May 23, 2024

The Ride to the Rink: NHL VP of Hockey Ops Sean Ellis on Handling Emotions and Respect in Hockey

Show Notes
Transcript

In this episode of The Ride To The Rink, we're thrilled to have Sean Ellis, Vice President of Hockey Operations for the NHL, join us. Sean works in the NHL’s Situation Room in Toronto, making crucial calls during games that can turn the tide of play.

Sean shares invaluable advice for young hockey players on how to respond to calls on the ice. He discusses the importance of managing emotions, whether it's a good call or a bad one, and how to use those feelings to fuel your performance positively. Sean emphasizes personal accountability, reminding players that success lies within their control and not in the hands of the referees.

Sean also provides insights into the challenging role of officials, explaining the complexity of their job and the importance of showing them respect. He highlights how a player's reaction to calls can influence their reputation, especially as they progress to higher levels of the sport. Sean's wisdom is essential for young athletes aiming to build a positive and respectful presence both on and off the ice.

Key Takeaways:

How to respond to calls on the ice with the right mindset.
The importance of using emotions constructively in hockey.
The role of personal accountability in achieving success.
The challenges officials face and the importance of respecting their decisions.
How your reaction to calls can impact your reputation as a player.

Join us for an engaging discussion that not only aims to improve your game but also teaches valuable life lessons.

Don’t forget to subscribe to Our Kids Play Hockey for more episodes filled with tips, insights, and stories from the world of youth hockey.

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hello hockey skaters and goalies around the world.

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Welcome back to another edition of the ride to the rink.

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It's mike benelli with lee elias, and we are joined today by sean ellis, who is a vice president of hockey operations for the nhl and he spends his nights in the nhl situate situation room, excuse me, in toronto.

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So when you hear them say on the tv they're going to go up to toronto to determine a call, this is the person in the room running in the room.

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Sean, we really happy to have you with us today.

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And and the question I have for you, for all of the youth athletes listening and I know there are a lot of them out there is how should a kid respond when a call is made?

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Good, bad, indifferent, good goal, bad penalty, offsides any of it.

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How do you feel they should respond when that happens on the ice?

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Use your emotion.

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It's okay to be angry with a bad call.

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It's okay to be happy with a call that goes in your favor.

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But remember that the responsibility for success on the ice lies within you and not from that penalty call.

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So use that emotion and that jolt of energy that you get, be it good or bad.

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Use it for good, to drive you forward, to push you forward.

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You're not playing against the referee, you're playing against that other team.

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The penalty call goes against you.

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You kill it off, you move on.

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There's a bigger picture you.

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You kill it off, you move on.

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There's a bigger picture here and it's not a missed call or a bad call.

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And then follow up to that.

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You know you see a lot of these calls.

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You're instrumental in helping officials determine the call.

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Maybe talk a little bit about how hard or challenging it is to be an official in the game, reminding everybody listening to that linesman, officials, goals, penalties, offsides, onsides, bench, minors, I mean there's so much they have to look at.

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How hard is it for them especially the younger referees out there that may also be listening oh it's, it's.

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It's very difficult and and they're as well-suited to be in that position as anybody's going to be.

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And for us in the situation room, we feel the same about ourselves.

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We're very experienced and we are very objective.

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But it is difficult to make decisions sometimes and knowing that, much like the referees, every call that you make, every decision you make, half the people are going to hate it and half the people are going to love it, and you have to be able to learn to, to live in that in that area.

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Learn to, to live with the fact that people are going to be upset with you, they're going to be angry with you, they might take it too far and they might say some really off-color things, and you know you got to learn to just let it be.

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Let that happen, let people have their emotions.

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It doesn't affect how the referee does his job on the ice.

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It doesn't affect the decisions that we make in the situation.

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We make them based on the facts and the video that we see.

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We make them based on the facts and the video that we see.

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So it all comes back to accountability.

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We hold ourselves accountable and we are accountable to our general managers, to the owners, to the game as a whole.

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So again, it's about accountability, um, and we, we use that, the energy of that game, of that play, um, and our experience.

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And we're in a neutral location.

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There's no emotion necessarily from the fans in real time at us, but we know the decisions we make are going to be, uh, heavily disliked by by a good group of people.

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But we make the decision and we move on because there's another decision to be made, um, coming down the pike yeah, sean, just in that, in that same uh thought process for a youth hockey player, right, and in the nhl it's a very closed-knit community.

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You're.

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Everybody knows who the officials, officials know the players and I think maybe this isn't directed towards a younger player like a u9 or 10, it's more the older guys.

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You know the girls, like the 14, 15 years old.

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Just can you talk just a second about you know reputational awareness, like how you react to a call, because when you get into higher leagues the leagues get smaller, like the official pool gets smaller.

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You're probably going to see that official more often than at the youth level.

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You just talk about how you can set the table positively and negatively by your reaction to just one call in a game.

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Yeah sure, referees don't make calls based off of your character as a person.

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Don't make calls based off of your character as a person.

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They're going to call the play that they see, um, and and make a judgment call in in that moment based on what they're seeing.

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But if you can show that official respect, even when you're angry, even when you're upset, um, the official won't forget that.

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They remember that, um, just as they remember the players that fly off the handle at them for every single call that they make.

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Players make mistakes.

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You take penalties and and sometimes you might not think you did, but but you do, and the referees are calling you on that.

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There's no player that's always innocent, um.

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And if you find yourself in a situation where you always feel like you're being wronged, maybe take a step back and think okay, I can be angry with this call Um, but I still have to show respect to that official, because I'm going to Mike, to your point, I'm going to see him or her next game, or next year, or five years down the road.

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And if you can build a reputation that says you know what.

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This kid is respectful, he lets us know when he's upset, but he's respectful about it.

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You build yourself a good reputation and people want to be around with you.

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They want to interact with you and they might come up to you in an intermission and say, hey, you know you're really close to taking a penalty there, you might want to.

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You know you're really close to taking a penalty there, you might want to.

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You know, be a little bit more careful next time, because I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to call it the next time.

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He might he or she might not give you the benefit of the doubt.

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If you're not someone that shows them respect, they don't owe you that, that explanation.

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But if you're, if you show them that you have high character, they might be willing to go out of their way a little bit to help you out.

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And so, you know, reputation is very important.

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But again, more importantly, you can't let one bad call ruin the game for you, like, understand that you feel that that was a bad call, but now I still have a responsibility as a player to do my job.

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And my job is to pick up a back checker, is to get to the net, create traffic, it's whatever it is.

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You still have those responsibilities.

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Focus on those yeah, you know, sean.

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Last one for me here you mentioned the word right.

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It's respect for your team, for your teammates, for yourself.

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Can you talk about how respect, especially at the youth level I'm talking to you kids out there is a skill that can help you get further down the game than you think it is right?

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It's not just about talent and, again, sean was a captain at a university level.

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Sean is a tremendous leader, a tremendous person, so he's well qualified to answer this question.

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Can you talk to the kids about how respect is a skill that needs to be learned and evolved and it's a big part of helping you get to another level of hockey.

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It's incredibly important and it might be the most important skill that you can develop, because I do think it is something that can be developed.

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It's not just an innate characteristic.

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Everybody can learn to be respectful.

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If you're showing your teammates respect, in both good moments and bad, when you're on a winning streak or when you're on a losing streak, you show your teammates respect.

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You hold them accountable still, but it's how you interact with them.

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I'm showing you, I'm giving them deference, saying yes, you made a mistake there, but I made a mistake too on this other shift.

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I don't want it to be held against me.

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I'm not going to hold it against you.

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To your coaches, to the officials on the ice, to the locker room attendant, to the Zamboni driver, to whomever.

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You're going to be looked at as a leader and you're going to be given more responsibility.

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You're going to be given opportunities to play in important points in a game.

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It's not to say that you still have to.

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You still have to have this, the inherent skill to be able to be out on the ice at the time as well.

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But if you're not somebody that the coaches respect, your teammates respect, they're not going to look at you as a leader and you might not reap the benefits that you deserve.

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So respect is so key.

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It's a base thing that everybody needs to have, and then you layer on top of that all this, the skill and everything else.

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It's an incredibly important thing and it's one of the most important lessons I think I learned.

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I never thought of myself as a leader on a team until I got to college and my teammates voted unanimously for me to be the captain of the team.

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I was so honored and and I really never thought my teammates thought, thought of me like that, and when they, when they showed me that when they I would have run through a wall for them, I would have done anything for them, I would have done anything for them up to that point, but knowing that they were seeing me that way, it was one of the best feelings I think I've ever experienced to that point in my life, and it's something that that I didn't intend on happening.

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It was just.

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I want to show people that I play with the respect that they deserve, because I want to get respect too.

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I play with the respect that they deserve because I want to get respect too.

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I love it, sean.

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It just goes to show to everybody listening, especially the kids, that this is part of the game, right, and typically when it comes to captaincy or leadership, it's not that you, you you want to see or you need to see, it's you earn that C and typically it's done by your peers and the type of the person, the type of person that you are.

00:10:20.241 --> 00:10:24.498
So a lot of great takeaways from this one.

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Obviously, respect, that can be learned and evolved like a skill set.

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But also I want to reiterate what you said earlier in this episode, that it's okay to feel.

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It's okay to feel emotions.

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You don't have to bury them, but you do have to control them so that they don't control you.

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If you can get that under containment, if you can get that understanding, it's going to help you a lot, not just on the ice right, well beyond hockey that's something for life as well?

00:10:53.149 --> 00:10:53.611
Yeah, for sure it is.

00:10:53.611 --> 00:10:54.514
It's like I said, it's the easily.

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The best lesson I think I've ever learned it was also the hardest is controlling my emotion and using that to make me a better player.

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I for too long let it hold me me back.

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I got it stuck in my head and it was probably the thing that held me back the most was not being able to use that, that emotion, in the right way.

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And once I learned that it was, uh, the world opened up to me.

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Um, life got better on the ice.

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I was a better player, I was a better student I mean, you name it.

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And the lesson of respect and accountability is not just something that's useful on the ice, it's useful in life.

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Our hockey careers are only but a short period of our lives.

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We live the most of our life as ex-hockey players and it's an for for that period of time in your life.

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I love it, buddy.

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Well, all of you hockey players listening to this episode from all of us, take these lessons, use them now.

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You don't have to wait till you're older to figure them out.

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That's one of the reasons we made this show is that you can figure it out now.

00:11:55.798 --> 00:11:59.052
But, sean Ellis, I just want to thank you so much for coming on the ride to the rink today.

00:11:59.072 --> 00:12:00.174
Yeah, on the ride to the rink today.

00:12:00.174 --> 00:12:01.557
Yeah, I really appreciate you guys having me.

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All right, kids, that's going to do it.

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Go out there and have fun, enjoy your spring, enjoy your summer and always remember to skate on.

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We'll see you on the next episode.

00:12:09.855 --> 00:12:12.761
We hope you enjoyed this edition of Our Kids Play Hockey.

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Make sure to like and subscribe right now if you found value, wherever you're listening, whether it's a podcast network, a social media network or our website, ourkidsplayhockeycom.

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Also, make sure to check out our children's book when Hockey Stops at whenhockeystopscom.

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It's a book that helps children deal with adversity in the game and in life.

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We're very proud of it.

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But thanks so much for listening to this edition of Our Kids Play Hockey and we'll see you on the next episode.

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You.