Matt Keator, and NHL player agent and founder of the Boston-based Win Hockey Agency is the guest on the latest episode of New England Hockey Journal’s “RinkWise” podcast.
Keator, the long-time agent to former Boston Bruins captain Zdeno Chara, has been involved in high-level hockey for more than four decades as a player, scout and agent/advisor. He sits down with RinkWise to talk about his experiences and involvement with top clients, including Chara. He also has advice for young players who aspire to play at the highest levels of the sport.
Listen here:
Highlights from the podcast:
On Zdeno Chara's drive to succeed that can be an example for young hockey players:
Keator: My impression of Z is that he decided to come over here, and he had a chip on his shoulder and he was going to prove everyone wrong.
He got cut from his junior team at 16.
Well, he still to this day is driven by just that alone. That's all he needs. Kind of like (Tom) Brady. You get that chip on your shoulder. And he basically, literally, has just made himself into a player. He was working out two or three times a day when I met him. He was a stay-home defenseman off the glass who would fight people.
He's just a fascinating guy who is addicted to the process of getting better each and every day and mastering his craft.
He made himself into a player with all of his hard work. He maximized every asset he had. He maximized it to the Nth degree through hard work, through process, through not getting too far ahead of himself.
On encouraging players and parents to block out the noise:
Keator: You have to tell them to take a foot off the accelerator. You have to tell them to say, look inward. Look at your child first and what he needs. Don't look at what everyone else is doing. Get off of social media. Don't read the lists and the stuff that comes out. A lot of it's just generated by people sitting in their basement just throwing out opinions.
You can't look at what everyone else is doing. You have to trust the process and listen to advice from people you trust.
A lot of parents get caught up in the external gratification of their kid scoring a goal or committing at too young an age to college and not understanding it's a journey, not a race, and that your kid will get there down the road if you teach them the right values and the right beliefs, and if you have the right habits.
On playing with "higher brain"
Keator: I have a mental performance coach, a guy by the name of Greg Poss, who’s very, very good with players in terms of being in go-mode all the time, not being affected by outside influences and almost creating a story in your head to keep yourself going forward in a game. Like, let’s say you go out and you get scored on the first shift and the coach is yelling at you. Is that going to ruin you for the rest of the game? Or are you going to push the reset button? And are you going to go back out there and play fearless hockey? It’s the ability to handle that.
The podcast can be streamed at hockeyjournal.com/podcast and on major platforms, such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
“RinkWise” is brought to you by Paul Vincent Hockey, Laura Stamm Power Skating and University of Nebraska High School.
