April 27, 2024
Lee's Hockey Year In Review 2024
In this episode of "Our Kids Play Hockey," Lee takes us on a reflective journey through the 23-24 hockey season, sharing personal anecdotes, triumphs, challenges, and the invaluable lessons learned along the way. From the early skating strides of his daughter, Alina, in her first mite hockey season, to his son, Logan, embracing the goalie crease in his first squirt season, Lee delves into the transformative power of family, fun, and community in the youth hockey experience.
What You'll Discover in This Episode:
- The Power of Community: The importance of sharing our hockey stories to foster a supportive and understanding community, celebrating wins, and learning from losses together.
- Learning Through Joy: How unconventional methods, like playful skating sessions, can significantly enhance skill development and instill a love for the game.
- Coaching Philosophy: Insights into making tough decisions for the betterment of young athletes' growth and the balance between coaching and giving space.
- Team Building: The remarkable journey of the Haverford Fords' elementary school league team, from foundational practices to a championship win, underscoring the significance of teamwork and collective growth.
- Cherished Moments: The unforgettable experience of coaching both his children on the same team, emphasizing that the true victory in youth sports lies in the memories and bonds formed on and off the ice.
- Looking Ahead: Reflections on the season and anticipation for the future, reminding us to cherish every moment of our children's sports journeys.
We'd love to hear your season in review! Share your stories, lessons, and memorable moments with us at team@ourkidsplayhockey.com or join the conversation in our Facebook group, "Our Kids Play Hockey." Let's continue to build this amazing hockey family together.
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00:51 - Season in Review
10:06 - Lessons Learned Through Youth Hockey
18:03 - Youth Hockey Team Championship Victory
23:55 - Cherishing the Hockey Journey With Kids
WEBVTT
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Hello hockey friends and families around the world, and welcome to another edition of Our Kids Play Hockey, powered by NHL Sensorina.
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This is going to be one of those shorter episodes.
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It is time we are in late April when I'm recording this it's probably May when it's being released to do a season in review.
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Now, before I dive into my season in review, I do this for a lot of reasons.
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One is I like to share my learnings, my findings, my my mishaps from a season and the purpose of just sharing and hopefully educating and learning from you.
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But I also want to give you the opportunity to share your thoughts on your season.
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You can email them over to team at ourkidsplayhockeycom.
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Also, check out our social pages.
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Our Kids Play Hockey On Facebook.
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We have a group that's very popular right now, but I'll put a post in there asking you to share your wins, your losses or anything you want to share about your hockey season, because I think it's really important as a hockey community that we share our experiences, both to make sure that we understand that a lot of us are going through the same stresses, and it's important to know, as a parent and as a player and as a coach, that you're not alone in some of the stresses that youth hockey brings, but also to learn from each other.
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If we don't effectively communicate the things that we're seeing or doing, it tends to stay within us or in our little groups or in our little circles, and I think one of the ways to make hockey a better place is to make sure that we're all communicating through this podcast or through other podcasts or any way possible to get that information.
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So let me set the stage for the 23-24 season for my kids.
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My daughter Alina, who is seven years old, entered her first year into might hockey, and my son, logan, who is 10, entered his first year of squirt hockey.
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So we had two new experiences for both kids this year.
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It was also my son's first year as a goalie, somewhat full-time, so that paints the picture right.
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He's out of might, he's playing full ice now he's playing with rules, he's playing with scores, he is a goalie on the team.
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He played defense half the other time and then, because that wasn't enough, we decided to let the kids play for their elementary school league as well.
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Now, one of the cool things about the elementary school league and I'm gonna talk about all these throughout this episode is that this is going to be the only year, most likely, that my son and daughter will ever be able to play on the same team.
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So the way the elementary school works here the league works here in PA is that it is first through fourth grade, my daughter is in first grade, my son is in fourth grade, and then fifth through eighth grade is middle school and then obviously nine through 12 is high school.
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So, unless somehow they're both still playing hockey, my son's senior year and they both make the same team outside little tournament teams and fun teams.
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This is it.
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This is the only time they're ever going to get to play together.
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And of course, I volunteered to be an assistant coach on that team because God knows I need more things to do.
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But no, I served as an assistant coach on that elementary school team.
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I served in as assistant coach on my daughter's, my team.
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I chose not to serve as an assistant coach on my son's squirt team this season.
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All right, I wanted to have allow him to have some space away from me but also with other coaches and get some other experience, just to see how that would go.
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Right, I think that's the first lesson of this episode is that if you're a coach, I think it's okay sometimes to step away if the president sorry if the situation presents itself that way Right, there were three coaches on that team already.
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They did not need my help, I did not need to volunteer to do it, and I thought it was a good experience for my son to have again a little space away from me, which I also will fully admit.
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I think is something we should all do as parents sometimes in these team environments.
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Right, I want to be involved with everything that my kids do, but I also respect that sometimes we need space from each other, even if it's not something that's said.
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Sometimes it's important just to give the space so he can again experience other leaders, other coaches and other situations.
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But let's rewind back and start with my daughter, who made, I'll say, an entry level might team this season, before the season.
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This is a funny story.
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There was actually talk of maybe she should go back to the Adams program, which is kind of our learn to play program here in Pennsylvania, and there was a funny moment where I was talking with the coach of that program and he's also a Mike coach and I kind of came to the conclusion like she could probably use another year in Adams.
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And then my daughter came up to me because some of her friends were moving up to Mike and she said and I had not thought of this for some reason she said, dad, can't you just teach me the stuff I need to know to be a mite?
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And I kind of looked her in the eye and I said you know what, alina, I can, because you asked.
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And what needed to be improved upon at that time was her skating.
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So you might be asking yourself well, what did you do?
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What did you do for your kid to teach her how to skate?
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This might surprise some of you.
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We didn't do any power skating clinics.
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We didn't do any plyometric exercises off the ice.
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We went to public session at the stadium, which is our local rink, one to two times a week.
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I put her on her skates, I put my son in his skates and I let them chase each other around and she got very good at skating very quickly with that creative environment.
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Right, and I would jump on the ice with them.
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We would make funny videos, my, my lesson here, my thought here.
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We had a good time just being on the ice together.
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Those videos were very funny.
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I cherish them.
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She was smiling, she was happy and in chasing her older brother around or chasing me around, she naturally discovered a stride and a way to skate.
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Now I did give a little instruction when she asked, but largely I did not say a word.
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We were going there for the hot chocolates.
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We were going there for the fun, the music.
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It was in the summer, we were going there to cool off a lot of the days and we had a really good time.
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So when the season rolled around, she would not only was skating well, I, in my opinion and the coach's opinion, she was one of the better skaters, skating only on the team.
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So it goes to show you that when you, when you inject a little fun into the environment, a lot of things can happen.
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Now again, stick handling, you know vision on the ice.
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These were all things that needed to be developed on the team that year and as an assistant on that team, my main goal is always to to enable the head coach of that team and to work with those kids to really make it fun, and we accomplished that that.
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The talent on the team was very beginner.
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I don't think we won more than two or three games this season.
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But I remember I turned to the head coach early on in the season cause this is not my third year in the Mike kind of age group, which is again eight you and I said, look, as long as they're all proficiently skating by the end of the season and they have some basic ability to to to stick, handle, pass and shoot, it doesn't have to be great.
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We've succeeded.
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That was the goal at that level and I think that that that's always an important thing.
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When I look back at my hockey from the first year with my son to now, you know I've evolved in that sense of really understanding what the goal here is right, it can be, it can get, you can get lost in the wins and losses if you're not careful.
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And look, winning is a lot of fun, but you know it's fun playing hockey and the kids had a lot of fun playing hockey and they became really good friends.
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And you know we went to the tournaments, sometimes not winning a game, but the time we spent together was really fun.
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And you know my goal as a coach, especially in youth hockey, is to never be a kid's last coach Right, coach Right, and I'm not going to lie to you.
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There's a few kids that decided not to play next season.
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Now I was.
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I was assured by the parents.
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It's not because of the coaching, right?
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That's, that's kind of the way you have to look at it.
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It was just, you know, they're not taking to the sport and that's okay.
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Um, there's other sports that they want to play, but that's the gauge for me, right, and it's okay that they're not coming back.
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But I always look at things like that too and I try and analyze myself.
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And again, I'm thankful to the parents for saying something.
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But did I do something wrong?
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Did I not provide an experience for these kids that was fun for them?
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Again, simply wasn't the case, but it was a long season for them.
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But they all learned a lot.
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Of them are coming back for next season, for another year of might Some of them have moved up to squirt, believe it or not.
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And you know you love those kids, you love to play with those kids.
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And quick memories from that season you know I saw a young girl named Avery really, really struggle with the game the first half of the season and then broke out and got a hat trick in one game.
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The love for the game you know showed up on her face and then other kids too.
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That could barely escape before the season.
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And now that they're flying all over the ice, you know my daughter really took to the position of defense and really understands on how to protect the goalie and loves to protect the goalie.
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I'm sure her brother, being a goalie, plays into that.
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So that was a developmental team and I really enjoyed it.
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And you know my final thoughts on that team.
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I'm going to move on to some of the more exciting stuff.
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That happened this season too is I was amazed at how much less anxiety I had this season coaching might just because it's my third season doing it.
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I remember the first season.
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It's really kind of high strung.
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Looking back at it now I didn't think I was at the time, but it's a lot of anxiety.
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There was a lot of let's do this right kind of let's get on target, and I've just learned how to enjoy my hockey and enjoy it for what it is and it's a sandbox.
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In a lot of ways it's a hockey sandbox and you just got to let the kids experience the game, learn the game and as coaches we got to teach them basic skills, and that's my message to you parents too, is I hear some crazy things from parents about expectations or where their kids should be, even 10 years from now in might, and I think it's a mistake.
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I got to be honest with you.
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I'm going to reiterate what I just said.
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This is a hockey sandbox at that age.
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You need to cultivate a love of the game for your kid at this age.
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Um, if your kid is showing great skills and great promise, that's wonderful.
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If your kid's not, that's also wonderful, and it's okay.
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If your kid is not taking to the talent of the game, but loves the game, it will cultivate into talent at some point.
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We always give the metaphor, especially on this show, that you know you learn to walk.
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We're very patient when our kids are learning to walk.
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Everyone does it at their own pace, or learning to speak.
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Hockey works the same way.
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I didn't start playing hockey until I was 12 and I had a wonderful career in the game, right.
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So as long as you love the game, it's a sandbox Let them play in the sandbox and make sure the coaches are making it a fun sandbox to play.
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So no-transcript, I give a shout out to my organization that he's in the they have for Hawks for bringing in outside goaltending help and one of our guests actually the goalie doctor, matt Tendler and Mitch, would come out to practices often to work with all the goaltenders in the club and to practices often to work with all the goaltenders in the club and I think that instruction really benefited him this season because you could see him evolve from the beginning of the season to the end of the season into really becoming a solid goalie, right Long way to go in terms of like a career and again, we're not thinking that way at all, but you can see the advancement Now.
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The other cool thing about Logan is that when he skated out he played defense Prior to this season.
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I would say that you know Logan did a great job but he was always struggling a little bit kind of positionally and trying to find the game.
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You know he was not a big scorer on any of his might teams, but playing goaltender has really bolstered his ability to play defense and you can see how the two positions, excuse me have played off each other.
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That obviously, in that you have to work on your edges, you have to work on your angles, you have to work on tracking the game.
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You have to watch the game and that has completely played paid off as him as defenseman.
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He, he sees that aspect of the ice and, not to mention, he understands how to play the puck now for the goaltender right.
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So really advanced the season.
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I'm very proud of him.
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He put in the time, he put in the work and he really became, you know, one of the better defensemen and a goalie on his team that succeeded.
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Now that team as a whole, I would say the season was a little bit of a disappointment.
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They started out with a lot of potential but as the season went on I don't think that they were evolving enough to get better and they made the playoffs but had kind of an early exit.
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But the kids had fun from everything that I was told.
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The kids understood that sometimes not every season is going to be a winner and sometimes not every season is going to end up the way you want it to.
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I remind kids all the time look, there's only one champion.
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Typically right Now you might get multiple opportunities to win a championship in tournaments.
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You might get ultimate opportunities to win at the end of the season, but only one team wins right.
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It's usually not in anyone's favor.
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So I think there was a lot of lessons learned on that front this year of the frustration of having a lead and losing it and the adversity that you face as a hockey player.
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The highlight for that team this year for me, was getting to go to Lake Placid with the team.
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Uh, I remember early in the season they had, they had gave us some tournament locations and I said, look, I want to go to Lake Placid.
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I love Lake Placid.
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I did Can-Am as a kid.
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We went up there.
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Um, we didn't win one game.
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We didn't win one game, but the kids were bonding.
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You could see them having a good time.
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You know, we went out into the speed skating rink one day and skated around there.
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It was a winter wonderland.
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But in the final game I will just say that they were playing against a team that probably should have been at a higher level.
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All right, we've all been in that situation and we hadn't won a game.
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And we go into this situation and you know you're probably not going to win this game and I talked to Logan before that game because I knew he would be in the net and we told him this you know how this game is going to go.
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So it's on you mentally and your team mentally to make sure that, no matter what the score is, you can look this other team in the eye and they will know that you are not giving up.
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You will not stop, no matter what the score is.
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You can look this other team in the eye and they will know that you are not giving up.
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You will not stop, no matter what.
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I will say this they didn't win the game.
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They played one of the best games, if not the best game they played all season.
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They were in the game for most of the game.
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I was immensely proud of them.
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And then what's cool afterwards and this is going to be a little bit of a team brag right Was that the other team we were playing was clearly put together for the tournament.
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They were not a youth hockey organization, they were a select team.
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I'm going to say it again they probably should have committed to a higher division because they routed everybody.
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But you could tell a lot of the parents on that team didn't know their kids, I'm sorry, didn't know the other kids.
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It was just a team that was put together and after the game we lined the hallways, outside the locker room, and we basically gave these kids a standing ovation as each one of them walked out and the smiles on their faces.
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You would never have known we lost the game as bad as we did, right?
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I can't remember the final score right now.
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Again, it was close for a while, but it wasn't close at the end.
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You never would have known.
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It looked like we had won a championship and the other team's parents and kids kind of had to walk through that.
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Not that I'm gloating about that, but it shows you that this game is about more than just winning at times, right.
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And I had said at that time look, we won that game without winning.
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Look at the kids, look how happy they are and we got to leave even though we didn't win on a high note.
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Happy they are and we got to leave even though we didn't win on a high note.
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That's a cool story to tell.
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That's why I wanted to share it.
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Right, you know the kids were not happy.
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They lost, but the support from the parents and us as a parent group and the coaches meant everything to them.
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We stood by you, you worked hard, you did what we asked you.
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You never quit.
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That's a bigger win than winning the game.
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Okay, I am all for sharing those types of lessons in these games.
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So again, that team season ended up, you know, just kind of, I would say, above par right.
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I mean, they made the playoffs, didn't win a game in the playoffs, but it was a great learning experience for my son.
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Again, you know we get these evaluation forms at the end of the season.
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They ask you a lot of questions about the coaches.
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And look, coaches on this team were volunteer coaches, all three of them.
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They showed up to every practice, every game, right?
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I always remind parents that.
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You know it's easy to be critical of coaches, but I take a step back.
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These are volunteer parents and they were always there.
00:15:42.028 --> 00:15:43.659
And then I said this in my evaluation.
00:15:43.659 --> 00:15:56.090
I said, look, my son loves to play goalie, he loves to play defense, he loves to play hockey, he wants to come back next season and he, in my opinion I can only speak for my own son is a better hockey player now than he was at the beginning of the season.
00:15:56.090 --> 00:15:58.807
Just trying to keep it in character right.
00:15:58.807 --> 00:16:01.469
Again, sometimes you do evals at the end of the season.
00:16:01.469 --> 00:16:03.447
You don't win the last five or six games.
00:16:03.447 --> 00:16:04.522
It can be a rough eval.
00:16:04.522 --> 00:16:06.745
You win a championship, it's going to be a great eval.
00:16:06.745 --> 00:16:08.869
I just try and keep these things pretty even-keeled and realistic.
00:16:09.791 --> 00:16:17.250
Now, moving on to my favorite story of the season the Haverford Fords that really is their name elementary school team.
00:16:17.250 --> 00:16:22.244
So Logan and my daughter Alina were both on this team.
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We had thought Logan would start as a goalie on this team Team had two very good goalies, along with my son.
00:16:26.167 --> 00:16:30.102
He was one, and our goalie Alex was team a team had two very good goalies, along like with my son, he was one, and our goalie Alex was the other one.
00:16:30.102 --> 00:16:45.363
And it became apparent pretty quickly that I would say Alex had a slight edge on Logan and net but you know they're pretty comparable but that Logan was succeeding at defense so much that it was actually more valuable to us as a team to have him out of the net and playing defense.
00:16:45.363 --> 00:16:50.131
So I remember going to him and asking him like hey, look, how would you feel about just just playing D on this team?
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And I wasn't sure how he'd react.
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He's like yes, yes, I want to do that.
00:16:52.601 --> 00:16:56.831
Um, so we started going full-time with Logan on D Alex in that.
00:16:56.831 --> 00:17:03.822
Uh, and this is really cool Logan's defensive partner or I should say maybe my daughter's defensive partner was my son and my daughter.
00:17:03.822 --> 00:17:07.631
So Alina and Logan were D partners on the team, and guess who was coaching the D?
00:17:07.631 --> 00:17:17.180
So now I'm in this really special situation where I'm coaching my son and my daughter on a defensive line together and that does not take away from any of the other defensemen on this team, right?
00:17:17.180 --> 00:17:18.325
They were all wonderful to coach.
00:17:19.560 --> 00:17:21.748
And we started out the season and we got on the ice for tryouts.
00:17:21.748 --> 00:17:27.586
I got to go back a little bit here and six of the kids couldn't skate I mean, really could not skate.
00:17:27.586 --> 00:17:32.335
So I took a step back and I went to the head coach and I said look, this is what I think we should do for this season.
00:17:32.335 --> 00:17:38.397
I think the first five or six practices let's split up literally between the kids who can skate and the kids who can't skate.
00:17:38.397 --> 00:17:39.746
Let me get these kids moving right.
00:17:39.746 --> 00:17:49.233
So for six weeks I worked with, I'll just say, the beginner kids on the team and and most of them were a little bit older, like you know, third, fourth grade and they started taking to my drills very quickly.
00:17:49.233 --> 00:17:50.941
We got them moving right.
00:17:50.941 --> 00:18:00.141
We got them to a point they could start, stop, turn, go backwards and about week five or six we started incorporating everybody into the same practice again.
00:18:00.141 --> 00:18:12.101
Now our record at that time was about 500, but we had played every team and I remember saying, as a team builder, as a culture builder, look, if we can time the development of this team right.
00:18:12.101 --> 00:18:17.342
I really said this like week seven or eight I think we can win this thing.
00:18:17.342 --> 00:18:21.276
I really think we can take on these top teams in our division and win this thing.
00:18:21.276 --> 00:18:22.458
And so it goes.
00:18:22.519 --> 00:18:30.553
We started doing team building after every practice on Friday, or I should say most practices.
00:18:30.553 --> 00:18:37.720
By team building, I mean I would take the team upstairs and I would do off-ice drills that would force them to be in a group right, little challenges that I do in my culture work and my team building work that I do with businesses and teams all over the country.
00:18:37.720 --> 00:18:41.502
So we started doing that and you could see the kids starting to bond.
00:18:41.502 --> 00:18:47.067
And I always love it, because when we first do team building, I get a lot of eye rolls from parents and kids like, do we have to do this?
00:18:47.067 --> 00:18:48.247
I said yes, you have to do it.
00:18:48.247 --> 00:18:51.940
And they come upstairs and within one or two sessions, like, are we doing team building today?
00:18:51.940 --> 00:18:53.151
Are we doing team building today?
00:18:53.151 --> 00:19:00.743
So the kids love it, the team loves it, and you could see about three quarters through the season, things started turning in the games.
00:19:00.743 --> 00:19:04.317
We were not only in every single game, but we were winning a lot of games.
00:19:04.317 --> 00:19:06.431
Right, so we head towards the playoffs.
00:19:06.892 --> 00:19:08.736
I got my son and my daughter and D-line together.
00:19:08.736 --> 00:19:15.259
The team is winning and you can see it is clicking right and the top team in the league.
00:19:15.259 --> 00:19:17.570
We played them, I think, the second to last game at the end of the season.
00:19:17.570 --> 00:19:29.038
We lost by one goal and that team is very, very talented and I was really excited about this because you can start to see now the pattern of the team and the methodology needed to, I'll just say, defeat the other team.
00:19:29.038 --> 00:19:29.981
Right the tactics.
00:19:30.789 --> 00:19:36.173
So we go into the playoffs and the way the playoffs work here in this league is it's a two game elimination.
00:19:36.173 --> 00:19:38.961
I got to quickly explain that for you at home because I had never seen anything like this.
00:19:38.961 --> 00:19:48.381
Basically, you lose two games, you're out of the playoffs, so teams are eliminated as they play and then the final happens is whoever has not lost two games wins the championship?
00:19:48.381 --> 00:19:49.694
Right, because everyone's got to lose two.
00:19:49.694 --> 00:19:51.717
So we go into the first game.
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I believe we won three.
00:19:52.593 --> 00:19:54.157
Nothing, team is surging.
00:19:54.157 --> 00:19:54.839
They're looking great.
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We go into our second game against the top team in the league right now.
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