Hockey Coach Chris Coury

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.

This episode of Stories of Gratitude. I'm going to talk about one of my favorite all time coaches and his name is Chris Corey. Chris was the AAA coach of my midget team when I was 15 years old playing for Little Caesars in Michigan. And that was right around the time I really started to learn the game hockey. And I could not have had a better person or coach in my corner. And it was just great to play for Chris. We learned so much from Chris along the way. He would have patience, yeah, he would blow his cool like any other coach, but he really showed the love and he cared about every player. And especially when we went on trips with Chris, like we would play in Calgary and he made sure that we would all go skiing up into the mountains and Banff. That's the only time I've ever been skiing in my life, believe it or not, at that time I'm the only one that probably fell off the T bar. Don't even ask. But I was up in the mountains and I fell off the the T bar and I had to work my way down the mountain with all my buddies going up the, up the mountain. But it was such a great experience playing for Chris for so many reasons well beyond the game. He would make sure even in the summertime that he would gather everybody together. It could have been John Van Biesbrouck, who we all looked up to, who played goal at that time for the New York Rangers and college players coming back. And Chris would be out there playing with us and he might get mad at me, but the game didn't end until his team won or scored that last goal. That's how competitive he was, but in a fun way. And it was just so much fun playing for Chris. But what Kris did is if anybody was looking from the outside in, they may not realize this because they weren't involved with it. But Kris really built that culture. He made sure that all of us would come back together. Whether you were 15 years old and you're, you're playing with somebody that was Like a Craig Kales who was playing for north bay, who was 19 years old or we had players come back from Michigan, Michigan State, all these different players in the summer. And I, that's one thing I could not wait for those summers skates with Chris and even Chris would give us little tips. So if I didn't move the puck right away or if I over handled it or I'm slapping my pass or whatever it may be, Chris would say, hey, make sure you give them a hard pass. These players are good. Just by even skating with the better players was great. I remember when I got older and I started skating with Chris as well. Now I came back from Canada and we had players like Madonna and just so many great players and everybody coming together. We could have a 14 year old player out there playing with a 20 year old and everybody got along and it was a fun competitive skate. But the lesson we learned was, I think, I hope Chris remembers this, this is going back a lot of years and I, I don't want to mess up the story, but we were, we thought we were pretty good. Compuare had a really strong team that year. I think there was five or six players that ended up playing pro hockey off that team. They, I think they had Hatcher and I afraid so many different players. Mark Lavar, someone from Chicago, I think came to play for them. They had a list of really good hockey players and they were tough, they were the tough team. But we were a good second. We were a pretty good team and we thought we were really better than what we were. And we really had our eyes open on this one tournament. So we, you know, as you know in Michigan back in those days, high school hockey wasn't very good. So we're looking at high school hockey as okay, it's, it's good hockey, but it's not triple A hockey. So here we are, we're going to this tournament to start the year off in Boston, in Rhode Island. We started in Boston because Chris always believed in not only the bringing us together as a team, but also educating us a little bit about the city as well. So we got to see Boston for the first time and had clam chowder soup. Never forget these times. And then we played in Rhode island and we were ready to play our first game and we, we're in the dressing room, we think we're pretty good, you know, we're Little Caesars, right? We're gonna, we could play anybody. And we get out there and we, we had our, we had it handed to us. We got destroyed. We didn't know who we were playing and, and we were 15 years old playing a high school team. So you have to remember these. We had a couple 16 year olds on our team, but if looking back, we played against 17 and 18 year olds. But they weren't just your typical 17 and 18 year old. It had to been a combination of Mount St. Charles and Acton Boxborough players together. They had Tom Barrasso in goal who could shoot the puck and be like a. He's like. It was really like an extra defenseman out there, like having an extra player on the ice. They had Clark Donatell, I think Brian Lott was out there. A whole list of these great players that ended up being very good college players and even very good National Hockey League players. And like I said, we got beat pretty good. And I think Chris knew going into this tournament to wake us up to, to level us. And it was something that, that I'll never forget because I ended up playing with Tom Barrasso and I was joking with him once I said, I played against you and I think you had three assists that night, you know, as a goalie. So it was something we learned. I think I almost want to believe I've never talked to Chris about this. I think he was teaching us a lesson to never get too high, never get too low, stay balanced, is a player and just really love Chris. I talk to him every now and then. He means a lot to me. I'm not afraid to say it because we have to be real. I was a real gullible, uneducated hockey player at that time. I played for Compuare the year before, but the next level seemed to be a pretty big jump for me. If it wasn't for Chris, I never would have gone on in hockey. There was no way. He took the time with, with me, spent time with me and I. He may not remember this. If he does listen to this funny story. Is grew up in Oak park, which some people know is an area. It's a Jewish community and they have Jewish delis. And I remember taking Chris for a sandwich and I said, chris, we're going to have a corned beef sandwich. And I ordered it and I go corned beef, lean and dry. So I ate the corned beef lean and dry and Chris had lunch with me. But the funny thing was we had a rare skate. We were. Sometimes we were skating in St. Clair Shores. We had the ice out there and I asked Chris, I said, Chris, you know, I'm hungry. He goes, well, where do you want to go? I said, let's go to a deli. And I said, you know, I want a good sandwich. He goes, well, there's not a, there are delis out here. But I said, I'm just looking for a good corned beef sandwich, lean and dry. And he laughed. He says, you're not going to have that lean and dry corned beef out here in St. Clair Shores. So some people may get this little thing I'm throwing out there, but in some may not. But anyways, it was all good, you know, just really enjoyed Chris Corey. We need more people, more coaches like him. And I'm, I'm grateful to have Chris as a coach and as a friend. He would not only he would take us to hockey games, he would educate us. He would, he was really good to us and he made the game fun. And even going back then when, you know, times were a little different back then, you know, there was a lot of screaming and yelling and Chris really had the patience and you know, just the ability to relate to everybody. Didn't matter who you were. He treated everybody the same and he cared about everybody and yes, complete, very competitive, but at the same time one of the most friendliest, nicest people I've ever met as a coach who cared and loved his players. And as you could see here, I'm speaking from the heart. I can't say enough good things about him. And I just thought that I really wanted to share this story of gratitude about Chris Corey. And Chris, if you ever get to listen to this, I miss you. I don't get to see you much being in Charlotte, North Carolina. I haven't been to Michigan in about 13 or 14 years. But if I do get there, I definitely would love to to see you, have a coffee with you, even a corned beef sandwich, lean and dry. But anyways, it was fantastic plane for you and I just thought I'd throw this out when the stories of gratitude and we're going to be having more and more stories. I have, like I said, several different people coming on the show sharing their stories of gratitude, from professional athletes to professionals in the workplace and looking forward to sharing these with you. If you need our help, go to the healthymindsetapp.com not www. It's healthymindsetapp.com and if you want to go on Amazon, our book is there called the Workbook for the Athlete and the Workplace athlete. Until then, have a great day and looking forward next time.

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