Jim Dowd-NHL Stanley Cup Champion

Mike Hartman, performance mindset strategist.

This is Develop the Mindset of a.

Champion with former Stanley cup champion Mike Hartman.

Hello, everyone here.

Welcome to another episode. My guest is Jim Dowd. He's a former National Hockey League player from Brick, New Jersey. So Jim has played 700 games in the National Hockey League. Was pretty amazing if you, if you look at it, but he played on 10 different teams. So he played for the New Jersey Devils, the Vancouver Canucks, the Calgary Flames, the Edmonton Oilers, the Minnesota North Stars, the Montreal Canadiens, Chicago Blackhawks, Colorado Avalanche, the Philadelphia Flyers. Jim, I'm getting tired. That is a mouthful. But he played on a lot of teams. We're going to hear Jim's story. Jim, welcome. And please share your story, your journey on how this all happened.

Well, the one good thing about what you said is I look at that. I'm a glass half full guy. So I look at it like, hey, there's a ton of people that wanted you. No. What a great ride, man. And thanks for having me on, Mike. No, I was just a kid growing up in Brick, N.J. come from a big Irish Catholic family, one of seven kids, five boys, two girls, played every sport possible. And also I wanted to back then, you know, high school sports was huge. And growing up in the Brick Hockey Club, the pros to us were the high school team. So we just wanted to be a green dragon as a kid, you know. And it's a pretty crazy story how I just played local youth hockey at Brick High School, at Brick Hockey Club. Then Brick High School was drafted by the Devils my senior year, signed a letter of intent to Lake Superior and your home state of Michigan. And as they say, the rest is history. But what a ride.

Well, you had a great career. So I, we, you know, we talk about, like, stories to develop the mindset of a champion. So your first championship was in high school hockey in 1985. 86 season, where this all started. Is this where the mindset started in high school hockey? Because, listen, I love hockey. High school hockey. You hear about high school hockey in Minnesota, a little bit of Michigan, but New Jersey, I was really never familiar with it. So this has to be a great story. And loving how you, I mean, from high school hockey to where you've been in college. Share it, please.

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Like I said, I was growing up playing hockey and baseball were my two main sports all the way through high school. My freshman year, I played soccer, hockey and baseball. But my sophomore through senior year played just hockey and baseball. And my sophomore year Broke all the records in high school hockey. And that's when I got a ton of press. And then they had this tournament, the Chicago Showcase, and it was the first time New Jersey took a team out to it. My junior year, going into my senior year in the spring, made the all star team for New Jersey, went out there, and that's where Lake State first saw me play. And then that summer was they used to have a thing called Hockey Night in Boston, which was the best tournament in North America. It was the month of August from Thursday to Sunday, the four weeks of August. And I tried out for that. Went up, made the team that was called the Mid Atlantic team. New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. So I made that team, finished in the top 10 scoring. At the time, I didn't know these guys were. But it was Jeremy Roenick, you know, Sean McKechran, Steve Hines, Marty McGinnis. I mean, the list goes on and on. And then right after that, that's when Lake State was like, wow, this kid is legit. And Lake State was the only school that talked to me. You know what I mean? Frank Anzlone, I love the guy. He built that place to a national powerhouse. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. I probably wouldn't even know you. If it weren't for Frank Anzalone and Jeff Jackson at Lake State and Jim Rock was the other assistant coach. And pretty, pretty wild. I went right from Brick High School right to Lake Superior, you know, which was unheard of. Here I am as a freshman. They brought 12 freshmen in that year because they lost a bunch of seniors. Nine of the 12 freshmen were 20 or 21 years old. I'm like, where you guys been the last three years? You know? And the other two was Dave DeVita, who had played in the North American League, and Dean Dyer, who played in a junior league out west, were the only two other kids, basically right out of high school, but they still played junior hockey. So it was amazing. I tell people all the time, kids that I coach now, one person could change your life forever. Try your best not to burn any bridges. Do the right things, and you only need one person to change your life. And for me, that was Frank Anzalone.

Isn't that the truth? It just takes being in the right place at the right time and somebody to like you. And we talk a lot about this show because we help out people, just not in hockey, but in corporate America and all walks of life. That's the purpose of the show. Is to share stories. And you do have a fabulous story. And the one thing too is Jeff Jackson. I knew him from Michigan. He was a midget coach. And next thing I know, he's coaching in university hockey. I think he went on to Notre Dame or a few other places.

So he was at Lake State, the assistant. My first three years, Frank Anselone was the head coach, Jackson the assistant, Jim Rock. And then my senior year, Anzalone went to New Market in the American League and Jeff Jackson became the head coach. And we had won a national title there. And then he won two more after I was gone. And then he goes in Notre Dame, tries to rebuild their program, they hire him and the rest is history. Actually, he's the one that started the ntdp, Jeff Jackson. And then Notre Dame picked him off. And he's had a great run there at Notre Dame for the last 10, 11 years, but what a great guy.

He's been there a while. So your college days are pretty remarkable if you look at your stats. You know, your best year you had, I think it was your third year, you had like 90 points in 45 games. That, that was a great year. So how did that happen all about? Well, you must, obviously you played on all sides of the pot. You killed penalties because you did a lot in the NHL. So I know you were a defensive player there and the power play. So share a little bit about the college experience, you know, scoring that many goals and who was your line mates and what was your mindset going into that.

So my freshman year, like I said, we went in there and we had nine freshmen that played regular and we, we won the national championship that year. Played all the time was on the power play. I didn't kill penalties my freshman year, though. I had, I think 45 points in 45 games my freshman year, which was sort of unheard of. Then my sophomore year had another good year. I think it was 58 points. We lost in the quarterfinals to, to, to Harvard. Then my junior year, that's when we got so Lake State you know better than I do because in Michigan, all the blue chip kids, recruits, they would either go to Michigan or Michigan State, you know, and then Western Ferris, Lake State, we get the second tier kids. And so my junior year, going into my senior year, we had already won that national championship where, you know, even my sophomore year, we were ranked in the top four. So we got a guy by the name of Doug Waite. He was the first ever blue chip recruit to come to Lake State. And he came there because of Frank Anzlone and the way he did things. And we knew right away we're like, holy cow, this kid's pretty good. Like, he was a freshman. So he ended up. We were on different lines because he was a center, but we killed penalties together and we were on the power play together. And he ended up getting 59 points. As a freshman, I had 92, and I think I was second in the country behind Kip Miller, who was at Michigan State. But, you know, Doug Waite was just the first Blue Trip recruit. We got there. We knew, you know, he wasn't going to be there, you know, more than two or three years. He ended up signing after his sophomore year with the Rangers. But he was great, great teammate, you know, made everybody around him better. And he's one of the main reasons why, you know, that junior year exploded for me and my senior year.

So the, the accolades you had, you were all American, first team, CCHA player of the year in 1988, NCAA championship. So there's another. There's two championships under your belt. So you knew what it took to win. I mean, at all levels, especially having the experience of winning two championships with two different levels. Now you go from high school winning a championship, and now you win one in college. Where did that experience come from?

You know what, again, like, when we grew up in Bricktown, hockey and football were the two biggest sports. Hockey was just as popular, if not more popular than. Than football. And Coach Oriyama, he took over the program. The program started in the high school, opened up in 1959, and then the hockey program started in 61, he took it over in 62. He was the head coach all the way up until three years ago.

Just.

And he was one of those other figures in a small town America, you know, like the movie Hoosiers, and everybody wanted to play for Coach Oriema, and he was all about. He was a history teacher at the high school. He took care of the kids when they came in, whether you were a regular student or an athlete, just a good human being. He was all about discipline and hard work and just doing the right things. And he knew we needed everybody on the team to be successful. And, you know, he was just. That's where it's sort of besides my family, but outside the family. That's when it really started, you know, the whole mindset and what it takes to win, and you need everybody and you treat everybody with respect. And again, he would just like. Like some of the most successful coaches I had, just do the right things. And be a good person and it's not about your. He never talked about goals and assists. I was very lucky my whole life to have great coaches like that. They didn't care about goals and assists. He taught me things, you know, about, you know, I'll never forget. You know, I had a shift where I didn't score to come close to scoring, but I back checked like amazing. And he said that's a great shift. That's just as important as scoring a goal or getting an assist. So I learned from an early age and it paid off, you know, by winning a state championship and having four years to win a state championship.

Yeah, well, coaching and confidence is everything. So then you take your career to the New Jersey Devils. You're the first New Jersey born native to play in the NHL for your home state. That was the 1991, 92. What was that like? You know, what was the feeling of playing in your hometown? You must have been a Devils fan growing up.

Yeah, actually the Devils moved to New Jersey in 1982 when I was 13 years old. So I guess before that I rooted for the Rangers because we hated the Flyers. You know, we're sort of in the middle of the state and everyone down south was Flyers fans. We hated them. So we rooted for the Rangers. Then the devils came in 82 and I was like, wow, this is great. You know, we don't have a football team, baseball, nothing to root for. So I became a Devils fan and then what is it, five years later, 1987, get drafted by them, you know, so it was pretty surreal and amazing and again, the first New Jersey native to make it to the NHL was Max Middendorf. But I'm the first New Jersey native and only to this day to be drafted by the Devils, win a Stanley, coupled them and all that. But I got to give, you know, credit to Max Middendorf for paving the way. Other guys, Dave Williams, another one, but you know, they left New Jersey their sophomore year or junior year, but they're still Jersey guys through and through. But yeah, to even hold that to this day, the first lonely New Jersey native, all that, it's, it's a great feeling, you know, my boys love it.

That must have been a great, that must have been a great feeling. In 1995 you win the Stanley cup in your, in your hometown. What did you do with the cop?

Well, the best part was we beat the Detroit Red Wings, which I'm sure that was your team growing up, right?

I was a Red Wing fan when I was young. Yeah.

No, it was great. So the cup you get it for, you know, you get it for 24 hours. It showed up at I think 6:45, 7:00am, my house. In the morning I had some family members over and very close friends. Then I took it around to a couple stores in town and then a place called Monmouth Racetrack. You know, my cousin Bernie's the head vet there. My cousin Johnny was one of the leading trainers. They have a race name, they're after my uncle Bernie there, you know, the Bernie Doubt Handicap. So they gave me a whole room for the afternoon to invite all my coaches and friends and stuff. So we took it there from noon to five. I let the public see it actually for two straight hours and. And then we had a big party there with all my ex coaches and everything, which was great. Then after that we went down to my sister's bar that they had for about 19 years or so, went there. That was great. And I'll never forget it because it was the night of, Remember Mike Tyson's first fight out of prison against McNeely? That was the night that I woke up. So we finally got back to my house at 9 o' clock and that's when the real party started. And it went right literally until 6:45 in the morning. And it was like nonstop. And then they took it away and it was like someone pulled the plug and the party was over just like that. But it was an amazing day. You know, people go crazy over that thing. It literally is by far the best trophy in all the sports. Hands down. Nothing even compares.

Well, that's great. So then you know, I know it's like New Jersey's. I know New Jersey is everything to you. Jersey is your home, you're from New Jersey. Share with me now you end up getting traded to the Vancouver Canucks. What was that like?

That was tough because, you know, being a college kid, you're in college, you know, you don't get traded and everybody talks about your first trades your toughest. So I went from, you know, my rookie year losing to you guys in the conference finals, one of the best series ever in 94, to my second year winning the cup, you know, and then getting traded to Vancouver, which was the total opposite of Jersey. They had so much talent, but Rick Lee was the head coach, great guy, you know, I liked him, but it was just a free for all there. I mean the talent on that team, it was. And I went from so a group of guys in New Jersey that if they lost one game, you know, they didn't Smile until they won again, you know, Whereas when I went to Vancouver, it was just like, you know, wide open hockey, you know, totally unstructured, you know, tons of talent. You know, it was just, it was weird too, because it was my first trade and it was. And I'm not blaming anybody, but I was terrible there. You know, I didn't have my mind right. Speaking about mindset, this is what we're talking about. You know, I sort of got kicked to the curb and it was, it was my fault. I didn't have my mind right. And I struggled that year. Yeah. So I was saying that it was, it was, I struggled that year in Vancouver. My first trade, I got traded at the December 19 deadline. You know, there's the deadline at Christmas, from the 19th to the 20th. I got traded on the 18th, you know, first trade ever as far as way as I could go. And it was just, I just had a bad year there. It was nobody else's fault but my own.

Well, then you end up. So this is, this is something that you got to think about. So you ended up on 10 different national hockey League teams. And what was the mindset after that? You must have felt every year around the trade deadline that you might be a little insecure. That or okay, here it is again, I'm going to get traded. What was the feeling playing, playing on 10 different teams? How was that?

You know what, After a while, you know, because Vancouver didn't work out, it was my fault, you know, and then I went to the Islanders. That didn't work out. I still didn't have my mind straight, you know what I mean? I lost confidence, you know, my self confidence. And then I went from the Islanders to Calgary and then that's when I was like, you know what? I got sent to the Miners, but I was like, you know what, I gotta focus somehow get back to Nancy. I had a great year in the Miners there and then. And I ended up playing a bunch of games with Calgary for Brian Sutter, and I had a great year with them. I played 50 something games, led the team in plus minus, you know, did my share of penalty killing, got on the power play a little bit, and then I still wasn't at the top of my game. And then I went to Edmonton and I got sent back to the minors again at 28 years old. And that's when my wife and I, who was a savior, we didn't have any kids yet. We were married, we were 28 years old. We had all these teams from Europe calling us. We could have went there and made great money partners. But I said, listen, hon, let's give it one more year. If we don't make it back to the NHL, we'll go to Europe. We're only 28. Play as long as we can and save some money. That's when we got into the whole holistic way of living. And I changed everything because, you know, my wife got me into it, and I went from £192 down to 182. I was quicker, stronger, faster, and lo and behold, spent the next 12 straight years without a day in the minors.

Well, that's great. Yeah, you had a good comeback. So. It was my understanding, though, when you made your comeback, it was a former New York Ranger, that really.

You were saying a former New York Ranger. What was that? When I made my call, you had.

A former New York Ranger help you out?

Yeah. Oh, you're talking when I was with Edmonton's organization, right?

Yeah, that's the rumor. He revived you.

You're talking about Harry How?

Craig McTavish.

Oh, Craig McTavish. No. So. So. So anyway, there's a former. Former Ranger before we get to Craig McTavish. But. So when I was in Edmonton's farm system in Hamilton, that's when my wife and I got into the whole holistic way of living, and I hurt my neck. So I was out for a couple months, you know, and I was sitting up in the. In the booth every game next to Harry Howell, who was a scout for the Oilers. One of the nicest guys I've ever met, and obviously one of the best Rangers ever, you know. So anyway, I have a great year there. Kept my mouth shut, worked hard, and the next year I made the Oilers, and Kevin Lowe and Craig McTavish loved me, you know what I mean? So. And. And they definitely helped me revive my career. But I love Kevin Lowe, Love McTavish, and Teddy Green was the other coach, and those guys loved me, you know what I mean? I had a great role on that team. Took all the face off, penalty kill that was on the second power play unit on a point, you know, so those guys were great. I can't say enough good things about those guys, except for they played.

Oh, that's great. So. So. So you're wearing that. I don't know if you're wearing that hat to bug me today, but I don't. This is a coincidence. I have a question for you. Yeah. 26 years ago today, I mean today. The only reason I remember that is because one of our former Teammates posted something in Facebook that I saw. So 26 years ago today, Rangers won. The Stanley Rangers beat the Devils in the third round to go to the Stanley Cup.

Yeah, man, I'm looking at that picture right now. Signed by Stefan Matteo. We actually did a charity event two years ago to help raise money from my Bantam team. He was great. But, yeah, that was my rookie year. It was one of the best series ever. The conference finals, game seven, double overtime. I mean, it's amazing that that happened how many years ago? 26 years ago today. That's incredible.

26 years ago today.

No, that was amazing. I mean, you were there too, man. That. Those. Those two teams. Unbelievable. I don't. I don't think either one of those teams would lose 10 games. The NHL these days.

Now, it was. So the cool thing is, do you know that not a lot of people could say this? There's a big picture of you hanging in the garden. You're on the ice there. Not to bring up any negativity.

I get reminded every home Ranger games because, you know, in Jersey, there's tons of Ranger fans and tons of people I grew up with are Ranger fans. You know what I mean? And I get text messages that pictures on a regular basis when the hockey season's going to.

But, hey, we got some things going on. But. So the good thing is. So the takeaway from all this is you've had a great career. You know, you never gave up. I don't know if the people heard you earlier because we had a bad connection, but you were going in and out. But one of the things you did is midway through your career, they say once you're done in the NHL, you're done. It's very hard to come back. You get sent down halfway through your career to Hamilton, and then you make it back. That's the hardest thing to do. That's a hard thing to do. Yup.

I mean, you know what? And that's where it goes back to family. And you have to have a support staff. And I said, my wife and I, we didn't have kids yet. We were married for a year or two. And we. I just said, listen, let's stick it out for one more year. And I'm a firm believer. I mean, that's when I just cut out everything, all the bs. I was so laser focused. I'm like, I'm getting. We're getting back to the NHL, meaning my wife and I, you know, and again, it worked out great. I mean, Walt Kyle was the head coach down there. Scott Houston was the gm. I got to thank those guys. They were great to me. And again, Kevin Lowe and Craig Matavish knew me from playing against them in, you know, 94 there. And they were huge. And I was just fit the role perfect, you know.

That'S so true. So you had, you know, you had that great career. You know, one thing we haven't touched on here is just a little bit of about what you're doing now. Tell us, share with us what you're doing today in your. In your life.

I got two boys, they're 16 and 19. I coach them all the way up. My oldest son actually just finished up his second year in the USHL with the Chicago Steel. He's going into Penn State for hockey this year. And then my youngest son, I just finished coaching him his second year midget, he committed to Providence in December, so he's all set. So. And he's going to be in juniors this year. So I'm still coaching in the youth organization. I'm going to coach some younger kids to help out the organization. And then my wife and I have a nutrition business we started a few years ago, you know, hence, you know, we were 28 years old, got into nutrition heavily. So if anybody would like any information, you could just shoot me an email@jimdoude.com you know, and then I'm, you know, Mikey, I'm an entrepreneur. I, you know, I get offers, you know, deals come across my desk all the time. I just try to help people put deals together and if one closes, make a few bucks here or there's, you know, but a little tied in everywhere.

Well, it's been great knowing you. I know we just did a commercial together, and we've known each other for a lot of years. That was fun bringing some of the devil guys and the Ranger guys together. I enjoyed that, and it was really great seeing you. I have a question for you, Jim. Can you talk about transitioning your career from a professional athlete to the business world?

You know what, it's quite a. It's quite a change, as you know. But you just have to surround. What I found out is you got to weed out the people that are using you, you know what I mean? And there for the wrong reasons, just to make money. I mean, hey, it's okay to make money. That's what business is there for, to make money. But you got to surround yourself with good people and again, try to do the right things all the time and don't burn any bridges. As much as you want to tell Someone to go jump in a lake, just bite your lip and suck it up and just like hockey, just keep going. I mean, you know, you're going to have your ups and downs. But the most important thing, I think is just to surround yourself with good people and try to educate yourself as best you can, whatever you're doing.

So what advice would you give to kids today out there? So you have these young athletes. I know you have two kids that play two boys that play junior hockey. One's on his way to college or both of them, right?

Yeah. Well, Jimmy's on his way to Penn State. Anthony's only a junior in high school. He just committed to Providence. But if it's any word of advice, because people ask me all the time, especially here in Jersey, is listen. For kids, just work hard, listen to your coach, teacher and have fun. And you want to be known as the hardest working player on your team and student in class and whatever team you're on, nothing matters but helping the team win. Be a good teammate and believe in yourself. Don't let anybody tell you you can't do something, you know, and you got to have thick skin, you know, but there's nothing beats hard work and a good attitude, that's for sure. And for parents out there, I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I'll tell you what I did with my two boys. I coached them all the way up. I never once talked to them in hockey. I never once talked to them in the car on the way to the hockey rink or the baseball field or whatever, unless they ask me something. Because by the time they're 14 years old, 15, they're going to tune you out so fast, you know, just, just encourage them and tell them how good they can be and how good they are, you know, and just keep it simple. But kids get away from negativity. Last thing I'll say, and probably the most important is get away from negative people. Get away from them as fast as you can, even if they're your friends. Get away from them, get new friends.

And that's so true, Jim. That's the problem. Because we have enough going on as athletes, right? Even young athletes, we have enough with our teachers at school telling us what to do. We have our parents telling us what to do about our schoolwork. We have our friends, you know, we are, you know, you have a young, your son is a teen and he has peer pressure. And the one thing is that the sports is an escape, it's a place to go, because sports Is fun. Hey, if you make it to the level where your boys are, that's great, but it's all about having fun. And people will see them. People scouts will see them if they're good enough. But at the end of the day, you said it. Let the kids play, stay off them, and let them be the game themselves instead of you trying to put so much added pressure to the kids.

Yeah, there's no need for that. You know what I mean? It's like everyone's worried about getting left behind if I don't do this, don't do that. Your kids still have, like, we live in a small little beach down here. My boys go surfing all the time. They never did spring hockey till their second year. Midget. And I'm not against spring hockey. You know, if a kid wants to go and play hockey 24 7, so be it. But when the parents drag them to the baseball field all the time with a hockey rink or, you know, it's overkill, you know, if a kid wants to do it every single day, that's different, you know, but don't worry about being left behind. Like you said, if you're good enough and you're dominating, someone's going to find you no matter where you're at. It's simple as that.

Well, look at you. I mean, you played four years of high school hockey. We're going to backtrack. We've already talked about this. So were you thinking NHL? Were you thinking college? Or what was your thought process? Because was AAA a better league, like a. AAA youth hockey in New Jersey than high school? Or.

Yeah, but. But we never. The thing was this. The thing was, Brick, we weren't a. AAA organization. You know what I mean? And. And we were just a A or an A organization, a B organization, so. And again. And then the high school hit. It's just play it because you love it. Only reason why I played scores because I love it. I didn't even know. I knew that Boston College had a team, maybe Wisconsin, but I never even thought about college hockey. I was just playing sports because you said, like you said it was an outlet, you know, it was an outlet. Baseball, football, all that was announced. It was fun to do. You know what I mean? And people get so caught up in. I truly believe a lot of parents put their kids in sports for the wrong reasons to get a scholarship. And that's not the reason you're in sports, you know, because if you look at the numbers, you could tell people to their blue in the face, they're still going to believe somebody that's telling them some, you know, BS over here. But the numbers don't lie. Just do it because you love it and be passionate about it and be a good teammate. Simple as that.

Chances are that's true. You know, sometimes, you know, people ask me, there's a lot of talented athletes out there in all sports. So let's talk about all sports. There's a lot of different talented players, but you said it out. If you outwork the person across from you in hockey or if you put in a little bit of extra time on the court field anywhere, you're going to improve in the game. So I want to take one more thing now you've taken your business because I know your nutrition business has really exploded and you work with a lot of people and you coach a lot of people. Help us on the sales side, do you apply the same methods you used in hockey with having your sales reps apply the same message to selling nutrition products?

Yeah, definitely. It's your team, that's your team. Your sales reps are your team. And you got to treat everybody. And it goes back to hockey. You know, you've been on championship teams. If your best players aren't your best players both on and off the ice, you're not going to have that much success. Same thing in the real world here, same as this. You have to, you have to coach them and teach them and tell them how good they are and constructive criticism, you know, let them know when they're doing things wrong, but explain what they're doing wrong so they can improve on that. You know, there's a difference. What's the old word here? You don't want to, you don't want to get in management mode. You don't want to be a manager. You know what I mean? That's one thing. And you don't want to, you want to inspire people, not. What's the other word? Motivation comes and goes. You know, you want to inspire people. You know, that lasts longer than motivation. People go to these motivational things. They're all fired up. Half hour after they leave, they're back to their old habits.

That's right. Because we talked about this, I've used this in my coaching practice, that I've said this a couple times on the show that in coaching, when you're working with an individual, I don't mean hockey coaching, I mean everyday coaching, you want to keep people on track as much as possible. So we say if you're going north, you're going full Speed ahead. If you're south, you're going the wrong way because you're behind the play. And if you're east and west, you're sideways. So it's always good to try to go north. And every now and then, we're going to get off track. And I'll ask you one more question for everybody relates to sales and hockey. Let's say, because you've been on. You've been through a lot of adverse. It's not true adversity, but you've been through some adversity. You know, bringing your family, going to 10 different teams, you had to go off track a lot. All of a sudden you're with a new team, then you're with a new team again. When I broke in the league, there was 21 teams. You almost played on half of the teams in the NHL. So what did you do to stay focused from going from one team to another or people in business going from one job to another? What was your mindset and your focus points?

Like I said, after the Vancouver and New York Islanders debacle, which was my own fault, nobody else's. It was. I just loved playing hockey, and I loved being on teams, and I just loved helping teams win. And again, the best was when we were going up through all this. I guess, thank God that my wife and I didn't have kids yet. You know, we had just gotten married so we could go through this together without kids. Now, if we had kids, it might have been a whole different story, you know, but you need a good support staff. And I just loved playing hockey. And when I. When I got went back to the minors, I was feeling sad for myself. And after the first month, I was like, you know what? The only way out of this is. I got it. I can't feel sorry for myself. I have to be the best player I could be here. That's the only way out. You know, and on top of us changing our lifestyle and all that, you know, it's a work in progress every day, even to this day.

You know, I'm gonna. I'm gonna conclude with this, but I think it's very important for the listeners that people say, oh, wow, Jim won three championships. Well, he must have been great. He must have been a natural. But nothing's natural. So you talked a lot about lifestyle, and it comes to many components. Like, I believe you should stretch every day. That's my belief. Doesn't necessarily fall in that order. I believe you should exercise. I believe you should do mindful things to prepare your Brain, whether it's imagery or whatever that is, or have different rituals in your life or good things that are habit forming. And I think it's important like now you are in that you kept using the word lifestyle, which I love. And we just can't have a sport career or a career in the corporate world without really having a good lifestyle. Are you on a program every day that you do for yourself? Because I know you're in good shape, you take care of yourself and you always have. Any advice you can give to us about every day. Keeping the mindfulness in your lifestyle.

Yay. I'm 51 years old and I actually, it's been what, a year maybe now that I'm truly trying to do something every. I've been actually in the morning when I get up and that's, you know, a lot of credit goes to my wife, you know, and because I went through some, some struggles mentally, you know, my whole life, you know. But over the last year and a half now it's been, you know, faith and all that kind of stuff and I'm learning as I go and I'm, I'm grinding through it, you know what I mean? Because, you know, growing up, you know, it was, it was tough and all that and it was a lot of stuff that happened. But, but you're right. Everybody that I know that's successful and at peace with themselves for the most part has some sort of routine. They get up, whether it's working out, take a walk, you know, and I'm getting better, I'm getting more structure in that sense, you know, I was doing my walks every day. Hey, would I love to get up every morning and do it first thing in the morning? 6:30, 7 o'? Clock? Yes, but sometimes it's 9 o' clock in the morning, sometimes it's 8 o', clock, sometimes it's 10. But that's okay. I do my readings in the morning. I've been doing that for almost a year now. And just minds, you know, like you just said mine to get your day going. And if you do any research on, on people that are successful successes, I'm not talking monetarily, I'm just saying your own mindset and having peace with yourself so you can get through the day, you know, and it's been amazing that it took me 50 years to almost try to figure that out.

Well, you did it.

And it's trying to myself a good people. I met you and it's been great. And like I said, it all goes back to what we talked about because this is mainly for kids, right?

Surround yourself for hockey, for everybody, for adults.

Yeah, yeah. You have kids, your own. Get away from those negative people. That's one thing. Even when I was a kid, I never liked being around negative people.

Now this is great. So we do this for kids, for families, for corporate America. So it's pretty much for everybody. And hey, Jim, it was great having you. I really appreciate this. You know, I didn't want to hamper you too bad you had that devil's hat on. So I had to say, like, What a coincidence, 20, 26 years ago today you were on the ice at Madison Square Garden and you're looking at the picture. I don't want to bring up bad memories, but it's been fun getting to know you and thanks again.

No problem. Anytime, Mike. Thanks.

Thank you.