Our Kids Play Hockey
Our Kids Play Hockey is a podcast that focuses on youth hockey, offering insights, stories, and interviews from the hockey community. It provides valuable advice for parents, coaches, and players, covering various aspects of the game, including skill development, sportsmanship, teamwork, and creating a positive experience for young athletes. The show frequently features guests who share their expertise and personal experiences in youth hockey, both on and off the ice.
The show features three hockey parents, who all work in the game at high levels:
- Christie Casciano-Burns - USA Hockey Columnist, Author, and WSYR Anchor
- Mike Bonelli - USA Hockey Coach and Organizational Consultant
- Lee M.J. Elias - Hockey Entrepreneur, Author, and Team Strategist
In addition to the main podcast, there are several spin-off series that dive into specific aspects of youth hockey:
1.Our Girls Play Hockey – This series highlights the growing presence of girls in hockey, addressing the unique challenges they face while celebrating their accomplishments and contributions to the sport. Each episode of Our Girls Play Hockey is also hosted by Sheri Hudspeth who is the Director, Youth Hockey Programs and Fan Development for the Vegas Golden Knights.
2.The Ride to The Rink – A shorter, motivational series designed to be listened to on the way to the rink, offering quick, inspirational tips and advice to help players and parents get into the right mindset before a game or practice.
3.Our Kids Play Goalie – This series is dedicated to young goalies and the unique challenges they face. It provides advice for players, parents, and coaches on how to support and develop young goaltenders, focusing on the mental and physical demands of the position.
Together, these shows provide a comprehensive platform for parents, players, and coaches involved in youth hockey, offering insights for all aspects of the sport, from parenting, playing, or coaching to specialized positions like goaltending.
Our Kids Play Hockey
The Ride To The Rink - How To Break Into Sports Broadcasting with Jamie Hersch 🎙️🏒
Calling all young hockey players and future broadcasters! In this episode of The Ride to the Rink, broadcaster Jamie Hersch joins Lee Elias to share how kids can turn their love for sports into an exciting career in broadcasting.
🚨 Inside This Episode:
✅ How to get started in broadcasting—even as a kid!
✅ Overcoming fear—why doing it scared is the first step to success.
✅ Reps, reps, reps!—why practice makes perfect in front of the camera.
✅ How broadcasting keeps you in the game—staying involved in hockey beyond playing.
✅ Jamie’s advice for young hockey players—why passion and persistence always win.
💡 Whether you dream of calling NHL or PWHL games, interviewing your teammates, or just love talking hockey, this episode is packed with motivation and practical steps to help you start your broadcasting journey.
🎧 Listen now and take the first step toward your future in sports!
#RideToTheRink #HockeyBroadcasting #OurKidsPlayHockey #SportsMedia
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Lee MJ Elias: Hello hockey skaters and goalies around the world. Welcome back to another edition of the Ride to the Rink. It's Lee with you today and I've got my good friend Jamie Hirsch here, who is a professional broadcaster, well known across the NHL, the pwhl, and several other sports leagues. And Jamie, I'd love for you to talk to the kids listening today about a career in broadcasting and how broadcasting is just a wonderful place to be in addition to playing. But for the kids out there who want to be a broadcaster one day that love sports broadcasting, what, what are some things that they can do? What's a path that they can take to get more involved in that medium?
Jamie Hersch: Well, thanks, Leah. I always tell kids that really experience is the first and foremost thing that you need if you want to do this. And so experience doesn't mean that you have to have a professional job when you get your first experience. No experience. Start when you're a kid. And so for me, when I was growing up, I started loving sports at an early age. And as I got older, into high school, I remember going out with my friend who wanted to be in movies and so he would take his little camcorder and just tape me doing different interviews or giving a preview of the football game. That was coming up and eventually I turned to do that for hockey at the state tournament as well, where I was interviewing players as a student and interviewing fans in the stands. And. And so whether you have the opportunity to do that at your school's broadcast station that you may or may not have, or whether it's just you on your cell phone having your parents or a sibling or a friend taking a video of you, that is experience right there. So just use that experience. Get those butterflies that come with kind of feeling like you're doing something live that's really good experience that will serve you down the line. And then you can also watch it back and kind of critique yourself and realize, oh, I shouldn't have said it that way, maybe next time I'll do it differently. And the other thing that you can do is if you're at a game already and you're not playing, maybe you take that time to comment on the game, whether it be play by play, whether it be reporting on what's happening or what I like to do is preview the next game, kind of come up with some storylines of what to watch and who's playing who and what you think people should be paying attention to. And you can tape yourself talking about that. And I bet people would find it really interesting.
Lee MJ Elias: Yeah, you said it. It's all about reps and just doing it and doing it and doing it. So here's a question for you. There's definitely a kid listening right now that goes, I want to do that, but I am terrified of the first step. I am just so terrified to get on camera. Can you talk a little bit about overcoming that fear and how that that might be the biggest step you've got to take to get into this?
Jamie Hersch: Well, I think anyone in any line of work would tell you that the first time they did anything, it wasn't very good. And they can go back later and look at it and say, oh man, I've come a long way since then, but that shouldn't be a reason not to try, right? Because the only way you're going to get better, whether it's playing a sport, talking about a sport, being a broadcaster, anything, the only way you can get better is through practice. And so, yeah, it might be a little bit scary. And I remember even being in college and I went to a broadcast journalism school and we had to do a live shot report and no one was watching, but our teacher was and our classmates were, and we had to stand there and deliver a 45 second live report. And I was so nervous. And I wish I had the video. I don't think I do anymore. But that's a good example of a time where I didn't really want to do it in front of people because I was nervous. I didn't want to mess up, but I did it. I used that experience to get better the second time, the third time, the fourth time. And at the end of that semester, we went back and watched our first live shots, and it was amazing to see how much better we had gotten.
Lee MJ Elias: Yeah. You know, what I love about what you said is there's. You were nervous, but you did it. You did it nervous. Right. Sometimes we're exhausted, but you do it. You do it exhausted. Right. And I think for kids, sometimes those emotions that surround a situation can. Can be so much bigger than the situation itself. And like you said, sometimes if you're scared, do it scared. It's okay. You know, it's okay. It's. That's a concept that I hope a lot of kids understand. Again, you said it goes well beyond broadcasting. The other thing I wanted to ask is about, you know, just the passion for a game in general and how broadcasting is really a great way to stay involved in sports or something else that you love. If there's broadcasts of it that you could stay involved and really get involved through broadcasting as a medium. Can you talk about that? For the young hockey players that are maybe saying, look, I want to be involved in this game, and, you know, I want to play as long as I can, but I want to do this for my life. How is broadcasting a great place for that?
Jamie Hersch: It is a great place for that because a lot of people do think that you have to play, and then, you know, eventually if you can't, because either you aren't good enough or you get hurt and your career is derailed because of injury, a lot of people turn to coaching, and that's a great outlet as well to stay involved. Or there's other areas in the game. But broadcasting is. Is another one of those that you might want to explore because especially if you're a former player that knows the game in and out and likes to talk about the game, you're a rink ra. You just love hockey. What better way to be around a rink than by getting paid to go to the rink, talk to players who are still playing, talk to coaches who are actively coaching, and then report that back to the people listening. And also, if you're an analyst, you get to teach people who are watching who might be newer to the game or still trying to learn new things. You get to kind of be a teacher to them through the broadcast.
Lee MJ Elias: I love that. Jamie, like, I'll let you end the episode here. What's just your message to the kids listening to this again? They're on the way to the rink right now. They love hockey. They love everything about it. They love what you do. What's your advice to those kids listening to this podcast?
Jamie Hersch: I think it goes back to what we said earlier. Not to quote Nike, but just do it right. Do it scared, do it exhausted. Keep going. Because the only way you're going to get better at anything is to get that repetition and get that practice in. So just keep going and you'll be really glad someday that you did.
Lee MJ Elias: I love it. Jamie Hirsch again. You can see here wherever hockey is played, basically trailblazer in the sport. Thanks so much for joining us.
Jamie Hersch: Thank you.
Lee MJ Elias: All right, kids, again, if you have a question, comment or something you want to tell the gang here about your hockey journey, remember, there's a link accompanying this episode in the description. Click that. You can text right to us or email us@teamourkidsplayhockey.com but above all, never forget, kids, we believe in you. You should, too. Have a great time out there and skate off.
