On today’s SHORT SHIFTS episode, Vechs wants to talk about the things that kids can do at home to work on creativity, skills, mindset, and having fun. It’s a walk down memory lane for the guys to Toph’s basement and Vechs’ garage!
TEN MINUTES ON THE CLOCK STARTING NOW!
We appreciate every listen, download, comment, rating and share on your social sites!
[Music] What's up everybody, I'm Jeffrey J. Levesquio, another episode of Shortshifts here, 10 minutes on the old clock. The old clock in Stein. Tofe has no idea, that's not word, no idea what my question is. I've been excited all day to ask him this question because I did this sometimes with him when I would visit from out of town during holidays. Tofe, I want to talk about, because this is one of my most fond memories and I just love this about hockey, I love it, I miss it so much. I wish I had this at my house now, I don't, I have no room. I want to talk about some different things you did alone, sometimes probably with your buddies in the basement. You got a net, because some people it's a garage, it was my garage, it was your basement in Chicago. What are the things that you did? Working on creativity, working on your skills, it's you, a couple pucks, and the net? What are some things that kids can be doing, some thought processes, some drills, like mindset, all these different things, having fun, being creative, outside the box, inside the box, all over the box. When it's just you or you in a buddy, and the net, and some pucks, what did you do to get better? Okay, so first of all, dear listeners, Vex was so excited to talk about this today. I want to get in the garage, you can go back, dude, I used to put on Rocky, I put on the Rocky Force out here, I'd close the garage, I'd make my parents pull their cars out, I had a hundred pucks and I'd make all these games with myself, I'd make rules up, I'd pretend I'm so and so, it was such a fun time, dude, I missed that stuff. What are some things you did to get kids listening or parents some ideas here? Yeah, that's really good. I was wondering what the topic was, because you were like, dude, dude, I can't wait for a short. Well, it's like, you know, like back in the day, and it's a lot better now. A hundred percent here. Well, it's a lot better now with all these new Bower has all these cool instruments. They've got, they've got shooting timers and they've got, you know, the all this stuff and the under the stick and we didn't have any of that. It's like what we're doing. So I think there's a couple different ways to go with this. One is kind of like with your buddies, just like do competitions. So like a couple things. First of all, not the competition. Remember, obviously, Danny Richmond, friend of ours ended up playing in the NHL. So we would do, we would get like the old camcorder out. And when we were younger, like nine, ten, eleven years old, Don Cherry Rock 'em Sock 'em was like the thing. Everybody got the Don Cherry Rock 'em Sock video. So we would like reenact some of the stuff in the videos and like create our own. So like Stevie Eiserman, COVID, and like one person would like be filming and like being Don Cherry talking like Don Cherry and the other guy would be like actually doing the plays, right? With the pass. Yeah. Yarmy Yeager. Just been pronounced in all the Euro's names. So like that was fun, right? That was a lot of fun. One thing that, again, with like buddies and stuff like playing games to five, two on two or somebody, we always had like goalie gear, just like the street hockey goalie gear. And then after five, somebody else would put the goalie gear on and there would be another two on two and you always like switch teams. And so like having little fun competitions like that, whether it was one on one or two on two, depending on, you know, the people that were in there. So that was always a lot of fun just being able to do that. We had an unfinished basement too at one of my houses. So we put the roller blades on and even do like, it wasn't a big space, but it was like enough where you could move a little bit, but smaller games. There you go. Learn those skills. Thank you very much. And then one thing that I actually used to do if I was just by myself, I would play post against myself. And I'd get like a bucket of pucks or whatever it may be down there. And it would be like player one and player two and usually it would be like, you know, Steve Eisenman versus Wayne Gretzky or Jamie Ronan versus Marlon Mew, you know. And, you know, one person would go and then the other person would go and I would literally play post against myself, left post, crossbar, right post, right post, crossbar, left post. I had a pretty accurate shot from in tight guys. That's why, like it wasn't anything I did on the ice. It wasn't anything, you know, any that any coach, like, taught me to do it was me having fun with myself in the basement shooting playing a competition. I found a way to have a competition against myself. That's how much I loved to compete. And, and like so that was one thing that I really remember in doing that too I would do little in tight scoring stuff, you know, but again it was always a competition. And always, even if it was not somebody there always trying to do something like that so allow myself to introduce myself myself. Yeah, dude, I would do the same thing I would, I would always finish to I beg okay I gotta I gotta go 10 low blocker off the post and or else I can't go inside. I get three, I missed four start back at one, one, two, three, hit five, six misses, okay, there were times right there. Yeah, check my elite prospects you see how many goals I scored a lot of goals. I was a meet, I could score and it was because my shot was gross. And literally so like if I didn't go 10 in a row. There were times I'd be out there in extra hour and extra 90 minutes. I can say that's nine and I miss nine and I miss and I just kept doing it over and over and over. I would have checked this. Yeah fact check it bro check my elite prospects I don't know if you hear this the guys in my gym will laugh about this I don't know if they even list the show but I tell them all the time 19 goals sophomore year college get off me. Get off me. Back then yeah almost all of them I didn't really I didn't play on the power play in front of the net like an idiot stupid back then I didn't do that until I was in pro. But yeah I would do things like that I'd be rollerblading you know I'd bring the kitchen TV out and now kids have iPads and phones and I'd be watching a game over here while I'm while I'm shooting and playing. You know like like to set I do one on one with my buddies, one guy's a goalie one guy's a player you play one on one see how many goals you score then you switch the other guys a goalie see who can get more goals. You know we create trophies we could make up our own games. I won the spam bar. I won the Stanley Cup a lot in my basement. Seriously I won the family cup a lot. And I think that's like honestly like, oh man I hate to be like that old guy kind of sitting in the chair talking about the old days but like you've got to use your imagination. The more the more I get older and now I have kids, the more that I see the value and having an imagination right because like kids are always in front of the screen and it's always a one way conversation where the screen is just giving you stimulation information whatever as opposed to you know using your imagination I had this conversation not with our grandma but my other grandma years ago like the value of radio. So they would sit around you know and listen to stories on the radio wasn't TV so it was something that you were getting you know you were hearing stuff from the radio and then you imagined what it would look like. You know in in your head and that's different for every single person that's listening and what that's going to look like. And so like it was such a great time in the basement to use your imagination put yourself you know in a situation where you are on a breakaway to win the Stanley Cup. Hey if I hit crossbar here. You know when the Stanley Cup for the first time in 40 years type stuff. And if you don't date on the city of Chicago is going to hate you. And then I just read you it again until I hit until you win a hundred percent. Yeah. And again it could be an hour but I'm not in the city of Chicago down. And then the other thing too. God this is you I'm excited. Which dude and I tell I put the city of Chicago. That's great. Yeah. And then the other thing too I'm so glad you brought this up I'm. That was a good thing to say it's really good. Like the amount of hockey that I played in the basement with my dad. You know, and like looking back on the fond memories of that and and we've kind of jokingly said this on the podcast but like, if you want if you're a parent, and you want your kid your goal is for your kid to play in the NHL. Right. However nefarious that goal is. I bet you that the amount of time that you play hockey unstructured and fun in the basement with your kid is going to be a huge determining factor in that. A huge determining factor of that. Like that's where we that's where first of all you bond right father son mother daughter mother son father daughter. I think I just got those all correct either way. But like that's where like it's the unstructured stuff that you learn and you build the love for the game and you build that relationship with your kid and man I yeah I bet you there's a correlation. I bet you there's a correlation. Like if you asked NHL players, you know, if they played in the basement or if they played knee hockey with their parents, I'm going to imagine that a vast majority a vast vast majority did. So this goal is to our podcast with Rucker and Jimmy McGarty, you know, Rutt's a first round pick. And and and Jimmy, you know, he he's a GM in the USHL. And go hard in the best possible. Yeah, but they talked a lot about that on our podcast right like they talked about that stuff in the basement so great topic Jeffrey. Get there, get in the garage, get in the basement, have some fun, get creative, bring your friends, bring your dad, put the city on your back and enjoy getting better. All right show the show, share it. [Music]
