Youth Sports United

My guest this week is Matt Dumouchelle, a former sports broadcaster turned team builder who has worked across professional basketball, baseball and junior hockey before turning his attention to the foundations of youth sport. Through his "Hockey Factories" series with The Coaches Site, Matt has studied 15 of the most successful development programs around the world. What he discovered is that the...

My guest this week is Kayla Buck, a Certified Mental Performance Consultant who supports athletes, performers and coaches to develop the mental skills needed to perform under pressure while supporting their overall wellbeing. Recently, Kayla has expanded her practice to support parents navigating the youth sports landscape. She believes that while athletes get coached and coaches get trained, pare...

This week’s episode features Keirsten Sires, former NCAA athlete and founder of 2aDays.com , a recruiting platform focused on giving student athletes transparency into collegiate athletic programs. Keirsten joined me today to help unpack NIL - Name, Image, and Likeness. For us Canadians, NIL is not an everyday term - it refers to an athlete's ability to generate revenue for the use of their name,...

On today’s episode I sit down with Amit Chitre, strategic communications consultant and author of the Amazon Best Seller The Other Playbook. Our conversation centres on the idea that we all have our own personal brand and how we show up in the world is a demonstration of our values. Through our conversation, Amit explains how The Other Playbook originated in a corporate training he was executing w...

On today’s episode I chat with Jeoff De Waele and Brian Conklin, two of the three partners in PlayMakersUSA. Situated in West Linn, Oregon, PlayMakersUSA is a community-based youth sports program focused on helping youth athletes grow on and off the field. Their objective is simple: deliver a program that creates a pathway to personal growth for their players by integrating educational components...

On today’s episode I sit down with Benson Langat. Benson is the Founder and Head Coach of Bensane Run Coaching and Sports Consulting. He’s also an elite marathoner, who’s finished top 20 in the Boston Marathon, and a Coaching Certification Instructor with the Road Runners Club of America - that’s how we know each other, he was my coach when I completed my run coaching certification. Our conversati...

My guest this week is Roger Barnsley. Roger is a psychologist, educator and retired President and Vice-Chancellor of Thompson Rivers University.  In the early 1980’s, while attending a Junior hockey game, his wife Paula, also a psychologist, noticed an unusual trend in the game's program - the majority of players were born in the first three months of the year. This finding led Roger deeper into t...

This week’s guest is Greg Dunn. Greg is a former collegiate hockey player, executive coach and CEO of Exult Sports, a Denver, Colorado based company focused on transforming youth sports organizations into truly athlete-centric environments that support, challenge, and empower youth athletes.  In this conversation, Greg and I discuss the need to hold the athlete, and their personal development, at...

I’m really excited to share a bonus episode of Youth Sports United this week. My guest, Paul Gamble, is an exercise physiologist, coach, sports consultant, and author. He recently re-released his book Sports Parenting, Negotiating the Challenges of the Youth Sports Journey to Help Kids Thrive and it is a must read for all parents and coaches dedicated to making the youth sports experience a positi...

On today’s episode of Youth Sports United, I sit down with Colin McLaren, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Experiential Studies in Community and Sport at Cape Breton University, and the Associate Director of the Research Institute for Community, Sport, and Health. Colin and I discuss in detail the importance and lasting impact of creating positive sports experiences for our kids. We exa...

On today’s episode of Youth Sports United, I sit down with Carolyn Coffin, professional running coach, host of the “Inspired Soles” podcast and active sports parent, to chat about the role parents play in helping their children build healthy relationships with sport. Carolyn and I explore how sports teach kids life skills such as resilience, teamwork and risk-taking and how intentional parenting f...

On the first episode of Youth Sports United, I sit down with Jordan Sutcliffe, an Assistant Professor and Sports Psychologist at the Royal Military College of Canada, to discuss the dynamics of parental involvement in youth sports. We start by exploring the crucial role parents play in their children’s emotional regulation, the impact parental behaviour can have on children’s athletic experiences...