Boost Your Hockey IQ With Coach Greg Revak

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Hey everybody, hope you're doing well on your holiday journey this year. We got a great guest today. Greg Rivat from Hockey IQ joins us and we dive in a lot uh of things about how to learn, how to teach, just a ton of gold nuggets and quotes in this episode. So if you're looking for those little edible bites from this podcast, if you love this, it's a great episode for you. Um also as we get closer to the holidays, remember we're doing some great gift deals this year. Uh for you, your family, the hockey player, your team, uh just head over to our kidsplayhockey.com or email us directly at team at our kids play hockey and just say, hey, I'm interested in those team deals. Can you send them over and we'll get them right to you? Um just ways to save you money and get you guys some great stuff for your uh your kids for the holidays or even yourself. So uh without further ado, enjoy this uh episode of Our Kids Play Hockey with Greg Reback. Hello, hockey friends and families around the world, and welcome to another edition of Our Kids Play Hockey. I'm Leah Lias, and I'm joined by my favorite podcasting line mates on the planet Earth and the other planets as well, Christy Cashiana Burns and Mike Benelli. You can tell I'm a dad with that dad joke. And we are joined today by someone with a very high hockey IQ, and you'll see why I said that in a moment, Greg Rivak. Greg is a certified USA hockey coach and is well experienced at the collegiate and prep school levels. But beyond the physical coaching, what Greg's known for is his mission to make the game of hockey better. He is a passionate person about evolving the way we look at training off the ice, in addition to helping coaches through his work via the hockey IQ podcast, which we're gonna tell you about 12 times today to follow if you're not already doing it. Uh, his very popular newsletter, also called Hockey IQ, both of which can be found at hockeysarsenal.com. Uh, this is not a paid promotion. I feel like I have to say that whenever I do a website, through being a regular contributor on uh the coach's site as well. Uh and he does much, much more for the game. We are gonna absolutely dive into this conversation today. Greg, welcome to our kids play hockey.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

Thanks for having me. Uh yeah, long list. Uh my wife will tell me that I need to shorten that list a little bit down so I'm not doing as much, but uh it's it's been a blast and really excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Well, you tell your wife if you do that, then I'm gonna have a real like it's gonna be too quick of an intro, and I'm just gonna be like, hey, everybody, welcome. Here's Greg. And that's not that's not good enough. You need those things. And speaking of that, uh, you know, you're here today at the suggestion of our good friend here, Mike Benelli, who's been talking about you for months. Seriously, I know he's a big fan of your work. So, Mike, I'm gonna I'm gonna sauce the puck over to you here to kind of get us going today because I know you you you think the world of this man.

SPEAKER_04 3:48

Yeah, well, I think Greg is Greg, so in in the in the world that in uh even po pre-COVID, during COVID, the the world of you know being able to reach somebody via social media and watch what people are doing from afar. I mean, usually, you know, this is the kind of world that that I was living in that you'd only meet like the coach down the other rink, or you got to see a coach, you know, maybe in your next town. Um, I know through my USA hockey circles, you know, I met a lot of coaches because of the regional uh um regionality of how coaching clinics were. Um, but you know, one of the things that I really liked about uh I I want to say meeting Greg, but I've actually only met him one time face to face. And he's got he's got a great story of uh his trek to the coaches site conference. But I think it's you know, so I've become a big fan of Greg's only because I think you know he's a big fan of learning and he's a and he's a big fan of sharing what he's learned. And so um, you know, Greg, I I just want to I just like to kick it off just by, you know, because of who listens to to the podcast and kind of how we met, you know, what are what are some of the ways um you think the coaching really profession has changed now that we have so much access to all this other information out there? I mean, you do the hockey IQ newsletter, you obviously do your own podcast, uh, you do a lot of speaking engagements. You're a um, you know, I see you all over the place with following Daryl Belfry, and I know you're on with Wally Kozak and all these great, you know, coaching minds. You know, what do you what do you think? How do you think that's benefited uh this ability for all of us to, you know, kind of be under the same tent, uh, for lack of a better term, from your perspective.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Well, well, it's also fun because you can find like-minded people that want to be curious and learn beyond your own rinks borders or your own state borders. Like you can find your little bit of tribe, and that's not even a hockey thing, you know, that's just a society thing. Like you can find, uh I forget what it was called, but it was like everyone, everywhere is a Tokyo now because Tokyo's got 40 million people. Like you could find that record store that you know is right in the 1970s and hasn't changed in 30 years. Like you can only get that at scale. Um, and now we can do that worldwide. So it's more so less on what information, but how do you curate and go through so much information? And I think that's uh the really cool part with all these people sharing, and something I try to do. It's maybe not so much about creating new knowledge, but finding all these pieces, linking it together so it's easily attainable and learnable for coaches, parents, and players. I think that's the key item uh through all of this. Uh, I I love Twitter, but um I I think it's it's one snapshot and one thing at a time. I like the newsletter, the hockey IQ newsletter I create because I can share it with my players. I can keep that forever, throw it to a coach, or I've had many people that have reached out, like, oh, I love this concept. Do you have anything more? And it's like, well, yeah, I had to go through about 30 pieces to create just this one that I think is like the summation of all of it. It's really fun and concise.

SPEAKER_04 6:41

Yeah, I think that's one of the things that I liked too, is that you could take um, you know, a lot of the stuff that you do, you could just parse it, right? You could just take a piece of it. You don't have to be like, oh, I'm a disciple of everything that Greg's saying, but I like what he's saying here, and I like how he's saying this here, and I like how he's taking this from this knowledge base here. And then you can use it depending on what level you coach, where you're coaching, who you're coaching, and take all those little what aspect you are in the season. I mean, one of the most recent things I took from Greg, which I thought was was great, is actually was able to take a piece of what he uh talked about in pregame warm-up and preparing players on how, you know, we ask players to be prepared and you know, we're screaming and yelling at them and not being ready, but we don't prepare them properly. Like we don't even give them the opportunity to be ready. Right. So I think just taking that piece and then me being able to take it on my side of what I do every day with programming and say, well, listen, this is a piece that I found. I get to kind of make it my own a little bit, but I can say, and here's some supportive evidence of what other people are saying, and this is how we can use it uh within our own world. So, Greg, I mean, that's you know, so I guess the last part of my question would be, you know, when you when you find this information, are you finding that when people do reach out to you and ask you about questions, you're getting um, you're getting them from all different layers of the hockey world, you know, from uh from an AU coach to a, I know you work with a lot of pros and and you know, major coaches. So uh, you know, you're finding that in your daily, you know, back and forth with different uh, you know, the different people you speak with?

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Absolutely. One of my favorite coaches in the whole world, I think his stuff is fantastic. He throws out some YouTube videos. Uh he's a JV coach in Pittsburgh and has been there for 20 years, does his normal job, goes there, creates some videos, and it's absolutely fantastic work. And it's applicable to not just the highest levels, which we all love to talk about, but also some of the lowest levels where people just want to have fun and enjoy the game. Uh it's it's amazing how simple the ideas really are and how you can apply it. Like I've got friends that are in adult league and they're still playing around with the I see these ideas just for their own game where it matters absolutely none at all. Like it's it's fantastic. Um, how you can see just like maybe I don't have the talent, but I can do this. Like, for example, offense is movement, defense is stopping movement. Like when I get a puck, I probably shouldn't be standing still. Really easy to defend, just a little bit of movement. It doesn't mean you have to be flying like McDavid, but just having a little bit of momentum makes you harder to hit. Like if the sniper's taking a shot at you, uh, if you're moving, it's a lot harder than if you're standing still. And the same thing with hockey and getting hit or being able to find a passing lane or create some space and time for others. Like these these concepts can be used by all levels. And I've seen uh, like, for example, homework. Like the coach gives out homework. Now the player's looking at that, and the parents are saying, Oh, yeah, he was trying what he saw and read through on the hockey newsletter in the game and had success and scored a goal. That's fantastic. And that's Pee-We 1A hockey in Cleveland, Ohio, compared to I've got a coach that does professional hockey, and he's saying, Oh, yeah, I'm teaching my defensive about shorting the zone and all of these other concepts, and you know, that's what their homework is. So it's like you can see how it permeates through all the levels of hockey, which I think is really cool. And and I still think uh terrible hockey is some of the best and most fun hockey. I would agree with you on that.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Yeah, that's just pure enjoyment.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Right. They're just going out there and having fun. Like that's why we love we called it bumper car hockey the other day. Uh when you just see the mites out there, just it looks like organized chaos. But they're just smiling from ear to ear. And you know, the parents are a little confused as to what's going on, but they're just having fun. And that's parents, I think, lose sight of that. That it's okay just to, you know, it can be look like terrible hockey to you, but who cares at that age, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Well, and what happens when it's not fun for your kid at that age? You're not gonna want to do it wrong.

SPEAKER_03 10:39

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Yeah, Greg, you're bringing up some funny points here. Uh, as a coach, you know, I'll give you a great example, right? I'm on two adult league teams right now. One of them I would never presume to coach, like I would never presume to give my thoughts because they're just not in that kind of mindset. And the other one actively asks me to coach uh from a development, and and that group is very open-minded. And the point I'm bringing up here is that um there has to be a yearning to learn for someone to want to listen. And then how you communicate that is very important, as you just said, right? So, um, my question to you is this you you're clearly an avid learner, you love to learn. I think everyone here shares that um with you. We all love to kind of perfect our craft. What do you look for? You started to allude to this when you're starting to follow people or look for people online. And I want to bring the context of this. For a parent or a coach trying to learn more, there is a lot of noise or there's a lot of options, right? So I want to kind of almost give what is the process a dad, a mom, or a young coach should follow when going on YouTube and trying to find valuable information.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

For me, I I love specifics, nothing grinds my gears more than like, oh, you gotta work harder. What does that mean? Right, right. You gotta work harder, like oh, you need to skate the extra stride, get stick under other person's stick and create a seal. Like that's what I'm looking for. Like I love the dig and the details. Like, that's where the true, like, how does a kid know how to work hard? Like it's it's so pie in the sky, or maybe I just don't like the fluffy clouds, and people are like, let's get in touch with your feelings. Like, what what what should I be looking for within that? Like, I need specifics of like what are the cues, what are the pieces of information that I need to then to actually execute? Because ideas are dime a dozen, like there's a gazillion of them. The execution is what really matters. That's why like I find the best coaches in the world, they give away everything. Like they'll give you their practice plan, they won't give up maybe their 100% game plan, but they're gonna give away everything else because they know that they can execute it on it, and the chances that you can't, no. So for me, when I'm going through for information and whether you're starting or if you're deep diving like I am into this stuff, just like look for some specifics that tell you how to do things. Like, how should you read a pinch? How do you set support the center on a breakout? Like all of these little details so kids, parents, players, we can all actually go and execute on it, which is the real secret sauce.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

I totally agree. Mike, you know, Christy, we talk all the time about how sometimes parents hold things so close to the chest because they think they found a secret avenue to the next level. And the truth is that you know, if you're if you're closing your own people off like that, you're probably closing off an opportunity to learn, right? That's number one. And then number two, Greg, is what you said. I I'm like you. I want to know everything. I want to know everything about how something incredibly simple uh or complex can be simplified through an explanation. I mean, I find too, just to agree with you, I follow a lot of of hockey uh people online. Um, and the ones I love the most are the ones that can take a concept that may be confusing or or look confusing and just execute on simplifying it in a really great explanation in a way that I can understand.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

Um, uh that's and those are the those are the skills of coaching, too. Like that's another thing that grinds my gears that you're getting into here is like, how do you actually coach? Like having knowledge does not mean you can coach. Like Gretzky's a pretty smart guy and knows hockey, and he struggled to coach. Like there's the skills of communication. How do you explain? How do you go about demonstrating that are overlooked by coaches and parents and getting into these details? And if you're able to simplify it, you're you're clearly doing something correct. And I love that piece of it as well.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

I read a great story this morning about Pat Riley, the basketball coach, and that he was speaking to a room of agents. All right. And it was all about how effective he was at understanding his audience and communicating. And it said is as he walked up on stage, he had a friend call him and he took the call as he's walking on stage and he told everybody, just give me a minute, and he talked on the phone, and then he finished the call, he hung up, and he looked at everybody and said, I want all of your phones away right now, because that's how it feels when you do that. And he it said too that in a room of agents, that's just inevitable. But you're absolutely right. We we've said this before. You could be the smartest hockey person on the planet, that the Einstein of hockey IQ people. But if you cannot effectively communicate your knowledge, I don't want to say it's worthless, but it it is not gonna have an impact. So the skills of communication, as you said, the skills of coaching, the skills of being able to look at something and break it down, which you do so well, by the way, Greg, that is the gold, I think. And I think that's why great coaches are fine giving stuff away because they know that that's the secret sauce, not the knowledge. It's I I know how to communicate this, I know how to how to expunge this. So uh I just think that's a fantastic point. I wanted to you know emphasize.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Man, I got things to throw back at you too. You you already talked about sauce and the puck to Benelli, like we should get away from saucer passes. Uh, we already talked about mental warm-ups with Benelli. Like, I if I have to see another pretzel warm-up, like I don't know what I'm gonna do, but it's not good. Yeah, and then you're talking about chaotic practices, and I'm like, oh yeah, I love the bumper cars. Christy's got it going on. She's like, bumper cars good, set in lines and very structured about it. So I'm ready for you guys.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

It's so true. I was at a Mike tournament just a couple weeks ago. We were doing a book signing, and the parents were so frustrated because, well, of course, they think their kids should be playing full ice at age seven and six. Um, and why are they still doing the cross ice? They don't get it. You know, my kid's good enough to go full ice. We should be okay, calm enough. Just watch them. Look at the just look at how much fun they're having. They're all touching the pot. Don't you get it? That's the idea. But of course, they're you know, their kids are playing in the NHL in a couple of years, so you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Yeah, and I I love there's a USA hockey uh like commercial, and Mike, you'd know this better than I, but they basically like, we're gonna take it like the full ice and scale it for adults. And the adults were like, I'm just so tired. Yeah, like I never touched the puck and I skated so much, and this was just not fun at all.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

The nets were gigantic and the goals were going, what's the point?

SPEAKER_04 17:02

Yeah, I and I love that I I love that that video because I think it it just it it it was brilliant the way they were just able to show visually how absurd it is uh for these little kids. But I think to Christy's point, I I really think it's because we just haven't done a great job as a as as a hockey nation, right? There's a hockey world to build, like you go to you go to baseball, like everything's not Yankee Stadium. Like there's there's there's little league, there's little league fields everywhere. So people don't people don't go, well, how can we not play on the big field? Well, because there's a there's a there's an age appropriate field built for you.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Nobody complains about the dad pitching to his own team. That's little league.

SPEAKER_04 17:43

No, it's expected. It's expected. And I think that's and I think that's really the point. Like when you read a lot of Greg's stuff and a lot of the people he follows and and and you know that we all follow, right? Is that you that the people that really know the game and study the game and understand the game, understand that age-appropriate hockey, uh fundamental skills at certain levels within a player's development, and a player being outside the norm, being better than other players is okay. It's normal. It's like you're going to have there are there are, listen, there are there are seven-year-olds that can that can crush a ball. I get it. Can can throw somebody out of third base. I get it. But 98% of them can't. And even if they could do it, is it is it really needed? Is it appropriate? And is it is it something that we should strive to match, or should we just be in a place where we can have you know more players? So, so Greg, like to what you what you're saying, even about all these little like the things that like uh, you know, the grind your gear stuff, right? You don't like this, you like that. You you because you you're studying, and I think I feel this all the time is do you think do you think because you're you are studying it and you're in it, like that your days are spent looking and exploring and teaching yourself, that it becomes more frustrating to now transmit that knowledge to people that only get a snapshot of what you're talking about? Like they don't they don't get inundated with what you do. Like they just see a little snapshot, and it's almost like, well, I don't know if that like I I don't feel that. Like, how do you combat that? How do you combat the listen? I've done the research, I've dove into this. You've looked at it for one second, I've looked at it for nine months, but yet you're telling me I'm but you're telling me I'm wrong.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

Well, yeah, and it for me a lot of it comes back to well, first we'll start with the the the personal space here of like mental headspace. Like you you could be driven wild if you just hang on the internet for long enough, if you're just mad at everything. And I think the same thing with if you're looking at a hockey rink, like you could just be driven mad by practices just watching other teams. Uh so you know, giving everyone a little bit of grace in the hockey world of like, you know what, they're doing the best they can with the knowledge they have, with the time that they're able to devote to this. I think that is is a nice key point. It's just, you know, be fine with yourself, like, hey, I'm doing as best I can, they're doing the best they can. Uh to your point, yeah, it is frustrating when it's like, okay, I've devoted my like entire life to getting good at this and understanding like what learning looks like and how it actually happens. And you're telling me, okay, we need to go practice power play and we need to focus on the littlest details and rush. I'm like, that there is a there's a point of self-organization with the team. Like, for example, I've got a high school program, I help run here in Columbus, and the the varsity kids, like they kind of, you know, they're further along. The JV kids, like, they can barely self-organize. So I'll do uh just a like a simple re breakout, regroup, and go back in. I'm like, you can't do the same role twice in a row.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Love it.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

And now they all have to self-communicate of like, I'm gonna do this, you do that, and they're starting to understand, like, oh, what does each role entail? It looks like absolute garbage at first, like it's terrible, truly chaotic, and you're like, This come on, you you're kidding me, right? I I mean that's what I would if I didn't know better. Um, but from the inside, you're like, this is exactly what learning looks like. It's a little bit messy, it's a lot of figure it out, and understanding what are the components from a metascale at the large high levels that need to go into it, and then you can start drilling down into details. So there is a general frustration uh when people don't get it, but I think that comes back to giving a little bit of grace and then finding as a collective group of what do we want to have happen. Um and there are organizations and teams that if they want to do their own thing, that's great. Like it's a free country. You're you're allowed to do whatever you want here. We're not you know really clamping down that hard, but at the same point, like there needs to be in Russia. Yeah, it needs to be an organizational buy-in of what we're doing that that can really help free a lot of these good resources, or at least prof I'll say professionalize, and I'll put that in air quotes, professionalize how we go about what we're doing. Like there's a really cool thing here in Columbus called the CBJ Hockey League. Basically, the blue jackets brought in Dave Caruso from USA Hockey. He's done all of this work and all of these studies, and they're doing house hockey, and he's got all of the science and data that backs everything up. They brought in Kristen Diefenbach, who's the US Center of Coaching Excellence president. Like this is literally what she does for a living. Um, and it's amazing how much pushback I've seen from it. But then also those people that are still pushing back by week five and six are so minuscule that everyone else is is buying in and they start to see. And this this comes back to like as you're teaching and learning these things, like success really opens ears and eyes. Like if you say something and then someone has success, like boom, there's suddenly you've got their attention. So just hey, try this, and you're like, I know it's gonna work 100%. And then you can start getting into maybe things that take some more time to work or w take time to work out. Uh, I think that's a great way of implementing it into an organization that may not have full buy-in quite yet, or people need to see it to believe it, and then you can get into more detailed, nuanced, messy type things. Uh, give them a little success.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

I I gotta just bring this up again, real quick, Greg, about what you said about switching your players to different positions earlier in this. First of all, everything you just said is fantastic. Um, but just from a coaching point of view, I just want to reflect this to the audience. I I see this at every level. I've had I've had mites that go, well, I'm a defenseman. And my attitude is that's great. You're gonna play offense today, or you're gonna play goal today. Because here's the thing you can't be a great defenseman if you don't understand every position. You can't be a great winger if you don't understand every position to a certain point. Uh same thing. My son's basically a goaltender at this point. I still have him play out once a weekend as mite, um, just so he can learn the game. So there are no set positions at that age. And then what I find is when you get to the pro level, a right wing in the NHL knows everything about every other position if they're worth their their pay, right? They understand, they want to learn. You have to know how a defenseman thinks on a breakout if you're gonna be effective on the wing during a breakout. I know that's not how breakouts typically work anymore.

unknown 24:05

All right.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

Well, you'll you'll still stop giving rimmed pucks to a winger if you ever have to play it for two seconds.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Right, exactly. And it so I just wanted to explain that too, because you're right. That's learning. It's supposed to be chaotic, and you're supposed to do these things at practice so you can be better at the games, right? So I just I thought that was really a great point. And what you said about success is true as well. Um, Christy, I'll throw it back to you. So I did not mean to cut you off there.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Oh, no, no, no. Um, I would really like to get into this topic with you, Craig. So when my kids were playing youth hockey, there were certain contingent of parents who were obsessed with cracking the code to raising champion children. Okay. You know, you know those parents I'm talking about. And one way to crack the code is if they're not playing triple A by the age of 12, then they failed as hockey players. Just forget it, just hang up your skates. And I found a post that you wrote, which I absolutely loved. And we we gotta we gotta share this with everybody because and and and I was surrounded by these crazy people. So um, yeah, it you shouldn't get caught up in the alphabet suit playing triple A, playing double A, you know, my if my kid's not playing this certain level of travel at this age, then don't even proceed. But what you said, and yes, it's a great quote that you share. The game is the greatest teacher and coach of all time. And every game at every level has lessons to be learned. Oh, please share that with with everybody and expand upon that because that that is fantastic. I applaud you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Well, well, if you want if you want to go to Quebec, we can get that fourth A in there for you and go, A, A, A, A, A.

unknown 25:52

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

That alphabet soup just throw it out the window. Stop with that.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

Yeah. Well, there is a great um study, and I I got this from Ken Martell, and I probably should give him credit because I didn't realize how uh viral it'd go on Twitter uh when it went ham. I couldn't log in for two seconds without my phone absolutely blowing up. Uh and was talking about the average NHL player who began skating and playing hockey after age four years old. Um and I forget which guy we just had the Hall of Fame speeches, and he was like, Yeah, I I retired from age six to seven or seven to eight, one of those. Like he just gave it up. He didn't want to play hockey anymore, and then he came back and he found fun. So you're looking at NHLers, okay. So most of them are are learning after age four to skate and did not specialize until age fourteen. Like, and that was from the players' studies, like the players themselves actually giving the responses. Um, from that, there was a longevity standpoint. So the players that were 30 plus um they played at least one other sport 100% of the time until age 14. So from a longevity standpoint, that was was massive. Um, another piece to that, and I I really found this to be actually my most uh enjoyable piece of the study, was talking about the top values that you they got from the game. And I'm like thinking to myself, okay, teamwork, hard work, passion, character, commitment, accountability, discipline, work ethic, respect, leadership. I'm like, these parents gotta be happy that they put their kids in hockey.

unknown 27:24

Right.

SPEAKER_04 27:25

Well, so Chrissy, and that's and so I guess one of the things I would ask, then, you know, as you're doing this study and as you're doing your research, right? Is and I and maybe this is where I get disconnected because I you know, and and maybe I'm just thinking, I mean, it's coming to me right now, and maybe this is where I'm just let it out.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 27:43

Why is it why does every does every parent, like literally every parent in youth hockey, only care about like do we really just care about development and where how is my kidney gonna get to the next level as fast as they can? Like the like I guess I'm I guess I'm disconnected from that because I like Mike, the popularity of this show proves that that's not true.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

And and I'm saying that in a positive way. Like that's why we found such a large audience.

SPEAKER_04 28:06

Yeah, Greg just rattled off all these great qualities that you would want your kid to have extract hockey. Say, how can I get all these qualities? Like, how can I put my son or daughter in a place where they can develop all of these great traits that they could bring on for the rest of their life? They're not gonna play pro, they're not gonna make a living in hockey, they're not gonna be able to play in in high school, they're not gonna play in college. You know, they're they're not, you know, they're there's but but how can I build all this? It's through sport. And if hockey is one of the sports that you love, then maybe we should try doing something that keeps kids in the sport as long as possible and develops all these traits rather than keep them in the sport if for these these these windows of opportunity and squeeze everyone else out. And then maybe you don't get maybe you lose a lot of those traits. Because if you're not the best, then you lose a lot of you lose a lot of the ability to have all those other things happen to you.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Well, well, also if we just take out hockey being specific, like they're gonna you're gonna be a professional at something. Well, maybe it is hockey, but uh you're gonna need some skills that take you along the way. Like name one player who hasn't had adversity, like Crosby lost the cup before winning it. Like David has yet to be to a cup final, like even the best of the best, like they're not hitting all of their goals, and they need to be able to fall back on all these life skills. And uh more and more research continues to come out, and uh it's always proven this, but like the better skills you've learned through sport on ice or off the ice lead to being able to go further in your athletic career and actually develop faster. So that I that's probably one of the reasons why multi-sport is so important. Yeah, there's these more movement patterns, but also you're learning all of these things. Maybe I'm not the best at baseball compared to hockey, but yeah, I know I need to be disciplined to help and be a good teammate, which then pays off in the long run. So being able to learn off the ice is is massive. Uh and at the University of Akron, we had one class of 22 freshmen within two years, we had three left. I mean, like this is club hockey, so the attrition's normal, but not that bad. So we started what we call a Life U program, where literally on Monday nights prior to skating for practice, we have an hour set aside where we just talk life, life subjects. Like we bring in speakers, like we've brought in warfets, we've brought in police officers, we brought in CEOs, we brought in executives at Timkin Steel, like all these massive companies, just giving a wide range and wide swath of expertise and life experiences. And everyone thinks this is the most important thing. And you can start to see, you know, for different people, like for example, even on the staff, we have a wealth advisor, a social worker, and a serial entrepreneur slash CEO. Like, right there is a pretty good wide range part of life. Um, and that's been most proud is seeing kids stick around longer and then having a lot more success after they leave the program. Uh and and they they grow faster. Like, I can tell you before we started that program, after we did that program, like the growth rate of our players from a hockey standpoint is so much faster after the fact.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Yeah, we don't see this enough. We talked about this in a in a episode a few months back. That why do more organizations not celebrate academics or entrepreneurship or other things outside hockey? And you know, the the answer we typically get back, I'm talking mostly club right now or elite club is uh, well, that's not what they're here for. Well, I mean, I don't know about that. All right. I mean, if you really want to make a great hockey player, you need a well-rounded person, you need someone with character, accountability, discipline, all the words you said before. So, you know, why would we not celebrate that as well? I I believe, and Greg, you uh you're clearly creating this. I believe that would actually create a better athlete anyway, in addition to creating a better person. But I think that, you know, as a hockey nation, Mike, as you put it, or hockey hockey world, excuse me, we need to do more at expunging these other aspects because Greg, and this is what I want you to comment on, you can't get to the pros without them. Right. When we when we talk to pro coaches like yourself or anybody at the NHL level or down, the talent is there, of course. They all have talent, but it's the extra stuff. The the the the those words you use, those those ideals. And then typically, if you don't have them or they're underdeveloped, you don't stay up there long. Right? So, so what can we do more in your mind? I'd love to ask you this what would you like to see youth organizations, you know, might up? I'm sorry, U8 up, U6 up, what would you like to see the eight, whatever it is, man? I'm still trying to work it out. What what would you like to see implemented more outside the obvious, right? What are the problems and solutions you see at those levels?

SPEAKER_02 32:49

Well, first off, uh, I want to give a recommendation for future guests, uh, Wendy Glover. She has the athlet leadership up in Canada. I believe she's out of London, Ontario, and had her on the Hockey IQ podcast. And this is literally right up her alley. And she can talk the doors off me on what works and what doesn't. Uh, but the basic framework is basically like bringing kids in, giving them the tools and opportunities to lead as young people, and then backing everything by science. So they they're doing these projects where they're actually presenting what they did before what they've learned. So they've got both of those big massive components. And I always tell people, I'm like, the one to three years you stop playing and you start coaching are the best hockey you're ever gonna play. And I'm like, how do we take that component and put it into while you're still playing? That you still have the ability, but you now have the IQ, you have the reasoning behind now that you have to teach. So I I love anything that revolves around like teaching and giving it backwards. Bring out high school kids, have them run a squirt practice or be a part of it, you know, have them try to teach it how to pass. Like they will get better at passing when they have to be like, oh yeah, well, here's what I'm not doing correctly. Clearly, I'm missing something, whatever that that is. So I I love all of that kind of stuff. And anything off the ice of just giving new worldly experiences. Like these are kids, like adults learning, it's all about like extracting because they've seen a lot. With kids, we've got to give them access and things they've never thought of before. There's a lot more of that, and that's a big difference between adult learning and kid learning, is around like extracting life experiences, been through things, kids haven't been through things. So a lot of it is emotional control at those younger ages, and teaching that and that self-regulation, which allows them to own their development, be their own best coaches. And again, another accelerator of development is the ability to self-regulate, self-organize all these little details where we do less for the kids, and it's more you figure it out, you have to do it, rather than jumping in. And that's where I see the biggest problem is like, and I think the analogy goes like rather than prepare the path for the kid, prepare the kid for the path.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Oh, that's a good one. That is a good one that we're gonna put out all over this episode. Well, Greg, I'll tell you real quick great minds think alike. We've actually had Wendy Glover on this show before. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Yeah, yeah, all your all your sayings. And you know, I've been reading your posts, and everyone is just inspirational. So I encourage everybody listening, you you've just got to subscribe because it's just it'll just help keep your perspective, especially when you think you're no one else is thinking like you. And like, am I surrounded by people who are kind of obsessed with um my kid, the kids succeeding and not really enjoying and and and figuring out all of life's lessons that um Greg will Greg will make you feel like you're not alone in your thinking.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Yeah. Well, it's it's actually a great time to say don't just follow him on Twitter because who knows how long Twitter's gonna be right now. I'm just kidding. Twitter's only a sliver uh of anybody's thoughts. If you really want to get the full revack experience, make sure you're subscribed to his newsletter and his podcast. And and again, we we value that. And Greg, as I say, we've had Wendy on the show. It's so I I love that you said that. And and yeah, like I I love what you're talking about too, about progression. You know, I've seen this so many times at a lot of levels where someone will there's something simple, like I want to do a one-timer, I want to be great at one-timers. Well, okay, great. You got to learn about four things prior to you being able to do that effectively, and then breaking down, like you said, letting them figure it out. Um, I think that is so important in that, you know. Look, I'm guilty of times of being a helicopter dad. Uh, like, you know, I think everybody is at times. And I gotta step back and just say, let them fail, let them figure it out. Um, I think more of that psychological input into practice could be great. And then also, I have to say this, you know, I I I've been experimenting with my uh my son's organization with doing team building um after practices with eight you. Um, that's it, right, Mike? Uh is it U8? Uh it's U8. U8, eight you're got eight U.

SPEAKER_04 36:56

You got you on the track track. You're on the right track.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

With might players, I've been doing uh this team building, and a lot of it is just problem solving. And I'll tell them every time. Um, and a lot of the parents kind of laugh at me, but I say, look, at eight years old, it's very hard to pay attention. It's very hard to be disciplined, and I'm asking you to try and do that. And I tell that to them every time because I'm trying to help them develop those skill sets of even if they can give me five more seconds than they would normally give me, we're starting the process of, oh, okay, I need to try and be better at this. I'm not good at this, and that's okay. So I think that goes from might all the way up, right? It's just the kind of uh permission to be patient with the learning as long as someone's dedicated to teaching and accepting that teaching. Sorry, that was a lot.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Yeah. And it's and it's great because, like, like you said, at 8U, it is a hundred percent attention, is like that small.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

But smaller than that, but it's way smaller than that.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Yeah, yeah. So why why are we trying to teach all of these things? And 90% of the time, if not like 99.9% of the time, it's not learning, it's mimicking. Totally.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

That's a great point.

unknown 38:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:03

So, Greg, you've been you've been in the you're so you're in the world of studying the youth hockey world. And before we move on to me outside of youth hockey here and just the transferable skills and all that kind of stuff. Do you think it's because of the way we're structured that we don't allow ourselves to have the patience as coaches and parents to allow that free play? Like I know, you know, you you're you I know you've you've been to you know a lot of Daryl's stuff, and we've had uh you know Belfry on here as well, and just trying to get some of his information and say, okay, well, well, it doesn't have to look like from a parent's point of view, it's got to look structured, it's got to look pretty, it's gotta look like the kids went through the motions correctly and they followed the patterns that look like hockey, right? But is it because of the way we've developed the system? I mean, we've developed a system where we don't have we don't have enough practices per games. We we when when a kid says he's a multi-sport athlete, it means he plays hockey year-round and then adds in other sports on top of it. So, so they're running from so like they come literally in their soccer cleats to hockey practice. That's not being a multi-sport athlete. That's just being a multi-sport athlete full-time in every sport, which I don't I think is not the purpose here. But do you think it's because of the of the mechanical piece of what we built in youth hockey that people can't find that time to allow that free reigning way of learning? That that freedom of, you know, they'll figure it out because we don't have the time for them to figure it out. By the time we figure it out, that we could be out of the playoffs.

SPEAKER_02 39:37

Well, first off, players get good at what we practice. So we need to decide what are we actually practicing. So is it we're practicing these exact things, and if they're taken away, then we don't know what to do. Like, oh geez, what do we do? Like I literally just coached against the team and I saw the power play once, and I'm like, all right, guys, we're gonna take away this one pass, and the other team had no idea what to do. But they looked really good at making that one pass if they were allowed it, but everything broke down. So it's like you you it looks good and it's all structured, but not that great. So then you're thinking about yeah, it's like, okay, how do we develop beyond that where no matter what, and you just take the parents and we weren't allowed, those pretend like us parents and coaches and all adults were not allowed in the ring. Like, what would happen? Like, how how if we just let the game be played, which had referees and the players, like what would happen? Like, that's the kind of thing that we need to be teaching, which is chaotic if you haven't watched hockey, and there are some general principles of like how do we support the puck, how do we get speed, things like that. But the rest is it's chaotic, and you've got to make reads. So talking about reads is is massive. And then I think from uh a standpoint is and I think this is where competitive advantages are thinking longer term. Like, I'm not preparing my kid for next week, I'm preparing my kid for three years from now. And if you're and Lou Lamarel is like it's and then this is you know NHL GM who's been there forever, he's like it's always a five-year plan and the plan adjusts each day, but he's always making these thoughts and these changes to the plan, thinking how my best in five years can help our organization and team, rather than how am I gonna help them tomorrow or the day after? Because I I will hey everyone knows if you practice power play, like you're gonna get good at power play and you're gonna probably win that weekend. But by the end of the season, the person who's not in the team that's not practicing the power play for every single second of their practice time is gonna run leaps and bounds around that team. So it's this trade-off of short term versus long term, and the more that we go long term, the better it is. And and you know, there's these structures like, oh, I gotta be good enough so I can make this next week or next season, rather than thinking about okay, where do I want to be in three years? I think that's probably a good time frame for most youth coaches and parents and players, is just think about, okay, where do I want to be in three years? How do I want to develop in three years rather than you know, three days from now?

SPEAKER_01 41:57

I think it's a great approach, and I think it's something we need to think about more. I think that's why I was quiet there for a second. Is you know, I love that of what you said with Lamarella, five years ahead and the plan changes every day. Um, I also think it comes down to a definition of winning, uh, of for coaches and parents, you know, is winning your district pee-wee tournament or title the most important thing that can come out of that season. I mean, it's fun, it's good for the kids, but the truth is they need to be ready for bantam uh or midget or whatever the terminology is for those. Um, and I think that that kind of approach for life is important. Sorry, go ahead. My bad.

SPEAKER_04 42:31

No, no, no. It's uh it's that's it's almost like I Chrissy's got me on the quote wagon, right? But it's like don't let short-term, don't let the short-term desire get in the way of your long-term goals. And I think I love like I always see that, you know, like that, okay, we got like we have to win, we have to win right now. Like we have to develop this plan for tomorrow, you know, this this opponent. Yeah, but if that's all you're overdoing, you're not establishing, well, you know, where are your kids going to be at the end of the year? Are they really like if you teach a kid a system and they're good in that system, and then you throw them into a coach that doesn't have a system or it's a different system, can they perform or are they as good, or can they think like, well, what are the strategies within that system? What are the skills that I needed? What are the tendencies? What are the things I have to be able to think about? And I think that at the youth level um is so much more important right uh because that's all you're teaching them for like the next level, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Think about this from like an NHL. I always love to give NHL examples when I can. Greg, feel free to give your thoughts on this. Think about when an NHL top-level player gets traded or a high-level player gets traded. Now they're leaving one system, their line mates or their teammates to go to another team, another coach, another system, and they have to adapt immediately, sometimes the same day, right? You're playing the next night for another team, and you're gonna be potentially in a completely different role with definitely different players in a completely different system. Can you adapt? Right. And and again, some players probably deal with that a little bit easier than others, but this is why they're pros, right? I'm just trying to give some metaphors here to think about of you know, could your kid for the listening audience could they do that? And if not, which is okay, are are there skill sets that we can be teaching to adapt to a very uncomfortable situation, right? Um, and and again, Greg, I wanted to go back to this too, and please feel free to, you know, give your thoughts on both. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask this before you said there's a difference between mimicking and learning. Um, and you know what? I haven't heard it uh said like that. I'd love for you to explain what you mean by that and define that.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

Yeah, we'll we'll do both here. So the first piece is the things that go beyond the system. I call those skills that transfer, skills that translate. So it's like no matter what, you can take your skills, transfer them to another setting, and have success. You like translates up the pyramid, down the pyramid, across wherever you go, they translate, they transfer. Uh so skills that transfer, skills that translate. I can't I kind of call them like the evergreens. Like there's the evergreens, they're always good. Like having awareness of your surroundings is as yet to go out of style at any level of competition, any level of sport like this. Any level of life, even in life. Yeah. Exactly. It's it's absolutely um critical. And then from the the standpoint of mimicking versus learning, like mimicking is you're doing what someone Someone tells you to do learning is being able to do that, understand the why, and change direction if need be. Like you you we call it commander's intent in the military. Like you need to understand the intent of what needs to get done at a high level for this mission to be successful. And if something doesn't go to plan, how can we adjust? How can we change? But you have the general idea of what needs to get accomplished. So for me, it's all about commander's intent and how do I give that to a player? So understanding the why are you doing this, not just do this. So now they can adapt much, much better and smoothly rather than the mimicking, which is like it looks like learning because look at them, he taught them to go there. Well, okay, does he have any idea if that like if anything changes, like it all breaks down and falls apart? And it's the same thing. Like, you know, why are young kids like fans of the Phillies, for example? You know, other than bad parenting, what what possibly could they be Phillies fans for? Like they see their parents getting excited for the Phillies learning or for the Phillies winning, and suddenly they're like, Well, dad's excited. I want to be excited too. I want to get in on the fun.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

No, see, see now I know you're not from here because we we teach our kids here we are the losingest franchise in the history of sports for a reason. So when they win, we just get very excited. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 46:35

I I grew up in Cleveland. You gotta remember, I've I've had to live around a lot of Browns fans.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

That's fair. That is fair. Yeah, I'll give you that. Cleveland is a pretty tortured sports city. Uh outside basketball for a bit there. I'll give you that.

SPEAKER_02 46:46

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh fortunately, all my family's from from Pittsburgh. So I got the Steelers gene. So we're we're we're struggling now.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

You understand, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:55

Yeah. But the but the Browns see seeing the Browns from the outside was great. It's like this is our year, and you're like, nothing's changed. It's just new new faces in the seats. Like, I don't know what to tell you here.

SPEAKER_04 47:04

Hey, Greg, that real quick on the on the uh on that transferable skills thing, because I think that because of what you're what you're really doing in in the in the in the in the space of research, right? So what are you seeing at the youth level that we're missing like from those transferable skills that might might help a player later on? Like are we are we trying to get to things they they that we want them to get to, but we're we're missing all the steps to get there? I mean, do you what do you do or do you see you know youth hockey coaches understanding the need for progression and the need for you know execution of one thing before they can move to the next?

SPEAKER_00 47:41

Right. And and what advice would you give also if parents observe that they have a coach that just tells the kid what to do but doesn't really explain why. What's your recommendation?

SPEAKER_02 47:55

Well, first off, we'll start start with Mike. Um I think the USA hockey current curriculums are fantastic. Uh, you can find them out on their website of just like how do they progress through the ages. Uh if you want to dive into a lot of the why, like they don't get into the weeds and make you read a thousand pages, they just give you like I think it's like 30 pages. Like it's it's pretty quick and easy. But if you follow it, you will not be an idiot. I can guarantee that part. They've done the work for you, follow it along.

SPEAKER_01 48:24

Um and for wait, sorry, Greg, where can people get that? I I already can hear people asking me that. Just explain what that was real quick.

SPEAKER_02 48:31

USA hockey, uh their website. I forget exactly what they call it. It's okay. It's okay. I just want to make sure to look it up for us.

SPEAKER_04 48:37

Yeah, and if you like, and if you if you even just go under ADM kids, you'll find like the the it's just the parents' guide of saying, listen, you don't need to get here. This is the where you need to be competent in, and then then then here, and then here, and then here. Right. This is what's age appropriate, and this is a skill that you should have, like that you should be learning, you know, that that we don't ask somebody to do like, you know, the you know, something they're uh not capable of doing, nor will it matter when you have to get to the ultimate end skill.

SPEAKER_01 49:06

Right. And we will try and link that with the show notes for this episode, friends. Greg, sorry to put you on the spot there. I just want to make sure I give everybody the audience everything we can. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 49:14

Yeah, yeah. I reference a ton. Obviously, I read read a lot. Um and and it's great. So back to uh our point here, moving along to well, actually, first ADM. Everyone's stealing it from USA hockey. Literally, everyone is taking ADM, the American development model from the USA hockey, and putting in all the other Olympic committees. Like they're all stealing it. So I can tell you it's really good. Uh second point to Christie's, where it's like, yeah, maybe we run into a coach or an organization that just maybe they don't understand the difference between learning and mimicking. Uh, I'm a big fan of finding one of your people, and then once you find that, or if you can find yourself stuck in that situation, just understanding how do we personalize practices for players. You have a and this is an extreme example, you have a coach who does the exact same practice like 30 times in a season, that's almost a blessing in disguise because now you have the ability to know what's coming and be able to personalize, like I'm never gonna do the same exact zone entry twice in a row. I'm never like I'm gonna try to personalize it so you can challenge your players, like, okay, last time you banked it off the wall now. All right, well, what about passing it back to your defense or the center or whatever, and starting to personalize and mess around within the drill itself, and I call this personalizing your practice. How do you personalize the practice to the game situations that you're gonna see, or how do you like mentally get your reps in? Like, I'm a big fan of of paying attention to players at the back of the line. Like I I call them feel-throughs. Like, if I'm teaching a shooting technique and I see a kid and he's not doing anything, like pretending like he's shooting and trying to get the movement, like he's feeling through what kind of movement he needs, like probably needs a little bit of encouragement to hey, check out you see Charlie over there. She's doing a fantastic job of trying it before she actually tries it. So you can do these little details within the practice. So it's the team practice, but your personal practice, what does that look like? And how do we personalize it? Never doing the same thing twice, trying to rotate roles if you can, etc.

SPEAKER_04 51:11

Yeah, I mean, I think I I use that exact you know kind of philosophy in the learn to play stuff that I do. It was 10 weeks, right? But it the lesson plan never changes. It's the same lesson plan for 10 weeks in a row, except then we have progressions built into it, or there's there's something changed in there where a player then can be created. Now, these are six-year-olds and five-year-olds. So it's just because they the the the ability to go on and be in a station and and have comfort in that station is great. But then we've got to add little things in there where it's it doesn't, it doesn't always have to look the same because we want them to feel through it differently. And I think, but that's where a coach comes in. Like, okay, the group I have now is really proficient in this. Now let's now we want the same, we're teaching the same concept, but we're gonna change the environment they're in so they have to think differently, but we still want them to understand the concept, right? Well, you know, because and you could take a simple game like tag, and you could make tag a million different ways for players to have a million different skill sets be working.

SPEAKER_02 52:12

Or even or even three-on-three cross-size. Like one of my favorite three-on-three cross-size games is you can only use your forehead. Well, now you've got to skate around the puck, which changes how yeah, you got a free thought first, and then you've got to skate around a puck. Now you've got to go directly into puck protection, or now you've got to make a curl, whatever it may be.

SPEAKER_04 52:28

Like you're well, actually, well, so actually, Greg had a great opportunity. He actually brought up what he was on with David uh Laszlo a couple of months ago, right? And and and uh David brought up the the the five-colored multi-puck drill that he got from from the the hockey wraparound guys, and using that, using the you know, using multiple color pucks in within games and then creating games around those um was just another way to get players to think like okay, it's still the game, it's still three on three, but now we're adding these constraints within the game that they have to now react to.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

Yeah, what's that? Yeah, and then but and then throwing two pucks out at the same time, just for honest awareness, right? But yeah, yeah, yeah. Greg, again, you're and Mike too, you're making just some fantastic points. You know, I look, I like to simplify this to both levels again. Let's go extreme and and you know, professional NHL levels down to Mike level or Adam level. You know, what is the primary skill for Adams? It's these kids need to skate. So, what do we do at the atom level? Is every practice is a skating practice. We just change it up a little bit, but we're working on skating. And I think you can tell the true salt of an atoms coach is can the kids skate when they're done with atoms, right? That's that is the primary goal of that that level. Um, Greg, to your point, you said like it's a blessing in disguise if someone does the same practice three times. Well, my son was an Adam during COVID, so we were very, very restricted on what we could do. Definitely there were no games, right? So it's like we ended up just really focusing on skating, and every kid from that group is noticeably a pretty good skater, and they're all mites and squirts now, but they're noticeably good skaters because we spent the time to focus on it. Um, and then you go up to the pro level, we've all seen the video of a player at every sport on the ice after practice, after a game, practicing the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. There's a reason they're doing that, it's not just muscle memory. You know, it's it's they're they're they're they're perfecting something, right? They're trying to understand it. Uh, and they're trying to break it down. And, you know, I remember the first time I went to a coach, I was young, the first time I went to a USA coaching course, USA hockey coaching course, Mike, you'll appreciate this. And I remember I was a little cocky at that time, just had a little bit of an ego. I'm like, I know this, you know, I just I just got to do this to get the card. And I remember the the coach there says to me, Can you break down a stride? And I couldn't do it. I just couldn't. I mean, like, I just, well, yeah, you just skate. And you know he's like, break it down from the knee bend, the hip bend, the ankle bend, the force, the angle of the blade, the the what your left arm is doing, what your right arm is doing, what the other leg is doing. And I I was it was right between the eyes for me at that time of my life. And again, I was in my early 20s, but I was like, wow, I really don't know how to explain this. I I mean, and it goes back to your I'm not comparing myself to Wayne Gretzky in any way, but it goes back to like I just kind of knew how to do that. And I had never thought about teaching it, right? And and I think that's a huge step for a lot of coaches and parents for that matter, of just seeing someone do it, or or your kid might be blessed and they can do it. That's just part of it, right? Greg, like it's throwing it back to you, like to understand it and and and to know this is the other thing, Greg. Whoever your kid is, or whatever coach you are, you're not the first person to most likely to figure this out. The information is out there, right? So you gotta be a student of it. You don't need to rethink everything. There are some things, obviously, that are evolutionary. There are coaches that push the game forward, Greg. I think you're one of those with the media that you do. But my point is when it comes to most basic skill progressions, it's been done and there's ways to do it, right?

SPEAKER_02 56:03

Yeah, and it's it's being able to just find it and find it in a good, concise manner that can be taught. Coming back to that execution point, like how do we execute it? So, like I, for example, like skating, like the most important thing is ankles. Like bending at your knees is like the worst coaching advice I've ever seen. Next time someone says bend at your knees, I'm rolling over here, like, ah, really? Like, you can't bend at your knees if you can't bend at your ankles, and then we tape their skates up way too tight all the way to the top, and then they can't skate, and we're like, Well, what's going on here? Like, no, no, like it's great skating, it's all about ankles. So, for example, like all these little details, and these are things I I try to dig into and shed light on too. Like, that was one of my favorite posts to write was like why you should be an ankle bender. Like, everyone's everyone makes fun of it. Like, you're an ankle bender over there.

SPEAKER_01 56:49

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 56:49

Like, the best skaters are the best at bending their ankles, just not in you know, it's it's more forward and back. Like, ankle flexibility is massive. Like, for example, I've got a player I'm currently coaching, played football, got an ankle injury. I'm like, you well, that was about the worst injury you could possibly get to, and still having the ability to play. Like, you're just like limiting your range of motion, your ability to actually skate and keep up with the pace of play. Like, it's just massive. And then, you know, there's these key principles that go throughout, whether it be shooting, like body shape is massive. Like, if you teach a kid to keep his or her chest over the puck with for with a forward lean, guarantee that you're not seeing the glass broken in warm-ups so often, or just like tink, tink, tink as they slam against the glass. You'll start seeing them go against the boards or going into the net a lot more often. Um, and like you said, not reinventing, they'll be like, all these things are out here, just finding your resources. Like, obviously, my newsletter is a good one, I believe. Uh I agree. You guys can you can name off some other ones, but it I mean it's all out there, and it's just a matter of taking two seconds, hit Google.

SPEAKER_01 57:54

Yeah, it's I was gonna say, if only there was a way we could simply search for these things nowadays. And look, just just to give you all an example of the ankle stuff, right? Before we before we move on, Greg. Um, just research off-ice ankle building strength for hockey. And it's like you will be amazed at the amount of exercises that are there for age appropriate, obviously, for you to work on your ankle strength. I mean, it's it's like you just think, well, I just do this. And there's there's at least like five to six major things that I didn't realize about that when I researched it. Another one, too. I used to have major back issues. Uh, it turned out none of those were because of my back. It was all because of other things. Uh, the way, the way that my my trunk was being used, the way my my feet, you know, I had very weak feet, and like I had to learn all these things. And again, I didn't try and think of it myself. I went to someone who was a professional and asked and researched, and we solved the problem. Um, again, I think there's a just we can take this to a bigger life level. Yeah, it's so frustrating.

SPEAKER_04 58:55

Well, it's so it's so frustrating because you'd you'd hope a coach would go to a course on like pronation pronation and and uh supination before they went to a a course on on you know the a power play you know system. Like the most important things that a player needs to progress were missing because we're going after all this other stuff, right? That we there's no building blocks to it. And you know, that is you know, to me, that's so frustrating because I'm looking at players saying, well, great, you know, there there is a you know a knee bend that needs to be in there. There needs to be ankle bend, there needs to be body distribution, there needs to be where are you? But we don't have the time as youth coaches, and I and I say this we, meaning it's not built into the DNA of a youth hockey program in practice to be able to put that player in a place where we can show that properly or correct it instead of just continuing to do 25 weeks of really just hitting letting hit the glass because we just don't have the time to stop that player um and then can and and then recondition them. And I think that's just the the that's just the reality where we're right now in most uh youth hockey programs, good or bad.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:06

I'd have to agree with you. I mean, my kids didn't get into that until we hired a trainer for them, and they were in the gym with other all hockey players, and that's where the concentration came on the ankles and the developing the core, but they didn't learn any of that from their coaches. Well, I guess the key were just learning there, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

So Greg, again, because we're starting to get short on time. I'll I'll just say this that too. It's some of this is age appropriate. Obviously, you know, parents, you shouldn't be going to an eight-year-old and talking about ankle strength unless they actively want to know about it, right? Uh, but these are things where I like to say, you know, as a parent, you know, you know, drop the judgment of your coach. If your kid really wants to learn, they're showing, hey, I want to learn more, you can research this and work with your kid on this if they're willing to listen to you, or coaches listening. If you want to expand upon this, you can do it. I always say that the I think the the one of the biggest mistakes, and it's not limited to just new coaches, but is that the coaches make is just I I know this. Never take that approach fully of I got this, I'm the expert. I'm the you even if you are an expert, you're Greg, you you prove this. You always should be trying to learn more, right? Greg, I'll throw it to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:15

I I I think even better. Okay, we were just through a lot of responsibility on the coach and the parents, which is great. You know, we're the adults, we should have more responsibility to the kids. But at the same point, um, I think it's pretty powerful if you're like getting a kid and you're like, hey, check this out. Oh, what'd you learn? Teach me. Or they're having to teach back whatever they just learned at practice. Like you see the coaches teaching a breakout or shooting technique or skating technique, have the kids you know, give that back to you. Like, for example, I I had to do film with my high school team, and I show up what we're gonna be doing, so whether it be a systems or if we're working on like how do we want to go about getting more possession, and then I have our underclassmen teach the rest of the team back. And they're all looking back at me. I'm like, I'm not the one you need to teach here. You got 20 guys over there who help you out if need be. And now you're having them own it, they have to pay attention, they've got to understand the nuances and the details. So I would I would even push it further. And it's it's not so from them to maybe initiate this. It's probably on the parents and coaches to initiate it, but having the kids teach everyone else, whether it be a teammate or us as the adults.

unknown 1:02:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:23

Well, Greg, if that's not a gold nugget, I don't know what is. Go ahead, Mike. Sorry.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:29

No, no, you're listening it's just it's just that, but that uh Greg hit on it. You you need but most of us have to empower the kids and give them that that pathway, and we have to provide those opportunities for them to do that. You know, not many kids are gonna jump up and be like, hey, coach, you know, I got a great idea. How come I why don't I teach you, you know, how to coach? Like, okay, well, just let's give you an assignment and then you figure it out and tell me. And then most of the time, if you're now again, if you're a competent coach and you're somebody who's very confident in what you do, then they're gonna come back with stuff that you've been saying all along, and they're just reinforcing what you're trying to teach anyway. And you're like, well, see that now it makes more sense. It's just the same reason you you mentioned uh Wendy, you know, when we when we started, when we had her on, immediately, like what I started to do with our high school teams was having our high school players coach the learn to play kids and how different it was for the whole teaching process, because I think the high school kids learn more, saying, Oh, this kid, he's so hard, like he's just not listening. Like they don't get it. They they don't really you know, I'm trying to get him to do this and he's doing this. I go, man, it's like that's amazing that you saw that, you know. But it almost a light bulb goes off saying, okay, well, how how can I teach this differently so I can engage with the kid? And it's the same thing where us as coaches can say, well, if this is how the player is presenting it to me, then I'm learning so much more about how I should then reinforce it back to them.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:55

Well put, Mike. Yeah, Christy, anything else? I'm gonna get towards the close here. I wanted to make sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:00

I I love this episode, Greg. Thank you so much. And um, yeah, I think a lot of light bulbs are going off.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:07

Mine are. I mean, that my room is not well lit right now. It's a little brighter in here. Uh yeah, you know, uh again, we want to make sure we shut you out, Greg, Greg. Uh, make sure you look up the hockey IQ podcast. Um, uh hockeysarsenal.com is the website, correct? Why don't you tell everybody just in case I miss it, where they should be looking for you?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:24

Yeah, uh definitely Google hockey IQ and then just put either podcast or newsletter behind it and you'll find the rest. You sign up for the newsletter and the confirmation, it will give you all the links of where to find us all over the internet, YouTube, Twitter, definitely not LinkedIn, but everything else will be there, uh, including our website. So definitely just go hockey IQ, newsletter, or podcast, go from there.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:46

Well, I I I'm sold if you I mean I already was, but if you haven't been sold at home that that you need to be following this man, go for it. Uh and again, when Mike Benelli brings someone to the table, we bring him on the show.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:57

And and pay and pay for the subscription, for God's sakes. I mean, you know, you're getting all this, you're getting all this work and you're getting all this great stuff that's going out there, but it no, he does the free side is great, but there are paid sides, and you know, I don't know. I just think it's it's so crucial for all of us as coaches and and wanting to get this education that we encourage people to go out and find it and get it, right? Because there just aren't enough people doing that. So if you don't want to do all the research yourself, if you don't want to do all the studies, if you don't want to watch endless hours of YouTube and and videos and you know, seeing what the latest and greatest is around the world, then get a paid subscription, get yourself on there, you know, take and parse and take what you need piece by piece. But at the end of your season, you're gonna have a much better database of information in your head to share with your players, which I think ultimately is where we all want to get to.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:49

Yeah, feel free to uh at me at Twitter. DMs are always open, or just email back on any of the newsletters. So there's a lot of old ones that people ask me questions, and I just can send that to you. You can either have a better conversation with me or a better conversation with whoever you're trying to send this uh knowledge to.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:06

I love it. Well, teacher and himself, Greg Rivak, thanks so much for being here today. I guess Christy said, you've been fantastic. It's a great episode. Thank you so much. Could have could have been worse. That's one way of looking at it.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:18

I could have swore, I could have swore on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:20

If uh if you're loving this episode as much as we are, make sure to give us a follow, a like, share it in your team snap. This is definitely one you want to share in your team snap. And uh give us those five-star reviews. Whatever you can do to help support us, we obviously appreciate it. Uh again, you can find us across social media or our kidsplayhockey.com. But with that said, for Christy Cash, Anna Burns, and Mike Vinelli, and Greg Rivek, I'm Leo Lyas. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Our Kids Play Hockey, and we'll see you next week. Have a good one, everybody. We hope you enjoyed this edition of Our Kids Play Hockey. Make sure to like and subscribe right now if you found value wherever you're listening, whether it's a podcast network, a social media network, or our website, our kidsplayhockey.com. Also, make sure to check out our children's book, When Hockey Stops, and when hockey stops.com. It's a book that helps children deal with adversity in the game and in life. We're very proud of it. Thanks so much for listening to this edition of Our Kids Play Hockey, and we'll see you on the next episode.