Our Top-5 episodes for Youth Hockey Coaches & What They Teach About Leadership & Team Culture

Lee MJ Elias [0:00 - 4:34]:hello, hockey friends and families around the world, and welcome to another special edition of our Kids Play Hockey. We are continuing our 400 episode celebration with another best of episode. And today's topic is the top five coaching episodes. So whether you're coaching mites or midgets or just getting started, these episodes are full of practical tools and timeless advice for coaches and also parents and players. Right. It's always a good thing to understand what's going on behind the coach's mind. So let's dive right in. The first one we're going to talk about is five things coaches should do to prepare for the youth hockey season. I remember doing this episode. It was a really great one. We laid out five foundational steps for coaches to hit the ground running before the first whistle blows. Right. From staff building to culture setting, this episode is a preseason checklist in podcast form. So let's go check out the clip. It's a clip on why your coaching staff's communication sets the tone for everything or what age you're coaching. You got to surround yourself with good people. And Mike, again, when you look at what does that mean, good people, right? Sometimes you're given several people of, hey, they want to volunteer and they want to help out. Sometimes you're not. The key is this to me, within this. And you're going to hear this a lot in this episode today. With a lot of these tactics, you got to be able to communicate effectively with who's ever there, Right? Because there's going to be days you can't make a practice. They can't make a practice. You could potentially disagree on the direction the team is going on. You've got to be able to communicate because I have seen. I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this. I've seen what happens when coaches don't communicate. They fight at practice. Not physically, but I've seen coaches yelling back and forth on other sides of the ice, which, I mean, the kids are watching that and it's kind of ridiculous. So pick the people around you wisely. Yeah, this is something again, we work on every year with our coaching staff just because the coaching staff was great one year, you know, and a lot of times you have different coaching staffs every year. That communication is everything. So listen, you should go back and listen to this one because you'll walk away with clear strategies to build trust, create structure, lead your team with confidence. From day one, that was the goal for the episode and we definitely accomplished it. Okay, moving on to the next one. The episode was the crucial Role of passing and teamwork and youth hockey. This was actually a question that was sent to us that we tackled of why passing and unselfish play are essential building blocks of hockey IQ and chemistry. So here's a clip on teaching the why behind each drill and how it can transform young hockey players from just doing a drill into understanding a drill. You tell those kids to do a drill, they will do it exactly as you tell them to do it, because that is what they're trained to do. They go to school, do this, they go home, do this. Right. But if they're not picking up the why, they will do it and never remember the reason for doing it. They're just doing it because you're telling them to do it. Now, Mike, to your point, it was beautiful the way you described that blue line and the rules as an advantage. Here is the why behind getting it over the blue line and how this can contribute to breaking it into the other zone or. Or probably more importantly, stopping the puck coming back into our zone for a scoring chance. If you teach the kids the why, why we're passing on this drill, why we're. Or. Mike, the lacrosse thing you said is also brilliant. Christie, you too. Why? When you enter this area, there's a high probability of a scoring chance from a pass. Now you are teaching awareness, and now you are teaching the game. Yeah. If they're just going through the motions, that's not enough. Right? As we said in the clip, teach the game, not just the drill. Love that. So why? You should go back and listen to the one. It's packed with examples, phrases, and drills to shift your team from puck chasers to playmakers, which is something we want. And you can never underestimate how being a playmaker is important in the game. All right, next one. Another very popular episode. And I remember when Mike and I recorded this one, we were not sure how it was going to be received, and it ended up being a hit. Right. And that episode's name was the underappreciated Defenseman. And we wanted to shine a spotlight on youth hockey's unsung heroes. Right, the defenseman. Right. Goalies. Your heroes, too, don't get me wrong. But we did explore how smart D play anchors team success and how coaches, really importantly, can better support that position. Okay, so in this clip, we're explaining why every role, whether five or 25 minutes, it's a time on ice, matters the same. Okay, so check this out. Create offense without defense. Why don't we begin there? And how important that position is to the game. 

Mike Bonelli [4:35 - 5:18]: Yeah, I think, I think the, the ability. When you're watching a player and you're watching a defenseman and you're looking at trying to figure out is this player a. A, a quality player for my team is somebody that's desirable to me, is it somebody that I can use to help me create more offense? That's honestly the player that could play just D. Again, there's, There's a. There's a lot of the Macars out there and very, you know, everybody likes the, you know, the Bobby or analogy of grabbing the puck off the face. You know, off a face off, weaving through a couple of players, creating that offense, but without solid defense. And I think a lot of coaches, most coaches fall on the side of. I'd rather be in a 2:1 game than a 10, 9 game. 

Lee MJ Elias [5:18 - 5:19]: Yeah. 

Mike Bonelli [5:19 - 5:49]: And, and, but, but again, 10, 9 games are fun. Fans probably love them. But if you're a coach, that, that's. That the ability to have a solid defenseman, somebody that plays defense and a team that plays defense, allows you to be so much more creative offensively because then you just, it's. It's more freewheeling. So if you think about, you know, how teams are structured, the ability to be in a structured defensive mode, you don't hear about free. You don't hear much about free. Free play in the defensive zone. You certainly hear it in the offensive zone. 

Lee MJ Elias [5:49 - 5:49]: Yeah, it's true. 

Mike Bonelli [5:49 - 5:57]: But in the defensive zone, it gets really just down to being a very core, solid, you know, positional player. 

Lee MJ Elias [5:58 - 7:04]: It's a great clip. And look, why you should go back and listen. It redefines defense as a role of pride and purpose, and it gives you new language to coach that position. Right. So if the coach is listening, this one's a great tool for your toolbox and how to. How to approach the defensive side of the game. The next one for coaches, you're going to have a coaching episode. You have to bring on a great coach. And the episode title was the Art and Science of Coaching with NHL legend Stanley cup champion international coach Mike Keenan. Okay, the episode title wasn't fully that. It's just the Art and Science of Coaching with NHL legend Mike Keenan. We had Iron Mike on, and, man, he shared stories from his entire legendary career, blending technical wisdom, deep emotional insight. I mean, the guy really dove in. It was based on his. His book at the time. That's out. You should go get it, Iron Mike. But it's a rare glimpse at the human side of elite coaching. And for Those of you who know Mike Keenan, the human side was not something he was really readily showing to people throughout his career. So in this clip, listen to coach explain why every player must accept and own their role. Very similar to the last clip, Check this out. 

Mike Keenan [7:06 - 7:29]: That builds an expectation that all players must contribute, regardless of what their role is. If a guy's playing, and I'm talking about pro now, if he's playing five minutes, those five minutes are just as important as Wayne Gretzky's 25 minutes, because if he doesn't do his job in those five minutes, the team isn't going to be successful. 

Lee MJ Elias [7:29 - 7:29]: Right? 

Mike Keenan [7:30 - 8:24]: So to get them to understand that first of all and then to buy into it and to accept it, and that was probably the main component of all championship teams that I coached, that there was no selfish components. They had sometimes had to learned to accept their role. It was maybe a little bit less than they wanted or sometimes was greater than they wanted. They excelled and built themselves into a role that was even greater than they expected. So that bonding, if you like, process is extremely, extremely important for a team to succeed. This is a team sport. 

Lee MJ Elias [8:25 - 9:21]: Now you know where we got our quote from. It's a great, great clip there. Right? Listen, I don't think I have to convince you to go back and listen this one if you haven't, but why you should. It's just rich with wisdom from decades of, of one of the greatest coaches of all time. And he delivers it with, with real vulnerability and strength, which I, I don't think any of us were expecting from Mike Keenan. So definitely go check that out. All right, next one. This episode was literally titled this tip could save your team this season. And what we do in this one is we introduce a really simple but powerful idea that monthly team building sessions that address communication, trust, unity, everything that goes into team building is something you must do or it will cause you problems throughout the season. Obviously, this is something I do professionally outside of this podcast and we really dive into it. So in this clip, we're going to talk about how off ice team building creates unexpected joy and connection across all age levels. Check this out. 

Mike Bonelli [9:22 - 10:13]: Did a brick weekend and our junior kids were the kids that actually helped facilitate it. And after I did the team building and the, and the activities with the, with these, you know, seven and six year olds and eight year olds, the older guys were begging to do it with their team and they were just helping. They're like, we want. Like, that was unbelievable. Like, look at the kids. And, and they had fun and they got involved and they wanted to be involved. Everybody wants to have that feeling. Success. If you can do it off the ice, even better. We're in helmets and we don't see faces. And it's just the levels of kids are just, you know, your goalie is not really, you know, the nice thing on team building exercises off the ice is everyone's pretty much equal. It's all, you know, we're all in the same, you know, kind of constraint system and we can do what we want with it. 

Lee MJ Elias [10:15 - 11:24]: I love it. And again, look, why you should go back and listen to this. It probably is one of the most underestimated aspects of team coaching. Look, with this episode, I remember we offered, and this offer is always still open, the chance to download our free team building exercise booklet. The amount of coaches that have reached out to us and said, hey, can I have that? Because I've had to send all of them has been pretty prolific. If you want that team and our kids play hockey dot com, just email us and ask for it. We'll send it to you. But again, it's an easy overlooked tool that brings your team closer together and makes on ice performance better. Okay. Your team's got to be bonded if you want to succeed. So check that one out. That's it. We got through all of them. That's the top five episodes for coaches. We hope you enjoyed that. Again, new insights, fresh ideas. That's the idea here is to give you a little taste of these episodes so you'll go back to find them and find out what really makes a team work. Right. We think we had a pretty good gamut arrange there of episodes. So remember, just getting started with these. Be sure to check out our upcoming best of list again. NHL guests, other pro guests episodes for goalies, parents, players and more all coming at you on our 400 celebration. I'm Lee Elias. Thanks for joining us. Remember, we'll see you next time on our kids play hockey. Enjoy your hockey, enjoy your week. Skate on everybody.