Coaching Standards With Aaron Wilbur of The Coaches Site

SPEAKER_03 1:23

Hey everybody, it's Lee. Hope you're enjoying this uh later part of the season. Gay guest today, Aaron Wilbur, who is the founder and uh CEO of the Coaches site. Don't worry, this isn't one long ad for the coaches site. We really wanted to dive into who Aaron was as a person because we talk about his website quite a bit. It is the number one coaching site in the world. They've got a percentage of coaches on the planet on this thing, over 10%. So obviously he knows what he's doing, but we wanted to get into the why he's doing it and give you really practical advice and tips and tricks about what makes great coaching staffs, great coaching organizations, uh, great environments for kids. Uh at the end of the show, we definitely go over uh the commonalities that he sees and all the coaches he's met from the NHL down. There's plenty. Um, to give you some real uh understanding and hopefully some quick information about why uh what this person does is so important. So uh check that out. Uh make sure if you haven't, obviously check out the coaches site. It's uh it's a great gift for coaches this late in the year. Um we've had a lot of emails. Hey, what should we get? My coach, get him a subscription to the coaches site if you haven't already. Uh again, not being paid to say that. Uh we really just believe in what they do. Uh, if you're also looking for other types of gifts, head over to ourkidsplayhockey.com. Obviously, we've got that list of uh great gifts of discounts and stuff we put together for you from books to to training equipment to uh uh mental fitness stuff. It's just all there for you at ourkidsplayhockey.com. Um, enjoy this episode. Again, we've got some great topics coming up soon, too, about moving on up. We know it's that time of year. Some of your kids are moving up to the next age group, maybe the next level. Uh, we definitely want to get you prepared for that. So stay tuned in the weeks moving forward. But without further ado, enjoy this episode of Our Kids Play Hockey with Aaron Wilbur of the Coach's site. Hello, hockey friends and families around the world, and welcome to another edition of Our Kids Play Hockey. I'm Leah Elias. I'm joined by Mike Benelli on location in Brooklyn. Stopped along the way to do the episode. That's dedication. Christy Cassiano burns his own assignment with that said. We've got a great guest for you today. Aaron Wilbur is the founder and CEO of the Coaches Site, which is easily the number one resource for hockey coaches around the world. To give you an idea, over 10% of the global coaching population are members of this site. Might be bigger now. We'll ask them when we get into it. And that is most likely due to the dedication to quality and the wide range of experience and content that that site provides. In addition to daily articles and videos, the coach's site also provides podcast, drills, tactics, skills, and of course, they're live and in-person events and programming throughout the year, among much more. And as you may have guessed, Aaron is a family man and is a dedicated husband to his wife, Christina, and father to his two sons, Aiden and Austin. And when you dive deep into Aaron's persona, you'll uncover an uncommon level of curiosity and drive, which when combined with his values, makes his success in the game really no surprise to us. We'll dive into that today as well. We're looking forward to this one, Aaron. Welcome to Our Kids Play Hockey.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Wow, that's uh that's an intro, man. Thank you very much. It's great to be here. Love what you guys do.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

Well, we love what you do as well. Appreciate that. We we do take a lot of pride in making sure that our guests are introduced correctly and not just reading your LinkedIn profile. But uh, Aaron, your your origin of the game started uh in early mornings, like most of us. Uh, but as a research, it turns out that your initial 5 a.m. rink calls were not even for you. Could you could you dive into that a little bit for us?

SPEAKER_00 4:46

You bet. So um I grew up single mom, and my best friend was uh uh Drew Simpson. And Drew Simpson played hockey. And with my mom's work, occasionally I'd have to sleep over at their house. And when that would happen, of course, I'd have to get dragged out early in the morning. And we this is in Langley, British Columbia, suburb of Vancouver, not a lot of ice. So literally, there's a practice at 5 a.m. and there's another one at six, and the little guys go what five. Um, so we'd you know, be out the door around 4:30. And then I would just be, you know, Drew's dad would watch Drew Practice and I just put her around on the rink. And eventually I was like, man, that looks pretty fun. What's going on out there? And I started begging my mom. My mom had like no experience with the game at all, and finally she gave in. And I think I was seven years old when I started. Um, but you know, probably like a lot of kids, you know, as I first stepped on the ice, just fell in love with it. And um, you know, and that was it.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

Well, I gotta ask, 5 a.m. So you're getting up probably a little bit like 4 30, 4 o'clock. What is the temperature in BC in the winter that time of year?

SPEAKER_00 5:55

We're so we're the soft part of Canada, like in most parts of Canada. That story is like, you know, it's my you know, you're starting the car an hour early to make sure it's warm. Um, you know, we're we're more we're in the Pacific Northwest, so probably more similar to Seattle. So it's wet, so it's a damp cold, but but certainly not um, I think what probably most of your listeners would envision a Canadian winter being like.

SPEAKER_03 6:15

I'm still it's still colder than most of the places here. I mean that's the point. But yeah, no, I I love that when I read that. I was amazing. He was going to these practices before he even stepped on the ice, and then uh obviously learning about having a single mom and the dedication and the time that she put in. That that clearly has uh passed on to you, man, in the sense of the type of work you do. And you've created one of the most established resources for hockey coaches in the world. Uh, but you know, again, it all started out with curiosity and you wanting to be a little closer to the game. So take us through the first few years um and what elements from that time you believe made this succeed from kind of that startup mentality.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Yeah, you know what's interesting. Like, I mean, what it is today, like this was never the plan, it was never the vision. So um, a couple seats got planned. So back in 2008, I was coaching in the BC Junior League and I got a job uh with the UBC University of British Columbia men's hockey team. And so moved down to Vancouver. And at that time, I was fortunate. I got a role, I guess, as a you know, in development with Vancouver minor hockey. And part of that included being a coach mentor. So I'd go to practices and I and I'd host these, you know, I probably every couple of months I'd host a seminar. And um, I was always really transparent in those seminars that any of the information that I was sharing was borrowed or stolen from coaches that were way smarter than me. And so one day a coach puts up their hand and says, Hey, like, where do you like where do you meet these coaches? How do you get this information? And I said, you know, it's funny. I said, at the professional level or coming from like junior hockey, coaches share everything, like they're open books. But for whatever reason, at minor hockey, I began to appreciate that coaches held everything close to their, you know, like they had the launch codes and they didn't want anybody else to know about it. And, you know, I recognized that there was maybe a bit of a vacuum from the information that was constantly being iterated and improved upon at the higher levels, down to minor hockey where it just seemed like nothing was changing, like people were just doing things the way that it had always been done.

unknown 8:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

So that was one. Um, and then two, one night at uh at UBC, I was looking for drills on the internet and I get served this ad, and it was for this DVD. It's called Nick Saban Game Changer. Didn't know who Nick Saban was, didn't follow college football, but it looked interesting. So I ordered it, forgot about it. A couple months later, I get this package from Birmingham, Alabama, and I watched this DVD. And the and the premise of it was it was, you know, kind of just showing how Nick Saban, you know, lands in Alabama, builds the program. But I took so much away from it as a coach and and and leader, and it was entertaining. And I thought, you know, traditionally, how we, you know, coach education is a is a binder, it's static. You're sitting in a room for eight hours over a weekend, it's not very dynamic. But I'm like, I took this in an hour and a half. I'm like, could coach education be entertaining? And so um, fast forward, I'm at UBC, realized that you know, coaching in the NHL probably isn't in the cards. Didn't want to leave Vancouver for family reasons and thought, okay, what am I gonna do now? And I just thought, well, while I figure that out, I recognize that there might be a need to do something coaching related. I knew I was passionate about it. So we just started up, you know, the time of clinic um at a local hotel and casino um here in Vancouver. And that that was it. I just wanted to get some pals together um and to share their knowledge. And that first year, we had 98 um primarily local coaches attend. Um, did it, forgot about it, decided to do it again the next year. And then all of a sudden we looked at the registration. We're like, holy smokes, like people are flying in for this. It was all through word of mouth. We had over 200 coaches the second year.

SPEAKER_03 10:11

Wow, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

And that was, and that, and that, and and honestly, like it was it was very much off the side of my desk for the first six years. Um, I was going back and forth to China, uh, doing work in grassroots hockey there. And this was just like a little summertime hobby. Like it wasn't nobody was making any money off it. It was just something that it was kind of a way to give back and um and it was and enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

I think I think I won. I think I'm I I won the uh I won like a uh a contest to go to the coach's site. And it was it was when it was in Vancouver? It was yeah, it was before you you before I met. I was it was on Twitter and said, hey, the next person that retweets this, you know, wins a trip to uh the coach's site. I'm like, I won it. And I'm like, oh crap, I can't go. And then, you know, I'm like, I didn't think I'd win it, but it was, but it was unbelievable. Like your your story is exactly you know why people like me were attracted to the coach's site is because the only other options really out there were mandated, you know, functional clinics that give you, you know, it's either you're going there and and you're learning, you're being taught stuff whether you want it or not, where the appealing piece of the coach's site was I can pick and choose my menu of how I want to digest the program. So it was, it was, it was, it was must have been in the early stages of Twitter where you probably got, you know, you had a little contest, like I get my little DM. Hey, you want a trip to Vancouver?

SPEAKER_00 11:37

I'm like, crap, now I gotta we probably pick we probably picked a guy from New York because we're like, we won't have to give away a ticket. But you know, it's it's so funny. Um, but it's so funny, like you talk about curiosity. Like at that time, like my background was drawing X's and O's on a whiteboard, like and and we do this, and all of a sudden people are like, Twitter just come out. It's like you got to learn about Twitter. And I was like, I don't, I'm not a technical person. It's like, oh, you need a blog, you need this, you need that. So we kind of had to figure all this out. And I I think you know, Mike brings up a really important point, and so and that's about how you know traditionally coaches are educated, right? And listen, there is a there's a real important part of that, whether you're Hockey Canada, hockey USA, any organization, like you need to teach coaches about risk management, you need to obviously want to give them information and set them up for success. But so when I started coaching, I had to take in Can Hockey Canada development one. So this is like back in 2000, the year 2000, when I first started coaching junior. Fast forward after we started the coaches site, I got involved with minor hockey again. And for some reason, like I had to retake the course. And you know, as Mike described, it's like it's an entire weekend, you're sitting in a mesine at your local rink, they hand you a binder, and you just sit there and you listen to some somebody go through a PowerPoint for the entire weekend. Yeah, and so when I was going, yeah. So when I was going into it, I'm like, oh, like I wonder how things have changed. I wonder if it's different. I'll probably learn something. I was kind of curious, hadn't really coached minor hockey a lot at that point. And I go in and I like right away, I'm like, oh my God, this is the exact same binder, right? And the exact same presentation that I took at that time, it was almost like 12 or 13 years before. I'm like, nothing has changed. And and Mike brings up another good point, too. Like, you see everybody in that room, and you're like, okay, that coach over there, he's coaching U11, and that coach over there, they're coaching U6. And it's like the U6 coach, like I'm coaching my four-year-old right now. Like, I don't need what the U11 coaches need. Like, I need something entirely different to set me up for success. And so I think that's one thing we kind of recognized and thought, you know, as we are gathering the content, and this probably more informed the website, it was like, you know, what if we can make coach education engaging and and deliver it in a way probably how most of us learn. Like, if I sit in a room for eight hours, I'm probably gonna retain, if I'm lucky, like five percent of it. But if you can just say, hey, I need I need to know about this one thing, and I can spend 10 minutes on learning about one thing, um, there's a way better chance that I'm gonna be able to grasp it and and then more importantly uh deploy it.

SPEAKER_03 14:17

Yeah, I'm taking notes here. You know, it's funny, Aaron, is that uh for some reason, I don't know why this keeps coming on, I'll create the hockey. You keep making me think of Starbucks, not just because I need coffee, but the whole purpose of Starbucks being created was that curiosity of someone who visited Europe, went to a European cafe, and said, we don't have this experience in the United States. Yeah, and he he brought that back here, created that, really transformed the entire fast food industry because you can't go to McDonald's or anywhere now without having some craft coffee, right? So my the point I'm trying to make is this you brought a level of creativity, curiosity to create a business, right? And I find that fascinating. And this is the thing that we need to do more of in the game, because like you said, there's so much cookie cutter stuff. And I am I'm telling this to our audience too. That your site doesn't just stand out because you bring in the best. It's not that's that is part of it, don't get me wrong. All right, but it stands out because it's organic, it's genuine, and as Mike said, you can kind of choose your own adventure a little bit. Um, you know, I've sat in the USA hockey courses, and this is not a shot at USA hockey at all. Um, because they do try and evolve these these courses, but 99% of the people come to that course going, what do I have to do to get in and get out? Right? And that to me, you know, and again, look, I'm sure there's a lot of parent volunteers, especially to listen to this show. We we gotta do better than that in igniting some fire from these people. There's a major responsibility here. It's not just opening doors and putting pucks in the corner. Um, you know, you're shaping lives. Uh so when you talk about coaching education, I'm for any any type of um method that makes that fun, organic, uh, builds the curiosity in the coach. Uh, you know, you know, one last note for me on this one was you know, we were tasked here, uh a group uh that I was part of to to re-coach coaches in the state of Pennsylvania. And I remember 99% of these coaches came into the room just, I don't want to be here. There's nothing that I'm gonna learn. Right. And uh to date, I think the greatest compliment I've received as a coach from another coach was I came in here this weekend thinking this was gonna be worthless and I left learning so much more. I'm so thankful that I came. That should be something everyone hears from a coaching education standpoint.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yeah, I think I think I think from I think from Aaron's point, his one of his stars is Dave Starman, right? Who who his mantra, and really he's run clinics with me in the in the East Coast here for I don't know, 15 years now, 20 years. And you know, you can't have great player development without great coach development. And that's and that's something he preaches, you know, he was preaching that when he was a coach. And now, you know, as a as a you know, you watch your kids grow up, and you you if you can't inspire the men and women in the room that are that are being educated, right? Then then how are they gonna inspire a whole group of eight-year-olds and nine-year-olds? Like if you're gonna if you're gonna flood them with X's and O's and just philosophy or you know, and it there's some things like there's there's experts in the field who at the end of the day, we're I mean, Aaron, you could correct me, right? But uh what the mass the vast majority of your membership are volunteer coaches, like I mean, there's a you know, obviously you have your pro coaches and your teacher, but the the vast majority are people like me who are just looking for you know the secret sauce and other ways that I can do to inspire and teach my kids, and I can go to you and say, Oh, I like that piece, I can digest it, like you said, quickly and use it. And then, but the the key here is that it wasn't mandated to me. I could research it, I could find it, and then I can use it to the group that I'm the level I'm coaching. And I think when, like for somebody like me who got involved with the coach's site as a user, um, it was okay, well, I can take the pieces I need this week year, and next year I could use these pieces, and then next year I could use these pieces, and you could really get as advanced. I mean, you could go right to the to the level of you're sitting in a room in Michigan with professional hockey coaches talking about what they do on a daily basis, and and the next guy next to you just started coaching his kids 6U team, and and you're having those conversations about how challenging that is.

SPEAKER_03 18:21

That doesn't exist anywhere else, to my knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

But but but but how so and I and I'll I'll correct Mike here because you know, uh Dave's um he's the silver medal star, you're you're the gold star. So and I think that's one of the cool parts about this whole journey has been the people you meet, and you know, we're really lucky. So, like we work with arguably the like the best coaches in the world, but as we've expanded, what we've recognized is that you know, Barry Trott said it famously he's like, if you put me on the ice with a bunch of UA kids, like I wouldn't have a clue what to do, but somebody else is an expert there, and so now I mean we work with gosh, I mean, uh it's upwards of 300 youth organizations, and so we get feedback and they get to tell us like what their pain points are, and then we're like, oh, you know, in in Mike's case, like we recognize that a lot of hockey directors are placing those roles because they were players. There's you know, you don't get a university degree to be a hockey director, and they're thrusting these rules, there's not a manual, there's nothing left behind, there's no mentorship on how to do their job. However, there's hockey directors all over the you know the world who are probably going through the exact same challenges. And so, you know, we go and you know, we find out Mike and the great work that he does and say, okay, let's give him a platform to help educate, bring in some of the people in his network. So then everybody learns from everybody. And I think that's that's one thing we've come to really appreciate is that um, listen, our game's not that complicated. It's it's we're playing a sport on frozen water. What we're trying to do here in Vancouver and the experience we're trying to deliver to kids is the same thing we're trying to, they're trying to do in Brooklyn and Philadelphia. So instead of everybody trying to create that best possible experience in a silo, can we sort of be that megaphone or maybe the glue that gets all the best ideas together? So, you know, you know, everybody arises and everybody, every kid gets the best possible experience.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

Yeah, you know, Aaron, it's funny. I I had a question you just answered, which is great about I was gonna highlight the fact that you bring in uh you know lesser-known coaches. There's not a great way to say that, uh, to round out that experience. And I I think that you know, going beyond the coaches site, you said this right in the beginning of the show. You know, the best coaches share knowledge. Uh the best coaches receive knowledge, they look for that knowledge. In fact, uh, you brought up Nick Saban, you know, HBO did this great documentary. I'm not sure if you've seen it, where he meets up with Delegat.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Yeah, it's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 20:47

Every every year they meet up and just talk about the game. In fact, you can tell when they're filming it, they want the guys out of the room so they can just keep talking football. But but that that uh yearning for knowledge and peers uh um from every level, you know. Mike, you said it too. You know, I remember the first time I stepped into U8 locker room, I said to that coach, I'm your student. I I do not know how to coach eight-year-olds, seven-year-olds, six-year-olds. And I learned a lot, even some things. This is gonna sound weird to some people, but things I've been able to apply to the to the professional level or the the collegiate level. We have to share more information um uh via the coaches' site, via just talking with people. Um, I love what you said. You know, obviously Mike and I are both members, not that that's a secret, but you know, but we're coaches, right? But Mike has has carved out with you, Aaron, this great uh resource for hockey directors and places uh that people can go to learn more and more. So this is again, I'm not just talking about the coaches side, I'm talking in in broadly. We need to create more uh versions of this within our own communities. Coaches side is a gold standard to express and learn from each other what's going right, what's going wrong, or we're gonna be doomed just to kind of repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Well, I'll tell you what. So we do this series, it's called Hockey Factories. And um in hockey factories, we kind of the premise of it was that we looked at um six clubs. We started this last year, and we wanted to look at six different clubs that really had a you know a really high standard when it came to player development, each from a different country. And the goal is to see, let's sort of showcase maybe some of the similarities, because that's going to be valuable information that we can learn from, but also what makes them different and and how can we you know amplify that? And you know, one of the common traits amongst all these clubs is they had all intentionally created space and time for their coaches to get together in the same room and share information, generally on a weekly basis. Like that seemed to be kind of the consistent cadence on a weekly basis. And we would ask them, like in some cases, they're like, you know, in some cases, somebody does a presentation, in some cases it's a it's a schedule topic, in some cases it's a spitball, in some cases we just pass around on the whiteboard. But they're like, just through that, like it's very informal, and we're just it's it's peer to peer learning. And and that's free. Anybody can do that. That's free, that's really accessible. And I would say, in my opinion, before you invest in the coach's site or anything else, like if you're not doing that part, um then. Yeah, that should probably be step one.

SPEAKER_03 23:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Well, and and then the one thing you gotta see too is what I love, like from my point of view, and watching all these young, aspiring, up-and-coming skill developers from all over, like in your global skill showcase that you have. Yeah, I don't think there's anybody that doesn't try to get into that. Like it's like everyone said, Well, I can build my brand, but I can steal and everything from everybody. Like the the way the world is right now, I want to get in front of that. And I want to say, like, wow, I really like the way that that she teaches that skating move, or I like the way he teaches body position, or or I love hearing from a from basically a professional coach at the NCAA Division I level about the graveyard and about like all these little terms and terminology and and and little phrases that maybe weren't resonating when you're speaking to your kids about, but all of a sudden you could take somebody else's, like, oh yeah, the graveyard. That makes sense to me. That make that that is a very clear visual image of something I could take from this little presentation on the coach's site and implement it the next day with my kids at really every level, every level. And you know, and this guy, and he's talking about NCAA division one level of players that are gonna play you know in the NHL, but you can use that same exact terminology and understanding to your your eight-year-olds and to their parts, right? Like and and then they can say, like, to me, I use the coaches site as like a way for me to um influence and uh Wally Kozak hates that I use manipulate. I I like to I like to navigate and and just just just just use it as a as a vehicle for me to send my message from somebody who a lot of people would would consider uh the voice. Like, like if I say it's just like when you're dealing with your parents, right? And if you're if your parents say, hey, you should do it this way, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then somebody said, Hey, you should do it this way, like, the plight of every parent listening to this show. Like, this is a great, this is a great thing. So I I think I love taking clips of the coach's site, and I'll send out like that 15-second little blurb of whomever, and use that to reinforce the messages that I want to parents that I'm trying to educate as well, right? Because it's I think at the youth level, it's a it's a team. It's dad, mom, player. And then because you're not just talking to, you know, at a prep school and college, well, maybe less and less, right? We're we're hearing more and more that there's a lot more parents involved in in prep and college and and pro. But in in an ideal world, it's it's you're you're educating mom and dad, the player, and then that's helping you build your team at the youth level. And I think the coaching site allows you, uh, you know, I think we just touched on it earlier, all those resources are one place where it used to be, okay, I have to search Nick Saban. Like, uh, what's the name of the what's the name of the the newsletter you put out, uh Aaron, that that has it's just because it's not just hockey. It's everything, it's everything. So I think it's like I I use that as like, hey, I guess what I found. I found like the secret newsletter that I can then I can distribute and say the Daily Coach is one. Yeah, there's information from Nick Saban, there's information from tennis, there's information from concussion awareness programs, there's information from an NHL coach, there's information from an AU coach. Like, there's so much stuff that can come in. And for most of us that are volunteer youth coaches, who has time to scour the internet for all this stuff? You're giving it to us to digest and doing all the research, and we should be able to take the credit.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Yeah, you know what? You know what's funny, guys, is like so we work with um you know, NHL coaches, right? And you know, these coaches, the reason they are where they are is because they made a career out of what they call research and duplicate RD. And so, like last year we're in Michigan and Mike Babcock's there. And so when we talk with Mike about he's doing a presentation with his son, who's a coach at the University of Saskatchewan, it's like, hey Mike, like you're gonna talk at this time, and you know, here's how you here's where you park and all that. Well, you know, we kick off the event, and who's in the back row? So there's Mike Babcock, Stanley Cup champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist, isn't even coaching. He sat there the entire time and took notes. In fact, I at one point I was like running to the back and he like jumps out and pulls me aside. And he was really concerned about the size of the font on one of the presentations. And he's like, he wanted, he's like, You got to make it big. So if you want to, his exact words, he's like, Listen, if you don't want to be the um, if you want to be like, you know, an okay coach's clinic, you can keep it that way. If you want to be the best, you got to make it bigger. And I'm like, and I'm like, okay, like I want to, yeah, I want to be the best. So I and I think that my point is is that there's two parts to this, right? There's the knowledge. So you got to get the right knowledge, but then you got to become a really good teacher and you got to be able to, you know, develop those interpersonal skills. Because listen, if like if you want to, you can go on YouTube right now and you can scour a bunch of Michelin star chefs making Michelin star meals. That doesn't mean you're gonna make a Michelin star meal. Like that's the that's years. That that's a craft. And I think that's the other part of it too. And I think that's why coaches at the professional level, they're like, Yeah, like I'll share everything because you know the knowledge is part of it, but how to apply it, how to teach it, how to create that optimal learning environment. Um, that that's that's years in the making.

SPEAKER_03 28:41

So, two things. One, that was a fantastic Babcock impersonation. There, there's it's very few people can do that pronunciation the way you did. Um, just to just to to um kind of reinforce this, right? Uh, and it is I hate to do this, but yeah, everybody knows I'm a I'm a super hockey nerd, right? Like I'm a historian. I love to read about the game. I'm reading this great book right now called Path to the Summit about Anatoly Terasov and the Soviets' rise.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:06

Right. All right. And uh it's fascinating to me. And the reason I'm bringing this up is this if you want to, if you want the ultimate example of R D, research and duplicate, right? The Soviet Union told him when he was building the Soviet program, you cannot watch North American hockey. You figure this out on your own. So we had to start from scratch. He ended up creating the most prolific system in the history of hockey for about 20 years. Now, where did he get that system from? There's three chapters in this book, guys, about Soviet soccer and how he borrowed the evolutions from Soviet soccer and applied it on the ice. So he borrowed from another sport. But this again, this is a guy who was told you can't view, you can't look at anybody else, and he's still found a way to, as you said, research and duplicate. So I'm gonna say what you said, Aaron and Mike, you too. The best coaches I have ever worked with, uh, known, learned from, they subscribe to this philosophy of you have to look around and learn, right? Um, and it's very hard to come up with an original concept of coaching. It is possible, but it's very hard. But most of those come from the curiosity and creativity of watching somebody else and evolving and evolving and evolving. If you dive into that process, it's actually quite beautiful, it's very symphonic, right? When you start working with other people, I'm gonna say it again Saban and Belichick, probably the two best football coaches in history, regularly meet and share what they're doing right, what's going well, what's going wrong. We need more avenues. This actually could go beyond coaching, right? That we need more avenues when we're to do that. This applies to everything.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Like anybody that's good at whatever their their endeavor is, and I think applies to this. And it's made, I think this is sensible, right? Like it's it makes sense, but um I think where this does loop back to coaching is you know, we wouldn't be talking today unless we recognize the impact that a positive experience with hockey, how that can influence a child. And you know, and listen, there's so many volunteers and people that are involved and need to be involved and are super committed to to creating that minor hockey experience. However, this is my opinion we can do everything right, but if the coach doesn't deliver on that experience, the other stuff doesn't matter. And what we traditionally do in minor hockey, um, again, this is my opinion, is we go to the coach and we say, okay, you've got your ice schedule. Here's a bag of pucks, here's a whiteboard. There you go. Have a good season. Our job is done here. And then it's up to that coach this to sort of figure it out. And listen, in a 60-minute practice, it's infinite the amount of the directions you could go. And so, um, you know, I think it's really, really important that we recognize that, you know, if you're given that platform, um, it matters, it matters to the lives of those young people, and that, you know, to Mike's point, everybody's busy. Um, but you'll do yourself a great service. And I think as a coach, you'll get so much joy out of you know, learning about different aspects of the game, transferring that to the kids, seeing how they light up. Because listen, kids, there's there's there's there's a moment when a kid is taught something and they figure it out, you it's you can see it, right? Right. You can see that joy. They can and and they, you know, that's that's gonna that process of learning something, um, that's gonna vibrate through the rest of their life, right? So, you know, creating those moments as a coach is really, really important, but it starts with your own curiosity. And I think if you can do that once, it it I don't say it becomes addictive. Um, but it's I would say that I agree, yeah. Yeah, like it is, right? Like you want to see these kids great, it's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

But but I think I think that's the whole idea here is that a resource like the coaches site gives administrators and directors and and and people that are running these organizations that might like we all like if you're a hockey person, you you your kid gets in the try hockey for free, and you know skates and shoulder pads, helmet goes on, but then you watch all the other people that come in that have never even been into a rink and you're and they're trying to navigate like, what the hell? Like, what do I do here? Do I tie the skates tight or loose, or how does the helmet go on? And I look at that from a coaching point. Like most of our coaches get involved with coaching because they either have a kid, they have a kid on the team, or they're an ex-college kid. It's like, hey, you you wanna you wanna, you're we're a great hockey player, why don't you coach? And then they're like, Well, okay, I'll just coach like I did when I was coached, right? Line up on the goal line and I'm gonna sprint the kids, make them scream out something. And and and and I think what your you know platform allows people to do is go in and research and find out, okay, who are my kids? What what are my weakest pieces? And then if I'm an organization, like the best organizations that I work with now in my my real world life is the ones that embrace the tools that I that I use, like the coaches site, and say, we're gonna take this and implement it with our coaches, and we're not gonna mandate anything, we're gonna give these resources so that the coaches that want more information and and the ones that want more information that that and find success, all of a sudden they go, Oh, I like that. I want more information. I want more information, I want more information. And and if you if you provide the resource like the coaches site, it's gonna make it easier for that person so they can pull up their iPad and their earphones on the train going to work and find that 15 minutes to be a better coach, not sitting in a 12-hour clinic on a Saturday and Sunday bored, you know, thinking they had to do this, but rather, hey, I just need 15 minutes of your day. I need 10 minutes of your week. Just take this little clip, apply it to your kids, and then move on. And I think, you know, I think that's what makes any coaching. Like I know I'm very involved with lacrosse, and it's the same. Like you look at all the governing bodies outside of hockey, what USA hockey's done in particular, by changing the coaching model and the teaching model, all these other governing bodies have gone to that now. They understand that more play is needed, more free play, more less instruction, less lines, like less lectures, and more opportunity to be in the game in a fun environment where you can where the kids can find the game. And I think that's what your resource does for us is if I'm a director and I know these are my block of guys and girls that are coaching, I can I can send them what's digestible and then I can watch them use it. And I think that is so inspiring. I think, listen, I just worked with a group of kids that had never touched a hockey stick in their life, and in 15 minutes they were playing hockey, and all of a sudden the instructors and the teachers and everyone's getting in on it, they're like, oh my God, these kids are having so much fun. Like they're really enjoying this, and they're not, you know, we're not weren't teaching them how to hold a stick, we're like, go play. The other stuff will come. Yeah. And and I think a lot, but a lot of that doesn't, if you're a like your your point was, you know, earlier about the pro coach coming down. Sometimes you get somebody that if you're not a teacher or or an educator or a phys ed teacher, you think, oh, I'm gonna teach the kids how to play hockey, but okay, line up on the goal line, hold the stick, pay attention. Hey, you you over there. Pay no, don't go.

SPEAKER_03 36:27

No, let me tell you about how hard real life is, boys.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

Yeah, you know, you gotta you gotta you've gotta listen. You've gotta listen. I'm like, you gotta listen. I said, they they they're they're six, they want to play. And I and I think that's where we can all do if we use uh a place like the coaches site to find and and our podcast. I mean, we talk about this all the time on our kids play hockey that we want to be able to get through the noise. Like I've made every mistake in the world. Listen, I've lined kids up in the corner, like 25 kids in the corner. It's no fun, it's boring, and they can't do it. And all and then you're yelling at them that they can't do it. I'm like, well, how would they know how to do it if I never taught them what that's I see why you call him the gold star now? I can I can see I've just I'm just I just again I like I guess I and it it it's hard not to be a sales pitch, but the bottom line is it's no, you mean this Mike means this.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Yeah, no, listen, guys, coaching has never been more challenging than it is today. And I and I would say this like you know, I I've never had to um coach an NHL game and then go up on the podium for a press conference, um, you know, after you've had your rear end handed to you, I'm sure that's not fun. But I have had to walk through the lobby of a minor hockey rink after I've got my rear end handed to me. And you got to walk through all the parents and you get the eyeballs, and that's really hard. And because our game is so great, it means that people are really passionate about it, and then when you get people that are really passionate about something, you know, emotions get raised, and that's felt by everybody. And then you throw in the fact that you know, our game has become insanely expensive, it's become very transactional, and that just you know heightens those emotions, so it's really tough. And when we're not giving coaches the right tools, um, you know, I think that we're not setting them up for success. And so part of that, again, there's two parts of this. There's the interpersonal side, like how you teach, how you engage with people, then there's the technical side. I would encourage anybody that's listening, if you're involved with a minor hockey organization, get all your coaches in a room and say, How do we hold a hockey stick? I bet you if you got 20 coaches, you're gonna get 19 different answers. Or you could say, How do you pass a puck? How do you teach kids to where do you hold your hands? Which way do your toes point? Because when I grew up, I was taught to pass a puck with my toes facing the hash marks, and I reached back about three feet behind my body, and I followed through and I rolled my wrist. I haven't seen anybody ever pass a puck like that in the game, but that's how I was taught, and I'm pretty sure how most kids um in my generation were taught. There's just a better way now, right? And so, you know, again, if we can give there's so much information out there. So I think as an organization and and as for all the hockey directors out there, it's so important to say, look, it's what you say no to, right? It's like if you coach U8, you don't have to worry about 90% of this stuff. But what I do need you to know is I need you how to teach kids how to use their edges. And this is what this looks like. I need you to teach kids how to hold their hockey stick properly and how to dribble or handle a puck. And you just need to focus on these two or three things for the next six months. And I don't need you to worry about the power play. I don't need you to worry about four, you don't need to worry about any of that because the next coach is gonna do that. And we have a plan from when a kid starts to play all the way up, and we don't need every coach to be an expert on everything, but if you're gonna coach a certain level, we're gonna make sure that they're experts in these really key areas. But again, most importantly, we're gonna be really transparent with the coaches and our parents to say, here's our development plan. And Hockey Canada, Hockey USA, and I can tell you most of the European federations, they've got that 80% of the way baked. You can kind of massage a little bit to make it unique to you. But can you imagine going to school? You take your kid to grade one and you sit down with the teacher and say, Hey, um, what's my kid gonna learn this year? And they said, Um, well, you know what? Today we're gonna read a book and we're gonna kind of we'll figure out what we're gonna do next week, next week. And you'd be like, What? Yeah, are you crazy? You're right. Yeah, and that's me.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Like, that's what the coach's site is the syllabus that you need to help your coach. Like, I look at like like I when especially when I get coaches that I feel like I'm not that confident in them teaching. Like, okay, great person, committed. I need help. I got six stations going on, but I need you to teach the right thing. So for me, I like go, okay, go to the coach's site, go to Katie Joe West, say that's how you skate. See how Katie Joe is teaching skating. I could take her clip, share it to that person, don't do anything else but this. By the way, this person gets probably paid billions of dollars, you know, whatever. You're making a lot of money to teach. The best people in the world are seeking her out to teach them how to skate. And guess what? You get to do you get to pay, you know, $18 or whatever, right? And get it and own it, and then take it and use it. Like, I see, I I I used to hide a lot of coaches like in the station-based practice. Like, okay, this guy, you're gonna you do the soccer station. Just make sure that kids aren't tackling each other. Like, don't teach, please don't teach anything. But you, you're a great, like, you're an unbelievable player, and you can you can show what has to happen, but I need you to show it the right way and consistently so that I know every time you go into your station, you're using this video in in my mind, how I want you to teach, and I want you to use her or Justin Selman. I think he's gonna be one of your other uh, yeah. And like I want to see how are you teaching weight transfer? What are you saying? Like, I don't need again, I don't want to discourage anybody from going to the live conference, but you don't need to fly across the country to go see this person. You can actually just pop it up online and say, skating coaches, boom, and they're all right there for you to use and to and to and to give to your coaches to teach them. Like, I I try to use the term like if you want to, if you want to teach somebody to be really bad, do the wrong drill for 20 weeks in a row. They're gonna be really good at being terrible at it. And I think you know, we want to avoid that. That's the thing we want to take out. We want to take the piece of like if we're gonna do all these fast paced, quick changes, lots of stations, kids moving all the time. Let's at least do it right. Let's make sure the foundations are correct. And and and and that I and I I'm a big believer that if you're doing it correct and you're getting better at it, you are having fun. So I think it's just a matter of develop, you could develop both.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Yeah, kid, and listen, I I fully believe that in any environment, whether it's school or at hockey, the kids, you know, they they want some structure, right? Like they respond to that. And you know, isn't it funny? Like the nuanced guys that go in the drills. Like, I'll give you an example. So the other day I'm out running a practice and we're doing the station bases with little kids, right? So we set up all the drills, and one of them is like it's a little bit of an obstacle course. And I and I go over to the the coach who's doing that station, great guy. I said, How's the station going? He's like, I don't know, like something's not working. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, well, just watch. And so I watched, I watched the the drill. And you know, normally you would do that and you would you would say, Okay, you know, like um Mike, you're gonna go, you get your turn. And hey, Lee, when Mike gets that far down, then it's your turn, or the coach is gonna say, now it's your turn. Well, he was just letting all the kids go at the same time, and they're running into each other, and it's a little bit of chaos, and it's just not working, right? Well, it's that nuance. Like, let's not assume that we don't need to point that out, like those little nuances and how to run a drill, what it looks like. And I think that that's one thing that's happened or a sport that's maybe has flown beneath the radar is that you know, parents now, like when I grew up, like you didn't, there was no skills. You might you maybe went to a hockey school in the summer, you sure you didn't do anything extracurricular in the season, it just it wasn't even an option. And so now these kids and these parents have gone to great coaches, which is awesome. They're getting a lot out of that, but then they see what a full-time coach, somebody that lives and breathes that's so they get up in the morning to what that looks like, and then they're like, okay, well, that's the standard. I want that when I go back to my minor hockey practice. And I would say, and some maybe that's a little bit unrealistic, but I do think that there's a lot that we can do by simplifying and adding some focus because I think coaching minor hockey, again, it's so much of what you say no to and just get focused on um, you know, the specific skills that you're trying to get across. Um, learn some of those nuances. Like I again, I think if you're running an organization, there's so Many, um, you know, the learning environment you create, that should be consistent across every team, across every coach. Like if you start practice, if you start practice, um, you know, some some coaches will say, like everybody, the kids get you know, three minutes to play around with the puck's great. When we blow that whistle, what happens next? That should be consistent. Like, create a learning environment so the kids know it. They don't have to relearn it every year. Same thing with language. Let's use the same language across every coach. And some coaches might say, Well, gosh, I I really want to call it that. Well, you know what, Lee? We're all just gonna call it this. And hopefully you're you know you're reasonable and you can you can live with this because this is gonna be best for the kids. And I think most coaches would be like, hey, I get it. That's that's the way we're gonna do it. So as an organization, you know, A, get that plant, get that long-term development plan. Um, it's a live and breathing thing, it's gonna change over time. Make sure you got somebody that's managing it, that's reaching out to the coaches saying, hey, is there anything that's working or not working? Can we make it better? Or are you are you teaching this? I'm gonna come out to your practice, see how it's going. Can we use the same language and write it down on a piece of paper in a document where everybody can access it? And, you know, it's gonna set the coaches up for success. The kids are gonna have a better experience. And the other thing that it's gonna do, it's probably just as important. The transparency it offers parents, they're gonna say, okay, I get it. There's a there's there's a plan here in place. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, it's a little bit more trust that I know that my child's in good hands and that they're, you know, I maybe they're not doing the stuff today that I think they should be doing, but oh, you know what, they're gonna do that next year. We're all good.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

You know, yeah, but and and let me just say one thing to come combat, you know, what you're saying too, is like, don't you if you're a parent and uh listening to this right now, don't feel like you're walking the plank by bringing up the opportunity to say, hey, you know what? I just heard a podcast and I researched this coach's site. And do you know that if I took my kid to the best power skating camp in the world for a week, that they okay, they're gonna get better. Let's just assume they're getting better. They went out there for a week, they had five hours of ice a day. At the end of the week, they got better, right? And that was in August. Now you go to practice from September until March. All that time you took that week, that investment you made is gone. Like it's just it the kids can't retain a week of skill development and then carry that through 25 weeks. So, what's what's a great way to do as a parent? You can come or assistant coach or head coach and say, you know what, if we could, if we could implement some of the things that I learned through this, I I just watched uh uh, you know, I just watched one of the shows on on technique. Can we implement this technique into all of our station-based practices so that over the next 20 weeks, this technique is now, you know, not foreign to the kids? And to your point, this whoever coach goes into that station to teach it, they're teaching it the same way, whether you're holding your hands, which way your stick is. You know, if I'm saying strong side, okay, if I asked to your point, you know, about holding your stick, ask, ask 10 coaches which side the strong side is. Oh, it's the side without the puck. Oh, no, no, it's the side that the puck's gonna go to. No, it's the side the puck's on. Like, okay, well, if you're yelling your kids about, you know, you gotta you gotta get on the board, you gotta get like like my little guy was always laughing, like, what the hell is a half wall? Like, oh, get on the half wall. What is the half wall? Great point, right? And we think it's natural, but like to the kid, right? There's no there's no place in the rink where there's only half a wall. It's all it's all because so the kids look and go, isn't the half wall the whole rink? Like, so to me, like those are little, those are things that you might think aren't a big deal as a an adult, but even all adults sitting in the room going, Yeah, what is that? You know, we can't even if we can't even come to a uh a conclusion to what that terminology is, how in God's name are we asking a bunch of 10-year-olds to understand it?

SPEAKER_03 49:05

So I want to make sure that we put some of this stuff into like kind of action items for the people listening, which I know everybody listening loves, but you know, one of the ones, and Aaron said this early in the episode, and I do not see this enough, is just regularly scheduled meetings between coaches from the top down within organizations. And I've heard the excuses oh, we don't have time, the people they don't want that, they're not gonna be able to make it. Malarkey, you know, if if if you provide it, you're probably gonna be surprised by how many people show up. And the ones that don't show up, it will take care of itself. I don't know how else to say that, right? Yeah, 100%. You know, so I think that's one tip whether you're a parent or coach listening to this, you should want to talk to other coaches. I'll tell you another part. We're recording this. Um uh it's almost March. So it's that weird time of the year. Mike and I and Christy talk about this. It's that weird time of the year where you're looking at other teams, you're looking at other things in tryouts. You know how much of that weirdness could be negated if coaches talked and development was understood from the bottom up, and you said it totally earlier, Aaron, the the European model kind of has this down. You just kind of know where you're going, you know what the right level of development is. And instead of talking about whether my kid should be triple A, double A, B, C, novice, and everything in between, you start talking a little bit more about, you know, that coach would be great for this kid's development next season because of this. Right. So I think that's something that clear communication creates. We do not do it enough, and we are hyper focused on letters um and team names and wearing a sweater with a certain logo on it over where should I go to develop?

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Well, you just said it, and you know what? It's um in Europe, it coaches are evaluated on their ability to get players to the next level, right? And one thing they do there again. So when your kid goes to school, they check for learning, like they have to do a test to demonstrate, and then the teacher has to be accountable for that. Like if their test scores are always below, then it's like, hey, maybe we got to change what you're doing. Right. We all we do to your point, like we just hand out, we just put more A's behind the team name, and we think that that's development. Um, you know, the development is, you know, putting kids through drills isn't developing them. Like we we go through that. Like coaches, like, give me some new drills, give me some drills. Like the drills are like they're that that's a blank piece of paper and a pencil. That's not teaching anybody to read or write. You you still have to, you know, teach them the skills. And so you have to have that technical knowledge. And I I would just gosh, like I would, I would really encourage parents out there listening, like really focus on, and I think we can see that. Like, you know what? Um, I think we can all appreciate somebody that is a good teacher, like it's visual, you can see it, is pay attention to that. And if your child is in an environment where you feel like it's a good learning environment, um, they're being respected, you can. I tell you what, the car ride home, that's goal. What did you learn today? And if your kid's like, I don't know, like I don't care how many A's are behind the name, right? I don't care how elite the program is. If your kid can't tell you what they just learned that day, and I've got a four-year-old, he knows what we worked on in practice, and if he doesn't, that's that's on me, the coach, right, for not making that and not simplifying it to their level so that they do understand that we learned on a two-foot stop today. I gotta make it learned on our inside edge today.

SPEAKER_03 52:40

This this quick mark for you because we we if I want to make sure that we discern this for the audience there. And sorry to cut you off. We always talk about the car ride is not for coaching. I want to make sure the audience understands that that's not what he is suggesting right now, right? Asking a child, what did you learn today? That's not coaching on the way home. Coaching on the way home, once again is you should have done this, you should have done that. I saw you do this. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 53:01

Yeah, that's like my son comes home from cooking class. I'm like, oh, what'd you cook today? Oh, for sure. What were the ingredients? Like, how'd you how'd you make a how'd you make a quiche? Like I thought's unbelievable. Like, how'd you do that? And and did you use the burner or did they say did they show you how to put the oven on? And and to Aaron, to your point too, is like, and and what Lee's saying is it's always too like what I love about the European uh programs that I work with, and even the guys I follow, like in Norway and Sweden and Finland right now, is they truly believe in the mantra that their best coaches are their beginner coaches. Like when you come here, when I when I hire a hockey director, when I'm interviewing for hockey directors, the first per the first person the guy the guy wants to do is like, oh, well, who's your what's the ATU team? I want to coach that team. I said, I don't need you to coach ATU. I need you to coach the the the like you look at the one program of Stavanger, Norway, it's unbelievable, right? They don't even get they have like 300 kids in their five U program, and they don't even get to go on the ice until they do like three weeks of just learning how to walk in their skates and and feel their equipment and dance and like everything doesn't have to look like a two-foot stop or a move or an edge control, but you can say, Hey, what were you today? And if you have a four-year-old that can come home and say, Oh my god, dad, I was a hawk today, and I was hunting, you know, I was hunting for mice, and I was swooping down and finding that, and and that's and I attacked the mouse. And like, that's what kids, that's what four-year-olds want to hear. Like, I know, like our day, I know our parents are our write-ups, and they're like, What the heck are they doing out there? Like, we got four year olds didn't know the power play. They didn't know the perception. Why's Pennelli playing My Little Pony, and he's playing um, you know, and and they're playing like Ring of Fire, and they're playing like whatever Pokemon, something, because that's what the kids know.

SPEAKER_03 54:42

That's how they like you shouldn't have said Pokeman. We're gonna get emails about that. And I said Pokemon, yeah, and Pokemon.

SPEAKER_01 54:47

Oh, is that is that wrong? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 54:49

Yeah, oh, but but but I but it really is, yeah. It really is. And I and I think that um, you know, again, it's we I don't I don't think we need to look much further outside of hockey. We can look at education, we can look at so many other activities that our kids participate in, and we can just apply that logic and say, okay, if if our kid was in grade three, how much how much pressure as a parent would we feel that they need to start learning algebra?

SPEAKER_02 55:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 55:19

Like we probably wouldn't be too worried about that, right? Just like there's so much in hockey, like we don't need to worry about that. And we just need to be really clear on on what's parent now. And we need to again, um, you know, nobody blinks when we we send our kids to like you know, summer camps or um, you know, they go to school and they have recess. Like we can all appreciate that in every other activity they do outside of hockey, that play, as Mike describes it, is really important. It's really valuable. We appreciate that. But sometimes when it comes into to hockey, we're like, well, gosh, like they should be that should be really regimented, it should be a really strict environment. Like, how come the coach isn't yelling at the kid? Because we think yelling is that's a form of somebody taking it seriously. And um, and I think again, the good news is is that you know, we're there's so much good, and again, I this is like I don't when I do these things, I don't even like talking about the coaches site because I think we're we're one of many uh great resources out there for coat for coaches and for people to learn about the game. And you know, it's funny, like back in 2010, right when we were starting, I had a chance. It was we had the Olympics here in Vancouver, and so I was caught through the stuff I was doing with Vancouver minor hockey um with um Jurgodin, who's a club in Sweden. Well that they had like three kids picked in the first round last year. And uh, so they said, Hey, we want to send some coaches over. Could you assist in like chaperoning them and setting up visits with other minor hockey associations, etc.? So we did this, and they bring these um, they've got a host and three coaches, and like one of the coaches, and I I wish I could remember his name. Um, there's a lot of consonants in it, but um, you know, he comes over and he was in his 60s and he had been coaching there for 30 years. And, you know, again to Mike's point about your best coaches coaching the young kids, he goes, I coach, I start every three years, I start with a group of six-year-olds and I stay with them until they're nine. And then I start with another group. And I've been doing this for 30 years, and I love it.

SPEAKER_03 57:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 57:25

And and you found the right person who really gravitated towards that age group. And trust me, there's like there's coaches in everybody that's listening, there's coaches in your associations, like talk to them. Like, who do you like to coach? Some kids' coaches really want to coach kids that age, and that's great. Put them with those kids and let them let them flourish, don't move them. And um, and you know, we would talk to him and say, like, how do you develop kids? It's like he brought out something to me where it's like, yeah, we don't touch pucks. I'm like, like what for like the first 10 minutes? He's like, No, we don't touch pucks for those three years. And I'm like, You're kidding me. I said, Well, the kids must be pulling their hair out. He's like, No, we have so much fun. We just found different ways because we it's all about skating. We know that if we can establish the skating fundamentals, the game, the rest of it kind of takes care of itself, right? And he goes, he goes, he goes, I he joked, he's like, I have a rule. He's like, I know it's time to start, you know, working with the pucks when the kids are just like begging me. And he goes, that usually starts to happen in the third year, but he goes, it just that that kind of informs us that it's time. But um, you know, so I again I I just think that um there's so many practical things that we can all do um to create a better experience. And it all comes down to like, we don't nobody nobody listening to this needs to reinvent the wheel. The wheel's been invented. We just got to find the components of who's done that, uh, bring it back to our association. And if it's really about creating the best environment for the kids, um, I don't want to say it's gonna be easy, but it'll come together pretty quickly if you can get a bunch of people that are of that that same mindset.

SPEAKER_03 59:00

I'll I'll say this is fun. I'm kind of on this topic. I have another question I want to ask you is this is I think what holds us back in this country a lot is the uh money nature of it. The more kids I get, the more dollar signs I get, the more dollars I get, the more I can do. And I I I will make this promise, right? And and um Mike and I, you could choose to join me or not, but the the the idea is this if you implement the things that Aaron is talking about, your program will become infinitely more valuable. Not only will it stick out like a sore thumb in a good way, but the development of these kids, the development of the coaches, the development of people will pay itself off so much more than just let me get 500 players into the atoms and lose all of them next year, and we'll have our hundred and we won't have enough teams. And I just see it every day. And it's it's if you create that value, people will pay for it, right?

SPEAKER_01 59:48

And and then not just pay for the extra A at the end of the uh if you do if you want nothing else, just listen to the hockey factories and you'll you'll find out like there is no secret. It's everybody they're saying no, there's no secret, just find the best people and make the most fun. And you know, it's like I use the analogy all the time. Like, thank god nobody's found a way to make money off monkey bars yet. Because I've never seen kids leave a playground, like ever like, hey, is this playground almost done? Like, are we almost done? Like, you're great analogy. That's great, you're begging them to get off the the the playground. Like, will you please do not like if you start teaching kids like, hey, when you're trying to balance between those two bars, you should be doing it this way. And let me show you. No, don't do that. I got a private coach that's gonna come in and show you how to balance and beat all the other kids. Why do they figure it out? Why do they have fun? Because they figure it out, and and kids inherently go, oh, that kid's not getting it. Let me help them, or oh, let me show you what you're doing, or and and it's and we they just watch the older kids do it, right? And we take all that away, like we suck it out. And you look at the best programs, they'll even programs when you hear them, they'll say, Oh, that all it's always giving back. Like the the higher level players are always giving back to the lower level players, and the low, like there's so much mentorship going on, and then all of a sudden, these great athletes that come through the programs come back and coach right because they learn what I want to now inspire. Like it feels like it's my duty to come back and help that next group, and and the right way, you know, the way we're doing it is the right way. And I think that's where a lot of us, and I think in our in our North American system right now, again, this is not everywhere, everybody's not broken. I get it, but the ones that stand out to be broken are the ones that like churn them and burn them, right? They take them for six months. Oh, you you nine didn't develop, cut them, bring in a different nine. That nine didn't develop, cut them, bring in a different nine, and all of a sudden, like you don't have uh one coach with a kid for three years. That that kid in three years might have six coaches in four different programs. So I think there's there's ways to do it right and fun and healthy and keep kids really mentally strong and and physically fit. And then there's the ways to say, I'm gonna throw out a shingle, I'm gonna make a ton of money, I don't care what the retention is because I know that there's another group of kids behind them, as long as I can say we're going to these seven different tournaments and your eight-year-old is going to get exposure.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:09

So I used to be um the hockey director of the North Shore Winter Club. So it's a it's a private club here in Vancouver. Connor Bernard played there and a lot of a lot of really good players, but it's a it's a family club. And one of the things that we do, and I think this is really accessible for everybody, is we created a coach's room. It's where the coaches got changed. And we put whiteboards on the wall, and all the coaches, like we didn't have enough space for everybody to get their own stall, but it was amazing just because the one, you know, the one coaching staff shows up while the other team's getting off. And in those 10 50, what'd you work what you work on today? It was a great uh transfer of knowledge. And it really created a camaraderie too, because the coaches now fuck, because you guys know what it's like. It's like really easy to feel like you're not a part of the club because you only see the people on your team. And once you kind of realize, like, hey, like I'm just a cog on the wheel here, and that's okay. I'm working with all these other coaches uh to deliver the best experience possible. That's that's really powerful. Um, you know, the second thing is, you know, my family, we moved to a little town called Squamish, and um, it's just north of Vancouver. We got one sheet of ice, like as I mentioned, my little guy's four. So we're you know, we do public skating and stuff like that. And so what they do at public skating is they at about the top of the circles, they put these bumpers across. And if there's enough kids, they let the the kids go in and play. They got plastic sits sticks, black, plastic pucks, and they just scrimmage. And there's no like it could be any age of kids. So my kid for the longest time is like, Dad, I want to go over there. And I'm like, You're you're not old enough yet, and all that. And so finally, after like just him, you know, begging me, I'm like, okay, you're gonna go in. But I'm kind of watching him because I don't want him to get run over and killed. The older kids were so good to him that he gets knocked down, they help him up, they give him fist pumps, they try to make sure he touches the puck. So, one thing for everybody that's saying that the culture of our game is damaged, it's not perfect. Listen, hockey does so many good things for so many young people and really teaches a lot of great values. I think our game is it's in a good spot. Let's not lose sight of that. The second piece is I'm watching my little guy out there. He's trying to keep up. So he's changing direction all the time. He's falling down, he's hustling to get up because he doesn't, you know, he wants to keep up with everybody. There's not a hockey school in the world that I can invest in that's gonna provide a better development opportunity than just letting my kid go out there and try and keep up and watch the older kids. Like seriously, like I mean that. There's not there's not a program at this stage where he's gonna learn, um, you know, be developed at that sort of rate. So I think again, going back to Mike's point about the play part, we got to create that space too for these kids to play. And we've got to learn what we've learned from the monkey bars. You know, the best way for kids to learn is to watch the older kids swing on the monkey bars, and they just it's a it's it's magic, right? They just figure it out. And the bad adult they don't need any adults out there teaching them how to go down the slide and do a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:58

That kid fell and hit his head on the monkey bar. Oh, don't do that. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Thing you go. I was telling his dad the other day, he was asking me, like, he had a six-year-old, he's like, Oh, I want to get my kid into power skating, he's falling behind. Oh, you want to you want to do power skating with your six-year-old? Go on the ice and play tag in public session. That's power skating. That's why I learned, yeah, you want to learn how to turn and pivot, or actually, better yet, tell tell the local high school kid, the 15-year-old, to go out and play tag against them. I said, That is like to me, and again, I'm not discounting private coaches and instruction and teaching 100%. But there's some kids, most, I think, that at least build that piece in their you know, love of the game, where it's just, I don't know, I'm just out like they don't even know they're working on power skating. And you could literally take a video of your kid playing tag in public session and probably come up with 20 different skills that they're learning that most people have to pay, you know, down here $40 a session for.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:52

And I don't know. I will maintain that I learned how to skate from just playing roller hockey outside till till the sun went down and going to public session on Friday nights. That's that's how I learn now. Now I harnessed it later on, but I learned to do it just by doing it, right? And no one, no one had to tell me to go. Um, Aaron, I'm just keeping an eye on the clock here because we've had John for some extra time. I appreciate it. What one question I really did want to ask you is is uh in your position, you've seen a lot of coaches, a lot of a lot of great ones, right? So, what I wanted to know is have you noticed any commonalities between the best coaches? I'm not just talking NHL here, I'm just talking across the board. What are the commonalities you see in great coaching or great coaches?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:37

Yeah, great question. Um, I think one, especially at the youth level, that the coaches are are willing to meet the kids where they are. Um, and that might be in the language they use. It might mean they make they get down on one knee and they look them in the eye, uh, but they find ways to make it relatable to the kids. And and they're not worried about everybody in the stands that's watching them, right? Like it's all about the kids. So that's one. Two, um they're organized, they have a plan. And I think that that's so important. And again, I mean, if if the three of us all made a pact today that, you know, we were gonna get ready for. Beach season, and we were gonna start going to the gym. And we all say, you know what, guys, twice a week for 60 minutes, we're all gonna go to the gym, but you can do whatever you want. It doesn't mean we're all gonna get the same results. Like what happens in that 60 minutes is really, really important. Well, it's really, really important what happens in the practice. So good coaches are organized, they have a plan, and they thought long term to make sure they check all the boxes that things happen a progression type format. And um, so that's really important as well. Um, and I think the third part is is that they recognize the value in joy. Like there's a great quote by Daryl Sutter that's where he says, I can make a player skate faster if I remember the name of his dog. Right? If you can create an environment where the kids are having fun, where they care about their teammates, where they really feel, trust me, the kids don't give a shit how many A's are behind their name, they care about the other 14 kids in that locker room and do they feel like they're they're they're an actual team. And if you can create that environment and you cannot make it about the results, um, I think you're gonna have a great experience. And again, I think all those things are accessible to anybody. You don't have to have played the game. And if I was gonna add one more thing, I think you hit it off the top. It's uh Lee, it's about being curious. Like they they genuinely, you know, um, just you might make the best spaghetti in the world, but you'd probably be curious like, can I make it a little bit better? Is there anything I can learn? And I want to make a better batch of spaghetti. And I think it's the same thing in coaching, right? It's like, can I can I add some things in that are gonna make it a bit bit of a better experience? And they're constantly, they're just students of the game. Um, so I think those things are those are important. And I and again, I can't stress this enough. Um, being a great minor hockey coach has nothing to do with the lovely play. I'm sure that can be helpful at times, there's no question. Um, but I think that um anybody, um, if if they can sort of adhere to those three things, they can be uh they can give their kids a great experience.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:23

Well, Aaron, I'm not gonna lie to you, I have several more questions, but I'm gonna respect your time and not keep you on forever. We'll have to have you back on for another episode. There's a lot I want to ask you about about uh just youth hockey mental mental health. I can see you're wearing a huddle hat. So I'm very curious about what that means for the future. Um, but you've been a great guest today. And again, I said at the top of the episode, I'm gonna bookend this. You'll see throughout the episode why this man is so curious and driven and why what he does means so much. This is not just some you know uh website that you just kind of charge your card and forget about. There's so much more, and it's because of your leadership, Aaron. I know you said that you don't want to make it about the coaches say, I'm not trying to do that now, but the way you you present yourself, the way you talk about the game, there's clear passion, there's clear curiosity, there's clear drive to make it better, right? That's that's what we need more of in our game, and that's why what you do is so successful, in my opinion, among many other reasons. The gold star, Mike Benelli is one of them. Can't leave him out, right? And Dave Starman, the silver star. Yeah, but there's a lot of reasons why I want to say that you know there's that New York coming out. But uh, Aaron, any final words before I close it out?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:31

Yeah, you know what? You you said something that I take a lot of notes during these conversations. You said something up the top. You talked about Starbucks, and you talked about just the curiosity that was involved there. I think the other thing that Starbucks did is they said we don't need to be great at hamburgers, and we don't need to be great at tacos or milkshakes or anything else. We're gonna be really good at one thing. And I think that again, um, that's just something that something I'm gonna take away, and hopefully some of our listeners do that. Um, you know, when you're looking at creating a a minor hockey program or you're you're coaching a team, is you know, you don't have to be great at everything, just get really good at the right things, take a lot of pride in that. Um, and and usually I think in any walk of life, when people have sort of taken that mindset, it's amazing um what happens when you when you just get focused on on being good at you know one thing. Um, so I think again, it's for that great teachable moment for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:27

Yeah, no, it's it's and I get a pages of notes here too. It's it's a known aspect of success, right? When you're passionate-driven and you can focus on that one thing. So, Mike, anything fun final from you? I mean, I've complimented you plenty of times today. I want to make sure that you get the final final thing. I'll take some more.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:42

I'll take some more offline, but no, but I guess I think I think just you know, that we have Aaron on and publicly, you know, just thanking him for inspiring and putting this together and finding a great team of people to support him. He's he's got some great people that you know find uh you know, help get those coaches on and and get the the glassing out his own podcast up and running. And you know, there's so many people behind the scenes like in anything, but I think we all benefit from this. Like, I I I become a better hockey director and a better uh producer of talent because of other coaches that he that he is able to get out there and do. There you go. There's a hockey player right there. That's what we like.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:20

See, see, I love that you brought him on, Aaron. I tell I always tell people if my kid ever comes in, he's coming on the podcast with me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:28

Awesome, guys. Well, hey, thanks so much. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:31

All right, thanks, guys. So that's gonna do it for this edition of Our Kids Play Hockey again. Make sure to check out the coach's site. If you're looking for a great last-minute coach's gift, that's where you're gonna go. And make sure you check out our kidsplayhockey.com. We'll have some notes for this there, and you can hear every episode we've ever done if you're head there now. So for Aaron Wilbur, Mike Vanilli, I'm Leah Elias. We'll see you next time on Our Kids Play Hockey. Take it. 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, at 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.