Brett came on the show earlier in the week, talking about how data-driven video analysis and personalized development plans are the cornerstone of his player development practice. His approach sounded awesome, but we only got partway into it. So we scheduled this follow-up to do a deep dive. The context is I am a pretend intern and it is my first day, and Brett does an almost 90 minute deep dive on his player development framework and how he works with elite athletes. If you care about player development, this is one you DO NOT want to miss!
Unlocking the Secrets of Player Development with Brett Leonard
In this episode of The Next Next, host Jason Jacobs delves into the nuances of athlete development in youth sports with Brett Leonard from Leonard Hockey. Jason, a founder exploring the potential of a new player development company and a sports dad himself, discusses the intricacies of analyzing player data and development. Brett shares insights into his methods of video analysis, skill training, and game situational drills to help players improve their hockey IQ. The conversation explores the potential of integrating AI to scale the analysis process and make advanced coaching techniques more accessible. Tune in to learn about the future of player development and how it can transform youth sports.
00:00 Introduction to The Next Next
00:54 Meet Brett Leonard from Leonard Hockey
01:35 Diving into Player Development
03:18 The Importance of Video Analysis
05:49 Analyzing Player Data
09:50 Personalized Development Plans
18:09 Measuring Progress and Setting Objectives
28:47 Scouting and Player Development
33:26 Integrating Traditional Skills with Game Context
44:56 Balancing Coaching and Player Development
46:56 Studying Hockey: Techniques and Insights
51:32 Practical Advice for Young Players
55:34 Innovative Training Methods
01:01:09 Scaling Coaching with Technology
01:12:43 The Future of AI in Player Development
01:21:57 Concluding Thoughts and Future Directions
Jason Jacobs: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Next Next. I'm the host, Jason Jacobs. This is a show that sorts through the nuances of athlete development, specifically around youth sports. I'm coming at it from the perspective of a founder who's potentially building my next company in player development, helping athletes and families to navigate the journey.
But also as a sports dad, since there's a bunch of topics where there's a clear black and white, but then there's a big gray area, and sorting through that nuance is hard. I know I find it challenging, and maybe some of you do as well. This show brings on well-placed experts from a wide range of backgrounds, and I bring my intellectual curiosity.
Ask lots of questions and try to further inform my worldview and help any listeners to inform your worldview as well. Today's guest is a repeat the first one. On the next next, uh, I'm bringing back. Brett Leonard from Leonard Hockey. Actually, the last episode was with Brett and it was kind of a general [00:01:00] overview of his journey in the sport and what they do at Leonard Hockey.
But we ran outta time and Brett and I were talking after the fact and we said, Hey, um, I actually asked him. If he thought that he could teach me as an apprentice, pretending my first day, it was my first day at Leonard Hockey and I didn't know anything if he could teach me how to do what he does. So this is a 90 minute deep dive into what Brett does at Leonard Hockey and why and how I might learn how to do similar.
I found it super valuable and I hope you do as well. Okay, Brett. Leonard, welcome back to the show.
Brett Leonard: Thanks for having me back.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah, so we just recorded when even was that, was that
Brett Leonard: That was yesterday morning.
Jason Jacobs: Y Yesterday
Brett Leonard: Yeah.
Jason Jacobs: yeah, yesterday morning. And then we talked, I think yesterday night. And, um, and during the episode, I feel like the beginning, you know, the history and your journey and stuff, right.
[00:02:00] It you know, it, uh, we started a little slow and towards the end when we, once we got started to actually into the work, right? It's like you kind of came to life and you're like a ball of fire and, and you started talking about your craft and then we talked a lot more about your craft last night. And your craft seems really interesting and you have a lot of like hard-earned lessons that you've grinded through to get the experience that you have.
And you start explaining your craft and how you're a one man show and how, there's aspects of your craft that it doesn't necessarily need to be you doing. And then there's other aspects of your craft that only you can do and that, you know, there might be room for an apprentice type, whether it's in-house or outsource, and whether it's human or software.
And we started talking about what that might be, and it's like, wait a minute. Like why don't we just do this live and let's pretend that I am, the first non Brett employee of Leonard Hockey, and today's my first day and I'm bright-eyed and bushy tailed and don't know anything, and you're just gonna teach [00:03:00] me how to be a part of Leonard Hockey and what it is that, that you do.
So I think that's the format that we're going with. Does that align with your expectations?
Brett Leonard: sounds great.
Jason Jacobs: Okay. Well, coach, thank you for the opportunity. I'm here, I'm ready to go, put me to work. But before I get to work, gosh, I need to, I need to learn how to be you. So take it from the
Brett Leonard: yeah, so you know the big transition was, going back to what we talked about briefly last time was all the players I work with, all my clients are now at a foundational level. Video clients. I think everything has to tie back to the game, whether it's a 12-year-old or an NHL player. I think what you're ultimately trying to.
Develop is their ability to make plays and be effective in a game. Um, and I think when you look at it from that way like you've gotta start with video. You've gotta understand the player and how they do things. 'cause sometimes players look one way. We, we all hear, this kid's a [00:04:00] great practice player.
It's maybe like the worst insult and my biggest pet peeve and such a disappointment that, that happens. But you hear about those type of players all the time. So really I think you can prevent that by, again, there's a lot of players that can move really well around cones or again, in a, in just open ice doing set patterns.
But, and they don't have to think, they don't have to even have their head up half the time, right? And they train these skills in isolation. And then you throw 'em in a game with teammates and decisions and pressure reads and all that and they struggle. So again, I think it's so important to, I, I stopped I think about two or three years ago where I just said, sorry, like, like you mentioned, I'm a one man show.
Like, if you want work with me, I've got to, I've got to have you buy into the video piece first and then the on ice can come next. So every player works on a, on, on a video program. I have some players. It's, almost every game. [00:05:00] Or after every weekend of games. And then I have some players that it might be once or twice a month, all depending on their age and, and how, where they're at in their development path.
So we take a player, so let's say your first day with me, right? You call, you want to come try this out. I always offer a three game analysis package. So what we would do is we get three games. Um, there are for older. Higher level clients. There's resources like in Stat and Sport Logic where you can, you can just pull their shifts and, and upload it right into our tagging software.
For the youth players, you might actually have to go manually record their shifts and then put'em into a file to, to upload. But once we get the three games worth of shifts, we put 'em in our, in our software and we start to go from there. The first thing we do is we analyze all the hard data. So like black and white data metrics, every puck touch, how are they getting the puck?
There's three [00:06:00] ways to get a puck in a game. You can retrieve it yourself. You can get past to, or you can make a defensive play intercept, steal it from someone, right? We track how that happens. We track it in 52 locations on the ice, so we start to see like a heat map and where they're having a lot of their activity, where they're getting the puck, how they're getting the puck.
We also track success rate. You know, are they making a positive play? Are they improving the conditions of the play with their puck touch or are they degrading 'em? Then from there we'll look at pass metrics, what types of plays are they making? Are they making driving plays? Are they just making possession plays?
Are they soering it or making it a flat pass? Are they using the boards any pretty much detail into passing? We'll track that shooting. Same thing. We'll track where the shots are coming from, what type of shot, what type of route were they on? Was it a one-timer opportunity that they missed? You know, again, more, more tracking in terms of not just getting the data for the data's sake, but more [00:07:00] of development type of ideas.
So, for example, a shooting like you wanna play in the NHL and score goals in the NHL. You have to shoot the puck off the pass. Like it's so hard to score on goalies carrying the puck yourself and shooting. Majority of goals are gonna be scored off the pass. You know, it might be a college player, it might be a prep school player, but, but it's never too young to track that stuff and see like, is that an area where, again, every time they get past two they have to dust it off before they shoot it.
So stuff like that we track. So there's lots of hard data. Again, black and white zone entries, passing some defensive details. That's something where you could hire an apprentice to do, again, if you have a little bit of hockey background and, and willing to learn again that that data's not gonna change, no matter whose opinion it is.
The part that I really specialize in is. More of the off P and hockey sense type stuff. So looking at a player and how they're becoming available, [00:08:00] how are they getting open? Are they rushing into spots too quickly? Are they too late to spots? Are they putting themselves in bad positions? Are they playing inside a, you know, in the offense zone, they're easily covered, or they doing a good job of sneaking into soft ice and going to the blind spots of defenders.
Stuff like that. That again is, it's, unless you've really done it for a long time and, and had trial and error and learned from your players and, and done it, it would take a long time to learn that kind of stuff. But that's kind of the starting point.
Jason Jacobs: I have a bunch of questions. I have questions about that
process, and then I have questions about what you you know, what you do with that data analysis across both of those vectors once you have it. But maybe I'll ask about that process first. So, can you talk a bit about the process of getting all of that data?
How much of it is provided by an Insta or sport logic or live barn? How much of it. Are you having to do manually? [00:09:00] Are there other sources or tools that you're working with? And how much time does it typically take you to to get the data that you need to then sit down and analyze?
Brett Leonard: Sure. So in-stat is pretty unreliable. Sport Logic will get you a lot of data, but again, you ha it's more like N-H-L-A-H-L college level. So for a younger player, you're not gonna have that access, but they, they do get you a lot of data, but again, it's gonna be a lot more of that black and white data.
Zone entry shots, all that. Even when I have players an NHL player, I still do my own tagging system because again, I think there's some, some data as much as I, I'd love to have that automated. I still think there's some data that's, that's tracked that is really important. And something I hadn't mentioned is the longer the player works with me, the more that their data tracking gets personalized.
[00:10:00] So that player's gone through a development path, you know, I might have been working with him for years. It, it's like unlocking and adding new, new rooms on a house. Like we're, we're adding stories, we're adding rooms, we're adding different things that a player who I might just first started with is not even close to having the foundation yet to do some of that stuff.
I also try to pretty quickly with every player, have more of like an asset based. Analytics tracking. So, for example, like a, a power forward, I'm gonna have more metrics about, finer details of how they play below the dots, how they play around the net, how many rebound chances are they getting, how many scoring chances can they create from the back wall walking out to the front of the net.
How many times are they arriving at the net on time for rebounds and screening the goalie, they're box out skills around the net. Like that's super important for their profile type. So we will, we'll dive further. Whereas, you know, maybe an [00:11:00] undersized forward who's more of a playmaker and you know, not gonna be a net front or below the dots heavy type game.
Right? There's, there's not as much need to track some of that data. So, but they might have a totally different, where I'm looking at how many compounding playmaking situations are they putting themselves in? How are they, how many backside of the ice passes can they make? How many slot passes are they making?
So again, big piece of it, it starts to get into those assets where again, you're, you're trying to make that player play inside of what they're best at and put themselves in situations as much as you can.
Oh, I think I lost you.
Jason Jacobs: Oh, sorry,
I muted. I muted because there was some kitchen noise going on behind me.
Brett Leonard: Oh, all good.
Jason Jacobs: or, or in behind the laptop. But so in terms of in terms of learning what the right things to track were and [00:12:00] also how to make sense of the data that you track what was your process to get there? Were you books, were there books that you read along the way?
How much of that came from your playing days? Were there people that you learned from? Was it trial and error? Do the, you know, do the sport logics of the world just lay it out for you and you don't have to think because it's just there. Someone else thought about it, like how did you get here?
Brett Leonard: Yeah, no, mostly trial and error. You know, I mentioned Darryl Rie has been an inspiration for me for a long time. And, you know, I don't think I ever got, exactly a path, but, you know, he would talk and, and certain things about, certain areas he would look at in his players and, you know, I'd take some of those ideas and, and, build my own out of it.
But it was mostly just trial and error. Sport Logic came. I think I, at least I got first access within less than a year. Um, so everything I built was well before that. And again, it's constantly growing and, and
Jason Jacobs: You mean? You mean [00:13:00] in the past year or less than a year, once you started
Brett Leonard: No, it's for logic. I don't know how long they've been around for, but I've only had access to that data for less than a year. So I had, I had already built, what I'd been tracking five, six years before, INS stat or sport Logic, or at least my, ability to use those.
Jason Jacobs: And now that they're here, do they, are they changing materially? What percentage of the stuff you built you're using? Or are you still
Brett Leonard: Yeah. So, yep. I'm currently in a process of, at least, again, for the clients that I have access to, to that, it's helping me shortcut some stuff. At least again, that black and white data. So I am trying to find a way and clean up kind of my coding system where, you know, I can take and print reports and, and pull clips from the sport logic, but then also, still will have to grab the player shifts because stuff like, again, the, [00:14:00] the puck support reads and, and defensive details and a lot of little details just are not tracked yet.
Jason Jacobs: And then as you start to get the analysis done, I guess first of all, like how it, how time consuming is that and how manual is it? And then once you get there. What next?
Brett Leonard: Sure. Great question. So the whole process, so again, brand new player, get three games. The process probably takes up to about eight hours. So each game probably takes an hour and a half or so. So to just manually tag all the data, again, I, I'll go through and do all the hard data first, look at that data, which then helps me kind of just see if that puts me in any kind of direction where, again, like give you example, if a player only had one shot in the game, [00:15:00] that might be a, and maybe only three offenses on puck touches or only a couple of puck touches that were off the pass, that would be red flags to how's he reading the game?
How's he getting open? Is he, is he not on time? Is he, is he put himself in bad spots to not get involved offensively. So that would cue me to be like, okay, now I'm gonna go back through and maybe look at all his offenses own time. And watch that slowly and then start to track some of that data where I'm noticing he's playing in coverage or he's too late to a spot, or he is too early to a spot, or he is running himself outside the dots when he doesn't need to be.
Whatever it may be. I'll start to track all that stuff and then, you know, put that data together. And then when I get all the data, the hard kind of data and the, and the, the IQ data, let's call it, then I prints out a metric or a matrix for me. Excuse me. And from there I can look and it'll start to show [00:16:00] me, okay, maybe this player touched the puck on his backhand 10 times in the left corner of the offense zone.
And on those puck touches, he only had a 20% success rate. So that'd be a red flag to me. So the two things I'm looking for are high frequency, low success rate situations, because if I can improve something that's happening a lot. That's gonna have a big impact in that player having an impact in the game.
Or the other thing I'd be looking for is something that should be happening a lot, but is happening at a low frequency. So for example, again, shoot, like maybe ozone puck touches or just generally getting pucks off the pass. Those numbers are low, beca like below the average I have for clients or think is reasonable for a player.
That would be a red flag. So then I go through and I actually analyze, watch the playlist of that situation. So it might be 15, 20, 30 clips. And then I start to look [00:17:00] for, areas that they're struggling with. Is it a scanning issue? Is it a puck handling issue, is it protection? Is it a skating issue?
Is are they just too slow of a skate or they're not getting into spots, are they. You know, have bad ice geography. So a lot of players that, this is something we talked about last night, which I think is always a funny thing to ask your players, but I've made a lot of players faster just by our video work because I tell 'em all the time, all right, you might not be the fastest skater, but if I put you on the goal line with Connor McDavid and you guys race to the red line, who's gonna win that race?
Sure. Every person in the world's gonna say, Connor McDavid. But now I tell that kid, okay, I'll start you at the blue line. You just have to go about 10, 15 feet to the red line, Connor McDavid gotta start behind the net. Who's gonna win that race? 12-year-old kids could probably win that race. Right? So ultimately speed is a function of getting to pucks or getting to spots first, right?
Or getting to a place with enough time to make a play. [00:18:00] If you have better ice geography and you're reading the game better and you're holding middle ice, or you're anticipating a little better, you're ultimately a faster player out there. So anyways, taking all that, every time I do this three game analysis, I'm looking for one to two key areas.
I think the player needs to take their game to the next level. So then I would meet with the player through a Zoom call. I would show them some of their analytics, give them a little bit of background into the data and why, back up why we're gonna talk about what we are. And then I walk 'em through the video.
I ask them a lot of questions. I think you can learn a lot from just getting inside the head of the player and understand like every player's different. Sometimes they've, you know, been coached by their parent or maybe they've had a bad coach or maybe just a coach that. Does things a certain way, or maybe they just have no clue why they do things.
But the more you can ask 'em questions and find out what makes them do what they do or not do what they do, can really [00:19:00] speed up the process. So we're constantly going back and forth, asking questions, talking through stuff, pointing out, you know, again, whether it's scanning issues, whether it's how they're collecting the puck, how are they protecting it, walk through all that stuff.
Then I'll show 'em NHL example clips of, things they could potentially add or just even good habits of those players, so now they can see what it could look like. And then from there, right? A lot of the work, a lot of the lessons can just like the goal of it is to transfer it your next game.
So I expect if we're going over this video on Wednesday and you have a game Saturday morning, I expect you to at least you know, be improving to some degree, what we talked about on Wednesday and transferring it into your game.
Jason Jacobs: And in terms of the things that you identify, is it direct from video to game or are there [00:20:00] also things that, that you can then work with them on in between the video sessions and the games to try to address those areas specifically? And is that even the tact? Do you address those areas specifically or are there a wide range of things that, that you might address with them either in a private lesson or in a group setting?
Brett Leonard: Absolutely. So it really depends on the player and what situation we're in at that time. So if it's a NHL player, for example, I'm not gonna touch 'em or get on the ice, all season long. And let's say it's, you know, early on in the season we, we've done a video lesson. I'm gonna purposely, you know, make that a very IQ based lesson.
So I'm not gonna go talk to him in October about an issue with his skating. And then say, you know, good luck. Like, you gotta figure this out, right? Like that would make no sense, have no value to 'em. There are times, again, in players that have worked with me for a long time, maybe they just need a little reminder of, improving a technique [00:21:00] or, positioning themselves a little bit better to scan that.
Sure, we could work on it on the ice, but sometimes I'll send those players like a quick little video and when they get on the ice with a, there's team coaches, skills coaches, or again, just have a little extra few minutes before after practice they could watch the video and just get some, you know, quick reminder reps.
But I'm always cautious or conscious of the situation and make sure that the lesson's gonna help that player. Now, if it's a player that's in my area that I know I can get on the ice with, I might point out more of those. Hey, like, you know, we, we. Could have used maybe a better skill here, or we could have had, something different.
But I know I'm gonna get on the ice with that kid in a week so I can point it out a little bit on video knowing that, hey, we're gonna address that in our next lesson. So it's great 'cause they see it, they see what, like, how it relates to the game too. And now we can get on the [00:22:00] ice and start to work on it, but there's always a component of, you know, the IQ side and then there's a component of the technical skill side.
And it's just more of a matter of timing of when you present it to both. So I, I will do a lot of long-term development plans with players where now I know they're coming home for the off season or they're coming to see me for a big chunk of the off season. So now if there is a big flaw a skating issue, a a, a, shooting a.
Issue. Um, just a whole new rebuild in how they protect the puck. Something that's gonna take significant time on the ice. Again, I wouldn't address that middle of the season if I'm not gonna be with them. I'd wait and show 'em after the season and show like, Hey, here's a big area. I've studied this from, your full season.
It's been a common thing. Let's make sure this gets better this off season. So we, we have this as a new weapon going into the next year
Jason Jacobs: so these [00:23:00] things that you identify you know, once you put the plan in place how often are you refreshing the identified things to
work on? Like you mentioned that in some cases you're doing video every week. Does that mean that the things to work on are changing every week?
Brett Leonard: Not necessarily. Great question. I. I always say there's a tra like, so once a player's done one after one session, every session moving forward always has a transfer component. So the first 10, 15, sometimes it's a half hour, all depends I'm gonna, and their next set of games, I'm gonna track positive and negative transfers of any lesson previously.
So obviously the longer the player goes, that, that list can get pretty long and I might just shortcut it. Or when I see like maybe one area is starting to slip or be forgotten, I'll re bring that up. But ultimately I'm always touching back on, recent lessons and showing that player like, Hey, this is great.
Like, look at, here's [00:24:00] five positive examples that you scan the ice better. You obviously saw, read the situation better and look at the positive play you made. And then I might show 'em, Hey, here's three times where we forgot to shoulder check over the left shoulder. We missed an opportunity where we had an easy play to make or the best play available and we missed it because we didn't look.
So yeah, we're constantly reinforcing we previous lessons and what's cool about what, again, after a few lessons, typically they're unrelated, but then a lot of times this stuff all connects and it's, you know, the game's played in a sequence. So a lot of times, I'll give you an example. I think I spoke about it in our last episode, that defenseman who was not activating in the rush, right?
So he's, he's got no experience carrying the puck through the neutral zone, making plays on zone entries. He's not, he, he hasn't been part of the rush all season long right now. He unlocks that. Like I said, that first game, he did it in the first period [00:25:00] alone. He led the rush four times with the puck.
Whether you think he was. He and he did pretty well with it. But do you think that was a, a strong part of his game at that time?
Jason Jacobs: It hadn't been
Brett Leonard: No. Right. But now all of a sudden he's doing something, this lesson that unlocked a new part of his game that typically is so it's, the progression is never just, you know, a, a straight line up.
It's, it's a roller coaster, right? So now he's, he's putting himself in spots, but he's not having as much success, you know, that's a, it ends up becoming a high frequency, but likely a low success rate. 'cause he's, he's not had the experience of doing it. So now it becomes really cool. It's like, Hey, great job.
You wanna build the confidence that you have unlocked something. But now we, now we gotta start to do a new chapter on what do you do when you're on zone entries 'cause you haven't been doing it. So a lot of, a lot of lessons tend to then [00:26:00] lead to a very related. Next part of the sequence, if they start to do the stuff you're asking them, which is really fun to, to do with the players.
Jason Jacobs: How measurable is progress?
Brett Leonard: Very measurable. I, I think there's a lot of key data now. Um, and obviously the stuff I track and I'll do it for my players too, where something I don't think I've mentioned, I usually give my players every, again, every player's different, how often they want this and how many, but I give my players kind of key objectives per month, let's say.
So again, based on their assets, based on what they're best at. So if it's a good playmaking forward, I might say, Hey, your objective is to make five slot passes per game with an 80, 80% success rate. 'cause no one's ever gonna be perfect. 80 percent's kind of the gold standard. If you're doing eight outta 10 you're doing it well in a game that's.
Made for mistakes, right? So I might give him that [00:27:00] as an objective. I might have him, you know, he is also good on, on zone entries and rush. So it might be, hey, create three scoring chances for yourself or a teammate per game on the rush. So I give them these objectives. So instead of worrying about points or, or, goals assist sometimes like assist can be tough to come by.
Like you might be making the plays, but if guys aren't put, finishing the chances you're setting up, well, you get zero assist in game. It can, it, it can, feel crappy for that player or people who don't know any better say, oh, this guy wasn't on the score sheet. But we can go and, and keep the positive mindset.
Like, Hey, you had six slot passes. Yeah, one or two. Maybe you didn't, get it to the guy in the right spot where he could shoot it right away, but hey, you made four, you made six total and four were, were great a's goalie. Made a great save. The guy missed the net twice, like keep going. So I think a lot of that, that, that.
Little data can, can really help versus just looking at the broad numbers of points and [00:28:00] plus minus. And if your team won or loss, like when you look at all this data and track it, you can really start to see trends in your players. And then that helps me too. Like, again, if something starts off that we'd worked on and, and is rising and goes strong and then all of a sudden dips for a little bit, well that's gonna be a red flag to, to recheck.
Like, what, what's happening there? Um, so it is definitely something you can do.
Jason Jacobs: I've heard, I mean, I haven't. I've just kind of scratched the surface in terms of making the rounds with coaches and, and scouts and agents. But one of the things I've heard from them just anecdotally is that I think it was an agent that told me if he gets referred to a, or maybe it was an advisor. If he gets referred to a player, one of the first things he does is just go on elite prospects and kind of eyeball, like where have they been playing and what are the points look like. Right. I mean, in your mind, when you're assessing a player and their competency level and where they currently sit, is that the eyeball test that you use or do you have a
Brett Leonard: No, that's great. So I love this. So this has been kind of [00:29:00] the fun part of, of some of my work this off season with Merrimack. I, I'm I do the player development there. I'm not a co like they have their coaches. They have, and the assistants are really heavy in the recruiting side. But I, I've had a fun project where I've downloaded and, and kind of created a database of the major junior leagues now that they have access to, they're allowed to play college hockey.
I went through the, with the portal players are transferring left and right now. So I did a college hockey database, but what I did was, sure, I looked at points. And some of that stuff. But real honestly, I barely looked at that. What I was looking at is some of the stuff I was mentioning, how many slot passes was this guy making a game?
How many were successful? How many slot shots was he getting? How many loose puck recoveries in the offensive zone? How many zone entries were with a shot on net result? Di different, those details right there because it's so hard, like obviously, and then you [00:30:00] watch the player, but obviously there's lots of good players out there.
And when you're comparing players, sometimes, like again the strength that teams in, in different, like the OHL is a little bit different than the WHL, which is different from the q and this guy might be playing with an amazing player and just picking up points left and right. And this guy's on the worst team, so might not have the same amount of points as the other guy, but if you actually look at some of the data that I think really matters.
He's probably the better player. He's just not in the same situation as the other guy. So I think there's a lot of that data that's really cool to look at. And then I, I did it where I set it all up that you can, you, you rank every player and, and create some indexes where the things I think that are important as, performance indicators to make the jump to college.
You know, those index scores start to, so when the coaches ask me like, Hey, like just the other day they gave me a list of four guys to look at and [00:31:00] that's immediately what I did was start to look at some of the, those key datas before I ever watch the shift just to see analytically, where do they line up?
And then of course now I go and watch, a couple of games of each player. I can go into a playlist and watch all their slot passes and just start to dive in. To really try to figure out, okay, if I had to rank these four guys and also based on what our I, what you guys tell me our team need is, this is what I'd tell you.
This would be the top guy to try to go get this would be the next guy. So it it, it's really fun. And it, it, uh, resource like Sport Logic is really great for that. Where I'm not personally working with the player and doing that day to day where I, I'm tracking their stuff. Well, I can at least get some really good data from Sport Logic quickly get the video clips and, you know, make my assessment that way.
Jason Jacobs: So are, are the scout skillset and the player development skillset interchangeable in some ways.
Brett Leonard: [00:32:00] Yeah I think it's definitely definitely very interchangeable or I, I very least think there should be, a lot of I. Yeah, collaboration there. Where I think as a player development guy, I might have more insight into, is that the red flag on the player? Is that something that can be developed or would be tough to develop or would take long where, you know, like the scouts, they do that for a living.
They, they can definitely, pick out a, a lot of things and, and project where players would fit and are very knowledgeable about that. But I think if you tie in a player development piece and, and work together, and that's kind of what we're do at Merrimack is it can definitely maybe, I guess, help you make better decisions and, and feel more comfortable, um, and, and just have that, less chance of, uh, you know, missing on a player [00:33:00] because again, you can really look and see like, like I get asked all the time, like, everyone skates a little bit different.
One of the first things I I get asked is, you see a guy who's kind of an awkward skater, like, but is it really affecting his game? Or like, is it just like the eye test where like, yeah, he's not the greatest looking skater, but is it really a factor or is that something that can be improved? Um, and how long would that take to improve?
Jason Jacobs: When it comes to when it comes to traditional skills, like the world I'm coming from, it's like you play games and then it's like you might go to edge work, you might do shooting, you might do strength, you know, you might like, it's like you kind of isolate each skill and you do it in a vacuum with the hope that when you bring that back, you're gonna put it together and it's gonna improve your gameplay.
It almost seems like you're starting from the opposite path where you start with reviewing the games and then you isolate the highest gain things to work on. So I guess the question is where do traditional skills fit into this? Is, does this exist [00:34:00] separate and distinct from that as just a, it's like, oh, you do those things and you do this, right?
Or do or does doing this kind of become the new, uh. Quarterback for what you might do there and and might change up what you do there significantly in terms of both what you do, but also how much you do each thing.
Brett Leonard: Sure, great question. Yeah, no, I'm definitely of the approach, you gotta go to the, the game first and again, see what the player is doing well, not doing well. And again, tie as much of the development back to the game. So there's a couple ways you can do it, obviously, like, number one, again, if you're working with a player privately, you can work on again, those key areas, like I mentioned that from video you can walk 'em through, adding different skills, adding better habits in, into those type of things.
I then think you have to get that player in into a group of peers where now you can, you can gamify stuff and then get reps and, and [00:35:00] the power of that is, it's not just about playing games. This is a, you know, a long debate of games versus practices and how much games can be great. And they're more of like the test of where you're at.
The problem with just playing games is, again, you only touch the puck on your stick, maybe a minute, a game, right? There's the amount of frequency things happen is so low that to really develop in a key area, it would be tough. You'd have to play a ton of games to get, 50 zone entries, but maybe in one skill session, if you, if you do it right and set it up right, you could set up a live looking, real life pressure and give a player 50 opportunities to make plays inside of that game context where it might take a whole season to get there.
So I think it's, I important and that ties the IQ part and developing the, all the, the important the skating skills, the stick skills, and the IQ all together. But the, they're all, and, and we talked last night [00:36:00] about the e ecological approach to, to skill training, and that's pretty much the philosophy of it, is putting the players inside the game and making sure that the task is teaching the player the skill set that it needs, right?
So the skill is, is dependent on solving the problem in the sport. It's not about, again, just learning isolated technique, movement and then hope that then transfers at the right time at the right read with what the defense is doing, what your offense options are. So yeah, that, I'm big on that now.
It's not to say I. I don't think I talked about this last time. It's not to say I don't, I don't do any technical training. There's definitely times where a player might not move well with a puck. A common thing and, and not many people teach it, is the puck should lead movement. Really, when you skate your upper body you should move from the top down, right?
So the upper body moves and, and you should be moving in segments. So [00:37:00] the head and and spine rotate and that's gonna slingshot affect your hips and, and pull your edges in. But a lot of people get taught this edge work where it's all foot focused. Sometimes you're not even using a stick or a puck and you're just working on leading, direction change with your feet.
But when you really want to move as efficiently and dynamically as possible, you have to move the opposite way. So some of this stuff can be detrimental. But getting back to what I do is it's, again, relate it back to the game. Get him on the ice, have him do, game situational skill development.
And then if a flag comes up where this guy, could improve his turns, his technical turns, he could improve how he shoots the puck, he could improve, you know, his, his puck protection skills. Then we might have to dive in and go down a path of, of doing some isolated technique skills, build it to a level where you feel like it's proficient enough, and then [00:38:00] put 'em right back into, making reads and seeing if that technique will transfer back into the, the game situation stuff.
Jason Jacobs: At least here in New England, for a lot of the club kids, it seems like, you know, you get a co, a couple practices a week, maybe a skills with the club, and then a couple games on the weekends, and then of course tournaments and stuff. But, um, but largely, you know, the, the kids tend to do a lot of extra stuff, right?
And it's largely on your own for the kid and family to figure out. And it's a lot of more individual stuff, right? I mean, different kids do different things, right? But but like, there's shooting, there's edge work, there's shooting pucks at home, there's stick handling at home. There's there's a bunch of things.
I, I guess my question is in your ideal world, would would they be doing everything in this way and would they be doing everything with you, or do you think that there's still a role for. Others. And then in a world where there are others by necessity because maybe they're part of a program or they're playing for the pros [00:39:00] or something where it's like there's certain team stuff that they just do, right?
Like how does this jive with that? And do they butt heads ever?
Brett Leonard: Yeah. Um, a perfect wor world, and this is pretty much what I do for all my. You know, majority of my clients in the off season is, again, they've done video all season with me. We've probably built out some long-term summer focus plans. We might even continue to do some video work. You know, maybe it's a, a player of a similar style and then HL that, you know, we want to even learn from and, and see maybe parts of their game we could add to this player's game, or at least some version of it.
So we, we've built that all out. Now. Each player, or majority of the players will do we one or two privates a week with me, where again, we're building those key areas. Maybe there are some technical, we, we want to get a little bit better acceleration or we want to get a little bit better [00:40:00] footwork, defensively.
Maybe it's, shooting and, and the routes they're taking and how to release the puck inside a movement more deceptively. They're getting all that personal stuff and they have kind of their summer laid out for 'em from when, when they first get back, so they know kind of the plan and all the objectives again, we're, they're gonna get that personalized work once or twice a week.
But then they also skate with me in a group three to four days a week, where now it's four to eight players. And now we're doing that stuff like I mentioned earlier, where I'm taking what I think is a, a few common important lessons in game situations. And I'm putting them in a lot of game like play where there's different constraints to try to make it as game-like as possible and also give them as many high frequency chances to develop that skill in that, in that situation.
So the then what's great about [00:41:00] it is the players one all have their own kind of personal. Development plan to attack that week or that month. You know, one defenseman might be really trying to focus on his defenses stick and trying to create as many turnovers in this game and can still work on that.
I have one guy that might be working on how can he get more hidden in the offense zone and get more pucks off the pass in the slot to try to score goals. So they all have their own personal objectives that none of them really know they're trying to do it right. But they can do that. I'm video recording it and I can go talk to them that night, the next morning or even inside the, the session and show 'em like, Hey, remember we're like this, the stick detail here isn't what we were talking about.
Like remember like we want it here and then show 'em and, and give 'em that instant feedback so they can go keep working on it. But then inside the group, they all have the common goal of I am trying to think of today's lesson for the pros. Oh, we were doing, we were doing slot shooting and we, we had a [00:42:00] couple different games and a couple different drills where we were really working on, again, getting good timing into the slot, one touch shooting from the slot.
And again, it, each guy probably got 30, 40, 50 reps of a real game-like situation where they had to catch a puck. And, and I think that's the gold of of development is it's not standing there and working on your technique a hundred times in the same spot. Rep after rep. It's no getting a puck where one time the D's right in front of you and you had to push it a little bit or pull it a little bit to get the shot through, and then the next time it might have been wide open and then the next time the puck was in your feet and you had to kick it to your stick to then, like, that's how it happens in a game.
And the more you can add all that, the variables and the, the. You know, chaos of a real game, the more they're gonna develop. And again, that's gonna transfer to a game versus a player that, again, is, is standing and might be working on the perfect technique. Well, technique goes out the [00:43:00] window the second you put in a, a defender or, a bobbled puck or it's in your feet.
Like what do you do next?
Jason Jacobs: S so are there specialists that these players should work? Do you think of yourself as a general contractor and then you have like a sub for this and a sub for that? Or maybe it's not a sub, but it's like a, like partners that you like to work with for things that are outside of your purview, or do you feel equipped to focus on all the things in more of this kind of fluid model that you're describing?
Brett Leonard: Yeah. I feel equipped, definitely, at least with, with the skating stuff. And, and, and pretty much all the. Skills. I mean, shooting might be the one area where I do think there's some people that do like at, at the very least, you know, it's, it's a very technical, you know, wrist and, and like snapshot type stuff that I, I think I'm proficient enough.
Um, but again, a lot of times, like I have so many players, they only have so [00:44:00] much time with me. It's not to say it couldn't be outsourced. Um, and it's not to say there's not time and need for that. And again, I think I, I cover that, but a good way to look at it is, I guess try to say I'm a general contractor, but I do specialize in a few of those areas too.
But it's, I'm trying to think, the, the tough part is, at the very least with all of my players, getting back to kinda like what you said, like they all have different team coaches. They all have different team philosophies, what they're getting in. P take a young kid, some kids in practice might be doing, you know, just like one on, oh, oops, sorry, the cat got in my way.
They might be doing, you know, very, minimal development work in practice where one might have a great coach who's doing a lot of these type of like, small area games and, and stuff like that. So at the very least for all my players, I like to be at [00:45:00] least heavily involved as much as they want me to be, or at the very least, I can help guide them and say, and sure.
Again, if you're talking about a, a 12-year-old who is still growing and, and is awkward on his edges and stuff like. Could I still do some skating work and still recommend he get some additional time? Yes. And there's obviously great people out there. There's people out there that are, are probably more specialized in certain areas.
But again, it's, it's, at the very least, I like to try to stay connected so I at least know what their coaches are like teaching them. And one, one thing I always have with all my players is I'll never go against, like, when we talk about, especially the video and positioning and, and stuff like that, I'll never ever put a player in a place where I'm trying to make them counter what their coach is trying to have them do.
I might try to have 'em find the best way to be as effective inside of whatever [00:46:00] structure or system or what they, they want, but I won't ever put them in jeopardy of, because ultimately they have to play for that coach that year. And that's, you know, I'm gonna help them try to make their coach trust them more and, and lean on them more.
But yeah, same thing I guess could be said with outside skills coaches and, and strength coaches we're, at the very least I'd like to know. And then, if I really felt like it was a conflict, I'd at least address it and say, Hey, like this is what you're telling me. He's being taught, this is my belief.
And then there's times where I've had stuff where it's like, yeah, that's spot on. That's how I would teach it. That's great. Why don't you keep doing that? So then you don't have to we can spend our hours together, focusing more on the game related stuff and you can get that technical work from this person.
I.
Jason Jacobs: In, in terms of the trained eye [00:47:00] to find these insights from the data and then thinking about how to structure drills to work on them, um, how does one learn how to do that?
Brett Leonard: I study a lot of hockey.
Jason Jacobs: Um, when you say study, uh, hockey, uh, what do you mean? Like study hockey. In what format? Study, how, what type of things should you be looking for? Is there any framework or structure or books to read or people to learn from? Or, or is it just like, uh, try and try again and keep getting up and doing it until you ultimately start getting it right.
Brett Leonard: Yeah, no, sure. There's, you know, in terms of watching the game, like this is how I learned a lot of my stuff was, just sitting there and having, you know, maybe it's a, a special focus for every game I watch. So, one game I might be looking at [00:48:00] just the, what's happening in the offense zone?
How are all five players moving and supporting each other? And when, you know, what does it look like when they're having success in creating scoring chances and when is it, what does it look like when they're turning it over and the other team's easily breaking it out? And you start to notice like, hey, when there's, you know, good shape and the team's more in like a 1 3, 1 looking formation, that tends to cover the entire offense's own, it creates multiple options, multiple triangles, a puck support.
It also, if there is a loose puck, we've got a player in almost every area, we got a much better chance. To win that puck back if we've got someone right there to get first touch on it, or at least put pressure right on their guy getting it. And then there, you know, you look at times where, and I did this kind of work for Merrimack Offense, then there's times where you have two players standing still at the net front.
You got a third player in the corner, shock gets blocked. There's this huge gap of [00:49:00] ice we don't have any players in, and now the other team easily breaks out. So that's one way you could, look at the game. You could also look at, I do a lot of just look at a single player, look at a player who's, doing really well.
And I, I don't always recommend like, at least if I was a parent or a coach and just trying to learn some stuff. Like there, there are the, the Connor McDavid and, and the Nathan McKinnons and you have to be very careful, telling any other, even another NHL player to try to steal from them because they obviously have.
Something very special about them. That is it. Not to say there's some things you could maybe learn from. Absolutely. I like to watch a lot of guys that are either like younger in the league and, and just, finally having success and what are they doing. Or even a guy that you look at a lot of great guys to watch are ones that just are smaller, not the fastest, like the physical skills are just average at best because then that tells you they must be doing something habit [00:50:00] wise, their ice geography, their skillset, their iq.
They must be doing something off the charts that is allowing them to play in the NHL. So that's a great way to look at it, where you try to find some of those type of players and learn like, how is this guy having success? There's probably, you know, a whole nother NHL worth of players that could skate faster or bigger, stronger.
But he's playing in the NHL and those guys aren't, what's he doing? So that's another great way to look at it.
Jason Jacobs: And clearly working with someone like yourself who has such a trained eye around this video and then not only identifies player specific areas to work on, but then is really strategic about how to bring about the smart work on those. Things in game-like situations, in group environments to to improve them, right?
I mean that, that would be the highest impact way for a player to improve their [00:51:00] iq. But a lot of players either don't know that someone like you exists can't justify the cost because it is quite expensive or or doesn't have time in their schedule
or for whatever reason, doesn't have access to something like this.
In fact, most, you know, the vast
majority of players don't, right? I mean, you have what, like a few dozen clients not, and like how many hockey players are there, right? Um, and so what advice do you have for everybody else who wants to improve their hockey iq, but, but doesn't, you know, but it's not in the cards to work with someone like you.
Brett Leonard: Sure. Again, I would, I would say try to study the game a bit. Like if you're a young player, you know, like I, me growing up, I think I developed from Marty St. Louis. Like he was like the perfect player. I was fortunate enough to watch him when I, was a young kid in Vermont when he was at UVM and then followed his whole pro career.
So I remember anytime he was on tv, I'd watch exactly what he did. I wouldn't watch anything else, but just where he was [00:52:00] going, how he was moving and was I literally like taking notes on him? No, but I think just subconsciously, just watching, I was picking up things at a young age. That started to show up and I was doing without even realizing it.
So I definitely think there's value of not just going and watching the, the ten second highlight of someone, you know, dangling through three players and scoring a goal that, again, happens one out of a hundred times, but actually go watch a full period of if you're a right shot defenseman, find a right shot defenseman, similar to what you think your style is, and go and watch them and try to pick up on what do they do with the puck at the blue line?
What, how, what are their gaps? Like what, what do they do on breakouts? How well do they scan? What do they use do? Are they turning a lot, are they using more, you know, spin and slide type skills? Stuff like that can, I think really help a player. Then I would recommend, [00:53:00] and, and it is tough because I.
But I, I would just also kinda audit what you are doing for development and, and really think, is this making me better in the games or is this just making me sweat and work hard? And having, not that having fun's a bad, bad thing, but, you know, is it, is it really valuable? Really think, will this, how will this relate to my game?
And if you can't answer that, you should second guess maybe how much time or money or effort you're putting into stuff like that. Again, I, I think there's, there's big value in, you know, I would recommend to parents, we, we do it with my son's group. We did it all spring. We'd rent the little sheet at there and just get 6, 8, 10, 12 kids and just let 'em play.
And, and again, the creativity, um, I. The passion for the game, all that just really stands out. And I think a player would get a lot more out of playing, you know, a fun three on three with their friends than to go, you know, [00:54:00] do isolated skill work just to, work on that. Because again, at least in the game, they're gonna be making reads, they're gonna be making dec.
I don't think players can put themselves in those situations enough where they have to make decisions, they have to protect the puck, they have to read space, all that kind of stuff. And then, you know, simple things I do with my players that ask 'em questions all the time, but like, if you just break the game down and try to keep it as simple as possible.
Ultimately, you know, like a couple of lessons this week for, for players was ultimately we wanna score goals and we wanna stop the other team from scoring goals. It's that simple, right? When you think of it that simple, you can start to draw things that can help players develop. I had a player today.
A perfect example. It was an offensive zone, like four versus three. Drill came around the net. First thing he did was look right up at the point, see if they were open. They had a player coming down the slot wide open, [00:55:00] screaming. They looked their just habit was to look right up at the perimeter.
Then I watched him look at the middle. That middle player was now already covered. Situation was gone. Then by the time they looked a couple times now, the defender was on them and they were pinned against the boards and puck was taken. Pulled that player aside, showed 'em it on the video and said, Hey, the priority's always gotta be, scan the middle first.
And there's a lot of coaches out there now that are like doing scanning drills and talking about scan, and it's great. It's definitely better. But I think sometimes in getting back to the e ecological approach, and I think it's really cool, is yes, we want feedback and we want coaching for sure, but sometimes just setting up the right environment will teach the players that.
So again, if I set up a drill where you have to pass it to the slot to, to score, that's the only way you're allowed to score. Or maybe you're not even allowed to make perimeter passes. Well, what do you think that [00:56:00] player's hopefully gonna start to do? Every time they touch the puck, the first thing they're gonna be doing is trying to look to see if there's a player in the slot.
That's the only thing you're allowed to do. You can set up constraints and environments to allow 'em to do that, and if they're struggling with it, you can stack the deck in their favor more and, and give them a, a five versus three or three versus one to at the very least, typically have more time and space and, and more.
Of a number advantage to create that. And then as they get good at it, you start to challenge it even more with the, with the pro guys a lot, especially towards the end of the summer, we do a lot of like two versus three or three versus four type work where now the deck's stacked against them. And if they can figure out how to create a scoring chance, three versus four in the offense zone, that's real.
Like, that's real development and real, challenging. But, and even with the, a cool part about the ecological approach I really learned lately is just even the get back to the technical skills is a lot of the work [00:57:00] I do now is, you know, it's easy to get out there and, and tell a kid to bend his knees more or, do this with his hands on his shot or, and you make them internally focus and a lot of times you're just.
Gonna beat your head on the wall. And things I learned from some of the books recently were giving them external cues. And with my strength conditioning background, I always kind of knew that, but definitely improved on how to do it. But a lot of the stuff I'll do is, again, I'll use markers on the ice or some kind of constraint where I don't tell the play.
Like if I notice a player should shift the puck a little bit wider in their movement they're too narrow. Like the movement they would do would not really work or is not getting the right, pattern. I want, I might just, again, you use a spray paint line. That's all I say is, Hey, when you make this move, I want you to bring the puck [00:58:00] across this line.
Or if I tell 'em they have to finish, sometimes they do something and they kind of, once the skills executed, they stop doing it. So I'll, I'll add something that makes them have to, explode out of it. Where now all of a sudden the movement gets better. And then one really cool one I discovered I just started doing it the other day and I, I joked with my player 'cause he was probably old enough.
I said, I miyagi him and I said, most of my kids would not have any clue what Miyagi means.
Jason Jacobs: I am 49, so I definitely
know
Brett Leonard: So what I did, and, and this I didn't learn from anyone. Maybe I did and just didn't realize it. But I had a player really working technical, a technical turn for a long, like, really struggled with it. And we finally were getting it to a place where it was, it was pretty good, wasn't great.
And it was again, like when a player is working on technical stuff, they're really in their mind and they're very rigid, and it [00:59:00] can, it can, definitely a rollercoaster ride of a, Hey, we got a good rep, and then the next rep, they're overthinking or over, putting their weight and it just, it doesn't have a flow to it.
So I created what I could think of as like a ridiculous movement they would never want to do. Something that was really confusing. Technical. And what I did was, I put it right, be I put one right before the turn they, they had been working on and one right after. What do you think happened to that turn for that player?
Jason Jacobs: It got tighter.
Brett Leonard: It got what I.
Jason Jacobs: Tighter.
Brett Leonard: It got way back. Yeah. It was like, it was game-like execution because now their brain switched to this confusing thing they had to do before this really weird, made no sense type of skill after. And now they stop thinking about the turn. And now the turn was amazing. And that, and, and from that point on, that player [01:00:00] has, now I, again, it's a player that works privately with me and and now when he's been in the group setting, now all of a sudden that unlocked the ability to just do it naturally in a game-like situation.
So there's a lot of cool with the, you know, the ecological approach stuff that I've learned where it, it's stuff like that where, again, I don't think I got that idea from it, but kind of it does teach around that path where, I don't know how it came to me, but I, I just tried it. About a month ago, and now it's kind of one of my secret weapons when I am doing technical work.
It's okay. Sometimes you do have to make the player aware to make some changes. But as soon as you can get them to stop thinking about it with tricks like that, you can get it. 'cause we wanna automate the skill. We don't want them in a game going down the ice and being like, oh, I gotta, you know, put my weight on this foot first and then pull the puck this way to, to execute this [01:01:00] turn.
You might have to train it that way for a second, but we gotta get it out of that stage as quick as possible.
Jason Jacobs: Uhhuh and, um, and coming back around to Leonard Hockey. So, there's a couple different ways that it seems One might scale this approach, right? One would be. An apprentice like me, right?
I'm here, I'm ready to work, coach, right? And, um, and and help me offload more of the stuff that doesn't need to be used so that you can focus on more of the stuff that can only be you, and then you can serve more people without compromising quality.
Right?
So that's a path I'd love to talk about. And then the second path would be how do you take what's in your brain and maybe package it in a way that is lighter touch and more digital and more automated. So it could serve a lot more people in a way that might not be as good as the, the full on Leonard Hockey way, but is a lot more accessible for people that, where it's like better than nothing.
It's not as good as the real thing, but it's a lot better than nothing. Right. And so I, I'd love to just get your thoughts on, on each of those [01:02:00] paths and how one might proceed and also just what you wanna do.
Brett Leonard: Sure. Yeah, no, definitely. Definitely at a stage now where I've gotten to a point where one, I am turning away clients 'cause it's, it's, or close to turning away clients 'cause it's, it's maxed out. Or at least at different stages of the season, especially. During the year there's been times where I've had to put people on hold or on a waiting list.
Um, so definitely like the, the black and white data, like I mentioned earlier, I think is definitely something almost anyone could learn. Especially if the passion for the game or a little bit of experience with the game, um, and that, that data, it probably takes twice as long or three times as long as, as the data I do.
So it'd be great to, to start to get more people involved where, someone could be assigned 10 different players, keep track of, getting their [01:03:00] game clips, getting it uploaded, doing the, the black and white data, which then also would go into the analytics report for the player. Someone, you know, they could be responsible for that.
And then I would come in at kind of the last hour already have a data report for me, which then would shortcut my way to, what are some of those IQ type skills and, off puck reads and all that stuff that I could, quickly go through, analyze those, do the data for that, and then quickly decide on what is this player's key, key, uh, learning lesson for the week.
For sure.
Jason Jacobs: Uhhuh. So maybe taking over some of the analysis that is more s straightforward and, um, where there's an objective. It's like, uh, counting reps or, or doing things that you don't need to train eye to do. You just need to be diligent.
Brett Leonard: Yeah. E exactly. Yep. It's just, yep. It's, it's kind of tedious [01:04:00] work, but if you understand what a puck retrieval is and the left half wall, you could, you could tag it, and, and, and do that stuff. Or again, a shot's a shot. It, a snapshot. A snapshot, a one timer. What location was it? What was the result?
Was it a goal? Was it a save? Was
Jason Jacobs: I mean, is this stuff you should be getting from the platforms you're already working with?
Brett Leonard: yeah, like some of that stuff you would get. But again I guess that could be another part of this conversation is I haven't fully done. Okay. Is there a way to get that data uploaded and then still have the skill, the stuff I track uploaded and have it kind of be seamless? 'cause when I, when I tag it all, it creates the video files for me all in one kind of playlist.
There would have to be some extra work to take that outside source, put it in. And again, we're also talking. That only exists for. You know, maybe [01:05:00] 60% of my clients, um, that are playing college or above. And then for those youth prep school type players, you gotta start, there's no data for them whatsoever, typically.
So you gotta do it all by hand anyway.
Jason Jacobs: But that's something you could train an apprentice like me to do.
Brett Leonard: Absolutely.
Jason Jacobs: And I mean, how, how would we do that? Would it, would it just be sitting and watching you do it?
Brett Leonard: Yeah. Yeah. I think it would be, you know, probably could learn it in, do three to five games, watch me do one, and then, probably sit there with you and, and you go through and, start to remember, I remember when I first did it, it was, probably took me three hours to do one game.
And now, I. Definitely much quicker. So it's, yeah, it's just sitting there. The nice part is like, there, there's some video, like the video coaches for teams like the Merrimack guy, like he has to sit there and live, do it, and tag all this [01:06:00] video while the game's going on. So then when the coaches come into the locker room in between periods and that coach wants to see, those eight slot or eight shots, we let up that period, he's gotta have it there, ready for him plugged in in the TV, in the coach's room so that coach can look at it and see what he wants to address in his, in between game speech.
Nice part is, this is all, obviously not live footage, so you can take your time through it and make your mistakes and, and kind of, work through the process. But
Jason Jacobs: Huh. But the first place you would go is more on the analytics side, not the ON i's help, for example.
Brett Leonard: yeah, definitely I, I think one I. It's, again, we're talking black and white data type stuff. So I think that could quickly be learned again after just doing a few games. And then, and then it would, again, it would be a little bit longer of a process, but as you did it more, you would just quickly recognize, you know, the situation and [01:07:00] remember everything that needs to get tagged for that specific situation.
'Cause again, you're gonna have like a code button that actually takes the file and creates a vi, creates a video file and creates a number for the analytic report. But then you're also gonna tag labels for it. So again, you take a, a shot, for example, the shot is the code button, but then you've gotta tag what kind of route the player was on.
Were they standing still? Was it a one-timer? Was it was it a snapshot? Was it a rebound? So you might have to hit five or six buttons just for one play. JJ and then, and backing up to that, you have to tag how he got the puck in the first place. Did he? You know, so maybe I picked up a loose puck in the corner, came around and shot it.
Well, you have buttons you have to do for that retrieval in the corner and what he did, and then was the play successful? And then go to the shot. So it can, the data can pile up pretty, pretty [01:08:00] quickly. But that would definitely be the easiest. I think on the ice, on the ice is tougher. I, I, I haven't spoken much about this, but with the on ice, that's really more of, I think my years of experience and learning from my players and learning from other people.
But it's, I go, I, I don't, I don't ever write drills. I haven't wrote a drill in, probably the last five or six years. I have, you know, if it's a group and I'm, again tackling like a game concept, like, a zone entry situation, right? Like I, I'm gonna have that, that kind of initial area and usually start out with some kind of game or, or game-like drill with real pressure pretty much immediately and put them in that situation.
And then from there I'm reading how does that what are we struggling at? And, and then that's gonna tell me the next drill. So if [01:09:00] you know it's, or, or you know, that, that's probably a more complicated one for, for people listening. So let's try again, let's just take the game I did today where the, the slot passing, right?
So I set it up. They're playing three on three to start trying to make slot passes. The only way you can score, you can pass it however you want, but the only way you can score is a pass has to go into this. This little slop box I drew on the ice, and it has to be a one touch shop. So who knows what's gonna happen for the collective group, and you're trying to help as many of them as possible.
But let's say the common theme is, again, how they're getting to the pucks. They're closing their body off to the slot. They're not prioritizing scanning the slot. Okay? We might do, go do a quick drill that works on that technical skill and just get wraps and walk through it for five minutes.
Okay, now we throw it back in the game. Okay, that's gotten a little better. Now maybe the issue is we're making great [01:10:00] slot passes, but the person in the slot is not ready to one time it, their body positioning's terrible the way they're catching the puck's terrible. And, and they're not able to, to one touch shoot it.
So we might set up a, a drill to work on, rotating and maybe the puck moves around multiple places and this player's working on just adjusting so that they always stay ready as, as a shooter, where a lot of times players will go and kind of just get set and a lot of players have a catch the pass first mentality and then figure out what to do that, we might do something to help train that.
Then we go back to the game again. Now, maybe that's better. Maybe everything's really good. So now again, maybe I put make it four on four. So there's a little bit more defenders less space to make it more challenging or really advance it by going three versus four. But point being is, or even in a, in a private lesson, sure.
We have, you know, again, let's say it's a a, a session right after a video, we've got our areas to focus on. Yeah, I've got a [01:11:00] good sense of where we're gonna go. We might check off a couple things that comes easy for that player, but now all of a sudden we try to add the next piece and. It completely blows up the progress and then all of a sudden you find out, you know, this player really struggles with, you know, a certain skill or aspect inside of this sequence.
Well now we might have to spend 20 minutes working on that technical part because it's the missing piece. It's the, it's the missing link in the, in the chain that's holding them back from being able to progress. So point being is, that's the tough part of just saying, sure, can I bring someone on the ice and have them start to learn and try to teach them like, this is what I'm looking for.
Absolutely. But I think that would take, you know, would it be helpful to have someone out there? Absolutely. But to have someone be to a point where, Hey, I would be, feel comfortable sending [01:12:00] you to go do this on your own, would take quite a bit of time. Now, like you said, does every player need me on, on the ice?
Is training someone on the ice to get at least proficient and, and maybe some more of the foundational situations that are easier to, for a new coach to comprehend and younger players to follow? Definitely. I think that's something I should explore more where, over time again, but this assistant could go run a group of players that might not need all the bells and whistles that I might have.
That answer your question all.
Jason Jacobs: It does. Yeah. And what about on the analysis side? I know you mentioned that Sport Logic has some AI to it for the aspects that Sport Logic doesn't cover that you're doing yourself. What's your sense in terms of like, could you train a model to start to [01:13:00] learn what's in your brain and start to do some of the decision making that you do when it sees things? You know, in a, in a, in a repeated way. Like if it sees you say, oh, when this happens, it means this, so therefore they should work on that. Or, when this happens, it means this. And, you know, if they go outside of these parameters, like, is it too complicated? Or, or, or do you think there could be rules around it that could help at the very least start giving you a baseline to work from versus starting from scratch?
Brett Leonard: Yeah, no, I think that's a it's definitely doable. It, I'm not very familiar with AI and exactly how that works. Um, um, but I have started thinking about it and, it, it's definitely a complicated, I think it's doable. It's just more of yeah, getting, I guess, more precise in the rules of, of what I'm looking for. But again, there are a lot of variables where and every, every player's different. Like some team systems are a little bit different, where I [01:14:00] might want a player to be in a certain area, but their structure wants him, to at least be in a certain spot before he would go and do something like that.
But I think there's ways, like it gave me an idea of like, if there's a way to teach ai, like for my defenseman, I'm big on anticipating when the player you are gonna, you know, defend on the puck is getting the puck. Like the sooner you can get there. The more success you're gonna have. Every player is most vulnerable as they're getting the puck, right?
If you give a good player a little bit of time and space, see you coming, now the deck's stacked in their favor. So maybe it'd be a cool thing to be able to flag that, okay, I see this player, this is the player I'm following. I can track prob like, I know sport logic can track, stick checks that player makes or body checks or defensive plays he makes successful or unsuccessful.
But it'd be cool to track, maybe it's a [01:15:00] red flag if it ever takes more than two seconds. So you could see like the average time of that player. Like that would be something I would look at. I would, I don't think I would do it as hard data and maybe I should, I'm learning as I talk to you, but you know, it'd be cool to look at, okay, if this defense been on a, like maybe there is a correlation that when he gets to the puck carrier in one second or less when he switches to the puck.
Maybe he is got an 80 success, 80% success rate in stopping that play. But if it's one and a half seconds or longer when he gets there, maybe it's a 20% success rate. That's the kind of stuff I'm constantly looking at and kind of challenging to look for that stuff and then see does it the, like the, what does that data tell me?
And then that's something that's teachable. So then, you know, I learned that through an NHL player really studying those details. But that might be a lesson for my 12, 14-year-old D that like, Hey, might not [01:16:00] be so important now, but it's a great habit to build and start to play with a mindset. Or you throw it again into a small area game with constraints that says, okay, you have two seconds or three seconds or less to create, like, I'm gonna put a puck to the offensive team defense.
You have three seconds or less to create a turnover. And again, train them and put 'em in an environment where, okay, they understand the sooner I can get to a player as they're getting the puck typically means a higher success rate in creating a turnover. That's how we're gonna train today. So that, that's something I think, you know, along those lines.
Doesn't have to be that specifically, but that's the kind of stuff I'd be interested in exploring. And could you train an AI or a model to, to get a lot of that cool data that, again, is more player development, where I think a lot of the data is driving more scouting. Even though I do think it, it is [01:17:00] connected.
Jason Jacobs: Uhhuh. I mean, that's one of the things I'm thinking about is just 'cause if you take like a legal doc and you upload it to. Chat, GPT, it and it, I'm no expert on this, but from what I can gather, you can take a legal doc, you can upload it, and it will tell you this thing's standard. That thing's standard, that thing's standard.
This one there, like, you know, that's a little tilted in, in this side's favor. And that one there, that's a little tilted in your favor and everything else looks nice and clean, right? And it's like, well, why would I pay a lawyer if I have this? And it's like, well, you know what? Like you should probably still have a human in the loop and pay the lawyer to at least eyeball it.
And like, yes, I agree with this analysis or not, but it gives a starting point. That probably means that you're paying for, a half or a quarter of the billable time from the human that you would've paid without it. Right?
And so here it seems similar where you could train a model over time and the model could learn and like, you're still gonna need the human in the loop.
It's not gonna replace the human, but it means that like your time could go further and further. And then it's like, well, if that's true, how do you train a model where you train the model with a lot of [01:18:00] video and a lot of, analysis and then connecting the dots between the piece of the video footage and the piece of the analysis.
Right? And then if you do that with enough scale, then the model should be able to handle more and more edge cases over time, right? And it's like, okay, well how do you get that scale? Well, you have a lot of coaches using this platform, a lot of players uploading their stuff and a lot of coaches doing the analysis, right?
A lot of humans involved, right? And it's like, well, what's the value proposition to the coaches? Like, why would they, you know, use this versus just doing it on their own, like you've been doing. And it's like, I don't know yet. And I don't, I don't, you know, it's not gonna work unless you do it in a way where it's a win-win win, right?
It's gotta be good for everybody. But you can see how if you could do it, it would help the coach's bandwidth go further so they could serve more customers. It would lower the price point of the services, which means that more people could be a part of it. And um, and it would grow the skill of the game.
You know, it would be good for the players and good for the game, right? But but like, yeah, it's. I think with anything new, right? It's like, you know, like the [01:19:00] narrative is like, it's gonna take away our jobs. And like, I don't actually think that's true. I don't think it's gonna take away jobs. I think it's gonna take away the shit that no one wants to do so they can focus on the shit that only them can do.
And then it's gonna mean that they can serve more people, more people over time. Especially in a place like this where it's so nuanced and where there's so much taste involved and stuff that, like, it's hard to kind of put, put hard rules around. But yeah, I, I don't know, I don't know how that would be received, but that's kind of a, an area I'm poking on and, and I'm interested in learn more about, but that's about as far as I've gotten.
So I dunno. What do you think?
Brett Leonard: Yeah, no, I definitely think you're onto something and I, I think, you know, for someone like me, yes, it gives you the ability to maybe offer a, a more friendlier price point product that, helps more players gets your name out there, but I think it will also help you attract a player and bring them into kind of this philosophy of training.
And how important the video stuff is, which would probably bring people like [01:20:00] me more business where, sure, like you said, you still need the human in the loop and maybe a player starts off with the software or whatever this product would be at a younger age and develops. But now they start to outgrow and do need, a service like I provide where they, they need a little bit more detail.
But at the very least, if it could, at least speed up and, and shortcut a lot of the manual labor that isn't the, you know, those hours aren't going into making the kid better. It's just preparing the data and preparing the video and the, and the reports then yeah, that, that's a no-brainer for, for me, where now I could service maybe 150 players a year instead of 50 because, a lot of that work is done for me.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah, I mean, a good example is like podcast transcripts. Like, I don't know if it's still this way, but like a year or two ago, you could you could, you know, you take the audio file and you upload it, and then if you want just a transcript that's [01:21:00] fully ai, it's cheap, but there'll be a lot of mistakes, right?
If you want one that's AI and then a human goes in and does all the corrections, right? Then it's more expensive, but it's a lot more accurate, right? Um, so I mean, you could kind of see that. Moving in that direction in this world where it's like,
look like you can get some analysis done and it's a baseline, like it's not gonna be perfect, but it'll give you more insight than nothing.
Right. And it's gonna be cheap, but if you want the human involved or fully human Yeah. You can graduate to that. But like the higher the, you know, the higher the quality, the more you're gonna pay. Right. Um, but at least there'd be an entry point for everybody else.
Brett Leonard: Absolutely. Yeah. No, that's a great way to look at it for sure.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah. Cool. Well thanks for the lesson. I, yeah, I, I, it was helpful to me. I don't know if it was helpful to you. I feel like if I, if I got my my black and white data training up to speed, then maybe it could be helpful for you if but, uh, but yeah, I don't know. The road to get there still seems pretty daunting.
Um, but, uh, but we did cover a lot of ground here, Brett. Is there anything we didn't [01:22:00] cover that you wish we did?
Brett Leonard: No, I think, uh, I think we covered everything.
Jason Jacobs: Great. I'm really thrilled that you made the time and you're also gonna be a super valuable sounding board as I get further along as a practitioner who's doing this at, some of the highest levels in the game. Whatever we end up doing here, we wanna do in a way that people like you are excited by and see how it will help and, and not feel like it's either amateur hour garbage, like, don't go near it or it's a threat.
Because I don't think it's gonna be either of those things. And if it were either of those things, I wouldn't wanna do it. So I don't know exactly what we're doing, but I think conversations like this are just invaluable to helping inform that and hopefully invaluable to listeners too in terms of, um. How to think about their own player development, how to think about how to balance, um, skills and games and, and, uh, video analysis and how those fit together and how they might think about selecting providers as well. You know, whether it's Leonard Hockey or, or somebody else. But I, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if you get some new [01:23:00] customers from it as well, although, uh, it doesn't sound like you need 'em.
Brett Leonard: Can always probably use a couple more and especially now that I got you doing the black and white data, I'll be able to take on at least, at least a few more.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah. Put me in Coach. I'm ready to go.
Brett Leonard: Yeah, no, um, yeah, no, to that. Just brought up another thought was. I definitely think you're onto the, to the right thing and, and, and just I'm kind of remembering some recent products and I'm sure you're familiar with the super decar.
Jason Jacobs: Oh yeah, we've got one.
Brett Leonard: Yeah. So, and, and my son uses it from time to time. And again, I'm thinking from a development standpoint, again, five, 6-year-old using it when he used it. Probably great fun. He's not gonna want to go do drills or anything like that with me at that age. So, obviously it's engaging. It starts here now.
I saw, like last time I was at Pure Hockey, now they, there's one where it's like you put an iPad up, right? Because the knock on the super decar [01:24:00] was, it's just like, I, I have my problem with obstacles on the ices. You have to look down to avoid the obstacles and that's the last thing you want to be doing when you're, you know, weaving through traffic through the neutral zone is be looking down at the puck.
So the super dicker, you're looking down. So then I saw someone invented, like, again, an iPad stand and an iPad app where you could stick handle on their board, but you have to track, the iPad and have your head up when you're doing it. So again, a, a better version. But again, is, is stick handling to where this, fake environment is telling you to, is that gonna really transfer to a game?
Is it a step better? Probably, but is it gonna transfer? So again, I, I think it's, it's really cool that, it think it's, it's a totally untouched, product area where whatever you end up coming up with is, you know, something that, again, helps people like me and the philosophy we have where you know it [01:25:00] finding a, a product that actually trains the IQ and connects the skill in the iq.
Whatever that may be. Still, probably early to tell, but I think if it's something along those lines where it is rooted in game transfer and how you create that, know, but I, I think you're onto the right thing and I think it's only gonna help the game and help people like me. 'Cause like you said, I, I think it can at least create and put a jump and help players get better and then as they get better and they see the value, people like me probably, you know, make more sense than, using the super decar all summer and hoping that means you got the best hands come, uh, next season.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah. And people in the hockey world are asking me, it's like, it's like, well wait. If you're starting a company what is it? What are you building? I don't get it. Tell me what it is. How does it work? How much does it cost? And it's like I, the way I build, I don't anchor on the solution. I anchor on the problem, [01:26:00] and then I go on an exploration of learning and experimentation to look at different approaches to best address the problem. But it's the problem, right? And so when I think about the problem, it's like, instead of just blind you know, skill, skill, skill, skill skills.
Or blind games. Games, games, games, games, games. Right. It's like, well. What's happening in the games and how's the player doing, and what does the player need to work on? And then being a lot more targeted and surgical about what to work on to identify the highest leverage things that'll improve their gameplay.
And also, yes, connecting the dots between how do you deliver those things and make them engaging and where there's adherence and progress and accountability. Sure. But like I started out like, oh, it's gonna be Peloton for home skills. And now as I'm getting into it, it's like, well, wait a minute. Like in a way that's just reinforcing the problem, right?
Of just like, it's just more, more, more, more, more, more, more and like, maybe more, more, more, more, more of stuff that's isolated and not representing gameplay is not [01:27:00] only not productive, but maybe it's even detrimental. I don't know, like that's the exploration that I'm on. But yeah, my current thinking is much more aligned with with your approach, which then changes what we'll ultimately build.
Brett Leonard: Oh, awesome.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah. Well thanks Brett. Nice to catch up again. I'm sure this dialogue will continue and yeah, I, uh, I look forward to watching your progress and vice versa, and maybe there'll be things we can do together.
Brett Leonard: I'm looking forward to it.
Jason Jacobs: Okay.
Brett Leonard: All right, great. Thank you.
Jason Jacobs: Thank you for tuning in to the next, next. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did and you haven't already, you can subscribe from your favorite podcast player, whether it's Apple, Spotify, or any of the others. We also send a newsletter every week on the journey itself. The new content that we publish, the questions that we're wrestling with, how the platform itself is coming along, that we're planning to build for player development, and where we could use some help.
And you can find that at the next [01:28:00] next.substack.com. Thanks a lot and see you soon.