Shaun Newman Podcast - #1 - Ken Rutherford

Episode Date: February 14, 2019

Ken Rutherford is Husband, father, business owner, professor, MBA student, coach and a good friend of mine. We discuss his early days in volleyball, his college days and life in coaching with his philosophies.  

everybody to the Sean Newman podcast. I am your host Sean Newman. I have in studio with me, Ken Rutherford. And if you're listening to this, the long journey is over. We found a way to get on here. So thank you for all your help and being here and let's have a little bit of fun. You bet you, Sean, it took a little longer than we thought to get here, but we're here. Now, just in case you don't know who Kenny is, he's a business owner. A professor, a husband, a father of five. He does not like birth control, obviously. In a world where everybody's going smaller families,

you buck the norm and have more kids. Yep. And then we ran into each other through senior hockey where I always joked like you're a volleyball player, but you ended up coaching, winning a coach of the year in the senior league. And yeah, so it's been really cool. I'm looking over at you and I'm laughing right now and if people can't see it this morning We did jiu jitzu

Yeah, you got a rug burn across your eye yeah and a bruise on the bicep too Yeah, so I thought maybe we'd start off talking just a little bit about our experience from this morning because I'd never done jujitsu I know you've got a little background in judo, but a little bit of jiu-jitsu too, but not Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Yeah, so what did you? You're the guy who set it up so uh wasn't just myself as you know it was a big Viking behemoth of a man from Lloydminster named Tanner Applegate that threw it out to me and I've been waiting for this for about five years it has to be uh and Tanner threw it out so tossed it out to our group which we'll get to I'm sure and uh did it take a week from when we've talked about it to our first Brazilian jiu jitsu class and yeah it was it was intense it was amazing better than I better than I expect

that it was going to be, and I was expecting big things. Yeah, well, I don't know what I was expecting. This first wrestling martial art class maybe is the app name. Yeah, wrestling, Japanese, Brazilian. I'm sitting there to paint a picture. I got a 230 man or 30-pound man sitting on top of me. It looks like he was chiseled at a rock by the Greek gods laying on me, crushing my wind out of my lungs, and I'm going,

man I just want to go home what am I doing here yeah yeah yeah it was good and that's day one yeah we should have got a picture I meant to I was going to bring my camera and we should have got a picture but that's all right mental pictures are good too yeah well it's been a cool experience and yeah I mean like I say it's day one we only are going to grow from there I'm sure there will be a lot of more bruises and rubs all over your body by the end of it yeah yeah yeah for sure now I I brought you in. We're sitting in the basement of, well, we're sitting in your office, but essentially we converted an old storage room into a podcast studio. Yeah, we probably is.

I thought it's very apt to have you on as a first guest. You've done all the work to help me get this going. Yep. But I thought maybe we'd go back a little ways to when you're playing volleyball. I mean, it's going to be a podcast about athletes and local athletes, and you are both. So I married a volleyball star, but at the same token, I didn't really follow it. So you were talking earlier about P. Hill having quite a volleyball program. Maybe you can walk us through it a little bit.

Well, it's been a long time since I've considered myself an athlete. But that's small town, Saskatchewan. You grew up there too. You played ball in the summers. You played hockey in the winters. And Paradise Hill was a little bit of a unique community in that we, really focused on our volleyball too. So right from the time you're grade three or grade four,

you know, if there's a big tournament or districts were being held by your school, they'd shut down the school and the whole school would come out and watch. We had the good fortune of having a teacher named Wayne Wazer came out. And I don't know how he should ask him sometime, why he picked Paradise Hale to come to teach. But he had played volleyball for the University of Saskatchewan Huskies. and as small towns go, whoever trips into town with a bit of talent and a bit of love and a bit of care for youth, they inject that into the community and we became a volleyball town. And so right from when I was a little guy, that's someday I just knew I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I'm going to be like those big guys and I'm going to be a good volleyball player, as every little little athlete in Paradise Self thought during those days.

Now, do you remember a guy specifically that you used to look up to? I know out of the season. senior games right now. A guy like Jamie Sparks is a fan favorite, right? Like, is there a guy that you remember as a kid, like looking up, man, he could really kill a ball? Well, it depends. So when you're, when you were young, you, well, the small town Saskatchen, you didn't have internet and Google and TSN and I don't even remember if there's TSN then,

but the, so you really focused on the local athletes and probably somebody that I looked up to. I think he was the first player at a Paradey Hill to play college or university level. And I was a fellow named Ronnie Coltonbourne. And I thought, you know what, if Ronnie Coltonbourne can do it, I think maybe I can figure this out. And so that would be maybe somebody that I remember kind of having the back of my brain. But as a college athlete, there was a fellow on Team Canada at that time named Randy Gingera. And the fellow was unbelievable. Yeah, so there would be a couple of fellas.

So you played Team Canada for a number of years, about many years ago now. And so you mentioned college. You played at Lakeland here in town. Yeah. I know how you get to the next level through hockey. There's different steps and tryouts and such forth. How did you make the jump from Paradise Hill to college in Lloyd? Was it tryouts?

Did they host a camp or did they come out and watch you guys? Were you scouted? Well, it was interesting. So I was a good volleyball player, not a great volleyball player. To be a great volleyball player, you know, you're looking at a 6-3, 6-4 minimum, you know, 220 pounds that can jump and touch the ceiling and has played, you know, provincial teams and club teams. When I came out, like I mentioned out of Paradise Hill that we,

until I was in grade 12, we'd never made it to provincials as a team. And so we weren't, we were a good school, but we weren't on the map as being a volleyball hub. And so when I was in high school, I'd like to say it was because of me, but it was because of another fellow named Aaron Canfield from the community here who really plowed the way. And so we made it to provincials that year for the first time on our school's history. And I think we won silver, I think, that year. And Aaron made his way onto the Saskatchewan Provincial team. And then that put Paradise Hill on the map a little bit.

It wasn't long after that. We started getting ranked in the top 10 in the province, and the universities and the colleges would come look at Team Saskatchewan. There was a steady pipeline of athletes that would come out of Paradise Hill to the provincial team. And I don't know, probably since my time, I don't know. Like maybe there's been 15, 15, 20 athletes now join the college or university ranks. So it'd be different now. The years after I was there, you would have went and played Team Saskatchewan.

there you would have probably got letters from colleges and universities and been invited from there. But yeah, so it became different after our group went through, but it was mainly because of Aaron Canfield, who went on to play for University of Saskatchewskies. They won CIS Nationals in one of his years, and he was actually MVP of the country. And I want to say he was even invited to the national team. So what a gift that was for me to be able to play a sport that I kind of naturally excelled at, but play with somebody of that. caliber at the same time. So it was a fun time. And there was lots

other athletes around us as well. You know, there wasn't just the two of us by any means. And for anyone who doesn't know where, or how big Paradise Hill is, I grew up right beside it, but how many people is Paradise Hill? I mean, even with the community. For anybody from Smallton, Saskatchee, you know what we're talking about. Maybe, I don't know if there

would have been 400 people in the community. And we were consistently ranked top 10 in the province. And that would be against the Saskatoon's and the reginas. and the moose jaws and the Prince Alberts. I don't know if the school, I should follow it better now, but the Wayne Wizards retired, and I'm not sure if the volleyball program is as strong as it was.

Maybe they've chosen to focus on something else now. But, yeah, so a town of 400 people was running up against the 350,000. The juggernauts. Yeah, absolutely. That's really cool. Yeah. And we talked a little bit off there about your time at Lloyd here in the college at Lakeland with the rustlers.

and coming back for alumni events and playing them. And we just kind of relive in that. And they put on a good event. But now you don't go anymore. No. So my coach, who's still with Lakeland, he's, I think he's the director of their sporting at Lakeland now. We just won national director of the year, I believe, across Canada here this last year.

So, Rogan was a great coach. He's very patient with me and all the shen. Madigan's that me and my fellow players put them through. But he primarily put on the alumni weekends. And so anybody that wanted to come back and play, they'd try to match the teams with your era of play. And you'd come back and play some volleyball and go have a few beers at night and hang out.

So yeah, I used to do that all the time. But I tore my rotator cuff actually playing high school volleyball and played through it through all my college all. two college years, I think it was that I played, and was supposed to go for surgery and just never did because it would have taken you out of your competitive year. And I just figured I'd learn to live without it. And so I'd go back for alumni weekends

and think I was going to play half speed and no athlete can play half speed. And so you'd give it everything you've got and then I'd drag my shoulder around for a month. And then when I started having children in that, I just thought I want to be able to play catch in the front yard. and not be a star for one more weekend. Play catch with the kids as they age.

So I knew I just had to draw a line and step away because I couldn't go half speed. Fair enough. I don't think you can take the competitor out of any of us. Speaking of kids, I like to talk about it with you a little bit. Just on, like, you're one of the busiest men I've ever met, right? As I said, you own your own business.

You're a college professor. You're getting your MBA right now two hours away, right? Like you're driving all the time. And then to top it off, you coach senior for four years in the middle of that. And maybe, I don't know, five kids sprinkled in there. Like, how do you find energy to deal with all that? I mean, that for, you know, certain people can't even do one of those things. Heck, I got two little kids right now under the age of three.

that are giving me gray hairs and give me a run for my money every single day. I know when the wife and I talk about a third, you know, there's just days you look at each other and go, man, I don't know how we deal with a third, right? I mean, chances are we're still going down that road, but I look and go, five, not a chance. I don't know. I've wrestled with that one in recent years. I've had a debate with myself on my sanity. Sometimes I'm not sure if it's a good thing, but as you're speaking, and I've been thinking a lot about this lately,

is first and foremost, sometimes I wonder how my wife puts up with me. You know, that's a lot on the go. And she sure has been a stable force in our marriage and in my life. And that's a lot to do. And the only way you can do that is if somebody's kind of holding down the fort. And that certainly has been my wife. So how do I find the energy? I don't know.

I've always been a high energy person. I don't like wasting time. I don't like experiencing TV. I like experience real. Even as a team when I was, what I've been, 16, 17 years, I was playing volleyball, playing hockey. It wasn't much money that time. I was the oldest of six kids myself.

So I was working off the house to buy. my own hockey equipment, my own clothes and that, working for the Hoffman family, one of our fine neighbors back in French and Butte, Saskatchewan. And rather than watch TV or take a night off, I ended up coaching hockey then with Doug Novelin out in Paradise Hill, my little brother's team, right? So I'm a 16-year-old coach and the five-year-olds. And not many 16-year-olds want to want to do that either. I've just always been attracted to maximizing my output, not so much for myself, but I like investing in people. I like investing in families. I like investing in athletes. I like investing in my community. And so a culmination of high energy. I've always tried to

keep in shape and just try to, I look at like a volume button and I like going at 10. I think life was meant to be lived at 10. And so I try to pack in as much as I can and crank them all to 10. But sometimes that gets a little much. Sometimes I've pushed myself too hard and I'm trying to learn how to wind back and be healthy in all regards. How is that winding back? Oh, I know we've chatted about this several times now. Let's call it the last couple of months trying to maybe refocus on more family, kids and some things closer to home. Has it been? For me, I, It's been wildly successful by my measuring stick, but still a long ways from where I want to be. As you know, I'm not sure if this is where you want to mention it, but you and I are in a book club.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So we call it a book club. This is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It's been an amazing input into my life. And it's, what we have is we have a club and we, as you know, and we read a good buck each month. We debate it as a group.

And it's a group of men that I look up to and I respect and who kind of will call my bluff and I'll call their bluff. And one of the books was How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen, a Harvard MBA professor and a Harvard MBA graduate. And that book kind of fell into my lap as I've been wrestling with a few things in my mind. And it's just how will I measure my life or I believe in God. so I kind of wonder how will he measure my life as well. And I think by going too hard at too many things that aren't producing the right outputs, it's something that I thought if I kept going in that direction, I was going to have regrets as an 85-year-old.

And I thought I need to tweak that when I'm 85, I always have a vision of my mind that, God willing, my wife and I make it to 85. Maybe I should make that 95 or 105 or 125 or 125. because I'm predisposing myself to the actuarial charts that I read in as in university that the predicted death, death age of man and women. But anyways, my vision was that at 85, I picture myself sitting on our front porch, holding my wife's hand, rocking, and looking back on life. And all the women are going, uh-huh.

Yeah. Can you teach my husband a figure too? Oh, no. No, my wife would say, no, like I say, I have a great wife. Actually, we have a good marriage and we love each other a lot. If you don't know who Jan Rutherford is, she shout out to Jen. She's awesome.

She is. She is. But anyway, so I just always envision that. And I think when I'm 85, what will I look back on and say, that went well. And some of it I'd say, well, that didn't go well, but I tried my best. And I want to have as few of those, that's a regret. And if I continued on some of my paths, I knew that that was going to be a regret. So I'm trying to readjust now to keep those regrets to a minimum.

That's answering your question. Absolutely. Yeah, no. Really well done, actually. I had this question asked to me the other day. And it was a good question. Scotty Enota, shout out to Scotty. Goaltender for us said, we're driving a harmless drive-out to a practice.

or game I can't remember now. He asked, what were the three up to this point? Now, you got a few years on me, but your three biggest life-changing moments. And I know this is straying from sports, but at the same token, we're talking about family and different things you're trying to do in your personal life and health. And I was, you know, for me, I got a couple that just stick out, but I was curious, you know, you don't have to answer right away heck I can I can spit out a couple of mine

like for one obviously having kids as like as soon as the responsibility that comes with all of a sudden you're responsible for shaping a little human being is overwhelming at times it has its absolute beautiful days

but at the same time there's no running from that there's no giving it back in my eyes and that still is probably one of the biggest life-changing moments. I know meeting my wife was a big life-changing moment, but I wouldn't say getting married to her was. It's one of the happiest days in my life, but it didn't change our relationship. The way people maybe look at marriage would change relationship.

It was the same, I mean, I just committed to her, but I was already committed to her. I wasn't going anywhere, right? The ring just signified that more. And then, and I don't mean to understate that, Mel, if you're watching, you're listening. I love you. But the second one I thought of was, well, maybe meeting Mel, finding somebody to pair up with. But maybe then the third is definitely buying a house.

As soon as I'd always been, traveled around, played hockey down south, played hockey out east, played hockey overseas and I kind of just got the ability to bounce around all the time I wanted to, you know? Like I stayed in a place for a year and then, you know, it was time to go or, you know, something would come calling

and I'd just pick up and go. But as soon as you buy a house, man, that's roots. It's hard to just, I mean, I know you can sell it. But, you know, you look at the economy we're sitting in in Lloyd right now. It's not that easy to sell. And as soon as that,

payment's coming every month staring you in the face slapping you in the face you're like oh man that sucks right did you have uh when you bought your house i remember the first day we bought our house our first house and we slept in for the first night if you've been a renter and you're told you can't paint the room your color and you are scared if you had a bomb fire too big in the back you might get asked to leave and all that kind of stuff and it's like this is my my house it was it was it was like a for from a man's perspective, at least from my perspective, it was a, it was a big different. Did you feel that as well in your first day? It's my house. The first day we, we moved in. This is 2019. So it would have been 2016, December 23rd,

right before Christmas. And we pushed because at the time we were living in an old farmhouse, my grandparents said I'd renovated, and the water had gone to crap. So I want you to imagine having about a five-month-old bathing them in the sink because it's the only place that won't sand off the rest of the showers are ice cold because you can't get hot water because the hot water tanks full of sand

and Mel handled that with extreme grace but I don't care who you are it's minus 30 outside you can't get a hot shower we weren't on the best of terms at the time right And so when we bought our house in Lloyd, we pushed for this early, early date.

So on December 23rd, we moved in. And the thing I remember is it took, we had, we were in this little tiny farmhouse. Like, you can't fit enough in there. There's no storage. So we had dad come out and help. We moved everything in one day. We're moving in the couch. Dad drops it on these hardwood floors that are beautiful.

And this giant mark goes on it. And I remember thinking, huge breath in trying not to yell at him for, you know, he's helping me here. And that's my homeowner memory. But we slept on the, we didn't even set up the bed, like the actual fancy bed. We just threw them ashters down and slept. That was awesome, right? But the first five minutes of my house, my father scratches the floor, and he didn't need to.

But now you have the ownership of it, whereas a renter, like you say, or coming from, like, our old hardwood floors were 60-some years old, right? Like, you could ding them, and they just matched it. But the rest of the days, right? Yeah. Well, so the house was one of yours. Three most impactful days. For events.

I kind of feel a little bit like there was some days like that, but also some developments in my life or some inputs that were big shapers. But my wife and it's funny you mention that. I was holding her arms last night, and I was looking at her eyes, and I'm like, I remember the day. I walked into your door.

You're a damn romance novel. No, no, I'm not a, I'm not. As I lay there holding in my house. It's well-timed because it sounds like I do this on a nightly basis. No, I'm many failings as a husband. But I was holding and I was telling her, you know what, those eyes, I remember walking through a college dorm and looking at her eyes in the way she looked at me and hugged me.

I was just like, there's something about you that I like being in your space and it matches. And to this day, it's the same. And that was a huge day for me. I've replayed that moment. You know, like we've had good dates and, of course, having our kids, something like that. But we're, there's something special about that day. For me, another one was her getting pregnant. We weren't married at the time.

Thank goodness she got pregnant because for sure she would have left me because I was too mature. far too mature. And yeah, so when she got pregnant, my life, I changed as a person, mostly for the better. I was a footloose and fancy free athlete at the time. A set of rollerblades and weightlifting gloves and a set of boss volleyball shoes in the trunk of a car. One Saturday, I'm downhill skiing in the Rocky Mountains. And the next Sunday, I'm rollerblading in southern Saskatchen, meeting a, hanging out with an old college teammate and didn't matter.

I actually had to take some time off from school. I don't know if I told you that, but I was an athlete first and foremost. School was an afterthought. I had no idea what I wanted to study. I just knew I wanted to play volleyball. So I went and made the volleyball team that year and did not do well in my grades. And played for another year. And then I took a couple years off to kind of mature.

So what did you do in your years off? I found a girlfriend. I got big into weightlifting. I got into martial arts as well in that period. I worked up in Northern Alberta, up in Rainbow Lake and Zama. Wow. Yeah, way up north. Doing.

I was working for an operating pipeline up there. My memory is that it was majority owned by mobile oil. Okay. And so I was an operator, similar to an oil-filled operator here. Oh, man. Yeah, somebody would go around and check gauges and make sure it's running and sure, pretty low on the total oil. and saving money to go back to school.

And, yeah, I had a pretty cool foreman up there that was saying, hey, Ken, you know, you've got your girlfriend pregnant now. You should probably buckle down and take a oil field job here and be an operator. I said, I can't. I got to go back to school. My wife or my girlfriend's pregnant and I got to learn. And he said, I think you're making a mistake. I thought I did too.

At the time, I thought I could buy a, cabinet Perch Lake. I think I'd looked at one way. I think I could have bought a house that we could have lived in a Perch Lake for about 60,000 and I think the wage they offered me up there was, I don't remember, 65, $70,000 a year, something like that. I was like, boy, I could pay that off in a hurry and have a boat. And that's like, no, that's one of those 85-year-old moments that I was going to regret. So I pulled the pin. Minus the place of Perch Lake for 60. Yeah, yeah, that's a little more than 60,000 now for sure. Absolutely. But went back and then because my grades were poor as an athlete, I had to get into the College of Commerce at the University of Alberta.

I had to get pretty much perfect marks to combine with my terrible marks to get me in. At that time, I don't remember what the average was. Maybe say 80% or maybe 85% or something got out of your first year or two of college to get in. So, of course, when you got a couple of 55s and 45s and that kind of marks floating around you, I took a risk. And I remember thinking, I guess that's another moment would be, okay, I pulled the pin. I saved that money, paid cash for my college. Everything was paid up front. I didn't take a dollar a student loan and had a little one by then, like Jen was pregnant.

I think we had the little one by the time I'd started back again. And I had to get pretty much perfect marks. And I did. Thanks to the professors at Lakeland, like they were, Lakeland's been very, very good to me in many, many ways. And so I worked my tail off. And my wife supported me and the profs supported me. And when I got that letter from the University of Alberta,

man, I don't know what I would have done at that thing. What I said were sore to inform you that you were 3% below the line. And it said, come on in. Let's study some business. and that's kind of when things really I kicked into hyper, hyper, super, I guess. So then you moved to Eminton with... Yeah, with my wife and my little one

and finished off years three and four, my degree. Then went to work downtown Calgary with Transcanada Pipelines in the finance department. And then took a job in Eminton and then went to work for myself after that. Yeah. Oh, very cool. Well, I mean, we can go on and on and on, but I think maybe I better cut us off right now,

and I just want to thank you again for coming in. I hope it's been as cool experience for you as it has been for me. Still learning as we go, I'm sure there's going to be some learning curve here, but at the same time, I really appreciate you hopping on here with me and building this room and getting this thing started. Your energy is contagious,

and being around you makes me want to live life at 10 too. Good few, Shoney. and it's one of the biggest pluses. There's many pluses out of coaching senior hockey, but as we don't, I don't know if we've talked to it, but I coached you. No. I mean, we can.

Yeah, no, no, no, but we don't need to go down on that path. So the friendship with you is one of the pluses that came out of that. The funny thing about it is, that's where I was leading with the volleyball. We kind of went down a side alley, but you're a volleyball star college player who then ends up helping coach the first. team in

Hillmont Senior Hockey to win in 37 years, I think it was. The SASGELTA, your assistant coach at the time, then you take on head coaching roles. In your two years as head coach we make the finals two years, sadly we don't win, but we do go to Alberta as a SAS team. Win bronze.

That year was memorable. It was a dogfight year, as I recall. And I, you know, I remember talking to you when you took the head coaching position, And I should point out, it's volunteer, right? You're not making big money doing this. It'd be more than volunteer.

You paid a coach. That's right. Yeah. And I remember trying to tell you at the time, Kenny, you don't need to know anything about hockey. You just need to have the ability to talk to the guys and adjust and learn the systems. And you've played high-end volleyball so you know what athletes.

And you know competitiveness. And you just need to almost channel that. to the right direction to reach a common goal. But I've never really bite you. After I convinced you, I just went, okay, that's checked. I got a coach and we'll carry on with life. But I mean, for a guy to jump on the head coaching role, never playing competitive hockey to maybe the extreme.

Oh, not even close. Yeah. I mean, what was that experience like for you? I guess you can splice out whatever you want. Hey, like if this goes overboard in time, in any way, shape or form, right? But what was it like? Well, I coached my daughter, Allie, up through her years of minor hockey.

And I think that's when I found out that I love coaching. And I love the mental chess that coaching is on yourself, on your athletes, the people you're coaching on the other team. it's like a moving board there's no perfect combination to solve it. It's not like a mathematical equation

where you can solve for X and X equals you know, 3.1. What X equaled in this minute might equal something very different tomorrow's minute. You know, people get sick

or somebody's sad or, you know, I don't know, somebody doesn't like, you're one of your coaching decisions or somebody does like it or I don't know, it's all these balls in the air of emotions and athleticism and team care or line chemistry and matching lines and so anyways as

I coached Allie up I was like oh this is really really fun I think I even liked it better than being an athlete actually don't know why maybe it was a time and place for me being that I like challenging my mind I like like working my mind and and so I really liked it and so then when I came on I mean I knew your older brother from from years gone by I've known the Newmans for a long time. But then, as you know, your brother was head coach, and he asked me to come on an assistant coach, and that was the year that we won the championship the first year. Second year, we didn't.

And then when you asked me to come on, I knew that there's, it'd be nice to have somebody in a perfect world who can manage people and has played NHL for 21 years and is in Hillmond and will invest. Right? Yeah. But as you know, it's just like the senior hockey teams. It'd be nice to have all your players having played NHL for five years and two years in the dub and Memorial Cups and rings and all that and stuff. But it's, you take a bunch of imperfectness and try to try to win with it.

Play your hand of cards as you best can with what the cards are. And so I thought, you know, I did, you know, if I can't, I don't need to learn it on my own between Sean. Newman and Jory Duggan and Brad Krukshank and all these folks, I'm like, you know, let's put 10 minds in a room and hey, if you want a different attack strategy, let's talk it out. I'm the coach, you know, if you want, here's how I see it. If you see it different, if you want a player somewhere else, well, I'm not going to challenge you. Let's just, as you know, I kind of coach on a consensus.

Consensish. What was the word you used? Yeah. Something along those lines. Yeah. I think they call me a players coach. I just think even if I had. played NHL. Do you think if you'd play or coach volleyball, you'd have coached the same way?

Because I feel like you lean that way because when you coached hockey, you didn't have the experience to lean back on. And so you leaned on your athletes, your players that had played higher levels and the experience that you trusted. And so you'd lay it out. Heck, half the time you laid it out is perfect. and then you just make minor tweaks with your top guys. They'd say, well, I see it this way, this way, and then you'd sit back and go, huh. And that is pretty much a player's coach. You're asking the opinion, getting feedback,

and then adjusting as you need. All the guys loved you for it, right? Usually. Sometimes it's hard to keep high test athletes all the time. But no, I had a great time, and yeah, I've got a lot of great friendships of that. What I coach the same? If I coach volleyball, I guess I'd have to coach volleyball to see.

but I really do. I don't know why it's programmed into my brain to take opinions. I'd like to think being the oldest of six kids, you know, it was, I've managed many personalities with many different ideas or goals or aspirations and had to find a way to get the chores done and get the house clean before mom got home

and get the cow milk before dad was back. And, you know, I'm sure, Sometimes my brother and sister would probably say, no, he was more of a dictator than a consensus. But you did. You had to worry about the two brothers that were fighting and the little baby that was crying and hungry and the one sister that didn't want to help

or did want to help or didn't want to work with this person. You have to find a way to, I've kind of been a dad all my life a little bit. For the audience, you should probably mention how many siblings you have. Yeah, so I have five, five, and average kids per children per. kid is something like four or four point five or something like uh uh so what i coach volleyball family yeah yeah yeah we we actually were and if i could be young i'd keep having kids forever but but what i coach volleyball the same it might be a little bit different because i i would know

what to see a little bit better especially if you're coaching played at a college level and you're coaching at a high school level you would see things that that maybe they haven't even perfected or don't know how to see it but at the same time if I had good, strong minds on the team and they said, can I, I think you want to run that play, but what if we did it this way? I'm always the one to think that don't make a conclusion until you can take all the inputs you can. And I like democracy. I really like democracy.

I believe that people buy into a system that they're a part of the decision-making process. You're taught that in business school, and I believe it to the bottom of my soul, is that if you run it like a dictatorship, maybe in hockey what would that be maybe like uh who's the mike keenan style i believe or or you know where it's it's a very it's my way or the highway it might work for a short term but i don't know if it works to maximize the the output of the athlete and it certainly doesn't make it for the most enjoyable atmosphere and so i i try to do that i would yes i on that aspect i would coach level the same as I did that coach hockey, but I might be able to spot things a little bit better.

Yeah, well, you mentioned Mike Keenan. He's the reason he's got a shelf life, right? He comes in, shocks the system. It works for a little bit, and then you slowly drowned out his voice for the most part, right? But he's effective because he gets him out of the monotonous day-to-day almost. It comes in and. Maybe he's there to increase the pain of the mental pain of the athlete. so that the next one that comes in who doesn't have that style,

they are just so relieved to have that pain taken off that they say this is wonderful to be in. I don't know. Maybe it's good to shock back and forth. I don't know. I don't know how volleyball. I'm sure volleyball is the same way. Human management.

Let's just call it. Coaching is human management. And so in my hockey career, I probably one of the best coaches, if not the most influential coach I ever had, was Larry. When Tony, I played for him two years out in Dryden.

We made a Dudley Hewitt Cup under his watch and tutelage. And he was my way or the highway tech coach. I just flourished under it. I needed that guidance, especially at that age. But I remember the year he left was my last year. And Randy Lashnik came in. And Randy was a players coach.

Like, under Larry, by no means did you ever throw a behind the back path? in the middle of the neutral zone that got you sat on your ass for minutes let's just leave it at that where Randy was very much listening guys if it's working let's let's play with it if it's not we're gonna have a discussion about it and I remember just after two years of coming out from not it wasn't like you weren't thinking on the ice but it was a very strict system and it worked well more militaristic top down and coming out of that and having a little bit of breathing room, I saw guys that struggled under Larry absolutely flourish

because they were allowed to be creative again and parts of guys' games really flourish under that where other guys, they need that structure. I still think, right, like under Larry, like, I knew what my job was. I knew the system I needed to play, but my best point year ever was under Randy, right like that year maybe under larry it would have been the same way but under randy uh there was just more creative in general and we were allowed to go and play how we saw fit and how worked for us and for that year specifically it got a lot out of our team like we were we were middle of the pack but we were a dangerous middle of the pack where under maybe a larry we would have been a hardworking middle of the pack and the only way we were beating you

as if we outworked you game after game but under Randy specifically there was a lot of scoring punch there and we were dangerous because you had to contend with that I wonder I wonder if you know I know some people look at athletics differently than I do I look at the life of an athlete is very short you know there's a lot of pressure on kids and athletes to to do everything it takes to win or to make a AAA team or to make a, get a scholarship. I look at it like, boy, boy, like if you're playing somewhat of a competitive sport by the time you're 16, how many people are done by 22, there's six years, and then you've got to be an adult until you're 85, or like I say, maybe 125.

So I look at it, like, how are you impacting that human or that individual to grow as a person or to look back on those years with a smile, you know, and sometimes maybe people would think, Ken, I wish you would have cracked down and ran up more militaristic. But I've been coached by people like that, and I wanted everybody in that dress room to be able to, when we're senior citizens to say, they still want to come and have a cup of coffee or a beer,

have a chat and say, you know what, I'm glad we didn't win that year, took Wayne Rink to 7, but I enjoyed those years, you know, because I don't, I think it's good to have humans be creative and to enjoy their time and to be free to make mistakes

and to, you know, if they screw up, to give a pat on the back and say, hey man, it happens. It happens. You know, I mean, if you do it consistently, well, now we got a problem, but I'm not coming down on you. I just, we both want to win and you want to win and I want to win, so I'm not going to tear you new

you butthole, right? You know, but, so I just, I just think, you know, that's, that's the way I think you should treat people, whether you're a politician or you're a manager or you're a father, you know,

maybe that's from the places I fall short. Sometimes as a dad, your fuse gets a little short and you switch from democracy and straight to dictatorship. But even then, I think as I age, I'm trying to. Probably my oldest son would say,

I was more of a dictator, and my younger sons would probably say I'm more of a democracy. I know I have a fatherly role, and the fatherly role has to take a leadership position with the children, and so as does my wife. So everything can't be a democracy or why get voted off the ship, you know, but I think you should encourage thinking, encourage democracy, encourage sharing, encourage, yeah, I don't know, maybe I'm going too far down the path, but yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Wow.

I think we'll wrap it up there on that. And I just got to say, I really appreciate doing this. If you enjoyed it, we can always do it again. Yeah. And I just, you know, we talked a lot more than just sports, that's for sure. But I'm hoping with this podcast in particular, obviously I want to talk to athletes, but there's more to life than just the game and the championship. That's going to make up a giant portion of it, I'm sure.

but as we've experienced with the book club and parenting and marriage and all that, there's a lot to life that a good conversation can lead you down some good stories and hopefully some good listening for the people that want to tune into this. So thanks for including me, Sean. This is really cool. Appreciate your friendship and appreciate you having me on and appreciate for you being such a key part of your podcast, you know, putting this together.

you've been the pusher behind it and now I get to sit and have a conversation that'll be recorded maybe forever yeah yeah well if no if they all think it's junkie that's all right at least we got it here and that's right if uh the kids at some point when they're older they want to sit and listen to us and sit and BS for an hour they got their chance right yeah that's right really cool thank you Sean yeah but yeah once again thanks for hopping on good job chuddy