Shaun Newman Podcast - #89 - Ryan Papaioannou

Episode Date: June 22, 2020

Goaltender turned one of the most dominant program builders Junior 'A' hockey has ever seen. Ryan's resume speaks for itself in 12 years of coaching/GM'ing the Brooks Bandits of the AJHL he has 5x AJHL Champ - 2x National Champ - 2x AJHL Coach of the Year.  We discuss how he approached constructing this program and his mentality with every aspect of the Brooks Bandits   All episodes can also be found on Apple podcasts & Spotify New guests every Monday & Wednesday

This is Ryan Papuano head coach and general manager of the Brooks Bandits. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome back to the podcast, folks. Happy Monday. First off, I hope you treated your dads to a good father's day. I know Dadio, wherever you're sitting if you're listening this, thank you for all that you do and have taught me. I know I wouldn't be the person I am without you to show me the way.

And I'm pretty sure a lot of people could say the same thing without their first. fathers. They wouldn't be the people they are today. Now a big thing that came up the last week was the S&P Billboard. Maybe you saw something on social media, that kind of thing. If you're

still haven't seen it, it's over by the UFA and Lloyd Minster. Thanks to read and write with the amazing work of Deanna Wander. The billboard looks absolutely fantastic. Been getting tons of comments from tons of people driving by it. It's super, super sharp.

Today marks day eight without the sauce. So far is so good, folks. There's been times where a cold one probably would have helped. But I'm feeling good, and I'm looking forward to a few more weeks without any of the bubbly in the system. Now on to our sponsors of today's show, Gartner Management is a Lloydminster-based company specialing in all types of rental property. Oh wait, they house the podcast. So a huge shout out to Wade Gartner if you're looking for a small office like this guy's got

or you need something a little bigger, say 6,000 square feet. Give Wade a call 780808 5025. Mass Entertainment wants to let you know if you're planning any intermittent ceremonies or maybe your parent looking for movies slash games for the backyard under the little something under the stars. Check out as Mass Entertainment Facebook or Instagram pages for videos, pictures.

They're doing some super cool stuff. So give Cody a call 780-214-29-20. Kenny Rutherford Appraisal Group. In these difficult times, if you're in need of any appraisal work from bank loans, setting a fair purchase price, whether you're buying or selling any type of real estate, shop, homes, farms, cabins, restaurants, etc. Give Kenny a call 306, 307, 1732.

Carly Clawson and Windsor Plywood Builders of the podcast Studio Table. Finally, actually just showed it to dad. Finally, dad, you can believe that. My father just finally saw it, and he did what everybody does. Oh, that's the table, eh? Oh, yeah. Gives the little rub. That's pretty nice.

Let me tell you, it is nice. And if you want a river table or some custom woodwork, Carly Clause, Windsor, Plywood, they're the guys to go talk to. Give them a call 780-875-9663. If you're interested at all in advertising on the show, Visit Sean Newman Podcast.com. I'd love to get you involved with the show. Just shoot me an email.

There's a link there to just get in contact with me. We've got lots of different options, and I want to find something that can work for the both of us. T-Barr 1, Tale of the Tape. Let's get to it. Originally from Calgary, Alberta, he spent time in the WHL playing with Calgary Hitman, Lethbridge, and Seattle,

before he went east to play in the queue for the Monctum Wildcats. He started out coaching Bannum-Triple-A and Lethbridge, and Clerk quickly worked his way up to the ranks to being an assistant coach with the Brooks Bandits. Now, since becoming a part of that organization, he's been with the Bandits, just finished his 12th season, obviously not the way that anyone wanted. He's got five AJHL championships, two national championships, and twice named the AJHL Coach of the Year.

His overall record is 475, 115, and 38. His playoff record, 103, 31, and 10. That's a 750 winning percentage. This guy, super, super cool story. I find what he talks about in building a program. Just fascinating. I'm talking about Mr. Ryan Papuano, so buckle up, because here we go.

Well, welcome to Sean Newman podcast. Tonight, I'm joined by Ryan Papuano, head coach of the Brooks Bandits. So thanks for hopping on. No worries. Thanks for having me. You know, we were trying to do this via Zoom a few days ago. It didn't work out.

Randomly, I'm in Bow Island, Alberta, which I find out that's where your wife is from. Yep. Which makes it even more random. But I finally get to check out the rink and what you guys are working with, and this has been pretty cool. You can tell there's been a lot of hard work put into this place. Yeah, I know we have. We've put a lot of time, a lot of effort, elbow grease, and always trying to reinvest in the program.

So it's been a labor of love over the last 10, 12, 13 years. Well, and you guys have certainly reaped the rewards of some of your hard work. I mean, five times AJHL champs in your, what, you're going in your 12th season, or this was your 12th season? Yes. Like, that's, I got some explicit words that I'd like to say. That's pretty freaking impressive. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. I always say it's always about the players and the quality of people and their families,

and there's so much that goes into winning a game, let alone winning a series or a group. a series of championship and I mean for us to look back and see that we've won five times it's it's pretty incredible yeah absolutely well before we get into all that because there's a lot to chew on like I you you've been talking with me about 20 minutes before we start you know I got questions just brewing out of my head but I kind of wanted to find out a little bit about yourself and you know who is Ryan Papuano where it is his background come from you know you know know that his coaching style, you know, jamming skills, like, where did that all brew from? So I thought maybe we could work around to start with where you played and kind of, and go from there.

Yeah, I grew up in Calgary, so playing minor hockey and eventually getting to the Calgary North Stars for the Bannum, AAA, Midger AAA type deal. Moved on, played with the Calgary Canucks in this league, the HHL, and then played in both the Western League and the Quebec League. So I spent time with a lot of different organizations, a lot of different coaches for a lot of different reasons. But mostly I wasn't the hardest worker, wasn't serious enough about the game. And looking back, that's fantastic because I got to meet a lot of different people and see a lot of different styles. Now, you mentioned different coaches, different styles bouncing around.

What were some of the things that stuck out in the teams, the organizations, the coaches that, you know, helped you build what you've done here. What were some of the thoughts there that you picked up on? Yeah, a lot of both. A lot of things that I really liked that I thought would be good things to add as a coach and a lot of things I learned that I didn't think were things that helped me or things that I thought would help players. So probably the most important when I finally got myself out to Moncton in the Quebec League, I played for a coach named Christian LaRue. And he was the first coach I had that I actually truly believed he cared about me more than just a the goalie or the backup goalie so it was.

Corey Crawford was our starting goalie, so it made sense that I was a backup. But he showed me just a personal care of my development as a person, obviously as a player, but just little things I remember most vividly at Christmas, he bought me a book that was Attitude 101. And obviously the reputation I didn't have great attitude. So he bought me that book. He wrote me a short message on the instance. inside cover just about how he'd seen a change in me in four months and how we wanted to see me read the book, pick up some more things off of it and see another change in the next four months.

And at the time, I was 19 years old, so I thought it was kind of corny and a little silly. And then the more I looked back at it, talked to my parents over the Christmas break and stuff, it was, yeah, it was the first time you really saw that there was someone that cared about the human and not just the hockey player. Yeah, and that's interesting, isn't it? to take an investment in the players underneath you. I always look back at, I was mentioning Larry Wintoniak was my coach out in Darden,

and for two years that's what I experienced. Was somebody trying to help shape the young man you're becoming, expecting more out of you than just show up and play a game, and however you want to do that, that's fine. No, there was more to it than that. Yeah, no doubt. And I, obviously, coaching has changed so much in the last 20 years and styles and how you treat the players.

And, you know, it used to just be show up. They told you what to do. You did it. Or from my case, maybe you didn't do it. You found yourself on another team. But it was a dictatorship, and there really wasn't a lot of personal touch to it. And that was my first experience with the personal touch. So not that it's easy to do when you're trying to manage 25 guys year after year after year.

And there's obviously a pretty important hockey development piece, but we've always found there has to be something that we're doing to try and get to know the players better, trying to help them with their off-ice life, life skills, whatever it may be. What were some of the things then, you mentioned all the positives. What were a couple of the things that were positives? What were one of the couple of the things you go on, you know, if I ever do this, that ain't going to fly with me? I think mostly just treating players as commodities. And I think it's hard.

I think everybody is guilty of it probably at different points. time and a lot of it was how in certain places the players that were at the bottom of the roster or out of the lineup how they were treated and these were guys that were putting in extra work these are guys that were doing everything they could to be a part of the everyday team and they they just weren't quite there and I always saw when those guys were treated negatively by coaches I thought it was more than disrespectfully you've got these guys that do everything they can to try and earn a spot and you could probably foster a real good good relationship with those guys and helped them along the way. And that was, that was some of the

things I saw earlier in my junior career that really, they were the first things that kind of pissed me off about how coaching was. And at the time, I had no idea that I even wanted to be a coach or was going to be a coach. So it's, it's interesting to look back on those things now and, you know, kind of sort out that those were the first things that I wanted to not be. Well, and you mentioned how the bottom were treated. In the regular season, the top guys pull the way to the world. But once you get, now you've been through the, the playoff trenches, so to speak, you know, every single year, your bottom players play a huge role in, you know, helping get by some of the rounds, helping, you know, because if you're a

coach on the other side or you're the coach, you're already looking at how to shut down the best players on the other side. You shut down those, you're thinking we win the, we win the series. And it's usually the boys who normally don't get the spotlight who find themselves in the spotlight. We see it year after year in the NHL, let alone every other league. So to treat those guys with some respect and notice the work they're doing, maybe in the regular season they're not getting the accolades, but that can really spill over into times when you're going to need that. Yeah, and we've always noticed for sure that, you know, as you look at a championship formula,

that depth is number one. always king for me and your top end can be as good as you want it to be but you have to have depth and obviously everybody says the same stuff it's got to be through four lines and through 60 and two goalies and all that but we've had you know notable contributions that are that are at finite moments over the years two 17 year olds in in mark Logan and Madison done who connected at the I think it was the 2013 Western Canada Cup in the final game for us to make it to Somerside to the national championship. Those are guys that play in the fourth line. These are rookies. They're young guys and they connect on the goal to win one-nothing. And that's the two guys that push us

forward to the national championship. And you have this dynamic where there's rookies and there's veterans and that's one thing we've tried to stamp out over the years is we're all in the same team. We all go on the ice and we expect the same thing out of each other. So why is there this hierarchy off the ice and we treat each other different because we're different ages or we've play different amounts of games and I always thought it was silly and something that we could probably evolve and get better through the, I guess, the typical hockey culture. So it's just, it's cool moments like that where you see guys that are treated fairly equally, young guys made a huge contribution at a real key time of the year. You know, that's an, I read that

about Brooks, that there's no quote on quote, and maybe I'm getting this a little bit wrong, but no like vet rookie divide. Everybody's kind of. to, you know, I just, I think of end of practice, the fucks are out. It's not the rookies going to pick them all up or what have you. It's the group. And by doing that, you foster a more, I think to steal a word from you and our kind of first email we shared was a more inclusive group instead of now you have the rookies who hang out and, you know, the vets who hang out. And I mean, at times that's going to happen. Sure. But when you don't put in things that already make that happen day one and force these kids over here and these kids.

kids over here. That's a very interesting thought process because 10 years ago, 12 years ago, that's how every team was. Every team. And when we started talking about, you know, guys being inclusive and really starting to look after each other and it's not just the captains that look after people. And then we started talking about, you know, who loads the boss and who does all these traditional rookie jobs and tried to make that cultural change. The older guys were, they were in the way. Well, this is what it was when I did it. I had to load the bus. I had to do this. So I want to get, you know, I want to get the satisfaction of watching somebody else do it. So to talk to all those guys as people and ask them like, do you really get that much satisfaction

out of something so silly and try and change the mindset? That was, it was a hard thing to do because it's your hockey culture. It's what everybody does. And, finally when we broke it and I think it comes down to the people that you have it just turns into a way different atmosphere I think all over the place so we have like a guy like Nathan Plessy as a captain two years ago you want to find out who's washing the walls in the shower probably him who's sweeping the floors probably him 20-year-old captain going to Division I hockey but he's taking care of everybody and everybody's doing their part and we just we've never had that hierarchy here I just I think

it's silly. It's uh, probably speaks for more about society than anything. Um, I played, well, we both have played hockey. We all went through it. And as a 20 year old, I still remember being like, it's kind of nice. I don't have to load the bus today. Because for two years, that's what I've done. Or what have you. But if you can break that, now the kids that come in the program never know any different. So when they're the 20 year old, they don't expect to have the rest. They just know they got to chip in and help.

Yeah, totally. And we found it, we find it a lot with guys that come to us from different junior teams. You know, Randy Hernandez, a guy that came to us from the national development team in the USHL. He was 20 this year, and he was the number one guy that would mop the floor. So he made it his job to be the last guy to leave. And that meant less time with, you know, whatever it was, his girlfriend, his billets. but he'd be last because he wanted him off the floor and he'd be the last guy out. In the beginning, did you realize or did your players realize how easy of a selling point that is to schools and everybody else?

I don't think so. I think it was pretty singularly focused just in-house on what it would do for us. I know, but now that you say that, I go, as a coach on the higher level or the next step, you go, well, what is he like? And if you can tell that story, it's like, okay, that's a guy we want. Yeah, and just taking care of people. And I mean, guys have bad days, coaches have bad days. Everybody has bad days. Yeah, and at the end of it, if you've got 15, 20, 25 other guys around you that are taking care of you, I think it makes a lot of those days less bad and just a little bit challenging.

Now, before we go too deep into this, I really want to finish off your playing stuff. I want to go back there for a second because you go to go. to a Memorial Cup. Close. Close? Close. Losing the finals. Yeah.

Damn it. That's close. You're losing the finals to, who? Moncton? Yeah, when I was in Moncton, we lost to Gattano. Gatnell. God, you can tell I've got kid brain right now, hey? Been locked at home with three children.

Did you get playing those in that series? Not at all. Not all. Cory Crawford is a guy. I think I got into one game. I think there was one that was going real bad for us, so he got to. pulled and I got the mercy minutes, but it was a good experience because I always felt that I was in the right place sitting on the bench because the guy I was watching every night was fantastic.

So I loved being there and really accepted a good role. Is backup goalie life as glorious as anyone makes it out to be? Depending on where you are. Well, haven't you ever heard the fans say, man, if I could be in the NHL and have one job, it'd be either the bullpen catcher or a backup goaltender. They'd be fantastic. You paid money to sit there. That sounds like a pretty good job.

I hated being the backup anywhere but Moncton because I always thought I was good enough to play. And then I got there and like I said, you look out and watch Cory Crawford play and pretty easy to sit and watch. True. He's had a pretty exceptional career, hasn't me? No doubt. When your WHL career is done, are you just like, okay, I want to go coach. That's what I'm put on this earth for. Not at all.

So I started coaching when I was 15 in the summertime. Just spring hockey, same program that I grew up playing in. More, I think, something to do, something to learn, how to give back to kids and do things. But I got hurt as a 20-year-old, couldn't continue playing, and knew nothing. It was a really one-track life. It was ice hockey, roller hockey, spring hockey, knee hockey, mini-stick hockey. I wanted to do nothing more than play hockey. So when I was injured, couldn't play, then my mindset just became,

what's the closest way I can be involved in the game without being a referee? You talk injuries. What happened to you? I tore ACL MCL meniscus in my knee. And like just the person I was in a training camp, in a training camp. And then the person I was back then, I didn't do the rehab the way you're supposed to do rehab. I just kind of figured it would all work itself out. when it didn't.

And I just, I could never play again. My knee was never good enough. And yeah, that was the stage when I kind of had to figure something new out. What training camp were you at? That was back at Moncton when I was 20. So when we had the start of Moncton training camp, you do all of that right at the start of the season? Yeah, yeah. Had surgery there.

Came, ended up coming back here at Christmas, had a second surgery in Canmore, had a third one in Calgary and just never, Never got to the point where I was able to go again. Oh. How was your mindset after that? Not good. I think I felt sorry for myself. And really because I was a one-track person, one-track mindset on what I was going to do, I was pretty lost with what the next steps were.

So I started doing some goalie coaching once I could get back on the ice, doing a little bit of team coaching in the summers. and then finally, you know, the next winter hit that I was full-time not playing, and I had to find something to do. So it was moved to Lethbridge and start coaching. And so you moved to Lethbridge and start coaching even just a guy had offered, or how did that come about? Yeah, some kids that I had coached in the spring, their dads had kind of said,

hey, you know, if you're not going to do anything or you want to coach, why don't you come to Lethbridge? And so I went there the next year, coached Bannum AAA with some of the kids. coaching some of the kids that I had in the springtime. So it did that for a year. And you enjoyed it? Yeah, I loved it. So it was kind of like, oh, I could probably do this for a bit.

Yeah, I definitely wanted to. I didn't know how. I didn't know, you know, how do you move up or what's the next stage or how do you learn or who do you talk to? It was just. So what did you do in the beginning? Like, did you just kind of wing it or did you read a couple books or? He relied a lot on the things that I had heard other coaches say. when I played.

So what was in the beginning? What was one of the things that you'd heard and it just worked and you're like, oh, geez, good thing I used that. Yeah. Honestly, I think I just tried to get them to work hard and to play honestly both ways. I didn't know anything about technical skills, tactical skills. I thought I knew about systems. I don't think I knew anything.

But I wanted to be there and I wanted to help them and I thought I was helping them. And you know what? Who knows if they thought I was or not. But I was young and I was learning on the fly. And so a year of that, a year of AA midget, and then a year of an assistant coach of AAA midget. And then I came here after three years. In the beginning, one of the things you thought was going to work as a coach

and it did not work. I think just that old mindset of you're the authoritative figure and you're going to tell them what to do and they're going to do it. and you don't want to take any questions, and that's just how it'll be, because that's how all the coaches I had were, for the most part. And then figuring out that I'm not very far removed from these kids, seven years older than them,

and then by the time I was doing midget, I was about four years older than the guys, and I think I figured out quickly I needed to be more relatable, you know, not necessarily a friend, but I needed to have a way better personal relationship with them if I was going to get, you know, any resemblance of what I'm, I wanted from them as players. When you make the jump to the AJ,

what stuck out about Brooks, or was it just an opening? Or did you know a guy? Nothing. Nothing besides an opening, an opportunity. I didn't care where I would have gone to any junior team in any league. It was just a step up. Lucky Brooks then.

The fact that it happened here, well, lucky me really is what it was. It was close to Lethbridge, short move, still close to family in Calgary. Yeah, came here, had a fantastic opportunity to work with Brian Curran and learn a lot from somebody who played in the NHL and somebody who was a professional coach. And it was eye-opening to say the least. How so? I just think in the day-to-day, seeing that, you know, I was used to going to the ring to do minor hockey. So you had practice at 5 o'clock and you saw the kids for an hour and a half.

And that's what coaching was. And then I got here and it was, you know, you started first thing in the morning and you were on the phone and you had different calls and you were talking to teams and you were talking to schools and, you know, your guys were in for workouts and they were in for practice and you were just, you were busy all day long. You had all these different facets and really what you're doing is running a business and coaching was a part of it. So it was, for me, it was, yeah, really, really eye-opening as to what it all really was about. You mentioned in the beginning when you come here. that, well, give the listeners an idea. Brooks right now is the crown jewel of the H.L, I would argue, and maybe there's a couple other organizations that are close

or in the same conversation, and I'll give them that. But when you look at your resume of what you've done in the last, you know, going into your 12th season, it is beyond impressive, the fact that you've been able to turn over guys to the next level and continue. to be competitive and continue to be successful and everything else. But for the people who are listening and don't remember 12 years ago, what was walking into Brooks like?

It was interesting. Looking back now, so we obviously, we're at a different arena. We had no technology, no infrastructure. You know, I showed up the first day. I thought, you know, there's going to be a nice office, maybe a computer. There wasn't even a desk for me. So I had to go back to my apartment, grab the desk that I had just moved here, bring it to the ring, so I had somewhere to sit.

You know, we had a VCR to cut clips and play clips back on a big TV, and it just, there was nothing. We really were bare bones. You know, and I know, looking back stories, sitting with our president, talking to bus companies, negotiating terms of payment based on what our home games were. We couldn't meet the demands of our bills or anything like that. So it was a pretty grim, I guess, grim organization in some ways that financially it was strapped. There hadn't been a lot of winning in the past, and there was a lot of ways that you were going to be able to make up ground just by making sensible decisions.

And so we got to work right away. Or some of the sensible decisions you made in early on. I think in those first couple years, I mean, obviously the first year and a bit I was with Brian Kern, and then once I had an office. opportunity myself to take the organization over. It was looking at the numbers and cutting all kinds of silly expenses that we had and asking a lot of, I thought they were simple, but people thought hard questions on where we spent money and why we spent it and trying to change everybody's mindset that mediocrisy was not acceptable here. And I think that everybody was just happy. they were happy we had a team that the community had somewhere to go watch hockey

they had no goals they had no vision so to tell people what you wanted to do where you're going to take it it gets met with a lot of backlash and takes time to change people's mindsets and opinions not to mention how old are you at this time so yeah it'd be 24 23 24 in the year I took over to walk into a board meeting and say, listen, I want to cut all this. This is, this is pointless spending. When it's a guy who walks in and, you know, I don't know, you throw me a name who's been doing it for 20 years and has been successful, he walks in and says it, it's still painful, and it doesn't taste well going down, but you kind of handle it. When it's a young guy, I could see their beat, you're unproven.

and I was still the interim coach at the time. So part of what I needed to do was make a statement that if you wanted me to coach the team, you needed to make it official because things needed to happen, things needed to change, recruiting needed to start, and nobody's taking the interim guy seriously that may or may not be there. So we worked through that quickly, and then it was starting to talk to people, Talk to Boris and Camrose, you know, talk to Mike Van Camp in Grand Prairie, talk to Fred Harbenson and Penticton and Steve Hamilton and Spruce Grove, and all these guys that were super successful at this level at the time.

And just ask questions, hockey questions, managerial questions, business questions. And nobody needed to recreate it. We just needed to steal from everybody else and figure out why they were so good at what they did. And what did they say in there they did. When you look back at those conversations, there must have been a light bulb at some point. Huh. Okay. I think the biggest takeaway I had is that these guys, and of course they had worked for a lot of years,

they all had real wide-cast networks. And whether it was coaches that they knew or scouts or advisors or schools, on the hockey side, they all had ways to tap into players and talent and move people on. And so I knew right away, I knew nothing about college hockey, didn't play college hockey, didn't know the number of a college hockey coach. We had a lot of work to do just with personal relationships if we wanted to attract players and then be able to move players on. So you thought the best way to get this program to the next level, to where, and probably at that time, the next level is winning a couple rounds in playoffs, let alone winning everything, is to create a place. a destination that kids want to come to because then you can attract talent but not only talent you can you can attract the best kids you want yeah I think so and we want it to have a

pretty open mindset on geography and and not really pay too much attention to where players were from we want the best people the best players we can find and if if they're here in our backyard great if they're down in florida fantastic we're we're going to cast the net as wide as we can and find the best we can. So we've never been shy about it. I think there's a lot of people that would like to see more Alberta kids on our team, and I'm fine with other people's opinions. We know what we do, and we like what we do.

And, geez, we've came across a lot of good families and good players, and in turn, we have good people to work with now. Dave Chevry is one of our scouts, does a ton of work for us recruiting, and came by that honestly with his son, Eric, being traded. hear from Surrey and he came in, won a national championship, and to the day we've got a fantastic relationship, and, you know, it just becomes kind of cyclical at that point. Yeah, I think if you weren't winning, you would hear those voices a little louder, but when you're doing what you're doing, winner's silence as critics.

I think so. And, you know, winning is one part, moving players on to the next level is another part, and I think they're part and parcel, but we, yeah, we just want to be able to make sure that the guys that are here have great experiences personally, developmentally, and they get to the next spot. So take me through then. You mentioned you're trying to recruit kids and going and talking to schools out on the East Coast. Leave me through the process of this mindset or just on how it happens. Yeah, so we talked here about, you know, the type of program we, we would, would like to be and we always talked about Penn Tickton as a place that you would I mean anybody would

be silly not to want to emulate where they've got schools almost coming to them with players saying you know would you take this guy develop them this type of relationship and so to me you know you get to meet all these schools you see them at the showcase you see them in your rink and you get your token 10 15 minute conversations but you don't really get to know them and you never see them on their turf. So I just thought there's got to be a way that we could get ourselves out there, tour some schools, spend some time with people, and make some connections more real. And so we did.

We just started flying out to, we'd fly to Hamilton and get in a van and drive and stop through New York, stop through Connecticut, and back up through Rhode Island and Massachusetts. And what did they say when you rolled in? Hey, we met for 10 minutes. we're going to come see your school. We want to get to know you better. Is that basically what you said? Yeah, for the most part, and a lot of guys were extremely welcoming.

Yeah, come in, see it. And a lot of it after the personal relationship was we wanted to see their facilities and see what kind of things they had for whether it be workouts or video or technology. And, again, just like in the beginning when I was talking to the coaches in our league, see what we could steal from everybody. And, you know, looking back now at the players' lounge, in the gym here in the video room. All the ideas are completely stolen from other people,

and we're not shy. We've not made up anything new. We've just stolen a lot of real good stuff. Well, what's the saying? Imitation is the finest form of flatter. Absolutely. So when you go back then 12 years, or I guess 11 years when you first started coaching,

what do you look back and go, man, I remember when we got that and I was pumped. Like I was pumped we got this. Jeez. Yeah, so many different things along the way. I think the first was we moved into this arena, which is fantastic. There's nothing to complain about. But our setup in the dressing room was, it was poor. How so? So you can start the year. You can carry 25 guys. Everybody ends usually with 23. And this brand new state of the art room had 22 stalls. So that's tough. So you can't even.

Now you've got three chairs in the middle. We've got chairs. My assistant at the time, he had the wood out and two by fours, is plywood and we're makeshifting stalls. And it was just, it was one of those things. Like somebody should have had better foresight. But so I think the first summer, when we got to rearrange the dressing room, build extra stalls and actually make it a dressing room proper for hockey.

I think that was probably one of those first moments that was the... Satisfying. Yeah, kind of the aha. We've actually, we've made this a real thing now. Well, now you got your, so to speak, your blood, sweat and tears into it. Because once you put a little elbow grease into something and seen some improvement, geez, that's a good feeling. Yeah, and there's been a lot in this building, the, and my wife would attest because she's painted as much as I have.

We spent a lot of time painting. painting. Okay, so we're sitting in the players lounge right now, and for viewers who can't see, you got white, blue, and red pretty much everywhere. Have you guys painted all this then? Everything. So we've gone basically top to bottom in the video room, parts of the dressing room, and yeah, I had to paint all the blue, the red, the white, do it all up in our colors. So why was that such a big deal, yeah? I'm curious, I think a lot of coaches, and we talked about this before we got on, a lot of coaches would, I don't know if that'd be beneath them, I don't want to say,

maybe it would be beneath them. They just want to even recruit, let's go recruit some guys, let's have a team, and we've got a facility, and it's a nice building that's all the guys need kind of thing. why was the little details so why did they stick out to you why did you need to paint this yeah i think always trying to make it a special place where everything was connected and everything was the same and where you know players would come and they they would be proud of where they played and you know they could they could show it off to their parents and tell people how cool it was and every college that i look at is you know everything is the colors everything is the love

logos, everything is, you know, is just so everywhere around the building. And we're obviously, we're not a college, but I think we strive to kind of look like a mini one. And it's how every pro facility is. And why would you not want to have everything be exactly how you want it and emulate your colors and your logo and all that? And I don't know, I just, I think I've always wanted to see things a certain way and just keep chipping away until everything's how you want it. Yeah, it's really interesting. And now over the top of your head, I'm looking at your jerseys and we got talking, you know, I didn't, the, the Brooks logo now is the one that I, I guess I just recognize because it's everywhere now.

But why was it so big to you to change a logo then? Oh, because the one we used to have was awful. When we won in 2013, that to me was the signal of we finally. have a good reason to change the logo. We'll quote unquote retire this one with the national championship and finally move into the modern era with a logo that looks good and makes sense

and geez, I hate saying that because there's somebody did design that first logo and people here love that for 10 years or so, but man, we needed something better. Yeah, well it's just, it's clean. Your new one is clean and simple. But yet, awesome.

We liked it. I don't know that it could have turned out any better and we were wide open to ideas and suggestions and It was the first thing that we saw and I didn't need to see anything else who who who how did you go about getting a new logo? We actually worked it through with our league our our league commissioner had a contact That had designed the the the HHL logo and He just put us in touch and this was the first the first thing the guy shot back to us and yeah, I was I was in love with it, we'll take it. That's interesting. Yeah, it was easy.

It was kind of a first shot deal, and we have that logo, and then there's the one with the words Brooks Bandits attached to it, and so we had kind of the two versions and took them both. One of the questions I'd asked you when we were talking a couple weeks ago was what makes or what separates Brooks from the rest of the AJHL and what I'm digging at here with everything you've done is you said, inclusive culture, extreme expectations, and attention to detail. And I think of when I look around this room and you've shown me the dressing room

and what you guys have done there and the painting, half the building, and whatever else is attention to detail. You haven't missed anything. Everything is, folks, I'm looking around. They got an air hockey table that's Brooks Bandits. Well, not Air Hockey. What do you call that? Bubble hockey, yeah.

Bubble hockey, thank you. And it's all the colors. It's Brooks Bandits. They got a fridge over in the corner, and it's the red of the red. Right? I mean, as close as you can get it. Everything is just details matter. What do you have, what's in your dressing room again? Discipline of details and details of discipline.

Thank you. Yeah. Where did you get that from? Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay. Yeah. Stevie Y. It was, it might have even been before him.

I think that was early, early 2000s. Okay. What does that mean to you then? It means more probably to me than it does to the players because we've, we've, we seem to get away from it year after year but um yeah like the the details of discipline i mean that's that's simple stuff being on time like even for me and our staff like being on time doing things the way they're supposed to be done players obviously the the way that you practice the penalties that you take or don't take how you work out how you treat people there there's a lot of a lot of discipline

in in those details and um just they're they're obviously root reciprocating words back and forth there, but we just always felt that details and discipline are two of the most important traits that we could have as players, coaches, staff, and I don't know if we emulate it all the time, but we certainly try. How about extreme expectations? Not expectations, extreme expectations. I find the word in front of expectations, the curious side of it, because everybody knows what expectations are, but to have extreme ones, what are some of your extreme? What are some of your expectations? expectations.

Yeah, I think that I don't know if we would have said they were extreme until we've had feedback from our players that it's a hard place to play. Just in terms of the day-to-day, how they need to act, the amount of effort they need to put in, what the daily schedule is like. There's an immense workload on them both mentally, physically. There's a good workload on them in the community. they've got a workload with minor hockey and just the overall expectation day to day is pretty extreme

and then you match up with that the culture of winning and the culture of moving on to the next level and there's no point in our organization or in our season where our expectations are a little bit less or we'll take a little bit off here or there it just is what it is and you can either meet them or you can't and the guys that can't

they probably aren't happy playing here. It's too hard, I think they would say. And the guys that can meet them, I think they find themselves becoming way better players, way better people real fast. And then looking back, a lot of the guys that have left, you know, they've said a lot of good things about how much they learned

and how ready they were for the next step of life or hockey. And at the time, some of the things they thought might have been too much. I think they appreciate now that they've were given those expectations and had to meet them. Well, on a side note, as we both know, once you leave junior hockey and you get married and have kids, the expectations change and the workload changes. So kids always think, well, I don't know, I want to show up to the rink.

I want to play hockey, right? So anytime you start adding things on to that, different kids will handle that in different ways. For sure, for sure. And it's, I mean, we talk every year, because you get the down days of, you know, a Tuesday morning in November, December, and it's cold, and you're going through the routine. And, you know, what time do your parents get up for work every day? And what do they have to do? And, you know, there's no way that you can't be happy being at the hockey rink at 9 o'clock in the morning to work on a game. Yeah, but sometimes you forget that. they forget and that's I think that's what we're here for and that's our job is to

to make them understand how special the opportunity is that they have and how much they should and they need to cherish it and how much work a lot of people put in for them just to be able to have the opportunity they have now you mentioned workloads and schools or community sorry and minor hockey so you have you're intertwined in the the community that and always giving back? I got your players in the schools helping out that sort of thing. Yeah, so we do a reading program where our guys are in the schools. They're obviously reading to the younger kids. We do a program with some of the older students where our guys are, you know,

playing intermaral sports and interacting that way. And then with minor hockey, our guys are each assigned as an assistant coach to one of the minor hockey teams. So they get to meet one group of kids. They get to help them, you know, in most senses, those kids, that becomes their favorite player. So now they've got 20, you know, new fans. And the part that I like is they get to interact with some men and meet some coaches and have some friendships that are, you know, outside of just the guys on the team. And so we find we've got guys that are 20 years old and they've got friends in town that are 35, 40 years old

that they coach minor hockey with. And it's an interesting dynamic, but I think it sets them up for just being open to talking to people and creating relationships. And those are the people that are going to type of people that are going to hire them for jobs and accept them into schools. And they may as well learn how to interact. You mentioned too that you questioned former players or former players had mentioned they didn't like playing or is hard to play here. Do you guys talk to your players that go through your system then? Or that's feedback that's kind of flowed through the channels to you. Yeah, a lot of it is at the end of the years with our exit meetings.

I like our outgoing guys just to be honest. You're leaving, so you've got nothing to hold back. And I always like to ask what we can do better, you know, what they like, what they don't like. And a lot of the feedback, you know, becomes it was really, really hard. When I started here, I didn't like it. And by the end, it was just normal. And they got used to it and they appreciated what it was all. all about and you know I think that we see it almost every year with new recruits it's it's a way way

way different mindset than going and playing midget hockey or prep school hockey and it takes time to adjust and once they do though the guys that get through it and stick with it they're they're usually rewarded pretty well on a personal side just coaching wise that first championship you win did it kind of like reaffirm okay we're we're doing the right thing here? Like was that like a weight off your shoulder? Yeah, looking back, I don't think we had a clue what we were doing. We had some good players and somehow we were better than everybody else in that particular season. I don't know how or why, but we worked real hard at what we were doing and honestly we had no idea if we were going down the right path or not.

I guess winning validates a little bit that some of the things you're doing must be good. must be all right. And, you know, at those early stages, we tried to sell the guys on being the Chicago Blackhawks, just being the team that off the ice had a ton of fun on the ice was all business. But let's be offensive and hold on the puck. And at the end of the day, if we're playing Super Nintendo or PlayStation or whatever they play these days, if we're playing that, you know, until midnight, the night before the biggest game of the year, and we're all fun and we're ready to go, that's, that's fantastic. And that's how we started. And we've morphed since then a little bit, but that's, that's in the beginning. We wanted guys to have fun.

How have you morphed since then? I think everything's just gotten a little bit more, a little bit more serious, a little bit more detailed. You know, but at the same time, like we sit here in the players lounge and our guys have their PlayStation and their bubble hockey and all their stuff and ping pong and pool and the dressing room. And we want them to like being at the rank and have things to do. that aren't just hockey. I think now off the ice for everybody has cleaned up a ton. The guys are a lot different than they were 10, 12 years ago. And in a good way, for sure.

I think we just see less guys going out and getting in trouble, more guys sitting at home playing video games all night. And you're managing a way different type of person. You're managing a different situation. but it's all grown in a good way. If we were to reverse time and go back to when you first came here, and you were to, because I hear, and where I'm going with this is I hear players lounge, bubble hockey, pool table, blah, blah, blah, and I can just hear my brain firing,

man, they must have a lot of money. If you went back to 12 years ago and rank the team's richest to poorest, where would Brooks have sat back then? I would be shocked if we weren't poorest. Yeah, if not poorest, we'd be in the bottom two. So I think a lot of those early decisions on, you know, on expenses and on different things and ways to what I thought spend our money more wisely and different ways that we could save so we could reinvest.

And then we were fortunate to win. And you win so you have long playoff runs and you get an opportunity. opportunity to put a little money away. And that's the great part about community ownership is you don't have anybody pulling money out. So I just kept selling, we need to spend it right back into the organization, keep upgrading, keep making things better. And that's all we've continued to do. And yeah, I wouldn't say that we're this lavish team with all the money. We've just been very smart with how we've spent every penny.

Well, and if anyone's been around sports teams, the money's made in the playoffs. And when you have successful playoff runs, then more money's coming in because you have more people sitting in the stands, right? For sure. And that's where, you know, the extra money comes in and then you get to upgrade a few things. And I just see the time and the detail on what you've spent your money on in the dressing room and in your players lounge and the video room, you know, like, you know, like, you know, just to see a bare space and to slowly invest some money back in there to when now, when a player walks in and sees what's going on, here you go. This is pretty freaking cool.

But to hear that it started by, you know, simple means is also very cool, very grounding for people to hear because it took time. I mean, it wasn't three years and all of a sudden all this was here. No, and I think we're viewed today as what we are, but a lot of people don't know the struggles and where it started. And I think you can say that for anything, anybody that's successful, is it all started from something pretty humble. But yeah, for us, looking back, we have to be pretty proud of the continuity we've had at president for organization with Paul Seton and then myself.

The two of us have been working together for 13 years. And I think, you know, the man hours that a person like him has put in as a volunteer is pretty unbelievable. Yeah, you've got to have good people around. Have to. Good people around the board table, good people around the community. And we have an outlier of a community with crazy support. Like I think we average 10% of our population at every home game, which you start to extrapolate those numbers and teams would have crazy attendance if they could get 10% of the population. So there's something special here. And I think we're just happy to keep working putting teams on the ice that people want to see and be a part of.

now I know you love Brooks but I don't think we put Brooks as the hottest destination town-wise and I mean town and this is with all due respect to Brooks right I think you know when you look at the AJHL if you could go play in around Eminton you know Camrose is a nice little spot

when Calgary had them I mean who doesn't want to live in Calgary right I'm not sitting here saying they have the best fan environment or whatever I'm talking about like destination. I think we can agree that Brooks is not at the top of that list. And why I bring it up is it's always interesting to me that people say, you know, well, you look at the NHL, the southern places, you know, guys want to go there. Guys are never going to, I'm an Oilers fan, guys are never going to Evanton.

Why would they ever want to go there? You go, well, if you build it and build it properly, they will come. And I think when I look around this place, it's proof in the pudding. Yeah, it's like when I'm recruiting, I tell guys that Brooks is it's not a sexy location. So if you need a nice big movie theater and a mall and all the amenities, wrong place. Wrong place. Go to Spruce Grove, Sherwood Park, Calgary, Camrose, go to Canmore to the mountains. Yeah, Canmore, right?

I mean, geez. You go to Fort Mac, you go to Grand Prairie. You can go to a city. you got all those things. We don't have it. We don't pretend to have it. Love our community. I've been here for 13 years.

Obviously, raising a family here, I like the spot, but it's different. So our whole thing is if you like to watch a video and work out and train and become a better player and be part of something that's a little bit bigger than yourself, yeah, this just might be the place. And maybe win some hockey games. And hopefully win some hockey games. I mean, hopefully. Hopefully. What do you go for a movie theater? I'm curious now.

We have. We've got one screen and I think we show two movies a week, I think. And it's almost to the days where there's an intermission. It's old school. Not a movie guy? I think I've been there three or four times in 13 years. What do you do with your free time? How much.

Watch hockey. Yeah. The free time I used to have is taken up by kids now. and lots of time on hockey TV watching random games, random leagues and pre-scouts. Who is the best, this hockey TV I find fascinating.

I've heard you talk about it before. So essentially hockey TV is you use that to scout players, I assume. Yes. Yeah. Who is the best kid you've ever found on hockey TV where you're just like, who is this guy? Yikes, there's been so many.

I guess like a recent guy from last season, Braden Krieger. You know, he had 95 points as a rookie for us last year, and he's a guy that we found watching watching games online. And there's a ton. And, you know, we go through and... How much time do you spend watching hockey TV? Oh, geez. Hours, hours, daily? Hours daily. Hours daily. One game or multiple games? Flip through, like, I usually can't go for more than a period of a game.

So if somebody hasn't caught your eye in a play... period, you just carry on. Yeah, I'll flip through, watch another game, two other teams, and eventually you'll circle back to that team, but there's different leagues that we really key on and we like to watch, and then obviously just through looking at stats and talking to our contacts as schools and advisors, there's certain players that you specifically go and watch, but a lot of the recruiting isn't, you know, traditional get on a plane, go fly out, see a kid play live. Why would you spend all that money when you can spend $29.99 a month and watch as much hockey as they want?

And it would be great, but it's, yeah, it's not feasible. And I can watch, you know, three, four, five, six games from my couch from all over North America. Is that a year-round thing that you do then? Watch Fast TV? Yeah, we watch a lot. Like I've been on today already watching games today. And you're doing it to pre-scouts for other teams. you're doing it on pre-scouts of players you may trade for.

The resource that it's become is unbelievable. You know when you're staring at me, and I'm having a hard time with something here. Okay. So in hockey, you're the guy who gets kicked around from team to team to team. And you talk about your work ethic wasn't there and everything else. And now you've built a program where the attention to detail and the effort you're putting in is almost hard to fathom. I personally enjoy watching hockey.

I can't imagine watching fast TV every single day, multiple games, but maybe, I mean, that's just different mentalities. How do you jump from a guy who doesn't work that hard to where you are now, creating national championships, teams, building a program, getting guys on to the next level. What happened? Was there a mentor? Was there a life-changing event?

Was it just a slow build in the beginning of Brooks? It wasn't that, and now I'm just seeing the end product? Yeah, I think it's looking back and seeing everything as a player that was completely squandered. I know that I could have been so much more, but I didn't work at it. I had a terrible attitude about it. And you almost get an opportunity to reinvent. bench yourself and to do better. And so what I've tried to do is the exact opposite of everything I was as a player.

So self-reflection is what you're telling me. I think so. And, you know, why do what you did as a player and squander another opportunity when you have a chance to, not to make up for lost time, but to, you know, end up close to the top of something and make something special? And then the weird part is be able to start giving back to some of these players, which never really was a thing that early on that I thought of is how much you can give back to these kids and their families.

And like I said, the whole cyclical approach where we have guys now that we've coached that are married and they're having kids. You're getting invited to weddings and everything else. Yeah, it just becomes this. It's a beast that you never thought you're going to be a part of. And yeah, I'm not going to underwork it again. Do you ever remember just the day

where you're looking back on, fuck, I squandered some stuff? Like, man, I really got, if I just, if I just turn around a couple of these things, we got something going here and it starts with me. There were so many. Like this was, this was an ongoing thing from when I'm a kid. I had lots of talent and I was big. And when I was young, I was just better than other players or other bullies. Okay. Which sounds cocky, but no, I don't think it sounds cocky whatsoever.

It just was what it was. And I was big. I was, you know, I was six foot when everybody else. was 5.5. So naturally, I was better. And then once we got to the Western League and everybody grew and, you know, technically you could make big strides in your game just by putting an extra work and having a goalie coach and those things. And I just didn't. I just didn't care. I was just doing it strictly on talent. Why did I get traded from teams? I just didn't work. I'd stand there in practice and I don't care about practice. I want to play games. That's bottom

line. So then you go into a game and unless you were lights out performing, there were so many reasons not to like me as a goalie. I just kept getting moved on to the next place and the next place and yeah, pretty easy now looking back why it was all happening. It's just really, it's a really cool story to me how you can be that type, you know, lots of successful, well, look at Steve Y. Steve Y, Steve Y, Steve Y, is a good example, right? Stevie Eisenman is like the epitome of a captain in the NHL now. And I know at the beginning he was the superstar and Scotty Bowman

kind of molds him and, you know, and we all know that kind of story. And then he, look at his playing career and then look at how he manages as a team. To me, those two just line up so tight. Yeah. And when you talk, you talk about getting bounced around and in your playing days. He never hit that moment where, you know, he had your coach in LaRue out from, Moncton who kind of starts to get your brain thinking on that, I think. Yeah.

And now you look at where you're at, and it's very intriguing to me. It's very cool. It's an unusual story. Yeah, the good thing is unusual, and it sort of worked out to this point. Sort of worked out. That's a lot. Here's for the listeners, if they don't know Brooks's story. Okay.

So you take over coaching in 2009-2010. or 2009, 2010 in October. October, yeah. So that you wouldn't have had much time whatsoever. You would have been rolling right into it. Yeah, I think we were 10 games into the year, 11 games into the year. Thrown in, but how? Well, we'll get right back to that.

Okay, so in 2009, 2010, you replace in October and then you coach, so that's your first year, and by your third year, you win the HHL. by your the next year after that you win again and you win the royal bank cup so in a four year time of taking over as a head coach being thrown into the fire in my opinion you're not getting like all summer to do whatever you need to do here here it is thrown in in a three year period you win the a johl in a four year period you go back to back and you win a royal bank cup that isn't that isn't to me that isn't like oh yeah it kind of worked out. Like you talked so nonchalantly about it. Like that is, I mean, there is, what,

14 other coaches right now in the H.HL would gladly take that. Yeah, probably. Just lucky it worked out. I mean, it could have gone a million different ways. I think it really could have. We, you get lucky to come across talented players. And I think you can coach and manage and do all the things you want to do, the players shoot the puck, make the play, score the goals, make the saves. And we came across the first championship of player like Matt Wilkins. I'm just lucky I coached Matt Wilkins since he was nine years old in spring hockey and then was able somehow to create a trade to get him from trail.

And comes here and ends up as a 20-year-old scoring 99 points and really being a catalyst leading us to a championship. and the next year coming by, you know, Cam McLeese playing in the Western League, wasn't loving his experience, and comes here, plays three years, captains us to the Royal Bank Cup, and you don't win without the players. So, I mean, as much as we... Yeah, but you don't win without the coach and the GM, in my opinion. You got to, I think the preparedness of what you talk about, recognizing these kids and your time he's spent on fast hockey when I just, I know. We know. There's tons of people not doing that, right? You're laughing right now because we both know.

There is. There's lots of guys that aren't doing it. Your amount of preparedness, you fall back on how much you prepare, and it's over the top. But it shows because, I mean, in how you guys consistently are there or are close to there, knocking on the door. I just think the landscape of junior hockey now in recruiting, there is no three-year cycle and rebuilding, and there's so many players out there. You can be good. You can be good every year. It doesn't mean you're going to win, but you can have quality all of the time. And it's hard, though. It takes a lot of work.

You enjoy it, though? Yeah, we enjoy it because it's a heck of a lot more fun to win a hockey game than to lose. The whole deal for me, though, is there's no excuse of, oh, well, you lost 15 players. Geez, you guys aren't going to be very good next year. And we'll find something. We'll find somebody that'll make us better. We'll work until it makes sense. How many players have you lost in one season and then come back the next season and been just as good as ever?

Well, I think after the national championship in 2019, I think we lost, I think 14. 14 or 15 guys. And then came back this year with a fairly new team. Rookie Ladin squad, yeah. And I think we won our first 22. And I truly thought, and I would have told anybody that wanted to listen, we're going to be good, but it's going to take us time. You get us to November, December.

I think we're actually going to have something pretty decent, but it's going to be a rocky start. That shows you how much I know. No. What do you, when you bring in that many new guys? What is your philosophy on what you're trying to teach them right off the hop? So I think the main thing, we don't do a traditional main camp or anything like that. We start practicing on the first day.

So within, I just talked about this the other day, within the first six days, everybody had practiced nine times and played three inter-squad games. So we just, we start on day one, we're overloading. overloading information systems. So you don't have a main camp then? You don't have trouts? Not in the traditional sense. So we had our guys broke into two teams. We had about 35 guys.

I would say eight of them were young kids that were here just for an experience and we were trying to develop relationship for the future. And then maybe there was a question to mark on two or three spots that guys were battling for. So 85 and so that's 27 guys battle. for 25 spots 25 spots yeah so we pretty much know what you're walking into yeah and that's kind of where we've changed and i think a lot of teams have changed is we we recruit more like a college team now where you you find the player you watch enough you make the commitment and that's who you're going with this must be my old school brain then are you ever worried not worried are do you ever

wonder about missing out on a diamond in the rough though what happens when there's a kid that's in your back door or over in medicine hat or wherever he is, walks into camp and all of a sudden you're like, who the heck is that kid? I've never seen him play. And he just developed late or X, Y, Z. I think, I think that's what our spring camps are good for is to identify some of those kids. And then we do different things like throughout the summer, we have a camp that we do in

Calgary that's maybe more of that free agent type or maybe a more unheralded player. And we do a similar thing in Toronto. So we get an opportunity. So you have some different things going on that. Yeah, some, I guess some steps before we get to the, you know, the, I guess, main camp time of year. But, yeah, we like to start with us a small number and start, you know, doing details on day one. Why Calgary and why Toronto? It's easy places, I think, for us to get people together.

Calgary have. Big hub centers? Yeah, there's an event in both places that kind of worked for us where we can, we can put a team into an event and play some outside competition so we get to like we really get to know the 20 guys that we take are those hand selected are they signing up no those are guys that we're we're picking to come and play with us but it could be a it could be a kid that sends us an email and says hey I'm really interested here's some video and here's where I played last year and it piques enough interest that you know you give an opportunity at one of

those events that's interesting that's it's it's changed a lot. I mean, when I first started, it was have your spring camp, invite however many guys. More than merrier. Yeah, and you can make it from spring camp to main camp. That's a real thing between the spring camp and main camp. You don't talk to any of the players because you don't need to because if they made main camp, they're coming. Main camp happens and you slowly go from 80 down to 25 and the exhibition. And it's just, for us, it's changed so much. I think There's so many wasted moments that you have, and we can just do better. Well, you give me hope for if Nigel listens to this, do by Adelaide.

Because that his mindset, when we first talked, similar, hit the floor running and not to have a typical main camp. It was the first time I'd ever heard that. I was like, geez, that's an interesting thought. I've never heard that before. Right? And, you know, Lloyd has the season they had, and you hope that next year it progresses. I'm a Lloyd guy. I'm hoping Lloyd dethrones the Brooks Bandits at some point. They did last year. That would be a lot. Well, they did. Isn't that the truth?

You know what I mean. The last game of the season is what I would. I think that's what all Lloyd would love. But watching what Brooks does from afar, it's intriguing to just see, you know, every year you guys send off a bunch of kids to do. Division 1 scholarships, but every year, there you are again, when in 22 in a row, right off the hop, like, it's no big deal. And it's very, like, it's awesome to watch. It's also frustrating because, you know, I'm sure you got your haters that are like, are you guys ever going to fall off a little bit? Yeah, we've got lots.

That's one of the very first things I learned is to care very, very little about what other people think of us. I care about what our players think. I care about what their families think. I care about our staff, our board, and then for the most part, the positive people in our community, what they think. Outside of that, if it's an opinion on our hockey team, I don't really care. I mean, what is there to say? There's nothing to say. It's ridiculous. Once again, the numbers speak for themselves. Five championships. Two-time national champ. You yourself have two AGH Coach of the Year awards.

I mean, those in itself just speak for. The fact you took a place that was, you know, by no means, a perennial playoff team, right? One of the poorer teams in the league, and you've created what you guys have done here in Brooks of all places. It's not, like you say, not in Shored Parks, Bruce Grove, and no knock on any of those programs by any stretch of the imagination. And no knock on the town of Brooks. It's just, it's Brooks. It's really cool. It's cool to walk around this rink today and be like, man, this is something.

That's pretty cool. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. And we've always wanted to make it more special and find ways to keep adding to it and make it a place that the people in Brooks are proud. They're proud that they have the Brooks bandits. And one of the best things that was ever told to us was from our mayor. And he said whenever he travels around Canada and he says he's from Brooks, Alberta, He said literally it doesn't matter where he is.

People know, oh, well, you guys have the bandits. And he said it's a positive story about Brooks. And it's a place that's had a few negative stories over the years. And, geez, the fact that we can be the positive is pretty cool. So here's my million dollar question that for you. I look around this and I go, this would be an extremely hard thing to leave. But being this successful, you must have had offers already to leave. What would it take to leave?

Or are you just like, you know what, right now I'm content with where I'm at and I want to continue to have this success and keep building on this program? Do you want to get to the next level? That's a good question, obviously. And I'm sure it gets asked all the time. A lot. And I think it'll be real tough to leave just for, like you said, the amount of time that I've been here,

the amount of sweat equity and effort, and you know and everybody leaves something eventually what it'll have to take for me i don't know i think it would it would have to be an opportunity that you know comes up once in a lifetime and if it was anything but and a lot of the opportunities that have come up are they're just opportunities there's things that you can objectively look at and and you can pass and feel okay go to bed that night and But one day, if there's, if that one, what it is, I don't know, but there will be that one that comes along. And you can't turn it down. Yeah, you have trouble sleeping and that'll be the time that you know when it's, you might have to say yes.

So, but you can't, you can't even think of what that would be. We're not sitting here going if the cloner rockets walked in tomorrow and said, listen, we really like what you've done with this program. We want to strike you a check for this and we want you to take over all, assume all duties or whatever. it looks like and just have control and when you believe in what you do is that a once-in-lifetime opportunity that's just an opportunity yeah they i think they're all just opportunities until you get to know the people involved and um you know there's owners there's presidents there's gms and and there's all kinds of you want to set yourself up for success and and i think the unique part here is is after 13

years um you know coaching managing now being on the board of directors um um um um you know um you know coaching managing now being on the board of directors. You've got a real nice separation between hockey and business hockey and board members. We, you know, I've got the full run of what we want to do, what we need to do. And geez, it's never going to be the same. But yeah, you'd have to really do a good investigation on the people that you'd be moving on to work with. Yeah, because, well, actually, what comes to mind is I had Jason McKee on, what was that, probably a few weeks ago. And he's a guy that had a similar track record as you.

With Spruce Grove, he was there as an assistant coach for four years. I think he spent an entirety of 10 years there. I think it was a decade. And I think they won four championships. Heck, there for a decade, it seemed like it was either you guys or them winning. And, you know, he's a guy who tried moving up and was, by all accounts, in my opinion, looked like he was trending the right way with Vancouver for other reasons, gets to let go. And now he's where he's at.

and then starting all over again, right? Now, maybe who knows where the doors lead, right? That could lead them directly into the NHL or that could lead them back to the AJ or who knows, right? And when I think about what you're talking about is when it has to be the right one and you'll know it, it's going to be hard to turn down is what you're saying. It's going to be impossible to turn down. Yeah, I think so. And it would have to be something pretty special.

Like, you know, love raising kids here. and love everything that we have going on and the players that we work with. And, you know, NHL draft picks with Kail McCarr and Parker Fu and, you know, hopefully upcoming course in Coolman's. And it's hard to sell me that this can't be everything that any other junior program is. And you can't work with special players. And, yeah, so it would have to be, it would have to be something. Do you want to coach in the NHL?

Well, I think everybody. Anybody that says no. Edmonton Oilers are called. Wait, who's your favorite NHL team? I don't know if there's such a thing. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You're from Calgary. Are you a Flames fan?

Not at all. Not a Flames fan? Zero. Well, we can be friends again. As a kid, I liked L.A. As I got older, Boston, and then now I could care less. It's any game, any time, you just like watching what teams are doing. Interesting.

Yeah. So if Team X came knocking, that might be. an opportunity then that would be hard to pass up. Yeah, if anybody says they didn't want to coach in the NHL and they're a hockey coach, I think they're a liar. But, yeah, I mean, those are probably far-fetched dreams. And, you know, right now you do what you do and you work with your guys. And the other thing that's unique here is we've been able to build it from having one full-time

staff to seven of us. And so you're able to work on provide. jobs for people and bringing people from outside the community and there's a lot of pieces to it. Well, and the road of junior hockey going from that or going the road of major junior is becoming more and more popular, well, just even in the last handful of years. Talk about a guy named Kel McCar. What was he like having in this program? Caleb was good.

Obviously, he's a special player, but I think the thing that gets lost, is everybody sees what Kail does today and thinks, oh, man, he must have just been unbelievable. And he was good when he was here, his second year, he was obviously the best in the league. But Kowel was like the rest of them. He had things to work on, things he needed to get better at. And why he's where he is today is because he works on that stuff. And he never rested on any laurels of being the big sexy player in the H. He wanted to be more and he wanted better.

And I think he did the same thing when he did the same thing. he got to college. But yeah, having him here at the time, he was just like the rest of them. And he's fun to watch. And he's pretty darn fun to watch. And he did some things here that were, for this level, pretty mind-blowing.

And you could put him in different situations, but we felt like we always set him up for good success and tried to push the offensive game for him. And, yeah, happy with obviously how it worked out. You hosted a Royal Bank Cup. What was it like hosting, but not only hosting in Brooks, but getting to win it on home ice? Yeah, that's probably the coolest thing that we've been able to do. I think we always knew because of the community what a tournament here would look like.

You know, we'd been to the Colberg, we'd been to Lloyd, we'd been to Somerside. So we had a real good idea of what things worked well, what didn't, and then just know. knowing our community, I don't even think if we hosted it well, it wouldn't have made a difference. The building would have been full and that makes it look like it's a real deal. So it was a ton of fun. It was two years into making and then all of a sudden it was over. Yeah, it flew by. Yeah, it's a quick 10 days.

But, you know, over those 10 days, the support for our team and for all five teams that were here and then to play in that last game and play against a team that we had, we had eight battles with. over about 25 days, us and Prince George. And if you would have asked me leaving Prince George after losing the Doyle Cup, I don't think we would have ever beat them again. And then we beat him in the round Robin and beat him in that final game. I mean, the picture is up on the wall behind us. It's a crazy moment in looking at it that I don't think that will ever happen in this building again. Never say never.

We'd love it too. Well, we've been going for an hour and 20 minutes. And before we, well, I want to get on to the final segment, and that way I can get back to being on holiday with my family. I'm sure they'd like me to go back to doing that. You can get back to being with your family. So we do the final segment here, the Crude Master final five, just five questions, long or short as we want to go.

Huge shout out to Heath and Tracy McDonald, the supporters of the podcast. the beginning. If you could become the assistant coach and learn from somebody in the NHL right now, where would you go? Who would you want to sit behind? Yikes. Oh, I think that's easy, actually. You'd have to be Florida. I mean... Q? Yeah. Just the personality. Like, if you're not attracted to that, I could watch any clip that he's a part of and the passion that guy has for scoring goals

and winning hockey games that would be pretty fun it'd be cool to sit down and talk to that guy we're talking about Joel Quinville for people who are going who's Q? Yeah it'd be pretty darn interesting Hey he's got some stories in there if you could take over one organization right now

and do what you've done here just walk in and Ryan, take your pick. We're about to have 32. We got 31. Which one do you want? Who you want? Does it have to be NHL?

No, it doesn't. Calgary Canucks. Calgary Canucks? You'd like to go home? It would be like an unbelievable challenge, obviously, and the new people that are there are doing a fantastic job, which is great to see. But that's always been, to me, a squandered opportunity.

I played for the Canucks. I grew up, you know, Bannum, Midgett Jr. at Max Bell. That place used to be, it used to be rocking. I remember watching them play in the Doyle Cup against Chilliwack. You know, Fire Marshal stopping the game to get people out of the stairways. The fire marshal did not stop it. He did? 100%. 100%. My dad, my dad, you know, it was rush seating, saving seats for us, getting in pushing matches with other people because he was saving too many seats. And it was a crazy time. And that was like the early 90s, I think.

Early 90s when they went on to the Centennial Cup. And that, there's just something there that could be different. But I think what they have going on now is significantly different from what they've had in the past. That's interesting. It's a different one for sure. Well, you're in Calgary specifically, you got the flames, you got the Hitman. You're just so far down on the rung. But then again, you've got a big giant population sitting there.

And if you could have a Kail Makar or a course in Coolmans or you could get yourself tapped into some of those players, I mean, we have people from Calgary that would drive down here to watch Kale play. if all you had to do was go to Max Bell it would be a huge challenge I'm not saying it would be easy but that would be but you enjoy a challenge that would be an interesting one did you ever hear your second guess yourself

coming here before like man this is a huge undertaking or this was not at all when I came as the assistant coach like I said I didn't care where I went I just wanted a chance and to get an opportunity then to take a team over I think at the time I was too naive to know any better. I didn't know what I was doing. I faked my way through it until it started to work.

Fake it until you make it. Pretty much. What's the best lesson you learned to this point in your life? Oh. I think because of the way I was as a player, not to take things for granted, because I've seen so many opportunities. like I said before just be completely squandered by not putting in the time and effort so

whether it's with you know my my hockey team my kids um anything just to to make sure that you're you're putting forth everything you can because things could change in a real hurry and um you know you look at just now having kids and you know some some bad stories you hear that happened to other people and the little thing could happen, and all of a sudden you've got a way different lifestyle and, yeah, just doing everything the best you can. Yeah, the kid thing is a tough one. As soon as you mentioned, things can happen to kids,

I immediately go to an interview I had, what was that, like a few weeks ago with Ambrose Furris. Like, send them away to hockey where you think it's going to be the safest place in the world and something like that goes down. and you're like, shit, right? Yeah, and it's anything. Like, I look at my five-year-old now

and he wants to ride his bike around the block by himself. And it's like, buddy, you can easily do that. You have no issues except I don't think it's a good idea because I don't know what could maybe happen to you. So you just stay here with me. Yeah. So taking every day for what it is. It could be a lot different the next day.

You just don't know. that's that's it that's good advice your final one we'll use up on the seriousness of these questions i got you squirming a little bit is what's one type of music you just you don't get that the boys listen to in the locker you walk in and you're like oh my god what is this almost all of it almost all of yeah it's uh it's gotten bad the uh come on give me give me a name something what are you talking about or you don't even know the names i don't know the names You're telling me you didn't walk in and you didn't know the tune a little bit

that they had. I walk in, I don't know what the song's called. They listen to the same song before the pregame meeting every day. And anytime we have a new play on our team, as soon as the music goes off, I always look and I'm going to go. It's a good song, hey, I like that one.

Guys always laugh, new guys always laugh. And I have no idea what it is. It's the worst music ever created. I'm going to have to reach out to one of your players because if I can't figure out what that song is, that is going to drive me absolutely berserk. You can't have that. What happens if it's a great song?

I'll find out what it is for you. Okay, well, I want to know before I release this episode, you've got to be like, listen, guys, the last question, he leaves us on a hanger because we don't know what song it is other than he doesn't like it as terrible. It's so bad. Half the time I walk in there and you hear the music,

it makes you want to turn around and walk back out. I feel old now. Well, you're getting old. I got to start liking, liking. How old are you now, right? 35. 35. No, you're not old. Getting old. No, that's a lie. That's young for the amount of success you've had.

That is pretty freaking young. Yeah, I feel old because I've been in the same place for so long, but, yeah, 35's not too bad. What kind of music do you like that? Like, what do you wish they were old? You wish you walked in, it was ACDC Thunderstruck? Not at all. I'm not a big music. guy. Rather listen to a podcast. Well, I got one of those. I think it'd be pretty awkward if they

walked in and they were listening to Sean Newman talk to Ryan Papuano. What is this? What are you guys doing? If it had to be something like... Coach, we're just learning before we go on the ice here. And that'd be fine. That'd be fine. Get a little information in you. Yeah, I don't know. I would have to say something like electronics, electronic dance, something like that. Shallow. Shallow. It's got a good beat, something you can move to. What podcast are you listening to these days? I've listened to a bunch of yours.

I'm not just pumping tires. Thank you. I appreciate that. So less than a bunch of years, the glass and out with lots of different coaches. And then just to kill time and the hilariousness of spit and checklets. Spin it's just, it's too easy to have on when you're doing anything. Well, at least now I know you're normal. Because if you can't, I mean, spitting chicklets is not my first, well, it may be surprising.

I don't know what listeners think these days. It's not my first go-to. But if you need some just like a quick chuckle, you throw, Bizz Nasty and Whitney on going at it with R.A. and all them guys. And you're just like, man, this is fantastic. Yeah, yeah. Just dudes. And you can have it on in the background.

You don't need to, like, zone in to listen to it. It's, yeah, it does a job. Well, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it. It's been fun sitting and chat with it. Yeah, no. And thanks for making the trip to Brooks. We, after our technical difficulties.

Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. Sounds good. Thank you. Hey, folks, thanks again for joining us today. If you just stumble on the show and like what you hear, please click subscribe. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday a new guest will be sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube,

and wherever else you find your podcast fix. until next time. Still sitting there waiting? You're wondering what could possibly be the next hint at who is 100? Who is 100? Anybody you've been thinking about it lately? Because I've bumped into a few different souls out there

and they're just irritated that I won't give out any more clues, any faster. They're, you know, my, Canadian who's written a book is pretty vague. There's a lot of people who've done that. So I thought we'd spice it up today and let you know that everyone who participates in figuring out who's 100 will be entered into a draw for a sandy beach golf for four people, two carts, plus a $200 gift card to factory sports.

In order to enter, you've got to head to social media, tag the podcast, and the hashtag who's 100. W-H-O-S-N-H-O-S-N-H-H-O-S-N-H-H-S number 100 with your guest for who is number 100. For each post, whether it is on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, as long as I see it, you get entered. If you don't have any social media, like, I don't have any flipping social media. All right, fair enough. Go to my website and just click on the contact button. Send me who you think.

We'll talk about it here and there, and you get an entry into the draw. So that's a draw. The winner is going to get $200 gift card to factory. Sports, so shout out to factory, and a four-person passed two cards to Sandy Beach Golf for a round of nine. Now, this week, the hint is he's married. What did you think? You think I'm going to give you much more than that?

Oh, boy, oh boy, oh boy. 100 is going to be a ton of fun. I promise you that. So, until next time.