CBS/FOX TV Dave Starman & Wife Shireen Saski

Welcome to the Mike Hartman Show. Mike is a performance coach and former Stanley cup champion with the New York Rangers. Topics on this show are focused around stories, mindset and champions. Mike will also go into details about helping you with your pain points and struggles and finding motivational solutions on how to have the mindset of a champion. Now, here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Welcome to another episode. Now, this episode is very special and it's so special. We're still doing the Think tank, but I think I shouldn't even talk during this episode. You know, this is like a lot of pressure. We have two guests with us, husband and wife team, both with CBS Network. They've been there for quite a while and I, I'm going to introduce them. We have Shereen, she goes by Shereen Saski online, and Dave Starman. Great to have both of you here today, Mike.

It is great to catch up with you. I think it's been, I think it was the last time you and I probably saw each other live was reveling in the cup victory in 94.

I think you were with WFAN back then.

Yep, that's correct. And that was, I think that was the night, the week and the summer that never ended.

That is so true. And it just, it's great to have you with us, both of you, especially as a mentor, because I was, I started this as a hobby.

Still is.

I'm an amateur, you know, at your level. But I started this as a, as a hobby. And it just turned into, you know, we get more and more downloads. We're in 42 countries. We have people going to Hartman Academy, you know, dot com, and they listen to the podcast there. We could see the stats from all over the world. And your background being in TV and your wife's is great. In fact, you gave me great advice. I just interviewed Adam Graves and I had Matteo. And very subtly you said, listen, the best thing you could do is not ask a long question, ask a short question and let him answer that. So thank you very much and thank you for teaching me Mike.

He tells me that all the time. I think he just doesn't want to hear from me.

Well, I could only imagine. I was afraid to. You know, I have again, we do this, it's unscripted, but I had a few, I was thinking of a few questions. I mean, do you ever debate each other? Do you ever fight back and forth about. I can only imagine, because in my relationship, my girlfriend would say, just be quiet. I'm sick of hearing your voice. But then the two of you. You both have these big voices, no pun intended.

I'll tell you what, there are times where Sherene will turn to me and say, you know something? I think you need to get on the road because I need to miss you.

That's.

It doesn't happen often.

Yeah, but it's. It's. Do we debate? We. We do a lot. And I think it's. It's. It's healthy debate. I think every husband and wife, for every relationship, you know, there's always good debate between the two, and we certainly debate on things personally. But when it comes to the professional side, the debate, we're on different sides of the broadcast, with me being the analyst and. And Shereen being ringside. We sometimes will debate on what we think are great storylines. Sometimes we'll debate on how to best present a story, and sometimes we'll debate on, you know, what we think is most relevant to the game as the games go on. And the good thing is, Sherry and I could talk at home, but we could also somewhat talk to each other on air, whether it be by text or whether it be through talkback. And we've got the ability to tee each other up in games as to what we think is most timely. And the fact that we know where the other one wants to go a lot, I think, really helps.

Well, and I think what you guys call debate, I call discussion. It's a little different spin. There was one game we were doing early in our time together at CBS Sports Network, and I believe Mike Schaefer was going for 300 wins, if I remember that right. And he was going to be the 64th or 65th coach in college hockey to do that. And so our evening that night was okay. How many coaches can we name? And so I think we kind of play off of each other. I think we got about half. Then I gave up and went to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, Dave's like, I got the rest. Let's talk.

Oh, that's funny. And you're both competitive, so, Shereen, you grew up in my backyard, like, literally in my backyard. I mean, literally close to my backyard. Because you grew up, I think, on the same street.

Yeah, just, I think, about four houses down from each other. You know, you and Dave may go back to Stanley Cup Finals days, but you and I go back to childhood. We've just never met in person, but our circles are very similar.

I know it's such a small world. And Dave and I go back even beyond the working with the doing, the doing the fan. I know. Dave, tell us a little bit about. Because I know you're on espn, cbs, right?

Yeah, it's been a whirlwind. It's been, it's been really cool to think about when you, when you go back and look at it. And like, I'll be the first one to say that in my hockey career. And while I, I do feel I've put the hard work in, I do feel I've been incredibly lucky in terms of circumstance and like my first, my first foray into the business, I, I was doing a summer class at Brooklyn College in a broadcast news institute, and I wound up meeting a guy who was working for Sports Channel who introduced me to Stan Fishler. And I wound up working for Stan in a year that I had taken off from hockey because I was rehabbing an injury. So, so that was a great break. And then, you know, shortly after that, I, I wind up in, in Baltimore in the American Hockey League. And, and, and while I'm there, I've got Barry Trots as the assistant coach there. It's his first year in, in pro hockey and Joel Quinville was finishing up his career. He just got sent down from Washington after playing his 800th NHL game. And, and Kenny Albert is doing play by play. So I'm in this little mix of Barry Trotch, Joel Quinville and Kenny Albert, where I can pick Kenny's brain on the broadcast side, I'm picking Barry's brain on the scouting side, pre scouting side, coaching side. I've got Joel there to pick his brain on the playing side and how the games evolve through his time and playing defense and all kinds of things. And I've got two future Vesna Trophy winners and Oli Kolzig and Byron Defoe as goalies that were there. So, I mean, I got ridiculously lucky when I first started this thing. And some of those lessons that I go back to from there have been absolutely unbelievable. And I think those couple of years with the Baltimore Skipjacks in that little group really paved the way towards, towards me moving forward. And the great part about it was in Washington, the head scout was Jack Button, who's a legend, and obviously everybody knows Craig Button from his time on tv. And so, I mean, I thank the good people that I've been around. And the one thing I've learned about hockey, and I'm sure you've learned it too, is in our business, a lot of people are willing to share, and I think the ability for people who are established to Pay forward has really helped the young up and comers, and that's something Shreen and I really believe in is being able to pay forward.

Yeah. And also you played. So you played at a high level, and you. You played, you know, you played get some pro games in as well, and then now you graduated into doing what you're doing. And I think it's phenomenal. I mean, how fortunate are you? Like, people dream of that after their careers, getting into broadcasting. There's not a lot of positions available.

There really are. And I mean, it's. It's. It's funny, like, every morning that I wake up in Bemidji, Minnesota, in the middle of February, where it's -14 and I've got to go walk across, like, a parking lot to return a rental car and go to the terminal, and it's still dark out and it's freezing. I say to myself, this kind of stinks. But you know What? There's probably 5,000 people that would trade spots with me in a second. And there's not a day goes by. So as I get older, there's not a day goes by where. Where I don't think about how lucky I've been to be a part of this. The people I've met along the way, the life lessons I've learned along the way, the self discipline, the accountability, the ability to eliminate performance anxiety, the ability to focus. It's been really cool. And then part two of it is, how often do you go into a business that's this unique and wind up meeting your wife?

Yeah. You're literally working together. And I know we do that a little bit. My girlfriend's a registered dietitian and I do coaching, so we. We sometimes do things together, and that's not easy. And we don't even do a lot, so I can only imagine. And so, Sherene, like your background and me growing up in West Bloomfield, I'd like to hear your story a little bit about how did you get into hockey and sports? Did you play sports at. You went to. What's. Did you go to West Bloomfield High School?

No, I actually went to Southfield Lathrop.

That's right.

So I went to Lathrop growing up. And it's funny, my path, very different from Dave's. He was an athlete. I was athletic. There is a big difference. I was a big softball player. Loved to play the game. Bottom line, good glove, no stick. No future for me as a player. But I loved baseball. And in fact, my dream, when I was probably about 10. I wanted to play center field for the Detroit Tigers. That was my dream. I grew up listening to Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey on the radio. Tigers baseball was always on the radio at my grandparents lake house. And so that was my passion, was actually baseball because back then the Red Wings were the dead things. So there wasn't much hockey to watch that was quality. But I still enjoyed the sport. And I think when I was 12, I realized I wasn't going to be a professional athlete, so what could I do to still be around the game? And I set my sights on being a sports reporter. And my first interview, go figure. Was none other than Ernie Harwell himself. And that was for my middle school newspaper in sixth grade. And I just went on from there. It was so much fun.

I love that and I want this to be about both of you, but I'll tell you a two second baseball story. So I was playing for The Rangers in 93, 94, and we just lost the game. Eddie Oldchuck didn't dress. And he said to me, I'm not sure to this day if he set that up because we were very close. We were close in Winnipeg, but I'm not sure if he set this up. But he said, listen, you need to go outside, somebody's waiting for you. And I said, ah, just tell him to wait and have to get undressed. Plus you don't want to go outside. And Mike Keenan sees me smiling with somebody, that's the last thing you want back in those days. So he says, no, no, you got to go outside. I said, eddie, just tell him five minutes. He goes, get out there now. So I get out there and there's a short guy waiting for me. And I look at him and he looks familiar and I know who he is. I grew up a big baseball fan. And he said, hey, my, my, here's my son. We're in from Detroit where we just wanted to catch a game. We know you're from Detroit. Can we take a picture? I go, what, are you kidding? It was Alan Trammell. So that's my claim.

Oh my goodness.

And he sent me. I said, oh my gosh, let me come right back. I got him a stick, some pucks. I said, this is kind of weird because I'm a huge Tiger fan. I have a ball that the Yankees gave me at a Tiger game when I was 9 years old and I still have that ball. He goes, let me send you a gift. He sent me his bat and three balls. And I said, I called my father After I said, you know what? This is weird, but Alan Trammell was waiting for me. Now, Dave could tell you I wasn't a star, but I just thought I'd share that little baseball story with you because I love baseball.

That's tremendous. And I was fortunate enough to cover Alan Trammell when he played for the Tigers at the end of his career. I think I was 19, and I was interning at the ABC affiliate in Detroit, wxyz, and they would send me down to the ballpark to set up live interviews with the players. And then I covered Alan as the manager of the Tigers when I was at Fox Sports Detroit. And I tell you, Mike, to grow up watching a team, being such a fan of a team, being so much a part of the 84 World Series champions, watching every game, following them, to be able to cover them after that was pretty special.

I love it. A big baseball fan. And we could talk baseball all day. So I could ask. I could ask Dave, because I know, you know, a lot of athletes, and sometimes you have to say things that the athlete may not like, you know, and you have a lot of relationships with these athletes.

How does that work?

How do you feel? Sometimes, you know, somebody might need, especially on the fan in New York, which is a very tough market. You might have to say something like, you know, a guy like Mike Hartman, they need to get him out of here. He's. He's wasted space. Did you say that we're friends now? He didn't say that.

Well, actually, you know, before I. Even before I address that. That's a great question. Good story. Which. Which Mike and I laugh about at times. And. And that is. It was during the 94 playoffs. Rangers are on their march of the cup, and Mike hadn't played in the playoffs yet. I believe it was the series between the Devils and the Rangers. So it was the. It was the. At the time, the Prince of Wales Conference. No, actually, it was the Eastern Conference. It was the Eastern Conference finals. And the Devils, I believe, were up two games to one. And then it was. Game four was going to be played in New Jersey. The Rangers wind up winning that game in double overtime. And between games three and four, I was doing overnights with Steve Summers. And I don't know if Steve asked me or if a fan called in and asked, you know, what do the Rangers need to do in game four? They need to make any lineup changes. And I said, I am not the coach, so I'm not going to tell you who should come out, though I do Think there are a couple of forwards that have not played great in this series. And I'll be honest, I think they could use a little toughness right now and a little grit in their lineup. And guys like Mike Hudson and Mike Hartman probably should make an appearance at this point in the series. And, like, I'll never forget Mike coming to me afterwards and saying, that was pretty cool because you never know who's listening at 1am Right. But on the other side of it, I think that the best way that you could bring up a point about somebody who's not playing well is to. First of all, you have to make the critique professional. If you could back up your statement, it really helps because I think most athletes realize that with a good portion of the media that's, I would say, an educated portion of the media in their game, you can make a point and make it professional and personal, and then you could back it up along the lines of, you know, if a guy is 1 for 16 and it's just not really hitting well, I could say, hey, you know what? I think at this point, maybe you sit him down for one game so he could at least take a look or catch his breath or refocus or in hockey, if. If somebody's not scoring, hey, listen, maybe this is a guy that needs to get bumped down from the top six into the bottom six or. Or move down a little bit on the defensive side because the numbers are not there. And. And you can just see that his play is tailed off a little bit. And the key part to me is, especially with all my work in college hockey, I think the coaches and the players have gotten to know us so well that they trust us and so they understand. It's an observation based on viewings. And my scouting background kind of helps there, but I think it's a. It's an opinion based on viewings, based on data, based on some analytics. Potentially. There's so much more information now to help you support your point.

And.

And I think if. If they trust you that you understand what the eyeball test looks like, then they are much more receptive to. I don't even call it criticism, but they're just more receptive to an observation that they might not be playing well and why.

And I think in addition to the trust, respect is a big word there. When I was covering the Red Wings, there was a game they blew at Joe Louis arena. They were up 51 to Chicago, and they lost 6 5. And I'm working post game, and we're all in the Dressing room. And it was right when the NHL had opened up the weight room area for post game where you could go back and try to get players to get their comments. And nobody was going back. And I looked at everyone, I said, fine, I'll be the scapegoat. I'll go in there, but you guys better have my back if it doesn't go well. And I went up to Matthew Dandino. He was on an exercise bike. And I just said, matthew, do you have a second? Could I talk to you? And he kind of looked at me, and I said to him, no, is fine, but I need to ask. And he looked at me and just said, no, not now. And I said, okay. He was very nice about it, respectful. Five minutes later, he came back into the dressing room area and said, shereen, I'm ready to talk now. And what he had to say was powerful and poignant and honest. And I think part of it was because I didn't push him. I waited till he was ready, and he appreciated that respect and in turn gave me the interview.

I love that. And that takes us to this point. So my father was the photographer for the Detroit red wings for 25 years. Yeah. Yeah. He worked for the Red Wings in the penalty box. And he asked Mike Ilitch when there was 10,000 fans in the building in, like, 1982.

Yes.

And that they loved his pictures. And one got in Sports Illustrated. So he ended up giving all of his photos away, which I could. Want to know what I could. He gave it to the gentleman in New York. Oh, my gosh. What's. He's out of New York City. You would know him. He's out of Long Island. Bruce.

Bruce Bennett.

Yeah. Gave Bruce all of his photos, and he just walked away from it. But he used to say. I used to walk up to Jimmy Devilano, the general manager, and say, how are you doing? He says, don't ask me. We just lost. Or my father would run into, like, Adam Oates. Hey, Adam, how are you? He goes shaking his head like, I don't want to talk to you. So he says, wow. So I can only understand what you're going through by approaching the players. And it, like, timing's everything.

Sometimes it really is. And you have to understand, it is a serious business. A loss matters. You know, we tell our kids, okay, you lost a game. It's okay. What'd you learn from it? Did you have fun? But when you're at the elite level, winning means everything.

That is so true. So I have to ask you, because There's a lot of podcasts. Excuse me, there's a lot of podcast listeners out here, and there's people that do their own podcast, and I could tell a good one just by what Dave taught me. But is there any advice that you can give us podcasters that are. Or amateurs we have a show? Because, Dave, what you told me helped me so much because sometimes I would catch myself and I got to shut up now. So the question is, is there any advice you can give both of you? I'd love to hear it from both of you that you can give to the podcasters that they can even prove what they're doing?

There are a couple, and I've learned this just in my preparation from doing games and watching Shereen do her prep for her Games. One is, is when we sit down to do calls or interviews with players or coaches in the weeks leading up to Games, we'll generally do some research before those interviews even start. So while we're interviewing a coach, we will have done some research before we even talk to the coach, because that makes the questions that we ask them more important. It lets us dial into exactly where we want to go with it instead of being generic. Nothing drives me, and these coaches amaze me when they get asked to me the same generic question a million times. I think they really appreciate the question from somebody who looks like they dug a little deeper to get to a more poignant point in their program. So. So that would be one. I would say do some research with. With the subject. And the other thing is this. You can even call the subject before you do the interview and almost go through a conversation beforehand because they may shed some great light on some topics that you can then bring up when you record the interview. And the example that we use is a couple years back, I hosted the USA Hockey Level 5 Masters Coaching Symposium in Lake Placid, and I had to do two panels. One was a goaltending panel with Mike Richter and John Van B. Your old buddies. And the other one was with four members of the 1980 Olympic team was Aruzioni, Harrington, Johnson and Ken Morrow. And the good thing for me is I knew all six of these people from previous years of either working with them, knowing them through, whatever. I mean, I had relationships with them. But when I did the Olympic panel, I called each one of them individually and I said, okay, is there anything you want to bring up? Is there any place I can lead you into? Are there some great stories you want to get out there, but will sound strange if you come up with them as opposed to me leading you towards them. And, and then I just picked their brains on some other stuff. They gave me enough information in those conversations that when we did the panel, it really flowed like a conversation as opposed to a Q and A.

And I think the other thing that's really important, what is the story beyond the story? Everybody can read Twitter, everybody reads social media and they read the paper, so forth. But what's the, the story behind the story? And that's the challenge that I give myself every broadcast and every interview that I do.

I absolutely love that.

And we're going to conclude with this.

What is the story beyond the story with both of you? So I know you met by. I have a feeling you met by. I mean, you're in the same profession. Please share how you met. How did it happen? How did you end up in New York? I love to hear both sides and tell us the story beyond the story.

I'll tell you.

I'll.

I'll start extremes better finishing it. There was one season where we were doing a lot of, I was doing a lot of games for what was then cstv, which is what became CBS Sports Network. And we did a lot of games in the original ccha. And the, the new launching of the, of the new CCHA is, is coming soon for next season. But this back in the old ccha and, and there was one stretch of games where I just thought the officiating was awful. And I'm kind of a rule book nerd. Like, I'm a Roger Nielsen disciple when it comes to the rule book. Like, I read it, read it, read it. And I, I was just killing these guys. And finally I called the commissioner of the league, Tom Manassas, who's a, you know, a friend of mine. And I said, tom, either I don't get it, they don't get it, or we're not jiving. But I'm watching these games get called and I don't think they're being called very well. So here's what I'm going to do because my guess is it's probably me. Can I come to your next officials training camp? Because I saw Ron McLean had gone to an NHL one. I thought it was a great idea. Can I come to your next official training camp? And I just want to blend in with the guys. You know, some of them I know, some of them I don't. But can I blend in, get into some conversations, get to know them better, get to see the game through their eyes, understand what their standard of play initiatives are what some of the pressures are in terms of calling games and what they're looking for specifically. And I think that will allow me to present maybe their side of hockey to our viewing audience instead of me just saying, oh, my God, what a lousy penalty. So that's. That's the start of it. I'll let Shirin pick it up from there.

And then they opened it up to the rest of the media. And I was working at Fox Sports Detroit at that time covering the ccha, and Dave and I were the only two media members there on the first day. And he came up to me and said, hi, I'm Dave Starman.

And Shereen said, so what?

I didn't know who he was. Be honest, because I was such a workaholic and I wasn't watching other networks, so I wasn't familiar with his work. But we chatted all weekend. I did the office component with the officials. He did the on ice component, and we just started talking. And I was looking to branch out because I was freelance and I was looking to work for other networks. And I talked to him about cstv. And, you know, in this business, you meet. When you're a female, you meet so many men. And I have so many great friends from working in this business. And so I thought Dave was going to be another friend. And then it kind of took a turn.

It took a little bit of a turn. And I. I had recently separated from my wife, and so Shireen and I were talking quite a bit and bonding, and we just had a great. And we had a lot of respect for her, you know, for each other's work. And it's funny because my first year in CSTV, which was 03 04, I remember calling my producer and saying, I don't know if we'll ever have the budget to do to have a ringside reporter, but if we do, I found one and it was her. And, you know, I didn't. I mean, I didn't know her. I just. This is. This is obviously somebody who's pretty good at what they do. And so we kind of kept talking, and then we did a game at Notre Dame, and I got a phone call from CBS HR that said, make a high def is not your friend. And I was like, you know, what does that mean? And they were like, you need to wear makeup on air. And I said, oh, I thought it was getting fired. So I said, okay, great. So, I mean, I've never gotten makeup shopping. I worn makeup on air. I never did it. So I called sharing up. I said, I need your help. So our first date was Valentine's Day in Michigan. When I came in to do a game, it was Valentine's Day, and we went makeup shopping. For me, that was our first date.

Small.

Well, I hope you took them to Birmingham.

Yeah, that was later on. I couldn't. I couldn't use the first date on that. You know, I had to wait and see where it was going. But then when we got married, I went to CBS and met with everyone and just said, hey, you know, I've now moved to New York. I've got two stepsons from Dave's first marriage, so that's how I ended up here in New York, where he's from. And I just said, if you're looking for reporter or anything, I'm available. And then they called you, Mike.

The funniest thing is then our executive producer calls me up one day and says, hey, listen, we're adding ringside to your crew. And I went, oh, okay, cool. And they said, now, do you mind if it's your wife? So I was floored for a second. I said, excuse me. They said, well, do you mind if it's your wife? We're going to put Shereen on your crew. And I'm like, why would I mind? And they're like, dave, there are a lot of guys where if you call them up and say, we're sending your wife on the road with you, would. Would not receive it well. And I went, oh. So I laughed. I said, oh, that's funny. I've never even thought of that. I said, no, no, no, we're good. That sounds great. And the rest is now history.

Yeah, it was really funny when we got engaged. I was still covering the Red Wings, and I was talking to Ken Holland and Jim Neal at the time, and. And I said, yeah, guys, I'm engaged. Congratulations. Blah, blah, blah. And I said, yeah, you know, it took the Red Wings 42 years to end their drought, and mine will end just before my 42nd birthday. So there were a lot of parallels there.

Well, the both of you are a great team. You bring off great energy. And I'm sure you don't have to admit it here, you probably already know what Dave's going to say. Shereen, you already know what you know. You both know what each other's going to say is the point. And thank you so much for doing this. This was educational. It was great hearing your stories. And thanks again for joining me.

I really appreciate it, Mike.

Yeah, Mike, thanks for having us it was great to catch up.

Thank you.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Mike Hartman Show Show. If you're enjoying what you've heard so far, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review on your preferred podcast listening platform. We really appreciate that effort. We'll catch you in the next episode of the Mike Hartman Show.