Adam Sherlip's guest appearances

Adam Sherlip

Social Capital

PredsOnTheGlass

Sport Coats Podcast

William Deck

Andy Gallion

Brian Weaver

Duncan Littlefield

Agostino Pintus

Jay Leno

Jeremy Prach

Jonathan Stark

Wayne Breitbarth

Bob Burg

Pam Johnson

Susan Thomson

Lane Kawaoka

Gary Kurtz

Russ Morgan

OwlTail

Meet Adam Sherlip  Adam is the Executive Director and Founder of The Hockey Foundation where he empowers under-served youth, promotes social change, peace and prosperity and supports community development through hockey worldwide. He also served as the first Head Coach of the Indian Men's National Ice Hockey Team. So you’ve been a hockey coach in both America and Canada, what are the differences in the way hockey is taught in America and Canada? There are differences. I think some of those differences also tend to be regional more than just national. But there's no doubt that at a national level, USA hockey and hockey Canada operate differently, not at the organizational level so much as everybody beneath the organization. All of the parents and players and coaches and referees. Coaching in New York there was definitely an openness and a willingness to deal with coaches that had different perspectives and backgrounds and experiences, and certainly the part in New York that I'm from, which is Long Island, there's a fair amount of people with money and business acumen and they do see it as an investment, but they're willing to make that investment if they believe in their coach, and that their coach is treating their kids in a way that fits for them. And of course, there's old school and new school, but USA hockey - and especially the New York Region - has done a great job of showing current coaches the value in adapting to the ADM, the American Development Model, and long term athlete development and then multi sport and not always focusing on on systems at a young age, just all these things that are fairly standard and commonplace now for a lot of American hockey players and families and that's been a little bit more of an uphill battle to get that message to disseminate around Canada. I live in Quebec, which is a French speaking province and I was coaching at an English program here and that put us in a little bit of a position where we were different from the rest of the population. So having an American coach who was teaching in a different way fit very well into the program. The coach who was running the program was a bit new school as well and really focused on skills development and giving the kids all different activities to make sure that they're becoming better hockey players, and that's not always the case. Around the province there's a lot of coaches who are still focused on winning frankly, which is not the point in youth hockey for Canadians minor hockey. The point is to get these kids to improve and to keep them having fun and to just help them be better people ultimately, and the cream will rise if you give them every resource possible. Blue cream will rise and hockey Canada knows that. Hockey Canada has looked at the success of USA hockey over the past decade and that it's clear that USA hockey is doing something correct. And hockey Canada is trying to get those same messages out there. And some of the things that are being done in the US are starting to happen in Canada with significantly more resistance. I want to kind of go back to something you said early on when you were speaking, specifically about New York and some things you've seen there when you talked about the investment that people are making. Can you elaborate on that a little bit and talk about how some of the local businesses are involving themselves in hockey? It's not necessarily local businesses in any way that are significant in New York. I think local businesses do a better job of getting involved in youth hockey here in Quebec, where you'll actually see youth sponsorship. That happens because a lot of parents of players are coming. They're wealthy, they're successful. They might be business owners or executives. They have a business mentality, so many of them are invested in their children's development as any good parents would be. The big thing is, there's so many options for them to invest in their children's development and hockey is a significant investment. It's among the more expensive ones that any parents could make for their children's development. And they want to see return and I could understand it, I don't agree with it. They're expecting that their child is going to improve in ways that are often unrealistic, depending on their age and their skill level. Even if you have an elite coach, if the player is eight years old, they're not elite, and they can't become elite overnight. I mean, elite is when you're ready to be in the NHL, and we use that term, unfortunately, too much at too young of an age. And there's so much pressure to perform. And again, because these parents are spending thousands and thousands of dollars and shuttling their children around they want to see that return on investment that I think negatively impacts hockey development in the region. But there's so much investment that I mean, inevitably kids are going to still come out of that system.  Have you thought about what that message could be to transition from a mindset of, “I need my kid needs to develop.” And my return on investment is not so much what type of hockey player they become, but what type of child to preteen to teenager to young adult they become and how hockey plays a role in that? That message has to start with education on the coach's part. The coach needs to know and be prepared. And not every coach can have the same amount of knowledge and experience, but we can all pursue improvement. We could all pursue more experience and more knowledge on the game and on coaching techniques and on children's brain and body development. So it starts with being deliberate and intentional and having a clear goal and communicating those goals. Not necessarily, "Why did I do this one drill?" But, "Why do i do drills a certain way? Why do I run my practice this way? Why am I interacting with the team in a certain way?" And so for me, in New York, I mean, I've had groups of players and parents that are easier and more difficult, and I try to keep an eye on them now that I've moved away and seeing how some of them are succeeding in the game I have some pride of like, "Maybe I was part of that foundation for their development when they were 9-10 years old." But I had meetings with every single player and parent. In those meetings I would ask the parents their questions while the player was there. We talk about the game, we talk about how the season is going, and we talk about positions, and then all those basics because I didn't want to get into anything too sophisticated. And then I'd ask the player, how does he think things are going.  Ask if they have any stress, and then treat the player and the parent with respect and communicate clearly, with them. My objectives, and how I see things playing out and we didn't always agree, but at least if I was clear on that, they couldn't poke holes in it, if I just operated from a distance with my arms crossed. Looking back at some of those kids, even though you've moved away, would you say that that system has produced not only good hockey players but also kids who have grown up with their head on their shoulders outside of the game of hockey? For the kids I've coached in New York, I would like to believe so. I have less contact with them and their families. But there were the players that I coached in a country far, far away that I’ve been able to see over many years of development. And of course, they're starting without a hockey culture. Whereas Canada is a country so influenced by hockey. In the US not as much but for the people who love it, they love it no differently. We have access to it at least. But for people on the other side of the planet who don't have the access or the hockey culture that's a part of theirs, they've been sponges and they absorb the information. I really got to see some of those lessons over the years change the culture, not just the hockey culture, but kind of changed the culture in little subtle ways. Let's just dive right into that. I want to talk about your journey. I want to kind of hear about how it got started. Tell us a little bit about The Hockey Foundation. I mean, it's such a big story. Sometimes I don't even know where to start. But The Hockey Foundation, it's now in its 10th year of operation. It came out of my first trip over to India to the Himalayas, where I coached as a volunteer and donated equipment. I saw just how much these people love talking about hockey and benefited from hockey and were dedicated to improving. That was based on previous experiences I had coaching in China when I worked for the Islanders. And so that came out of those two experiences just wanting to formalize it and then start the organization with a mission to help. That's it, help via hockey. There's different ways that I've written that over the years and described that. But it's been that broad and open. We all know as hockey players and lovers and fans and coaches and everybody who's involved in the game, we know that it leaves an indelible mark on who we are. I know we're in an era right now where there's a lot of criticism on hockey culture, and I could understand those critiques but at its core, it is a game that teaches teamwork and accountability and in my opinion, honesty and acceptance and it is an expensive game and it is a difficult game. It's fast and physical and requires coordination that few other sports require. And so, we've really worked hard to provide access to that game, not just in India in the Himalayas. But in other communities and including in an Inuit village in northern Quebec, we've sent gear to two countries in Africa and the Middle East, a little bit in Eastern Europe. So we have a few different projects going on and we're always looking for other projects that might be relevant. Supporting communities that don't have access, who's the winner, there's already great charities that that are supporting New York City and Philadelphia and in Minnesota, all these there's great hockey charities around the US and around Canada, but they're often providing access to people near hockey communities, people that don't have the money. We're trying to support communities that don't even have the access in the first.  You speak about your time with the Islanders and whether it was the Islanders or it was the NHL, they clearly had a mission of extending the game into China. I'm curious about what that mission was? How did that come about? And what role did you play there for the Islanders? You know, it's funny because when people talk about the history of the NHL, in China, they rarely talk about the Islanders. And in many ways, the Islanders were the first ones because the Islanders had a Chinese American owner in Charles Wong. The NHL has known for a long time that there's value and potential in China. But a lot of that early potential was shown by what the islanders were calling Project Hope. And it was a charity, founded by Charles Wong and the Islanders. And so that was one of the things that I was first brought on to work on after my internship. And so I had worked on hosting and running the tournament that had become annual and big tradition. The Lighthouse Invitational - it took on different names over the years, but that was one of the names. And we brought over teams from China and then teams from other countries would come over as well and have this great cultural exchange with a team made up of children from northern China, a team from Long Island, a team from outside New York City, and then there was a team from Finland one year. I know they brought a team from Japan another year. So that was one aspect and then we went over to China into this Heilongjiang Province near the Russia and Korea border, super cold. The first time I think I really experienced blistering cold like that. It was just an incredible cultural awakening and shock to my system. This was in 2007 that I went and there was already one or two years of history before that, and it continued on and then the organization changed and the missions changed and Project Hope changed. And everything changed inside the organization and sort of moved on and other clubs got involved and Boston and San Jose and LA and, and Vancouver, a bunch of them got involved in China and, and sort of the story seems to pick up there. And the narrative seems to be there and then you get players going over and drawing a lot more attention. And of course, now you get the Olympics happening and there's a ton of hockey Development and there's hockey programs that have been going on there for a few years now that are doing a wonderful job of growing the game. But where it was in the early 2000s it really bare bones. You went over there one 2007 and, what was the state of hockey even like? How would you compare that to even anything here that we could relate to? Man I mean, it was all outdoors, there were some arenas and there were professional teams at the time that played kind of in an Asian league. I think that the League has since folded or merged or some teams folded. The status has changed so many times and of course then the cage l expanded in but but at the youth level, I mean, there was only a few communities in Heilongjiang, Harbin and Qiqihar being the the primary two where hockey was being actively played and kids were getting fast tracked. If they were deemed good at hockey they were put into a better school, better program and they were hockey players. That's it, you're going to play hockey, and you're going to represent China if you're good enough. And if not, you'll be on one of the teams and still represent. It was just such a clear system of favoritism and opportunity in a country so massive where opportunity is not always presented. And understanding that it is a different way of life. It's not for us to necessarily judge. We could judge aspects but the fact that these kids were given opportunities to excel because of hockey stood out to me at the time. And so seeing the drills that we gave them on that 12 day trip, we would run like two camps a day at different schools and just seeing the following year. I mean, there were a few kids that were like the best toe draggers I had ever seen. We had like one drill just to show them how to do a toe drag and one kid, I swear, the next year it came back to New York in the tournament, and he toe dragged every single player in the tournament. But at the same time, he was the best player on the team. So everybody got him the puck and said go score. That's it. So there wasn't yet the team game and the kind of the team skill development and systems play. They're kids, I'm not expecting there to be, but it was sort of running around and just letting the best player try to do the best he can to help the team win and it's gotten so much better since then. And so much more...

Meet Adam Sherlip  Adam is the Executive Director and Founder of The Hockey Foundation where he empowers under-served youth, promotes social change, peace and prosperity and supports community development through hockey worldwide. He also served as the first Head Coach of the Indian Men's National Ice Hockey Team. So you’ve been a hockey coach in both America and Canada, what are the differences in the way hockey is taught in America and Canada? There are differences. I think some of those differences also tend to be regional more than just national. But there's no doubt that at a national level, USA hockey and hockey Canada operate differently, not at the organizational level so much as everybody beneath the organization. All of the parents and players and coaches and referees. Coaching in New York there was definitely an openness and a willingness to deal with coaches that had different perspectives and backgrounds and experiences, and certainly the part in New York that I'm from, which is Long Island, there's a fair amount of people with money and business acumen and they do see it as an investment, but they're willing to make that investment if they believe in their coach, and that their coach is treating their kids in a way that fits for them. And of course, there's old school and new school, but USA hockey - and especially the New York Region - has done a great job of showing current coaches the value in adapting to the ADM, the American Development Model, and long term athlete development and then multi sport and not always focusing on on systems at a young age, just all these things that are fairly standard and commonplace now for a lot of American hockey players and families and that's been a little bit more of an uphill battle to get that message to disseminate around Canada. I live in Quebec, which is a French speaking province and I was coaching at an English program here and that put us in a little bit of a position where we were different from the rest of the population. So having an American coach who was teaching in a different way fit very well into the program. The coach who was running the program was a bit new school as well and really focused on skills development and giving the kids all different activities to make sure that they're becoming better hockey players, and that's not always the case. Around the province there's a lot of coaches who are still focused on winning frankly, which is not the point in youth hockey for Canadians minor hockey. The point is to get these kids to improve and to keep them having fun and to just help them be better people ultimately, and the cream will rise if you give them every resource possible. Blue cream will rise and hockey Canada knows that. Hockey Canada has looked at the success of USA hockey over the past decade and that it's clear that USA hockey is doing something correct. And hockey Canada is trying to get those same messages out there. And some of the things that are being done in the US are starting to happen in Canada with significantly more resistance. I want to kind of go back to something you said early on when you were speaking, specifically about New York and some things you've seen there when you talked about the investment that people are making. Can you elaborate on that a little bit and talk about how some of the local businesses are involving themselves in hockey? It's not necessarily local businesses in any way that are significant in New York. I think local businesses do a better job of getting involved in youth hockey here in Quebec, where you'll actually see youth sponsorship. That happens because a lot of parents of players are coming. They're wealthy, they're successful. They might be business owners or executives. They have a business mentality, so many of them are invested in their children's development as any good parents would be. The big thing is, there's so many options for them to invest in their children's development and hockey is a significant investment. It's among the more expensive ones that any parents could make for their children's development. And they want to see return and I could understand it, I don't agree with it. They're expecting that their child is going to improve in ways that are often unrealistic, depending on their age and their skill level. Even if you have an elite coach, if the player is eight years old, they're not elite, and they can't become elite overnight. I mean, elite is when you're ready to be in the NHL, and we use that term, unfortunately, too much at too young of an age. And there's so much pressure to perform. And again, because these parents are spending thousands and thousands of dollars and shuttling their children around they want to see that return on investment that I think negatively impacts hockey development in the region. But there's so much investment that I mean, inevitably kids are going to still come out of that system.  Have you thought about what that message could be to transition from a mindset of, “I need my kid needs to develop.” And my return on investment is not so much what type of hockey player they become, but what type of child to preteen to teenager to young adult they become and how hockey plays a role in that? That message has to start with education on the coach's part. The coach needs to know and be prepared. And not every coach can have the same amount of knowledge and experience, but we can all pursue improvement. We could all pursue more experience and more knowledge on the game and on coaching techniques and on children's brain and body development. So it starts with being deliberate and intentional and having a clear goal and communicating those goals. Not necessarily, "Why did I do this one drill?" But, "Why do i do drills a certain way? Why do I run my practice this way? Why am I interacting with the team in a certain way?" And so for me, in New York, I mean, I've had groups of players and parents that are easier and more difficult, and I try to keep an eye on them now that I've moved away and seeing how some of them are succeeding in the game I have some pride of like, "Maybe I was part of that foundation for their development when they were 9-10 years old." But I had meetings with every single player and parent. In those meetings I would ask the parents their questions while the player was there. We talk about the game, we talk about how the season is going, and we talk about positions, and then all those basics because I didn't want to get into anything too sophisticated. And then I'd ask the player, how does he think things are going.  Ask if they have any stress, and then treat the player and the parent with respect and communicate clearly, with them. My objectives, and how I see things playing out and we didn't always agree, but at least if I was clear on that, they couldn't poke holes in it, if I just operated from a distance with my arms crossed. Looking back at some of those kids, even though you've moved away, would you say that that system has produced not only good hockey players but also kids who have grown up with their head on their shoulders outside of the game of hockey? For the kids I've coached in New York, I would like to believe so. I have less contact with them and their families. But there were the players that I coached in a country far, far away that I’ve been able to see over many years of development. And of course, they're starting without a hockey culture. Whereas Canada is a country so influenced by hockey. In the US not as much but for the people who love it, they love it no differently. We have access to it at least. But for people on the other side of the planet who don't have the access or the hockey culture that's a part of theirs, they've been sponges and they absorb the information. I really got to see some of those lessons over the years change the culture, not just the hockey culture, but kind of changed the culture in little subtle ways. Let's just dive right into that. I want to talk about your journey. I want to kind of hear about how it got started. Tell us a little bit about The Hockey Foundation. I mean, it's such a big story. Sometimes I don't even know where to start. But The Hockey Foundation, it's now in its 10th year of operation. It came out of my first trip over to India to the Himalayas, where I coached as a volunteer and donated equipment. I saw just how much these people love talking about hockey and benefited from hockey and were dedicated to improving. That was based on previous experiences I had coaching in China when I worked for the Islanders. And so that came out of those two experiences just wanting to formalize it and then start the organization with a mission to help. That's it, help via hockey. There's different ways that I've written that over the years and described that. But it's been that broad and open. We all know as hockey players and lovers and fans and coaches and everybody who's involved in the game, we know that it leaves an indelible mark on who we are. I know we're in an era right now where there's a lot of criticism on hockey culture, and I could understand those critiques but at its core, it is a game that teaches teamwork and accountability and in my opinion, honesty and acceptance and it is an expensive game and it is a difficult game. It's fast and physical and requires coordination that few other sports require. And so, we've really worked hard to provide access to that game, not just in India in the Himalayas. But in other communities and including in an Inuit village in northern Quebec, we've sent gear to two countries in Africa and the Middle East, a little bit in Eastern Europe. So we have a few different projects going on and we're always looking for other projects that might be relevant. Supporting communities that don't have access, who's the winner, there's already great charities that that are supporting New York City and Philadelphia and in Minnesota, all these there's great hockey charities around the US and around Canada, but they're often providing access to people near hockey communities, people that don't have the money. We're trying to support communities that don't even have the access in the first.  You speak about your time with the Islanders and whether it was the Islanders or it was the NHL, they clearly had a mission of extending the game into China. I'm curious about what that mission was? How did that come about? And what role did you play there for the Islanders? You know, it's funny because when people talk about the history of the NHL, in China, they rarely talk about the Islanders. And in many ways, the Islanders were the first ones because the Islanders had a Chinese American owner in Charles Wong. The NHL has known for a long time that there's value and potential in China. But a lot of that early potential was shown by what the islanders were calling Project Hope. And it was a charity, founded by Charles Wong and the Islanders. And so that was one of the things that I was first brought on to work on after my internship. And so I had worked on hosting and running the tournament that had become annual and big tradition. The Lighthouse Invitational - it took on different names over the years, but that was one of the names. And we brought over teams from China and then teams from other countries would come over as well and have this great cultural exchange with a team made up of children from northern China, a team from Long Island, a team from outside New York City, and then there was a team from Finland one year. I know they brought a team from Japan another year. So that was one aspect and then we went over to China into this Heilongjiang Province near the Russia and Korea border, super cold. The first time I think I really experienced blistering cold like that. It was just an incredible cultural awakening and shock to my system. This was in 2007 that I went and there was already one or two years of history before that, and it continued on and then the organization changed and the missions changed and Project Hope changed. And everything changed inside the organization and sort of moved on and other clubs got involved and Boston and San Jose and LA and, and Vancouver, a bunch of them got involved in China and, and sort of the story seems to pick up there. And the narrative seems to be there and then you get players going over and drawing a lot more attention. And of course, now you get the Olympics happening and there's a ton of hockey Development and there's hockey programs that have been going on there for a few years now that are doing a wonderful job of growing the game. But where it was in the early 2000s it really bare bones. You went over there one 2007 and, what was the state of hockey even like? How would you compare that to even anything here that we could relate to? Man I mean, it was all outdoors, there were some arenas and there were professional teams at the time that played kind of in an Asian league. I think that the League has since folded or merged or some teams folded. The status has changed so many times and of course then the cage l expanded in but but at the youth level, I mean, there was only a few communities in Heilongjiang, Harbin and Qiqihar being the the primary two where hockey was being actively played and kids were getting fast tracked. If they were deemed good at hockey they were put into a better school, better program and they were hockey players. That's it, you're going to play hockey, and you're going to represent China if you're good enough. And if not, you'll be on one of the teams and still represent. It was just such a clear system of favoritism and opportunity in a country so massive where opportunity is not always presented. And understanding that it is a different way of life. It's not for us to necessarily judge. We could judge aspects but the fact that these kids were given opportunities to excel because of hockey stood out to me at the time. And so seeing the drills that we gave them on that 12 day trip, we would run like two camps a day at different schools and just seeing the following year. I mean, there were a few kids that were like the best toe draggers I had ever seen. We had like one drill just to show them how to do a toe drag and one kid, I swear, the next year it came back to New York in the tournament, and he toe dragged every single player in the tournament. But at the same time, he was the best player on the team. So everybody got him the puck and said go score. That's it. So there wasn't yet the team game and the kind of the team skill development and systems play. They're kids, I'm not expecting there to be, but it was sort of running around and just letting the best player try to do the best he can to help the team win and it's gotten so much better since then. And so much more...

005 - Spreading Hockey across the Globe with Adam Sherlip

 From tea consultant to non-profit founder that has served over 8,000 people, Adam Sherlip has used his network to achieve powerful results

From tea consultant to non-profit founder that has served over 8,000 people, Adam Sherlip has used his network to achieve powerful results

037: Overcoming mutual discomfort in networking with Adam Sherlip

The PredsOnTheGlass duo of Buddy and Jackson Oakes and friends discuss everything Nashville Predators and other topics from the NHL and hockey world.This week we will have Adam Sherlip "The Hockey Volunteer" who has traveled around the world teaching hockey to kids. http://www.hockeyfoundation.org/ is the site set up to coordinate his ventures. You can also check out http://hockeyvolunteer.blogspot.com/ for more of his travel experiences. It should make for an interesting show.

The PredsOnTheGlass duo of Buddy and Jackson Oakes and friends discuss everything Nashville Predators and other topics from the NHL and hockey world.This week we will have Adam Sherlip "The Hockey Volunteer" who has traveled around the world teaching hockey to kids. <a href="http://www.hockeyfoundation.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.hockeyfoundation.org/</a> is the site set up to coordinate his ventures. You can also check out <a href="http://hockeyvolunteer.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://hockeyvolunteer.blogspot.com/</a> for more of his travel experiences. It should make for an interesting show.

PredsOnTheGlass Radio - Adam Sherlip Guests