Shaun Newman Podcast - #275 - Kyle Tapp & Tyrel Spitzer

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

The Junior Prospects Hockey League (JPHL) is a new borderless league where players are allowed to sign with any team . The league will feature three age divisions: U14, U15 & U18. There are 10 hubs and the Lloydminster Athletics will be one. Kyle Tapp head instructor of IHD & Tyrel Spitzer a Vice President under Silent Ice Sports & Entertainment hop on to discuss some of the ideas that surround this new league.  Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500 Support here:⁠ https://www.patreon.com/ShaunNewmanPodcast⁠

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Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Monday. Hope everybody had a great weekend. If you're the Emmington Oilers, you're licking your wounds right now, down 3-0. Hopefully they'll have a better fate tonight in Game 4. Now, before we get to today's episode,

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And if you're heading into any of these podcasts, any of these businesses, let them know you heard about for the podcast, right? Now, now that ram truck rundown brought to you by auto-clearing Jeep and RAM, the Prairie's trusted source for Chrysler, Dodge Jeep, Ram, Fiat, and all things, automotive for over. 100 and 10 years. One is the owner and head instructor of IHD, innovative hockey development. The other is vice president of programming and sports properties with silent ice sports

and entertainment. I'm talking about Kyle Tap and Terrell Spitzer. So buckle up. Here we go. Well, welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Kyle Tap and Tyrell Spitzer. So first off, fellas, thanks for hopping on. Thanks for having me.

Now, we're going to talk some junior prospects hockey league. I got to say that about a thousand times so I don't butcher it. But before we get into that, maybe let's give the tap or it's been a long time since you've been on. And then Terrell, you've never been on. So I guess just let's start with Kyle, just a little bit of your background. So wherever the listeners are tuning in from, certainly there's going to be a lot from Lloyd. But they're certainly across both Alberta and Saskatchewan. if they've never heard of either of you.

Just maybe a little bit about your background to start with. And we'll start with Tapper. So Kyle Tapp, 40 years old from Calgary, Alberta originally, left home at 16 to play hockey, toured all over BC between, you know, Junior B, Junior A leagues, about 19 years old. kind of lucked into to finding a homeroom teacher who wanted help with the hockey team, fell in love with coaching and started coaching right after that. Moved back to Calgary, started coaching my local pee team at 20, and then very quickly by 22, 23 years old, I was in the Alberta Junior Hockey League in Olds

and coaching at the Edge Hockey School Academy. started a player development company called IHD Hockey. It's been going strong for, I guess, just right around 17 years. We've trained, you know, many athletes, the NHL all the way down to Peebee kids. We're all over Western Canada. Then moved to Lloyd, met a Lloyd girl, got married, had some babies and some kids. And now coached junior hockey here in Lloyd, coached in the mainstream AAA system as well.

Been a player development coach and a coach of Team Alberta. Dunn, been a player development coach for hockey candidate, the under 17s. You know, I was lucky enough to work with players like Shane Wright at that event. And now going down the backstretch, trying to help change the game for the better, return hockey back to the parents and the players and I'm excited to be a part of this new venture with the JPHL. And how about yourself, Tyro?

Well, that was really well done, Kyle. Let's see, you think you started with your age, so I'll start there. I'm 34. I had an opportunity to, you know, play up in Edmonton minor hockey. Southside Athletic Club. I played up until mid-Driple-A in 2005. I don't know if it's still called the Telas Cup or if that's changed names, but had an opportunity to go there. I actually fell out of love with the sport for a little bit.

And then met Bill of Forge, who was coaching in the Southside Athletic Club and decided to jump on board with him. Fell in love with coaching instantly. Coached in Southside and then Sherwood Park, minor hockey systems, was a pro. by someone who was in private hockey, who was coming up to the Edmonton area to kind of start an academy model in the Edmonton area, had an opportunity to coach and kind of build a program within private hockey, and I thought there was a lot of benefits

to some of the things that we were doing. I also have two children here in Edmonton. That's where I'm from. And don't quite have the hockey background of Kyle, but have a huge passion for the sport and been lucky enough to meet a lot of great people in the sport. And through this venture, has been able to, again, meet a lot of really, really amazing people that have a lot of really good things kind of on their mind in terms of, you know, the sport of hockey and where it's at to date and where they, where they think it can be and trying to build something pretty special together in the JPM. L. What, what's your current, like, do you have a position in the JPMHL, Tyler, Terrell? I want to keep on to call you Tyler, even though it's Tyrell, right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't have an official position within the JPM.

You know, there's, there's people that are put in place to, you know, that are, have, you know, specialties in different areas logistically or, you know, kind of how this is rolled out. But, uh, the ownership group behind the JPM. I'm currently the vice president of sport property and programming. Gotcha. And then you mentioned that you kind of fell out of love with the sport at a younger age. What, uh, what was it about hockey back then that pushed you away? Um, you know, I think, uh, well, for, for me personally, like, I think, you know, you have, um, you know, back when I was coming, through there was kind of an obvious path of Western Hockey League and an HCHL. And I didn't know,

I didn't know much about kind of the HHL and, you know, the, you know, college route or anything like that. So, you know, for me it was, I wasn't in a spot where, you know, I wasn't, you know, a top player of my team. And sometimes you kind of get caught into what's the future of the sport and get caught up in it. And, you know, sometimes in situations throughout the area, you're finding a lot of time on the bench maybe or on situations where, you know, you make a mistake and it can cost you. So I just felt like there was a lot of stressors. And I was pretty competitive growing up. I wanted to, you know, obviously help my team win and be successful. And I just think it got to a point where, you know, I had to make a decision moving

on for midget. Do I still want to, you know, do I love the sport and am I passionate enough? to continue to keep pushing towards that goal or should I go to school and and kind of look at education and whatnot and not knowing that, you know, maybe there was an opportunity to maybe do both at that time. Yeah, it's, I always find that statement interesting. You know, I kind of fell out of love with the game because I think we've all had our moments at different stages of life where you, it's run its course or you've, it's all you've ever done and you just need a break.

And then lots of guys get. pulled back into it for whatever reason, whether it's coaching or a coach that believes in them. There's lots of different things that can pull back in. One's love for the sport. Now, it brings me, fellas, to this junior prospects hockey league, you know, this academy style league. I'd first heard about the Lloydminster Athletic Club. Is that what we're calling it, Tapper? Lloydminster Athletics. What is the official? You got her. The athletics. So I heard this, rumor first and now to see that it's coming to fruition. I thought, you know, between the two of you, we could do a little bit of a closer view of what Lloyd Lloyd's going to look like and what

stands for Lloyd Minster to benefit specifically. And then maybe we could take a little more of a 50,000 foot approach maybe on why this is happening, why it's a good idea. You know, there's probably a thousand questions we can rattle off or have been rattled off at you two. And maybe, you know, clear up some of the gray zones of this because it's a little different than, you know, well, I mean, for Lloyd, no home games, right? And I know I tap or I've drilled you on this. But let's just start with Lloyd athletics specifically. And we'll just slowly balloon it out to a little bigger view.

And Tyrell, for sure, feel free to hop in and help Kyle. or vice versa at any point in time. And this, there's no, it's not ping pong. Let's just kind of try and have a little bit of roundtable discussion. Hopefully you can fill in a bunch of the blanks I have. Okay. Yeah, you know, I can even get started. So when, like I had an opportunity to meet Kyle at an hockey event.

And, you know, it's funny because you run into people that, you know, you just have open conversations. And there's a lot going on in the hockey world. over the past number of years. And you start to have open conversations about thoughts and, and, you know, where things are headed or where things are at and, you know, just in the hockey world. And they're not, these aren't secrets.

Like these are conversations that are being had. And you start to run into people that have similar, you know, values and similar thoughts on, on what's going on. And, and then you get people that are very passionate in player development and, you know, things such as that. and you start to kind of, you know, evolve conversations. And, you know, much like the conversation I had with Kyle, I've had with numerous people across, you know, BC and Alberta.

And I'm sure Kyle's had those conversations across BC and Alberta as well. And, you know, we kind of talked a little bit about, you know, just philosophy and player development. And I think a lot of what is being built or created was, you know, it started with, you know, one player. Like if you were to train a player, you know, what's the best, what's the best way to develop a player? And is that something that you could, you know, I'll use the word scale, you know, rather than developing one player or a team of 20, could you, could you develop a, you know, a program of 60? Could you develop a, you know, a developmental league of, you know, 200 with scaling as much, you know, the on-ice, off-ice, mental training development as possible? So much, you know, what's different about our approach is rather than, you know, teams and programs putting together their groups and, you know, and trying to develop the player as they see fit, what we're, what we're trying to do is from a bird's eye view with all of our programs and our, and our hub locations is trying to create a standard that, you know, regardless if you're in Lloyd or if you're in, you know, Victoria,

you're getting that supplementally, that secondary development piece and certain components that are just standard across the board. And, you know, we're offering that to all of our players. So because we truly believe in the methods that are being used. So that's kind of the biggest thing. And then when you talk to the different hub, you know, the different hubs and the people involved, and you talk to them about, okay, like, this is how you develop a hockey player. there's, you know, three pillars. You got your, you got your on ice, you got your off ice. Now we need that competition component.

And, you know, there's only so many dance partners, you know, in building something like that that that you have. So we basically have each other. So rather than building one program in Emmington and one in Lloyd, you kind of have to, you know, bring a bunch of programs online to say, okay, well, now we have this development program in place. And now we have our competition piece taken care of as well. so we can implement some of those training into into gameplay.

So we're approaching this as not, you know, I'm one program here and Kyle's one program in Lloyd. We're approaching this as we're all part of one big developmental program that just happens to stretch out over BC and Alberta. And we're all kind of, you know, helping each other out and using each other to develop hockey players. I'm curious, just sticking on creating the league. there is with academies already the Canadian sport school hockey league.

Did I say that right? I think I said that right. That has academies, I believe, across, well, to Ontario now, right? I think they just, I think Ontario has a bunch, Winnipeg, so Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, BC. Why not just hook into their model and move forward? Yeah, sure. I can speak to that as well. Yeah, they're across Canada. And, you know, I was actually a part of that league for a number of years and an opportunity to be a part of a lot of the conversations to, you know, try and push the league in the best direction possible. The other component to our league is, and another one of the things that, you know, just over my time I've heard is it can be, it's a bit of a financial. burden at times to, you know, with some of the programs, you know, and again, you got to,

you got to decide where value is. So if a program is X amount of dollars, if you see that there's value at that, at that dollar amount, then, I mean, that, that's great. And if you have the ability for that financial commitment, that's fantastic. But that wasn't everybody's situation. That's not everybody's case. There's a lot of good hockey players that, you know, you want to work with, you want to have the opportunity to work with, and, you know, they're, you know, one of the biggest challenges was the financial. So again, when we approach this as a group, um, we looked at that as what's, how, how do we, how do we try and combat the financial piece as much as possible? So it was a bit of a backwards

design. We, we took that player development piece and we said, okay, um, we want to, we want to provide this. We want to provide that without cutting any corners. We want to provide this. We want to provide that. And, uh, you know, you, you, you start, calculating it all out and you know this is how we would want to do the the the um the competition piece is there some of the value ads that we want to have you know there's a cost associated to that and you start compiling the numbers and uh you know we we were expecting a pretty scary number to kick out uh just even exploratory if this is something that would even be worth doing and uh when it spat out the number and we looked at we looked at that number and said hang on this is you know

this is for for what you're getting there's a lot of value here and I think there's I think there's something there like I think um found these when what they're doing in terms of the training and those focused hockey players that are trying to you know do the extra skill work and do the off-place uh at a certain standard you know they're spending a dollar amount more than the dollar number that we ended up coming coming to and then when you looked at it and you said okay well you know is there a way to make this better even even then uh we looked at the cost sharing model So basically, you know, a lot of our facility costs and travel costs and all those costs, you know, to get a player from Victoria to Edmonton is a different cost than getting a player from Lloyd to Edmonton. You know, ice costs in Vancouver is much different than ice costs in Calgary.

And so what we did is we kind of compiled it all together and then just divided amongst the programs. So, you know, does it, is it advantageous for some programs? Sure. Like, you know, the program would probably be a little bit more expensive if they weren't part of the cost sharing model. If you look at other programs, you know, they could probably even run a program like this even cheaper than what we're offering it for. But again, to try and blanket across the board, the other thing that does too is if you're a family, that's like, geez, I really, I'm really interested in this, in this developmental program. But, you know, this place is, you know, at a different financial price than this place over here, you know, what's the difference? What am I getting? We're trying to say, hey, there's really no, you know, as much as possible, there's not a whole lot of difference in terms of, you know, what your competition piece is going to look like in terms of experience, what your, you know, your supplementary training is going to look like. The person standing in front of your kid and the schooling piece, I mean, they're all unique to their hub.

But as much as possible, we've scaled to try and, you know, get those costs, you know, down where we're not sacrificing the development of a player that we feel needs to be there as a group. I can hear the listener screaming at me right now going, okay, so what is the number? And it's probably going to sound high to a lot of people who aren't around hockey. But I'm curious how the number sounds and then how it compares to, you know, playing anywhere else. Yeah, I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know the comparison. To be honest, we just kind of went forward with our model, and I haven't taken the time to go compare it across the map with everybody else. But for someone to be a Lloyd Athletic, it's 12,500.

And that's, you know, being a part of the public school and all of the training. So, yeah, it's still a financial commitment by, like, it's, it is. I mean, this is not for, it's not for, it's not for everybody. It's for those players that are looking for that development. They're, they're focused. They want to train, you know, four or five times a week on ice. They want to train four or five times a week off ice. They want to train what the certain training partners we have and the partnerships

we have with Power Edge Pro and, and true movement and the strengthening. That's kind of unique in each of the hub locations. Like, that's what they, that's what they want. That's what they're looking for. That's what they feel like they're pretty passionate about the game. They're willing to, you know, embrace the lifestyle of having hockey and school kind of, you know, both being accounted for within their hub location. So it is still a financial commitment, but, you know, it wasn't so much about the price.

It was what do we want to do to develop a hockey player? And, you know, the cost is a cost. And we're trying to make it as convenient and competitive as possible. Now Tapper, as my voice tracks, Tapper for a Lloyd kid, with this 12-5, let's start with the money side of it, okay? Because I want to know everything that it entails. But like, are we talking to 12-5 just for easy figuring?

That's how many months of hockey? And does that include, I don't know, does that include everything? Or is that like 12-5 and then you got to pay for a billet and I don't know, and this and that and everything. Can we, can we start with the money? I know nobody likes to talk dollars and cents, but seeing that it's, it's part of the conversation right now,

let's start with that sitting here in Lloyd. Yeah, so 12,500 for 10 months. So basically the whole school year. So roughly $1,200 a month. If you compare that to minor hockey, let's say, they're depending on the team you're on anywhere, from 5 to 11,000, depending on the team in the tournaments for five to six months, depending on how long the playoff is.

And they're practicing two to three times a week. So that kind of gives you an idea in terms of academy versus mainstream minor hockey costs there. That is an all-in cost. So that's travel costs, training costs, food costs, equipment costs, literally everything you need, on and off the ice. The only thing it doesn't include would be billeting costs for anybody that's, that has to bill it. Now, that is something we're working on in terms of sponsorship.

We would, we would love to make that free for everybody if we can. And that is our goal, but we're just not there yet. Now, that's pretty standard across the board. Billeting is kind of on top of prices advertised. Oh,

it's interesting because the dollars and cents is, you know, all parents, you want to know the dollars and sets, right? It's an uncomfortable topic, but if you leave it off the table for people to talk about, then they're like, well, what the heck does it cost, right? We've all had the sales pitch before where you get all the great things out of the way, and then they drop the price and you're like, ah, now they know the price. Okay. I'm the athlete now. I'm coming to the athletic club. What are the benefits of playing in this compared to, let's say, minor hockey? Let's just go back to cost real quick. So,

Previously, I coached the Bannum AAA team when we went to the league final. We did the John Reed. We did the Rocky Mountain. That would have been a $10,000 hit for those parents for seven months. And then like Tyrell has already mentioned, depending on your program and what you're doing, that that cost will fluctuate. Now, your question about the athletics was, you know, kind of what's the difference? Like, what's the player getting?

Well, just almost the recruiting pitch is what I'm thinking, Tapper, right? Like, where am I going to school? Right? And I know that Tyrell's laughing at me. I'm just going like, I'm sitting here in Lloyd. I've heard of this athletic club. I don't know what it is. What is it?

Where am I going to school? Give a kind of give, like I know a bunch of this already, but I'm assuming a lot of people have no idea. So going to school at Holy Rosary, in class learning with teachers. So the big draw for most athletes is being able to get all your training, all your on ice, all your off ice done within the school day and being done by 4 o'clock. So, you know, the U-14s and U-15s will practice and get all their training, physio and all that stuff done in the morning.

And then, you know, they're in class until final bell. And the U-18s are running the opposite schedule where they'll start in school and then their last two classes of the day will be spent at the rink. and in the gym and getting their therapy in terms of what are you getting? Well, you have, you know, essentially a professional coach coaching each team. You have full access to the IHD staff for every practice and every game. So I think people in town already know what that costs because they're paying that bill already. So essentially that's being thrown in.

You know, Terrell's already mentioned true movement. You know, like that's a state-of-the-art movement platform that's taking over professional sports, not only dealing with therapy and movement, but the ability to build strength. With us with the athletics, we've hired a biomechanics, kinesiology expert, along with a sprinting coach. So you have two of those, a sprint and movement specialist. So you have both of those coaches available for every dry-line session. You can't find that anywhere else. you know you just got to experience our partnership with with injuries and physio and you know our ability to have kids looked after the job that Vince Oreo is doing you know as a you know an expert coach himself and what he's done building that football program and the culture that goes on at that school and their vision for having everybody being a part of the team and and for the athletics to be integrated into that school and be a part of you know the pep rallies and the announcements and going to.

of the football games and being a member of that school and a member of those teams, just like a volleyball player or basketball player or the badminton player. It's a fully holistic encompassing model where it's everything is state of the art, right from the classroom to even the mental health professionals, which Terrell can speak more about being that he was part of that betting process and hiring those guys. These are the things that drive the cost of minor hockey through the roof. because they have to go out and pay each one of these vendors in order to keep up.

Well, this has already been rolled in. And because of the model within the league and the cost sharing is everyone can share the burden. When you're just one team or one organization, you're paying top dollar and you don't always get access to the best of the best. And we as the athletics are very thankful to be a part of this league and have the partners we are. Because if we're just doing this in Lloyd by ourselves, we wouldn't be able to offer what we're able to. to offer with this partnership. Yeah, and the league partnerships, like, so the on-ice partner is Poweridge Pro, so that's scaled across all the hubs.

So having the equipment and is, you know, that's accessible. Like people can get the equipment. Now, what's, what's interesting with our partnership is we, we have some access to some of the newer pieces that'll complement the equipment, you know, the, the certification, Joe Quinn himself coming around to the hubs to. to work with players and Nick as well. Having the testing component that's brand new and exclusive to his professional teams and his American academies and our Canadian hubs, you know, that's exclusive to our players.

The other components, you know, with the Power Edge Girl partnership, I mean, that's a pretty powerful social media platform. And, you know, ultimately, like, we're here to help develop players, but, you know, also give them opportunities to, you know, to show where they're at and whatnot. And, you know, it's a pretty powerful, you know, platform that Joe has. He works with a lot of top players. You know, our players have exclusive viewings of him working with his athletes, playing in, you know, professional leagues, what they talk about in terms of video, you know, laddering, climbing, tacking 45s and, you know, just a lot of things that maybe players don't get on a regular basis, even if they're training with certain skill instructors.

You know, we just have that access. The true movement, I truly believe, is unbelievable. Like Aaron Baker, she's based out of Edmonton. You know, she's kind of the Bruce Lee of movement. I mean, she's done Garuda and Pilates and yoga and whatnot and basically built her own curriculum using her own equipment and designed her own equipment with an engineer out of Poland. And, yeah, she's, she's exploded in terms of, and the reason why is just because, you know, the job she's doing, she works with athletes and they're, they're all of a

sudden getting more performance on the ice and hopscotching all the players in front of them. So again, we just, we looked at, you know, what some of the top players are using and, and doing, and just wanted to, how do we get this to more families and more players? How do we develop, you know, a number of players out Western Canada to, you know, to push them through? Now the really exciting thing is the mental armor piece. Sorry. And in years past, I think, you know, programs. And I hope I, you know, I may have been the only one.

Hopefully I'm not. But, you know, mental health was kind of, hey, I'm going to bring out a guest speaker to talk about it for an hour and okay, box checked. It's done for the year. Or I'll bring, you know, somebody to come out and talk about a certain aspect aspect, you know, and, okay, box is checked, you know, done for the year. Whatever costs associated with that. Now the partnership we made, you know, I, we made it with Cody Cutthill and Dr.

Marazek is, you know, I'm actually really excited about because, you know, I, again, pretty ignorant to it at the time, said, okay, well, how can we do this? And, you know, how do we get everybody on a Zoom and figure this out and schedule this out? And they basically said, hang on a second. That's, that's not how we're going to deliver this. That's not how we're going to build this. You know, some of these things that we want to work on with our players are not, you know, you can't do it over a general Zoom call.

It just doesn't work that way. We need to be face to face. We want to be, you know, in a dressing room or in a meeting room, you know, face to face with a team or a small group or, you know, in some circumstances, individual players because, you know, this isn't, this isn't something that can be kind of balled in and generalized. And so they basically built, you know, their program and said, this is what it should look like. And we got in.

I said, okay, this is second to none, you know, and we're, we're pretty excited. No, players have been through a pandemic and, you know, there is a financial burden to being, you know, an elite athlete in hockey or, you know, any sport for that matter. And there's stressors, you know, you're going through school, you're trying to get strong marks. That's important. you're trying to perform on the ice so you can give yourself opportunity at the next level. That's important. So there's a lot of things that, you know, that can be stressors for these players.

And it's important that we give them the tools to kind of deal with all those, you know, different adversities and stuff and make sure they're successful. Regardless of whether it's hockey or anything else, you want to make sure that they're kind of tooled up. They also have partnerships that they've built into their program, too, with, you know, Jay Crischel with, you know, sports performance type stuff. So it's your nutrition and sleep and whatnot. So again, the way they wanted to operate was, you know, we just don't want to get this in front of the player. We want to get this in front of the players and the parents because, you know,

you're dealing with some of these young players and, you know, you have a session and all of a sudden, you know, for example, a nutrition session and, okay, well, I'm going to go change my habits. I'm going to really focus on what I'm eating and, you know, how I lay my meals out and when I need to load up and, you know, they educate themselves and then, you know, maybe 45 minutes later, they go, hey, mom, dad, can you take us through McDonald's? Right. So I, you know, if mom and dad and everybody in the household is understanding of the why behind, you know, what they're doing, now of a sudden you can, you know, make purposeful

decisions and try and really create those habits to be successful. It feels like a giant, and this is probably exactly what it is, but like a really professional development league, right, focused on, and I don't know, like building the players and giving them everything and then some. Because, like, I don't know, Tapper, how about you when you were a kid? Were you worried about what you were eating? And I mean, things have changed so much since we three played. You know, I think I was on the ice twice a week, and I remember early morning practices way back when 6 a.m. trying to learn anything, and I don't think you learn Jack squat. And, you know, for the travel from Lloyd, the one thing that's interesting about this, playing in hub spots where you go and you play multiple games at one location. You know, I just think back to traveling to Fort St. John and leaving on a Friday and hitting three games in Grand Prairie and, you know, the Rammell hockey league, the rural.

Alberta midget hockey league back in the day to date myself. You know, to. I coach him at the league, John. Did you really? Yeah, the edge. I was part of the first edge coaching staff before they were sanctioned. We played in that league and we went undefeated and weren't allowed to play in the playoffs. Actually, the only team we lost to was Lloyd with Brayden Hopi and that.

Braden Hopley and Katlin Schneider. There you go. There you go. That's dating yourself now, Tapp. But I was coaching. Yeah. You know, Sean, like when we talked about, like, this has been kind of an amazing journey through conversations and meeting certain people. And this is collective.

This isn't just one person making a decision. This is a group of pretty passionate hockey guys come together to say, hey, this is what we should do. and this is the why behind it, and everybody kind of understanding, you know, why that is. So, you know, we have to play games. You know, we have to have that competition piece. We have to play games.

You know, it's simple as that, but can you make the games, can they, you know, can we make it easy for maybe for junior coaches to, you know, get in front of these guys and watch them? You know, no offense to a Lloyd or Lethbridge or, you know, Colonna or Victoria, but, you know, at certain age groups, you know, if you're looking at from a scouting perspective and you're saying, okay, well, there's a player playing in Lloyd

I want to take a look at, you're going to look at the schedule and say, okay, well, when is he in Edmonton or what is he in Calgary, when is he in Vancouver? That's just where the majority of the area scouts are or, and so it was strategic. I mean, a bunch of hockey guys said, well, hey, you know, I understand we're not playing a, I'm necessarily a home game in Lloyd, But why is that? Because we just want to give more to the player. You know, where's the value at? They got to play the game anyways.

So can we make it where it's also very accessible for a junior team to come out and take a look? You know, can we get the majority of the games? Can we get all the games in those situations? And, you know, the conversations evolved. What this was back in August, September, is not what it was when it was launched in February. it's evolved. And so the reason why we play those games in Eminton and Calgary and Vancouver

is purely for, you got to play the games anyways, but can we also give them an opportunity to make it easily to be accessible for junior teams and scouts? And as well as if we are delivering some of the things that we want to deliver from a league level,

is it easier to get, you know, league staff to those locations to deliver for the players. So there was, nothing was just thrown in. Everything was kind of thought through and strategic. Yeah, it's maximizing exposure.

I mean, if I'm a scout, even if I'm in Lloyd, you want to take the road trip down so you can see all the teams, right? Because now you get to see everyone instead of just two teams even, right? Like when you have these hub spots and you're playing, it's 10 teams, right? There's 10 teams in the league, correct? So at two age groups, there's 8 and at one age group there's 10. Okay. So, right, because there's under what, it's not midget anymore, boys, once again, you, what is it, U-17, U-15, U-14? U-18, U-15, U-14.

Of course, U-18, yes. With the three of it, are all teams going to be at the same hub at the same weekend every time, or is it split? It's, it's, I mean, that would be fantastic. That takes a lot of ice and a lot of resources. I mean, you need to have a lot of, especially at the level we want to deliver these showcases. You know, you want to have your best of your best kind of delivering in a whole bunch of different areas. So to have it all three divisions would be very, very difficult. And, you know, the scheduling is almost wrapped up. And I know there's weekends where the U15s and U-18s, there's a bunch of events where they're both in the same building over the same dates.

So I mean, that's a bit of a haven for a junior team to come in and see, you know, your potential U15 graduating into U18 and your U18s that you might want to take a second look on or you have a prospect in. So that's a bit of a haven there and there are those weekends. The U14 hasn't been tied in to those just yet. They've kind of a little bit on their own schedule just because, you know, again, it comes down to ICE resources. So for us to do, you know, and there's some really cool things that we're doing at these facilities with our broadcast. If you had, you know, three sheets going, all of a sudden you need three broadcasting crews. You know, we have two unbelievable broadcasting crews, you know, to go build a third at the level of those two, you know, would be difficult. And, you know, we want to make sure we're delivering on our end.

So I think, you know, to keep it down to two sheets going on a weekend is where we want to be. sometimes you don't want to grow too fast until you kind of got your ducks in a row. I should have clarified. I wasn't, I wasn't meaning all divisions at the same location on the same days. I was meaning if you're U-18 or all U-18 teams at the same location on a given weekend. Yes. Okay. And you brought up an interesting point. Obviously a guy sitting on this side who loves talking to people in media, that type of thing. If I'm sitting and, you know, and take Lloyd out of it, let's just say, I don't know, let's go somewhere in rural Saskatchewan, Tapper. You're in, uh, Meadow Lake.

There you go. You're north up in Meadow Lake country. My child's playing in Calgary. Tyrell's already mentioned you got a broadcast through. I assume that's going to be a way, I mean, the age of the world today is you can find any hockey game you want. Uh, you guys have already thought this through and are going to have the ability to have the ability. to watch from anywhere, I take it. Yeah, I can speak to that too.

So we actually did a couple of pilot projects this year, where we brought in a broadcasting crew, and we did it twice just to kind of make sure we, you know, make sure you have the right number of people, different components, you know, make sure we have the right equipment to deliver the standard we want to deliver. And it was, you know, really, really amazing experience

because I'm looking at this. I'm going like, holy cow, this looks like a, this looks like a junior game. I mean, when you're doing, you know, in between period, you know, interviews and, you know, replays after a whistle on a broadcast, like, it just kind of gives it that, that feel. Having a, you know, a commentator that can kind of, you know, give you some context and story of a game, you know, Kyle has scored three goals on last three games and, you know, just scored

his fourth game in a row. you know, that's, that's cool for grandma and grandpa and mom and dad, you know, who are unable to travel or if I got family, you know, and wherever. It's just like. Have you seen the cost of gas lately? Yeah. Well, you know, even even just like when you're looking at it, when you look like there's a lot of really cool scouting resources that rely on video. And, you know, in a scouting. Yeah.

Scouting perspective, it can be sometimes difficult depending on the level of quality of video to be like, hey, you know, I got a feel for how quick that guy is moving around the ice. Or, you know, was he able to kind of see those plays evolve? Or it can be difficult because of, you know, the level of quality of the camera and what you can see and, you know, everything around it. So to kind of create that experience, that junior level experience in terms of, you know, what we're the video quality. Well, that just helps the coaches, but their player development. That helps, you know, junior teams that, you know, want to pull it up one night and kind of compare players to player. And, you know, just it makes it that much easier.

And then the experience for mom and dad and everybody else and players to kind of pull up their game and kind of have a little bit of, you know, some context to it, I think would be a lot of fun and kind of help them be more engaged and, you know, frustrated throwing something at the TV screen because, you know, They couldn't see a battle in a certain corner or something like that. I think that's important. Well, it would be interesting to watch once it gets going. I've said this to Kyle.

Like, once the athletics are playing, it'll be interesting to tune in just to see what it looks like. You know, sitting on the border tap, I'm curious, you know, like, there's a lot of kids in this area and you know this area well that can't come to Lloyd for, you know, border reasons and everything else. as a guy who's coached in this town for, you know, several years, what gets you most excited about what this, you know, what this can offer? Or I don't know, like what, what are you most excited about the JPM, you know, being a part of?

Well, two part questions. So like one, our academics are based Saskatchewan. And being that it's borderless, obviously it's a natural fit to get all those small-town rural Saskatchewan kids that, you know, have to travel hours and hours just to get to their respective, a wotted minor hockey association. So now the door's open to them to be able to come to Lloyd where it's an easy transfer within the school system. And, yeah, like we've seen it all the time. Someone lives half an hour outside of Lloyd, but they've got to drive over an hour. in the other direction because that's, you know, the boundary that they live in. So that kind of opens the doors for those players.

There's a lot of, when we talk about the Lloyd area, we're not talking about Lloyd. We're talking about 150 kilometers, square kilometer area where, you know, has been producing player after player for many years. So to speak on that part on the Saskatchewan side and on the school side, that's definitely going to help with recruiting. I think the part that excites me kind of touches back on a question you were starting to ask a lot earlier

is about like, well, this is different than when we went through, we practiced twice, whatever. You read a book, the gold mine effect and they talk about, you know, why did all of a sudden all the Olympic swimmers come from Australia? Why did all of a sudden all the sprinters come from Jamaica?

Why was there a 15-year period where all the best hockey players came from Modo in Sweden? And it's a very good, book. And like it basically what it talks about is that there's talents everywhere. But sometimes what you need is you need the perfect storm. You need a coach with a vision or a program with a vision, players that are motivated and parents that are willing to put the assets and resources forward to develop. And I think to answer your question, what was missing when we went through is we were just never lucky enough or maybe we were, some of us were, to be in a situation where

those things existed. I think the initial vision when Terrell and I were talking a long time ago, and I butcher your name too all the time, Tyrell, sorry. Okay. Is how do we create that effect for more kids across the board? And what it is is you get people that are professionals in the industry that have experience good and bad. They've seen what worked and what doesn't. And you learn from everybody and you go, if you could build it, what would it look like? And I always kept coming back to college sports.

When you look at college football, college basketball, even college hockey, where you can go to one place. Your practice to game ratio is three or four or five to one, which you talk about anybody that studied sports. And you should have a three, four, five to one practice to game ratio regardless of your sport. In Canada and West, in Western Canada in particular, the game ratio is three to two. or even some places four to two. So to be able to build that college kind of idea where everything is under one roof,

everything is state of the art, everything is tailored to the player. That really is what really excites me about the athletics is, you know, building this mini campus where, you know, Holy Rosary's got a biomechanics lab. They got a kinesiology department. They got, you know, they got, they're covering everything elite from football to basketball to baseball. Now we're adding hockey. So the school component's done. Obviously, IHD hockey has its reputation already in Western Canada and across

hockey Alberta platform. So the skill development, we're able to provide that. We're able to provide the coaching through the league being able to provide the training off the ice, the therapy, the mental therapy, the travel, the diet, the nutrition. Like there literally hasn't been a stone unturned or hasn't been thought of. So you literally eliminate the excuses. for the players. If you want to come and put in the work, it is here for you to reach your full potential and to essentially create that gold mine effect in 10 hubs across Western Canada

instead of just a needle in a haystack hoping we get lucky. I'm curious. And I don't know if either of you can answer this question. I look at the 10 spots and I don't know them all off top of my head, although I bet if I scroll down, I can see a map of it. I don't know enough about Williams Lake. So I can't speak to that. But Colonna, Vancouver, Victoria, Lethbridge, Calgary, Eminton are all relatively or are big centers. Lloyd Minster is this little, I don't know, when you look at it and you're planning it out, how does Lloyd all sudden factor into the map? This feels like, I don't know, the other Academy League, honestly, except for Lloyd Minster gets tucked in there. How did Lloyd Minster become, this has got to be a spot to be one of one of, one of there. And I don't know

if either of you can answer that. Maybe I have no idea. Yeah, I can. I can. Yeah. So when you look at kind of the hub layout and if you have the map in front of you, you'll find that like Vancouver, Edmonton and in Calgary have a large pool of players. So and, you know, we wanted to make sure that there was private and public schooling options in each of those locations. So that's why, you know, six programs are in those three centers. Now, when you work outside of those areas, it was more about the people. Like anything you do that's successful is always going to be about the people that you have involved. So we knew Kyle was in Lloyd.

I mean, that's where he's located. it. And like we understand Kyle's passion and, you know, to player development. He understands that, you know, what kind of what we were building. He had input into it, you know, no different than Lansbridge, no different than Colonna, no different than Victoria. And that Williams Lake, you know, I think they had 11, 11 players playing in the provincial program last year for their U-15 team. So they have a big draw from Prince George all the way up to Northwest Territories. That northern BC, there's a lot of really good hockey players there. So, you know, they're, you know, it was, and again, the person that's running it there, like he, you know, he's an unbelievable

person, super passionate. You know, these guys, they give and they give and they give for the players and the families. And so it was more about the people. Like, we didn't, we didn't just take a look at the map. I mean, Eminton, Calgary, Vancouver, that was, that was mapped for sure. You know, it was those areas you want to go into. Let's have some conversations who we thought, you know, some of the top guys that we thought would see the vision. And they all did. Like, there wasn't one conversation that we had that. Hey, you know, it doesn't see it. You know, they like it. They want to be a part of it. When you look at Lethbridge and Lloyd and Colonna and Victoria, those were more people and relationships.

You know, Lloyd is, you know, like I said, Kyle, you got, I don't know if I can say names. Kyle, can I say names across the board? Well, yeah, I think it's important. Everyone knows. Yeah, okay. So, you know, Wade Clippenstein, you know, works with an NHL franchise and very well respected in the Lensbridge area.

And, you know, there's a lot of really good players in Southern Alberta. But we're also far enough apart. where we're not cannibalizing players. So, you know, we're, if we, if we, if I have a relationship with a player that's, you know, within that 150 radius of Lloyd, like, you know, I'm not trying to get him to one location or the other or the other. Like, you know, that's a fantastic player for the league. And the nearest, you know, hub is Lloyd.

Like, we're, we're encouraging that player to go Lloyd because you're not missing anything, going to Lloyd and they would go in anywhere else. So that's kind of the message. You don't have to go hours away from home to try and get it. So we space. Except the view. A, Colonna versus Lloyd Minster. There might be something that's a little different there.

Sure. Yeah. So, I mean, there are some things out of our control for sure. But, you know, and the other thing, too, is there's a lot of really good players in Saskatchewan that have, you know, there's a bit of an appetite for something like this. And, you know, I don't think, I don't think growing. East had to be necessary because we are borderless. And that adds travel costs. Now you're adding adding to costs and whatnot.

So having a hub in Lloyd where Saskatchewan players could have that education component taking care of and not have to change curriculums and stuff like that. I think just made sense. So that's why Lloyd came into it. You know, some of these other small areas, like a lot of good hockey players in Okinawagon, they have a kind of a special demographic. A lot of good hockey players in the South, you know, a lot of good hockey players. hockey players on the island. And so we wanted to make sure that, you know, we were taking care of those

players as well. No, I think it was a, from a standpoint of just size and everything else, I appreciate the answer because as far as borderless and everything goes, there's going to be a lot of people that live not half an hour to the to the east tap or like 10 minutes into Saskatchewan. I'm not saying there's a thousand of them sitting there. But over the years, there's been so many kids that have been sitting right on the border of Lloyd and had to have gone elsewhere. I've heard the story lots, right? And whether that's to Prince Albert or North Battleford or wherever they go, there's a lot

that go for elite hockey. They go elsewhere. So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. Is there anything else, guys, that, you know, as we close in here, is there? anything else that I've kind of glazed over? Because I'm, you know, this idea I've been, you know, trying to suck up as much as I can. Because once again, I just heard about the athletics not that long ago. It hasn't been this, you know, 10 year process. This is relatively new. And it'll be interesting to see how it plays out as the season starts and everything else. But is there anything

else that you want to make sure the listener understands or knows about before we head into the crewed master final five and and slowly get you on with the rest of your day um yeah i got i got two things and i'll let tyrol go um one i think this program isn't for you unless you know you're trying to get to the next level and you're serious about uh pushing your academics and your athletics um to an elite level and you're aspiring for, you know, great things from the game of hockey, whether it's scholarship or to play pro or to use it to travel the world or to get into university and become a doctor. This isn't for you. I think it's a schedule that's been created that allows the time to put in the work. It's giving you the resources that if you put in the effort

can like Terrell's already said, can kind of hopscotch you or trampoline you ahead of your competition. This is for you. It's just, it's just another option. If you want to be done by 4 o'clock, if you want every second weekend off, if you want the opportunity to play other sports, if you want and enjoy being on the ice and training and working at your craft, this is a great option for you. If that's something that really doesn't interest you and I'm just going to play for fun and I just want to be with my friends and I'll play hockey and then I'll go on to school and go to work and get a job. This probably isn't for you. And that's fine. I think just giving the option here locally specifically, like we've had 10 to 15 players every year that have chosen this model, but I've had to go to the option. Vancouver, Calgary or Edmonton to get it. You know, we have people that sit on our elite board locally,

and this is what they chose for their kid. They didn't play here. So this is something that happens here all the time. I think it's a great way when you talk about what's good for Lloyd to keep our homegrown talent at home the best we can. So really excited for that, and that's what this is. And I'm encouraged to hear actually, Sean, being that you're a hockey guy, you're in the dressing room, you do this podcast, you know, a lot of people, a lot of people talk to you. You have a lot of reach in the hockey community, you know, through your family and playing senior and whatever. What do you think or what are you hearing? Well, I have, okay, so I have two parts of my brain. I have the parent's side of the brain. That's the money asking question, right? Because I'm like, money wise, I got to know if I can afford it.

got a young son who's six. I told Tapper this earlier. I'm really glad I don't have to make this decision this year, right? Me as a player, if I had a coach that believed in me, because I go back to the reason I asked Tyrell, what turned you off the game? What turned me off the game is I was no longer having fun. And what brought me back was a coach that believed in me. And then we practiced every day in junior and we worked out and we did, you know, curfew. And we did all the stuff, minus, you know, like, I wish I would have had a nutritionist tell me that eating pizza every day was probably not a good idea. But like, having a coach that believed in me, I would have ran through a brick wall, meaning the workouts and all that stuff, being done by four and not having

early morning or late night practice, not having even, you know, the one thing is a player being associated with the school here in Lloyd, and speak specifically to Lloyd, is, the road, I hope they get home, you know, a home tournament or a home, not a tournament, but, you know, a home hub series. Uh, because I think playing in front of your community is, is really impactful on a kid. And I really enjoyed that. But like as a player, I listen to everything you're providing. And I go, man, that sounds like a lot of fun. Um, now I at high school, if I didn't have the belief of the coach, man, I would have been the kid saying, I just want to hang out with my friends and go about it. So to me, there's,

there's, there's a lot of factors that play into that. And I'm sure you tap or Tyrell can hop in there and, and have your thoughts on it. But to me, there's two sides. There's a money thing, right? Like, I mean, if you can't afford it, you can't afford it. But if your kids playing, uh, you 18 or you 15 or wherever else, there's going to be costs associated with that and you have to factor that out. That's the parent side. The kid's side is, like, you're, Like, I think a lot of kids would be very interested in this, even if they are on the side of, I don't know. Like, do I really want to play that much hockey? I don't know.

That much hockey is a lot of fun. You want to get better as a player? Being on the ice, you want to get better as a podcaster? Do more interviews, right? Get more, get in front of people more. Ask questions. Do more research. That you can extrapolate across not only the game of hockey, but anything you put your mind and energy into.

Yeah, and that's great to hear, Sean. You know, the one thing I'll all say to kind of close out is, you know, our ownership group, you know, I haven't had a chance to talk about them much, but very, very, very passionate hockey guys and part of the reason why, you know, I was pretty excited to get involved with them and, you know, be a part of building something like this. Very successful, you know, they own the spruce girls. of Saints, you know, a successful junior team. They ran into a really strong team in Brooks. And Brooks did, you know, did a great job in the Centennial Cup. And they own Seattle Thunderbirds,

the Western Hockey League franchise, who, you know, was in the championships here in Eminton. So there's like they, they love the sport. They're very passionate. They also want to, the senior men's triple A team, the Stony Queen Eagles. John, I heard you say you played senior. So you probably even ran into them a few times. But they love the sport. They're super passionate. They've had an opportunity to build leagues before in this setting. And it's been very successful at it because it was for the right reasons.

And people see that. So I think, you know, the one thing that I heard in one of the discussions that always stuck with me is the league is new. This is new. It is. But the people involved are far from it. like there's a lot of professional hockey games played from the staffs around all the hubs. And there's a familiarity on how to build a league and what that means in order to have a successful league. You need to have, you know, strong officials and strong coaches and, you know, strong player development.

Like it's not just one thing or the other, you know, and they're very aware of that. You need to have a lot of, you know, people who understand the logistics and whatnot. So these guys, I mean, they're. They're doing things for the right reasons, and I'm happy to be a part of it. And when I say these guys, I mean, people like Kyle and his staff as well, all of us together, we're on big family. And, you know, we're doing things for the right reasons. And I really like that. You know, I just have an opportunity to be a part of it.

And there are some challenges that we're facing. But I like to think that those are going to, you know, we'll get through those as well. Yeah, no matter, no matter what you do in life, there will be challenges and something like this and the scale of it. I'm sure you're going to have fun and you're going to learn some things you didn't realize we're coming at you. Before I let you boys go, I've been thinking about this kind of off and on. We do the crewmaster final five here. It's a shout out to Heath and Tracy McDonald. They've been supporters of the podcast since the very beginning.

and I've been asking everybody, you know, one of the things that Heath came on here, and for you, Tyrell, he runs a trucking company here in town. And he's been very a community-minded man. And this is a while back. He came on the podcast, I interviewed him about his life. And he'd said, if you're going to stand behind a cause that you think is right, then stand behind it, absolutely. We were talking about protesters on the railways back in the day. Now, that can be extrapolated to a lot of different things. But I'm curious from two smart hockey-minded fellows,

what's one thing you guys stand behind? Yeah, there's this question could go deep. You know, I'll just go for my personal experience. I think Kyle mentioned it as well as, you know, to be a part of something like this, to have an opportunity to play high school hockey and have your hockey training within your school. day and having your evenings and weekends to, you know, go watch a movie or go hang out and whatnot,

much different than my midget experience. You know, I think, you know, I talked to my family quite a bit about and about it. And, you know, I get the answer from my family like, hey, you know, we would do whatever we needed to to give you this opportunity. And it didn't come from, hey, we're going to drive you because they're willing to drive five hours to get me something or they're willing to, you know, get me whatever I need. It always came down to we would have figured out financially how to give you this opportunity, whatever that means. And that's something where, you know, I know there's a lot of, a lot of families that are

put in tough spots because they want to do whatever they can for their children. You know, I have a two and a half, you know, almost, sorry, almost a three-year-old and a one in a bit. and like the day after my first was born, I got that feeling. You don't even realize it until maybe you have one, that you were going to do whatever it takes to make sure that you're providing everything you can for your child. And whatever that does to you mentally, physically, financially, you don't care because it's all about them now.

And, you know, that's something I had to think about quite a bit. And, you know, over my years, I've been involved with private hockey. there's been situations that arise where, you know, I know people are putting themselves in in really difficult situations to deliver for their children. So I think, you know, one of the things that is really driving me on this and why I'm, I'm passionate about it. And I know that everybody else involved is passionate about it is, you know, we truly feel like, you know, there is a cost. There is. And unfortunately, some of these things in order to get that, that level of trading, that level of standard, those things do cost me.

people's time, you know, you have to pay for it and resources and ice and those things where you have to, there's no way around it. But to try and to try and mastermind and puzzle piece and figure out how to do it the best way possible for the athlete and for the families, like, yeah, I mean, this is something I get excited about. This is something I can, you know, sleep at night knowing, hey, I'm doing something good for the hockey world. And I know our ownership group group feels the same. I know everybody involved feels the same. So that's, that's why I'm standing behind it. And, you know, I, I, well, right now I'm standing in front of it.

And then once, you know, once it, once people kind of see that, then I'll go ahead and stand behind it. But right now I'm going to stand in front of it until it gets there. Well, I was going to say, as I wait for Tapper's answer on that. I completely agree. I got three under six. We don't, we don't. And as soon as you have a child, something changes, right?

And it's hard to describe unless you've been there. So as you talk, Tyrell, I get what you're saying. And once again, you know, as a player, I come back to the player side of this. And I go, like, to me, if you, like what you're offering and all the different aspects, if you're goal-oriented and want to get to the next level. But, you know, here's a guy. I sit here and I played Division III and I played Junior A and I played overseas, but not at the top-tier level.

that was still, for me, that was, well, that shaped my life, right? And the NHL is certainly a focus of a lot of hockey players, but there's a lot more hockey out there that can certainly offer every kid an opportunity to see the world, as Tapper said earlier on. I'm really curious to see. I'm going to have to find a way to convince Tapper. It probably won't be that hard to hop on a bus or come down to one of these events so I can actually, you know, see it first hand because I think the mobility of being a full-time

podcaster, I'm like, Eminton Calgary isn't that far of a road trip, certainly coming from Lloyd. Now, Tapper, what's something you stand behind? Oh, this is, you know, me, this is going to get deep for me, and this has probably changed because of what's gone on in the world the last three years and then even this new project. and what I stand behind is I stand behind the people that stand behind me when it's not easy to be my friend. I've been doing this a really long time. I've had a lot of people over the years that have come across as if, you know, we were family, we were close. you know, it was a mutually beneficial relationship until it wasn't until there was nothing that I

could do for them or there was no advantage I could give them or there was basically nothing that they could benefit from. I think it's really something that I've learned and I'm really going to start to push into my kids is you really know what your circle is and who the people that you want give your time to by the people that give you their time when it's not easy to be your friend. And I'm noticing that full circle right now. I made a very tough decision based on something I believe in, based on what I believe is right for the greater good, for the greater part of this game. Was it an easy decision?

It definitely wasn't. It was a pretty comfortable lifestyle and career that we had going. And, you know, now people that I thought were in my corner, people that I thought I was close to, people that, you know, I've exposed a lot of personal truths to, you know, those doors aren't open anymore, simply because, you know, I made a decision or a belief on something about sport. Now, you start to wrap that into everything that's happened over the years about, like, politics and what's going on in the world today. and, you know, your views on social media or any of those other things. Like, I'm just talking about hockey. I'm not even talking about that stuff. And just to sit back and look and watch even other people that I'm close with, you know, lose friends, lose family, lose relatives because their beliefs don't necessarily align.

Yeah, the thing I stand behind is I stand behind the people that stand behind me when, you know, that's not the easy thing to do. Well, I certainly know sitting on this side all about that. So, uh, well, that's what that's what the final question is all about. I appreciate you both giving me your answers. And I certainly appreciate you giving me some of your time, fellas. Um, I'm, I'm interested to see how the JPM goes. I'm looking forward to a JPM hat because I see Tyrell rock and one and I'm looking forward to that.

Uh, and I'm, I'm, I'm sure here at some point, Tyrell, we're going to bump in. each other gladly shake your hand and get to know you on an off mic basis because i think what you guys are trying to create it'll be interesting to watch if nothing else and i think a lot of kids are going to benefit from it so thanks for hopping on guys and uh and appreciate your time don't say this well we're we'll happily have you at the first showcase and the hot will be there ready ready for you when you get there perfect when is the when is the first showcase darrow at what what division oh yeah good question well i don't know you tell me what what's the first one in emminton you you you first one in emminton the first one emminton in september 22nd weekend and um that'll be

the u 15s and u 18s both both playing over that course that weekend so i'll be a good one that's an all right well we'll mark it on the calendar then sounds good okay thanks fellas thank you