EP90 Dan Hamhuis - NHL / Olympian

This is episode 90 of the Empowered Athlete podcast. Hey everyone, we're back with another episode of the Empowered Athlete podcast. And today, Canadian hockey fans, fans of sport in general high performance sport, we have a treat for you. It's Dan Hamhuis, Olympic gold medalist for Canada in hockey in Sochi and NHL veteran defenseman in the episode today. You are going to love this interview because we popped the hood on Dan's career and find out what it takes to succeed in the highest levels of competition for such a long extended career, the professionalism it takes, and Dan shares his secret to success in the NHL. You do not want to miss it, so stay tuned for that. But before we talk to Dan, I just want to send out a reminder that the empowered team has so much going on right now. We just finished our 30 day reset online challenge that we had group of highly motivated people breaking through to new levels in spirituality, physicality, mentality and overall health and fitness. It was amazing, in a word. And we have more events coming up later in the year, so reach out to us@infompowerconditioning.com for more information on that or if you've got events going on, you need a speaker for an event at work. You're getting staff back in the office after the COVID mentality that has been going on. Reach out to us. We can help. We've got all kinds of programs, tips, tricks and tools that can help you and your team. And now let's talk to Dan.

Welcome to the Empowered Athlete Podcast. Created to support athletes in their pursuit of excellence and inspire others toward their best lives. Hosted by Kari Schneider, coach to top performers in sport and life. And Paul Durden, former national and professional volleyball player.

Everyone, welcome back to the Empowered Athlete podcast. And again, we are broadcasting from home because like you, we are stuck at home isolating and we have someone else who's isolating with us, Dan Ham Huse. Thank you so much for making the time for the show. And quick question as we dive in here. Did you get into Nashville before the tornado hit or were you there for the devastation that that caused? That was right around the time that the season started wrapping up and Covid was taking effect.

Yeah. Interesting was that we played a game that night, the night of the tornado and I got hurt in the game, so I didn't. The team flew out right after the game. We had a back to back. They had to go up to me to Minnesota to play up there. And so because of my injury, I didn't go on the flight. I stayed here and it was strange because there's sometimes when you sense a big storm, it's kind of eerie and quiet and you can just feel it. And this was nothing. It wasn't like muggy, it wasn't humid. It was just a normal night clouded over. And we woke up the next morning and heard all about it. We're a little bit south of the city and the tornado came like on the north edge basically through downtown. So it was pretty scary. Wow.

I was there a couple years back for work at Vanderbilt and got to tour downtown. And then seeing the pictures and the devastation where it hit, where we'd been, you know, walking around, it was because I always pictured tornadoes being rural.

Yeah, farmland.

But to see it right in the downtown of a city with something else.

Yeah. Scary stuff. I mean, a lot of the restaurants and pubs or different places that we've gone to, the church that we attend, they. They're all affected and major damage. Topgolf got damaged. So it's like stuff that kind of hits home. I'm like you. When you see tornado reports, it always seems to be real stuff. And.

Wow. Yeah, totally scary. And are you recovered now or. How bad was that injury?

I'm good now. It was a weird one. It was a kind of a nerve thing that went into my leg, basically shot my left leg down. So it was a strange one. It came on kind of funny. And then I had to pull myself from the game, something I rarely done in my career, but had to do it. And that I believe that was my last game I played this year.

No, I mean, not due to injury circumstances, but obviously due to strange happenings in the entire world, those circumstances. But when you think back to starting in hockey, you were really young and you were living in B.C. in an area that didn't have a lot of age group options. So you started really young. How did that come about?

Yeah, I grew up in a small town. Smithers is about 5,000 people. And we were a single day hockey organization, which is the lowest because of just our registration numbers. And I think my parents signed me up when I was probably four years old and I played all my minor hockey in Smithers. I don't remember much of those early, early years, but I was just with the late birthday, my December birthday. So I've always kind of wanted the younger, smaller, slower players for those first couple of years, but I know they kept putting me in it. I do recall at that age loving hockey because I just remember the amount of time I spent on the outdoor rink. My dad Built an outdoor rink for us and spent tons of time out there. When that wasn't good, I would play on the road in my boots and winter boots in the snow. And then in the summer be playing road hockey in my shoes. And then once the sweeper would come by and pick up all the rocks from the winter, then it would be rollerblade season. I'd be rollerblading, whether it was with my cousins that lived in the neighborhood or just on my own. I just recall, like hours and hours and hours of doing it. It's kind of neat because I never did it because I wanted to play in the NHL. I just did it because I did it because I just loved being in my head pretending I was somebody from the NHL, but never with the goal to make it. I just love shooting pucks and skating and playing. And I really think all that time and time and time and time, whether it was rollerblades, off ice, backyard rink, it really paid off.

So I don't know about you. We. I know you have three girls and we have a number of children as well, but I don't see kids playing road hockey anymore. I grew up in a tiny town in Dryden, Ontario, with Chris Pronger, actually is a good buddy. But when we grew up, it was the same kind of thing. There wasn't as much of the rollerblades, but a little bit now if I still rollerblade and, you know, I do a lot of outdoors things, but I don't see anyone else rollerblading ever. And I don't see kids in the street playing road hockey or boot hockey or anything like that. Do you see? Do you notice? The same thing is that if you go back to Smithers, if you're in Nashville and different places that you visit or having been in Dallas, what do you notice with kids?

Yeah, I mean, our kids are 7, 10, 11. So we're right in that age bracket of activities and things going on and that age where. Yeah, that's where you do play road hockey. I mean, I think it's a couple things. I think video games is a big thing now today than it ever was before. I think that lures. Keeps a lot of kids inside. And the other part of it too. I think kids are just busy. Our kids are an example of it. They go from gymnastics to softball to soccer to theater class, and it's just go, go, go. And when I was a kid, it was hockey. That's it. I just played hockey. And that was once or twice a week and games on weekends. So I Had so much spare time in the summer I played baseball and that was it. So maybe that's why. What's been cool, though, is through this quarantine is the kids obviously aren't in school. And we live in a neighborhood where there's a whole. There's 10 kids all just kind of across the street and beside us. So we kind of made a deal as parents that we were not going to have our kids quarantined in our house with us because that I don't think would have been very healthy for anybody. We made a deal with the other parents. We said, okay, let's just keep this group of 10 kids. Let them play outside. They're not allowed in anybody's houses. And let's try not to let any outside people into the group. Just keep it. They're 10. And so for the last four or five weeks, it's been amazing. And watching them play reminds me of myself as a kid because they can go to people's houses. They've been playing basketball and bump and soccer and Mission Impossible and tag and kick the can, like all these classic old games. This is amazing. Totally.

Like, yeah, we're jealous. That's not happening right now for us because we've moved into a new neighborhood, so we don't know anybody here. And at the same time, our daughter, our youngest, went to a school that was outside of the neighborhood because it was a full French school. So, yeah, I wish that were the case for us. So back then you weren't interested in the NHL at that point. When was the point what started to have you have that desire to push a little harder, work a little more, do the things that it might take to get you to the next level?

Yeah, I mean, growing up in a small town, I kind of just wrote it off that the big city kids, people playing aa, single A hockey, kids in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Prince George, Kamloops, these places, they're gonna be the ones that'll make it. I mean, as I probably turned 8, 9, 10 years old, I started to go from maybe one of the weaker players to an average player to one of the better players on my team. And by the time I was 11 or 12, I was probably one of the top players on my team. But I just didn't think much of it. I mean, I loved to play, but because of the small town thing, I never seriously considered it. Didn't know anybody around that had made it. Never had been to an NHL game before or a junior game. And so I was very naive and kind of oblivious to the whole thing. And When I was 14, 15 years old, my parents, they allowed me to try out for some like team BC tryouts and BC best ever stuff. So I got to play in a. I did tryouts when I was 15 for the Canada Winter Games team and I made that team which was kind of a big shock and I think I was selected to just rewind there a little bit. But I was selected to a camp of 40 kids of all the top players in B.C. and that's where I started to like wow, you know, I am actually kind of in decent group. Like I'm in a bit of an elite group here and I went on to make that team and I think that really gave me confidence to. I made a crazy jump from single A hockey to the Prince George cougars in the WHL at 15 years old which is kind of unheard of now looking back on it. But I think what helped me is I had nothing going on in my head. I was just eyes wide open. I didn't even know. I couldn't, I couldn't have named three junior hockey teams at that point when I made the team. And I think that helped because I just played and I didn't care about anything, wasn't thinking too hard. Once I had made that team I was playing with guys like Tyler Boak, Blair Betts, Trent Hunter. These are all guys that were three years older than me and they had all been drafted the year before and had gone to NHL camps. And being at the junior camp training camp that year and then playing with them, that's where it kind of first struck me. It's like, oh my goodness, those guys right there, they went to an NHL training camp and skated with real life NHL players. Then I seen the connection of how close I was I could be. I was hoping to be as good as them to get a chance to be drafted one day and maybe do it myself. And I went on to have a really great junior career. The first year was decent ice in and out of the lineup, didn't play a whole lot of minutes. And then the next year I came back and really took a huge step and was a big part of that team. With a late birthday I had the, I got the extra year in junior before I was drafted so I actually had my 18 year old season as well. So I was in my third full season with the Cougars and had a huge role on the team, played tons of minutes, ended up making the world junior team when I was 18 and, and had a good tournament there and put me in a position to get drafted by Nashville in 2001.

What about clearly you went into before you got to junior, you had no expectations. So like you're saying you're free to just play and enjoy the game, but when you got into that environment, looking at your numbers over your junior career, you just did a linear progression where each season was almost exponentially better than the last and you know, became all star player in the league. Like you said, I'm barely making the roster in year one. Did you change something in your process to have the focus to pick up the skills faster than the other players.

That you're aware of or what, what.

Was it about your process that allowed you to get good so fast? Was it being just thrown in with those higher level players and sink or swim? Do you know what it was?

You know what, that's a, that's kind of a great question because I don't really know it. It definitely wasn't because I was working out really well and because I was just me. My parents fed me well. We were pretty healthy family, so it wasn't like that was an issue. But we, you know, I just, I didn't like working out at that time. I probably didn't start like liking actually enjoying working out until my late 20s and through my 15 to 28 or so. It was, it was a grind to have to go into the gym.

You want to play, you don't want to lift totally.

But even when you're younger, before working out would have even been on your radar then, you were still showing the same thing. Like you described yourself as one of the younger, the slower, the not as good players. And then by the time you're like 9, 10, 11, you're one of the better players. It, you know, similar then when you're really young and working out wouldn't have been on your radar back then. So do you think that you had a knack or do you think that maybe it was because you were one of the ones who wasn't as good and that maybe you were that prompted you to learn a little more? What do you think it was back then? Maybe prior to even working out being a thing?

You know what, I think a lot of it had to do with probably with my later birth month. And I think growing up in a small town, I think both those factors kind of gave me a bit of an underdog mentality and no expectations. I think it's so much easier to play when there's not high expectations around you. And that pressure I Never got drafted to the junior team. There was first, second, third round picks at 14 years old that went to the Cougars training camp as well. I was a walk on. So I just played free, played with that underdog mentality. I had nothing to lose. I played without the fear of failure and I think that was a huge, huge reason. Without even knowing. I can look back at that now because I know what those phrases and words mean and I've seen them lead to poor play and great play when I understand what those mindsets can do now. But now looking back, I can see the mindset I had and I think why I was able to be successful at that age.

It's like the ignorant bliss or the naivete that just allows kind of this wide eyed, do whatever.

I think that's what it was. Yeah, I think it really helped me.

So after the three great years in junior, you did get to the Nashville Better tryouts and didn't make it. Sent back to junior by that point, as you're sniffing at the NHL, it's right there. You've seen other players go to these camps, move on. Did you start placing expectations on yourself? Did it change or were you still able to enjoy the process and take.

It day by day? I would say at that point the expectations started to change a little bit. There's a lot of expectation that goes on a first round draft pick with the organization and you know, I don't think I really had a chance to make it that year. It was a big change, big step up from junior to pro hockey. And I remember when they cut me, they said, he said, you know, you had a good camp, but you go back to junior and be the best defenseman in the league and then come back next year and hopefully, hopefully have a shot. So it was, you know, I think they coached me really well in that way. They weren't upset that I didn't make it. They kind of just let me be, just go have another great year and enjoy it. And I went back and I did. I had like an unbelievably success, successful year in that fourth year of junior. I think it was point of game.

Yeah, yeah.

I was the CHL defenseman of the year and nominated. I was runner up for players. So it's actually kind of crazy to think that. So yeah, I was able to kind of just put that national thing aside, kind of focus in on my junior career. And then it was a bit of a challenge transitioning into pro hockey the next year.

Did you, did you see the. The counterpart to that did you see guys not make it and then be obsessed that they didn't make it and have that cause a poorer performance versus you just kind of going, okay, well, this is where I am. This is what I'm gonna focus on and let's see how it goes.

Yeah. There's not a ton of guys that come back from junior or from NHL camps that were supposed to make it and don't because you're typically 18, 19 years old. So if you make it, it's kind of an amazing story. Anyway, I noticed it more my next year when I went to play pro hockey. I didn't make the team again. I was playing in Milwaukee. And then you're dealing with some different guys, guys that are 25, 26 years old at their fifth or sixth training camp thinking they're going to make the team that year and not making it. And then they end up in Milwaukee. And I played a full season down there. So you've seen a lot of guys that had different mindsets down there. They were not happy to be there. And you're right, I think it really affected their play. It's amazing how powerful a mindset can be.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's one of the things that we dive into a lot on here and that I coach on as well. And it's the thing that makes or breaks everything. It doesn't matter how good the biomechanics are, the physio is the. All of the stuff, the strength and conditioning, the, you know, the exercise physiology comes down to whether someone gets enough confidence or belief or practices the patterns in order to create the success in their mind first before they're going to be able to see it in reality. And so many people, if they've failed, are so stuck on the failure that then it's recreated in their mind so many times that it's so much harder to get past it and get to the actual success that they want to see happen.

Yes, I can certainly relate to that. How you control your mind. It's so cool. I mean, even playing pro hockey now for 18 years and just seeing. Probably I'm more of an observer now. I love observing my teammates and how they react to certain situations. And even at the highest level, you can just see guys go through these waves of a season and their skating didn't change. They didn't forget how to stick, handle, they didn't forget how to pass, they didn't forget, you know, but just between the ears, something flipped a little bit or switched and maybe they're saying, the wrong things to themselves. And all of a sudden, yeah, they can't pass and they're not skating, they're tripping. And like, it's. Even at the highest levels, it's amazing how powerful the mind can be. And so it's something that I've probably over the last five. Well, I mean, my whole career, I've been very interested in mental performance. And, yeah, I would say actually that's probably never changed. I've always been interested in reading a lot of books on it for you.

Now, obviously, being a veteran in the room and aware of these. These things that you're seeing, you know, you have that experience and that calm and presence to see the ups and downs of a season and the ups and downs in the mindset. Imagine you're doing a lot of maybe a little work on the side with the younger guys to help them stabilize as they get into the league and learn the process and mentor in that way. Was there someone who did that for you when you got in the league, or did you feel that you're on your own, learning the ropes? And if you were, what was one of the biggest challenges you had in adjusting to become a true professional, to be successful?

Yeah, I think one of the biggest challenges when you get to, like, professional sports is just, you know, if you make a mistake out there, it feels like the world's gonna end. There's so much pressure on the players, much pressure on the coaches, on the GM. There's 18,000 people watching, and, you know, you make a bad pass and it gets turned over. They score and the coaches are yelling because there's so much pressure on them. There's just so much and that can so quickly bury a person. And the players that play a long time are able to, you know, really becoming a pro, I think, is being able to put that behind you quickly. The quicker the guys can put that behind them, the better they are. And way easier said than done, I'll tell you that, because there's a lot of emotion wrapped up in that. You're thinking of consequences. You're thinking of, am I going to play next? Am I going to have another shift? Am I going to play next game? I have a contract coming up, or my family's watching. Like, they think of all the people on tv. Like there's just all these things, like they're just, like flooding your brain. And guess what? You're not thinking about. You're not thinking about the next shift. Then you go out all of a sudden, your name gets called. You are Back out there. And now you got to try to. If you're not dialed in 100% mentally in the game, you're going to get exposed. That's a huge, huge mental skill is kind of in that small picture to be able to quickly refocus. How fast can I refocus? Clear the mind, put that behind me, believe I can have another good. I can have. My next shift is going to be good. And that's a huge, huge skill. And then I think the other part of it too is just through the ups and downs of a season, you might be healthy scratch in a couple of games in a row. I mean, a season is 196days typically plenty of playoffs. So long and so many things started six days too, Or shorter if we don't know. But you know, I think that's just to kind of. I think as a veteran, what I've learned is you got to pull yourself out of the present moment every once in a while and kind of look at things from 10,000ft and kind of just look down. And it gives you perspective, it gives you appreciation of where you are, how long the season is. And it allows you to kind of let those things not be so big anymore.

It's a meditative effect. So take us back. You're in Milwaukee. And then from there, what were some of the biggest highlights that moved you forward?

Well, my first year in Milwaukee, I got cut. I really wanted to make the team. I got cut. And there was actually not a lot of highlights to talk about in that first year. For me it was a real struggle. I struggled. It was the first time living away. When I was playing in Prince George, I was just a few hours from my hometown. We were playing in the sold out arena.

Did you have a significant other at that point? Was your wife in the picture?

Dating my now wife girlfriend at the time for two and a half, three years in junior. And then going to Milwaukee was a challenge because, I mean, it was away from her, away from family. It was in a new country, new city, empty building, didn't know anybody. Youngest guy on the team.

Yeah, right there. Equals depression for most people. And a lot of players are depressed and they don't realize it because they're still doing what they love. But then they've had all these things taken away from them that fuel the quality of their life and they're depressed, don't know it, but they're just miserable and they're supposed to be still performing. And how do you perform your best when you're in that state, that was probably me.

And you know, I had some great teammates on that team, but I also had some guys that didn't care for first round draft picks. They felt like the first round draft picks were entitled and spoiled. And so it's a weird dynamic in the AHL because you're teammates, but you're also competing for that spot. When somebody gets hurt or doesn't play well up top, you want to be the guy called up. So you kind of are cheering for your teammate, but in the back of your head you're kind of hoping that you have a better game than him. Because if you get the phone call, if my AHL coach gets the phone call from the NHL coach who's looking good down there, you want him to say your name. So it's this weird competitive vibe. And so, you know, that year was. It was a bit of a struggle. And I went after that season, I was so motivated to make it to Nashville the year after. I wanted to play up there. I really like just the setup, the coaches. I was like, I want to be there so bad. I remember that training camp. I came in extremely motivated, kind of just put again, put those expectations to the side and just played. Just. I remember telling myself, don't try to change. Don't try to be something you're not. Don't try to be the first round draft pick. Don't try to be the, you know, that's new star defenseman, the young star guy that's coming in. Just play like you did in Junior. Pretend this is Junior out there. Don't be intimidated by these older guys. Just go hit somebody just like you did in Junior. Just go play loose, play free. And I had a great camp that year and I was able to make the team and had actually a really good first year pro I played or first year in the NHL. I played a lot of minutes, 18 or 19 minutes on average, and had some good numbers. So it was a lot of fun that year.

Did you feel like it was all coming together at that point? Just from a life perspective and a goal perspective?

You know what? I didn't have a lot of goals to make the end. Like I said, it was just happening so quick. I mean, that was all that happened in a span of six years. I didn't think I really had really had time to make goals. Things were just happening so fast. By the time I would make a goal, I would be there kind of thing. So I was just, I was just kind of playing. And that first year in the NHL, I kind of Lost my confidence a bit. When I was playing in Milwaukee the year before, I was like, well, you know what? Maybe I was a good junior player. And playing against Mint, I don't know if I could take this step. It's a bigger step than I thought. And I was, once I played, I remember sitting on that bench, I was told, kate, you're in Game 1 in the NHL for Nashville. We're playing Anaheim. I was like, wow, this is unbelievable. I can't believe I'm going to play a shift in the NHL. And I really appreciate it too, because this was now my third training camp. It wasn't just like, you're just in. I realized that it was a real privilege to be there and. But I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna get a shift tonight. But then it's about the third shift of the game. We had a face off in their end and got my name called, jumped over the boards and went out. First shift went well, and I just still remember so clearly the first shift went well, the next one went well, and then right there it clicked. I'm like, oh, this isn't that scary. I can do this. As soon as that happened in my mind, yeah, yeah. Years later, Turning Point was right there. It's just, just that belief that, yeah, I can do this. I'm good enough to be here.

How big of a role did your, your wife or your girlfriend back then and your family play in, in supporting you?

So those first two years pro, I was by myself. She was the first year when I was in Milwaukee. She was, we were dating. She was in school back in Prince, Georgia at umbc. And then that spring we got engaged. But she finished her last, her last year of university while I played my first full year in Nashville. And so I was, I was on my own. But she came and visited a couple times. My family was incredibly supportive. My mom and dad, they made like, let's go back to. We can go right back to minor hockey. My dad was the coach, like involved with everything there. We were the family that took the other kids. You know, every road trip my parents drove and my sisters celebrated their birthdays in hotel rooms on these road trips. It didn't stop when I went to junior. It was a four hour drive from Smithers to Prince George. And those first two years, they went to every home game, like 30 games plus playoffs. And there's Tuesday night games, Thursday night games. And these are like crappy roads too, right? They would take my sisters out of school at 2 o' clock and they would jump in the van and they would drive. They'd get to the game at 6, they'd watch the game and they'd drive home from 11 till 3 in the morning. And they do that two, three times. It was like. I can't believe. It was awesome. I loved it. I can't believe they did that. Now looking back at it. That's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. So I was so well supported as a young guy and I mean, as I played pro hockey, it was a challenge. In Milwaukee and Nashville are quite far from Smithers. My dad has a job, so they weren't up and down all the time, but whenever they could, they were there.

That's incredible. Yeah. Like, I mean, we have children, they are all in sports. They range in age from 20 to nine and three boys and two girls and they're all in competitive sport of some sort. So it's either been hockey or volleyball or soccer or gymnastics or whatever. And as parents, now that you're a parent, you understand how what kind of a commitment that is, if it was done for you to go through that. Like now it's a different perspective. But yeah, it's so intense. So you. So from there you're in Nashville. But then that was short lived.

Yep, I was in Nashville just for that year. And then we had the 200405 lockout that the owners wouldn't let us play, wanted to renegotiate the cba. And so I went back to Milwaukee. I'm like, oh boy, here we go. Let's go back to the city again. And it ended up being just a complete 180. We had a different coach, completely different team. And that weird competitiveness that I was talking about, that was there a couple years before that wasn't there because there was no NHL. And so we were just playing. It was a lot of fun. We were basically a junior team, except for we were 21, 22 years old now. We actually had money in our bank accounts. Besides being the junior, I had probably averaged $8 in my bank account.

Yeah, yeah.

Now we have had a couple NHL paychecks in our bank accounts. And it was just, you know, we had such a good time that year. It was a lot of fun. And that was a year. The coach that I had that year was very influential. Claude Noel, he. Because I had the experience of playing in the NHL the one year already, for whatever reason, it kind of put me in a bit of a leadership position on that team or he included me in the leadership Group, which was huge. And just having him kind of believe in me and kind of tell me that I am important, my voice is important, to see the game in a unique way and that don't be afraid, just speak. And he really developed a lot of confidence in me, but in my leadership abilities, I suppose. So that was a big year. Even though I wasn't playing in the league, I wanted to. I think it really helped my development going forward.

Do you think that approach that the coach taking and embracing a player's opinion within that team environment, do you think that that should always be done or, you know, it's almost like a democratic style versus a dictatorship style of coaching. But what's. Do you think it's appropriate at all levels?

Well, I've had a good mix of both styles of coaching over my years. I've had success with both styles. And I think one of the biggest things that I've always appreciated from a coach is he can coach anyway. But I appreciate the relationship. When you know that the coach cares about you as a person, I think that goes a long way. I think he can get away with a lot more challenging you and pushing you out of your comfort zone when you know that he truly cares for you and cares for the team. And I've had coaches read, I don't think they really like me. I always felt like I'm a pretty likable guy. I'm not very abrasive and try very hard to be doing the right things all the time. But when you have that feeling, you know, coach, if I have that feeling, I'm sure a bunch of other guys have that feeling and coach can lose the room pretty quick. But when you have a coach that's willing to put time in relationships and getting to know you and you feel he really cares about you and things do get tough and you're in the trenches and we're on a five game losing streak or I'm not playing well and he's on me a bit. I'm on the video in front of the team, maybe showing some bad clips or we're getting bank skated. He's angry. We're grinding drills. You know, guys want to work through that. They know that we aren't good enough and that's the coaches. The coach's job isn't to be your friend and make you feel good. The coach's job is to get the most out of you. He can as an individual and then as a team. And if he believes, you know, if you have that trust and that relationship with him, you trust him, that he is doing the thing that he believes is going to take us to another level that we weren't able to do ourselves. And that's why you have coaches or else you wouldn't have coaches of players who just do it. So you gotta, I think as players to understand that. And you know, I've had coaches more of a dictator coach and more of a democratic coach and have had success with both of them and good relationships with both of them. It's been neat to have so many coaches over the career to learn so much from each style.

It really sounds like that is a characteristic of yours that helps your success is being able to adapt not only to different styles of coaching, but also different environments. Take us forward toward 2010 and heading towards those Olympics. What went down for all of that?

Yeah, it's kind of a cool story. So in 2000, probably four or five, I was working with a trainer in Vancouver, Peter Twist. And him and I had decided that it would be really cool if I could play for Canada's Olympic team hockey team in Vancouver, that Vancouver would be hosting the Olympics in 2010. So we made it a five or six year goal. It was probably a six year goal at the time to make that team. And so I did my thing. I was in Nashville, played the five or six years there and I got invited to the summer camp in the summer of 2009 in Calgary. So I was one of about 50 players to get invited there and we did a little trial thing and kind of more of an information session just to understand what the systems we'd play and the players and get to know everybody. And then so I was like, perfect, I'm on, on track to do this. And then when they picked the team in late December of 09, I got a phone call and they said, hey Dan, appreciate everything but you know, they make the team okay. No, that's fair. It's Canada's Olympic team. I understand that. And so I was kind of disappointed. It was my goal to do it. So they went on to win gold.

And so it was in B.C. and I mean, you can't help but be disappointed in so many ways.

Yeah, so I was pretty disappointed. And then it was that summer as well that I. My time had ended with Nashville. It was a friendly split, I would say. They just said, hey, we can't afford what you're gonna be worth in free agency. We'd love to have you back. We can't. I said, I'd love to be back, but okay, I'll see what's out there. So it was great to leave on good terms. And I ended up signing that summer with the Canucks in Vancouver, which was so special to be able to go back to a team I grew up watching. I absolutely hated those guys playing against them when I was in Nashville. But as soon as, man, when I got to put that jersey on, it was so special. So much pride, just representing the province and what that team meant to the province and kind of coupled that with that Olympic dream that I had. And I just. It was a great spark to my career, I think, just, just that I was with Nashville for nine years and I think it was a good change of scenery for me. I think maybe I was kind of leveling off a little bit. And just that change, I think re sparked me. And right there I kind of like recommitted to that goal. Instead of a six year goal, it became a 10 year goal to play in Sochi in 2014. And so I started changing a few things. That's why I started for the first time really kind of understanding what a diet can do for you. Got a little smarter in my weight training. Started re engaged with my skating coach that I had worked with when I was a teenager. In my early 20s, I reengaged with her. Just looking for all these new ways to improve. So then it was in 2013, so I'll just continue with the Olympic story there. So 2013 we brought in a lady, her name is Suzanne Conrad. And she was, she was kind of like the culture motivational person for Lululemon. And so we brought her in to work with our team that year. And she's really big on goal setting and how to do it, how to write it specifically. And so we did a whole bunch of exercises. And one of the goals I wrote in my book is that I will make Canada's Olympic hockey team this year. And then I kind of looked around. We had Swedes and Finns and Russians and all the different nationalities in that room because I knew we had to read them out loud, right? So I was like, I just quickly wrote small in the corner and win gold medal. So when we shared it, I didn't include the bottom part. I just wrote that I would make the team. And so I still have the little book, which is cool. I've been sharing it with my kids, the classes for career day story on goal setting. Because on December 31st, whenever they announced the team, I got a phone call again. And this time it was made the team. And then of Course we went to Sochi and won gold. So kind of a really neat story of a six year goal turned into a ten year goal and it all kind of came to be.

So if you don't mind sharing, you did a proper goal setting exercise. You didn't just write down a goal.

Because that doesn't work.

So you went through that process. What if you don't mind sharing, what did you do to outline how you're going to make that goal happen?

I think a lot of it was language too. I said, I will, I will do this. And I was very confident and I told myself that often and it wasn't a goal. I just felt good to write it one day. And then it went into the dusty shit, went to the shelf and got dusty. It was something that I kept kind of looking back on and repeating it to myself. Once I made that goal too, I started working backwards and like, okay, well I'm not just going to make the team. Like, I worked backwards from that goal. Okay, if I want to be on that team, what do I need to start doing now, four years out to get myself there? And one of the things I identified was, well, I can always be a better skater. I can be more efficient. If I'm a more efficient skater, I'm not going to be as tired as the ice. On the ice, I can think better, I can have maybe a longer shift if I need to. I'll perform better under fatigue. So skating was a huge thing for me. And then I started to dive into mental performance was huge. I was reading the Pursuit of Excellence. Terry Orlich wrote that one. It's been one of my favorite books. I think I read that book. I think I. In 2010 is when I got it. And I think I've read that book probably six times. Every year, at the start of every year, I restart it and work through it again. Just love. He just speaks my language in there. And I think that's. It's just a combination. I think right when I was So I was 27, turning 28 when I signed in Vancouver. And it was right around then where I started to take a huge transition in my lifestyle and career. And I started to learn a little bit more about nutrition. I started to learn a little bit more about the mental side of the game. Through that, I started to improve skating and hockey. Before that was, I would go to the rink, I'd play hockey, and then I would go do whatever. And in the season it wasn't a lot, but in the summer it was then I Go mountain biking and running up hills and doing this, doing that, building fences, mowing lawns. Just like all this random stuff. Probably few too many nights of drink or drinking later or whatever it was, right? And then I. When you're in your early 20s, you can kind of get away with that. There's not as many consequences as I kind of 28, 29, start to see little consequences of those things. And I realized that, you know, if I was going to continue that my career was going to go away quickly. And one of the things I've always told myself, which I think has been a huge motivating factor, is I. When I am done hockey, I want to be able to look back at my career and know that I left nothing on the table. I don't want to look back with regret and think, man, what if I would have just fill in the blank, you know, what if I would have done a little bit more work on my skating? What if I would have took care of my diet? What if I would have worked out a bit smarter, harder? And I never wanted to have that looking back at my career, any regret. So I just. That's was a huge motivating part for me to start right around that time. 27, 28 years old, my career started to become slowly become more of a lifestyle than just showing up at the rink for the two hours. And then that was like a compartment of life. And then I went to the other compartments. Fast forward to where I am now. It's 24 hours, seven people like, so how often do you work? How long do you work out in a day? How many days a week? Like, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I don't take any time off. It's 100% all the time. And like, well, what do you mean? Like, why you only work? I'm like, how long do you work out for? I'm like, well, I work out for probably an hour and a half a day or two hours. But then what I eat matters, what I do after that matters, if it's how I rest matters, what I'm drinking matters, what time I go to bed matters. Because all that stuff matters if I want to have another good workout the next day. So I guess that's kind of a long answer. I'd like to get into that more after. But kind of the goal setting, working backwards as I started to build into these things slowly at first, and then they just kind of started expanding and becoming bigger and I started to see results in my mental game. I started to see results in my fitness through diet. I started to see results in my fitness through my workouts and movement patterns and sports science. And just as you start to see improvements being made. And Now I'm cresting 30, when things are supposed to be going on the downhill, and I feel like I'm actually feeling better than I did in my 20s. It became so, like, addicting, motivating, fueling for more. I just wanted more and more and more because I'm like, man, I love feeling this way, and I want to. And I've seen results on the ice. And, yeah, I mean, that mindset really propelled me to probably make that team in 2014, and I think it's propelled me to be still playing at my age now.

Yeah, absolutely. It's funny how. And we speak to this a fair bit, how making that shift in one area suddenly causes a benefit somewhere else. And then you make a couple more shifts, and then you realize how much better your life is, how much better you feel, how much better you interact with other people, how much better you perform on the ice or wherever it is. It just keeps going. And that's where that motivation and that addiction almost comes in, but a healthy one in that sense. Take us into if there was something that happened or someone who really influenced causing this change in your lifestyle to flourish, so who might have been a mentor or an influencer in causing this to really grow?

Well, I'm gonna say. I'm gonna say three or four people, probably. In 2010, 11 Stanley cup finals, I hip checked Milan luch each game. 1. And it blew out my groin. It ripped right off the adductor. Ripped off the bone. So I was. I was done.

Avulsion fracture. Avulsion.

Or there is. I don't know if it's attached on your bone by, like, a couple inches or an inch and a half. There was just kind of a thread hanging on there. So it was. It didn't come all the way off. I was lucky. I did it all the way off two years later than the other one. There you go.

Yeah. Groins have a tough time in hockey.

Yeah. So Manny Malhotra, I played with him, and he's a guy that started to kind of lead me down the road of, like. I went to his house once for dinner and looked in one of his cupboards, and he had all this protein tubs, and I'm like, what are you doing? What is that? Vegan ones and all this stuff. I'm like, why do you have that here? Like, there's protein at the rink. Yeah, but I like this stuff. Well, why would you do that? Like there's protein at the rink. Yeah. Well, I kind of think this is better for this reason. This reason and better fit for me. Man, that's, that's weird. It's expensive and weird. Okay. And that's where it started to click like this. Okay. This guy has kind of taken it on himself. He's not just doing like what the team suggests. He's customizing for what he needs. And, and then. So when I, when I tore my groin that year, he recommended me to Rick Celebrini. Rick Celebrini is one of the best physio rehab guys in the world. He's. He's the guy that worked with Steve Nash all through Steve's basketball career and allowed Steve to play as long and as well as he did. Rick's worked with the Canucks. He's worked with. He set up the whole Vancouver Whitecaps program. He's down in Golden State right now working with. He's the warriors head of science for sports. For sports science, I guess, therapy, rehab, whatever it is for Golden State. And so he is unbelievable. And I was so lucky to be able to work with him to be rehab that groin. And he. I had so many bad mechanical and functional ways. Just the way I walked and moved and skated. I just had a bad arch in my back. I was leading my legs funny, just exposing groins and hips and backs. Probably going down the road of not playing another year. After my Vancouver contract, if I was able to ever play the full six years of that deal heat, I had to relearn everything. I had to relearn how to walk, how to move, how to work out, how to do.

You're describing what high performance sport does to a body, what your sport does to you. Like, you probably weren't born like that. It's likely that many years that caused your pelvis to be certain ways or rotated or moving in certain ways.

Left handed shooting, always hunched over and twisted one way.

Yeah.

So I had these bad patterns built up over all those years of hockey and we've been working to unwind those. And Rick was the first person that helped me understand how to take the stress off of those things with proper posture. When all your muscles are working the way they are supposed to be, it's a beautiful feeling. But when you're, when things are out of place, they work against each other and that's. You're just wasting. And it feels like there's glue between your muscles. And when you're moving the right way and things are lined up properly. Feels like there's oil in your muscles again.

You're not fighting your own body anymore. Constantly fighting your own body.

Yeah. So again I'm like, wow, this feels amazing. And it got me on that path. And so I worked with Rick for probably a good three years and then he kind of moved. He had moved on. And it was right around that time that that's when I kind of got introduced to Sean Campbell. Sean kind of carried things on from where Rick had taken me. Sean is an ex Olympic Olympian himself. He played field hockey in the Australian Olympics. Super smart guy with physio, but so much more. And he's. At first. That first year I worked with John, we did some, some clean up, some work, some physio kind of outside the rink. I'd go see him once every couple weeks. He'd kind of clean up my whole system. And as we got to talking, we talked about what would a strength program look like? What would you recommend? He started giving me exercises. He gave me specific exercises to take away the pattern, the bad pattern that I had developed to kind of unwind my pattern. He gave me very specific exercises and I loved it. I started doing them like it made complete sense. From there it kind of evolved into, hey, what would it look like if you wrote me a summer workout program with that physio base of knowing me so specifically and we can focus on exercises that don't wind up my pattern, but unwind my pattern? What would that look like? And so we went from that to that to Sean's like full nutrition genius, recovery genius. And he does the whole program for me now we do like the physio, the strength and just full on sports science body coach. So it was right around that. So it was kind of Manny, Rick, Sean, and then kind of right when I, the first penny year I met Sean, or maybe it was the second, I think it was in the second year. So I started to do these things and this is where it got a little political and tricky because the team doesn't really like it that guys are off doing their own things. They kind of want to have it all in house. And I understand because you don't want your other people treating injuries from your players and then you don't know what they're doing and then you do something different and you end up maybe working against each other. So I understand their side of it. I felt it was very important for me to like Manny with his own protein. Right. For his body. I Started doing some things that were right specifically for my body and what I did at the rink, I kind of said, okay, I don't want to do those exercises. These are better for me. And it's tricky because you don't want to step on toes and try to tell someone that you have a better idea. But it was what I knew I needed. And so the next person that was really influential was. We were in Boston and our owner had this, had a connection with Tom Brady. And Tom met four or five of us in a hotel and we sat there for about four hours with him. Him and his body coach, Alex Guerrero basically took us through the TB12 method of fitness. What has brought him so much success, he's come up with a book since which I was kind of disappointed with because I thought I had the inside scoop.

Now everyone gets it. What the hell?

Basically spent four hours and he talked his book and it was so great. I just loved it because it gave me more. I was second guessing myself, am I being a bad guy, bad teammate by kind of going outside the team for these things? And he said like that it's so important to understand your own body. You have to understand your body and what it needs. And he said, I can't do the same workout as my offensive lineman and I'm the say. And I was like, well, you know What? Today I'm 37 years old, left handed defenseman, 18 years pro. I should not be doing the same workout as our 6 foot 4, 220 pound, 20 year old that plays right wing.

Totally.

That's kind of what happens during the season just because of legit everything else. So I really started to. And so Tom really affirmed that for me that if you want to play a long time, take care of yourself. It gave me that confidence and it felt so good after to talk with him. I don't want to get you in.

Trouble here, but are you saying that in 2020 that the experience you're receiving with your team, that if you weren't seeking out your own, you would be doing group workouts that aren't completely customized to you and your body? Because that, that just. That just seems like an archaic, an absolute given that. Yes, you may, when you were first describing the scenario that you've got to walk the line politically and you've got.

Some people you want to work with.

But the team wants the team to work with their group of medical staff.

Which we see all the time.

I was hearing that or imagining that that scenario would mean that when you're working with the team and that medical staff, there's still a strength coach, you know, your therapist, massage therapist, and that what they're giving you would be absolutely customized for you and your body that they wouldn't say, you know, defenseman, you're doing this lift today, or. Because that, that seems crazy.

Yeah. And I think, you know, some of the trainers had pretty open minds to allowing us to do some of our own stuff in there, which, which I really appreciated. But it's, you know, hockey's kind of funny that way. It's taken a while to get out of that mold a little bit and, and so, you know, I'm lucky now as an older player, I've kind of got that leash to be able to do my own stuff. And coming back to a going to a new team, you kind of do what works for you. So I've had a good leash the last few years, but I think hockey's got a long ways to grow. I mean, certain teams are different than others too. Like a team like the Leafs, I don't really know fully what they do, but they have such a huge, huge, huge budget and staff. They probably have an individual trainer for each player.

So you were just saying about the Leafs, and I was just about to say that I was training Dave Boland when he had his peroneal tendons slashed. And they were advanced enough in thinking that I could communicate back and forth or same thing when he was in Florida. So it was a good setup in that they were willing to be open minded enough to go, okay, who are you working with? What's going on? And then we have a bit of a dialogue there and it worked out okay. But I can easily say that between national level athletes, NCAA athletes, different sports, different national teams, It runs the entire spectrum. It's all over the place. Some organizations, some schools, some places just stay in one kind of way of doing things with the blinders on and won't communicate with other people or won't entertain learning something different or doing something different. And it ends up being that the players are at the mercy or functioning poorly because of the decisions of an entity or better because of the decisions of that organization. So, like it's. Yeah, it depends on the place, it seems to me.

Yeah. And every place is different. I think a lot of it has to do with the GM and the budget they're allowed of what kind of program they want to run. I think the most important part though, I mean, if there's young guys like listening to this would be, you know, a lot of these trainers, like our trainer here, Nashville, He's a very smart guy. He's got a great program. I like a lot of that stuff, and I enjoy doing a lot of his program. The thing for me is that you need to. The most important part is you need to know your own body. And I need to know when to say, I'm not gonna. I don't feel like this is the right thing for me. And to start finding exercises or finding people like I found Sean, that can unwind the specific patterns in my body that can complement my body. I think that's the biggest thing is knowing what you need and then doing that and not just doing the. What everybody else is doing, because that's where you get hurt. That's where you shorten your career when you're doing what everybody else is doing.

Well, that comes right back. Right back around to the mindset topic because it speaks to a player being fully responsible and accountable for their own performance because it's their body and versus the mindset of, well, I'm a commodity of this team, or I'm, you know, I'm your commodities. You pay me, you take care of me. You take care of me. And it's a completely different way of thinking than going, okay, I have to do everything I possibly can. And when you're speaking to the differences from one individual to the next, same goes for nutrition, same goes for strength and conditioning. Same. Like, if you guys are gonna do intervals on the ice or get back skated, one guy is gonna respond to that differently than the next guy. And one guy's gonna need a different kind of recovery protocol than the next guy. And it's. A lot of coaches and a lot of athletes aren't thinking in terms of individual. They're thinking in terms of team think. And I call that trying to get the team athletes to train like an individual sport athlete. Because the individual sport athlete has the mindset that I'm the only one to blame. It's on me. I'm the only one to blame. You work with a track athlete, a swimmer, you know, gymnast, all sorts of different individual sport athletes, and they get that right off the hop. And sometimes when you get a team sport athlete who used to participate in an individual sport, so you get a track athlete who became a. Whatever, you know, a rugby player. So the track athlete, rugby player, that rugby player now gets that they're more accountable, they typically work harder, they typically take more responsibility and have that mentality going forward. So, you know, you being exemplifying that concept. It creates a, it creates a trickle down effect for the younger athletes coming up that they can understand how much they can do for themselves and not have to depend on other people. They can do it themselves just from their day to day, just how they live. That's huge. But it's hard because, I mean, at the same time there's the lures of the other side of the lifestyle, which is the, you know, the party lifestyle and everything that comes with a lot of high end sport as well.

Yeah, yeah, no, you're right. And it's a process, it's long. Like I said, I, I played almost 10 years without kind of getting into this and it's been the last eight to 10 years where I've really, you know, taken more of an attraction to this stuff. And yeah, I mean, just the end of the. Right now I think one of the big things for me is the rest I have to be in. At the age that I am, I'm trying to find ways to rest well and recover because I want to show up the next day and have a great practice. So in order to do that I need to know, is it a sauna today? Is it cryotherapy today? Is it massage today? Is it physio today? What am I eating? I've started wearing a whoop watch. I don't know if you're familiar with that. It kind of tracks sleep in different stages of sleep, gives you a score in the morning, it tracks my strain throughout the day.

Your heart rate variability, all the things.

Yes. So I've been kind of tracking heart rate variability now for the last six, seven years and this latest product here has been great because it kind of tracks everything. Again, it's individualized. Now I can see what works for me. Does it work? How does alcohol before bed affect me? How does eating before bed affect me? How does. I actually wore this during games this year, which is really interesting just to see how much a gain takes out of me and not having a good sleep, flying after a game. So I can start to track and see how all these things have an effect on me. And then the cool thing is the next day say I recover 30%, I'm in the red, I can make the adjustments accordingly to deal with that 30%. So just two days ago I had a workout scheduled at noon with a couple guys and I tested at 30% because I had a big day the day before. I told him, I said, guys, I'm just going to do a little recovery today and I'm out for the Workout. So it's been kind of cool that the rest thing has been huge.

Now, does the team, like, Whoop is a. Is a team option on it? Does the team invest in Whoop for the whole group, or is this something that's personal to you?

This is personal to me. A friend of mine told me about it this summer, and I looked into it and decided to get it, and it hasn't come off my wrist since August.

There's another. There's a ring called Aura, and it'll do the same thing. So still with the recovery, the heart rate variability, and that's the thing, I'm kind of like, I love Garmin as well, and I've looked at Whoop, but I love that stuff. Like, that's right up my alley. So what's next for you? If you had a goal, I mean, I know that Covid might be changing a lot for you, but if you have a goal that you've had in mind for a while, what's on your radar?

Yeah, that's a very interesting question to be asked at a very interesting time. We had some. We had a few plans in mind, but, you know, things are kind of. We have no idea. We could be done playing hockey. We could be playing playoffs. This could be my last year of hockey. We've looked at the possibility of playing in Europe potentially next year if the NHL wasn't an option. We thought that'd be a really cool family experience, and that could be a neat hockey experience as well, but more so family. Family's becoming more. More and more of a priority all the time with the ages the kids are at. I want to be involved because it's gonna be a snap of a finger and they're gonna be out of the house.

You have three girls?

Three girls.

Yep.

Yep. So they're gonna be 8, 10, and 12 by the summer. So that's. That's a big focus for me.

Europe would be so cool. Our youngest is nine, and so we get that age range right now. Do you. In looking forward? Because clearly you're still putting your best effort into playing right now. But if you look forward a few years or whenever it is that transition to retirement, do you have a plan for that?

Well, I'm involved in a couple different businesses. I'm a part owner of the Prince George Cougars, the team that I claim for, and also a part owner of Tofino Resort Marina, which is a hotel, marina, adventure center, restaurant, pub in Tofino on the Vancouver Island. We'll see what those bring. There could be some unique opportunities there. But the thing I'm probably quite passionate about is that I've always been through my whole career is just the humanitarian side of things. I've always loved the opportunities that we've had to be involved as a kid, community projects and you know, when I was in Vancouver in particular, I mean, it was my home province, so it kind of had a little bit more of an effect. And a lot of the things that Canucks do are province wide. And so I would. I could see myself being involved with that kind of tying in maybe Canucks alumni with the Cougars thing, with the resort thing, with what we're doing in our hometown. So, yeah, that's kind of where I'm going. Potentially kind of looked at, been looking loosely at some counseling like courses possibly maybe do that. But it's actually really, there's a program at the NHLPA that helps guys with transition. So I've done a bunch of personality testing, extensive personality testing actually. And so they kind of show you, like, how you think, how you react, the type of. And then it kind of aligns you with maybe things you would be thinking you would be passionate about. And not necessarily you'll be successful at it, but you'll probably find fulfillment and satisfaction in these fields. And it was interesting because that's kind of what I thought before. And now this personality just actually like confirmed it almost like over the charts of kind of that direction. So that's pretty cool feeling to have that. And that's probably somewhere I'll start to look. But I don't really want to be on too much of a schedule the first few years. I want to have the freedom and flexibility to say yes. We're going on a hiking trip. You want to come? Yes, we're going on a ski weekend. Yes, I'm in. We're going to Europe on a biking. Yes, I'm in. I wanted to say yes to everything. So I've said no to so many things to do what I do.

Yeah. And in hearing your story and hearing you talk, I could see you being fantastic at being able to have that positive effect on other people just by listening and being able to hear what they might need. And you already sound excited about what you have in front of you, whether it's playing more, whether it's being able to counsel other people, whether it's diving into your business opportunities, being with your family. So it's these are the things that all sound incredibly promising versus I can't tell you how many times I hear athletes who their whole world is their sport, and that's it. There's nothing else. And when that's the case and their whole world is their sport, then it can be devastating when or if an injury or retirement or something causes a change in that. So it just, you know, it sounds like over the years, you've grown into having a really solid perspective and understanding of yourself, which has allowed you to make the decisions that are best for you, not only from the physiology standpoint and the performance standpoint, but the life standpoint, too.

Yeah. I think a big thing with that is just separating what I do and what my purpose is, because hockey is just what I do. And I feel like there's a. I have a bigger purpose than just playing hockey. I feel like even within hockey, there's a bigger purpose, and certainly to mentor the young players and be a great influence. And the relationships in the dressing room, I think, are so much bigger than what I do. I think that's the stuff that lasts forever, and that's, you know, something I hope to. That'll always be there. Hockey is just the way. It's just what I'm doing right now that where my purpose is. And my purpose will continue to live on past that in the next thing that I do.

Absolutely. On that note, let's wrap up with a few fun questions for people to. To get to know you a little more personally.

Speaking of things you say yes to.

Yeah.

What do you mean now a nutrition guru.

Yeah.

What do you say yes to if you're offered dessert?

Yeah. What's your favorite dessert?

Apple crisp.

Oh. Oh, so good. I make a meme. Yes. Warm, crispy. And ice cream, definitely. What about. You know, it's. It's Covid time. Do you have a favorite Netflix show or anything? A favorite thing to watch?

Well, I'm really liking the Jordan documentary right now. The Last Dance. It's been unbelievable. We watched the fourth episode, the third and fourth last night. So I am. I can't wait for next Sunday again.

We just started it. Just started it. And just to say that kind of work ethic that Michael Jordan has, like, that's the closest thing I've seen to this guy. Like, that's. And he was kind of a hero of yours back in the day. He used to have the poster.

I grew up on the balls.

Jordan with, like, palming the ball with the wingspan. He had that poster across his whole room. So super cool. Okay, so. And what about music? Would you. What do you like to listen to to get pumped up for a workout for game? What's there for you.

Oh, I like pretty well everything. You know, if we're in the house, we'll put on like Lumineers, Mumford and Sons, that kind of genre of music. Hold on.

You're in Nashville though. Do you like country music?

Yeah, I don't. You have to. Yeah, but I do, I do like it. I don't know, I gotta say, I don't like it all, but there is, there's there's some good songs out there. And then for workouts, I mean, you can never go wrong listening to Metallica.

Listening to what? Oh my God, that's so like typical hockey right there.

Well, you know what? Not everybody in our team. Most of the guys are like in the hip hop and rap, I guess.

So like we're old school. We're too old for. No. Anyway, we're not too old for anything. Nevermind that. And if you had a key message to send to young athletes, that even if you're speaking to your younger version of yourself, a message that you might say to your younger version or other athletes out there, what would that be?

Stay positive. For one. There's so many voices, including the own in your head, that are always telling you that you're not good enough or have negative messages. The media, there's so much I can't even imagine being a young player right now with the social media and all the crap that's on there. So, you know, filtering what comes into your head and keeping that positive mindset. Get to know yourself, get to know your body, what works for you. Don't just rely on what other people say. Study it, understand and then apply. I love the process. I mean, it's one thing I like the good results too. But you know, when you are focusing in on the process and you do the best you can every day, you know, even when the results aren't there, you still walk out with your head high and feeling good about yourself. I think. You know, I think that's really important too.

Well, Dan, we can't thank you enough for taking the time to share such a great message with our listeners and for all the stories today. It's been awesome to hear about your just progression through the ranks and up into the NHL and illustrious career you've.

Had and the length of career that.

You'Ve been able to support and finding out what went on behind the scenes to make that happen. I think what you described for yourself happening at 27 is huge for every athlete to hear because it's really. That's where it sounds like you really clicked and turned into the true professional, the scientist of yourself and finding out how do I get the most out of this body? And I love what you said about, about wanting to look back on your career and not having a shoulda or coulda, but that you lay it all out there. It's just so motivational. So awesome to hear. So thank you very much for sharing that.

Yes.

Yeah, it's been. I love talking about this stuff, hope for other people to find it and, yeah, learn it for themselves.

Well, fantastic. Thank you so much.

Everybody.

Thank you so much for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode and if you did, please do us a favor and share it with your friends, your family, other athletes, coaches, and other important people in your life that you think might enjoy these conversations that we're having with athletes from across Canada and the world. Also, if you're looking for public speaking from Kari or myself, looking for personal training, online programs, mental retreats at the Empowered Reset, or anything else you think we could help with, reach out to Kari and I@infoempowerconditioning.com thanks again for listening and have an incredible day.