Former NHLer Doug Smith on Hockey, Identity, and Rebuilding Your Life After the Game

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This episode is powered by NHL Sense Arena. Hello, hockey friends and families around the world, and welcome back to another edition of our kids' play hockey. I'm Leah Lias, joined by Mike Benelli. Christy Cash and Burns is on assignment tonight. But today's guest knows both the highs and the hardest realities of the games. He was selected second overall in the 1981 NHL draft. He starred in the OHL with the Ottawa 67s, winning the Bobby Smith Award for outstanding academic achievement. Parents, you're going to love this episode, while also putting up over 100 points in just 54 games. He went on to play in the NHL for the Los Angeles Kings, the Buffalo Sabres, Edmonton Oilers, Vancouver Canucks, and the Pittsburgh Penguins. And then in 1992, everything changed. A devastating spinal injury overseas left him with a prognosis of life as a quadriplegic. But Doug Smith did something extraordinary. He fought back, regained movement, relearned how to walk, and rebuilt his life with purpose. Today he's a businessman, a founder of a charitable donation leader, and a motivational speaker, helping others understand what true resilience looks like. Gets ready to be inspired, my friends. Doug, welcome to Our Kids Play Hockey.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Well, thanks for having me on today. What a great day it is here in Ottawa.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yeah, hey, buddy, listen, it's a great day everywhere right now. You know, it's funny. We're recording this on June 15th, uh, hours after the Stanley Cup final concluded. Um, I think uh it's an interesting day for hockey fans. If you're in Carolina today, you're very happy. And then everybody else is just undefeated as we get as we start the day for the uh 26-27 season. Uh, but beautiful in Ottawa, beautiful in Philadelphia, where I am. Mike, I know you got storms last night too. Probably beautiful across the eastern seaboard. But uh, Doug, let's start here. I want to ask this. We're gonna talk about your hockey career a bit. Uh, we love having guests like you on because you've lived the experience, right? I said it in the open. You were selected second overall in the 81 draft. Uh, that comes with enormous expectations. At 18 years old as a teenager, how do you handle that kind of a spotlight? And what do you think youth players misunderstand about being highly ranked or highly drafted and the aura around that?

SPEAKER_03 2:20

Yeah, you know, it's a it's a great question. There's so many invisible things that that you don't know are coming at you, but they are, and they're dangerous things. And when you're 18, you're not prepared to even look for them because you know you're living full out. And so today what I do is is I help people see those invisible obstacles that are in their way that you know, because you're either helping your performance or you're hurting it, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

And and I didn't know whether I was helping it or hurting it, and so now I deliver a systematic approach to performance and recovery, which which allows people to look at it, to look at a map and go, okay, I don't I shouldn't turn right, I should turn left. And and it's that simple to to pick up on how to protect yourself in in these types of environments. I didn't have that, and LA was uh, I mean, it was the first year of the 18-year-old draft. So they had been only drafting 19-year-olds and 21 year old, 20-year-olds, and and they went to the 18-year-old draft Dale. Howard Chuck went first, Doug Smith went second, Bobby Carpenter went third, and Ron Ron Francis went fourth, and we were part of a big experiment. That's really what it was.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Yeah, I mean, it it's funny, you know, back and back then, I think, you know, you look at the the landscape of of hockey and you know the desire to play in the NHL, but obviously uh you had you must have had some type of other uh you know strong support system, you know, going on to win the OHL's Bobby Smith award for outstanding academic achievement. I mean, that's something we don't even hear, right, from draft choices right now. We don't like, oh, the person got drafted. Oh, and by the way, you're an excellent student athlete. Like, you don't, it doesn't even come into the lexicon of the discussion. And I'm just wondering, you know, the discipline uh that you must have had off the ice uh to achieve a goal like that. Uh what did that what's that teach you? What what could our athletes take away of what that can how that can help you on the ice today?

SPEAKER_03 4:19

I was in a unique position. Look, my mom, um, because I live in Ottawa, my mom made a deal with Brian Kilray. And then, and then to get drafted into the NHL, my my coach, you know, Brian Kilray made a deal with George Maguire. You know, and I ended up there. I just, you know, I just happened to be connected to the to the to the right people and and and they protected me and they surrounded me. And I had my injuries, but I was always surrounded by family and people who I couldn't imagine being injured and living eight hours away from from my family and and trying to recover. And and so every time I got injured, every time I had to get back into the game, I I it it was it was basically I was surrounded by love, and and that's the thing that heals you, right? And and protects you. So I got better fast. I learned how to get better fast and get back in the game because you're not gonna get away with uh no injuries.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah, I'm wondering too, you know, just based off of your background on the academic side, is you know, we talk a lot about, you know, like especially like when I'm when I'm working with uh prospective college students. I'm like, well, when you choose, if you're not gonna get drafted to the NHL and you're gonna just go to college as a student, you know, one of the things you want to project is if I go to this particular school, can I be successful here if hockey is taken away from me? And that's exactly what happened to you, right? I mean, hockey was pretty much taken away from you. And do you feel like that that that that great strong base in your academic piece has helped you succeed where you are right now today?

SPEAKER_03 5:54

Well, it's the way I think. Um, I I think is the answer to that question. I, you know, I have a unique way of thinking, and and I believe that you should be open, random, and supportive as opposed to closed, selective, and controlling. And and and and if you're open, random, and supportive, you'll have things coming at you, opportunities coming at you. They come at me all day long, and they don't come from the hockey market, they come from different markets today. So being able to attract opportunity into your life, I think, comes from the way that you behave as an individual and how what you attract from the world. And and I I like again, my my mother, you know, she was a single mom, and she carried me on her shoulders, man, through the through the whole thing. And then she introduced me to my wife at Nortel, uh at Nortel Networks, and we got married, and we'll be married for 40 years, and and my wife put me on her shoulders. So so I I've had I have two daughters and two sisters. I I've been I've been surrounded by women my whole life, and and you know what? I have to attribute 80% of my success to that.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Yeah. You know, it's an amazing point you bring up, Doug, and a few a few aspects here. You know, one is earlier you said about how you help people now with the path, right? The pathways that they're trying to make. And it's funny, what I like to tell youth hockey families is there's no one direct path to your goal, your dream, whether that's the NHL or anything else. But success leaves clues. There are you can you can ask for directions, like that's one of the things that that I think uh people forget.

SPEAKER_03 7:31

And you know, if you if you know you need directions, yes, right.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

That that's just where I was gonna go with this, right? Is is that uh a lot of times, you know, I have this with my own kids, kind of making them understand you're not the first person to have done this, which is okay. I think everybody wants to be, especially kids. I want to be the originator, and it's like, you know, there's been a few billion people on this planet over the history of uh mankind. Somebody may have done this before. Um, and success leaves clues. So, my question to you, and especially I love that you brought up the women that have inspired you in your life. Can we talk for a minute about how success leaves clues? How what approaches worked to get you to either awaken or understand the directions that you were given. Um, you said it was based in love, and and I'm just curious about that because I always love to give our our audience some actionable examples or items that we can discuss here about hey, here's a great way to give information, here's also a great way to take information, right? But the directions are available if you want if you want them.

SPEAKER_03 8:32

It's going from your current reality to your desired future, that's called a bridge. Right? Whatever your current reality is, there's a bridge to your desired future. Love that, and and and if you can build that bridge, and this works in corporate too, right? It it works for anybody that's out there, and if you can build that bridge, uh and you have to build it, it's not like anybody else is gonna come along and say, you know, I mean, Mike, the uh I'm gonna I'm gonna build this bridge for you so you can get to your desired future because you wouldn't even get on the bridge, right? You you wouldn't even recognize what it was because it wasn't yours. That's a great point. And so, so that and that's the central nervous system. And so today that's what I spend all my time on is focused on the central nervous system, and the books I read are like encyclopedias to better understand how we can recover and perform better, you know. And I and I can when I meet somebody and they tell me their situation and it and it's it's not good physically or psychologically. I I have the tools in my tool belt to say, why don't maybe you could try this or maybe you could try that. And then that's why I learn. That's why I learn about this stuff. And I try to keep I and I when I got out of hockey, I uh I was the VP of Linux care, the biggest uh professional services play in in open source. I would I was one person away from the top people in open in the in in support for the revolution, you know, to change the way that the internet works, and so like I went from hockey to that stuff, right? Because I had to figure out a better way. And and and if you're playing a sport, if you're a kid playing a sport and you're not spending your time figuring out a better way to do it and just trying to copy somebody that's doing it already, then the chances of you succeeding are going to be a lot lower.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

So so I think I'll go ahead, Lee.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Well, I just want to pull the throat on that real quick because Doug, I I love what you're saying, I'll tell you why. Because something I wish I had been told younger, and you know what? To your point earlier, maybe I was told this younger, I just didn't hear it until I was a little bit older. But I know the time and the dedication I was willing to put into the game, and it wasn't until maybe my early 20s that I realized, oh, wait, I can apply this to anything. I don't, it's not just hockey. And what you realize is is that was kind of in me all the time. I was just applying it to the game and only the game. And I think that what you said earlier about oh, I just think differently, I do things differently. I bet you approached the game the same way. So, where where I'm going with this, especially for the parents, is that you know, if you're listening to the show, especially if you're a kid, you you probably have a kid or you are a kid that is very uh enthralled by this game. That relentless pursuit towards your passion should be applied to school, should be applied to other extracurricular activities, should be applied to just being a good person. And I think that from a youth sports standpoint, I'm gonna go even broader here. That's something I wish we did more as coaches, and I'll say as a community, is to inspire these kids that it's so amazing that you have a love and a passion for this game. Just know you can apply this to anything, and the more you do it outside the game, the more it will actually affect the game, right? The kids who are relentless at school, at music, at chores, and the game are getting more reps in of what I'm talking about. Can you comment on that a little bit about you know your personality and what you've seen?

SPEAKER_03 12:01

Well, okay, so so playing hockey, I always thought it was about being the best in the world, and and I was pursuing being the best in the world, and and I got there, I was one spot away from being the best in the world when Dale Howerchuk got drafted. When I broke my neck, when it ended, and I knew it was over when I hit the boards, and we could talk about that more. Yeah, I I instantly went towards trying to be the best for the world. Instantly. It was it was it was it didn't take five seconds. I was conscious when I hit the ground. I knew my neck, I had broken my back, right? Because I heard it. When you break your back like that, you you hear it, right? And it you know it's done. So, you know, all of a sudden I knew that there was nothing there anymore, just like that. There was nothing there, there was no hockey anymore, and it was a it was a huge, vast pit, and I needed something, and and and it was like, okay, so um what am I gonna do? And in that moment, it was it all I could think of is helping other people, and and how I was gonna help this is hard. How I was gonna help my family, right? I mean, that those were the two things that hit me being the best in the world and how was I gonna help them because they needed to be no, I mean it's um it's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

I mean, I I I I definitely want to get to the actual injury piece because obviously that's been such a influential part of your your you know uh your success and your vision and and the and the and the person you've become to help all of us. Um I I think it's uh you know, but but going into that, right? I mean, I think it's just such a strong person and a strong personality because to me, you know, I would think that if you're drafted second overall, you're a hockey player, right? That's your identity. I mean, when you look back, where you're like, oh, well, this is what I'm gonna I'm gonna be the best player in the world. Like that's my that's my vision, like that's who I'm going to be. And can you just talk about forget, you know, let's get to the injury in a second, but how dangerous it is for a young athlete to go in saying and have a singular like I and I know there's there's a part of that that is why you're successful, but why that singular focus that this is who I am, I am a hockey player. How dangerous is that if you don't have anything else to lean back on uh and to support you when you're not a hockey player anymore?

SPEAKER_03 14:37

Yeah, taking responsibility is is is probably the biggest uh issue for hockey players and professional athletes, in my opinion. I I've struggled with that um you know since my career ended, and I have to somebody has to grab me and point me back at responsibility, right? Because it was just a game, and you just run around playing a game and you're trying to beat somebody else, and that's what motivates you. And and so the whole structure you know throw throws a human being off. And the things that we're discovering in in science right now is it's it's about the world, it it's not about it's not about the physical, psychological, it's but it's about what the world's what's happening to you and how the world's affecting you. So so we don't have the ability to protect ourselves from becoming what we're around. And so if you look at a hockey player, what are they around 80% of the time? They're in the dressing room, they're so they're becoming that that thing. And if they're not aware that that's happening to them, and I think that's where the next piece of education is gonna go, is gonna go, what is happening from these other people, you know? Like, and and so that's the the area that's cutting edge right now, and you're gonna see a lot of scientific research happening. I know because of the relationships I have with the neuroscience community.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

You know, you're bringing up something pretty interesting, Doug. You know, in my coaching journey, it's taken me all over the world. And I have met kids who, and this is not a joke for the listeners, who have not left the square mile they were born in their entire lives. All right, when I when I work in the cities, um, you'll meet kids who have not left a mile radius their whole life, so their universe is that that mile radius. And adversely, I've coached hockey players that have been in multiple continents and seen multiple parts of the world. The the the the difference in perspectives is vast. And my point is it's not that one is better or than the other, you know, your experience is your experience, but you can get locked in. You don't know what you don't know. It's dangerous, it's dangerous, correct, right? And like you said about the world and the community. To me, not to go super like on a pedestal here, but the human experience really is what should be shared with each other so we can all learn. It kind of goes back to what I said earlier is like, I'm not the first person to do this before, right? So I think that that's a fantastic answer about you know identity, especially in the game. And and again, you know, look for the kid, you know, with the kids, yeah. Look, when you get into something, it becomes your whole universe when you're young. Like, you just don't have that perspective. It's just on us, as uh I will say the village to to introduce new perspectives. Again, in my house, you are required to play an instrument or sing in addition to sports. That's awesome, right? Yeah, it's just part of it. It's just the way it and just so everybody listens. Yeah, my kids don't hate music. I'm not forcing them to do it, it's just that's how we presented it. Well, that's what they're doing. And you know what? My son said to me the other day, Mike, I didn't even tell you this. Um, my son came, he plays the violin, and he came to me the other day unprompted and started connecting the violin and the creativity of violin to hockey. Wow, and he was he was talking to me about how how he's learning the music and how that that coordination somehow in his brain is connecting to the game. Now he's a goalie. So these might be goalie things that he's saying now that I'm thinking about it. But how cool was that? Like that that he's seeing it. And to me, in the point of this conversation, the point I'm bringing this up is to me, that's oh, the world just opened up to him a little bit more. Yeah, right. He's not just a goalie, yeah, in his mind. And I, you know, again, I don't mind gushing about my kids. It's it's our show. I hope everybody at home listening gushes about your absolutely. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 18:37

I got I got grandkids now, and they it's it's it's Tuesday with summer Tuesday with Grandpa Doug's sports camp.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

I love it. I we should think of an acronym for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Yeah, the the the point I think but I think I think that I think when you say that though, Lee, and and and right, Doug, like that, like I think you know that's why music's so powerful and and and and theater and and the arts for athletes, I think, because it is a symphony, it is a dance, it is coordination, it is rhythm. Like that is what sport is. It's just another rhythm. Like I love when I like I do I do a lot of lacrosse training and doing like wall ball. And I'm like, guys, just put some headphones on and and find some music you love rhythm with. Like, find rhythm because that's like when you see a clunky kid and you just see a kid without rhythm, I'm like, well, that if that kid can't dance well, he's probably not a great athlete. He just like it just goes hand in hand. But I think to to Lee's point, so you're not only and if you're a listener to the show, you'll know like not only you're becoming, and we joke around about everything can't be to become a better hockey player, but this sounds like it's a good thing to become a better hockey player. Like, so so you know, it's it's it's it it it it it it has two, you know, instead of playing baseball and hockey to become a better hockey player, learn music, you know, learn music, learn rhythm, learn dance. It's gonna help you in life. And I think Doug, that's where you, that's where you kind of you come in. After you know, you get this catastrophic injury. I I I need to hear more about this because it sounds forget about how emotional it sounds. It's to me, it's such a devastating conversation because of and looking back of like where you are now and what you overcame and what you were able to persevere through. I think could you just go can you just walk us through that process of yeah, so let me let me and just hearing you talk about it just initially, I'm like, okay, well, I I I not that I want to hear more about it, but I gotta hear how you got through it and then instantly said, Okay, I gotta do something else now.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Okay, so so let me tell you the story. Okay, here's the story, and I rarely tell the whole story of what happened because it's not that it's too long, but it was very it was complex. So I I shattered C5 and six. I went 25 miles an hour, about 40 kilometers an hour, headfirst into the N boards with no slowing down, dead stop, and it caused a compression explosion of C5 and C6. Uh, I fell to the ice with my head on my hands, all the ligaments in the back of my neck were torn, and I was neurologically stable. I stayed in that position for six hours while they searched my spine for injury and they finally found it, and then they put me in halo fixation, which I did not go under anesthetic for because I didn't want to be put to sleep. So I had them screw four screws three millimeters into my skull awake. And and and and and uh it was like a Frankenstein movie, right? And then uh so I'm in the halo for and I had that halo taught me something I couldn't look down, so I had to look people in the eye, and I didn't usually look people in the eye before. And being in the halo for three months, like when you walk into a room, everybody looks at you, and you have to make you can't put your head down and you can't close your eyes, and so so that taught me a huge lesson, you know, being in the halo, and then when I got out of the halo my wife was was was uh due in a month she was eight months pregnant and we had a two year old and and so uh i when they took the halo off they found a kink in my neck so that because of the ligaments were torn so they had to do stabilization surgery and it was very risky because I had narrowing of my spinal cord canal and I went into surgery and uh the last thing I I remember I woke up um on the oper on the table uh after surgery and I I couldn't feel anything and I just went oh excuse me for saying this but I went fuck and I closed my eyes and I went back to sleep and um you know my the the doctors told us that there wasn't really any chance for recovery I was moved to the Ottawa rehab center where I used to take my wheelchair down the hall and I had one arm I could use my left arm and I and I would throw throw a ball against the wall uh you know sitting on the floor that's how I started in a hospital in the middle of the night sitting on the floor throwing a ball against the wall and there were no cameras there there there was nothing like that happening and then they they didn't treat me very well because improvement wasn't a big huge huge thing on the agenda at the rehab center then and and even now we're we're seeing problems with it. And so one weekend my wife took me home and uh she had a hospital bed that she had gotten from um Carlton Place Hospital at home and I never went back I never went back she had the baby a week a week before I was paralyzed before my surgery and we had a newborn and a two year old at home and and I literally crawled out of that bed it was a it was uh you know we had finished building a new house and the the hospital bed was there she she was catheterizing me three times a day because my bladder I had no bladder function no bowel function no arms no legs and so it was like starting with a fresh slate and now I mean you know like I I I can I'm back to doing anything with a frisbee and I'm teaching my grandkids how to juggle all the things that I that I did when I was recovering from a spinal cord injury because I was a child. I learned how to do all this stuff as a result of trying to recover um you know so so it was about a year I had no bladder function and I had to get off all my medication so I had to get I was addicted to morphine so so I was on morphine like 50 milligrams every four hours for a year and and and my but my bladder wouldn't function and my wife was still catheterizing me uh with the babies geez and so so it was like okay um no more no no more medication and and and I went cold turkey I remember I remember the last half of of of of of of my pills the last half of pill that I had left I remember it because I had it and I said that's it within three weeks of getting off the medication my bladder started functioning and my bladder functions fine today it's functioned for another 30 years right so you know that that's the story and now I'm I'm back so right now I have I have no extension strength in my right hand so I I can grip but I can I can't push away because when you suffer us uh from a spinal cord injury you close up like a flower closing up you lose the ability to open so I spend a tremendous amount of time in in in the in the rehab center that I work at now um opening up opening up movement movement movement not linear we don't do anything linear at the clinic and and I'm and I'm encouraging uh the kids and the athletes that the that we're working with because we're working with professional athletes I I'm encouraging them to change the way they think about linear workouts so that that that's where I am now I'm like use your brain more uh I was left with just my mind for a period of time.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

No I mean you literally rebuilt your body I mean you know what you talked about earlier you know about the no cameras being there and nobody really watching you and and no and and I you know the one thing that was a little disturbing was like nobody really like believing that what you were doing would help and which and and when you said you know you still think that that might be a little prevalent today is this just is this just the nature of the injury where somebody says listen your mind's not powerful enough to overcome this injury or is it just your you because of who you were and you're you know obviously you you're you're you're a professional athlete like so your mode of your your ability to withstand pain and to overcome adversity and to fight through things obviously was inherent because you wouldn't have got to where you got if you didn't have those things. Was that a good factor in where you are today?

SPEAKER_03 27:23

I I wanted to to die like there was two times that I wanted to commit suicide but I was paralyzed and you can't hold your breath to death right because you'll pass out and and and so I I told my wife when I couldn't turn the shower on and when they wheeled me to the shower and I couldn't get the shower on that uh that it it was time. And she said she said while she's like got a baby in one hand and nursing the other she said you know that that's enough of that we're not gonna have this conversation again so you know so so you know that that got me over like uh uh some some hurdles that uh that I did I didn't have the physical or psychological uh capacity to to overcome and and you know the the whole world is shifting to this and if the audience can get anything today it's it's the shift from mind body you know we went we moved to this mind body concept of how the world works and everybody bought into it but but it's nonsensical you you you can't it can't be supported the model that that we're going to subscribe to in the future all of us is world brain because our brain synchronizes with the world right so from a psychiatric standpoint from a neuroscience standpoint it's world brain not mind body throw mind body out the window and and get every kid that you work with get every team that you know to shift to a world brain model and get them to understand that every one of your actions is going to impact every other single person in the room and and and watch the kids like master this stuff but you got to prove it to them and that's what I'm that's what I'm embarking on right now is I I'm about to open a an 18000 square foot clinic and and and we're just gonna be doing this that's all with kids it's it's a school to grade four to grade 12 and and it's called the Peak Performance Academy and we're gonna start producing some of the best athletes in the country there and this is just opening it we we're just like in the next two weeks we're we're we're opening the facility and they're lining up outside the door because because it's it's about recovery performance and longevity there's no point in having longevity if you don't have performance because you're gonna be in pain right you don't want to be in pain so recovery performance longevity require the same systematic approach to human performance so there's no difference between them you so because I was I recovered using that process uh I became a an NHL player using that process you know so what's the difference between recovery and performance there there isn't one and so prove that I you know the kids that are watching this or listening to this I'm about to prove that so just come knocking and I'll just say here you go here's the data you know and and and when we launched the study of a thousand people a thousand to twelve hundred people with the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Center here in Canada when we launch the study that we're doing everybody's gonna jump on board if you want to be early then subscribe to this now right and and then start to get dripped on and and build trust like I that's all what I'm doing now is I'm working really hard at building trust with the people who are listening to me.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Is is it possible like I'm not in Ottawa right so is it possible to he to I I just want to hear more not to give you not to give anything away but just explain to me how how how you're you're instituting this you would institute this philosophy to a group of 14 year olds and they're in the room and they all think they're doing this but really they could be doing this how that is going to benefit them.

SPEAKER_03 31:15

Yeah yeah the bump in performance is about 300% so so they'll trip or they'll like with and when you work with groups of people and you show them the physics this is a physics exercise okay the bump in performance for an organization is 300% right right they good to take the culture and and take it from a toxic culture to a high performing culture that's about the performance bump that you get and and and the same numbers work for each human being so so like when you switch your perception of of what it is to be successful and and it gets you on the right ladder not the wrong ladder because the other ladder sort of ends at 12 feet you want to go to 25 feet right and and but people have bought into I can only go to 12 feet right yeah because somebody sold them on that it's funny the how do I say this the constraints we put around ourselves that don't exist and I'll give everybody a funny example of this uh like money is a made up thing now look you need it to survive I'm not I'm not saying money doesn't matter okay because like that that is how we govern buying and purchasing things but you've heard the astronauts say when they get out into space and they look back at the earth it's like every everything on this planet we made up we created all of it money government languages like it's all just something we we came up with it's not the universe right it's it's just constraints that we've made to govern ourselves right yes yes and when you realize that again it's not I'm gonna say this again it's not that these things don't matter people dedicate their lives to these things but what I'm saying is you there's a higher space here of like understanding that wow I'm locked into this cocoon that we've created for ourselves there is space unintended beyond that yes and when you tap into that it it'll change your life in a lot of different ways right I one of my favorite uh pictures that I've seen Doug and I saw this a lot actually when uh Artemis II was going around the moon was uh it was like an arrow pointing at Earth and it says you live here living in fear and paying taxes yeah yeah I remember that yeah yeah yeah absolutely I love that one because it's true it's like it's like we we create that mindset for ourselves all right and and look just to the audience listening I'm not saying if you adopt the mindset that we're talking about here that all your problems go away or anything like that but you will become more creative in how you can find solutions and how you see the world uh you know Doug one of my beliefs and and they look I'm a team builder by trade is that the more we can get used to working together the more success you will find right like like we humans are meant to operate in teams whether you are introverted or extroverted or anywhere in between every bit of data shows we are supposed to work together in groups or herds because we are also animals at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Right? And I think that tapping into that is also important. And you're talking about that quite a bit about the you know the the world mind I I I love that I never heard that before it's it's not a mindset it's a process.

SPEAKER_03 34:32

Right. Okay so it's a process for transformation and and let me read the system to you so that when I like when I go and speak to an audience of 500 people every single person gets this this system at their seat because I want to say to them before I start that if they have to go they they they can take with them what I came to deliver. So there are only four types of trauma that we suffer from and we all suffer from them catastrophic physical catastrophic emotional cumulative physical and cumulative emotional cumulative emotional is the only one we can't see so that's the only one we have to worry about the other ones you can see them. Yeah so you stop doing it some of them you know like are it's so obvious and so cumulative emotional trauma requires something else other than your abil your brain's ability okay because because the subconscious mind controls you it controls 95% of you and it's like an 800 pound gorilla but it only has three priorities meeting basic needs which is the money thing right just meet basic needs working on clarity of thought and helping other people it doesn't care about anything else if if you're not behaving in a way that feeds those priorities you're cutting out 95% of your human potential and so the behaviors in order that you can learn and they're easy to learn you can learn them through meditation I've got a beautiful meditation series awareness purpose motivation focus belief in self trust asking for help and emotional control though that's the order right and so order order in a knowledge worker society when the speed of information increases is critical because if you get the order wrong you're gonna be so far behind you're gonna think you're out in front so Doug do me a favor I love that you said you speak to 500 people because right now you're speaking to a few thousand people read read me those in order again and I'll tell you why I'm having to do that read me those in order again oh oh you can't have the one underneath it before you have the first one awareness yeah awareness is first if you're not aware you're done right uh purpose if you don't have a purpose then you're done motivation focus a belief in self trust asking for help and emotional control now I didn't learn those behaviors in that order I didn't need awareness to get to the NHL I just stumbled into it right right I I it wasn't till after I broke my neck that I had to become aware somebody slapped me across the face and said get get with the program this isn't reality right be conscious and be conscious yes be conscious now I had you read those again because when we started this show several years ago six years ago one of the catalysts for us starting this show and I remember having this conversation with Mike was all this footage of these crazy moronic parents completely losing their emotional control on camera and fighting in the stands or doing something crazy.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

And the reason I had you read those again is because for those of you listening I want you to think about in the stands people who do not have emotional control and we're talking with you Doug and that's the end of the process right of what you're talking about right yes it starts with awareness. I always love that that word consciousness is one of the ones I like to say emotional control is one of the hardest ones sorry to interrupt no it's fine but my my point is that like what most people are trying to do that and they don't realize there's a process to get there. That's why you have a crazy hockey parent because they're not conscious they're not aware of these things. So I just think that there's a connection point there.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

And you're right it's not just about being in a youth hockey arena this is about life this is about things and and you can accomplish amazing things without even knowing this but when you become conscious to these types of concepts it'll change your life so so this works for recovery from anything and it works to achieve high performance in anything yeah and and I and I got to go back to lacrosse because lacrosse was my game right so what it wasn't hockey and and so like how many kids are you working with like right now like I want to come to your lacrosse camp more than I want to go to a hockey camp man I'm down we got an open invitation yeah yeah no I got any at any given time it's it's like I fight and and again this is where I this is and no doubt about this is and I just talked to a bunch of parents yesterday this is why this show is so important to me personally because I don't get a chance to go out and see Doug Smith. I don't go out and get a chance to see this guy. I I I can take all this information and then I have to remember though that not everybody is getting the same information as me. And I get frustrated you know at listening to people I'm like this doesn't matter what you're talking about doesn't matter. Like to me lacrosse is a field a stick and a ball you you don't need to travel to another country or state to get better at lacrosse you need to be in your own state like of mine like you you need to be in a in a whole different area and I think today's hockey world sporting world lacrosse world is we're all chasing something else instead of going and and following these little directives that are really the essence of life right but but we're we're trying to get to another destination without and talk about you know not having a bridge like we don't even build our own bridge we're just saying hey get me over there but I don't want to have to do I don't have to I don't want to have to pay the tolls you know I don't want to have to do all the things to get there. Just get me there and by the way I'll just pay to go there. And I think this is where we've lost so much in our in our youth sporting culture here in the US for sure I know in Canada because we talk to Canadians every day and and I it sounds like you know you're trying to build that bridge to to to kind of bring this back in.

SPEAKER_03 40:37

Yes yes the model is shifting so sports and corporate corporate are my market so corporate corporate needs this because it's an invisible competitive advantage so so I'll be delivering this to executives and and and and showing them and proving it to them and then walking out of the boardroom.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

Right and the fact is our athletes are our next business people like this is why that's why we do this right that that we don't I mean I I I know that there are this and Lee right we talk about it every day there are the percentage I get it they get involved because they want their kid to go play pro. But everyone else the mere mortals every single other person is going to have to do work in something that's not hockey and this is the vehicle or one of the ways that we can teach our youth players and athletes and parents the way to get this and get this through the system without and and still getting sport like still getting the play which we all love to watch and and and participate in a process every everybody lock this in the what is your process for transformation if and I ask people that I ask kids that and I asked their parents that can you show me what you're using your process for what the heck is that right I want change I don't like change change is in the cupboard I put put change wait wait wait wait wait whoa whoa whoa it's speeding up okay so this if the game's speeding up you better stop you know trying to play old school hockey no no doubt about it I think we we see this all the time and you know and the reason like a guest like you is so intriguing to me is because we see we keep trying to put like when I see players that aren't already on an elite team or the best team in their age group they're all continuing to follow the same path as those players and in fact what they need is a whole different path they need something so different because they're never going to catch them. They're never going to catch up and and and but we just keep saying well this is what I do this and then I do this I no no no you you you can't do any of these things because you're not even there. So you're trying to get there without building any support and any foundation but it's such a hard concept for for parents to embrace it it it's almost it's almost impossible.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

Yeah like it like you know something interesting about lacrosse it's it's the best sport for proprioception yeah right and and proprioception fires neuroplasticity right because you you you you can't see the ball going into the net right your stick your hockey sticks out front your lacrosse sticks behind you so you you have this space that's unseen that you're managing right you're a 12 year old don't even know if the ball's in there in in the stick that's right what what happened it's not very that's right so so just just imagine right if you introduce proprioception to them for example at the University of Montreal Dr. Faubert is is doing the latest work on three dimensional tracking and and and we're in the clinic we're using the technology and we're seeing like a 600% bump in performance in six weeks like you know any everybody improves anywhere from 50 to 500 but but it's like holy you could you can generate this proprioception like in the lab inside your brain in my brain and so I I took it on And went six weeks hard, I quadrupled my spatial capacity. And even driving and doing other stuff, like with my body, my my brain's got it under control. So and and you can keep pushing this ball slowly with this technology. It's only like 12 10 minutes a day. And and and your brain takes a long time to slow down. So you can speed it up quickly, and then it takes it takes a long time to slow down, unless you just go sit on the couch. If you go sit on the couch, your brain will slow down like a gyroscope, and then you won't be able to handle the fast play. Everybody knows that what that feels like.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

Yeah, I've always been amazed. I tell my own players this you can accomplish a lot in 10 minutes a day or 15 minutes a day. And it can be mindfulness, it can be strength, it can be it can be anything, right? Any skill you want to build. It does not take as much time as people think. No, right now, again, you can put more time into it. Don't get me wrong. But I'll give you a great example. Just bring this back to youth hockey. I coach a 10U team, and one of my prerequisites is on and I do it like this on non-skating days. Keeping in mind we typically skate four days a week. On nine skit, non-skating days, I want you to do 10 minutes a day of really basic puck handling. I give them the exercise. I say, I just want you to get in the habit. Well, what if I'm not good at it? I just want you to get in the habit because these habits pay off way down the line when you're 25 years old and you just know how to form a habit. Um, not to mention, I tell the parents, you'll be shocked what 10 minutes a day will do. And I said, I encourage seven days a week, but at that age, I don't force anything, right? Or five days a week. And it's it, and then I'll do things with mindfulness too. Like I want you to focus on an object for 30 seconds and really describe the object and feel the object and look at the shape and the colors and things like that. You can build these up in less time than you think. And for those of you who say, and look, look, we've all heard this before. Oh, I don't have 10 minutes a day. Yeah, you do.

SPEAKER_03 45:56

Yes, I'm gonna give you my meditation series, right? Which hasn't launched, it'll launch in the fall, and you can share it with your audience and they can down, they can download it to their phone and they get they get all the behaviors and the model. It's like like I I just want the world to have it. My dream is to drop what I created from helicopters. And and so when somebody picks it up, you know, they find it on the ground, they look at it, they go, Oh, geez, I'm gonna take this, you know.

SPEAKER_00 46:23

My secret, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

You know, that we'll be created in New York in a few days.

SPEAKER_00 46:32

You're gonna need more than a helicopter. But I think I think you know, to but to your point, I think this is where, you know, Doug, I wonder, you know, as you go into this as a business perspective and a and a and really like changing um, you know, a real a culture of sport, is that do you find that like I I know like in a lot of things I do, like my big the pe the best kids I work with or the best families I work with are my are my least energetic um influencers of what I do because they all think that it's like their secret. They're like, oh well, I'm not gonna tell somebody about this great piece I found for my kid because I want that's like my thing. Like I wanted that for me. So I it's a funny thing how parents but but when you bring it back to the the team's success is my success. Like when our team succeeds, we all are helping do this, that yes, you are still gonna you're still gonna get what you wanted. You're gonna get your own success. I think that's just a hugely important piece to the parents that listen to this. Because right now, you know, we have those parents that say, Oh, I'm gonna find Doug Smith's pamphlet and I'm gonna I'm gonna live it, and my kids are gonna succeed without them knowing that they can succeed, without the rest of the team succeeding. And I think that's really one of the most important pieces of this, no?

SPEAKER_03 47:47

Yeah, you become what you're around again. If nothing else is learned from this from this talk today, subscribe to that rule. If you subscribe to that rule and you figure out a model based on that, your success will be much higher, much higher, you know. So, like it it it's it's astronomical what happens to people. And if you get a group of people together and they all agree that that's the way it is, then then all of a sudden it's like super accelerator, right? So, like, imagine that because we're seeing it, we're we've seen it for years in in turning around high like a work culture. So you got a company that's got 500 people and it's flying Mach 5 into the ground. How do you turn it around? You turn it around by changing the culture. That's the only way. There, there isn't another way, right? And so we already know this, and so all we're doing is applying some of this stuff to sports.

SPEAKER_01 48:49

Yeah, and and I think that I'm gonna say this again, Doug, that it takes the whole community to kind of do this. It's you know, I think parents, Mike, to your point, are always focused on their player and what my player needs. You know, sometimes it's us as parents, we we have to have a shift too, you know. I I remember some really influential people in my life that were adults when I was younger, I'll say a teenager, maybe in that kind of spongy age as a teenager. Yeah, and I was watching these adults go through some pretty, pretty major transformations, and it had a massive effect on me, um, as not just a player, but as a person, and it really helped me prepare for life better. So I'm just making the point of that this information is not just limited to children or hockey players, like it's all of us. We we all play a role in in finding this, and and you know, parents, people listening, if you improve upon yourself as a person, it will transcend to your children 100.

SPEAKER_03 49:40

Yeah, meet basic needs, clarity of thought, and helping other people, and and and don't focus on anything else, the other stuff will get done.

SPEAKER_01 49:51

100. You know, I want to ask that too, just perspective for hockey parents, you know, just bringing this back because I'm sure we're getting a lot of nods at home right now. Like, this is great stuff. What after everything you've experienced with perspective, a lot of parents focus on wins, losses, rankings, recruiting, how many points my kid got, you know. How how do you equate that to long-term success? What should parents be focused on?

SPEAKER_03 50:17

Oh, I can only I only know my experience. I never knew how many points I had growing up. I never knew how many points I had when I was in the NHL. I should have because it was my business, but I uh my brain doesn't work that way. It's like I I I learn from the experience and then I move on and leave all the negative stuff behind, and just you know, just keep it real and keep it positive and keep keep smiling, you know, and and that seems to have have worked um like incredibly well, not just psychologically, but but physically. And the fallout from what we're talking about today into the mental health sector is massive. I'm doing a dare to be vulnerable event in Ottawa with I don't know how many people um on Thursday, right? And and and this subject of mental health and what happened with Claude Lemieux and all this stuff. Yeah, you know, people are actually searching now. And and and and the ones what I'm telling healthcare workers, chiropractors, massage therapists, don't worry, the numbers are too big. Don't don't look at time or the next few months as an issue in your life because there's so many people coming at the practitioners now. The baby boomers are just about to be a dump truck. You just got to get your processes down, get your systems ready, and and get ready for the wave because it's gonna be a big wave.

SPEAKER_01 51:41

Yeah, I agree with you that that's coming. And you know, I love that you use the word vulnerability. What used to be looked at as a massive weakness is now being understood that it's actually a massive strength, right? I mean, there is a way to do it, right? And I think when we say vulnerability to people, a lot of people think, Well, I'm not gonna be crying in a corner talking about all my feelings. Like, that's that's not exactly what that is, right? So I think an exploration into that from all of us, teaching your kids to be able to do that creates strength, all right. Because I'll say this too, Doug. Sooner or later, sooner or later, if you don't figure that side of it out, it will explode. It will it's gonna come out at some point.

SPEAKER_03 52:19

It's hard, you don't get away with anything, and it's hard for me too. Like I get up in the morning and go, what are the priorities? You know, do I need to meditate on the priorities? Yeah, and and and and if you get those priorities out of whack, it's amazing how certain things will slip, you know, right? And it happens to me, happens to me, right? So shit, all the time.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

Yeah, I just uh you know, I wanted to go back to hockey for one second because I don't want to miss this opportunity, unless we're gonna go for another hour, Lee. But I think uh I I think I think there's um you know, I think uh especially the there's a lot of the audience that we have right now, like is not gonna remember or even know the LA Kings of the of the gold and purple area and the re and the time frame, like how good and how great the players were on that team. Can you describe the influence that that you know being a part of that organization very early in your professional career had when you had, I mean, you had guys like like Marcel Dion and Himmer and you know these guys unbelievable, right? I mean, so so can you just talk about you know just the the like what those players did that you saw as a as a young player coming into the league that said, wow, this is these guys are professionals and this is how they conduct themselves every day?

SPEAKER_03 53:35

It wasn't really like that when I got to LA. It was it was um uh pretty much uh uh an organization in in decline. Um, you know, George was drinking too much, like George McGuire, and and and um I ended up uh in uh in court uh having to testify against Don Perry, my coach, for destroying somebody's career. So I was I was 19 years old and I was in in court doing depositions against my coach and then sitting on the bench in front of him. And you know, like there was it was insanity in LA because there's only one team on the West Coast, so there was no cameras on us. And the philosophy of the teams back then was you know, show up for practice on time, show up for the plane on time, and show up for the game on time. And it we don't give a shit what what what you do outside the game. So I took a bag of money, a day, a bag of cash, $28,000, okay, in 1981. And I took a bag of cash, I got a cab to drive me to Circle Porsche Audi, and I gave the guy the cash for that black Porsche right there, and I drove it out of the freaking showroom onto the uh you know, onto the street in Long Beach, and there was nobody on the team. I was wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. I I there there was nobody on the team, they weren't interested in helping. Now, today, today, going back to Edmonton and the closing of the Northlands and seeing the different teams now in Buffalo. Each player has like six supporters, six or seven supporters, where I didn't even know what it was when I first heard the name, right? There, that we had we had literally no sport, and and and there was uh the the culture in LA was many of the guys that were coming there were coming there because they wanted to finish out their career. Tiger Williams, Steve Shott, you know, like like these guys were 34, 35 years old, and and not that they weren't good players or good guys, but but there was no real building mechanism going on. So I was begging to be traded from year three, and finally they had they hired Pat Quinn in year four, and he was the first guy, Pat Quinn, and I had him again in Vancouver because he wanted me again. He was the first guy to to ask me what I wanted to achieve, the first coach that I ever had, like that. And that was in year four. Okay, nobody nobody cared what I wanted to achieve, what I wanted to accomplish. Pat said, What do you what do you want? I'm the new coach, general manager. I gotta get out of here. And and immediately Scotty Bowman stepped in in Buffalo, who and he'd been trying to draft me since the it since get me since the draft. He traded for me and and and I went to to Buffalo and became a star in Buffalo from LA. But I was I was literally trapped uh in LA because they the contracts weren't written in a way that you could like say, I want to be traded somewhere. Right. I would have to stop playing.

SPEAKER_01 56:33

It's a different time in sports history.

SPEAKER_00 56:35

Right, but but I but you make a great you make it you make a uh you know, just for today's athlete, right? That like you know, that what you were given, like a bag of cash and the ability to just go do what you wanted to do without any advising, without any influence. You know, that a lot of our kids are doing that now at 10 years old. They're doing that with social media, they're doing that with the tools they have that nobody is giving them. Like these, these the most of these players that especially the ones that have their own accounts, forget about the ones that have parent run accounts, but some of these athletes, they don't know what they're getting into because nobody's guiding them in the right direction and say, you know what the future looks like? That the future is not this, and and you know that that those pitfalls are are not being taken care of for sure.

SPEAKER_03 57:14

Well, the the the guardrails, you know, yeah. So the the guardrails weren't there in LA, they're there now. Thank goodness they're there now. I'm I'm so happy about that. And then I went to Buffalo and Scotty treated me like a superstar, so I became one, and then and then we fell out of of of friendship, Scotty Bowman and I, and not the guy to develop a bad relationship with, but he got fired from the Buffalo Sabres because of me. And and then they brought me back to the Buffalo Sabres and and and I I got I ended up getting traded to uh Edmonton when Gretzky went to LA. I went right from Buffalo to Edmonton. Then I then I went to uh play in Vancouver for Pat Quinn again and Trevor Linden, and then Mario Lemieux, we weren't gonna make the playoffs, and Mario asked if I'd be able to go to Pittsburgh to play on his line, you know, in 1990. And and and that was that was massive. And and when that when that season ended, uh unfortunately they hired Scotty Bowman as director of player operations, and and I ran directly face first into Scotty Bowman, who didn't like me. And you know what Scotty was like with guys he didn't like, right? He loved me, but then I did something that I've never been able to figure out in my life. I did something that made him hate me, and I and I and I tried to see Scotty Bowman at the Ottawa Senators' game, at an Ottawa Senators game about five years ago, six years ago. And um, Dave Lewis, the coach of uh Detroit, who was my roommate in LA, went to the room to get Scotty out to come and see me because I was downstairs at the Canadian Tire Center, and um he was gone for 10 minutes and then he came back by himself. He said, Scotty won't see you. Wow, Scotty won't see you. He like it was devastating for for a while for me because I was gonna say I was gonna apologize to Scotty for you know the what what had happened and it had been bothering me, and I but but he he just literally like cut off the relationship, which again old culture.

SPEAKER_01 59:25

Yeah, some some people do that. We I've had experiences with that, not Scotty Bowman, of course, but with other people too. It's always amazing. Yep. One of the things, Doug, you bring up though, is the question of environment and creating environments for teams and for players. You know, I'm I'm looking at that photograph behind you. Is that miracle on Manchester?

SPEAKER_03 59:44

Yes, that that is the miracle of the biggest comeback back in NHL playoff history, right? And uh yeah, I I happened to get the second goal of that game, and then uh I won the face-off to Daryl Evans, um, who who scored the winning goal in overtime, two minutes into overtime. And and Daryl, it's funny, Daryl's still working for the Kings today, and nobody knows who who won the face-off directly to him.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:11

Well, I'll tell you, Doug, I bring it up because you know, when we think about Miracle and Manchester and kids, look that one up. Uh, you know, it it's interesting because it sounds like excuse me, the environment was one thing, but what you hear about the team from that time is another thing. And I'm just bringing that up to share that you know, what you see on the television, what you see on social media, and what's reality can be different things. But the environment in which you place yourself, Doug talked before about the people you place yourself around, really is a predictor of success or failure, right? And and for those of you listening, you know, and adults too, right? Think about who you surround yourself with. Are they negative, condescending people? Are they people that bring other people down? Because you're gonna end up like that. Are they people who bring people up? Are they there to support each other? Now, the beautiful part about the hockey community, and we hear it from our audience all the time in the emails we get, is just how supportive we can be of one another, right? And that those are the type of people that I choose to be around. And um, Doug, I think you did a great job today of explaining a lot of different aspects of not just the game, but but the mentality behind the game, you know, things that made you successful, the thinking outside the box is not a bad thing. And then going back to the beginning, you know, there are directions available, you know, there is there is a human GPS out there if you're looking for it, or you can just drive the map blind, see where you end up.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:28

One of the reasons that people commit suicide is because they're left with no options. And you mentioned the word options before. So I encourage the kids and their parents and parents to never stop searching for those options, right? Because when you run out of them, it's a bad, bad thing. And and so you know, there's there's there's an unlimited amount of options for you out there. And and if anybody anybody wants to talk to me, that I'm available. And uh, we're gonna make sure that that that the meditation series and and the work that I do, and just so that you have the system in your hands, like it'll be given to everybody who wants it that's paying attention to your show for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

Yeah, well, I we'll make sure to get that out there. And yeah, I think today's episode's been been fantastic. And and it and again, look, I'll come back too.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:14

Like we can talk more about the new facility and how you know how many people, what's happening, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:20

Be careful, be careful of giving that open invite. Uh, because uh we'll take it.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:24

We will I I love the conversation. You guys are searching for the same stuff I'm searching for.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:29

Yeah, well, and and that's I love that you say it like that because that's the idea behind the show, right? Is to create the conversations that are gonna get people to think and grow. And you know, Mike said it before, I'll say it too. I've benefited greatly from the show as not just a hockey parent, but as a person, right? The things that you learn, like every Monday we have our we we joke, we have our therapy sessions on the show and we move forward. But Doug, listen, you you've been a fantastic guest for those of you listening. Doug's gonna join us for a quick ride to the rink for the kids as well to share this message. Um, but Doug, thanks so much for joining us today on our kids play hockey.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:59

Thank you guys so much. Really appreciate it. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:02

All right, in the show notes, we're gonna put how you can get in contact with Doug if you want. Also, remember you can email us at any time, team at team at our kidsplayhockey.com, or use the link accompanying this episode in the description. You can actually text right to us. We can text back. Um, and and and we love hearing from you out there, right? That you guys run the show. I can't tell you how many emails and messages we get a week right now uh from you in support of what we're doing. But for Doug Smith, for Mike Benelli, I'm Lee Elias. We will see you on the next edition of Our Kids Play Hockey, everybody. Take care, have fun. See you soon. 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. But thanks so much for listening to this edition of Our Kids Play Hockey, and we'll see you on the next episode.