The Ride to The Rink: Why Checking In Might Be the Most Important Thing You Do on Your Team

Hello, hockey goalies and skaters around the world. Welcome back to another

edition of the Ride to

the Rink. It's Lee, Mike, and Christie with our friend Rob here today. And we want

to talk to you

all about the importance of checking in on your teammates, checking in on

yourself. Just being part

of a great team means checking in on your brothers and sisters that are skating

around you. So I'm

going to bring Rob in here to talk for a few minutes about the power and the

importance of checking

in. Rob, go ahead. I'll do it. So our idea is called the shoulder check, and it's

literally about

putting hands on people's shoulders to see how they're doing. And we say all the

time, you might

not always know who needs a hand. But we all have a hand to give and putting a

hand on someone's

shoulder can make all the difference. So what we ask everybody to do, the

shoulder check, is to

say, I promise to reach out, check in and make contact and make that something

that you can do

today with your teammates every day in the locker room or anywhere, because we

may not always know

how someone's doing, but it never hurts to check in and be there for that answer.

Right. And Rob,

what kind of a difference can that make for each other on a team? You know,

sometimes we found when

we started with our idea about the shoulder check is that the smallest things can

make the biggest

difference. And they say this a lot, right? Like sometimes the biggest problems

don't get solved by

one big grand gesture, but instead by lots of people doing one small little thing.

And that little

thing is just checking in on somebody to see how they're doing and being there for

them amongst one

another. You know, Rob, you have a lot of support from professional athletes,

specifically hockey players in our space. Can you just talk about their vulnerability

in accepting

this challenge and how our youth athletes have to understand how important this

is and how it's an

integral part of maybe their daily life with their teammates? And feel free to name

drop,

Rob.

Well, I'll tell you, there's one thing that happened along the way. This was probably

during thesecond year. So we're going on our fourth year now with this idea.

Sorry, excuse me. And two years ago or last year, NBC came to do some interviews

with some of the

guys at the gym. And Chris Kreider and Trevor Zegers did the interviews. And I

think they

themselves were surprised with how honest they were when the reporter asked

them.

Why does an idea like this matter? And you'll see it on some of our stuff. Check

out our website.

Chris Kreider is saying, like, you know, hockey players are supposed to be tough,

but you can't

always tell what's going on on the inside. And to hear it straight from those guys

who are,

you know, top, top, top of the game, right? NHL All-Stars. talking about how

important it is to be

aware of how you're feeling and be aware of how your teammates are feeling and

how that's important

to team culture and beyond just the team, just how important that is as people. It's

really

incredible. It's really powerful to hear it straight from them. A couple of other

visits, Mika

Zibanejad interview, that's on one of them where he's talking about too, like it's

just important

to check up on your teammates. And that is, you know, it's critical.

It's funny. I remember a time when no one could say Mika's Abinajad's name and

now we all have it

as kind of a household name in hockey. You know, Rob, on the big episode, you

talked about how two

thirds of the requests you get actually come from the youth athletes themselves.

That's an amazing

stat. And what I want to empower the kids listening right now, because I know

they're like, OK,

this is great. You can actually get involved, kids. So what I'd love for you to do,

Rob, is tell us

all a quick story of a youth team that did this, how they did it, like what the process

is,

right? And it's just one example. And then obviously for the kids listening, how

they can take the

initiative and get involved. Yeah. So it's exactly it. So the whole idea of the

shoulder check was

meant to be something that everybody can do themselves to make it as turnkey

and as simple as

possible. And what happens usually is we catch an email. If you go on

shouldercheck.org,it says contact. The email comes straight to me. And, you know, two out of three

times, it's a

young hockey player saying, I'd like to bring the shoulder check to my team. And

just with that. We

usually send out a team kit. Team kits have patches and rolls of tape and bracelets

and helmet

stickers for everybody. Has a little script that you can read or the coach can read

or the PA

announcer can read if you have that at your rink. And you just kind of ask people to

circle up and

go out on the ice and say, I promise to reach out, check in and make contact. So

we try and make it

as simple as possible. And then a lot of times, you know, kids, depending on their

teams, the

rinks, the time that they have, they'll add on to it. So just yesterday a young man,

he had reached out. And the way it's worked in a few spots now where the team

captain will pass it

on to next year's team captain. So they make it a part of the team tradition. And

this young man at

a prep school in Connecticut wanted to build on what they had done in the past.

So he helped his

team and the girls team. They both had shoulder check games where they both

had the ceremonies with

the opposing teams came out on the ice and, you know, made the commitment to

reach out, check in,

make contact. And then he rigged up a shooter tutor and he. Gave kids a chance

to shoot to win a

shoulder check jersey, which is pretty amazing. That same team the year before

actually made custom

shoulder check. team jerseys that they skated in for the game.

So yeah, lots of different ideas. Somebody had a bake sale yesterday around their

game, which was

awesome. A lot of times, like a team parent, team manager, or if it's a high school,

kids in the school will set up shoulder check tables at the game. And we have

these little signs

that you fill in that say, I check in because, and all the fans. fill them out and they

hang them

up on the wall. It looks pretty incredible to see all these amazing sentiments

written out that are

like uplifting and supportive is a really awesome thing to do. Cause it brings like a

lot of joy to

the people that are there. So kids, this is what I want you to do because we know

you pretty well

in this show. I know many of you are sitting there going, I want to do somethingwith this. And you

might be thinking, well, am I the right person to do this? Do I need to talk to

somebody else? All

of those are good questions. What I want you to do is this, go to the website. All

right.

Shouldercheck.org. Okay. The shouldercheck.org. Excuse me. Nope.

Shouldercheck.org. I was right

the first time. Shouldercheck.org. Do a little research here. Okay. This will be good

for you.

Talk to your parents. Talk to your coaches. Talk to your teammates. You don't have

to be a captain

to do this. All right. And just see how they feel about it. My gut tells me they're

going to be

pretty enthralled that you're bringing this to them, that you want to do something

with this. And

take the opportunity to lead here and bring this to your team. Because not only is

it important.

For you and your teammates, it's important for your parents to see, for the

coaches to see, but

you'll have impact and it'll impact your team in a positive way to come together

and do something

together. And this is one of the more important things that we all need to be doing,

the adults

too, for that matter, right? But kids listening, I want you to do this. We all want you

to do this,

right? And bring this to your clubs, right? Sound good, Mike Christie, right? We all

agree with

that? Yes. All right. Rob, love having you on, man. Any final messages for the kids

before we

depart? Just never know who needs a hand, but we all have a hand to give, so

check in. It's

awesome. Thank you for having me. We all have a hand to give. Don't forget that,

kids. I love it.

Kids, remember, wherever you're at on your hockey journey, we believe in you. You

should, too. Have

fun, skate hard, learn something today. We'll see you on the next Ride to the Ring.

Take care,

everybody.