Best Of: Building Better Humans Through Youth Hockey

This is Sharpening youg Edge with Chuck and Eric.

In this episode, we'll be going back through the vault and looking at episodes that deal specifically with youth hockey development.

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Welcome back to Sharpening youg Edge.

I am this episode's host and producer, Timothy Keem o'.

Brien.

Now, if you've spent any time around youth sports and youth hockey in particular, you you know how easily the environment can transform into a pressure cooker.

We see parents chasing the showcase teams at age 10, coaches prioritizing minor league scoreboard burners over long term athlete health and young players burning out before they can even reach high school.

At Sharpening your Edge, we like to pull back the curtain and ask a fundamental question.

What are we actually building here?

Because hockey isn't just a game of skill, speed and systems.

At its best, hockey is a laboratory for human development.

It's where kids learn resilience, emotional control, leadership and how to navigate adversity.

Today we've pulled together a curated best of compilation featuring four outstanding guests from our back catalog.

Lindsay Tilly, Skylar Irving, Kathy Pippi and Jeff Lovecchio.

We're mapping out the complete life cycle of a youth athlete.

How to protect the joy early on, how to build healthy development culture and how to turn those lessons learned on the ice into life skills off of it.

So let's dive in.

We start at the foundation the early development years.

It's so easy for well meaning parents and coaches to fall into what our first guest calls the frenzy, the rat race of non stop private lessons and early specialization.

Lindsay Tilley is a power skating specialist with the Philadelphia Flyers player development staff and founder of Heat Power Skating.

As both a high level instructor and Hockey mom Lindsay sees firsthand how early pressure strips the fun right out of the game.

In this clip, pay attention to how Lindsay reframes skill acquisition not as rigid repetition, but as creative, high energy play that keeps young athletes wanting to come back to the rink.

And I think every single time I step on the ice, I am trying to find ways to get kids to fall in love with skating development.

And when I was first starting out, I was so shocked that I would be introduced as the power skating coach.

Like, a club would hire me and say, hey, we're going to power skate today.

Here's Lindsay Tilly.

And every kid would just like, be horrified.

Like, they're like, ugh, disgusted.

They want to shoot pucks, they wanted to stick handle.

Like, they didn't want to work on skating.

And I thought to myself, like, well, that that stinks.

Like, I want to change that.

I want it to be so enjoyable and so fun that they walk off that hour session, whether we touch pucks or not, thinking it was the best time they've ever had on the ice that week.

And that was my goal.

I laugh at sometimes my Instagram feed, right?

I have lots of hockey Instagram feed that comes through.

But I think more than hockey, I follow PE Teachers.

Like, what are PE Teachers doing to keep their students engaged and active in a gymnasium?

Like, what tools are they using?

Hula hoops, balloons, balls, dots, all the things.

And those are all transferable skills.

Like, at the end of the day, we're teaching movement.

And so if I can find ways to make it engaging and enjoyable and fun, I hope that reduces burnout.

Because like you said, it's a boatload of pressure and there's a lot going on and there's a lot of tournaments and there's a lot of money at stake.

And so then you get pressure from parents because of that, whether they intend to or not.

It's just, it's inevitable because of the high price tag, I think.

And so for me, if I can be that physical and mental reprieve from those pressures, that's a goal of mine as a coach every time.

Yeah.

So I recently saw your Instagram post today about the warmup with the balloon.

So I'm assuming you got that when you mentioned balloons and hula hoops from PE teachers.

And that brings me to another point.

Eric and I talk about, and this goes to show that you are a great coach, that we talk about, that great coaches agree to be coached.

And that's a lot of things we're seeing too, in youth Hockey today is where coaches might think they know everything, but, you know, they're not willing to take input.

Right.

I'm always willing to get ideas from people.

I'm always willing to share ideas with people, whether it be practice plans and another coach is, oh, I love this drill, blah, blah, blah, like, I will share stuff, and I love taking stuff from others and people.

People might think, oh, you're not creating your own things.

But no, great coaches agree to be coached, and they're constantly learning, just like you said earlier.

They're players as well.

We want our players to learn, and I think coaches need to learn as well.

So I'm glad you brought that up.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, I'm the first person to tell everybody that I. I don't have all the answers.

Gosh.

And I hope I never do.

I hope I'm constantly pushing myself to find resources to do something better.

And I think you're right in that.

Point is that I think really good coaches are always a student, and really good coaches are secure with their own coaching that they're fine to share.

I don't feel like I'm going to lose business because I'm sharing my ideas with somebody else.

I think there's a level of confidence and security that you have to have with your own coaching to be okay to do that.

Well, I can attest to your success by knowing your star pupil busy for a couple of years now.

And we've played a lot of great competition across North America.

So I can assure you that what you're doing is working.

So if plagiarism is the highest form of flattery, I think you both said it spot on, that it needs to be bidirectional.

You need to always be willing to learn.

I think that's how we grow and we make the game better.

For sure.

Yeah, for sure.

And to Busy's credit, he came to me with a pretty good foundation, so it made my job pretty easy to tweak a few things with this.

He's electric with the puck, that's for sure.

Yeah.

What Lindsay highlights there is critical.

You cannot build an elite athlete if you kill their passion first.

If we want kids to stay in the sport long enough to develop real mastery, we have to protect their physical literacy and keep the environment engaging.

That idea of keeping the game fun leads us directly into our next conversation.

To truly understand how organic passion fuels high level performance, look no further than Skylar Irving, PWHL Walter cup champion with the Montreal Victoire.

Before Skyler was lifting professional championship trophies, she was just a kid playing on backyard rinks and outdoor ponds.

In this segment, Skyler reflects on the role of unstructured free play in her youth and why the mental resilience she needed at the professional level was built on the foundation of simply loving the game.

I think the most important advice I would give to my younger self or younger players is love the game and love who you're doing it with because you're going to go so far.

I've said this, I think now two times now that the teams that I've won with, we've had groups that absolutely love each other and support each other.

And I think that is hands down one of the most important parts of a group.

But as an individual, you have to love what you do every single day and just love what you do and have fun and work hard.

It's so cliche, but it's just the fundamentals of everything because you're going to go far if you love the game and have a burning passion for it every single day.

Because you're going to want to put in the work, you're going to want to do as much as you can because you generally love being out there and having a stick in your hand, skates on your feet.

It's everything.

I think having a passion and just loving what you're doing and enjoying it because it goes by quick, especially with youth hockey.

I think that's the piece of advice I would give.

And looking back, so 10 year old Skyler playing youth hockey in Massachusetts, or even on that, that rank in your yard, what would younger Skylar think if she could see where you are today?

I think she wouldn't have the words to put it.

I think if she saw me playing on the ice at the Garden, she would be like, oh, are you in the Montreal Canadiens?

But I think she would be so thrilled that we made it this far.

We've overcome everything that we have in our life and that she's proud.

But I think looking back, I think she always knew that what she was capable of and she was always going to go far.

So she doesn't need any advice from me.

She did everything right to get where she is today.

Right.

Yeah, I'm here.

Okay, so this is the last question and this is something we ask all our guests since this is a developmental podcast.

Again, whether physically, mentally on ice, off ice.

What is Skyler's definition of development?

It can be any part of the word, any aspect of the word development.

I think development is at your own pace and I think it's not always linear and I think everything happens when it's supposed to happen for you.

So I think development is very individual.

So focus on yourself and development happens when you're focused truly on what you need to do and all of that.

I think development is individual and you'll just continue to grow.

Notice the connection between Lindsay's philosophy and Skyler's experience.

The structured grind can never replace the raw creativity born from free, unstructured play.

When kids play because they love to play, they build an internal gas tank full of resilience that carries them through the highest levels of competition.

And now let's take a quick break to hear from our partners.

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So how do we operationalize this as program leaders, directors and coaches?

How do we build organizations that actually support long term growth instead of chasing short term wins?

Enter Kathy Pippi.

Cathy is the founder of Premier Ice Prospects and a true pioneer in girls hockey development.

Now over her career she has built pathways for thousands of young players from the 12U level all the way to NCAA Division 1 and international play.

Cathy's philosophy is simple.

If you build the right culture and focus on individual character, the winds will take care of themselves.

Here's Cathy talking about what it really means to create a lasting legacy in Yutaki.

I think it should be about if you deserve it, you should be able to do it whether you can afford it or not.

And if you can't afford it legitimately, then we need to figure out ways to make it happen.

And they said, well you're in charge like you can do however you want.

And so I was actually challenged by that I thought, could we actually get the best players regardless of finances?

I didn't want to know what anybody did for a living.

I didn't want to know their financial background.

I wanted to legitimately choose the best players based on their ability.

And so I set out to make a program to do that.

And I really think we've accomplished that.

That's amazing.

And I think we could probably have an entire episode dedicated to the pay to play and all these other camps and clinics and whatever we want to call them, mini tryouts, where all these scouts are promised to be there and there's not a single one in attendance or the advertising doesn't match up with reality.

So, I mean, that's awesome that you kind of took that on board, especially finances aside, trying to make it both affordable and the right people being there.

And don't get me wrong, I fully respect and appreciate that people are paying a lot of money for our events.

And that's what also motivates me to make sure that people are getting their best experiences and they're getting their money's worth.

I feel it's like a personal integrity thing where if I say these coaches are going to be there, they're going to be there.

And if you look on our website and you see the events, they're updated, not daily, but as we find out a new coach is coming or one drop.

For whatever reason, we're updating the websites so when people sign up for an event, they know exactly what they're getting.

And as a customer, I'll back you up on that because I've seen other programs out there do the advertising.

Like Eric said, you go there and there aren't those coaches there.

But for all the events that Anneliese has been to, I 100% back you up as a customer and say what you're saying is truthful.

And any college or coach or player that you say is going to be there is 100% always there.

So kudos to you and the program that you're building there.

Kathy hits the nail on the head.

A 12U championship banner gathers dust in a rink rafter.

But the standards of accountability, respect, and culture that a program and stills stay with those young men and women for decades.

And now let's take a quick break to hear from our partners.

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Now, let's get you back to the show.

This brings us to our final segment and the ultimate payoff of youth sports.

What happens when a player takes all of these lessons off the ice and applies them to life?

Jeff Lovecchio played over a decade of professional hockey, but today he's known as one of the premium player development coaches in St. Louis.

Jeff's Mission goes far beyond teaching edge work.

He uses hockey as a vehicle to teach mindsets, self discipline and presence.

In this final clip, Jeff shares his core philosophy, Be where your feet are.

He breaks down how learning to handle adversity on the ice transforms young players into leaders into, in their communities.

The quicker I can get them to buy into them, buying into themselves, that's when the magic happens and you start to see them like start to hit their potential no matter what age.

And the kids who do it sooner go further because they've had a longer time of going all in on themselves and the wisdom because then they start paying attention, like reflecting, why was this a good game?

What was my routine?

How did I feel?

What have I been eating?

They start to like, really try to find every detail they can to get better.

And this, this is at a little bit older of an age, but you can just extrapolate that a little bit downwards to the younger ages and what that would mean age accordingly.

Yeah, I think we're seeing folks play for so long right now because of those things that you talked about.

I mean, Char played forever, which at his frame is huge to play that long.

You got Marsha and all.

Poor guy.

But man, like to play that game at that level, that long, you got to be doing, like, you got to be all in all the time.

Yeah, Yeah.

I mean, and also some of those guys are just freaks, dude.

They're just, like I said, genetics.

Their genetics are just better.

Whatever it is, they recover better.

They.

I think that's a big one.

Some guys just recover better than others.

And yeah, you can train and do all these things, but just something about their body, like, it's.

They're just animals, dude.

They can go hard every single night in all aspects of their life, and it's just like, they're good to go.

We're gonna go way off topic for a sec, Chuck.

I'm sorry.

Have you seen that Netflix documentary Vex Break Point?

I think it was about Marty Fish, where he went from.

Hey, he's pretty good.

US Tennis player.

And it's.

It's.

They're interviewing him and he's in this tennis academy down in Florida.

And he's pretty good.

He bounced around on the top hundred in the world, and then he beat somebody or something.

I forget what it was.

But, like, he.

He was like, you know what?

I'm all in.

And went from being like, I'm at a party like Johnny Manziel and go out and then just.

I'm just naturally gifted, so I'm sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber at my house.

He went 180 and he became like, number two or number three in the world, I think.

But then it's fantastic because then it goes in.

Yeah, he did all those things, Right.

Except take care of his mental health.

And that's where his game crumbled.

Right?

Because he did.

Yeah.

He didn't take care of his brain.

Yeah, it's fantastic.

So it just.

It made me think of that.

Yeah, it's cool.

And what's cool for me, too is, like, now I work with all the higher end players for the most part.

My coaches work with a little bit lower levels, but it's.

It doesn't matter what that means.

They could be a house league player that just learned, oh, like, working out is fun.

And like, I. I used to hate this dude.

That's a huge win for a young person.

That's so cool.

It could be an A players.

You know what?

I do want to try and make the double A team.

So I'm gonna.

I'm gonna go after this.

And they make the double A team, and that's amazing.

Oh, now life.

When they want to make more money, I think back to their hockey career.

Like, how did I go from the A team to the double A team.

I put in the work.

I'm going to do that now.

These are lessons that are so freaking important.

I just know that because I know I wouldn't have any levels of success or have worked with anywhere near the amount of players that I have or had the impact in St. Louis that I've been able to have for a long time if I didn't learn these things in the game of hockey.

It's what I love about your model and I think why it's going to be so successful, why it is successful, and why it's going to be so successful with the training is because you're not just creating those coaches, you're creating the culture that it goes with, right?

So like you're perpetuating this culture throughout your organization.

Much like my kids had the ability.

I trained Mike Boyle when I was a kid, right?

And then my kids trained with him this past spring, which was cool, like a come full circle moment.

But the standard has been the same and that's there's 30 years between it and the standard was the same.

So that's why those things are successful.

I think that's awesome.

From Lindsay Tilly's reminder to keep early development fun, to Skylar Irving's love of backyard ranks, to Kathy Pippi's commitment to culture, and Jeff Lovecchio's focus on character and presence, the thread connecting all of these conversations is clear.

Hockey is the tool, but human development is the goal.

When we step back from the frantic noise of youth sports, stop chasing short term metrics and focus on building great teammates, resilient thinkers, and grounded young people.

That is where real success happens and that's how we truly sharpen our edge.

If you've enjoyed these perspectives, please go back into the Sharpening your Edge feed and listen to the full, unedited episodes with Lindsay, Skyler, Kathy and Jeff.

Every single one of them is packed with practical wisdom for parents, coaches and athletes alike.

Now, don't forget, hit the subscribe button, leave us a review and share this episode with a coach or parent that needs to hear it today.

Until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and keep sharpening your edge.

I'm Timothy Bryant, producer of Sharpening your Edge, and I personally want to thank you for listening to this and all of our other episodes.

Stay well.