Breaking Barriers in Hockey Coaching with the NHLCA’s Lindsay Pennal

How do we get more women behind the bench in hockey? Lindsay Pennal, the Executive Director of the NHL Coaches Association, joins Our Girls Play Hockey to share her journey in leading the NHLCA, the impact of the Female Coaches Development Program, and the steps being taken to create more opportunities for women in coaching.

Lindsay opens up about her unconventional path into the hockey world, the importance of networking, and how the NHLCA is helping shape the next generation of coaches—both male and female. She also discusses Jessica Campbell’s historic milestone as the first full-time female coach in the NHL and other rising stars to watch.

🔥 Episode Highlights Include:

• The vision behind the NHLCA's Female Coaches Development Program 🌟

• Success stories of women breaking into professional hockey coaching 🏆

• Applying NHL coaching practices to youth hockey for better development 🏒

• Essential resources and initiatives for aspiring coaches 📚

• Lindsay's personal journey and leadership insights in the hockey world 🌍

Whether you're an aspiring coach, a player, or a fan, this episode is packed with inspiring stories, practical advice, and a vision for a more inclusive future in hockey.

🎧 Listen now to discover how Lindsay Pennal and the NHLCA are shaping the future of hockey coaching!

Want to attend the 2025 NHLCA Global Coaches’ Clinic? Click here to learn more: https://www.nhlcaclinic.com/event/NHLCA2025/home

💬 Got questions? Share your thoughts with us at team@ourgirlsplayhockey.com

#HockeyCoaching #GrowTheGame #OurGirlsPlayHockey #WomenInHockey #CoachingDevelopment

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Transcript

Lee MJ Elias [0:08 - 1:22]: Hello hockey friends and families around the world and welcome to another episode of our Girls Play Hockey. I'm Lee Elias, joined by Sherry Hudspith and Mike Benelli. And our guest today has been a driving force in the hockey community, particularly in supporting and developing coaching talent across the sport. Lindsey Pennell is the executive director of the National Hockey League Coaches association, which we'll call the NHLCA because that's a mouthful if we don' that. It's a role she took in September of 2023. She's based in Toronto and Lindsey brings over 18 years of corporate strategy, business development, marketing and communications experience across a range of industries including finance, bioscience, technology, education and sports. All of you wish you had that LinkedIn profile. She does. She has NHL on it too. She's been instrumental in advancing the NHL Cas mission, particularly through initiatives like the Female Coaches Development Program, which supports and promotes women in coaching roles within hockey. Her leadership has been crucial in breaking barriers and creating opportunities for underrepresented groups in the sport. And we are excited to discuss Lindsey's journey today, her contributions to the hockey community and her vision for the future of coaching development. If that's not an episode you don't want to watch or listen to, I don't know what is. Lindsay, welcome to our Girls Play hockey. 

Lindsay Pennal [1:22 - 1:38]: What a pump up like, great way to start my day. Just, you know, sometimes you're in the grind of it, you're in the weeds and you forget to lift your head up and look around and actually see what's been accomplished. So I appreciate that very warm welcome and it is my pleasure to be with here with all of you guys today. 

Lee MJ Elias [1:38 - 2:06]: Well, it's an honor to have you as well. I, I appreciate the compliment. You know, whenever we talk about hockey, which is every episode, how can you not be pumped up, right? Especially with the direction the game is going in all different walks of hockey. But I want to start with you today, right? You've had an incredible career across several industries before joining the nhlca. I want to know what drew you to the world of hockey and how did your background shape your approach to leading the nhlca? 

Lindsay Pennal [2:06 - 3:59]: Yeah, so I am unique, I think, in the sense that I had never played hockey, I'd certainly never coached hockey, but somehow found myself at the helm of the ship, driving the NHL Coaches Association. And honestly, that's a big testament to our NHL coaches who said we need, you know, somebody to help lead this organization and we want to look outside of hockey to get a diverse background and Somebody with experiences different than ours to lead the association. And so kudos to them for recognizing that. You mentioned, you know, I joined or, sorry, I took over as executive director September 1, 2023. I'd actually have been with the association since 2016. So this is my ninth season now were going through, which just seems wild to think about in sort of the totality of my career. But really the simple answer, the short answer of how I ended up here is through my network. I'd worked with a colleague in my finance days at a couple different companies for over eight years and he had moved into the role of executive director here at the NHLCA back in 2016 and tapped me to help him build it. And so that's kind of how I got into the organization. And to sort of dig a bit deeper on part two of your question, like what in my past career set me up for this? It was all of the entrepreneurial roles and multi hats that I had to wear in the first sort of 10, 12 years of my career where, you know, I was sort of labeled as marketing. But it went so much deeper than that. It was operationalizing an organization and figuring out how every different department works together, being scrappy and figuring out how to do that with many resources. And so, you know, it kind of just me up perfectly to move into the NHL ca which at the time was really just building from, from the base level up. 

Lee MJ Elias [3:59 - 4:37]: Yeah. Lindsey, I'll tell you two things here. One is that the NHL as a, as a organization never gets the credit I think it deserves for what it does at the front office and, and how it trailblazes as a league, which it has done for a while now. Right. I know people like to kind of boo management, but I always say when you, when you take a deeper look, no one in sport is doing it better than the NHL has in the last. We'll just say 10 years right now, probably longer now. You said you'd been there for nine years, which is amazing. Do you have a favorite or most rewarding experience in that time so far that you can share with us? 

Lindsay Pennal [4:37 - 5:40]: There are a lot. A recent one though is, you know, the obvious. Jessica Campbell standing behind the bench of the Seattle Kraken for that first game and making history as the first full time female coach in the NHL. Like that is something that behind the scenes, I've been passionately helping drive forward for years. Not just with Jessica specifically, but with other women that aspire to be in the NHL or even in the American Hockey League as well. Right. Essentially at that men's pro level. So that's. That's a recent one. That's in. In the back of my mind, but there's so many other ones to like. Really, we can dig into this further, but the whole goal of our female coaches program is to support the career aspirations of the women within that program. And for some, that's, you know, being a head coach of a D1 men's team. And I want to help those women get into those spots, too. And so there's a lot of other, you know, wins that we've had along the way that fly under the radar because they're not on the grand stage of the NHL and National Hockey League, but there is. They're just as fulfilling and rewarding and inspiring to see. 

Sheri Hudspeth [5:40 - 5:55]: I want to expand on that a little bit. Can you talk about what inspired you to start this program for the female coaches program? Great program, incredible program and some of the success stories. Let's dig in a little bit on Jess and some of the other women that are in the program. 

Lindsay Pennal [5:55 - 8:48]: Yeah. Okay. So take it back to the draft in Vancouver in 2019. So we, as an association, run an annual coaching conference. It's really our NHL coaches give back to the coaching community. And it's the day that we gather with, you know, 100 plus of our NHL coaches in a room for learning, networking, idea sharing, etc. So, you know, I'm on this stage with my former colleague at the time. We're giving the opening remarks to kick off the day. It's exciting. Everybody's pumped to be there. And I look out in the audience of, you know, 500, 600 people, and I see, like, five women. And it maybe sounds counterintuitive now today in 2025, looking back, but it kind of, you know, was my light bulb moment of, wow, like, this room isn't representative of society, so why are there not more women in this room? Did they not feel welcome? Are there not women coaching hockey? Like, I didn't know I was new to the sport, relatively new a couple of years in. And so it was that moment that kind of kicked me off on my journey of, okay, well, I want to figure out why this is a situation. And, you know, assuming there are women that do want to be in this room and do want to coach at the highest levels of the sport, what are the barriers to them progressing in their careers and standing behind those benches? And so from June 2019, for sort of the next six months, I spoke to as many women coaching as I could. I tapped some of our NHL guys who had networks into NCAA women talkie and had those conversations. And after each of those, I said, hey, can you connect me with three other women? You know, and that's kind of how I started growing my network within the women talking space, women's coaching space. And all of that culminated essentially in me really realizing that the barriers to career advancement for women coaching and hockey were the same as really barriers to women advancing in any other industry. And as a. As a woman who got my career started in finance, you know, working in investment banking and finance, I empathized and had similar experiences to a lot of those women. And so all that to say, March 8, 2020, I've got a great program that I've been conceptualizing for eight months. We announce it, we're all pumped. We're going to gather at the draft in 2020 in Montreal, and then, boom, pandemic, world changes. Everything's upside down on its head. We're a scrappy organization. So we pivoted very quickly and we said, hey, there's this thing called Zoom. Not sure if you know it, let's hop on and we'll just start things right now from wherever you are across North America. And so that's, that's essentially how the program got conceptualized and, and kicked off. And we can dig into sort of how things have gone as we come up on, you know, the five year anniversary of first announcing the program and all the things that we've done along the way. 

Mike Bonelli [8:49 - 10:09]: Yeah, I mean, so, I mean, I, I think I'm a really big part of this. I mean, I would give a shout out to our local women's hockey celebrity, Kathy Griswold, who was part of, I think that the, the big, big part of that beginning of this, you know, breaking those barriers down for women. And I've been at those conferences. I think I've been at a number of your conferences and just watching not. And again, I think Zoom was a blessing, right, for that time period because it actually opened the door for people that normally wouldn't get on a plane to go to Montreal, to go to Toronto or go. Like, it's just like, well, yes, I love the idea and I want to be part of the women's hockey part of this, but I just can't do it. I don't have the time. And like, you're saying those barriers were there, where it's like, well, do I want to take a risk? Because what's the end game for me? Like, I might not get anywhere with this. Like, it's a, it's a lot of expense and, you know, and it's, and it's nervous. I mean, I can't imagine the five women that were in that room, they probably were pretty confident women to begin with. But in a room of 500 NHL, you know, aspiring coaches, it is a hard place to be. So maybe zoom was a great way to open that, you know, open that door. And so I guess my question would be, you know, what advice would you give for young women who want to pursue a career in coaching or leadership roles in hockey by using a platform like yours to kind of open their eyes up to what is available to them? 

Lindsay Pennal [10:10 - 12:18]: Yeah. So there's a few different pieces of advice I would give. The biggest is the power of your network and harnessing that and growing it and expanding it. And so that's how I got into this role in the first place. It's how every NHL head coach, assistant coach standing behind that bench got into their spot as well. Is your network. Right? And that doesn't mean reaching out to somebody when they're hiring for a role in the OHL or in that for their college program. It means cultivating it. Now, have a coffee, have a quick 20 minute phone, check in, send them an article. You notice that they're interested because it's going to be 2 years, 5 years, 10 years down the road when that relationship is going to fully bloom and actually translate to a job offer for you. Right? So that's what I say, like you really need to network and you need to water your network, your garden and like help it grow. So that's, that's the biggest one. You know, obviously you're going to be coaching in the pros. You need to know your ex's nose and you need to know your systems and all that. You need to actually be a good coach. But there's so many other soft skills off the ice that go into making a good coach. Right. Like leadership, conflict resolution. How are you addressing conflict resolution? Because it's going to come up daily, right. Whether it's something with your players and managing ice time or something with your coaching staff or managing up to your owners and your gm. Like, you need to be really solid in those soft skills to also be a successful coach. And so, you know, it can be challenging when, especially for women. I find, when you're, you're coaching got a job, but maybe you actually have to have a day job to actually pay the bills because you're not being paid, you know, fairly for the coaching work. That you're doing. So you've got a day job. When do you have the time to say, oh, I'm going to put some investment into my personal development and work on my leadership skills, work on my communication skills, work on understanding how to build, you know, strong team culture in my dressing room. Like, there's all the soft skills that go into coaching that are arguably more important and valuable to your long term career success than just the ex's nose. 

Lee MJ Elias [12:18 - 13:09]: You know, Lindsey, I want to dive in here too, because this is great advice no matter what. Right. I think that sometimes, especially, you know, when I look at the youth hockey world, there's this, this fomo, this immediacy of we gotta get it figured out. It takes time. You have to take the time. You have to build the soft skills that you said you have to learn to network. Jessica Campbell did not just, nobody pointed her like you, you're the next NHL coach. I mean, there's a journey there. Right. An intense journey, by the way, but I just wanted to share that with the audience because I think there's this misconception and Sherry and Mike, you can talk to this too, that, that, you know, you snap your fingers and you, you're an achiever or you're champion or you've discovered something and I, it just, it's extremely rare that that's going to happen. You got to put the time in, you got to put the work in. Obviously, Lindsay, you yourself are someone in that position. Yeah. 

Lindsay Pennal [13:09 - 13:53]: I mean, nobody graduates university, works for a year or two. Year or two, and then is promoted to CEO of the company. Like it's a long journey. You got to put in the work. You know, certainly there are examples where some rungs on the ladder have been skipped and it's usually in extraordinary situations where, you know, there's stellar playing careers and whatever that may be. But the traditional path to really the top of any profession, as you said, Lee, is like putting in the time, keeping your head down, doing the work, building your network. Like I say, honestly, you can achieve anything if you work hard, be kind and stay curious. Like those to me are the three fundamental things to what ultimately will lead to career success in whatever you're pursuing. 

Lee MJ Elias [13:53 - 14:42]: I, I, and I just, I love that you're saying that. And like, my wish is especially for the listeners that that's what you want to embrace. Right. I, I worry at times that we embrace the wrong things like the championship moments or how many letters are after your youth organization age group. Right. The journey is a, the gift. I Mean, that's a whole nother show. But the journey is the gift, but the ability to embrace that journey, which Sherry, you and Lindsey have both done, that is how success is built. And then I think once you even get the success, you realize it wasn't about the end result. It's about that journey. Right. So I, I, It's a, it's just a great point, Lindsay, that I, I want to, I want to make sure that especially the younger audience listening hears, because that is, that, again, there's no one path, but that is. That is the road you want to be on. I'll say that. Right? 

Lindsay Pennal [14:42 - 15:21]: Yeah, I'll, I'll add in one. One comment on that. And it's a great point that you bring up. And, you know, as I said, off the top, I've never coached hockey, but my job involves being around NHL coaches, those who have won the Stanley Cup. And what I've heard them say is, you know, here we are, you know, into the season over halfway through, they're not going into their dressing room and being like, hey, guys, today we're going to work towards winning the Stanley Cup. Like, they hope that that's where they end up, but that's not what they're talking about on a daily basis. Right. Slow down, embrace the grind, put in the work, focus on the present. Then you'll achieve the results that you're hoping for. 

Sheri Hudspeth [15:22 - 15:48]: Yeah. Very fortunate here. I'm sitting here. As you can see, in an NHL front office, a lot of that has to do with Lindsay. Lindsay knew me when I was in Pittsburgh, long before I even got here. So thank you, Lindsay, for everything you've done for me and other women in hockey. But I do want to talk about success stories. I think everyone knows Jess, but there are other women in men's hockey that are up and coming. Like, can you talk about some other success stories, something maybe we can look forward to, of other women coming up in the NHL here soon? 

Lindsay Pennal [15:48 - 16:46]: Yes. Well, another one that I think listeners will identify with, because it's a similar path to. Path to Jessica Campbell's is that of Kim Weiss. So Kim is now presently the video coach for the Colorado Eagles. That is a position that we spent three years building her up to essentially be able to interview for and, and be offered and accept the role. So, you know, Kim had aspirations of coaching in men's pro hockey. That's a requirement for, you know, people that want to be at that level. If you don't care about being in the NHL, that's great. Like, you can have so many other important career aspirations. And I'll talk about some of those as well, because they're just as important for the whole sport ecosystem. Right? That is hockey. It's not just, let's get more women into the NHL. There needs to be women across all the developmental leagues. So I'll touch Sherry to your point on a couple different success stories. 

Mike Bonelli [16:46 - 16:46]: But. 

Lindsay Pennal [16:46 - 18:25]: But Kim specifically has been in our female coaches program since the beginning, and we helped get her set up with a guest coach program with the Colorado Avalanche for two summers during their development camp. So while there, she's on the ice during, you know, practice, during the scrimmages, she's shadowing the coaching staff, she's working with different people from the player development side. She's building those networks and having it be back to back two years in a row. She also worked herself to maintain those connections. Obviously proved herself and her skill and her knowledge and what she brought to the organization. It was a win, win all around. So then when their AHL affiliate had an opening, she was able to, you know, confidently put herself into the running for that. And here she is now in the American Hockey League. So, you know, that is a direct feed feeder into the NHL. And so that's exciting because, you know, Kim is now on that path. So that's one sort of directly laddering up into men's pro hockey, but looking at the other side of the sport in the women's game. Right. Like, Corey Chevrey was the first female assistant coach for Canadian university sports, and she's now the head coach of the Montreal Victoire in the pwhl. Right. Like, it's been working with her for the past four years as well, to help her develop, you know, support her in whatever she needs. And whatever she needs is different than, you know, the other hundred women that are in the program on their own career journeys as well. So, you know, I could keep going on and on and on because there's so many at different levels as well. But those I think are. Are a good few to. To reflect on between Jess, Kim and Corey. 

Lee MJ Elias [18:27 - 19:06]: You know, Lindsey, you had mentioned so many great coaches in different aspects of coaching here because, you know, the coaching staff, when you look at it, is not one coach. Right. It's multiple people I'm interested in for, for the. The. Maybe the youth coaches listening. If you could share some of those aspects that make these NHL coaches so great in the sense of, you know, I think youth coaches do look up to NHL coaches. I know that we reference them often in terms of what they're doing, how they're doing it. You really get to see them, you know, at face value. What are the things you notice about them that maybe we can apply to youth hockey? 

Lindsay Pennal [19:08 - 19:57]: That's a good question. And it's funny because we have, you know, Mike mentioned our clinic. I mentioned our clinic as well. There are a lot of youth hockey coaches that come out to those as well because, you know, working on a power play with an NHL team is a bit different than working with youth. Youth players. Right. But how you teach, how you talk, how you respond, how you, like, assess a player, receiving what you're trying to coach them, I think translates across all levels of the sport. I mean, Sherry, in your role, you're really involved in youth hockey, so you may be able to. To address this further. Right. Working and seeing how Bruce Cassidy there in Vegas works with his coaching staff and, and anything that applies to. To Utaki too. So I'd be curious to hear your input on that as well. 

Sheri Hudspeth [19:57 - 20:12]: Pretty. Yeah. Pretty lucky here. The way our office is set up, we can watch practice every day. It's a nice break for us at 11 o'clock to just look out the window and watch practice. Obviously they are NHL players and I coach 10 new girls, but there are some drills differences there. 

Lee MJ Elias [20:12 - 20:13]: What are you talking about? 

Sheri Hudspeth [20:13 - 21:08]: No, but he does a lot of, like, flow drills. You, you would, you'd be surpr how uncomplicated NHL drills are. And he doesn't make new drills every single day. I know parents want to see, like, new, fresh drills, but I mean, they run the same drills pretty much every day. Stuff's not that complicated. A lot of swing drills, stuff that you can take from NHL coaches and apply to your youth hockey. So I have learned a lot watching the coaches here every day, and there is little takeaways. And it's also nice to see, like, when they do have a bad night or they get blown out, like they're not back skating them. Right? Like, he brings them in, he talks to them. They're not yelling at their players. You know what you see youth hockey coaches screaming at kids. It's like you can watch college, you can watch university, you can watch pro at that level. They're talking to their group, Right. They're not screaming at them. So there is a lot of takeaways that I get watching from the pros to take into the youth hockey. 

Mike Bonelli [21:09 - 22:50]: You know, Lindsay, you mentioned the conference too. And I think one of the, one of the reasons and one of the, one of the pitfalls too When I sent, I sent a lot of coaches up to your conference and we work with a lot of youth coaches that want to be around NHL coaches. And I think it is, it's not so much the X's and O's and like what Sherry was saying. It's, it's not so much, you know, that they have to be similar. It's about being in a room of coaches and then seeing how similar they actually all are about how they talk to their players, how they build relationships, how they don't take it so seriously. Something. I mean, these, their lives are on the line, basically. The pro coaches, right? And, and they're, but they. Understanding when you're in the room with them. It makes such a big difference in just sitting there watching a PowerPoint. What I've loved is like the round tables you do, the, the, the breakout sessions you do. That to me is where like, if I'm, if I'm, if I'm trying to break into the women's hockey world and, and in the managing world and the, the peripheral pieces of hockey, the place to be is not so much in that 20 minute presentation. It's in the hallway, it's in the cocktail hour. It's in the other times where you really get to say like, oh my, this person's just basically what I'm doing. They're just getting a lot more money for it and there's a lot more pressure to do it. But could you talk a little bit about, you know, based off of how you've built the, and been a part of the nhlca, you know, you know, what are some upcoming programs, some initiatives, some other things like you're saying, you know, obviously you were tagged because you're an out of the box thinker, you know, from not coming from an NHL front office. You know, what are some of the things that are kind of beyond the horizon that we can look forward to? 

Lindsay Pennal [22:51 - 26:21]: Yeah, and I'll just put a pin in the previous point, the similarities between youth and pro coaches, because something came up for me as I was listening to both Mike and Sherry. You speak, but at the core of it all, a coach just wants to help their players get better. That's it. Right? That should be your, your true North Star. And that looks differently at the youth level of the pro level, but inherently, like, that's what's in every coach. So, you know, it's a good segue, Mike, into what you just asked, like, what are some of the resources, what are some of the programs, what's coming up for us, you know, beyond the fundamentals of what our association is here to do, which is to support NHL coaches, you know, behind the scenes with everything, you know, non hockey ops, we have the mission as an association to help develop the next generation of NHL coach, right. And there's a lot of different resources. Certainly we've touched on the female coaches program, but there's a lot of programming and resources available to anybody, any coach, parent, player around the world that they can access, many for free as well. So if you want a one stop shop for everything, you can go to our website, NHL coaches.com a whole portal in there called the Content Hub. It's free to create an account. We just talked about drills and how NHL drills aren't complicated. There's dozens of free drills from our NHL coaches that are in there that you can download and integrate into your, into your practice plan. We've got, you know, the annual conference that we were just talking about. And Mike, I love that you touched on how valuable those small group sessions are because we're changing up the format for the event coming up in Toronto on June 14, and that the full day is going to be small group breakout sessions and workshops focused on networking and NHL coach to audience member communication and working in that sort of format where those keynote presentations, right, say breaking down face offs and how you teach Face Off. All that's going to be done virtually in an online conference so that you can at your leisure, whenever you have the time, whatever topic you're interested in, dig in there and go watch those keynote presentations still from all of our NHL coaches, right? It's going to be, you know, guys teaching how they do it with the, you know, the Vegas Golden Knights or the Seattle Kraken or whoever it is. We also have a great free resource that I'll just give a quick highlight of because I think it is really valuable again, no matter what level you're at. We have a lot of different presenters, so some topics will resonate with some people and not with others, which is the reason that we have so many different presenters on. But it's called our mentorship program. It's a free webinar series. It runs concurrent to the NHL season. So October through the spring, couple live webinars every week led by NHL coaches, AHL coaches, some guest presenters. And I think the value of that is there's a live Q and A with every presentation that you can as an audience member chime in and ask these questions. So, you know, we've had, we've had everybody from Jared Bednar to Bruce Cassidy to Mike Sullivan, David Quinn, like just dozens. I think there's now over 80 webinars that we've got archived on there on, you know, everything from career development to specific ex's nos to culture and leadership. So that's a really significant resource that's free and available to literally any coach, par hockey administrator, whoever it may be, that wants to go in there and poke around at all the free resources. 

Mike Bonelli [26:21 - 27:58]: I think we're always looking for the gift of better coaches and I think one of the, one of the ways I would definitely say just to, just to kind of finish off the conversation. Well, not to finish it off, but the, to expound on the conversation about the conference is that like when you, for the, for the price of a Jet Speed stick, you could send your coach to this conference and, and you can go and sit on a table at a table with Mike Sullivan with 10 other coaches from every level and literally pick his brain about how you're doing something. And it's an amazing. And even, even the online stuff, I mean, be able to take it at your own leisure and your own time and then convert it like, like I try to do with all the youth coaches is try to take the pieces I like and convert it to what you would do with a 10U kid or a 12U kid or a 14 year kid and then understand it. Like, listen, we're not actually asking you, you know, we're in New York here, right? So I'm not asking to have Adam Fox on the power play, but I'm asking you to understand the concepts behind what they teach so that we can actually look like hockey when we're playing at the youth level. But I think it's invaluable, no doubt about it. And again, I'm a zoom. I like zoom. Obviously this kind of platform is great, but there's nothing better than sitting in the room and having a conversation and, and having somebody be able to go back and forth with you about your philosophy, their philosophy, and then you're going to leave that. You're going to leave that day, you know, you're going to leave Toronto saying, oh, wow, I never thought of it that way, or I never, I never knew I could do this with the group I have. So it's definitely a great resource. And I think we, you know, we're hockey people. I mean, the price should not be an issue, for God's sakes. I mean, this is, you know. 

Lindsay Pennal [27:58 - 28:47]: Yeah, I'm glad you touched on that because you know, we've purposefully left the price low and consistent over all the years because we don't want financial barriers to restrict people from coming to it. So for what you actually get, for the small price, I think it's really worth it. And, you know, we started off this conversation talking about the power of your network in your career progression. This is the number one place in the entire world to come and network, right? The room is filled with 100 NHL coaches and 4, 5, 600 other coaches at all levels across the world. Like, it is. It is the premier place to come and to network. And, you know, as you said, Mike, you'll be sitting at a table listening to Mike Sullivan talk and asking questions, and then you can go corner him at the buffet later. Like, have a Sandwich and Talk101, too. Like, they're just there. They're gone. 

Mike Bonelli [28:47 - 29:04]: And the great thing is, and Lindsay, we talk about this a lot on the show, is that they will talk to you. Like, they literally will not sneak out the back room. Like, there's so many other people, like, in any walk of life. They're like, oh, my God, this guy's stalking me. He's calling. They'll sit there. 

Lindsay Pennal [29:04 - 29:06]: I love talking hockey. 

Mike Bonelli [29:08 - 29:38]: And be inspired to do it. So, yeah, you're absolutely right for the price, for the networking, but really for the opportunity to better yourself if you're. If you're. You know, we're in a. We're in a. Our girls play hockey segment here. You're a female coach or you're a hockey director. It has female coaches. Find a way to send them here. Find a way to get them a table. Find a way to get them in a. In a room of hockey people so that they can be better hockey coaches when they come back to your organization. It's better than any gift basket you can get them at the end of the year. In my opinion. 

Sheri Hudspeth [29:38 - 29:51]: The nice thing, too. Oh, sorry, Lindsay. But the. The nice thing, too for women. There is a lot of women there. I've gone. I've been that woman in the room where there's one or two women, and they ask you to stand up. And it's so embarrassing because there's 500 men in the room and we stand up. 

Mike Bonelli [29:51 - 29:51]: But. 

Sheri Hudspeth [29:51 - 30:09]: But at the nhlca, like, I would argue it's. It's probably pretty close to half. There was a lot of women there at the one that we just had in Vegas, and it was very comfortable. And the nice thing, too, about the coaches, you get to know them as, you know, humans and normal people. They're not in their suits. It's not intimidating. You can walk up to them at the salad bar and. And just say hi. 

Mike Bonelli [30:09 - 30:09]: It's. 

Sheri Hudspeth [30:10 - 30:14]: It was. It was a great thing. So if you haven't done it, I. I strongly recommend signing up. 

Lindsay Pennal [30:15 - 30:31]: Yeah. We talked about how my light bulb moment for where are all the women coaching hockey at the 2019 Dr. Vancouver. There was five. Like, as Sherry was just referencing at the draft last year in Las Vegas, I think there was 75 women in that. 

Sheri Hudspeth [30:32 - 30:32]: There's a lot. 

Lindsay Pennal [30:32 - 30:38]: So it's. It's increased significantly, which. Which I love to see. 

Lee MJ Elias [30:38 - 32:51]: You know, I'm gonna take this conversation even a step further is. You know, Lindsay, you and all the work that you do are a beacon for all of us, really. I mean. I mean that as coaches, like, you know, the NHL is the pinnacle for many of us in terms of just the standard. Right. And this conversation always makes me think about this, that you're here saying, we have these meetings, we talk, we discuss. Mike and Sherry have been there. It's this. The most wonderful thing in the world. And I love that. Right. If that doesn't inspire you to do it, I don't know what will. But then I turn it back to the youth organizations who don't do this internally. And it boggles my mind, just from a youth hockey standpoint, that coaches don't talk to other coaches, not just with other teams, but within their own organization. And I've never understood that. And every time I bring it up, I kind of get this curious look of like, well, there's a time commitment to that. I'm like, not really. It's not. It's not really that much time to get together once a month and just discuss things. And it's funny, too, because I'm the guy. I am the coach that in youth hockey, I want to talk to the other team's coach, especially when they kill us, because I want to learn. What are they doing? We. Again, quick story. We just got done our youth playoffs with my son's team, and there's a team that. That defeated us. It was close game, I'll say that. But this whole season, I mean, I really love the way that team has operated. So I'm asking him. Coaches. Sorry. Questions. I'm asking their coach questions. And. And he was a great guy. But the curiosity of, like, why is this opposing coach asking me questions? I mean, that's what we got to start doing more of. And again, the Beacon is saying that not only do they do this, it's a regular thing that they encourage everybody to do. So just from, from. I mean, this isn't even just youth sports. I mean, you could put this with any kind of organizational environment. You got to talk to each other and learn because. And this is kind of the big point. I'll get off my pedestal in a moment that if you're not trying to elevate the game as a whole, I think we're missing the point. Right. And youth hockey plays such an intricate role in that of raising the bar and talking with each other. You can compete. 

Lindsay Pennal [32:51 - 32:51]: Okay? 

Lee MJ Elias [32:51 - 33:05]: You don't have to tell the other team your secrets. Don't get me wrong. But we got to communicate more. And I think that just from a youth hockey standpoint, I'm looking to spread that message. And you're doing it, Lindsay. You guys are doing it. Sherry, Mike, we gotta get better at that. 

Lindsay Pennal [33:05 - 33:45]: Oh, I have so many things to dive in on that a bit further on. So first of all, you know, when you look at what we talked about, me coming from outside of hockey into this job in the first place, I had to assess, right. I had to get the lay of the land. And what became very obvious to me was that NHL coaches love talking hockey. They love talking hockey. So I'm grateful that I'm able to harness that and harness their time into different outputs. Right? Our clinic, our mentorship program, them putting drills pen to paper and getting those into coaches hands from around the world. So like at the end of the day, coaches just want to talk hockey. So that's. I'm grateful for that. 

Lee MJ Elias [33:45 - 33:46]: Imagine that. 

Lindsay Pennal [33:46 - 34:48]: On the youth level, I'm surprised to hear that. I wouldn't have presumed that. So that's an interesting piece. I think, like here's. Here's two things that came up for me when. When you lost to this other team, that coach on the opposing bench should be so willing to talk to you about what he did with his team and how he got there and the struggles along the way. It wasn't without challenges, I'm sure, because at the end of the day, you don't have the same players as he does. So you can take some insights from what he's sharing with you, but you can't then take exactly how he coached his kids and go coach your kids that exact way. It's the same with the NHL level. You can't coach the Seattle crack in the same way you coach the Florida Panthers. They're different players. Right? So NHL coaches know that hopefully youth coaches the most are aware. But I think you Know, that's one sort of thing is, is there's idea sharing. They're stealing of ideas, if you want to go that far. But ultimately, like, your players are going to be different than your competitors. And so, you know, it's not rinse and repeat. Exactly. 

Mike Bonelli [34:49 - 35:50]: Well, yeah. One of the things that, One of the things that Lindsay could attest to, too, is you're in these. You're. When you're watching the panels, I mean, you'll see coaches that literally just got fired, and the coach sitting next to them is take their. It took their job. And they're talking about, like, they're, they're talking about, like, oh, what are you doing here? How's that going on? I mean, it really is. It's a weird, It's a, it's a, it's a funny dynamic because of the time of year. It is too, that there's a lot of movement and a lot of changes and a lot of, you know, there's a lot of, you know, personalities in the room and, I guess, drama. But what they do is they come together and they, and for a common goal of, of educating and, and talking hockey. And I think it is so refreshing that you get to see, you know, how the sausage is made a little bit, you know, by, by listening and watching and watching the dynamics between, you know, fierce competitors. I mean, you're at the point where they just, you almost killed each other on the ice, and they're just, you know, relaxing and talking about how they did that and how they're going to do it again. And they're, you know, there's no secrets in the NHL. It's not like somebody's holding the secret sauce. They're like, this is what we do. Try to beat it. 

Lee MJ Elias [35:50 - 36:54]: Yeah, I'll say, too that. And Lindsay, you just alluded to this. There's a hunger for knowledge, right? I, I, I camera. Which NHL player said this? In my youth. But it was like the quote was essentially, look, you have your toolbox. You want to put as many different tools in that toolbox as you can. You can't just fix something with a hammer, right? You got to figure it out. And to your point, Lindsay, every team, even if you're coaching the same exact players every year, it's a different team every year. Right? Because life is happening. So the ability to draw that knowledge and share that knowledge is how we all become better coaches. The quote I say on the show all the time, good coaches know everything, great coaches know nothing. Right. You consistently have to be reinventing Yourself and learning. And again, we. Mike and I share. We talk about the egotistical coach who knows everything and knows how they're supposed to do it. It's not a path to success. And again, you could apply this to more than hockey. Right. This is. This is anything you want to pursue. But I love that you brought that up. And, Mike, I love that you said that too. You could be talking to the guy that just replaced you or the woman that just replaced you. 

Lindsay Pennal [36:54 - 36:54]: Yeah. 

Lee MJ Elias [36:55 - 37:00]: And, you know, it's the quest of knowledge that I think puts people in a position to succeed. 

Lindsay Pennal [37:00 - 37:18]: Lifelong learners. That's the expression I've heard from NHL coaches. If you stop learning, the game will pass you by. Right. So you gotta stay curious. You gotta keep learning. You never. You never know everything. And if you think you do and you act that way, like you're gonna be ousted, like you just won't make it. 

Lee MJ Elias [37:19 - 37:34]: There you go. I say you don't want to be Triple A. You want to be Triple L. The lifelong learner thing. I like that. All right, Lindsay, I want to get into some rapid fire questions. I'm assuming Mike and Sherry, you're good on questions here, right? We got a little rapid fire segment here. Are you ready for this? 

Lindsay Pennal [37:34 - 37:35]: Ready as can be. 

Lee MJ Elias [37:35 - 37:39]: Okay, here we go. Favorite hockey city to visit. Don't be shy. 

Lindsay Pennal [37:39 - 37:46]: Nashville. But I love country music, so there's, like, a hybrid interest in that city specifically. 

Lee MJ Elias [37:46 - 37:57]: That is actually a really great answer, and I appreciate you being honest, because a lot of people, all the cities are great, so. No, I love that you did that. All right, if you could have dinner with any hockey legend, who would it be? 

Lindsay Pennal [37:58 - 38:19]: Oh, probably Roger Nielsen, because he's done so much for the hockey coaching community, and he established his own conference, the Beginning, and kind of brought our group together. And so I think to sit with him and pick his brain and just hear some stories about the coaching side of it all would be really interesting. 

Lee MJ Elias [38:19 - 38:25]: That's a great answer. And then the last one is just one piece of leadership advice that you live by. 

Lindsay Pennal [38:25 - 38:55]: I'm going to repeat it. Be kind, work hard, stay curious. Like, those are the three magic ingredients in my opinion of career success and sort of leadership success. Be curious. Like, ties back to what we were just talking about. Being a lifelong learner, I'm the first to say. To put my hand up and say, I don't know what I don't know. But the magic is knowing who to ask to find the answer. So I think that's kind of what. 

Lee MJ Elias [38:55 - 39:02]: I leave it at That's a diamond answer. You've been a diamond guest. Lindsey Pennell, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been a really fantastic episode. 

Lindsay Pennal [39:02 - 39:04]: My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me on. 

Lee MJ Elias [39:05 - 39:58]: All right, that's gonna do it for this edition of our Girls Play Hockey. For Sherry, Lindsay, and Mike, I'm Le Elias. Remember, if you have a question, if you have a comment, if you want to get in contact with us, there's a link accompanying the episode. If you tap on it, you text right to us. It goes right to my phone. It doesn't go anywhere else. Or if you want to old school at team@our kids playhockey.com you can always send us an email. But thank you all so much for listening. Enjoy your day, enjoy your hockey, and we'll see you on the next episode of our Girls Play Hockey. Take care, everybody. We hope you enjoyed this edition of our Kids Play Hockey. Make sure to like and subscribe right now if you found value wherever you're listening, whether it's a podcast network, a social media network, or our website, our kids playhockey.com also make sure to check out our children's book, When Hockey stops@when hockeystops.com. it's a book that helps children deal with adversity in the game and in life. We're very proud of it. But thanks so much for listening to this edition of our Kids Play Hockey and we'll see you on the next episode.