because he was older, he would.
Speaker 2:We wound up starting in Staten Island. For some reason I was in Brooklyn. This is before where we work was open and I'm not going to name the rank, but people will figure it out. I went into a place in Brooklyn and the rank in Brooklyn they basically gave me the Bumps Rush. So one of my closest friends growing up, so I could brother to me, stephen Penetieri. He goes. You know, my son, stephen, plays in Staten Island. They're the same age. I said she might go to Staten Island from Brooklyn. That's ridiculous. We were in Staten Island for six years. So Rob started play, went to clinics and Dom was.
Speaker 2:Now, you know, as the years are going by, he's two and a half three years old and he's trying to climb out of the carriage to get on the ice. So this went on for about five or six months to where I turned my back and he escaped and he was getting on the ice and he would stare he's a baby, he's staring. He would stare at the games. He'd lay back, put his over the pillow on the ones that watch. He'd watch Rob and they were constantly competing with each other. So I said you know what he hits three, let's put him on the ice now.
Speaker 2:In the meantime I had my, a relative of my wife, who was actually I hate saying this, telling this story because it always sounds like something, but it wasn't. My wife now is related to my first wife and she was. She came and she helped us with when the boys were small and both of us were working. She went back and forth with her kids and her Philippines and eventually she stayed for quite a while, helped me out at the Josie past and as the years went on, you know, we fell in love with each other and we wound up eventually marrying.
Speaker 2:So, you know, she was in a wrinkle all the time. She started becoming the de facto hockey mom. So. So now he's carrying on. I put him on the ice, I got up to skate little tiny skates and the whole line. Rob, I had to teach, rob, I had to teach. Rob was always more cautious, observant and you know, and he was, you could be patient with him. Don was like. He was like having a Wolverine in a you know, in a plastic bag trying to get out for air so it was always that constant.
Speaker 2:You know, 90 miles an hour, everywhere, 90 miles an hour. And so I put him out on the ice. He's three years old. Put him out on the ice and he falls down. He starts to scream. He's screaming at the top of his head. This is not for him. So I pull him off. Now he's fighting me, pushing, pushing me away to get on the ice. So this went off two or three times where parents are looking at me, going like what kind of attitude is he to you? Stop torturing that child, don't forget. It's not for him. Put him on the suite, my hand to God.
Speaker 2:He took off and he started skating full speed and he didn't stop until just recently where he left Prohaki. So, and he was competing as a three-year-old with six and seven-year-olds, because I didn't want to coach, I didn't want to try to let them develop. You know the fault he's got to have his hand on everything. I didn't necessarily. That was not necessarily solved, and you know they used to complain. They'd say you know he's going around other kids, he's scoring goals, he's putting pucks on their sticks and they can't. You know I was like what do you want me to do? You know, the kid is four years old, three years old, four years old, five years old. What do you want me to do? He's fighting against eight-year-olds, you know. Yeah, but it's not fair. He's better than that. I just let's stop right now.
Speaker 2:I wound up coming. You know, I wound up leaving Staten Island after six years. I coached Rob for quite a while Dom, I didn't. You know, I was trying not to be involved as a parent, I just do my own thing, so forth and so on. Because I was still playing and a guy calls me out. He goes listen, I know you play, I know you skate, I know you know the game. He said why don't you come out and give me a hand with the learn to play? Because we had to put Dom. We were still in Staten Island. I put him in a learn to play and I said okay. So I went and it was, I was alright, I was assisting and helping kids get up and teaching them little things. And then it just went on for a couple of weeks and by the third week the guy's not there getting show up.
Speaker 2:I guess this was like akin to if you've ever been to a youth football game and it's freezing out and you're standing and you're following it up and down the field and the guy's doing the chains, you know for the line of scrimmage. He's doing the chains and it turns around and goes listen, I got to go to the bathroom. Could you hold this chain for me? And you go, yeah, yeah, he goes. Really, I can't. I got to go Because it's too cold. This is why a guy wants to get out of it. So now you're holding the chain, go, there's this guy coming back. Well, I was holding the chain. The guy never came back. And then at the next meeting the coaches meeting there I got called in and going well, you're doing the learn to play right and I've been on a bench ever since, so I didn't want to do it. I kind of got sucked into it, but you know, but it's been fun. So it's done my coach for a long time.
Speaker 2:Coach Dometley was 15, he's turning 16. I started the first junior program at the Aviator because I had midget players. I had kids from other organizations that had coach, that were looking to play older kids, and we started with a major program Chris Worcester on a director. At that time he gave me green lights go for it Started. The first major program Started with a 16U, then an 18U. Eventually I wound up buying into a franchise in the IJHL it doesn't exist anymore which later was sucked up by the USPHL, and that's another story for another time. But Dometley was 16, he was playing for me. Everybody goes well. You got to be with a kid all the time. It wasn't true. He didn't drive, no one lived near us. I had you know, I was coaching, so now it's easy for him to be with me.
Speaker 2:He winds up going to the Metro Moose in the what the heck I don't remember. The Met League played in there got some interest and I get a phone call from an assistant coach in the USHL where I thought somebody was pranking. I thought it was a prank phone call. He goes no, we want to put him on a plane. He wound up playing for the Omaha Lanses at 16 years old in USHL so he was on the scouting list, everything that you could possibly imagine.
Speaker 2:And you know. Then the negative stuff started. You know, as he got older he was injured by a guy who was in the NHL right now, who I coached every time, I see and he got knocked down a couple of pegs and got released. Well, I know, coming back here, when I was leaving which is another story, another story for another time I had to step away from the junior team and hire a coach named Mike Stanaway. Mike Stanaway is an excellent coach. He's a phenomenal recruiter. He places more kids in D3 than anybody I know and he was instrumental in helping with Dom. Instrumental in helping. He says Professor, you're out of shape, you're going to have to come play with me for a little while, I'll get you in shape, which he did.
Speaker 2:And it came down to three or four programs, three or four programs, four programs three D1 and one D3. One was Maine and they backed out. They backed out because of the injury. The other one was Weston, michigan, where I was with good friends with a head coach who got into some trouble. He was no longer the head coach, so that dried up. The last two was one was AIC and the other one was St Norwood College, AIC.
Speaker 2:I was not sure because at the time I didn't believe that campus was properly secured in a couple of other reasons. So it was like he goes, I'm playing D3. Since I'll never go into the draft, I said what that doesn't mean, you're not going to go into Pro Hockey. So he I says, let's do this, let's look at both of them and then you decide. You tell me what you want to do, it's up to you. You're going to do the heavy lifting. That may be a big boy, you know. So what happens is he goes to St Norwood, pays a visit. St Norwood just came. Now. There's people right now. Anybody that's going to watch this is going to squirm in their seat on this one. They're going. Ah, stop trolling. Oh, it is true, all right, he goes there.
Speaker 2:They just played against WISCO, against the University of Wisconsin. It was a D1 program and they beat him. Only certain factions said no, they didn't beat them, it was a tie. So I says what do you think about that? He goes. Dad, this is the best team I've ever seen. Head coach was Tim Coglan. Tim Coglan has more wrangings in his ears than you can ever imagine. It was basically a D1 program masquerading his D3, a powerhouse. He plays. Great program, great system, great school. Small school but great school.
Speaker 2:I says worst case scenario. I know you want to play pro hockey but the worst case scenario is getting an education Education worth a million dollars these days. So he did and he went and his first year as a freshman he was playing for a second line minutes and they were in the. They lost the first round in the national championship. Second year they won it. So in fact we had the fanning family took a vacation to go watch the frozen four and they were there with us when they won. It was just a magical, magical thing. It was up in Lake Placid. You have all the formal, you know, from the from the miracle on ice team walking around hanging out. It was the only nephew was playing. They played them in the final. It was phenomenal hockey. It was one of the most exciting weekends we've ever had and you know, at the end of the day the kids got an edge of college education. He's got a frozen forward. It's amazing.
Speaker 2:You know everybody wants to get drafted in the NHL. Everybody with some of the greatest plays that ever played a game would never draft it. Or they've drafted love or they were given. You know the bumps rush to the door. There's always that opportunity for somebody. You know, there's two things that I believe in. One is what your destiny is. The other one is is that all these bad things that happen will build your character, going into that destiny, some things we can have no control over, you know, we don't, we do and we don't, we do and we don't. Whatever you want to call it, luck, kiss, mint, you know there's a lot of names for it, but when it comes down, you somebody told they're trying to think of the quote. There was another coach that told me Because, as you see, as you get into this, especially with USA Hockey, and you go to level three, you go to level four, you go to level five and this is for all the coaches out there, pay attention you get to sit with coaches that have a lot more experience than you.
Speaker 2:Now, as much as you think as a coach, to get to get away from the subjects a little bit, as much as you think as a coach, there is always something to learn. I've been doing this well over 30 years. I learn every day. I speak to people. I have friends that are Stanley Cup champions. I have friends that have played in Europe internationally known. I have friends that are this I have friends that are that. I mean on, and, on, and, on and on and on. In hockey we're unlike other sports, and this is the truth. The highest level people are all accessible. They're regular people for the most part. One in a thousand is a chair.
Speaker 3:To be honest with you.
Speaker 2:One in a thousand is a chair. I've only seen very few coaches or very few NHL players ever walk away from a child, ever. So it's the most accessible or personable orientated sport that you will find. And when you get to the certain levels, like we do as coaches, and be involved with the Rangers, learn to Play. I was doing the Rangers Learn to Play and the Islanders Learn to Play.
Speaker 2:At the same time, I am a Rangers fan since I was a child, so it's kind of like everybody looks at me. This is listen. When you look at it. There are no fans in the NHL. They read enemies of frenemies or friends. They read the frenemies or friends Very few enemies these days, but their frenemies are friends.
Speaker 2:And you know, I've had interactions with so many people from so many different teams. Again, I know Stanley Cup winners. I've had lunch with them, I've been on the ice with them, I've become friendly with them and it's amazing because they're just regular people. They're just regular people and they talk to you as if you're one of them, which I like a lot. So, for getting back to you, know, with Dom and all he's, you know he's so he's, you know, finding his way in life. He got married and he married a goalie, so we're pretty happy.
Speaker 2:She was the goalie for the French national team, ana Isarod Zaka, and her sister, chloe Alrod, is a forward for the New York team in the PWHL. So, twin sister, so you know we're, we have made. You know, it's just like the veins go out. You know veins and hockey, but again, it's an accessible sport and you will never find any better people than we do in hockey, except for yesterday. Lunatic, but yes people, they were Lunatic parents Just don't understand yesterday, but it was handled correctly, I believe. Go talk to Ilya. So I don't hear. Go talk to Ilya.
Speaker 2:Oh say, Ilya, I'm good, but it's you know, I was very happy when you had asked me to do the ranges. Because, it's the interaction with the kids. And you know, it's amazing, we get to change lives not change, that would say change and we get to direct them in the right place. So you know, we're a hockey family here. You have a hockey family. We wouldn't know each other if it wasn't for hockey.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, and you know I take a lot of inspiration from what you've been talking about, because I don't know if you know, but Jane and I you know John knows my wife Jane very, very well Jane, I also went through fertility treatments as well. We were told we never gonna have kids in two years. Into it, right before we were supposed to do IVF, he said let's take a break and go on vacation. We went on a cruise, came back and she was pregnant and you know that's how we had the first son. And then we had a very similar story, for Aiden was four and that's kind of like.
Speaker 1:I started coaching when he was two because I wanted to see if I like it, if I can even do it. I was playing with Peter in the mornings, if you remember, like 6 am, and I was like I really want to try it, and so you and Chris obviously gave me a shot there. And then when Aiden was four and I got him onto the ice and skates for the first time, I think Liam was two and a half and Aiden's on the ice skating when we get off and Liam cried for a full hour and Jane turned to me and said you're gonna take both of them or you're not taking either of them. I'm not standing here with a crying baby.
Speaker 3:So I took him and Liam was, you know, by three years old. He was skating at the end of your moment.
Speaker 1:He was in the house, the girl, and we put him as a goalie.
Speaker 3:I put him in the face, and then I would yell Liam, fall down, whatever the fuck. I would just drop, but you know, he's just.
Speaker 2:He is. I tell you, he's the one with that's more sensitive. Right, he's more sensitive, he's. I get such a kick at it because we sit and we chat. You know and this is another thing for you coaches out there, I don't care what their age is. If they look up to you, they look directly at you. You're responsible for how you speak to them. You're responsible for how you handle them as players. You're responsible because when they go home, if that child feels like they were distored, you know in any way, you know that could change the road that they were on. It's just. You know they have something to say. You have to listen to them, as hard as it may be.
Speaker 2:Funny thing was with Sean. Yesterday I was on ice with Sean. I called him over. I said Sean, are you okay? He goes yes, coach, I'm fine. Why? I says did you change your name? He goes. Why? I said because I called you five times and you didn't turn around and look at me. I said well, I was a little concentrating on the park. This is a young child, so that gives you an idea of what you know, which is funny because I had to turn around, because I started to laugh.
Speaker 2:You know, when you handle young kids oh, that's another thing to digress again that they're good at talking about. They say you know what your experience? Why don't you back coaching juniors? And I thought about it and I had somebody say something to me one time when I asked a similar question. I said because sometimes you feel you can't teach them anything. With these kids, with these babies, we make it fun, we do. We take these kids out on the ice. It's fun. You go to the Rangers, aren't it played? The AVL, aren't it played? It's nonstop hilarity and I torture the parents. I do torture the parents. You know it's like.
Speaker 2:Yesterday I told one of those two of the parents, a very stoic, very like I says I just opened the door and yelled no one's kids go into the NHL tomorrow, close the door and went back on the ice. So then you have dead silence and they're all staring at me. So now we go, we go about 10, 15 minutes. I give the kids a break, open the door and escort them out, start training. The parents don't stand by the door, get back, let them come off the ice, let them drink over by the benches. You should not clog the door. Well, why? Because it's a fire hazard and you're the biggest one. Now, get over by the, get over by the bench.
Speaker 2:So I had two parents. They're very stoic. Then look, they're staring at me and they go what's up, coach? I says you know, you realize that I was sentenced to prison, but not to go to prison. I had to do this and today I would have been getting out. And everybody's laughing and they're staring at me. And then they look at each other and they realize they're starting to laugh at me. So you gotta relax. You gotta relax, enjoy what your kid's doing, cause you're only gonna get one shot here. You're gonna be 35 years old by the time you blink your eyes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I think, and that's the biggest point, I think you know you've gone from from beginners all the way to junior and all the back, so you've seen the whole spectrum of development from the beginning to you know the highest levels of hockey. And so what's your favorite level to coach and why?
Speaker 2:I have more than one favorite level. To be honest with you. I don't. I think the only. Actually, I've loved every level. I've coached every level of travel hockey. I've coached house division for years. I've coached learning to skate for years in different places. I, you know, I coached triple A, double A, single A, what they call triple A here. It's not really, I don't think. Anyway, don't get insulted people, but you know you want triple A. Go to Michigan, go to Michigan and get a surprise. Or Illinois, or Ohio, and you know, so forth and so on. I've loved every level that I've coached at. I've won and lost at every level I've coached at.
Speaker 2:Juniors is different. Juniors is, you know, they have this prevailing attitude that they a lot of them. Now, mind you, I coached tier three juniors, different leagues, the USPHL being the highest league that I coached, and I coached Premier. I coached the lead, both at the same time as a head coach and as an assistant or an associate coach, and it's different. It's a different mentality. They believe they know everything. In truth, they know nothing.
Speaker 2:You know you get to see what other coaches do or don't. Do you know, when you have a kid, come in and slap you on the back and go has a go. You know they were not. You know they were not taught the right way how they are in the locker room, how they are on the bus. That's one thing I don't miss about Junior Hockey is getting on the long the iron line, which is funny because you know Mike Standaway has a habit of doing things. He's kind of like I don't know, it's almost Dickensian where it's. You know you're going high-mike and the next thing you know you're shoveling his driveway or something. So you know it's like. You know, could you give me a hand? Come on, I really don't want to make him busy.
Speaker 2:Oh, come on, I got to go and you go out there and then the next thing, you know it's three o'clock in the morning, coming back from some God or who place in New England, at three o'clock in the morning, going. Why am I here? You know, just give me a hand. You know, give me a hand. But he's an excellent coach Speaking of excellent coaches, and I love people out here who are going ah, you know, chris Warstein is one of the best coaches.
Speaker 2:I know, and I think I may have a little bit of influence here with this, is that during a pandemic, chris and I had met, we had nothing and we just we put our heads together and we made it happen and but again, we brought the right people in. Yeah, okay, yeah, as you notice, because you are only as good as the people you will with and, as you see, our coaching staff, we have a little bumps here and there. We have a couple of bumps here and there. Those are the most probably very strong, very strong. My thing to him was to it should be your message. This has to be your message, no one else's. You're the director of all of this has to be your message. He has developed some kids in the correct manner and I'm very proud of what he has done. Now we've done it before, I'll forget where 17 years in that building, but that's not my first stop. So that tells you how much he's done. Our stops, that it tells you how old I am, like 120 years old. Okay, I'm 130, but I don't want to push it. But you know it comes down to the fact that you know you pay attention to your product, you pay attention to the people that are there, you pay attention to your coaches, you pay attention to all the outside influences so many things that go into this. You know and you handle the problems and you handle them correctly. So you know, I've coached again. I've coached another organizations I had coached I got to be careful with this one because this one has an NHL vibe on it. I had coached at another location two springs ago I think it's a spring ago, two springs ago and I observed how they did things and so forth and so on. The players were great. The players responded to me as an outsider because I was doing things they've never seen before. So you know, the whole thing was for me to kind of influence the coaches that were there Eventually.
Speaker 2:Just, you know you can't do certain things for certain reasons. So time is a very expensive thing. You know that we have. And if you are away from what you're supposed to be, you know your primary focus is to a lot. That's on you so. But you know you see how other places do what they do. You know you walk into our building. You see the discipline mentality. You see that all the coaches are. You know, teaching, discipline, teaching, this teaching that I got that from Cassitano. I got that from Cassitano and his buddies. I became a student Again. This is why you never stop learning the game of hockey. I had a very good coach that was played under the Soviet system. I don't want to mention any other names, just in case.
Speaker 2:They had gotten in a little bit of an issue. So I was coaching with two other guys that were brought up under the Soviet system and now this has nothing to do with politics when you say the Soviet system the hockey was, even though it was controlled by the government. What happened underneath the government was a totally different thing, separate agenda for the most part and they said well listen, he has guided us, that I had helped them with their problems, some of their problems, which weren't bad. This guy had a problem, so I helped him with his. So then somebody else from the Russian community came to me. Well, say, russian, they're not all Russian, but at that time, at that time, in their country, their countries, they were Russian. So I helped them with that.
Speaker 2:It was nothing like really bad or stupid, and it came all the way down the line. And then very a mutual friend of ours had said well, alex has a problem. I'd like to speak to you about it. You need some advice. Oh, okay yeah, it happened so quickly and it turned out to be like, say, Kastanov, he didn't even.
Speaker 3:My advice is some stuff and I helped him with it.
Speaker 2:And he goes why don't you come? And again I get stuck in it.
Speaker 2:It's in there. You know, put the hook on my mouth, won't you come out? Yeah, I know, your kids have your kids come, steve, you come out too. So I went out as an observant and wound up getting my hands started because now I'm doing. He gave me a station. I had to do stations. This is what I want you to do. You can do the same thing for an hour, for an hour and a half, all right, make them work, make them. I watched how he handled it, I watched how he handled his coaches and I watched. So I started to get deeper into it. Deeper into it because he was a student of Tarasov. I've always read about Tarasov and wanted to know more.
Speaker 2:So now I would hit him with questions and so forth and so on, and this went on and on and on and on. I had the opportunity to, at the level five, to meet like, and now I'm gonna have a brain fought very big in USA hockey. Can't think of his name right now and he's probably gonna see watch this and go. That idiot forgot my name. But I had a chance to meet him. He was the one that actually was in Brooks. He went to Russia. He sat in the room with a light dangling, like you see in the movies, with a KGB making sure you don't leave the room. But Tarasov went to him and said Lou Vara, thank you, Lou Vara. And he.
Speaker 2:I met him at the level five and I was wearing a highway patrol shirt and he goes hi on a job. I go, yeah, yo, he goes no, no, no. But I'm from Brooklyn, I am low, high, I'm low. Oh my gosh, I'm shaking hands with a giant. And we spoke. We kept all the people around us going come on, you got him. We must have spoke for two hours.
Speaker 2:And I started hitting him with questions and stuff and I said can you get me the? Tapes. The tapes of the you know desks of the practices. Can you get me that? And we went back and forth and so now it's funny how word of mouth is and how dangerous it could be Well fortuitous, depending on which side of the coin you're on. So set the go forward. So we had a great conversation. I learned a lot from him.
Speaker 2:You know the no, no, no no no, and you know he liked the questions I asked and he gave me phenomenal answers.
Speaker 3:So we go forward Now.
Speaker 2:I'm at our facility and at that time I was given lessons at six o'clock in the morning. So I get to the rank and Dom's with me because he was in, because it was during the up season, and it's figure seven, the figure skaters on the ice or whatever like them, take one out and take the other. And this woman comes out of the locker room at the pro slash junior locker room. She has an ermine coat on. Now, this six o'clock in the morning, I can smell her perfume coming. She's dressed like she's going to the you know, most expensive restaurant you could ever imagine, but like a movie star. And now there's figure skaters from Russia that are Olympic figure skaters and as soon as she came out they stood straight but their heads down. And we're going, something's going on here, and she looks at me, she goes, who goes? I know who you are and then I realized who she was. She was Tatiana Teresova and I had a chill just saying her name. I got a chill down my spine. I looked at her and go, I know you too. And she takes me by the arm, she's holding me and she goes. She wants to leave me. So we're walking and we're talking. There was a couple of other coaches out there in the morning and they knew she was going to be there. So they brought her flowers and she takes them and she throws them the sign. She goes I'm busy. It was like, ok, I'm looking at them, I'm looking at me like there was someone's talking to them. So we're talking and we started getting into it. Now she goes why are you here? I said I have a lesson. She goes when you finish your lesson, let's come, let's finish. So I did. We spoke, we were there forever and she said to me and I was asking her questions about her father and she says you know, it's amazed how much you know about Papa. I says well, he is my mentor, he is what I base. Everything that I've done in youth hockey, in junior hockey, it was based on his teachings, because I think it was the most pure and direct and simplified way of playing the game.
Speaker 2:And reading the books. I have one book. I have a Bible, a Christian Bible. I have that. It was a book by a relative that I wrote. I have the power broker and on top of all of these books, these three or four books, I have the Road to Olympus by Anatoly Terasov. So I have questions, I would pick it up and I read it, just like I would read the Bible or anything else, any other good book, so you know. So she goes to me. Are you going to be here tomorrow? I said yes, absolutely. So I go the next day and I have the book. I have a different book. I have two of his books.
Speaker 2:There was five books in English and one or two in Russian that you cannot find. They're vaulted somewhere and I've tried for years and years. So I have another book. It was a very common book and you know it is drills and all kinds of things. And I brought that and she saw it and she hugged me and kissed me and she started to cry and tell me how much she missed him. I said I have to ask you to please sign this. She signed it. That's vaulted in my house now it doesn't go anywhere, but in my safe. So I asked Isis, how do you know me? She goes through Alex and all these guys. Isis, all right, all right.
Speaker 2:He was a big influence on me. I used to go watch Stadikov. I used to watch Sergei Semenov. I know Sergei for years and years and years and from different organizations and different places, that we were in the same place at the same time and it was always great conversation. He used to bring me out on the ice and I'd watch what he did.
Speaker 2:A lot of people say, oh, you can't deal with him. He's very graph Isis. He is the best coach in this building. So stop your nonsense. You want your kid to learn or you want your ego to be bruised? Remember ego is the devil. If you're a lowse out there in hockey land, if you don't bury that ego, you ain't going nowhere. As they say in Brooklyn, because it's just keep your mouth shut In highway. Well, keep your mouth shut. That always brings it up. There was a sergeant in highway. He was a sergeant on the job for 40 years and he was in highway for a long, long time. This guy was a cops cop or sergeant sergeant, but he was the epitome of a highway patrol officer. He was very disciplined and he used to have a saying. It was keep your boots shined and your mouth shut, you'll get along with everybody, and that's always stuck with me. It always stuck with me and anything that I've ever done, especially in hockey. You can't listen to somebody if you're talking at the same time Right.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, and just to kind of reiterate what you said, I think you and Chris again you mentioned Chris Worcester and I think him all the time for number one is giving me a shout, but number two is helping. You guys don't just coach the kids, you also help the coaches as well. I know I've caused my own set of problems throughout the years, especially very early in my career. I was learning how to be a coach and how to deal with certain situations. So I learned the one from you guys and Sergei again, and working with Sergei for the last couple of years has been absolutely phenomenal. He is an absolutely wonderful coach. He's so knowledgeable when it comes to the game and he's not afraid to teach me.
Speaker 1:As another coach, I learned the one from him and his system and how he changes things on the fly when things need to be changed. He's very stern, but I feel like the kids appreciate what he's saying, like they take it too hard and they know he's hard on them, demanding, but they also know that they're going to get a lot out of working with him. And so, yeah, and I think it's so important as directors and administrators that you guys kind of have two hats on. You have to coach the kids, but you also have to help the coaches develop and keep the organizations running Right, and so it is a very difficult job to combine. So I guess the next question I would have for you is to talk a little bit about that, like, how do you kind of manage being a director, and especially you being involved with discipline and speaking to some of those discipline issues with the kids and the parents and coaches, and also being a coach, and how do you manage all that?
Speaker 2:Well, everything is, I don't know. It's just give it a simple answer. It's kind of hard A lot of the time. Most of it is investigation For me. That's my end of it. At the end of the day, chris Wersand has the final call on what I recommend and he may change that a little bit, but that's the way we do it. You have to find out what the root is.
Speaker 2:You cannot have any kind of prejudice attitude against anybody, and that doesn't mean because of race or religion or anything. It means that if somebody was a troublemaker in the past doesn't necessitate that they were troublemaking now or they have a reputation for something. You have to look beyond that because you will never get to the root of the problem if you don't. We just had one recently and it had to play out, meaning that if you make a rash decision right away, you will fall flat on your face. You need to know all the facts, even the ones that you don't believe are there. You need to make sure that you are judging fairly, because everyone has a right to be judged fair. Not to digress, but just to slightly get away from our subject, I had just recently had a coach from another organization because they did call reach out had a major problem and was distraught over it, really distraught over it, and he basically wanted to know what do I do? I says you do nothing. You do nothing. You let the dust settle. You let everybody get off their horse, their high horse who thinks that they're better than everyone else or above everyone else. You let that go because at the end of the day, you're holding all the cards. The cards that you are holding is whether or not you stay here or not. There are other places to go. Yeah, but this is convenient. And I says listen, your son's friends are there. He'll make friends through hockey wherever he goes. He's a great kid and so are you.
Speaker 2:So why are you letting these people get over the initial again ego or hurt and realize that, first of all, none of these people were on your side to begin with? Plus, there's another agenda there that you don't see. Well, what is it? I don't know, I don't know. The funny thing is that I did find out yesterday, and it was five days later, after the fact that I had to speak to this person. So eventually you find things out and it was a terrible thing to do.
Speaker 2:But this is the business that we're in. Sometimes it's not nice. It's not nice. See, there's a difference between where we are now and other places, and I'm not just saying locally, I mean anywhere in the United States. Canada is a different story. Canadian mentality is different than the American mentality. We could always learn from each other, even though they say it's their game. Sorry, canadians out there, but I'm looking right at you and I'm telling you that the first game was played in Michigan Historical fact. So it's not an easy road to be on, but you have to. You say that word fair will come up. There's nothing fair in certain things that happen. There's nothing fair in certain things that some parents will predicate their lives on being right or pushing their agenda, whatever that may be, or an agenda being my kid? There's my kid, my kid. How many kids are on the travel team? How many kids are on the journey team? How many kids? It's not about your kid.
Speaker 2:It's about our kids. So again, it's a long road. And there was something else another boss of mine had said. It was a very interesting quote.
Speaker 2:And somebody had said something to him in as much as but what if, but what if? But what if, but what if? And he answered, you know, just looking straight ahead, very matter of fact, we said you're on my train, it's going to stop at all the stops. So if you choose to go to the stops, we wish you the best of luck. If you continue to ride on my train and you are going to have to play by our rules in the way we do things. And that was, that was the whole statement, and then silence, and that was it. So you know this, this, you learn, you catalog these things, things. Oh OK, all right, so, but you know again, it's not, it's not easy. And doing these things and handling, handling people, is not easy. You know, you got ego, you got embarrassment, you have so forth and so on. You know, when words like I or me or us, come out in conversations, you know that you have to deal with a certain way, because it's not about I, we, it's about you know, spot, all of us.
Speaker 1:Right, and John, I know you mentioned earlier, you know you kind of touched on COVID and you know how you and Chris kind of came together and you know obviously all of us were managing that situation it was, it was hard on everybody. But you know, in some of the shows I've done since then I've heard a lot about the cultural change that people saw and some folks said some coaches said, well, covid was the best year because parents can come into the building and so the kids were still focused.
Speaker 3:The guys were great, it was wonderful. And then you know so have you seen?
Speaker 1:that cultural change since COVID or during COVID and you know, in terms of just dealing with the parents and these issues, we handled it a little differently.
Speaker 2:We handled it a little differently First. We had just the kids coming in. We had the kids dressing outside, we had an area for them to dress and mat for them to walk into. We had one place to get into the building and one place to get out, so the people weren't coming in, and so forth and so on. Everybody had the temperature taken as they came in. Everybody wore a mask when they came in, everybody. We had more sanitizer than you could ever imagine. You could, really you could have a vat of it and just jump in and come out and come out and chair them free, and then it would ease up, so forth and so on. We did have pressure from the outside.
Speaker 2:Again we are particular facilities on government property, which means we are a private entity on government property, being a private entity, that if anybody enters our building without our acknowledgement, they can be removed. Federal government has their guidelines, city and state have their guidelines and they will believe it or not, they will do a fighting over whose jurisdiction it was. So you're on federal property, you're on federal, you know, that's it. So we had them taking pictures of it. I went outside and waved to them, asked them could we get you anything? You do that. No, no, I'm just standing here. Ok, can I come in? No, you cannot come in. Why not? It's a private facility. Well, why not? I said you may have come up and close the door. So be polite. They're doing their job or what they were ordered to do.
Speaker 2:But we kind of kept people separate. We kept making sure the place was clean. They're nobody dressed in a locker room. Everybody got dressed away from each other. We took precautions. We took precautions and that time passed.
Speaker 2:You don't realize that was a three-year bubble. It was a three-year bubble, but in the meantime we were very. The kid came inside and said I don't feel good. We tell the parents well, we've got to get out. Kids may be sick, so let's not take a chance on it. And people were very cooperative because you know what they understood. 99% of the parents were families. They understood Don't bring five people in here, well, why my grandparents haven't seen a playboy? They're going to see him now. You had a phone. Take a video, go live, it's fine with us.
Speaker 2:And then things started to change again. We're still cautious with certain things. You have to be. You have to be Believe it or not.
Speaker 2:I don't want to get into anything too deep with this, but from my experience it was a virus. We've had viruses before. We've had plagues in this country, just like we have around the world. It's how it was dealt with. It's how it was dealt with, how it was handled, how you as a person have to be responsible and again, you have to be responsible for your own children. And I would go out and talk a lot and talk to the parents. I talk to the parents. So everybody kept was willing, for Chris would go on to talk to the parents. The other coaches would go on to talk to the parents. There was a line of communication. You need to communicate. You cannot have because I figure out. It's the way it is because I told you so what you'd be honest with people and tell them, whether they like it or not, it's the truth and they remember you can never say that you didn't tell me oh yes, I did, oh yes, I did.
Speaker 2:Which is you see all kinds. You see all kinds of situations, but that's basically the way we handled it.
Speaker 1:Yeah and yeah, I wanted to kind of shift a little bit, I guess just to talk a little bit. But take you a little bit back to the coaching and talk a little bit. I know we could a little bit over an hour here, but I wanted to talk to you about athletes that stood out to you in your career and some of the characteristics that maybe you can mention, some of the things that you saw in those athletes whether it was their relationship with their parents, what their parents did that stood out to you, that you knew when you were coaching them, like this kid is going to go somewhere or this kid is going to struggle. What stood out to them better?
Speaker 2:You know what I've seen? There were kids that made it as far as the NHL, but I was a little bit shocked. I was a little. I think I'll be honest with you. I was a little bit shocked. I don't want to mention the names. I was shocked. Some of them I didn't particularly care for the parents because they were self-righteous, arrogant, so very few. One player in particular well, there's a couple in particular.
Speaker 2:Joey Diamond played for Apple Claw. He played for the junior teams, went up through Henry Loza's system. Not a big kid, still not a big guy. One of the most skilled hockey players, about 5'7", 7.5", 5'8". He played in the NHL. He played one or two games or three games through the island in the island system. He played mostly in the AHL Bridgeboard. He fought some of the heavyweight in the games at his size and knocked some of them unconscious. He was one of the toughest kids he was playing. They played for.
Speaker 2:Let me digress. The way they had it set was if you played for the junior team, you went to school for St Mary's in Manasset. Even if you were from Canada, you went to St Mary's. So they had. They were on a high school team and they were on the junior teams. My son was one of them, rob, but Joey was playing and there was a kid decided he was going to teach Joey a lesson Because Joey's very skilled, very skilled, always very skilled, quick, fast, great hand. His skating was amazing and he picked the wrong guy because I saw him knock this guy out on the ice. He pulled the guy down to him and knocked him unconscious.
Speaker 2:I know Joey. Joey was going to play for Maine and then he went. He was in the draft and he played. He was mostly in the AHL and he was a fighter. If you Google it or put it in YouTube, you can see some of his battles. But he was a great kid and he's a great young man now. Love him. Kevin LeBank plays for San Jose. Kevin, I've never known Kevin. Not to have a smile on his face would have come up and break my ribs squeezing me to say hello. Amazing family, great family. His father played for the Czech national team years ago. Great family, same with Joey's family. Great family, shane Pinto I know Shane. I know him since when he was a kid. He was never very friendly with them. So people, oh yeah, I know, I know.
Speaker 2:I know I know, I know he skates with Dom and a couple of the guys at the facility. Very nice kid, very nice family. But you couldn't tell at that point until he moved on. It was only with us a few, two or three years. Then he moved on.
Speaker 2:Charlie McAvoy, charlie was he's going to probably get mad at me for saying this if he sees this or somebody else would give it to him. Charlie always had a smile. He was always one of those kids He'd give him a dollar to go get something out of the candy machine. It's just great. And he grew and he was very skillful, always very skillful. Excellent family, excellent, excellent family. Dom had run into him. They were doing the USA. He was playing for the national team and Dom was playing for I think it was Lincoln. There were the Lincoln Stars and the USHL and the first thing he said to him gave Dom a hug. He goes how's your father? So that tells you what kind of you know. He's a big NHL star now but he never forgets.
Speaker 2:It's funny because one of the kids that we had at the rink. I love this kid, another great family. He plays for the house division. Big Boston Bruins fan, big Charlie McAvoy fan and he's at the Bruins game. I got a. You know pictures father sends me pictures he's at the Bruins game, him and his buddy, and he's wearing a Charlie McAvoy jersey and they're at warmups and he's got a sign that says Charlie McAvoy. Coach Sackler was my coach too. May I have a puck and Charlie sees the sign and goes right over to him. I had made the kid feel like a million bucks. I didn't coach Charlie, you know I didn't coach Charlie, but I watched him growing up and I watched him playing growing up, but we knew him at the rink.
Speaker 2:You know, one thing that stands out is we had a tournament at the youth level and they came late. It was Friday, it was a holiday weekend and there was no food and we had pizza and invited him and his father in to eat with our family because they were stuffed otherwise. So and you know you talk and gone back before there's such a good, good family. The whole family's nice. In fact, his sister works for the Rangers. Charlie, is it Charlie's sister? I think it's. Charlie's sister works for the Rangers.
Speaker 2:Just a good family. The family's a good hockey family. For the most part are really, really excellent people, but there's been so many, so many that you know I've known Some of them. You forget you know, until somebody brings it up. You know, because the hockey is a big place. It's a big, big place, but it's a small world, you know. Yeah, it is a small world, but it's amazing. I mean see, I'm at the Rink One day and it was just a few years ago and the weather was horrendous, and I rode my bike in. I don't know why I did this, but I figured I'm going to do an hour, I'm going to get out, I'm not even going to go to the drive and I'll get there on a bike in a sprint. It's only a three and a half miles or whatever.
Speaker 2:So, boy, the weather turned so.
Speaker 2:I get in, I get in. I kind of spossed the kids was learn to play every aviate a lot of fun. And as a guy coming in with a bag and two kids, two young kids, this guy is big. And I mean, this guy is big and I see him and he comes over and he goes. You know, I spoke to Chris. He says do you mind if I come on here? I said no, no, come on out, welcome. You know, come on, let's go out and give me a hand, though. He goes yeah, absolutely. So we go out with play. After a while he goes hi, I'm Kevin, I'm John you know.
Speaker 2:So we go out and his hands who could have broken my hand, my fingers? Just just a big human being. Sweet guy though, and so. But I'm saying, you know, he looks kind of familiar, he looks kind of familiar. And so we're going, so we're talking, and afterward we had a great time with the kids, a lot of laughs, you know. We played, played against the kids and just had a ball, and Seth was, he goes, thanks a lot, he goes, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we started to talk about it. I said would you like to come next week? So come on next week, give me a hand, come on, okay, you know. So I'm saying I'm talking to my kids about it. I said I know this guy from somewhere. I can't, you know, I can't. So another week goes by, he comes out and he's wearing an HL jacket. I says, oh, we just deal it.
Speaker 2:He was not, I played in, I played in any job. There's any other. I switch him. Last time he goes Westcoth. I said Kevin, westcoth, she don't realize when you meet people in person, you know, because it's a different. You know, you see people on TV. He says it from a distance.
Speaker 2:He's a big man, kevin, six, six and a half. So I sit, decided you know we, but we had a great time together and of course he chirps me, you know. So the guy sends you a pass and you almost get knocked off your feet. You know, this guy's powerful, but he played in the NHL. I don't know how many seasons they went over, played over in New York for a while and he works, works for the NHL. So and we have, we find out how many mutual friends we have. It's amazing, you know, because you don't know, you talk to people, you don't realize how many mutual friends. And so you know, we became, we became good friends, wonderful family, wonderful family.
Speaker 2:He's got the well, then they're growing, the kids are growing. He's got three young ones and I noticed his wife is very tall. So we're talking, you know, you get to know people and so forth and so forth. And you know I said did you, did you have a wife and athlete? Because she's, she's about six, two, six, three. It's a very attractive woman, you know, so forth, very sweet. Go to the kids. He goes no, no, we've met, you know, in college she played basketball and he played hockey, both D one. So he says really.
Speaker 3:So I says I'm talking back and forth, he goes yeah, her father's in sports too.
Speaker 2:So you know, you got you start thinking about, so I got home on a Google which is, you know, thank God for Google, right, right, so you know, I got Google and I find out her father coached the Pittsburgh Steelers to three Stanley, three Super Bowls.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:I'm saying my gosh. Those kids have no choice. Whatever they do, they're going to have greatness in their blood. Nice as people, but that again, hockey people are the best. Sorry, everybody else, it's true, hockey people, you know the families, the truities, it's incredible. Good, good people, really good people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a certain culture and certain presence when you're in a part of this game and I think you've hit the nail on the head there, because I've gotten the chance to work with a lot of Rangers alumni and a lot of coaches from other organizations probably the New York Rangers organization, and just so many stories in there, so eager. I had a bunch of folks like Tom Wade, stefan Matau, you know, on the show Rhonda Gay. These guys are just so nice and they're so eager and excited to help and you ask them hey, can you share something, can you come and coach? And they're always happy to do it. It's amazing. Adam Graves won the just a wonder of a human being, right, every time you see him, he's always nice, he'll come out, he'll talk to everybody you know and he's been to maybe there a number of times, you know, with us. So it's just unbelievable how you become, you know, part of this culture of phenomenon and you know you connect with so many people.
Speaker 1:I actually have a very interesting story.
Speaker 1:Recently I'm on the board of a forensic accounting certification, so we had this board meeting and it's you know, all these folks are PhD professors and all over the country and there's a couple of guys from California and and you know, I, you know introduced us and I said, you know, in addition to being an ACPA, I coach ice hockey, and just kind of mentioned it.
Speaker 1:And then this gentleman who worked for the Department of Justice and is, you know, very educated man, obviously, you know great resource, sends me an email, say, hey, I don't know if you know this, but I'm from Canada and I grew up playing hockey and if you ever need anything, you can always balance ideas, or for me, and I was like you know, this is so great out of all the things that were set in that meeting, the connection that stuck was the fact that we both played hockey, which, you know, nothing to do with actual purpose of the meeting or the profession that you were talking about, but I think that's almost, like you know, like a hidden thing, like you become a part of this hidden culture.
Speaker 2:It's amazing, it's. I have a very good friend of mine who's there was the first podcast I was ever on, gordon Mifolland. He's up in the Ontario area, he is. You look at his resume of what he has done in the game of hockey everything from being a referee, a lineman, a college coach, youth coach, junior coach. He has, he goes, he does, has a company called. It's a mental toughness, you know, coach, to get his coach to connect. Forgive me, goro, you know we've been talking for a long time but he's an amazing, amazing guy and you know we have a lot of mutual people that we know and we're constantly bouncing stuff back and forth, different products. You know because he's that he's so hands on in the game of hockey and he's done so many amazing things. It's incredible. But we would not have known each other if not for the game of hockey People that you know, coaches that have met.
Speaker 2:Being a ranger fan, you know, my whole life it's, my hero was Roger O'Bair and we always kind of missed each other. And then one day number two son was doing back flips and all kinds of stuff and it's in the rank and they were running a playing tag and he stopped short on the rubber matting and he said dad, I think I sprained my ankle, wound up to be a fracture. So now he was out for six weeks or whatever the six to eight weeks or the six weeks and thank the Lord it was six weeks because he took a sore and he cut the cast off himself and put his skates on and ran around the house. So we're up in Connecticut. We had a game I was coaching his team, but he's out and we're standing away to a game.
Speaker 2:Roger O'Bair sees him. He was there in the rank watching as we were playing against his nephew. He sees him and he comes up and he says he introduced himself to me. I says I know who you are, sir. You know and we're talking about before that that would happen. He's talking and he's talking to Dom and he starts telling Dom a story about when he was got drafted by the Rangers. Don't forget, in those days there was no AHL. It was you know. You were playing somewhere in Canada and you got on their list and they went after you and they bought the rights to you. They sent you a check for 50 bucks and the other day owned you. So that's what you were going to. You're going in their farm system and you know.
Speaker 3:So for the song it was different, and so much different than today, and you know I idolized this guy that was.
Speaker 2:I had to win number seven when we played in the street. You know that kind of stuff. So he starts telling the story about when he got drafted, you know, by the Rangers. When you know he says I'm going to camp in the summer and Basil is one of the another. One of those things, don't play baseball. We know you play in Montreal, don't play baseball. He played baseball. He goes sliding in the third base. He fractures his leg. Oh no, the fracture where they said that this is probably in the unit. We're going to play sports again.
Speaker 2:He had a cast in those days it was different. He had a cast from his toe, it was hip. So he was in fear that he would never, you know. And he's telling the story to my son my young son was his all years about how he battled back, how he made the Ranger team, you know so forth and so on. And I'm looking at him and I go this man was my idol and there must have been a reason for that. But he was so good about it. And later on we met at a. It was a Ranger social function. My late brother got arrested. So Tommy, tommy Hastings, tremendous Ranger fan, he, he says, come on, we're going to go. We'll go to the Staten Island. It's like a catering place.
Speaker 3:I don't want to go to these things.
Speaker 2:He goes. No, really, he says you got to go, come on, we're going to have guys there, it's you know, get a meet and greet and all kinds of stuff, just go have dinner. It's on May. And he goes you know, it's for season second hold. I said okay, I got it. And Rod sees me and he comes right over and has a seat and goes you buy me a drink, right? So so we're going back, we're talking about it and we we brought that up. He says, yeah, and I remember that he goes, you know, on and on, and on and on, and we had talked and then we had met another time.
Speaker 2:The speaker was Walt Kyle. Walt Kyle was a was a range of assistant coach and he went on to coach other places in coach college and I wound up hanging out with him for about two hours after the thing. We were going to scoff back and forth how we knew and mutual friends will consist of. So you know, shook hands. I had a highway patrol t-shirt. I says, yeah, this is for you. Oh, this is so cool. And on this, any of this, I said I'll take care of it.
Speaker 2:He says you want us to, we'll drive you in a minute. He goes. No, I got a cab coming in. I got to need a couple of people, but you know we'll hook up somewhere else so we can. After that 9-11 happen, and life changed in a big way, forever, especially for those of us that were there, and so this goes on and eventually we go back to some sense of normalcy. And so now I go for my level, for my level five, and I got to get up to go to the bathroom. It's 500 people in the room, 500 people. I got to go to the bathroom. I don't care, I can't. Okay, who's talking? I got to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 2:I get up because you sit there for hours and hours and hours and I, you know, going into the bathroom and I say, hey, what are you doing here? I turned around and I said well, kyle. I said, stay away from me. I said, why is it? Because the last time we were together they tried to kill us, you know. So, oh, come on, it wasn't my fault. And we go back and forth. So it was funny.
Speaker 2:I also, when I did go into the bathroom, I had an experience, the real Brian Burke. It was a huge men's room. I'm not going to get graphic here, but it was a huge men's room. So we're all doing our business and in walks Brian Burke, and he's got a shirt with his tie not tied. You know, it's Brian Burke. He's walking in like sort them in. And the guy goes oh my God, it's Brian Burke, what are you doing here? And he turns around to the guy and he goes I won't use the X, x bullet of he used, but he says I'm taking a, what do you think I'm doing? And he walked in the back, the place where we couldn't stop laughing. I felt so bad for the guy. It's like in you know the cartoons of the guy shrank so tries to run away it it. Just when I left, everybody was still laughing. It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life. But then again, you know, at the level five you took your level five. Did you take your level?
Speaker 1:five I did. I actually just submitted my project thing a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 2:Now, you know, there's a guy standing in. I'm looking at him and he comes and shakes my hand. It was Ludak Bukes. Ludak Bukes, one of the greatest coaches to ever coach games. He was that's when it was Czechoslovakia. He was the head coach. He developed a lot of stars from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. I got, I had an audience with him and we spoke for a long time. He gave me his business card, he gave me his website. He gave me on and on and on. You don't get that everywhere. I mean you. That's just something that we are, you know, fortunate that the USA Hockey really does a great job with that. You know people are accessible. Hockey coaches are accessible. Everybody in the sports is accessible. You know it's so different. It is so different. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:But you know, like listening to that story, the one thing that just I couldn't stop thinking about is that, you know, while you can dream big and think about your kid making the NHL, once you're in this, in hockey or in sports in general, you can tell yourself that sports for the rest of your life. You could be a part of this culture of you know phenomenon, where you're going to meet a ton of outstanding people who played at every single level, all walks of life. You know, john, you know I still play. You know men's leagues and beer leagues and whatever, and have a good time. And we play with doctors, lawyers. You know, you know right, and so you know it's not just.
Speaker 1:I almost hope that a lot of folks that listen to a show get that message across that you're not just investing in your kid making. You know professional hockey. It's not. Even if they don't, your investment didn't go to waste. You didn't just throw out your money. You didn't just waste your time. You gave them an opportunity to be a part of a culture that will last a lifetime.
Speaker 2:The it's. You can almost can't explain it. You know you almost can't explain it. I have. You know. I've watched my kid on TV Watch. The range of game was gone. They did win, by the way today. Oh, they beat Washington to the one. Still they be. Right now I'm watching Nana, my daughter, one on us sister, play Against Minnesota.
Speaker 1:Coach Sergei, now with with the Washington's.
Speaker 3:That's his fault.
Speaker 2:But he had who the hooded he have forget who he had at the rink one day. And Well, again, guy came up to me and said hello, I forget was one of the Washington players. You know, it's just, we accused net. So if used to be on the ice with me all the time and he kept looking at like somebody gonna notice who I am. So we're gonna notice who I am. I'll just go do what you're doing, man, just have fun, you know, but it's amazing. I say it is amazing. It's hockey, is it? You know, it's the frozen, the frozen ever that runs through it. You know I, you know, we have all been exposed to different cultures in this, different types of people, um, and it's all comes down to the same thing. It all comes down to uh, there's dad next sec.
Speaker 2:Hey dad, jessica boy shout out to all of you so Dan next? No, he's dang the next family's phenomenal great hockey family Haski another guy.
Speaker 2:That's me, it's up, brother, the um. It it's Well. Danny Joe Palermo is another guy. There's another great hockey guy, big range of fan. You know we hate to say, oh, there's the missus, oh, there's the missus, and that just I forgot the point that I was making. Um, we have the opportunity to, to watch so much hockey. We have the opportunity to see People, we know people that we come across people, that it's just incredible. It's incredible, um, sometimes you meet the good, sometimes you meet the bad, sometimes you meet those who you don't like what they do on the ice, but when you meet them they're just regular people and very accessible. Um, just so many of them, that's.
Speaker 2:People ask me the question how many NHL players Do you know? I can't tell you that. This is why, because I've met so many. Uh dom's playing. Where was he playing? Now, I think it was. Oh, I got a kind of thing. He was playing in the washington system, in the east coast league. I can't think of the name of the team, we'll stop my head. But he, he caused me.
Speaker 2:One day goes to that dad, one of my. I got a kid here. He's, he's half filipino, like me. I says, oh, really, yeah, he's from cannery's, from the toronto, where I says oh well, or ontario. I go yeah, really Okay, what's his name? He goes vick. He doesn't. He's telling me his sister's grandfather played in the nhl. So now my, I stop. I said what's his last name? He goes hatfield. I said vick, hatfield's grandson, you're playing with it. One of the gag line. He was the roger bayon right wing, vic hatfield on the left side and genre tell in the middle. I says again. I told him again. It's just, I was going like oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:But he knows again world.
Speaker 2:It's, it's a small world and he's going, you know, because the kids, mothers, filipino, filipino women. They either do two, one or two things. Two filipinas meet in the desert. They either go shopping For hours and hours in the middle of the desert They'll find somewhere to go that's a shop or they'll cook. So if you've never had filipino food, you can get addicted to it very easily. Not, it's not for everybody and not everybody would like everything. But Just saying filipino food, I'm starting to salivate. So and he, you know, he Took him to a filipino restaurant. The kid was like Unbelievable. So he's like dom's cuya. I was like brother, like his big brother. So I said this is amazing man. I said vick hatfield's grandson, he's a really nice kid. Good, how good defenseman. Good defenseman, big body, good defenseman.
Speaker 1:Well, I know we've been going out for about an hour and a half. We could probably talk for three more hours, at least just today. But yeah, I know you know, before you wrap up, I usually like to ask a couple rapid fire questions just to cap off the show before we Close it out. So I'll start with this first one, about what do you think motivates athletes?
Speaker 2:What motivates athletes the most, in my opinion, is the desire. The more desire they have, the more motivated they're going. Today you cannot teach motivation. People say you can, but you can't. You can rouse somebody up and get them to go for maybe two, three seconds or minutes.
Speaker 2:How long is that going to last? Fire has to burn within. Fire doesn't burn within. You can forget it. It's, you know, the opposite of that, as we've met the enemy, and it is us you need. It needs to be in you know it needs to be in you. It needs you have desire, you know. Forget about want, but desire in itself, a sportsmanship, caring about the people that you're around with, that's what. What motivates me to go out and play tonight Is that I've been on the injured reserve list for the last two and a half months. I'm in shape, I'm ready to go, I'm going to destroy the goal tender that's in front of me. I'm guaranteed and maybe the oldest, but I'm not the slowest. So you know I'm motivated to get out there and Say I'm back right, nice honor schwarz.
Speaker 1:Digger One, I'll be back and here I am All right. Number two, and I know we touched on this one a little bit, but if you had to name three correct traits, you know this unsuccessful athlete like what would it be?
Speaker 2:willing to sacrifice and probably the willing to learn, and this isn't kind of like sacrifice, sacrificing, but it isn't. It's. It's willing to be part of the greatest sum Of everything. No individual has ever won a Stanley Cup. You know, the only individual things we have is boxing, martial arts. Uh, where you, you know it's, you are not even competing against. You know martial arts, competing against yourself, so you know you need to be able to to. You know the people that I've coached. You know most of the teams that we've had that had great success. They really, they really care for each other. They really want to the wall for each other. So I think those are the three things in my mind.
Speaker 1:All right, Well, but, and then kind of jumping on the other end, what are the three things that you think can hold an athlete back?
Speaker 2:Uh, Parents living by carrot, by charity. That's probably the biggest, biggest one. Second one, in my opinion, is ego. Again, the devil. The devil is Well, I've met the devil on a desire. And the third thing is. Third thing is to, to to, you know, trust in the people that have brought you to where you are. You know, um, which I'm very critical of. I have people come up to me and say they want to do private lessons with me and the first thing I ask, are you working with someone else? And they say yes, no, I will not work with you. You know you come highly recommended for this or that. I just know it's just number one is disrespectful to the other coach I said. Secondly, they don't teach what I teach and I don't teach what I teach. So if you're going to get two different opinions, directions or philosophies, a young child will get confused.
Speaker 2:I would say the I would say Right makes sense.
Speaker 1:I actually talk about it Quite a bit as well that you know, when you have seven different coaches and seven different voices, and you know there's no perfect right way of doing things, but when you're seeing seven different directions for a child, you know it's impossible for them to uh To follow us a hundred degree there, a hundred percent. I have one more just specifically for you. Uh, you know, in your experience with raising two amazing people and athletes as a single pair in the times, what do you think was the best advice you gave them, and is there anything that you would change?
Speaker 3:Uh.
Speaker 2:I didn't. I don't live through my kids. You know I lived for them. I still do. I still feel. You know when we're in disagreement that it hurts my feelings as a parent, but I understand the results at this point. So, um, I think the best, the best advice that I ever gave them was go have fun, enjoy what you're doing. When it's not fun anymore, you don't have to do it.
Speaker 1:Simple as that. Is there anything that you would change about? You know, there, I guess you use the youth athletic experience not just how I could, but in general.
Speaker 2:I think about that a lot. You know, uh, rob was Very mature. He was very close to his mother. She passed, uh, he's very close to him, um, with him, he has made us started making his own decisions at the end of the race. I don't want to do this, I prefer not to do this. Um, you know, uh, at one point he said to me you know, dad, I thank you very much for all you've done. He says I love you and I don't want to hurt you by this, but I'm gonna. I'll help you with coaching, I'll help you with with dom. He says but I want to go into your other business, which is law enforcement.
Speaker 2:Um, he's in law enforcement, he's a detective. Um, I'm not going to say where, but he's a detective and, uh, he's very good at what he does. He works with some great, great detectives and cops and he plays on three hockey teams. So you know he never stops. You know they never stopped. In fact, they were going to florida next week going down and, uh, plenty tournaments. They were in france. They were, you know, all over the place and you know it's for fun, it's for fun, yeah, uh, they seem to win a lot, but it's, it is for fun.
Speaker 2:Um, I think we're dumb. Uh, I think maybe I was a little bit too overprotective with him. Um, it was a lot to put him on a plane at 16 years old, which everyone was shocked at, you know, because I realized at that point that he has to, he has to do this. I can't do it with him. I can't, certainly can't do it for him. Uh, my wife, nay, who he calls mom because he's the only real mom he knows, both of them consider my wife now their mother. So would rob colesau, by the nickname he called her, you know, when she was his aunt and, uh, respectfully, as Filipinos do, and dom knows her as mom.
Speaker 2:So you know, dom got on a plane of pride the whole way there to alba ha, and, nay, I almost had to carry her at the airport crying um, I let him, up to that point, make his own decisions. Should I have been a little bit more on top of him? You know, that's history now. So you can't change what happened and I can't, certainly cannot, beat myself up over something that's done. So we have to move on. He's a very intelligent guy. He's still a very good hockey player. He's at the point now where he's possibly done Uh, but we'll continue. He's coaching, he's, you know he still plays. He's coaching tonight You'll have all three of us on the same line. Nice, make some people nervous, so they make me look.
Speaker 1:Make sure you post the picture.
Speaker 2:They make me look good. So, uh, I'll put it up on the hockey's. Yeah, you know? Who don't know? I have a facebook page. It's a private page. There's no politics, personal gripes or any kind of stupidity. As well the hoties. Uh, if you want to join, friend me on facebook or just send a sender, I want to be on it and basically I've post hockey all day long, so things like the padolski method, and on and on and on. So everything to do in hockey, everything and anything to do in hockey. So, as obscuras some of us may seem in this world, we are out there.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, john, thank you so much for taking almost two hours here.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me, man.
Speaker 1:These stories are amazing. I loved every single minute of it. So thank you so much. I'm sure we're gonna You'll come around do this again. Uh, because there's a million more stories to be able to talk about.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. But again, you know, again, just to let you know for those out here that don't know, will ya, he's got a great hockey family, not just a great hockey family, very good people. That's not because I'm on a show, but to tell you the truth, you know, he's one of the people that I, you know, always point to With a lot of things that are done right and done correctly and done, you know, in the way that it should be done, and running the range is learned to play does a magnificent job. He really does so, and I'm proud to be part of that.
Speaker 1:So thank you so much that really goes to her. I appreciate that, john. He's a lot to me. Well, thank you everyone for joining the show today. I hope you really enjoyed it. It's gonna, as usual, it's going up on all the podcast platforms Tomorrow so you can listen to it on your way anywhere. Um, you know, for those that enjoy it, please share it. There's a lot of stories. Um, you know, as we talked about, I think, there's a lot of lessons. And again, uh, make sure you check out the hockey's on facebook. You know it's always a lot of fun to keep Up with the news and and john's thoughts on things. So, john, again, thank you so much for joining and my pleasure Thanks for having me with me again.
Speaker 3:All right, thank you. All right, I'm going to hockey you.