Podcast Segment for Parents – Episode 254

Bring us the parent segment with David Hutchison.

Today, boys, we're gonna talk a little bit about playing other sports. And as you know, I'm probably gonna take a slightly different tact or look at things a little bit differently. But look, we've seen it all online all the time. We've got a group of people who talk about playing hockey all the time and how important it is to do everything and miss nothing. And then you've got that other group of people who talk about the importance of taking six months off every year.

Put your gear away. They talk, of course, about Wayne Gretzky playing baseball every spring and every summer. The problem with a polarized debate, as we know all too well these days, is that it often trenches both sides. We've got a group that think that their kid has to play more, and they just keep talking about how everything is different today than it was in Gretzky's day. And then we've got that group that feels we have to let kids be kids, and they will always be unconvinced of what the other side is feeling.

And they keep finding more examples of older players and other athletes doing other things. As usual, guys, you know who I am. I'm gonna take the middle ground. You're gonna accuse me of sitting on the fence, Daren, but here it goes. I think you need to play other sports.

I think you need to be a kid as long as you can, and I think it's okay to train for hockey most of the year. But you need to listen to your body and you need to listen to your child, and it is okay to take time off because hockey's a grind. Even if a change is as good as a break, when you get to junior and college guys, being on the ice six days a week, 60 plus games a year, game day skates, video review, off ice training, It's a long season, and we gotta remember that we play for the love of the game. So the mental break of doing other things is invaluable, and I don't think many people would disagree on that. But what other sports if you're gonna do it?

We talk about my son, Maddie, a lot on this show. He is playing baseball, house baseball. He's finished a season in the Canadian Hockey League, and he's playing house ball with a bunch of guys, many of whom have never even played ball before this season. I actually congratulate any 17 year old kid who takes up a new sport for the first time, including a couple of goaltenders out there. We had Adam Francillia on the podcast.

You may remember guys couple of years ago, and he spoke of the value of playing recreational sports. Not everything has to be triple a so that you can have fun, you can focus on your athleticism without that relentless pursuit of wins and some kind of pressure filled environment. So I love what he's doing in this case this year. Being a pitcher in baseball, of course, has a mental approach much like goaltending guys. It's a solo sport really in a team environment.

An infielder in baseball has to have these incredible hands and agility, lateral movement. By the way, I've seen it as a coach, guys, and Bill Ranford told us on the podcast, kids today can't catch. I'm amazed how many actually have never even worn a baseball glove, which is less forgiving and smaller than a goalie glove, so it's incredible training. Our friend Marco Marciano with the Laval Rocket in the Canadian system trains his American League goalies as Kasimir Kaskisuo reminded us recently with a baseball glove and a tennis ball machine. And he's very particular, boys, about the technique there.

Other sports, how about golf? Because the mental approach in golf is unbelievable, and you don't need anybody else. You don't have to be programmed into a team sport with more things on the calendar. You can just head to the course, head to the driving range as far from a rink as you can possibly be. It's no wonder so many NHL goalies we know work hard in the morning in the summer and then head to the course in the afternoon.

How about tennis? I bet you Woody's gonna wanna talk a little bit about tennis, hand eye coordination, fitness, footwork, lateral movement. A ball is moving at you with pretty high velocity rising from the ground. I think there's some guy named Henrik Lundqvist in the Hall of Fame that liked to play tennis every summer. Woody, you can tell us more about that one in a second, I bet.

But I also wanna say, guys, it's okay to keep up hockey training. The fact that there's more great goalies today than ever, maybe the area of the elite number one playing 70 games is over, but the bottom of the depth chart today, how would that compare to a goalie in the seventies or the eighties or even later? The skill on the ice is remarkable at all levels today. Hockey's more skilled than ever, and it is a result of focused pretty much year round training. If you can reach a high level, only skating six months a year, more power to you and good for you.

Keep it up. I'm sure it'll be good for you. But there's no shame in training hard and loving a sport too, guys. Give yourself a break as we've discussed. Put the gear away for a while, but you can keep training too.

Just mix in some other sports primarily because they're fun, because they help with your athleticism, and if it makes you feel better, you can know that they help your goaltending two boys.

And can you take a break on ice but keep training? Like, is that does that satisfy the the difference between people that think that you could should take a step away from the game and and not be on the ice twelve months a year?

Yeah. Well, look, everybody's different. And I think you have to listen to to yourself, your body, your child. Also, it's okay to not listen to your child because some of them will insist they want to keep doing the same thing all the time because it's so fun and it's okay to force them to take a bit of a break. But, yeah, you can do different things on the ice.

Look, goalie camps. I know in the Western Hockey League, Matty is always bumping into guys that he has been on the ice within the summer, whether it's a shooter or maybe another goaltender from the Eli Wilson camps in Edmonton in the summer. Maybe it's just here in Nanaimo with some of his training as well. Those things that you do in the summer that are quite different from the grind of practice and games in your league actually can enhance your experience. I have no doubt that the friendships that he's developed over the years make all those meetings in the regular season for his league, so much more fun.

Because let's face it, who would you rather beat in any sport? Some guy that you've never met before or your best buddy? If I shoot three strokes better on the golf course than a guy I've never met before, that's like, okay, whatever. But if I can beat Woody by three strokes, I'm gonna take that one to the bank all day long.

What happens if And I can't by

the way. I can't by the way.

Would that happen? Would he go snapzilla?

Oh. Oh. If I beat him, he would go snap because it would mean he's having a terrible round.

Snap tastic, maybe in the past. I've modified my approach to golf. My expectations are as low as they've ever been and that's part speaks to sort of Hutch's approach about just it doesn't have to always be about performance. Right? It can be about the joy of playing other sports with other people while also tapping into a little physical literacy.

Right? Like, we talk about all the different things. Jeremy Swayman's having a hell of a playoffs for the Boston Bruins. We're recording this ahead of game seven. Been fantastic.

No matter how this goes, he's been fantastic. We've done the story. Other people have picked up on it in recent years about him, you know, starting to do barre ballet. His mom teaches it. He did it at the University of Maine.

It unlocked his

Oh, thank you.

Yes. His ankles and allowed him to sort of have better access to his edges. He noticed it immediately. He's continued it in his training. It's part of why you see those pregame skate videos where he looks like he's practically dancing out there.

It's part of what makes him great. Doesn't have to mean you do these other activities just to train, but it can be good to switch it up. Right? So go out there, have fun, be a kid, especially if you're still a kid. You know, you mentioned tennis.

Lundqvist, for sure, I had that checked off. Charlie Lindgren is another guy that I know has played tennis in the offseasons. There are others. We had one somebody on the podcast recently, and I'm brain cramping on who it was that also played some tennis in the offseason. Baseball, you mentioned Sudarshan Maharaj.

Sudsy with the Anaheim Ducks. And by the way, so good to see him back with the organization as he comes back from his, like, battle with pancreatic cancer. I've caught up to him a little bit behind the scenes, but Sudsy would have his guys learn to play catch. Europeans, as you said, Hutch, some of them never had a baseball on, but he would break the glove out. Lukas Dostal.

Oh, not just Europeans, Woody, but I know what you're saying.

Lukas Dostal was one of those goalies. Look at the year he had, and as he rises up the charts, he's one of those guys that he threw a baseball, made it on and made him, I think I think 500 up. Remember the old game 500 up? They go play 500 up in the field That's right. During the summers at development camp.

So, absolutely, Do you do these things in order to become a better goaltender? Not necessarily, but go do them because you enjoy them. And guess what? Sometimes it helps you with the position too.

I didn't hear pickleball mentioned. Oh. That'd be

awesome. Senior men's league for sure, Daren. We should use pickleball in the off season.

Hey, there's a pro league now. Don't don't just turn that into men's league.

Yep. Pickleball is getting a bad rap for just being for old You

keep telling

I think it really is. I'd love to pick it up.

Yeah. I'd I'd

Pick a lid.

I'd I'd pick it up and then somebody would be picking up my Achilles tendon after I tear it.

It it has caused a a a few trips to the er among the elder people in our

I'll give you another sport. I'll give you another sport that probably gets mocked a little bit that shouldn't, and that's badminton. I worked in a lab at the University of Toronto that tested multiple national team athletes like across multiple different sports. The fittest athlete of all the different sports tested in that lab were the badminton players. Really?

Because it was extreme high velocity all the time. You're going from zero to a 100 all the time and that thing is flying.

Okay. Okay. So here's one that's not a sport for you. If you are so inclined, if this is something you enjoy or if you enjoy the challenge of it mentally, grab an instrument, learn an instrument. We talked about Joseph Woll.

He talks about how playing the piano helps him.

Oh, here you guys are creating new parent segments early all the time. I'm gonna write this one down too.

We've talked to we've done the guitars. Right? We know the the guitars. Hey, it's cool. Let's be honest.

If you're a young young goaltender and you can play the guitar, you put your cool factor goes up. Just ask Sean Burke. Also, there is an actual tangible benefit to helping your glove hand. So there are different activities you can do that will help you. We've talked about the Russians as as young athletes, the physical literacy when they go to their goalie gymnasium schools or their their sports gymnasium schools.

Ballet is absolutely a part of that. Dance is absolutely a part of that. Physical literacy, anything that enhances it is is a positive. But like I said, go have fun.

The InGoal Radio Podcast official sport is lawn bowling, and that's followed up by bocce ball. Those those are the two that that we really slide into.

K. I spent I spent a little time one summer. We invented extreme cross country bocce ball.

Really?

Yeah. I lived on a campus at a boarding school. All the kids were gone. The early part of the summer there, we would start you know how bocce, typically, you're sort of throwing that ball Yeah. A distance you play it, and then you turn around, you come back.

Well, what we would do is go all around the campus. So wherever you played to, you had to go to the next spot, but then it got kind of extreme because we would throw that little white ball you're chasing into a barbecue onto an island, into a pond so that you were throwing across the pond. Like all sorts of wild things. I don't know if that's related to goaltending at all, it was a lot of fun.

I feel like that's a there there's a day drinking element to some of these.

I. Don't drink.

Don't did there's no cooler brought along with that? Once.

I I I was cooler than others. Yeah.

Well done. Let's slide over to our NHL Sense Arena feature interview. Chatting with a guy whose career unfortunately cut short and ability to push and innovate and was fun to watch and just a really cool guy, Woodley.