1st Round NHL Draft Pick, Olympian, and Great Person – What It Takes

0:00So what what role I guess what was the driver in making that decision and what role has that played for you as a hockey player I I understand like it kind of impacted you know your experience in the in the world juniors so if you can kind of share a little bit about that that'd be great yeah no I think it all kind of like originally started at Michigan my second year like towards the end Owen PO is my best friend there and you know he was Christian and I didn't we didn't really talk talk about it much I honestly didn't really know and then one day we just kind of got like in a deep talk like talking about life and stuff and and he was like oh you want to come to Bible study with me so I went with him and you know from there I kind of just I don't know I feel like it always made sense to me that there was thought but it was something I never really put any thought into

0:50And and yeah so from there it just kind of grew little by little and you know I had my times where I kind of forgot about it and didn't really you know do much or wasn't really trying to learn or or anything like that but yeah like I had an experience where I really feel like you know God was speaking to me during the World Juniors and and then another like I feel like when I got hurt and I feel like you know when I got hurt it was a really like the time for me to be like okay I got to take this seriously and and actually learn like I had never really read the Bible or didn't really know too much of what it's about other than just kind of you know being a Believer I guess but so yeah I really I feel like really dove into my faith when I got hurt and I feel like it's you know change my life for the better it's been the best decision I've made and yeah obviously you know there's still there's still struggles and it's not like it's some some

1:38Magical thing that makes my life perfect or anything but I definitely think it it's the way it's the truth and yeah I just I really feel great about it and yeah excited to kind of keep growing my faith yeah yeah I give you a lot of credit congratulations yeah 21 years old it it's a tough thing to do especially being in the NHL I'm sure so I give you give you a lot of credit for that and you know the way you won the Juniors for for Team Canada in overtime you know it seems like maybe God had a hand in that as well so that was a pretty impressive pretty impressive accomplishment there where do you where

2:26Do you see yourself in five 10 years from now have you got that Vision yeah I mean I think hopefully you know being a star in the league and and you know more importantly just how I am as a person as well like dealing with all that and yeah hopefully making a big impact and just being a great guy in the community and whatnot the team I'm in hopefully it's still Columbus and everything's going great great in Columbus so yeah definitely that would be how I see myself and obviously at that point you know probably maybe starting a family or whatnot or have family and some kids so that would be a pretty cool thing too yeah I was hoping he'd be in Chicago by then but we'll settle for Columbus we'll watch your games when you come to Chicago so

3:15For for someone like me who has young kids I'm curious on on both your advice you know on how you would recommend guiding your kids to to not only you know sort of reach their Highest Potential without you know pushing them over the top like you hear about with some like overbearing parents but also become great parents too or great great humans as well you know like you know there's there's one thing there's there's something for you know pushing kids to to help achieve their potential but then also at the same time you know it seems like you've become a great person at the same time which doesn't always those things aren't always synonymous so I'm curious what advice you give it's it's interesting because

4:04You know when my kids were young I was a businessman and I I did a lot of learning my learning and personal growth was always very specific I was just trying to be really knowledgeable at real estate and mortgages and some boring stuff but you needed some specialization and you know our motivation was to learn so we could make money the the opportunity to sport or or music music or any you know activity Can provise when a a little kid isn't excited about being a great mortgage broker or real estate investor but little kids see Patrick Kane no I know it's so so exciting they but little kids are pretty excited about becoming a athlete so at a very young age they started to become

4:52Like life you know lifelong Learners they started to we had a a great friend who had played for the Canadian national soccer team that gave me a book when my kids were like 8 and 12 and it was a brilliant book that was really inspired me thinking man anything's possible so you know I got that information through to my kids at a very young age so I think we were able to without pushing them we just kind of inspired them by giving them information so my recommendation to to other parents is to just give your kids access to information and Inspire them if they believe that anything I know Kirby and I you have talked we've talked about some of the books that my kids had access to and I had access to at a very young age like the Talent Code which is about greatness and

5:41The real scientific possibility and you know the the sort of the setting the stage of an environment for greatness like that book Atomic habits where you know the difference between a kid being you know making the high school basketball team having a great life might be you know you going to the park and shooting you know 50 jump shots before breakfast and things like that so U it's exciting that if you can Inspire the kids and give them information and let them run with it just provide the information and the support and the love and and and just make it really fun because I know I didn't win very often but I had so much fun just playing pingpong with my kids and you know just but the the whole lifelong learning thing is is

6:29Really important because not everyone's going to make it to the NBA NHL MLB or NFL but I I see kids now that I coached and that are that are like reaching out on LinkedIn they're starting business careers and they've they've they know how to be successful they've seen what their friends have done they've they've learned what it takes to make a a select hockey team or whatnot so that's very exciting and inspiring just to set your kids up for success by you know giving them information that they may may may run with because they're excited about you know making the high school football team or whatever it may be yeah yeah that makes sense yeah I think for me I think the I mean the number one Focus I think just keeping it not the sport I mean even though that

7:18Might be the the most interesting thing for the kid like just keeping the number one Focus being a great person and you know I think that's something like my parents did a pretty good job at is you know like if I was being a Brad or something like that it wouldn't really matter how good I was at hockey like obviously you want to be a good kid first and I think even for my life like I'm I don't know I mean I'm already like starting to think about stuff like how I'd be as a parent and I think for me like I I don't really care if my kid goes all the way in sport or anything like that it's more like I mean the biggest thing for me I guess would be like pointing my kid to heaven and and really just you know my the faith would be a big thing and and also just yeah just making sure he he kind of takes that stuff you know treats it as more important than his for and is treating other people you know how he'd want to be treated and all those good values I think so yeah

8:06I think just instilling values in your kid before being an athlete is is is much more important yeah yeah I think I think it's getting more difficult all the time of of letting your kids play all the sports you know at this point you know when they're little man let him play soccer let him play hockey let them play football whatever it is basketball everything but boy so quickly they've got to make a decision on what they want to focus on you know by the time they get in junior high they're already the coaches are already watching them to see what they're going to be when they get in high school and it just seems to get tougher and tougher all the time for the for an athlete yeah know for sure I think that was something that was lucky for me is yeah I kind of got to play all the sports but I see some of the kids now

8:54And I think they're like specializing a little too young and so yeah that's something too I think like yep for parents like I don't think you should be really specializing too young for for sport I think yeah it's better for the sport they'd want to specialize in anyways I think to be an athlete and play a lot of other sports and I think the kids will probably enjoy it more and I think it's good with like injury prevention stuff too so yeah I'm I'm all for that yeah and it it it it felt like the right decision Kent when he was about I guess 11 or so had made this you know highlevel Elite spring team that was you know every every parent is so excited if if your kid can play on that team but the coach wanted him to to not play baseball so Kent could come to every single practice and every single game and

9:43It just didn't feel right at 11 years old to specialized and like in my era like I went to high school with Brett Hull who's a Hall of Fame Cal you know NHL player and he played High School football in grade 12 he played baseball in grade 12 he wasn't we weren't specializing at all but Kent you know we made the decision Kent and I both agreed that yeah we're going to say no to this Elite spring team and play baseball and Kent had so much fun and I actually watched some of his you know young friends doing like serious training workouts and I go wow that's exactly what Kent does when he's trying to run down a ground ball when he SEC playing second base like he was quick he was athletic and he was having fun and we we grew you know we lived in vany Canada where it rains you

10:31Know most of the time so he ended up play every time it rained he played hockey and his ball games were cancelled so it work it worked out well but it was it was a good decision it felt right and it was difficult because not many people would make that decision to quit an elite spring team but it it didn't hurt the kid and he got really good at hitting 80 mph fast balls when he was 90 lbs so I think that helped him you know deflect hockey pucks and have some more some more athletic skills that he wouldn't have had if he just played hockey yeah that's true yeah that's a great great Point Ken I'm curious you know we just wrapped up the Summer Olympics just a couple days ago and there's a lot of Olympic hype right now you played in the winter games two

11:20Years ago in Beijing did that live up to your expectations or you know what was the what was that experience life like for you yeah it was a great experience it was yeah some of the most fun I've had in my life I think to just like the group of guys I met that were there like I think it could have been a horrible experience if it wasn't for you know having such great teammates because it was like Co and we're kind of in a bubble and couldn't really do too much and it was a little uncomfortable in in Beijing I'd say and but yeah I mean it was it was unbelievable and I think for me I had like no expectations like that whole tournament and that whole like process cuz I mean I didn't even expect to play in the Olympics obviously I was expecting to be cheering for McDavid and those guys and then it came out that the NHL players weren't going and I was like me and Owen were together

12:08And we're like oh that's so stupid like that's too bad and then we're like kind of thinking like wait are we the next best like I guess we kind of are so we're like maybe this will be good for us kind of thing so yeah and then what I even for me like I didn't even make the team at first I had to like go to camp and like start as an extra and so I had like no expectation that whole tournament and I think it was a good thing for me a good like learning experience too just like kind of going in no expectations there was no like the crowd was like weird it was different like it wasn't like we're playing in front of a lot of fans there's no Canadian fans able to be there so it was definitely weird like it doesn't I I know I talked with like you know like Mavish and Owen and Levi like some of the younger guys were like man like we we got to make this team for real like maybe in like eight years or like maybe for them four years or whatever like so

12:56We can kind of kind of get a real taste of it cuz it didn't quite feel like the Olympics that you would dream of as a kid but it was still it was still an awesome experience yeah and and still to get you guys got fifth right I mean yeah we lost in a quarter so yeah yeah so I mean that's pretty good so U that's awesome go ahead you had you had some questions right oh yeah here I got some real technical questions for you buddy yeah do you have to buy your own hockey sticks or are they just by yeah no no Jay you raising your hand i'm we're lucky we don't have to pay for them anymore because I know this guy spent way too much money on on my sticks I was actually joking with him I'm like that like why did you buy me the best sticks when I was like 12 like

13:45I did not need those like makes no difference but your brother it was really that's why you're in the NHL it was really nice for sure but like looking back I'm like man it doesn't matter what stick you have when you're 12 but yeah no we're lucky now to to get them get them for free do they tape them for you or do you still I mean I enjoy taping them yeah you yeah do you break many not too many because I mean like I get new sticks a lot so like if I like wasn't getting new ones I'm sure I'd break them but like I I try to have a new stick like every game so yeah it just so your odds of breaking it go down and I'd hate to like break a stick on like a chance to score so yeah you have a favorite stick or is it just whatever like you

14:33Said you're trying different kind of kept the same stick like the last five years yeah so like a b one there and they just kind of wrap it up differently every year but yeah it's a good stick I like it oh good good yeah for guys who don't play hockey I never played hockey and and I even worked at an ice rink for two years if that tells you something and but but yeah people who don't I I think they Wonder about those well we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into when we let our little boys play hockey but my one funny story my older boy had a tournament in Idaho you know about a 10hour drive from Vancouver and he went there with three sticks and they play like six games in three days and the first game he broke two sticks and they're about they're about

15:22$300 these sticks like I say Kent K I I I wish I could go back in time Kent would have lousy sticks but I I had to I I I actually I cancelled business meetings and my business partner thought I was a complete lunatic because Kyle needed to have more of the same sticks he couldn't borrow one he had to have the right stick we we we were crazy and and so I I drove around to buy find a couple sticks you know and councel business meetings so I could I could hand a couple sticks to an hockey mom who was going out for the week in so so Kyle had the right stick which is we were pretty crazy but I think I think it helped a little bit so who knows yeah

16:11Well one thing I I will say Jay you're a lot smarter you do make him a goalie so you didn't have to buy all the goalie equipment you I you're very grateful when when your kids choose not to be a goalie there a little bit of nervous time they're they all play goalie when they're seven years old and you're really happy if your your son plays really badly when it's his turn to be a goalie