“Character & What it Takes”

Welcome to the Healthy Mindset App podcast where host Mike Hartman, a performance coach and former professional athlete, brings his passion to help athletes and workplace athletes achieve their dreams and goals while being mindful of everything else in life. Mike also uses this platform to share his targeted assessment applications, Healthy Mindset course, meditation and goal setting technique for the athlete and workplace athlete we're glad you're here. Now let's dive headfirst into this episode of the Healthy Mindset App podcast. Here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Today I'm going to share a story of gratitude about a young hockey player and I am not going to share his name, but I'll get into the story here in a second. So years ago I used to work in the development program with USA Hockey and their Select Camp. So for many years I said this on the podcast before, I've had a couple pro coaching offers to coach professional hockey, coaching the minors and maybe work my way up. It wasn't for me, it wasn't something that I wanted to do. I knew when I got done playing hockey that I did not want to travel on buses and rather be home and raise my kids and that was just what I wanted to do. But I did the USA camp for years. Lou Vero, who was one of our Olympic hockey coaches, asked me years ago if I wanted to get involved with amateur hockey and I said I would love to do this. So I did the select 14 camps. We had Mo Mantha there, former NHL player to many different university coaches there, Mel Pearson from Michigan that was there. And we had Danny Brooks. I think he was a Division 1 college coach as well, and we just had a lot of great people there. But the story goes something like this. There was a player that showed up at the camp he came in from. I don't even want to say where he's from because you might figure out who he is. He comes in and he has some problems with his ears and he has a bleeding nose. So the doctors told us there's no way that he should be on the ice today. So we had our first day on the ice of this USA Select Camp. He happened to be on my team and he's a big opposing kid. I could tell at 14 years old he looked like he was 16 or 17. He had blond curly hair and you could tell that this kid, just the way he had that look that you knew he was an athlete just by looking at him. So he comes in and we tell him he can't go on the ice. I was with Colin Muldoon he actually lives here in the Carolinas. Colin played college hockey. Great coach, great development coach. He coaches in Raleigh now. He played a little bit in the minors. And Colin and I love this kid, but we told him, you can't go on the ice today. So what does he do? He goes on the ice. We didn't know it. We were skating around, and I see this kid, this big opposing kid. I said, he looks like the kid I told he can't skate. Colin said, it is. So I went up to the kid and I said, you're not supposed to be out here. He said, it's going to take more than a bleeding nose and bad ears for me to be off the ice. I said, yeah, but you're going to get me in trouble. You're not supposed to be out here. And he says, I don't care, Coach. I'm going to do anything I can. I came to this camp to play hockey. I didn't come to sit in the stands. I said, okay, perfect. So he plays. He's playing, like I said, with the bleeding nose, the bad ears, and he's best player on the ice. In practice the next day, we play a game. Best player in the game. Physical, hitting hard, very quiet kid. You could tell he was even the type of kid that's going to be a leader someday. No matter where he played hockey or whatever he does in life. And then he's playing again. And then when I out was. He does have family members that have played at a very high level between the Olympics and pro. That made sense. I mean, you sometimes follow in the footsteps of, you know, your family members. I remember the Sutter brothers in the National Hockey League. You have the Tachuks today, the Folignos, and just something that's passed down. You could tell these players they play with a little bit of an edge. Look at DeBrusk. And I look at McDonald's Derman, who I played with. His son's a big opposing hockey player. And these kids are taught at an early age what it. What it takes. And that's what I'm going to go into here in a minute. Like a parent asked me, what does it take? So first I'm going to share the story about this kid. I'm not going to say his name because I did not ask him if I could share this story. But he understood what it took to be a hockey player. He did everything he could. In fact, one night, I was trying to bluff the kids. They were talking. They were in their dorms, and it Was very loud. So I went in there with Joe Turso. And Joe is a friend of mine. He just passed away. I was allowed to bring what we call as a primary mentor with us. So I brought Joe. I said, joe, we got to quiet these kids down. So I run in the room, I walk in the room and I'm with Joe. And we're walking in, and I said, boys, you have to settle down. If you do it again, we're going to go for a run. And what does this kid do? The kid I'm talking about with the bleeding nose and the bad ears, what does he do? He jumps out of bed, says, coach, let's go. Let's run through the woods right now. I said, my run is about five miles. He goes, let's go, coach. And I said, go to bed. And it's kind of funny. I just love this type of kid. And one more thing that he did do, I got to share the story, was there was a kid that was on the bench. I mean, this kid played hard all week. In fact, the USA Hockey representatives told me I had to settle him down a little bit because not only was he scoring goals, he was making big hits. And he was almost going to probably put somebody through the glass or hurt somebody. So how do I tell somebody at the top development camp, you're supposed to be one of the top players in the country, all at this camp to settle down. I just told him, just pick your spots with your hits. We don't want anybody getting hurt out there. But that's just the way he approached the game. And I heard later in his life, that's the way he approaches life. So some of you may figure out who this is. I know Colin Muldoon will definitely call me right away and laugh about this story because we love him. But one thing he did, and this is the story of gratitude, where it comes in. So there was a kid on the bench. This was our last game, and There was about 12 minutes on the clock. And he tied his skate on the bench and his skate lace broke. So now this kid has a broken skate lace, and they had to get him a lace. And it took this kid about probably six minutes to actually put his laces back in. If anybody plays hockey, it's not easy. It's not like tying your shoes. You have to put your laces in. You have to. They have to be the right length. And you have to tie your skates again. You might even have to tape your knee pad. You might have to take a knee pad off Anyways, this kid, different kid, like I said, was on the bench, and he breaks his lace, finally laces his skates up. And this kid with the blonde hair, we'll call him, with the bleeding, the nose and the bad ears, he looks over at me and says, coach, let this player take the rest of my shifts so he can at least get some ice time here. And we were up in the game. And plus, when we play those development games, it really wasn't about wins. We did win the championship that year, which sounds crazy to me, because I don't care if we won the championship or not. It's a development camp. I don't care what I care if we came in last place and everyone says, well, you should. It's all about winning. No, it's not. We develop these players. We want to help these players get better. It wasn't about wins. But when that kid did that, it just really changed everything. I said, holy, what a complete player. He ends up being a captain in Division 1, where he played. And I think he got hurt after that. I think he was supposed to have a promising NHL career, and he ended up getting hurt. But that was my story of gratitude today. It was something that was on my mind. The reason I'm bringing this up because I just got off the phone with a friend of mine and we were talking about players today and development. He's a former professional hockey player himself. He also coached, and we were talking about development. I said, you know, when I went to this USA camp about 13, 14 years ago, there was this kid. It was unbelievable how with the character that he had, not so much anything about himself, everything about the team, about helping the team, the nice gesture he did for the kid that broke his skate lace. I watched how he carried himself. He was very quiet. To me, when a parent will ask, hey, what does it take as an athlete to get to the highest level? I would say, you know what? Let me tell you the story about this kid, because this is really what it takes in my eyes. So I want to share this story of gratitude for you. This was something I didn't write down. This was something I had no plans on doing, except I just told the story and I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to add this to our podcast because this is something that, to me, means a lot. So if you think about next time, if you're an elite athlete and you ask yourself, you know, or ask anybody, hey, what does it take? Just listen to the story. Because to me, this is what it takes. It takes drive, determination. It doesn't mean play when you're hurt. I'm not saying it like that, but it does mean that. Hey, listen. You do everything you can to get better, to be a good leader and show gratitude.

We're so glad you joined us for this episode of the Healthy Mindset App Podcast with your host, Mike Hartman. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. That helps others find the show, and we greatly appreciate it. To dive deeper and learn more about the Healthy Mindset program, or to get in touch with Mike, please Visit our website, healthymindsetapp.com thanks again for listening, and we hope you'll join us again in the next episode of the Healthy Mindset App Podcast. Until then, be well.