The Hockey Think Tank Podcast

Episode 324 - Joe Meloni

This week Topher and Jeff welcome NTDP Head Strength Coach, Joe Meloni to the podcast! Awesome, awesome guy and this was a great conversation with some incredible insight into what it’s like working with, motivating, and developing the elite young talent in our game. In this episode we talk about: — The development environment they create at NTDP — How competition breeds excellence — Attributes of players that give themselves a chance to be the best AND SO MUCH MORE! Thank you to our title sponsor IceHockeySystems.com, as well as Train-Heroic, CuredNutrition, Helios Hockey, and, our newest sponsor, Crossbar! And thank you to our AMAZING LISTENERS; We appreciate every listen, download, comment, rating and share on your social sites! If you’d like to join our Hockey Think Tank Community, head over to Community.TheHockeyThinkTank.com and check it out! This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp.

Duration:: 1h 12m
Broadcast on:: 05 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

In this episode we talk about:

— The development environment they create at NTDP

— How competition breeds excellence

— Attributes of players that give themselves a chance to be the best

AND SO MUCH MORE!

Thank you to our title sponsor IceHockeySystems.com, as well as Train-Heroic, CuredNutrition, Helios Hockey, and, our newest sponsor, Crossbar!

And thank you to our AMAZING LISTENERS; We appreciate every listen, download, comment, rating and share on your social sites!

If you’d like to join our Hockey Think Tank Community, head over to Community.TheHockeyThinkTank.com and check it out!

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp.

Well, good. Well, good. Well, good. Come everybody to the hockey think tank podcast brought to you by the hockey think tank.com website for all players, parents and coaches to go to get a little bit of education and a little bit inspiration regarding the greatest game on the planet. What an episode we have for you guys here today. We are bringing on the head strength coach of the USA national team development program and the head performance coach for GVN performance. Joe Maloney and Joe is from the Boston area. Him and I got the chance to work together for a year in Chicago before he went on to become the head strength coach at the NTDP. Awesome. Awesome guy. This was a phenomenal, phenomenal episode. But before we do get over to Joe, let's bring on another phenomenal, phenomenal, awesome, awesome guy and no one Jeffrey J. Who the Vecchio Vex. What's up today, brother? I'm not to do it. Had a speech before we jumped on the podcast today that was talking about so much of the things that we talked about in the podcast is actually wild. It was pretty cool to have that happen today where I was talking about specific things and I used examples in the gym or hockey or whatever about how it could translate to this business. I went and spoke to a company and its workers and then come on the podcast and talk about it in the hockey world and it's just why Tofan. I love this game so much because we think that it's the perfect metaphor to help people and kids be successful and happy and resilient and all these things that we need adults to be in our society for it to function correctly and everyone to have good lives and hockey can instill all these things. It was just a really cool, very immediate and vivid reminder going from there the working world to on the podcast talking in a hockey sense is pretty cool. Yeah man. I mean development is development doesn't matter what arena you're in. Leadership is leadership doesn't matter what arena you're in. Resilience is resilience doesn't matter what arena is in and that's why yeah I mean we do our podcast to make sure people know that the stuff you learn inside the game is going to help you be a better person and the stuff that you do outside the game can absolutely help you become a better hockey player or a as well so like it's just it's awesome to be able to it's funny like oh we hit on a lot of the same themes right and a lot of the people that we have on just the different ways and different stories and and different backgrounds and different experiences and yeah I thought this was a really cool podcast. I mean it was a great mix of like you know the the performance side and a great mix of like mental toughness and and and culture type stuff too and dude Joe's a rising star in this game you know that like you know I got the chance to work with him he is a plus man like absolutely a plus and for his age getting this job at the NTDP you know a lot of what he does like his his hands are on like the future of the NHL that's a big job that's a really big job but he does it so well and him with galley brian gallivan we've had on the podcast you know they they do such a great job and it's why the NTDP every year is is competing for gold medals and and they're beating college teams and and doing so well so it was cool it was cool to have them on we've been trying to get them on and just scheduling whatever type stuff like for I feel like a year or two we've been trying to get them we finally got them we finally got them we got a new strength coaches are all so busy so no it was a great conversation wasn't it? yeah it was and you know it's cool I've been talking to him met him when he came down here for a tournament or something like probably like four years ago and you know talk to him every now and then on social media it's so cool to see you know where he's the position he's earned through his hard work and his dedication to his craft and really cool to have you know somebody who's literally working with the players who will be some of the best players in the world in the whole world he's working with them every single day and some of the best players in the national hockey league already working with them in the summer as well with GVN performance too of brian and the team there so you know these words are some serious words and he's working with the best and if you can do anything it's learned from the people who are where you want to be or have been where you've been and have made it to whatever level you're trying to get to so this is one that I would recommend that you know you're sending to your teams you're sending to your players you're sending to your coaches because you're gonna get a lot out of this one yeah I think it's big for the players I think this is a big one for all the kids that are listening right now have a notebook ready or take your phone out to take some notes because he talks a lot about what it takes to be successful at potentially your age and and he has the best 15 or 16 and 17 year olds in the country but if you're anywhere from 12 to 15 you know you're you're a stone throw away from from being that age it goes by really quick and you might as well start today you know maybe you haven't dedicated yourself or maybe you haven't fallen in love with the game as much as you need to to be able to to maximize your potential to do cool things in the sport and and this is a great episode to really kind of like figure out what that means figure out what that means and and the process of what it potentially takes and and what they do with their guys at the NTDP when they're there you'll you a lot of people would probably be shocked with with I'm not going to give it away but a lot of people will be shocked with the process that they take uh and and what they the environment let's say they put the the kids in uh to to help them to to be the best in the world really and so yeah and I just love him as a guy like he's just such a good dude too I love this conversation man it just reminds me of when I went there uh help them run testing for their 40 man camp it was probably like three years ago now and I gave a speech to the players who are already on the teams currently and uh worked out with them a couple times I remember when the the new kids were coming in who were kind of trying out Brian like looked over me before he started like his opening remarks to all the kids on the open night and he was like watch us I'm gonna scare the shit out of all these kids that he just he goes from like smiley like you know we're boys to like in front of the kids and just like but like all with the purpose all with the plan like not just like throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what happens like all planned out all all programmed and you know just really really really cool I love that guy he's a mentor he's a friend he's somebody I truly look up to so we got to get him back on the podcast too yeah yeah absolutely well let's get over to Joe before we do we got some people to thank first want to thank isockysystems.com the best website out there for all your coaching education needs they got thousands of drills they got whiteboard explanations from some really high level hockey people that can help you get some more knowledge about the game they have the ability there's they give you the ability to go in there drop your drills print them out send me your team before practice build a drill library for your entire organization that's why we've partnered with them on an association's platform and you can get this for every coach within your organization and build that drill library and build a library of practice plans guys this is such an unbelievable value add go to isockysystems.com today look up that association's platform and get it for your teams I want to say thank you to train heroic train heroic is the amazing app that allows me to train all of these teams and organizations and players year-round now on the app and anybody who's not a current hockey player too so for you moms and dads looking to set a good example what up you can join my own personal workouts via the train heroic app every month for barely a dollar a day but I want to say a massive thank you they've allowed me to train tens of thousands of hockey players the last couple of years here and deliver quality training programs for a hilariously low price my whole goal with that is to make training available and affordable for all shouldn't be just high level athletes having exposure to the best coaches so I'm excited that they allow me to offer that year round so massive thank you to train heroic also want to say thank you to cure nutrition cure nutrition is the CBD company I'm with I got some of my cured pills right here actually my sleepy time pills that I take right before I go to bed but if you're looking for any type of information on CBD please reach out to me and ask I'm a massive proponent for plants over pills whenever possible or you can go to their website check out what they have at curenutrition.com and you can save money with my discount code GMBN. Next we want to thank crossbar guys like since we've become or since they've become a sponsor of this podcast like I go on a lot of different youth hockey organizations websites particularly right now like being in Chicago and being on the board of directors of being one of the board of directors of AI and it is incredible how many youth hockey organizations are changing their website platform from sports engine to crossbar we use it at one of my one of my facilities that I run for whole youth orgs 700 plus players we use it yeah I just started using it this week so easy game changer on my life way easier absolute game changer and so if you're not familiar with crossbar yet you need to familiarize yourself with them it's an end to wear soft end-to-end software solution that basically can help you run your youth hockey organization and so many of the clubs that we work with use it it's an absolute game changer and literally streamlines everything into one place to to run the operations of your club so there's a modern website design it's really clean and easy you can set up registration for your entire organization in terms of players or drop-ins or lessons in like just the snap of a finger there's a club schedule on there that can help you do your scheduling a five-star mobile app to help you with your communication with your team there's financial tools and reporting that make things really easy from a budgetary standpoint you can do volunteer management on there uh you can do things with your rank and your facility to manage that as well so it's literally a one-stop shop to be able to run your organization we love these guys they have an unbelievable culture too and they're doing such an unbelievable job providing value to youth hockey organizations out there so go to crossbar.org and check them out it's it's literally a game changer guys absolute game changer for all the hockey directors and presidents out there that might be looking to a new software to help you run your organization efficiently and then lastly want to thank Helios hockey Helios hockey this is a sensor that you put in your shoulder pad that gives you real-time data real-time feedback on your play particularly with things like your stride mechanics and what they like to call a hustle score this thing is on you it's moving with you the whole time and tracks everything that you're doing uh the kids love it there's actually a leaderboard where you can compare your numbers and what you're doing with other people around the world uh which the kids love adds a little bit of a competitive nature which you'll hear on this podcast how important that could potentially be to your growth and your development uh and so we have a code with them it's think tank one word go to helios hockey.com use that coupon code think tank one word and you can get 20% off your pro annual or your pro 24 month subscriptions with helios hockey and i didn't even mention the most important part and that is this sensor it links up with your video whatever video you're taking it can be live barn it can be an iphone an ipad a camera whatever it may be and you will have your shifts from your game cut up for you right after the game to be able to watch no more fast forward no more rewind it links up with your sensor boom you have it right in your hands after the game so just an incredible incredible product go to helios hockey.com today again and use that coupon coupon code think tank for that discount guys thank you so much for continuing to support our podcast we absolutely love you guys if there's one ask that we had for you outside of listening to this podcast to help us grow and again a couple weeks ago we were a top 10 hockey podcast in the united states and we have you guys to thank for that and if you continue can continue to like the stuff that we're doing on social media comment on our stuff uh send us ratings and reviews on apple podcast or spotify wherever you go uh follow us and subscribe to the podcast again it just helps us with our numbers to to grow to an even bigger length that we have and if you believe in our message you believe in our mission you believe in what we're doing please help to spread the word to to help us make the the hockey world a better place and and again we appreciate you guys and and we love bringing on guests like joseph moloney uh to be able to provide awesome value for you guys and so uh thank you thank you thank you for all you do for us you're gonna absolutely love this podcast so here we go without further ado with head strength coach of the ntdp and head performance coach for gvn performance joe moloney bet on the action on the ice with draft king sportsbook download the app now and use code thpn new customers can get 150 bucks instantly and bonus bets for betting just five dollars on hockey that's code thpn only on draft king sportsbook an official sports betting partner of the nhl the crown is yours bonus specs expire 168 hours after issuance gambling problem call 1 800 gambler or visit www 1 800 gambler.net in new york call 877-8 hope ny or text hope ny 467-369 in kennedy kit help is available for problem gambling call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org please play responsibly on behalf of boot hill casino and resort 21 plus age varies by jurisdiction void in ontario bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance cdkng.com/hockey for eligibility and deposit restrictions terms and responsible gaming resources nhl and the nhl shield are registered trademarks of the national hockey league copyright nhl 2023 all rights reserved this show is sponsored by better help mental health should be something that we prioritize in our lives that are often over scheduled intense and can be chaotic and stressful better help is an awesome resource to really prioritize mental health and help us be the best versions of who we want to be we are huge believers in therapy and have talked about it multiple times on our podcast and if you're thinking of starting therapy give better help a try it's entirely online and really designed to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule all you have to do is fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and you can also switch therapists at any time for no additional charge never skip therapy day with better help visit betterhelp.com/thpn today to get 10% off your first month that's better help h-e-l-p dot com slash t-h-p-n we are so excited to have on this episode of the podcast we finally got him vex we finally got him this has been in the works for a long time but we got a head strength coach of the USA national team development program Joe Maloney Joe how we doing today man good man yeah thanks for having me guys this has been a long time coming and I'm glad to be here we are pumped to have you man we are absolutely pumped to have you so just a little bit of a little bit of back story here Joe and I worked together in Chicago a few years back this guy is the absolute man so pumped for him to see where he's at right now head strength coach of the NTDP absolutely deserves it and but I want to kind of take it back because you are a protégé of a one Mike Boyle who Jeffrey J. who Scott Lavecchio tat man one tooth out himself basically like got him into training and kind of changed the way that he thought about training and stuff like that so just to kind of start things off give a little bit of a disclaimer on who Mike Boyle is for those who don't know and then talk about your experience working with him out in Boston yeah Mike is I mean to me he's kind of like one of the godfathers of strength and conditioning you know he's been doing it for you know whatever 40-50 years obviously he got to go to start I think making a name for himself with BU back in maybe the late ailies early 90s and kind of what he worked for the Bruins for a while I worked for the Red Sox and then went out on his own and built up Mike Boyle strength conditioning which is like now a multinational million-dollar company that obviously has his facilities but you know I can all mine presence their own education system and all that and I worked there I was lucky enough to get an internship there right out of college one of my professors at at Teen State was one of the first intern groups there and she kind of gave me the hookup got me an internship there I did that for you know a whole summer and got hired that fall and I was I was there for about two years and I think the best part about that place is you just get so many reps working with everyone from you know I had 80-year-old clients down to eight-year-old soccer players to NHL players and everything in between and then you're also surrounded by you know 20 or so some odd coaches that are you know really motivated and smart and you can just kind of learn from them bounce ideas off them and then obviously of course Mike's there and just having him as a mentor you know kind of taught me the the do's and don'ts and you know a lot about training and also just like how to be a good person and and how to develop your your personal skills to you know connect with people that you coach but I can't thank him enough for forgiving me my start I love you said you got a lot of reps there I think it doesn't matter what you're coaching obviously both you and I you know make our living in the gym helping athletes from the gym side so especially from the gym side but all coaching how important is our are getting those daily reps over and over and over and and how did that help you maybe become a better coach because we have so many coaches that listen yeah I think honestly like you fail a lot right like you you get these situations that you've never been in before that you may not handle the best or you know you're just kind of a green coach and you don't know how to command a room or get a player's retention or you know connect with somebody who's kind of shy or something like that you just get a lot of time just working on that stuff and you know you make a lot of mistakes along the way and and like I said the environment there you know a lot of people are there to correct you and kind of guide you but then again it's just like hours in the gym as well for a strength coach like that's part of the gig is is just you have to be there a lot and just like absorb everything around you and I think you know like some days I would be there you know 8 a.m. to 8 a.m. to 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. just session after session personal training clients you know and it's just like muscle memory of like how to run a group right like and I think the way specifically from a strength conditioning standpoint like that gym is set up is like it's a factory man and if you aren't like on time with what you're doing like you got five minutes to stretch five minutes to do your soft tissue work five minutes for you know your dynamic warm-up then you got to get on the playoffs because there's a group coming behind you in 15 minutes like you got if you jam up the whole gym like the whole system fails right so I think that's important too because like as you know like you know you got groups all day like you can't have guys you know all you know 15 minutes behind in a warm-up when you got to be ready at the the top of the hour to start your next group so I think little things like that are super valuable experience that you know a lot of coaches maybe don't get that maybe just go straight from college into you know whatever like a graduate assistant position it's a little bit different. I love what you said there man and I also love like the fact that like so you're the head coach head strength coach at the u.s. national program like that's a frickin unbelievable job but you started off working eight to eight at Mike Boyle's gym in the summer in an internship program getting those reps getting those reps getting those reps getting those reps all different types of people all ages shapes sizes abilities and everything like that and I liken that to like every coach at a high level started at the bottom for the most part for the most part some people kind of either trick their way in or you know got lucky a lucky bounce or something like that but most most people like start like that and I think about my experience my first coaching job was a graduate volunteer assistant job at Miami of Ohio it was the best education that I ever had I was at the rink same thing it was like early morning to late night doing all the dirty grunt work that the other coaches I don't want to say didn't want to do but it was relegated and delegated to me and and like there's no education like frickin grind there's no education like getting in the reps and frickin absolutely grind and learning failing learning failing learning failing just getting those reps and so like how how valuable do you think that time at the bottom of the rung you know work in those those long hours were to helping you to get to where you are today because I feel like most people think there's an entitlement in in our world today and most people think they you know it's just like one step and it's like boom I'm in the NHL or one step and boom it's my dream job when in reality like it's a long process with a lot of long days but like how how much do you think those long days and that educational experience helps you to get to where you are now yeah I mean it was it was instrumental it's funny you say that like I think you know once I got hired at boils like if you asked me when I was you know whatever 22 or 23 when I was there you I would have told you I could have been an NHL straight coach I in my head truly believe that and as like I said like you get in these situations and you fail more and more and you do all these uncomfortable things you kind of realize like I don't know anything at all and I think that's part of part of it like it's part of the process of like building your base as a coach is like going through those experiences but yeah like just the fact of the matter is as a straight coach you have to grind that's there's no way around it like there's no like it's not a nine to five job like you're not doing four hours of sessions a day like even now you know I'm I'm in the gym early and I'm there late like it's just the lifestyle and I think for a straight coach like that's you just have to get accustomed to that so I think that was super important too and then like just like we said those reps like you need to have experience coaching like that's what's most important like doesn't really matter what you know if you can't like apply it in a coaching setting right like you can have all this stuff you learn in college but if you don't know how to maybe make it applicable to what you're doing which is coaching then there's no value in it whatsoever I love what you what you ended with there but want to go back to like just how important the reps are we're doing this this podcast here and I literally just sped home from speech I just gave to a local company here in st. Louis about winning the day and why it's so important to win each day and like that's what we're talking about here like rep after rep after rep after ref wake up tomorrow do it again like win the day like crush your reps get better you're gonna have failures you're gonna have ups you're gonna have downs but as long as the needle is moving north every single day like it's going in the right direction and and like literally just gave this speech and to a bunch of people who obviously want to make more money in their careers and stuff like that and and and to toes point everybody's like focused on the shiny object at the end and it's like I want to get here whether that's as a player whether that's as a strength coach whether that's as a coach you know oh I want to coach the triple A level and you're at you know the house league level now I should be there well don't should your way there like work your way there like earn your way there every single day by putting in the reps failing forward getting better you know it's it's so massively important to work those steps in between you're never gonna get to where you want to go if you're never gonna be you would have never been the strength coach of NTDP you know probably the best job in and maybe all of hockey I don't know like I think that's probably one of the best jobs in all in all of strength coaching hockey that's probably what I would say for me would be the best job out there you're working with the best who are all going to be studs in the NHL most likely and they all know it but they all know they need to work for it and you guys get to murder them in the gym every single day and and help them because they know what's at stake they know they're like they're they could be making their generational money and and all being the NHL forever and all these things and it's like they have that actual opportunity and you get to work with the best of the best but you didn't get there without putting all those reps in yeah I think you know the journey is important too right like it's not just about the goal it's how you get there and I think like you said whether it's players coaches or straight coaches whatever like it's important to like everything you're you're doing has a value it's just like don't get lost don't forget the journey looking at the the horizon you know I also I also want to pick up on one more thing that he said at the end there Toph and this is something that that I definitely learned from Boyle reading his books following him listen him him being on our podcast like I think it's one of the most important things that he personally is constantly talking about two coaches and applies to any coach hockey or strength as I doesn't matter how much you know it's can you say it in a way that the people you're in front of can digest it understand it and apply it immediately like hockey coaches doesn't matter what you know can you get your players to understand the system can you get them to buy into why they need to back check doesn't matter all the verbiage you use or the you're telling a story get them to be able to understand the what the why the how as quick as you can so that they can apply it immediately and get better faster nobody cares about your your vocabulary you know and that's something that that you said at the end there and it goes for all of coaching all coaching I don't care what your coaching and teachers the same yeah I think like obviously in the summers like we have a lot of pro guys too and to kind of go off of that like you may have 15 seconds to explain why you're doing what you're doing to a pro guy and that's your one opportunity to get their trust right and if you just start throwing a bunch of like mumbo jumbo at them like they don't care they just want to know why this is going to get them better and like can you take all that sports science you know can you you know dumb down all that force plate data that you've been looking at and just like package it up into a little 15 second like hey like this is going to make you have a little bit more pop in your first two strides they're like sweet love it love to hear that like but if if you're not good at that like guys aren't going to trust you and then they're not going to want to train you that's so much of what coaching is isn't it like you think about even on the hockey side you spend all these hours watching video breaking stuff down whether it's your own team the other team in a pre scout whatever it may be and then you have to take those hours of film review and those hours of notes that you're taking and digest it and put it into a four to five minute presentation for the players because that's all you get you're talking about 15 seconds which is even harder but like that is like the gift of a lot of really good coaches is to take the really really complex and all the knowledge that you have and break it down into a simple way of communicating something that somebody that doesn't have your knowledge can understand and apply to make them just a little bit better just a little bit better so I love that you said that because that's coaching it's and it's really hard it's really hard like I remember sitting in the video room with like 10 minutes of video clips being like I got to show all 10 of these minutes to the guys I have to like this is the and that's like nope nope nope get it down get it down and yeah and I think both of you guys said they're like doesn't matter how much you know it's what they can retain and how much they take into it and can apply it so I love that going along with that Joe I want to ask you we got a lot of kids that listen to this podcast there's probably a lot of younger kids who have dreams of playing at the NTDP and like people don't understand how ridiculously hard you guys make life for those kids and I don't mean that in a negative way I mean that in a like we're gonna throw a lot at you both physically mentally emotionally at 16 years old and you got to find your way through it I'm interested to hear your point of view especially has a strength coach who's in charge of a lot of the physical and mental well-being of your guys how do you see a lot of these kids come in what are what are some of the things that like what's the thought process behind you know what you guys do with them and and and how do you see it benefit them at the end because most guys as Vex knows like they come out and they're like he men they're just they're ready to frickin rock and roll and college hockey or wherever they go yeah it's it's pretty crazy to see that like progression over the two years but yeah I think you know for the most part like there's kind of two different approaches right like you're U17 you're U18 you're a little bit different right like the U17 year it's super hard like everything is hard we lift a lot we lift three four maybe five days a week like you're playing up a you know against older kids like you're failing a lot like so what we try to focus on from a physical standpoint and that is like guys just need to get bigger like that's a lot of the focus on on what it is it's like we need to develop them physically right so like I said it's a lot of hard training and then uh beyond that like both you know my my boss Brian Galvin who you guys know um he's maybe one of the best I've ever seen at building culture within the organization like he's had so much experience working in hockey and he's seen so many of these teams go through like he does a great job of kind of like guiding the kids through these like really tough and challenging times right like it's you know it's not easy being at the program like it's obviously a great place to be and and kids are very lucky to be there but it's like jumping headfirst into the pool like it's everything is getting thrown at you right like you got like I said the hockey is way harder you're coming from you know being the best player on your team maybe your entire life and now you're playing third line against kids that are way bigger and stronger than the faster you you're losing games nine nothing like you're like kind of doubt yourself a lot so a lot of what we do with kids is like trying to get them to understand like this is part of the process and and your failures are what's going to make you great in the long run like everyone has to go through that um you're not always going to be a stud like not every player at the program is going to be a jackuse like some guys are going to be you know we talk all the time about like you just want to be a career professional hockey player it doesn't matter if it's in the NHL or the AHL or in Europe or in wherever right in Russia like if you're getting paid large amounts of money to play hockey you're successful and yeah it's obviously you want to be in the NHL right it's the coolest but that's not reality for a lot of kids so like getting kids to realize that sooner and obviously like we're not trying to crush their dreams like we want them all to get drafted and play in the NHL but kind of the experiences they go through their 17 year kind of prepare them for that and then 18 year the focus shifts a little bit more towards like okay we want to win right so we're playing college teams then kids are a little bit more physically developed it's more of like a performance focused approach where we're picking points in the season to prime guys and get them in a good spot to win gold nettles and stuff like that but it's all like built off that foundation of just doing a ton of like hard uncomfortable stuff your first year and then once you have that base layer you kind of build everything off of that I absolutely love that playing in the NHL would be the coolest I did think peeing in your pants was the coolest but I guess playing in a jerk is cool it's gonna be a bit of healthy to stay we are clowns how did so how do you guys work with the kids on that because you mentioned like a lot of these kids have been the best player on their team for their entire lives you know some of them may not have hit that much adversity in their first 15 years of their life and and a lot of the kids at the NTDP are told by everybody in their inner circle you're the best you're the man like you're amazing and then all of a sudden like they get to you guys and you're making it hard life is a lot harder there some of them are a lot of them are away from home for the first time you know it's a it's a real big like just life change in so many different ways and it's so much harder so like I'm interested to know with that like what are some of the characteristics you see in some of the kids that like thrive in that environment you know like did they come from a certain type of background is it something in their mental makeup is it a physical ability that they have like you you've been there a couple years now like what are what are some of the common themes that you're seeing of the kids that when they when the times are tough like that's when they are at their best if that makes any sense yeah I think it's it's like never one is work ethic like if you're just good to grind at all times no matter what no matter how tired you are how better you know if you don't want to be there whatever if you just are willing to put the work in that's gonna push you really far um I think like a lot of what we talk about is like resiliency like we make the kids read a lot of like personal development books and and that kind of highlight like being resilient and dealing with adversity and stuff like that and I think like one of my one of my favorite examples is is Max Plant who just got drafted to Detroit this year he's maybe one of my favorite kids ever but he came into the program he was probably 127 pounds soaking wet his first year all kinds of injuries like uh he broke his collarbone he got cut with a skate like he got concussed and cut his eye open and was you know it's really tough to go through all that like this is like you're finally on this big stage and like it seemed like every time he came into you know came back from injury he would get some sort of crazy thing and like no matter what just like always had the best attitude always worked his ass off every single time he was in the gym um and by the time he left I think you know he was at World Junior Camp uh this week and he's like 180 pounds he's one of the most powerful kids on the ice and like it's not because he's a freak athlete or uh came from a certain background it's just his work ethic like he no matter what no matter what was in front of him like he just kept grinding and you know coming into the gym on crushes and you know what can we do today man like I want to do some extra stuff like I can't do anything on my right leg like what do we got like just always just keep hammering and um I think that that is probably the thing that would would serve a kid best coming into the program with just that ability to grind if you said you you have books for them to read on self-help self-development if you have like one or two books that you think would be the best for a younger hockey player maybe like early teen what would you say that you recommend or that you've heard from your guys that they get the most out of yeah we um I forget the name I'm totally failing right now whatever the all-blacks book is legacy legacy we'll make him read that one I think we make him read relentless uh I think but I think that's Tim Grover and then we may make him read uh David Gogg's this book can't hurt me um and we may come do book reports and stuff it's it's pretty funny but you know they have to read their book book book report in front of the team and like you know um but I think those are are pretty good uh good starting points for kids to read I'm just laughing because I know some of the kids that went through there and thinking of them writing up a book report and doing it in front of the team makes me laugh written in crayon and like this guy their name with a smiley face but yeah but it's like all the kids listening and all the coaches listening the best 22 25 however many on the roster players in the United States of America who they're doing online school but they're they're there to play hockey like come on let's be serious here guys let's be they're getting good grades because I have to do to get in college but they're there to play hockey they're eat sleep do everything they can to get better hockey their strength coaches are making them write book reports on self-help books like you can demand more from your players you should demand more from your players and those things that they're making them do and making them read those books and stuff it's it's it's for their mind which is going to help them be a better hockey player even if you're coaching house league or double a or whatever it is that type of stuff is for their mind it will make your players better it will make your team better that year but more importantly it's going to make them better at everything else they do in their life for the rest of their life and getting them to do it at this very impressionable age you know before 21 years old like this is when we got to get them and instill these habits and instill this work ethic and instill the ability to come back from hardship like he's talking about with you know 125 to 180 savage like like this is the time that we got to be beating it into these kids that you can do what you want you can be what you want you have to learn to be resilient you have to work for it and all these types of things like don't be afraid to do these things you can make your team do this stuff you know and i i think it's important that we we are always bringing in that stuff that's going to help them in life after hockey and outside of the rink as well amen brother let me ask you this Joe so i asked ice vexes every now and again but like can you tell from one workout or maybe two workouts the kids that are going to freaking make it or not like you got all these kids coming in just based on work ethic habits like just their their overall kind of nests that we like to call at the gym let me rephrase the question let me rephrase because i know what he's trying to ask can you tell who's going to give themselves a chance because of their habits and details and stuff because obviously in the gym you can't see him play hockey if you only look at the gym but you can see their nests as Topher is saying yeah i think um let's put it this way i think at ncdp it's unique at the beginning i think everyone's dialed in everyone's working their bag off because it's like the first two weeks but show me the guy in like mid-January where we're in michigan the sun hasn't come out in two weeks uh you know it's the dog days of the season we just came back from a road trip in tri-city where we lost 10-1 we just got back from the bus we got a lift on monday the guy is happy to be there like that's the guy i want the guy who's just walks in he's like it's up Joe like morning good to see it was like how's the road trip is like i wasn't bad we could have played better like that's the guy that is more impressive than me like everyone's dialed in for the first three weeks of the first month like once we start playing games you know deep into february and things aren't maybe going so hot like i think that tells you more than you know everyone putting on their their best uh their best hats for the first start of the season but um yeah i love that that's so true too it's it's easy to be dialed like right at the beginning of the year everybody's dialed it's same for coaching too like the best coaches are the ones that are at their best at at those times when it's hard when it's hard to be uh coming to the rink and and i've been there in michigan it's not too much not too dissimilar in chicago and the summit hasn't come out in a couple weeks no that's that's really really good man so adding on to some of the stuff that we're talking about i want to get a little bit into strength and conditioning now um galley i know vax i know you i know you guys are very into sport science like you're not just going into the gym and lifting to get these guys bigger whatever like there's a plan there's research like there's a method to the madness of of getting these kids better that goes way beyond you know just lifting a weight um what are what are some of the things that you guys feel like you're on the cutting edge with what are some of the things that you are doing from your sport science background and and all of the research that you guys do on human development that you think is really helping these kids become a lot better yeah i think there's there's two things that kind of stick out to me like one i'm pretty lucky to have access to like a lot of technology like we have force plates we have like 1080 motion we have all kinds of like testing and evaluation equipment right so that allows us to to truly kind of like individualized player programming based off some of the stuff we see from force plate data or strength testing we do on the 1080 or whether it's sprint testing or whatever so i think that allows us to kind of go through each player with a fine tooth comb and and kind of find their weak links and like simply boil it down to like are you strong are you fast are you somewhere in the middle uh and and obviously there's combinations of both but we'll basically just do all of our testing protocols and find out like what the weak link is for a player so a guy who's weak right probably just needs to get stronger and kind of that will kind of bring up the whole system around it right a guy that's fast right you don't want to necessarily take away from his speed but say he's fast and weak while getting him stronger is probably going to help improve everything else as well make it more powerful um now if there's guys who are you know kind of somewhere in the middle they might need a little bit more of like a balanced approach where they need a little bit of everything but i think quantifying performance in different ways and then individualizing for what a specific player needs um you know whatever end of the the spectrum they need to work on i think that's a big one for us is is i think we've gotten really good at that and we've developed a pretty good system for doing so the other big one is like load management and we use a system called achieve where you know players wear like a sports bra for lack of a better term with a sensor in the back that they wear every time they're on the gym or on the ice it allows us to track player load over you know a short period of time and a long period of time and it allows us to you know basically program out our on ice and off ice training just like it's strength conditioning right like you know where we have periods where we're going to push the gas uh you know we have periods where we have a lot of games we need to dial back and then obviously for us it's unique that we play three international tournaments uh a season so um we can kind of work backwards from those points where it's like okay this is where we want to be at our best right we want to win a gold medal so the gold medal game is you know whatever april 25th or something like that we can go back and lay out a plan for exactly what our training loads for each day should be and they should be progressive uh you know with dealo weeks built in and and kind of record and track progressing towards that goal and it allows us to make sure uh those key points in the season we're physically at our best oh jeff just got excited vex just got excited start from the end work your way back oh baby bro how important is that plan though you know i i feel like starting from the end working your way back like how detailed of a plan do you guys have like obviously for you guys it's big but like you know we got a lot of youth coaches that listen to this podcast too uh a lot of strength coaches who don't have the bells and whistles that that you might have what would be some advice in preparing some kind of an off ice plan for you know the i don't want to call it the average joe because that's your name um that was that wasn't that wasn't that your name or your gym when you had it yeah average joe jim but like you know for for the youth coaches and the strength coaches out there that that don't have that stuff what would be some advice that you would have in in forming a plan for their players yeah i think there's you can kind of look at the macro and look at the micro like you can look at how you organize your week um and realize that maybe you you know obviously a triple a schedule right like you might be playing six games in a weekend but hopefully not often but it occasionally happens so you should probably do your harder stuff at the beginning of the week and you know taper off as the week goes on so uh even though you know you want to say you want to accomplish a certain thing on a practice and you know you're gonna have a long practice well front loading that's the beginning of the week gives your players time to recover uh and you know maybe your your scape you know before uh you leave for a tournament maybe that's gonna be you know short but still like fast and hard but managing kind of ice time based on that um i think from the same thing from a training perspective in terms of your week you can do the same thing where you know monday and tuesday are going to be hard days in the gym um typically how we organize our week is you know monday tuesday will be hard wednesday will be more of a recovery day where it'll be more mobility for focus maybe some light conditioning and then thursday lifts are always short and fast and like speed focused um so you know it's okay to lift the day before you have a game but you know it's not okay maybe to do tensets of front squats and have to go play six games that weekend um you know mapping that out a little bit further right you can do the same thing with you know all right you you're playing in whatever tournament you have a huge tournament at the end of the summer uh maybe how you organize your schedule in terms of games you're playing leading up to that maybe you kind of keep that in mind where uh maybe we probably shouldn't have a huge travel weekend before our biggest tournament of the year um you know maybe we need to taper off our practice duration towards the end of the tournament maybe you know we have a three-week period you know say it's a nine-week window before your tournament maybe that three-week period at the beginning is going to be really hard uh maybe in the middle we kind of tone things down a little bit still have some hard days and a couple of lighter days and then as we approach like that big end goal kind of dial it back a little bit and still keep things intense but reduce kind of the volume of what you're doing love that and then like with that how and you'll laugh when i ask you this question and you'll know why but like how important is it that like everybody's on the same page the strength coach the skills coach the the the coach of the hockey team you know for for where you're at right now you know i have to imagine that it's pretty dialed in and buttoned up it just in terms of everybody is talking to each other there's not just a plan for what's going on on the ice and then that doesn't coincide with what's going on off the ice which is what's going on with the the travel which is what's going on academically like everything has to be um everybody's gonna be working together i guess is the best way to put it so like in your experience like how incredibly important is that that people are talking to each other and and everybody's following the same script yeah i mean communication with different arms of your organization is like paramount right like you can't have one hand not knowing what the other hand's doing right like it doesn't matter if i plan out this awesome model for our practices if the coach doesn't look at him or doesn't know how to read them right like um i think you know part of that is on me as a strength coach is you know making sure right like we're meeting occasionally we're talking about the plan we're showing them the bigger picture so they you know kind of know what we're working towards um and and same thing goes for them being like hey like the guys are in one today like you know what's it looking like in here like what's the plan for the week and i think it just comes down to like uh you can have a plan but like you have to be ready to change it if things aren't going the way they should be and that just comes down to everyone working together and communicating and just being on the same page and um i think you know it's easier said than done like you know maybe the first thing you don't you don't want to have a meeting monday morning at eight a.m. to go over the practice plan but like sometimes it's that's the case and like you have to do that and it's for the greater good of of the team and and everyone involved it's it's as simple as communication so there's no duplication you know if the guys are getting slapped on the ice ooh that's nice right it down but you know if the guys are getting slapped on the ice and you you planned on crushing them in the gym because you thought they were gonna have an easy day on the ice well you got to think on your feet you got to quickly change that and what's a lot easier is if there's communication beforehand and coach says hey you know we're not happy with xy or z they're gonna get it today on the ice so we need you to back off a little bit so they're all right to skate tomorrow and whatever and it's it's you know sometimes it's a day of sometimes it's after the weekend they know what's gonna go down on monday or tuesday hey we're giving the boys a day off you know you tell us what you think is best for their body on monday after a three and three and whatever it's just you know if you have people in your organization like this the more you communicate with them the better the overall 20 000 foot zoomed out picture that we can paint here so that the players are getting the most out of their brains and bodies and everything and the team gets the players that are fresh and ready to go not only today but at the end of the season when it really counts and they're strong and healthy and other teams are dying because they're tired they haven't lifted enough or you know whatever and it's so important yeah i think sometimes for us too it's kind of funny it's like hey we hammered him on the ice today and then it'll be like hammerman the gym today you guys are locked in that respect yeah he starts rubbing his hands together and like yeah there are times like you know where you got to dial it back and there's sometimes they hit the gas like yeah it comes down and just talking to each other well even even in like the youth hockey kind of sphere too you know you have a lot of parents that have you know skills coaches or strength coaches like above and beyond what they're getting with their youth club and that can be a real real tough thing because all the sudden these kids are overworking some of these muscles that are really important which can really really lead to a lot of overuse injuries and frickin burnout too if they're doing too much of it so like you know we've talked on this podcast enough but i mean we should ask you Joe as the head strength coach of NEDP about multiple sports and sports specialization but like for these these parents out there i just caution you if you do have your kid doing extra stuff outside above and beyond whether it's in the gym or whether it's on the ice please make sure your skills coach is talking to the head coach please make sure that that strength coach is talking because you might have like a parent might schedule a six am skills in the morning for their kid before school and then a lift before practice right after school and then the kid practices with their team at eight o'clock and all three of those people if they're not talking to each other might be like oh it's a gasser day today it's like i'm really gonna push the pedal and then kids gonna get hurt like it's just they're gonna get hurt so like talk a little bit about that and and maybe just the the dangers of specializing too much too early and and how that affects the kids as they get to you even yeah i think kind of bouncing off what you said right like if you don't have a strength coach or skills coach that's willing to communicate with everyone else involved in a player's life like probably time to find someone else right and not to like sue or anyone but like i think you know that's got to be part of the process if you know you have the kids best interests in mind and you don't know what he's doing at skills or you don't know what practice he has a day you don't know how many games he's played that's that's a failure on your end as a strength coach but you know i think unfortunately the way hockey is has gone is that it's a 365 day year sport so i think it's it comes down to on our end like you know i don't work with a ton of kids anymore but like just education about like what that may do for you negatively and what it may do for you positively but like being a resource for them to be like hey like sometimes you're not gonna be able to change what a kid's doing like your parents are just gonna do what they're gonna do it doesn't matter how much you talk to them or how much you advise them like they're still gonna take them to that skill skate at 6 a.m. so then for you it becomes like okay well look if you're gonna have to do this here's what you need to eat right like you need to sleep this many hours tonight like it's education about everything else surrounding it that you can really get through to the player uh maybe maybe not get through to a parent but and then on your end it's like okay i'm gonna fill in the gaps of what you're not doing okay so maybe you're lifting three days a week with your strength coach you're doing skills twice a week in the morning you have practice four days a week so what are we gonna be able to work on in the weight room that's gonna keep you safe but also you know that you're still gonna get something out of it right like if you're paying to go to another trainer you know you can't just be like hey we're just gonna stretch but it's up to you to kind of find the gaps and what they're not doing and fill in you know whatever you can without kind of redlining them too much if that makes sense for sure absolutely in in the couple of years that you've been at the national program have you seen many kind of like overuse stuff with some of the kids or not not as much uh i would say no i i think we do a really good job of evaluating players for injury risk at the beginning of the season like we do you know a table assessment with them we have uh different like gluten growing testing that we do so we can kind of identify those problem areas early on and provide them with you know extra mobility work or cool downs that can kind of help counteract some of that but i think you know like you said like the players that come here are already pretty elite and they've already been exposed to kind of some of the stuff that we do already um you know some of them even train at chvn so they for the most part a lot of the kids we don't see a lot of overuse injuries but you know if they do pop up we're lucky to have kind of the resources to work with that like work around it you know we have all sorts of like recovery tools and stuff like that this year we added a physical therapist in our gym which i think both you guys played with uh darryl darryl more so i i darryl's in our gym you know four days a week so he's the best but we can you know if we see some of this stuff pop up you know i send him a darryl they do a session with him he's like hey like you know he's dealing with a little patellar tendon i just dial it back on this add in some more isos we'll do a couple sessions a week we'll do some needling and stuff like that kind of bring it back uh to level so obviously that's not a reality for a lot of places but that's kind of how we approach that stuff more so yeah to tell darryl i said what's up that guy was still key that guy was silky on the ice and the dance floor he has oh yeah nick moves on the d floor i heard his moves did uh savage great guy awesome guy um hilarious at him and galley are working together you know i know 15 20 years later patla and brad and just the world the world is a cool place um you know tove like something you got to think about too is like they control like those guys like everything it's it's gonna be way more it's a lot harder when you've got you know a AAA player who's a little bit younger who also plays baseball and also plays soccer and is doing skill skates and doing workouts and they're going to all these different things the USA they're controlling their workload and they have it all on everything is you know whether we're in the bra and they're all the systems so they know exactly like how much is too much and for the most part so as more of like a thing you're getting with with i was more thinking about even like before they got there you know when they do those injury assessments at the beginning like have these kids already been exposed to like some of these hip you know have grud because you think about these midget kids like some of these midget kids are playing 80 games a year and traveling nine 10 times a year and and i know what they do is elite and they have a plan and and you know recovery is important and all that kind of stuff that you just talked about but i was more asking the question from uh like what do you see when they when they get to you like is it is it i don't know like i've just i'm in that world man and i just see so many kids with these hip injuries and growing injuries and and kids and surgeries at young ages for this shit and it's just like it worries me with with how much kids are on the ice you know yeah for sure i think you know some kids come in in better spots than others right like but i think it's our responsibility to make sure it doesn't become an issue once they're with us right and they may have dealt with it in the past but it's more like you know okay this is the state you're in now but how are we gonna prove upon this so it doesn't become a constant thing that you're dealing with that you know your right hip flexor has been bothering you for two years it's okay what interventions can we put in place to make sure that's not an issue anymore and i think that's what it comes down to for us yeah that makes sense that makes sense uh okay i want to talk about galley for a second here so brian galvin guy we all know very very well been on the podcast he was probably first year right facts yeah he was early for sure he was really uh absolutely really gave us our start yeah right but one of the things that you talked about that like i'm a big believer like my background is a lot of college hockey and like the strength coach for a college hockey program is in my opinion maybe the most important person in the program you know as the coach is you kind of set the tone and you set the culture but the strength coach really sets the tone and really sets the culture on what work means and detail and and just the energy that you bring every day that you come to the gym every day that you come to the rink and i was really fortunate uh as a player to have a guy named tom holly at cornell who like still to this day i would probably say is my favorite person of all time just because of what he taught us in the gym and so you know you talk about galley and him being so good at kind of setting that foundation and setting that culture for for the program like what makes him so special and like what what are some of the things that that he does to to really set that culture for the guys of excellence yeah i think it's it's part of like his own philosophy that he's built over the years right like he's been coaching for 20 30 years and he and he's seen a lot of stuff and he's been at the program for six maybe seven years so i think you know he sets the standard really high like there's no bullshitting galley like there's no flying under the radar and he holds guys to that standard and he's not afraid to do so um but i also think like he cares so much like he he can be a pretty intimidating guy for some of these kids coming in like i like to joke i'm the good copies the bad cop um but you know like he cares so much and it's just like countless times where like you know he sees somebody's having an off day and like he just he knows when to push guys and he knows when to pull back and like you know you'll see him more often than not like somebody's something's wrong he'll you know put their arm around and then take them off to the side and have a little chat with them and you know i think you can't create a culture of you know let's say excellence or whatever you want to whatever you want to put it as without caring right like you can't just say all these things because uh you know we want to be this this and this but like if you don't care about who you're telling it to it doesn't really matter like there's no kind of there's no kind of heart behind it if you don't care about the person you're trying to get to be better so i think that's that's kind of what he does best like he's just a really charismatic guy and and he's just so great with people whether it's you know a U17 NTDP kid or a pro guy like people just love being around him and they love you know learning from him and all of his experiences but he does a great job of that i love that and both you guys obviously i know you guys really well and have worked with you guys both in different capacities and i think that's a strength and a gift that both of you guys have too so along with galley i'd love to ask you guys too how you set the tone how you set the culture in the gym what are what are important to you guys um in in setting that foundation vex we'll start with you man uh for me it's getting getting people to understand and we talk about this on the podcast all time uh joe is like setting your intentions like i don't care what your goals are a to double a double a triple a triple a triple a jr jr's college college for whatever make more money score more goals i don't care what do they set your intentions every single day if you set your intentions if you have a clear cut goal if you have something you're working towards and it's it's obviously a lot easier with pro and even college guys but at the younger ages that's something that's really really really important and can really make a massive difference and a young athlete i think any young person's life is getting them to set their intentions create goals and then create the steps to work towards them and teaching them that it's all in the details and consistently focusing on the details and giving your best effort every single day so for me it's intention uh uh a detailed focus and then giving your best effort whatever that means for the day whatever we're looking for power speed strength agility athleticism like whatever working on like put as much focus and and dial in the details that we're working on for that for me those are the most important like foundations i want to set because i try and like attack those so hard that that's going to be something that becomes second nature to them everywhere else in their life outside of the gym love that love that how about you joseph um i think for me it's like i i think i encourage you guys to like be present and like look around you like look at what you have there's thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of kids in the country that would kill for your spot you have everything you could possibly need just like don't forget how lucky you are and then make the most of it like don't cut corners you have everything at your disposal you could possibly want your for all intents and purposes a professional hockey player all you have to do is work out lift weights eat food and occasionally do some schoolwork like don't forget that uh and and just like yeah like every every kid who leaves the program is like yeah man it was a crime but i would do anything to go back and start over i was just talking to a kid today that said that he's like yeah man like those workouts were hard like but i would do anything to start over and and do it again because you'll never you'll never get that experience again and i think i just try and encourage kids to to keep that on the back of their mind it's like you get two years it goes by real fast absolutely amen to that man um all right so to kind of end things off here i gotta so you mentioned max plant a little bit earlier and and how much an effect he he had on you and and i'm sure the team as well but like who who's maybe another kid that you've had in your time at the program whether it's a a kid at the ncdp maybe it's a pro that you've had in the summer uh that's come back that like really really just impressed you and why oh that's a really tough one man there's a a lot of i'm sure there's a lot there's so many kids that are just like one of a kind that um i think i gotta give one shout to my guy ej mary um he went in the first round this year um i mean talk about work ethic like he's early to every lift late to every or stays late he's all shooting pucks just like to the point where it's like annoying i'm like ej go home like you've been here it's five o'clock like what are you doing go eat some food like um and like man he grinded his ass off to get where he was like towards the end of the season players usually you know they'll go on a trip with you know their family or whatever like just go home and hang out with their buddies or whatever and you know the combines maybe four weeks away it was you know we lost in the the gold medal game to canada got wrenching loss um i'm definitely not over it yet but two days later ej was back in the gym training for the combine like that's so elite like he's he's and he's just like he's like a little brother to me man i love that kid so much but um there's plenty of other stories like that man or you know we're lucky to get some of the most motivated kids possible and the ones that truly make the most of their time at the program like i'll remember him forever and uh like it's really cool like obviously we host a lot of like you know world junior camps you know like we'll do men's world tournaments stuff like that but this year was kind of my my first year we have the world junior summer showcase and like i knew like i had worked with maybe 90 percent of the kids there and they're all just like awesome kids and it's so cool to see like where they were at the beginning and then have them come to this tournament like they're the big dogs now and like it's it's so cool to see that development and and it makes it really all worth it when you see them you know for the first time with their little visors on and like it's it's just awesome to see um so it's such a unique place and there's there's so many kids that just make it special i love it i love it i actually have one more that i think is really important that i missed in my notes here but i think like you know we would all agree competition breeds excellence man competition breeds excellence and you got 20 whatever it is 20 to 25 kids coming in who are alphas most of them are absolute alphas um how do you guys help to use that competitive nature that these guys have in the gym to make them better because man like these kids like they want to be the best like they didn't come to the program to to play a third or fourth line role like they came to the program to to work to become a first round NHL draft pick and uh and they're going to compete like sons of guns to to make sure that that happens so how do you guys foster that healthy healthy competition at the NTDP to help these guys bring out the best in themselves yeah i think a lot of it happens naturally through training right like they want to push themselves and you know we'll do a lot of things where you know we'll we'll measure force output on the 1080 or jobs or something like that so anytime you give them a number it's going to make them compete and everyone's intent just goes for the the roof and it's almost comical sometimes like how easy it is to fire them up if i just like you know just the very carefully placed chair boy k dude he jumped way higher than you on that like almost like automatically where they're like they look at me they're like oh yeah like and then they just like go that much harder and like it's it works every time like it's it's humorous like it's just literally they can't help themselves like they it's like hey plan or jump to an entire new day on the fourth plate then you know plan will be in the back and be like yeah nice buddy and like it's just like that you know from a loving place of like competition but like it it pushes them whether they they realize it or not like even though it's funny like they're still working harder without reviving or even really realizing it i love that that's so funny there's still kids man like they're there as as elite as they are they're still kids and they're still susceptible to church so i could you i could just see that like i could just see that like you say in that building what he got more than me today no no and then like they'll do like 90 reps like i'm doing another set i'm going up five pounds or they'll go up like you know two and a half pounds just to go you know five pounds heavier than the guy next to him it's like then the other kids gonna be like well now i'm doing another set like it's pretty fun competition how yes breeds excellence we were never like that apex yeah now never oh i miss that stuff it's so true you miss that stuff though that's the stuff you miss like those things in the gym and on the ice and everything so i love it man well thank you so much for your time here today if we can keep you for another couple minutes we're going to do a 10 questions with you and that'll go on our hockey think tank community and be on the lookout for some hockey think tank community news because there's some big news coming out in the next couple weeks everybody but joe below the head coach strength coach of the usa national team development program thank you for the long time brother that's best [BLANK_AUDIO]