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- [00:03]
A
You are tapping into the mental Game world for all athletes, all parents and coaches. We equip athletes with the mental skills and healthy phone habits to feel unstoppable in life. And their sports phones are decreasing our mental iq and we need to increase sport iq. So tune in and learn how to master your phones and your mental game. Hello there, everybody, and welcome to the Mental Game Academy. I have Jason Ward here, U22 coach in Ontario. You are with the candidates again, correct?
- [00:41]
B
I am.
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A
You are. And I mean, the girls loved you. When I work with them, they were like, no, no, like, we love our coach. And I don't get that. I don't hear that a lot. So whatever you're doing, you're doing it well because it's hard to get teenage girls to even like a teacher today alone a coach. So I have Jason here. He is absolutely amazing. Your bio, when I went back and I looked at it and I went, I don't think I'm going to be able to breathe through if I might have to hold my breath or pause, But. So you, you grew up in Oshawa. You have three boys. You started in minor hockey there, then you got into OHL and Niagara Falls, which were called the Thunder then. Right? That was. That was something I did not know. Team Canada U 1897 Gold World Juniors, 1998 and 1999 was silver. You are drafted by the Habs, which you just shared that you were once you were drafted to the Habs. You've always liked the Leafs, so you had to.
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B
Yeah, I was always a Leaf fan. And then I got drafted to the Habs, so funny. And then, you know, I played for Montreal, so then I learned how to hate Toronto. And then it was just. It was a promotional roller coaster.
- [02:06]
A
Right, right. So then, so then you what? What? Understand for most of our players too, you get, you know how many professional games was. You're over 700. You played with the Canadiens, the Rangers, the LA Kings, Lightning. And you, you really, it looks like you through there, you've got your MVPs. You did really well. Then you started to get into coaching. Oakville Blades head coach and GM at Brampton Candidates U22. Like, let's start with that. Jason, I want to start with why. Why are you coaching?
- [02:41]
B
Well, it was right after I stopped playing, actually, when I was even still trying to play, I actually skated with the OHL team with the Brampton Battalion that Stan Butler was coaching. And I went in there just practicing with them, and then I got a spot out in Europe. Witlins, Austria. Went out there for a year, really enjoyed it. It was a lifetime experience. It's gorgeous.
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A
Yeah.
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B
At that point in my life where I had three young children and going to Europe, like, not being with them was tough. They came out to visit, but not living with me full time just wasn't that point. It was that point in my career where it was like my family was more important than playing a couple more years of hockey. So once I came back from Europe, Stan's like, why would you want to coach? I'm like, I'd love to. You know what I mean? So got the. We finished off our playoff run that season, and then I started off the full season as an assistant coach the next season. And the thing I really loved about Stan is he gave us opportunities. Ryan Ulahan was yet the other assistant coach, and he's coaching North Bay now as a head coach.
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A
Yeah, yeah, he's at North Bay.
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B
What he did is the first two years we coached together, he gave me the power play one year and Ulihan the pk, and then next year I had the PK and Ulihan had the power play. So he gave us that experience to have knowledge at all the different aspects of the special teams and everything like that. So I was really fortunate for that.
- [04:14]
A
Well, somehow I don't even know how we did. We landed and we met and I worked with your team last year doing their cognitive performance and their. Their game strategy, their confidence, their phone time. And. And. And you saw, you said different changes. We're going to talk about open borders and other things in development, but what do you think, and how do you think that focusing a little bit more on mental skills training helped them develop?
- [04:43]
B
Yeah, I definitely think, you know, it's one of those things where we have the phone at the start of the dressing room and they put all their phones in once they come to practice and things like that. And I think it's an important. Like when we had our conversation last year. Yeah, yeah, I had knowledge of it, but it wasn't that aware of, like, how distracting phones can be. Like, you know it, but you don't really understand it. And then once you kind of explain that to me, and we went through everything and we went through that first meeting, really see the light bulb kind of go off. I know for me, and those are little things that we tried to stress throughout the year, and I found it really helped our team because we were more engaged for practice, which led us to be more engaged for games. Like, I find the Games, it's easy to shut off the phones and do your thing. But it's the practices. But it's the practices that we really important. So I think that's the part that we forget is we can do that. Because usually I have the girls come an hour before we do a team warmup, everything. So by the time they get on the ice, they haven't been on their phone for over an hour, which I think is.
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A
Really tried to make it two before that.
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B
Yes.
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A
Right. So that means just for all our listeners who don't know if the brain has been on a phone before a practice, like even before a warm up, the brain still isn't wired as quickly as it could be. So it still feels like you're running in oil, you're moving in oil and your brain is thinking in oil. And then that's how we got them off. But you. I had remembered over time, Jason, that you said they're like, they're more aggressive, they're getting their confidence back. Is that something that you were observing? That was more. We wanted it to be more consistent, though.
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B
It's one of those things. Like, I had a real new team. Like, I had.
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A
You had, yeah.
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B
15 new junior players on a junior team. So it was definitely a rebuilding type of year for me and things like that, which I don't mind, but it's one of those things. The progression that I saw from our team from start to finish, I thought we improved in a lot of different areas.
- [06:58]
A
Yeah. Because when I went and saw them the one time, they were much more like, when I say aggressive, I mean, intense, smart, never giving up, resilient, like, you know, first to the puck. Whereas before I saw them and they were kind of hesitant. Yeah. And, yeah, all it takes is increasing confidence, decreasing phones, increasing mental skills, decreasing social media, and then bam. That's what you get.
- [07:25]
B
Right. Because I think the game that you came to, we were actually up in that game and then we ended up losing in the third period. We had a little bit of a breakdown against Little Caesars, and it was one of those things. We played really good for the first two periods and I think the fatigue just got us and it was just like one thing after another, that period. And it. It's one of those things that, for me, it's. It was a learning lesson and things like that. And I don't think we lost too many games when we were up near the end of games because we got more confidence and things like that as the year went on.
- [07:58]
A
Yeah. And I. I mean, Kudos. This girl. The girls were smart. They're able to pick this up very quickly. And, and, and here's the great thing. Most athletes that want to do well want to do the mental skills too. Right. It's not like you can't go much higher and not invest in the mental part of the game or the leadership part of the game, or the communication part of the game. It just doesn't, you know, it just doesn't happen.
- [08:27]
B
And for me, it was one of those things. While I was playing, we had, I think his name was Jerry Hallowell. In Montreal was a guy that we had. He came every once in a while. And then when I was in Tampa, I forget his name, but he was around the team all the time, traveled. And it's one of those things where if I had a game where I was just struggling, it was so nice to have a 10 minute conversation with him. And the big thing I took away from him was concentrate on a couple things. I was a golfer and I was an aggressive forward. So all he would tell me is, you know, chip and go, chip and drive, chip and drive. So I just got a chip puck by the D and drive the net, like, and it was just two words that I had in my head.
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A
Simplified it in your brain for you, right?
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B
Exactly.
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A
Beautiful. And, and, and it's, it's funny, I work with some, you know, professionals now and I'm like, listen, if these tools work for you in golf, they're going to work in season for you during the year. And they're like, it's harder to golf.
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B
Yes.
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A
They find it much more difficult to do mental game. Not on the ice, but golf. I said, yeah, because golf, you don't play it all the time. And golf takes much more mental control. And you have what, two minutes in between some shots?
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B
Yeah.
- [09:48]
A
So you have more going on up here and the more you do, the more distracted you are. So I said, if you can do mental, these mental skills that we're teaching you while you're golfing, I don't even worry about your hockey. Right. And so of course they'll, they all love it because they end up, oh, I scratched that game. Larissa. I'm like, yeah, great, great. So if you were to take some of your experiences from your professional years and compare it to, let's say, some of the things, the best things you want these younger generations to learn, what would they be? What would be a couple of them that you really want them to listen to and grow with and learn and
- [10:33]
B
master the Biggest one is, you know, as a goal scorer, like, not getting frustrated when you're not scoring. You know what I mean? Because I remember one year in the minors, I think I had eight goals in my first four or five games, and I thought I was going to have an unbelievable year. And then I don't think I scored the next goal until almost Christmas. And it was just the emotional roller coaster I put myself through put me in such a bigger hole that it took so long to get out of. And that's the part where I really, you know, talk to my players a lot if they're not scoring. Like, make sure you're contributing. And the best advice I got was from Michelle Tarrien, my coach in Fredericton, when he was coaching in the minors in Montreal. If I can trust you defensively, I can play you more. So it doesn't matter if you're scoring or not. If I can trust you on the ice, you'll get the opportunity to do what you can do.
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A
Right.
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B
And those are the things that I really try to stress to the players, like, just worry about the next shift.
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A
Right. And what we try to help players with is so. So you're not scoring. You still gotta pass.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You still gotta be good on your boards. You still have to do tape to tape. You still gotta be physical. So. Right. You still gotta forecheck. So, you know, don't. Don't focus on just the scoring. Focus on connecting and making plays instead. And soon enough, most are getting out of their. Their funks. Like when we take the. The main focus off of just scoring. And people obsess about it today because we live in such a, you know, a society where we are formulated and focused all around instant gratification. Yeah. Right. And the parent pressure. So I like what you're saying.
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B
Yeah. The other one I really like is be good at what you're good at. Like, everybody wants to score goals.
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A
Right.
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B
But as you get to the higher levels, those defensive defensemen, the, you know, my. My PK specialists that shut down, they may not score, but they help us win games. I think knowing your role and. And being good at your role. We had a girl, you know, Maren Holt, that played for me my first year, and it was just. She understood her role. She understood that she wasn't a goal scorer. And she had success at UPI this year because she understood her role. She did it, and she just put the work in every day, and she's having success now because of that.
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A
Right. And it's not necessarily like it's also, and I want to be really clear here, it's also, what is your body giving you as a talent? Are you big? Are you small? Are you fast? Are you strong? Are you powerful? Are you, are you smart? Like, what is your thing? Figure it out, find your identity and then make sure you're really great at one or two things, right?
- [13:38]
B
And you'll have the ability to develop. Like it's one of those things. Your first year in, you, you might not be the goal scorer that year, but you play really well defensively. You know, somebody else leaves, you get an opportunity to get on the power play, you get the opportunity to play with different players and then you have success that year. It doesn't mean because in one year you don't have success scoring that you won't turn in. I look at, I think it was Mike Amadio that plays. I think he's in Ottawa now and I had him when I was in the OHL with the Battalion. I think he had like seven or eight goals his first year. He didn't have a very good sh shot, but his stick handling skills were phenomenal. Yeah, and I think he went from, I don't know the exact stats, but I think he went from like 7 goals to like 18 goals to 20 some goals to 50 goals in his last year. And just the progression, he just got better every year. And that's what I'm looking for for players is I want to see them progress and get better every year.
- [14:39]
A
And technical question here. I mean, I've interviewed now 11 U22 coaches. Do you believe kids are developing relatively quickly or are you seeing it be stagnant and a little bit slower?
- [14:56]
B
I'd say a little bit slower. It's one of those things where, you know, in reality, I get three hours of practice a week with them. We get an hour and a half practice on Tuesday, an hour and a half practice on Thursday, and that's if we get to a week, sometimes we have a game or. You know what I mean, things like that. So, yeah, it's one of those things where, you know, it's hard because the open borders, you have a lot of people traveling. My first year, I'm like, okay, we need more practices. I put a Wednesday practice in for a couple of weeks. And then all of a sudden I've got girls texting me that like, I can't make all three. Like, I got schoolwork, I got this, you know, and it's demanding and things like that. So it's one of those things where I Try to tell the, you know, my team is, well, do some local development, you know what I mean? Try to get on the ice, get some skating, get some, you know, skating
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A
coach, dry land, whatever you want to.
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B
Yeah. Then it's local, then it's not so far. But you need. And like. And it doesn't have to be on the ice. You can be in the garage, like, you can shoot in the garage. Like all, you know, off ice training. There's all the other aspects to the game that you can be working on. But it's really important that you put the work in.
- [16:08]
A
Right. And we discussed that and several of the other coaches, we discussed that if they're only with you three times a week in a game and they're spending still 50 hours on a phone, then we have to ask the question, what do you want to be good at? Right. Because 30 years ago I was outside with a volleyball or dry land training to get myself a scholarship. I did not waste my time. I went to the gym. I worked with a video coach with volleyball now I was shorter and it was going to be harder for me to go anywhere. But I had to, like you say, find myself a niche, which was defensively and with my serve. So I had to get much stronger. These girls aren't doing much, you know, outside. And I really want to see women or boys too multi sporting. Right. Like, but borders, they can't, they can't even play on their high school teams. And that's such an important part of their rite of passage. Right. And so I find they're just, I can only do one and then when they do one, then they're sitting the rest of the week. Yeah.
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B
And it's one of those things, like I'm a big believer. I had three boys go through multi sports. They played lacrosse and hockey. And it's one of those things I really encourage it. I like last year I had a soccer player that missed my summer skates and I said, no problem once September comes around.
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A
Yes, that's right.
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B
You know, your focus is hockey. I had a D1 player for she's going to Jacksonville. Beatrice Tim Burrow. She got injured at Stoney this year and then decided to focus on lacrosse. And I understood because I've been through it as a parent with multi sport athletes. We had another one that played ball hockey to the national championship in the summer. I'm a big believer. One of my girls this year is playing lacrosse. Like, you know what I mean?
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A
Yeah.
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B
Multi sport athletes are true athletes. A one sport athlete is a Good athlete. But it's one of those things. There's so much more that your body can understand being a multi sport athlete.
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A
Yeah. Like the technical skills needed to play soccer, the analytics of you know who to pass to. So F1, F2, F3 still applies to soccer in a hockey player's mind, which is kind of neat.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And still in, still in lacrosse. But the hand eye comes in sometimes even more in soccer. Right. And lacrosse. And I like the brains having to see more patterns of recognition because then your brain is working more. That's what we, we're not seeing enough of is that that critical point of decision making. And I can really see it in some of the girls stats. Right. Like when we get them back like their plus ones, their penalties, their errors. Right. Turnovers, their, their points. But when I work with a multi sport athlete, I often find their stats are more consistent.
- [19:16]
B
Yeah.
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A
They might not be flashy, might not be flashy player, but boy are they consistent. Right. Is that something you would, you've seen with your multi sporters?
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B
Yeah, definitely. Like it's one of those things where they understand like their time management a little bit more because they're doing multiple things with school and everything. I find they manage their time. It's one of those things where like I always knew like the guys that played lacrosse and then hockey were always the guys that deflected the puck really well because of their hand eye coordination and things like that. So you find little aspects like you know, soccer players are a little more well conditioned, they have stronger lower body, you know what I mean? They use that type of strength and things like that. So I think there's a lot of different things from different sports that you can gain to help your hockey.
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A
So I'm going to shift here and spice things up with a question about parents. And I love the way that you address parents and manage parents. Can you explain what your sort of protocol or pathway is to work with parents and to keep them in check but keep them connected?
- [20:34]
B
Yeah. Like we had our opening season, our parent meeting and things like that. At the junior level I think it's really important for the girls to have a voice. I have, you know, I always allow them to speak their mind. If they have a question why they're not on the power play, why they weren't on the last minute. I encourage them to come into the room and ask us and I always say like, you may not like the answer, but I'll give you the answer.
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A
Right.
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B
You know what I mean? It's one of those things. I have a rule that, you know, if a parent calls me about a player's ice time, the first offense, they miss a period, the second time they call me asking about ice time, they miss a game. And it's one of those things where I don't need to hear from a parent that's upset. You know what I mean? They miss it. Like I'm a parent too. Like I've been upset after a game where my kid hasn't been out there for a scenario that I thought and things like that. So I understand that perspective. Right parent. But I think it's really important at the junior level that, that they come to me and they ask me like, why am I not on the power play? Why, why did I not get on the ice in the last two minutes? And things like that.
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A
Because you're trying to encourage them to approach you and advocate for themselves as a young professional.
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B
Yeah. And it was one of those things my first year I really noticed at the U18 level, like in boys, that's one of the biggest difference I found from boys to girls is girls at U18, they all get on the power play, they all get on the pk, they play every third shift. They're not used to sitting where a nine year old boy in triple A. If you're not good, you don't, you don't play that period. Like, and that's not the type of philosophy I think is important. I think you have to, if you take a player as a coach, you have to develop them, you know what I mean?
- [22:39]
A
And all this selecting of the selecting. We just did a podcast on coaches that are just selecting players now and if they don't fit their mold, they're just not getting that player next year. So then they're not developing them. There's kids who are stagnant in development
- [22:54]
B
and I think it's important for coaches at every level to keep developing your best player and your worst player. Like at the end of the day you'd be surprised how many players, people or how many players can benefit just from encouragement and you know, it's in the opportunity and I give players the opportunity, but then I give players more opportunity that are having success. So if I have a really good player that's having a good point year, like she gets on the power play, she gets more opportunities to get more points. Then I try to get the players that are on the power play to get on the pk. If they don't fit that mold either way and where it gets tough for me as a coach, because then it's hard to find ice time. And the thing I tell parents is it's different every game. Sometimes there's that scenario where you're on the pk. Well, we have six power plays and no pk. And then every time she's about to go on the ice, we get another power play. So that game, their ice time's not going to reflect, you know how well. You know what I mean? It's one of those things. It's that those are the things that are hard for parents to understand. Sometimes there's scenarios. And then, you know, as coaches, we make mistakes sometimes. Like, sometimes like, oh, I thought that girl just went out there and she hadn't been out there for three, four minutes. And things like that. We're not perfect as coaches, either. We make mistakes, too. And it's one of those things where I really encourage everybody to get opportunity. And what opportunity you get, more or less.
- [24:32]
A
Right. And when we're looking at, just so we're very clear to parents, we have performance tools that help coaches to determine who's great for a pk, who's great for a power play. Great tools, because how do you know who these kids are with only two hours of tryouts? Some of them. Right. How do you really know if that player is going to be consistent? You have no clue. You may have seen them. Right. And you want to put them on the power play after you've only known them for two or three hours. Now they're on your team because you like them. There's actually ways to figure out who's best. Right?
- [25:07]
B
Yeah. Like a junior. Like, you're watching film on players. You're watching. You're watching more than them at tryouts. Like, tryouts are kind of obsolete now because it's one of those things where teams are kind of picked before tryouts are even done. Right. So, yes, especially at the younger ages. You know, like Sam Butler always said, like, every player has the right to get better. And you look at from the end of, you know, what do we end in April and we start in September. There's tons of girls that will get better or stay the same or get worse in those six months. So it's really hard to kind of find the right people because you're making decisions earlier than seeing who really gets better.
- [25:57]
A
And that's where we're. We are just talking about open borders for hockey. And in general, the girls find out, oh, even by October, I'd say I get a whole slew of Them come through here not getting play in time, I'm already finding I'm being booted from my team. So what happens? Performance goes down, confidence goes down, and now this girl wants to quit by Christmas. So what we're doing on a larger scale is seeing more girls quit hockey rather than stay in because of even just the structure. Yeah, right. What would you think would be more beneficial for stable development growth? Like what structure would you like to see if we could create it without money or politics. What, what would, what would Jason Ward's words of wisdom?
- [26:50]
B
Well, it's one of those things where I've kind of been through both where I, I in Oshawa and we had our team in Oshawa and I played with the same players growing up and I'll switch to sports, I'll switch from hockey to lacrosse. So through hockey it was one of those things where we went, you know, I played in Oshawa and then a couple players went to the GTHL and things like that. But like I played with same kind of players growing up and it was one of those things through my kids experience. Like we played in Brampton in the OMHA and then in the GTHL with once there was like three of them. I'm like, okay, like the schedule in the GTHL is more local. It's a lot easier to get players, our kids to the game and things like that. But the thing I found is when they're in Brampton, they're playing with the same kids and they kind of like bonded and they kind of grew every year. Where in the gthl it's like a win now philosophy and if you don't have success, you just move on. And it's a lot of moving parts that happen.
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A
It's a lot quick moving.
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B
Exactly. And then I look at it from the lacrosse standpoint. All three of my kids, including myself, we played with the same kids for five plus years. And the bonds and the friendships and you know, it's amazing how tight my lacrosse bonds are and my kids lacrosse bonds are because they played with the same people for so many years.
- [28:25]
A
And don't won't you like, I mean we study team cohesion, so the stronger the team bond, the better the communication, the better the movement, the better you instinctively know what a player is going to do even when they don't say anything. And I found that when we stayed with our groups, they actually were more successful because they were confident together. They were, they understood each other. They even knew their tells. Right. Like, and the communication was so Much more comfortable now with an environment where kids barely talk to each other.
- [28:54]
B
Yeah, right.
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A
Or when they do, it's very rude. Or how they talk to each other on phones, which contributes to dressing room crap and behavior we don't want to see. I find that we had better team spirit and team cohesion 20 years ago than we do today. Is that something you see today?
- [29:14]
B
100%. I would say the other part of it is the parent coaching is a part that is not great either at the minor level. Because what happens if you have closed borders and you have. Like, this is the. Contradictory to the.
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A
Yeah, sure.
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B
You know what I mean? Like, this is the part that I would worry about as a parent is you have a coach that doesn't like your kid and then you go out for the top team, you don't make it, and then you have to go to the next level down. Right. So those would be the kids that could kind of get lost in the shuffle. Just like, you know, a parent that doesn't like another parent or, you know, a kid that doesn't like a kid. And then, you know what I mean? Like, that would be the only part that would be the downfall.
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A
However, at least with allowing two or three exports on a team, you have a better shot at.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Trying out. But I think the open borders is very challenging because you don't know who
- [30:14]
B
you're getting challenging for everybody.
- [30:17]
A
The coaches. Fine. There's no loyalty. I know a coach, a couple coaches actually, at the U16 AAA level who refused to give up their players that had been at that organization for five, six years. He's like, I don't care if we win or lose. These boys have earned their spots in this communication. I know other, other U16 Triple A men's coaches who have gutted their teams.
- [30:41]
B
Yeah.
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A
Slap in the face to those organizations
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B
and the commitment and decommitting and all that. It's such a. That's one of the hardest things because I've been on both sides of it. I've been a week before the hockey season and been told my kid doesn't have a spot now, you know, I mean, so that as a parent and as a child, like, those are like high emotions. Right. And things.
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A
Yeah. I just went through with my kid. If I had known that the one guy was going to take my kid, I would have been like, no, I'd already done my work before, but we missed getting on a roster somewhere else.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Like, you should have released me. You should have told me and. But also I should have Just maybe been more forward and asked, but, you know, it was harder. We missed a roster 30 minutes away, and we tried to get on another roster. So, I mean, frustrating. There's a lot of kids who didn't find homes this year.
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B
Yeah. And it's. It's both sides that do it, you know, I mean, it's more like, you know, I always tell my coaching staff, like, once we commit to a player, we're 100% it. You know what I mean? Only thing I would decommit from a player is if it had an influence on my dressing room.
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A
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
- [32:02]
B
And negative influence on my dressing room. That would be the only way that I wouldn't want to put that kid through that experience. If I felt like it was not going to be a good experience in the dressing room, if they would check the dressing room, like, that would be the only way that I would. I would never decommit from a player because I found a better player. That's not the way to do things. I know some teams do that.
- [32:27]
A
I know they do it. Yeah.
- [32:29]
B
And things like that. But that is one thing I've always told my staff that we will not do. Once we commit, we. We make sure we do our homework. We can make your homework, and, you know, we find the right people that we want with our team and things like that. And it's. It's upsetting when, you know, you have a player that you come and then they decommit to you like you plan on playing them and, you know, being part of your team. So that. That is the hard part. And it happens.
- [32:57]
A
There's a lot of miss and losses there because then you end up with a team that you didn't. You're like, I had my team, but now I don't.
- [33:05]
B
Yeah.
- [33:05]
A
And these girls. I want to say the. I want to say attitudes to parents are we always want to try to get on the better team. So we'll decommit. It's okay not to have morals and standards and trust. And this is where the.
- [33:20]
B
We'll commit to team A, but if team B comes along, we're going.
- [33:25]
A
Right. And what are you teaching the kid?
- [33:27]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [33:29]
A
Right. So I think that in terms of the model in women's hockey, I would like to see the tryouts both same in April. And I would like to see no tampering, no switching, no teams like actual tryouts, and be more in your own geographical area and then have three, you know, exports and imports, because if you. If we do this wild west thing, it's harder on the girls. It's harder for the girls to regain their confidence once lost. I can tell you. It takes three months. You've lost the kid. Almost. The coach still will pigeonhole that. That player and not play them. And so now you've got all these unhappy players on every. It's every team.
- [34:17]
B
Yeah.
- [34:17]
A
Where we can actually solve this problem by having more stable alignment within each association.
- [34:25]
B
Right. The other part is the travel and the money that goes in along with it. A lot of these parents that they travel a long distance. You know, some. You know, some kids bill it, you know, I mean, like, so girls doing
- [34:42]
A
homework in their cars.
- [34:43]
B
Yeah. Like, they, like, they don't live at home. They're moving on. Like, and that's. That's a big thing. Like, it's part of growth. Sometimes it's a good thing and things like that. But it depends on what age they're doing that.
- [34:58]
A
It depends on the maturity of the child.
- [35:00]
B
Yeah. And it's. Every kid's different. Things like that. But like.
- [35:03]
A
Yeah.
- [35:03]
B
The amount of travel time that. A lot of these.
- [35:07]
A
12 hours a week.
- [35:08]
B
Yeah. Like, it's crazy. And like, I appreciate the ones that have done it to want to play for me, but it's a lot on the kid. It's a lot on the parent.
- [35:17]
A
A lot on the kid.
- [35:19]
B
Yeah.
- [35:19]
A
They're not getting home till late at night. They're tired, they're hungry. And you wonder why. They're exactly exhausted. So I don't think the program lends itself to be as successful as what we see what they're doing in Sweden. They don't do this.
- [35:31]
B
Yeah.
- [35:32]
A
In their model hockey. Alberta is not going to open borders for women's hockey because they know that they. They don't want to risk what's going on here. They don't want to risk more problem, more parent complaints. And they're already having a hard time retaining coaches.
- [35:48]
B
Yeah.
- [35:50]
A
Right. So a question for you. In terms of a coach, what have you done or what have you done to sort of help you be more of. Because you're a modern coach, Jason. You actually are. What have you done for your own training to help yourself, you know, keep up with this new child that doesn't quite have the same communication or resilience or coping skills as they did 15 years ago?
- [36:19]
B
I think the most important thing as a coach is to know things change. And like the old school of it's my way or the highway type of coach, it's not successful because things change, people change, players change. And you have to be able to adapt. And I think that's one of the things that I'm always looking at, is I'm always looking to get better. I don't have all the answers. I'm not perfect as a coach. I had lots of experience in hockey, but it's one of those things that doesn't make me any better or worse than anybody else. I'm always learning as a coach. I'm always looking for new drills. I'm always looking for new techniques to teach people. You know, I remember my first year coming in. You know, the girls really appreciate the simplicity of my systems. It's one of those things where I do have different vortex, I do have different breakouts and all these type of things. But I really try to simplify things because the more they think, the slower they are.
- [37:24]
A
Right. I was just. Because in cognitive performance where we work, we always try to help the athletes. One thing in your brain. Yeah, one thing. Right. What are you saying to yourself and your self? Talk. What's the one goal? And if. If it's a simple system, you're actually going to see more success in that system. Yeah. And the simpler all your other systems are, again, you're going to see more success in. But oh, my gosh, I saw a coach who put so much up on the board, and I'm like. I could just see all the girls shut off. Yeah, it was. It was like within 10 minutes, you can see their brains. And I was speaking afterwards and I went, everyone go get a drink. Everyone go get out. I could see the girls look frustrated. They actually looked defeated.
- [38:08]
B
Yeah. Well, it's funny because, like, I have like a playbook of all my stuff and I actually don't hand it out. You know what I mean? Because it's one of those things where I think it's too much information. So what I'm thinking of doing this year is. Yeah, you give them like 10 pages and then. And then after that. So that'll be like our 14 check or. You know what I mean? Or one breakout and things like that. And then the week after, give them another page and slowly give them the information throughout the year like we were talking about before. Like, it's one of those things where now I have a lot of returning players. So it's one of those things which
- [38:48]
A
is great for you.
- [38:49]
B
It'll be easier to go through the Systems because now 12 of them know it instead of three of them and things like that.
- [38:57]
A
And to catch the other three up will be much faster. Because the other ones will help them to learn it even faster. And that's the one benefit that we are talking about before we started recording is that when you have return players, actually development happens faster. So now your group of 12, which is going to be exciting to watch, they're going to be doing more and learning more this year, and they're going to be ahead of other people in their respective U22 cohort.
- [39:25]
B
I hope so.
- [39:26]
A
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, they will. All right, last question. I know it's Sunday afternoon, so if you had. We called the magic wand question. Jason, you ready?
- [39:38]
B
Okay.
- [39:38]
A
Okay. So money is not an issue. Politics is not an issue. What are three things that you would like to see change in women's hockey to help all develop better?
- [39:51]
B
I think the one thing would be their own age group. Like, we do double age group in lacrosse. So I'm aware of the single age group with boys hockey and the double age with across. I think the development part, like, we see a lot of girls, especially at that U15, U18. Junior girls are going from U15 to junior girls are, you know, going early to U15 and early to U18. Like, there's a lot of different things that are happening and I know, like, all different heights.
- [40:23]
A
Like, I saw a U18 team and I don't. I thought one was tall as a man. The other one was like. Right. So it just was. There's such differences on that team because they had such different birth years.
- [40:35]
B
Yeah. So it's one of those things. I think having their own age group would be the top of my list. I think the. The closed borders would help with a lot of the travel. And, you know, there's other things. Things like that. I think to build from your own organization and go up and get some growth, I think it would be good for the mental health of kids and. And things and have some security. There's always going to be that situation that's not good for that child in the closed borders. But, like, overall, I think it would.
- [41:13]
A
We have exports, though, then there's benefit
- [41:16]
B
more than it would not and things like that. And you can't build these super teams and things like this. It's just, I always say if you're winning every game and losing every game, you're not learning. You know what I mean? Like, it's one of those things where you have to learn how to grow after a win, after a loss. There's always things to learn after those situations. And if you're always winning or always losing, you don't get the benefit of realizing the other side.
- [41:47]
A
What would the third one be?
- [41:49]
B
The third one?
- [41:50]
A
Yep. Number three. With no money and no politics to help. It could be the coaches too or the environment. Yeah.
- [41:58]
B
I would say non parent coaches. I think it's one of those things that I always say there's some parents that have a kid that coach a team and there's some parents that coach for their kid, you know what I mean? And things like that. So taking the parent coach out of that scenario I think would really benefit, you know what I mean? It's one of the things where there's a lot of good parent coaches out there.
- [42:24]
A
Oh yes.
- [42:25]
B
But it's one of those.
- [42:26]
A
That's not what we see. Like that's not what comes my way.
- [42:29]
B
No, there. There's a lot more agendas out there for parents that are coaching than the good parent coaches and things like that. So there are both of them out there. But I think you eliminate a lot of the politics if you don't have
- [42:45]
A
and a lot of the complaints and a lot of the issues and a lot of the stress if we're just non parent fair coach.
- [42:51]
B
Yeah, exactly. And there's some bad non parent coaches out there. You know what I mean? It doesn't.
- [42:55]
A
We've had one. Yes.
- [42:57]
B
It's one of those things that. Not a magic solution but I think it takes a lot of the politics out.
- [43:04]
A
But when it takes 70%, maybe even more of what we're seeing because we work with open borders and with Matt Deschemel from the coaches site, what we're seeing is we're preparing the associations to manage the stress by eliminating all these. What we want to say. Time spent with parent complaints, time spent on development, time spent with problems, time spent traveling, time spent exhausted. If one kid's coming from, I don't know, let's say London to go to Brampton or London to go to. I know one girl is now London and she's billeting in Toronto. That's crazy. It's like she's living with a family she doesn't know. I don't think she's going to do as well. And already I. She's already worried about it. Yeah, but you know this apparently coach here. I don't, I don't know this new coach they didn't, you know, hasn't produced a lot of the. The girls going to D1 so now they want to go somewhere else. And this is what happens. Everyone's jumping to the grass is greener on the other side Yep. Right. You don't know what you're actually walking into. Like, I work with tons of junior hockey leagues and oh, and you know, you're told and promise so much ice time and then you're not given the reasons why you don't get it. And then you get upset because all these guys want to fill their rosters with some decent guys.
- [44:29]
B
It's funny, I had a conversation with the parent. It was last year. I had five D. I needed one more D. Right. She, the, the dad asked me like, well, where is she on your depth chart? I'm like, well, she's a skilled player. Like, she'll get an opportunity on the power play, you know what I mean? But her ice time will depend on what she does. And well. And he's like, well, she's the 6D that you're committing to. I'm like, yeah, but that, that doesn't mean that she's not going to be my bestie by January. Like, it's one of those things. And he kind of looked at me, he's like, that's probably the way it actually is going to happen because whatever she does, she's going to earn or loses. And I'm not promising people a power play position. If you're having success, you'll get an opportunity there. If you're not, then somebody else is looking to get that opportunity. And it was kind of like he was like, that makes sense. Well, he's like, a lot of coaches don't say that.
- [45:33]
A
Have a conversation with him rather than when. Rather than a monologue.
- [45:38]
B
Yes.
- [45:38]
A
Right. Like dialogue is what we want between coaches and parents, not monologues. Right. Because the parents come in with hot heads. The parents come in with expectations, and then the coaches try to be realistic and show them. You know, that's why we use the. We now have a lot of coaches using the. I don't know if you did this. No, we didn't do this last year. It's a behavioral analysis of the girls.
- [46:00]
B
Okay.
- [46:01]
A
So each, each player, boy or girl, we get a skills report card and a behavioral report card. So check. You know, you remember when we were little, like the report cards are like, needs improve it. Excellent. Good.
- [46:16]
B
Yeah.
- [46:16]
A
Okay, so you just like go down the sheet right before you have a parent meeting or a meeting with. But. And you can see where they think their child's behavior is versus where you think it is or what. You know, they're sitting there trash talking their teammates and telling them to f off on the bench. And you're like, I'm sorry, I'm not playing that person because no one will pass to her because she's being a bully. Yeah, that's important to have that conversation. But you need evidence. Yeah. So then you have these. Oh, bad body language on the bench. Won't communicate at practice. Bad body language at practice. Gets frazzled when she controls the puck, gives up the puck. Right. And right here you have all these behaviors. Shows up on time, organized, mentally tough, like all of them. Confident. I'm sorry, but a non confident player does not go on the power play. So it's very clear when a parent says, why aren't they on the power play? Well, she checks more than three or four out of these 10 boxes here. So she's a high risk player to me. I want you to work on these off the ice to help her get onto my power play. So the parents, now you're actually corralling them to actually have to teach mental skills or, you know, heaven forbid someone like me do it. Manage their phones. Because we can tell if you're slow, if you're not aggressive and you're not making decisions. I bet you're on your phone for more than two hours a day. And it says it right there on the behavioral sheet. What's your phone time? Because let's be honest, if your phone time is more than your practice time, don't complain about the playing time of your child. Parents. Right? Like, like, don't, don't even. So I have a coach who's like, until your child's phone time is two hours a day, don't talk to me about playing time. That's like, do you like that makes sense, right?
- [48:05]
B
Yeah, 100%.
- [48:06]
A
Right. So I mean, anyway, parents still don't understand that, but I think they're slowly coming around because we're changing policies that at different associations now. So yeah, one quote that was your favorite from a coach that helped you as a player. Who was that?
- [48:25]
B
Well, like the one I said before was Michelle Terry. And like, if I can trust defensively, you know, you can get more opportunity to play. And then the other one was Claude Julian. Like it was one of those things when I didn't score something like that. He's like, you know, forget about that one. Just think about the one you're like, you know what I mean? So it was just changing my mind frame from frustrated to okay, like excited to get that next opportunity.
- [48:51]
A
Right. I love it. Well, thank you so much, Jason, for being here on the Mental Game sports podcast today. I can't wait for people to listen to your wisdoms, plural, And. And. And to understand where we should stop and think before we have coach conversations and where we should stop and think about our hockey ecosystem. So thank you so much.
- [49:15]
B
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.