59: Gliding Beyond the Game John Sacco's Tale of Hockey and Humanity

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hello everybody and welcome to the Podolsky Method
Podcast.
I know it's been a while, butwe have a great show for you
today.
Before we jump in, just wantedto reintroduce our sponsors.
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(00:47):
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And then the NHLcom JuniorRangers Programming is always a

(01:10):
wonderful program which, within300 dollars, you get full gear
and 10 lessons to break into thegame.
It's a wonderful starting placefor other kids.
I'm your creator and host coachOya.
I'm a level 4 certified USAHockey Coach.
I'm a CPA and I coach travelhockey with my guest here who is

(01:35):
a very special friend of mine,john Sacco.
John has actually been a partof my coaching career since I
started.
He's one of the first people Imet when I started coaching.
So, john, thank you so much forjumping on.
John is an assistant directorfor Hockey Coaching

(01:55):
Administration.
He's a level 5 USA HockeyMaster Coach.
He's a retired police officer.
You've done so many things overyour tremendous career, so can
you tell a little bit aboutyourself and just tell folks a
little bit about you?

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Let's say I'm old, I've gotten old.
It's always fulfillingsomething.
Somebody has a need, youfulfill it.
Somebody comes to you with anissue, you help them out and you
wind up getting involved in somany things.
Just hockey has always been abig part of it.
Since I was about 10 or 11years old, I've grown through

(02:38):
the sport.
It's always been there.
It's kind of like the glue thathas bound us as a family in a
lot of areas.
I always call it the frozenriver that flows through our
life, which is true, because youcan never you know.
But, as always, the al Pacinois a.
I keep trying to get out, butthey keep dragging me right back

(03:00):
in.
So it comes down to it.
So, but you wake up, you dohockey, you brush your teeth.
You're getting phone calls,you're eating dinner.
You tell them I'll call youright back.
Give me a few minutes to finish.
By the time I go to bed, I'm upvery early and I'm in bed very
late.
In between it is family hockey,music and whatever has to be

(03:25):
done in the house generally.
So that's, that's my life.
Yeah, I did retire twice, justto let you know that.
So there's no such thing asretirement in the 21st century.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
It's not I retired from the police department, I
retired from, you know, from somany things, and it's just I'm
busy and out and I've ever donewhich is yeah, can you talk a
little bit about growing up,because I know you played a ton
of sports growing up and youknow we'll lead into how how

(03:59):
that changed from when you knowyou were young and being an
athlete to how it is now andwhat you're seeing in the
coaching world now.
Maybe you could talk a littlebit about yourself and growing
up and all the things you'vedone.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Well, I grew up in Southern Brooklyn, that's South
Brooklyn.
For those who don't know, southBrooklyn is really Western,
northwestern Brooklyn.
South Brooklyn is in the southof the borough and down in the
sheepside bay area in GarrisonBeach and it's.
It was all sports.
If you didn't play sports,there was something wrong with

(04:36):
you.
And in the 60s you know it's avery tough time to grow up you
know all we had was sports,playing outside, playing games,
school, whatever your religiousresponsibilities were very close
knit community.
Everybody basically knew eachother or knew of each other.
It was like living in a town,in a small town, which basically

(04:59):
it is, and you know we hadhockey during the winter and
basketball during the winter,football during the winter,
during the summer it was, it wasbaseball.
And you know, as, as you growup, you know it's very
competitive because you're goingto school with the people that
you play sports with.
So everybody had stats on eachother and who did this and who

(05:22):
was good and who was bad.
And you know, and they theycall you out on it.
It was very, you know, verycompetitive childhood.
You know, I didn't understandthere were other places and
things to do until I was oldenough to leave the neighborhood
and you know it, it was justvery, very busy.
We had it's actually they'redefunct right now it's the Kings

(05:45):
Bay Boys Club Roller Hockey.
We didn't have ice hockey likeyou have now.
There were two ranks, one inone in Coney Island, which is
still there, and one inManhattan, and Long Island
wasn't the hotbed of hockey thatit is now.
There were maybe one rank inSuffolk County and nobody knew
where Suffolk County was when Iwas a kid.

(06:06):
It was like going to the, youknow, going to the moon.
So it was.
You know it was idyllic, it wascompetitive, there was a lot of
pressure as a kid and everybodyplayed, Everybody played.
Hockey was something that I gotinto by accident.
You know I knew about it.

(06:27):
I didn't know.
Yeah, I knew of it, but reallydidn't know about it.
Let me digress, so you know itwas a chance meeting with a very
good friend, a lifelong friendof mine, who played his brother
played some of the cool guys inthe neighborhood played, you
know, I knew about it but Ididn't know about it, you know,
and he was skating down theblock from my house.

(06:49):
You know, in those days therewas no delivery service.
You went to the store, youbought your groceries and if you
were under the age of 14 or 15,you were mandated by the child
labor laws to go out and pick itup for your parents.
You would go with a note, withan envelope or, you know, like a
change purse full of money.

(07:09):
You go to the store, localstores, because everything is
local.
Everything's walking distancefrom your left and including two
super markets, two barb is, twochurches, you know two schools,
to this, to that, toplaygrounds, on and on and on.
So you never had to leave theneighborhood.
So you know I'm, I have to goaround to the butcher and I'm

(07:32):
coming back and you know youhave the two paper bags full of
food and you know about yay,high and struggling, and I see
Richie Galvin skating down AllenAvenue near my house and he
goes.
You know they called me sack inthose days.
He goes Sack.
What's going on?
This is nothing.
What are you doing?
He had skates, he had gloves andhe had a stick.

(07:54):
They were the quads, not theinline skates like we know today
.
He says what are you doing?
He goes I'm going to go play.
I'm going to go up to the parkand play hockey.
You want to go?
I says, well, I don't know how.
So we talked, we went on and onabout the Rangers playing last
night.
Remember, at that time therewas only how many teams in the

(08:14):
league you know, was in originalsix.
I'm not that old, but you knowit was pretty close to it.
So you know we started to talk,I started to learn.
So you know I begged my parents, please, I get a pair.
I got a pair of skates.
I learned how to skate Withinthe next season.
You know, if I skated throughthe summer into the next season,

(08:34):
I was playing I'll hockey forthe first time and playing
competitively, and it wasextremely competitive, extremely
competitive.
There was a lot of players fromoutside the neighborhood,
people we didn't know.
You know you do.
You grew up in Brooklyn at thattime or anywhere in New York
City and you thought everybodywas like you in your
neighborhood.
And they're not.

(08:55):
So it was interesting.
You know I had to learn how tofight.
I had to learn how to.
You know, we were young, wewere hitting each other, we were
checking.
At that age, you know, we didnot wear cages, we did not have
mouthpieces.
I had numerous trips to the.
We didn't go to the emergencyroom in those days, only if you
were dying.
You went to your local doctorand I can remember going in

(09:19):
there.
I had got hit in the eye with astick and it sliced my eye, I I
would open and I was gushingblood and my mother screamed.
I thought everybody thought Iwas so cool because I had this
badge of honor, going to schoolthat the following Monday and
going to the doctor's office andhe says, why don't you just get
a room in here?
Yeah, you know, it was.
That's how it was in those days, but it was great, we had fun,

(09:42):
it was romantic.
There was no, of course,there's no, internet TV.
You had the Ranger game on on ablack and white TV sounds so
far better, doesn't it on?
a black and white TV on Channel9, wl on New York, which is
still there, and that was it.
So if you slept through it, youhad.

(10:06):
There was no replays, there wasnothing, so you couldn't talk
about the game in school thenext day.
How many people stood up andwatched a late game or whatever?
And you know, we had no accessto hockey whatsoever.
You know, the access to hockeywas going to the library.
Now the kids don't do this.

(10:28):
Now I'm going to say, but youknow who is brave enough to go
into the library and steal thehockey digest?
And then there'd be five of uslike fighting over it to read it
.
We'll go to.
We had candy stores in thosedays.
So instead of having you know,it was like you know, we went.
You got the newspapers.
Very, we don't have them inBrooklyn, very few in Brooklyn.

(10:51):
Now you know you get.
You could sit and have lunch,you could, you know, but all the
magazines, and you had hockeydigest.
You had hockey illustrated, youhad sports illustrated, you had
sport magazine, you know, andonce in a while they'd have
something on hockey, or you hadthe daily news and the post, and

(11:11):
that's, that's how we, we paidattention to hockey, plus word
of mouth.
But at the end of the seasonyou put your gear away and you
played baseball or, you know,whatever else was around.
Some people played soccer.
There wasn't much of it at thattime.
So you know, and if you didn'tplay baseball, there was
something wrong with you.
If you didn't play, you knowthere was, you know so.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
So when you were growing up, were your parents
involved in in, like bringing itto the rink or bringing you
anywhere.
It wasn't all on your own,nothing, no, it was all on your
own.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Everything was all on your own.
You know I'm paying you aplaying to carry your own stuff.
That's not my problem.
So you know, both my parentswere depression children, so
they didn't have things likethat.
You know there was times intheir life when they had to
steal to eat.
So you know, not everybody wasrich in Brooklyn and especially

(12:09):
where they grew up, it was hardliving.
So to them.
You know, a five dollar bill.
You had a five dollar bill.
You were rich, you know youwere rich.
You got to put that in the bank, you got to save that.
You got to.
You know, and now it's.
You know you can't go to the.
You cannot go into a hockeystore and spend less than three
to four hundred dollars on apair of skates.

(12:31):
And sometimes when I go intothe stores and I'm looking at
the prices, I said could youimagine?
God, rest my parents all, allsouls.
You know they're such goodpeople and they encouraged us to
be active and they would havejust no, no, not happening.
You know that's a month worthof your father working, you know

(12:53):
.
So it was different times, butit was great.
It made what we have now mademe made my children because you
know I spent a lot of time withmy children.
You know, going to hockeycoaching them.
You know, when need be,teaching them how to take care
of their gear and how to, youknow, do all that kind of stuff.

(13:14):
You know it makes it that muchbetter and as adults now they're
both adults.
You know we share this, weshare it together and it's still
something magical.
You know it's just a great,great, great.
It's the greatest game in theworld to us it's the greatest.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yeah, no, I completely.
I couldn't agree with you morein terms of just, you know the
cost is in.
You know, when I joined theRangers as a lead instructor for
the Junior Rangers programs youknow I was it was so exciting
to see that they're making it alittle bit more affordable for
people to get into the gamebecause, like you said, with the
Rangers you get full gear and Ithink 10-1 is for like under

(13:53):
300 bucks.
I know my friend, our friendMax, cool, coaches with us.
It helps out with the Rangers.
He calls me, he goes okay, Iwent to the store and he's
kidding, I think it was five andhe was like I bought him all
this gear and I was like, whydidn't you just do it through
the Rangers?
He's like well, I was alreadyin the store, I just bought it.
It wasn't not to bad 600dollars.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
He's like 600, you spent 600 dollars for a
five-year-old to try hockey.
He never skidded.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
It's amazing, unbelievable, but it was
definitely one of the mostexpensive sports that we're in
now.
Yeah, and I also like playing arole hockey growing up as well.
You know my mom was a singlemom raising me my brother.
I've never immigrated with us,so we were here same way.

(14:41):
You know, I remember I got analuminum hockey stick for
Christmas, which was like rightat that time like was 15, 20
years ago I was like the thing Ithink I played with it for like
10 years, I think at some point.
It never broke it bent.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
I'll put somebody's head on.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
The top point just came out, but it never broke.
I was like this is the mostdurable stick I've ever played
with.
It was literally it's analuminum.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
But yeah, so, speaking a little bit about I
know you touched a little bitabout your kids and I know you
know Dom obviously, like, playedvery well in college and now
helps and coaches with you nowand he talked a little bit about
you know, raising those kids.
I know you mentioned you werealso a single parent for some
time, right, and so what wasthat?

(15:34):
Like you know now transitioningyour knowledge and your
experience to them.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Well, rob and Dom are six years apart.
My late wife, jocelyn she had,she had, she was, she'd come
from a family of 12 children inthe Philippines and they were
all a year apart.
Their births were a year apart.
So she was an ER nurse and Iwas a police officer sounds like

(16:01):
a real cop nurse story butwhich I met her in the emergency
room, believe it or not, andshe said she wanted to have 12
children and I said I'm you haveto carry them.
I don't, you know, that's yourbody.
So you know, whatever you want,you know.
And I said but why don't wejust go?

(16:23):
We just had a kid, we bought ahouse, everything at the same
time.
So it was kind of like, youknow, it was like a
rollercoaster, so let's take astep back and take a breath.
I said why don't we wait alittle while?
And so we waited, we had aboutevery year and she goes okay,
let's, you know, let's haveanother child.
And she couldn't get pregnant.

(16:44):
And being, you know, being an ERnurse, she was very well, she
was very highly educated, Ishould say, and she knew she was
very good at what she did, shewas brilliant actually.
And she says it's, there's aproblem and I know it's me and,
like a very long story short,she had a one of taking hormonal
injections which she gave toherself.

(17:06):
And you know you get thoselittle, those little pamphlets,
and you know you get exegeronomy, you get Tylenol and these are
the.
You know, every throm away.
She used to read them and I'llnever forget this because we had
to go to a fertility doctorthat other doctors and nurses

(17:27):
went to.
It was like the top fertilitydoctor in the nation or in the
east coast, they should say oneat the top in the nation and she
says you know she's reading,and she's reading and she looks
at me.
She goes you know, there's onein the 600,000 chance that I
could, I could develop fromtaking this, from injecting this
, some form of cancer.

(17:47):
And she won the lottery.
She developed breast cancerwhile she was pregnant with Dom
the younger boy, and she sayswell, they told the boy, the
child, and we'll save your life.
She laughed, she actuallylaughed at the doctor.
She says you're not taking mychild.
So she went, she had him, shewent through treatment, she had,

(18:08):
you know, the stem cells andthe whole nine yards, but it
wasn't her time, it was her timeto go, so we lost her in 96, so
now I have a six year old and aone year old, basically, and
you know now what do we do?
She always wanted she lovedhockey.
Think about the Filipinos, theFilipino people when you bring

(18:31):
them to their first NHL game,they're hooked for life because
they don't have anything.
That's speed and that it'samazing.
And she was hooked, she washooked.
She was actually buried with arange of puck from one of her
coworkers because they used tolisten in the emergency room.
They used to listen to thegames as they were working and

(18:53):
they were all addicted.
And you know, now I have.
You know I want to fulfill herwishes.
She wanted our children to dowhat I did, to be involved in
things.
So we started playing hockey.
They loved it.
Rob was the first because hewas older, he would.

(19:15):
We wound up starting in StatenIsland.
For some reason I was inBrooklyn.
This is before where we workwas open and I'm not going to
name the rank, but people willfigure it out.
I went into a place in Brooklynand the rank in Brooklyn they
basically gave me the Bumps Rush.
So one of my closest friendsgrowing up, so I could brother

(19:36):
to me, stephen Penetieri.
He goes.
You know, my son, stephen,plays in Staten Island.
They're the same age.
I said she might go to StatenIsland from Brooklyn.
That's ridiculous.
We were in Staten Island forsix years.
So Rob started play, went toclinics and Dom was.
Now, you know, as the years aregoing by, he's two and a half

(19:58):
three years old and he's tryingto climb out of the carriage to
get on the ice.
So this went on for about fiveor six months to where I turned
my back and he escaped and hewas getting on the ice and he

(20:19):
would stare he's a baby, he'sstaring.
He would stare at the games.
He'd lay back, put his over thepillow on the ones that watch.
He'd watch Rob and they wereconstantly competing with each
other.
So I said you know what he hitsthree, let's put him on the ice
now.
In the meantime I had my, arelative of my wife, who was

(20:40):
actually I hate saying this,telling this story because it
always sounds like something,but it wasn't.
My wife now is related to myfirst wife and she was.
She came and she helped us withwhen the boys were small and
both of us were working.
She went back and forth withher kids and her Philippines and
eventually she stayed for quitea while, helped me out at the

(21:03):
Josie past and as the years wenton, you know, we fell in love
with each other and we wound upeventually marrying.
So, you know, she was in awrinkle all the time.
She started becoming the defacto hockey mom.
So.
So now he's carrying on.
I put him on the ice, I got upto skate little tiny skates and
the whole line.
Rob, I had to teach, rob, I hadto teach.

(21:27):
Rob was always more cautious,observant and you know, and he
was, you could be patient withhim.
Don was like.
He was like having a Wolverinein a you know, in a plastic bag
trying to get out for air so itwas always that constant.
You know, 90 miles an hour,everywhere, 90 miles an hour.
And so I put him out on the ice.

(21:49):
He's three years old.
Put him out on the ice and hefalls down.
He starts to scream.
He's screaming at the top ofhis head.
This is not for him.
So I pull him off.
Now he's fighting me, pushing,pushing me away to get on the
ice.
So this went off two or threetimes where parents are looking
at me, going like what kind ofattitude is he to you?
Stop torturing that child,don't forget.
It's not for him.
Put him on the suite, my handto God.

(22:14):
He took off and he startedskating full speed and he didn't
stop until just recently wherehe left Prohaki.
So, and he was competing as athree-year-old with six and
seven-year-olds, because Ididn't want to coach, I didn't
want to try to let them develop.
You know the fault he's got tohave his hand on everything.

(22:39):
I didn't necessarily.
That was not necessarily solved, and you know they used to
complain.
They'd say you know he's goingaround other kids, he's scoring
goals, he's putting pucks ontheir sticks and they can't.
You know I was like what do youwant me to do?
You know, the kid is four yearsold, three years old, four
years old, five years old.
What do you want me to do?

(22:59):
He's fighting againsteight-year-olds, you know.
Yeah, but it's not fair.
He's better than that.
I just let's stop right now.
I wound up coming.
You know, I wound up leavingStaten Island after six years.
I coached Rob for quite a whileDom, I didn't.
You know, I was trying not tobe involved as a parent, I just
do my own thing, so forth and soon.

(23:20):
Because I was still playing anda guy calls me out.
He goes listen, I know you play, I know you skate, I know you
know the game.
He said why don't you come outand give me a hand with the
learn to play?
Because we had to put Dom.
We were still in Staten Island.
I put him in a learn to playand I said okay.
So I went and it was, I wasalright, I was assisting and

(23:42):
helping kids get up and teachingthem little things.
And then it just went on for acouple of weeks and by the third
week the guy's not theregetting show up.
I guess this was like akin to ifyou've ever been to a youth
football game and it's freezingout and you're standing and
you're following it up and downthe field and the guy's doing

(24:04):
the chains, you know for theline of scrimmage.
He's doing the chains and itturns around and goes listen, I
got to go to the bathroom.
Could you hold this chain forme?
And you go, yeah, yeah, he goes.
Really, I can't.
I got to go Because it's toocold.
This is why a guy wants to getout of it.
So now you're holding the chain, go, there's this guy coming
back.
Well, I was holding the chain.
The guy never came back.
And then at the next meetingthe coaches meeting there I got

(24:28):
called in and going well, you'redoing the learn to play right
and I've been on a bench eversince, so I didn't want to do it
.
I kind of got sucked into it,but you know, but it's been fun.
So it's done my coach for along time.
Coach Dometley was 15, he'sturning 16.
I started the first juniorprogram at the Aviator because I

(24:53):
had midget players.
I had kids from otherorganizations that had coach,
that were looking to play olderkids, and we started with a
major program Chris Worcester ona director.
At that time he gave me greenlights go for it Started.
The first major program Startedwith a 16U, then an 18U.

(25:13):
Eventually I wound up buyinginto a franchise in the IJHL it
doesn't exist anymore whichlater was sucked up by the USPHL
, and that's another story foranother time.
But Dometley was 16, he wasplaying for me.
Everybody goes well.
You got to be with a kid allthe time.

(25:33):
It wasn't true.
He didn't drive, no one livednear us.
I had you know, I was coaching,so now it's easy for him to be
with me.
He winds up going to the MetroMoose in the what the heck I
don't remember.
The Met League played in theregot some interest and I get a

(25:54):
phone call from an assistantcoach in the USHL where I
thought somebody was pranking.
I thought it was a prank phonecall.
He goes no, we want to put himon a plane.
He wound up playing for theOmaha Lanses at 16 years old in
USHL so he was on the scoutinglist, everything that you could

(26:14):
possibly imagine.
And you know.
Then the negative stuff started.
You know, as he got older hewas injured by a guy who was in
the NHL right now, who I coachedevery time, I see and he got
knocked down a couple of pegsand got released.
Well, I know, coming back here,when I was leaving which is

(26:37):
another story, another story foranother time I had to step away
from the junior team and hire acoach named Mike Stanaway.
Mike Stanaway is an excellentcoach.
He's a phenomenal recruiter.
He places more kids in D3 thananybody I know and he was

(27:01):
instrumental in helping with Dom.
Instrumental in helping.
He says Professor, you're outof shape, you're going to have
to come play with me for alittle while, I'll get you in
shape, which he did.
And it came down to three orfour programs, three or four
programs, four programs three D1and one D3.
One was Maine and they backedout.

(27:23):
They backed out because of theinjury.
The other one was Weston,michigan, where I was with good
friends with a head coach whogot into some trouble.
He was no longer the head coach, so that dried up.
The last two was one was AICand the other one was St Norwood
College, AIC.

(27:45):
I was not sure because at thetime I didn't believe that
campus was properly secured in acouple of other reasons.
So it was like he goes, I'mplaying D3.
Since I'll never go into thedraft, I said what that doesn't
mean, you're not going to gointo Pro Hockey.
So he I says, let's do this,let's look at both of them and

(28:08):
then you decide.
You tell me what you want to do, it's up to you.
You're going to do the heavylifting.
That may be a big boy, you know.
So what happens is he goes toSt Norwood, pays a visit.
St Norwood just came.
Now.
There's people right now.
Anybody that's going to watchthis is going to squirm in their
seat on this one.
They're going.
Ah, stop trolling.

(28:29):
Oh, it is true, all right, hegoes there.
They just played against WISCO,against the University of
Wisconsin.
It was a D1 program and theybeat him.
Only certain factions said no,they didn't beat them, it was a
tie.
So I says what do you thinkabout that?

(28:49):
He goes.
Dad, this is the best team I'veever seen.
Head coach was Tim Coglan.
Tim Coglan has more wrangingsin his ears than you can ever
imagine.
It was basically a D1 programmasquerading his D3, a

(29:12):
powerhouse.
He plays.
Great program, great system,great school.
Small school but great school.
I says worst case scenario.
I know you want to play prohockey but the worst case
scenario is getting an educationEducation worth a million
dollars these days.
So he did and he went and hisfirst year as a freshman he was

(29:33):
playing for a second lineminutes and they were in the.
They lost the first round inthe national championship.
Second year they won it.
So in fact we had the fanningfamily took a vacation to go
watch the frozen four and theywere there with us when they won

(29:56):
.
It was just a magical, magicalthing.
It was up in Lake Placid.
You have all the formal, youknow, from the from the miracle
on ice team walking aroundhanging out.
It was the only nephew wasplaying.
They played them in the final.
It was phenomenal hockey.

(30:17):
It was one of the most excitingweekends we've ever had and you
know, at the end of the day thekids got an edge of college
education.
He's got a frozen forward.
It's amazing.
You know everybody wants to getdrafted in the NHL.
Everybody with some of thegreatest plays that ever played

(30:38):
a game would never draft it.
Or they've drafted love or theywere given.
You know the bumps rush to thedoor.
There's always that opportunityfor somebody.
You know, there's two thingsthat I believe in.
One is what your destiny is.
The other one is is that allthese bad things that happen
will build your character, goinginto that destiny, some things

(31:02):
we can have no control over, youknow, we don't, we do and we
don't, we do and we don't.
Whatever you want to call it,luck, kiss, mint, you know
there's a lot of names for it,but when it comes down, you
somebody told they're trying tothink of the quote.
There was another coach thattold me Because, as you see, as
you get into this, especiallywith USA Hockey, and you go to

(31:25):
level three, you go to levelfour, you go to level five and
this is for all the coaches outthere, pay attention you get to
sit with coaches that have a lotmore experience than you.
Now, as much as you think as acoach, to get to get away from
the subjects a little bit, asmuch as you think as a coach,
there is always something tolearn.
I've been doing this well over30 years.

(31:47):
I learn every day.
I speak to people.
I have friends that are StanleyCup champions.
I have friends that have playedin Europe internationally known
.
I have friends that are this Ihave friends that are that.
I mean on, and, on, and, on andon and on.
In hockey we're unlike othersports, and this is the truth.
The highest level people areall accessible.

(32:09):
They're regular people for themost part.
One in a thousand is a chair.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
To be honest with you .

Speaker 2 (32:17):
One in a thousand is a chair.
I've only seen very few coachesor very few NHL players ever
walk away from a child, ever.
So it's the most accessible orpersonable orientated sport that
you will find.
And when you get to the certainlevels, like we do as coaches,

(32:43):
and be involved with the Rangers, learn to Play.
I was doing the Rangers Learnto Play and the Islanders Learn
to Play.
At the same time, I am a Rangersfan since I was a child, so
it's kind of like everybodylooks at me.
This is listen.
When you look at it.
There are no fans in the NHL.
They read enemies of frenemiesor friends.

(33:06):
They read the frenemies orfriends Very few enemies these
days, but their frenemies arefriends.
And you know, I've hadinteractions with so many people
from so many different teams.
Again, I know Stanley Cupwinners.
I've had lunch with them, I'vebeen on the ice with them, I've

(33:28):
become friendly with them andit's amazing because they're
just regular people.
They're just regular people andthey talk to you as if you're
one of them, which I like a lot.
So, for getting back to you,know, with Dom and all he's, you
know he's so he's, you know,finding his way in life.

(33:49):
He got married and he married agoalie, so we're pretty happy.
She was the goalie for theFrench national team, ana Isarod
Zaka, and her sister, chloeAlrod, is a forward for the New
York team in the PWHL.
So, twin sister, so you knowwe're, we have made.

(34:14):
You know, it's just like theveins go out.
You know veins and hockey, butagain, it's an accessible sport
and you will never find anybetter people than we do in
hockey, except for yesterday.
Lunatic, but yes people, theywere Lunatic parents Just don't

(34:35):
understand yesterday, but it washandled correctly, I believe.
Go talk to Ilya.
So I don't hear.
Go talk to Ilya.
Oh say, Ilya, I'm good, but it'syou know, I was very happy when
you had asked me to do theranges.
Because, it's the interactionwith the kids.

(34:56):
And you know, it's amazing, weget to change lives not change,
that would say change and we getto direct them in the right
place.
So you know, we're a hockeyfamily here.
You have a hockey family.
We wouldn't know each other ifit wasn't for hockey.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
Yeah yeah, and you know I take a lot of inspiration
from what you've been talkingabout, because I don't know if
you know, but Jane and I youknow John knows my wife Jane
very, very well Jane, I alsowent through fertility
treatments as well.
We were told we never gonnahave kids in two years.
Into it, right before we weresupposed to do IVF, he said

(35:33):
let's take a break and go onvacation.
We went on a cruise, came backand she was pregnant and you
know that's how we had the firstson.
And then we had a very similarstory, for Aiden was four and
that's kind of like.
I started coaching when he wastwo because I wanted to see if I
like it, if I can even do it.
I was playing with Peter in themornings, if you remember, like

(35:54):
6 am, and I was like I reallywant to try it, and so you and
Chris obviously gave me a shotthere.
And then when Aiden was fourand I got him onto the ice and
skates for the first time, Ithink Liam was two and a half
and Aiden's on the ice skatingwhen we get off and Liam cried
for a full hour and Jane turnedto me and said you're gonna take

(36:18):
both of them or you're nottaking either of them.
I'm not standing here with acrying baby.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
So I took him and Liam was, you know, by three
years old.
He was skating at the end ofyour moment.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
He was in the house, the girl, and we put him as a
goalie.

Speaker 3 (36:32):
I put him in the face , and then I would yell Liam,
fall down, whatever the fuck.
I would just drop, but you know, he's just.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
He is.
I tell you, he's the one withthat's more sensitive.
Right, he's more sensitive,he's.
I get such a kick at it becausewe sit and we chat.
You know and this is anotherthing for you coaches out there,
I don't care what their age is.
If they look up to you, theylook directly at you.

(37:03):
You're responsible for how youspeak to them.
You're responsible for how youhandle them as players.
You're responsible because whenthey go home, if that child
feels like they were distored,you know in any way, you know
that could change the road thatthey were on.

(37:24):
It's just.
You know they have something tosay.
You have to listen to them, ashard as it may be.
Funny thing was with Sean.
Yesterday I was on ice withSean.
I called him over.
I said Sean, are you okay?
He goes yes, coach, I'm fine.
Why?
I says did you change your name?
He goes.
Why?
I said because I called youfive times and you didn't turn

(37:46):
around and look at me.
I said well, I was a littleconcentrating on the park.
This is a young child, so thatgives you an idea of what you
know, which is funny because Ihad to turn around, because I
started to laugh.
You know, when you handle youngkids oh, that's another thing to
digress again that they're goodat talking about.
They say you know what yourexperience?

(38:06):
Why don't you back coachingjuniors?
And I thought about it and Ihad somebody say something to me
one time when I asked a similarquestion.
I said because sometimes youfeel you can't teach them
anything.
With these kids, with thesebabies, we make it fun, we do.

(38:30):
We take these kids out on theice.
It's fun.
You go to the Rangers, aren'tit played?
The AVL, aren't it played?
It's nonstop hilarity and Itorture the parents.
I do torture the parents.
You know it's like.
Yesterday I told one of thosetwo of the parents, a very stoic
, very like I says I just openedthe door and yelled no one's

(38:51):
kids go into the NHL tomorrow,close the door and went back on
the ice.
So then you have dead silenceand they're all staring at me.
So now we go, we go about 10,15 minutes.
I give the kids a break, openthe door and escort them out,
start training.
The parents don't stand by thedoor, get back, let them come
off the ice, let them drink overby the benches.
You should not clog the door.

(39:12):
Well, why?
Because it's a fire hazard andyou're the biggest one.
Now, get over by the, get overby the bench.
So I had two parents.
They're very stoic.
Then look, they're staring atme and they go what's up, coach?
I says you know, you realizethat I was sentenced to prison,
but not to go to prison.
I had to do this and today Iwould have been getting out.

(39:33):
And everybody's laughing andthey're staring at me.
And then they look at eachother and they realize they're
starting to laugh at me.
So you gotta relax.
You gotta relax, enjoy whatyour kid's doing, cause you're
only gonna get one shot here.
You're gonna be 35 years old bythe time you blink your eyes.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
Yeah, yeah.
I think, and that's the biggestpoint, I think you know you've
gone from from beginners all theway to junior and all the back,
so you've seen the wholespectrum of development from the
beginning to you know thehighest levels of hockey.
And so what's your favoritelevel to coach and why?

Speaker 2 (40:17):
I have more than one favorite level.
To be honest with you.
I don't.
I think the only.
Actually, I've loved everylevel.
I've coached every level oftravel hockey.
I've coached house division foryears.
I've coached learning to skatefor years in different places.
I, you know, I coached triple A, double A, single A, what they

(40:40):
call triple A here.
It's not really, I don't think.
Anyway, don't get insultedpeople, but you know you want
triple A.
Go to Michigan, go to Michiganand get a surprise.
Or Illinois, or Ohio, and youknow, so forth and so on.
I've loved every level thatI've coached at.

(41:01):
I've won and lost at everylevel I've coached at.
Juniors is different.
Juniors is, you know, they havethis prevailing attitude that
they a lot of them.
Now, mind you, I coached tierthree juniors, different leagues
, the USPHL being the highestleague that I coached, and I
coached Premier.
I coached the lead, both at thesame time as a head coach and

(41:26):
as an assistant or an associatecoach, and it's different.
It's a different mentality.
They believe they knoweverything.
In truth, they know nothing.
You know you get to see whatother coaches do or don't.
Do you know, when you have akid, come in and slap you on the

(41:46):
back and go has a go.
You know they were not.
You know they were not taughtthe right way how they are in
the locker room, how they are onthe bus.
That's one thing I don't missabout Junior Hockey is getting
on the long the iron line, whichis funny because you know Mike

(42:08):
Standaway has a habit of doingthings.
He's kind of like I don't know,it's almost Dickensian where
it's.
You know you're going high-mikeand the next thing you know
you're shoveling his driveway orsomething.
So you know it's like.
You know, could you give me ahand?
Come on, I really don't want tomake him busy.

(42:29):
Oh, come on, I got to go and yougo out there and then the next
thing, you know it's threeo'clock in the morning, coming
back from some God or who placein New England, at three o'clock
in the morning, going.
Why am I here?
You know, just give me a hand.
You know, give me a hand.
But he's an excellent coachSpeaking of excellent coaches,

(42:50):
and I love people out here whoare going ah, you know, chris
Warstein is one of the bestcoaches.
I know, and I think I may have alittle bit of influence here
with this, is that during apandemic, chris and I had met,
we had nothing and we just weput our heads together and we
made it happen and but again, webrought the right people in.

(43:16):
Yeah, okay, yeah, as you notice, because you are only as good
as the people you will with and,as you see, our coaching staff,
we have a little bumps here andthere.
We have a couple of bumps hereand there.
Those are the most probablyvery strong, very strong.
My thing to him was to itshould be your message.
This has to be your message, noone else's.

(43:38):
You're the director of all ofthis has to be your message.
He has developed some kids inthe correct manner and I'm very
proud of what he has done.
Now we've done it before, I'llforget where 17 years in that
building, but that's not myfirst stop.
So that tells you how much he'sdone.
Our stops, that it tells youhow old I am, like 120 years old

(44:00):
.
Okay, I'm 130, but I don't wantto push it.
But you know it comes down tothe fact that you know you pay
attention to your product, youpay attention to the people that
are there, you pay attention toyour coaches, you pay attention
to all the outside influencesso many things that go into this
.
You know and you handle theproblems and you handle them
correctly.
So you know, I've coached again.

(44:23):
I've coached anotherorganizations I had coached I
got to be careful with this onebecause this one has an NHL vibe
on it.
I had coached at anotherlocation two springs ago I think
it's a spring ago, two springsago and I observed how they did

(44:43):
things and so forth and so on.
The players were great.
The players responded to me asan outsider because I was doing
things they've never seen before.
So you know, the whole thingwas for me to kind of influence
the coaches that were thereEventually.
Just, you know you can't docertain things for certain

(45:03):
reasons.
So time is a very expensivething.
You know that we have.
And if you are away from whatyou're supposed to be, you know
your primary focus is to a lot.
That's on you so.
But you know you see how otherplaces do what they do.

(45:24):
You know you walk into ourbuilding.
You see the disciplinementality.
You see that all the coachesare.
You know, teaching, discipline,teaching, this teaching that I
got that from Cassitano.
I got that from Cassitano andhis buddies.
I became a student Again.

(45:45):
This is why you never stoplearning the game of hockey.
I had a very good coach thatwas played under the Soviet
system.
I don't want to mention anyother names, just in case.
They had gotten in a little bitof an issue.
So I was coaching with twoother guys that were brought up

(46:10):
under the Soviet system and nowthis has nothing to do with
politics when you say the Sovietsystem the hockey was, even
though it was controlled by thegovernment.
What happened underneath thegovernment was a totally
different thing, separate agendafor the most part and they said

(46:31):
well listen, he has guided us,that I had helped them with
their problems, some of theirproblems, which weren't bad.
This guy had a problem, so Ihelped him with his.
So then somebody else from theRussian community came to me.
Well, say, russian, they're notall Russian, but at that time,
at that time, in their country,their countries, they were
Russian.
So I helped them with that.

(46:53):
It was nothing like really bador stupid, and it came all the
way down the line.
And then very a mutual friendof ours had said well, alex has
a problem.
I'd like to speak to you aboutit.
You need some advice.
Oh, okay yeah, it happened soquickly and it turned out to be
like, say, Kastanov, he didn'teven.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
My advice is some stuff and I helped him with it.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
And he goes why don't you come?
And again I get stuck in it.
It's in there.
You know, put the hook on mymouth, won't you come out?
Yeah, I know, your kids haveyour kids come, steve, you come
out too.
So I went out as an observantand wound up getting my hands
started because now I'm doing.
He gave me a station.
I had to do stations.
This is what I want you to do.

(47:36):
You can do the same thing foran hour, for an hour and a half,
all right, make them work, makethem.
I watched how he handled it, Iwatched how he handled his
coaches and I watched.
So I started to get deeper intoit.
Deeper into it because he was astudent of Tarasov.
I've always read about Tarasovand wanted to know more.

(47:56):
So now I would hit him withquestions and so forth and so on
, and this went on and on and onand on.
I had the opportunity to, atthe level five, to meet like,
and now I'm gonna have a brainfought very big in USA hockey.

(48:18):
Can't think of his name rightnow and he's probably gonna see
watch this and go.
That idiot forgot my name.
But I had a chance to meet him.
He was the one that actuallywas in Brooks.
He went to Russia.
He sat in the room with a lightdangling, like you see in the
movies, with a KGB making sureyou don't leave the room.
But Tarasov went to him andsaid Lou Vara, thank you, Lou

(48:39):
Vara.
And he.
I met him at the level five andI was wearing a highway patrol
shirt and he goes hi on a job.
I go, yeah, yo, he goes no, no,no.
But I'm from Brooklyn, I am low, high, I'm low.
Oh my gosh, I'm shaking handswith a giant.
And we spoke.
We kept all the people aroundus going come on, you got him.
We must have spoke for twohours.

(49:02):
And I started hitting him withquestions and stuff and I said
can you get me the?
Tapes.
The tapes of the you know desksof the practices.
Can you get me that?
And we went back and forth andso now it's funny how word of
mouth is and how dangerous itcould be Well fortuitous,
depending on which side of thecoin you're on.
So set the go forward.

(49:24):
So we had a great conversation.
I learned a lot from him.
You know the no, no, no no no,and you know he liked the
questions I asked and he gave mephenomenal answers.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
So we go forward Now.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
I'm at our facility and at that time I was given
lessons at six o'clock in themorning.
So I get to the rank and Dom'swith me because he was in,
because it was during the upseason, and it's figure seven,
the figure skaters on the ice orwhatever like them, take one
out and take the other.
And this woman comes out of thelocker room at the pro slash

(49:59):
junior locker room.
She has an ermine coat on.
Now, this six o'clock in themorning, I can smell her perfume
coming.
She's dressed like she's goingto the you know, most expensive
restaurant you could everimagine, but like a movie star.
And now there's figure skatersfrom Russia that are Olympic

(50:24):
figure skaters and as soon asshe came out they stood straight
but their heads down.
And we're going, something'sgoing on here, and she looks at
me, she goes, who goes?
I know who you are and then Irealized who she was.
She was Tatiana Teresova and Ihad a chill just saying her name

(50:49):
.
I got a chill down my spine.
I looked at her and go, I knowyou too.
And she takes me by the arm,she's holding me and she goes.
She wants to leave me.
So we're walking and we'retalking.
There was a couple of othercoaches out there in the morning
and they knew she was going tobe there.
So they brought her flowers andshe takes them and she throws

(51:13):
them the sign.
She goes I'm busy.
It was like, ok, I'm looking atthem, I'm looking at me like
there was someone's talking tothem.
So we're talking and we startedgetting into it.
Now she goes why are you here?
I said I have a lesson.
She goes when you finish yourlesson, let's come, let's finish
.
So I did.
We spoke, we were there foreverand she said to me and I was

(51:39):
asking her questions about herfather and she says you know,
it's amazed how much you knowabout Papa.
I says well, he is my mentor,he is what I base.
Everything that I've done inyouth hockey, in junior hockey,
it was based on his teachings,because I think it was the most
pure and direct and simplifiedway of playing the game.

(52:07):
And reading the books.
I have one book.
I have a Bible, a ChristianBible.
I have that.
It was a book by a relativethat I wrote.
I have the power broker and ontop of all of these books, these
three or four books, I have theRoad to Olympus by Anatoly

(52:28):
Terasov.
So I have questions, I wouldpick it up and I read it, just
like I would read the Bible oranything else, any other good
book, so you know.
So she goes to me.
Are you going to be heretomorrow?
I said yes, absolutely.
So I go the next day and I havethe book.
I have a different book.
I have two of his books.

(52:49):
There was five books in Englishand one or two in Russian that
you cannot find.
They're vaulted somewhere andI've tried for years and years.
So I have another book.
It was a very common book andyou know it is drills and all
kinds of things.
And I brought that and she sawit and she hugged me and kissed

(53:09):
me and she started to cry andtell me how much she missed him.
I said I have to ask you toplease sign this.
She signed it.
That's vaulted in my house nowit doesn't go anywhere, but in
my safe.
So I asked Isis, how do youknow me?

(53:30):
She goes through Alex and allthese guys.
Isis, all right, all right.
He was a big influence on me.
I used to go watch Stadikov.
I used to watch Sergei Semenov.
I know Sergei for years andyears and years and from
different organizations anddifferent places, that we were

(53:52):
in the same place at the sametime and it was always great
conversation.
He used to bring me out on theice and I'd watch what he did.
A lot of people say, oh, youcan't deal with him.
He's very graph Isis.
He is the best coach in thisbuilding.
So stop your nonsense.
You want your kid to learn oryou want your ego to be bruised?
Remember ego is the devil.

(54:13):
If you're a lowse out there inhockey land, if you don't bury
that ego, you ain't goingnowhere.
As they say in Brooklyn,because it's just keep your
mouth shut In highway.
Well, keep your mouth shut.
That always brings it up.
There was a sergeant in highway.
He was a sergeant on the jobfor 40 years and he was in

(54:35):
highway for a long, long time.
This guy was a cops cop orsergeant sergeant, but he was
the epitome of a highway patrolofficer.
He was very disciplined and heused to have a saying.
It was keep your boots shinedand your mouth shut, you'll get
along with everybody, and that'salways stuck with me.

(54:56):
It always stuck with me andanything that I've ever done,
especially in hockey.
You can't listen to somebody ifyou're talking at the same time
Right.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
So yeah, yeah, and just to kind of reiterate what
you said, I think you and Chrisagain you mentioned Chris
Worcester and I think him allthe time for number one is
giving me a shout, but numbertwo is helping.
You guys don't just coach thekids, you also help the coaches

(55:33):
as well.
I know I've caused my own setof problems throughout the years
, especially very early in mycareer.
I was learning how to be acoach and how to deal with
certain situations.
So I learned the one from youguys and Sergei again, and
working with Sergei for the lastcouple of years has been
absolutely phenomenal.
He is an absolutely wonderfulcoach.

(55:55):
He's so knowledgeable when itcomes to the game and he's not
afraid to teach me.
As another coach, I learned theone from him and his system and
how he changes things on the flywhen things need to be changed.
He's very stern, but I feellike the kids appreciate what

(56:17):
he's saying, like they take ittoo hard and they know he's hard
on them, demanding, but theyalso know that they're going to
get a lot out of working withhim.
And so, yeah, and I think it'sso important as directors and
administrators that you guyskind of have two hats on.
You have to coach the kids, butyou also have to help the

(56:40):
coaches develop and keep theorganizations running Right, and
so it is a very difficult jobto combine.
So I guess the next question Iwould have for you is to talk a
little bit about that, like, howdo you kind of manage being a
director, and especially youbeing involved with discipline

(57:01):
and speaking to some of thosediscipline issues with the kids
and the parents and coaches, andalso being a coach, and how do
you manage all that?

Speaker 2 (57:12):
Well, everything is, I don't know.
It's just give it a simpleanswer.
It's kind of hard A lot of thetime.
Most of it is investigation Forme.
That's my end of it.
At the end of the day, chrisWersand has the final call on

(57:32):
what I recommend and he maychange that a little bit, but
that's the way we do it.
You have to find out what theroot is.
You cannot have any kind ofprejudice attitude against
anybody, and that doesn't meanbecause of race or religion or

(57:53):
anything.
It means that if somebody was atroublemaker in the past
doesn't necessitate that theywere troublemaking now or they
have a reputation for something.
You have to look beyond thatbecause you will never get to
the root of the problem if youdon't.
We just had one recently and ithad to play out, meaning that

(58:19):
if you make a rash decisionright away, you will fall flat
on your face.
You need to know all the facts,even the ones that you don't
believe are there.
You need to make sure that youare judging fairly, because
everyone has a right to bejudged fair.

(58:41):
Not to digress, but just toslightly get away from our
subject, I had just recently hada coach from another
organization because they didcall reach out had a major
problem and was distraught overit, really distraught over it,

(59:07):
and he basically wanted to knowwhat do I do?
I says you do nothing.
You do nothing.
You let the dust settle.
You let everybody get off theirhorse, their high horse who
thinks that they're better thaneveryone else or above everyone

(59:27):
else.
You let that go because at theend of the day, you're holding
all the cards.
The cards that you are holdingis whether or not you stay here
or not.
There are other places to go.
Yeah, but this is convenient.
And I says listen, your son'sfriends are there.
He'll make friends throughhockey wherever he goes.

(59:48):
He's a great kid and so are you.
So why are you letting thesepeople get over the initial
again ego or hurt and realizethat, first of all, none of
these people were on your sideto begin with?
Plus, there's another agendathere that you don't see.

(01:00:10):
Well, what is it?
I don't know, I don't know.
The funny thing is that I didfind out yesterday, and it was
five days later, after the factthat I had to speak to this
person.
So eventually you find thingsout and it was a terrible thing
to do.
But this is the business thatwe're in.
Sometimes it's not nice.
It's not nice.
See, there's a differencebetween where we are now and

(01:00:31):
other places, and I'm not justsaying locally, I mean anywhere
in the United States.
Canada is a different story.
Canadian mentality is differentthan the American mentality.
We could always learn from eachother, even though they say
it's their game.
Sorry, canadians out there, butI'm looking right at you and

(01:00:52):
I'm telling you that the firstgame was played in Michigan
Historical fact.
So it's not an easy road to beon, but you have to.
You say that word fair willcome up.
There's nothing fair in certainthings that happen.
There's nothing fair in certainthings that some parents will

(01:01:12):
predicate their lives on beingright or pushing their agenda,
whatever that may be, or anagenda being my kid?
There's my kid, my kid.
How many kids are on the travelteam?
How many kids are on thejourney team?
How many kids?
It's not about your kid.
It's about our kids.
So again, it's a long road.

(01:01:36):
And there was something elseanother boss of mine had said.
It was a very interesting quote.
And somebody had said somethingto him in as much as but what if
, but what if?
But what if, but what if?
And he answered, you know, justlooking straight ahead, very

(01:01:56):
matter of fact, we said you'reon my train, it's going to stop
at all the stops.
So if you choose to go to thestops, we wish you the best of
luck.
If you continue to ride on mytrain and you are going to have
to play by our rules in the waywe do things.

(01:02:17):
And that was, that was thewhole statement, and then
silence, and that was it.
So you know this, this, youlearn, you catalog these things,
things.
Oh OK, all right, so, but youknow again, it's not, it's not
easy.
And doing these things andhandling, handling people, is
not easy.
You know, you got ego, you gotembarrassment, you have so forth

(01:02:41):
and so on.
You know, when words like I orme or us, come out in
conversations, you know that youhave to deal with a certain way
, because it's not about I, we,it's about you know, spot, all
of us.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
Right, and John, I know you mentioned earlier, you
know you kind of touched onCOVID and you know how you and
Chris kind of came together andyou know obviously all of us
were managing that situation itwas, it was hard on everybody.
But you know, in some of theshows I've done since then I've
heard a lot about the culturalchange that people saw and some

(01:03:18):
folks said some coaches said,well, covid was the best year
because parents can come intothe building and so the kids
were still focused.

Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
The guys were great, it was wonderful.
And then you know so have youseen?

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
that cultural change since COVID or during COVID and
you know, in terms of justdealing with the parents and
these issues, we handled it alittle differently.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
We handled it a little differently First.
We had just the kids coming in.
We had the kids dressingoutside, we had an area for them
to dress and mat for them towalk into.
We had one place to get intothe building and one place to
get out, so the people weren'tcoming in, and so forth and so
on.
Everybody had the temperaturetaken as they came in.
Everybody wore a mask when theycame in, everybody.

(01:04:10):
We had more sanitizer than youcould ever imagine.
You could, really you couldhave a vat of it and just jump
in and come out and come out andchair them free, and then it
would ease up, so forth and soon.
We did have pressure from theoutside.
Again we are particularfacilities on government
property, which means we are aprivate entity on government
property, being a private entity, that if anybody enters our

(01:04:35):
building without ouracknowledgement, they can be
removed.
Federal government has theirguidelines, city and state have
their guidelines and they willbelieve it or not, they will do
a fighting over whosejurisdiction it was.
So you're on federal property,you're on federal, you know,
that's it.
So we had them taking picturesof it.

(01:04:56):
I went outside and waved tothem, asked them could we get
you anything?
You do that.
No, no, I'm just standing here.
Ok, can I come in?
No, you cannot come in.
Why not?
It's a private facility.
Well, why not?
I said you may have come up andclose the door.
So be polite.
They're doing their job or whatthey were ordered to do.

(01:05:18):
But we kind of kept peopleseparate.
We kept making sure the placewas clean.
They're nobody dressed in alocker room.
Everybody got dressed away fromeach other.
We took precautions.
We took precautions and thattime passed.
You don't realize that was athree-year bubble.
It was a three-year bubble, butin the meantime we were very.

(01:05:42):
The kid came inside and said Idon't feel good.
We tell the parents well, we'vegot to get out.
Kids may be sick, so let's nottake a chance on it.
And people were verycooperative because you know
what they understood.
99% of the parents werefamilies.
They understood Don't bringfive people in here, well, why

(01:06:05):
my grandparents haven't seen aplayboy?
They're going to see him now.
You had a phone.
Take a video, go live, it'sfine with us.
And then things started tochange again.
We're still cautious withcertain things.
You have to be.
You have to be Believe it ornot.

(01:06:25):
I don't want to get intoanything too deep with this, but
from my experience it was avirus.
We've had viruses before.
We've had plagues in thiscountry, just like we have
around the world.
It's how it was dealt with.
It's how it was dealt with, howit was handled, how you as a
person have to be responsibleand again, you have to be
responsible for your ownchildren.

(01:06:45):
And I would go out and talk alot and talk to the parents.
I talk to the parents.
So everybody kept was willing,for Chris would go on to talk to
the parents.
The other coaches would go onto talk to the parents.
There was a line ofcommunication.
You need to communicate.
You cannot have because Ifigure out.

(01:07:07):
It's the way it is because Itold you so what you'd be honest
with people and tell them,whether they like it or not,
it's the truth and they rememberyou can never say that you
didn't tell me oh yes, I did, ohyes, I did.
Which is you see all kinds.
You see all kinds of situations, but that's basically the way

(01:07:28):
we handled it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
Yeah and yeah, I wanted to kind of shift a little
bit, I guess just to talk alittle bit.
But take you a little bit backto the coaching and talk a
little bit.
I know we could a little bitover an hour here, but I wanted
to talk to you about athletesthat stood out to you in your
career and some of thecharacteristics that maybe you

(01:07:51):
can mention, some of the thingsthat you saw in those athletes
whether it was theirrelationship with their parents,
what their parents did thatstood out to you, that you knew
when you were coaching them,like this kid is going to go
somewhere or this kid is goingto struggle.
What stood out to them better?

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
You know what I've seen?
There were kids that made it asfar as the NHL, but I was a
little bit shocked.
I was a little.
I think I'll be honest with you.
I was a little bit shocked.
I don't want to mention thenames.
I was shocked.
Some of them I didn'tparticularly care for the
parents because they wereself-righteous, arrogant, so

(01:08:33):
very few.
One player in particular well,there's a couple in particular.
Joey Diamond played for AppleClaw.
He played for the junior teams,went up through Henry Loza's
system.
Not a big kid, still not a bigguy.
One of the most skilled hockeyplayers, about 5'7", 7.5", 5'8".

(01:08:58):
He played in the NHL.
He played one or two games orthree games through the island
in the island system.
He played mostly in the AHLBridgeboard.
He fought some of theheavyweight in the games at his
size and knocked some of themunconscious.
He was one of the toughest kidshe was playing.

(01:09:18):
They played for.
Let me digress.
The way they had it set was ifyou played for the junior team,
you went to school for St Mary'sin Manasset.
Even if you were from Canada,you went to St Mary's.
So they had.
They were on a high school teamand they were on the junior
teams.
My son was one of them, rob,but Joey was playing and there

(01:09:45):
was a kid decided he was goingto teach Joey a lesson Because
Joey's very skilled, veryskilled, always very skilled,
quick, fast, great hand.
His skating was amazing and hepicked the wrong guy because I
saw him knock this guy out onthe ice.
He pulled the guy down to himand knocked him unconscious.

(01:10:06):
I know Joey.
Joey was going to play forMaine and then he went.
He was in the draft and heplayed.
He was mostly in the AHL and hewas a fighter.
If you Google it or put it inYouTube, you can see some of his
battles.
But he was a great kid and he'sa great young man now.
Love him.
Kevin LeBank plays for San Jose.

(01:10:29):
Kevin, I've never known Kevin.
Not to have a smile on his facewould have come up and break my
ribs squeezing me to say hello.
Amazing family, great family.
His father played for the Czechnational team years ago.
Great family, same with Joey'sfamily.

(01:10:51):
Great family, shane Pinto Iknow Shane.
I know him since when he was akid.
He was never very friendly withthem.
So people, oh yeah, I know, Iknow.
I know I know, I know he skateswith Dom and a couple of the
guys at the facility.
Very nice kid, very nice family.
But you couldn't tell at thatpoint until he moved on.

(01:11:13):
It was only with us a few, twoor three years.
Then he moved on.
Charlie McAvoy, charlie was he'sgoing to probably get mad at me
for saying this if he sees thisor somebody else would give it
to him.
Charlie always had a smile.
He was always one of those kidsHe'd give him a dollar to go

(01:11:35):
get something out of the candymachine.
It's just great.
And he grew and he was veryskillful, always very skillful.
Excellent family, excellent,excellent family.
Dom had run into him.
They were doing the USA.
He was playing for the nationalteam and Dom was playing for I

(01:11:57):
think it was Lincoln.
There were the Lincoln Starsand the USHL and the first thing
he said to him gave Dom a hug.
He goes how's your father?
So that tells you what kind ofyou know.
He's a big NHL star now but henever forgets.
It's funny because one of thekids that we had at the rink.
I love this kid, another greatfamily.
He plays for the house division.

(01:12:19):
Big Boston Bruins fan, bigCharlie McAvoy fan and he's at
the Bruins game.
I got a.
You know pictures father sendsme pictures he's at the Bruins
game, him and his buddy, andhe's wearing a Charlie McAvoy
jersey and they're at warmupsand he's got a sign that says
Charlie McAvoy.
Coach Sackler was my coach too.

(01:12:41):
May I have a puck and Charliesees the sign and goes right
over to him.
I had made the kid feel like amillion bucks.
I didn't coach Charlie, youknow I didn't coach Charlie, but
I watched him growing up and Iwatched him playing growing up,
but we knew him at the rink.
You know, one thing that standsout is we had a tournament at

(01:13:02):
the youth level and they camelate.
It was Friday, it was a holidayweekend and there was no food
and we had pizza and invited himand his father in to eat with
our family because they werestuffed otherwise.
So and you know you talk andgone back before there's such a
good, good family.
The whole family's nice.
In fact, his sister works forthe Rangers.

(01:13:23):
Charlie, is it Charlie's sister?
I think it's.
Charlie's sister works for theRangers.
Just a good family.
The family's a good hockeyfamily.
For the most part are really,really excellent people, but
there's been so many, so manythat you know I've known Some of
them.
You forget you know, untilsomebody brings it up.

(01:13:44):
You know, because the hockey isa big place.
It's a big, big place, but it'sa small world, you know.
Yeah, it is a small world, butit's amazing.
I mean see, I'm at the Rink Oneday and it was just a few years
ago and the weather washorrendous, and I rode my bike
in.

(01:14:04):
I don't know why I did this,but I figured I'm going to do an
hour, I'm going to get out, I'mnot even going to go to the
drive and I'll get there on abike in a sprint.
It's only a three and a halfmiles or whatever.
So, boy, the weather turned so.
I get in, I get in.
I kind of spossed the kids waslearn to play every aviate a lot

(01:14:26):
of fun.
And as a guy coming in with abag and two kids, two young kids
, this guy is big.
And I mean, this guy is big andI see him and he comes over and
he goes.
You know, I spoke to Chris.
He says do you mind if I comeon here?
I said no, no, come on out,welcome.
You know, come on, let's go outand give me a hand, though.

(01:14:47):
He goes yeah, absolutely.
So we go out with play.
After a while he goes hi, I'mKevin, I'm John you know.
So we go out and his hands whocould have broken my hand, my
fingers?
Just just a big human being.
Sweet guy though, and so.
But I'm saying, you know, helooks kind of familiar, he looks

(01:15:08):
kind of familiar.
And so we're going, so we'retalking, and afterward we had a
great time with the kids, a lotof laughs, you know.
We played, played against thekids and just had a ball, and
Seth was, he goes, thanks a lot,he goes, yeah.
So we started to talk about it.
I said would you like to comenext week?
So come on next week, give me ahand, come on, okay, you know.

(01:15:32):
So I'm saying I'm talking to mykids about it.
I said I know this guy fromsomewhere.
I can't, you know, I can't.
So another week goes by, hecomes out and he's wearing an HL
jacket.
I says, oh, we just deal it.
He was not, I played in, Iplayed in any job.

(01:15:52):
There's any other.
I switch him.
Last time he goes Westcoth.
I said Kevin, westcoth, shedon't realize when you meet
people in person, you know,because it's a different.
You know, you see people on TV.
He says it from a distance.
He's a big man, kevin, six, sixand a half.
So I sit, decided you know we,but we had a great time together

(01:16:13):
and of course he chirps me, youknow.
So the guy sends you a pass andyou almost get knocked off your
feet.
You know, this guy's powerful,but he played in the NHL.
I don't know how many seasonsthey went over, played over in
New York for a while and heworks, works for the NHL.
So and we have, we find out howmany mutual friends we have.

(01:16:34):
It's amazing, you know, becauseyou don't know, you talk to
people, you don't realize howmany mutual friends.
And so you know, we became, webecame good friends, wonderful
family, wonderful family.
He's got the well, then they'regrowing, the kids are growing.
He's got three young ones and Inoticed his wife is very tall.

(01:16:55):
So we're talking, you know, youget to know people and so forth
and so forth.
And you know I said did you,did you have a wife and athlete?
Because she's, she's about six,two, six, three.
It's a very attractive woman,you know, so forth, very sweet.
Go to the kids.
He goes no, no, we've met, youknow, in college she played

(01:17:15):
basketball and he played hockey,both D one.
So he says really.

Speaker 3 (01:17:23):
So I says I'm talking back and forth, he goes yeah,
her father's in sports too.

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):
So you know, you got you start thinking about, so I
got home on a Google which is,you know, thank God for Google,
right, right, so you know, I gotGoogle and I find out her
father coached the PittsburghSteelers to three Stanley, three
Super Bowls.

Speaker 1 (01:17:45):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
I'm saying my gosh.
Those kids have no choice.
Whatever they do, they're goingto have greatness in their
blood.
Nice as people, but that again,hockey people are the best.
Sorry, everybody else, it'strue, hockey people, you know
the families, the truities, it'sincredible.
Good, good people, really goodpeople.

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
Yeah, it's a certain culture and certain presence
when you're in a part of thisgame and I think you've hit the
nail on the head there, becauseI've gotten the chance to work
with a lot of Rangers alumni anda lot of coaches from other
organizations probably the NewYork Rangers organization, and
just so many stories in there,so eager.
I had a bunch of folks like TomWade, stefan Matau, you know,

(01:18:32):
on the show Rhonda Gay.
These guys are just so nice andthey're so eager and excited to
help and you ask them hey, canyou share something, can you
come and coach?
And they're always happy to doit.
It's amazing.
Adam Graves won the just awonder of a human being, right,
every time you see him, he'salways nice, he'll come out,

(01:18:52):
he'll talk to everybody you knowand he's been to maybe there a
number of times, you know, withus.
So it's just unbelievable howyou become, you know, part of
this culture of phenomenon andyou know you connect with so
many people.
I actually have a veryinteresting story.
Recently I'm on the board of aforensic accounting
certification, so we had thisboard meeting and it's you know,

(01:19:18):
all these folks are PhDprofessors and all over the
country and there's a couple ofguys from California and and you
know, I, you know introduced usand I said, you know, in
addition to being an ACPA, Icoach ice hockey, and just kind
of mentioned it.
And then this gentleman whoworked for the Department of

(01:19:38):
Justice and is, you know, veryeducated man, obviously, you
know great resource, sends me anemail, say, hey, I don't know
if you know this, but I'm fromCanada and I grew up playing
hockey and if you ever needanything, you can always balance
ideas, or for me, and I waslike you know, this is so great
out of all the things that wereset in that meeting, the

(01:20:00):
connection that stuck was thefact that we both played hockey,
which, you know, nothing to dowith actual purpose of the
meeting or the profession thatyou were talking about, but I
think that's almost, like youknow, like a hidden thing, like
you become a part of this hiddenculture.

Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
It's amazing, it's.
I have a very good friend ofmine who's there was the first
podcast I was ever on, gordonMifolland.
He's up in the Ontario area, heis.
You look at his resume of whathe has done in the game of
hockey everything from being areferee, a lineman, a college
coach, youth coach, junior coach.

(01:20:37):
He has, he goes, he does, has acompany called.
It's a mental toughness, youknow, coach, to get his coach to
connect.
Forgive me, goro, you knowwe've been talking for a long
time but he's an amazing,amazing guy and you know we have
a lot of mutual people that weknow and we're constantly

(01:20:58):
bouncing stuff back and forth,different products.
You know because he's that he'sso hands on in the game of
hockey and he's done so manyamazing things.
It's incredible.
But we would not have knowneach other if not for the game
of hockey People that you know,coaches that have met.
Being a ranger fan, you know, mywhole life it's, my hero was

(01:21:23):
Roger O'Bair and we always kindof missed each other.
And then one day number two sonwas doing back flips and all
kinds of stuff and it's in therank and they were running a
playing tag and he stopped shorton the rubber matting and he
said dad, I think I sprained myankle, wound up to be a fracture

(01:21:44):
.
So now he was out for six weeksor whatever the six to eight
weeks or the six weeks and thankthe Lord it was six weeks
because he took a sore and hecut the cast off himself and put
his skates on and ran aroundthe house.
So we're up in Connecticut.
We had a game I was coachinghis team, but he's out and we're

(01:22:04):
standing away to a game.
Roger O'Bair sees him.
He was there in the rankwatching as we were playing
against his nephew.
He sees him and he comes up andhe says he introduced himself
to me.
I says I know who you are, sir.
You know and we're talkingabout before that that would
happen.
He's talking and he's talkingto Dom and he starts telling Dom
a story about when he was gotdrafted by the Rangers.

(01:22:28):
Don't forget, in those daysthere was no AHL.
It was you know.
You were playing somewhere inCanada and you got on their list
and they went after you andthey bought the rights to you.
They sent you a check for 50bucks and the other day owned
you.
So that's what you were goingto.
You're going in their farmsystem and you know.

Speaker 3 (01:22:45):
So for the song it was different, and so much
different than today, and youknow I idolized this guy that
was.

Speaker 2 (01:22:53):
I had to win number seven when we played in the
street.
You know that kind of stuff.
So he starts telling the storyabout when he got drafted, you
know, by the Rangers.
When you know he says I'm goingto camp in the summer and Basil
is one of the another.
One of those things, don't playbaseball.
We know you play in Montreal,don't play baseball.

(01:23:13):
He played baseball.
He goes sliding in the thirdbase.
He fractures his leg.
Oh no, the fracture where theysaid that this is probably in
the unit.
We're going to play sportsagain.
He had a cast in those days itwas different.
He had a cast from his toe, itwas hip.
So he was in fear that he wouldnever, you know.
And he's telling the story tomy son my young son was his all

(01:23:35):
years about how he battled back,how he made the Ranger team,
you know so forth and so on.
And I'm looking at him and I gothis man was my idol and there
must have been a reason for that.
But he was so good about it.
And later on we met at a.
It was a Ranger social function.
My late brother got arrested.

(01:23:57):
So Tommy, tommy Hastings,tremendous Ranger fan, he, he
says, come on, we're going to go.
We'll go to the Staten Island.
It's like a catering place.

Speaker 3 (01:24:10):
I don't want to go to these things.

Speaker 2 (01:24:11):
He goes.
No, really, he says you got togo, come on, we're going to have
guys there, it's you know, geta meet and greet and all kinds
of stuff, just go have dinner.
It's on May.
And he goes you know, it's forseason second hold.
I said okay, I got it.
And Rod sees me and he comesright over and has a seat and
goes you buy me a drink, right?
So so we're going back, we'retalking about it and we we

(01:24:34):
brought that up.
He says, yeah, and I rememberthat he goes, you know, on and
on, and on and on, and we hadtalked and then we had met
another time.
The speaker was Walt Kyle.
Walt Kyle was a was a range ofassistant coach and he went on
to coach other places in coachcollege and I wound up hanging

(01:24:57):
out with him for about two hoursafter the thing.
We were going to scoff back andforth how we knew and mutual
friends will consist of.
So you know, shook hands.
I had a highway patrol t-shirt.
I says, yeah, this is for you.
Oh, this is so cool.
And on this, any of this, Isaid I'll take care of it.
He says you want us to, we'lldrive you in a minute.
He goes.
No, I got a cab coming in.

(01:25:18):
I got to need a couple ofpeople, but you know we'll hook
up somewhere else so we can.
After that 9-11 happen, andlife changed in a big way,
forever, especially for those ofus that were there, and so this
goes on and eventually we goback to some sense of normalcy.

(01:25:42):
And so now I go for my level,for my level five, and I got to
get up to go to the bathroom.
It's 500 people in the room,500 people.
I got to go to the bathroom.
I don't care, I can't.
Okay, who's talking?
I got to go to the bathroom.
I get up because you sit therefor hours and hours and hours

(01:26:05):
and I, you know, going into thebathroom and I say, hey, what
are you doing here?
I turned around and I said well, kyle.
I said, stay away from me.
I said, why is it?
Because the last time we weretogether they tried to kill us,
you know.
So, oh, come on, it wasn't myfault.
And we go back and forth.
So it was funny.
I also, when I did go into thebathroom, I had an experience,

(01:26:28):
the real Brian Burke.
It was a huge men's room.
I'm not going to get graphichere, but it was a huge men's
room.
So we're all doing our businessand in walks Brian Burke, and
he's got a shirt with his tienot tied.
You know, it's Brian Burke.
He's walking in like sort themin.

(01:26:49):
And the guy goes oh my God,it's Brian Burke, what are you
doing here?
And he turns around to the guyand he goes I won't use the X, x
bullet of he used, but he saysI'm taking a, what do you think
I'm doing?
And he walked in the back, theplace where we couldn't stop

(01:27:10):
laughing.
I felt so bad for the guy.
It's like in you know thecartoons of the guy shrank so
tries to run away it it.
Just when I left, everybody wasstill laughing.
It was one of the funniestthings I've ever seen in my life
.
But then again, you know, atthe level five you took your
level five.
Did you take your level?

Speaker 1 (01:27:30):
five I did.
I actually just submitted myproject thing a couple of weeks
ago.

Speaker 2 (01:27:37):
Now, you know, there's a guy standing in.
I'm looking at him and he comesand shakes my hand.
It was Ludak Bukes.
Ludak Bukes, one of thegreatest coaches to ever coach
games.
He was that's when it wasCzechoslovakia.
He was the head coach.
He developed a lot of starsfrom the Czech Republic and

(01:27:59):
Slovakia.
I got, I had an audience withhim and we spoke for a long time
.
He gave me his business card,he gave me his website.
He gave me on and on and on.
You don't get that everywhere.
I mean you.
That's just something that weare, you know, fortunate that
the USA Hockey really does agreat job with that.
You know people are accessible.

(01:28:22):
Hockey coaches are accessible.
Everybody in the sports isaccessible.
You know it's so different.
It is so different.
It's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:28:30):
But you know, like listening to that story, the one
thing that just I couldn't stopthinking about is that, you
know, while you can dream bigand think about your kid making
the NHL, once you're in this, inhockey or in sports in general,
you can tell yourself thatsports for the rest of your life
.
You could be a part of thisculture of you know phenomenon,

(01:28:54):
where you're going to meet a tonof outstanding people who
played at every single level,all walks of life.
You know, john, you know Istill play.
You know men's leagues and beerleagues and whatever, and have
a good time.
And we play with doctors,lawyers.
You know, you know right, andso you know it's not just.

(01:29:19):
I almost hope that a lot offolks that listen to a show get
that message across that you'renot just investing in your kid
making.
You know professional hockey.
It's not.
Even if they don't, yourinvestment didn't go to waste.
You didn't just throw out yourmoney.
You didn't just waste your time.
You gave them an opportunity tobe a part of a culture that

(01:29:43):
will last a lifetime.

Speaker 2 (01:29:51):
The it's.
You can almost can't explain it.
You know you almost can'texplain it.
I have.
You know.
I've watched my kid on TV Watch.
The range of game was gone.
They did win, by the way today.
Oh, they beat Washington to theone.
Still they be.

(01:30:13):
Right now I'm watching Nana, mydaughter, one on us sister,
play Against Minnesota.

Speaker 1 (01:30:23):
Coach Sergei, now with with the Washington's.

Speaker 3 (01:30:26):
That's his fault.

Speaker 2 (01:30:30):
But he had who the hooded he have forget who he had
at the rink one day.
And Well, again, guy came up tome and said hello, I forget was
one of the Washington players.
You know, it's just, we accusednet.
So if used to be on the icewith me all the time and he kept
looking at like somebody gonnanotice who I am.

(01:30:52):
So we're gonna notice who I am.
I'll just go do what you'redoing, man, just have fun, you
know, but it's amazing.
I say it is amazing.
It's hockey, is it?
You know, it's the frozen, thefrozen ever that runs through it
.
You know I, you know, we haveall been exposed to different

(01:31:13):
cultures in this, differenttypes of people, um, and it's
all comes down to the same thing.
It all comes down to uh,there's dad next sec.
Hey dad, jessica boy shout outto all of you so Dan next?
No, he's dang the next family'sphenomenal great hockey family
Haski another guy.

(01:31:36):
That's me, it's up, brother, theum.
It it's Well.
Danny Joe Palermo is anotherguy.
There's another great hockeyguy, big range of fan.
You know we hate to say, oh,there's the missus, oh, there's
the missus, and that just Iforgot the point that I was

(01:32:03):
making.
Um, we have the opportunity to,to watch so much hockey.
We have the opportunity to seePeople, we know people that we
come across people, that it'sjust incredible.
It's incredible, um, sometimesyou meet the good, sometimes you
meet the bad, sometimes youmeet those who you don't like

(01:32:27):
what they do on the ice, butwhen you meet them they're just
regular people and veryaccessible.
Um, just so many of them,that's.
People ask me the question howmany NHL players Do you know?
I can't tell you that.
This is why, because I've metso many.
Uh dom's playing.
Where was he playing?
Now, I think it was.

(01:32:49):
Oh, I got a kind of thing.
He was playing in thewashington system, in the east
coast league.
I can't think of the name ofthe team, we'll stop my head.
But he, he caused me.
One day goes to that dad, one ofmy.
I got a kid here.
He's, he's half filipino, likeme.
I says, oh, really, yeah, he'sfrom cannery's, from the toronto

(01:33:10):
, where I says oh well, orontario.
I go yeah, really Okay, what'shis name?
He goes vick.
He doesn't.
He's telling me his sister'sgrandfather played in the nhl.
So now my, I stop.
I said what's his last name?
He goes hatfield.
I said vick, hatfield'sgrandson, you're playing with it

(01:33:31):
.
One of the gag line.
He was the roger bayon rightwing, vic hatfield on the left
side and genre tell in themiddle.
I says again.
I told him again.
It's just, I was going like ohmy gosh, oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (01:33:47):
But he knows again world.

Speaker 2 (01:33:48):
It's, it's a small world and he's going, you know,
because the kids, mothers,filipino, filipino women.
They either do two, one or twothings.
Two filipinas meet in thedesert.
They either go shopping Forhours and hours in the middle of
the desert They'll findsomewhere to go that's a shop or
they'll cook.
So if you've never had filipinofood, you can get addicted to

(01:34:12):
it very easily.
Not, it's not for everybody andnot everybody would like
everything.
But Just saying filipino food,I'm starting to salivate.
So and he, you know, he Tookhim to a filipino restaurant.
The kid was like Unbelievable.
So he's like dom's cuya.
I was like brother, like hisbig brother.
So I said this is amazing man.

(01:34:34):
I said vick hatfield's grandson, he's a really nice kid.
Good, how good defenseman.
Good defenseman, big body, gooddefenseman.

Speaker 1 (01:34:43):
Well, I know we've been going out for about an hour
and a half.
We could probably talk forthree more hours, at least just
today.
But yeah, I know you know,before you wrap up, I usually
like to ask a couple rapid firequestions just to cap off the
show before we Close it out.
So I'll start with this firstone, about what do you think

(01:35:05):
motivates athletes?

Speaker 2 (01:35:07):
What motivates athletes the most, in my opinion
, is the desire.
The more desire they have, themore motivated they're going.
Today you cannot teachmotivation.
People say you can, but youcan't.
You can rouse somebody up andget them to go for maybe two,
three seconds or minutes.
How long is that going to last?
Fire has to burn within.
Fire doesn't burn within.
You can forget it.
It's, you know, the opposite ofthat, as we've met the enemy,

(01:35:31):
and it is us you need.
It needs to be in you know itneeds to be in you.
It needs you have desire, youknow.
Forget about want, but desirein itself, a sportsmanship,
caring about the people thatyou're around with, that's what.
What motivates me to go out andplay tonight Is that I've been

(01:35:55):
on the injured reserve list forthe last two and a half months.
I'm in shape, I'm ready to go,I'm going to destroy the goal
tender that's in front of me.
I'm guaranteed and maybe theoldest, but I'm not the slowest.
So you know I'm motivated toget out there and Say I'm back

(01:36:15):
right, nice honor schwarz.

Speaker 1 (01:36:18):
Digger One, I'll be back and here I am All right.
Number two, and I know wetouched on this one a little bit
, but if you had to name threecorrect traits, you know this
unsuccessful athlete like whatwould it be?

Speaker 2 (01:36:35):
willing to sacrifice and probably the willing to
learn, and this isn't kind oflike sacrifice, sacrificing, but
it isn't.
It's.
It's willing to be part of thegreatest sum Of everything.

(01:36:56):
No individual has ever won aStanley Cup.
You know, the only individualthings we have is boxing,
martial arts.
Uh, where you, you know it's,you are not even competing
against.
You know martial arts,competing against yourself, so
you know you need to be able toto.

(01:37:18):
You know the people that I'vecoached.
You know most of the teams thatwe've had that had great
success.
They really, they really carefor each other.
They really want to the wallfor each other.
So I think those are the threethings in my mind.

Speaker 1 (01:37:31):
All right, Well, but, and then kind of jumping on the
other end, what are the threethings that you think can hold
an athlete back?

Speaker 2 (01:37:40):
Uh, Parents living by carrot, by charity.
That's probably the biggest,biggest one.
Second one, in my opinion, isego.
Again, the devil.
The devil is Well, I've met thedevil on a desire.
And the third thing is.
Third thing is to, to to, youknow, trust in the people that

(01:38:01):
have brought you to where youare.
You know, um, which I'm verycritical of.
I have people come up to me andsay they want to do private
lessons with me and the firstthing I ask, are you working
with someone else?
And they say yes, no, I willnot work with you.
You know you come highlyrecommended for this or that.
I just know it's just numberone is disrespectful to the

(01:38:24):
other coach I said.
Secondly, they don't teach whatI teach and I don't teach what
I teach.
So if you're going to get twodifferent opinions, directions
or philosophies, a young childwill get confused.
I would say the I would sayRight makes sense.

Speaker 1 (01:38:43):
I actually talk about it Quite a bit as well that you
know, when you have sevendifferent coaches and seven
different voices, and you knowthere's no perfect right way of
doing things, but when you'reseeing seven different
directions for a child, you knowit's impossible for them to uh
To follow us a hundred degreethere, a hundred percent.

(01:39:04):
I have one more justspecifically for you.
Uh, you know, in yourexperience with raising two
amazing people and athletes as asingle pair in the times, what
do you think was the best adviceyou gave them, and is there
anything that you would change?

Speaker 3 (01:39:21):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:39:25):
I didn't.
I don't live through my kids.
You know I lived for them.
I still do.
I still feel.
You know when we're indisagreement that it hurts my
feelings as a parent, but Iunderstand the results at this
point.
So, um, I think the best, thebest advice that I ever gave

(01:39:46):
them was go have fun, enjoy whatyou're doing.
When it's not fun anymore, youdon't have to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:39:55):
Simple as that.
Is there anything that youwould change about?
You know, there, I guess youuse the youth athletic
experience not just how I could,but in general.

Speaker 2 (01:40:06):
I think about that a lot.
You know, uh, rob was Verymature.
He was very close to his mother.
She passed, uh, he's very closeto him, um, with him, he has
made us started making his owndecisions at the end of the race
.
I don't want to do this, Iprefer not to do this.

(01:40:27):
Um, you know, uh, at one pointhe said to me you know, dad, I
thank you very much for allyou've done.
He says I love you and I don'twant to hurt you by this, but
I'm gonna.
I'll help you with coaching,I'll help you with with dom.
He says but I want to go intoyour other business, which is
law enforcement.

(01:40:48):
Um, he's in law enforcement,he's a detective.
Um, I'm not going to say where,but he's a detective and, uh,
he's very good at what he does.
He works with some great, greatdetectives and cops and he
plays on three hockey teams.
So you know he never stops.
You know they never stopped.

(01:41:11):
In fact, they were going toflorida next week going down and
, uh, plenty tournaments.
They were in france.
They were, you know, all overthe place and you know it's for
fun, it's for fun, yeah, uh,they seem to win a lot, but it's
, it is for fun.
Um, I think we're dumb.
Uh, I think maybe I was alittle bit too overprotective

(01:41:33):
with him.
Um, it was a lot to put him ona plane at 16 years old, which
everyone was shocked at, youknow, because I realized at that
point that he has to, he has todo this.
I can't do it with him.
I can't, certainly can't do itfor him.
Uh, my wife, nay, who he callsmom because he's the only real

(01:41:56):
mom he knows, both of themconsider my wife now their
mother.
So would rob colesau, by thenickname he called her, you know
, when she was his aunt and, uh,respectfully, as Filipinos do,
and dom knows her as mom.
So you know, dom got on a planeof pride the whole way there to

(01:42:21):
alba ha, and, nay, I almost hadto carry her at the airport
crying um, I let him, up to thatpoint, make his own decisions.
Should I have been a little bitmore on top of him?
You know, that's history now.
So you can't change whathappened and I can't, certainly
cannot, beat myself up oversomething that's done.

(01:42:41):
So we have to move on.
He's a very intelligent guy.
He's still a very good hockeyplayer.
He's at the point now wherehe's possibly done Uh, but we'll
continue.
He's coaching, he's, you knowhe still plays.
He's coaching tonight You'llhave all three of us on the same
line.
Nice, make some people nervous,so they make me look.

Speaker 1 (01:43:06):
Make sure you post the picture.

Speaker 2 (01:43:08):
They make me look good.
So, uh, I'll put it up on thehockey's.
Yeah, you know?
Who don't know?
I have a facebook page.
It's a private page.
There's no politics, personalgripes or any kind of stupidity.
As well the hoties.
Uh, if you want to join, friendme on facebook or just send a

(01:43:28):
sender, I want to be on it andbasically I've post hockey all
day long, so things like thepadolski method, and on and on
and on.
So everything to do in hockey,everything and anything to do in
hockey.
So, as obscuras some of us mayseem in this world, we are out
there.

Speaker 1 (01:43:48):
Awesome.
Well, john, thank you so muchfor taking almost two hours here
.

Speaker 3 (01:43:53):
Thanks for having me, man.

Speaker 1 (01:43:57):
These stories are amazing.
I loved every single minute ofit.
So thank you so much.
I'm sure we're gonna You'llcome around do this again.
Uh, because there's a millionmore stories to be able to talk
about.

Speaker 2 (01:44:08):
Absolutely.
But again, you know, again,just to let you know for those
out here that don't know, willya, he's got a great hockey
family, not just a great hockeyfamily, very good people.
That's not because I'm on ashow, but to tell you the truth,
you know, he's one of thepeople that I, you know, always
point to With a lot of thingsthat are done right and done

(01:44:28):
correctly and done, you know, inthe way that it should be done,
and running the range islearned to play does a
magnificent job.
He really does so, and I'mproud to be part of that.

Speaker 1 (01:44:41):
So thank you so much that really goes to her.
I appreciate that, john.
He's a lot to me.
Well, thank you everyone forjoining the show today.
I hope you really enjoyed it.
It's gonna, as usual, it'sgoing up on all the podcast
platforms Tomorrow so you canlisten to it on your way
anywhere.

(01:45:02):
Um, you know, for those thatenjoy it, please share it.
There's a lot of stories.
Um, you know, as we talkedabout, I think, there's a lot of
lessons.
And again, uh, make sure youcheck out the hockey's on
facebook.
You know it's always a lot offun to keep Up with the news and
and john's thoughts on things.

(01:45:23):
So, john, again, thank you somuch for joining and my pleasure
Thanks for having me with meagain.

Speaker 3 (01:45:29):
All right, thank you.
All right, I'm going to hockeyyou.

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59: Gliding Beyond the Game John Sacco's Tale of Hockey and Humanity

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