Ok, a bit of a break from just a hockey blog during the nasty part of the winter…..

“Hello, I am Jim Nantz, and welcome to Butler Cabin“………’and that is where I get so relaxed, I soil myself……’. That is a line my buddy tells me every time the opening broadcast of the Masters Golf Tournament from Augusta Georgia kicks off in early April. It refers to the silky, sedating voice of the legendary CBS broadcaster, Jim Nantz and his opening from the legendary wood panelled, fire burning comfort den that is called Butlers Cabin on the grounds of Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta Georgia.
What does this have to do with Super Bowl weekend and Hockey?  Well here goes…..

Hockey and golf are tied together. Most hockey people love golf so bear with me….Almost all of the guys I played with are big time golfers and I know the current players are still really into it.
This weekend is arguably one of the hardest weekends to deal with in the winter. Why? Well football comes to an end and then we wait for Hockey Playoffs and try to get by with March Madness. Spring training is only about a week away but sometimes that makes it worst, getting pictures of the baseball guys down in Clearwater stretching…… It makes for a long couple of months…..
I find it amazing how fast the time from Thanskgiving to New Years goes compared to how slow the same amount of time goes from the Super Bowl to the Masters…….brutal…..
Now back to the relationship between golf and hockey.
My golf pro growing up in Peterborough, Ontario told me  as a young golfer and hockey player, face to face, that the guy who invented hockey made the season in the winter so he could golf in the summer season. There you go!!! No further proof needed. Have you ever seen hockey players golf?? No joke. I got to see my buddy Dan Quinn play Mario Lemieux and it was unreal seeing how good these guys can play. Find a charity golf event in the summer and I am sure one of the hockey guys will be there!!!
So it got me thinking about both sports.
This time of year, suddenly the commercials for the Masters start to run and it gives you some kind of comfort that spring may not be too far away. But this has been a tough winter and we have a ways to go so back to Augusta dreaming…..

I was fortunate enough to go to the practice rounds at the Masters for about 5 straight years. There is no place in the world like Augusta National. If you get a chance to go, do it…..It is kind of a tough town but the course is beyond your wildest dreams. I have never seen anything as beautiful in my life!  You can walk the hallowed grounds of Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and then walk about 200 yards down the street and see John Daly selling merchandise out of his RV in the parking lot of Hooters!!!! There is nothing like it!
One night we actually met the James Brown on James Brown Boulevard where he is from!
Only at the Masters!!!
Now then, enough of the dreaming. Back to waiting for hockey playoffs and working hard during the winter!!!!!

But always remember. Sometimes in a hockey season, it is natural to dream of warmer times…..

If you ever need to relax from the winter stress or are just constipated, remember…..
“Hello, I am Jim Nantz, and welcome to Butler Cabin“………:)

Hockey Guys are Pretty Cool!!

Saw a twitter report about a great hockey guy moment. Here goes.
NHL Player Mike Rupp during warmup of a game bumped up against the glass in the corner of the end he was warming up in. It ended up knocking down a beer of a fan that had placed it on the ledge of the other side. He saw what happened, went and talked to his trainer and told the trainer to go into his wallet in his pants in the locker room and get a $20.00 bill. He signed it and said sorry, taped it around a puck and threw it to the fan who lost his beer…..
Great stuff!!!!
Not sure how many guys from the other major sports would have done that……

One of the greatest experiences I have had in hockey just happened to me this year. Specifically this past weekend.
Early this hockey season, I was approached by some people to help coach my son Caden’s mite hockey team. Initially I really did not want to do it. I am a believer in players being coached by qualified coaches, not necessarily their parents, but that is a whole other blog topic for another time.
The team was created in a new program called The Bucks County Thunder, a suburb of Philadelphia. A little ironic that I spent a season playing for the Las Vegas Thunder……Anyway, the program had trouble getting going and we started the season with only three players. I was shocked to get emailed  a master schedule that had a tab for practices, which I understood, but also a tab for games!!!! I sat back for a while and thought how we could manage to play some games and compete with only three players. Oh and by the way none of the three were a goalie….I had flashbacks to playing the Edmonton Oilers of the 1980’s and my time spent in Ottawa with the Senators as an expansion team. Not a fun time!!!!
So we set out to recruit some new little players and quickly approached some families who were around the rink and involved in some of the learn to play programs. We managed to find 7 young brave souls and ventured off to play our first game.
Once again in this early season I was shocked to find out that not only were we going to play a game at this point, it was a full ice game!!!!! I am sure that our kids, especially the first year mites, couldn’t see from one end of the ice to the other…..(again, the full ice thing versus the cross ice thing is for another blog)
Needless to say, the other team, equipped with 18 players beat us by a conservative total of 15 goals. Most of our early games the scorekeeper stopped keeping track of the other teams goals.
But here is where the magic of our great game starts to shine through.
Week by week our young players showed up to practice, games and additional three on three work. I was amazed to see how much fun they had. We made sure to keep the focus off of the games but I was really concerned the kids would eventually get down, frustrated and may lose the love for the game. They never did!!!!! Friendships started to form and new players started to join our team. I am sure this happened because of the positive attitude or our players and parents. I think we are up to about 15 players and a whole bunch that want to join us next season!!!
Our kids are mostly first year mites and they just love being out there doing drills and playing fun on ice games.
This past weekend they got to play a team of other first year kids instead of teams with mainly older kids. Their hard work and persistence paid off and they managed to win a close 3 on 3 game 8-7! The first and only official win of the season. The team then played a second game later in the afternoon against a team that beat them 14-1 early in the season. We lost a real good game only 3-1. The greatest part of this day was that the reaction wasn’t that different between the win and the close loss. The kids are now just more proud of how they played and not the win or loss.
Took me back to when I was a kid and all the great memories I had with the kids I played with. And it is funny, those memories are not tied to whether I was winning or losing at the time…..
This is why I feel strongly that the new ADM program that USA Hockey is promoting will be a great thing for hockey in the future. It is about the process of developing, not winning and losing games at this age……

A big thank you to our players, parents and especially coach John for reminding me how fun and rewarding the game of hockey can be!!!!!
(p.s. we are going to kick major butt next season…….lol)

Hey Everyone!
Just thought I’d start to communicate a bit through a weekly blog.

Over the next few months I am going to talk about some experiences I have had trying to help kids and families navigate the waters of hockey and work to get to the next level.

Our game is the best on the planet but at times it can be very confusing and overwhelming for people.
The goal of the blog will be to sort through some of it and try to keep people focused and remind them what is truly important.

There will be some pretty entertaining stories and I will share what I can concerning some players and families that have taken the journey.

I hope you enjoy!
Thanks!
Kerry Huffman
Platinum Hockey Group