Jimmy Slater- NHL Story

Mike Hartman, Performance Mindset Strategist. This is Develop the Mindset of a Champion with former Stanley cup champion Mike Hartman. Welcome to another episode. Today I have Jimmy Slater. Jimmy is a former National Hockey League player drafted in the first round by the Atlanta Thrashers. For you young people out there now, the Winnipeg Jets. Jimmy played close to 600 games in the National Hockey League over 10 seasons, all with the same organization. Jimmy, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you. The listeners would really love to hear your story.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Mike. You know, we go back a long ways, but yeah, my story is pretty much a small town kid with just, you know, a love for the game of hockey and, you know, just wanted to make it to the NHL, which took a lot of determination, dedication and sacrifice, which, you know, a lot of, a lot of successful people, you know, go through. But my story is I started playing hockey at the age of 6 years old. And at that time I was, I was in a city where there wasn't much hockey, especially ice rinks. So I grew up in a town called Lapeer, Michigan, which is kind of between Fleet, Flint, Michigan and Port Huron. And our closest rank was, was in Flint, Michigan. So at the age of six, I started out being a goalie and for two years I was skating out of Flint. And you know, after two years being a goalie, I decided to change my, my, my path in hockey and it became a forward and I, I played a lot of roller hockey. I think that's where a lot of my, my, my game started to grow. For the love of it, I played a lot of roller hockey with my brother, who was five years older than me, and with his friends. So I was always playing against older competition and it was good for me. I didn't really see it back then as being good because they always come home with a bloody nose or some scrapes or something. But we'll get into that a little bit later on, how it kind of formed me. But yeah, started out as a lot of roller hockey and like I said, we didn't have, you know, many rinks in Lapeer, so I had to make a decision if I wanted to continue playing hockey, you know, at a high level. And I did. So that took me down to Detroit, Michigan, and I was fortunate enough to be a part of a great program down there called the Little Caesars Program. And the coach there was Marty Corders, who, you know quite well, and that's where I first kind of met you, is playing for Little Caesars. But the Biggest thing for me, you know, driving to Detroit, you know, it was about an hour and a half drive from, from my house to any ice rink down there. So I, I definitely learned the sacrifice of, of what it took to, to get to where I wanted to go at an early age. And, you know, I may have not have seen it at the time, but looking back in hindsight, it certainly, certainly helped me, you know, just not my sacrifice, but my parents sacrifice, my family sacrifice. I come from a family of a brother and two sisters, so, you know, they had to sacrifice for me to, to play. We never grew up with, with a ton of money, but my parents always found a way for all of us kids to, to, to play the sports we wanted to and gave us the best chance to, to continue to do that as long as we could. But yeah, I pretty much grew up in a car. I, you know, eat, slept, did my homework. I know every 80s love song, really, to this day, because that's what I would fall asleep to on the way home on those late nights. And yeah, I spent a lot of time in the car. But after my, my minor hockey days, I, I was fortunate enough to, to, I guess make the jump to, to junior hockey, which back then was the North American Hockey League. And I made that jump at, at the age of 15, and that's considered an underager for that. I was playing against kids that were 20, 21 years old. And, you know, looking back in my career, that it kind of had the same effect on me as when I would play roller hockey with my brothers and his friends. Growing up, you know, I was a small kid. I had to learn different ways to play, and I think that really helped me, you know, being a younger kid and smaller kid, I had to. Definitely had to outwork my opponents and, and find little, little tricks along the way to be successful at that next level. But I spent three years in Cleveland and, you know, that's where a lot of sacrifice came in as well, a different type of sacrifice. I moved away from home when I was 15. I lived with three different families when I was down in Cleveland, Ohio, playing for the Cleveland Barons. And I went to four different high schools, so that was definitely an experience for me. But again, I knew I had to make sacrifices to get to where I wanted to go, and that was just the next step in my development. So I played three years in Cleveland for the Barrens and was fortunate enough after my senior year to get a Division 1 NCAA scholarship to Michigan State University, which was a university that I always wanted to go to and was able to play under, you know, one of the most winningest coaches in college hockey history, Ron Mason for a year, and also Rick Comeley, who are both in the Hockey hall of Fame at the college level. But I went to Michigan State as a young kid, 18 years old, true freshman again, playing against, you know, kids that were older than me. And at that time I had really grown up when I played in Cleveland. I learned how to work out, I learned how to take care of myself. I learned, I learned just a lot, a lot about myself both on and off the ice. Like I said, I grew up pretty quick. So making that transition to college came, came pretty, pretty easy to me because, you know, I've been playing against older competition my whole life. And I started finally, you know, putting weight on and growing. And I spent four years at Michigan State University earning my degree and, and was fortunate enough to get drafted after my first, my freshman year in the first round of the Atlanta Thrashers. And after my four years, I came out and went to camp in Atlanta and tried to be a NIHL hockey player. And you know, was, was fortunate enough to make the team out of camp. And back then, that was about 15 years ago. It was, that was really a tough thing to do. It was, it was an older man's game back then and not, not a lot of young kids were able to crack the lineup. And for me, that was a big achievement in my career was to go into camp, make a pretty big impression on the coaching staff and the management, and was able to play at the NHL level at 22 years old. And like I said, it was an older man's game back then. I think I was the only rookie for the first two years, so it was quite an accomplishment for myself and was able to play six years in Atlanta. And then when the team got sold and moved to Winnipeg to become the Jets, I moved up with them and played four years there to make a total of 10 years in NHL. And throughout that time played on many Team USA World Championship teams. And after my 10 years was up in the NHL, I always wanted to go to Europe to play hockey and was fortunate enough to play in Switzerland, which is in my opinion the all around best league over there. Just with, you know, the quality of hockey, the quality of life, and was able to spend four years, two years with Geneva Servette and two years with Freeberg Gautaran. And I guess the pinnacle of my career really came after my third year over there. I was chosen to represent Team USA in the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang. And you know, to be 36 years old playing in the Olympic Games really is something special. And, you know, that led me into where I am now, which is currently retired in the transition process, but doing, doing well for myself. Have two kids and a wonderful wife. And we live in East Lansing, Michigan, you know, home of Michigan State University. And I part of the player development program with the Washington Capitals and, and was doing volunteer, volunteer assistant coach with Michigan State's Barns.

Well, that Jimmy, that's such a great story. And I bring people on the, the podcast that impact people's lives. And pretty much everybody I brought on, I've known for a long time. And you said a word earlier, sacrifice. And that's what you did. And it starts way back. So I'm going to tell a story so the listeners could hear this. So we had the hockey school. I met you when you were 10 or 11 years old. And I had everybody do a drill. It was a balance drill where you kick the stick and you keep your hand straight out for balance. So all the players go down the ice and they're kicking their stick and nobody is falling or they're not really getting out of their comfort zone.

Again.

They were little kids. This was a fun development camp. We had a lot of good players. We had all different ages there. But I really wanted to teach people to have fun with the game and get out of your comfort zone. So I had everybody come back and I said, this is what I need you to do. And I demonstrated it. And I think I fell on purpose and I kicked my stick. And I said, it's okay to kick your stick, and if you fall, you're not a failure. You may have failed at that time. And I don't like to use those words around younger players, but we have to teach them. So I said, if you're not falling, you're not doing anything. So you got. You get up there. And I never met you. You're one of the smallest players in the group, and you must have fallen 40 times. You kept kicking your stick. And I looked at Marty, I looked at some of the other people we had out there, and I think Adam Graves was out there that day. Adam helped with the school. And I said, look at this kid. I said, this kid's going to be an athlete. I think Marty said, well, his dad played in the NFL. Dad played for New England and Minnesota. This kid's a. He understands what it takes to be an athlete. I say, yeah, but look at the way he's working. So that always stuck out in my mind as far as just remembering you. And you've taken this attitude from a young age all the way through, and it's just part of, you know, what you've done. But I'm sure you've had struggles along the way. Can you share some of the struggles you had even through the youth and through professional hockey?

Yeah. You know, before I get into that, I just want to tell one story, too, Mike. You know. You know, going back to those days when, you know, when I was playing for Little Caesar and you would come out to practice, you know, it was. It was, you know, a huge thing for a kid that age to have a NHL player come out, especially, you know, a guy like yourself who had won a Stanley cup and was playing for the New York Rangers. I mean, the New York Rangers. How incredible is that? So, you know, and, you know, Marty Quarters, who's my coach there at Little Caesars, who was your best or is your best friend, and used to always talk about, you know, how hard you had to work to get to that. To that level where you are. And he preached that pretty much, you know, day in and day out, every practice, every game. And, you know, you had to do the extra stuff that, you know, most guys either didn't want to do or. Or couldn't do. And, you know, that's what. That's what you did to get to the next. That next level. And I knew I was gonna have to do that if I wanted to. To. To get where you were. And so you were a big role model for me. I'm sure you maybe didn't feel like that at that time, but, you know, anytime you had something to say, I was definitely listening and taking out of it what I could get. So I appreciate you for that. You know, just going back to. Yeah, just some of the hardships. I think for me, it was. It was being a smaller player. You know, like I said, I grew up playing with my older brother and all his friends, so that really kind of toughened me up a little bit and. And had had me learn, you know, what. What I had to do to play with the older guys. You know, I. When I was playing for Little Caesars, it's. It's kind of embarrassing, but, you know, my nickname was Mouse back in the day. And, you know, when you think of a mouse thing, it's little, you know, little thing running around and kind of ugly or whatever. But that was my. That was my nickname. And it was. It was. It was really was True. I was a little kid on the ice, just kind of squirting around the ice and. But what I learned was, you know, I had. I had to outwork everybody. I wasn't going to knock the biggest guy down. I would try to knock him down, but most times I'd go up to him, I'd hit him, and I'd fall myself. But, you know, he kept getting back up, kept getting back up, kept getting back up. And then when you eventually hit that growth spurt or you caught up to the other kids, you already had that mindset of, you know, as you were a smaller kid, but you'd still go after it, go after, go after. When you finally grew up, you were not. You were then knocking the kids down because you just. You just built that over and over. So that was a big thing for me. You know, another thing was, was definitely moving away from. From home at such a young age, moving away from my friends and family, everything that I knew to, To. To Cleveland. And, you know, I. I remember telling my dad when he was driving me down there one time, like, I was going through a really hard time. I didn't want to leave my friends. And, you know, I. I pretty much told him that, you know, this is what I had to do to get to where I wanted to go. And it always kind of came back to discipline for me. And one quote that I really love, I'm a big quote guy, and I write stuff on my walls all the time on paper, but then put them up on the wall. But the one big one for me was the pain of discipline is far better than the pain of disappointment. So I wanted to always give myself the best chance, and I didn't want to look back and feel like, oh, I should have done this or I should have done that. I wanted to do it at that time. So when I did look back, you know, eventually, when I was done playing whatever level that would be at, I knew that I gave my best, my best. And, you know, whether it's, you know, discipline, it's doing what's right, you know, when it's right, and doing it that way every time. So that was a big thing for me. So those. Those are probably the two biggest hardships is leaving my family and my friends at such a young age. But, you know, I really did grow up into, you know, rather quickly. And then also just being a smaller player and learning that, you know, I still had to play the right way and do the right things. I couldn't shy away. And, you know, when I Eventually, you know, did get my girl spurt that was already built in my mindset and just kind of followed through with it.

Do you know, that's so true. And I would have loved to have you as a teammate. It probably would have been great on the same line, but I didn't kill penalties that much. But you really are everything that I love in a hockey player. And what people don't understand is, yeah, you were a first round draft pick, but the thing that I really like is you did the little thing. So somebody would say, well, what does that mean? Well, it's a. We don't have to get in all the little things. Somebody once told me, mike, you're not the biggest guy, and the weakest part of the human body is the hands. So instead of you going against Eric Lindros, who's 6 5, £240, you can't knock him off the puck. I'm barely 6 foot 190 when I played, so go for his hands. So when they say the little things, that's what we're talking about. And we talk about thinking like a champion. And that's what this is all about. It's thinking of ways to do whatever you can to outbeat that person across from you. And you did it. So tell me, did you train on inline skates? Because I have a story for you about a couple guys that played for the Winnipeg Jets. So I know you were with aau, and did you train or was that just mostly tournaments that you did?

Yeah, so that was, that was mostly tournaments. But I absolutely loved it. You know, it brought me back to my, my younger days. I said we didn't have many rinks and we, I pretty much grew up on rollerblades, playing, you know, in the streets in our driveway, which we had the worst driveway. I mean, we had bumps, cracks, everything, but we still went out there, we played, we fell, we, you know, pucks were bouncing everywhere. But, you know, we had such a great time playing roller hockey with all of our friends. And, you know, as. As hockey got more serious, I guess roller hockey kind of went to the, the back burner. And I was fortunate when I think it was my senior year in high school, I was playing with a guy, Dave Roberts, and he was part of a team out of Cleveland, roller hockey team, and they were part of the aau. And, you know, he invited me out to a tournament one time and went out and played and absolutely loved it. Brought back all those, you know, great memories. And I actually continued, you know, throughout my first two Years of college. So, I mean, very rarely do you see an NCAA, you know, Division 1 college player, you know, playing roller hockey in the summertime. But I absolutely loved it. And we went to a couple AAU national championships. Never, never won it. But, you know, we lost in overtime in the. In the final. So we. I think we got second place three, three years in a row. But I absolutely love playing roller hockey. Like I said, it was a big part of my childhood. And, you know, I still do it today. I still throw the rollerblades on and skate. But yeah, it was. It was a huge, huge part of my career. And it was a fun part of it, too.

Well, nowadays it's great because they have the skates that you could do that. So I'll just take you back a little bit. So in 1991, I played with the Winnipeg jets with Chris Draper and Keith Tkachuk, two really good players. But back then, Chris was a fourth liner with me, unfortunately, got stuck on my line. But we went to Dallas and Marty had this camp. So it was a way for us to all go for a week, have a little fun. Hockey was not even in the NHL in Dallas at that time. So I remember Chris Draper bringing on inline skates. And it was, I kid you not, it was 120 degrees. The humidity was not bearable. It was terrible. And. And Chris Draper was doing sprints after his workout. Up and down with inline skates flying up and down the pavement. Now, I tell everybody nowadays, please wear a helmet and elbow pads and knee pads when you're doing this, because you see so many injuries. But it was amazing on what he did and how he trained Chris Draper. And he ended up being. The way he played the game is the same way, always keeping his feet moving. And I mentioned this, we talked about this before, about a lot of kids from California didn't have ice. It was like $500 an hour for ice. So a lot of players trained on inline skates. So it was a great way. So I'm going to. I just want you to share a little bit about the advice you can give to, to young athletes. You're in player personnel. How do you work with a. With a young hockey player that just came out of college because you played at that level, you coached at Michigan State. How do you work with a young player drafted by the Washington Capitals? What is your role with that?

Yeah, so it's a player development role. And, you know, the role has really taken off within the last six, seven, eight years. When I came to the league And I'm sure when you came into the league, there was nothing like that with organizations, you know what, we pretty much are our consultants to these young guys. So, you know, I remember, you know, trying to make the team out of training camp there, and I was 22 years old, and it's eye opening. I mean, you walk into a locker room and you're now on a team with the guys you grew up watching and idolizing. And, you know, some of those guys. For me, you know, I think the biggest, you know, help I had was, you know, Bobby Holik, I played with Scott Melonby, Ilya Kolchak, Marion Hosa, so Slava Kozlov. I mean, you just go up and down the line of these guys and now you're in the, in the locker room and you're their teammates. So you're a little, you're a little nervous, actually, a lot nervous. And you're afraid to ask questions. You're afraid to, you know, ask that dumb question. And this player development role is, is really special because it's former, former players that have gone through, you know, the different, the different trials and tribulations that a young player may experience, and they're able to ask us anything. We work with them on the ice, skill work, we work with them, like you said before, doing the little things. What's going to make you different than the next guy standing next to you? Are you willing to do that thing that the other guy next to you isn't willing to do? You know, because at this level, if you're being drafted, everybody can skate, everybody can shoot, everybody can pass, everybody can hit. But what, what's going to, you know, separate you. So we try to find those qualities, we try to motivate them to, to, to do those things that will get them to play for the Washington Capitals or the other 30 NHL teams. So it's a, it's a big thing to be a part of a kid and, you know, you see a lot of it. You know, I, I was one of those players where, you know, I would always welcome the younger guy and try to be that consultant for them, try to be that help, try to take them under my wing to, to make them successful. But now, you know, I'm working for NHL team where, where they expect it out of you and where you need to develop these players to, to help. So, you know, with the kids these days, a lot of it has to do with self confidence and mindset, which, you know, this podcast is great for. I've heard a lot of Your past interviews, and they're, they're really good. And for me, I started when I was in Cleveland. I started working with a guy, his name was Tom Dankowski, when I was 15 years old. And he was a, he was a mental coach and just the power of positive thinking and how you, how you react to certain situations. So one of the big things that, you know, he would always say is, is the quote E + R equals O. It's one that I really try to live by. And what that means is the event plus your reaction equals the outcome. So if you have an event, whether it's good or bad, what's your reaction to it? Is it good or bad? That's, that's going to make the outcome either good or bad. So the kids these days that I've really worked with, a lot of it comes down to self confidence and how they deal with situations. Are they able to be strong enough, not just physically, but mentally, to get past them? Because you're going to go through a lot of stuff and if you wear the weight of the negativity that could go along with it, or if you're somebody that's able to move on and look at the future and the positive side of it, then you're, in my opinion, you'd be, you know, much more better off with it. So that's, that's pretty much what we do with the Washington Capitals is, you know, a lot of stuff is on ice, but most of it is that off ice. You know what they're going to experience. Because, you know, as hockey players, Mike, we all experience the same things, maybe in different ways, but, you know, you are, you are going to experience a lot of the same stuff.

That's so true. I once had a coach tell me, he said, mike, everybody takes a different path or a different route. It's not all the same. Some of it comes easier for some players than others, but we take different paths to get there. Somebody might come from junior and he's a first round draft pick and he never made it, or a player comes from college that was, that was drafted like in the second round, then they find a spot for him. And it doesn't, once I believe once you get there, the draft doesn't mean a whole lot. It's really what you do when you get there. I think they give opportunities to players that were drafted in the first few rounds, but I think it's always good to be the underdog. Like, like you've always been that underdog. And I have a question for you. Here, you ready?

Yeah, sure.

Here we go. Question is, we played for the same guy. He was the toughest coach and not afraid to speak his mind. We don't have to get into that, but he was the toughest coach I've ever played for. I was with the Colorado Avalanche at the end of my career, signed a really nice contract and ended up making the team. But I tore my stomach muscle in training camp and I ended up going to Hershey. Came back, Bob Hartley, made me the captain of the Hershey Bears. We won the Calder cup, ended up playing just in and out all year, and finally had surgery and played in a couple playoff games at the end. But tell me your experience with Bob Hartley, because he has a way of impacting a lot of people in many different ways and definitely getting the best out of you. So share Bob. Bob Hartley with me.

Well, first of all, I knew he was a Stanley cup winning coach. So, you know, coming into the NHL as a young guy, I knew that he was going to be a good, you know, a good coach for me. Little did I know he would probably give me the single, you know, biggest piece of information that I've ever received from a coach. And he was hard. He was very, very hard. You know, as players look back, it's not great when you're going through it, but when you look back, you know, he really did change my career path, definitely for the better. And the one story that I have that, that was, that was he called me into his office one day after practice and this was my second year. I had a really good first year. I was kind of struggling my second year. I came out of college as a high profile, you know, offensive guy. You know, I was a Hobie Baker candidate. I, you know, you know, thought I was going to be a, a scorer at the next level. And little did I realize that how good these other players that have been doing it a lot longer than I have were. And there was only so much room on a team for those type of players. And, you know, a team needs all different, you know, types. So he calls me into his office, you know, one day after practice, and he said, how long do you want to play in this league? I said, you know, obviously as long as I possibly can. And he said, well, if you keep going the way you're going and trying to score goals, you're going to probably play two or three years max in this league. He said, if you want to be a defensive specialist, a penalty kill guy, a face off guy, doing those things that those top Six guys don't want to do. You could have a very long career. And he talked about Guy Carbonell, how Guy Carbonault just tore up junior hockey in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. And, and you know, if he tried to go the way he was going with that, probably would have a shorter career, but he ended up playing 20 plus years captain, you know, and that really stuck with me. That really opened my eyes to, to, you know, how I had to change or adapt my game to, to make myself last at the, at the best league in the world. And Bob was always good with that. He was, he was a, he was a strange motivator, but he motivated you. I mean, it wasn't always the, you know, most positive way, but it was the truth. And I really took a lot from him. So I, I definitely know he, he was hard. He was, he was brash, but he was, he was fantastic for my development. You know, going back to we, you know, minor hockey. You know, I, I've mentioned Marty Quarters before, but he was the same way, but just in minor hockey. Like, he was a tough, honest coach. And you know, for me, I really thrived off that with the coaches. I had, you know, along, along the way. So it wasn't really anything different for me. I could handle it. And that's my story about Bob Harley.

Well, we'll conclude with this, but I think he made a really good point and I think coaches should understand this, that we're talking years ago and I can remember the coaches that impacted me. You're talking about Marty, how he impacted your life. So it's really important that our coaches understand the players. I talked to one coach we had, Greg Gilbert, who coached in Calgary. He was a teammate of mine with the New York Rangers. A really a great guy, such a good person. And he was a third, fourth line player his whole career. Played a lot of games in the National Hockey League, Won three Stanley Cups. He said, you know, the main thing that he wanted to do as a coach is communicate what well with his players. So when he coached, he made sure he communicated the way he wanted to be communicated with when he played. He talked to each player and identified their role. Not to be a robot, but to be a solid player and understand your boundaries. In fact, I think it was him or another coach said he used to teach players. He would divide the ice up in thirds and he would shade a whole area of the ice. And he said if you could win your side of the ice, you, you could play in this league. I'm almost sure it was Greg that told me that. So he really kept it simple. Not. We're not like we're going to be robots and not able to go on all sides of the ice. But he really simplified the game for us. And I think that's something that's important that coaches have to really understand. Can you give us a couple of your quotes, A couple of your quotes along the way? Because I'm a big quote guy, too. Is there something you could leave with us?

Well, yeah, I got. I mean, I think I said two of them that I really do live by, which is, you know, e plus R equals O. That's obviously, I would say my number one. Another one is, you know, the pain. The pain of discipline is far better than the pain of disappointment. And I guess my third one is tough situations don't last. Tough people do. So everyone's gonna have tough situations in their life, but I think the tough people, you know, come. Come through those.

Well, I'm going to leave us with a quote. I'm going to leave us with one. With one quote of you. It's not the size of the dog and the fight. It's the size of the fight and the dog. And people say, oh, these are old cliches. But you know what? We have a lot in common. Jimmy, thank you so much for joining us. Your determination really shows. Even since you were 11 years old, all the way through today, you never stop working hard. You could hear it in your voice. You take that same approach to the Washington Capitals, and I'm sure you're going to do the same thing, passing it down to your children. Thank you so much for being here, and it's been really enjoyable talking to you.

Perfect, Mike, Thanks. It was a lot of fun.