Player Development with Martin St. Louis, Roger Grillo and Dan Jablonic

welcome everyone as as others join we'll let them in um as we get started so my name is jim claire coach in chief here in illinois um i know most of you on the on the line from my previous experiences in coaching clinics uh with me i have some special guests tonight um i'll start in the on the screen to the bottom right dan jablon from usa hockey the adm regional manager here out of the central region and then um you'll see in the bottom left of my screen anyways says morning st louis i think not not much introduction needs to be done there but i'm going to let roger take care of that and then roger grillo from the uh from out east he's the adm regional manager out in the new england area uh and takes care of the same kind of things that dan does as well so um marty and roger have a long-standing uh relationship and i'll let them explain that and uh we'll go from there so roger without further ado i'll let you get started thanks jim and it's always nice to uh talk to some people i i actually my first youth hockey organization um as a player was downers grove i lived for three years in woodridge so i know the area quite well i know uh um some people in in that area still still have family in in the chicagoland area so it's always a pleasure to be with people from the midwest and really fortunate that marty was able to join us tonight for a little discussion on player development and and i've known marty i think since he was 15 was the first time i saw him play um playing uh triple a hockey up in laval and uh i was lucky enough to to encourage him and his best friend eric parent to join us at the university of vermont where i coached marty for four years and we've still had a a long-standing uh relationship um for now seems like forevers it's uh it's gone a long long time and and was able to enjoy marty's ride through the nhl culminating with his induction into the hockey hall of fame two years ago so what we're going to do is i'm just going to throw some i'm going to share my screen and throw some pictures and some slides up just to kind of get marty to kind of think about some things um that that that he feels he just so you know as well marty's marty coaches his three boys his oldest boy ryan plays for our national team he's on our under 18 teams the second year there um having a great year a great hockey player um and his uh his middle boy lucas is a is an old five um and and is i think they're they're one of the top teams in the country uh right now and uh lucas will have a really good shot i think that maybe playing for our national program as well and then i think marty just got off the ice with his youngest mason who's an 08 so um he's fully uh knee-deep and youth hockey with his boys and his boys friends so this discussion is going to be a little bit about his career and about his path and what allowed him to to get to the level he got to uh playing in the nhl uh but also his experiences now as a as a hockey dad and a youth hockey coach and so i'm gonna throw some stuff up on the screen here marty's gonna know what this one is right away um so marty you talk a lot about covering the ice and and you you always talk about the dice and the number five on the on on the dice can you talk to the coaches about what that means to you what that represents and how you try to get your players uh to understand that and embrace that well to me you know i refer at with the dice for the number five is is in covering ice with and without the puck is is is is to try not to duplicate job defensively and offensively and you know there's times that you know you're going to be closer to somebody but in with the net available guy being in the top corner let's say you know it's a lot easier and clearer when you're a man advantage uh but when it's on five you know if you look at you know how you break out you know center support whatever like there's a lot of like you know it kind of looks like that and it should like most of the time if you want to be efficient as a team and let the puck do the work uh it's got to look some something like that it doesn't have to be a perfect five but it's got to be you know something like that and why you know why they put it like that on the ice because it's nice and clear you know you know it's five you know and um so i i always talk about that with my teams how you know spacing is very important uh you know especially with the puck but you know without the puck you know you don't want to duplicate job where you know um you get two on ones or uh you know three on two so you gotta make sure that you know you're you're covering your part of the ice and uh you're helping your team by doing your job so marty um if i were to share with you this slide here just kind of a funny slide on on the unhealthy balance of the physical part of the game versus the mental part of the game and when you know obviously as as regional managers when we travel around rinks there's such an emphasis on skating stick handling shooting the speed of a player the size of a player you know even you think about the goaltending position your ability to get post opposed all that physical stuff and talk about what allowed you to become a hall of famer when a lot of people didn't believe in you early on and why why you think the mental part of the game is so so critical well i mean to me the mental of the game there's so many layers of it obviously you know when you think about the mental part of the game for me i think about hockey iq but i also think about mental toughness and going through adversity um and i think those are two things that that probably lack at the youth level uh and i'll give you the one part the mental toughness a little bit is you know and i've been part of i've been coaching my kids for you know five six years now since i retired and i know for a fact and i'm guilty of that too sometime and i have to reel myself in in general parents don't like to see their kids struggle you know they you know they they want them to be good now and you know and i think it's important that they go through struggle because i truly believe that for me struggle is step one of growth if a kid does not struggle it's really hard to grow yeah they might not struggle for a long time but then because they have physical attributes but then it gets to a certain point where all that gets evened out and now they start struggling and they can't you know fight their way through that because they never had to experience that so you know um most dominant players at a young age are the kids that are more physically developed develop or they probably had more touches on the ice where they're better skaters and they do privates and this and that and you know they'll go around cones like you know like the best of them but they get a certain age where they never had to solve a problem you know they never had conflict that's always skating themselves through uh any conflict they never learned to you know know where their buddies are on the ice and know where really the opponents is on the ice because to me it's all about you know constantly taking pictures uh on the ice of where my guys are where the opponents are you know i i relate to hockey as a big math problem and the equation changes constantly and you have to try to solve that problem you know before it happens and the only way you do that you know is by thinking the game and i think there's not enough emphasis in that and i you know you get caught into letting your strongest fast big uh player you know do a little bit what he wants so that you can win more games and at the end of the day nobody cares how good of the 10 year old or 12 year old you were they you know they want to know you know where were you at 22 23 years old are you done playing you're a great man's league player or you actually like moved on got an education out of it and maybe turning pro so it's got to be a balance uh yeah i find that i definitely haven't handcuffed my best players like in terms of impact on the ice um based on their physical ability i i've been cuffed them many times so they couldn't rely just on that and i handcuffed them in games uh you know i have a really fast demon that can probably go coast to coast all the time but you know how is that going to develop any anything to the neutral zone and uh you know guys are open in front of you everybody's watching you play and you have guys waiting for you to move the puck and trying to teach them that move the puck because you can not because you have to um so you know it's a balance you know and that mental part is a big part of it i think people uh you know don't realize at a young age what's going to be the difference when they're 20 years old it's not because they're going to be faster than everybody there's one guy that's faster than everybody that's counter mcdavid that's it you know everybody else is pretty much uh close in speed so what difference those guys it's it's it's that you know so you have to develop that uh really early on and you might have to you know and sometimes you know if you have conflicts with you know parents not being behind that and what can be hard is is you know i think for me it's been easier transition because you know with my resume people don't um you know second guess my thoughts i guess and not that i know it all and uh i i've learned along the way i'm a better coach for my weight than i was for my o3 for sure because i have more experience in reps with the kids and understanding what works at what age what doesn't um you know the the the the developing developing hockey players is to me it's it's you know it's it's peeling layers um like an onion you know it's one at a time and you gotta take your time it's not like throwing like five seven things at once you know you have to focus on the right things early on and a big part of that is you know moving the puck because you can not not because you you have to you know so um i don't know if i answered your question yeah no mark marty just talk a little bit about your journey about about you know yeah at your hall of fame induction about your journey through utaki and then into college and yeah no i mean for me i you know i feel i've developed a lot of skill um iq on the outdoor pawn you know i'd go out there it'd be 10 on 10. you have 15 year old 10 year olds 20 year olds everybody different color everybody's got different jacket or jersey on uh you had to know who's on your team you had to know who's close to you and he was a big guy why i better move the puck because you know i'm 10 years old and he's 15 so i'm gonna lose it you know so all hours doing that not knowing how much is beneficial you know then you realize how good it was for you and you know and i compare that to you know i do a lot of small area game with my groups to shrink the ice and you know and create conflicts where they have to make quick decisions um you know and i i mean honestly like i i played for some great youth coach but i can't tell you that our practices were unbelievable that i got better in practice uh you know i think i got better you know on the unsupervised uh time on the ponds uh more than anything um you know but i had personally i had set back like i you know i got cut from team because i was too small and you know obviously i was overlooked in the draft not that not that i felt like people should be looking at me but i was definitely i had friend my friends of mine that were getting drafted that you know i thought i was um not far off from them and uh but obviously size played a big factor in that with you know the era that i came through but i feel like all those setback kind of shaped me to to you know the player i became not just the the the the attributes in terms of skill and but uh you know the mental part of it and just fight through it and i never felt there was always a never felt the hurdle was too high for me to you know to jump over and um so i was blessed i mean i i've had coaches that you know that believed in me eventually in in the nhl that that put me in great this situation to really uh reach my full potential and you know it's hard to reach your full potential i find you know i think there's a lot of guys that fall short i think if anything not just in hockey but in life sometimes you just quit a little bit too soon and you don't see it through and um i'm happy that i i had the setbacks in my uh young young my youth level and my as a young pro and i think it allowed me in it and it helped me um you know reach a level that i never thought i was going to reach you know at 28 years old being a stanley cup champion and and you know a heart trophy winner like i i wouldn't i wouldn't put a lot of money on that at 23 years old when i was just fighting to to get a shift in the league uh but things you know like i said with with my experience of of not having everything headed to me it'd allow me to just fight through the the setbacks are you the last time i spoke in chicago at a coaching clinic one of your fidget teammates was in the room he's coaching his kid tell them who one of your uh teammates was up in laval and played for chicago for a long time oh eric dawsey yeah yeah yeah yeah i play with eric as my year on the so i grew up in laval so pretty big town i don't know at the time 500 000 people and the top level was you know they would split the two the the town in two the east and the west i played on the west side and my goalie was jocelyn tebow who was drafted i think fourth overall and my other goalie was drafted in the sixth round by buffalo and um me and eric perrin and then on the east it was uh daze and dead alexander daggy was picked number one overall so we had some good players from uh you know 1975 birth here in my town and um eric was an excellent player you know obviously he had a short career with his back uh but uh he was a lot of fun to play with triple a we played a lot together meet eric and parent and eric dossier dazzy was like six foot four six foot five and me and eric with the source out there and uh we just fed him the puck and he could shoot the better than anybody um so you know it's interesting because um there's a study done up in canada where the feedback that youth hockey coaches give their players 99 of the feedback they figured out in practice and games was one was what their athletes did with the puck and yet we know that only less than two percent of the games by the best players is played without the puck and and and so we think about a lot of our focus is on player number one but what are we doing in practice for players two through six including the goalie making reads we're going to talk about reeds and and and that and dive a little bit deeper in the mental aspect with marty i'm kind of teeing this up for him here um and yeah and we know that there's the four roles you know in hockey the puck carrier the player defending the puck carrier then two through six on on either team offensive team or defensive team and so marty we had a discussion with um i think you probably remember this goal yeah i think calgary remembers this goal i know tampa certainly does but it's considered one of the 100 greatest moments in the in the 100 years of the nhl an overtime game winner and we were on a call last week and somebody asked you about goal scoring i'd like you to talk about goal scoring and i thought your answer went back to what we i just talked about with with the the play off the puck why don't you talk about what what if someone were to ask you marty what made you such a good goal scorer what would you say yeah i mean there's a big difference between you know scoring a goal and and getting scoring chances that's what i value more like when i if i got in a slump i i worry more like if i was getting scoring chances you know so people ask me like can you teach somebody how to score goal i mean you know the kid has to work on his shirt yeah there's definitely technique that that you know they can get better at and and obviously speed control coming down whatever there's a lot of things that come in the way but play but for me what's the most important thing about scoring goals is is is getting scoring chances and how to get open and i felt you know that's probably one of my biggest strengths is i i knew how to get open and so if one of my kids struggling at scoring goals i'm watching his routes and like where does he go you know because sometimes you can working harder is not always the answer is is working smarter is probably better you know i mean working hard is is is part of it but sometimes sometimes they feel they just gotta work harder if i work harder i'm gonna score yeah but you can work harder doing the wrong thing all the time uh especially if you know if you're not six foot five and 230 pounds i can fly like so to me it's all about the uh the routes that you run how can you hide uh can you see a play coming you know there's a lot of chess involved in hockey especially high level you know there's a little bit of checker but there's a lot of chess and can you play are you good at chess you know because you can see a play happening you know you can see two plays they're gonna set up a third and fourth play and can you read that you know and where do you go off that you know a lot of that like you're just talking about playing without the puck like that's that's really all i focus on most of the time you know when i do video with my guys yeah i mean i definitely pay attention to the puck carrier but i really focus on the guys without the puck and sometimes the puck carrier would get stuck because the guys without the puck are not doing the right thing and and and to me that's you know it's it's the spacing and it's the the it's uh you know attacking scenes and playing with layers and there's so many things that come into play and but if you're just working on your goal scoring touch instead of actually like focusing on how can i get open more you know you're probably not going to score more goals yeah it kind of goes back to that that that slide with the seesaw right the the mental aspect versus the the physical aspect everybody's going to be focused on their shot and you know their speed and and and their strength to win a puck but the the reads and the decision making is such a critical piece to it so what we'll do now is is kind of just um open it up for for some questions from anybody in the group uh or if danny jay had a question danny jablonik had a question uh or anybody from the the group please feel free to to fire away you can put them in the chat or you can just unmute yourself and go ahead and ask yeah in rogel strauss we had a couple that came in ahead of time so i'll just kind of tee off on those a little bit um and you kind of touched on already marty but i think one of the one of the coaches had a question about play development changing over the time the that you played and from your coaching experience you know how we're developing kids and where have you seen that go from from you know years years past to now and and how you're how you view player development yeah i mean i mean it's it's so different now like you know i trust me like i i i was i worked with columbus for a couple a couple years ago for you know six months and i jump on the ice and for practice and i couldn't believe how skilled and fast the guys were and you know big guys i can fly and you know listen the game is so skill now and so fast even like at the youth level everybody i mean a lot of people are doing privates a lot of people are working in their garage a lot of people and a big part of it is you know it's the internet when i was a kid if a kid did something in czech republic like i had to be in czech republic you had to see what he did you know now you see somebody do something on the internet and you're going the garage and you're trying to emulate that you know and so you know i find that development now is is is so different because the kids are like develop themselves skill wise and i think it's very important for coaches to develop the brain you know i've seen you know listen when i played you know in some years in tampa we had a revolving door with a lot of players coming through you know yeah we had years but we had some social years and some kids would come up and like i couldn't believe how they could shoot the puck in practice i could not believe out they had a way better shot than i did but the game started and they could not get a shot off they couldn't get open they couldn't they couldn't play the game you know and so you can have the best shot and have great speed and good hands and not know when to use that skill you know because there's no cones on the ice there's nobody putting through the cones there's you know you have to figure out how to play with four guys on your team against five other guys you know and a big part of that is i think the respect responsibility of the youth coaches and uh because it's hard to develop iq at 1617. it really is i think the you know the ship i've left has left the arbor at that point so you know so i i really uh and plus the kids love the kids i mean do a lot of small area games they love that they compete right and and to me iq and the compete are the two most important thing in hockey you can have all the skill and all the speed great shot but if you compete and you can't think the game it's going to be a hard you know it's going to be hard to be playing in your 20s you know so when you do try to develop you know the conflicts and the the problem solving with small area games whatever it is there's so many the kids are engaged and they're learning to compete so so to me i think it's really important in today's game to do that because you know it's honestly i call it the tiger woods effect and i say that because you know why as tiger was as in okay he's had his own issues and i'm glad that he's okay with the the car accident but if you think about it like you know 25 years ago 20 years ago there was one tiger woods and then the inner shot and and the visibility now he's everywhere okay now you fast forward 15 20 years later there's 30 times woods out there okay because they all want to be tiger woods they all saw what he did and you know the training got better and so it's so hard to to to keep moving up in in hockey because it's so competitive because everybody's getting you know a a constantly how conor mcdavid trains how so-and-so trends you know and there's so much hockey on tv on the internet so everybody is just sponging that out right so i truly feel it's gonna help you to as you develop nope marty's frozen there you go sorry martin okay i truly believe that if you can't you know think the game and compete you know and and what's i don't know what competing is like there's people have different definition of competing i know what it should look like look like competing is not just a guy on the puck competing is the guy without the puck too where does he go without the puck is he checked out because a lot of young kids they only start playing till the pockets so that's to me competing is not just with the puck it's competing without the puck where you go be mentally engaged you know i love coaching the kids it might not be as fast now but they they're they're constantly competing and trying to you know to work off the puck you know and they might not touch it but they're competing to try to help and you know and be part of the equation jim i think it's important too for the coaches on the call to understand couple things tell you a couple quick stories one i went down to visit marty and i brought a bucket of blue pox and were sitting around and he looked at the blue puck he goes what is this and his kids were at the younger ages i don't think the blue puck was embraced by the coaches the hunt and florida at the time and he goes this is unbelievable he goes do you know how much time i spent trying to hit the glass when i was eight years old he goes i couldn't do it i'd always flip the puck he goes this is a great idea and he was thinking about it from a player development and confidence standpoint and then the whole push back on on small cross-ice games now you know you can't play cross-ice games then he had his kids in a one of the first leagues the in the northeast was the rank that his boys play out of they they invented these unbelievable padded small rinks that they built into the rink at stanford at the chelsea piers rink it was unbelievable and and then when we put in no no icing on on a penalty kill marty was already doing that with his kids teams because he wanted them to possess the puck so he mar marty's mind he's not just saying this stuff because it it's something that that that you know it's like a talking point he actually lives it delivers it lived it as a kid lived it as a player and it's what allowed him to get to the next level and that's what he's trying to deliver to his own boys and so it works and he knows it works and he's he's living proof that it works so i just wanted to make sure the coaches on the call understand that this this isn't a canned presentation this is real life uh experience and to me like raj there's a place in the time for everything yeah i mean if at 10 you i let my kid ice the puck does it give us a better chance to kill the penalty yeah but like who cares who cares you know so that's why i was doing that already like i i made sure it wasn't their first option and i would watch them decide i have nothing better because there's times to ice it but it can be your first play you know and as you get older you know you see it in the nhl now they don't i mean they'll lice it but they don't always ice it but as you get older you understand when it's the time to ice it when is the time to possess maybe use your net use your partner make him chase it a little bit you know but like i say like anybody who's coming and watch your kids play as they get 15 16 and you know they're looking on to go to the next level they're not coming to the rink and saying wow i i love the way this kid used a glass you know like that nobody does that so why make them do that early on why not make them trying to solve the problem and as they get older they'll figure out they'll develop that skill that they actually process the game hold on to the puck use their partner whatever it is but also understand that you know what i got nothing and that's also a skill to understand that you have nothing and it's not time to do too much but you got to develop that confidence at a young age being short-handed that it's okay to hold on to the puck if you're in space another question excellent any of the coaches have any any questions before i go to a couple more that were written down yeah i got a question for you marty um and it really was a true pleasure to watch you play um i i do have to say that it was remarkable um what what do you think was the biggest fuel to your fire that kept you going biggest fuel um honestly i love playing hockey i love you know and when you're passionate about something you're always trying to get better whatever i had such a passion for hockey that i think my passion fueled me to just keep and i tell people about i sat i sat with 15 year olds 14 year old whatever you know and they see me like a hall of fame hockey player and they think you know they think i was really good and obviously i was a good hockey player but they were guys that were faster than me they were guys that shoot the puck better than me they were guys that are bigger stronger than me um but i really felt like i told those kids like what i was really good at at a young age and even through my career is getting better you know i was never intimidated the next guy coming whether a next star like a crosby or at the time or even guys on my team i i mean when stamkos came like i'm like oh my gosh that kid shoots the buck so i became a better shooter watching stamkos shoot you know i'm watching hockey i'm grabbing stuff from every player like i gotta add that to my game i gotta add that to my game and i go and do it i go do it after practice before practice you know but you don't the players that that that are totally gifted they can have a long career there you know they have physical attributes but they don't have the passion they can still play for a long time i don't know if they're gonna be a hall of fame career but they're gonna have a nice career and i think i became a hall of fame because i was so passionate about the game you know and to this day obviously i'm 8 30 coming off a practice and i'm sitting in my office doing a zoom call with you guys that tells you a little bit about how passionate about hockey i am you know okay i i could talk hockey all day every day very true thank you for that i appreciate it and i think that's one that's that's it you know we talk about passion i think that's that's a fine line as a youth hockey coach you have to be careful into being demanding of the kid pushing the kid but at the same time trying not to kill their passion you know it's like it's and not every kid on a team you can't have the same expectation in terms of impact they're gonna have on the game for every kid on the team everybody's developed a different level but you know so you have to be careful how you would how you not you treat everybody the same way but your expectation and them demanding level has to be a little different because some kids will quit hockey if you're too hard on them and not fair on the expectations you know so that because that's the one thing as a youth hockey coach is is to not kill their passion that's that's a that's a great point i was just took the words right out of my mouth because i was going to ask you that exact question along those lines on the youth hockey coaches today somebody had a question on on our registration about you know what do you see um how it needs to change or develop or what can some of the coaches do better for the in their craft as they uh hit the ice with these kids what have you noticed in your in your world of watching other youth coaches well i think there's there's a big difference between uh system and concepts you know like i've never ran a practice where we worked on our forecheck never you know that's stuff you can do on the board before the game and through video whatever like you can you know and and to me uh there's too much emphasis on what they want the game look like how they want you know and when you do those scenario and practice um it's not it's not live action it's not real so i think they're wasted reps in my mind you know i rather create whenever you play three on three you can have you can have you know so many different likes player games where your concept is gonna be for checking which means like you know you all you you it all it all starts you dumping the puck on one side and then the other team has to go try to get it there's a four check involved there's an angling involved there's people working together but there's we're not actually working on a forechecking drill that's that has no like compete level involved uh you know it's very robotic and you'd go here and you'd be there and i'd rather them like create their own feel of what the four check should be like you know where you know f1 is hard on the puck f2 tries to you know take the set the the most obvious option and f3 reads but like that's kind of what happens when you create those small area games anyway you know so i feel like youth coach they they feel if they have a system they're going to win more game instead of just that you know playing with concepts and you know you're not going to have two guys go to one to one puck when the you know you're not gonna have two guys go to the puck you're not because you know one pass will be two guys that's just a concept you know i want f1 hard and f2 you might you might make some bad read sometime but to me like a bad read is better than no read because if if f2 makes a bad read f3 can read off the bad read and reroute himself you know so it it happens organically more and it's less robotic and it's more of a feel and i feel it's just wasting time in practice sure no i did that's that's great i think it goes right back to your earlier point about trying to develop the hockey iq and the kids as well right yeah if you're putting them in a spot you're not teaching them anything it's just a spot exactly yeah you know and as they get older they're going to be told to put in a spot but they they they already understand why they should be there because they felt you know like i think as you get to you know in your 20s you you the best players understand that you know we're not going to duplicate job and my buddy's going to do his job i'm going to go do my job and we all read off one another and you know listen after every game i there's you know there's three four plays that i that i wanted back could be with the puck without the puck and you can't come back you learn from them you know nobody plays there's no no there's not nobody plays a perfect game everybody sits in bed trust me that played a high level and then three four plays back every game you know and and that's okay that's that's that's why there's four other guys on the ice that you know when you're you're making bad reads somebody else will fill in for your bad read and hopefully you know sometimes bad week can cost you a goal but um you know you learn from them yeah excellent um danny i know you had a question you're gonna yeah no it's uh my my question's a little bit more about the uh um i was having a conversation earlier today with one of our cep instructors and he was talking about a a clinic um roger was on and there was a gentleman in the class that uh i was a big tampa bay fan and uh the break came and then obviously roger made a call and not everybody has a hall of famer on speed dial to help out with the clinic and how you change the complexion of that clinic and um you know talk to those people at length but um just want to talk a little bit about that that relationship how it's kind of evolved over the years between the two of you so maybe start with with roger and then get into marty a little bit on this one as well so twofold on this question yeah i mean as i mentioned before i have known him for a long time and i think the the the really cool part for me was the that probably besides you know marty's dad and probably his sons and his wife and his other family and friends when he decided not to play anymore probably the most upset person was me because um you know i was i was i was playing and coaching still through marty and it was uh it was a great great great great run um and now now we're kind of doing it through youth hockey uh so it's a little bit different angle but it's uh it's certainly enjoyable and we we talk a lot about we talk a lot of hockey um and we throw stuff off each other and we push back and we had that relationship when when he actually played for us at the university of vermont where where he would he would he would he he was demanding to coach and i think he talked about always his best thing was wanting to get better he was he was a special player to coach because he challenged and forced you to be good and he would he would he would push back on you um he want to know why and and he and i think with today's modern athletes today want to know why and i think as a coach you got to be armed with with real good answers and certainly with somebody marty's caliber you can't you can't just bs them you gotta you gotta have a good answer and you gotta have a reason for the answer so yeah it's been it's been it's been a thrill and a joy and it still is and and uh um like i said now we're doing it on the youth hockey side so it's it's uh it's interesting you know for me obviously having run uvm for four years you know right away i i thought i could tell right away that raj was a guy i could stop of them you know like would be my game could be anything could be the power play it could be whatever and you develop that relationship and you know and in the friendship and you get comfortable and you you bounce stuff off of each other but for me as a pro raj was a great resource for you know uh not going to the rink the next day with having stuff on my mind you know i i would call audrey after every game if i didn't talk to him that night if i was playing out west i'd call him the next morning i called two guys after every game it was roger and my dad and um and to be able to vent you know like it's not always gonna uh you know go your way uh your coach is not always gonna see it the way you see it so for me to be able to vent and get a different perspective i always felt like i i didn't go to the rink with the baggage the next day and that was important to clear my mind and just talk it out and talk it out with somebody that obviously understands the game and and has a good pulse on my game uh you know it was uh it was great to have uh so roger's uh borderline my psychologist uh while i played uh but uh you know it's funny like he said now you know we i know roger watches my boys and we talk about their games and stuff and it's a lot of fun it's important that players as they get older they have somebody to there's so much pressure on these kids you know and and uh i think it's important for them to be able to to just vent and they're not always going to be right and and but at the end of the day they can just let it off their chest and hear a different perspective different angle and help them to get on with the next day you know and for me it was important to do that because i felt doing so if i was in a two-game slump you know it wasn't going to be an eight game game slump i was i was venting and i was letting it out and i was able to turn things around but i think as a coach too i would talk about me you know challenging like you know ideas or whatever i think as a coach what's important is you're you when you're at you can't just ask your players to do something you got to convince them why we're doing it that way because once you convince the group why you're doing it that way you have them you know but if you just tell him to do something like it you know a great example is with tortorella like he was great at that okay i i used to ask him how can we do this you know and he was like well show me you know and it's like and it's like all right do that you know so now as a player i was convincing my coach that we could do it maybe a better way and and and i love those coaches that it's not about you know it's not about like who's right it's about let's just get it right and if we can get better if i can make him better can make me better the team will be better and uh and i think there's a there's a lot of coaches out there that you know have big egos and they they invented the game and they're not willing to learn maybe from somebody who's younger but had more reps in the trenches than he has and he knows what it feels like and those are my coaches the guys that you can actually talk hockey and and not just don't just tell me why i'm doing it this way like tell me why i'm doing this way and like raj said i was i like to know why and if i if i wasn't comfortable with certain things i definitely would go and talk about it and so that he can convince me that his way was better now that's that's great mike bob do you have bob corvo you have a question yeah i i i this is a great conversation i'll tell you it's uh roger you threw a word in there it's why the kids why they kids need to know why i still want to know why and and i think it's so important as you said and and and marty i watched you play and boy you were unbelievable you you can read and and anticipate and your reaction was unbelievable and you execute and to me uh i believe that those are the four things that we want the kids to read we want them to read but there's an anticipation after you read and then you have that reaction time and to to be the the ultimate player you have to execute and and i think if i looking at it i i i could talk forever like did marty it's a passion i i don't sleep at night i i you know as jim knows my son played and as roger said i i lived through the kid you know and and it was just i didn't even want to work but it was great and and these conversations are just open so much up and you know i mean these are things that i i throw out there at people and we talk about and this is just fantastic and and what do you think about uh you know i i like to say rare player you know there's kids that can read there's players that can read and there's players that anticipate they jump in the hole and then there's a reaction what are you going to do when you get there and you know a lot of people do one a lot of kid players do one players do two three you know you're starting to get that's that great spot and if you execute i think you're i'm listening murphy you're a well-rounded player and i and i think you're that that player that has that passion if marty had just listened to me how to train dogs we would have been way better off that would have never happened to my house [Laughter] you're on you marty sorry no uh bob i i you know anticipation was a big part of my game like people like i had good speed but how do you measure speed you know and i was fast here and i i i there were guys faster than me but i anticipated better than anybody you know not i mean not anybody but like that was a big part of my game is anticipation and now you talk about the next layer of that once you get there the execution and a big part of the execution to me is speed control oh you're frozen huh you froze a little bit there so you have to speak control yeah a big part of it is is uh you know is speed control you look like a patrick kane who he will anticipate on a puck he gets there early like patrick kane is not fast like you wouldn't say patrick kane is one of the fastest guy in the nhl but he anticipates so well okay and once he gets that puck he has speed control oh in a sense that if he has nobody with him he's gonna keep his speed and slow down at the right time knowing that when his people are coming now and he'll roll up and hit the second wave okay and if he already has people with him well he's going to slow it down right away after his anticipation he's not going to shorten the ice by skating fast and then i call it the tunnel you know you never want to get caught in a tunnel you know down on the side like between the blue line the goal you don't want to get caught in a tunnel without you know without the right speed you know because then you get close and now your play across is closed because you went too fast so you could have had a two on one and a three on three but you went too fast north that you closed that out so after you anticipate the execution is important but to me how the guy who exit the best or the guys that have good speed control like a cane like a coutrov um you know their speed control is unbelievable you know it's it it's like they show fast ball and it's a change up and now the d is back backed up and now you can cut across the middle you can drop whatever you know there's other players who just anticipate well but they go so fast and they end up in the corner in the place you know so for me like anticipation was my game and you know and and in torture we had this conversation about there was a time where he thought i was cheating and i was telling him there it's a calculated risk it's not a cheat there's a big difference between cheating and a calculated risk what am i giving up what am i giving up uh three on three going back i was gonna have a two on one i'll take that trade off all day long it didn't work out you know and i found like i finally made him understand there's a big difference between cheating and a calculated risk and he liked it you know so yeah um nice no good rod no no no i was laughing i've had conversations many times with the young man with me none of that not cheating but just those kind of talks it brings back good memories yeah absolutely so and marty and you know a lot of the things you talked about the hockey iq the the speed control i mean the concepts first systems um you know looking at your practices just maybe give these guys a peek and decide what inside what a practice looks like for for one of your youth teams and how you structure them and maybe structure your week or month uh you know it varies uh i honestly like i at the young age i start with a game you know like tonight with the you know my 08 their second year p we start with a game you know and then you you can go into some a little bit of a flow i guess you know for four blue lines get some get the goalies like some some outside shots so they can work on their game a little bit you gotta think about them a little bit you know and then i like to get them on the long ice a little bit go up and down i think that's important uh straight you know laying the legs late in the stride um and then we're right back into i would say the last and this is an hour practice you know i start with a 10 15 minute game i'm probably 15 20 minutes flow or long ice and i'm 25 minutes into this player a game again you know like there's there's not much uh not much board talk not much you know give him two three drills and and then come back water break come back to the board two three drills and practice is over you know the older level we you know we have a little more uh i have a longer practice i actually will split the forward and the d and work on their stuff uh you know for 10 15 minutes but again it's a i would say last 30 minutes is small area game you know and i do i do i like again i like to go along ice with them as well you can get more complex with some of the stuff you do with the old kids my 15 my 15 you team uh you know but i definitely do a lot of similar games but i still think it's important that they get to go up and down the ice you know if two on one with a back checker like you know it's it's the heart rate up and and make sure that they're striding it out it's not just quick feet everywhere they need they need to be able to stride it out right no that's great jimmy i got one probably one last thing here i think that's a really cool kind of uh story marty marty we know you know the importance how hard i got to watch marty work out in the offseason and if any of you ever saw the talk about passion and commitment a couple times i saw it was just mind-blowing and people in the gym would actually stop and watch watch him work out they were supposed to these were high-end athletes as well um stopping and watching him but um talk about when you were a kid the kind of the accidental thing that happened to you that probably had a pretty big impact on you as a as an athlete that was the accident yeah so i have a older sister two years older than me and um she was a gymnast like competing and you know and it's very like demanding like it was monday through thursday six to nine p and you know i wasn't a gymnast i think i was like nine years old she was 11 and you know my dad had two jobs and my mom did all the shuttling for the activities my dad would you know leave early come home late never missed a game but i don't think he's seen many practices as he was working but uh so my mom would you know drop my sister then come to my practice and then she would pick me up we'd go pick up my sister and sometimes show up there and there'd be half hour remaining on her gymnastics practice and i start horsing around on on you know the bars or whatever and and one day this lady said hey do you you know do you want to try this i'm like sure i mean i'm i'm here like um you know most pick up my sister i said i can come but i'm not gonna be here every night i got hockey shoes that's fine so you know at least twice a week i was there um and within the month i was competing you know and i i mean i i was i competed for like three four years and i'm actually a province champ like i was the best in my province and all these these serious gymnasts were very upset with me because i was kind of doing this on the side and showing up to the competition and just dominating but i i didn't understand how much i was gonna benefit off that like i literally at nine years old i was training i didn't know i was training you know like pulling yourself on the bar the core the flexibility like it was such a uh i don't think if if i don't do gymnastic i don't think i get to where i am you know like just that that early uh building up the uh you know body strength and just lifting your your own your own body no ways no nothing just uh doing all that it was such a a huge plus for me uh i didn't love doing gymnastics but i was doing it because i was there and and then i i started i was winning everything and that was fun too uh so yeah it was funny i i mean at i think at 13 or 14 i i quit because i you know i was it was kind of weird going into a denim locker room telling him i was a gymnast you know especially in that era yeah well i think the message there for the coaches and the parents is that you know that that that base of athleticism at a young age to be involved in other things especially other things that force your body to work um through fun and through challenge and and the flex as marty said the flexibility the coordination and the balance i mean that's at the core of our sport and uh it's interesting because because if you really look at it from a sports science standpoint what marty's mom and dad did was a textbook they just didn't know they were doing it which is even better [Laughter] yeah absolutely no yeah my my dad was a gymnast when he was young like you know horsing around in a thing and i remember when i was a kid my dad used to walk on his hands and then when me and my sister uh started doing gymnastics like every night we'd have like handstand contests like you know you once you once you put your hands down you couldn't walk and we had like you know best of five whatever and uh it was a lot of fun right well great i know we're uh we're a little over so i just i want to be cognizant of your time i know you had some i'm good i'm good i got nothing going on right now he's going to watch a game he's going to call me in a half hour we're going to talk about it for an hour [Laughter] well that's that's awesome well hey roger and marty i really appreciate uh you taking some time with us um anybody else have any questions before we we uh let him go no yeah you know what i might ask one quick question just uh from marty here i mean uh how about you know a lot of our coaches that make up usa hockey are parent coaches like yourself any advice um you know for the parent coaches at all that you could kind of relay some wisdom on to the parent coaches as far as the challenges or just the fun of you know being able to coach your own kid yeah no i mean i think you you got to be as demanding in terms you got to treat your kid like you treat the other players um and you know you get to be fair in your expectation of your own kid you all want you know we all want our own kid to be to be good and do well uh you know it's because one kid on the team is is at a certain level then your kid should be yeah so you have to to make sure you have the right expectation fine that you know i do most of my coaching with my kids or talk about the game or i mean my kids are all different my middle my middle child he gets in the car he wants to talk about the game right away you know my other two it was more um i had to wait till they were emotionally removed to talk about the game which usually was around bedtime you know and we can talk about it if it was more productive that way you know especially if they you know it's easy to talk about him if they had a good game right like it's like you're proud and it's it's so easy and they want to probably want to talk about it too but if they had a bad game and they lost and as a coach you're frustrating about the loss and you know if you carry that into the car uh because you might have a different perspective two three hours from from from the end of that game you know so for me i would especially it's nice to enjoy the wind but sometime if if you want to talk about you know your son's game if you didn't have a good one or your team loss and whatever you weren't happy with with x y and z in a loss i think it's better to uh wait till they're emotionally removed from the game especially as they get older yeah i think that's uh that's that's so valuable right i had three boys myself so i i get it they're all a little different and they're looking for different things and different times of those conversations can really be impactful for the positive or negative depending on how you handle it so great great advice you