Jamie Phillips Goes off on Winnipeg Jets and ECHL Living Conditions
fires one towards the goal that’s going to be blocked up by Travis Ridgen well this is more like it this is slanging the biscuit here’s Travis Rigen and Dave Wheeler i think that’s maybe like the first ever three-time guest on the podcast yeah hey chuck it up man like we’ve had a couple two-timers pascal’s come twice muzz has been on twice nobody’s ever been on three that I can think of except for you rocking with the tunes and all in person too yeah absolutely well no we had um the first one we did was on Zoom yeah you’re right we did do a Zoom one the first one and that was really successful and then we did the one in person with Bougge but you were That was like co time wasn’t it the first one no second one second one was uh fall of 22 first one was spring of 22 but the second one you were super rushed yeah that’s right that’s right yeah that’s right and then I mean for this one we have all the time in the world so yeah it’s exciting and you’re a doctor this time you weren’t last time i am so you’re Dr jamie Phillips i am Dr jamie Phillips dpt doctor of physical therapy not to be confused with a medical doctor not that but uh yeah be a physical therapist in the United States is a doctorate level degree got that now and off to the races i’m starting Ghost Rehab and Performance in Grand Rapids is going to be my like hockey player focused rehab clinic um hopefully by the time this podcast launched we’ll be good but I’m looking at the end of end of November start of December for grand opening but all my social media stuff will take care of that well like we’ve been friends for years but for somebody who doesn’t know you though they’re hearing all this physiootherapy stuff like who is Jamie Phillips what does he do what has he done why are you here more importantly so I call myself a goalie performance specialist i made that up so it’s not a real term it’s not a certification um it just kind of encapsulates everything that I do so I’m a former professional goalie uh had an NHL contract Olympic Jets out of college that’s how we met when I was in Manitoba played four years of pro after that after retired coached division one at Michigan Tech which is my alma mada where I played um now I do a lot of things i coach goalies like privately um I’ve got my doctor of physical therapy so treating athletes and I’m now coaching the USHL with Moskegan Lumberjacks um director of goalending for Fox Motors AAA which is a AAA organization the only one in West Michigan uh I do some stuff with USA hockey so I just kind of like encapsulate that under that bulk term but I’m involved in hockey in different different degrees oh and I do a lot of social media stuff in terms of like goalie education and like goalie coaching and I Yeah so I do a lot how old are you 31 you feel 31 some days yes today actually it was one of the first days I woke up and didn’t feel exhausted so it was a good day you know what’s the secret just you know have have your friends in town but uh no it was good um yeah 31 is nice kind of hitting my I think now my life the life that I tried to build postc career everything’s starting to come into place especially like finishing school you know I got my masters when I was done then into my doctorate so that’s four extra years finally finishing that up so now things are able I can start to set up or start to take all the pieces that I’ve been building and start to like put them together and then hopefully you know be able to live my my normal goalie coaching and PT life here where do you want them to take Where do I want to take me yeah uh this is a good question i actually do think about this a lot um honestly I just enjoy what I get to do like I get to be involved in hockey in many different ways i get to be on the ice i get to be in like the back room and the management side um as much as sometimes it sucks i deal with parents and I think that’s important to help parents like navigate you know on the coaching side and doing like remote training with guys and and women like all over Europe and all over the world and like North America that’s pretty cool and like treating athletes so my goal is just to be able to do everything that I want to do and continually do it at a higher level like we were talking before like you know if I could I’d love to have my own videographer like recording all the content and I wouldn’t have to edit it myself like that would be great you know my for my PT clinic eventually I’m going to have to hire an admin person to do my scheduling and all that stuff like slowly grow at scale but I don’t see my my life looking any different i’ll just have a good team around me that’s all on board doing like working in the same direction is kind of the the end goal when you tell me this stuff it reminds me of a couple years ago when we’re having conversations about why don’t you do goalie coaching why don’t you do something in hockey and you were still at the point where you’re burnt out from hockey you’re like I maybe I don’t hate this but I definitely don’t love this i want nothing to do with this and I said well you’ve built this resume you’ve built this status in the hockey community you’ve you’ve been a professional goalie you’ve made a lot of money well maybe not a lot of money but definitely didn’t make a lot of money a good amount of money i made some money yeah so like why don’t you take that and do that with the community like there’s a hole in the market and you said okay sure what should I do I said man a couple Instagram reels and boom I don’t want to take credit for it because it’s all on you it’s just I did ask you for a lot of advice um I was defin I was super burnt out I was super angry I was angry at the game when I retired but I think I think about now and I was more just angry at I don’t know I wasn’t angry at myself I was just angry at like hockey in general you know when things don’t work out the way you expect them and you dream them your entire life and you give everything for 27 years it’s easy to be angry and so going back to PT school I was like maybe maybe the healthiest thing for me is to not be involved in hockey and then you know I I took that position be getting my masters and goalie coaching and then you know I was like okay like I I do like this and I coached goalies ever since I was 14 with Bougge and stuff i was like you know I do like this this is good and then like you said you know found a hole in the market especially on like the strength of training side and like the physio side and then eventually it grew and grew and grew and then I found the love that I had like the same level of love I had for playing I now have that for the coaching side because like I care so deeply about my athletes and I’m like I want I want you to be as successful as possible i want you to have the experiences and the opportunities I have and so that’s the awesome part about it and I’m glad you I look at it now I’m like oh my gosh if I was like you was a pediatric physical therapist like that’s not for me you know or a geriatric physical therapist that’s not for me there people like my wife is great at it she loves that that’s not for me like I I need to be in hockey like that’s part of my identity as a person and now I can do it in a more like hopefully influential role where I can be a positive change in terms of things like we were talking about like being involved in USA hockey like trying I’m very passionate about mandating like pegs that don’t suck across the board the fact that it’s not already a thing is crazy you know like the first one of the first things I did at Fox was we asked the owner like “Can we just get new like good quality pegs?” Like “Yes absolutely.” So we got that like finding different things i was reaching reached out to a company in Europe today being like “Hey can you can you guys send me some pegs to test?” Like I I need to figure out what the best one is so that we can implement it across the board because the game has changed the fact that the Nets just move all the time like I can assure you that in this game for those for those listening and watching we are at one of Trap’s games that he is suspended from the game that’s going on behind us they are not using good pegs and that net is going to come off about 50 times and that goalie is going to get a warning from the ref saying one more time and it’s a penalty mhm all right well I guess I just won’t use the RVH that night i’ll just do VHS yeah just I just won’t make saves but that’s part of it and I so on my long story short long story I want to be like a positive change you know when we talk about the goalending side like I’m very science sciency based because like a lot of people just make stuff up you know try to reinvent the wheel which I’m okay trying to reinvent the wheel but you have to like show the receipts too you can’t just make things up for the point of making it up well I was reinventing the wheel and there was a guy that made the Titanic sub who’s like I’m going to use an Xbox controller and I’m not going to test anything yeah don’t don’t do that like make sure make sure that you know why you’re doing things and like the big the big one is like the depth argument where like I’m a big believer in that you don’t like you shouldn’t be standing in the white ice almost ever like unless it’s maybe coming in for breakaway but even then you don’t have to be and people like lose their mind because they’re like it’s a 58 goalie i can tell you that you’re wrong and they’re like “Well no you’re entitled to your wrong opinion of course but here is the math.” And I had a legitimate engineer crunch the numbers for me and show you why like why this works and so the thing is is the people that want to listen are the ones that do and they’re like “Hey I tried it and changed my game.” And like that that’s why I made this stuff because you who I will never coach in person changed their game because I made an Instagram video that’s pretty cool so that’s why you know I get to love what I do do you remember why you started becoming a goalender or what made you want to be a goalie there’s no like one thing I my my older brother played hockey like not at a high level um so like I was always put in a goalie but I just like always loved being a goalie like I liked stopping pucks it wasn’t like the gear i do think the gear was sick probably played a role but I think in general I just kind of like What age you know sometimes you know what age were you i started when I was 12 officially i was a forward and I was actually from my small local town shout out Calonia Ontario I was pretty good but like my dad was a crazy hockey dad and so he burnt me out of that and so I gave him an ultimatum like hey either I become a goalie or I quit and then he realized he’s like okay like I I did too much he’s like if you’re going to do this this is your own thing we’re going to get you all the coaches and stuff you need and I’m not going to say a single word and he kept true to that promise and one time when I was 15 he did say something and I said “Dad don’t you ever say that again or I’m quitting.” And he’s like “Absolutely.” So one time in my career he he never said anything and so was that to a coach or No just to me like I think I think this was when I was starting to like get pretty good and like play AAA i think I was like probably dogging off in practice and he was sitting with the other parents and he like yelled at something at me and I skated to the glass and I said that in the middle of practice because like for me like being a goalie was like it’s like you know I mean you probably felt it like you know like sometimes you just don’t know why you do things you’re just like this is this is right yep this is right and that’s what it was for me like it was the first thing outside of like my parents and my family that I knew like this is what love feels like this is what love is like if you can if you can like put this in a bottle it’s the feeling every time I step on the ice in my gear and so that’s why it just everything made sense and that’s why I was willing to do whatever it took like I you know I I talking like Derek and I and BJ well Derek B Derek whatever you want to call him whatever your listeners refer him to us yeah we’ll talk to him later but um you know he uses me an example of like hard work and stuff and I usually tell them like I worked too hard like you I look at it now and especially as like I train athletes and like athlete management you probably shouldn’t work out four times a day like it’s not good you need to recover but 17-year-old Jamie didn’t know that and so he worked out four times a day because he just like I I just want I thought the more I put in the more I’ll get out which is true to a degree but sometimes you know in terms of performance you do need to recover but when you just love something so deeply you’re you’ll do whatever it takes well what’s the old saying you don’t know what you don’t know and you want to be good and it just Well if I do more I get more that makes sense but that’s where good role models and good mentorship comes in yeah you do need that and I did have some and but even still like the goalie training world is still well that point was I don’t say novel but still very like archaic in a sense it’s it’s getting better cuz there are some good people out there um but it was like really archaic and like the type of training and like you needed to like grind grind grind grind grind grind grind but you know we learn and sports progresses and the things that other people made mistakes from I learned from and the things that I made mistakes from kids are going to learn from and the cycle is going to continue forever really did you have a guy growing up like a hero like one goalie where you’re like that’s my guy i loved Chris both UA Montreal Montreal oh yeah the sickest set of Reebok Premier ones so sick the red base oh yeah there’s also a goal so I went to the Memorial Cup when the two memorial cups the one when Quebec Ramparts won it goy’s name was Cedric Dejardan he played a couple games for Tampa but he was like a career minor league guy but I remember watching him play and he was so sick and like I was like this guy’s awesome i follow I skated with him once there was like a Hamilton Bulldog skate with a pro day at on ice and I I won that and skated with him and like so he was like I thought that was the coolest thing like this guy’s grinding it out but in terms of the NHL Hua Price anyone at our age that doesn’t say Curry Price is a crazy person like everyone loves Carrie Price but I would assume it was Hua and then Price came in and see you later is like Toy Story they threw out Woody and in Oh yeah you’re like this guy is so cool but actually Carrie Price when he I remember so when the year they won the World Juniors he was wearing those sick all black bonds and like won the like the shootout against the Americans and stuff and then won against the Russians he went to Tri City and then signed and then when he was 18 he went and won the Colder Cup with Hamilton and I remember going to watch him play in the first or second round of playoffs with Boug it was so weird like you watched him play and you’re like “This guy is special.” And you can’t I don’t know why he was special but he was something different he was so good at 18 and obviously one of the doesn’t win a Stanley Cup but one of the best goalies probably of all time but I remember seeing that and you’re like “This guy’s this guy’s awesome.” And then like posters that Carrie Price threw on my wall after that you think he’s probably the greatest goalie to ever play that never won a mug that’s a good question that’s a complicated one that’s a very complicated question i would say he’s in up in the top five for sure i can’t give you my five but he did like think about his last year when they were in the bubble and they lost like and he was playing through all his like you know substance stuff and things he was going through and yeah like with Weber and all that he came pretty darn close in a year that they should not have been close and I think I he has to be top three because he won the Olympics right yep you know Calder Cop two Vznas uh one Hart one Vzna World Junior as well world Junior like he’s won at almost everything except for the Stanley Cup and so I think you’d have to say he’s probably one of I guess you can’t technically Lango is not anymore either cuz he won a Stanley Cup as a goalie coach yep uh assistant general manager but yeah yeah you won yeah so technically he’s a Stanley Cup so he’s off that list yeah i’d probably say Yeah i wonder again forgive me for putting my tin foil hat on so early in the show i wonder he’s he had all the knee injuries the ankle issues the substance abuse and the drug issues that we now know about i wonder if he knew that it was coming to the end of his career and he’s getting juiced up so that he can play through this last playoff run and he just said “Enough is enough i’m throwing the team on my back and we’re going to go let’s go boys.” And he did it it wasn’t he seemed like I I’ve never I met him briefly at Eli Wilson camp back in the day like our world pro when Eli Wilson was at World Pro in Calgary but he seemed like the kind of guy like from the outside looking in that would be able to be like all right we’re like you know the Mark Messier like call your call your win he seems like the kind of guy that would be like there’s a few goalies out there that can do that and it seems like he’s one of them that’d be like all right we’re I’m doing this which is pretty pretty cool to say like can you imagine just being like yeah we’re winning like we’re just going to win and I’m not going to get scored on like everyone comes out with that confidence but to like truly believe it and do that that’s pretty uh that’s next level stuff are there any other goalies you can think of that have that power lungquist probably i’d say Lquist he was like 90 and1 in game sevens he probably I put up there too as a goal one of the best goalies that’s never won one mhm who do you have did everyone win a mug or with that power with that power I’d say Johnny Quick when he when he was on he was on there was no stopping him in 2012 i wouldn’t even count it because he’s he’s one two three sails two mugs yeah yeah so like he just he just did it quick yeah he was one of those guys i want to put Mike Smith up there too i know that’s a hot take that would be that’s a that’s a hot take that’s a very hot take that’s a very hot take but he went into the playoffs uh 2011 with Tampa rollson faltered came in carried the mail until I think he got hurt then Rollson went back in boston wins the mug he carried the yachts to the playoffs up to game five against the Kings in the conference final 2012 doesn’t go in the playoffs again because of injury issues and just a poor team and then he finally gets in with the Oilers and he takes him all the way to the conference final i know they got swept again by the Avalanche but he was he was money when they needed him i know he’s underrated like people give him a hard time and like again you play you play two Canadian markets like you people only really remember like unless you want to stay in the cup like people are going to remember like the negative things and how you didn’t get underrated for sure i’d say Vasilleski but he’s won the mugs he’s won the mugs i feel like he also did it like he just There was those two those backto-back cups where he was just so good like he probably just woke up every day and was just like we’re just going to win the Stanley Cup today broski last year lately yeah which is so weird two years even two years in a row well 34 35 36 end of most guys career cuz we know most guys don’t play pro past 30 i know you have some exceptions but he just turned it on and then the best goal in the world right now i’ve heard I’ve like I’ve never met him i’ve heard that he is one of the craziest hardworking goalies like brings his his road like a cycling road bike with him and like he’s a machine and you know we don’t really know much about him though pretty secret you know we don’t know we we as someone who is involved in goalie development at the local and national levels to a degree we don’t know a lot what’s going on in Russian goalending we try it’s it’s actually I interviewed a guy in my podcast who’s from Russia he coaches at Aquinus and he the main thing I was like so what’s the difference he’s like well he said the difference is is you either play well or you don’t eat i was like “Well yeah you’re probably going to get some good goalies.” That’s if that’s like you you need that struggle and like we It’s funny when you look at like athletic development any sport you need to have a struggle at some point to be a highle player for the most part i guess if you’re Conor McDavid like sure he’s had struggles but like you’re just significant you’re just you’re just so much better than everyone else that like it doesn’t really matter but for for normal people that are playing a sport you need to have a struggle in order to overcome you know just like you break down your muscle to grow it you need to have something to overcome and you need that struggle to to succeed and you weed out people that can’t handle that struggle like like everything in sports and in life you you know survival of the fittest so to say i’m sure I’m sure there’s a lot less high maintenance athletes in Russia than there are in North America but again it also comes in waves cuz I mean there was what french goalies there was Finnish goalies uh Western Canada goalies Swedish goalies Russian goalies i’m sure something else is going to come in feels like we’re in the midst of a US development right now with goalie wise we Yeah so I guess I say we because I do work with USA Hockey which is weird because I’m not I guess I sort of American not an American not an American citizen i meant as in like us as like we we consume goalending we are in the middle of a Yeah we are i think I think Yes it’s weird how to define it like my buddy Ben who’s like a statistician is really good at like this stuff we often think of like the goalie like powers if there is like one or two very dominant goalies like right now there still are the majority of starters are Canadian I believe Canadian American overall but we don’t have the Carrie Price the stud like that’s why everyone in that’s why when you watch TSN like everyone’s like Hockey Canada is going like crazy who are they going to have for the you know the four nations Skinner Montbo B like those are all NHL starting goalies like those are all good goalies and champions like one Stanley Cup one just lost to Stanley Cup Mont right now as of now is playing pretty solid Aiden Hill as well Aiden Stanley Cup champion playing really like good hockey starters but they just don’t they don’t have that like that necessary like it factor that like that bro had that W had that Price had so yeah that’s why so everyone’s like ah Canada goal thing is broken or it’s it’s it’s kind of not i mean it’s broken in sense in terms of like registrations are down across the board in North America you know goalie registrations down like I’d say those that’s going to be an issue long term like in 20 years that’s going to be a problem but you got Hellbook so good aer pretty good you got Swayman Swayman also pretty good imagine tell one of those well two of those three you’re scratched for game one of the for Nations faceoffs yeah and so like USA is doing things well and I think a lot of it too it’s a numbers game too like America has a lot of people and hockey is growing so more people are going to play you’re going to have a better percentage of of athletes and the more money that’s put into the sport the better it develops and it comes in circle where Canada like obviously we we bleed hockey we only have what like 30 it’s like almost 40 million people now we’re over 40 million yeah 40 million people compared to like almost 400 million in the United States or 350 million that’s it’s a huge difference you know you’re going to have you’re that’s why like America in terms of overall talent will probably outpace United States or excuse me Canada in hockey because of just numbers you Canada will always have top talent america will probably just have more talent but then you look at like the like like Finland and Sweden that have not very many people and have a lot of talent so it’s like what are they doing and then you know to the credit of like a lot of people in USA hockey and hockey Canada it’s like there’s a lot of research that goes on and they try to collaborate and they try to figure out what works and a lot of things that they do in Europe would never work here because different systems but we can at least try or at least learn from them ideally i mean objectively just from my own observations I have to wonder when I see a guy like Vasilki I mean you can put Bob in there too only being 6’2 but all these Russians that are coming in at 6’4 6’5 Vasilki being the first that comes to mind he’s faster than everybody else he’s more flexible than everybody else he has more end of range motion than everybody else he’s quicker than everybody else like everything he does is better than everybody else in that 65 I think he started in they we’re calling him like 66 now they have him down like 6’4 but I usually call him 66 but what what is going on where he’s that dominant in every aspect yeah it’s like it’s like basketball i mean like look at NBA players they are 6’9 and incredible athletes so you’re hockey and the way the way that goalending is going and the future of goalending the way I see it is that we are just going to push more tall kids to be goalies because we know that you know taller goalies take up more space and all this stuff there’s advantages of being tall um sorry small goalies it’s the reality there are advantages of being tall um and then when you get a lot of tall goalies you’re going to get a lot of really good athletes you’re gonna have some bad athletes but you’re gonna have some bad athletes that are small kids too but you’re going to have a lot of tall goalies and so like how I see it but goalies goending as a whole is you’re going to have the average is probably going to get pushed to 6’4 65 but everyone is going to be able to move like a vaselki or like a UCO or have this crazy skiing ability because you’re just getting the best athletes there’s what 60 There’s 32 NHL teams yep 32 or 32 or 33 32 32 so you’re going to get the best 64 athletic freaks in the world that are also super tall that aren’t paying goalies like you know the days of the short kid the chubby kid with asthma getting pushed in the net because there’s nowhere else for them to be that that’s not that’s not going to happen we’re just going to Even I do it too like I just see you know the learn the let’s play hockey thing if there’s a tall kid on there I’m like “Hey you should be a goalie you’re like you know it’s the way it is.” And as someone who does like I work with a lot of small kids and you know I work with children so I don’t and not always working with you 30-year-olds but I work with children and they’re small and you know I learn how to coach and how to you know adjust the games for smaller goalies you know Derek says it the best is like we have this mindset that it’s NHL or bust if you’re 5’8 you’re probably not going to play in the NHL sure doesn’t mean you can’t doesn’t mean you’re not going to play junior A doesn’t mean you’re not going to play NCAA1 doesn’t mean you’re not going to go to Europe and make six figures wish you did but people I didn’t make you’re at six figures in Europe i wish I did though but I was also 6’4 but um we’re both very tall by the way for those wondering you’re pretty tall i think Travis try you are taller than me but we’re 6’4 and 6’5 so we’re very biased that’s pretty good oh yeah not a big deal um but but we we’re so set that like what is the NHL doing what is the NHL doing what is the NHL doing instead of just being like “How can I how can I be the best goalie that I can be?” And very few people are going to make the NHL regardless of their height so how far can you take your game you know there’s um Blake Pella one of my goalies from Tech yep he’ll be a nice guy i say he’s 5’11 he’s probably not he’s doing doing really well in the second league in Sweden he’s probably if he keeps it up going to get promoted and go to the first league in Sweden and have a good career as long as he wants yeah but is he going to play in the NHL no if he can support his family and love the game and play for till he’s 40 that’s pretty good to me but instead you you know like everyone is so like woe is me when they’re short why do I even bother like you know many DMs I get when kids are like why should I even bother i’m like yes you should bother okay you’re not 6’4 but you that means you just need to be a better skater you just need to be better at tracking you just need to be better at all these things to bridge the height gap because you should for sure try because you know you if you if you love hockey this is what you want you’re willing to do whatever it takes like you are going to find a way and if you’re good you will play at a high level at some point like look at college goalies there are small college college goals out there played against them coached against them watch college hockey all the time they’re small college they’re small college boys and if you can get a full ride to NCAA division one and not pay a penny for outrageously expensive postsecary education it’s a pretty good deal to me you’re loving the episodes and the interviews so far i am one of the downsides of doing an independent show where no questions no stones are unturned is sponsorships and if you want to help us keep the lights on to keep more interviews like this coming you can sign up to be a YouTube channel’s member or a Patreon member it’s five bucks you get every single interview we have in this series patreon perks exclusive merch free merch and more and the whole list of interviews you can wait throughout the entire summer or get them all now on the list goes Chris Mason Matt Murray Jamie McClennon Dale Whis Jamie Phillips Jordan Schmaltz Matt Hackett bestselling author Rich Cooper professional divorce lawyer for professional athletes Ido Wall Brent Soul Bill Ranford Navy Seal TC Cummings my friend Matt Murray my former teammates Justin Schmidt Trevor Babin and more five bucks you get every single episode perks and more what are you waiting for and Trab’s mom’s phone number so five bucks well spent you got to sign up for the top tier for that well if I can add too like if if the whole idea of why should I do this should I even bother continuing well of course because you’re going to go through a lot of adversity you’re going to go through trials and tribulations you’re going to become a good man or a good woman woman uh during you said super weird there during your adversity i was trying to make that flow it didn’t really work very well but you’re going to go through some stuff that’s going to make you a good person and you’re going to go through hard times you’re going to get better and you’re going to use that to grow post life right like hockeyy’s the measuring stick to life so yeah maybe you don’t go to the show and make 7 million bucks a year maybe you don’t even go and make six figures but you’re going to become a good person in the process and who you are in the process is the only thing you keep at the end of the day the money will go away the status will go away the sweet setup that Chris Hua has probably in some garage somewhere but that will go away someone’s got that and I want it it’ll all go away one day yeah and the only thing you keep is the person that you are in the process yeah sports is always like a metaphor for life and no matter what the sport is that’s why like I when I have kids I really want them to play team sports too cuz I think there’s a val there’s value in being able to like communicate and be a part of a team like you know be a part of a work environment there’s a reason that like a lot of companies like want to hire former athletes cuz they’re good team players you know that you’re used to it you spend your whole life communicating and adversity and you know instead of sending you know passive aggressive email to someone you’re used to going to someone’s face and being like you need to be better and you need to be better I will be better if you’ll be better okay let’s be better you know that that that experience is important and translates to real life and that I think that gets lost because we professionalize kids too early like big time and it’s continue it’s getting worse and worse and worse with some of the changes that we’re seeing in hockey especially hockey Canada um like a lot of these outlaw leagues and all these things like obviously there’s going to come with some bias in that for myself but um when we professionalize the children and we’re trying to make them these little NHL players we we don’t see the forest in the trees and you don’t understand like no matter how hard our parents or as coaches push kids like the ones that go on are going to go on because they’re good and they’re going to do all the right things and they’re going to listen but we can we can try to grind someone to the bone and we’re not going to turn them into a sweet hockey player like some kids are naturally good hockey players and then some are going to be average and you know if we can take those average players and make them pretty good then that’s like the kind of that’s the the pinnacle of coaching really why don’t we talk about your experience though like we’re talking about all this stuff might as well start at the beginning for you i want to start with the OJHL like you’re going to go to junior you’re playing AAA hockey you were drafted in the OHL right Sarnia so I was drafted Sarnia fourth round i wanted to play in the O i thought I was ready probably wasn’t but I said if I didn’t sign as a 16-year-old and get my five years of education then I wasn’t going to do it so I got What does that mean for those that don’t know so when you play in the OL there’s different contracts and you get it at the time it was for every year you played you got like one full basically full ride to Canadian University it’s a little different now sometimes you can just sign and they get all four years it depends on your contract but essentially like I wanted to have 5 years of junior a like eligibility and be able to play in in you know Sarnia for 5 years um I didn’t make it at main camp so I went back to I got I signed with the junior B team uh well and junior Canadians they just signed a third goalie i ended up playing like two two games maybe two or three games i got pulled my first ever junior start by the way in a three-3 tie so sweet that feltable yeah that felt great um then I was traded to Brford who was a like a dominant team basically to be a backup i think I got like two more starts there but it was a pretty good thing cuz like really old team um Daryl Bordon was the goalie there former NHL or NHL former NHL NHL guy playing junior B former OHL goalie there and like you know like just like being around and like learning was important and I also learned like what not to do like I learned like I okay like like every kid like you want to be a junior hockey beauty like you want to be at that point there wasn’t zins around then but you wanted to be packing a dip and spitting in the cup and being sick and talking like a hockey player beauty but I learned that okay that’s not what I want and you know like a lot of these guys are aged out the O and this is it for their hockey and they’re maybe they’re going to do you sports or whatever that’s not what I want and so I like okay I got to take things a little bit more seriously i got to dial it in so I was fortunate enough I got an opportunity through my my advisor agent at the time was Kyle Dubis Dubis Keef connection um not bad not bad um said Dub was like look go watch this kid ke drove from Ottawa to Montreal to watch me at goalie camp sheldon Keef did yes okay and was like “Um sure we’ll have we’ll sign him as a backup.” And I said “We can’t promise him.” He said “I had an offer in a team from Canada in the same league for 15 games.” And then I had an offer from Keith that said “I can’t promise you anything.” And I said “You know what i’m going to take the I can’t promise you anything one i have a feeling about this i a feeling.” And he said “You play well we’ll play you.” What team was that penrook Lumber Kings and this is because of Dubis’ recommendation yeah dubis said “Look just go watch him if you don’t like him don’t sign him but just go watch him.” And I played well again we talk about like always like you never know who’s watching i got signed to junior A and won a national championship from France goalie school like like like you never know and so played Keith brought in I think six different goalies throughout the year trying to beat me out i took their spot or kept my spot played a lot of games they ended up getting a 20 bomb and he played really well in playoffs so he won a national championship was traded to the BCHL after that as a request cuz Keith gave me the option and he’s like “Hey we’re bringing back the 20 he’s coming back for his overage year you know you can stay and be a backup but I can’t promise you games or I can trade you.” And I was like “Yes I’ll ask for a trade can I go to the BCHL the best league in Canada that’s where I want to go.” And so he was able to set that up it was great went out there played really well um was two shutouts away from breaking the league record by Christmas as a backup which is pretty sweet um then I committed to Michigan Tech University for the following season so at Christmas I committed and looking back I should have played another year of junior but Phoenix CPPley still plays in the NHL or the American League was there and I was like well it’s probably best that we come in as freshman cuz that way we can battle it out that makes more sense i don’t want him to be a sophomore and me be a freshman and I just don’t play so I wanted to come in next year and then when I got back at Christmas I just didn’t get any starts and we were losing like every game and it was so weird because I was going for like winning every game and then we were losing and like Mags wasn’t doing the greatest and eventually I got Sean McGuire go draft Pittsburgh great goalie the college right yeah and we were struggling as a as a team but I wasn’t getting starts and it was kind of like I went from like winning every game to not playing so I went in the coach’s office and I was like I was like Why am I not playing and he goes “Jamie I’m going to be honest with you i’m not happy that you committed we wanted you here for another year so we’re not going to play you anymore maguire is going to be you and you’re going to a school no one’s ever heard of and he’s going to represent this program better.” And I was in shock as like a 18-year-old kid so I was like “Can I get a trade?” And he’s like “We’ll see what I can do but no promises.” So he basically What team is this by the way this is Pal River power River yeah so he waited to the 11th hour and called me and said “We have a trade for you in the OJ.” And it’s not where I wanted to go i wanted to stay in B i want to stay in the best league possible it’s like I have a team in the OJ and if you don’t take this deal the deadline ends in 10 minutes so you’re either take it or you’re not playing hockey the rest of the year so I I took it i didn’t have much choice um I definitely remember crying at my bullets cuz I was like “This is unfair this is stupid this doesn’t make any sense.” I was loving it my billets were great everything was awesome i was playing sick scholarship everything was going up and then that happened so I ended up going to the OJ what team junior Canadians they picked me up uh to make a playoff push um I think we needed like 11 of the next 13 or 14 possible points and they’re like “Look we’re they’re like “Look you you’re coming in with junior like you’ve won national championship you’re going to be a leader we’re going to make you a captain.” like we need 11 points you got 11 points how did you get there by the way cuz you’re based on Vancouver Island so I river the owner of our team was very wealthy and a great guy and his his son was on the team and good friends to this day and so I hopped on a plane and flew they What did you fly when did I fly no no what did you fly like Powell River to Oh yeah so like it would have been Pow no I drove my car to Vancouver and he the guy had a B because guess he has business in Vancouver so one of his partners uh met me grabbed my car took my car with all my stuff in it to the train station and like bust it or trained it and then I trained it shipped it and then I flew it on the plane immediately with my gear cuz we had like a game the next day and so we ended up getting those 11 points going making playoffs i think in playoffs my playoff stats were outrageous like I think I had like three goals against but my save percentage was like 950 it was just like getting shellac shots and we upset the first round and lost in the second round but when he was I was getting like 60 70 shots a night and there just happened to be a scout from the Winnipeg Jets there and was like this guy’s pretty good did iter no no zinger didn’t really he was the assistant GM um I can’t remember who it was at the time but they added me to the draft list and that’s how I was drafted as a kind of throwaway pick at the end of the last round because I Weren’t you draft fourth fourth round seventh round last round so Halle Buck was fourth round okay yeah definitely not definitely not hell book um so yeah so I was kind of a throwaway pick but still drafted and out of out of a league that isn’t necessarily super strong um just because some guy again some guy just happened to be there on a night I was playing really well so for all those kids that you know complain and don’t you know don’t take every game as serious every practice serious like you never know who’s watching it just happened yeah drafted went to college did the thing but college hockey did really well in college hockey i think I talked about how the Jets didn’t want to sign me and then eventually signed me we’ve talked about that before and then we’ll get to that again in a second okay but so you’re drafted before you even shown up to Michigan Tech officially right right yep okay so then you went to Michigan Tech you’re behind Copley for two years and then the last two years the stats were like your last 75 games so you put up like a 928 like that’s NHL that’s literally almost every game Kipperoft style playing 75 80 games and you put up a 928 that’s incredible we one we were a good team give him credit college hockey is very defensive structured but I was also a very good college goalie like I I can say that now like it sounds cocky i can say that now cuz I don’t it’s been a it’s been like nine years I play college hockey uh I was a good college hockey goalie um if I wasn’t drafted I probably would have signed after my junior year to a team that wanted me and the story might have been a little bit different might not be here might not be here unfortunately that is the part of being drafted is they own your rights your whole time and if they don’t need you they don’t need you the Jets didn’t really ever need me and so that’s you know part of filling a roster spot well so let me just back you up for a sec because you mentioned this on the first show that we did so the Jets draft you they own your rights during your entirety of college no anybody else gets any pickings but then you also mentioned that if you’re an actual free agent you’re a free agent July 1st but in the NCAA you’re free agent August 1st 15th I think whatever date it is after later so you’re at a huge disadvantage huge disadvantage especially playing so well and especially when you’re playing so well and you’re property of a team like the other teams don’t have interest in you because they’re like why why would they not sign him so like it just sucked so I remember that at that point I told myself that I if I didn’t sign with the Jets which when they said straight up we’re not going to sign you so I was like “Okay like I’ll I’ll probably sign like an American League deal i think Texas Stars were interested i’ll just sign an American League deal i’ll play for one year and then I’m going to pack it up and go to medical school.” And that that was the plan until they offered me a contract and you’re not going to you’re not going to not get Randy Jackson’s autograph you know you’re not I would have done the same thing yeah you’re not going to take it and so that’s why and then you know I took it and I thought like hey you know you work hard you play well you’re gonna get opportunity worked hard play well didn’t get opportunity and like again like everyone in your last episode though before we get to that point I want to take one step at a time okay so many stats man so were you a Mike Richter nominee or no twice over yeah never won it but I was How many nominees are there there five or there three three so who are the other other two you remember one was Zayn so Zayn McIntyre who went by Zayn Gothberg at the time he won it he changed his last name he did change his last name the reason why i don’t know he’s North Dakota goalie right yeah he did change his name i I don’t know why um interesting and I can’t remember who it was the next year but two years in a row I was final three again like I had my own beliefs so I didn’t win it probably cuz I just went to a small school no one’s ever heard of or cares of i’m obviously going to say that um and then again I’m with two other like really good goalies but again I was like I said in college hockey like I was really good and I would have been a free agent big signing if I wasn’t drafted but you don’t you don’t know that you live and you learn but so you’re number two for both both heroes for the mictor in the top three whatever they don’t tell you though no they don’t rank it they just give the winner okay and then so but do you remember when you signed the contract for the Jets i did yeah I do what happened um so I was on a weekend getaway with my girlfriend at the time and I forgot my phone at home and where were you going to just Marquette so like 2 hours away we were just doing like a little day trip and I forgot my phone and all of a sudden my dad is blowing up my girlfriend’s phone he’s like “You got to call your agent.” I was like “I don’t have his number it’s on my phone.” And then so I was basically talking to you know Joa and all these people and my agent all over the phone on my girlfriend’s phone and then we’re like like we got to we got to cut this short and drive home and in a gas station I was like I talked to like do you think I should do this like the money is like you know it’s not I thought they offer so full AHL money so 70 plus 625 each 2 years yeah signing bonus cuz I was too old for a three-ear deal cuz it goes by age and what’s the age cut off for that 20 uh 24 24 has to be a 23 or 24 is a 2-year anything under that’s 3ear above 25 or six is a one-year deal and so I remember the money was like it wasn’t you know a max salary or anything which I thought I deserved because of my college play um what was Max 90,000 signing bonus at the time I think 90 here you go yours was 90 G’s yeah like your pre-ax 90 G’s um and then but I got max AHL money which is 70,000 which is pretty good um and I agent Todd was like “Yeah just sign it.” And so I signed it at a gas the holiday gas station in the UP man and I was like yeah I just went home and I was like this is crazy and then I had training camp two days later and I not going to lie I was not in good shape because I thought I wasn’t playing hockey next year and they blew up my ankle i was out for 8 weeks uh so this is the first season that you played in the American League though yeah yeah and so actually I blew up my ankle at training camp i caught an edge uh in one of the prospect games or the you know development camp games and I remember skating up and I can’t remember who it was on the bench don’t know if it was Jamie Roy or Mike Keane i think it was Mike Keen i was like hey I think I broke my ankle and I was like hobbling he’s like they got off the ice and I remember it was like you know like you ever like ser you know you seriously hurt like the adrenaline rushes through you and you don’t feel till you hurt till you like you stop and I was like this hurts and it was like a double ankle sprain and it was like high ankle sprain and low ankle sprain and like knowing what I know now I would have rather just broke it it would recover was faster so the rehab with that was crap fortunately I got to go back to school and had good good treatment but I played with a really painful ankle for the first four or five months of the season like it was not good it But boy did my ankle hurt you couldn’t tell from the stats yeah no stats were good stats were good i was really good in the coast um what did you do with that signing bonus money though nothing you get 90 G’s US i didn’t get 90 G’s what did you get 625 so 62,500 and then plus my salary um so you sign and then boom there’s 62 GS in your account yeah most money ever I think after tax it was like $40,000 most money I’ve ever seen at a point where I actually made zero money um so yeah I remember I had a check and I went to the bank and I was like “Hey how large of a check can I cash?” Which big bank check yeah trying to drive a Range Rover um I didn’t didn’t I didn’t spend really anything um I’ve always been pretty either cheap frugal whatever i’ve always known that like hockey there’s always going to be an expiry point in hockey whether I made $100 million or I made what I made so I didn’t buy you know I didn’t go buy a Jeep or Grand Cherokee like every entry- level guy does for a sick car um no crazy vacations cuz I went on a backpacking trip uh with my girlfriend at the time to uh to England to the UK and like a couple grand wasn’t anything crazy um other than that like I saved it put it away had some good investments um used that money to to help me go to school to go back to school cuz $100 $150,000 physical therapy program is not not cheap alongside like the money that I made from online like my online coaching and stuff but uh yeah I still have most of that money it’s in my don’t ever touch till I retire fund um which is really cool um because I have that but I never like blew it i I had the my crappy Nissan Ultima until last year that I drove from sophomore year of university until to last year rocked it thing went from Florida to everywhere and back and yeah like money I don’t know i think my parents were pretty good with money i think they definitely were smart with it they had good people they’re good with theirs um I was surrounded by good people too you know like that put like the fear of a 30 for30 broke in me and I didn’t want that and I also like I’m a pretty pretty simple guy not like you know buying a a barn and and raising sheep and cattle but I don’t really need a whole lot to feel fulfilled i get a lot of fulfillment from doing what I love and that’s like playing hockey what was playing hockey coaching hockey um you know hanging out with my wife you know doing drinking coffee at different coffee shops around the world like that okay the $6 for like a um a latte I can swing that that’s what fulfills me in life i don’t as much as a Range Rover would be cool only if I can truly afford it would I buy that like I don’t I I don’t really go outside by means and so and I knew that like hey I might not play in the NHL i feel like I’m going to but I’m not pro I might not so I’m not going to spend that money until like I do I have it and I think that was I’m very I look back now I’m like oh my gosh like thank thank goodness like I had zero dollars in my bank account when I retired like a lot of people do and that would that would scare the heck out of me cuz right now I’m like you know like I’m not rich but I can pay my rent and eat food which is pretty cool which is most important yeah like I can Yeah which is great and like I said I was able to go back to school and not have to take out loans and like to be able like I had classmates that are probably never going to pay their loans off like undergrad doctorate 250,000 you know maybe if they pay it off when they’re 60 65 fortunate enough that hockey gave me the opportunity that I I don’t have that i could just start working and make you know and not have to you know pay back you know Sally May and whatever the the loan the loan organizations are well the reason I asked you is and this is something that’s fascinated me the last like year or two years of you know my friendship with Matt is you know Muzz and I talk money all the time like anytime we talk we usually talk about money or business or stuff like that which is so interesting because you think you know talking with an NHL goalie you talk goalending but we talk the complete opposite and taking that mentality of okay well he’s up here and he’s gone up there so what am I missing there has to be like he knows something I don’t so I want to learn from him and then okay well if I’m learning from him maybe I can learn from you and I can learn from this guy and I can learn from that guy and who who knows more I want to get closer to the money and to the success so what do you know that I don’t know to get me there is is the mindset I like what I know about money is two things don’t buy dumb stuff three things don’t buy dumb stuff don’t spend and I’d classify that as don’t spend outside your means and hire experts that are good at managing money like I I’m not going to claim that I I’m not the one making trades and things like that with my investments i have an investment person for that because I don’t know just like you’re not going to hire an accountant to coach your goalie you hire experts and so like I go coach to do your account yeah like for me like I just you know I I you know I I let other people that people I trust that are people are good and this is their job manage my money and yes you you give a percentage of that that’s part of investing but just like you have to pay for coaching and do these things that’s part of their job and that’s why they are experts at it so I say like find seek expert help and if you really want to do it yourself consult with experts too and that’s I think that would be the biggest thing but obviously Marie and I different tax brackets significantly but you know but but there’s a common denominator there you’re both pro goalies played at the highest level possible even though you didn’t play 200 300 NHL games you played well you dressed for NHL games which is close enough you made some good money and and there’s there’s some common knowledge there so and and remind me to get your your uh financial investor guys number after i’m curious to learn more but but you almost did play in the NHL like so let’s talk about that for a second so you play two years in the American League you throw up 908 920 last year if I’m not mistaken you might be the only goalie in Moose history to ever throw up a thousand save percentage and zero goals against in the playoffs ever it’ll never be done again yeah cuz I think I only played one period and you made 20 saves yeah they I shellacked against Grand Rapids it’s actually funny so everything comes full circle so for the We’re recording in Grand Rapids my last ever rental skate studio in a rental skate studio which is pretty good pretty good vibes if you’re on the video version this is live vibes are good but my last ever college hockey game was in Grand Rapids at Vanal Arena my last ever opponent in the American Hockey League Grand Rapids Griffins i now live in Grand Rapids we’re podcasting Grand Podcast it’s weird but it’s weird and like I love I love it here like this is awesome this is where I want to stay like this place is great um what were we going to talk about sorry I off the NHL callup so Oh yeah well there’s the playoff performance of you have the best stats that’ll ever be done by a loose goalie can’t can’t beat that i mean unless a miracle happens unless someone gets 21 saves in one period and then never touches the ice again which is historic but so you get called up to the to the Jets though for a couple days basically their first ever playoff run post Atlanta with as a as a black ace i was called up during the year um as kind of like a paper transaction first um which is actually this is a story I’ve never told I’ve never told anyone the story um we were in Laval and I remember we were at like one of the malls close to the the hotel and um Zer called me and was like hey this is what’s going to happen we’re going to call you up you know it’s all started break so you’re going to go home but you’re going to get NHL money and all these things I asked I said is it do I have to get called up which sounds stupid and I say that now and the words come out of my mouth i’m like that sounds so stupid but I was this mindset that I was always one good game away from like earning a reputation of being great and I think that there was a plan for me to start when I was in one of the games in Lval and I wanted that so like I wanted to start that game in Laval and win and do well and then people being like “Okay yeah like Jamie can play he’s got it.” And I was willing at that point to give up five you know over the course of a couple days like five figures of money because I wanted to stay in the American League and play a game and do well and earn that and but it wasn’t about the money though it was It wasn’t about the money it’s like yeah but that’s just the way I was wired like I always just wanted to earn my spot and I always thought that like if I do this I’m going to be better and if I do this I’m going to be better and you know we talked before in the past where like you know they said like you did everything and you earned an opportunity we didn’t give it to you which we’ll get to which you didn’t get to but I always that was my mentality like that was the way I was wired is I had to earn it and you know I look back and yeah it’s pretty cool you know I got some money and a little bit of money and a little bit more money than I would have made than if I stayed in the American League but I also think like maybe what if I did play that night that Friday and played well and then I played that Saturday and all of a sudden it’s my job that would never have happened that you look at how hockey works and that never would have happened in my situation but I didn’t know that and I truly believe that I was that one game away and that’s but that’s yeah that’s a story I never told anyone before well what do they say hindsight is 50/50 yeah yeah he’s something like that but considering No that’s what I’m saying regular vision is 2020 hindsight is 50 yeah no yeah not great but yeah that’s but that that was like that was just the way that I was wired that you you get what you put in and I got what I put in to the point where put it right i got what I put in and got me to the point where sometimes it doesn’t matter what you put in to get the rest if that makes sense and that was and that’s just life and with it and well your equation was a plus b= c you’re controlling a but what is b yeah now you got to add in some brackets and exponents and now you’re talking about bedmas in the equation there’s a lot only have one number in the equation yeah now you’re dealing with letters and stuff so it’s you know you’re not dealing with numbers but letters and and that and that was that’s weird but I think I think I actually can look at that moment and kind of like hopefully someone sees this and listens to this and goes like that’s a cool mindset because I want hopefully other people are willing to like sacrifice and grind for that opportunity because that’s all I wanted was to earn it like I just want to earn it just give me a start let me play give me a start let me play we get called up again later in the season though for the playoff yeah like 14 times so we’ll we’ll get we’ll get to the American League stuff and the East Coast stuff but so you get called up for the Jets playoff run though 2018 so was it just you or did comms and Hutch get up to No just me just me until Steve Mason went down and then they panicked and sent me down and called on oh [ __ ] oh no we might have to play him let’s get him out of here that was actually so disappointing i I I saw Mason see the Mason go down in warm-ups in Minnesota and I was like “Oh yeah.” Like you never know is it good you never know and then immediately like “Yeah we’re going to we’re flying you back to Vanto right manto but we’re bringing up comms.” I was like “Oh crap.” Hutchinson wasn’t around at that point no maybe they did oh they No you’re right they brought up Hutch and they cuz Comms and I would have went to Manto for playoffs you’re right you’re right they brought up They brought up Hutch to back up and then I was It was Comm’s playing against Grand Rapids i think it was like two out of three the first round and then Comm Yeah coms got yanked i had my legendary stat line and then we went and then got shellacked in Grand Rapids they were they were so good that year jimmy Howard was on the team that year on in the American League Peter Morazzley took his job i remember that they was LA last year i played against Jimmy Howard my stats were better than him so you tell me i messaged Jimmy Howard show yeah if your sample size is really small and it’s good your stats look great i told Jimmy “Hey come on the show.” I never heard a response back i know who whose side I’m on but he’s he’s on he’s somewhere i think he works with Lil Caesar’s hockey yeah i wonder I don’t know maybe if I’m on the east side and I cross path so I’ll put your name out there yeah I’d love to have him on the show yeah I’m sure he’s good this is a non- mainstream pro common sense hockey podcast so but do you remember the moment though when you got called out to be Black Ace when you get the call yeah it wasn’t it wasn’t as illustrious because you’re not like the you’re still number three and again I wanted to play in I wanted to play in playoffs like what if Conry got what if Conry didn’t play well now’s my chance playoffs like you you ride the guy that’s hot i wanted to be the guy that was hot so I again I would have rather have stayed in the American League and waited for an opportunity that probably but it wouldn’t have come we don’t know that we don’t know that but we don’t probably wouldn’t have come but I was willing to risk that because I wanted to earn it i wanted to put up some numbers so that you resign or someone else signs me and I get that NHL opportunity but that’s just the way I like I said that’s the way I was wired mhm do you remember though so you get called up you’re on the private jet to Minnesota oh the buff story that everyone on the internet we can re we can redo those ones i was going to ask what if you order the plane for food but yeah we can talk about buff and Patrick L too i definitely ordered lamb because I’m a big lamb guy and remember the options though so actually no why don’t we do this take me start to finish so you get called up you go to the James Richardson International Airport right i’m assuming whatever the private I think I think they fly at the same airport the Winnipeg airport so you you load up everything’s loaded up you’re sitting on the plane you decided you had to sit at the back with Big Buff i didn’t decide i was told because they travel with media people in the playoffs and so the only seat was Buff’s seat beside him and typically he gets his own and he was sick and I just felt like an absolute peasant and go listen to that episode i tell the story why don’t you retell for anyone that doesn’t they’re already here they’re already here listening it’s true so like basically he was he was sick and uh you know he was giving me a hard time as one should to the rookie peasant like myself and the problem was it was like well at least this is like a quick flight this is like an hour flight i can I can you know I can be the rookie peasant for an hour yeah when a 1-hour flight turned into a quick 13-hour flight because of the weather and we circled and stuck in Duth and it was pretty brutal and we actually flew back to Manito or Yeah manitoba and then didn’t even leave till the next day um but you know Buff was like you know my phone’s dead i need to use yours and I didn’t have full service i was still on my parents like plan at the time and it didn’t have unlimited data in Canada only in the States so I was like I I was like I was like I can’t I don’t have data and he’s like then like to be fair you said it to him yeah to be fair like when I’m sick I am the most miserable person to be around so I couldn’t imagine him and then losing a seat and so and him being like he’s a he was a big like jokester even me being around like training camp and stuff for like a little bit of time like jokester guy and he’ll and he’s a big person man like and he’s a little intimidating and so when he’s joking but also an intimidating person and you’re me and like naturally like I’m not a super like outgoing or like you know get in your face kind of guy like I was intimidated and yeah some of the fake Jet fans thought that that story is me making fun a buff and then that brings us to the Reddit thread that we talked about um there’s a whole Winnipeg Jets Reddit about you for that the show we did which is sweet man like I it doesn’t bother me but it bothered my wife so my wife who she didn’t know we didn’t meet when I was playing hockey so she’s not a hockey girl you know didn’t live that life you know she’s not a hockey wife tag on Tik Tok which is a whole other thing in itself don’t get me started tik Tok wise I’m happy she’s not um but we don’t you know we met in school and so she doesn’t we don’t like I don’t really talk to her about my hockey career unless it was like different things or we’re around hockey people and the stories are flowing i’ll throw it out you know I don’t want to talk to like “Hey hey babe.” So there’s this one time where I was in a hotel room in Nova Scotia or Newfoundland and I was debating between either not playing either playing or throwing myself out the window because I was so depressed like that’s a weird thing you know it’s good to communicate with your wife but also like that’s not coming up at the dinner table you know like and so and so it’s funny cuz she she came up to me and she’s she’s like people at work were asking like cuz I told them that you used to play hockey and she’s like I didn’t really know much and so I Googled you and she’s like did you know there was this Reddit thing and people were being like really mean to you and I was like yeah like people sometime people say a lot of mean things because you know for whatever reason But that’s just the way it goes and and it didn’t doesn’t like hurt me like I look I woken up and had thousands of tweets from people telling you how much you suck before you play a game like you you get used to that so it doesn’t feel good but you get used to it i just felt bad for my wife because like if I went on the internet and people were just ripping her apart I would feel terrible and so it kind of sucked so I had to explain to her like how a lot of things work and like I had to tell her a little bit more about like different things and those experience yeah for some reason that story just did not resonate with people you could say one thing to Jets fans that saw that they got upset or they got upset about the line story where again like you’re just this is a funny story it’s a funny story and it’s not it’s pigeon tossing myself never then because I am abs was an absolute peasant i get it like and but it’s just those are the stories and those are what they are um well I mean Buff just wanted to use your data to watch fishing yeah and I just didn’t want to pay 80 bucks you know like uh you know as someone who you know self admittedly is cheap i didn’t want to spend any bucks on that actually technically my dad would have but my dad would have sent me like a an e transfer request for it so give Mr buffin the data yeah get Yeah hindsight probably should have given Buffin the data maybe he would have vouched for me to get a couple games but Philips Kid is great we should call him again great call him again yeah you know you live and learn i mean you got a raise of what a couple thousand dollar for going out on the call up and he wanted 80 bucks of data I guess now that we we break it down idiot you know but hindsight’s 50 hindsight is 50/50 as they say um or we’re on the same trip do you want to tell the L story as well with the Louis Vuitton it was on a different trip but yeah like he put the the bag patrick L put his bag like by me and it was like a you know all black pretty sick all black i I told you I bought the knockoff version we’ll get there i was like yeah and he put it beside me and he goes “10K don’t touch.” and sat down and started playing Fortnite and I was like “Come on man.” Like “What am I?” Yeah obvious what am I going to do take it like we’re on the same bus at the back of the bus with Buff yeah like no i’m at the front of the bus that’s for sure um and then I I bought that I knockoff version and I kept it in my room as like a motivator later like whenever like I’d wake up like you’re you’re not being a peasant today you’re not going to get fidget tossed like that again uh you know what’s fair like he got a hard time and went it big he’s not he wasn’t a bad guy and like it’s crazy and the thing is too is like everyone everyone is going to everyone that was really hard on him now is like oh we weren’t so hard on him and stuff because we found out like he had you know was going through a lot of things and went to the program and all and substance abuse or whatever and mental health things and then everyone’s like oh but before they knew that boy did they rip into him well the people that said that too I don’t think they say it to his face yeah and but he wasn’t a bad guy at all and like I thought like he was quiet did his thing kept to himself i I thought it was pretty good you were going to say “Do you have anything to say to the Jets fans that are mean to me?” Uh no i don’t care although I the Winnipeg despite not having the opportunities that I definitely deserve that is a classic organization 10 out of 10 organization like it sucks that people like don’t want to play there i get it it’s the weather the weather sucks in the winter like it’s it’s not great but I was born there i I’ll attest to it yeah it’s cold oh my god they treat you so well they treat you so well and everyone in the organization from the top all the way down to just like think of the lowest position you could find great people like great people maybe just cuz they’re Canadian Winnipegers but the culture is like good and even in Manitoba like you’d think we were you’re getting treated like they would treat you in the NHL and like so like I I love that like and yeah I got they paid a bunch of money would I have liked to have a little bit different communication between the coaching staff and myself as we played yeah but I it was great and I loved I loved it and I’m very thankful for that and so you still make fun of me on the internet i get it but just remember that I’m the peasant here and I’m not making fun of Bob because he beat me up you know i never saw anybody talk about this but you want to go off on the omelet bar yeah so that’s like I use that as a metaphor for describing the different levels in the East Coast Hockey League you do not get food some teams will give you food uh I can tell you that you get treated better in the USHL that you do in the in the East Coast Hockey League um there’s there’s no almond bars there is maybe a granola bar if you’re lucky and that was from the visiting team leaving it from the last night’s game then you get up to the American League and you have like an omelette chef that comes in and you get you know it’s like a hotel one you get like This is an MTS center life center yeah no it would be Yeah that or it’ be at the Sportslex practice drink you get your a little bit of ham a little bit of cheese green pepper but can Hold on paint me a picture though so you you turn up at 7 a.m 8 a.m something like that yeah so you turn up you get you go to the rink get your stuff on and then there’s the chef no you come in yeah you come in to put your gish on and there’s a chef and you have you eat you watch your video and and stuff and you shoot the [ __ ] and have coffee and then that’s your breakfast and there’s like oatmeal some cereal this typical stuff difference outside of some teams is like instead of just oatmeal and cereal you you get like a omelette chef from I think there was a culinary school that they work in combination with and yeah it’s just the simple stuff like eggs cheese green peppers some mushrooms boom for me like I’m a simple guy like that’s great give me two um give me 14 of these right now um so wait so you’re going from barely a granola bar you get the ham omelette and whatnot moose but then what are you getting with the jets you’re getting like grass-fed beef bacon like you go from four things four of things to like probably 20 i don’t know like the specific things but it’s like literally different types of cheese it’s not you’re not just getting shredded cheese you’re getting like your guda your Swiss and it’s like but again that’s part of being at the next level is you get that that stuff you know like in the NFL and Major League Baseball they get even more cuz they have more money but like seeing that you’re like that is the next step and so I use that the the food that the omelette bar is as my metaphor for like you don’t want to be down here you want to be eating the grass-fed beef omelette and you don’t want to be having the the chewy granola bar for breakfast because you can’t pay your rent or your your gas bill playing in the East Coast League so when you’re up in Winnipeg though like what are you seeing from Hely cuz I know you’ve you basically were in the system with him all the way through and then he’s stolen the job he stole from Steam Steve Mason nominated for the VZNA he’s starting for game one of the playoffs you’ve seen him through and through what did you notice from him what makes him so special it’s hard he doesn’t He’s not He doesn’t get any like FaceTime or publicity i even asked him to come on my pod and he You had him on your pod you talk about fishing though very briefly but he didn’t want to talk about hockey um which you know put it to his credit he obviously understand he’s a very good goalie in the winner twice twice he he has that same as the kids would say aura around him about you know that we talked about earlier or like the carry price but it’s not in this loud confidence it’s in this quiet confidence like he keeps to himself you know i think he’s got a I think he’s got a a child now by the time he didn’t and it was just hanging out with his girlfriend or fiance at the time his dogs you know fishing very simple but like you don’t get a read on him you just know like this guy’s good um funny guy you He’s funny he doesn’t seem like he’s a funny guy he’s funny he’s a He’s a funny guy and that’s the thing it s it sucks that you don’t get to see that side of him like how like other NHL players are more out there because he is he’s a funny guy is there anything that comes to mind like funny wise like something funny he said or did that stands out in your memory i don’t even know i just remember when I was black a it was just him and I sitting at the breakfast or brunch table or pregame pregame meal table and I just remember just just laughing i don’t know what we’re talking about but it was just goalies being goalies and just laughing and he’s just a funny guy and like or even like during development camp years it was myself and uh Jason Casdorf and Winnipeg legend big Winnipeg legend big guy also another good another good human being um but we were staying at the same hotel and we’d go to the sport check at uh Polo Park we just spent like 3 hours putting on the greens but this is back when we were all in college we didn’t have any money even have anything to do and so we just go and we just go to go to the mall and just putt and cher each other and just be just be like kids in the in the mall but it’s too bad it’s too bad heli hopefully when he retires he gives a little bit more about him because he’s he’s a funny guy really funny guy I’ll own it I’ve sent a couple messages to different NHL guys like hey if you want to come to the show you’re more than welcome to like I’m I’m not the CBC or the TSN I’m not going to bury you for clicks I just unbiased let’s have a conversation see where it goes I’ve sent his wife probably we’re talking the double digits of messages on Instagram now being like hey hope you’re well if your husband ever wants to come on like I would love and he doesn’t even do like any of the stuff for the Jets so I don’t think you’re going to get it it’s tough I feel bad you you have your reputation which is too bad because like even like when I put up the story asking for questions I got a few people angrily messaging me but they don’t know they don’t know but whenever we have our pod they’re always really good they’re always like I don’t know I find them kind of deep we usually get into like deeper things like the mental health side of things and like the grinding and the adversity or like you know some of the political things of like minor hockey and all the stuff we get into whatever people are going to do what they’re going to do well you’re you’re one of my closest friends and I love you with all my heart and I’m not here to bury you i want to have a good conversation with you and I’m I’m honored that you allow me to share the story i mean how many times we shared all these these stories hey maybe a fourth time who knows but you drove shotgun all the way from Fort Wayne Indiana to to come down here with you it happens yeah come up here actually that’s true come up but anyway as you’re suspended for being an idiot well for scrapping and then flipping that Ascarov style but we we’ll get to that later i want to continue with your story it’s not it’s not about me that’s some weeks this week’s about you so um also what did you order on the private jet you said there was a lamb option what were the other options pro I can’t remember probably fish fish lamb steak i’m a big lamb guy so whenever you have whenever you have the option for lamb get lamb lamb is also very expensive more expensive than like red meat so I usually will get it it was very well done nice nice little lamb chop nice and I think there was like a rosemary balsamic kind of glaze on it the one thing I do remember is there’s sushi when you walked on which is pretty cool uh but you got instead of like water bottles like you have it was the full one liter Fiji waters and if you think I didn’t put four of those in my bag I did i I my backpack mystery was like a Michigan Tech Husky backpack and I put like four and then two in like the drink holders he’s walking out he’s carrying the bag like this i was like “Hey he’s like “Can I Hey is this is this the take can I take a couple of these?” He’s got the Costco case in the back yeah I know so like and those were in my my fridge for a while but I probably just refilling them up in the ring i was like “Guys I can afford Fuji.” Jim you know there’s more in the back you can take you don’t have to take them on the plane do you remember a buff order i don’t think he ate really you know when like you’re like sick and you just don’t want to eat i think that was his like I get the man flu i tell like it’s real like the man flu is significantly worse for males i get it and so he probably had it and I don’t Yeah like I don’t remember i was trying to like black out all the embarrassment of me being a peasant on that time god if just one media guy didn’t show up it would have been good i would have been safe do you remember what Bucky ordered we didn’t I was He was somewhere around in the middle row i don’t I don’t know what he would have ordered i just kept my head down tried not to draw attention to myself as best I could seen and not hurt yeah don’t don’t like me i’m just here in case someone gets hurt in that case they’re going to send me away and call a punch actually that’s play why don’t we talk about the end though cuz this is something that we I don’t think we talked about enough last time so you played two years in the American League you like I said you did well you played 25 20 28 gamesish 90 uh 908 922 best save percentage of all time in the playoffs and up and down a little between Jacksonville and Tulsa and whatnot but so then you get called in for the year end meeting and Zinger says what is this the end of your contract too end of my contract um so he’s Yeah he just said he’s like you did everything right and you earned an opportunity you didn’t give it and when he said that my game plan that I had coming in it it like shattered like I I looked back and I’m like I probably said the wrong things like I should have came in and like I just want to be a part of this organization i’m going to do whatever it takes and maybe they would have qualified me maybe not maybe they would have but they said that and it actually like the best way to describe it was like either my brain shattered and reality shattered or my heart shattered and then I just I think I said like okay well if you know if you know me being here isn’t what you want like I’d rather go to organization where I get an opportunity and blah blah blah and I shouldn’t have said that i should have just said the the right the political thing and the hockey thing and I didn’t so I didn’t get qualified i ended up signing with Charlotte and my luck being my luck carolina had like seven guys on NHL deals and me on an American League deal so I was sent to the coast and then playing really well in Florida um like I said struggling a little bit starting to struggle mentally now with things but I was putting in good performances on the ice it was just like the 24 hours leading up before a game I was like puking my brains out and nerves um and then things are going great doing really well starting to feel good again like all right like now we’re back i’m living in Florida four miles Florida like this is great i get to show up the ring in shorts unbelievable organization they’ve won it three years in a row like they treat you so well this is awesome and then I find out get called in the office and usually get that call you’re like okay something bad’s happening and I found out that they are moving me to reading which is not the best place in the world ucl ECHL moving me to a different ACL team because they wanted Boother Callum Booth who wasn’t doing super well that year they wanted him to play on a better team and kind of get his confidence up so they swapped us and so he went to the crdor team that went to the lost in the Kelly Cup finals and then I went to reading who was on the outside looking into playoffs and it was sort of like the junior situation where I just came in and I played super sick and we missed out in the playoffs by one point but I was like that was probably the one of the best time like best string of games I had in my pro career and I just didn’t have any good offers like I didn’t have any like nothing was great it was a little bit of ego a little bit of butt hurt a little bit just not knowing what I wanted and so I was like “Okay I’m going to try my hand in Europe.” Fortunately unfortunately the European agent I worked with was awful uh what did he do wrong everything like anything specific i know there’s a little bit of debacle we talked about but yeah well BS me string me along not sell me to good teams basically take whatever the quickest way to get like how it works is like typically teams in Europe pay your agent when you sign a deal and it doesn’t come out of your contract or like the contract you get is a little less cuz the money they gave it to your agent so he was just trying to get the quickest buck and so the co the offers were not good and so I ended up getting my own deal in Coventry the Blaze and the Blaze in the UK league um which is a really it’s a good league it’s between the East Coast and the American League in terms of skill but it’s kind of the league it’s changing now but at that time it was kind of the league you go to towards like your end your career not like create new opportunities and I didn’t know that um the agent probably sold you on that no the agent had nothing well the agent didn’t do anything he tried to take credit for that contract but it was actually David Brol who played former Leaf player who was on the team with me was recommended me to their coach um Danny Stewart who’s buddies with um my co-host Wheeler my co-host Wheeler and um so I got that I I created that deal and then playing okay we our team was not good and we were going through like a tough string of games and then I ended up getting released from there after a three-game win streak mind you which is stupid but three-game win they just released me and they’re like we don’t you know you’re not going our separate way i was getting I was the highest paid player on the team you know it is what it is and I I got my my little stick shift wrongsided car called my dad and I was like “Dad I’m dunzos done done.” Is this before or after the gear issue this was at the same time the them not letting me try can Can we explain this they release you they released me and I had all this custom gear like built for me and they’re like “You’re not taking it.” They’re like And I was like “Why not?” They’re like “Well we’re just assuming you’re not going to play hockey again.” I was like “All right sort of a weird thing to assume.” Um so I had to like negotiate with it and the problem was is the owner and GM were too whatever i don’t They were They’re being too much of a cowards to come in and negotiate with my face so Coach Stewart would talk to me and then go back and then come in he was playing the middleman and they’re like “Okay we can give you your your your pads but not your chest protector and we can give you one glove but not this.” And I bought I bought anchor pegs for myself and the the whole like so to use in games they’re like “Okay since you bought the pegs we can maybe give you your skates.” And I just remember I was like “Okay.” And then our equipment guy there was pretty good and I was like I was like “E when when Stewie comes back can you just distract him for a second?” I just put as much stuff as I can in my bag i didn’t get everything but I What did you not get did you get a chest protector to get pants uh you got the mask though no didn’t get the mask i’m still That’s the only mask of my career I don’t have i’m very curious of where that ended up cuz I would buy it and I would pay a lot for it whoever has it why don’t we turn this into a little clip if you have Jaime’s mask from playing the Coventry Blaze it’s a Peaky Blinders mask can’t miss it tommy Shelby’s on one side blaze logo throw a picture on the screen too yeah yeah i hash that picture and then the back plate has like my mom’s cancer ribbon like like a lot of meaningful stuff don’t have that if you have it reach out because I will buy it from you um but so the team doesn’t let you take the chest the pants and the bucket everything else you got everything else i stole the skates so but you talked to the EQ and while to distract them a little bit and you threw the skates in there i threw the skates in there so I got the skates which is so scummy of them to just do that it is scummy and so I didn’t know what to do i And so my girlfriend at the time was supposed to fly in so it’s right around Christmas had to cancel her trip wasn’t able to get it refunded sweet thanks how much was it it was like two grand on the flight so you lost two grand to cancel oh yeah i lost two grand to cancel um I didn’t know if I should just stay in Europe because I wanted to like resign somewhere in Europe if I should just stay or go home um and then I was like I just don’t want to be here i need to leave and so I went back home didn’t really have much got a new agent European agent also I realized how horrible mine was because the new one got me a lot of offers very quickly i’m like “This is this is how it’s supposed to work.” Like also the old agent shouldn’t have you in the position where you’re having to negotiate to get your sticks back and your pads back oh I definitely did not get any sticks that’s for sure um you took no sticks at all zero zero sticks um definitely did not get sticks um but yeah so the agent so new agent had a few offers it was good and then I ended up having an opportunity in Cincinnati one someone got called someone got hurt in Buffalo and so there was like an opening and I was like you know what like again it was one of those ones like “Look we need a guy we need a guy we can’t promise you much but come in houses here it’s going to be good.” And I was like “You know what i need the PHPA i need the insurance.” Cuz I was living in the States at the time as a kid didn’t have insurance so I was like I need the insurance you know what let’s just do it you know like cool going to signing in Budapest would have been cool but whatever i was thinking like I need insurance for the summer um so uh I signed took me a game or two to kind of get my footing under me and then I started to play well um and then they ended up trading me to Bmpton because Bmpton needed someone to go on a run and played actually right before I was traded to Bmpton I talked to Joe Sean the head coach of Michigan Tech and I was like “Hey I’m done like can I come be the goalie coach in exchange for school?” He’s like “As long as you are sure that you are done we will make it happen.” And as soon as they got the the green light on that I was like then I knew I was done it kind of felt like a little bit of weight lifted off me so I kind of then went to Bmpton i was playing like carefree and I was like “Hey let’s just go on a run like this is house money.” Yeah house money now obviously started playing playing well again started feeling good again and then obviously the pandemic happened and it shut it down which is like just just like the story of my career like something always goes wrong you know um and so that that was disappointing uh that it ended cuz I starting to feel good they had a really good group of guys and I feel like we could have probably went pretty deep and it would have been nice but coming full circle I was able to play against Reading my formal team beat them and they were better than us and beat them and like things were going well but yeah that’s how it came to an end and and then like the pandemic happened the shutdowns and then soon as my student visa came in the mail I drove over and started started goalie coaching right away and I was not mentally ready for it but I needed to do it do you look back on anything that you wish you would have done differently or that you’d change i know it’s very wide yeah yeah like would I definitely not been drafted but that’s kind of like a if I Yeah I would have said I would have not can you decline that and say I don’t want you i’m pretty sure I could have like when they called me I could have said please don’t draft me but you don’t Why would it like you say that and you’re like only superstars that don’t want to go to a certain team say that like I Well if fans hear that they’ll also call you an Eric Lindros but they don’t understand the inner workings of what we just explained how you’re such a disadvantage yeah definitely probably definitely definitely turned down being drafted um Honestly that like that that would probably be a pivotal moment because I would have signed to a team that was like genuinely wanted me and then when a team wants you you get opportunities because people have invested time and money and those things into you so when a team wants you you get starts you get opportunities even when you’re playing poorly you explained Callum Booth who was drafted they swapped you because they have to get him opportunities cuz they have more money invested in him and so you you get that stuff when you’re you know you’re signed or drafted that way and so that easily hands down I say that every time I ask that’s the one thing that I would change because probably would have been it would have been a lot different um and I would have had more opportunity in like terms of growth and development you know like they would have put time and effort into trying to get me better the way that other athletes and positions you get like you know you you’ll see guys that are like high draft picks that don’t pan out that they get every single opportunity because it’s an investment you we want return on your investment i get it i was a very late throwaway investment there’s no need and so like if I was a free agent signing that’s a different story a team’s using a free agent pick on you they’re going to give you those opportunities until you drop the ball and they’re like “Okay you’re done.” And so that’s easily the one thing I would have changed what about the uh the call-ups i know you mentioned 14 call-ups in one season like how do you how do you mentally compartmentalize that and not get so emotionally charged by it oh I I didn’t okay it’s Yeah it’s you it’s so many highs and so many lows it’s like it’s hard to explain cuz people that listening that don’t play at a high level or don’t play hockey for a career or for money and it’s your livelihood it’s it’s different than going out and playing at your local league or playing you know AAA or playing even playing college imagine um imagine you you you’re working your dream job and let’s just say you’re a CPA you’re an accountant you’re you’re a lawyer you’re you’re working with Harvey Spectre and the boys in suits and you just want to make partner cuz that’s it you’re going to make a bunch more money you’re going to have all these opportunities sick and you make partner for a day and then all of a sudden like nope we’re giving it away to someone else and then you go back down to being a parallegal and then you get made it again and then you get down and it’s this high and this low and this super this mentally charged and then when it’s it’s not even like you’re getting called up sometimes for a month at a time sometimes I was getting sent down for less than 12 hours like and you’re just like now and like you’re you’re feeling like crap for for such a short period of time and all a sense it’s high and it’s this low and so just imag like I would say that’s that imagine getting a promotion and then losing it 14 times in a year but then regaining it 14 times in a year and then regaining it 14 times it’s a high and a low and then you’re trying to plan a family and you’re trying to be play and be consistent and not think of these things and not and I lived in a hotel i spent nine months living in hotel between those two years like I lived at the Delta Center shout out to Delta Center downtown wasn’t the Fairmont no no no also it’s funny cuz like spin chick let’s make Biz talks about Delta is way better uh Delta’s way better hotel what does Biz talk about the Fairmont his experience there i never heard oh you got to listen what did he say about it just listen it’s not good tell me for anybody else that doesn’t understand as well if you listen to J Bit Biz had a thing where like they were charging overpriced for water and like the rooms weren’t great and the internet was crappy the Delta good hotel very good i actually really enjoyed staying there um you use rooftop pool i did use the rooftop with the fairmont lot how was it no no rooftop pool the Delta oh they both have rooftop pools uh pretty good or maybe rooftop but it was still like upper level delta’s good delta was also attached to the skywalk it was great lots of things to go you go to the shark club get something to eat it was You did not get anything to eat at the shark club i’m not a gambler uh I’m not a gambler but you did get something to eat and it was walking distance and the rooms were great so but I lived Yeah I spent nine months living in a hotel which is also not fun like you you know I just wanted to go to you know TJ Maxx or Wyinners for those living in Canada and just get something for my host and I couldn’t cuz I lived in a hotel you know um Well how did you adapt though living out of a suitcase then basically they said I’m a simple guy so I learned that I don’t really need much i’m very good at packing my vehicle i can pack my entire life in my car if I need to um uh you just you just kind of accept it for what it is and I accepted it because I knew that I was in the American League and I was like this is my opportunity and so part of it is to you know you can bleep it out is to eat [ __ ] and live in the hotel and eat the one-times and practice and stuff if I was living hotel in the East Coast League might have been a little different um but it it was just something I thought that I was like “This is part of it this is part of earning you know you got to kill what you eat you eat what you kill excuse me and this is part of it.” Looking back it sucked you know you just again like highs and lows and then you get called up and sent down you got to pack all your belongings again again again again and so like it just it it’s mentally wearing imagine getting that promotion and then you have to move to a new city and then you lose your promotion and then you got to go back you know that sucks like it’s it’s it’s hard and it’s hard and until you go through it it’s very hard to you don’t you don’t truly get it and a lot of players that have got called up and sent down especially that frequently which is pretty rare understand the highs and lows of of what that feels like i haven’t played at your level but I’ve lived it as well you know on the Fed level and also like the same European experience like I’ve I’ve been there i totally get what you’re talking about it’s hard it sucks a lot man and that’s you mentioned the flight thing with your chick when I was just in Spain i was I was planning to have mine come down and then less than a week later I’m bouncing well okay well thank God there’s a travel credit you can get but that’s it’s part of the territory yeah i didn’t even get a travel credit that’s why you book on a big airline not a small airline and make sure it’s refundable make sure you know what it actually what I you know how like you pay like 50 bucks for insurance didn’t Didn’t work didn’t scam yep scammed me never doing that again it’s it’s tough going through even the the traveling i mean like last year when I got traded from Watertown to Mississippi and then I got to go meet the team in Wville and then with a rental car and then drop that off get driven down to Mississippi and then gas 2 weeks later rental car back like it’s tough dude it’s It’s not easy it’s not for the weak-minded but it seems like from what you’re telling me you’re almost fit for it like you were built for it more than most were i think I I was to the point I wasn’t i think Yeah if I Yeah it’s I don’t know there was that breaking point but like I said I had like a significant amount of adversity and like cocky like life hardship no I I’m not going to say that I you know I didn’t grow up in the hood or the ghetto and had to grind i grew up in a well-off family and you know my parents are unbelievable and still together and I had a lot of advantages that way um but like in terms of you know getting cut from like AAA and like minor hockey and getting traded in junior and having coaches that like ripped into me even from like minor hockey ages like did not playing in college for the first two years like I I had that experience you need that experience to grow it’s it’s essential for all athletes to have that experience i just happened to have a lot more of it and it came to a point where eventually I was just like I’m done i want to do something else and now thankfully in in in real life which you’re not there yet but I’m getting a lot closer to you’re getting to closer to in real life usually my you know the mentality I have where you kind of get what you give it’s it’s more realistic you know like in you know in school the more I studied the better the grade the more sex I would be you know I wasn’t worried about someone else getting a better grade and buffing me from the program you just you do well or like you know the the better of a goalie coach I am the more goalies I’m going to the more successful they will be and the or my goalending kind of you know allure grows or like the more time and effort I put into growing ghost rehab performance the the better that itself as a business is going to go and so you do get a lot more there’s a lot less outside influence so like I think that might be why like I’m I’m like happy in life now because I can’t like I can continually I still grind like so hard like I grind my face off just like I did in hockey but now it’s I it’s the I’m there’s less influence from other people on it and I think that’s why like I like I’m willing to wake up at 5:00 in the morning and you know and cut my clips and do my video breakdowns and make my social media clips and then go coach and then do this and then do that and then do that and not get a lot of sleep and because one I love it but again I’m able to get out what I put in and that’s ultimately like what I want i want what I I want what I want I want what I do to matter especially matter to me and that’s where I get fulfillment there’s a couple more things I want to touch on but just to finish on this one do you think that a lot of hockey fans that maybe hear this and say you’re being a victim uh I think somebody commented the other day on on the old podcast you have a losers mentality which I completely disagree with you do not have a losers mentality it’s just the reality of the business they they don’t understand it because when you’re working the day-to-day job the harder you work the more you get back right they haven’t played a sport at an extremely high competitive level and the things that we’re talking about it’s almost like trying to unravel the way the world works it’s so sick and twisted that you never actually comprehend it you don’t know until you get to it also you don’t know what you don’t know yeah you don’t know what you don’t know uh I definitely do not have a losers mindset uh thankfully I’ve also won quite a lot of hockey games in my life um it’s funny because the biggest loser mindset is commenting negative things on other people’s videos on the internet well not even just this but like anything and I see it from like I just read comments on people’s things like that is the biggest loser mindset instead of just saying things to someone’s face but yeah hey sure whatever man i This thing is like I I also like don’t care like I coach goalies man the only thing I care about is I care about my family i care about my health my friends and I care about my athletes well I’m going to quote one of my one of my best friends Matt those that matter don’t mind and those that mind don’t matter it is true it’s a universal truth yeah like and if you have your family the small group of people that you care about those opinions matter everything else is just noise yeah no it’s the 100 fans hot messaging you after a game or even your own team’s fans saying “Hey you sucked last night man that that screen from the point you should have had that one.” Yeah thanks Daryl yeah like yeah I I Hey trust me there’s no one more aware of the goals that I gave up than than me because I to this day I can basically remember every single goal I gave up from college onwards i remember all of them and so like yeah victim mentality whatever it’s It’s okay it’s so funny because like as someone who works with kids and like parents in minor hockey oh gosh I can assure you that I do not the most hockey players most high level athletes do not have a victim mentality or else they wouldn’t have got there and it’s always the kids and parents that don’t make it or aren’t playing high level have that mentality but they just don’t it’s like Dunning Krueger like the smarter you are the more you realize you’re dumb but the people that aren’t smart think that they’re smart but they don’t like understand it so the Dunning Kruger effect which is a horrible paraphrase a way to explain it but it’s just like you know you’re you’re always the people that have a true victim mentality are always the ones projecting that they have or like it’s always politics it’s like yeah it’s probably because you’re the problem like there’s a common denominator that every team you go to you’re things aren’t going well it’s probably because it’s you it’s not because every team is bad and I would say as well just the devil’s advocate here devil’s avocado for myself personally absolute self accountability is critical but I’m not going to overdo that to the point where it’s not beneficial that there’s a certain degree of okay the puck went in this is how it happened this is what I did wrong that’s it there’s no more need to think about this i’ve gotten what I need out of it anything more is only going to beat me down more and I’m definitely not listening to somebody who I I wouldn’t take your advice so I would take your criticisms for that as well yeah yeah yeah exactly and so it’s like there’s few people that I respect in terms of the hockey world and they’re also surprise surprise not the people commenting on random videos on No you’d be surprised how few NHL goalie coaches comment on videos on the internet it’s usually so and so who played high school sports and then is super unhappy with the way things are going and so they’re they make fun of teenagers on the internet which is usually the internet’s so great you know the only one that comes to mind is uh Connor Ingram goalie for Utah he’ll comment to my stuff every now and then he’ll call me an idiot like on a public comment that’s very funny that’s kind of I think it’s hilarious but I read the comments and I think to myself dude I’d love to have you on the podcast yeah like you think I’m an idiot i’d love to hear why right like clearly you’re doing something you’re making money you’re playing on the show you played at a higher level than I have you know something I don’t tell me why i’d love But I sent him a message to come on the show i never heard back of course but he still comments on stuff ah that’s funny yeah well any high level goalie is more than welcome to come on the show and if you want to [ __ ] on me we can have a conversation i’ll I’ll play devil’s advocate both ways i’d love to hear what you got to say but I think we covered just about everything the ECL bunks is the last thing I got for you you want to talk a little bit about that which one the ECHL bunks the traveling setup oh like how you guys travel in the ECHL bus unless it was some teams will fly far away like obviously when Newfoundland was in the league you had to fly to Newfoundland uh bus just beds usually two or three beds stacked up um sometimes depending on your bus the beds were an appropriate size for someone of our stature and sometimes they were not the the worst one I had was we went from we had a four and five at home in Tulsa so four games of five nights so Monday sorry Wednesday Friday Saturday Sunday i played all four super good for the body yep um hopped on a bus 22 hours to to Charlotte uh Charleston South Carolina and so we didn’t have enough beds on the bus but I was a starting goalie so I got the privilege of a bed but I was a rookie so not a good bed so my bed was about 4’5 so I was in a ball for 22 hours above the coaches too like I wasn’t even in a good spot with the boys i was above the coaches for 22 hours oh and then we got and then we had to play South Carolina on Tuesday and then Wednesday in Atlanta and then Greenville on the Friday and then up to like I don’t know maybe Bmpton or something crazy but that’s when I got called up and so I didn’t have to finish the road trip um I remember that 22 hours on a 4’5 bed as a 6’4 man is very tough for the spine it’s a bit of a handle it’s a bit And then it’s still play and then be like “Oh you got to You have to play peak performance after this this is super good after eating gas station at IHOP the buck is gas station like the pulled beef subs.” Yeah and I tried I was I was like a health freak then too and so I tried to eat do that best but sometimes there’s only so much you can do at Denny’s man the Grand Slam only takes you so far oh oh you can eat pancakes though ah yeah carb load man yes sir do you ever miss that though a little bit i don’t miss Well I miss like the stories and like this is why we play hockey right and you complain so much about it in the moment but I look back and laugh cuz it’s a cool life experience i I miss I miss going to war every day with my teammates and like even if they’re not like your best friends you’re your teammates you’re you know your brothers and you agree and like you go out and you bleed you sweat like I missed that and I miss sitting in the room after a skate like just half-dressed and just shooting the [ __ ] i miss that like I don’t you know like here it’s a new city for me so like I’m still like getting friends i don’t play like beer league or men’s league so like I don’t have that um I don’t want to play men’s league or beer league it’s not it’s not the same but I just miss that like camaraderie and the laughing and the music and like the pump up music after a win guys are half naked just giving her having a good time and you’re just have a couple beers in the room that’s that’s the fun part of hockey that like everyone everyone misses at the end and I’m no different that’s what I miss having the morning coffee showing up an hour and a half 2 hours before the skate or the the postpractice shower i don’t know if you were the same same type of guy i loved getting in the shower coming out and then a couple of the guys we just go and like run to the diner across the street or go go and have a nice bite yeah i I just just being around the team and just like that also like you are in a bubble from real life and how everyone lives even if you’re in the coast and you’re only making 500 bucks a week like you’re to wake up and just practice and then your day is done by 1:00 like it’s it’s not it’s not real life now that I’m in real life it’s not real life and so I do miss kind of just not having that responsibility and stuff at all but again like I was you know 24 23 to 27 I played and that was a part of my life and that’s that’s it but yeah mostly the boys and so I it’s nice that like it’s the one upside of social media is I can keep track and still communicate with like people and even now I try to reach out with some guys they played with that like I just don’t have their numbers anymore and say “Hey what’s going on i was just thinking about this this this and this.” And that’s the cool part about it but yeah that’s what I miss i mean you were just talking about like Michael Hutchinson before we started recording i’ve been chatting with Hutchinson a little bit but you’ve known him for a while and that’s a guy I’ve been trying to get on the podcast or comms right like you’ve known him for a while it’s that beauty like keeping that synergy going like comms and I talk pretty frequently like he was he’s an unbelievable person too great guy great goalie i’m glad that he’s I mean obviously the Jets are doing really well right now and I’m glad he’s he’s playing well but last week Coms gave up two not very good RVH goals and I get a text from him at like 11:30 at night being like yo I’m going to get torched i give up two RVH goals and like it’s just so funny like I love I love that I can wake you know have that and still be able to to talk to some of those guys and like watch them on TV and use their their clips to help teach my goalies like that’s still that that’s a cool thing to me and like you know comms anytime I need like hey comms we’re talking about practice habits can you record a quick video for my goalies always does it like that’s awesome that’s awesome you know that kind of stuff is I’m very fortunate for that hockey has allowed me those connections if anybody has enjoyed this conversation and wants to find you somewhere and can keep keep it going where do they find you um big on Instagram uh it’s jamie Phillips30 is my Instagram handle um if you you want if you’re interested on the hockey side um elite goalie method.com um ghostrehab.com if you’re on this the rehab side any injuries hockey player looking to keep yourself healthy um I have an app launching pretty soon for the EGM goalies it’s actually like pretty cool it’s basically it’s the best next thing to having a goalie coach in your back pocket so I’m excited about that and it’s a lot of work and so when that drops you’ll uh you’ll be the first to know awesome if you enjoyed the show hit the subscribe button we got more episodes just like this this YouTube clips channel the best clips and we do a new episode every single Sunday with guys just like Jamie well not interviews every single Sunday but new episodes every Sunday thanks for watching and we’ll see you soon thanks for having me on again awesome dude that was good that was good
Dr Jamie Phillips goes deep with Trav on living conditions and lifestyle of the ECHL vs NHL, ruthless business of minor pro hockey and some Winnipeg Jets stories for the ages
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Timestamps
00:00 Intro
04:55 Hating hockey and angry
06:58 Bad pegs
09:22 Jamie told off his dad for this….
12:00 Cristobal Huet was Jamies idol
13:48 was Carey price actually good?
16:44 Mike Smith was never appreciated
17:45 Why Russian goalies are so good
23:00 Future of goaltending
26:20 Non mainstream interviews
27:30 why companies hire athletes
29:30 OHL recommit
34:00 NCAA nightmare and why Jamie went to OJHL….
36:55 Drafted behind Connor Hellebuyck ….
38:42 Winnipeg Jets drafting Jamie was a nightmare come true
43:41 First BIG NHL purchase
49:30 Almost… in the NHL
54:10 NHL Jets playoff call ups
57:40 Dustin Byfuglien bullied Jamie
59:14 Dealing with hate from fans in Winnipeg
1:01:45 Patrik Laine was a nightmare
1:03:30 People hate playing in Winnipeg
1:08:10 What playing with Connor Hellebuyck is like
1:10:10 Meals on NHL planes
1:13:00 End of Jamie’s pro career
1:15:05 Scumbags agents and debacle in UK league
1:1610 Released from UK league
1:18:00 WHERE IS THE MASK…
1:20:06 Last stint in the ECHL
1:21:30 Biggest regrets and tough pills to swallow
1:23:38 Sent down 14 times in 1 season
1:26:00 Living out of a suitcase as an AHL goalie
1:31:50 The loser mindset in hockey
1:34:40 NHL goalies commenting on Facebook videos
1:36:05 Bed setups in ECHL
1:37:50 The BEST thing about hockey lifestyle
17 comments
Such a great episode! Keep up the great work!
Great interview
Great video Trav , Jaime is a fucking legend. Most down to earth guy.
spent about 7 dollars for a mocha the other day. maybe not something i can do every week let alone every day, but cheers
Clickbait
great interview Trav! i especially appreciate the behind the curtains peak of Jamie moving up through the levels and discussions about the other avenues for professional hockey
This has got to be one of the best, most honest, and real conversations about what it is like to be not only a goalie specifically, but a high level athlete who has the skill, passion, work ethic, and mindset to reach their goals, and sometimes it's just not in the cards because there is only so much you can control. Love the authenticity of this episode.
great interview!
Thanks again for having me on! I'm running out of stories for episode 4. Hopefully see you in Grand Rapids to skate and Rehab soon!
Nice video
Great interview this was awesome thanks trav ❤
No shot this is at cedarrock
Odd comment about coventry not being a good team. We released him at christmas, signed CJ Motte and then didn't lose a game in regulation for the rest of the season until covid hit. The difference a proper goalie makes..
Love the show. Thanks for sharing this awesome story!
What a fascinating story, great insights and perspective on the life of an athlete chasing a pro dream. It's amazing how the lower leagues travel and that these athletes can consistently perform given those conditions. I was super surprised about the fact being drafted could be such an opportunity killer but the explanation makes total sense Great interview, great episode. Thank you both!
I have watched on YouTube, I think, every episode you have ever done. I have always been a fan. I don't always agree with things you say, but I am willing to bet, I'm not the only one. In my opinion, this was one of your best. Now I am getting set to watch the Trevor Babin show. ❤
lol so when Vézina goalie goes to white ice he’s wrong. Should listen to a guy I never heard of .