Roger Grillo USA Hockey Difference Maker - 18 minutes

Introduction coached at norwich university for a year and was the associate head coach at the university of vermont for seven years and the head coach at brown university for 12 and i've been with usa hockey um now for i think 12 years and i've coached i think 12 of our national teams so um it's been fun it's been a great run it's been very enjoyable and i would have to say that i wish i'd had the job i currently have now before i coached anybody so i've learned a lot over the last 12 years uh in my travels and experiences with usa hockey well roger i'd like to just No Dead Sharks explain to you the the name of our group timmy is the guy who coined the phrase no dead sharks and we met for well three years ago pre-covered for probably for three years before covert at a coffee house in calgary alberta it used to be just a small group thomas pacino was coaching the czech team and tim i think initiated and we gradually added people on that wanted to get on at the coffee house so tim thought of gee we're all lifelong learners and he decided to buy 10 cups and i don't know if mine probably isn't viewable on my screen but i'm drinking my coffee out of my tin cup that has on it no dad sharks hot stove keep on swimming and the name hell it comes from a woody allen movie where his girlfriend in the movie asked him what he thought what he thought of their relationship and he said ah sort of like a shark if it's not swimming not moving forward it's not breathing it's dying so we're sort of like sharks we just want to keep swimming and learning so okay yeah just real quick i just interject too just to say that uh you know obviously roger's been a big part of uh the american development model and i think you know one of the reasons it was so appealing to have you on today roger is just to hear you know not to give the canadians all these great uh great insights on how to you know build their game and make them better but to uh you know really just talk about you know kind of the whole process of how the american development model came about and i think a lot of us would be interested in hearing more about you know the pushback on it you know because i think at the beginning of a lot of this discussion you know maybe maybe not internally but i know externally and you know from somebody from my point of view you know it seemed like there was a lot of um you know i want to say i don't say misinformation but just a lot of pushback really about what the american development model really um he was how it was formulated you know why in the u.s you know we decided to go a different route and um you know obviously you were a huge architect in that development and that piece and you know i i would i would agree that you know sometimes all of us you know would love to be able to go back and say oh wow we could have done all this before we started coming you know maybe maybe things would have you know we could we could have sped up the process of being you know good coaches so i think you know this and this is a great group to you know these guys will ask a lot of questions so again i think it's more uh from wally's point of view it was more of just like hearing more about the adm more about the process and really you know the the pieces that went into you guys sitting down and developing this structure yeah there's American Development Model some familiar faces on the on the call i've known hal for a long time al does a lot of uh coaching education forces a great job uh out here in in the new england region and obviously mike i've known you for a while um so it's it's it's it's great to uh be with you and it's certainly never a bad day when you're talking hockey um and so yeah i think i think the the the the [Music] the impetus the the reason for the the the start of the american development model was really uh a partnership with the nhl and usa hockey and really trying to look at the the some long-term planning on on player development on membership on growth of the sport uh in the united states and then how do we do i mean we have great facilities we've got great coaches we've got a lot of players playing the game but how do we maximize player development so that you know we can do a better job on international front and then on the girls side you know do is do do what they've been doing for the last you know 10 years but even make it better and help their pool grow help that sport grow on that side on the paralympic side the same thing and then on the men's side is you know more more american-born players having an impact in the nhl and i think um since we've started those numbers have have continued to to get better and stronger and i think it's having a a significant impact on on all areas i think the united states there's only two sports that have seen positive membership growth um over the last 10 years and that's lacrosse and hockey and i think a big part of that is is not just bringing new people in but it's also once we get them and let's keep them in and let's do it let's do it let's do the let's let's maximize the culture and environment that our kids are are in um in our sport and i think tradition is a great thing but i think tradition oftentimes gets in the way of some modern thinking and and some some changes in how you approach um coaching the modern athlete and i always say to coaches i said i say would would you ever go to a dentist or a doctor that used 30 year old techniques because everything's always evolving everything's always moving forward and there's pieces from all of our past that we reach back and use but that's why i said i wish i could go back and after learning what i learned here and better understand how kids learn uh the the stresses and the the um the reality of their world how to uh create that culture and environment that that's best for them not necessarily best for me the adult i think sometimes our egos get in the way and we create what what's comfortable for us not thinking about maybe what's come most comfortable for a you know 10 15 16 even 21 year old um and and i think that that's a real critical piece of what we're trying to get our coaches parents and players to grasp and and it's never an easy thing change is difficult getting people outside their comfort zone is difficult um uh people kind of get complacent and a little bit lazy with with what they do and how they do it and and some have had success doing it so change can be difficult but the best coaches the best teachers the best pretty much of anything i've ever been around or had the fortune to be with are the ones that are constantly asking questions similar to what you guys are doing on this call i'm sure often and are constantly willing to listen and take the pieces out of discussion and and and um new research and and data and analytics and and then apply it to their their world and i think that's really what we're trying to accomplish with the american development model with how we've approached it over the last i was the first one they hired so it's actually been 13 years um and it's been a great journey and a lot of a lot of bumps but a lot of real happy positive moments and we've done a lot i mean it might it might not seem like a lot but the really the push to get cross ice the change in body contact and full body checking moving it up an entire age group some of the rule changes we made taking icing out of the game for youth hockey taking take up offsides out of the game at the youth hockey level that that's been recent um you know getting people to really grasp the the culture of i think i think what's happened here in the united states i think it's happened pretty much everywhere is that the competition model has completely um overtaken the training model in a time where certainly where i live uh here in rhode island um where it's 55 degrees today that outdoor ice that pond hockey that unstructured play is kind of dried up and gone away so how do we get parents and players and coaches to really grasp that training as king and and how do we make training fun and entertaining and productive and the game will take care of itself but the training has to become the priority and that's not a dif that's a very difficult change of mindset that that's taken place over the last 25 30 years so that's kind of a quick overview of a lot of things that we're doing we're constantly we're constantly trying to evolve we're we're making some changes within our staffing there's going to be four of us uh i'm included in it that will be really moving forward trying to attack our our 14 and older male and female better players um the culture that they're in and then there'll be a group of us uh four of us that will be focused on uh 13 and under and and the culture and environment that that those those athletes are in for their coaches parents and players so that's kind of a project moving forward that we're going to attack we've felt that we've done a pretty good job at the younger ages but we got to do a bit better job of of helping uh players and coaches and parents navigate the older and and top levels of of hockey in our country Sweden Finland you know so from from a obviously the canadian structure was there the u.s structure was there but maybe you can go into a little bit about how much involvement the scandinavian and the finnish and the swedish model played in building the american development model because i think you know 13 years ago i you know even as a you know as a young coach you know you always kind of knew sweden and finland were out there but never really saw you know how they made the sausage right so i think it's really just how you know how involved were you as a staff and the rest of the national staff in using those other even russian model and you know even using those other models to build the american development model yeah i think we we you know if you're not stealing stuff or if you're not looking at in the cupboard of other people's that are certainly having success then you're probably not doing your job especially in in what what we're doing in particular and when you see what countries like sweden and finland and and the the czechs at times and the soul box they kind of go in and out uh certainly the russians have had moments of greatness and they've slid off but they've come back a little bit um i think the the the reason for looking at those countries mike is is that they the number of players that they have i mean if you look at say for example sweden on the men's side in particular they have 41 000 kids playing ice hockey my region alone in the united states new england we have i have 78 000. state of massachusetts has 48 000 and you think about a country like canada has got about five almost 550 000 kids playing ice hockey and so the what they what they've done with so few players like we can sit back and let our cream rise at the top but what if we really you know uh bear down and and dig deep and and do a better job and not not just rely on our numbers not just rely on on the fact that we've always had pretty good players can we just look at it and say how can we do a better job of helping our players get better like what what can we do what can we attack what what can we what can we have discussions with with coaches and parents and then how can we deliver that in a non-invasive productive manner and it's not easy because sometimes you know you're you're you're stepping on people's uh toes a little bit but i think at the end of the day i think if i were to sum up with some of those smaller countries and those smaller countries have to be good at player development they have to be otherwise they have no chance they have absolutely zero chance to compete they just don't have the numbers um and so uh the and i use this i say this all the time and it's no disrespect to the state of massachusetts because they have some great players and they're doing some great things and there's some positives there and and we're going to catch up and we're going to change these numbers but last year in the nhl with 48 000 kids playing ice hockey mass had 24 nhl players and some great ones but sweden was 7 000 fewer had 103 nhl players so how is that possible how how are they able to do that and and the number one thing is their their approach to coaching is not coaching a team it's coaching the individual and what does the individual athlete need at a specific age age appropriateness how do we maximize our our touches and our opportunities we walk through the door of the rank how do we make that environment culture really productive and fun and then secondly their commitment to training and and and um allowing the the competitive culture to kind of run itself but how do we how do we really maximize player development through quality training and that's what they've done and and they've done a phenomenal job at it and they it's not it's not just a bunch of people sitting in the room it's it's sports science it's it's player it's it's child educate it's child um you know uh it's educational uh information it's it's how people learn cognitively emotionally mentally and physically and what's best at what age and how do you handle that and how do you maximize that um and and how do you get people to not want to speed farm i think that's the biggest issue we have in our country in particular is is how do we and what i mean by speed farm is how do i not rush player development so that i'm trying to develop the best 10 year old and then what's the consequences of doing that long-term consequences and i think what the europeans do a really good job of is is age-appropriateness individual over the team and and they're patient uh i just want to mention that um everything you've said i think many of us have been through uh roger we've worked with you know hockey canada and hawkeye our provincial branches here and we're really quite tuned in to what goes on in in europe uh tom malloy who's on has worked for 40 years with some of the best people in finland some of them inducted into their hall of fame and he's coached in europe with russians and finns and the one thing i wanted to mention is my first exposure to the small area cell doing a clinic came from usa hockey detroit i don't know where it was but the analytics of puck touches were you around at that time period and that became a tool for us to sell the small area games and making them sort of worthy of consideration i think now they uh for the most part are warmly embraced in this country but were you around at the time that was produced initiated oh yeah yeah and and and certainly i would say to you that that probably the the the best coach i've ever been around in our sport um and and he's kind of the the godfather of really pushing hard for small area games in our country and that started probably 40 years ago um and that's bill beaney um a gentleman who coached at middlebury college for 20 plus years and won eight national championships and coached college teams through an environment where he never used the whistle and uh ninety percent of his practice was small area games um but smaller games with a purpose smaller games with um and uh coaching through questioning and not through telling was where bill was uh uh had a huge impact in in in that part of coaching in our country and still does i was just with him last week actually and and um he's an amazing uh resource uh that's used by a lot of people throughout the the world i know bill's bill's done a lot with pretty much every federation in the country um and uh um everybody's trying to try to go to the mountaintop and figure out how to do it it's not easy and it's a leap of faith it's different it's a difficult process when you're wired a certain way you're trying to rewire yourself um but it's highly highly effective