Don Luce-NHL 42 Years

Mike Hartman, performance Mindset strategist. This is Develop the Mindset of a Champion with former Stanley cup champion, Mike Hartman. Welcome to Develop the Mindset of a Champion. Today I'm going to introduce Don Luce. Don's a former National Hockey league player, played 13 seasons of the National Hockey League, close to 900 games. Played for the New York Rangers, the Detroit Red Wings. He also played for the Buffalo Sabres, Los Angeles Kings, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Dom was a longtime scout. We go way back with our, with our Buffalo days when he was with the Buffalo Sabres. He was also the director player personnel player development for the Philadelphia Flyers. He has over 42 years of national Hockey League experience. So we're going to get a lot of that experience brought to us today. Don currently is in the sports consulting business. Don, it's so great to have you.

No, it's great to be here, Mike.

So people really want to hear your story. I mean, we don't have time for the 42 years. We'd be here for a couple days. But I'd love to hear your story. You know, way back when you started in hockey, all those years you worked with the, you know, you worked your way up to the National Hockey League, all the way through being an executive in the National Hockey League. People would really love to hear it.

Well, you know, it started out just playing junior in Canada. And, you know, I got drafted by the New York Rangers. There's only six teams at that time. Goes back quite ways. But yeah, I got drafted by the Rangers in 66, in 1966. And then I turned pro in 68, spent a year and a half in the minors with Omaha in the Central Hockey League. Back then it was the development League. And then I was called up to the Rangers and played there for a little bit. Got traded to, to Detroit for one year and then I spent 10 years in Buffalo and very great years in Buffalo. And then just sort of at the end of my career there, I was traded to LA for 10 games in the playoffs. And then, you know, my mother got sick with cancer, so I asked Paul Punch had moved back to Toronto and it was general manager of the Leafs at that time. I asked him if he'd trade for me so I could come back, be in Toronto and travel back to my hometown to see my mom. And so he traded for me and I spent the last year basically in Toronto, but I was only playing like about 35 games because Punch said if to go home and see my mom anytime I wanted. So that was a great favorite.

Punches park well, that's great. So. So you made your home in Buffalo. I know you commuted all these different years when you were especially in the, in the hockey world, in the player development world. You made Buffalo your home base. And I know your wife, Diane, she was still involved, but is she still doing charity work with the Sabres? I know she did a lot with the Buffalo Sabres.

No, no, no, she's not. She's retired. So we're, you know, she's retired. She's. She did that for a long time. Did a great job. But, you know, she's. We've got four. Four grandkids that live here, so she's keeping busy with them.

Yeah, I could see. I know you're a big family guy. I see Kelly and Facebook and. And Scotty, your son, I mean, he worked his way up all the way to. Is he the head scout of Las Vegas Goldman Knights or what is Scotty doing with the team?

He's the director of scouting for the Vegas Knights. Yeah.

So I have a funny story because you drafted me and it gets into a little bit, but I remember my first exhibition game. I wore number 14. And I was so happy to play that first game. In fact, I called my father. He came in from Detroit with my brother to watch that game. And it might be my one and only game. So I remember talking to you throughout training camp. You helped me, you mentored me. And then, you know, just to get into the story a little bit, to fast forward a bunch of years, I know Scotty used to work for branches, and I don't know if you remember this, I was one of the first player to use branches blades. I said, I'm going to use them if I like them or not. Because we're very picky about our sticks. I said, no matter, I'm going to use them. Everything you did for me, you brought me into the game. If it wasn't for you, I don't know where I would be today. But, you know, so. And then also Griffin, I mean, he's playing for the University of Michigan.

Yeah, just finished. Yeah, he graduated and. Yeah, he's, he's. He had a great career there. Yeah, absolutely. He's good. He's good. Very good defenseman, your grandson.

Is he gonna go. Is he going to go on or what's, what's he up to nowadays?

Yeah, well, he's a free agent, so I think he would like to go on and, and try the pro. You know, I think he has a talent to be a pro. I've talked to a Number of people and seen him play myself, and he can definitely play pro.

Yeah, well, he. I know one thing about Michigan, they're very serious about their, their college sport teams. I grew up in Michigan and I had a friend that played football for University of Michigan back in the Rose bowl days. His name is Jeff Cohen. And I asked him once, hey, do you want to go to the movie Rudy? This was years ago. He goes, I got one rule. You can't wear green in my house. Whether it's Notre Dame or Michigan State. That's when I realized how serious these guys are about, about their college sports. And that's, that's kind of funny. So yesterday in the Buffalo News, it came out that fans, it said the fans made the right call. They picked the 197475 Sabres to be the number one sports team in the franchise history. And that's the team you played on. What can you say about that?

Well, you know, I gotta agree with them. They're right. But it was a great team. We had great. You know, the thing that made our team was our chemistry. I think that's a little bit underplayed. But to have a real good team, you have to have great chemistry. Everybody has to be able to get along and, and have fun. And that team was the epitome of it. They just, we played hard and we played for each other and we had a lot of laughs and a great time, you know, year after year. But that year was very special.

Well, people remember that team as a whole. And I can't remember, did Jerry Meehan play on that team that year? Was he on the team the 74, 75 season? I'm not sure if he was.

He was on at the start of the season but got traded.

Okay. I was fortunate enough to meet a lot of people, especially the French Connection with Rick Martin, Gilbert Perot and Rene Robert. A lot of people talked about the French Connection even to this day. They still talk about the French Connection in Buffalo.

Oh yeah, absolutely. They were a great line.

Well, what about the other then they talk about the check in line. Everybody talks about, you know, they got yourself Craig Ramsey and Danny Gear. I mean, that was a great line. So besides the off ice chemistry, I mean, the two lines, you guys were a checking line but still scored. You know, you played on every side of the puck, did a little bit of everything.

Well, I think that, you know, they labeled us the checking line because we played mostly against the other team's top line to check them. But we thought of ourselves as more like we Wanted to take advantage of. Of. Of playing against those players because those players tend to be a little weak defensively. And we always thought, my philosophy always being was the best defense is to play in their end. They can't score.

Right?

So when you do that and you play hard in their end, they turn the puck over. You get chances. And that's the way that was our philosophy. Play in their end and make them turn over the puck and get our chances. And. And we always did that and worked out well. We scored a lot of goals.

Yeah, it was a great line. And it's funny going back because I used to go to the games at Joe Lewis arena to watch the Detroit Red Wings. And my father would take me early to see warmups because he wanted me to see the work ethic of players before they go on the ice. He always would say to me, you know, how long did you go for a run today? I said, yeah, I'd run about three miles. He goes, you got to run four. He said, did you train? How many. How many push ups did you do back then? Well, I did 100. Why you got to do 200? Well, he said, go and watch number 18, Danny Gear. And I want you to watch the minute he steps on the ice, he flies through that tunnel. He's prepared to play every night. So that was a great. One of the things about. I watched about Danny Gear, of how hard he worked every day as a player, you know, for a little guy, a chippy little guy, I mean, he really came to play.

Absolutely. Yeah. Heart of a lion, you know. You know, I think that Danny was that type of player. He wanted, like most of us wanted to win. But, you know, he showed his enthusiasm and, you know, when he was on the ice, he was all in.

He was. He was also. He was kind of a funny guy. I have a story. So I was. We had a hockey tournament in. It might have been in Montreal. Then we had a layover in Buffalo. So we get on the plane and here's a guy. I think Danny's five foot nine, maybe £170 back then. And we. And I'm in. And he's in the middle seat and I'm sitting to the far left. And another one of our characters. I'm not going to say his name or Little Caesars was to the right. So Danny says, hey, do you. You guys. Are you a hockey team? And then the character on our team says, well, hockey is a tough game. What are you, a golfer? So we start talking, and I'm talking to Danny on the way. And then this one of our teammates and Little Caesars keep giving this, you know, giving Danny a hard time, and no one knew who he was. And I said, did you play hockey? He goes, well, yeah, I just got traded to the Detroit Red Wings. So Danny has always been a funny guy. Got to know him very well. But, you know, I have a. I want to learn a little bit about, like, right now. I know that you're in the sports development business. You've been in the, you know, working with the Philadelphia Flyers. I remember we would talk years ago about, you know, you taught me. You said, you asked me, and I brought this up on the show twice because a lot of what we do is mindset. You asked me what percentage of the game is mental? And I said, oh, 80%. I don't know. You said, no, 100%. Can you go into that a little bit? Because I know the game of hockey and the game of sports is 100% mental. I. Is that the same philosophy that you carry today?

Well, absolutely. You know, anything you, you want to do, especially in sports, is that your mind has to be 100 in it. If it's not 100 in it, you're not going to be the best player you can be. You're not going to have the focus. You're not, you know, you say you get in great shape. Well, if your mind's not 100% invested in getting into great shape, you're not going to be in the best shape you can be in. No matter what you do, you have to get vested in what you're going to do and give it your all to get the best results for you. And so it's, it's such an important aspect. Like, you know, I always thought, and you've probably played with players, too, that had the skill. You know, you played with them, there might have been more skilled than you even, or me.

Right.

But they didn't make it. And, you know, I always wonder, like, okay, well, he has a skill. He skates well, he can shoot, does everything well. Why can't he play? It's his head.

It's a mental side.

The mental side prevented him from playing. We all have certain mental blocks, you know, things that prohibit us from playing well. And that's been my philosophy. And I've. I've looked at it, I've worked on it, I've tried to look at different avenues, and we found a method that we can help take away those mental blocks and have a player or an athlete achieve the best Results possible. Yeah.

So I truly believe that everybody needs a coach or a mentor. You can't do it alone. Especially in any day and age, it's hard to be an athlete and do it alone. You need your, you know, your exercise physiologist, you need your trainers, you need your, you know, people, exactly what you do. So I truly believe everybody needs to know. Can you describe. I know you have a very unique program. We have a lot of young athletes listening and their, and their families. Can you give us a little description of how. What you offer to your athletes?

Well, what we offer is, you know, an athlete or a team comes, you know, but mostly an individual athlete comes to us and he has a problem of whatever it is. It could be coachability, it could be in hockey, I don't hit the net enough or I don't see the, see the plays. Well, whatever the issue is, we go in and profile that individual and find out where his mind is at. And most, most mental blocks are triggered by some, some circumstance in the back of the, in the subconscious mind. What we can do is we go in and go after the subconscious and change those triggers to be positive and so that the player will not do the things that he'd been doing in the past. Even though most players don't even know what the cause of the issue is. We can find that cause, change it to a positive so it'll be. Allow the player to become the best player he can be. Right.

To maximize their potential. We talk, you know, so you've been in player development for a long time, being in the NHL for 42 years, being around different players. I remember I called you years ago and we just had a conversation and you even had. This was years ago. So I don't know if things changed, but you told me that some of the players, you know, the young guys on one of the teams, organizations you were working with, was spending his days and maybe napping and eating, and you had these guys play video games because you believe you always wanted the mind active. I mean, that's going back a lot of years. I remember you shared that with me. How do you keep the mind active?

Well, you keep the mind active. Video games is a good source. You can play those games. But people don't realize too, that when you're playing video Games not 24 hours a day, but for an hour, an hour and a half a day or something, you are developing skills like even like as a, as a shooter, as hockey, you know, you play some of those games. Your first shooter experience games Your eyes are being trained to pick things out, and that's what you have to do as an athlete. You have to pick the finer things out. So you're training yourself. It's not just playing the game. The game is fun. Anytime you can train, it's like playing versus practice. Practice is hard. Playing a game is fun. The actual game is fun. And that's what, you know, video games can give you. You can do certain things with video games to help develop your athletic ability.

I also believe it might be good because sometimes, you know, as an athlete, I remember I was under large amounts of pressure. You're nervous, and maybe it's a way to take your mind off of the game itself, maybe, and put your mind onto something that is just going to keep you busy and occupied for a while.

Well, absolutely. That's partly what we do. We find out, you know, the player when, when you play a game and you want to be invested in the game, so you have to have a clear head. You can't, you can't be thinking of other things like. And people don't realize that some kind of external things can be in your head when you're playing. You know, you could be not feeling well. You could be the family's going through a divorce, there's the girlfriend's upset at you or the wife. You know, those things play on your mind. So you have to have the ability to cancel, not cancel them out, but to put them in a box so they don't affect you when you're playing. And we have that ability to do that.

That's great. I remember when I was, when I was at the Rangers, they, they had the hotel for us on the day of a game. So even if I knew some nights they said, well, you're going to go for warmups, we're not sure you're going to play. Or some nights I knew I wasn't going to play. I still went down and stayed in the hotel and took advantage of it. Had to get out of the house for a while. But so I know, like, the mental preparation is everything. So now do you have a team of people that you do this with or is this on your own, like within your. In the sports consulting business? Is there a group of people that you're doing this with?

Yes, there is. Yeah. I have two great partners. We have Corinne Matthews Rutkowski. She's a professional profiler, a hypnotherapist. She's had, you know, her own business for 20 years. And we also have Dr. Greg Reeds he's a professor of sports psychology at Kinesis University and he's also a division soccer coach. And they've had years of experience. We have a great team. We have, we've seen, we've seen a lot of things in a short time. And plus our experience going prior to forming the business. We have tons of experience and, you know, we're well versed at getting the best out of the athlete and a team or coach. Because a lot of times the the athlete, coach relationship is tenuous. You probably know is what is the coach thinking and making too many mistakes? Or does he like me? Doesn't he like me? Things like that can affect your performance, and so we can straighten those things out and allow the player and the coach. The coach might not understand the player. You know, people learn different ways. There's visual, audio, and actually doing something. And so if, you know, I've experienced in my, my career the fact that, you know, the coach would say, see, that guy's not a very smart player, or he's not a very smart person because he's not getting the drills. And I've told him a thousand times, but he might not learn by audio. He might have to be shown or he might have to write it down and then he'll get it right away. He might be the smartest player on the team, but if you don't know how to communicate with him, he's not going to get the message.

Yep. So I just. In my coaching business, and I've known you for a long time, I mean, since 1986, and like, you've been in the player development, you were always the one to pull. Like, I remember, you pulled me aside. You pull other players aside, and your whole thing was leading and helping others. I thought that that was amazing. So you've been in player development for so long. Do you vicariously live through some of the athletes that's like, you have athletes that want to reach their goals or some that achieve their goals. What's the feeling of, you know, you're helping an athlete. You see an athlete progressing because you must love what you do. You've done it so long.

Oh, absolutely. There's not, there's no feeling like it. It's, it's. It's so great to understand and be able to help somebody reach their potential, you know, to see them succeed and to go on and do the things that they want to do. And, you know, it keeps me in the sports world. I love sports. I think athletes are, you know, are great no matter what sport. They're playing no matter what level. I think everybody should play and. But to help somebody get to where they want to go is. It's just great.

That's also. I had a parent text me something. Is there anything that you or your team could focus on that offers special opportunities during this difficult time with social isolation, sports being canceled, there's a lot of disappointment. Seniors missing their season, not graduating. Is there anything that you can offer right now, any bit of advice that would help out these parents?

Well, I think one of the things is to get on a schedule. Don't, don't. Don't have a free for all. Just do anything you want, get on a schedule. You know, that's what our life's been like, really. And the players life's always been get up, go to classes, have practice after or before classes, get on a schedule, get a routine going. You have to keep in mind that everybody's going through this, so it's not just you, but you also have to be prepared for when you come back and to get an advantage. You get on a routine, you still do your physical training, you have to do your mental training, think about things. It's good to correspond or to talk with your teammates. Can be. Can you can build team camaraderie, especially for like, teams where, Mike, that you're on a team and you know certain players better than other ones, right? So in this instance, go talk to the players that you don't know that well. Get to know them, and that builds team unity, that builds chemistry, and it shows you care, and those are the things you can really do to help get through this. I think that, you know, it's natural to get down and be disappointed at what didn't happen. But now you got to try and look at what can happen. What can I do when I get back? How can I be the best player when I get back to normal?

Another parent asks, have you seen evidence of frustration, anxiety, depression, or substance abuse during these difficult times?

You know, no, I haven't. I've seen anxiety and depression. I haven't seen the substance abuse, but I. And I hope it's not there. But, you know, I think that, like I said before, people get, are going to get depressed. You're pretty much locked in a house. You can go out occasionally or, you know, whenever, but it's. It's easy to get down and, and I think that you gotta, you gotta work at it mentally. You gotta look at it that this is gonna break someday and they got to be ready. So you got to have a goal, set a goal that, you know, I'm going to be ready for whenever this breaks. I'm going to be the best player I could be coming out of this.

No, that's great. That's a really good advice. Don, you've been around a long time, you know, and I know at your end with your team, I have to ask this. So you have like a sports psychologist. It works at one end. And then you work with athletes as well. And how would, how do you relate to the athletes? So what is your plan that. How you work with the individual athletes?

Well, you know, we do also, we do seminars and, and we meet with the athlete, we meet with the player, talk to them individually. I do a lot of that myself, where I talk to the player. I use my experience to talk to the player, to get to understand the player, where he's coming from, what his mindset is. And we, we put that together with the profiling. And, and I think that, you know, we care about our athletes, we want everybody to succeed. And I think that, you know, we'll go and see players play so we can, you know, it's nice to talk about a player and they can tell you what they are like, but it's great. You can't beat seeing them play. I think my contribution is I can see that player play and I can, I can judge things a little bit more accurately because of seeing the way the player plays. You know, it may hesitate in certain situations and, and so on. So I think that, I think I do a lot of the communicating that way.

That's great because I, I, you know, even going back many years, I think what, what. I would also wonder if the coaches would talk to you because I watched, you know, one time I, I played and I did this hockey program with, with an individual and he went out there and we watched a practice before. So he was watching this practice. It was momenta. So Mo, you might know, Moana. So Mo did some stuff with, with USA Hockey. And we watched this coach and we would never say where or who. And he was skating these kids up and down the ice, up and down the ice. And Mo got frustrated. So Mo goes out on his flip flops onto the ice. He gets onto the ice and he didn't know the team. And he went to the coach, what are you doing? What? These kids are 12 years old. And the guy says, well, who are you? Says, it doesn't matter. What are you doing to these kids? 100 down and backs. And he asked the kids, so what Is this, hey guys, we lost two games in a row. And Mo was like, just, I've never seen, I heard he was so frustrated, he was so angry at this. And I think the coaches, and it's not that they're uneducated or maybe they are, they just don't know. So I'm sure your program would be fantastic for coaches.

Oh, absolutely. Like there's no question, like again you're dealing with 12 year old kids and, or any age group really. But most kids want to play and they want to play to the best of the ability they have. And I think that we can help a coach understand the players, the individual players, how to build a team chemistry, how to handle situations that he might not know how to handle, which is pretty common, really know how to handle. Parents, there's so many situations that a coach has to deal with that they've really had no training yet. And we, we can really help that situation out.

Well, they definitely need that. I was, I'm now because of the, the times we're isolated here. I'm on Instagram and I see a lot of things that it doesn't really disturb me because I know it means well. Like I watched in Instagram that a young 10 year old's dad was behind him holding his feet and he was crawling up the steps and his dad was doing all of these. The kid might have been nine or 10. And I'm thinking maybe you agree or disagree. When you're young it's about development, skill, having fun, development, skill, skill, skill development. I don't know it at a proper age or do you work with the physical side at all of what age the first players should start training or lifting weights or do you advise parents or coaches on that?

Well, I, I, the physical part of it is, is, you know, first of all, let me be straight here. The idea of sports is for everybody to play, to have fun, work hard, be focused. When you're, it's like going to school. If you're not focused in school, you're not going to get good marks. If you go to your hockey team, for example, if you're not vested in that team, you're letting every other member on that team down. Give it your 100%. Win or lose, doesn't matter. You'll learn, you'll develop your own thing and you will see the players, they'll want to lift weights or they'll want to work out. And that player wants to be the best he can be. And with amateur sports, especially the youth sports, every kid's not going to want to be the top athlete. They may want to be the top guitarist or whatever, but they're having fun playing sports. So I think that ideally, a coach, again, will see the fact that, you know, Joe is really interested. He really wants to get better. So therefore, I'm going to recommend, oh, hey, you should run three miles, or you should lift weights, or if you want to get better, you should do this, you know, where somebody else, you know, he can pass that information along. But it's a youth game. It's. They're going to have fun, and he might pick it up and he might not. You know, I think it's. A lot of it is knowing your players, even at a young level, you know, you can see the players that have the skill, the talent, even though some of those players don't want to be athletes, right? They. They like it, they have fun, they enjoy it, but that's not their main focus, and that's okay. And. But we want to help all the athletes that want to become the best athlete they can be.

It's not always about, oh, I, unfortunately, I see this a lot. My kids went to a school in Charlotte which was a competitive sport, and I ended up working with the athletic directors, and a lot of them tell me, all these kids want college scholarships. So out of the entire program, you might have three or four. And that's the frustrating. It's not always about a scholarship. It's about having fun. Hey, if you're good enough, somebody's going to see you and find you. And that's one of the issues I have. Or I talk to a coach and, and say, well, we helped him get to the college or pros. And I said, no, it takes a lot. First of all, it's the player. You're there just to guide the athlete to get there. You're just that person to bounce things off of. And there's not a better guy. Someone just messaged me. How can I know you're not going to give out your personal information, but how can people get in touch with you or your business, your consulting business?

Okay, we have a website. It's EC sportsconsulting.com and we have a phone number. It's 844-716-2020. So either way, you can get a hold of us. And we, we. Our phone number is also on the website.

Well, that's. Don, you've been a big inspiration in my life. I. I bring people on that are like, big inspirations or a lot of the relationships. I built along the way. You've opened the door for me and you're a gentleman all the way through. I can't thank you enough. And I do hope people reach out to you for sure. And thanks again. And this has been a lot of fun.

Absolutely. I enjoyed it immensely. Mike, great guy. Thank you very much.

Thanks. Don't.