The Hockey Journey Episode 2
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Hi everyone. And welcome to the hockey journey podcast. Episode number two, my hockey journey. As a player presented to you by online hockey training.com. I'm your host coach Lance pet luck. If you're new here, please make sure you subscribe so you won't miss out on any future. Before we get things rolling.
If you want to learn more about me, my hockey experiences, what I know, and more importantly, how I've been helping hockey players get really good with a stick and puck, just head on over to online hockey, training.com and gain instant access to my 10 part video series, where I'll show you everything considered my gift to you.
As I mentioned in episode number one, I'm going to do a deep dive into each one of my four hockey journeys that I've had in. I think it only makes sense that I should kick out this episode with the oldest journey I've had. And that's my hockey journey as a player. This one's going to be fun for me because I haven't thought about the years when I was a player in a long, long time.
That was a lot of beers ago. Ladies and gentlemen, I said, look back at my hockey career. I never was the best player on a team. Never led a team in scoring, but as I got older, I always seem to catch someone's eye because I kept on getting opportunities I hoped would happen, but never expected that.
There's a lot of people out there that think because you made it to the NHL, that the road traveled was easy. And now that you got there, it's really easy. Well, I'm here to tell you it's never easy. And every player that's ever played a game in the NHL would say the same thing. But wait, you might be saying to yourself for the top guys, the superstars, the game is so much easier for them.
It almost looks effortless. How these masters navigate around. Yes. It may appear like that when you watch them play, but to a man or woman, there isn't a college Olympic professional or NHL player, regardless of where they rank on the roster, who hasn't had some tough stretches, they had to go through some way more difficult than others were entire seasons were lost.
Think is Sidney Crosby when he was dealing with concussions or kind of Mick David, when he broke his collarbone in his first NHL. There's challenging patches for everyone, but that's what the fines hockey players, it's a game of getting knocked down, getting back up and going back to work. My earliest memories as a kid were running around a trailer court where we lived in Blaine, Minnesota.
Yes. I was told many times by other kids that lived elsewhere, that I was trailer trash. I never knew what that meant because I loved where we lived. My mom's sister, husband, and two kids lived there as well. So I remember playing with them and my older brother. My cousin's trailer backed up to an outdoor drive-in movie theater.
And one night we snuck around back without our parents knowing, and we watched a movie called the. I think we were five or six years old at the time. And if you've ever seen the movie, you can understand why none of us could sleep. Very good. Again for months. That's a scary movie. The first time I remember skating was that a roller rink, this wasn't roller blading.
It was escape that had two wheels at the front and two wheels at the back of the skate. I don't even know if it's a thing anymore, but back then it was like another. The big rollerskating event each year happened over labor day weekend. And it was the Jerry Lewis telethon, which raised money to search for a cure for muscular dystrophy.
Prior to the extravaganza weekend experience participants would solicit family, friends, and neighbors asking them to pledge money for how many hours a person would escape that day, depending on how many hours you skated determine what the sponsor would donate to the tele. The goal is to be at the rink, the full 24 hour telethon.
And I believe every hour you could take a 15 minute break. As I look back in that experience, I thought someone was closely monitoring all of us skaters to make sure we weren't cheating and taking longer breaks than we're allowed. I laugh now because there wasn't anyone monitoring anything, but nonetheless, I followed the rules and began knocking off our after.
I never made it the full 24 hours, but came close once or twice. I wonder if those weekends were where I first learned how to set a goal and then go chase it. The first time I recall being on hockey skates was on Sundays as a kid where we'd go to an open skate at a nearby rink with my brother cousins, uncle.
That's where you pay a couple bucks, get a pair of rental skates and go race around the rank with a bunch of other people. They'd played music. And we always seem to have the security guy yelling at us all the time to slow down. I have nothing but great feelings when I look back on that time. But why I remember those Sunday skates was because one afternoon, when we were at the rink, my uncle came out on the ice with us.
He hadn't been on skates many times before that day, lost his balance and took a hard fall where he broke his arm. To this day. I think that's why my cousins never played hockey. A few years later, my parents ended up buying a house about 10 minutes away and compared to the trailer, we lived in the house, which was modest.
It was like a mansion to my brother and I, we had our own bedrooms and unfinished basement and a backyard that was huge filled with trees to climb and all kinds of neighborhood kids to play with my best friend back then was named Brent Simmie. We used to go to his house after school most days, and I loved it because his mom would always bring home the best cookies from work.
I believe Branstad was one of my first coaches and that's where I was introduced to organized hockey back in the early nineties. The first couple of years, we only wore helmets, no master cage. We had to wear these plastic things over our mouths, I guess, to protect our Chiclets or teeth. If you haven't heard that term before, back then there weren't as many indoor rinks as there are today.
So the majority of the practices run outdoor rinks while most, if not all the games were played indoors. There's an image of my mom sitting outside of one of my practices. We're in a big poofy coat and these moon boots, if you remember, those could be the ugliest boots ever made. But my mom said they kept her feet warm.
So that's all the. I think we're in the house for two or three years. And then all of a sudden, my brother and I's lives were completely turned upside down. As we found out, our parents were splitting up and getting them. My mom packed us kids up and we moved across town to my grandparents' house where our new life began.
I'm not going to lie to you. That was a tough time, but I'm truly grateful to my grandparents, John, and Zaida who unfortunately, no longer with us, shout out to grandma and grandpa. You were the best. And my uncle Todd, who is still living there at the time when we moved in, there was a major transition going on.
And those three individuals, as well as my other aunts and uncles gave us nothing but love and support during that difficult. And that's what gave my mom a chance to one day have a place of our own. Again, one thing that happens when you have to move to a new location, you now have zero friends and have to start all over again.
I was lucky that we made the shift once school was over. So I had the summer to hopefully find a couple of buddies. So I wouldn't feel like such an outsider. One school began. Well, I don't know if it was a higher power at work or just blind luck, but the first person I met ended up being one of the closest people I have in my life today.
And that's my buddy, Chris Hanson, I'll have an episode on him down the road as he had a hockey journey as well. And then some, I love the guy, his family took me in and really helped out my mom. She was working two jobs at the time, so we eventually could get her own place. So she wasn't home much to bring my brother and I to our practice.
For me, Chris's parents became my guardian angels and he and I made a connection that has, and will last the lifetime. Why this is so special and unique is that Chris and I weren't on the same team that season, that first year Chris's dad was an assistant coach on the PBA team, which I made Chris was on a beat team.
Chris's dad or mom would pick me up for most of my practices and games that year. Sheila became my second mom and took me in, like I was one of her own amazing. My mom was always a game time decision if she made it to the rink or not that year, but that doesn't bother me at all because I knew her being away or missing a game or two was only because she was working so we could play our sports.
I can't remember exactly if it was my first winter season or second one, but we had a really good team that year. We made it all the way to the Minnesota PVA state championship game, but ended up losing and took second. The worst part of that experience was that we had a five to six hour drive home after to think about what just happened.
I remember that car ride taking forever. Another important time in my adolescence was when my mom met someone pretty special, who she eventually ended up marrying. And that's my dad, Larry not easy taking on a couple of rebellious teenage boys, but he jumped in with both feet. My mom, brother, and I had been living in an apartment for a couple of years.
Then they got married, bought a house and the new family was. The house was right across the street from a park that had an outdoor rink, a basketball and tennis court, as well as a few baseball diamonds. It was kid heaven to me in those days. There weren't spring and summer AAA teams traveling all over north America, competing in weekend tournaments.
When the winter season was over, the hockey valve was turned off and we played other sports early in my childhood. I also had some Springs, summers and falls playing organized. Baseball football and a little tennis, but I think by the age of 12 or 13, I dropped all the other organized sports and just played hockey.
I didn't give up the sports altogether. I just stopped playing on teams and got my other sport reps with friends, playing tennis, basketball. And once in a while, we'd organize a big baseball game. But most of the time I spent at that part was during the winter skating on that outdoor rink or playing boot hockey.
Anytime I had a free moment, I was over on that. As I reflect back on my early to mid teenage years, I don't remember ever dreaming of playing college or professional hockey. It was just what I deal with my buddies in the winter, the same way I felt about playing soccer, baseball. There wasn't an ignition where I said, okay, I want to try to get to the top and hockey.
I had never been to a live NHL or college game. Those people that seems so different than me, I guess, is what I thought at the time when a lot of younger listeners probably don't remember, but in those days there weren't cell phones, nobody ever heard of the word internet. And if you didn't see the ESPN highlights of the night, you'd never witnessed the amazing plays that happened in hockey on a nightly basis.
Hockey wasn't a sport that got much national TV coverage in those. So, if you weren't exposed to people connected to your passion to get inspired, to work toward being that someone and accomplishing something you didn't even know existed, it's tough to succeed. That's where the power of the people you come in contact with really helped shape you into the person that you'll eventually become.
My first memory of someone really affected me in a positive way with what they said to me in hockey was a guy named Ken Yankel. He had a week long hockey camp at new hope arena, a few miles away from where my grandparent's house was that I attended a year or two after my parents party. Shout out to the new hope arena boys.
Mr. Corbett, Don, Matt and Scott. You guys have always looked after me and my boys much appreciated your generosity has never gone unnoticed. Like most hockey schools. There were several coaches on the ice giving instruction and having conversations with players the first few days. But what was weird to me is that I never seem to be part of any of those conversations.
I'm like, am I invisible? It seemed like the player that would be doing the drill before me would always get the coach to speak to him after. And I was always going when no one was watching. Then on the fourth day, everything changed for me. We finished the practice and I was the player that day who had to put all the pucks in a bucket before the Zamboni got on the ice, all the players in the camp and skated off except.
As I was putting the last few pucks in the bucket, Kenny Akhil, the head guy of the camp, skated over to me and said, I just want you to know you're the best backward skater in this camp. And he skated away. He didn't even give me a chance to thank him. He just skated away and let me absorb. I put the last few pucks in the bucket, put the bucket on the bench, went into the locker room and just sat there, speechless staring at the ceiling, replaying the sentence over and over in my head.
What coach has said to me from that point on backward skating meant more to me than anything. I didn't know if I'd ever see coach jaqual again, once the camp was over, but I knew that if I did see him again, or he saw me play for some odd. I wanted him to be proud of me. I never did see him again. And he is no longer with us, but your words, Mr.
Yacko changed my trajectory and I will forever be grateful to you for the sentence you uttered to me so many years ago, the next few years of hockey were a bit of a blur for me, but the one thing that sticks out during that time was my first experience with the injury. A few weeks before school ended, I was playing spring baseball where I was a catcher and I started to have really bad knee pain after a week or two.
My mom brought me to the doctor, whereas diagnosed with Osgood Slaughter's disease. It sounds way worse than it is, but happens with growing adolescents with all experienced needs. If you play sports, you'll have an increased risk for this condition, which typically happens during rapid growth spurts back then doctors would put kids in full leg casts from the groin all the way down to the ankle.
It was a soft cast Velcroed on. So at least I was lucky I could take it off to shower, take a bath. I spent most of that summer biking around with one leg, not being able to participate in much of anything. I ended up not playing my last year of Bannon's and moved up to the high school level and played that year on the JBS.
It wasn't a great experience. So I had an opportunity to enroll in another nearby high school, Robbinsdale Cooper, senior high school to be exact. And I made the switch. My uncle Todd was in the assistant coach on the Cooper football team and convinced me to try out. I only played a couple of years of football when I was a kid, so I didn't want to, but his persistence got to me and I agreed to try it first.
I asked him what position I'd play. And he said, quarterback, I said, there's no way I couldn't do that. The quarterback is one of the smartest guys in the field with poise and vision. I had none of that because I had no real experience with the sport. He told me that he and another coach would work with me all summer, teaching me everything I needed.
And that's exactly what happened. Work with them all summer made the JV team ended up eventually being the starter and the following year. It became the starter on the varsity squad. I wasn't very good. And the only reason this experiment worked was because I was hidden and out shined every game by some amazing football players and coaches.
Thank you, uncle Todd and Joel Harmon for that summer. I'll never forget that time with you guys. Once that first high school football season ended, I jumped right into hockey. I had never met the head coach, Ken staples before, but heard from people that he was old school and intimidating. He was a former pro baseball player with beat up hands and a bit of a raspy voice.
I was so excited once hockey started because I was so sick of getting hit as a quarterback, I was ready to start doing the hitting for a change. Once checking started at peewees back then, I always liked that part of the game. I must've been pretty good at it because I always remember parents from the other team yelling at me fast forward to my first hockey trout.
I already had a knack for the physical side of the game. And I had been getting the crap pounded out of me on the football field. So it was a perfect storm. I was ready to switch roles. Hockey tryouts consisted of three to four internal scrimmages, and then one or two warmup games against another high school.
It was day one. And we were early into the scrimmage of forward. Tried to make an inside out, move on me, had his head down too long and we had a little meet and greet. It was a clean hit, but unfortunately I knocked him out. Right away. Coach staples jumped on the ice from the bench and was running over in cowboy boots, no less to attend to the injured player.
I was skating to the bench and he was going across the ice where the player was, as we passed each other out of the corner of his mouth. He said, you just made the team kid. I didn't show any emotion because of the injured player, but I was pretty excited about what he just said to me. I love those high school years, so many good people and memories.
I ended up playing three years there and was captain my last. We never made it to the state tournament, but came close once or twice. My extra hockey training in addition to team practices and games was playing in a spring league a couple of times a week, a couple of week long camp in the summer shooting pucks, outside, lifting weights, playing tennis with my buddies and running for.
My senior year was a breakthrough year. I was putting up more points than I ever had. Nothing earth shattering, but I guess I showed enough promise paired with my checking ability. I started to get a few letters in the mail from colleges that season saying that they were interested in me. I thought, okay, this might happen.
But nobody asked for me to come for a visit or offered a scholarship except one school, a few weeks after I received those four or five. Coach staples pulled me over in the hallway in between classes one day and said that one of the coaches from the university of Minnesota wants to have a meeting with both of us, my hometown team.
What? So I said that. A couple of days later, one of the gopher coaches, bill butters, who was the one that recruited all the defenseman, came to the school for a visit. So we met at the high school cafeteria had an amazing conversation. And why was it so amazing because the guy just started rattling off one good thing after another, about what he liked about my game.
And then at the end he added, and we want you to be a Minnesota golfer. That was a pretty special day. Mr. Butters said they were going to offer me a half scholarship. And I was like, where do I see. Well, not many people know, but there was one other player besides me from that recruiting class who was also on a half scholarship and his name was Peter Hankinson.
Everyone else was on a full, the cool thing that happened for both of us our senior year was that we both were named captains of the team that season a little feather in the cap for that one coach staples left me with this bit of advice before I went off to my college. In his raspy voice. He went on to say that when you get to college, there will be people.
A lot of them are young ones asking for your autograph. When this happens, have the signatures, someone can read 10 years from now. Again, I took this wisdom and added it to me. If you had a chance to see an autograph of mine back from my playing days, you should be able to read it. Unlike a lot of other players who have a bit of chicken scratch, and then the number's somewhere I always tried to make mine is legible.
Thanks coach for that tip. As I had many people over the years, thanking me for being able to actually read the signature. You were a good one, my friend, and will forever be missed. I had one more amazing opportunity that happened my senior year in the spring of 1986. There apparently was a group of players that was being put together that would compete in a tournament out east.
I believe it was in Boston. And who would be the head coach of team Minnesota, none other than legendary hockey coach herb Brooks, that team had some really talented players on it. And the coaching staff was equally as talented. Everything just clicked for those few weeks. We were together. We ended up winning the tournament in dramatic fashion.
And unlike my long car ride home, after losing the Peewee state championship game, this trip back home was one of celebration. Unfortunately, we lost two of our members way too early from that team, George Palawa that fall of 1986 and her Brooks in 2003, you both will always be. I can't leave my high school years without mentioning another close person to me.
During those days, my buddy, Jamie Howard, we played football together and hung around all the time. He didn't play hockey or sports after high school. So our time with each other became less and less. Once we went to our separate colleges, but we've always kept in touch for almost four decades. We recently reconnected and had started the discussion about meeting up somewhere.
He lives down in Florida. So I think I'll be coming to you Howie as high school graduation concluded the next chapter of my life began, and that was as a college student athlete. But before I begin, I should mention that I wasn't a very good student. I struggled to find subjects that really connected with me.
And at the time every class seems so difficult. I was a C student in high school and had to retake my entrance exam. A couple of. Working with tutors in between tests in order to finally earn a passing score, which was just the minimum, but I was eligible to play and start my college education that summer.
I spent the majority of my time on campus at the training facility. Most afternoons working on getting stronger, faster, and putting on a little weight. The strength and conditioning coach was named Jack blather wick and is a master at teaching motivating and inspiring young. Yeah. With the help of him and just seeing how the upperclassmen operated.
I thought I was working hard, but there was definitely another level I needed to get to. It was a great summer of training, but I didn't think I would get a starting spot on opening night as there were a lot of upperclassmen that had been everyday players the year before another special moment happened for me during the 1986 NHL draft Raz drafted by the Minnesota north stars in the ninth round, a hundred and 80th over.
I think when you get to the ninth round, they bring out a big wood wall to the stage that has the pictures of the remaining players in the. They bring the GM onto the stage, blindfold him with dart in hand and wherever the dart landed after the thrill, that's who you got in the ninth round, joking aside, it was a nice recognition to any player that gets drafted regardless of the round for all the work that goes into achieving that.
But before I go on, there's one guy that I have to recognize, and his name is Glen SanMar. Mr. was a guy who really went to bat for me with the Minnesota north stars. It was the one who really pushed hard to get me drafted. We'll talk a little more about him in a bit, because at that point I've never met him before, but he will reenter my life once my college careers.
I got some great advice from my academic counselor going into that first year of school. He said that the first semester is going to be an important one for me because students that struggled in high school need a strong start academically in order to stay eligible to play. This is the cover my bases.
Give me a little wiggle room. So to speak. If I had a semester down the road or a class I struggled with, I took his advice and made school and hockey. My focus for that first semester, I ended up getting all BS and one C in my class. And because of that bit of advice, it did keep me eligible when I was failing college algebra a couple of semesters later and had to drop it and retake it that summer.
So thank you, Mr. Cool and smart academic counselor. The season finally started and my goal for hockey career began, but I found myself not getting the call for the first three to four weekends, healthy scratches. What the. Now you have to understand pretty much every player playing college hockey, men, or women where the best or one of the best on the team they played on prior to starting college, I probably was top three in my high school team, but I don't know why.
For some reason I was totally fine with not playing at the start, but after the first couple of weekends I wanted. It's still took a little more time, but I finally got my chance. And from that point on, for the rest of my college career, I never was a healthy scratch again, but that didn't mean I didn't miss some games or weekends because I did do to what became more common as my career progressed, the injury bug started appearing again at the end of my freshmen season.
Again, my knees started hurting, not from a specific player hit. It just started hurting to where it became a. I had an MRI and it was determined. I needed to have arthroscopic knee surgery to repair the damage. I had the surgery at the end of the season. And after the rehab period, my knee felt normal again.
And I just got back to work my first three years as a golfer, my teammates, and I ended up making it to the final four, three. We took third, two years and lost the Harvard, the third season in overtime for the national championship. What made that loss so painful was that it was in our own backyard. The national tournament that year was in St.
Paul, Minnesota. And we had our home fans, but for whatever reason, we just couldn't prevail. It was a quiet trip back to campus that night going into my senior year, I was really excited because we had another strong team and we thought we had a good shot at getting to the final four for a fourth year. I was captain had a great summer of training and was ready to have the best season of my college career.
But 14 games into that senior year, I was retrieving the puck that just got dumped out into the neutral zone. Got it. Transitioned backwards, assessing where the next pass was going to go. Did a cross under transitioned forward. It felt the pop in my grind, which dropped me to the ice. And I was in a lot of.
I ended up having to be stretchered off the ice and just like that, my college hockey career was over my girlfriend at the time. And now my wife was a gymnast there. I got hurt in December and she blew out her knee in January. We spent a lot of that winter on crutches together, hobbling around before we move on to my professional career.
I just want to thank all the coaches at the university of Minnesota, the training staff. Doctors professors, anyone who was part of my education or hockey experience, no matter how small it might've been. And finally, of course, stubborn Herb's and all the boosters and fans, every one of you were an energy source for me all those years ago.
I know I've missed many shout outs to people who are part of my college life. But as my close friends, dad used to say, you may not remember everything someone has done for you, but you'll never forget the feeling you got from your relationship with that. I will forever cherish those memories. It was a good run throughout my college career.
Many players went on to play professional hockey. So there were always agents around. I met one my junior year by the name of Jeff Solomon. He lived in California, was in town visiting him and a couple of his clients and asked if we could meet up to that point in my career, even though I was drafted, I didn't ever think about playing professional hockey.
I never talked with anyone from the north stars. And Mr. Solomon was the first agent that ever approached. We ended up meeting for lunch. And this was another defining moment in my life. When he said these 11 words next year is going to be a big year for you. I really didn't understand what he meant by that.
So I asked him to explain it to me because obviously I wasn't comprehending any of it at that. He went on to say that he thought I could have a long professional career and eventually play in the NHL. I was like, what's happening here. At that point, I had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
So I said again, what does that mean? He went on to say that he wanted to represent me as my agent at the conclusion of my senior year and see if he can negotiate my first professional account. I was like, wow, I couldn't believe what I was hearing me. The guy who started out in the trailer park now has the opportunity to get paid, to play hockey.
I was in and Mr. Solomon became my guy since I got injured my senior year, I didn't think Minnesota was going to offer me a contract. It was three months after my injury and the doctors still couldn't figure out what was going on with me. I would rehab the groin injury, get to the point where I'd be able to try to start skating.
And that would just pop again. And I'd be back to square one. I ended up seeing a doctor that suggested surgery. He said, I think I know what it is, but the only way to be sure is to get inside and take the luck. So that's what we did. And it ended up being a sports hernia. I should've only been out five to six weeks, but it ended up being close to five months because of the setback.
There wasn't any communication between the north stars in my Miami. I had a full year of school left and I'm thinking my hockey career is over. And then one day out of the blue, Jeff called me and said, Minnesota just offered you a four-year contract that included a $60,000 signing bonus and a salary of $140,000 per season.
I think my heart skipped a beat. And then he said, I told you, I thought you could be a professional hockey player. I was on cloud nine. He said, this is a great day, Lance. And he wanted me to. He said, call your family and friends and it's time to celebrate. He'd faxed over the contract tomorrow morning.
We're at officially sign it. I called my parents, told them the news and they quickly organize the family gathering at a local eatery for that evening. I was so excited to share the news with every one of my biggest supporters. Then a few hours later, everything got turned upside down again for me, I got a call from agent and he told me that the north stars pulled the offer and the deal was off the.
Again, I think my heart skipped a beat, but it was a different feeling. And what I felt after was completely opposite. From the last time I spoke with Jeff, that was a crushing blow, a major gut shot. I had no idea what was going to be next for me. Let another pity party be. We later find out why Bobby Clark, who was the GM of Minnesota at the time, pulled the contract in 1990, the owners of the Minnesota north stars, George and Gordon Gunn petitioned the NHL for permission to relocate the team to a new location, the San Francisco bay area, because of slipping into.
The NHL said that's not going to fly and denied their request. But what the NHL did do as a compromise was to award the gun brothers and expansion franchise, the San Jose sharks. Here's how the deal was going to work. The gun brothers would be awarded a new franchise, but in order to get it, they'd have to sell the Minnesota north stars to an NHL approved.
Then there basically would be a player swap through a draft process. The north stars roster would essentially be cut in half. And that first group of players would start to populate the new San Jose team. After that process took place, there was an expansion draft that would fill the remaining roster spots with players that were claimed through another draft that were not protected from every other NHL.
We were told why the offer was pulled was because Minnesota didn't want to invest any money into a player that they would potentially lose during this transition. Didn't matter what the details of the situation were. The bottom line was what I thought was going to happen. Wasn't any. When my agent and I learned this, I had finished up with the pity party and something changed for me.
All of a sudden, my mindset shifted from being a victim to claiming what I wanted to achieve, what was something I thought was totally out of reach when I was younger. Now it became something I was going to actively pursue. I wasn't giving up yet. From my perspective, there was a small window of time to conquer this objective.
And from that point on, I had two minutes. To play one game in the NHL and get a hockey card. I suddenly remembered the person who really pushed to get me drafted in Minnesota, Glen SanMar, who is now with the Philadelphia flyers organization. So I asked my agent to reach out to him and see if there might be an opportunity with Philly.
The guy's a miracle worker because in less than 24 hours, I had the exact same contract offer. But now. I signed for $60,000 and had a four year deal making $140,000 per season for a guy that used to give plasma for 20 bucks. Occasionally in order to buy a pizza, once in a while, I thought I just hit the Jack.
Mr. Sonne Maura is no longer with us, but if he was, I'd tell him that I never forgot what he did for me and will forever be indebted because everything I have in my life as a result of my relationship with hockey, I have no idea what my existence in this world would have been. If my hockey career would have ended as a college player.
Thank you for believing in me, Glenn and giving me the opportunity to see how good I could be. This was real now. And I knew what the next four years were going to be. And the next chapter was about to begin my years as a professional hockey player. Well, that's part one of my hockey journey as a player, how it all began for me up until I signed my first professional contract and everything.
I don't think that early part of my hockey journey was overly unique. As I played with many other players growing up that also came from a divorced family, had some injuries along the way were positively influenced by several people during this process, by the words they spoke, the opportunity they provided and the belief in us that we could be successful.
In episode, number three of the hockey journey podcast. I'll tell you the story of my 13 year professional career that started with five years in the AHL before I got my first NHL game at the age of 27. I can't thank you enough for stopping by and listening. I hope you enjoyed the stories from that section of my life.
If you think there's someone in your circle of family and friends that might enjoy this episode, please share it with just one person. It would really help me in drawing this hockey committee. Again, I appreciate you being here. Don't forget to subscribe. I hope to see you back here soon and do me a favor.
Make someone close to you. Smile today. All the best. My friends.
