Dave Scatchard 0:04

Dave, welcome to the All Star success codes podcast, where we take you inside the minds of champions to unlock the secrets to success straight from the mouths of those who have mastered their craft. I'm your host. Dave Scatchard, join me as I take you on a journey, to help you move the needle to your next level. Get ready to ignite your passion, unleash your potential and uncover the blueprint for greatness.

Welcome to Episode Nine of all star success codes Podcast. I'm Dave scatchardon Today's guest is absolute legend in his own right. He was best known to be Wayne Gretzky's bodyguard, but

points and: 3381

Unknown Speaker 4:02

I love you.

Dave Scatchard 4:06

Yeah, let's move him out. See he wants to give you guys a good look at his at his handsome mug.

Marty McSorley 4:12

First thing I want to say is

happy holidays to everybody. I hope everybody can find happiness in the holidays and fulfill all your dreams and your wishes. Awesome, awesome. Well, you know, we've been working a lot this week on dropping limiting beliefs,

Dave Scatchard 4:32

not allowing other people to influence our future, and what, what happens with that? Why don't and like, we just had amazing world champion rodeo guy, crazy background. Grew up living in a barn, like sleeping on them in the barn. Everybody we have has an amazing story, and part of the reason why I want to bring you is I know your story. You were never drafted. You found a way to get to the top, and that. Us. It took some, some crazy talk in your mind on what was going to have to happen in order for you to establish yourself as a professional player. For how many years he played? Well,

Marty McSorley 5:10

I played, I played 17 years in the National Hockey League, 17 years.

Dave Scatchard 5:14

And he wasn't one of those guys flitting around, not going in the corners. He did 17 years of that.

Marty McSorley 5:21

You know, the crazy thing was, it was, I think it was my second last season. I was in a fight in Vancouver with Genoa. They're a tough guy, yeah. And actually a really decent guy, a really Geno Yeah. And

Gino says in the penalty box. He goes, Why are you still doing this? And I says, Gino, I just love to play. And the look on his face, he was kind of confused, because he didn't necessarily put that in the context of playing, but for me, it was the parameters of the game that I played, and I loved doing it so much. I'll give you a little background. I grew up on a on a farm in southern Ontario, Canada. I had nine brothers and sisters. The oldest was a girl, and then there were seven boys, and then the youngest two were girls. My grandfather was a tough guy. There was an old saying in my hometown that they used to fill the train up to go to the next town, or wherever there was a playoff game to go watch my grandfather fight.

But what that did is it exposed my dad to an expectation. I think when he was little,

that was probably really, really hard. So when my dad raised us seven boys, there was a firm hand. And, you know, I we were out in the barns from the age of six, before school, after school, we get Sunday afternoons off, and that's it. And there's days you're standing into a box stall cleaning out cow manure, and you take a deep breath and you're there with your brothers, but there's nowhere else to go, because that's what you're doing. And I, you know, I saw my dad heavy handed with my oldest brother, who then became my foreman.

And at an age of six, one of my older brothers, you know, they older brothers beat you up, and I got tears in my eyes, and I'm going to the house, and my oldest brother says, You can't go to the house. I need you to stay here and work. He says, If I have to go to the house and go get you, I'm going to beat you up worse than they did.

But what did? What I did not. Did he? And he didn't, and my older brother, oldest brother, would do the crappy jobs, and you're there. But what it did is it gave me a belief that there's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, from what your responsibilities are. And those responsibilities were there, day in and day out. The farm needed to operate because we didn't. Weren't highly mechanized. It was the boys doing the work, putting the putting the bread on the table, enabling me to have hockey equipment to go and play hockey and do the things that I love to do. And then I was really fortunate. I had such a great mom. My mom was so loving and nurturing and no ice in the penalty box Martin, but with my older brothers and I and but it just it raised me up to to be accountable, to have a responsibility and have a responsibility in a group. So when I got invited to Belleville, Ontario, you know you I drove into Hamilton as a junior B player. So try to have a 15 years old, 16 years old. I was 16 when I drove into Hamilton, and the coach is like, Where the hell are you from? I said, Cayuga. He goes, where the hell is that? And I said, it's only about 25 miles away. Never heard of it, but there was a goaltender there who was from a really small town, and he took a liking to me, and he was our best player and the coach after that first practice, because I wasn't going to go home. That wasn't an option, because going back to the farm, it wasn't an option. So he came back, and he goes, now, where the hell are you from again? I've got, we got an exhibition game. I want you to come and play. And so, you know, from there I played, and then I got invited to Belleville and the OHL, and my story in Belleville, I went there in the OHL and all the scouts in the in the owner, they had taken my name and a bunch of other guys names off, off the board, done going home, and the general manager says, who's been messing with my board? It's my team. There's names missing on there, and he just kept me around because I did some things to take notice to be noticed a I wasn't I wasn't going to allow them to send me home. That wasn't acceptable. That wasn't that. What didn't compute for me. And so whatever it whatever it was going to take, I was going to do. But in the meantime, there in Belleville, I'd already had my high school diploma. I walked to the rink mile and a half. Sometimes my landlady would let me use her car. I would go there and skate all morning wait for the guys to come in. We guys,

Dave Scatchard 9:45

this is Canada with snow on the ground and ice on the ground. Like he's downplaying so many things like tell him the things that you did to get noticed.

Marty McSorley 9:55

Well, you I went out the you

Dave Scatchard 9:59

know he's coming. From a town that nobody knows of. Nobody really knows him. I know the type of person he is. I know that I had to do it, and you got to get somebody's attention. You got to get somebody on your side to be able to make these teams. He doesn't want to go back, he doesn't want to go back to shoveling manure. So he's going to go into this foreign place and start to do something to have somebody notice and bring some value to the table, where somebody wants to

Marty McSorley: 10:22

keep him around, one of the guys hit our first round draft pick, and at that point I probably overreacted, but I wanted everybody to know that I was going to be willing to do that role. But then I was the coach said, Would you quit looking at me? Because I looked at him basically, put me on the ice. I want to play. And so I went to the rank and he would sit up in his office, and he'd see me every morning show up, and I would skate on my own until the guys came in after school. And we would scrimmage. I already had my high school diploma at the time, though, so and then we'd scrimmage for an hour and a half, and then we practiced that night for an hour and a half. And I was really fortunate. My landlady and Junior was from 10 kids herself, and she was from a farm, and it kind of got the homesickness away, or whatever that you might have. But I had an opportunity to play, and I called my mom and dad, and just a matter of speaking, I said to my mom and dad, I said, Gosh, my knuckles are all cut to the bone here. And because I'd had three fights in that first morning, because, again, I wasn't going to go home. And guys would be like, are you comfortable doing that? And I said, I have zero problem with it, none. And my my mom says,

Dave Scatchard: 11:37

look at his look at a giant there. It's like, my

Marty McSorley: 11:42

mom says, How are you feeling? And I said, Well, my knuckles are cut to the bone. My dad says I got a pair of rubber boots and a pitchfork for you if you want to come home. So it was a wake up call, and from there, then I was fortunate enough, but Dave, damned if I wasn't going to be I wasn't going to not be heard from. And I find it so interesting that the task at hand, with the raw, proper preparation and the proper mindset, took care of everything else, even though I didn't know it like I was going to the rink every morning to be a better hockey player. And the guys in the rink, people would call to rent ice, and they'd say, sorry, it's occupied, and nobody's paying for the ice. It was just me and they they wanted to keep the ice secured for me. They were wonderful guys that worked at the rink, as all those guys are, and damned if Pittsburgh didn't invite me to the training camp at the end of the year, amazing. And then the following year, I played in the OHL All Star game, so he

Dave Scatchard: 12:40

wasn't drafted. Like there's sort of a sequence of events that usually sort of has to happen for somebody to get recognized by the NHL and then go to the NHL. Marty just did it like the old fashioned way, by showing up every day and doing stuff that like nobody really wanted to do or was willing to do on a consistent basis. So take that into your life and business for a second. And what can you show up and do every day that other people don't want to do because you'll get paid for it, you will other people don't want to do that stuff. So, like, there's a consistency, there's a all in mentality that he's got, like, he's got all these things where he doesn't want to go back to the farm. So he's kind of all in like, maybe some of us need to back ourselves into a corner and give us ourselves that pressure in order to get the job done. Yes, you get it good. Well,

Marty McSorley: 13:25

see, I'm of that mindset that don't ever get down on yourself. I used to say to my teammates, don't get down on yourself. Everybody else will do it for you, right? You have to believe in yourself. If you can't believe in yourself, how can you go out there and perform? And I had guys going, you know, just I would be like, looking like, I want to be out in the power play. And I, when I showed up in Pittsburgh, I was number 78 in training camp, and it was halfway through my second shift. I hit a veteran. I didn't hit him dirty, and I was respectful, and he dumped me. He came and dumped me and took my feet out from underneath me, and all of a sudden both benches go look out. Here he comes, and this veteran turned around, and I was I was not taking it, and I chased him off the ice. He jumped over the boards and we were our training camp is in the old Johnstown arena where the movie slap shot was filmed. Right he jumped over the boards and crawled in between, like down the corridor, and I hit the boards with my stick, and I stood there, and about five or six of the veterans stood up, and I just turned and looked at them, and they said, easy kid. And I just went back out, and I lined up for the face off. And I kind of looked up at the corner where the GM and the scouts and everybody was on their feet. They know who I was, right, yeah, and I signed a contract before I left there, they put me in a contract. So you know which, which to me was, was just unbelievable, Dave, because the task at hand and the preparation. Evaluation and the hard work and the reality of where you actually are, the self evaluation for me, what I needed to work on and what I needed to get better on every day, I think that honest evaluation is really, really important. Can

Dave Scatchard: 15:16

you pause right there? Do you guys remember us creating that real gap. The gap, not the bullshit gap that we tell everybody, but the gap that says, Man, I need to get better. I need to learn this. I need to improve. He's talking about it right here in real life. He realized his gap, and then what did he do about it? I have to fill it. There you go. I have to fill and

Marty McSorley: 15:39

I have to make my strengths desirable, really desirable. And what I learned and didn't know as a 20 year old kid that the NHL is about excellence in areas, you have defensive forwards that are excellent at it. There may not be goals worth but they're going to play. I try to convince now kids now, if you're a 20 year old defenseman, and you can go out in the ice. And you can give me a large minutes and not get scored on. You'll play for years. You don't need to score the goals and fill that role. But be it's a game of excellence in areas. Wow, right? Yeah, it's like, nice

Dave Scatchard: 16:13

specialization, yes, right? If you like. I'm not taking anything away from a school teacher, but if you're a school teacher, there's, there's lots of those people. It's not super specialized. But if you're a brain surgeon that does this one operation, and you're the only one in the world, and you're that specialized, it separates you and it makes you special. You get paid higher amounts of money, and you're higher in demand because you're the only one that can do that. In the NHL, there's only 700 people that can do those individual roles. What he was doing was identifying a role that he could fill and had value. So if you add value in your business, people will pay you for that value happily, because you're helping them. He was happily providing value with these teams that needed him to do those roles, that to protect their star players, to bring energy to do all these amazing things. And he was identifying it because it was a matter of survival, probably, and you were hungry, it sounds like you were hungry and willing to do anything, anything,

Marty McSorley: 17:08

and with proper, with proper preparation, yeah, with the degree of professionalism. But perfect professionalism is not about making money. It's about how you approach it. You know it's it's about when you know, Mark Messi once said about Paul, Korea's younger brother, was not a great hockey player. He said he could have been one of the best professionals I ever saw, and he might have played three years in the National Hockey What an unbelievable compliment I was with Pittsburgh my first year, and we were so bad we earned the right to draft Mario Lemieux, who was a magnificent player, because we finished last in the league, and it gave me an opportunity to make mistakes, and mistakes I made, but I we went into Philadelphia one night, and they were tough. Our veterans didn't want to be there, and I was the first time in there. And I like Philadelphia, the old Broad Street bullies and the whole thing, and this is in the early 80s, and I got into a fight with one of their their big wingers and but I wanted to be a better player every day, every day, I had to be better and stay on the ice, be the first guy on the last guy off, and I got into a fight with one of their veterans, and I didn't know it really pissed off the Philadelphia Flyers, because they're like, who does this kid think he's going to come in and challenge anybody to a fight or whatever, even though we lost the game eight to two or whatever. The next time we go into Philadelphia, our veterans don't want to play. They're looking at the game sheet. They're going through the game sheet. They brought up these two guys from the minors that had never played an NHL game, Dave Brown and Darryl Stanley, two big, tough guys. It's I don't think anything. I'm a 20 year old kid trying to survive and make my way in the NHL. And at 20 years of age, you still don't believe you've arrived, because you're hanging on. Yeah, right. You're just hanging on and because you see guys coming and going left and right. So that game started in the first period, I got into a big fight with Dave Brown, and he came out right away. They put him out there to fight. We're going to make a statement. We had a fight the next period that put Daryl Stanley out. We have another fight. And I'm like, I'm okay with this. I'm good. This is Philadelphia. This is great. My brothers and I used to sit and watch these guys. They thought they were tough. I'm in Philadelphia. My brothers are going to read about this tomorrow, right? Yeah, and, and, but I wasn't going to take a step backwards, and I wasn't going to let them intimidate my team. After the second fight in the second period, we're down like seven to three, and the referee is standing in front of the penalty box, and he's looking at me. Terry Gregson, I believe. And he goes, five and game. Get them both out. And I The door is open. They're putting my jersey and my helmet and my gloves. I said, What are you kicking us out for? I said, Don't kick us out. We there's a half a game left, he goes, kid, you're the only guy on your team that gives a shit.

Dave Scatchard: 19:47

He's saving your save your bacon. So he's trying to

Marty McSorley: 19:50

later in that year, we went into Edmonton, and this is, to me, a really important point in my career, in my life. You. Never know when you make an impression. And no moment is insignificant. No moment is insignificant. Good friend of mine, Rob Stauber, coached the US Women's National Team, and they were going over to Japan to play, and he said, You got anything to give the girls? And I said, they're in. They're going to be in a one game championship against Canada, no moment is insignificant, and the reason I say that is we went into Edmonton with a bad team in Pittsburgh, and it was the first period. The game was fairly close. I was killing the penalty. I took the puck off mark, Messier, and I shot it down the ice, cleared it, don't we're man short and messier. Elbows me right in the chops, hard, and he skates back down the ice. I go right after him, and so I go after him. Edmonton, their whole bench, they got some big guys, some inco, different things. They're a veteran team. They hadn't won the Stanley Cup yet. Islanders were still winning it, but everybody knew how great they were. And so Messier, and I Well, later in the game, I'm in front of the net. Edmonton is up by a few goals, and messier breaks his stick over my back. I turn around and his gloves are off, and we're into a fight. Well, I get into the penalty box, and now I'm pissed off, and I'm looking over, I'm like, again, and he's looking at me like, Who do you think you are? I said, again. And it's at that time you didn't have to wait for the linesman to come to open the doors. As soon as the clock of the penalties were over, I opened the door and I went and I stood at his door waiting for him to come out of the penalty. And he stood in there with his stick up, right? I said, get out here. Finally dropped a stick and he came out. We had another fight. We lost the game seven, three or whatever, and Gretzky put on a show, and they were so much fun to watch, even though we were in the losing end. And I really got to appreciate those great players playing against them, and being on the ice playing against them. What I didn't know was Patty Conacher told me, years later, he was playing with the Oilers at the time, that after the game, Patty said, I hardly played. I was in the back room riding the bike, and the coach and general manager of the Edmonton Oilers walked in in the back room after the game, had his suit on, and he's like, That is bullshit. And Patty's just looking at him. He goes, bullshit. Who does that kid think he does? He can come in here, fight, mess, twice like that, and throw that in our face, and Patty goes, he's young, and slats looks at Patty Conacher and says, I'm going to get him on a game we got demolished on a game where I'm not sure if I played a good game or not. I made an impression and didn't know it. And you find out years later that you you know that that moment was not insignificant, because it changed my life.

Dave Scatchard: 22:43

So when he says, we're gonna get him, they traded to make sure that they had this guy on their side. That's the impact that he could have with one move like that. And it's a character move that's who he is. He's not gonna back down and he's gonna show up and do the thing like not everybody's built like that. And the special guys do those special things at those special times, and special people notice it. And I believe that's what that was well

Marty McSorley: 23:12

and like you, and I know we call some guys playoff players. When you need them most, that's when they rise up. Yeah, right. When, when, when, you know, and I always, I would say, my teammates, you're best judged by the people that need you most in your lives, right? You really are when that, when the things are the hardest to do, when the people rise up. When I got to Edmonton, and this, to me, is also another relevant in Pittsburgh, the veterans were not good people. They didn't do anything to help the young guys. It was almost a graveyard for young players because the veterans were scared for their own jobs. It was a really bad working environment. It wasn't an environment where people could prosper and grow. I got traded to Edmonton, and I walked in that locker room. They had already won two Stanley Cups, and I'm like, am I going to be able to play here? And I had, I had to dig in and find this inner belief that I can play here. I'm going to force myself to be able to play here. And what do I need to do? And you know, when you're looking at their lineup, what's so loaded with stars? And I think I self evaluated pretty well. What am I going to do to be and what I found was an environment where it was unbelievably nurturing. Every one of those guys was great leaders in their own right, and they took a young player and brought me in the first day. Wayne Gretzky is like, we're so glad to have you. And I'm like, really, he knows who I am. Okay, great. Mark Messier, he goes, you're not staying at the hotel, you're staying at my house. Paul Coffey, wait,

Dave Scatchard: 24:43

the guy that he fought twice, this is the NHL. These guys, these monsters, you see what they're doing

Marty McSorley: 24:49

there. And the last time with mess, I had two fights against I know seriously, but

Dave Scatchard: 24:52

what does that say about mess, the type of person he is, and welcome his new teammate. And also. About the quality of the individuals. I'm so proud to be an NHL player like the guys are good guys. And if you want any leadership lessons, keep listening. Because what he's about to say next is, is showing you how to be a leader. Be a leader on your business, be a leader with your family, be a leader in your community. I'm I'm excited to hear because I know that you've learned from some of the best leaders in the in the world.

Marty McSorley: 25:24

We would go up for practice, and I treated it, you're gonna laugh. I'm a 22 year old kid trying to play in an NHL I treated it like a fantasy camp hockey school. I really did, because I was surrounded by guys that would you know, they're gonna be on the all star team. They're going to be playing for their countries. There was 14 guys that played in the Canada Cup. It was, it was done in a million miles an hour. So every day I treated it like like a hockey school fantasy camp. And how can I get better? And what can I do to make myself relevant here and where they I can't be discarded. And it was, it was really crazy that, because every day I was so excited to play, because practices were so much fun, because I was learning so much, and I was surrounded by really good people, character people. And, you know, the I then the rest of my life, I said, I have to surround myself with good people all the time, because without those good people around, I don't think you can nurture and foster the strength that you need to complete the tasks at hand. So

Dave Scatchard: 26:31

can you pause for once? I keep hold that train of thought. How many times have we heard this today in the last two days? Right? Honestly, when we're looking for confirmation that we're in the right area. I believe that energy in God and this wisdom is flowing through him to imprint on us, because it's consistent across the board, with every single speaker we've had from the minute I took the stage, what have we been talking about? Surrounding yourself with the right people, building a new peer group, building a community that you can thrive in, right?

Marty McSorley: 27:02

And you know, we held each other accountable. There's times you look across the locker room, you go, that's not good enough, and it was interesting when I got traded to La later. There's times I'd look across the locker room, I'm like, Hey, that's not good enough. And you'd see some guy, some some guy wilt, like, no, no, let's go get up. Yeah, right. And so I'm in Edmonton, and I'm trying to be as relevant as I can. And we were playing Detroit one night, and Mark Messier, sorry, Yari curry and Wayne Gretzky. There was a line for Detroit, and they were a muck and grind dump it in, and they were trying to intimidate Gretzky and curry, and that was their first line, and they were coming out all the time. So without I tried to read the situation. And I think the game adapts, and for me, because I wanted so badly to make an impression, I made it. I adapted a little bit. I just stood up in the bench and I yelled, Yari, Yari. And Yari look. I said, Get off. Nobody told me to go on the ice. And here I am pulling one of the greatest players in the world off the ice. And I could just see the other guys in the bench, and then Glen say they're looking at me. I said, Get off. Yari comes over and jumps off. Marvelous person, by the way, I skate out and I skate by Gerard Galant, put my stick in his ribs, and I just look at him, and he goes, What are you doing here? I said, I've come to kill you. And he goes, Oh no, you're not. And I said, Oh yeah, I will, and I can get to you anytime I want. He took right off to the bench. I just swung around by the Detroit bench and made a nice big loop. Skated by their bench, skated over the bench, I said, Yari. Yari. Jumped back on the ice, and I stepped on the sat down on the bench, and everybody just kind of looked at me. And that was my way of telling you, I got you guys. This is my way of saying, I've got you guys. And I was going to be a leader in my way. I was going to look after the guys, full of superstars that I will do what I need to do to for you guys to be the people you are, because they, you know, it was so easy for me to do because they were so good to me. A little bit later, Hartford came into town, terrible hockey team, no tough guys, and there was always three or four young rookies around, really talented young rookies that Glenn Sather was trying to get them in the lineup and different things. And what he would do is with Dave samenko, who was a really a tough man before I got there, and they traded him about a year into when I was there, they would string Dave along a little bit. Play him, not play him. Keep him hungry. Don't forget your role. And I didn't want that. So there was the trainer. Came out of his training room. He looked around the locker room, and he goes, looks at me, and. Mike kroszlinski, sitting beside me, goes, Hey, and I look up, and the trainer goes like this. I said, means you're not playing. I looked at him, and I said, No. He said, What? I said, not acceptable, no. And he said, Well, he points to the coach's room. I said, not acceptable. So I just stood up, thought for a second, and I started walking to the coaches room. And I, you know, here's a team that won two Stanley Cups loaded with stars. And I heard, hey. I turn I look, and there's Mark Messi. He goes, where are you going? I sit in there, and he goes, Are you sure about that? He wanted me just to pause and think, and which was really good. And I said, yeah. So I knocked on the door, and they said, Come on in. So I came in, and John muckler goes, the hell you want? I said, Well, I just want to know why I'm not playing because I felt like I'd really improved I was getting there. And he goes, because we said, So Glenn sailor put his hand on John muckler, and Glenn sailor was the coach in GM, and he goes, Why do you think you should be playing? I said, Yes, that's my team. I said, I'm a leader. I look after every one of those guys. If I'm in and out of the lineup, I can't lead them. They need to know that I'm I'm every day, and I'll be there no matter the day where we are. What's going on, not if you're taking me in and out of the lineup cleaner goes, you're right. Won't happen again, as long as you do your end of the bargain. And it was awesome. Wow, he had the confidence, wow, to happen that's unbelievable.

Dave Scatchard: 31:41

I've never heard that story, but that's Glenn's leadership. Wow. That's you fighting for yourself too. But it could have ended really poorly. It really could have, but the way that you approached it was genius, right? Yeah. Well, I got goosebumps all over my arms. I said I told that

Marty McSorley: 31:59

story at a dinner with Tony La Russa, and Tony said nobody would ever come into my room and tell me. And I said I would have gone through the end of the world for Glenn Sather. He cheered for me. Well, see Glenn, Glenn and I, over years, when I was playing on other teams, there would be situations, you know, where somebody, you know, wants to sign you, or different things. And there was times I was playing with other teams, and there was trades, you know, when Bruce McDonald was going bankrupt in in LA and different things. I would pick up the phone and I'd call Glenn, and he goes, You know, I'm really not supposed to be talking to you, because he's the GM on the other team, and we play playoff series against them. And I said, Well, I'm just going to run it by you, Glenn, what do you think? And because I had that much respect for him, you know, so it I carried those days in Edmonton with me through LA, and we were in the seventh game of the conference finals against the Toronto Maple Leafs, when I'm with LA in 1993 and there was so much media attention in Toronto, and then we won that game. We went to Montreal, and now the media blew up. Okay, here's Wayne Gretzky Stanley Cup Finals. Is he going to win one? Not being in Edmonton, we're in Montreal. And I remember halfway through the first period, I stood up and I yelled at the guys in the bench, stand up, turn around and look him in the eye. Our coach. Want to be on the ice. This is the best opportunity in your lives. Seize the day. And those those young guys, because there was guys that we had, a lot of rookies, they're hanging onto their sticks super tight, get out there and play. And it was because it was such an unbelievable opportunity I'm trying to lead those guys like I was led in Edmonton. You know? Yeah, beautiful man. It was, it was it was, it was such a great opportunity for me to grow as a person in Edmonton with those guys and learn so much that I can then transfer it on. The rest of my life I had the pleasure of coaching, yeah? And one of the guys, Darcy hortic, yeah. And, you know, Darcy here last

Dave Scatchard: 34:07

year, yeah, these guys all know that's awesome. Oh, he's been a big supporter of our All Star group, yeah, horty

Marty McSorley: 34:12

came to me. I was coaching Phoenix's farm team, and they sent him down. And I'm like, Okay, I've got somebody I can work with here. And people are like, well, he's a third line player. I'm like, yeah, he's a third line player that will play third line in the National Hockey League. You don't have to be a first line player in the American Hockey League. And I called him in and I said, hordy, I'm going to get you back to the NHL. You just keep doing what you're doing. His work ethic was unbelievable. His sense of compete was unbelievable. And so horty, I one point, I called him in and I said, hoardy, no more fighting. What he goes I'm known as a fighter in NHL. I said, Yes, but for you, everybody knows you can fight in NHL, I'm here to teach you how to play so you can go up there and you can play a regular shift. You can be a commodity. In the National Hockey League because he could skate, and I had him out there killing penalties, and I taught him how to not not get scored on how to be a good third line player. And Phoenix kept wanting to trade him, and I'm the coach in the minor next. I'm like, I don't understand. So they called me the one day and they said, Okay, you got to tell them, and whatever. So I called them in, and it really bothered me, because now they're they traded. They traded them, and I called them in, and I thought, How am I going to I said, hoardy, I have fabulous news for you. I said, You were traded. He looks at me. I said, it's fabulous, because I don't believe Phoenix was going to give you a chance. Somebody else really wants you. You can play in the National Hockey League. You believe in you. And he played like the Tasmanian devil and and he did. He went on. He played the NHL, and he earned it. And I'm I could, there's a guy that, you know, he didn't go and score 50 goals in the NHL, but I am so proud of him and the career that he had. He was a he, he is a success story. And that's, that's something else. How do you measure success? That's, that's a really difficult question. When you ask people that you know to me, people I've had, people say, the way my career ended, Oh, I feel bad for you. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't feel bad. For me, things are good. I am a really, really fortunate man, and I said, and I'm really comfortable with who I am and where I'm at, and I'm extremely happy, and I consider myself that I got them as much as I could get out of myself. I am so content with the effort that I gave that That, to me, is success in itself, right? And so there's there's kids. There was a kid, the family I lived with in junior. My landlady, who had 10 her nephew, played in the Ontario Junior Hockey League until he was 20, went to Colgate, wanted to come back to the farm, stayed, led them in scoring his last three years, played in the American hock league for a year and a half, went over to Europe and played for eight years. The kid has his master, his college degree and his master's he got his master's degree over in Belfast playing over there. What a success story, and it measures success. And be honest about what success truly is and what your goals are. Right? I also believe in you have to aim short term. If I'm going in on a net, I'd say to guys, aim at a small target. Aim at small targets. You keep hitting small targets. The big picture will take care of itself. You know, in practices, aim at small targets. Aim at the next five, six games. You know, have goals as to where I'm going to be, what am I going to do? And what I started to do, too, is the first of March, I would start trying to lose weight, because all year I'm fighting the guys that are 252, 55 come playoffs, they never play. So I would try to lose, like, 1214, pounds from the first of March to the first of April, so I could, I'm now i I'm playing against the Joe sacks in their first lines. I'm more suited to play against them, and I can still intimidate the hell out of them, right? But the tough guys, they can't play, they're not going to play in the playoffs. So

Dave Scatchard: 38:14

there's so many lessons. Do you notice how he said those little, small targets? Do you remember the the primary goal, and then the little actions beat below it, and the Ironman training that I did, and the little actions and the checking the box and enjoying knocking those out. Like, that's the juice, that's the journey that's that's leading you, right? That's the map right to the top, like it's so ironic to me, or beautiful how it complements everything that we've been teaching and and, you know success. You know leadership. You know winning. Obviously, they go do that job every day like a Were you ever afraid? And for people that are afraid of anything, launching their business, doing their lives, doing their posts, going on TV, whatever, what do you have to say to them about fear?

Marty McSorley: 39:02

Was I afraid, absolutely I was, I was afraid of not making it right at one point in Edmonton, here's the deal.

Dave Scatchard: 39:09

I think you use it to fuel you, yeah, how paralyzed you,

Marty McSorley: 39:13

yeah, well, but that's the thing, it. And I think it's because of how I grew up, right, that there was nowhere to run. You were gonna face what you're, where you were, yeah, and you're, we had work to do, and it, if I didn't produce, you're going to be gone. And it happened so fast. And I was privy to the numbers. I think the median career in the NHL is one year. That's how quick the guys get turned over. So you just, you can't accept it. And I there were some days when you're thinking, Oh my God, You almost scared to go to the rink the next day because they might tell you're going to the minors.

Dave Scatchard: 39:47

I know every day of my career, almost there was maybe two years I scored 27 goals, and another year I felt comfortable, and the rest of the time I was terrified I was gonna lose my job. And it's silly, like I had one week. Contracts and all that. But, like, I was afraid of losing my job every day.

Marty McSorley: 40:03

But, you know, I the one year that I 1993 we went to the Stanley Cup Finals. Tell

Dave Scatchard: 40:10

us about that, by the way, go deep into that vibration. Whole year started, was

Marty McSorley: 40:14

really interesting, because we hired a new coach and our owner was going bankrupt. So we had traded, you know, we traded some players away in that summer. We started the year, and Wayne Gretzky got hurt and couldn't start the season. And our new coach that came in, he called me and said, Okay, let's go for a beer. I need. I want to go for a beer with you. And I said, okay, it was a young coach, Barry Melrose, so I meet him for a beer, and he goes, some of the management doesn't think you fit here. And I said, Well, let me guess it's the management that we're here with, the old kings before we got traded down from Edmonton, because I was in a trade with Wayne Gretzky, they still think that the old purple and gold had a shot of wind and Stanley Cup before Gretzky. They don't like Gretzky, they don't like me, they don't like kruslinski, and they certainly didn't want Yari curry and Charlie Addy to show up there. And I think they felt threatened. And I said, it must be those guys, correct? He goes, Well, yeah. I said, Barry, if you just communicate with me, we'll be fine. And I said, I'll bring all these kids along. I know where we are financially. And he came back to me the next day, and he says, I told them not to make any trades, not to do anything. You're here, and this is gonna and I said, I said, Barry, this is gonna work. Well. Then Barry pulled us together, and he said to Kelly Rudy, our goalie, I think you're in the top two three goaltenders in the world. Yari curry, I think you're still the best right winger in the game. Gretz, I still think you're the greatest player in the game. Marty, I think you're the best tough kind of League, and you're the best big man who can play. And Robbie Blake, I think you're the best young defenseman in the game. Now I'm going to give you guys every opportunity to prove it, and we did. Gretzky got hurt. We were one point behind Pittsburgh for first overall at 1973 because Barry gave everybody the confidence, created an environment where we controlled our own locker room. We had we had fun, we nurtured. We had a young Alex zitnick who didn't speak any English. The one game Alex got hurt and he was in the training room, and our whole team lined up and went through the training room and gave Alex a big hug. Everybody on the team gave him a big hug. He couldn't speak any English, but we just gave him a big hug. And his dad, his dad was beautiful, not very tall, very thick, Russian gentleman. And just he would look a big smile on his face, and at the end, before he went back to Russia after training camp, he gives me an ivory Buddha doll. And he said, This is for you. You look after my son, right? So, how awesome is that, that responsibility, right? Does

Dave Scatchard: 42:59

anybody have any questions? Yeah. Does anybody have any questions for Marty?

: 43:02

No, questions for Marty, it became clear you were the one that was self assessing how you would fit into an organization. But when you first started, did somebody define a role for you to felt like that? I need you to do that. Or did you the first time figure that out on your own?

Marty McSorley: 43:18

My six brothers, we were out in the pig barns one day, and my two younger bronga prize brothers were off playing in a hockey tournament, and the car got pulled over by the pig barns, and he said, My dad said to myself, until my brothers get in, I didn't know where we're going. We were not supposed to be in the car with the clothes we're wearing. And we were off, and I said to my one brother in the back seat, we're going where Jerry and Doug are in the hockey tournament. And some some gentlemen went after their coach, and one of the kids got pushed and shoved by a couple people in the tournament on the bench, all nine yards, and we were going to the rink and, right, and I was eight years of age. And this is not a great story. This is you were eight years old, sorry, man, no, this is earlier. That was, I think I was about 13 or 14, but we were going to that rink for one purpose and one purpose only, but I was eight years of age, and we're playing the team from the local reservation, Six Nations Indian Reservation, which I have a lot of very good friends from, went to high school with, and what have you. But we're playing them. And you're eight years old, and it's, oh, my god, we're playing the natives, right, the Indians. And, you know, people, some people are intimidated. Well, we lost the game. I was eight. I was playing with the nine and 10 year olds, and my brother, Chris was nine. So Chris goes through the line, and the first kid in line is shake hands after the game. Chris punched him. Just slugs him, if you know Chris, right, he's a knucklehead. So Chris punched. So now there's a fight. Well, Chris was in a fight. I jumped in. So Chris and I are fighting probably five or six kids and everything going on. You're eight, nine years of age, right? Let's be let's be honest. Well, so the game is over. I'm sitting in the corner of the dressing room with beside Chris and the coaches, like there will be no fighting on this team. You guys want to fight. You're not going to be playing on this team. And then the door got swung open, and my dad walked in, and he goes, Oh, you kids stood there and watched those two fight. You should be ashamed of yourselves. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, oh, boy, am I glad

Unknown Speaker: 45:33

I jumped into that fight,

Marty McSorley: 45:38

but that's how we were raised, so and and I, I wanted so badly to be a player, and people like when people show fights, and I'm a dinosaur now. I do a ton of charity events all around Canada. You know, CAT scans and airlifting people all. And I really, really enjoy doing it. But I'm a dinosaur, because everybody it's the good old days when everybody was fighting in the National Hockey League, whatever. But I worked hard to be a good player. I wanted to use a great and so, so how do I define the role it enabled me to play, enabled me to have a chance, and to keep that chance and that hope and that dream alive. But I wasn't just going to sit there and allow that to rest, right?

: 46:22

I thank you for all of that. And lastly, I can still hear your teeth grit when you say all these years after, when you said it the first time, I wasn't going home, I just wasn't going and I can still hear it in you, congratulations and thank you for being here. Thank you.

Jamie Gilleland: 46:41

There lessons that you've I love the correlation between sports and business and the fact that it ties in with everything Dave has been talking but I wanted to comment I grew up in Johnstown. Was there in 80 to 84 was my high school years. So

Marty McSorley: 46:59

we were, I'm good friends with all that the Carlson brothers. Oh, good, yeah. So,

Jamie Gilleland: 47:03

yeah, been there, done that. My family was all in slap shot all those years.

Dave Scatchard: 47:09

Oh, yeah, awesome.

Marty McSorley: 47:10

You know, I walked around town there, and I big smile on my face. There's the dog from when Paul Newman stood beside when they had the parade at the end. And they're, you know, when we used to try. We would in slap shot they took in the movie, they took a slap shot and they hit the organist in the head. And we'd be on the ice. We'd be like, it's impossible to get the puck. So we would be, we would put our stick at an angle and somebody take a slap shot and see if we can get the puck up and, say, hit the organ. Because of all those things that you're, you know, you think back, and it's just kind of

Dave Scatchard: 47:39

cool. Well, speaking of movies, I think Blake has a movie that I think you guys all should all see

Marty McSorley: 47:51

on McSorley.

: 47:53

Linesman, go back and separate them again now, Scatchard and McSorley, here they go.

Marty McSorley: 48:05

I'm 38 at the time. There's only one linesman there. He's taking the other guy. No doubt the linesmen are going

Dave Scatchard: 48:12

to get in unless he comes back in.

: 48:15

Here we go. They get in close enough Scatchard, with a couple of rights McSorley has Scatchard down on one knee. He's

Unknown Speaker: 48:24

got his arm loosened now he's in trouble.

Unknown Speaker: 48:33

His sweater is still tied down. There will not be extra

Marty McSorley: 48:36

penalty time. No, you don't from McSorley, I have to say this, see the tie. Learned from so many of the guys keep

Dave Scatchard: 48:42

enrolling in the background the Paul Holmgren, I learned from the guys

Marty McSorley: 48:46

like Clark Gillies. And Clark Gillies said it was just about three or four years ago. He said, There's times I didn't want to fight, but some of these young guys, he goes, they're trying to make a name for themselves. They're trying to make a career. And he said, if somebody gave me that opportunity to make a career for myself and so good job. You know, when a young guy comes out and he's gay, oh, hang

Dave Scatchard: 49:06

on, let's just watch this work. Oh, he got away. Get scatchie. Oh, after you ran over, Blakey, you think I want to fight this monster? I seen him rip people's faces off. I did not want to fight Marty McSorley ever in my lifetime, but never. But I had to protect my teammate, and I had to stand my ground against him, right? And he's doing his job. I'm doing my job. Fast Forward, years later, we're sitting here, and we're blessing the audience with our experiences that should hopefully help all of you. But I love this guy, and I would have a beer with him right after that fight with no big deal, because we were just doing our jobs and we were trying to help our teams win. Sometimes it's ugly and you got to do stuff like that, but if you didn't think for one second that I was terror. Five because I seen him rip people's faces off and eat them my whole life. I grew up idolizing this guy the whole Oilers team. I lived in Hinton, Alberta. I would watch these guys every single night, and like, you know, I was protecting my teammate and I was standing my ground, but I was, I was absolutely terrified, but I did it anyways. He he fought Bob Probert. Ty told me every single tough guy, all these Dave Brown, everybody, so Minko, everybody. You saw his highlight reel like he did what he had to do to get the job done. And fears have to go to the side. You just have to execute the plan and do everything you can to try to help your team win. And that's why he's got Stanley Cups to his name. So after

Marty McSorley: 50:45

my after my first year, the guys were men. They were 2530 years of age. They're grizzled, they're tough. They've been through all these battles. I was still a growing boy, and I'm fighting these guys. And I didn't have a lot of help in Pittsburgh. You know, like I said, we go into Pittsburgh, there's nobody there, Philly, nobody's there to help me. Not that I didn't know that I needed help, because I'm too dumb to probably realize it, right? But you, you make you meet the challenge, and you don't like when Terry Gregson kicks me out. It's not like, okay, great, I'm out of the game. It's like, why? No, I'm not done yet, right? Hungry? Yeah, you want to play. So it's, it's that mindset of saying no, I and I kind of felt that your career, that you're kind of standing on the edge of whether you're going to be a peer or not, and and I'm trying to hang on as best I possibly can. And that summer, I went home and I made my dad a deal working on the farm. I would work on the farm all afternoon, but I had to go down to the high school, run, run the length of the school, go and work out till noon, as long as I went back to the farm. And that was after my first year in the National Hockey League, right? But that's, that's kind of because I knew where I needed to get to, and then three or three years later, I'm like, Okay, I'm I feel like I'm here, right?

Dave Scatchard: 52:05

Amazing. How about a round of applause for Marty guys? You could see how I could go with for another hour with Marty, but we got work to do. So hey buddy. I love you. Thank you so much for coming, man. We hope you enjoyed diving into the minds of these champions and uncovering their secrets to their success. If you're looking to create your own bulletproof mindset like me and our guest, head on over to all starcoaching.com and sign up for our free brand new on demand class until next time, stay inspired, stay determined and keep chasing your dreams and.