The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Gardiner MacDougall

Episode Date: June 14, 2025

Head Coach of the Moncton Wildcats, Gardiner MacDougall, joins Jeff Marek on The Sheet live from the CHL Awards.Shout out to our sponsors!👍🏼 Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/👍🏼Ninja Kitchen Canada: https://www.ninjakitchen.ca/products/ninja-crispi-4-in-1-portable-glass-air-fryer-cooking-system-zidFN101CGY?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=olv&utm_campaign=25Q2-Crispi&utm_content=en👍🏼Budweiser: https://www.budweiser.ca/ca_enReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Flames_Nation🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Thanks so much for stopping by, much appreciated. So I was flying in from Florida today and I'm thinking, I'm talking to Gardner McDougall. I want to hear Gardner McDougall tell stories. But like coaching stories, and congratulations by the way on coaching, I don't think anyone is surprised at that by the way. My favorite coach story is the Fred Shearow bacon and egg story. I don't know if you ever heard the bacon and egg

story. I have heard the bacon and eggs but maybe not with Fred. So with yeah with Fred the team gets waxed on Saturday night against Pittsburgh not a single puck hits the ice the next day he comes in the room draws a plate draws three strips of bacon and two eggs and says you guys are talking about the contributions you made last talking about the contributions you made last night, all the contributions. This is what I had for breakfast. This is what I expect out of you as a Philadelphia flyer.

The chicken made a contribution, but the pig made a commitment. That was Fred Shearer. That was his way of getting to his players. Do you have a favorite coach or pet sayings or any sort of coach wisdom that you like to impart to kids? I think there's a number that come up throughout the season a lot of times it's spontaneous yeah it's from you know

different stories in the past I've been lucky to be at this for a while I read a lot you know what do you read I'm curious we at this for a while. I read a lot. You know, one what do you read? I'm curious. We parked that for a second. What interests you? High-performance books on teams or players. I probably read more basketball or football books and hockey books. It seems that like John Wooden, I probably read 10 of his books. Okay. And then I had a used bookstore in Moncton, I found another one in the fall this year

that I didn't have. Guys like Nick Sabin with Alabama, the success they had. But then Clemson got hot, so you like to read about their coach. And I think in the business world, sometimes you like to read about high performers in the business world. I think there's qualities of high performance

that are transferable over not only to sport but to business and to life. So Robin Sharma is a guy that I've read all his books from the month that he sold the Ferrari was his first seller. And I get a weekly update from him. He's a guy from Cape Breton Island that was a law student at Dalhousie and got bored with law, and I'd say

he's probably the number one motivational speaker in the world now. You know, so I all get a weekly thing from him, but one of the things, we've kind of changed some of this, but you know, consistency is the mother of excellence, and incremental improvement is the father. And we'll talk to our teams a lot about that. I'm glad you brought it to your team.

I'm curious, we keep hearing about kids have short attention spans, like look, I've got three kids too. I know that at a certain point they check out, now part of that is just because it's dad talking to them and they'll be more in tune to their coaches talking to them, they'll stick with it longer, but how receptive and maybe for how long are the kids receptive to your messages and do you know when they're starting to tune out a little bit?

I think I do a lot of talks of businesses, presentation, I guess I'm a more of a presenter than a talker. I've tried to study what makes a top-notch presenter and things like that. I've tried to study what makes a top notch percenter and things like that and I've had lots of experience at that and it's interesting, I mean it didn't work out how we wanted it but in our Memorial Cup semi-final, Luke Madill, who's a former player of mine, former assistant coach, spent his three years,

we told him he came to UNB to get his real degree after four years at McGill. And his dad was a former player at UNB and still holds a record seven goals in one game, a Herb Madill. But Herb's, or Luke has worked with us all year and he's unbelievable in the sports psychology field of what he does.

He teaches at St. Andrew's High School in Toronto there. But he's fairly in depth on the World Juniors, does Hockey Canada, and we brought him in, you know, finished his last class on Wednesday at St. Andrews, and so we flew him in the next morning to Rimouski, and he had a chance to speak to our group, and by Zoom all year he's spoken to our group all year, but it was great to get him live, and then we had him in prior to our game, you know, our game prep and and our game prep I think is is maybe the a

Little bit on you maybe not unusual but the on you know some of the things we do But we have each coach talk a little bit and I'm always as you mentioned on okay I think simplicity is the ultimate source of sophistication. And how simple can we make something? And a lot of times in the coaching world, especially practice-wise, a lot of coaches like to go to the board and probably prove how smart we are. You know, complicated.

I don't know what you're talking about, Gardner. I've never seen that out of a coach, I don't know. You know, so, and we talked about that, but he was amazed, you know, I was fortunate to have tremendous staff. I think, you know, the award I got today was coaches, really, the staff of the year. And the staff of the year, to me,

extends to our owner, Robert Irving, because he's the head of the staff, you know, and he's just unbelievable. The environment he provides and the opportunity he provides for our team, our organization, and certainly our coaching staff. But Luke came in and you know Dustin Friesen who did an amazing job as an associate coach. He'll kind of have the pre-scout. Antoine Samuel, I can't say

enough about a goalie coach, a video coach, he does a pre-scout, just a phenomenal person and what he lent. And then Doug Dowell, you know, had a long time pro player, did a tremendous job and everyone had their little niche. And he was just so amazed, he said, you know, it's probably, you try to, I remember in the NHL you'd hear about video sessions, trying to be five minutes or less at the NHL level. And I don't know if you can say on time, because I think if you change the environment, we start with maybe a video, one person talks,

another person would have a different topic, and then maybe the environment changes that. And so, I don't know if you can put, say, hey, you got to be four minutes or less, or five minutes, I'm always, hey, we got to be short, and we got to be to the point, that type of stuff. But I thought our group did a really, really good job of doing that.

That being said, we started miserably all four games at the Memorial Cup, so usually at UNB, I think we're well known for starting fast and starting on time. So that's my summer project, though, what the heck happened for that first period, because if we take care of the first period, the second, third, we're usually pretty good.

So that's my summer project. You mentioned the Memorial Cup. There's one thing that I do want to ask you about, and I understand if it's private between the coach and the players, but that huddle at the end with your group, that's pretty unique. I remember watching this, I was like, well that's, I mean, it's Gardner-McDougall, so we should expect something different.

But that one was really unique for me and I think really unique for a lot of people. Yeah, I mean, that moment is the worst moment performance-wise of these guys' careers. Because the goal is to go to the Memorial Cup and win it. So it's not only for our staff, but heartbreaking for these players. And it was just, we had a lot of fans that came to Rimouski, and a lot of fans are watching on TV and things like that. So just acknowledgement, I always say,

we've got to try to make a significant difference, and we're really performers. And we talk a lot about, whether it was Wayne Gretzky said it or Michael Jordan said it. Every time you play and if you the original Michael Jordan video that they did the highlight video I think he says it on it but it's been attributed to Wayne Gretzky several times. You're playing someone's watching you for the first time tonight and someone's watching you for the last time tonight. It was interesting, Dylan Gill, who we acquired in a trade at Christmas,

and Spencer Gill, who plays for Fumuski, they played against one another in, I think, January in Monkton. And I think we talked about that different times. This was pretty neat, the two brothers going to play against one other, big game. And we didn't play as well that game. We didn't have as much belief as we needed. We acquired more belief as we played later on in the year. But Dylan came to me later that next week,

and he said, coach, I just want to let you know. We had a lady that's been with her family for a long time. She's like a second grandmother. And she was so excited to come and watch Spencer and I play this game. The next day, she was in her 80s, the next day she had a heart attack and passed away. But she was so excited that, and you know,

it's pretty neat that you always said someone's watching for the first time, someone's watching for the last time, little did we know it'd be like that. He was, they took it as a positive to Gill family that she got to watch the Bofia play a game against one another and she was so pleased when she left the arena.

You know, so part of that little scrum was just to acknowledge, hey, this is special, we'll get a chance in the dressing room, but there's a lot of people that drove to Moncton, a lot of parents came here that are, they're still cheering you, you know, because of who you are. You know, you're part of the Moncton Wildcats, but you're special people. So, even though we're in Rimouski, we'll just take a moment to acknowledge these people that have given so much for each and every one of you

and for our team. That's really thoughtful. That really is. And, you know, one of the players I'm going to hear plenty more about, I'm leading up to the end of June in Los Angeles, Caleb de Noaille, what can the coach tell us about someone who's going to be drafted top 10, maybe top 5 in a couple weeks here?

Just, you know, I don't know if special is overused word, but he's special. Yeah, and he's elite special, you know, and I was fortunate that the under 18 to get a chance to coach him and initially it wasn't going to be that long because he was an underage and then it was tough to lose Roger McQueen but you know Caleb D'Annouille got a chance to play full-time in that tournament and you know played with Marton and played with McKennan did a really good job as an underage you know in that tournament for us and didn't know at that time I'm gonna be his full-time coach in Moncton but it worked out and you know got the job and certainly the first call to a player I made would be to Caleb you know and I think there was you know

something came out I think we had beat Sweden and going to the gold medal final and our good RDS that put something out the new coach of the Monk the Wildcats, and of course Caleb's a curiosity, fully curious the next day, is this true coach? And I said, let's win today. Talk about that after, we'll talk about that after. But he changes things when he comes to the rink every day.

Like he's just got such a magnetic personality, he's a team first guy, and you you know he's just so engaged. He walks in the rink and our team gets better. When you go through a long season like this and you know he had the hockey Canada, every time he goes to hockey Canada he gets banged up. We love the experience. He went to Olink, he got banged up there, he played really well. I got to watch on TV that, and he came back.

So we rested him, we wanted him, he's a key part of our team. So we gave him some time. Our first game of the season, our home opener, he separated his shoulder, so again he's out for a bit. We just got him going again really good. He went up to the prospects game, had a tremendous second game I thought. Not the first game, but he texted me and said, I'll be the real Caleb today and that intruded the form he is and got banged up again.

And if you check our stats, I didn't play much center after that. He played through an injury until Christmas. We had a little bit of time at Christmas and you know, they rested up and then in January, it's somewhat similar injury on the other. So he played both, both wrists banged up all year. So he's got a tremendous amount of grit to him. Yeah. But he's just a difference maker and he just, he loves the game.

No moments too big for him. And he was made a significant difference for our team. He's just one of those elite special people that you'll find in LA is going to be in the elite number where he gets wrapped. Did you know socks are one of the most requested clothing items by organizations addressing homelessness? Bombas also makes incredibly comfy underwear and t-shirts, which by no coincidence are also some of the most requested clothing items by homeless shelters.

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Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. You certainly will. I wanna to ask a couple more things. I would be remiss if I didn't bring up a very unique situation that you find yourself in with your son Taylor. We always think of father-son combinations in hockey. We think of the Howes, for example. Oh, playing with Mark Marty, all the good Gordy, beaming like a proud parent.

What's it like working with your son in the role that he has with Moncton? Yeah, it's one of those lifetime moments. How many, you know, we got a lot of, you go across the country, we got a lot of dads that are into hockey. You know, a lot of them work in hockey, a lot of our minor hockey coaches,

a lot have played the game, you know. Millions have probably played the game in their country and then get that opportunity and I was fortunate to coach him at UNB for five years and I don't know if my wife always agreed with the amount of ice time I gave him but and it wasn't easy you know obviously the program we had at UMB, the step in that, you know, and he had a, you know, a role with us that was part of team success. And I still remember we were playing the national championships in Halifax, and we're playing St. Mary's in the national semi-final.

We're down five on three. We have different guys that can go out there. He was, you know, very great face off guy and I remember putting him out in the five on three. You know, there was a coach in me, okay this is the right thing, but there was a dad in me, my god son, please. Because there's a no win almost. He chills it off, he's supposed to. If he doesn't, what did the coach do that? But that was one moment and we ended up winning the national championship that year.

And it was so gratifying as a coach's son. So that experience of five years was phenomenal. This is a different venue, a different avenue. Obviously, what he's done in his career has been phenomenal. He got to play the CHL for five years, got snuck one year in. It was interesting. He was doing his law degree, business law, usually seven years. He did his five while playing.

I was just so impressed. How do you do this? Pat Quinn. So Pat Quinn did. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. It was just phenomenal.

Then he snuck in. I remember he was just about to write his law exams his final year and he finished up his fifth year at UNB and he made his own calls up to the Brantford battalion dad I'm gonna I'm gonna go up there I got ten days before I write my exams I can I can play three or four games for pro here and I remember I was down in Portland we had played Portland that year and I'd been a good friend of the coach I had journeyed to Portland to watch them play weekend games and a good friend of the coach said I had a journey to Portland to watch them play weekend games and then he had texted me and said listen

dad I'm making my debut in Adirondack tomorrow I'm on the bus right now with David Ling. Oh David Ling, oh I haven't heard that name in forever. So David Ling and I are on the bus. One of my favorites. Yeah we're driving from Brampton to Adirondack. So I looked on my map. I said, OK, as a dad, you've got to be there for the pros. So I didn't only watch one game in Portland. I went through the mountains of New York State,

and I arrived in Adirondack. And we had two other UNB guys playing in that game. So that was neat. But then becoming an NHL player agent and just the mentorship of Lan Waa. He was Taylor's agent as a player, became a really good family friend. He's a great agent. He's a wonderful guy.

You know all this. Oh yes, yeah. So to give him that opportunity, he had done one year of his articling in law and was set to, he was on the dark side in criminal defense. And he was going to Dorchester, penitentiary meeting with Hells Angels guys. You know and I, you know we talked all the time as a major junior player every day. I almost talked more when he's criminal defense lawyer. Okay, what did you do today? Who'd you represent today?

And he was you know going to try that law and then land gave him the opportunity to work with him and you know the years that he had there was you know interesting you know I'd give him a call where yet I'm in Broadway Street Nashville today or I'm in Vegas seeing a player today or I'm following Jake Allen today I'm going to see him you know so and I remember you know last couple of weeks here obviously a busy time of year with the draft the NC you know NCAA coming up with the possible and he said, you know one thing, he said, I'm really thankful that I was a player agent and made the connections

and the experience I got from Elan and now as a general manager, it's helped me so much now being a general manager. I believe that. I think, yeah, just his collaboration, his connection with players, I remember his our first meeting this year, he spoke to the group and he said,

you know, we have to be the tightest team going. You know, at UNB, we won national championships and our team was like really tight. Guys would give up a specific role for the good of the team and the more success the team had, the more success individuals had. And that was one of the things, you know, when you grow the culture in Moncton, and that was a big part of it, is just having the group really

connected and you know, we did surveys at the end of the year and every survey was just a family in Moncton and we call it FOE, family over everything and your own family is the most important and obviously we went through, know circumstances in at the Memorial Cup that you know tested that that's for sure you know and it was a little late coming here to this function because we had a really special ceremony in Friday and yesterday for Pat Buckley you know and so that's always the most important but then the next is you know the Wildcat family you know or whatever organization you're with is that you know family over everything and I think we really accelerated that process and advanced that you know how

important your teammate is and how important the organization and I go back to Mr. Irving like he's just just the biggest proponent of that. He seems like and I've never I think I may have met him once, he seems like the kind of owner who if you need something slash want something, you'll get it. Yeah, I mean you're going to have to rationalize it. I know you make the case for it. Yeah, you make the case, but yeah, he's unbelievable. But if you can demonstrate that this is what this team needs.

Yeah. Oh yeah, and I, you know, for 24 years I was on the outside and, you know, I had good friends that worked in the organization and you'd always hear different things and all that. But, you know, my first month on the job I was invited to a neat event in Moncton. I had four former premiers of New Brunswick were on a panel and it was all for the homeless and, you know, food support in the city. And Mr. Irvin had made a big donation to that group. And then we had our golf tournament,

he gives 25,000 to a young group, and 50,000, he's going to have a million dollars given in 10 years to them. And then he was over to PEI, and he gave a big amount to the farmers in PEI. It's amazing. You know, like in a two or three week brand. And most of the stuff he does, he does under radar. But he's an amazing person. His business interests, he could be flying to Europe, he

could be out to North Dakota, he has a big plant down in Georgia. During the tariffs with Canada in the US, he spent two weeks in Washington. And then he finds a way, he never missed a playoff game of ours. He just has such passion for life, for making a difference with people. And then obviously the Wildcats is his real passion. Let me close on this one with you, Gardner, and I thank you very much for your time. Earlier, when I brought up Coach of the Year, you talked about your staff. You talked about everybody on the bench. And last year, six months ago, I read music producer Rick Rubin's book on creativity.

His point is that no one does anything on their own. He said everything, whether it's music or whatever Everything's a collaboration. You're part of everything you've listened to every conversation you've had every interaction you've had every in this case game You've watched for example When first of all do you agree with the idea that? Everything in our lives is a collaboration And if so who some of your your influences been on the way up? That whether you realize it or not, you're collaborating with their ideas.

Yeah, I think it's really accurate and really true when you look at, you know, we've been fortunate to have some success here, of late, maybe a little more prominent, and I don't know if you've got country music fans, Luke Combs, you know, and a range of boards. And I've been fortunate to have a lot of positive success and I said, just hope there's still some left in the back pocket. You're the winning machine, Gardner. That's what they call you.

Yeah. But I think you're truly right, because you have enough experiences, but you need everybody. You know, the team, we talk about the strength of the team as a team. And we got that at UNB, because we get a lot of players that would come to UNB, 60, 70 point guys, and they never ever asked, am I on the first line or the second line? And I spent a lot of time on recruitment and all that type of stuff, and we want the same

thing, and it's tougher to do at this age group. You know, 16 to 19, there's a shorter window, every player, you know the goal is to make the NHL and to make the NHL you got to get drafted and to get drafted you got to have a lot of ice time you know so I thought the group really played into the roles and I was talking to like I didn't have one knock on my door this year about a player coming in and saying hey I need more ice time. You know, I had some talks on the ice and I've tried to keep the business on the ice

a lot of times, but you know, okay, what's my role? Or, you know, and that's all part of it. But, and I think Taylor probably has probably helped out a lot as a GM and found which stuff to come through to me and which not. And I think, as I said, did an amazing job of that. But I think, you know, all these little experiences, and even as a player, you know, we talked about Caleb.

You know, Caleb had such an unbelievable career, win, win, win, and then, you know, through the playoffs, and part of it was with the injuries, part of it's a long season. You know, and he didn't have the production, and he wants to be the guy every night. And that's the special thing about him. And the one thing, and I used to always refer I watched Crosby when he was young and

you know in the Quebec Major Junior League and Rarely did he have a game where he didn't get a point But when he didn't get a point it was all often multi points the next night, you know, right and those special players they have that Special talent. Okay, you may have that special talent okay you may have stopped me once but you're not stopping me yeah and they just have that special ingredient and then Caleb you know he went a little extended you know through the playoffs and then because I remember you came three games I haven't got a point I don't know when this has happened and I said hey let's work on

this together and you know hey these this will be good for you in the big pitcher we're still winning I was gonna say you know I'm listening to you say it's like your team was like one or two in the country all year long like that kind of helps. Yeah no question. Tough to complain about the program. Yeah no no yeah really lucky but you know I think that it's a chance to just grow and going back you know our motto at UMB was make a significant difference the university motto I've tried to since I got to UMB, I said, what a great philosophy to live your life. How can I make a difference in somebody else's life and whether obviously hockey is what

we do, but even seeing, you know, I go for a run in the streets in Toronto this morning, well, I'm staying alone everybody. I got a few weird reactions. And then I got some people actually, we don't do that here. We don't do that here. We don't do that here. We're not in the Maritimes. But actually I was amazed today down on the wider front. I got a lot of smiles. You did eh? Yeah. You know so but that mean that's part of life. I mean we're our job as coaches is to serve you know and you know our staff and serve our players and turn our players to serve the community and make Things special for Moncton Wildcats. This has been a real delight. Congratulations again. Not just you cause I know you want to put your staff

full bench of the year Congratulations. Yeah. Oh, it's a pleasure. Yeah, all the best. Thank you very much. Much appreciated. CHL Coach of the Year is our number two. Here is where we're going to be. You try to give me little medicine I'm like, nah man, that's fine I'm not against those methods putting you It's me, myself and how this gon' be fixing my mind I do want to break it I turned on the music I do want to break it I turned on the music It's enough, yeah, I'm mad at you When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most?

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