“The Journey and Its Rewards” with Elite Coach and Author Gordie Stafford

This is Sharpening your Edge.

In this episode, we'll be speaking with Gordie Stafford, a coach, a player and an author.

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Welcome to another episode of Sharpening your Edge, presented by CV3 Hockey Development and brought to you by our title sponsor, Roster Hub.

I'm Chuck Bertolino, and our guest today is a former professional hockey player, longtime teacher, elite coach, author and mindset mental performance specialist.

He's coached and taught many NHLers, PWHL players and Olympians during his time at Shadduck St. Mary's his book the Journey and its stories and observations from a lifetime in hockey is out now.

Coach Gordy Stafford, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me on.

It's a pleasure to be here.

It's very nice to meet you.

Yeah, you as well.

And I've been talking to you for a while and I'm glad our schedules finally worked out and.

And I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Me too.

So take us back to Alberta.

What was life like for you, hockey life for you, growing up back in Alberta?

And when did you first realize it could be more than just a game?

Well, growing up in a small town in Canada, I mean, there first it was a small town, so you had a small group of friends.

I mean, we had the same group of friends that we were on the baseball team and we hung out in school and everything, so it was just a natural thing.

Now, growing up in Banff, it's a ski town as well, so we had the skiers and the hockey players, but, yeah, hockey was just something that kind of came naturally.

We had an outdoor rink right by the school, and I can never remember not playing hockey.

And when I was young, I, you know, I gravitated towards hockey and I'm an okay athlete at most things, but for hockey I just seemed like I was pretty good.

Eventually I was recruited to play hockey in Calgary as a midget.

And then from there I went on to the Western Hockey League.

So yeah, I think at that point when I got recruited to play in Calgary, to play midget in Calgary, I kind of knew that.

I mean, I was always passionate about it, but I kind of knew that I wanted to sort of put my talent up again against the larger world and see what happened.

And side note, I was able to pick up the book and read it and I would highly recommend it to our audience.

And we're really going to get into it in this episode.

And I remember in the first chapter or so you talked about growing up in small town Alberta and the fact that you could play different sports.

And nowadays hockey has become so professionalized where we see youth players just focusing on hockey.

Our guest on the last episode, Rob Scuderi, who I played with back in high school, he won two cups, one with the Penguins and one with the Kings.

He made a joke and said now hockey's become a 13 month a year sport where kids are just out there all the time.

So how important do you think it is for especially the young ages to stick with those multi sports?

Well, when the ice came out of our rink around Easter and never went back in until, until Canadian Thanksgiving, which is right around October, that was just kind of what you had to do.

I think the, the athletes that you want are the ones that can perform the best under, under pressure.

And I don't think you can manufacture that.

So I think if you're playing in multiple sports, you get in those situations you might sign up for a team and you're playing whatever, an 80 game schedule and how many of those games actually matter?

And that's the best players are the ones who have their best games in the big games.

And by playing multiple sports you learn it's not about the sport as much as it is being able to perform under pressure.

So I think that's one of the main things and I think plus coordination and all those things that go into being a child too.

So as you get older, you play professionally in the whl, chl, ihl, primarily with Milwaukee, the Admirals.

So while playing professionally, you were also earning your master's degree with an emphasis on adolescent motivation.

So what sparked your interest in understanding what makes young people want to learn, compete and improve?

Well, it was somewhat selfish.

I mean The Western Hockey League is a bus league.

Right.

And back in that, back at that time, we could play four games in four nights and we would go on west coast swings where we'd play eight games and 10 nights and then I went from there on.

And the IHL was a bus league as well.

So I mean, you just had to learn, you just had to learn how to motivate yourself getting off the bus and learning how to be responsible for your own play and learning how to help your teammates out and all of those things.

Once I got into school, I had been coaching at a number of hockey schools and I loved coaching kids at hockey schools.

And so it just became natural to be interested in helping kids.

And so many things I think that many of us learn along the way, at least it's my impression from my generation, you kind of had to learn on your own.

Whereas kids these days, they're learning things when they're 14, 15, 16 years old that I didn't learn till I was in my, till I was in my 20s.

So yeah, it was born out of my own, the necessity of learning how to motivate myself when I was hurt and tired and, and needed to perform.

Because back then in the IHL, you're under 48 hour contracts.

So if in the sole discretion of the club, the player is not performing to expectations, this contract is null and void in 48 hours.

It's, it makes you play hard.

Yeah.

It's pretty crazy that they gave you two days to, to kind of prove yourself and stick.

What a different world we live in now with hockey.

Yeah.

We only had 16, 16 guys on the roster too, so because they, they couldn't afford to pay a lot of guys.

So it was, it was a short bench, so you, you had to play.

Yeah.

And you're riding buses too.

It was great for development, but yeah, yeah.

And so you eventually brought those two worlds together.

Well, there's a bit of a long story to that, but I guess to cut to the chase, it was obvious as an outsider the excellence that the program.

I had seen them up in Canada and they won the MAX tournament and they run the thing, which is an annual tournament up in Calgary, Alberta.

It's a huge affair up in Canada during the Christmas season you have the World Juniors and in Calgary you have the Max tournament.

And Shaddock St. Mary's was just dominating that.

And I had heard about them earlier in my career and coached a team against them because I knew their original hockey director, Craig Norwich.

And so when I had the chance to.

To go there, it was.

JP Parisi was the hockey director at the time, and as a Canadian kid, he was in Team Canada 72.

So he was a Canadian idol.

And the fact that he was the one that called me and he actually picked me up at the airport in Minneapolis to take me down there, I mean, it was like meeting your.

One of your childhood idols and getting to spend the whole day with him.

I was sold on it from there.

And my son Drew was actually getting into high school at that time, and we knew that it would be a great spot for him to develop, you know, and as a player who had a son who was a coach, it was very difficult to sort of sit back and kind of bite my tongue if I didn't agree with what the coaches were doing and all of that.

But once we got to Shattuck with the coaching staff, with JP Parisi and Marie Eves and Tom Ward and all these great coaches, I could just sit back and be a dad, which was great.

And you can't go wrong with Paris, a former New York Islander, actually.

Yep.

NHL can't go wrong there.

So you eventually became the girls.

17 USA Hockey National Championships, which is absolutely unheard of.

So when did you realize at what point you were building something bigger than just a successful hockey team?

It's come so far.

And I was actually the beneficiary of like many things.

I think most adults in their life, they would look back and say that kind of things came together at the right time.

So the very first year that I was coaching Shadduck St. Mary's girls was the year that Monique and Jocelyn Lamoreaux were in ninth grade, and my son Drew was playing with their brother up in North Dakota.

So I met their parents that way and got the twins to come down.

And they're just phenomenal athletes, phenomenal human beings, even at that age.

And I think that really got it, that really got the program started.

And then from there, we were able to recruit Brianna Decker, and she was cut from the same cloth as the twins.

And then Amanda Kessel came a year later, and I had met her parents through my son Drew, playing with Phil Kessel at the World Junior.

So it all kind of came together.

But we Started building from that.

That foundation of those four girls.

And then that started.

That started kind of the pipeline going.

Much like Zach Parisi being on the boys side, being coached by Tom Ward attracted Sidney Crosby, which then attracted Jonathan Toews, which then kind of kept the ball rolling there all the way up through most recently, Macklin Celebrini.

So, you know, I think the program itself attracted me.

And then having those.

The proper police pieces in place just had allowed it to take off.

Yeah, and we had.

I'm glad you brought Monique up.

We had her on back for a couple episodes ago.

And she mentioned too, when she was younger, watching Camry Granado in 98 and Angela Ruggiero, and she said it was almost.

We talked about how it was almost like an experiment and no one knew if women's hockey was gonna stick.

And she talked about all the work she did.

And I could credit you as well for helping build that program up and getting more eyes on girls and women's hockey and building up the program Shattuck as it is today, both on the women's and boys side, to see all the PWHL players and Olympians and NHL players coming out of that.

It's still a powerhouse today.

Well, and I learned a lot.

I had.

Dave King was my coach and junior, and he set a very high standard and had very high, high expectations.

He's a well, well respected coach in Canada and coached in the NHL for a number of years.

And then being with the Edmonton Oilers, Glenn Sather was actually lived in the town that I grew up in, so he was a huge influence on me.

And the way that he ran the Edmonton Oilers and just being around that culture and being around those players created in my mind, create a standard in my mind.

And then the idea then is to carry that standard forward and to continually make it better.

I was fortunate to have a number of great mentors.

And then once I was in.

Once I was in charge, I knew how I wanted things to be, I knew how things were supposed to be, and.

And I just made sure that.

That we kept the standard and.

And built on the standard.

So one of the books you've talked about is the Legacy of the All Blacks.

Can you talk a bit about the book for those that aren't familiar with it, and how the All Blacks philosophy influenced the way you thought about building the program?

Well, the book Legacy is about the All Blacks, which was a rugby dynasty back in the day.

And the main theme of the book was that they had a dynasty and somehow they let it slip.

Away.

And so the book talked about what they did wrong and what they wish they would have done.

And I think all sports fans can relate to that.

And specifically, since this is a hockey podcast, the New York Islanders dynasty, there's.

Back there was the Montreal Canadiens dynasty, then the Islanders dynasty, and then eventually the Oilers were able to.

The Edmonton Oilers were able to take over that.

And the main takeaway from the legacy book was that when you are in the midst of a dynasty, when you are in the midst of having your success, you need to make sure that you're not resting on that success, but you're building on it.

You're not resting on your traditions, you're building on your traditions.

You need to identify the standards that got you to where you are and to maintain those standards.

And if.

And even try to constantly improve.

There's the Japanese saying about relentless focus on incremental improvement, just always finding ways to improve.

And I think that's what we've done a great job at Shattuck is we've.

We really took that to heart.

One of the main things I think that we've done is we've allowed.

We've got a number of younger coaches that have come in, and the older coaches have.

Have allowed them to breathe and to bring in the new ideas and not be stuck in the ways.

This is the way that we've always done it kind of thing.

And I think out of 16 coaches at Shattuck, I might be off by a little bit, but probably a little more than half either graduated from Shattuck or went to Shattuck at some point.

So the tradition is carried on that way.

But at the same time, the older coaches allow the younger coaches to have a say in how things move forward.

So I think we've done a great job of that.

Shattuck has done a great job of that.

Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up, too, because you referenced this in the book, and I agree with this 100%.

I've been saying this forever, that I'm a teacher as well as you were.

And it's always good to learn and not sit and say, this is what I know, and you're not changing my mind.

So it's good to see that coaches, good coaches, great coaches, agree to be coached.

And it's good to see, and as an example, a successful program like Shadduck using that as well, and the older coaches kind of sitting back and letting the younger coaches come in and have some input.

Well, in modern culture, I think Ted Lasso has really taken off.

And one of the main episodes of that was be curious, not judgmental.

And I think that one of the things that I wrote in the book, which I have always been.

I've always been curious.

I'm a team guy.

I do believe that there's a.

There's a saying about that the student and the teacher together create the learning.

Collaboration is huge.

And I think hockey, I mean, you could argue.

I mean, football players would have a say and basketball players would have a say, but I would argue all day that hockey is the greatest team sport.

And because even your best players can't be on the ice more than half the game, so you rely on your team.

So collaboration in hockey is of utmost importance.

We're going to continue talking about how you built this successful program.

And we have a lot of coaches that listen as well.

This is some good education for them to see how you built a successful program.

And this is kind of a hot topic issue now.

And when I talk to younger players, I tell them all the time, look, I would rather have the coachable player that goes out there, gives 100%, is willing to learn, is willing to take feedback, then maybe the superstar with the bad attitude, especially at the younger ages, because that can kind of stunt development.

And when I talk to people I know, whether it's junior coaches, GMs, people in the professional world, they always talk about scouts, they always talk about this.

When they're recruiting players, they're not just recruiting the skill.

Right.

They're recruiting people that go beyond the hockey talent.

So when you were recruiting players, what were you actually looking for that that went beyond the hockey talent?

Well, at Shattuck a number of years ago, we were very intentional.

We decided we're going to recruit families as much as anything, because as coaches, we had to go to the rink every day and, and we wanted to be around good people that were willing to learn.

And I think that's true.

If you were to talk to any college coach, I mean, they recruit families as much as anything.

And then there's obviously the standard skating, puck handling, passing, shooting, and team play and all of those things.

But I think from the perspective of the coach, as I mentioned before, you have to have a.

You have to have a standard and hold the players to that standard.

But within that, I think you have to be authentic.

And I know there's.

There's a number of parent coaches out there and there's a number of coaches that maybe did not play the game at a higher level, but love the game and want to be involved in the game.

So I think just being, being authentic, being yourself and committing to getting better, committing to going to the coaching clinics, committing to watching other teams practice and do all that is a huge thing.

But the main thing for me again is to be authentic.

One thing at Shattuck, and I used to say this was the kid's first impression of you as a coach or the program is going to go a long way.

So that's why, for example, at Shattuck we always made sure that our locker rooms were clean and put together and the gear was all hung in the same way.

And so when a new kid walked in, they would look around and they would go, oh, this is how they do it.

As opposed to if stuff is all over the floor and guys are screwing around and everything is happening, then they're going, oh, this is what we do.

Right?

And then you spend the next four years trying to tell those kids that no, that's not how it's supposed to be.

So we're very intentional with our returners that this is the standard, this is how we keep the locker room, this is how we keep our gear, this is how we practice, this is how we play.

And then holding them to account to that.

So at the end of the day, you need people that are willing to, willing to buy into that.

And then as far as players are concerned, they have to be intrinsically motivated.

I mean that's.

I used to tell my players when they, before they could drive that sometimes they would be late to practice.

And I would say if you're late to practice, but your mom or dad were running late because they had to get dinner and get home from work and get you to practice.

I get it.

But you better be sitting in the car with your gear in the back ready to go.

Your parents can't be sitting in the car telling you let's go.

So just little things like that.

And again, I've been around, been fortunate at Shattuck to be around some of the highest level players.

And you can tell the highest level players just carry themselves a certain way, practice a certain way and just constantly want to get better.

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And I'd assume that's why the family component is so important to you, the upbringing and the respect that many of these athletes bring to your program.

Yeah, because it's.

Again, if you're setting a culture.

I've heard, for example, that Jonathan, like there's a book put out by Jonathan Haidt recently called the Anxious Generation, and it's more about cell phones.

But the takeaway from that is, is a group of parents, if they can get.

If you have 10 kids, if you can get three kids that are not on their phones, then a kid can't say everybody's on their phone.

Right.

You can use these three.

And once you've picked off three, then you'll most likely get four.

And if you get four, then you'll get five.

And then that's how the culture builds.

So I think if you're starting with good people who are good families who have kids that are willing to, willing to listen and are respectful of the coaches and all of that, then the synergy of the culture begins from there.

So even the more talented players, they want to fit in, they want to be part of the team.

And one of my, one of my coaching mantras that I would say is you always want to play to win.

Right.

Because you don't, doesn't mean you're going to win.

But you need to play to win.

You always play to get better.

You have to try to get better.

But then the secret sauce, I think, is playing to be the kind of player that other kids want to play with.

Right.

So if you are the kind of kid that other players want to play with, then when you are doing well, they are going to cheer for you.

They're not going to try and drag you down.

Right.

Because your best friends are the ones that when you're playing well, they're still supporting you, they're not jealous of you.

Right.

And I think that's a huge thing.

So by recruiting families and good kids, it's easier to build the culture that way.

Yeah.

And Rod Brindemore is a perfect example of that.

I hear the reference all the time when he played, if he scored a goal, he just skated away.

But when his teammates scored, it was like jumping up and down like he won the Stanley Cup.

So those are the types of players that I'm assuming you're.

You were referenced.

Well, I heard too one time coach said that when you score a goal, one person is happy.

When you get an assist, two people are happy.

Yeah.

Or three Now.

Right.

With the secondary assistant.

So I want to go into a specific example.

You talked about all these things that bring a team culture together.

And it was most memorable for your coaching career.

And you alluded to the fact that everyone contributed.

And we often talk on this podcast how important hockey is for role players.

Right.

You're not going to win with 20 scorers on your team.

Right.

You need the guy that's going to pass or girl that's going to pass the puck.

You want a guy that's going to back check.

You want the grinder.

You want them to fit a role and buy into the team culture.

So there's a great line we hear in sports that talent doesn't make a great team, but culture does.

So talk a little bit about that specific team and how they bought into your idea of team culture.

Boy, you have to be very wary of your language as a coach, because if you start talking to players about roles specifically, then a lot of stuff goes on inside the locker room and a lot of stuff goes on out of the coach's ear.

And what you don't want to do is have a culture where players are telling other players to know your role because they can twist it the wrong way.

So what I try to emphasize is that confidence comes from, first of all, having success.

Confidence comes from people commenting on how well they think that you've done.

Confidence comes from not comparing yourself to other people in a negative way, but trying to get better using role models and then how much self efficacy you have, how much you.

How much you feel your success is within your control.

So I think it's trying to meet each player where they are having them and finding what their base of skill is and then trying to have them become the best version of themselves within their skill set.

Right.

So that team, we happen to have a number of offensively wired kids, Right.

And so that really helped.

But then it's making sure that you're giving a kid a responsibility.

Right.

And that can Be a simple thing like working on getting pucks out of the zone and getting pucks in the zone.

I've told this story before, but when I was with Edmonton Oilers, there was a player named Dave Hunter that was a staple on those Stanley cup teams.

And as a young player, I asked my brother, who was an equipment manager at the time.

I didn't understand because I felt like I had better skill than Dave Hunter and he's maybe bigger than me.

And I couldn't understand how he kept making the team.

And my brother said that because he's like Mr. Miyagi.

Mr. Miyagi and karate Kid.

Wax on, wax off.

He's like Mr. Miyagi.

He gets the puck in, he gets the puck out.

He gets the puck in, he gets the puck out.

So it's having kids understand that everybody is going to contribute in their own way and then helping them find their confidence in the things that they're able to contribute and having them contribute to their best.

And it's a. I call it pure sport.

Like, if you start getting into where you're looking at outcomes in the form of winning, then you have to make sure that you're giving everybody an opportunity to play within, however long the game is and everything like that.

I'm not a big person on.

And Shattuck, St. Mary's in general is not, not big on shortening the bench in youth sports.

I mean, certainly there is a time and a place, but if each player feels like they are contributing in the best way that they can, then that kind of raises up the whole team.

We used to have a mantra that we, we didn't want to have any, any fake smiles in the banner photo.

All right, so since it's a developmental podcast, I want to switch over a little bit and talk about development.

So one of the core philosophies I have at CV3 hockey development is that we're not chasing trophies, we're building players.

And my big motto is development over banners.

And that if you build the player not just as a hockey player, but as a person on and off the ice, and you focus on that development on and off the ice, banners will eventually take care of themselves.

And you've echoed the sentiment when you said in the book, quote, it's not just about the championships, it's about the journey and rewards that come from committing to it fully.

So how do you balance winning, or how did you balance winning with genuine long term player development?

Well, the environment and the culture of Shattuck.

St. Mary's was one of process.

I mean, we were a school, right?

So school, it's.

You're there to learn and we have the kids and we had the opportunity to have lots of practice time and everything like that.

But I mean, most of these kids are not.

The vast majority of these kids are not going to make hockey their profession.

So the lessons that they learn in hockey are what's going to carry them throughout the rest of their lives.

It is a commitment to the process, a commitment to the grind.

And even you're going to have players that are just sort of naturally committed to that.

I had one with my son growing up.

He grew up around the game and I never had to, I never had to tell him.

He was just always outside shooting pucks and always outside wanting to make sure that in the winter I had the rink going and everything like that.

So he was in.

Intrinsically motivated that, that way.

So you are going to have those kind of kids on your team.

Most likely they won't necessarily be a majority, but that's where the coach has to come in and create practices that touch on all the skills.

I'm a big believer in making practice fun.

A lot of small area games, a lot of competitive games.

I've said this.

I think you should end.

End every practice in some form or another.

Laughing, laughing that one team beat another team and they had to do.

They had to do boards down and back or they had to do something in a, in a competitive way.

But the coach has to be, the coach has to be organized.

And there's so many resources out there now, from coaching mentorship programs to USA Hockey to I think most professional people and everything that they do try to stay organized as much as they can.

And I think that's important when you, even if you've been working all day and it's your responsibility to coach the team, you have to come with a plan and, and then keep practice upbeat and moving and keep the kids working hard, competing and hopefully laughing at the end.

And then once you develop that sort of camaraderie on the team, everybody will try to push to make each other better.

One of the things that I came up with, the girls that was very helpful.

It was competition is the most sincere form of friendship in the sense that if I'm your friend, I want you to be the best person that you can be and I want you to challenge me to be the best person that I can be.

And that worked with girls, because girls, one of the things that I found, they're not allowed to express aggression in the world.

In the culture, they're not allowed to express aggression physically.

So it was very hard to get girls to practice hard against one another.

With boys, they're boisterous and competitive enough that it's more playing within the rules and playing with intensity over emotion.

But yeah, that competitiveness in practice, in low stakes games creates an environment where you want to work hard and get better and then that just perpetuates itself on into the, on into games.

Yep, that competitive spirit.

Right.

To push each other and it makes each other better and that, that goes into that team culture and brings it out when you're playing in a game.

And I also love ending practices, especially with the younger kids that I work with, anywhere from 8 to 12 years old, even older than that, ending with a game where it's.

They don't realize that they're working on skills.

But I always want them leaving with a smile because you know what?

It's a game for them.

It's a game and I want them happy and want them coming back with a smile on their face.

So I'm glad you brought that up.

Fun and hard work can be in the same sentence, but that takes preparation and, and again, that gets back to the coaches just being authentic and, and doing your best to create that culture and expectation.

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Now let's get you back to the show.

So in games and practices, right?

It doesn't always go according to plan for players and coaches.

So specific to players, how is it important or why is it important to allow young athletes to struggle and fail and experience adversity rather than constantly trying to protect them from it?

Well, I'll go back to one of the.

One of the foremost sports psychologists.

His name was Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

He came up with this concept of flow.

Flow is optimal experience.

And it's been one of the most studied aspects of human nature that there is.

And it is surrounded by this idea that we all want to have those experiences where kind of time slows down and our skills match the challenge.

Right?

And in his research, he found that one of the main components to reaching that state of optimal experience and bumping up against competitive excellence is that you have to struggle.

And as with anything, it's a matter of reframing the struggle.

Because frustration is an emotion that comes from a thought that things are not going my way.

That's a thought.

Things are not going my way.

The manifestation of that is frustration.

But if you reframe frustration more as a signpost towards development, then okay, I'm, I'm feeling frustrated.

That's good because it means this means something to me and I can push through.

Because anything in life that's worth doing, doing is going to be hard.

That's just a fact.

And maybe at too much of a younger age now, maybe their wins are expected because that's how, that's how organizations, that's how clubs keep their kids.

That's how coaches keep their job.

That's how people get paid.

But I think generally speaking, if you're able to get the kids to reframe, frustration as again, like I said, a signpost towards development.

Because we all want with the word I and it's not my word, but the idea is optimal challenge, right?

Optimal challenge.

And we can tell, you tell them like, who are the most fun people, for example, to play ping pong against.

Right?

You want to play ping pong against somebody that you're not going to beat them all the time.

They're not going to beat you all the time.

Right.

But you want it to be competitive.

So it's always coming down to where they're pushing you to be your best.

And it's a cultural thing because most of these kids, when they go to school, some of them are in algebra, some of them are in algebra 2, some of them are in pre calculus, some are in calculus, some are in AP calculus.

So hockey for some is just A little bit more difficult than it is for others.

So you just keep trying to work on your ability to try to get better and gain confidence that way.

And you just referenced it in your answer.

And youth hockey is a lot different than, I'm sure when you played.

It's a lot different than when I played youth hockey.

Now you have technology and social media and rankings and people comparing clubs to each other, and people tend to focus a lot on that.

So what do you believe is the biggest mistake parents and coaches make when they become too focused on the outcomes, whether it's goals, points, rankings, championships, instead of the process to actually get there?

Well, talking directly to parents, I would say when you are a parent of a child who is dependent on you, you know exactly who you are.

Right?

When my kids were younger, my, my son is named Drew, my daughter's name Lindsay, I knew exactly who I was.

I was Drew's dad, I was Lindsay's dad.

Right.

And so I think what tends to happen then is, is a sense that love for them in a strange way almost becomes conditional, right?

And that creates these limiting beliefs that I'm only worthwhile when I am performing.

Right.

And that can be a belief that a kid carries with them into their whole life.

So the one thing that I say is when they are younger, you're responsible for them.

You have to put a roof over their head, you have to clothe them, you have to feed them, you have to try to make sure they get in the best possible school.

But when you put them off into athletics, then you have to be responsible to them.

And the main thing is they have to know that they are loved unconditionally, not based on goals, assists and points and wins.

I know that's a hard thing.

And I, as a parent myself of a 13 year NHL player, people think that it changes it.

It doesn't ever change.

You bleed for your kids, but you want them to make the team and all of a sudden they make the team or they get cut and then they make another team.

But it doesn't ever change.

If your kid's 13 year NHL player, you don't want them to get hurt.

You want them to get a fair chance and you want them to have a coach that respects them.

That doesn't ever, that doesn't ever change.

I have a little excerpt in the book about an experience that I had in a luxury box at a father's trip with the Buffalo Sabres.

And I learned then you don't even in the NHL when a dad's kid is on the ice, you don't talk to him.

That's great.

Or a goalie, that's probably a lot worse.

I mean, JP Paris is one of my.

I mean, he is one of the great mentors of my life.

But I was watching a game where his son Jordan was a goalie.

That's Zach's brother.

His son Jordan was a goalie for.

Very accomplished goalie for the North Dakota Fighting Sue.

And I noticed JP Was reaching into his.

Into his pocket there.

And he had a little flask of Zambuca that he would.

That was his only when Jordy played with Zach, he wasn't worried.

But with Jordy has little flask of Zambuca there.

Yeah, I know from personal experience, I got boys that play forward, and my daughter plays on the boys team in net.

So it's a completely different game watching when she's in net compared to when she's not.

So I know from personal experience.

So I want to shift to talk to coaches that are listening.

And this answer could probably go on for another two hours.

But you spent decades teaching and coaching young people.

So in your mind, what makes a great coach?

The first thing I come back to is authenticity.

And I think I learned that as a teacher, too.

I mean, you have to.

You have to know what your strengths are and coach from your strengths.

So if you're a good communicator, because there are skilled players that are not good communicators, Right.

So you don't have to be the greatest skater, you don't have to be the greatest stick handler.

You don't have to be, but you have to be.

You have to be prepared, and you have to be.

You have to be authentic, and you have to be willing to learn the sport.

So the first thing that always comes to my mind is authenticity.

And then the second is you have to have a.

You have to have a.

A standard of expectation.

Of what?

Of how you want your team to behave.

Everything from when we walk into the rink, what we are doing in the locker room, and it might take some time to walk them through that.

Like, you might have to be in the room for a little while.

I've often said sometimes a peewee and bantam locker room can be the most dangerous place on earth.

It's a.

But if you have expectations, this is how we're going to treat one another.

This is how the room is going to be.

This is how you talked about that one team when one of the other teams, our other teams that won.

We actually had a documentary crew following us around.

And I think there's going to be a Shaddock St. Mary's hockey documentary coming out.

But our team won and we are coming out after winning a.

Winning a national championship.

And I just.

Part of being a coach, I went back in the room after everybody was gone and we just won the championship.

And the room was spotless.

Those.

Those girls had put everything in the.

Everything in the garbage can.

So that.

That probably warmed my heart as much as not.

I wouldn't say as much, but that.

That was one of the reasons why we won was because they took care of business that way.

Yeah.

It's authenticity.

It's being willing to be a lifelong learner and be organized and have a standard of expectation and then holding to this.

Them to the standard.

If that means for the first couple of weeks you got to sit in the locker room with them as they're getting dressed for practice and correct them, well, then that's what you have to do.

If have that expectation of no tape on the.

No tape on the floor, no spitting on the floor, everything goes in the garbage can.

On holding people accountable to that.

And once they realize they're part of something that's bigger than themselves, they like that.

Because we as human beings, I mean, it goes back millions of years, we like being part of the tribe.

We like being part of a team, especially one that, you know, when kids, especially, they like routine, they like clear expectations.

And if you do that, that is part of the process.

That, again, leads to positive outcomes.

And there's going to be years where you don't have.

You don't have the horses, other teams are going to be better, but that doesn't mean that you don't play to win.

And one of the things that I say to my teams over and over again, it's never about who you're playing against.

It's always about who you're playing with.

You're playing with your teammates and for your teammates.

So there's.

In the culture and environment of Shattuck, winning was the outcome of a process.

But in a sense, there's no.

There's winning and learning, not winning and losing.

And I know that not all clubs and not all cultures are like that, but that's how it.

That's how it should be.

Yeah.

So today you're working as a mindset and mental performance coach.

And so when you talk about mindset, what do you mean exactly and what do people often misunderstand about it?

I think the main thing that I try to help the kids understand is that generally speaking, there is a relationship between our thoughts, our emotions and our feelings, and to have a separation of that.

And ideally, that if you are in a competitive environment, you are constantly going to come across people and circumstances that are going to challenge your own sense of who you are and what your expectations of yourself and who it is that you want to be.

Most athletes realize, like, I will talk to my athletes and I will say, you realize that there is very little chance that you are going to be Connor McDavid.

And they all would agree.

Right, okay.

But Connor McDavid is a human being.

He has the same thoughts and feelings and emotions as you do.

So in that way, you can be Sidney Crosby.

It's like they say, I want to be the leading scorer.

I want to be an NHL player.

And what I would say is, no, I want you to be a good person.

You can be that.

Right.

And it's just in a.

In sort of a general duality.

There's the heart, which we want to care.

You want to care.

Right.

But the head is.

You don't want to worry about.

You want to care, but not be worried about the outcome.

Because if you're playing from your heart and playing from the right place, you can essentially be.

You can be content with however things work out.

And that is not to say that you don't want to win, but you always want to win.

But one of the JP Parisi sayings is the other team wants to win too.

Right.

So if you're constantly focused on results, you're missing the whole point.

You're just missing the whole point.

Or if you're focused on the last shift as well.

Right.

Because that can get in your head moving forward on the next shift, the next period, the next game, if you're in your own thoughts.

And another great book I was fortunate enough to read was the Inner Game of Tennis, and they talked about that as well at it.

Not it doesn't necessarily relate to tennis, but can translate to other games as well.

So just getting in your head negatively.

Can affect what I found.

When.

This is not proprietary by any means.

It's part of the sort of the.

The sport, you know, the mental performance and mindset culture is these ideas of limiting beliefs.

I'm not good enough.

I'm not where I'm supposed to be.

I'm only worthwhile if I'm producing.

Most of these kids have the same basic limiting beliefs.

I'm going to let people down.

Or.

And these are stories that they play in there that they replay in their head.

And so they think they're going on the ice trying to be as.

Trying to be their best self, but they.

If they're carrying these beliefs and these thoughts from past failures, it's very difficult to play your best while you're on the ice at that time.

Right.

So it's a matter of reframing and building on the positive and understanding what confidence is and understanding how the mind and the body are related so that you can.

There's.

There.

There are little.

Little mental and physical tricks that kids can do on the bench to get more centered and to put limiting beliefs in their proper place.

And much of it starts with breathing and different breathing techniques and all that.

But it is possible.

But it does take work.

And kids will work hard at skating faster and getting better on their squat or their bench press, but learning resilience in the balance of your mind and of your thoughts and your feelings and your body, that's a huge part of sport.

That's a huge part of everything, because the quality of your life is where you are in your head.

I mean, that's just a fact.

So now I want to shift to parents and the decision of going to prep school.

Obviously, you've been around it a long time and dealing with parents and families.

And like I said, you've spent years watching families make that decision whether or not to send their children away to a place like Shaduck.

So what would you say to parents who might be hesitant or worried about sending their child away to prep school?

I think that the kid has to drive the bus.

Right.

I mean, we've had it where we thought a family would come, but the family wasn't ready, or we thought a family would come, but the kid wasn't ready.

And that's so you.

The kid has to ride the bus and everybody kind of has to be on board since most of these kids are not going to play hockey.

For a profession, the school is the most.

The fit for the school is the most important thing because they're going to spend most of their days in.

In school.

And then it's just a fact, whatever the.

Whatever the financial aid is or what the.

Or what the cost is going to be.

Because, I mean, we've had fan.

We had families at Shattuck where they wanted in the worst way for their son or daughter to come to Shattuck.

But if it was going to be way too much of a financial burden, then that just wasn't going to work either.

And there are plenty of.

There are plenty of opportunities and great people and great clubs out there that kids can play on.

But, yeah, that would be it.

The kid has to ride the bus.

The school has to be a fit.

And certainly the quality of the coaching staff and all that is huge as well.

And then making sure that the financial burden is something that.

That the family can bear, not easily, but that it makes sense for it to work.

Our listeners, we have a lot of listeners both on the boys and girls side that are in this age range and trying to figure out prep school or just stay with their local clubs.

And so what should parents really be asking when they're evaluating a prep school or even a hockey academy?

We see all these hockey academies popping up, not just about hockey, but about the development of their child as a person as well.

And you reference that with the school.

I would be very wary of any program that recruits a kid with.

You'll be on first line.

I think that that's going about it the wrong way.

I would say specifically with schools, the school has to be a fit.

That would be the main question.

Many of these schools, they can go shadow for a day and see what it's like to spend a day.

So one of the things parents think is, my child needs to be seen.

And our response is always, no, your child needs to be ready to be seen.

Because you have to be aware of the concept of confirmation bias.

And confirmation bias is once a person gets an idea about another person, it's very hard to get them off of that idea.

Right.

So if you have a player, and you run into this as a coach too, if you have a player that.

That is maybe less capable than another player, but that player is working hard, and you start to notice that they're getting better.

You have to acknowledge that they're getting better, that they're doing what you're asking them to do, and they're getting better.

Right.

Because if you want each kid to develop, you need to both give them the opportunity, but also give them the guidelines of what it is that they need to do that they need to do to develop these programs.

If they're talking about winning or if they're talking about anything other than sort of, sort of the ice time and the quality of the coaching staff, that would be something that I would ask a lot of questions about.

So we referenced your book a number of times in this podcast, and I want to delve into a couple specific questions.

So your book is called the Journey and Its Rewards.

So why was it important for you to tell these stories?

And what do you hope readers take Away from them.

Well, it was a play on the saying that the journey is the reward.

Right.

And what I thought is, I have been fortunate, like you said, that our program won 17 national championships, and the prep team that I coach, we won 10 national championships.

So I was very fortunate.

And certainly I acknowledge that I was a big part of those wins and my mentorship and my coaching and my dedication.

And I know that I was a huge part of that and I was a thread that ran through that.

So I'm not invalidating that at all.

But what I will say is that when you, as I say in the book, when you win, winning does feed your soul, right?

You feel great.

But when you lose and you put everything in it, losing eats away.

It can eat away at your soul.

Losing is extremely difficult.

But what I found was, and this I would say would be the main takeaway of the book, that win or lose, it's the people very rare.

It's the people that you're with and the people that you're around and the kids that you get to mentor.

So after I had won a few times, and again, I realize that, how that can sound, but the winning, when I heard Tom Brady talk about that too, in an interesting talk, and I remember the one year that that the Oilers won a couple of times, I was fortunate to be down in the locker room after they had won because of my brother and all of the best players.

They were more excited for the guys that hadn't won yet.

They were more excited for their parents and their friends.

And it was all about sharing.

It was all about sharing it.

The journey and its rewards.

Talks about not discounting the people that you meet along the way and how important the people are.

Because, I mean, I don't remember how many goals I scored my second year in of junior hockey, but I remember the guys on the bus and I remember the stories and the people that I was around.

So it.

That it's important to grasp that because people that think that, oh, if we win, everything will be fine, that's my experiences, that's not the case.

You wake up a few days later and you're.

You're just on to the next thing.

And I must say, reading the book, especially the forward of the book, you really did make an impression not just on the ice, but off the ice as well.

Someone who's has.

Has a couple things on her resume.

And coming from her in the forward, she wrote, quote, some people come into your life as a coach, A few become mentors.

And every once in a while, you meet someone who becomes something much more, someone who helps shape the person you become.

For me, that was Gordie Stafford.

So it's not coming from you, it's coming from one of your very successful players.

So I must say, after reading your book and seeing some of the quotes from Brianna Decker, you really have made an impression, not just on hockey players, but people as well.

So I'd say your book title matches what others can say about you.

Thank you.

I'm very humbled by that.

And she's a very special person.

There's no question.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, so I want to get into some rapid fire questions as we're kind of winding down a little bit.

So what's one quality every great teammate has?

Selflessness.

The best teammates are genuinely happy for their other teammates.

Success.

I call that sympathetic joy.

That's being genuinely happy for another person's success.

What's one thing parents, especially in the youth hockey world, what's one thing they should stop worrying about?

Start about wins and losses and goals and assists and points.

And it's all about, I guess it's the concept of fun, but it's that your kid is learning so many lessons through sport.

And at the end of the day, we learned this through Covid.

The question was asked, would you rather your kid be safe or would you rather your kid be strong?

And even during the COVID era, the vast majority of parents said that they want their kids to be strong.

And resilience comes from knowing that you've given your best to something and maybe you didn't win, but you learned.

What's one thing young hockey players should start doing?

More of motivation comes from doing.

People think that you have to think about something before you do it, but without getting too technical about it.

Dopamine is actually an anticipatory chemical, too.

So you have to do it.

Like, people have asked me, boy, I would like to write a book.

How do you write a book?

And my answer is, you write a book.

You sit down and you write.

And I remember saying that to my son when he was little.

I said, well, what have you done today?

What did you do today?

And fortunately, with him, he was always.

He had his stick in his hand and he was shooting pucks against the garage and everything.

But yeah, you just, you have to do it.

Yep.

That intrinsic motivation that you spoke about earlier.

So if you could give one piece of advice to a young player who eventually wants to play at a highest, at the highest level, what do you, what would it be?

Always play to win, always play to get better.

But play to be the kind of teammate that your teammates want to play with.

All right, so we got some wrap up questions here.

So, coach, you've spent your life around hockey, but obviously with that Brianna Decker quote, your impact clearly goes well beyond the rink.

So when you look back someday, what do you hope your legacy is?

Not just as a coach who won those 17 national championships, but as a person who influenced thousands of young people both in the classroom and on the ice.

I guess that I was authentic.

I'm one of those who had the fortune of when you do something you love, you know the old cliche, when you do something you love, you don't work a day in your life.

And I lived that.

And I think the girls and my players knew that I loved them.

They knew that I loved what I was doing, and they knew that.

I celebrated just being part of the process.

In this hour.

Plus, we've discussed a lot, coaching, what it takes to be a good person, how to build a program.

Is there anything we missed in this podcast that you might want to discuss?

I guess to parents, I remember now speaking from the age that I am, where my, my, my children are older and my grandchildren are growing fast.

I remember back when my son first made a team and there was a Minnesota hockey legend named Pat Westrom.

And he, at the parent meeting, he said, just enjoy being with your kids, enjoy the car rides, enjoy everything, because it goes by fast.

And I'll tell you what, it, it went by fast.

For anyone listening who wants to dive deeper into resources or reach out to you for guidance on mindset and mental performance, what's the best way to connect with you?

And also where's the best way to go and find and purchase that book, the Journey and its Rewards?

You can purchase the book, it's on Amazon, but it's also published through the, it's also sold through the publisher, bookbaby, bookbaby.com and then there's a place where you'll see the bookshop.

And then I have a company, it's called Mosaic Sports Psychology.

And I have a website, mosaic sportspsychology.com and there's, there's in, there's information there.

And yeah, I'm, I speak to teams, I speak to organizations.

I, I have a limited amount of individual clients as well.

And but this new chapter in my life has just been so rewarding.

Just working with players individually, working with coaches and working with teams and working with organizations and just, just giving back is, well, is a reward in and of itself.

Put it that way.

Yep.

The Journey and Its Rewards so finally our last question, and this is something we ask every guest.

It could be a broad answer and again, it could go on forever.

But what is your definition of development?

Being consistent and intentional in what you're doing with anything.

But I would say the is the first thing is you have to, instead of thinking, you have to do there's a law, there's a, you know, saying that the longest journey begins with a single step.

And if you want to pursue anything worthwhile, take the first step and realize that there is going to be difficulty along the way.

But then you just have to reframe that difficulty as a clue that you're on the right journey, that it means something to you.

Because if it didn't mean anything to you, you wouldn't care, right?

So, Coach, thank you so much for joining us.

You gave a lot of great advice and stories from all your years of coaching and teaching.

So thank you again for joining us.

Of course, thank you for having me.

I had a lot of fun and.

To our audience, highly recommended.

I was fortunate enough to be able to read the book I recommended.

Pick it up on Amazon the Journey and Its Rewards, Stories and Observations from a Lifetime in Hockey.

So share with a friend, coach or parent or player if you think they'd be interested in benefit from this podcast.

And if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and also make sure you're following us on Instagram at Sharpening your Edge podcast to stay up to date on our guests topics and corporate partners.

Thank you for listening to Sharpening your Edge and we'll see you next time.