Our Girls Play Hockey: Inside the Olympic Experience & MORE with Hayley Scamurra (Part 2)

Hello, hockey friends and families around the world, and welcome back to another

edition of Our

Girls Play Hockey. You have asked for it. You have waited for it. You kept going,

Lee.

when are you doing the second mailbag episode you promised us a second

mailbag episode well friends

it is here today i am with Hayley Scamurra and mike Bonelli mike and i once again

rapid firing

questions from the audience to Hayley got some great ones here today again

today's theme right we

had to organize these because we got so many It's kind of how pros do it. How do

you train? How do

you eat? How do you keep it fun? So this is all about, Hayley, your experience as a

professional

hockey player, which you are really successful in succeeding at. And Mike and I are

very humbled.

And really, I say all the time, just two kind of schmucks sitting here with a pro

athlete. So this

is going to be pretty good today. All right. We'll dive right in. First question. What

do you eat

on game day? I love this question. I get it all the time. It's so funny. To be honest,

if I had it my way, I would have breakfast for pregame meal every day, regardless of

time. Like

eggs, bacon, potatoes. It's just a perfect pregame meal. However,

we typically have night games and we normally don't have breakfast available, like

especially on

the road. And when it's that, I usually do like plain grilled chicken, plain pasta.

I add like a little butter and cheese. and like broccoli or carrots and like that's it i

keep it

super super plain um and that's just what works for me but it also took years of

tinkering with it

to be honest we need to get the research someone needs to do the research on is

there really any

any reason not to have breakfast three meals a day it's clearly the best meal

everyone agrees

breakfast is awesome for those of you don't eat breakfast don't get you at all okay

i bet you they

could do some real scientific research of breakfast would be fine five times a day

All right. But

Hayley, I love your answer. Look, bland. You don't want to feel anything in your

stomach when you're

playing. I get it. I totally get it. But great, great answer. Yeah. But favorite type of

omelet?

Are you an omelet person? Oh, I love omelets. I'll put anything in my omelets, likeall the

veggies, all the cheese, all the meats, just any sort of omelet I will enjoy for sure.

I'm asking because Liv is definitely going to be like, I eat what Hayley Scamurra

eats. Mom has to go

re-shop now all of a sudden.

Change your game schedule around. Nine-year-old Sarah is asking, other than

eating, what do you

do before a game to get ready?

I like to keep it pretty chill. If we have a night game, I usually will go for a walk.

I love to go for a walk. I will just relax, watch TV, pretty much schedule it around

eating.

Once I'm at the rink, I always take my stick and then play. a game of some sort so

right now with

the pro league we play sewer ball which is where um it's a big group of people and

it's with a

soccer ball and you're only allowed to touch it twice and you kind of are like on the

attack more

so and if you're like the last person to get hit and it hits the ground you get like two

outs in

the whole game we get pretty intense with it but it's just so much fun so that's

pretty much the

ritual i have at this point You know, I love Hayley. Sometimes I got to say this. I talk

to the

young kids sometimes that I coach about the competitive engine turning on and

that it can't just

turn on. like when the game starts right like it's got to be on already right um you

know you've

talked in previous episodes about how when you get on the ice you want to find

that first hit

you're looking for that first physical contact but the engine's on already it's not

like you're

doing that to turn you're you're revving the engine at that point so i i love that you

said hey we

get competitive in the pre-game ritual kids listening find a way to do that with your

team okay

because i'm going to tell you that i don't know too many people really not anyone

That just is

engines off game starts. I'm at full force. It just, I, am I wrong on that?

Like, I don't, I don't know anybody that can do that. You're not wrong for sure. And

I actually,

funny enough, I never really thought about it that way, but I also used to play spike

ball. And

we'd also get competitive with that. So that's also a fun one. Yeah. Kids want to do

that as well.Not hard to find one of those. All right. Look, Miranda has a similar question. So

I'm going to

frame it a little differently. She's asking if you have a pregame ritual. So I know you

said taping

your stick and, but is there anything else that, that you do habitually before a

game or,

or like, do you have like a little doll in your stall that like you put some, you put it

light a

candle, like Joe Boo from major league that nobody, nobody under 30 is going to

know that one, but.

Do you have any rituals before a game outside what you said? Not rituals anymore.

I do get dressed

for a certain time frame, if that makes sense.

We know we get on the ice at a certain time. I'm always fully dressed in my gear 10

minutes before

that time. And then I'm like... usually like visualizing or just chatting honestly a mix

of both

because I don't like to only visualize and be dialed in I like to keep it somewhat

loose but if I

find I'm not like chatting I'll kind of like visualize things during that time yeah but

you want

like I said you're ready 10 minutes you're always always like 10 minutes before

yeah that's good so

I like this one from Sarah nine years old she's already thinking about you know how

can she be

motivated for practice and so her her question is going to be one that she's going

to go right back

to her coach she's going to say this is this is the one this is the one here what's

your favorite

drill at practice right now and

if i had to guess if i had to guess it has to be something of a battle drill it has to be

it can't

be crossover circle drills it just can't i like the butterfly warm-up that we do

somebody else

yeah okay i was gonna say a warm-up drill actually where it's like um two people

are across from

each other at like in the middle of the ice at each blue line and there's one puck

that's always

getting passed between them and then there's lines on opposite blue lines so you

pass pass go to

that line curl around does that make sense i'm visualizing it i see it i'm gonna write

it up yeah

and then that's like my one of my favorite warm-up drills for like a team practice i

would say andthen honestly i love small area games like you should see our team we get so fired

up when they say

we're gonna play a small area game so probably one of my favorites is like power

play game

where the Nets are on the goal line facing out, and it's four people on one side

trying to score

against two people, and then it's the same, obviously, just opposite colors in

teams. And you can

either do it where there's one puck, and you can hit it to your team on the other

side, or you can

do it where it's race to score, so both sides get the puck at the same time, and

then whoever

scores first wins. So that's one of my favorite games. Yeah, great competition

games.

Like you said, kind of the theme earlier. It's just one of those things that gets you

all pumped up

and ready to go and everybody can contribute because no matter who you are on

the team, you can be

involved in that. Yep. I'm very certain that Sarah's coach is listening to this

episode.

I can almost short of guarantee it. You're making me think of this. I just want to

share it because

it's one of my favorite drills that I saw recently was you have two teams, right? and

you can go

one player, two players, three players, or four players. Your team decides how

many players go in,

and the other team decides, but you can only use a number one. So if you throw in

your four, you

can't throw four in again. So you can end up in a four-on-one. You can end up in a

four-on

-four. Poker. Yeah, I love that joke. We didn't call it that,

but I am never going to not refer to it as poker moving on. Anyway, great question

from Sarah

there. a whole episode on drills too. All right, Clark, who is six, asks a simple

question,

but it's a very important question. I don't want to undersell this one. He says, how

do you get

really fast at skating? That's a good question from a six-year-old. That is a great

question.

I think it's on ice and off ice. For sure, he is in the right place. For sure.

Yeah, I think off ice for sure is huge. I think... doing sprints off ice doing jumps

doing

plyometrics again if you're six train maybe later in life i don't think you need to be

doing thatat six uh can be when you're older but um i think all of that stuff all the plyometrics

i would say

would translate to on ice speed for sure yeah no i i would say this too to him is that

it's a good

thing you're asking that question because that is by far by far it's not close the

most important

skill in this game All right. So if you're already thinking about becoming a better

skater at your

age at six, that's massive. The question wasn't Hayley, how do you do a great

Michigan four times?

Right. That's what we like to say. Go ahead, Mike. All right. Well, I got Bennett

here, 11 years

old. It's been around the game a little bit now. And I think maybe she has to watch

a little bit

more pro hockey with the, on the women's side, but she wants to know where do

you get most of your

goals from? And I have a follow-up to this anyway, but when you're scoring your

goals, where are

you getting most of your goals from? Probably net front, 100%. I think,

I mean, if you look at stats for anything, it's like that's the dirty area right in front

of the

net where you get most of the goals. I would say like popping off the net, like

those quick shots

is usually somewhere I score often.

Yeah. Now, would you say like, so if I'm speaking, if Ben is listening now and she's

like,

okay, well, I got to find out where Hayley's getting, like how she's scoring those

goals. I know

she's scoring in front of the net and popping pucks in, but would you say like

that's a definition

of, would you define yourself as a goal scorer or are you scoring goals from those

dirty areas just

because of the type of player you are?

I wouldn't define myself as a goal scorer. I think my game is,

you know, energy, being physical, creating offensive opportunities for sure,

whenever I can.

And that tends to be in that front causing chaos. It also could be causing that

chaos to then help

another line score, right? It's not always for my direct benefit, but maybe my line

mates,

maybe the next line and things like that. I think that's super important to kind of

note. Yeah,

no, I love it. Yeah, we're going to follow up on this one for a second here because,

Hayley, youknow, I think young kids have to understand most goals are scored in front of the

net. And I don't

think a lot of kids work on scoring goals in front of the net. I think they work on

fancy stuff,

which is fine. We always say, like, you got to have fun. You got to have fun and be

creative. Like,

that's why we never say to kids, we never say don't do a Michigan or don't. Like,

there's a time

and a place. But the time and the place for those is very rare, whereas the puck.

Being in the slot

off a rebound guaranteed will happen 10 times a game. Most likely,

most likely, especially in youth hockey. All right.

Work on that net front presence, right? Another thing I'm going to say about you,

Hayley, and we'll

get into this a few times today about your role. And I want the players to

understand this. One of

the things that Hayley does is you are a magician at creating time and space for

your teammates.

And I'm going to try and tell everybody here as a coach, and I'm speaking as a

coach, Mike, you can

too, invaluable. It's an invaluable skill. Don't get me wrong. Scoring is a big-time

skill.

It's important. You get a lot of notoriety for that. But as a high-level coach, if you

have an

athlete that can create time for your goal scorers or, as you said too,

Hayley, can create havoc with an opponent that's going to allow the scoring line to

come out,

however you want to look at it, invaluable. And kids,

these are skills you can develop to create immense value. Now, unfortunately,

kids, if you get good at this at 10, I cannot guarantee you that your 10-year-old

coach will

understand that or see that. But I can guarantee you when you get older, the

coaches will see that.

So it's about being well-rounded as a kid. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you

have to go out

there and be just one type of player yet.

Hayley, Team USA, pro athlete. I mean, this is someone who's doing it, and you

have a very defined

role in that sense. I create time and space for my teammates. I create havoc for my

teammates,

and I will hit you if you come near the puck or my teammates. Right?

I think some of the answer to this might be, you know, where do you get most of

your goals from?

It's from me and my teammates creating opportunities. I love that. I mean, so it'sreally like,

that's where I get goals from. I get goals from being in the right place at the right

time and make

sure my teammates are put in the puck where I can get it. And I think that's like, I

think because

most of us think when we're teaching goal scoring. That you're skating down the

wing, you kind of

cut in at an angle, you shoot the puck upper right-hand corner, and that's a goal

scorer. I just

think it's just not a realistic expectation. We've had Steve Balliquette on episodes

here where

he's talked about that clear-sighted analytics idea about if you're a goalie, yes,

you want Hayley

coming down on you, one on O, shooting from the top of the circle. Awesome. I

love that. I'll take

that shot every day of the week. But you get me in front of the net where I got to

battle and box

somebody out and get my feet moving one way and my hands free. That's what

that's what goal scorers

do or that's what people do to create goals. And I think so. It's a it's an answer

where I think

when you watch the game and you see the way you play and the way you create

goals for yourself and

for your teammates. I think that's really the nuance of, you know, where Bennett

could kind of see

the answer to that question. Yeah. And we joked a long time ago, Hayley, I'm going

to bring this one

back that your last name's Gamora rhymes with Gamora. And if you are a comic

book fan, she is known

as the fiercest woman in the galaxy. So not only does it rhyme, but it totally fits

your style of

play, which I love. Maybe one day you'll get to watch those movies when you're not

busy being a

pro. All right. Yeah. Keep doing what you're doing. Those movies are not

important.

All right. Next one is from Mallory. Great question. Did you play any other sports

growing up? I

did. I played tennis and soccer were like the main sports. And then like, we'd

always play like

football.

Oh,

is that me? Oh, that's her. She'll be back in a minute. Hold on. Yeah.

Let me text her.

My phone died. It might happen to me if my phone dies, by the way. Yeah. I wonderif that's her.

Oh, there you are. Okay. She's back. Can you hear us? I can hear you. Are we

going to be okay? Can

we just redo that question? Yeah, yeah, no, totally. Okay, my GM did call. Oh,

do you have to take it?

She's never really called me before. I think, let me take it real quick.

Go take the call, please. Okay. We'll be here. I'll pause this.

You said you don't have to go to practice? Yeah, like, so anyone who is at, like,

rivalry series and things like that, just with how busy it's all been and then time on

ice and

everything, they just said that we can come in and just work out tomorrow and not

skate. Do you

know what you're going to do yet? Nope. Just some sort of workout. I'll have to

give her that,

what's it called? That freaking advice. I'll let her know. Oh, my God. Yeah, so do

you understand?

You had to tell her, too. I was live on the air. I love to do this. Oh, I'm hoping Mike's

phone

didn't just die. Hold on. No, I'm good. Thank God. All right. Here we go. Let's keep

going. We got

this. We got this. All right. Let me see. Okay. Here we go. You ready? Sorry.

Everybody's good. I'm ready. Okay. We're back in.

All right, Hayley. Next question is a simple one from Mallory. Great one though.

Important one. Did

you play any other sports growing up? I did. I played tennis and soccer.

And then always played outside sports with my brothers and, like, all the

neighborhood kids and

stuff. We'd play football. We'd play street hockey, of course, baseball. But my main

sports,

like travel-wise, were soccer and tennis.

Kids play multiple sports is the moral of the story. I mean, we'll even count soccer

as a sport

even in this episode just for that reason. But, yeah, you've got to play multi-sports.

And I think

maybe just digging into that a little bit more, was there any of those other sports

that rivaled?

Like your love for hockey, like where you're saying, oh, man, I'm really good at this.

I think I

might want to do this instead. I would say soccer was the closest, but hockey was

always like my

first favorite. But soccer, I had some of my like best friends coming out of that. So I

think

sometimes I was maybe a little torn between the two. Tennis, I loved playing, but I

was so bad atkeeping score. My dad would always get a kick out of it. Like if I ever did do it

competitively, I

would forget the score. And he was like, Hayley, they like told you the wrong score,

like the other

player. And I was like, ah. Oh, well. Yeah. Yeah. He played until they stopped.

Hayley was

everyone's favorite opponent. Basically. Were you fierce in, I already know the

answer, but were

you fierce in football too, in soccer? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't, a lot of

kicking, I'm

sure. All right. Go ahead, Mike. Here's a message from Jocelyn. Now she doesn't

give her age,

but so she might be a coach trying to get some free intel here, but she said, will

you send in your

step-by-step fitness routine? Oh, actually.

So can you give it up? Let's go. You can message Coach Stoop LFG for my fitness

routine.

I will do this for you. But Jocelyn, funny you should ask because Hayley does have

an online

community where she shares a lot of information. And I promised the audience we

did not set this up

this way. But Hayley, would you please actually tell the audience a little bit about

that community

real quick? Yeah. Because it's a good one. Yes, my boyfriend and I, Nick, who I

alluded to earlier

with the Instagram handle, but we have an online community, the Pro Athlete

Mentorship. And we do

weekly calls where we're on live with whoever is able to join us at that time. And

we kind of just

talk about either things going on in my life or things going on in their life. And we

end up having

these really in-depth discussions about the mental side of the game, about life.

But on that...

we also have workouts that you can access with whatever equipment you may

have body weight

resistance bands full weight gym um and you can also like interact with us and ask

us questions on

there and things like that yeah it's a tremendous opportunity for all you out there

um and again

i'm selling it for you heli because it's it's it's like that's not why you do it right it's

right i

want people to know about that because

I'll be honest with you. When I was a kid, or even a coach, if a pro athlete's going,

hey, come check out Behind the Curtain. I'll tell you everything I know. I probablywould have been

on that. Mike and I didn't have the internet growing up. We had these things called

books and VHS

tapes. If you're lucky, you laser disc every once in a while. Plus, you didn't have to

be in shape

when you played hockey. You just got in shape with Jesus.

Yeah, you should look at those workouts from that time. All right, the next one is

from 420. That's

the handle here. We've done full episodes about this, but it's a great question. Is

my eight-year

-old, got to keep in mind the age here, is my eight-year-old daughter better off

sticking with

boys hockey or switching to all girls hockey?

It's such an individual question. a lot of it really depends on how they're feeling i'd

you know

definitely ask them what they think if they're having fun you can maybe tell like on

the ice like

how they're doing if they're keeping up um physically in that sense um i know for

me i didn't

switch until i did one year of body checking aloud and then i switched to girls

hockey um i

personally loved playing with the boys up until that time like i always had a lot of

fun i loved

like the compete and the um the challenge of it uh so maybe just chat with your

kid and see how

they're feeling and maybe they want to be with their peers and that's perfectly

okay it's also for

the social aspect as well so don't overlook that either i would say Yeah, I want to

say here too

that for the listening audience here, especially if you're newer to Our Girls Play

Hockey, when we

created this show, it really, no pun intended, was made for answering questions

just like this.

So if you go to ourkidsplayhockey.com, we have the episode segmented by show.

And if you go to the Our Girls Play Hockey tab, you'll find this exact question and

several other

questions too that we've... dove into over the, I guess the years now specifically

for,

for girls in hockey and that lifestyle and those decisions. And as Hayley said,

it's, you know, it's different for everybody, but we give a lot of great context on

that. We will

continue to do that as we move forward. Although we love highlighting you here

today with all these

questions, Hayley, I'm not going to lie. Go ahead. Go ahead, Mike. All right, so wehave a question

from Harry, and Harry has the same question I think I would ask, and we work with

a lot too on any

athlete going into the quote-unquote offseason. The FOMO, when deciding

whether or not to play

summer hockey, is real. What's your advice?

My advice is to always take a break from hockey. I do not think any kid should be

playing hockey

all season long. I don't play hockey all season long. You physically and mentally

need the breaks

or else there's burnout. There is, I know there's data to back that up 1000%. I

think even if other

maybe friends are doing that as well and you feel left out or things like that,

find other ways to connect with them outside of hockey. I think that's just another

possible

solution if you feel that you want to have that social connection with them. But I

just, I really

don't think anyone should be playing hockey all year round. You know, I'm going to

follow up on

this too, Mike, to Harry. I'm speaking as a dad too, okay? The FOMO is real. I'll

acknowledge that.

And where my kids are at now too, my kids are about to be 12 and 9. We do not

play in the spring,

okay? Like when the season ends, they take a break. And I'll tell you what's – let

me say this

right. The FOMO, that feeling, what trumps that feeling for me. is in the late spring

or in the

summer when my kids come up to me and say with passion, hey, dad,

when do we get to play hockey again? I want to play hockey. That feeling trumps

FOMO 10 to 1.

Way better feeling than whatever you think you're missing out on. And they're

rejuvenated. They're

ready to get back out there. They want to get back out there. And you will see a

tremendous

physical difference. And if you've let their bodies rest. All right.

Again, my son's a goaltender. I, I, he must rest after the season. All right. So FOMO

is very real,

but hearing your kids kind of almost beg you to get back out there. That's way

better. All right.

That's that way. I'm trying to find that it's not, that's not fear of missing out. That's

joy of.

Hockey playing. I'll work on that one. I'm just going to interject for those rink

owners and

program directors, just really quick, because I think you also need to define foryour children.

What is the. fear that you're missing out on like what is what is it like so so to me I

agree with

Hayley I agree with you Lee that you know spring hockey as the winter goes is not

recommended.

I don't think by any professional, but there is opportunity in the spring to work on

your game. If

you really pick and choose what you're going to do to work on your game and

when, and what, you

know, and what aspects, you know, if you wanted to really improve some, some,

some skating

technique or some, some shooting techniques on the ice, or maybe you wanted to

help with just

understanding space on the ice, depending on where you are in your development

as a player. I don't

think I would recommend like shutting it down. I mean, that's always the ideal

situation. But the

thing is, you know, around where we are, like people need to keep rinks open and

people need to

keep programs going in order for us to all survive. I think there is, though, the

nuance of doing

something that's going to help in your athletic development and hockey ability

other than getting

in a car and on a plane and playing in tournaments where you get 12 minutes of ice

time on a

weekend. I think there is the difference in what you can do as an athlete. in the

spring and avoid

some of that, that missing out piece. Yeah. I think also too, you've kind of been

through this more

recently than Mike and I have too, but I'll say this again, breaks are very important.

Now, what a

break is to a nine-year-old versus 12-year-old versus 16-year-old versus 19-year-

old versus

collegiate slash pro that can vary, right? Cause I think that with my kids where

they're at,

I don't mind the month or two off, right? Now, with that said, if they're 17 years old

and they're

trying to become a collegiate hockey player, that two months might be two weeks,

right, in my opinion. But there's a break there, right? And Hayley, again, I'd love

your thoughts on

this too because now that you are where you're at, it might have elongated the

break a little bit

again too. But I think we're all saying the same things, that it's important to take

breaks.The size of that break varies and where, what you're trying to accomplish impacts

how you're going

to approach it. But Mike, I like what you're saying too. Like the off season is the

time to work on

certain things without any pressure. Yeah. But yeah, sorry, Hayley, did you have

any,

that's my fault. Did you have any thoughts on, on that? Or is that, I mean, again, is

that spot on?

Like you said, I'm not, I'm not in your position. I didn't play at the level you play

that. Yeah. I

think it's definitely spot on. It just. for me rest is something i've learned how

important it is

and i'm very adamant about teaching that to my mentees and anyone that i you

know uh can share that

with how important it is and how much it helps you in the long run and makes you

a better player

eventually as well Right. Now, Mike and I would like to learn how we can get some

rest from

parenting because apparently there is no rest. There's not like rest is, hey, I want

to watch this

TV show. And then, you know, dad, will you come tuck me in? And, you know, I go,

no, I'm resting.

But then I still get up and I walk over to the room and I thought there's no rest

because I love my

kids very much. I will have this introspective breakdown another time. Let's get to

the next

question. All right. This is from siblings. Harper and Weston asked together.

This is such a young kid, but great question. Hayley, what's it like being a pro

hockey player?

It's a great question. Oh, wonderful question. It's so much fun. Every day I get to

wake up,

go to the rink, see all my teammates and my friends. We get to work out together.

We get to

practice together.

At the pro level, we're given meals. We do meetings where we focus on the little

details that will

make ourselves and our team better.

It's just the best. It's so much fun. And I'm just so blessed I get to do it here in

Montreal now.

And the team has been great. And, yeah, it's just been – it's always so much fun

every day.

Something new. So I don't know if it's a different Weston, but we have Weston who

a 12-year-old

is asking. And this is a loaded question, I think. So we're going to tiptoe aroundthis.

I don't want to get anybody upset with me. Um, but how many goals do you have?

I love it. Cause it's like, now is it this year? Right. Like in my lifetime,

it was, it was it when you were 12? Like, I think like, like, I love the question

because I think,

um, you know, and I'll, I'll give you some time to answer it. But I think sometimes

we think about

like, well, the hockey player is defined by how many goals they score. So you're

going to tell me

you scored a lot of goals. You're going to be a pretty good hockey player.

Yeah. Lifetime, no idea. This season I have won so far. It was a good one.

Yeah. I've also made it a point to not focus on that stuff as much.

I think when you focus on the points, you tend to get too tunnel visioned and you

don't really

focus on the little details in the game that matter. And that will eventually lead to

production in

that sense. But there's other things that can help your team. And I think when I've

been focusing

on that, it's helped me. immensely all over the board. And then it's allowed me to

produce more,

but I try not to think about it as much. Yeah, we wanted to ask this question.

We talked about this question before the show, Weston. In our last mailbag

episode, we dive in a

lot about too is Hayley and her role and the type of player she is. Her role is not to

be a goal

scorer, right? Like not that they don't want you to score on goals, Hayley, but that

is not what you

are known for in professional and Olympic level hockey. You're known as a physical

player,

someone who creates time and space. you know, someone that's going to charge

for your teammates

and, and you are incredibly valued in professional hockey as that player.

Like this is going to sound funny audience, but like this is Hayley Scamurra. Like

that's, that's who

she is. Right. Like, like people model themselves after her. Right. So, so again,

Weston, we're not making fun of you or anything like that. I just want to make sure

that, that

everybody listening understands that. You know, goals are great, but the value

here for Hayley is a

different type of player. I mean, and it is valued.

Hayley, you've scored more goals than Mike and I this year combined. I think for

Weston, too, coming

from a coaching perspective, it's like, how many goals are you not on the ice for?

And I thinkthat's sometimes just as important. I don't want you on the ice. I used to laugh at a

lot of

players that were big goal scorers. Listen, I love the fact that you're scoring four

goals a game,

but you're on the ice for five against. You're not helping me here. So really,

it's just as important to be. the player that's playing the game. And then if you are

going to

score a goal, like Lee just alluded to, make sure it's the right time and the right

goal. Right,

right. Especially if you're in the playoffs in the championship game. All right, this

next question

is a deep one. It's from T. Chichu. Two words.

How's Montreal?

i know this one she's one of my mentees um yeah she's uh she's great but uh no

i'm loving montreal

um we had like a 10-day road trip earlier and It's such a great way to bond with

teammates,

honestly. And you guys have your own versions of road trips, obviously, with your

weekend

tournaments and things like that. And I think it's so important to take advantage

and spend time

with your teammates when you can. I think that camaraderie helps so much to

translate on the ice as

well. And it's just fun socially, obviously, to bond with other people. get to know

them on a

different level rather than just how they are at the rink alone uh so i know we

played lots of

games we're big on games in montreal um card games dice game like you name it

we play uh so it's

been a lot of fun and the fans here are absolutely incredible we actually just got to

play at bell

center uh this past saturday which is where the montreal canadians play for those

who don't know

and we had over 18 000 fans and it was so loud it was the coolest thing like in our

locker room we

could hear like the music blaring through the from the stands like it was so cool

you mean that's

where the victoire play that's what you're trying to say now yeah now you guys

own we got one game

there but yeah no i'm saying that night it was your rink is what i'm trying to say i'll

also say

too that Anybody listening, if you're traveling anywhere in North America, Montreal

should be a

destination. It's a beautiful city. For those of you not watching, we get to watch thesunset with

Hayley every time she's on the air here. We get to see the skyscrapers light up

behind her, which is

pretty surreal and cool at the same time. But yeah, Hayley, great answer to that

question.

Mike, you have the final question of the mailbag episode, unless you and I keep

jabbering. Yeah,

I mean, we can keep talking, but I think Gene's question is going to be a good one,

I think, as a

travel advisory question more than anything else. And this is an East Coast

problem,

I think. This is a unique question, yeah. Most people. But when traveling across the

U.S.-Canadian

border, Hayley, do you have to go through customs as a team, an individual?

I mean, I'm sure you're just let through and people like see you, they know. and

you go right

through customs no or is it is it you or just as a team what's the process there so it

depends if

we're traveling by bus we go as a team because you're literally on the bus together

so you have to

get off the bus and it's the whole process um but if you're on a plane then you're

going

individually because everyone gets off the plane at different times and you go

through the line

like everyone else so we don't get uh no special treatment at the borders for us

I got a funny story about this. So it's not U.S. Canada, but when we flew to

Argentina recently,

we landed in very different process in every different country.

And there was a massive line. And the way our schedule was is we kind of had to

get from the

airport right to the rink to go right to practice. This happens sometimes. And I'm

pretty chill

with things I can't control. So my attitude at this point is, look, if we miss practice,

we're

going to miss practice. There's no way around what we have to do here. And then

our team manager,

who's the greatest manager in the world, comes running, screwing up to me. She

goes,

found us a loophole, right? And we were escorted to essentially like an automated

process where we

just kind of scanned our passports and it went through. We got lucky that time.

You never know. Sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's slow. Border Patrol, yeah.

Everyone does it a

little differently. We should add on to this. USA, Canada has one border.You've traveled all over the world for hockey. Do you have any funny stories or

most Border Patrol

is pretty much the same? Oh, gosh. In terms of the process. I know they're all

different in terms

of what you're doing. Nothing funny that I can think of, to be honest with you. Well,

that's the

problem in Border Patrol. You don't want to be funny. You want to stay focused.

You want to head down. Let me get through. I got my hockey bag. My hockey

stick.

I'm clearly here to do this. And I think Gene's answer, it's like this is the time if

you're going

through the border, U.S., Canada. I go to Norway a lot and Europe and going

through. It's just

like wherever you're at. Just understand that these are professionals. You've got to

get through.

They're there for our safety. And I think it's just getting through that. I mean, even

when I go

through with the kids, I'm always like, this is not the time to joke. It's not the time

to be a

wise guy. It's really just the time to understand they're doing a job. We want to get

through.

We're compliant. We're just going to go play a hockey game. But I think Gene

maybe wants to know if

you're getting any special privileges there. It doesn't sound like you are, and

you're getting the

easy pass to get through. Athletes, they're just like us. They're just like us. They're

just like

us. They go through border patrol. Although I watched the whole team from New

Jersey one time go

through customs in Newark, and the whole team got to bypass this hour-and-a-

half long line.

And I can tell you, as a coach. And as somebody who, like, watches other athletes

and teams in

their full uniform and regalia, I was offended and horrified that this team got to go

through,

you know, before everyone else. But this is the border. And, you know, just be

prepared.

Have your pair sport out. Phone off. And get yourself through. Yeah. On the next

episode,

Hayley, we'll talk about all the times you had to go through Border Patrol with the

medals that

you've won. And how fun that is. Explain it. Yeah, yeah. What is this? It's exactly

what it looks

like. Yeah. All right. That's going to do it for this episode of The Mailbag. Audience,I'm going to say this again. I said this in the first episode whenever you listen to

that. It's

unbelievable questions. Unbelievable participation. We absolutely will do this

again.

But I am realizing if we did this every week, we would be doing these episodes

every single week.

So we'll let these breathe for a little bit. um you know Hayley's got a pretty

impressive schedule

here coming up we'll have to do another uh daily life episode to see where you're

at soon but uh

Hayley thanks so much for letting us grill you today this has been really fun no

problem it was

great Always. All right. For Mike, for Hayley, I'm Lee. This has been another great

episode of Our

Girls Play Hockey. Remember, if you have questions, topics, anything you want us

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