WHOOP Podcast - Stanley Cup champion Alex Killorn discusses perseverance, meditation, and channeling your nerves to optimize your performance

Episode Date: January 6, 2021

Tampa Bay Lightning forward and Stanley Cup champion Alex Killorn discusses why patience was a virtue on his way to the NHL, how meditation is one of his keys to success on the ice, and what he’s learned about nerves and how to channel them in a positive way. He also shares how he and his teammates overcame the adversity of the COVID-19 playoff bubble on the way to their Stanley Cup victory. Alex dives deep on becoming a hockey player (2:28), finding confidence in sports (6:04), his NHL call-up (11:21), recovery in hockey and his WHOOP insights (14:49), the COVID shutdown (18:43), being upset by Columbus in the 2019 playoffs (22:46), the 5-overtime game (24:49), meditation (28:57), staying calm when the pressure is on (30:56), the challenges of the bubble (36:19), dealing with nerves, (40:48), winning the Cup (42:03), and how he's been such a durable player (46:01).Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

Hello, folks. Welcome back to the WOOP podcast. I'm your host, Will Amit, founder and CEO of WOOP, where we are on a mission to unlock human performance. That's right. We build wearable technology to measure everything like strain and recovery and sleep and help you optimize performance. We've got a great guest this week.

But first, a reminder, you can use the code Will Ahmed, W-W-I-L-L-H-M-E. to get 15% off a WOOP membership. So check that out at Woop.com. Okay, this week's guest, Tampa Bay Lightning Forward Alex Killorn and recent Stanley Cup winner. Feels cool to say that. Alex Killorn is an old friend. We were classmates at Harvard about 12 years ago in our freshman year through senior year.

And it's been amazing for me to see all of his success. And we really got to catch up. on all things Killorn's career, and him winning the Stanley Cup. Hockey season's getting underway, so it's fitting to have a member of the reigning Stanley Cup champions on the podcast as they begin their title defense. And we discuss his journey to the NHL and why patience proved to be a virtue on his way to the top, why meditation is one of his keys to success on the ice, what he's learned about nerves and how to channel them in a positive way, and winning the Stanley Cup, overcoming

the adversity of the COVID-19 playoff bubble and getting the job done. I think Killorn's journey is really one of resilience and hard work. He's someone who has become one of the best players in the NHL just through determination and continued, continued success. So we're excited for what he's been able to do. Longtime WOOP member, great friend. Without further ado, here is Alex Killar. Well, Killorn, welcome to the WOOC podcast.

Thanks for having me, man. Well, we were just reminiscing on the fact that we went to Harvard together. It's been what? We've known each other since we were both 18. 18, man. Yeah, it's been a long time. It's almost 12 years. What is that?

12 years, 13 years now? I just turned 31. I think you're 31, right? Yeah, just turned 31 as well. Now, you just want a Stanley Cup, which I think is the coolest thing. I'm so happy for you. You deserve it. If we go back for a little bit, like, was it always obvious to you that you were going to be a professional athlete?

Did you always want to be a professional hockey player as a kid growing up? I always wanted to be a professional athlete, especially growing up in Canada. There's not much else other than hockey in terms, you know, professionally. There's the Raptor, so basketball has gotten much bigger. But growing up, everyone played hockey. And I always wanted to be a professional hockey player. but I never knew if I was good enough. And that was one of the reasons I ended up going to Harvard.

I know my mom was big on me going to Harvard. She kind of pushed me. I'm really happy that she did. It was sort of a backup plan because there's so many people competing to be professional athletes that I really didn't know if I was going to make it. Obviously, in my heart of hearts, I wanted to do it. I didn't really have a backup plan. I'm sure you knew me in college.

I was pretty focused on hockey. but only once my senior year in college came around and I got offered a contract, that's when I figured this actually could be possible. And even then, I still didn't know if I was going to make it because in hockey, it's a little bit different than basketball and football, whereas, you know, a lot of time is spent in the minor leagues. And it's not like once you sign a contract, you automatically jump into the NHL. So it took me a little while. What's interesting about your path is that it seems like at every stage, age, you showed a lot of patience. You know, like you did four years in high school at Deerfield, right? And that's around when you got drafted too, right? Yeah, I got drafted out of Deerfield,

my junior year, my junior year. So what's that like? You're 16, 17 years old and you get the call that you're going to be drafted to be in the NH. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like you were saying, my path was very different than a lot of guys. I mean, I think of, I was playing golf this morning with the guy Stephen Stamco's who plays for the Lightning. And our past were so different in the sense that when he was 18, he started playing his next year as an 18 year old. And looking back, I was going into my senior year of Deerfield and played another four years at Harvard before I even started professionally. And he was obviously good enough to play as an 18 year old. But me personally, I wasn't good enough. And I needed four years of college. And those four years of college

were so important for me to become the player I am. You always want to make a good first impression in pro sports. And I think if I would have started playing at 18, I wasn't physically mature, I wasn't ready. I don't think I would have done as well or even lasted as long as I've lasted today if I didn't have those four years of college. Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating.

I was looking at your stat lines. And even over the last like 12 years, it looks like you've just steadily gotten better a little bit every single fucking year. I mean, it's so cool. Yeah. and that was kind of that was what happened when I was at Harvard as well yeah first year I was okay my second year I started to kind of figure it out by my third year you know I did get a contract

offer then and then my fourth year I had a great year I was all-American and it was just a steady progress where I kind of started to figure things out I was always a late bloomer you know hockey wise I was always undersized and I was smaller it seems to take me a little bit longer to get there but you know it's it's part of the process you know you always had you always had the vibe though i'll give you that like even when we were 19 or 20 in college and people were like yeah kill horn's especially good he might go pro i felt like when i was around you i was like you kind of had the vibe of someone who could be a professional athlete like you had a real confidence yeah i i mean i think it takes a ton of confidence to do it yeah it does take a ton of confidence i mean

when you think about how many people try to do it and how many people don't succeed part of it. I don't want to say an arrogance, but you just have to have a true self-belief that regardless of what happens, you're going to overcome situations. And I definitely had that confidence throughout my college career, I guess you could say. I think you had it too. I'm not sure people had us pegged for being pro athletes and successful entrepreneurs on the beer pong table. But here we are. So the third year at Harvard, so you get the offer then, And, you know, I feel like a lot of people, again, would have been like, okay, it's time to go pro. And like, what kept you in school?

You know what? I was really fortunate that at the time, the GM for the Tampa Bay Lightning was Steve Eisenman. And he was really good about it because a lot of times these GMs, you never know how long GMs are going to have their role. And they're trying to get players through the system. And a lot of times they force kids out of school to make them play professionally quicker. just because that makes they're going to play professionally quickly. There might be in the NHL faster. And I remember a call I had with him and he's like, man, you're at Harvard,

you've con three years. If it's important to you, you know, I think you're going to be a better hockey player next year if you stay anyways. So if you want to stay, stay, you know, we won't hold it against you. There's going to be a contract waiting for you next year regardless. And that kind of eased my mind. I always wanted to stay the four years. But him saying that a guy, you know,

that has so much respect in the hockey world, the guy that was my GM that gave me my contracts, meant a lot. So he was a huge part of that. That feels a little unusual. Am I right? Like I've heard, at least in baseball, I mean, I don't know exactly for hockey, but I've heard baseball and especially basketball, there's a little bit of like a now or you might miss the window.

Yeah. Well, I think with myself personally, I don't, I wasn't the highest touted prospect. I did play really well at Harvard, but, you know, I wasn't a first round pick or anything like that. So I thought he was just good about it. I know he has kids. I know he values, you know, what education means to a lot of people. And he considered all those things and didn't think, you know, staying another year would affect me that much in professional hockey.

I also needed a little bit more time. Like once you get into pro hockey, like I say, first impression is such an important thing. and if you have a bad first impression it's kind of tough to change that and i like i said that last year first team all-american actually right after my my college hockey season i jumped rain to pro started playing there we won a hl championship and i just had so much momentum going forward and that helped me out a ton yeah it's really interesting how you described the just the the the patience so in your third year to fourth year of harvard what kind of like were you setting out some goals for yourself personally like okay i need to hit a certain weight or i need to be

able to be this strong or i need to have this many goals like you know how did you how are you framing to yourself that that fourth year was going to be worth it yeah well actually i made a bet with jeff cohen who's going to score more goals oh man i remember the lacrosse there yeah i actually lost the bet was whoever lost the bet has to name their first son's middle name after the guy who who i bet so this is in the ad bet book hall of the ad bet book yeah so my first son's middle name is going to be geoffrey um and jeff going to his credit shout out cohen he had an unbelievable year and he's the highest scoring lacrosse player right in harvard history Harvard history i forget how i mean i had an unbelievable year i scored i forget what it was i think it was like 23 goals and like

32 games, which was, I thought it had it locked because the lacrosse here is after in spring. And he, he like killed it. He, uh, I mean, he's a great player, but, you know, that wasn't really what motivated me. That wasn't motivating, uh, aspect, but it was a good bet, though. It was a good bet. But I just wanted to, I wanted to set myself up in the best possible way going into pro hockey. Like I planned right after my last game at Harvard, I was going to play professionally. So I set up my courses so that in the spring I only had two classes.

I mean, I don't remember Lady Samurai and I had like an independent study. So technically I was coasting. I was like, I want to be ready if they want me to come play that I can go play right away. So technically I was still in class at Harvard, but I wasn't there, which is not very common for students at Harvard. The Lady Samurai Perestro was great about it, handed a couple papers. And I actually ended up graduating while I was in the playoffs in the minor. league so yeah that's right we ended up winning yeah i remember i remember we were on the patio and you're with your parents and you hadn't been on campus for like a long time hadn't been on campus

for a long time and the only reason i was able to come was because we we were playing in newfoundland and we swept we won four games in a row so we had a little bit of time before the finals and uh you know my coach let me fly to boston i think it was for one night just for the for graduation it worked out pretty well so what was the moment when they said, okay, you're now going to be playing in the pros or the NHL. In the NHL, okay, yeah. So then that happens. We win the Collar Cup after my senior year at Harvard.

And there's a lockout. So the NHL players aren't allowed to play. But the good part about that was the HL was still happening. So the HL was a great league because all the young players that would have been in the HL got sent down to the HL for the first 40 games. And there were so many eyes on the HL because the GMs were at every game. The coach from the NHL would come to a lot of games. And they would be scouting because they had nothing really else to do.

So I ended up playing the first 40 games in Syracuse, New York. And once the NHL announced that it's going to restart, I got called up. I remember the call to this day. I was in my, I was in Syracuse. And the general manager called me and said, are you ready to play a Madison Square Garden tomorrow night? And I was like, oh, dude, that's a place to start, too. I know. So Mass and Square Garden tomorrow night, be ready.

You know, I didn't get any sleep. I was so excited. And to do it in Madison Square Garden, I mean, we have so many friends, you know, from New York. And I had so many people at the game. Oh, that's like. It was really, it was really special. We got, we lost 5'1, but it was a great game nonetheless. And then how did you like, at what point did you feel like I belong?

You know, you've described sort of this feel. feeling of like he didn't want to be not like one of the guys you wanted to be like you were always ready yeah so even when i got that call because guys will get called up for a game get sent back down and what you usually ask the gm i'm like when i was on the phone of them was like how big of a bag i'm like should i pack because if he tells you to pack a big bag it probably means like you're going to be there for a little while so he told me packed quite a big bag um so I knew I was going to have, you know, at least a couple games. If things went terribly wrong, they would have sent me back.

And since that call up, I never got sent back down. I was pretty fortunate that the team was kind of in a rebuilding process. So they were looking for young guys to kind of come in. But I never, I never really felt comfortable probably until I signed my first one-way contract where the team invested in me and I felt like, you know, I could buy a place in Tampa. That's when I felt, you know, I had made it or I had my place within the lightning organization. And while you're like, you know, so you've now been in the NHL for, let's call it seven years, eight years, right? What have you found as you've gotten older in your, you know, professional athlete career?

Well, the league's changed a time even since I've been in the NHL. I know when I first got into the league, the league was much bigger. It seemed like every team had an enforcer or two enforcers that, you know, typically weren't great hockey players, but we're very important to the team. They seem to have been phased out. The game has gotten so much quicker in all aspects. Wouldn't you say that's good for you? Like, I've always thought of you as a skill player. Yeah, but I mean, once you, I wouldn't say I'm the fastest player.

And it seems like all the young guys that come into league are such great skaters. Yeah. But yeah, the enforcers, that's two spots. I mean, I'm not going to be an enforcer. So that's two spots that open up for guys like me. You know, a lot more emphasis has been put on. I mean, we talk about whoop and recovery and making sure, like, even just the strength training, the conditioning we do, everything is done so that we can recover properly.

Luckily, we have a coach who understands that and understands how important recovery is. And we have a little bit of an older team. Typically, when teams are younger, they get worked a lot harder because they're so young and they need to develop, whereas when you're an older team, coach realizes that you've developed, you know, you're quite good hockey players, but recovery is so much more important than anything else. When did you first start wearing wood?

I feel like I got a Gen 1 on you. Yeah, I think I were the first one ever. Yeah. Yeah, I've been wearing Roop for a long time, man. I think the Gen 1 was the first one I wore. So what did you learn from Wu? When you drink, your recovery is terrible. Yeah, so less alcohol.

Less alcohol. You know, and for me, it's, for me, it's all about sleep and all about recovery. I'm not too concerned about calories and stuff like that. I just want to know in my mind that I'm able to push it as hard as I can. You know, sometimes I want to, if I'm in the red or if I'm in the yellow, at least I know, like, you know, maybe I'll take today a little bit easier. But if I'm in the green, if I'm in the green and I don't feel good, it doesn't matter because I know. my body's there, my mind's there, I could push through it. It's just mental. So I just like to know those numbers because it helps me how hard I could push myself. If you think about your routine,

like let's say, you know, to go to bed, for example, has that evolved it all over time? Have you figured out new things that help you sleep better? I think so. I mean, obviously being in front of, I used to just sit on my phone and scroll through whatever it is, Instagram or whatever. And that's probably the worst thing you can do right before bed. I've done my best to like cut that out. Even when I'm looking at my screen just to set my alarm, I'm like trying to set it really quickly. Yeah. But that's probably that's probably the biggest thing. There's just little things. You ever try wearing blue light blocking glasses? No, I haven't. I probably did. They're like these glasses. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to send you a pair. They, uh, they're amazing. And they

kind of give you a get out a free card in terms of looking at your phone because I'm on my phone late too. by wearing these glasses you don't get the blue light from the screens and the blue light's like what stimulates your brain yeah yeah yeah makes your sleep less effective so i'll say it's like it's yeah it's like i can stay on instagram and stuff all night and i'll be fine well glasses yeah right so what are a couple other things you were saying i i do find that golfing takes a huge strain um out of my day compared to other sports that i play um especially when i'm hitting balls and when i'm beating balls and when I'm beating balls on the range and like the hot Florida summer

just kills me. It's one of those things that you wouldn't necessarily think is a big of a deal and then you realize that you're just like slowly wearing your body down. I know.

Yeah. The screens is huge running golf. Now for folks listening, Killard's a good golfer. What's your handicap these days? My cap, my gin. I'm at about a zero. Ah, so you're going to be giving me a few shots now.

I mean, I, I mean, I would say I'm a bad scratch. I'm, you know, I'm probably more of a one than anything. Scratch is a dangerous statement. I know. It comes with a statement. It really is. Yeah.

If anyone plays with you, they just, you know, and the reason I'm a scratch is because my golf course, which is a par 71, really is like a par 75 because it plays really hard. So, um, either way, yeah. Yeah. So you should have 75 there and it's considered. It's considered scratch. Yeah. Right.

Fine. Okay, so let's talk about this season, dude. So the season starts and then what, COVID hits, talk about that sort of like moment in time for you. Yeah, I'll never forget it. I remember we were playing Philly. We had 12 games left in the season and things were going really well for us. We had a big game against Philly.

We come in that morning to go over the game and, you know, everything that the game entails and our coach is like, the game's canceled tonight, go home and wait for us. to hear what's going to come next. And then COVID happens. And we ended up taking, I think it was like three months off. I might have been not sure exactly how long it was. And, you know, I was on calls every other day trying to figure out,

because I'm the PA, the Player Association rep for the Lightning. So we're trying to figure out how we can finish the season in a fair way. There was still 12 games left. You know, certain teams could have got in. Certain teams could have fell out of the, playoff picture. So it was tough to kind of make that fair. But in the end, we thought we found a pretty fair system. But it was going to entail going to these bubbles in Toronto and Edmonton, which were last, last second decisions. I know Vegas was supposed to be the bubble. That would

have been a different situation. But yeah, we, you know, we skated. We didn't even know if it was going to happen. And then we ended up, you know, coming to this conclusion. So March, this thing hits. And then you've got this period of months. Like in that period, were you kind of always like this thing could be coming back next week? Or did you at least have the horizon or like the vision to sort of see when, okay, this is two months away or three months away? Because so much I feel like for athletes is knowing when they want to be ready for, you know? And yeah, we had no idea. At first, we didn't realize we thought maybe this would be like a month thing or a couple weeks.

We soon understood that it was going to be longer than that. and you know through talks with the NHL on the NHLPA we figured out that we kind of set a date when we thought it was going to be so guys could start preparing in a sense yeah there was a there was a month period where we had no idea what was happening guys were getting very frustrated because they're like do we start do we go on summer vacation or do I have to get on the elliptical like what what's going on here um so once we kind of set a date and we figured out we were going to play and we could do it safely that was obviously the biggest part was being able to do it safely um then guys could start getting back into show well you know we pretty much were in shape but even a month off can can

really slow you down yeah so much of it is knowing like when your body needs to be peeking around right exactly and yeah just mentally too it's it's really important now the bubble thing was that coming from your group of player um player reps or did that come from uh the top within the n h It came from the top, I would say. I mean, the difference between the Players Association and the NHL is that the NHL doesn't have as many opinions. There's only 31 owners and then Gary Bettman, who does make a ton of decisions, whereas there's 600 of us and certain guys wanted to just play in arenas where other guys

didn't want to play at all. So it's tough to kind of come to a conclusion. It typically always comes down to dollars. And if we didn't play, there was going to be a lot of money. that was going to be lost on both ends. So, you know, we did everything we could to play. And then we didn't want a season to vanish. A lot of teams have worked so hard to get to that point in the season to kind of throw

it away would have been very disappointing. But it did come from the NHL who's, you know, more liable in terms of, you know, the safety of the league. Okay. So you get into the bubble and going in as a team, were you guys saying to yourselves, this is the year? I mean, you had just come off last season. You had one of the best records, right?

Yeah. And then unfortunately you had that first round upset, which was like a really surprising upset. Talk about that upset. I mean, that must have reframed for you a little bit what it takes to win a Stanley Cup. Yeah, it was tough, man. I mean, we had the best season in the history of the NHL. And when you think of, the NHL's been around for a long time. And to have as many wins as we did, you know, and we got swept in the first round by Columbus, which, you know, even till we won the cup, it seems like every media scrum, every time I did an interview, that had been brought up. And we knew that was going to be brought up throughout the whole season. And that was fine, but we kind of used that as fuel. No one expected us to lose that series. So it was

definitely difficult for us, but I think in that season, we didn't really have any adversity. When you think about we won so many games, there's a lot of games I could look back in that season where, you know, I felt like we probably shouldn't have won, but we won anyways out of pure skill. So we never really learned our lesson. And we might have got a little overconfident.

But once we got into the bubble, our first series was against Columbus, who had swept us the year before. So there was so much, we had put a lot of pressure on ourselves. You know, in our mind we're telling ourselves, we can't lose two years to these guys. were another favorite this year.

If we lose to these guys again, like people are going to lose their jobs, you know, coaches. It's pretty serious if we lose this series. And the first game went to, I think it was five overtime periods. And that's what it took to beat these guys the first game. It was one of the longest games in the history of the NHL playoffs.

I know guys were getting IVs in between periods. Yeah, 3-2 victory, five overtimes. that must have I mean that must have taken a big weight off your shoulders in some ways winning that game because if you lose that game it kind of feels like you're yeah kind of feels like you're climbing another mountain for sure and you know being part of that game we we understood you could tell throughout a game that we were having we had more scoring chances we I think we had double the amount of shots that they had but they were just finding a way to stay in it um and once we you know like you said they win that game it's a completely different series maybe we get a little bit low on confidence and then what they win another game but i thought that game and to go to seven periods um was what it was going to take for us to like understand how difficult this is going to be but also that it's possible right what were you doing personally during that game to stay sharp when you were getting on the ice because i mean there's a mental drain there's a physical drain

yeah the the toughest part about that game was that even you know we had had so much time off and as much as we want to say we were in great shape we weren't because it you could do as much as you want off the ice you could do anything you could practice as long as you want you can't get in gain shape unless you play games and it's difficult to mimic that through practice so we had had like four exhibition games or whatever you want to call it and then our first playoff game we go to seven periods like two and a half games, right? I was doing everything under the sun to not cramp because at a certain point, you know, my legs were just cramping up. I was doing, you know, eating bananas, pickle

juice. We have, you know, we got, I got IVs in between periods. It was, it was crazy going through the locker room and seeing everything that was being done. And once we scored, it was like such a weight off our shoulders. Yeah. I mean, it must have felt to the other team like they had lost two games. Yeah. Yeah. And then I remember Boston and Carolina, we were at the, we were the five o'clock game. So they were planned to play at eight o'clock. So they had got to the rink. They had gone through their whole routine. And they're just sitting there waiting, praying for one of us to score because it went so long that they had to play the next morning. I remember they were like, you guys, you know, really screwed up and we had to play the next day.

They drank like three coffees. They were getting ready for the game. And they just had to go back home and go to sleep. So how do you recover from that game? Did you guys have the day off the next day? Or what did you do? Yeah, we had the day off. I can't remember if we played. Because we were in the bubble, they didn't give us much time off. They wanted to kind of wrap up the playoffs as quick as possible. But we definitely had a day off the next day. For me, I was just getting as much liquid and hydrating as much as I could. You know, we have trainers kind of, you know, getting massages and stuff like that. But yeah, it was just mentally, it was kind of just you didn't want to like deal with anything, just kind of get away from it. Are you someone who likes to do the ice bath?

I do once in a while. I prefer that those Norma Tech boots just because it's less painless. I'm not sure which ones, I'm sure the ice baths are better for you. But for me, I do a lot of Epsons salt baths, especially the night before a game. It helps me kind of relax. Yeah, so I'll do one of those before every game. And I meditate in my Epson Salt Bath. Oh, that's cool. Because the Epsom Salt Bath, you're supposed to do it for about 15 minutes.

So a 10-minute meditation during that has helped me out of time. It helps me just kind of relax before I go to bed because we're always traveling. And it's tough to maintain a good sleep schedule. what kind of meditation do you do or did you like learn a certain type i just do the the headspace but there's different obviously in the headspace there's different uh categories and stuff um sports categories depending on my mood or whatever i'll switch to those i know um andy putacom and he has like a world class voice doesn't he oh man yeah he's great he just relaxes you it makes it it's great yeah it's funny i started meditating like six years ago and i don't think

I'd be able to have built whoop without it. Like, I find it so centering. Yeah, for me, this is my first year really meditating. I do it the day of the game before my pregame nap and then the night before a game to sleep. And, you know, it just for me in hockey, there's so many highs and lows and it just keeps me level. Like, I remember when I was younger and I used to score a goal, I used to get so excited.

but then when I didn't score for 10 games, I was so low on myself. And it seems like those have kind of gone away, and I've been able to stay very stable. And that's made me a more consistent player. I think this past year statistically has been by far my best year. And I think part of it is due to that. I think being even killed is so important in really all aspects of performance. I mean, so much of the challenge of starting a company, too, is that in the early days, you're like riding this roller coaster where it's like, oh, this person

wants to join the company and, oh, this investor wants to invest and, oh, we're going to close this deal. And then the next day, it's like all the opposite. Like, oh, this person quit. Investor is not going to invest. The sales deal fell through. And you just find yourself on this roller coaster. And so for me, it's been a lot of the same where you can, you just find a way to have a steady hand throughout all that. And it just makes you more resilient. I feel like to the world around you. For sure. I mean, I, I, I, couldn't agree with you more. I mean, it's similar in the sense where you talk about investments and whatever, hiring, firing certain people. It's the same as our performance in hockey.

And as long as I could mentally stay even keel, not get too high, too low. I just, not I feel like I'm a better person. I'm better to deal with. You know, I'm not, you know, on edge or, you know, I handle situations a lot better. So, yeah. Do you find that when you're meditating, you're visualizing hockey often or like visualizing the game to come or do you try to have it not be at all about hockey? I try to have like cues that help me calm down while I'm playing. So a lot of times I'll think about just how my skates feel when they're just on the ice and that's literally all I think about and that helps ground me. Let's say there's a big part of the game or a situation where you know I got scored on or something's not going well.

Usually if I just breathe and think about that, it puts me in such a better place. And I just feel like, you know, I gain confidence because I know that once I start doing that, I'll be able to make certain plays and I won't be on edge. That's amazing. So you use it almost as like a coping mechanism in the moment and that you can refer back to from when you're doing the practice. But I'll even do it before the game. I'll just, you know, I'll just be feeling my, because it's definitely a sensation your blades on the ice or your blades on the ground when you're in the locker room it's a feeling that you can kind of I could feel

it right now just thinking about it so it's something I don't know if it's a trigger or whatever it is but I just start thinking about that and I don't think about like necessarily certain situations in a game I don't need to think about those I think that would kind of take away from it it's just the mood or the feeling that I want to that I want to have it's really interesting I bet in some ways it helps you lower your heart rate too in various moments especially on the crowd screen and maybe like the opposing team scored on you if you can go back to that that feeling yeah i mean buildings buildings get very loud and it's a huge advantage to certain teams because they have very loud buildings um and guys might get a little bit excited in certain moments of the game but that's

like you said that's been a huge factor in in being even keel and yeah very very important for me now What was it like playing in a bubble versus in your typical fan arena? It was, at first, it was a little weird. The NHL, I will say, did a great job. And like they had a, I can't even explain it. They had a bunch of stuff to make it, like where the fans would have been seating, to make it look, you know, cool on TV. And they had big posters and big, you know, whatever it was, mechanisms.

But at first it was really weird, just kind of. after goals because there was no sound you know everyone said the fans were going to you know usually the fans have an impact on the refs in terms of penalty calling because the reps may miss something but when the fans go crazy they'll they'll see it and they'll kind of make a call based on that and I don't think that was affected at all because the building was so quiet that the benches and the players technically were the fans and no matter what you said it was heard throughout the whole stadium so um you know i think certain teams may have been at a you know didn't have the advantage they typically would have had if they play in very loud buildings i think about

you know boston's a team sure that that i mean you you know you've been to games there especially in the playoffs it gets really loud um there but you know everyone was playing under the same circumstances and once you got into the first series it became the new normal so so you guys You overcome this first round series, right? And then let's talk about the Boston series. So Boston was interesting. I mean, you have to realize that the weird part about the bubble was we were all in the same hotel and it was just us in the hotels. And the hotels only had one restaurant, two bars upstairs.

So we would see each other all the time. You know, if we went to dinner, like they were sitting right beside us, which is very, awkward and especially in playoffs the last thing you want to do is get in the elevator and be going into the game or towards the buses with the opposing team because you know once you get in the elevator you're going to have to walk the same way and go through the same stuff so that was certainly weird I know with with boston they had rask who who went home right before our series or during the Carolina series but Boston was a huge series for us they it seems like they've kind of become our rival since I've been with Tampa because they've been so good and we've been pretty good

and we've had some good, you know, playoff battles. But, you know, we played super well against them, one in five games. Yeah, it was a great series. They have some great leadership on that team. And what's it like when you're seeing a guy that you were maybe talking shit to on the ice and you secretly don't really like? And then all of a sudden you see it at the restaurant, you're like, oh, hey, what's up, man? You know what? Guys are all, all the hockey guys, are pretty cordial and they're pretty good guys for the most part. When we first got to the bubble, there was five teams, and we had two weeks before the real playoff started.

So we would all be up at the bar, like kind of having drinks together. It was kind of like an all-inclusive vacation for the first, you know, two weeks. Once the playoffs started, we didn't talk to them at all. But it was kind of cool to see their perspective. The bubble was new. Everyone was kind of excited. But once you got in there, more than a week or two weeks it changed and it was all about winning now as you get later

in the series obviously you're getting closer to winning the stanley cup but at the same time you're also now been in this bubble for like a really long time did that start to wear on you at all like mentally for sure i know we have a team psychologist or i don't know his official term but he was with us and his whole thing was making sure we were mentally you know staying in it. The tough part is for a lot of guys, especially my age, 31. A lot of guys that are 31 have very young kids. And they're missing huge parts of their lives. I mean, I know certain guys left their two-month-old baby and they came back and the baby was like completely looked like a different person because they'd been gone for so long and they'd never been away from their

family for that long. So it was really difficult. Like I said, when we first got to the bubble, it was exciting in the sense that it was in something new something that none of us had done and we were in Toronto which was a better setup than Edmonton once we got to Edmonton it was all business because we're in the conference finals and you know there was nothing really to do Toronto we had the the BMO field we were on the water there was a couple restaurants and at least you're in a new bubble

even though you know it's like going from one bubble to be people it feels like some kind of a trade yeah people were talking we didn't want to leave Toronto. We said this is because we knew players that were in Edmonton and they were like it is terrible here. Like you guys don't know how lucky you have it. And the more I think about it, I think it was beneficial for us to just change sceneries and not be in the same place in the same hotel room for, you know, two or three months. So yeah, it was nice to get a change of scenery in that sense. Okay, Stanley Cup finals, you're you're paired up against the stars. At this point,

you'd been having a good playoffs. Just another game at a time. because you guys you had you had previously played in the Stanley Cup finals before yeah so we had played in 2015 we had played in the Stanley Cup finals and we had lost the Chicago Blackcox and we had gone to the Eastern Conference Finals two times after that and there was sort of a mounting pressure on our team just because we were the team that was so close and we had it had successful seasons like you go to the conference finals that's very successful yeah but people even after we had been swept the year before, all the analysts picked us as the favorite to win the cup again. So there was a ton of pressure mounting on us. And being in the bubble that long and going to the finals, you know, I feel so, I feel terrible for the stars because they had to endure the whole bubble, which was difficult process and they didn't win. Whereas, you know what, we get to say we won, regardless of how painful it may have been,

we won the Stanley Cup and it was all worth it, you know. So for them, it's a little bit of a different scenario. They were a great team. They suffered some tough injuries. It was a great series. I think back, you know, we had Stamcoast that came back for one game for like the hockey fans listening. You know, he's a 60 goal score. And for him to come back for one game was so crazy.

I remember we had to walk by their dressing room because that's how crazy the bubble is. Never an hockey do walk by their team's dressing room. And no one knew Stamcoast was playing. And I remember, I think it was Corey Perry, who played for the Dallas Star. saw him walk by. And if he's walking by at that time, it means he's playing. Oh, that's cool. I remember hearing him.

I remember seeing his mouth go, oh, fuck, he's playing, talking about Stamcoats. And he walked into the room to tell their coach, I'm assuming. But just cool things like that, yeah. Did you find that you were any more nervous or less nervous for any of those games? Like, you know, one of the close-out games, for example, were you? Oh, yeah. Did you feel differently? The last game was very nerve-wracking.

in the sense that we were up 3-1, and we went to the, in game 5, we went to OT. So if we score in overtime, we win the Stanley Cup. So that whole overtime, we're just like, let's hope we just get one. And they end up scoring in the second overtime, which is super, super deflating, right? Because now the series is 3-2, what if they win the next game? We go to game 7, you never know what happens. You know, you're flipping the coin. But in that game 6, I think we had the best game.

of the playoffs. I know our goalie had a shut out, which he hadn't had in the playoffs, and he's a great goalie. So that's the funny thing about nerves. For me personally, and I think for our team, the more nervous we were,

the more focused we became. And that's a huge part, and we've had coaches that talk about that because a lot of times when you get nervous, you could go the other way, right? You can make mistakes and stuff like that. But if you can harness, I always tell people,

like when I'm before a game, if I'm a little nervous, I know I'm going to play better because it's just waking me up. And it's like, you know, it's making the situation more important. And for me, that makes me focus more. So I think our team did a great job doing that. I mean, I think it's also a sign of maturity. Like, you've just matured a lot as a professional athlete.

You've been through a lot of these different scenarios. Going out and playing in front of tens of thousands of fans doesn't really phase you. So now knowing that you've got like a little bit of butterflies before something, it's that kind of extra gas that you need to focus. For sure. It's almost a little extra energy. Yeah, it gives you a little extra energy. So the moment you win the Stanley Cup, what's that like?

And at what point do you guys figure out, okay, can we actually go out right now? Like, we're in COVID. How can we have a massive night without actually totally abusing people? The first, when I lifted the cup and everything, for me being a Canadian kid, that's all I've ever dreamed of my whole life, literally. to be able to win that cup and for the rest of your life to be known as a Stanley Cup champion, it is so important to me. It felt surreal the first whole night.

We had to, the first night we had to stay in the hotel. We couldn't leave. Obviously, we couldn't go into Edmonton. We stayed in the bubble. We had a great time. But once we got back to, we were lucky that Tampa was a little bit more laxed on the COVID regulations. And, you know, we didn't have a conventional parade, but we had a parade on the water. are on the riverwalk in Tampa, so we were all in our own boats.

I mean, I got on the jet ski. Is that the famous photo of you on the jet ski with the staling? Yeah, man. When I saw that photo, I was so fired up. I was so happy for you. Yeah, thanks. It's a pretty cool picture that it was someone I knew that took the picture on their iPhone. But the way it came about is I got on the jet ski.

I hopped up to Stamcoast's boat. He had the cup and I got it. And I remember one of the police officers was just like, I looked at him. And I'd been, you know, obviously celebrating pretty good. And he just like, just put a life jacket on, man. And I'm like, okay. And I was going around with it a little wobbly. And the thing is, like, if that thing goes in the water, it's sinking.

So I think a lot of people were worried if I was going to, you know, drop in the water. But it ended up making a pretty cool picture. And it was one of the better moments of my life. Yeah. Well, well, deserve, man. It's awesome to see your success and your journey. if you kind of reflect on your career as a professional athlete, what would you say to a 15-year-old or a 17-year-old

who thinks that they want to be a professional athlete? Yeah, well, for me, you know, if I had to talk through my experience, and let's say I was talking to like a Harvard hockey player, I mean, it's difficult for me to talk to a superstar because, you know, they have their certain skill set, but someone that's similar to me, when I went into Harvard, I was a very offensive guy. I didn't play much defense.

And through Harvard, I played a lot of defense. I learned how to do different things. I learned how to take face off. I learned how to penalty kill. I learned how to do all these different things, which made me more valuable in the NHL till this day. I think I would be considered more of a defensive forward than anything if people asked about me.

And I think because of that, being sort of a Swiss Army knife in the sense that you could do a lot of different things, I think it's extended my career. It's helped me play. a lot more in different situations. So I would tell younger guys, just like make sure you're well-rounded. You're going to be, you might be the most skilled guy at Harvard,

but that doesn't mean anything in the NHL. It really doesn't. So make sure you could do a lot of different things so that you could provide value in a different sense. Yeah, it's interesting. It's like building a talent stack, if you will, of different attributes to make you a phenomenal athlete. What do you think is next for you?

you know do you do you think at all about life after high yeah super focused on maximizing every year you've got i'm i'm very focused on maximizing every year but as you get older you start to think about certain things i mean uh for me i know a lot of i've been doing this doc talk thing right kind of go around on my jet ski it was really stupid but it was people really took to it and and a lot of people have brought up like broadcasting or getting into um commentating on on hockey. And I don't know if that's exactly what I want to do. I know I don't want to be a coach. I know what these coaches go through and how much video they watch and that's just not something for me. Maybe something more in management. Yeah. If ever there's like a hockey or some

kind of athletic golf division where pro athletes can play golf, I'd like to get into that, but I don't know if that will happen. Yeah, we're actually hiring for that. You're perfect. And one other thing that's been amazing about your career is you've actually been really, really available, like really durable. You know, I think you've played, what, three seasons or four seasons where you didn't miss a game, something like that. What do you think that you've been doing, what has made you so available or versed injury? I don't know how many games exactly I've missed, but I haven't missed a ton. You know, and I think I just take a lot of pride in that. there's a lot of guys that may miss games and they're not feeling great.

I kind of do what I can to push through it. I've played through injuries. But like I, it's all about recovery, right? And finding, finding ways to make sure your body is going to be healthy, not just in the sense to, you know, when you're younger,

you want to perform well, but now as I get older, I'm not training for strength so much. I'm not trying to lift as much as I can. I want to make sure I'm as flexible, um, and as durable as I can be, because I don't need to get that much stronger.

Obviously, I want to maintain a certain amount of strength, but I want to make sure my body is as durable as it can be. That changes as you get older in sports. Totally, because you're also now a valuable asset to a team as someone who's just been around the block, right? Like you're an asset to the locker room too. So if you're available and your mind is sharp, that makes you an asset in the league for years to come, I would think.

That's the plan, yeah. So, I mean, hopefully I can do this as long as possible. I love playing hockey. If I could, you know, play as long as I can, I'm going to try to. And then, you know, hopefully transition into something else after that. Now, in terms of recovery stuff, because we've talked a lot about recovery stuff, foam rollers, normatex, compression suits, hyper-ice, cryo, massage, acupuncture, grassed, like, float tank. What's kind of the perfect Alex Killar in recovery?

Yeah. I mean, different things for different situations. Obviously, like acupuncture at certain times when you have a certain injury and you need to get a lot of blood or whatever to that certain area. I mean, the only problem with a lot of acupuncture is that the next day it's going to be probably more painful than when you have it, but it's just going to make it better the day after that. So for me, if I'm healthy and what I'm doing, typically I'm doing a Norma Tech the day of the game, after the game. after the game i'm getting a massage just to kind of get the lactic acid out so that's those are two things i make sure i do in the offseason i'm doing like ice baths i'm doing sonnest increased uh yeah human growth hormone um or growth hormone sorry um and that's that's that's kind of kind of it you know i'm not lifting as i know when you remember when we went to went to school and you'd go into the gym actually you guys might have had a different gym than us but

you'd see the football guys and uh you know that's kind of where the way we trained it was just lift as much weight as you can and i mean it puts so much pressure yeah it puts so much pressure on your joints and it was good for me because it made me a lot stronger but nowadays i don't lift like that i'm all about lasting as long as i can kind of that tom brady type you know i lift more than him for sure but um you want to make sure you last as long as you can so what would be a couple examples of exercises that you're doing now that you wouldn't have done you know as a 20 year old you know i i don't typically do a lot of squats anymore interesting yeah i all we and we test for squats too it's just it puts so much pressure on my hips and my my lower back that it's really not worth it for me

i'd rather get in a machine a kaiser machine i put a belt on and basically i'm just lifting it from the middle and i'm just going uh just doing squats that way so there's nothing really there's no pressure on my joints coming this way and tech you might not get the the same amount out of it but for me you know I feel much better when I do that it's a lot more stretching I get I get stretched out a lot of times before every single workout or after every single workout just to make sure I'm feeling good because when I was younger I would work out and I'd feel terrible and I just it just became normal to me and once I started putting so much work into you just think it's like normal like, okay, I lifted, I did front squats, three plate or whatever, two plates, my back's

hurting, but, you know, that's just how it's supposed to feel. And when you get older, you're like, why would I, why did I put myself through that? I mean, there's a lot more available to me now that I'm a pro athlete, but I put a lot more into making sure I feel really good. Well, look, man, I mean, this has been a pleasure as always. I can't wait to see you again. Yeah, man. Hopefully in a post-COVID world. And I'm just so happy for all the success that you've had you know seeing that photo of you holding the Stanley cup of it just made me really happy thanks man I'm happy for you too and everything you've done I mean you've built assembly will company congrats man no thank you now where can people find you if they want to

you know follow you or on various channels yeah you could follow me on Instagram at 8 cologne 17 that's kind of where I do I'm 8 cologne 19 on on Twitter but mostly I'm on Instagram yeah that's what it awesome man well we'll leave that in the show notes And Killer, it's a pleasure. Thanks, just, thanks, man. Good to seeing you, Will. Thank you to Alex Killorn for coming on the WooP podcast. A reminder, you can use the code Will Ahmed to get 15% off a WOOP membership.

Follow us at Woop at Will Ahmed. And stay healthy, folks. We are in 2021, and it is going to be a special year. I don't know. Thank you.