Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. 45 Innovative Hockey Development (IHD) - Kyle Tapp

Episode Date: November 27, 2019

Sat down with the founder of IHD Kyle Tapp. Chances are if you have played top tier hockey in Lloydminster or even Alberta you have been on the ice with Kyle Tapp. He has a unique perspective when developing players and tactics used to defeat the next opponent.  Highlights: - Bag skates after wins - Thoughts on Mike Babcock being relieved of duties - Teaching the why & new age players - Habits good & bad - What you do in the dark shows up in the light

Hey, it's Kyle Tap. Welcome to Sean Newman podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Factory Sports with senior hockey in full swing here. If you're looking to get anything, boys, hop on down to 4903, 49th Ave, downtown Lloydminster. Hit up the guys down there. They're open Monday through Saturday, 9 to 6 p.m. They got their Sunday hours through here, hockey season, the winter season, 10 to 3 p.m. They got just a great selection of sticks, but I mean it goes further than that.

They can do team embroidery jerseys. They got socks, helmets, all the gear. Anything you can possibly want, it's sitting there. So if you got any needs, hockey-wise, hop on down factory sports. 4903-49th Ave. That's downtown Lloyd Minster. And stop it and see the fellas. Fountain Tire, they're open Monday through Friday, 7.30 a.m.,

to 6 p.m. Saturday's 9 to 1 p.m. I tell you guys, right now we've been having this wonderful winter where we don't seem to, we haven't got to the worst of it, but the roads have been awfully slick. So if you're looking for a new set of tires, you've got your summer's still on and you're that prolonger. You're just, ah, I can't afford it, can't afford it. Stop in, see Kent and staff. They'll hook you up. They, uh, amazing people to deal with. To I deal with the wife's vehicle and the work truck. That's where we get all our tires from. So stop in and see the boys at Fountain Tire,

and they'll get you hooked up here for the winter season as the roads continue to degrade. They're not getting any better anytime soon. Hillmond is hosting Hockey Day in Saskatchewan, January 16th to 19th. Thursday, Wait and Friends. Friday, we got a banquet happening at the exhibition grounds. Brian Trotche and Tom Rennie there. Saturday sees midget AAA men's and women's from North Battleford coming to Hillmont to play,

followed by an SGAHL game, North Battleford versus the Notre Dame Hounds. And North Battleford currently, they dropped in the rankings this week, but they're still top five in the nation. It's going to be an awesome weekend, so that's January 16th to 19th. Finally, Windsor Plywood. You'll hear right at the start of the episode, we talk a lot about the table, I got to give a huge shout out to Carly Clawson and the team at Windsor Plywood here in Lloydminster. They built me on amazing piece of work.

Like check it on social media. Like I'm rubbing it right now. That's how nice it is. It is a beautiful, beautiful table. If you need any custom woodworking done, stop on in, talk to Carly. They do amazing work. And I just, once again, huge shout out to them because it's amazing table. I don't know how many more times I'm going to say amazing other than it's amazing.

So thanks, Carly. Windsor Plywood, stop and know them for all your woodworking needs, guys. They are experts in that field. All right, on the podcast this week is Kyle Tap. He is the founder of IHD hockey here in Lloyd Minster. And he is an interesting guy to talk to. Just his perspective on the coaching slash development of hockey players. And so we dig into a lot of that.

Obviously, he deals with a lot of the talent here in Lloyd Minster on a Monday through Sunday basis. He's always on the ice. And then, of course, he's coaching the Bannam AAA team in town right now. So he was really intriguing to sit down here for the past whole two hours. So without further ado. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast in the studio today. I have Mr. Kyle Tap. So thanks for joining me.

Thanks, Sean Newman. It's a pleasure to be here. The first thing we got to talk about is how kick asses this table? Literally the first podcast with this table in here. It is pretty sweet actually. It looks like pretty labor intensive. It'll take a while. Yeah, it took a while.

I got to give a shout out to Carly Closs and Windsor Plywood because they're the ones that did her for me. Yeah, they did a hell of a job. I pretty much, when we got it in here, I pretty much just sat here and like rubbed it. And then I brought the wife in to take a look at it, and she sat down. here and she rubbed it right like everybody who comes in is like yeah geez it kind of has that touch me feel look to it for sure yeah like it's kick ass i wouldn't imagine what this would cost it'd be sweet to have in the house but i don't think i could afford it uh i definitely could not afford it yeah no well let's not talk about how much it costs just talk about how sweet it looks let's put it

let's put it this way i shouldn't say that i couldn't afford it i could afford it and actually if you want a centerpiece in your house carly clauston's man to go see it because uh he'll build you one of these suckers and you won't need anything else ever again yeah this would look unreal as like a big boardroom table or like um like a showpiece and like a living room they also do like end tables and stuff like this too so you can actually get like a tree trunk cut so it's like a circle does that make sense yeah and then they'll fill in the cracks with this well i i know kenny morrison does some woodwork just for fun yeah and uh he showed me one which similar but like they turned this piece here into like a river like it looked like you put like fish in it and it looks like you put like fish in it and it looks like

Yeah, you can put whatever you want, right? And you can get different colors so you can see, like, right through it to the floor or like this one. It kind of shimmers with the light, the silver. Welcome to the kitchen table podcast. I can't help it. It's first one, first time I've sat down at it. It is pretty sweet. Definitely jealous.

So, I'm excited because I got Mr. Tapp. I've actually, you know, we joked about this off air like when I first started because everybody was hassling about whether you're, You're paying me to talk about you. And it's just, you've dealt with a ton of athletes here in Lloyd, a ton. And for me, unique perspective in my books, it wasn't like you came in, you had your kids, and then your kids got old and you started coaching hockey, and you dealt with kids that way. It's like, it's been your mainstay now for how long you've been doing this? Oh, 17 years.

17 years. How long have you been in Lloyd for? There should be going on 10. We were actually just talking about that the other day, how long I've been here. It's 10. It's the longest I've lived anywhere, honestly. So, yeah, it's been about 10 years, I think, pretty sure. Yeah, and like all the elite hockey now, I mean, and I could be wrong,

but all the elite players seem to go through your guys' camps and get a little bit of a fist bump along the way from you guys and a little bit of, well, even when I came back, I always say when I came back from Finland, first guys that came and skated was with you guys, right? Came out and pushed puck around and went, I don't know how to do half this stuff. we yeah we've been we've been pretty fortunate not only as a group and then individually myself

to uh you know come across a lot of talented individuals and i like to think all we really did uh between kujo myself and the iHD staff is just kind of point them in the right direction i think um you know in a rural community compared to the city it wasn't as competitive when you grow up playing hockey and you know in calgary edmonton you know right from adam you're competing against 200 kids to make, you know, one team. So they kind of get in that mindset. And it always used to be an advantage coming from the rural community because the rural kids worked harder and they had access to more ice because the rings they'd open. You always hear about those stories. And there was about a shift about 12, 15 years ago where, you know, that steel sharpened steel kind of mentality

of the city came through. And you know, you started the off ice training, the extra skill work. And when I first moved here, that wasn't really available. And the talent has always been here. trace back the stories all the way to, you know, the junior B teams and all the talent that's, that's been here, the guys that are 50, 60 years old, like, it's always been here. And I think, you know, we kind of got lucky. It was like a perfect storm where we pointed them in the direction of here's how you can maximize your potential. And when you get gifted athletes, focus and honing in on their craft, I think success is inevitable.

Now, it's really cool. You were saying the area's got a storied history. Oh, yeah. I've just been scraping the surface ever so slightly over the last eight months. It's crazy. It's crazy to hear. And I mean like you go, like, when I'm talking going back 30, 40 years, like it's always been here. It's, um, there's a book out there.

I can't remember who it's by. It's a really good one called the goldmine effect where they trace, you know, certain sports to certain areas. And, you know, why in Modo did they, in the 90s produced, you know, 30 NHL guys or why is the Jamaican, um, 100 meter team? or, you know, so on and so forth with a bunch of other different sports. Lloyd Minster's been a gold mine in Western Canada for hockey players for a very, very long time, and, you know, we've just been fortunate enough to benefit from it in the last 10 years.

That's a sweet mustache, by the way. It is Day 26 of Movember. That's something you should almost rock full time. I think you might look better with the lip sweater than without one. What is your wife say? She hates it. Really? Oh, yeah.

Every guy I meet goes, man, that's a great mustache. You should keep it. Every woman and children are just petrified of it. Right? The mustache is, you got to own the mustache. Yeah. I think you've got to have a certain personality to be able to rock the mustache. And I think, you know, lip to nose proportions are really important as well.

Well, I see you got your teeth out. my teeth in so well it's funny actually um a lot of people didn't know i've been missing a tooth uh we got a new puppy shout out to ted tap by the way but uh you named your puppy ted yeah well the kids did i didn't and uh i always put my flipper on the the nightstand and well in experience i guess owning an animal um ted ate it ted ate it yeah so you know how it takes to get the It takes quite a long time, so we're still waiting on it. Did you have to sit around and wait for him to do his duty? Yeah, I think at that point, it wouldn't come out in any kind of capacity you don't put back in your mouth anyway.

So we're just thankful he's okay, but no, I didn't go checking for it. Just get another one. Yeah, I've been toothless for a while. It would give new meaning to Shitting and grin. Ooh, but boom, boom. That was really good. New table, new jokes. This is awesome.

Dad jokes, dad jokes, right? Good jokes. So I want to go back. I don't know. You know, me and you always, I've hoteled with you once upon a time, and we kind of talked a little bit about where you come from. But I wouldn't mind just for the listener and myself,

maybe seeing where Mr. Kyle Tap came from. I actually got talking to a guy this morning. He knew I was coming on with you tonight, and he was like, how old is tap? Like, I don't even know where he played. And so he's like, did he play in, right? Because we know where you're from Calgary.

Yeah. But we didn't know anything about like your story journey. So I thought maybe, you know what, for a guy who, what were you saying? You're on the ice at 7 a.m. this morning? Yeah, Wardow and I, we did a development skate for the midget triple A's working with the forwards on some scoring. So we did that today, yeah. And then how long of a day do you have? Well, me myself, I'll be on and off the ice, but like as a company and as a staff, I think fish will be going right till 10 p.m. tonight.

So we're usually, you know, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and then 4 p.m. till 10 p.m. every night from November till the end of February. And then the middle of the days, we jam with office work and naps and family stuff and as much as we can get in there. You know, as a guy who likes hockey, I hear that in going to. oh man that's that's got to be tiring so I think where I'm going is is I'm like you either got like a deep love of hockey that you love being on the ice that much or you have a really I've seen your unique perspective on how to train guys and how to get them thinking about the game and I'm just curious if that started from a young age or if it just slowly developed and I'm curious if we can find that or if you even know

that yeah it would be it would be it'd be stuff that's been accumulated over time through positive and negative experiences. I wouldn't say, like, obviously I love hockey. I'm Canadian, and I play the game and I teach it, but I wouldn't say that's why I do what I do. I love teaching. The only forum that I have where I get credibility is hockey in Canada. Maybe if I was in Africa, I'd be teaching soccer,

if I was in, you know, down in the southern states, it'd be baseball or what have you. But, you know, I love all sports, but I really love teaching. I love going through the journey with an athlete of not being able to do something, struggle, fail, and then to see them through on the other end when they have success. I think, you know, you can trace, for me anyway, trace anything back in life. The people that I remember the most and the most impact were, you know, teachers and coaches and people that are able to give me something that, you know, that I could use moving forward. So, yeah, that's, I love teaching.

I love coaching. I really enjoy hockey as well, but, you know, to answer your question, the love is more on the teaching side. What, uh, is there some teachers in your past that stick out for things they, they taught you? Yeah,

I had a, I had a coach, um, I had a few coach, a guy named Rick Hare who, who made the game fun. Um, it was a stressful time in Bannum,

AAA and, and he made the game really fun and then, uh, a guy named Doug Bruno. Can I ask, how did he make it fun? Uh, he,

he understood when, when was the right time for a joke, when was the right time to kind of, kind of allow us to, you know, be kids and then had the unique ability to rein us in when we needed to be in. You know, we were a talented team and we had a lot of success, but, you know, I really enjoyed him for that. And obviously, he put me on the ice a lot, too, so I really enjoyed that. But to go back and answer your question about who I am and where I'm from, a lot of people don't even know that TAP's actually not even my name. I had a legal name change when I was

10 years old. I thought I was adopted all this time. And yeah, my dad passed when I was five. So I was actually born H-A-C-H-E, which would be H-A-C-H-E. And what's that thing called, De Sante, or whatever? Okay. Yeah, E-Y would be the English translation. Sure. So my family's actually from Tracety, New Brunswick. From where?

Tracety. Tracety. Yeah, it's a French community fishing village in New Brunswick. No kidding. So that's where my dad's side of the family is. I can't speak to half of my relatives because they're, they're French. I'm a pure French. And then the other half of my family and my mom's side is...

Well, that explains a little bit. Yeah, is Davidoff. So they're Dukabor Russians that live in the southern British Columbia. That also explains a lot. So what... The sick to-dyexed. What was your name then growing up until you had the name? So I was...

So I was born Hashi. And then my dad passed when I was five. My mom met my stepdad and remarried. And they did a legal name change at 10. and I was actually hashy hyphen tap. So on the back of my hockey jersey was, you know. Hashy tap. Yeah, like that, yeah.

And then a lot of people couldn't pronounce hatchie. They called hatchie, hacky, whatever. I got annoyed with it. Everyone was calling me Tapper anyway. So switched it to tap. And then I actually just found out a lot of this info, you know, six, seven, eight years ago. I thought, you know, I was adopted. Why did you think you were adopted?

I just thought it was. I was calling him dad. and then I took his name and I went to go get a passport and I found out kind of everything all by accident. And they just applied for a legal name change when I was, I don't know, whatever grade that would have been, grade four or five. And yeah, and so my kids, that was difficult with, you know, having two children and, you know, what are we going to call them? And we just figured, you know, everyone knows me as tap in my industry. So the girls would take the same name and then we'll give them the option. and we'll tell them a story when they get older,

and they can make whatever choice that they like, call themselves whatever they'd like. So that's... But I'm curious. You never talked to your mama bowl with your father passing? Well, yeah, and those were different stories, too. Like, I was told when I was young that he died and drunk driver. Like, they were split, so he lived in Winnipeg.

We were in Calgary and that it was a drunk driver. So I went on this crusade as a young teen going to parties. taking everyone's keys, getting in fights. I was like mad, the mad police, you know, against drunk driving. And then my dad was a twin. So he had a twin sister and living out in New Brunswick. And, well, this would have been about 12 years ago. She came to visit in town.

And, you know, I'm in my mid-20s now. And, you know, I start to ask. I don't know much about my father. We start to talk. And then she actually tells me that she believes it was suicide. So, yeah, kind of my whole world flipped and, you know, we kind of talked all about that. And, you know, and go back and this actually ties back to your question about coaching or whatever. Like I kind of grew up with negative male role models in my life or absent ones.

And, you know, I had a choice to make leaving hockey around 1920. I had a lot of anger towards a lot of the males in my life. and I had a lot of excuses. I blamed them for a lot of things, and I had a choice. And I could use positive and what happened to me and try to make sure it doesn't happen to anybody else

or I could continue to go on and blame everybody else for my problems. And I chose just one of the reasons why I got into coaching, see if I could make a difference and prevent somebody else from going down the walk of life that I had to. Was there anything that gave you a push towards a positive

or do you remember what drew you to that side maybe? I always had the dream or the thought that I was going to do something special. And I never wanted to jeopardize that. So, you know, we talk about dealing with mental health. You know, I dealt with that as a young teen as well. And it all started to make sense when I found out about my father and a lot of those things. And, yeah, I think it was the quest to make a change, to make sure that nobody else had to go through what I went.

through and and just be positive a positive male influence in as many people's lives as I possibly could whether that was you know for one month or or 10 years and I just happen to use hockey as an outlet yeah kind of as the conduit to um to allow those things to happen when you're talking uh when we talked probably I don't know a month ago I think it was um you were kind of mentioning some your travels in junior eight before you started in your coaching endeavors uh your travels through the junior a junior B ranks I was maybe we could talk a little bit about that the stickers accumulated on my suitcase you mean yes yeah um like where where did you go and

and maybe I don't know some stories there's lots of stories um well first off like I had to get out of the house as quickly as I could and being from the city, I had, you know, two options. Chase the positive path or I had a lot of friends and a lot of people I knew they were doing the negative path. So I knew I didn't want to be at home anymore. There wasn't a positive place for me. So I found the team the furthest away that had the most interest.

So that was Powell River, British Columbia, and the BCHL. And how old? 16, yeah, let me answer my question there. And I went out there a month early. And I did their hockey school participate as soon as I could get out there, stayed out there, loved it, um, got into some trouble off the ice.

What was trouble? Uh, I, I ended up, so part of the whole rookie thing back then, right? And you can't get away with this stuff now, but they, they dressed a bunch of us up and

they fed us a bunch of alcohol. And so I was dressed in barely nothing. And I go into a convenience store and I was told to go get, you know, a box of saran, some Vaseline in a Playgirl magazine. I had to go up dressed, you know, half naked and whatever. And so me being me, I took things probably a little too far.

I was too loud and boisterous about it and made sure everyone knew why I was there. And kind of made an ass of myself for sure. And it turns out that the store was owned by, you know, one of the big boosters for the team. So it wasn't a really good spot. Not that my teammates helped me by putting in that spot in the first place. So they sent me down to their junior B team, basically, yeah, right before the season started in Comox. And so I go to Comox and now I'm mad because I just lit up main camp and done really well in exhibition. And I was 16 and so, and I didn't get it.

I just had no idea. And so I go, you know, now I'm in junior B. I'm too good for this. I'm too good for this league. and I ended up making enemies with the captain. Local hero, 20 years old, leading score. I had a really attractive sister and was told, we are all told off limits.

And not that we ever did anything, but there was a bunch of us that were really attracted to her. And I said, well, you know, what's he really going to do? I'm just talking to her at a, you know, at a team party. And, well, it didn't go over very well. the next day of practice. And again, didn't handle that situation the greatest. And then so was then traded shortly thereafter.

Sent across to Duncan, if you know of the Vancouver Island at all. Okay. So Duncan Mill Bay Area, so there's basically the way they kind of have it is they have junior B and junior A teams all over the island. They're all within like, you know, walking distance of each other. So I ended up, you know, finishing out there. a year in a place called like Mill Bay, Duncan, British Columbia. Pelled around there and then tried going to Quinnell shortly thereafter.

A guy that had recruited me beforehand had just gotten a job, went up there. I didn't train it all all summer, so I went to fitness testing. Fitness testing, they had said, you know, you got to accomplish, you know, a certain amount of minutes on the plank, you got to do a certain amount on the squat or you get cut on the spot. I faked a back injury because I knew I hadn't trained all summer. And the coach saw through it and, you know, said basically you're on your own. Now I'd already been up there for two weeks, billeting, you know, I'd been moved there. And he says, yeah, you're out of the billets tonight.

I'm like, well, how am I going to get home? Like, where am I going? He's like, you're not going anywhere. You're a free agent. Like, you can do whatever you want when you've outright released you. I'm like, well, you know, like, got a bus ticket for me. I didn't know you're on your own. At 16.

Yeah, it would have been 17. Or 17. Yeah, this is a year later. Yeah. And so now I've already been in four schools. I've been in seven, eight different bill at homes already in a year and a half. And so basically I'm at the Greyhound bus stop. And, you know, the only place I'm not going to call is home.

And yeah, I was there with my bag and a suitcase for two days outside just begging for cash, trying to find a place and using whatever 25 cents I could. We didn't have cell phones back then. And trying to look up teams in the BCHL, the KI, just trying to find anybody that will offer to have me skate. I need a roof over my head at that point. I wasn't playing hockey to go to the NHL. I was playing hockey to survive.

Is that your grade 12 year? Grade 11 year? Yeah. Great 12 year. So your grade 12 year, you're not in school. You're sitting in a Greyhound bus, popping quarters in if you can find them because you broke. Yeah.

And all you have, it's where you sleep? I was, you're in the Greyhound bus station. You're just in the gray. You're just sitting there. Yeah, just like, you know, on my bag or on the chair or whatever. And then eventually I got a hold of a team in Golden that was going to willing to have me a look. And if you know where Quinnell the Golden is, that's almost 20 hours on a Greyhound bus when you make all those stops through there. And yeah.

So, and I think I told you this story already. I remember, I don't know if you were a hundred mile house or whatever, but I think ended up getting on the bus around like two o'clock in the morning. and I had a team that was going to have a look and I'd eaten in a few days and stop at one of those small towns that I didn't know what it is where they kind of got like the diner the truck stop and the and the Greyhound bus station all in one and I remember going to the bathroom everyone gets off the bus it's going to be a half an hour stop and I was starving and like you don't you know you don't know what that feels like you can start to empathize with those people that live on the streets and literally have nothing just your whole train of thought goes from

you know, thinking about big picture things to truly back to survival mode about just food and shelter. And there was a couple of hot plates sitting on a hot plate. Some trucker somebody had ordered a few, you know, eggs and bacon toast breakfast. And I grabbed one of them and, you know, I went into the bathroom with my bare hands, like a, like a starved dog shoved in my face and then went back on the bus and started crying and where my life is at. And I'm looking out the window. And I knew then that I was done. And that's what I talk about.

I was blaming everybody. I was blaming my dad that died. I was blaming the child that I had, the stepfather. I was blaming coaches. I was blaming teachers. I was blaming my mom. I was blaming everybody I could. And staring out the window by myself,

looking at all those big trees, I realized common denominator and the problem was me the whole time. And, you know, when I started to reflect and, you know, how could I have changed? Who could have helped me change? And I always came back to one person and I was a coach.

And in that very moment, I decided I was going to be a coach. So back to Golden, got a place to stay, faked an injury, just to have a billet over my, or a roof over my head, billet house to stay at. I had a great billet, Pauline McIsaac, who she understood my story, and she let me stay there all summer and get things under my belt. She helped me get a job and get things figured out.

And then I went back to Calgary six months later and started coaching and I had basically 20 years old. and the rest is history. So did you graduate in gold? I never graduated. Never graduated? No. I was in, by time all that was done was, I don't know,

we were at seven or eight schools and a ton of bill at homes. And it was never anywhere long enough to finish a class, let alone to finish a year. Actually, it was a funny story in Duncan, the middle bay when I was 17. It was supposed to be a graduating year. It was one of those work at your own pace schools. So it was one of those new age schools where you kind of just show up in the morning and you check out at night. What you do during the day is completely up to you.

And if you want to finish school in a year and a half or take four years, it was up to you. And you just, you know, you had a schedule. If you wanted to go work on math, you could go here. If you want to go work on social, you go here. If you want to sit in the foyer and chat, you could do that too. So that was probably the wrong place for me to be. I met a friend in my home room class that actually had a golf scholarship. And so I ended up hanging out with him for a few months, and he taught me golf.

So I was kind of a fun time when it came to school. So you're supposed to do, I think it's 20 modules in a year to complete a class. And think about how many classes you need in a high school thing. So you're looking at however many modules that might be. I think I did three modules. In a year. Yeah, in three or four months, or however long I was there. Yeah, I didn't spend a lot of time in class.

Have you ever gone back and got your GED anything? No, I haven't. We've been talking lately about taking some business classes and doing some of that stuff online. I think it kind of works really well with what we're already doing. Yeah, it was tough. It's a crazy story. Yeah, and that's why a lot of the rules around not allowing players

that are in high school to cross borders when you talk about balancing education between Alberta, Saskatchew and British Columbia. just too hard on students. Way too hard. I go to one school and the classes I already started and the other thing

weren't being offered at the time or they were being offered next semester and then by time you started like you were just a bunch of half-completed classes and you never could get anywhere where they could mesh them all back up

and then by time I got back to to Calgary I was 19 working full time and then coaching so. So where was your first coaching job? What did you? So I was, yeah, I guess 20 years old, not 19, 20 years old. I went back to my hometown association, South 4 in Calgary, which is no longer, and coached the, what would be the Pee-E-E-Double A, they call it Pee-W-1 in the city,

and I went back to where it all started for me, and I was the very last coach that they, that they ever had. And how was your first season? Like, was it a giant learning curve, or had you prepared yourself? or was it instant love? Yeah, it was. Like, I had got a little bit of a taste when I was in, again, at that work at your own pace school and Carrie Park.

My home room teacher also ran the hockey program. And he was basically just, he saw that I need some direction. So he asked if I'd come help him run the hockey program. And being that I was a junior hockey player at the time, it was fit. And that's where I first really got the itch, but I only did very little as assistant. And then a year later, was coaching the PEP team.

Yeah, we won the two years there. We won the league and then went to winter games as a small association in Calgary. So is that talent or coaching or both? I think it's always both. Like, ultimately the players are the ones on the ice. They're the ones that do the work. And without the right players, you know, your kind of destiny is kind of already set. But at the same time, coaches or leaders or whatever you want to call it,

it's their job to, you know, provide the consistency, the culture, and point them in the right direction. So I think at that time I was really good at getting through to kids and motivating them and getting them to get the best of themselves and to rely and buy into each other. And it's funny, my coaching career almost came the opposite of my playing career. You know, I wasn't a great teammate. So, you know, as a coach, I make sure that I try to make our guys, you know, love each other and more about the team than they do themselves. Is that the biggest thing when you walk in the door you're trying to get across?

That's number one. Absolutely number one is culture. I think anyone that's ever been on a successful team, business, anything. You need everybody pulling in the right direction. Whether we like each other or not, whether we respect each other or not, we have to work together. So we have to be there for each other. And it's easy to be there for each other when things are going well. the true test is when you face adversity and things aren't going well.

We've heard story and story after Super Bowls and Stanley Cups and Fortune 500 companies. That's the same. I don't think that's ever going to change. You need to create that environment, an environment for learning, an environment where you can be vulnerable, an environment where you can ask questions, where you don't play or act with fear, and where you truly believe that the person beside you and person behind you has your back. I'm just going to segue into Mike Babcock really nicely. Because as we all know, Mike Babcock is no longer the coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

And if you follow anything along this, he has been getting absolutely torn to shreds on social media as being the problem of the Toronto Maple Leafs this year. What's your thoughts on that? That's a pretty loaded question when you ask, what's my thoughts? I don't think it's a simple answer, to be honest. I think there's so many factors at play. So if we're talking about the Mitch Minor thing first. Sure, and maybe you can tell listeners about the Mitch Marner thing. Well, just in general, what supposedly...

He asked a rookie Mitch Marner to basically rank the players that were on the roster from top to bottom in terms of work ethic and commitment. And if you've heard his rebuttal to why he did it, he was trying to get Mitch to model himself after the right players, not the wrong players, because if you know anything about Mitch Marner, he just talent coming out the wazoo. And not a lot when it comes to the habits and the structure and the things that Mike Babcock knew

you needed to be a successful and elite NHL hockey player. Now, I think it worked. Mitch Marner is pretty darn good hockey player. Pretty good. And he bought into a lot of them. And he bought in. And, you know, he just signed a big deal. So is Mike Babcock a bad guy?

I don't know. Is would I have done it or you have done it someone else done it differently, maybe, maybe not, maybe slightly different, but we weren't in that situation. I think, you know, me as a coach, I've had a lot of players that have played for me before that, you know, I wouldn't say that I was their favorite coach, but I think they would all agree that, you know, got the most out of them. I think that's what Mike Babcock's always been able to do is get the most out of people. I think sometimes the methods we use work better on some than others.

It's a different generation. It's a different era. I think this stuff has been going on for a long time. Not just with Mike Babcock, but with coaches in the past. We have access to that information now. Do I think that's the new way of doing things? No.

The players know they have too much power. You know, they kind of know their rights. We've got to kind of go after players in a completely different avenue than we used to. It's not straight in your face, do it or else. We almost got to kind of convince them that it was their own decision. And they got to understand the why before they do the work where, you know, back in the day, won't do this.

Okay, yes, sir, no, sir. And now it's, well, why? Even my kids, well, why do I got to brush my teeth? Like, do I really need to explain why you need to brush your teeth? Yeah, dad, you do. Yeah, where, you know, when we were told to brush, yes, we'll go brush my teeth. So when you ask me, what are my thoughts on Mike Babcock? I say it's a loaded question.

I think, you know, unless you ask specifics, I think it's, I think there's always two sides to the story. At the end of the day, can you argue with the guy's coaching record? Yeah. No. No. His coaching record is impeccable. Let's just do the old list here, all right? 1997 world junior gold

2004 to world championship gold 2008 Stanley Cup Detroit Red Wings 2009 would have been near he went to the Stanley Cup finals and lost to Pittsburgh 2010 Olympic gold with Vancouver only coached to ever

get the triple gold club 2014 Olympic gold in Sochi only second coach ever to lead one country to back-to-back gold the other guy was Victor Taconoff of the Soviets in 8488 probably tortured that name

Tika. Have you watched Miracle? Yeah, I can't never. Is that how you say it? I'm great. I have no idea. Sure. Now you're just being an ass.

2016, he wins the World Cup of hockey goal, right? Like, there's a reason why, well, this would be his fifth year in Toronto, right? Would have been his fifth year. The reason why five years ago he becomes the highest paid coach in history, right? Like his resume is impeccable. Here's what I will say. Here's what I think happened. Sure, fire away.

When you have success and when you have the pedigree, that Mike Babcock has. Why would you ever deviate from the plan that's already been successful? So, it's successful one way for him, all those things you just listed. It becomes very hard to adjust and to change. It's much easier when you're looking for the answer, when you're not quite there, you're looking to prove yourself as a coach or to get your next contract.

I don't think Mike Babcock ever had to worry about. that I think he just this is what's always worked this is how I work this is how I do things so this is what I'm gonna do and maybe a little outdated maybe based on you know the generation and you talked to teachers today and teachers they were teaching 10 years ago that were having success in the classroom maybe aren't having the same success that they're having now because the students have changed so I think that's one lesson all of us coaches can learn is you have to adjust almost year by year. Yeah, you have to adjust to your players.

Your players don't have to adjust to you. You're one person. It's much easier to change one person than it is to change 20 or 25. So, you know, each team, each kid, each player will tell you what they need in one way or another in terms of when it comes to criticism, how do they learn, how do they respond to criticism, how do they motivate and everybody's different. And in today's generation of coach, you have to be able to push all those buttons. You can't just say, this is my way, my way or the highway, because not enough people are going to fit that mold. So you're constantly banging your head against the wall. And I think in the generation of those years where you had mentioned, that was more the player than they understood.

They read between the lines. Like, okay, like I may not agree with what's happening, but I get while he's doing it. You know, I also think, too, you know, you're kind of kicking a guy when he's down. He's just been fired. Like, everyone's now, you know, quick to come out and say this stuff. Well, you know, if this was such a big issue, why wasn't this brought up before? Yeah, the one that is shouted the loudest right now is the guy who's been shouting it for like four years. It's Mike Komenor.

Right. He's been all over Twitter for forever about his hatred for Mike Babcock. Well, and there's stories too, like the Red Wings, Chris Chelyos. You know, he'd been doing it for a while. And I read something on Henrik Zetterberg today who kind of said, yeah, like, I didn't agree. but Mike and I had a mutual understanding. Mike, I could yell at him, he could yell at me, and it worked, and he got the best out of me. So, you know, you trace the players that he's been around.

Like, again, we talk about, you know, what was Lloyd? Lloyd's always had talent. Well, in the NHL, you've always had talent. Mike's been able to get kind of the best out of his players. Now, when you're there that long and you're kind of that much in somebody's face all the time, I'm sure it wears thin. I'm sure it does, but, you know, I don't think we can discredit the guy as a coach. Now, I've never played for him.

I'm actually fortunate enough to have two guys that I work with, Cole Fisher and Lance Ward who both played for him. And they both have two differing opinions. Cole had him in Jr. and Lance had him in Anaheim. And, you know, I'll let them tell the story, but basically in one way, you know, Lance tells a story of Mike defined his role for him, made it really simple for him to play in the league, and that was it.

You do it, or I'll find someone else that was. will. And, you know, I think Lance saw value in that. He's, okay, well, at least I know it's expected of me. And then Fish has a completely different story. Maybe you'll have to have them on and... Yeah, it wouldn't be a bad idea. And ask, and ask them, but... I always go back to Larry Wintoniack. I've had Larry on here in one of my first episodes. I always argue he was one of the top three coaches ever had. But if I meet 10 players that played for Larry at some point in time, five love them, five eight. Yeah, absolutely. He was that black and white. I think I'm that guy, too.

I think when I first moved to town, I was a dictator in your face. Like, this is the way. It's my way or the highway. And we were able to have a lot of success. But, you know, I wasn't getting a lot of Christmas cards, right? Those players are, they're much older now and they get it. You know, the Kenny Morrison's, the Lyndon Springers, you know, just to name a few of those guys. Ambrose Furcus now actually works with us.

And they'll all say. hated you, hated you, loved the team, hated the coach, and had a lot of success. I've always heard the story about you when you win you skate.

Yeah. Can you explain that a little bit? Because I find that very, very intriguing. A lot of coaches use skating or bag skating as a punishment. And what I wanted our players, all of our players, to understand is that hard work isn't a punishment.

So if we sweep the weekend, when we come back on Tuesday or Wednesday whenever practice is we find the hardest bag skate possible. Now if we lose we won't and I want them to while they're skating and understand that that's something that they have earned that you know not to fear the hard work not to fear the sweat

not to fear the grind not to fear you know the way you feel when you're pushing yourself to the absolute limit so sure they hate me for it But, you know, I think from the psychology perspective, it works. Actually, the guys I've talked to have said it's a weird psychological mind fuck, essentially. Because growing up, well, you know exactly well. You lose and you don't play well.

You don't show up. They escape Monday. Yeah, you lose 5-0 and you're on the line again. And what they said was the first couple times, you're kind of like, what the hell is going on? But then, after the first couple times, you almost come to enjoy it where you're looking forward to the work. You've earned it. Absolutely. Because when you're on the top of the mountain, it's much harder to stay there than it is to get there.

Where did you come up with that idea? I don't know. You never sat at a practice and saw it? No. No, I don't. You didn't read a book and go, oh, that's kind of interesting. No. I hated bag skating.

I hated doing those things. You try to be more creative now in terms of like, you never want to waste the ice. ice or do any of those things. But to me, there's never a substitute for skating. You can be in the greatest shape you want in the gym, but there's never a substitute for skating, especially when you're skating as a group and everybody feels like they're going to throw up. So, yeah, I didn't, I was never going to use, well, I guess maybe that's a lie.

When I first started coaching, I did it the same way that it was done to me. I used skating as a punishment. didn't work and the kids didn't learn. So I actually, I don't know where, uh, where, what it came from, but, okay, this isn't working. That's completely flip it on its head. So we will only skate when we win. It's very, very unique tick, honestly.

It, uh, it gets guys think it gets me thinking, right? Um, I remember my 19 year old year and junior, you were like, I think it would finish the season like 42 and, 10 or something. Like, we're one of the top teams. Real good. We went on a five-game losing streak. When you think about that, like, when you only lose 10 games all season, like, and every week we got bag skated. Harder and harder and harder. And after the last fifth game, our assistant captain, Dale Logel, from a Wayburn,

way skated up to a coach at the start-up. Like, I mean, we're all dreading it. Like, I'm dreading with this practice because I know we're about to get skated for an hour and a half straight and yelled at and whatever. And I don't know the exact words he said, but he said something along the lines of, I think we need to have a fun practice. I think the boys are a little while in tight. And we didn't skate. And you could see the surprise on everybody's mind or eyes, right?

And then we finished the season off like, you know, 15 and 2 or whatever it was. But we didn't want on to win the next like five or six games. Like it just flipped his head and everybody went back to, oh, we're a good team again. Yeah, like if you, so we hear the stories. And it happened to me once in Junior B, I think. go in BC somewhere and we lost heavily. I think it was in Sanich or something. We have a two and a half hour ride home.

You know, it's only minus 10 there, which is minus 40 here. But leave your equipment on. You ride the bus. Now you're sweaty, you're cold. You're miserable. Yeah. And I think maybe that might have been reflecting on those things. And then it's a skate when we get home.

I think it's much easier to push people when they're having success. It's very difficult to. to, you know, someone's failing and they've already lost, and they're not having success to keep piling it on, piling it on, piling it on. So that's why our teams, or the teams that I've been a part of, when we're having success, we push harder.

Our expectations are higher. The habits are hammered even more. We work harder in the gym. We work harder on the ice. It just, it becomes a lot easier to push them harder because their frame of mind as a player is where I'm assessed. I scored three goals. We won 10 in a row, you know, whatever it is.

And keep pushing, keep pushing. keep pushing i think that becomes i think you're kind of um doing something pretty detrimental if you're losing and then like the game isn't fun i'm dreading practice i don't want to be here i don't want to work i'm looking forward to this being over um i think it becomes a lot easier to do that when you're in the frame of mind of you know like we're having success we're happy you know kind is bringing you down a notch and i think the opposite needs to happen when you're down a notch you need to find a way like your assistant captain did. Let's bring us up a notch. Let's make this game fun again.

Let's remember why we're here and understand that it is a game. Pardon the interruption. Here is your IHD innovative question of the week. Tapper talks about if he could work with one player, who would it be? It's pretty simple. Send me that answer and you're entered 10 times for, I got one more bottle. So let's give away the last bottle of Pink Whitney. All you got to do is send me.

the answer to either Sean Newman Podcast at gmail.com or hit me up Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and you'll be entered 10 times. Check out to social media to get extra entries. All right. Now back to the show. That's really cool.

You just don't hear... Well, I can safely say I've never heard that before. I've never heard of we skate when we went. That is like a complete outlier. Like you said, you flip a script. It's like completely. opposite of what 99% of teams do. Yeah. Well, think about it, if you're winning,

then teams are circling your team on the calendar. Let's say you're the Brooks Bandits in the Alberta Junior Hockey League. You're going to get everybody's best every single night because they know if they don't show up. They're going to get their clock cleaned. So the other side of that happens, too. If you are on that team that's 15 and 0, right, you start to look at the schedule for easy games, whatever.

So if you're constantly pushing them in practice, practice harder than, you know, the games are ever going to be, then they're already dialed, like steel sharp and steel. So it becomes that much, you know, harder to take a step back because you've invested so much. That's just some of the thought behind it. Not sure it works all the time, but. Well, you've had decent success. Have you not?

Right? You know, when you talk to guys, I mean, Lynn and Springer and King Morrison, you mentioned them, them guys come right to mine because we sat and talked about you for a while. But there's other guys who've talked to me about you that all say the same thing, right? Like he has a very unique way of handling practices, team, everything about a, and there are relatively no bad words or said about you from players standpoint on how you handled the team and how your teams play, right? Actually, most say you have a very unique perspective on the game.

Well, I've seen it firsthand, right? Just curious that you didn't, you just sat and watched a game then and slowly deadest. Well, like, are you talking like the tactics side? Are we still talking about the mental side? No, no, I'll switch to the tactics because I've heard about tactics too on how your outlook on how to constantly evolve as a team so that no team can pin you down. And what I mean by that is I've heard first period you come out and you do, I don't know,

let's call one two two, right? You're very defensive. Next period you come out and now you're running the hardest forechecked ever. So it keeps your opponent constantly. off guard and not knowing what's coming at them. So it's a simple philosophy, honestly. I'm never attacking the players on the other team. I'm always trying to attack the other coach.

So when I was doing junior, you have the access to a lot of video. So you could go through video, you watch three, four games versus, you know, opponents that are similar to you, opponents that are different than you, and you look to see which coaches will adjust, when will they adjust, what are their adjustments, where do they adjust to? and then we just make sure that we're two steps ahead and then we're always doing something that they haven't seen. So create a state of chaos on their bench.

Are they going to adjust on the fly? Are they waiting for the intermission? And then if they do, if we show them one thing in the first and we already know what their adjustment's going to be, we're a step ahead. We've practiced it. We've talked about it as part of our pregame. Here's what's going to happen in period one.

Here's what they'll do. Period two, they'll switch to this. And what gives the players an element of confidence where they start looking back are like, how do you know? How do you know? And it just through preparation, hours and hours of preparation, that's at the junior level. At the minor hockey level, we just prey on tendencies. So, you know, anyone that watches our teams play or have ever played is we try to make teams make the hardest play under pressure.

So, for example, in breakouts, we're always going to take the wall away. We're going to take the, you know, traditional Canadian breakout. You go to the wall, you chip to the center with speed and you're off. Well, we make sure you cannot have that play. Anything else you can have, but you cannot have that. play. We try to show them things that teams have never seen before. So if you watch the NHL or the Western Hockey League, everyone's doing a form of the one three one power play. That's right. So if you're a coach, you go through team after team after team. Everyone has

their own variation, but it's still the same. So your variation that you may have used three months ago with this team and now another team's doing something similar, you can reference that to your guys, you can go back to the video, hey, remember when we do this, remember we do that but if we got four guys high on the blue line on the power play who are you going to send up there we've never seen this before so all you're looking for on special teams is to get one or two and by time they make the adjustment you've already got what you need so um i was always trying to attack coaches now i don't have the playing pedigree i wanted to coach in the nchl i don't have the playing pedigree of you know a sheldon keef or a mike babcock or you know a sutter or any of these guys so

I always thought from a young age that I had to be different. So I'd always try to create and innovate things that I hadn't seen. That's a lot of time trial and error, whiteboard, watching hockey, looking for tendencies, looking for certain things that specific players are always doing or that certain coaches are doing. And when you watch the NHL and when you watch the Western Hockey League, which we're the most exposed to, you can kind of, you see the same game over and over with everybody, you just change the players and the Jersey colors.

So for me, I see an avenue there where if you're just a little bit different, a little bit outside the box, you put pressure on those coaches to prepare for you. And the moment you're on your heels and you're not on your toes, I think we have the advantage. So then is your next, your coach in Bannum AAA right now, correct? Yeah. So, you know, obviously the IHD stuff's gone really, really well. And, but, you know, I started out as a coach. I love both, but, you know, I really miss coaching.

I really miss having players for six to eight months. I think you can really make a difference. Getting for two to three months is great. You get them ready for the season and what have you, but then you're passing them off. And, you know, some coach may like or not like the thing that you just spent a month working on. And they may shut that down and, you know, certain players respond, you know, if you get in a great situation and things go well, then great.

but you know sometimes we'll work on stuff that that we believe is right and you know and the coach where they go to play didn't like what they saw so now you know they're bench for it um so getting on the bench and having you know three to four practices a week and getting to see them all the time and giving them the freedom in games to to try you can really influence a player absolutely way more well we've all had our good and bad influencers on those benches. Some of my best and worst coaches all came through. Wow, minor hockey. And let's be honest, I'm getting older. How old are you right now? 37, 38? We're an 82. What does that work out to? Well, you're five years older than me, so four years old are me. Come on. I can't even do

math. So you got to be 37. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we got a great team at IHD and we're doing great things, you know, across, you know, Lloyd, Alberta, uh, down, South. But, you know, I know our group knows and my wife knows that, you know, I think the calling, the bench is calling. So I'm actively pursuing. Coaching what level, junior? Yeah, I'm trying, yeah. I'm trying to get to the NHL like everybody else. You applied for the Oilers, Joe? Yeah, I sent him a letter. Yeah.

It's funny how the coaching fraternity works. You see how the same guys follow the same coaches it's you really need to know somebody to break in yeah it's not like you're not there's not a job posting per se so yeah no i'm actively pursuing a lot of different things it's got to be the right fit um you know i'm tied to this community i love this community um this is my home now um calgary doesn't feel like home lloyd does it's where my kids are is where my wife's from This is where my friends are. Yeah. So, boy, it'll always have a piece of my heart.

I think we'll always have a piece here. But, you know, yeah. One point you were assistant coach of the Bobcats, correct? Like, you've had your dabbles in the AJ. Yeah. Like you did old and you've done Bobcats. Yeah, so I actually started coaching Junior A and Olds at 23. So I was there 23 and 24 with Kevin Hasselberg.

Okay. We had lots of success there with a small market team. I ended up losing the cameras. when their heyday. Yeah, when they were the top team in all of Canada. So their Royal Bank year, we took them to six games in the second round.

And so we always ran into them, but we had some good teams there. And then I coached the Midsa AAA team when I first came to Lloyd for two years. Yeah. I had success there. And then jumped on when Brian Kern was here. So the colonel and I did a year together.

And I think we finished, well, we were top three. I thought maybe you had been close. post a second and then Gary Van Harroway the year after we went in the second round on the playoffs there as well so so I got to ask a dumb question because I don't know the answer this so is it that you saw bigger fruit with IHD and pursuing developing players or it was a it was a time where I had a one-year-old right and and I love chasing the dream and I go anywhere for any amount of money if I made $20,

an hour I was going to have hot dogs and craft dinner every night. Funny how that doesn't work when you get a wife and kids to go home to. I know all about that. And then if I was going to get $200 an hour at the greatest job, then I'd have a steak and caviar. But chasing the dream became a lot more difficult when I

had mouse to feed. So I need to figure out something that was a little more secure than coaching, yet was still close enough. So we did it a little bit. I was coaching Junior A when Charlie was, you know, a newborn and a one-year-old. And then it becomes a lot tougher when, you know, you're living in an apartment behind Pizza Hut.

And you're running out of room and you only got so much money in your bank account. So, you know, we kind of always been doing the development stuff. Like I remember when I first moved to Lloyd, I was driving to Calgary every day for clients for sessions. I had clients at 4 o'clock 4-07 every day. And then I'd ice in Coward at 7 a.m. I got to think about that for a second. So you're telling me you drove, you had ice at 7 a.m. and Lloyd, train guys.

Then hop in your vehicle, drive to Calgary. Yeah, to get there for the 4 o'clock session, 4 till 6, 4 to 7. Because I just, when I first moved to Lloyd, then my clientele was based on a Calgary because I was in Calgary Olds. Right. So, you know, a lot of our, you know, our higher-end guys there who would create a connection with. You know, I wasn't willing to let them go and they didn't want me to. go so I said you know I did it for a year but that was as long as that lasted between you know

eating those haggard subs in the on the road at two o'clock in the morning you must have done the math at some point went like I wasn't making any money you're driving you're driving 10 plus hours in a day even if you sped you were driving 10 plus hours in a day to make peanuts yeah I'd get home so off the ice at seven sometimes I'd have a nap before the session or after and then getting home so I was always home around midnight one, two, depending there, and then back up for seven, and then by time I left Lloyd, so whether I'd have a nap before I left or whatever, I just had to be in Calgary by 4 o'clock.

So I did that for a while. That's rough. I mean, that's dedication, right? You know what? I love driving, and anyone that knows me knows, like when we do a family trip, my mom lives in Cranbrook, and, you know, that's a thousand kilometers away. We'll leave here at 7 o'clock at night and pack the kids.

And everyone's straight out, drive through the night, at, you know, five o'clock in the morning. I music off, the silence, and, you know, I'm a thinker. And that's what drew me to coaching. And kind of why I love football so much is, you know, I love, I love, you know, processing problems and seeing all the angles. And whether I'm, you know, talking about trying to motivate a player or a new forecheck or power play or, you know, trying to, trying to solve a problem.

I really enjoy the solitude. be alone time that the driving gave. So it sounds bad for people that don't like driving, but I actually didn't mind it. It gave me a lot of time to think and develop. Yeah, absolutely. I was going to ask, I knew you're a football guy. Do you watch other sports and bring in some of the philosophy and kind of cross-pollinate?

Yeah. If you watched our team's way we play with the puck, it look a lot like soccer. where we would rather go backwards with it than to give it up now depending on the age group yeah um you know that comes with a lot of risk uh that comes with a lot of um mistakes and big mistakes you know lots of breakways

and so on and so forth but the way the game is changing and the inability to um kind of impede the offensive player i think the best way to apply pressure to your opponent is to have the puck and, you know, that's what you see soccer. You don't see people dumping the ball in. They don't do that. Right.

So there's a little bit of that. I love lacrosse and basketball for... If we could just talk about the soccer for two seconds? Actually, I've never heard... When you think about it, hockey's... The physical, tough lovers of hockey hate it right now because it probably more resembles soccer at this point. Yeah, absolutely.

Big ice surface. You can't impede anything. If you touch a guy with any part, whether it's one hand on your stick, just tap and it's a penalty. Hmm. That's an interesting thought. Sorry, lacrosse. Yeah, lacrosse. I go to lacrosse for a lot of power play stuff.

Just because, you know, there's a lot of the picks and the movement and kind of the set plays, yet you still need to improvise, which I see a lot of similarities in the hockey. I never played lacrosse. But, you know, I've watched it. Same thing with basketball. you see a lot of set plays like that that kind of resemble face-off, face-off plays,

face-off ideas. And the thing about basketball is, you know, a lot of things are driven through the best player and everyone knows who's getting the ball and still having ways to, A, get that person open

and B, how do I defend? And how do I defend that person? Be no different than, you know, how can we, everyone knows we want to get Conner McDavid the puck. But how do we do it? Yeah. How do we do it so we allow him to be, Connor McDavid. How do we do it? So we allow

Kauai to be Kauai. So yeah, absolutely. When you talk about going to other sports for sure. Well, I found it interesting. You said the coolest persons that people that have influenced your life was John Gruden and Bill Belichick, two coaches of the NFL.

Yeah, I'm a well, there's other guys in there. There's hockey guys. I'm sure, yeah. I really like Barry Trots. I was a Bapcock guy, John Tortorella. Your tortsman. Yeah, for different reasons.

Yeah, if you read any of Bill Belichick's books, and I've read quite a few of them, just about culture and making the game as simple as possible, focusing on the minute details and habits. And, you know, you take care of the habits, the habits will take care of you. And I think as coaches, we lose track of we always are seeing the bigger picture. We're being, you know, reactive instead of proactive.

and Bill Belichick does, obviously, has done a phenomenal job at, you know, building that culture and allowing guys to focus on the little details. Because what happens when you look after those little details, you're not sitting in the locker room going, you know, I hope I'm going to be good today, I hope I'm going to be good today, I hope I need to be good today. You go, I know I'm going to be good today. I've done all the work. Now I just get to go play.

And that's why you see the Patriots play faster. They always seem like they're a step ahead. And yet they don't have the talent. that everyone else has because they've been picking in the bottom 30s for the last 15 years. So imagine Lamar Jackson or Aaron Donald or some of these guys were on that team. We kind of got a glimpse of what could be years ago when they picked up like Randy Moss and then Brady had one of those superstars to throw the ball to. 50 plus touchdowns. Right.

Yeah, broke the records. Right. Yeah. So I look up to those guys. I love John Gruden embracing the grind. He loves his job, like up at 4 o'clock in the morning, three hours for anyone gets there doing video, and then they're to sleeping in his office.

Like he just, he loves the process. He's fallen in love with the process, and that's something that I really love. Like, games are fun, but because you get to see kind of the fruits of your labor. But I love the process. I love the grind. I have no problem putting in 2020. two-hour days doing, you know, game planning, video, you know, how am I going to motivate this guy?

What's the, you know, what's the next line combination? What's the next thing to come up with? Like, I love the grind. So when you send me that questionnaire, those are the first two guys that came to mind. I want to, I try to be like Bill Belichick, but I kind of, you know, I got a soft spot for John Gurdon. And like I mentioned some of the hockey guys before. Yeah. You obviously love what you do, right?

So it doesn't feel, you know, I point out like, holy crap, that's dedication to drive 10 hours, right? But then I just try and translate it to what I'm doing with this, right? Mm-hmm. Like it. Everybody, one of the questions you've asked and 100 people have asked is like, like, how much time does it take to put out an episode or how much editing do you do? Like, that's got to be tiring. The crazy thing about it is, is it is not. Yeah, there is no clock.

No, the clock. You just go. Where'd the time go? And it's almost to the point where you just like giddy once you're done. I don't know how better to put it than that, right? You're energized. And so I get it. I just, for me, it's never been coaching.

I listen to you to talk. I find it fascinating. But I can't imagine being like that involved. Maybe when I'm done playing, it'll be that, right? Because you want to still be involved. To me, I think it's the key to life, whether it's a podcast, gardening, hockey coaching, you know, running a lumber yard, building a table. you know find something you do or can do that you puts a smile on your face when you go to bed and you wake up with a smile on your face and you know if for me it was simple i was never driven financially um you know i just started traveling for the first time two years ago um i always i think this probably comes back from my childhood dealing with the yelling and the screaming in the house and the complaining about the work and the job and

and you know all the negativity that came i think from a very young age i was i was kind of taught or nurtured into the fact of i'm going to do something i enjoy i'm going to do something that makes me happy and however much i make i make and that'll be the life i live but i'm not going to decide who i am based on money now those are kind of naive comments until you have children because i did the same thing i tried to stay as close to it as possible but yeah and so for you you found that with the podcast and you know for my mom she finds that with cooking and you know for my wife she finds that with hair and and clothing everyone's got their thing and i was just lucky enough to find mine young enough i guess no it's such a well-put point right

you find something that wakes you up in the morning it's easy to put the clothes on and go do the work and the work never feels like work ever yeah you asked me my time i had to get up this morning i was like but i was up before the alarm yeah right because it's you know let's go let's go teach let's go do what we do i actually i'm i'm uh i'm poor with consistency i'm uh it's hard to do the same thing over and over and over again except for when it comes to this i think i'm at week well started at february first week of february what are we at last week of november i haven't missed a week It's almost the easiest thing to be consistent in that, which is crazy.

Because I always have struggled with consistency through life, following the same thing, week in, week out. We're becoming mundane and repetitive. That's right. I think any of us, I think that's something I learned, too. Like, my mom worked at co-op from the time she was 18 until the time, well, she retired at 50, whatever it was. And, you know, she eventually went from a cashier to then working in the office and invoicing. and, you know, making, you know, peanuts. And I can't imagine, and I had to listen to her about, you know,

you filing the same papers just with different names for years and over. And then trying to live your life on the weekends or on your holidays. And, yeah, I, yeah, I guess I was trained from a young age to, I think often we try to do the opposite. So that's what I tried to do. How about your most memorable lesson? Actually, you've had this comment on the podcast a couple times, but I was curious where you learned it from or if it was written down, you read it,

but what you do in the dark shows up in the line. Yeah, that's something that, you know, I've kind of, it was kind of one of the first things I came across, and I was kind of a saying that resonated with me, and I think it was my life in a nutshell. And I try to send that message to all of our players is, you know, what you do when no one's watching is who you really are. What you do when no one's holding you accountable, when no one's looking over your shoulder where there's no repercussions, that's who you are. What you do when people are watching or when the light is on, that's not you.

But we all want to be great in pressure situations. we're talking about sport right now, but whether it's an interview or, you know, a sales pitch or whatever it is, if you've done the work in the dark, then you have that level of confidence and expectation that you're going to succeed in the light when that spotlight's on. And we just translate it to hockey.

You know, do the work when no one's watching and the work will take care of you when the spotlight is shining its brightest. And yeah, it's really that simple. instead of sitting there before the interview or before the game going, I want to be good today. I need to be good today. Oh, my God.

Please be good today. Like hope. And I rolled my sock this way and I ate this breakfast. Because one time I had success and I did it. Right. But that's all mental. That's all mental. If you've dotted all the eyes and cross all the T's before you got there,

there's a level of confidence. And you can see it in someone that's pitching something or presenting something. or when we talk about sport, when you get to play fast and loose, if you know you've done the work, you know, game seven, Stanley Cup final, Tulles Cup, you know, Royal Bank Cup, whatever it is, Super Bowl. You know, there's a level of confidence that comes with that. Well, who's the coach that says when the pressure's on, you fall back to your highest level of training?

I don't know, but that's a good one. And what he's talking about, what you're exactly saying, is if you do the preparation, I hear preparation from a coaching aspect and while you think about work, everything like that, your confidence is built off of understanding the problems or essentially having all the preparation work put up there. So you fall back to what you know,

and what you know is what you've done, right? So if you've done all the work, then you know, and set it out. Yeah, like when I was a player, you know, just like a lot of players I work with, you know, if we had to stop on the line, I stopped two inches short of the line, right? You know, I needed the extra, but the only one that knows you're cheating is you.

Yeah, isn't that the truth? Like, did you give it your absolute all? No one knows that because we all have different ways of faking it. You know, we move our arms faster, or we huff and puff a little bit more, just to fool the person that's watching. But lying to yourself. The only one that knows if you did absolutely every rep in the bench press or, you know, the ab workout, or if you gave it all when you ran that mile,

is you and and it's a dangerous thing to do to lie to yourself absolutely and when when no one's watching right and no one's holding accountable when no one's keeping score when there's nothing on the line that's when you find out who you really are and how bad do you really want it we say we want it and this is a good one or a good video when you want it as bad as you want to breathe that's when you know you're going to be successful and if you've ever been out of breath right at asthma attack or almost drowning or whatever, all everything goes out the window. All you're focused on is the simplest of things and that's getting oxygen. So we try to send that message to our players as much as we can.

I've got to say this has been really enjoyable, haven't you on? What else you're supposed to say? I'm the only one sitting here. No, no, fuck that. Honestly, I enjoy, true, I enjoy doing this. So it doesn't matter if I got a tin can across for me. everybody who knows me and they're probably chuckling right now. I love to talk.

I sit here and talk for 10 hours. But it's always highly engaging for me when there's something that's very interesting to come back across, right? And, you know, for people who've listened to this podcast, lots of times we just tell a life story and some cool stories along the way and there's some interesting stuff. But some of the stuff you're talking about is just very thought-provoking. And anytime you have something that's thought-provoking, that's engaging for me. and engagement is enjoyable, right? I think about a hockey practice. I said this since I was probably, well, I'm probably midget at least.

If you do the same five drills every practice, by practice number three, my brain is checked out because I can do it in my sleep and I don't care anymore. And I always love a coach who shows up with a new drill or something to make us think. And it may be sloppy the first time, but it's, I mean, you can go to the NHL level. you give them a new drill with lots of complication, they're probably going to struggle the first couple times too because it's teaching new things. But if you stop teaching new things,

then you stop thinking. Once you stop thinking, it is mundane and you lose all the effort, right? Because it's hard to give 100% effort when it's just like, and we're going to do this, and we're going to pass there. I find it really intriguing,

just lots of stuff you've talked about today. And that's really engaging. Well, the key word you mentioned, you just said it again as engagement, and that's what leadership is, whether we're teaching hockey, we're teaching math, we're teaching how to build this table. Whoever you are teaching or whoever you're leading,

you need them to be engaged. You need them to be all in. So you need to figure out what is that that's going to captivate that person. And for you, it's different than the next guy and on to the next guy. And that's absolutely it. Whether you can find that yourself, and that comes from inside or the people that you're working with, when you can make it engaging and make it exciting

and make it something that you want to do, So that's when you truly can reach your potential. So, yeah, I think you nailed it there with engagement. That's cool. Well, our last segment of this, before I let you go, is the Final Five, which is brought to us by a crewmaster transport. Oh, we've been going for an hour and, I don't know, almost an hour and a half. Wow.

I mean, an hour and, I don't know, what is that, 27 minutes, maybe, something like that. I don't want to hold you here for three hours. That's why we can always do part two if we need to, right? If listeners cry out and they say we need more Kyle Tap or Kyle, what's your... Hashy. Hashy. Tap.

Yeah, Hashy Tap. Yeah. It's funny, a lot of people don't know that because I get a question all the time. Because there's a really good female goaltender is actually making big headway in the female game. Amanda Tap who, Team Canada, whatever. Okay. I'm like, I've actually met her and she asked if we were related. I'm like, no.

No. I don't even know. the taps. So I have no idea who they are. I just have their name. Well, last segment I always do with guys is the Final Five, brought to us by Crude Master, always a huge showt out to Heath and Tracy McDonald, huge supporters of the podcast that bring this segment on. And it's five questions to, they're little, they can be, well, I've had guys who have made them as light as possible or as deep as possible. So see where you go. So the first question is, if you can be drafted by one sports organization, does not need to be hockey, does not to be a major sport, just one sports

organization tomorrow Kyle Tapp is going there and it can be for you it could be their coach for all I care their GM or their star forward whatever you want what organization would you want to go to oh my god

like it's two for me it's two parts to play okay let's start with play um I would love to play for the Boston Red Sox or the Toronto Blue Jays baseball is near and dear to me as

as a player It's probably the sport I was the best at. Okay. So there. What position did you play in ball? Pitch and center field, shortstop, center field pitcher. I should play for the Jays when I first came back. I haven't played since I was 12.

And I got to play with Colby Field and Clay Nirmal and those guys for a few years. They let me strike out a few times and throw a few pitches, but it was a lot of fun. A little different pace than hockey, too. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. I love ball. And then the coaching side, like obviously I'm a huge NFL guy, but I don't have near the knowledge to even enter into that world or the size or strength to play. So I probably have to go back to hockey.

And I would want one of the original six teams and probably Toronto or Montreal. I love pressure. The more pressure, the better. I think pressure brings out the best in you and allows you to push through the toughest days. or Calgary or Edmonton, any of the Canadian cities. Markets, especially in today's world, all the social media and everything else. Yeah, I think that's the biggest hindrance that those teams have from success is just the overwhelming pressure on every little minute detail because we're Canadian and it's hockey. It becomes a difficult pressure cooker in which to perform in as a player and then to coach, because you're all.

often second-guessing yourself because of all the opinions that are out there. But if I'd pick, that'd be it. If you could work with one player, who would it be? Connor McDavid. Connor McDavid. Yeah. And actually, a lot of people that are close to me, know that I've been hard on Connor McDavid for a while.

Because? Well, I believe he's the most talented player we've ever seen. Don't get that wrong. But I believe his style of play all the way from junior and on is he's been allowed to do things a certain way that aren't conducive to team success. I actually sent a text out about a week ago. I can't remember who they were playing a goal he scored where he stripped a guy defensively

and then does what he did. I think that guy went on the ice and I think Tippett's starting to get it out of him and now you see the Oilers are what they are. When he's on the ice, nothing should happen for the other team defensively because he's that fast, he's that good, he's that smart. and if he can round out his game similar to, you know,

Sidney Crosby had to do and Jonathan Taves and Patrick Kane had to do to bring championships, I don't think you can stop the Oilers. And then there's some scoring things. I like see him shoot the puck a little bit differently. He uses hands in his feet and his God-given gifts to hide his release a little bit. And, you know, guy's pretty special. So that'd be won. Have you ever been on the ice for them?

Nope, no. I haven't. He does all this stuff out in Toronto. and you know I haven't been out to Toronto so if you could take a time machine oh god and go anywhere where would you go I'm I'm fascinated with World War II like I'm big in the psychology and I could not imagine being on the beaches in Normandy I could not imagine that that feeling the the drive up to that beach we remember the first scene in saving private Ryan like I and I think it's a it's an event that you know obviously has shaped who we are and what we are today in a big way but yeah I'm

I'm big on human resilience and the power the human mind and what we're capable of pushing ourselves to and through so you know it was obviously it was horrific and in the amount that was lost but that that moment in time has always fascinated me but now if we're talking about sport oh god uh joe carter's walk off home run or you know the patriots come back against the alana falcons there's there's a ton of sports memories they'd just be cool to be in the building for yeah i was in the building game six stanley cup final flames and lightning when jeline scored that goal we didn't have the benefit of instant replay i i got snuck into that building is about a thousand of us standing room only the cup was in calgary and in calgary and being a local

calgary on the red mile that would have been cool but you know it didn't happen what would be yours if you had a time machine hmm you ask the question all the time yeah if you're talking sports I like perseverance So I just I just I never I wasn't old enough

To know about it But like when the Dodgers Win and Frick I'm forgetting the name Kirk Gibson Yes Like that story is unreal Really?

Yeah it's freaking cool Okay No You make fun of me No I just Surprising Yeah out of left field Well I didn't know about it

Until The last brother's roundtable We got to talk about Kirk Gibson, and I heard the story, and then I had to go look it up, and I'm like, holy, that's pretty surreal.

Yeah. Another baseball one is the Red Sox, right? Like, coming back. The curse of the Bambino. Right? Like, that's cool. To be in the building when the Cubs finally break.

Like, I love the droughts, right? Winnipeg Bombers just ended the longest drought in CFL history. What was it? 20. Not a big CFL guy. I know you're not, but it was. I want to say it was 29 years, 28 years, somewhere in that ballpark. And to be a diehard fan and to have gone for the Cubs 100 plus, I can't even, like, you imagine that?

Well, you know what? I've always thought, like, the same thing. But then, then what? I don't know. Then you won. What do you do the next day? You're no longer, you know, the Sori Cubs fan or the, or the Sory. But you say the sorry, I think you parted your freaking ass on.

And then what? What do you do next season? Well, you enjoy it for a couple days, that's for sure, right? No, those are cool. Like, yeah, any of the perseverance, we all love the underdog story, right? Yeah. We all do. I think that Raptors Run was pretty cool, too.

Raptors Run was fun to watch. Yeah, being the only. You know, everybody hates on, to go, LeBron James, everybody hates on him. But to watch him winning Cleveland, I thought was special, right? That's cool. Right? Against a super club. What about Tiger Woods?

coming back from the injury. Yeah, that gallery, walking behind him. That would have been unreal to be a part of. Like, watch the mob go behind them. Or be in the mob. What is going on right now?

Have you ever seen anything like that? No, and I don't think any of those golfers. You see Rory. I think it was Rory that was playing that hole with him. Was it Rory? Started to run ahead, like almost was scared.

Like, what is going on? I got to get out of here. Like, this is mayhem. Yeah, it was cool. And I think that's the one thing that we love about sport is it relates to everybody. there's there's at some point in your life you've been the underdog or you've been underestimated or or you've had unreal expectations that you had to meet and I think

that's what translates with everybody that's why we love sports so much and and music um music makes us feel so who's your who's your uh who's your uh go to right now in the music set it was Steve Earl what I mean by the okay Steve Earl yeah Steve Earl guitar town but um no I think like Post Malone doing a lot of good things I like you know what I don't have a genre of music I like it all anything that makes me want to tap my feet

or get up and dance or anything that sucks emotion out of you right or brings emotion I not sucks out but brings a lot of the you know the old blues stuff and you know like Matt King Cole and things like that like it just anything that makes me feel or unique voice or

I don't know how much if it's auto-tuned or not but yeah what's your favorite instrument to uh to have in a song oh god i don't even know guitar probably i'm a piano guy i love when they little piano just a little bit of piano a little leach of keys a little elton john yeah like billy jol i don't know and i assume it my grandmother used to play the piano used to have a player piano and that's so you could pump the

pedals and then it would play itself and she was a lovely piano player I just remember as a kid going over and listening to her and play the piano. This is awesome. So anytime there's just a little piano in there, it's fantastic. What's your favorite song? Favorite song? I don't know. I'm like you.

I like... Mine's still Guitar Town by Steve Earl. I just love music. So I remember when I only got one tattoo. When I get it done here in town at Skinny's, one of the coolest things he was just like, he played music, right? and it's me and him went on this like rabbit hole of YouTube going down and I think the first song I played if I remember correct was uh Neil young oh and I can't even remember what the song was maybe Harvest Moon or something along that line just like a really chill song we just went down

this rabbit hole of like cool old school music I just love music don't get me going we'll get going here on music for a long time dim the lights and I just I don't know I loved it right like I don't need, but on the flip side, everyone's like, oh, Neil Young, right, or whatever. I get bugged all the time about cold play. I like a little cold play. But at the same time, we were just on, my brother had his 40th birthday. And they got into ACDC and, I don't know, just like firing up tonight. I don't love that too, right?

You talk about white rappers, sure. Have you seen the Queen movie? Yeah, it was fantastic. Yeah. How awesome was that guy? Yeah, unbelievable. Yeah. Right, their music is timeless.

And it's sad that, you know, artists like himself and then on the hip-hop side, Tupac and Biggie, and he wonder what our music scene would look like today if those people were still alive. We're still with us. Yeah. Yeah. Because, like I said, for, like, music sticks with everybody. Everyone likes music. Maybe not all the same, but everyone has, you know, something musically that they enjoy.

So, talk about a talent. Talk about a way to captivate and engage in. And then people. You know, the coolest instrument I've ever seen played. You ever seen a harp played? No. Was there a harp on the never-ending story? Do you remember that movie?

Oh, God. I can't remember. No, I don't know. I thought there was. I thought there was like a magical harp. That's the only thing I know about a harp. And that angels play them. When I was first dating my wife now,

but we were in Ashland, Wisconsin. It was New Year's and I was going to take her out for a nice meal. But I didn't have a pot to piss in. I was broke. But you had a hot. heart walked into this this nice little fifth street fifth street bistro like this tiny little hole in the wall restaurant we've gone there a couple times right you know 40 bucks and gets you a nice meal walked in on new year's and uh we were out class like i mean they had a harp player that's like

i mean they'd brought in and uh it was like i don't know 50 dollars a plate kind of thing night and i was like uh crap and mel god bless her heart was kind of like ah crap we're in in the wrong scene right now. And so we looked down the menu and picked the cheapest thing on there, ordered two of them, and sat and watched a lady play the harp. And that was just like, I still can remember. I was just like, that is like so cool.

Yeah. But we got out of there as quickly as possible. So do you like the way the harp sounds or do you like to watch people play? I like to watch people play it. I mean, I like the way it sounds, I guess, but like their hands going across, like the way they do it is just mesmerizing. It is. It's funny.

I have the exact same story. story. So like I said, I just started traveling about a few years ago. So my wife took me to, Kayla took me to Las Vegas. And you always see the Bellagio and the fountains and movies and whatever. So I want to go there. And it was like, okay, I'm going to do something special. So we're going to go to the show Absinthe.

I don't know if you ever been to that. And then. I've never been to Vegas. Oh, really? One of my buddies told me that there's some really cool restaurants on the balcony at the Bellagio and you can watch the fountains and whatever. So I do this dinner reservation. I think I'm all, you know, suave and, you know, she's really going to be impressed, right?

And I should have known better. She should have known my wife and where she's from. And she's Salt of the Earth, Salt of the Earth family. So we get this steakhouse. And I tell the guy that seats us and I say, it's our anniversary. We're going to kind of hang out here for two or three hours. You know, we're kind of going to milk it. He's like, all good.

We had the first row on the balcony, on the water, whatever. And she looks at the menu. And I don't know if you ever eaten in Vegas, but some of it's like overly priced. And it's one of those steakhouses where you can only get one thing at a time. And I budgeted this is like the big event for the four days. And like this is, we're kind of spending our whole wad here. And, you know, it's like a, you know, like a $70 chicken breast and like a hundred and ten. She looks first off, she orders her drink.

And it's like a $24 martini. She didn't take a sip. And then I ordered a steak. And then she does the same thing. She goes, what's the cheapest thing? She orders a chicken breast. 20 minutes in she looks over to me

and she goes what are we doing here like this this is not I'm like oh we're going to enjoy it it's romantic and we look at the fountains and the sun is setting we're going to go to a show and needless to say we were there 20 minutes

we didn't eat anything we ordered it we put it into go boxes and then we walked around the strip and we carried this food around until 3 o'clock in the morning this expensive to go container and God bless her heart because she was like, you could have taken me to Burger King.

It's right there. Why are we here? I'm trying to do something nice for you on. Trying to. And I'm a bit of a foodie. So I wanted to see because you always hear those things. And it was good. But I guess I learned my lesson.

It's Vegas. So you're paying the Vegas dollar. But it's funny that you bring that up because she was the exact same way. She's like, this is ridiculous. Let's get out of here. Back to the questions. Yeah, sorry. If you could party with one celebrity.

Oh, my God. Who would you pick? Oh. Like, to party with or to get to talk to? Because I think those are, like, to share a beer with someone and get to pick their brain. I think it's completely different than going off and being ridiculous. So let's, I always have, I interchange with two questions, actually. One is sit down and have a coffee with, one is party with.

What would you prefer? I'm not a big partier. Okay. So sit and have a coffee or a drink with? Yeah, it has to be probably someone like Bill Belichick, even a guy like Kyle Dubus. Some of the young guys coming up in our game that are highly into the analytics. But I'd probably say John Gruden, just because I think Bill would be a little too dry. right and Alwyrton would be a little colorful yeah and but I would love I'd love to do

coffee with Bill or be a fly on the wall and watch him work but probably John Gruden I'd say because it's just probably a little more colorful like you said to party with celebrity to party with I think Christiana Ronaldo has a lot of fun do you know who that is Yes, I know who that is. I didn't see that answer coming. No. Yeah, imagine being, like, soccer's the most popular game in the world. Absolutely.

And he's the most popular soccer player in the world. And he lives probably a life that none of us could imagine when it comes to, like, we talk about living in Edmonton and not being able to go out anywhere. What if you're him? Can you go anywhere? Probably Canada. Maybe. Tiger Woods.

I always love soccer because as a parent now, you go, like, how much money do you have to spend to play soccer? Right. Isn't that the truth? You need a pair of shoes. You need a pair of shoes. And, I mean, sure, and a ball. Yeah. But, I mean, you need one ball, and, I mean, unless somebody pokes a hole in it.

Like, that thing. last a long time. Yeah. You go to the outdoor rink once, you can lose one puck in an instant. Never find the stinking thing again. A lot of the pucks are super expensive by any means, but you know what I mean? Just to get on the ice and play, it costs a lot of money. I always wonder how much talent the game of hockey loses just because it's not the most accessible sport, even in Canada.

I was trying to, we've talked to our little group there at IHD about doing, remember the show, pros versus Joe's. Yes. We talked about doing, so I'm a firm believer that hockey players are the most athletic of all the sports where you always hear stories of a hockey player being good at volleyball, being good at basketball, badminton, they're good golfers, they can play baseball, they do all those things. I think just the act of skating itself is what separates because all those other sports are played on your feet. So we've talked about, you know, when you throw $1,000 in a pool, anybody wants to go to see who the best athlete is,

we play all 10 sports. Like we can even throw curling in there. You can throw on darts, pool, whatever. And we kind of have this point system. And you get a lot of a certain amount of points, depending on where you finish in each sport. And just seeing, and you invite basketball players. You invite baseball players.

Like imagine Tiger Woods, LeBron James, Connor McDavid, Christiano Ronaldo, you know, whoever else I might be missing from any other sport. Imagine they played 10 sports. It's like basically anything you could find at the Olympics, summer or winter. It would be interesting to see which athlete would win. I just want to be the guy who got to record it all. Because wouldn't that just be fun to be a fly on the wall?

So here's what we do. We start it here in Lloyd first. We do it. Pick the top guy off the men's basketball team and one of the top. You could do that, but even amongst your own friends and your own brothers, and I know enough guys that are, you know, phenomenal. We all know those guys. Like, man, that guy's good at everything.

Jim Bourne comes to mind. Jim Bourne comes up on here an awful lot. I would have loved to have watched him play. You should see him swinging at golf club. I've heard this. Yeah, I play with him quite a bit. Ryan Rivett comes to mind. He's pretty good.

He's just a Jim Bourne on here. You should. Right? I've heard his story about how phenomenal athlete was. But we know, like, those players in every community that you're like, man, that guy is good at everything. Ambrose, Furcus, with us. He's good at everything. I always wonder.

So now, okay, so those... So we set up a pentathlon, call it, five events or whatever. So those guys all have hockey in common, but, you know, like Chris King. Yeah, Chris King. I was just talking to him yesterday. He's a phenomenal baseball player, phenomenal basketball player. Like, there's a bunch of, you know, and we start with a little pool of guys. Who would you call it?

What would you call the champion of that? The ultimate athlete? Superman. I have no idea. The Superman challenge? Yeah. And you and I will be in it. We'll kind of keep up to your...

If I'm going to talk about it on a podcast, I've got to be in it and tell how people how awful of a swimmer I am. We broadcast it out on Facebook and we say, all right, we do one event a month. Everyone gets to train if they want for that event, right? We do one event a month. We keep score. It takes a whole year to do. So 12 events. That's what you're saying.

12 events. Yeah. Well, however many we can come up with. I know Lance always wants to do power lifting and whatever, but if you're not CrossFit or throwing weights around, that may be tough. But, yeah, well, you could make, yeah, you could. could maybe put in something like that, but think of the major sports. And I don't know how you test soccer, but I'm sure there's something to do with soccer, baseball, football.

Hockey. Hockey basketball. There's five. It's got to be an Olympic event. You got to have swimming in there. Got to have swimming. Ping pong, tennis. Ooh.

Do you have ping pong in there? Why wouldn't you? Well, no, I'm just saying, like, I love ping pong. It's an Olympic sport. Think about how many guys grew up with a ping pong table in the locker, and spent hours and hours. A freaking ton. I bet you if you went across hockey teams,

one of the favorite pastimes back in the day, and I don't know if it's still like this. Still is. Still is? Yep. Is ping pong. For sure. And having,

we always had the two leagues because you had your guys who were crap and you had to work your way up. And if you got to the top of that, you could relegate somebody from the top league. But in order to get in the top league, you had to be something special. And think, like we could call on guys like Dustin Falsher

to help us with the football stuff. And you call on, you know, I think it's flashers. The Chris King with the basketball. We could facilitate the hockey stuff. We got, and we have soccer programs. I don't mind this.

We get some sponsorship and we get to see. And then it starts here and then it grows and become something so much bigger. Because you always sit around as guys and have beers and talk about who would have been better at this, who would have been better at that. It's November right now. Could you pull off something starting in January? Yeah, I think so. With the power that you have with this podcast, we could make this happen. I mean, you're pumping my tires a little bit.

I'm very interested. This is something we've been talking about for a while inside the office when we got, you know, when we got some downtime. 12 events over 12 months and next Christmas you have whatever you call. And there's a leaderboard, so let's say you get. Oh, absolutely. We could have the leaderboard on the wall of the podcast. You get 10 points if you finish in first in that event all the way down to one. And then a cute, a very simple thing.

You got to have golf in there. well absolutely you gotta have golf i'm gonna have to go hit the uh let's golf bowling bowling i i know mike mackay who's really good at hockey is uh a fantastic bowler perfect game and he's a pretty good golfer we better not pump uh mike mckees too much i'll hear about it at practice oh you guys play the other yeah absolutely i coached him too yeah yeah that was uh the year he was with lenn and springer and all them guys wasn't i was actually looking at that roster i also coach them in the border kings oh yeah the kings Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so there's a lot of guys out there like that. This all started with an argument in our office, because we got the Young Buck, Ambrose, who's really good at most things. And then we have the ex-NHL guy, right? And then we, you know, we got me who likes to... So you're saying is part of this IHD would have to be a conglomerate of this because, I mean, at the end of the day,

it's coming out of year. To settle an argument, you'd have to be all part of this. Yeah, but there's guys. I remember a guy like Sean Coulter. Like he's, he's a good athlete. Yeah, he's good at lots of stuff. And there's a bunch of guys that I'm not naming. Is there a limit on how many guys can be a part of this?

No, but it's an entry fee. You've got to put your money where your mouth is, and that's the pot. How much are we charging to get in this? I don't know. 500,000. I was going to say it's got to be more than 100 bucks because any dummy can put in 100 bucks. 500,000. Who knows?

Maybe get some sponsorship. Winner takes percentage of the pot. We all know, and the people listening, although I know a few guys that. you know right yeah guys that are good at multiple things i like this so we have one final question which should have like we should have ended right there but we're going to do one final question because now my brain is going 11 million different ways here's the final question of the podcast all right if you could pick a final game of any major sport to go to oh my game seven world series stanley cup NBA finals the super bowl your

soccer, whatever you want it. Oh my God. Olympics, if you could go to one final game of anything, what would you choose? Super Bowl comes to mind, but those games usually aren't very good. Okay. Right? For whatever reason, like very rarely do we get an exciting Super Bowl? Usually the conference championships are better.

I, loving hockey, game seven, same thing happens there. those very rarely are going to overtime and what have you. Usually those games aren't great. I think the game, the sport, it's a team sport, yet it's isolated individual events, would be Game 7 of the World Series. Like, could you imagine being up to bat in front of 100,000 people plus all those people watching,

and like it's you, or throwing the pitch, or having a ground ball hit you, like, the amount of pressure and preparation and think. I don't know what you were like. Did you watch the J's run? And when they go in the run, they're like, oh, my God, I never jumped and screamed as much in my life. I think that would be pretty cool for nerves.

And then, you know, what about the World Cup final? The amount of hearts and souls that are riding on the kick of a ball. But again, it's, I don't know how interesting those games, have usually been. Usually in soccer, they're usually pretty tight. What will you? What would yours be? I'm going to be a World Series.

You hit it on the head. I think if you talk about the first round of any major sport, I love hockey. I think the first round. First round, it shows the parody of league. Every round. Well, everybody's got a chance. Everybody's got a chance. And we've seen it time after time.

So I don't think anything stands a chance compared to the NHL in the first round. It's unbelievable to watch. But if I were to pick out one sport that has the best finals, and I'd want to see the final game and it went the distance, baseball bar none. Here's a monkey wrench. What about 100 meter free in the Olympics or the 100 meter dash or the 400 meter? I hadn't thought of that. Maybe the 100 meter dash is too short.

Maybe you'd want to watch the 400 where it's a full lap, but like four years of training. Is you seeing Bolt a part of it? Well, no, that's not fair, is it? Let's go back to swimming. Do you like watching swimming at the Summer Olympics? Yeah, yeah, but when Phelps was a part of it, it was the same thing, right? True. That's what's lovely about, just think of baseball this year, right?

It's so fun to watch. And I'm a guy that I'll save this. Except for Bryce Harper. Me and the brothers, me and the brothers have this discussion all the time, right? The regular season we just had actually on our last roundtable, right? Like baseball, regular season, it doesn't even entertain me one Iota. Although if I need a good nap on the couch on a Sunday afternoon,

I flick on the Blue Jays and listen to Buck, sit there and he just serenades me to sleep. You can't get a better nap than that, right? But coming about the last, what is it, 15 games of the regular season, it starts to heat up, then you get the wild card games, oh, baby. And by the time Game 7 or the final World Series is going on, man, that is just entertainment. You can't get better than that.

Talk about a position of pressure being a manager in baseball. You're not teaching them how to catch and how to throw, and you may tweak some things as a hitting coach or more mental than anything, but you're literally managing human chess pieces. Well, and just think of the pitching changes, right? You're pulling out a guy to put in another guy because the stats say that against this, If that's if you're an analytical guy, you go with your hunch, do you go with the relationship you have with the player? Man, the slow burn of baseball in playoffs is just like just, you can just feel it, right?

You just feel it. You have to be into strategy though. And if you like action, right? And baseball you're saying isn't your thing. Yeah, I'm into strategy. I'm a big strategy guy, obviously. But yeah, people want action and it would probably be soccer, hockey, or something. movement at all times.

Yeah, but, you know, we all watch the baseball games and what would I do? Leave them in, take them out, switch hitter, right? And, yeah, all that pressure and build up leading to just a ball and a bat, a one-on-one in a team sport, which is what also fascinates me about the goaltending position in hockey, right? Team sport, yet you're kind of on your own here, the reason why we won or the reason why we lost. Yeah, well, we've been seeing. standing about the Oilers this year, right? They get better

goaltending because for a lot of years they didn't have great goaltending. Now maybe that's a defense front. Don't they have the same guy that played the last year? Kostkinen? Is he not outperforming Smith? And Smith? Is Koskin not outperforming Smith right now? Well, they've been winning.

His record's better. You can trace it all back to two things. Okay. I'm interested. Connor McDavid. Okay. And Dale Tippett able to get through to him and get him to play the right way, which may be the first time in Connor's career, someone's challenged them to, because it's a complete game changer and the culture.

So when you... And you're saying those two things affect... Everything. Everything. Look at Toronto. Right? It's as much about a feeling as it is about action when we talk about team sports, especially hockey, where the gray area is so fine and the inches between winning and losing

are so minute that it's a level of belief. And it's a sport where your best players need to be your best players kind of at all times. And Connor's always been the most talented player. He's always been able to put up the points. But at times he was risking too much team-wise, too many turnovers, too much pressure on Young D. Because they spend a lot more time in their end.

And a guy that has that skill and ability, if he commits to both ends of the rink and just commits to winning and not to points, I don't think he can stop the Oilers. I think they're a piece away from winning a Stanley Cup. And what's a piece? Well, unfortunately. Taylor Hall, who is rumored that it wants help?

Unfortunately, they're in some salary cap trouble. They need probably one more defenseman, like the emergence of Ethan Bear and the Jones kid. Caleb Jones. But they need secondary scoring, right? Secondary scoring. People always used to talk about how dry saddle needed McDavid. Now we're starting to realize.

that McDavid needs Gai-Sytole more than Gye Cedle needs McDavid. So at some point, if you're going to leave them together, because let's be honest. It's hard not to lead them together. Then you need somewhere else that you can go because I don't think any teams won a championship, just running one line. But I truly believe Connor is that good.

And if he plays the way, I watched a few of their games last week and how good he was at stripping Pucks. Like, that guy should be creating turnovers, left, right, and center. Remember Paveld Datzook? Yeah. How many championships did that guy win? Two?

Yeah. Led the league in takeaways five years in a row. I think he won it twice and they went to three cups, right? And at the time, who was more talented in the NHO than him? Sidney Crosby? Maybe, right? Alexander Ovechkin, but not... Ovechkin sat in a spot and drilled a puck on.

Yeah. But that's who never led the league in scoring. His team just one game after game, because he used this great ability both ends of the rink. And Dale Tippett, being a defensive coach, and having the pedigree he does. I don't know. I don't know if that, I have no idea if they had that conversation or not,

but I see a different Connor McDavid, just like we saw a different Alex Ovechkin, the year that they won. And he's starting to figure it out. And if he continues to figure it out, stripping pucks, more odd man rushes, he's going to put up even more points than the levers are going to give up less. So, yeah. There's my Oilers rant.

They're in a really good place right now. Well, they're fun to watch. Yeah, and it all comes back to culture and habits. Culture and habits, eh? Yeah. See how we tied that in a nice little boat? Yes, we did. Well, thanks for coming on.

I've really enjoyed it. Somehow, I think, like an hour and 27 minutes, we were going into the five questions, and now we're over two hours, and it's just, it's been a lot of fun. My apologies. No, no. There's nothing to apologize for.

This is what's lovely about the podcast. Time just, lies. Time flies when you're having fun. That's right. Well, thanks again for coming on. Really enjoyed having you. Thanks for having me.

Can't wait to come back. Yeah, yeah. I turned the mics off because we were done, and now we've been sitting here talking for 15 minutes. I just figure out miles will flick them back on until you go. And what do you want me to talk about? Well, I think, why don't we talk about the Bobcats? Okay.

They're four, what is it, 419 and 3? something along that lines and you're just telling me you're like people need to get over a couple of things right like it's not a rebuild etc etc and i thought maybe wouldn't mind just shedding some light on that or maybe your thoughts on the bobcats right now well yeah like i think um i think it's an important time for our community with you know what's going on in the economy and you know that that that needs to be that can be one of those shining lights that is a community Friday and saturday nights with all that's going bad in the world right now where we can all kind of rally behind.

I think they've taken some steps in the right direction, for sure. I've done a great job in the community, which is awesome. And, you know, I think things are moving in the right direction. You just, you know, we want to continue to see them win some games and keep getting people to the rink because, you know, I'm scared that if we don't get out,

there and support them as someone that you know bled for that logo myself you know with malcolm and michelle and brian curran and gary van harroway and brian morrison and all those guys when the team was up for sale like that's to me that's my team when you ask me my favorite team is it's it's i bleed black and orange and my daughter just started hockey and she knows what a bobcat is and and i i'm scared um if that team ever has to leave or if we ever end up in a situation that we were eight years ago. And, yeah, I hope we can do everything we can to keep it here. And I hope things are, I don't know, I don't know one way or the other, like how the team's

doing financially or what have you, but I can't imagine, you know, when we look in the parking lot and what's going on, you know, in the oil and gas. Oil and gas sector right now is in not great state. Yeah, and, yeah, and I know what it was like when, when I'm, you know what it was like when I'm was there and how hard everyone had to work and we had way more disposable income to work with than they probably do now so I hope we can get it all sorted out I really do and it's good to see you know I know they put some wins together recently and hopefully they can keep on that that right path and yeah well I know and when everybody well I'll say it firsthand right the winds haven't been there

this year. But what everybody notices is the community involvement, right? Like, it's bar none. Like, it's, well, you have to. Like, if you're not, you know, if, if you're winning every game, then great. You can kind of, in a way, behave any way you want. You would hope that they would still have those morals. Um, which I, you know, I believe Nigel's done a great job, um, at that. And I believe, you know, Gary Van Harroway before him did a great job at that. I think, you know, other people have drop the ball along the way, but you need the community involved. You need even more, obviously, if, you know, the on-ice results aren't the way you want it to. Just to show the compassion and the, hey, we understand how important your support is.

And that's what seeing them out at practices, seeing them at schools, and just seeing them around and seeing the social media presence. So, you know, I think they're off to the right track. The other thing I was saying was I steered away from it at the beginning, but having you on for about two weeks now, I've heard two different things on you. There's people who just absolutely hate you. Yep. Right? Yeah.

And then there's people who absolutely love you. And I always equate it to when you dealing with as many kids and minor hockey and everything else that goes on there. I just equate that to that. I don't know. Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, no. It's something I've dealt with my whole life, not just here. but everywhere and um i make a really bad first impression and i i don't know if it's insecurity i don't know if

it you know comes from where i've been and then what kind of what i've been through and always trying to you know prove that i'm worthy or that i'm worth listening to or you know what have you but usually how the story goes is you're nothing like i thought you were once i got to know you is usually how it goes. And I like to think I put more stock in the people that have actually, you know, got to sit down with me, spend time with me. I've worked with their kids or I've worked with them as a player and then they've got to reflect or had a chance to be around them.

But no, you're absolutely right. I make a horrible first impression, but something I've been dealing with for a long time. I like to think I'm getting better. I'm getting older. I think I'm just more cognizant of it. Yeah. And, you know, being a city kid, coming to the rural community,

dressing the way I dress, looking the way I looked. I even, I had one dad, really good friend of mine now, Aaron Shaw actually mentioned to me once. And he says, I hated the way you walked. I was like, what? He's like, yeah, you know, your chest is out and your ass is out. And I actually lifted up my shirt. I'm like, I have an abnormal arch in my back. He's like, really?

Well, yeah, like I'm not purposely walking that way. That's just right, left, right, left. He's like, oh, because I hated you when I first met you. And now, obviously, Aaron and I are pretty good friends. And, you know, we get to talk quite a bit. But, yeah, no, it's funny you bring that up because I've had to deal with that for a while now. And what was your first impression of me? I didn't like you.

Yeah. What do you say? Just the way you talked to me. It kind of just was off-putting. Mm-hmm. It was really off-putting, you know, when you go back to it. but what do you think now well i i find uh the best thing about what we just did right is i hope i've changed people's minds on it right or at least let them understand where you're coming

from right like hearing your story you go oh yeah right like that's and then you know dealing with um a lot of guys who've played under you it's very interesting to see how your mind works I find it very fascinating. So I find it very interesting and intriguing to talk to you, to sit across from me, right? So now, I guess it's probably just like, one of my groomsmen, Chad Moore, I always like to tell this story. When I first met him, he was the captain of my team in college. We met, we were the same age.

He walked in, he's his same size as me, but just like jacked. I mean, he's got little chicken legs, but he's a big man. And when he walked in, I hated him. Like I just said like three words from me. He was from Calgary and he had that's, or airgery, I guess. It's not funny. That city talked to him and he thought his air, you know, I should be paying for the air. He's breathing pretty much, right?

And I remember just being like, I don't like that guy. The funny thing is, he ends up standing in my wedding. I end up being, I end up living a summer at his parents' place and just thoroughly enjoy the guy, right? Like he's, we ended up becoming very, very good friends. That's probably why you should never judge anyone on the first. glance or even the first you know conversation because your mind it'll tell you stories right that aren't actually there and if you listen to it too long you can be completely off about lots of things it's a little why communication is such a giant thing right

like it's good to talk to people about lots of things to get to know them to understand where they come from to see their point of view and not to be judgmental before you can hear where they're coming from because for the most part most people are pretty good there's not you know there's there's there's are bad ones in the world but for the most part most people are genuinely good it's just they have come from their experiences and their experiences usually are nothing like yours yeah like you're it's funny you mention the groomsman story two of the guys two of the four guys are in my wedding the exact same way we were enemies before we were friends and yeah and you know and i i have to take

some of that responsibility too. Like I have kind of a nomad community to community community and you know it was maybe my inexperience or youth or just being oblivious but I was one that had to assimilate to the Lloydminster area, not get people to get to know me but I had to get to know others. And and you know through my time here now, this is, you know, this is where my best friends live. This is where my family is. I've got to understand how the community works.

how the people work, the belief system here, what's important, what's not, and now reflecting, I could understand absolutely how, you know, brash and the borderline arrogance and, you know, and sometimes in the way I speak or deliver a message or the, you know, the antagonist confrontational. Like I love to debate, like, you know, those sides of things. I could see how someone who didn't know me, know me intimately, would, you know, Yeah, off-putting, as you'd say. And unfortunately, it's taken some time, and I like to think I'm making strides there, but you know, you nailed it, man.

Like, I've been dealing with that my whole life of, you know, don't like them, don't like them, this, this, and this, and this. And then, you know, finally get to know you or get to spend some time with you, and I hear it all the time. You were nothing like I thought you were. You were nothing like I was told you were. Yeah. And it's great.

Those are the things that mean the most to me is that the guys that, you know, some of the guys you've had on the show and some of the people you've talked to that, you know, not converted, but, you know, they say the same thing is, yeah, I thought the same thing that you did. But now this is how I feel, because this is what I know. I didn't know that. That was a perception. I tell my players all the time. Perception is reality. Whether you like it or not. How you're perceived is what's true, right?

Sometimes you don't have time to let people get to know you. One time to make a first impression, I believe, is how the same. goes and I butcher my fair share of first impressions and I try now moving forward I'm very cognizant or much more cognizant of how you approach people

for the first time yes my own wife my own mother-in-law didn't like me the first time and she'll tell you that story get your white shoes and your stupid haircut out of here

I think is what she said to me at the first barbecue you. Yeah. So you battled through that. Yeah. And she's a great woman. That's a great family, that Bendel family. And they probably have a lot to do with it, honestly.

If anyone knows Magnum or Tom Bendel or Kyle or Christine or Colleen or my wife, you know, you're very hard pressed to find anybody that says anything negative about that family and where they come from and what they stand for. And I think honestly, just being around them and being around that family dynamic and, just seeing how they treat people and how they approach every conversation has taught me out of a lot. That's really cool. Well, now I officially have to let you go. Yeah, I got a meeting.

The boys are probably, I'm a minute late for. So Lance, Cole, Brozy, if you guys are listening, I apologize. Well, I was going to, we were done 20 minutes ago, but we kept talking. I figured why not just flick the mics back on. So I'll let you go. Really appreciate you have coming in. and keep up the great work man yeah been really cool thanks yeah well we're officially done uh thanks for tapper to coming in that was uh that was a blast

i really enjoyed our conversation um some very interesting perspectives on the coaching world and and just uh maybe even life in general there i'm gonna probably have to re-listen to that there was a lot of things that uh spurred on some deeper thoughts so thanks for tapper for stopping in. Really enjoyed that. And we'll catch up with you guys next week. All right.