Goal Setting Success Secrets

Lee 0:06

Hello, hockey friends and families around the world. Welcome to episode five of Our Kids Play Hockey. My name is Lee Elias, and I'm joined as always by my good friends Christy Casciano Burns and Mike Benelli. And today's show is all about goal setting, goal setting as parents, goal setting as coaches, goal setting as kids, and why that's so important. Now, I know some of you may be rolling your eyes, listening to this stuff like, I've heard this before. I know everything about goal setting. I promise you this will be probably the most informative goal setting podcast or show if you're watching this that you've ever had, because it is insanely important how to prioritize it, how to utilize it, and how to make sure you execute it in a way that's going to help everybody involved. Now, this topic was inspired by you, Christy, because of your book, My Kids Play Hockey. Now we're bringing it to our kids play hockey. But uh there was a great little short chapter in here about why goal setting is so important. And I wanted to start with you and toss it to you because one of the things I took away from reading that chapter in the book was that a lot of parents don't have the right maybe priorities, and that's not an insult, but they they they they lose track of maybe what's important before the season even starts. You want to comment on that real quick?

Christie 1:13

Yeah, and the mindset too is really important here. And think about this. When you step out on the ice before anybody else has touched that ice, what do you see? It's just beautiful, right? Right. No rough patches, everything is smooth, it's a beautiful sheet of ice. We get to start all over again, a fresh start. And that's the way you need to look at this new season. Think of it as a fresh start. All of the season mistakes that you made from the prior season can now be erased, and this is your chance to get it right. And what I like to do is I think about all right, what are my goals for the season? We're gonna dive into that in just a moment. But first, start off with a fresh mentality, just as if you were starting off, you know, a brand new game. All right. So this is your chance to do it right. This year I'm gonna be, you know, helping more with the team tournaments, or this year I'm gonna be better at communicating with the coach. Whatever mistakes you made in the past, here's your chance to start all over again. And sometimes you're starting with a new team, so you really get a fresh start.

Mike 2:17

Right.

Christie 2:17

So that's the first thing is set your goals. Mike, what do you think?

Mike 2:21

Yeah, I know. I mean, obviously with hockey, it's a little different, right? Because it never seems like the season ends. So we're we're we're it's a long, it's not, you know, when my son plays baseball, there's a distinct start and a distinct end. And I think you get an a chance to reset. Sometimes in hockey, you know, we're thinking about tryouts in December for the next year. And it's such a crazy, and and Lee, you'll experience this more as a parent. I've experienced player. Right. Well, well, as a player, it's one thing, right? Because you're you're part of the noise. Right. But I think, but I think the the ability to know that you can end an experience and then restart it and have that that fresh sheet of ice, uh, and you can help direct your kids to that. Uh you it it really is uh refreshing too, as a parent, to feel like, you know, just like you tell your kids, brush it off, let's move on. That that mentality is so important in uh in this because the hockey season is so long.

Christie 3:19

Right, right. You gotta set the reset button.

Lee 3:22

Well, and I'll say this too. It's it's it's no different if you're a sports fan. It's you know, when the season ends, everybody goes, hey, we're undefeated, right? It's the same mentality if you're a parent, you know. And I I want to dive into this uh really deep because I love this topic. It's one of the things I like talking about and enjoy speaking about. And we're gonna go over uh everything from long-term goals to seasonal goals, even day-to-day goals, because I think it's important to understand that. Uh, and I do want to start first with parental goals, because uh one of the things I I was thinking about before the show is that if you're listening to this, you love your kids. You love your kids endlessly, right? Because you're trying to find a way to get better, you're trying to find new ways for them to learn, trying to find new ways for yourself to learn. So I think that it's important if you're a parent that you sit down uh as parents, as a as a as a couple, or even individually, and understand what are your goals for this season. Because if you don't identify them, you may inadvertently start putting your own goals on your kids, which we know is not something that you want to do. You don't want to pressure your kids through your own goals. You want to make sure you have your own goals. And like Christy said, what are your goals for this season, right? So I want to talk about what are parental goals for the season. Again, I want to be specific. We're not talking about coaching right now or players, we're talking about you as a parent. And what I want to jump into this conversation is, you know, what's really important. Mike just said, you know, some parents are thinking about tryouts. I I know how much, again, from a player standpoint, parents can get lost in the season or the politics of a season. Okay, and I will, as you said, Mike, experience that with my kids, I'm sure. Right. But I always instruct parents, and again, I'm in a position to do this, to take a step back and say, what's really, really important, right? And from my point of view, and you guys can tell me if you disagree or agree, the most important thing as a parent, I do have a kid playing, is number one, my son and daughter knowing I love you no matter what happens on the ice. If you put the puck in your own net five times in a game, while that would be devastating, I'm not gonna love you any less. And I think that's a super important message that sometimes parents overlook with their kids. And make no mistake, friends, every psychological expert, every piece of literature shows that this is something that's very important to do. It does not soften your kids. And if anything, it reaffirms your kids that that that's something they need to hear. Because, and this is the second half of this as much as we love the game, as much as you might want your kids to go to the NHL, and I'll never say that you shouldn't support your kids' dream to do that. You're really trying to make them a productive person that can live on their own after high school, after college, right? So telling my kid I love you, no matter what happens, and making sure that I'm focused, that there's life lessons here that might be even more important than the game. So I'll toss this to Christy first and then Mike, let's have you follow up on that.

Christie 6:04

Yeah. Well, my goals as a parent, always, every year, regardless of what level hockey they're playing, is I want to see my kids work hard and I want to see them be good teammates. Right. So it's really important to communicate that to your kids. Yeah, they may have other goals. Oh, I want to do better at stick handling, I want to work on my shot, I want to be able to, you know, perfect that wrist or that's great. For me, it's pretty basic. Are you working hard? Are you having fun? Are you being good to your teammates? And for me, if I see those goals achieved through the season, I'm feeling pretty good about the season.

Mike 6:42

Right.

Christie 6:42

I also we gotta give hockey parents a lot of credit too. For the most part, most hockey parents are really good people. We're hardworking, we make so many sacrifices so that our kids can play the money, a ton of money. I don't think there's any sport where you can um talk about parents being more commendable than hockey parents are. So let's keep that perspective too. Sure. It's a lot to be a hockey parent, and it can be stressful, but don't get lost, as you said, very importantly, in the politics of that little minutia. Always step back and look at the picture. What this game is doing for our kids can be just beautiful, and don't lose sight of that.

Mike 7:31

Yeah, I I think for me, Lee, uh you know, you you you overtly, it's it's sad that overtly we have to remind parents to tell and and think about the fact that it has to come out of your mouth. I love watching you play. I love you know what you did today. And I know like I I you know, I want to say I'm I'm I think I'm a little I'm thinking I'm fortunate that you know I I had I had a father that I don't remember him saying I love to watch you play, but I knew he loved to watch me play just by his actions and his body language and the way you know we didn't have uh Carvel after wins. We had fun winning or losing. You know, it doesn't it wasn't attached to success or failure, it was attached to us being in the car together. And I think then as a coach, before I had children, I try to model, you know, even the way I react with the great parents that I got to see as a young coach, a 23, 24, 30-year-old coach, and say, wow, those are those are the those are the parents I want to model my behavior because their kids love coming to the rink and they love working with coaches. They're respectful, they're hard working. Could they be a pain in the butt? Yeah. I mean, they're competitive, but they didn't lose sight of the fact that they knew that everything that was attached to success uh wasn't about wins and losses. It was about them having fun and wanting to drive themselves to be a better person, ultimately. You know, so I was fortunate that way.

Lee 9:06

And and and that's it goes back to the experience of being a kid and enjoying the game. And, you know, I I think uh, and I I've dealt with parents on on both sides of this aisle. Um, you know, I think it's just so important that we remember that that experience for for a young person, even 18 and down. I mean, even a late teenager, uh it's tough to remember sometimes as a parent, you know, what it was like to be 18 or what it was like to be seven. And what that reaffirmation from your parents, no matter what happened, that hey, this is supposed to be fun. Let's have fun as a family or as a team. Uh, it's so important. And again, with everything going on in the world right now, uh, it can be really easy to lose sight of that. Um, and and again, I again I think most parents are doing this this the right way. Uh, not to say that we're the authority on doing it the right way. I just I think when I look at the game, friends, is this you know, there are so many life lessons you can learn. And I think that what happens is when you run into a rough patch with your kids, right, as a parent, and this is like I talk about with goal setting, whether that's maybe you feel like your child's being treated unfairly, or uh maybe maybe they're not being treated unfairly, it's it's the opposite. The adversity that they face, the obstacles they face will become assets for them becoming better human beings. And I find that, especially as a coach, sometimes parents get so lost in the it's not fair aspect of this. Uh, and it may very well be not fair. I'm not I'm not trying to say that that if you think something's going wrong, you shouldn't speak up. But you have to remind yourself this is an important learning lesson for your child that life is not fair all the time. And we have to find a solution through that problem. And it may not work. Uh, that is an incredibly important life lesson. I can tell you as an employer that you know, we look for athletes to hire because we know they've been through some form of adversity in the past. So again, I'm just trying to round this out uh in the sense of a goal setting that there are higher uh uh aspects of this than just the game. But I don't want you to think I don't think the game is important, right? I hope I'm not sounding like I'm lecturing or anything.

Mike 11:06

Well, but it's also but it's also you know, and we've hit on this in a month a number of times we've had conversations about even development. It's balance. It's that you're going to have weekends where maybe you're maybe as a parent you didn't see as much dice time as you thought. But the next but you never hear about the parents saying, Wow, you really had my son out there for way too much ice last week. You know, you know, you know, you never you never hear that. It's like, well, he deserved to be out there. But did he not not deserve to be out there the the the last weekend? And and as a co as a parent, you know, you you it's just having that balance. Like I love what my wife, like I I think we balance each other well because I'm pretty crazy with hockey. And and she's just like, well, what's so crazy about hockey? It's just, you know, as long as the kids are having fun and and they're and they're getting exercise and they're working hard. And you know, and and I and I think that's where that that balance as as as a as parents we can feed off each other and making sure that we're doing what's best for our kids. And sometimes you need that perspective of wow, you're go you're going over a little overboard here, or well, we maybe we do we didn't we do need to push a little bit more. And that's that's all that's great.

Christie 12:13

I think it's just um I'm I've got a question for you guys because both of you are coaches, so I'm gonna throw this out there because I've seen this and I've actually been in this situation myself where I think my kid deserves more ice time, all right, because I am that parent sometimes. I keep it to myself, I don't share it with others, but I'm thinking that now let's say she seems to be on the bench more than I think that she should be. And we're talking about younger ages, not the upper level. It's a whole different so do I as a parent pull the coach aside at some point and try and ask them questions about that? Because maybe I'm not getting the philosophy of this team. Maybe I'm not seeing it the way the coach sees it, maybe I'm not seeing my kid the way my coach is seeing the kid. Do I talk to the coach about that? Do I let tell my kid, hey, why don't you pull the coach aside and ask them what do you need to do to get better, to get more ice time? What's the best uh way to go about this as a parent?

Lee 13:21

Well, Mike, if you don't mind, I'll jump on that real quick. Um, it's it's a multi-tiered approach. And this is this is when most teams have problems, right? Because a parent will have an issue, a coach will probably have no communication structure in place, and then the kid feels slighted. So this is actually where all three of the groups have to work together, and this is also why goal setting is so important. So, number one, and I I'm not skipping ahead of the coaching section section just yet, but I'll say that all coaches, all teams should have a very clear communication structure in place, even if it's the lack of communication. Um, so like you said, Christy, uh the older you get, the less this breaks down because the older you get, you want your kids to take care of this on their own, especially in high school. And in college, parents do not have a say. And that's it.

Christie 14:02

You have no say. Right. You don't talk to the coach. Right. Well, ever.

Lee 14:06

And again, to be fair, the higher the level, the more winning actually is part of the job, right? But at the youth levels, I think it's all about a coaches having a communication plan so that if a parent feels like they need to speak to the coach, there is a clear method to do that that takes away commiseration between parents, it takes away negative feelings, and it lets parents know there is an appropriate way to approach this. Um, number two, and this is both on the this is on all three, the coach, parent, and player. If a player is not getting ice time, there must be a reason, right? There must be a reason. No coach wants to deal with the parent that has a stopwatch and says this is exactly how much ice time they get. When a coach is really trying to work with that player to improve a skill set, and a game might not be the best environment to work on that skill set all the time. I know that's tough for some parents. Um, and the the normal comeback is well, if they don't get the ice time, they're not going to get the experience. Exactly. Coaches deal with a lot of things here. Okay, so again, at the atom level, at the might level, um, you know, yes, ice time is imperative at that level, and everybody really should, and for the most part, they do get equal ice time. Equal development. Right, right. And as you rise up the rank, you can see that that starts to dissipate a bit, right? So a lot of it is about teaching kids to be in the right position at the right time. And like I spoke about with those life lessons, right? Uh, if you're on a bottom line and the game's on the line, this is an opportunity to learn, right? If as a parent, and this can be hard for parents, right? If your player is not the most developed player on the team, it's not so much focusing on the ice time for me as a coach, it's what can we do together, coach, parent, and player to improve the gaps in your son or daughter's game so that they can be called upon in that moment, right? And again, look, there's always going to be an uh aura of unfairness here, right? And and every situation is different. If we're in a pee-wee situation, which is right in the middle of it, right? What is that, U12? Um, you know, it can be really tough, you know, because look, the kids want to win, but everybody wants to be out there to win. It's an impossible, it's a paradox, right? It's an impossible situation. That's why I think making sure that the lines of communication are open and making sure the development plans are there are so important so that everyone's on the same page, right? Right.

Christie 16:15

And I find it annoying though when I do see uh coaches giving in to parents. Um yeah, if the certain parent is constantly chirping in the ear of the coach, and the coach is like, okay, I can't take it anymore. And the parent gets their way. That's upsetting for the rest of us parents. It is.

Mike 16:33

But Chrissy, I think, I think, uh, you know, I think a lot of this has to do, and it's a it's really, you know, a holistic approach of everybody working together, right? Because I think a lot of times a parent will choose a team and drive to that team and put their child on a team they know doesn't uh advocate equalized time for their kids until it's not their kid. You know what I mean? So so you know, being, you know, you know, you've done a lot of articles and written about you know doing the research and making sure that you're putting your child in the right environment that that aligns with your philosophy until it doesn't, right? So I think that communication is key that the coach has to understand too. Like me, I know as a as a 14U coach right now, I'm as concerned with putting certain kids on the ice to succeed as I am to make sure I don't allow them to fail. And I don't mean fail like I don't want them to fail. Right. But children, 14-year-old boys in particular, uh, you know, they can they can turn on their teammates quickly. And you as a coach need to be able to almost help them understand that we're growing together, we're gonna be in a good environment. I I'll put, you know, I tend to roll lines uh with my group, but as a parent, I I'd be like, well, why is he rolling the lines? He should be putting those, the best five kids out there so we can win. Well, I want to see if these five kids can help us win. So and you know, that's important for learning environment.

Lee 18:02

Let me jump in here because there's actually a perfect segue into what we're gonna be talking about here, right? So so the the last part of the parental goal setting, and this goes perfectly into the coaching segment, is to be an asset for your team, not a hindrance. All right, and I think that's an important thing that all parents should say should share. I am not saying you should not speak up if you feel like something is wrong. Okay, as as I'm telling you that as a coach, as a player, and as a parent, right? Every situation is different, but we should all be going into the season as parents to say, I'm gonna be an asset to this team, not a hindrance. I'm not gonna be that guy, that dad, that mom that everyone worries about. Okay. That's that's one of my goals. And you always hear it.

Mike 18:39

You always hear it though, right? Like, hey, I'm never that guy, I'm never that coach, I'm never that guy. I'm never that coach, I'm I've never been that parent. Right. But and I'm like, I have been that parent. No, I am I've been that parent too. Right. So I think it's just it's it's very hard. Uh it's it's extremely hard.

Lee 18:57

And I but it again, this is why it's important to set that goal before the season. Because look, look, I'll give you my my uh story. Like I'll give you my situation here. Uh I was not going to be in coaching it with my son in any way. I did not want to coach. Again, I've coached at a professional level. I did not want to coach my kids' my team or his added team because I wanted him to get used to being around other coaches and other leaders and other people. Now, COVID hindered that. I had to volunteer to even be near him on the ice. Uh, and I'm enjoying it. I'm enjoying it, but I I want to be an asset to that coach. And like I said, I'm in a situation where I have this a lot of experience. And I it's funny because the coach of my son's team is always asking me questions, which is fine, but I always um enable him as the head coach. So even when my son comes up to me, no, speak to the coach. Right? I want to be an asset to this human being. I don't want to be in the way, I don't want people asking me over him. That's I have that goal. I had that goal set in my mind, and because of that, I'm able to move forward. Now, let's switch this to the coaching situation. Anytime you talk about goal setting, and this is the question I have for the audience. I even have this question for you two, right? We're talking about goals, but are we thinking about the team? Because teams have goals as well, right? It's one thing to have individual goals, but teams have goals as well. So, Mike, this is this is why I want to transition. Uh and Christy, you too, when you have the player on the team, it's the the bottom line player, doesn't get as much ice, right? It's funny how much youth sports teams, it's not even just hockey, emulate offices and adults. And it's funny because adults don't think this is the same thing. I'll give you a scenario, and I always do this when I speak, right? If you were hired to a job and you were new, and you walked in, and you had no job title and no description when you walked in, you would be completely lost. You'd be guessing what to do, you wouldn't know, and you'd probably eventually be like, hey, what are we doing here? I speak up. I want to know what I'm doing. I'm not getting enough time at my job to do my work, right? So I think it's so important for coaches to set goals for the team and to give each player on the team a role. Now, this is where I'm going with it. And and Christy, I definitely want your thoughts on this. Even at the Pee Wee level, this can be be done. Again, the lower levels, not so much. The lower levels I've always said in terms of age, ice time should be spread out. That is completely experience at that point. But once you get to Pee-Wee Bantam or whatever, U12, U15, it does change a little bit. All right, skills change, kids grow at different rates. I was always the kid growing up because I was advancing every year. I was usually the worst kid on the team when I joined a team. Right? The best coaches I had gave me a role. And I will always remember this. My my uh my second pee-wee coach, I'm sorry, my first Bantam coach uh said to me, Look, you are developing very well, but you're not at the point you need to be at yet. But, and this is this I I will never forget this because this had a major effect on my life. He said, You are clearly the hardest worker on the team. Okay, and he goes, That's your role. You're setting the bar for everybody else from the best player down to be the hardest worker on the team. And he says, if you keep working at the rate you're going, you'll get in the lineup more and more and more. But I need you to make Sure, you don't stop working hard because that sets the bar. Now, I suddenly had a role. Ice time, while I wanted it, I always wanted to be out there. I was sitting on the bench knowing I have to just work hard when I'm out there because that's what the coach wanted. And he kept his word too. That's the other big part of this. All right.

Mike 22:14

Yeah, yeah.

Lee 22:14

That wasn't a lie. All right. I mean, and by the end of the season, I was out there all the time. Right. But creating roles for your players should be a goal. And explaining those roles to the players, and in some cases, their parents, whether they like it or not. All right. So, so, and again, this is where the goal setting can kind of uh uh you know butt butt heads a little bit at times. But again, with the coaches, you should have goals as a staff. That's the first thing I have on my list. Get together as a staff, set goals for the season. Those goals should include obviously your development plan, what you want to accomplish as a coach this season, uh, and also your communication plan. Set a communication plan with your parents and then set a goal with your team and create that accountability. This is this is one of the biggest ones I do when I work with teams, and I'll stop talking in a minute, I promise. Is that you want to let your players also create goals for the season? What do we think we can accomplish this year as a group? Right? Let your players tell you what you can accomplish because then they have to be accountable to it. Here's a quick tip they always want to over-accomplish. I've never had a team go, well, if we come in fifth, that'll be good. Right? They always want to do better, right? Yeah, let them have the accountability to have to do better so that it that grows accountability throughout the whole team. So every player from the top player down to the bottom player, skill-wise, all right, has a role, right? So let me let me toss that back out to you. Mike, I'm gonna go to you first on this, and then Christy, I want to get your thoughts as a parent on what I just said.

Mike 23:34

Yeah, well, I think first of all, if you could you could have to you have to also establish that roles evolve, roles change, and that you're you know, your role, like I know me, like I we used to laugh in high school that you know I never really really saw a lot of goals getting scored on my line because I was always in the corner with my face buried into the glass, you know, saying, Hey, did we score back there? You know, because you know, I I had a different role. I wasn't the kid putting the puck in the net. You know, I had to do I but I embraced that role because my coaches uh gave me those you know, get a lot of positive feedback from that. And my teammates did too, right? And I think a lot of our kids now, they fall you know, what I try to explain is you can't we can't have six first-line centermen.

Lee 24:15

Right.

Mike 24:16

We have to have we have to have diversity in the teams. Now, again, at the even at the young levels, I mean, at 8U, 10 U, 12U, if kids start to, if you can um, you know, be an advocate and as a coach and find those little things that you're that that certain kids are good at, you can help them embrace those those those plays. Like, wow, you're the you are the best stick on pu I know like my son in lacrosse, his coaches love him because he's the best ground ball player they have. Now, can he score? Yeah, he's not the best defenseman, but he picks up, he's a ground ball hog. But the coaches are always like ground ball hog, ground ball hog, ground ball hog. And he embraces that, and the kids on the team say, Oh, yeah, yeah, he's the guy that's gonna go at the ball because he's good at that. So you can help your team grow. And then as a parent, you need to then say, Yeah, let's that's great, and let's develop that, but let's look at let's look at developing everything else as well. And then that's where your role can come in to be an advocate for your own kids, for sure.

Christie 25:19

Yeah, I think that's good. Although I I will have to tell you, I don't like when coaches lock kids into positions very early. For example, when my daughter, my daughter was a very good figure skater before she started playing hockey. Well, she did both. She started at three. And when she was on a hockey team, aged four, um, everybody got obviously to play whatever position you're learning.

Mike 25:42

Right.

Christie 25:42

And then when she got onto the mic level, she could skate backwards fabulously. She had beautiful crossovers, she was fast going backwards. So the coach automatically locked her into defense and said, Here she is, six years old. You are a born defenseman. She didn't really like defense at all. She was dying to play forward, but he wouldn't let her because she was so good at skating backwards and the boy, she was the only girl on the team.

Mike 26:11

Right.

Christie 26:11

And the other boys couldn't, so she was locked into that position. She never complained, I never said anything to the coach, although I knew that she was dying to have that position as a center, or she loves playing left wing. And he never gave her that opportunity. And that was kind of a sad year for me, but we didn't complain. She fell into the role, and at one point, he even said to her, since she was the only girl on the team, by the way, you're our enforcer. She kind of liked that. Right. Um, and then fortunately, the next year, the coach saw how skilled she was. She had just a great um shot, and he made her a forward. So she was strong on defense the first year, which is they're little, what are you saying, strong on defense? They're little kids, but she developed. And then the the coach the next year saw her talent as a forward. But I don't like when coaches lock kids into positions when they're so young.

Mike 27:09

Yeah, but but Christy is that Christy, isn't that the reason why a lot like that goes right back to communication and setting the standards of what your team is? Because uh, isn't that a lot of the reasons why people leave organizations? Is because they feel like they're pigeonholed that, oh, that's that kid's a defenseman, or that kid can only play center. And then and then you have coaches every year go, oh yeah, that kid's just a centerman. So that's but that goes back to understanding the organization you're in, communicating the coaches, coaches communicating uh their expectations and roles. And at the youth level, I you want your kids playing as many different positions because you don't know what they're going to become. Right.

Lee 27:46

I mean, you look at the best player.

Mike 27:48

The best players in the NHL, you ask, you know, uh the large majority of them, you ask what they played, and they'll say, Oh, I was a defenseman up until I was 16 years old, or I was a winger until I was 18 years old, and then I got drafted, and somebody else saw a talent in me that I was able to be injected in because that's a role I needed to play at that time in my life.

Lee 28:10

And and I'll inject this too, because it it's a mixed bag, right? So, and Christy, I completely understand what you're saying, and I think Mike's right about you know, communicate. What's funny is this, and this is the the things we don't know, right? Did that season at defense actually make her a better offenseman? Right? You know, so yeah, right. Right. So it's like and again, these are it's tough to quantify any of these things. I always joke at the Pee Wee Bannum level. I was like, you're all midfielders to me, right? You're all you're all should be on both sides of the puck and really learning. And with that said, clearly there was no communication in that situation, which there should have been. Um a coach could have easily said, look, you're the best at skinning backwards. This is the role I need you to fulfill. And we can work on some plans, maybe to get you some offense this year. But if you want to be a great member of the team this year, this is where you can support our team. And and it's always, I'm gonna say this, it is always good for players to play a season at any at every position. Um, I'll give you a great pro level that totally applies to this. And it shows you how some of these aspects are not limited to youth hockey. Um, I was in a situation with the pro team in Europe where my offensemen, specifically the wingers and the defense were kind of going at each other where the wingers were saying, listen, just get me the puck on the breakout. It's not hard. And the defensemen were saying, Well, if you're not open, I can't give you the puck, right? These are pro hockey players, right? So I blew a whistle and I said, All right, wingers, go play defense, defense, go play wing for the next few drills, right? And it was immediate, immediate. The wingers were going, oh, this is not as easy as I thought it was.

Mike 29:39

Oh, no, no, yeah, nobody's moving. Nobody's moving. Right.

Lee 29:42

The defensemen were like, oh, this is not as easy as I thought it was, right? So inadvertently, and in and this is the this is where pro is really fun. Within 20 minutes, they got my message of like, stop complaining and start realizing that you need to understand these positions a little bit better. So um at the highest level of hockey, and this is this is great for coaches, this is great for this podcast. Uh, every player knows what every other player's responsibility is. Okay, you can take most players at the NHL and move them to any position, and they will probably do okay. Sergei Federov is a great example of this. Okay, he played offense for the Detroit Red Wings, he's the Hall of Famer, and Scotty Bowman did not like the way he was playing offense. He put him on defense for half the season. In one game, he had him play defense for eight minutes straight to make a point. Okay, so that well-roundedness is super important. But coaches, going back to the podcast, I can tell you stories all day. Coaches, are you communicating this to your players? Christy, this is a question for you. I bet you would have felt a lot better as a parent. And I bet your daughter would have felt a lot better as a player if the coach said, Listen, this is why I have her here. These are the skills she will directly develop from how season at defense. I will make sure she gets to play offense at times throughout the season when appropriate. I mean, how much better would that have made you feel?

Christie 30:58

Yeah, so much better. And I and that's a great point because you guys, as coaches, spend a lot of time on the ice, countless hours developing your players. Right. You also need to take time to develop us parents at least once a week. Right. Have a meeting with it. You we like to be led. Trust me. It's true. No one doesn't like to be led. Be leaders and communicate to parents. Have a quick meeting with us once a week. Hey, this is where we're at with the team. Here's what we're doing with the kids. Let us clue us in as to what's going on with the team. And I think there's going to be less uh frustration and anxiety and fewer parents acting crazy in the stamps.

Lee 31:38

I'll tell you this. I was gonna say this for the end. This is a this is a coaching tip, all right, that I've used and I've taught people, and it works very well. A lot of coaches think they don't want to do what you just said, uh Christy, because they don't want to deal with parents. And I think that's a mistake. I think you're absolutely right. An open dialogue with the parents is very important. Coaches, here's a tip: if you have a parent that you feel is overbearing, okay, and parents, this may be you, I'm not gonna lie to you. All right, give that parent a role, give them a job on the team. One of two things will happen. They will dive into that role and try to be the best parent they can possibly be, or they will step away and never speak to you again because they don't want to be bothered with that role.

Christie 32:12

Which isn't such a bad thing.

Lee 32:13

No, that's why I said it's a tip of the trade, okay? You never know, you might find an asset. Like an overbearing parent can become an asset if you put them in the right place.

Mike 32:22

We we forget, we forget that the parents you have, your 15, 16, 17 parents that you have on a team, all have diverse backgrounds and are good at certain things. And you know, if you can now, you know, I I used to joke, like I'd rather have I'd rather have uh when I was running a DM American Development Model Practices where station based and you needed, you know, two or three people out there helping you, I wanted more coaches to get certified than I needed. Because the more people that are on the ice with me seeing the way I teach and and and listening to my philosophy helps me reinforce what we want to do with the kids. But at the same time, oh, yeah, hey, you're a great videographer. I need your video tape on our practice games. Oh, you're a great organization. Help us get in, get involved at doing uh, you know, team functions and and you can you run the tournaments, you run uh the social functions. You I mean, I remember growing up, I grew up in in Katona, New York, playing hockey. And there was every Friday night, one mother uh organized a wine and cheese gathering during practice. Right. And and they just went over there. Right. Like right now, you know, uh one of the guys I work with now calls it parental entertainment, right? That the parents want to sit there on the glass, watching practice and and and isolating every single thing that's going on. And you as a coach, you're looking at the big picture and you're trying to you're trying to develop a whole system. But if nobody knows that, if nobody knows that, you're not get you're not getting any advocates at all.

Lee 33:48

Here's another great tip. Look, it I I have I have been on in the coach teams where player parents, sorry, uh have a stopwatch and time their kids ice time. I have always gone up to that play. Yeah, I've gone up to that parent and I've said, will you do me a favor? Will you take the shots for every single player on the team and let me know where they were, when they shot, and and that because that listen, you're doing a great job timing your kids. I really want to see you. Yeah, well, here's the funny thing.

Christie 34:14

I love how you turn that around. It sounds like it's parents a role.

Lee 34:17

Yeah, it sounds like I'm being underhanded, but actually, here's the thing that I bet you that parent will be really good at that role. And and as a coach, it's very valuable to know where your kids are shooting the puck from. So, look, my point here is at the end of the day, everyone can really win here. All right, and I can tell you this again, as a player, as a coach, uh, the best teams I've ever been a part of, the parents have been involved and they've been good at it. You know, there's a team within the team, within the team there, right? Um, my most fun years growing up, I knew all my my teammates' parents, and they were great. Um, and it doesn't mean you're not gonna have problems or disagreements, but a team is a team is a team. So, as a coach, again, bringing this back, one of your goals is to make the best possible environment for everyone, knowing you're never gonna probably get 100% buy-in, but that's okay. And and again, you want to track progress. I always said that too, and you want to be a teacher. That's the one more thing I wanted to say about coaching. Coaches are teachers, um, and I think that that's uh undervalued by parents at times, and I think it's actually undervalued by coaches at times. You are a teacher, and as a teacher, you're not just teaching hockey, right? You're teaching life, you're teaching life skills. I I cannot, I cannot put the hammer down on this enough that while the game is wonderful and and dreams are wonderful, and I'm not saying parents and players and coaches shouldn't have dreams, there's a higher purpose with youth sports, and it's to make you a productive person. So you want to be a teacher and make sure that when your kid has a rough game or gives up the winning goal or passes the puck and turns it over on a really bad play, you reaffirm that listen, you made a mistake. That happens. How are we going to fix that mistake? Right? I and and parents, that's for you too. I have seen parents do horrendous things to their kids when they've made mistakes. And that's not, I'm gonna be honest, and again, I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm lecturing, that's not the right message. You can be disappointed in a play your kid made, but you know, what are you teaching them that you should be able to do? But I think you can't fear failure in hockey. The whole game is based off of capitalizing on other people's misfortune. That's how you learn. Right.

Mike 36:15

I think I think I think for the overall, I think for overall, a lot of us that are volunteer coaches, uh, this is hockey, but this is soccer, this is lacrosse, this is baseball. The the people that volunteer their time for coaches, uh, the majority, uh, you know, I don't know if they are as much teachers as they are managers. I think they're they're they're they're teachers, but to find that mom or dad that loves to talk about uh nutrition, uh finding somebody that loves to talk about a mental preparation, finding like finding those pieces that can help you, and then you manage that team like you are a college team, because like you are a pro team, because you have all those resources. When you send your kid to school, to to college or prep school, it it you you're you're putting them in an environment that that environment has all those pieces uh connected to it. At the youth level, a 10-year-old and 12-year-olds, we just don't have those resources, but we do have parents that to your point, Lee, say, you know, I I hear you uh I hear you're great at, you know, I see you running all the time and you're in great shape, and you're all your kid always has a shake, uh, you know, after practice, and he's w has has great. I never see him meet McDonald's. Can you speak to our kids about this? And can you help educate the parents about this? And then it gives my then then I truly do become a teacher because now I can help reinforce those things.

Christie 37:28

Uh but at the youth level, and even um parents. Right, and even connections that parents have in the community. We had one parent who had a printing shop, and that parent uh printed out all the little contact cards for all the parents, made banners for our teams, made the uh door hangers for the hotel rooms. Another parent uh worked, was a manager at a grocery store and was able to get us all these great um paper products for for the rest of the year for tournaments and for our team dinners. And another parent um wanted to advertise on uh at the ring. So they, you know, they bought one of the one of the um boards at the rink, and we got all our uniforms to pay for.

Mike 38:15

There you go.

Christie 38:15

So you should definitely seek the resources that are right there within your own circle.

Mike 38:21

That goes right in line to team culture, right? They're they're building that team culture, they're building that that fact that we're all working together. Because and I I say it to my parents all the time as a as a coach of a child on the team. And uh, you know, my kids on my team. I said, I want my son to have the best experience he's ever had in youth sports. And guess what? You're all gonna benefit from that because I'm gonna make sure that what he what I would do for him, I'm doing for all 17 of you, and we're all gonna get equally get involved with it. And I think the more you can help me, the more we're helping your kid as well. This is right.

Christie 38:56

So that should be one of your goals as a parent. You know, what talent do I have? What connections do I have that can help make this hockey? Be proactive.

Mike 39:03

Yeah, go out and tell the coach I can do this. Oh, they'll take you too.

Lee 39:06

Yeah, the coach will most coaches will take you up on that. Uh no doubt. I was gonna say, like, and this is great because so I I should tease here too to the to the listening audience. We are absolutely gonna have an episode on team uh culture uh in a few weeks, which I'm excited about as well. We we plan ahead here at our kids play hockey. Um and and you know, with the goal setting, you know, doesn't I'll kind of ask you guys this before we jump into the final segment here. Doesn't this speak to the higher purpose of creating communities, which is something that we just desperately need right now, all over the country, is just creating conducive communities where people work together and feel good about working together. Doesn't that speak to that? It's not just limited to hockey, is it?

Christie 39:45

Right. We need we need to be in communities where we care about each other. Yes, yes.

Lee 39:50

Right and hockey, hockey.

Christie 39:52

Sometimes we're not feeling the love these days. Right.

Lee 39:54

And that's what I'm saying. It can affect your team. Go ahead, no doubt.

Mike 39:58

And I think unfortunately, that that where hockey is faltering, in my opinion, is that when you look for select teams and you look outside your community, people aren't meeting up in school. These kids don't play soccer and lacrosse together. You you you might see kids in your locker room that it, you know, the practice goes to six to seven, and at seven, you'll never see that family again until next Thursday. Yeah. And I just think that's so for the most part. I know there's a lot of communities around the United States that actually do work in a community environment, and it's uh you know, not as many people coming from outside that environment. But to your point, Lee, it it it's so important for us. Like me, if I was uh if I had my way, I would say, listen, you're gonna pick that 10 U team, you have to be with those families for four years. Right. Like that that's your that's your group to be with, and you need to grow and mentor them and develop them. But we're in these little six-month cycles where do you really get a chance to impact a kid's life as much as you could, if you're the right person with the right culture, uh, before they just move on to another group. And and so in that small time we have together, let's do the best we can to make sure that we're in a in a community feel, right? Um, but also juggle the fact that every year we want our kids coming back the next year to play hockey.

Lee 41:20

That's a great goal for a coach, it's a great goal for a parent, and it's a great goal for a player. Um, and and again, then they'll just transition here to the last segment. The last segment is setting realistic goals as a player. Um, and and I'll say this parents and coaches, the reason why I put this last is because this is something you probably want to help your child with. Um, because look, not you know, seven, eight, nine, ten-year-olds, they're not experts at making goals most of the time, right? You know, maybe a little bit older, they might get to that point. But, you know, help your child set a destination, right? Both long term and short term. If your kid says, I want to play in the NHL, that's not a bad destination. I I look, here's the thing, and this is what I was told. As a parent, you don't have to support your kid's dream, but you have to support their right to have a dream. All right, I've heard kids say to their parents, I want to play in the NHL, and their parents say, Well, you'll never make that. Like, what are you doing? What are you doing? All right. So, yes, it's highly unlikely your kid will make the NHL. I can tell you that. That doesn't mean you squander their dreams of making the NHL. Because I'll tell you this right now. 100% of players in the NHL had the dream of playing in the NHL. Not one of them made it without that dream. Okay, so support the right to have a dream and then say, okay, cool, that's a pretty big goal. All right. What are the steps that we need to take to get you to that destination? Right?

Christie 42:37

That's that's exactly what we did. Sophia had a dream of she, of course, wants to go to college, and uh, mama would love to be able to play college hockey. So, what do we need to do to get you there?

Mike 42:49

Right.

Christie 42:50

So we did all the steps. We, you know, we did the showcases, put it on a high-level team, a triple-A team. We traveled to colleges, met with coaches. It was a lot of hard work and dedication and sacrifice, and it was expensive. Right. But we budgeted for that. I mean, we planned way ahead of time, saying, Okay, this is your goal. Let's set that aside. We're gonna set aside the money, we're gonna set aside the time, we're gonna make it happen, and we're gonna do our very best to make this happen for you. What is it that we need to do? We we, you know, we'd contact a lot of other college hockey players and coaches, and we found out she took all the steps and she, you know, she made it happen. But it's a lot of hard work. Yeah, but Christy, don't you?

Mike 43:31

Christy, don't you think though, too, as a parent, there were certain times where you had to remind your daughter that these are your goals and that you know there's gonna be sacrifices, and sometimes it's it's yeah, um, you know, you have a goal, but sometimes you gotta say, you know, and not to be an overbearing parent, but you're the you're the adult and be like, listen, remember that remember we all discussed this that we're gonna do this? Well, right now you really haven't done this, this, and this. So is that goal now changing? And I think having those conversations are healthy. Right. Because, you know, children, just like all of us, you know, can get off and veer off on on a path that they don't even know they're going, even if they're, you know, the type of kids they're hanging out with in school, the type of other friends they have outside of hockey. I know one of the reasons we chose a certain program that our my son's in is because we felt like the kids in that program had like-minded goals and expectations as opposed to being with a group that some of the kids are like, well, it's fun, but but but and again, I want to have fun, but I I I really I'm not really gonna dedicate myself to making sure that I'm doing these other steps to keep advancing. And sometimes you get it. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Christie 44:40

And I support parents who just want to do this recreationally, and not and nothing more than that, other than just have a great experience. And that's terrific. But there are two things I want parents to remember that when you're when you're enjoying this journey, remember you are going to develop a relationship with your child that you never even thought was possible. And you're also developing a support system that you never thought was possible. Hockey parents are amazing in all aspects of your life. So there's two really good goals for you to remember as you're uh taking this hockey turn.

Lee 45:16

You know, I'll I'll tell you, I love telling stories, you know, this, you know, uh I was very blessed to be able to play hockey my entire life. All right. And I'll tell you this. I remember a few games here, I remember a few big plays. Uh uh teammates, uh, you know, I remember being in the locker room with my friends. You know, I really remember, I remember being in the car with my dad and having talks with my dad on the way to the rink and the life lessons that I was taught, both to and from the rink. I remember being devastated after not making a team or losing a game. And I remember those conversations. They were very impactful to me in my life because, again, they had a higher impact, right? Learning how to deal with adversity or learning how to get that big moment. You know, you you really got the big goal today because of this. You should remember that. You know, uh, remember destinations, goals can change, right? So that's why I say when a kid says I want to play in the NHL and play college hockey, whatever it is, help them find those goals that get them to that destination, right? What do you need to do along the way? And Mike, you alluded to this perfectly. Uh, another story. I remember this. You know, I told my dad I want to play hockey at a big level. And uh, you know, I was a teenager, and he used to tell me, okay, if you want to play, you gotta go outside, you gotta take 500 shots a day in the garage, right? I had a piece of sheet metal, I used to shoot off that. And he would tell me this. I remember when I was younger, every day, hey, Lee, it's time to go outside and take your shots. Now, when I became a you know teenager, sometimes I push back a little bit. It's a teenager, it's what teenagers do. And I'll never forget this day. He stopped telling me to do it. And a couple days went by, and I said, Hey, why don't you tell me to practice anymore? Right? Because I I I actually, you know, at that age, I didn't know it, but I I wanted him to do that. It was, you know, a lot of psychology psychology behind that. And he said this to me, and I'll never forget this. He says, if you really want to accomplish your goal, I won't have to tell you to practice. All right, you'll just do it. And again, I was I was maybe 14 or 15 years old. Man, did that hit me between the eyes. I never missed a day after that ever. And I never asked him again to tell me to practice, right? That was the impact of my father. And again, my mother had I just not to leave her out, amazing impact on my life in many ways as well. All right, right. I don't I don't want to leave my mother out of this conversation, all right. My parents uh created me into the person that I am and the experiences that I had in hockey are why I have hockey businesses and why I'm a coach, why I'm a team builder, why I'm on this podcast right now, because I'm dedicated to everything that I got into giving it back. So find and create the steps to help your kids get there. All right, don't underestimate that. I think we shy away as that as parents sometimes. And actually, Christy, to go back to the book, uh, there's a great couple sentences in here about are you watching the game and watching your kid or are you on your cell phone? Right? Do you pay more attention to when your phone buzzes or the whistle blows?

Christie 47:49

Then the whistle blows. Right.

Lee 47:51

I thought that was really brilliant. All right, because look, look, there's a lot of distractions today, friends. A lot. You know, don't be distracted from your kids. That's your time with them. And it means a lot. Go ahead, Christy. I'm sorry.

Christie 48:01

I hate seeing and I see it so often, not so much at the college level, because all the parents are just glued to everything on the eyes. They're totally into it. But um, parents uh scrolling, reading, talking to each other, not paying attention and all of what the kids are doing. And it was, and I can oh, just remember this one moment where this um teammate was just dying for her mom's attendance. You could tell she was out there just working her butt off because she wanted her mom to get off her phone and pay attention to her. And she scored her first goal this season, and mom missed it because mom was doing this. And I turned to her and I said, You know, your daughter just scored the game-winning goal. Oh, I did you get it on video?

Mike 48:46

Yeah, I did. Well, I have live part, so I'll go back and watch right. Well, we do now.

Lee 48:51

Let me let me comment.

Christie 48:52

How sad.

Lee 48:53

Right. This is what I'll say because I I I actually want to empathize a little bit on both sides here, but this is how I say it, right? I understand as a parent, especially if two young kids, in today's world, I understand the need for escapism. I really, really do. Let your children be that escape when you're at the rink. Don't let it be phone or social media. Because listen, you're you're inadvertently telling your kid, and I I gotta say it like this: I don't want any of you listening to think I don't think you don't care. I know you care about your kids, I know you love your kids. But you have to look at it through the eyes of a child. You're telling them what I'm looking at on my phone is more important than you. You might not think that way, and I know you love your kids, but your kid sees that. And Christy just affirmed that, right? The what's on your phone is not more important than them. And you have to make sure they know that. You have to make sure they know that. So again, look, I understand the need right now to just, you know, it's it's it's right.

Mike 49:54

But Lee, where's where's the but Lee, where's the line? Is the line, okay. I'm not on my phone, but I'm on top of the glass, screaming over at my kids. That's very different. There is a lot, like in a lot of a lot of ways, a lot of ways to be like what's that what they what they say now, right? Like when the NHL guys are playing, uh no fans. How are they gonna know what to shoot? I love that. The way I look at it is that there is there, but there is where the line is. There is where the uh like I knew my father was always watching me, but he was in the corner, never part of this the group, never yelling at the officials, never rolling his eyes at something I did, just watching. Right. And that was a comfort that you know, I didn't, and I never felt like, oh, I disappointed him, or he's way over the top. Like it's and that's a really hard thing for any of us as parents to do.

Lee 50:47

But again, the key is that you said that you knew he was watching. I knew my parents were watching, and that was as a comfort as an adult. I I underestimated as a child. Like you don't realize it as a kid, but the comfort of knowing, hey, my dad, my mom are here, and I know they're watching me. And then here's another thing, Christy, for you, uh to not have to look over my shoulder to see if my dad is watching. It's incredibly distracting, right? You know, uh, and this is again this this goes out with everything, right? Mike, to your point, if I don't be overbearing, have a go have a role. Coaches, give your parents a role, help them be better parents for their kids. And there's nothing wrong in saying that. We all want to be better parents for our kids. Parents, make sure your kid knows you're there mentally, physically, all right, that you're you're there for them, not just to yell at them, right? Um, and and again, this brings us actually to our last section, which is perfect, which is tips and tactics to uh to accomplish your goals as a parent, as a coach, as a player. You know, and I got a few one, a few ones I'm gonna run through real quickly, um, but I want to say before I get into them is that this is something that you can do at any level. If a coach is not doing with this with your players, parents, you can do this with your kids individually. Kids, if you're listening to this show, if your parents or your coaches aren't doing it, you can do this. There's no place where these don't work, right? One of them I have is journals. Um, we do this as coaches. All the best coaches I've ever worked with have a journal in some form. They're writing during the game, they're writing notes, they refer back to them. And there's multiple types of journals. There's just journals to track your progress, what you did in a certain game, uh, as a player, as a coach, as a parent. There's also things called gratitude journals, which I recommend to every team that I work with. Your players should have a journal in which they write down what they're grateful for every game, right? And what they learned, what they failed at. You want to you want to teach your kid not to fail, you have to rid them of the fear of failing because it's inevitable to fail. I always ask my kids before they go to bed, would you fail at today? Because I don't want them to fear failing, right? And they have a hard time with that, to be fair. But when they're older, they're gonna be able to do that. So that's one is is is journaling, right? Two, tracking visually progress. This is something teams don't do enough, right? You should have good messages in your locker room or somewhere on your phone, on your wallpaper, in your kids' bedroom, uh, tracking goals that you've set. Uh, one of the things that I've done with my teams, and this is both actually on the ice and off the ice, is there's so many online digital ways to track progress now. The problem I have with a lot of those, and they're good, is that you don't see it all the time. You have to access it. At my company and with my teams, I always have a huge whiteboard or some sort of tracking device where they can go up to it and look at what everyone else is doing and seeing where the tracking is, what they're working on is a team, is it defensive core, is an offensive core. I want everyone to be able to see it, and I want it in their face all the time, just to remind them that we're trying to accomplish these goals. And then my last tactic before I jump to you two is be flexible. Goals change. You have to be willing to be flexible. You don't want to set a kid up for failure if he's not or she's not going to reach the goal. Help them create new goals in order to accomplish whatever it is that they're trying to get to. And this goes back to everything from your daughter playing defense, Christy, and making sure that she understands this is the goal, this is why we're doing that, all the way to the top levels, understanding point production, right? I have seen, and and this is something I definitely wanted to say in this podcast, I have seen parents pay their kids to score goals. And I think that is crazy. It is crazy thinking. Not only is your kid gonna be a horrible teammate, right, but you are teaching them that something that does not apply. Right? This is what's funny about it. I've told parents if you feel the need that you want to incentivize uh goal scoring, do me a favor, incentivize assists too. All right, point production, not just goals. Assists are worth as much as goals for a reason, right? And and make your kid a better teammate. Right now, again, I don't I don't recommend paying kids, especially the youth level, to do anything. But that's not conducive to making your kid a better person or a better player. It's conducive to making them a selfish player, all right? And you can justify that in your head however you want. I'm telling you, as a coach, that's what it does. But anyway, coming back to this again, visual tracking, journals, be flexible. Uh Christy, I'll jump with you. You know, what did you do with your daughter to help track progress? And what other tips and tactics do you have?

Christie 54:57

Um, organization is really important before you start the season. All right. So I have all these organizational tricks just to make sure that I'm where I need to be, when I need to be. And one is very old-fashioned. It's a dry race board as you alluded to, which we have in the kitchen, and we put it right there and we put everything there. So we know, you know, school plays, uh, concerts, uh, what time practices, are there any conflicts? I love the visual, and it's right central where everybody can see it. So as the kids start making plans, they know exactly what commitments we already have before you commit to something else. So something very simple like that. I know it's it's not you know a goal, so to speak, but organization is a key goal in making a successful season. Um, I also for technology, I love apps. Right. They're great to communicate with your team. There's some really good ones out there. So if you ever need any help getting a kid to a game or if you can't make it, you're really easy to jump on that and communicate with other parents, let them know even about traffic delays. If you're, you know, if you're like an hour ahead and you know that that there's some traffic situations, you can let the other team members know. Don't go this route. Communicating, uh, making sure you're communicating with the coaches, have everybody's cell phone numbers. That's also really important because um there may be a situation where you know your kid can't make the game, all of a sudden they're sick, they have flute-like symptoms, they might have COVID. You need to get that message, everybody. So make sure you have everybody's cell phone numbers so you're all communicating.

Lee 56:47

Um when I was a kid, we had phone chains. We don't have to do that anymore. You have one phone chains, and one parent would call the next parent. You can text everyone in one second now.

Christie 56:56

Right. Also, I always adopt the 24-hour rule. We haven't talked about that, but that's a really important goal to have. Um, and parents, if you're new to hockey, you don't know what that is, that is breathing room. Hockey can be a very emotional game, and you can get caught up in the heat of a moment during a game and you're angry, you're frustrated, you want to lash out of the coach, or or other kids, or you don't understand why parents behave that way. 24 hours, just let it go, and then after 24 hours, you address it with a coach. Just a cooling off, cooling down period.

Lee 57:32

Christy, I do want to support you there. That rule goes both ways. All right, and that's something that's not talked about. That in my when in my teams, the 24-hour rule goes both ways. If I'm a coach and I'm mad at a parent or a player, I wait 24 hours before I speak to them, too. It's a two-way rule. I don't think enough coaches apply that. All right. Um, and again, I'm not talking about in the game when a kid makes a mistake, not coaching that kid. I'm saying if something happens and you need to speak to a parent, yeah, it's the same rule. You show them the same respect that yeah, they're gonna share with you. So 24 hours for parents to coaches and 24 hours for coaches to parents, I think that that's a mutual respect. Um, and I can tell you this I have almost never, probably never, made a good decision when I'm overly emotional, whether angry or excited, right? On either side of the emotional gamut, I rarely make good decisions when I have too much emotion in either way because your brain's not working right. This is why people will use millions of dollars of the slots machines.

Christie 58:30

I want, I want, I want. Stop. Hey, look at I'm Italian, you know, that's enough said.

Mike 58:36

Right. Right.

Christie 58:38

We'll be throwing a shoe at you during the second.

Mike 58:41

Right.

Christie 58:41

Um so um, yeah, so there are little things that you can do to adopt along along the way to make your season um more enjoyable, less stressful, less anxiety. There's a lot of anxiety out there, parents. We know that, we get that. But there are things you can do. Yeah, right. There are things you can do. 2024. Before we go, I do want to share, and I know you're gonna wrap up here, too, Mike. So we want you to pipe in. I do have some pledges that I gathered from parents all over the country um on how to make the season better and what they pledge to do. So I'll save that for last. So, Mike, jump in.

Mike 59:18

Yeah, no, well, that's the transcript. I can't I can't, yeah. No, I think I think it's as you know, as a coach, um, you know, one of the things we've I've gotten in the habit of doing the last at least uh basically the last three years, um, is because I, you know, we all not a lot of us don't have the time to have all these parent meetings all the time. So I send out a a guide to Mike Benelli's hockey team. It's a parent's guide, and it's it's like 16 pages long, but it lists a lot of things, the 24-hour rule, the fact that I'm not gonna contact you, that uh I'm gonna use a communication tool every week, where uh I used to do the same thing. When the kids used to come into my prep school uh practices and college practices, I'd have like a quote of the week under the lesson plan. Right. And or a quote of the day. And then I would ask the kids on the ice and we'd have a cut, you know, I'd say, Oh, you know, hey, what do you think about that quote? And the kid is like, what are you talking about, coach? Like then I knew that kid wasn't, you know, probably engaged and hadn't really been prepared. But at the same time, I was able to set the tone uh for the kids a lot of ways too. Uh I do the same thing on the bench. I have uh I would tell, you know, and we could actually probably post this on one of our sites. Uh I use a lineup card for every game uh with the kids, you know, who's playing with who, what the lines are, who the goalies are. And I actually mark down, like I'm very conscious, not that I want, I believe in equal ice time that's not earned, but I want to know, okay, there's a time in the game when I need to go back and have this discussion. I can't remember that after a game. I have to write, I have to write it down, it's right on my sheet. I'm marking down, you know, certain aspects of the game where I want to remember to go see that player and have that conversation about something. So because in the heat of the moment in the game, I don't know if the kids are actually gonna respond to it anyway. Uh I don't know if they can, you know, we all like, oh, okay, here's a play we're gonna do. If you haven't worked on that for weeks and weeks and weeks, right, it's very rarely gonna be successful. And I think um, you know, and but overall, obviously the communication's a big theme, but knowing how to communicate. I do a lot of digital communication. I send our kids weekly uh grades and feedback and how I'm feeling about them. I know mom and dad are reading it. You know, it's I don't uh it's not that I don't want them reading it, but I want them reading what those comments are so they know what my feelings are back to their kids. Um, that this is what I feel, and and I guess the the way I look at this too, which sometimes rubs people the wrong way, is it it doesn't really matter what you think that I that I think. I I'm tasking coaching the team. So ultimately, I have to make the decision. So yes, I I understand that you might disagree with me and we can have the discussion, but ultimately I have to make the the decision based off of no no coach wants to lose, and no coach wants to send a message uh you know that they don't want their kids developing. It just doesn't happen. It just it just really even even coaches that have kids at play, they want to win and they want their they want their team to get better and develop. And I think um if if parents went into that knowing that uh that ultimately the coach wants to do its best for their children, all the kids, I think it also helps alleviate a lot of the anxiety that you have going into a season as well.

Lee 1:02:30

Right, and and I'll say this and Christy, I actually want you to have the last word today with uh with what you were just talking about. Yeah um, you know, I'll I'll say this, Mike, just rounding out my my section with this, is that it's so important as a coach and as a player and as a parent that you understand that we all have this destination, we have this goal we want to hit, and we might have different ways of getting there, but we're all going towards the same place. That's an important realization that should alleviate a lot of stress for people. You can't you're allowed to disagree, you're gonna disagree, it's a hundred percent. But as long as you all know you're going to the same place, it's when you're not going to the same place that it becomes a problem. And you know, one final tip I want to give to everybody, and this is specifically to the coaches and uh parents, but kids too. Um, take the time to sit down with your kids and have them write out their goals, even if they're fighting a little bit. It's such an important thing to do, to sit down and set up the goals and make sure that you know what you're striving for. And it can be a one-year period, it can be a five-year period. I I got into this habit as a young, a young kid setting my five-year goals. And I'll tell you what, I've accomplished everything I ever put down. Had I not put them down, I don't think I would have done them. And there are there's a lot of statistics, a lot, that show that people who write their goals down, even kids, have a much higher chance of accomplishing them. It's a well-known thing. So I know for parents, sometimes it can be like, oh, I don't want to do that. They're gonna fight me. Take the 10 minutes, just see what happens, do it yearly. Sit down, set goals with your kids. It is such an important process. I've had coaches that have done that with me. It was a massive part to my development. This is what we're gonna work on today in practice, all the way that this is what we need to do to you can accomplish these goals five years from now. Goal setting is so, so important to the development of a human being, not just a hockey player. So, with that, I'm gonna I'm gonna switch it to you, Christy, because I want you to have the last word on the episode today with this before we go to the official closing.

Christie 1:04:18

Yeah, you know, we're all guilty of uh little vices out there in hockey vilifying reps, you know, car coaching and all that. So I I reached out to hockey parents all over the country and I asked them, if you were to make a pledge to make this season better, what would your pledge be? What do you promise to do to be a better hockey parent? And I got some amazing responses. I want to share a few of them with you. So this mom from uh Minnesota says, I pledge to give my kids plenty of time to get their gear on. I will not rush them. Good pledge. I love this comment from uh Stephanie from Syracuse. Always remember our children's coach volunteers his time or her time. Keep that in mind before you say anything. Good point. No more car coaching after a game. That's a whole nother topic, guys. Right. To bond more with families and parents on the team. I pledge to focus on skill development rather than the wins and losses. But he's from Manchester, from New Hartford, to be more involved, do more for the team. We talked a lot about that. Um, here's one from uh Concord, Massachusetts. Be careful with constructive criticism in quotes after a game. Trust that my child tried hard and did the best he or she could.

Lee 1:05:36

It can be destructive criticism if you're not careful. I always say that depends.

Christie 1:05:41

Here's another one we talked a little bit about this savor every moment, try not to cry when my son plays his last year of hockey. Embrace my daughter's goalie eccentricities and position reputation of being just a little left of center. There's one for all the goalie parents on there. Bring more staff. Take more pictures, cheer louder, smile more. And to try not to jump out of my seat every time he takes a hit. Here's one from Washington, DC. I love this one. Keep my mouth shut. Multiple levels are and another one, another mom says, uh, to try and stay positive in my cheering. Try not to roll my eyes at the parents who have no clue about the game. To please keep my mama bear instincts hidden deep down when people are yelling at my kid. And she's from Mead, Washington.

Lee 1:06:38

So that's great. You know, I I'd follow that up with this to the people listening. How many of you have actually taken the time to do something like that? Just write a pledge. If not, if you don't list right, how much of you have taken the? I'm sure most of you say, Well, I know what it is. That's great. Write it down. Take a real moment of reflection and write it down. Life's busy. As as as Christy, as you say in the book, great quote from Ferris Bueller. Life moves pretty fast. If you don't slow down every once in a while, it might pass you by.

Mike 1:07:09

I had a parent two years ago, the the his uh his wife put had a had a sticky note that after hockey games, she would stick it on the rear view mirror that said, shut up. And then literally, he said that we get in the car, bag in the back, she'd stick the sticker on the rearview mirror, and he's like, Oh, yeah, I can't believe it. You need that reminder, and it just uh listen, we we all went through this.

Lee 1:07:34

No kid wants to be asked when they get home from school, hey, how is school today? And we all do that. It's like that's not a good thing.

Mike 1:07:42

I didn't think I feel I I I'm the I'm the coach of a son that is berating me on the way home.

Lee 1:07:47

You know, it's like well, you need to put a little sticky note on the backseat to say, shut up. Leave the coach alone. Leave the coach alone for a few minutes. No, this has been a great episode, guys. Uh listening, obviously wouldn't remind you that we have a lot more episodes. We have a lot more coming, but you can find all our episodes on our kidsplayhockey.com, or you can listen basically wherever podcasts or listen to Apple, Spotify, Google, wherever you want to listen to it. Uh, also on YouTube or on Facebook, look for our group, Our Kids Play Hockey. There's no place you can't go where you can't find us. Uh, we want you to join in the conversation with us. We are just three parents, uh, three coaches, three kids at heart. Um, and it's all about the community, though, just like we said in this episode. So make sure to take a look for us once again. It's our kidsplayhockey.com. I'm Lee Elias with Christy Cassiano Burns and Mike Benelli. Thanks so much for listening to this episode, and we'll see you next week. Have a nice day.