The Coach's Road

This episode features David Min, Player Development Coach for the Kraken Youth Hockey Association. We speak with David about his story in hockey and coaching. This includes the impact hockey had on him coming from South Korea to North America at 5 years old. We also talk about how he got into coaching and a bit on how his experiences in the game shaped his coaching and the things he finds important. Finally we speak about the influences and mentors he has had around him and their impact on his pathway. 

This week we have our yearly reflection on our previous season. Last year Rick was with Frisk Asker and Holmen Hockey and he tells us about his experience and learnings spending time there. Derek was at Jar Idrettslag and, same as Rick, shares his experiences and learnings. Some similarities from working in the same country and culture but some differences given the two different environments! Always great to reflect back and notice the key elements of a season!

In this episode we speak for a second time with Markus Åkerblom, now the Head Coach for HC Thurgau in the Swiss League. The first time Markus joined us he was the Assistant Coach for the Swedish National Team and so we speak to him about why he sought out the challenge of coaching in Switzerland, his experience at the Olympic Games in 2022, and how he has had to adjust to the change in culture and roles with his new job. Hope everyone enjoys the conversation!

This episode is a great conversation with Espen Sæther, development consultant for the Norwegian Ice Hockey Federation. We spend time talking about his background and values, the importance of letting go a bit of control as a coach, the importance of winning and losing, and how to measure success.

This week we chat with Kalle Valiaho, the IIHF’s Development Director. We take on a global perspective and talk about how the IIHF is supporting the development of the game of hockey through work and support towards federations. It is a great chat that really shows development from a big picture!

This episode features Martin Fossli, Norway’s U16 boy’s National Team Head Coach and Head Coach of Frisk Asker U18/NTG! We talk with Martin about the impacts of his teacher education on his coaching, developing confidence as a coach, the environment in NTG and the National Team Programs. We also talk about how he is restructuring the NTG program in his first year there and implementing changes from his own ideas and from the federation!

This episode feature Sports Psychologist, Johan Fallby, from Sweden. With Johan we chat about the nuances of creating a sound and challenging environment, how self-determination is needed to make it to the top, and how how to build internal drive. Then we talk about the role of parents in the process of developing young athletes and how we can involve parents in a positive way.

This week we have a catch up episode with Derek and Rick. We chat about our starts in Norway and our new positions and the opportunities they give us. We also chat about what is important for us going into this season and what our plans for the season are. Finally we chat a bit about how we are trying to build up hockey sense in our players.

This episode is a chat with Adam Truhlar, Sport Psychologist and Author of Fearless: Rewiring the Brain of Young Athletes. In his book, Adam goes through the mental development model that starts with building the motivation of the young athlete and how to follow through to help the athlete have success throughout their career. We also talk a bit about his next book Adaptive, written for young athletes as they look to go on the path to elite performance.

Check out adamtruhlar.com to find out more about Adam, his work, and to buy his book, Fearless!

This week’s episode, we talk with Kyle Williams, the Chief Empowerment Officer for A Long Talk. A Long Talk is an organization with the goal of putting an Antiracist at every dinner table in America and to educate to end hate. With Kyle we talk about the experiences that lead to the beginnings of the organization and how we can become more antiracist in our actions. This is an important conversations inside of sports and outside of sports and we hope everyone finds the talk beneficial.

A Long Talk offers a lot of resources to help educate people to become antiracist. To check out the resources provided by Kyle check out this google doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IQIHQg-IqPDkXa5UJ5AMBktYXQ7kMXropl33qOs0Dhs/edit?usp=sharing

This week on the show we chat with Cory Schneider, Assistant Coach at Clarkson University in New York. We chat about how his pathway as a coach helped prepare him for the role he currently has with Clarkson. Specifically how he has been able to learn from some great coaches on how to scout and recruit players for your team.

SORRY WE ARE LATE!

This time on the Coach’s Road Podcast we have our first conference room breakdown with Quintin Bollue, Jar Idrettslag’s Hockey Director in Norway. These episodes will come around time to time and will just be conversations in the conference room with coworkers, coaches, and other people around Norway! Fun chat today with Q and hope everyone enjoys!

This week we chat with Dakota Keene, Coordinator of Hockey Operations with the American Hockey League (AHL). Dakota has the ambition to become a General Manager within ice hockey and we chat about that role and his plan to get there. Than we shift to talk a bit about his current role with the AHL and player safety.

In this episode we talk with Steve Thompson, USA Hockey’s Regional Manager for Goaltending Development. We chat about the requirements for goaltending, how coaches with no background in goalies can help their goalies, and how to develop goalies. We also get into ice time, bench activities and a lot of other tips for helping out goalies!

This week we celebrate our 100th episode with a special episode with Aku Nieminen and the DP19 class! Aku answers questions about his career and gives advice to the DP19s as they start their own! We have some great questions from the DP19 students about being let go, leadership, balancing family and work, skills needed, and more!

We are very grateful to have been able to make 100 episodes of The Coach’s Road Podcast. We have had so many great guests and a lot of support from our listeners and we would like to thank everyone for the support!

In this episode we speak with Reko Luojumäki, lecturer at University of Jyväskylä here in Finland. Reko shares with us his knowledge about psychobiosocial states and how they relate to sports. We talk about how functional and dysfunctional states impact performance and how they differ for each individual. We also chat about what things we can do as coaches to help athletes identify their functional states and get to optimal performance.

This week we have a reflective chat about this last season with the Junior Pelicans. We chat about what went well, what we learned, what we can improve and what our favorite memories are from the year. It is always nice to chat about the season once it is over and we hope everyone enjoys the episode!

This week we are joined Vitor Ciampolini, a PhD candidate in Physical Education. We talk with Vitor about how coaches can approach coach education opportunities to take away something for their practice. We then talk about Mille, A Coach Developer from the Brazilian Rugby Federation who Vitor shadowed. Through Mille’s story we learn about being learner-centered in our facilitation and some of the things that made Mille’s approach so powerful.

This conversation features John Riley, Player Development Coach for the Philadelphia Flyers Organization. With John we begin by exploring his path through hockey to the NHL level including his time as a math teacher. Then we talk about the holistic evaluation and how he helps players to develop but not deal with the pressure by themselves. We finish by talking about his role and how he works with athletes.

In this episode we are joined by Stig Arve Sæther, Associate Professor at Norwegian University of Science and Technology. With Stig we talk about Talent Development, a topic that is crucial in coaching and is quite complex. Stig offers some great insight into what talent really is, the difference between a static and dynamic view of talent, why there is some misconceptions about talent. We also talk about why it is important to understand how our athletes view talent and how that relates to Dweck’s work on mindset.

This week we are joined by Dr. Lea-Cathrin Dohme from Cardiff Metropolitan University. With Dr. Dohme we discuss the development of Psychological Skills and Characteristics in young athletes. The conversation touches on the distinction between skills and characteristics, identifying athlete needs, roles and expectations for coaches, and the impact we can have as coaches.

This week we have a simulcast with the hosts of The Sound of Coaching (Valmentajan Äänellä) Henna Tanhuanpää and Nea Sunila. We have a conversation about our thoughts on coach education, coaching philosophies and learning in coaching. It was great to get to know more about Henna and Nea and what they do and how they think!

This week we are joined by Dr. François Rodrigue, A Coaching Performance Advisor in Ottawa. With Coach Frank we talk about reflective practice and how engaging in reflection can help coaches connect the science and art of coaching! Coach Frank provides some easy to use tools for reflection and some good advice for deepening reflection and making sure you are utilizing the information you consume.

This week we talk with Dr. Kirsi Hämäläinen, Principle Lecturer at Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences and Vice President of ICCE Europe. During her time with the Finnish Olympic Committee, Dr. Hämäläinen was tasked with created a coach development network and that is what we talk about today. The process of building the network, critical pieces to a network, and how we can build up our personal networks are all discussed on this episode!

This week we are joined by Dr. Jennifer Turnnidge from Queen’s University in Canada to talk about transformational leadership and coaching. We talk about transformational leadership behaviors and how we can become more transformational. Then we talk about how we get people accustomed to transformational behaviors and how much of our coaching is transformational and what balance should be struck in the full range leadership model.

This week we welcome on Dr. Erin Kraft, from Queens University in Canada. With Dr. Kraft we talk about Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in sport. We talk specifically about the Alberta Women in Sport Leadership Impact Program and the impact that had. We also talk about the importance of representation, the importance in championing and believing in women’s and other marginalized groups ability to take on leadership positions in sport, and the importance of treating people with respect and acknowledging mistakes as growth!

This week we welcome back on Mika Saarinen, Senior Lecturer in the Degree Program of Sports Coaching and Management. With Mika we talk about his teacher studies, coach education, reflection for students and what learning looks like. Then we talk about how he builds relationships with the students and what is role in the degree program is.

This week we welcome back on Vetle Dalberg to continue our conversation about The Polar Bear Model in Norway and specifically about their Coach Development Model. We get into what their coach education includes, how they support coaches taking theory into practice, how they create a safe environment for the coaches, and finally how they support the informal learning of their coaches.

This week we bring back some students from the Degree Program in Sport Coaching and Management. Joining us are Aku Hannula, Karolina Nowakowska, and Ruben Rampazzo, three DP19 students in their second year of the program. Similar to the first student episode we talk about their takeaways from the program, their favorite memories and their ideas for developing the program. We also get into some specific things from their DP19 class.

A bit more about each of our guests:

Karolina Nowakowska, BBA Graduate, working in hockey business operations and as a social media coordinator for a local U20 hockey team.

Aku Hannula, originally from Villähde, Currently living in Lahti, 23 years old, currently coaching in Pelicans U16 Akatemia as a head coach.

Ruben Rampazzo, a Student, Coach, & Founder.

This week we talk with Dr. Larry Lauer, a Mental Skills Specialist with the USTA Player Development Inc. Larry developed the Tough and Clean Hockey Program and thats exactly what we explore today! We expand on his presentation from the conference in December and then throw him some scenarios and ask for his advice on how to handle them.

This week we close out our series with AJ Woodburn by reacting to each others interviews and reflecting on the bits we were struck by. It was great to have this series with AJ and it was great to listen to each others stories! Thanks to AJ for the time!

This week it is Rick’s interview with Prof. Andrea Joy Woodburn from the Université Laval in Quebec, Canada. AJ asks us some interesting questions getting us to reflect on our journey as young coaches and young coach developers and what is next for us!

This week we welcome on Jonny McMurtry, founder of Coaching the Coaches. With Jonny we talk about his recent research investigating the personal strivings of elite 17-20 year old Rugby Union athletes. We start by talking about what strivings are, how we can find out what our athletes’ strivings are and how we can utilize that knowledge in our coaching!

This week Rick and Derek preview the conference now that all the speakers (besides the coach’s road speakers) have been confirmed. We talk about what excites about what speaker and each day and we also cover the topics each speaker will speak about. If there is anything you’re excited to hear about in the conference let us know by email thecoachsroad@gmail.com

This week we chat with Gordon MacLelland, Founder of Working with Parents in Sport based out of the UK. With Gordon we chat about what makes good sports parents and how we as coaches can help support parents and engage them positively in their child’s experience in sport. We also talk about how to take the pressure off of young athletes and how we can create parent engagement workshops.

This week we talk with Jukka Tiikkaja, COO of Vierumäki. Jukka has formerly been with the Degree Program we are studying in from the beginning in 2001 until 2017 with a small break to work with the IIHF Asia Office. With his background with the program we talk about the evolution of the program over the years. In turn we talk about creating good learning environments for coaches through the analogy of the Coach-Athlete relationship. Hope everyone enjoys!