[Music] What's up, short shifters? Jeffrey J. Lavecchio, I'm taking the first episode this week. Tofas has no idea what I'm about to ask him. It's actually something that I was talking about. In the gym today, I had one of my former college players come in. He just finished his senior year, and he's one of the best guys. All the boys love this guy, just such a good dude, such a hard worker, absolutely yacked. He's moving on from hockey after his college career, and he's going to become a pilot. Moving down to Arizona, he did pilot stuff at school. He was taking pilot license in the summers, all this stuff. He's going to pilot school, or whatever they call that, in a month or so. He came in the gym to work out with the college guys and still tell me I'm all because he's a monsie. Rich, what up, I'm sure you don't listen to the show, but absolutely great guy Logan Richie. I was giving him some advice for his post-hockey life, and it got me talking about things that I've seen from guys who won the game ends, whether that's after juniors, after college, after pro, probably even players after high school or triple A. That really dedicated a lot of time, energy, and effort to the game. Things that I've noticed that guys really struggle with, but what it got me thinking about is all things I miss about the game. So I wanted to ask you to, what are some things playing specifically? Things that you look back and you really miss. So, we're not talking about the typical answer that everybody would say, it'd be like, "I miss the voice." What? Anything, bro? Oh, anything. I thought you were talking more hockey-specific, but- Well, just anything you miss about being a hockey player. Yeah. So, I mean, the first one is just the voice, being in the locker room and going through the awesome times, going through the tough times, and getting through those, so you have some more awesome times hanging out away from the rink, doing stupid stuff together, doing fun stuff together, going through hard times together, like when you go through that with people, just form connections and bonds, what are you laughing at, just thinking about some of the dumb stuff? You said some of the dumb stuff, and I just thought about stuff that's so dumb. I did Andy Meyer and Muncie back in the day, and I started laughing at myself. I don't know why that popped in my head, but I'm going to text him after this episode. I love it. So, I think what most hockey players would say is you just miss the camaraderie in the room. That's where a lot of people suffer with depression after they get done with high-level sports is they don't have that camaraderie anymore, and it really affects people, right? So, I think I would say that number one, and honestly, and I think about this now because I don't have it, is just the compete and the battle. Like when you talk about outside of like the people, just I miss competing physically hard. There's the puck. Me and you are staring face to face who's going to come out of the corner with it. Like I loved those drills in practice. I loved winning battles in games, and for me, as a small player, I prided myself on that saying of it's not the size of the fight in the dog, no, it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog, so I always, you know, really put a lot of effort into the compete part because of my lack of physical stature. And so like, yeah, dude, like I think if there was one hockey thing that I miss the most, it's just the battle, dude. Just the battle. I love that, I love that for sure, competing every day, competing every day, every day, competing practice. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Like I definitely really, really miss that. Like there's no doubt in my mind. After wins, the locker room after wins, everybody's, everything's great. Everybody, you know, just like, especially after Saturday night, there's like a day off on Sunday. Yeah. You know, bus trips, even though I absolutely freaking hated them, like, you know, it's, it's just you guys in this little freaking moving spaceship that know nothing else matters inside of it. You're just like with the boys, you know, obviously the guys scoring goals, dude, I missed the fee. There's no feeling in the world like scoring a goal, at least for me, like I was just like, I don't care for one off my skate, off my butt, tipped it, shot it, breakaway, snizz. Don't care if it went in and I scored like just that feeling because, you know, I had a couple of injuries where I had two injuries where they were like, you know, the concussion obviously. And then when I tore my groin off the bone in juniors and the doctors like because they're so stupid, they were cheap and they wouldn't get an MRI and I know that back then and all I went to like four different doctors, none of them could tell me what was going on finally getting MRI. They know instantly because I went through that process of all these doctors and none of them being like, I don't know what's going on. So I never going to play again. From then on, when I came back from that and I scored a goal, like I was just like, I celied so hard. I remember Hastings made fun of me and he was like, that's a guy who hasn't scored an alarm time and he said that in front of the boys, but it was true. And from that moment on, and there was a preseason game where I went nuts where I scored it. Yeah. Against Tri-City. I still remember it. And, but that from then on, that's what started me like celebrating so hard because I was like, dude, he's right. I had it taken away from me. I didn't know if I was ever going to score again. So I definitely really miss scoring goals, too. I'm almost the opposite where like I miss showing poise on a play and then like finding a guy back door for finding a guy through a scene like that because I was always a pass first guy. And so like, you know how it goes like, you know, everybody's thinking you're doing one thing and then boom, you find a seam or it's a one touch through a seam or, you know, you get the goalie to bite on something and you throw a backdoor and the guy just has to tap it in. But that for me, when you talk about hockey specific, that gets my juices flowing. That's a mess. That's so sick. Poise, man. That's what like, no, I shouldn't say nobody, but like we have to, we live in this world of fast, fast, fast, fast, and there is a huge place for fast, fast, fast, fast in hockey. However, however, and I'll talk about it with a college recruiters hat on. Like if you find a player that can hold on to it for an extra half a second to find an open guy, that people scout salivate over those kinds of people. Because it's such a unique talent and skill to be able to slow the game down, you know, in this world of fast, fast, fast, fast, and so like, you know, you look at guys like Kucharov, you know, like how incredible is he, you look at a guy like Adam Fox, dude, he's got no pulse, no pulse on the ice, and it's so funny because Rass, who I coached with in Michigan, he had Fox and Harvard, and so hearing him tell some stories about Fox in practice, just the no pulse, you know, it's like such a such a blessing. It could get coaches sometimes a little bit heated at times, but like, it's 100% wise that good. How about, how about pranks? I miss prank and guys, not, yeah, like the stoop, like, like putting a little tiny cup of water under their helmet. So when they pull their helmet off, they like, they get a little bit wet, like no harm whatsoever. But looking at him and being like, and everybody knows it. Everybody knows it. Yeah, it's like look at that idiot, you know, like putting like the something on the back of their helmet, flying around the whole practice, they got some stupid on their helmet. You can't do that in the real world. I miss that stuff. There was, there was a couple where I saw where somebody actually like taped something, like a cup to the top of somebody's helmet. And then they'd be like skating around and have no idea that that thing is on the top of their helmet. And then like everybody's looking at him, like, you know, unbelievable. You know, like the shaving cream in between the towels or the baby powder. Yeah, they rip the towel to dry themselves off. And then they got to go shower again. Like, stupid things. I miss those. I'm very lucky. I tell all my guys that I'm lucky because I get to do that in my gym. But like, you know, the real world, you can't do that stuff. Man, even the stuff that this like some of the people do like the NHL or like in pro, like they'll they'll cut the pockets out of somebody's pants. Oh, so good. Or like, just take somebody's shoelaces out of their shoes and hide them. And so like, just, yeah, a little stuff like that. I was, I was pretty good at the shoe check. My size, my size helped me in that factor. I can get underneath the tables. For those who don't know what a shoe check is, it's, and it's like, it's awesome. So you can write a passage. Yeah, you take ranch dressing or ketchup or barbecue sauce or some kind of sauce. You go underneath the table, you put it on somebody's shoe, you go back into your seat. And then all of a sudden, everybody taps their glass, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. And then everybody's looking around like, Oh, no. You got it. You got it. Then somebody's like, ah, that's so much fun. I miss that stuff, too, dude. So much I missed about hockey. Good question, Vex. That's one of your best. Hey, thank you. When we, when we do our next hockey thing, tank coaching seminar, let's start shoe checking guys that are attending. You're up there talking. Everybody's excited to be there. I'm putting ketchup ruining everybody's shoes. That would be gold. Oh, I love it. All right. Time's up, Janice, show. That would be so funny. It'll be gold. All right. All right. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
On today’s SHORT SHIFTS episode, we are switching it up and Vechs is going first this week - he wants to know what Toph misses most from the old playing days!
TEN MINUTES STARTING NOW!
We appreciate every listen, download, comment, rating and share on your social sites!
