Allan Kreda - Gold Medals, Stanley Cups and Creating Miracles with Persistence

In 3, 2, 1.

Welcome back to Becoming Preferred, the podcast dedicated to uncovering the strategies that make entrepreneurs and professionals the emotional favorite in the markets they serve.

Today we are shifting our focus from the boardroom to the hockey rink, but the lessons remain intensely relevant.

Our guest today is Alan Craita, a seasoned journalist with nearly two decades covering finance and the NHL for giants like the Associated Press, the New York Times, and Bloomberg News.

Alan has mastered the art of extracting the core truth, whether from a quarterly earnings report or a locker room.

He's here to talk about his latest project, the book Ken Miracle Gold, Four Stanley Cups, and a Lifetime of Islander Hockey.

Morrow is one of the most uniquely accomplished athletes in history, winning the Olympic Miracle on Ice Gold and the Stanley cup in the same year.

We aren't here just for hockey stories, though.

Alan's journey from investigative journalist to co author provides a blueprint for every professional.

Join me now for my conversation with Alan Crada.

Well, hi, Alan.

Welcome to the program.

We're delighted to have you.

Happy to be here.

Thank you.

Hey, I'm excited about this.

You and I have known each other and our wives for about 20 years.

We met on vacation.

Yes.

And we've been in contact ever since.

And I think it was around hockey, which was the part of this object we're going to talk about.

And what does hockey have to do with business?

And what are the lessons we learned from hockey?

And what did we learn from your experience of writing the book?

And what does it have to do with entrepreneurship and with business itself?

And I think there's some excellent parallels that I can't wait to get into.

But we've gone back and forth and we talk about hockey.

But before we get there and unravel that a little bit and unpack it, let's talk about how we got here.

You're in high school and you're back in the 80s.

I think you were just right around where the subject matter of this book actually took place.

You were probably in high school.

And then I know you went to Brooklyn College and you went to Northwestern University, got a degree, and I believe you got your journalism degree.

And that's where we started talking.

So hockey was the foundation of our relationship.

And we've kind of.

We make sure we hit on that every time.

And when we come to your great city in New York, we do have a chance to get together with you.

So that's always exciting.

So it's nice to have a friend and a specialist who can talk about this subject.

So welcome to the Program.

Thank you so much.

Now, how do we get here?

Let's go back to those high school days.

You're deciding what you want to be.

Your mom and dad are going, hey, you, you're get out of the house and go do something.

What did you pick?

The path you picked.

Oh, wow.

Well, in my case, I was a science and math major.

I was all focused on numbers and pre med life.

I went to a specialized high school in Manhattan.

There everyone was Pre Med.

At 14 years old, it was supersonic brain power.

But on the side, I was always watching the Rangers and the Islanders and all the hockey games I could while I was studying calculus and physics and organic chemistry.

So the hockey was driving me.

My brother, who's nine years older, was a Ranger fan, going back, way back to the early 70s.

So I. I became part of that world with him and wanted to follow him.

But I liked it for myself too.

I liked the personalities, the people.

You go to a game back then, no helmets.

You got to see these guys playing.

The hair, the speed, the colors, everything about it got to me young age.

So it was entrenched in my brain and I never could have imagined I could turn this into a writing life.

But while I was at Brooklyn College, I took a news writing class and liked it, and then took a second class and liked it, feature writing.

And then the professor at the time said, well, you got to do something in the real world.

Go.

There's one internship we have that's sports related.

The hockey maven Stan Fischler has written more books than anyone in North America.

Over a hundred.

He always had interns coming and going from his uptown Manhattan office.

So there I was, 19 years old, part of the scene with him.

He's writing books, columns, magazine articles, you name it.

And he's covering the Islanders for Sports Channel.

So at that young age, I was thrust into experiencing it firsthand in the locker room, getting quotes, talking to the players.

Tail end of the dynasty, the Islander dynasty, that time zone.

I met Ken Morrow very shyly.

I'm sure he was very quiet, so he probably traded nine words.

But it did happen somewhere in the 80s, mid-80s.

And commensurate with that, of course, was what happened in 1980, Lake Placid, when the US hockey team shocked the world in one gold super underdog.

And they beat the Soviets and they beat Finland.

They win the gold medal a thousand to one at best.

14 years old watching this happen on a basically almost black and white, maybe early color TV in my parents living room.

And magical occurrence Never in a thousand years would I have imagined that I could become part of the legacy story decades later.

But it had such an impact on me that I immersed in the background of these players and their stories and the people.

So to sort of double it up way down the road in my career, pretty amazing.

But I've always been about the long game, like long process, practice and process and incremental progress.

And I think I was setting the seeds for it way back then in 1980, 81, 82, when I was secretly listening and watching every single hockey game on the side, preparing for this, because the research is in my head.

It's always been in my head.

I love the 80s.

It was a simpler time in the world.

And the games were magical.

You saw them once.

There was no VCR.

There was no way to rewatch things on YouTube.

You had to really study and analyze and know things and.

Yeah, old school, but younger old school.

And so a lot of the amalgamation of this book is my education by immersion way back then.

And.

And then I shifted gears.

I decided, no, with the medical career, I'm going to throw my head into the journalism ring all the way.

And I'm passionate about it.

I like it.

I'm going to learn to be the best writer, communicator, listener, interviewer I can be and just take it from there.

So the hockey was the vehicle.

The hockey is what got me into it.

I've had a long career writing, business, some politics, some legal, some features, some entertainment, but the sports was always the linchpin.

Hockey is where it started for me way back then, and hockey is where I am now.

Last 10, 15 years have been totally concentrated on the game, running for the New York Times, running for the Associated Press now, where I started my career in the early 90s, and I'm still with them as a contracted writer today.

So full circle.

But it's almost like the circle started and never ended in a lot of ways.

Well, you know, you start going back 45 years, you know, think, where did the time fly when I grew up with the original six.

So I was born in Montreal and then we moved to Toronto, so I was a Leafs fan more than I was the Habs fan.

And of course, there's only six teams, but I had all the cards, had all the players.

Dave Keon, Norm Allman, Daryl Sitler used to watch the Canada Russia games.

And I'm up in the Calgary studios up in Canada as we speak.

Right.

Just love the game and never really had a talent.

So put skates on and it was, that was, it was an embarrassment.

So I got to enjoy the game from a visual point of view.

Did you play the game yourself?

A little bit.

There was one rink in Manhattan, Sky Rink, which was on the highest floor of a office building in midtown Manhattan, a block down from Madison Square Garden.

So that was the place we played.

There was a midnight Sunday media game back in the day.

So somehow he'd play these games and 12 to 2am and get up and go to school or work the next day.

I don't know how, but when you're 21, you can do these things.

So that was the extent of it.

But all the media guys from that era were playing.

A lot of them were.

I was one of the youngest and I always looked up to the veterans and to see them on the ice, it was neat.

It was amazing.

They always look like older guys and now I look at them, they look like young kids.

Remember those days, the goalies, Terry Sage, they didn't wear masks.

Some of them helmets weren't a thing.

And they came to training camp and they were always.

That's when they got into shape.

So they were usually out of shape and smoking and drinking.

Exactly.

Camp.

And now you got to come in game shape to camp.

So it's changing.

We'll get into that.

So first question I have for you, you chose to write about Ken Morrow, a man whose achievements basically span the historic Miracle on Ice and the Islanders dynasty.

For our entrepreneurial audience, every great product or business starts with a clear why.

So what was the core compelling narrative gap that you identified that made this book a necessary project?

I always had it in mind because I always knew of his double achieve achievement.

To win the gold medal is singular in its own right.

All the players from that team have had a life based on that moment, rightfully so.

But to follow it up with the Stanley cup in three months later and then win three more of them, basically, Ken Maher didn't lose between somewhere in the summer, spring of 1979 in college at Bowling Green, lost to Edmonton in 1984 Stanley cup finals.

So unbelievable five year run of winning.

And to put the two together was always in my mind somewhere.

I knew Ken through the years, through the Islander alumni.

He's been a scout forever for 30 plus years for them in the Midwest.

So I knew him, but didn't know him.

And almost three years ago, the Islanders were going through their 50th anniversary season and the Hockey News asked me to write a feature just on as many guys as I could get to of the 16 who won all four cups, imagine that 16 players were part of all four, almost five cups.

And in the course of the research for that, I reached out to Ken.

I saw him.

The Islanders had a gathering of all the alumni at a game weekend, a weekend for the fans.

And I said, hey, your story's amazing.

There's a book there.

What do you think?

He's.

My kids have told me to do this already.

If you think it's a book, let's talk some more.

I don't know.

All I really did was play my game hard.

I was fortunate to have great teammates and great teams and great coaches, and we kept winning.

But I just did my job.

That's all I did.

If it's a book, that'd be great, but I don't know.

And I said, I think it is.

And I pitched it to a publisher that I had worked with, Triumph Books, and they loved the idea that said of marrying those two concepts in one person is amazing.

No one else can do it.

And we went from there.

I said to Ken, look, let's just start.

We'll tell stories about major games, events, winning moments.

Yeah, let's pick one cup run and just let's talk about it from the first game of the playoffs till the cup was raised.

So we picked 1983, fourth cup.

And I said, you'll see.

As you start telling stories, you'll see critical mass in the interview is becoming pages, becoming longer, longer chapters.

And it just goes from there, and we'll just build on each story.

And that's what happened.

That just.

I said, let's just treat each winning year as a chapter, each experience leading into the winning as a chapter.

The people, the teammates, the opponents.

And then, yeah, I just had an idea and went with it and felt from the beginning it would work because I could tell the way he told the story, and it was compelling.

And it's a singular focus that he had as a player that really comes across in his telling.

And to me, like, we can all learn from his experiences because it's way beyond the game.

He's a winner.

He's a dedicated professional player.

But he played through pain, he played through adversity that all athletes face.

He had to find ways to get better.

He had to live up to the coach he was playing for.

Like, there were a lot of challenges, but all he did is work at it and quietly excel to the point that I thought his story really matters because he won playing the game the right way, so to speak.

And he had the respect of his teammates up and down the line.

So I knew that going in too.

And I thought once we get telling the stories, it'll turn into something.

So I believe that it's before it existed.

Yeah, it's a perfect metaphor for life and business and people don't maybe if they remember those who were hockey fans.

He was one of the first players in hockey history to win an Olympic gold medal and the Stanley cup in the same year.

That was 1980 with the Miracle on Ice.

And we've all seen the movie, just awesome movie.

Their dynasty, they won four consecutive cups, 80 through 83.

Ten years he played in the game, which is pretty good for a defenseman.

He wasn't a big scorer.

I know he played 550 regular season games, but he only scored like 17 or 18 goals.

I think he had just under 188 assists or something like that.

But his plus minus rating was good 142.

And we can chat about that.

But basically he was just a quiet soldier, showed up all the time and did his job and a great team player.

And I think there's lots.

You said a key word there.

It's about the focus and that it's the persistence and that consistency that makes great things happen.

So I think that there's powerful lessons there.

Let's talk about Investigative journalism and book writing are exercises that require due diligence for sure.

So what systems did you put in place to verify those decades of anecdotes and ensure complete historical accuracy?

And how does this process parallel the need for thorough risk assessment in launching any new venture?

Great question.

I'm very meticulous with facts, figures, dates, numbers, goal scoring times.

So as we interviewed and talked out each game, I went over each box score myself.

I went back and looked at them all.

They're all out there somehow, somewhere.

So I went right down to the the goal scorers in every one of the seven Olympic games that the US Team played.

I went through all those Stanley cup final games the five years making sure that when it got to the fact checkers who were going to edit and read through everything, the numbers were already there.

And try not to over number fight as well, not go crazy, but find enough key numbers and stats that could resonate tell the story as we went along.

Yeah, very meticulously making sure everything is right every time.

Of every goal I mentioned, every name was spelled correctly.

You know, moments in time that readers may have seen just the one time if they watched the 1980 US versus Czechoslovakia game.

No one's remembering who scored those goals.

But when you can find the game on YouTube, and there it is.

So with the research tools, you can easily get to.

And then the literal hockey reference.com There are the box goes of every Stanley cup game, game by game.

And I relied on memories of moments to elucidate further.

If there was a goal or a play, Ken talked about it, went back and got more details about that, looked up old newspaper clips, you know, research the old fashioned way, what was written about it, when it happened, what was some of the quotes that I could use and attribute at that time.

I know I talked to his teammates about key moments, too.

And memories vary.

Some guys remember minute, moment, detail.

Just remember they won the game by a certain score.

You know, the games blurred together, so it became a puzzle piece.

But I went in with, okay, I remember these games myself.

I'm gonna go back and study the nuances.

I'm gonna go back and look at the really small parts of the play that we can really flesh out into pages.

You know, what happened at the very end of the 1983 game four when the Islanders were trying to ice it with an empty neck goal.

The Oilers had the goalie pulled, and Gretzky almost scores, almost this, almost that.

Dennis Potvin tells me a story of how he overstated the puck, like, just a bit, just enough to be off balance.

And there's Gretzky waiting.

He said, I still remember the fear of, oh, my, Gretzky's behind me.

I'm not getting back.

He's gonna get the puck.

And, like, he remembered the fear.

And that.

That got me right away.

Like, I'm putting that in.

We can all relate to that oh, moment.

When that did happen, Ken Mara was backing up, and the puck wound up on his stick, and then in the empty net where Andy Moog was.

So I built it out.

I built it out as I went through this.

You know, you get to live it, which.

And I get to relive.

And I remember watching these games.

Of course, you don't remember.

You see the moment.

But now I got to go in the weeds.

And I did that over and over again with epic games.

And it was just fun to the people I got to speak to.

In relation to Ken's story was the super bonus, because my editor at Triumph book said, sure, go ahead and build concentric circles as much as you can.

Talk to everyone you can that played with him, against him, coaches, coaches, families.

Like, people knew him, remembered him.

Like, memories of things came rolling in, and I had to Stop at a certain point.

I was close to 50 interviews beyond Ken Morrow, one way or another, either by phone, text, email, in person, the stories, random things would pop and that would lead me to three more ideas.

So it was great.

Some of these Ranger players who could not beat the Islanders in the 80s, they lost every year.

When Herb Brooks, the coach, Olympic coach, was coaching the Rangers, there was Ken Maher in their way.

1982, 83, 84.

And he scores in overtime in 1984.

There's a whole chapter on the epic game five, one of the most intense games you'll ever see in any cup run.

And Ken Maura, incidentally, has the most overtime goals in the five years the Islanders went to the Stanley cup final.

He has three overtime goals in that five year span.

More than any other Islander, more than Bossy, more than Trache, more than Dennis Botvin.

Amazing.

And it's the stories.

And people don't realize.

They see the book on a bookshelf and they go, oh, it's a hockey book.

It's all about this thing.

And they think, hey, it doesn't work for them.

The business audience, though, entrepreneurs, people listening on the podcast.

It's a metaphor.

Look at it as the metaphor of what?

Because we all go through it and you're actually getting instead of just a boring business book, you know, I won't say I write, but yeah, maybe it's a story.

You can get involved with that story and then the lessons are learned.

It's inspiring.

So I encourage people to read those and use it as the metaphor because they go through all the same things that we do as business professionals, entrepreneurs, whether we work for a corporation or we own our own?

Now, you spent significant time interviewing Ken and others in a circle.

You mentioned about 50 of them.

How do you, as a journalist, establish that deep trust that's required to get an authentic, vulnerable narrative?

And what lessons can our listeners apply to managing relationships with high value clients or strategic partners?

So you built trust quickly.

How did you get there?

That's a career long quest.

I feel it's really important to establish yourself credibly, honestly.

Genuine approach.

I've done that all the way through and I feel like it comes across.

These guys can spot someone may not be as trustworthy as they'd hope and they know right away.

And I know with the Olympians, I went out of my way to reach out to someone that does all the marketing and social media for the 1980 guys, because they're a different generation.

They're not social media crazy like Today's players.

And I felt like I had to come at them very quietly, but honestly.

So she reached out on my behalf.

I said, look, I want to call, talk about 1980, talk about Kenmar.

I don't want them to get surprised with a call out of the blue.

So this is coming from.

Here's some of my writing.

This is my approach.

This is going to be a very positive feel good story.

But I want to establish trust before I even speak to these guys.

And yeah, I knew Mike Ruzzi through the years.

I've written about him through time, reached out to him.

So I had something going in factor.

And then I felt, once I get these guys in the phone and they know who I am and I start talking, they'll see where I'm coming from.

And that's pretty much what happened over and over again.

They know I'm genuine and I'm.

You have some street credit.

Yes, exactly.

Well, this will play off of that one.

That works.

It goes a long way.

You've got the credibility and authority.

Yeah.

And you're telling it like it is.

And when you report on the games, they might not always like it, but they can trust.

In other words, it's fair.

You're fair and trustworthy.

I think that goes a long way, don't you?

It does.

And if you listen well and these guys read something you write and respect it, they will talk to you after a tough loss.

They'll talk to you when things aren't great.

They'll.

They'll reach out to you if you reach out to them.

So I didn't get any pushback at all, but I wanted to establish right away, this is the storm.

This is a player you guys loved playing with.

I'm trying to help him tell his legacy story.

Yeah, not a hit job.

It's.

I'm not looking for negative stories.

I don't need that.

No controversy necessarily.

Like, this is all what it's supposed to be about.

A winner.

Life lessons.

What really happened up to a point in the room before some games.

What were you thinking?

What were you thinking about something he did.

So, you know, there's some humor in there.

There's no need for the negative and there's no need to take advantage of someone's, you know, what happened 40 years ago in print today, like, what's to be gained by that?

So that's.

I think that came across as well.

And I knew these guys would be honest with me if I was honest with them.

And to a man, they all were.

It was great.

And I had fair questions I was curious about as a teenage fan back then and what was really happening.

I've always been fascinated by Herb Brooks and what he brought to both the Olympic team and then the Rangers.

I was in high school when he coached the Rangers and thought that was the greatest hire.

And he was this brilliant coach.

He's gonna.

The Rangers are going to win the cup with this new age European or Soviet style and creativity.

They probably would have if not for the Islanders.

But fascinating intellectual coach.

So I had heard through the grapevine that some of the books written about the Olympic team, the Brooks family, wasn't really included or wasn't included enough or wasn't included accurately.

And Herb, of course, died tragically in a car accident in 2003 at just age 66.

So I made it a point to reach out to his wife, his daughter and son.

Those conversations were meaningful, and I wanted to hear what they were thinking in 1980 at Lake Placid, watching this unfold, and what they were also thinking when he coached in New York.

So I had two angles on that.

I had Craig Patrick, who was the GM of the Rangers, who was the assistant GM in Lake Placid, two angles there.

I had these players that played for Herb in New York, who were playing against him for Team Finland in Lake Placid, all these doubles.

And only this story could put that all together in.

In the way I envisioned.

So I went deep.

And I feel like there's no limit to research.

Like, you can keep going and if you have too much, you pull it back a little bit.

But the more the merrier.

And I just felt every nugget I can uncover is something a read might not know or might say, that's cool.

Like, I Learned something about 1982 final with Vancouver Islanders.

I didn't know before, and I didn't know that Game 3 in 1981 when the Islanders won 75 at the Met center, that the fans had these Dino Cicarelli dinosaur dolls, 30,000 of them or something.

The place was going bonkers.

And Ken said it was the loudest road game I may have ever played.

And if we had lost that game to them, who knows what happens?

Like, they had the momentum if they won Game three and they didn't and we won in five.

But if they had won Game three, it would have been two one North Stars.

And nobody remembers that series and was a pretty good series, but it got lost in the bigness of what they did.

The fans really remember in 1980 when they beat the Flyers on Bobby Nystrom's overtime goal at Nassau Coliseum.

And they remember in 83 when they won the fourth one also at Nassau Coliseum to cement that on Ken Mara's empty net goal.

Actually, when we started talking about 83, the story that I knew we had the book, I knew it would work right then and there.

That chapter he told me when he scored in the empty net and he group hugged with Bob Nystrom, Tanelli, then Dennis Puffin joined, everyone joined, he said, I said I love you guys three or four times.

Three or four times he's repeating it.

And if you watch the YouTube, that's what you can see him saying it.

And I relay that to the guys.

They all remembered it.

They're like, yep, yep, all true.

Like, how can you beat that?

That's what we call the chapter I love you guys.

And that's a life lesson right there.

Great job.

Well, you know, and the big lesson that you said there, and it came through loud and clear, is you started by listening, not interviewing.

And I think that's a lesson for business professionals, for sales professionals.

We get in there and we interview.

We interview our kids.

Hey, how was your day today?

Good.

What'd you do?

Nothing.

Instead of listening to them and listening to people.

So that act of listening, it showed, first of all, you were invested in his legacy, not just a sensational headline.

And that shows in business we can do that.

Showing our partners to value their success as much as their own.

We want to deliver consistency, protect people's reputation fiercely and always follow through.

And trust isn't given.

It's earned through repeated, reliable actions.

And you obviously demonstrated that.

No, it's fabulous.

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And now back to my conversation with Alan Craita.

Every creative project hits a wall.

A chapter that just doesn't flow, a source that won't talk.

When facing writer's block or editorial setbacks, what specific strategy or ritual did you use to maintain forward momentum and treat maybe failure or hitting that wall as simply a temporary data point?

Good, good question Again, usually when that happens, I'll put what I'm writing aside, come back to it later.

Depends on how it's feeling at the time.

When I wrote a lot of magazine articles, you hit small walls sometimes looking for the perfect segue or the perfect beginning or ending or not perfect but is what like you feel like you have to hit the mark.

And sometimes I knew my ending or beginning when I started.

I would almost write the ending first so I'd fill in the middles.

But writer's block's never really been something that's paralyzed me creatively.

It's more of.

It's not quite what I had in mind yet.

So it's more of reworking it but that putting it aside with some of the chapters here, I waited the game stories were easy enough to get to the heart of.

It's not non emotional basically it's relaying physical memory.

But when Ken got into some of his family background I felt like that needed more time, that needed more of a listening.

Let's review this.

It should be exactly as you want to tell the story.

He lost his dad very young.

Like I knew that would be an emotional retelling.

And when we did that interview it was in person and I really took my time with that.

So it was more like careful, careful layering, making sure as he talked we'd get to more and also making sure he's rereading it back and in this case it's a co authored book.

I told him right at the beginning is what you want it to be.

Is what I want it to be.

This isn't what I think your story should be, it's what you think it should be.

You captured his voice and you helped him capture the.

When I was got his voice I was able to yeah hook that pretty quickly and the pacing of his words and I felt like it's got to be in his words.

But so yeah, we'll rewrite and write this as many times as you feel necessary.

So in terms of the creative blocks, putting it aside, waiting, coming back to it, thinking of something else, maybe someone else's input, interviewing on the same topic again.

Even you kind of know when you have it and you know when you don't quite have it.

And I felt like most of this book, the chapters were, were getting there, but there was a lot of going back and going back and clarifying.

Try not for repetition.

It's easy to get caught in that trap in a sports memoir because the stories really meld together.

A lot of times they keep coming back to the same game or the same.

So even if we mentioned something three or four times, it was a different perspective.

We might have mentioned Mike Bossi's 50 goals and 50 games in three different places, but it had a different context.

So I was aware of that as we went through it.

But yeah, there are a lot of mini traps that aren't necessarily blocks, but they're more like you don't want the reader to say, oh, I heard that already.

You want them to flow through and not feel like they're being bombarded.

So I felt like my whole style as a writer, through my whole career though, has been easy to read clear.

It's my wire service training.

I have from the beginning part of my career.

Get to the point quickly, use good words, don't overdo it.

Telling the story cleanly matters.

In a pre Twitter world.

I'm doing it in a thousand or two thousand or three thousand words.

But you're building it out.

It's a painting, it's a puzzle.

It should come back to the theme you started with.

It's musical in a way, almost as a rhythm to the writing.

So I kept all that in mind.

There are times, because you got your day job and you're doing what you do to, you know, pay the bills.

Right.

Are there times in the day that you feel most creative?

So interviews you can do all day long, in the evenings, whatever, because you're recording them, capturing what you need to capture.

But when you're actually putting that down on paper and writing or there are times of the day where you personally, hey, it's your best time, you know you're going to get your best work at.

Like, for me, it's early in the morning, I'm a 5am guy.

By 6 o', clock, I'm doing it for now, two hours tops, 90 minutes and then I'm done.

My brain's.

I want to move on to something else.

How's that work for you?

What's your process?

I'm more Of a night owl late at night when it's quiet.

If I'm going through transcriptions, which is the hardest part of any brook project, is the transcribing.

Even though you have otter and these New age things, they're great.

But I still did a lot of hands on listening back.

That wouldn't have been it.

Yeah.

Re repeating.

So in terms of getting that all together late at night, a lot, believe it or not, before games, when I'm at an arena, have an hour here, an hour there.

That's when I feel most.

You're in the venue.

Like I have some time.

Yeah, a lot of piecemeal hours.

Summer is, like, harder because it's warmer.

It's not hockey season, you know, it's like the deadline's looming.

The big key part of this book, the huge key, was that my wife Claudia, was the editor for me, reading it separately for my reads, because after the third or fourth read, you just can't keep going over it.

Blinded me out.

She was going through it with a different eye.

She didn't remember these games.

She remembered it much more vaguely than I did.

She was learning as she went.

She did know about the Olympic glory, but not on the extreme detail we were getting into.

So educational for her.

So she was interested enough to read it line by line.

She was great, really great with asking other questions, questions that I didn't even think of at times.

So she had a different perspective that, like, we teamed up really well.

I had that bonus help.

Yeah.

And she had great questions for Ken, too, that also once we would ask him one, would there be three more?

So between the two of us, the separate eyes major, because you get lost in it.

Well.

And your perspective is interesting, too.

I know you from time to time when you're playing one of our teams where you'll send us pictures from the press box and that perspective, or if you're coming to our town and you're covering the team over the case, you've got a different look at it that most people wouldn't even know to look at or ask that question.

So I think that makes good sense.

Let's talk about the publishing journey, because it's really about market strategy and distribution.

Taking a manuscript to a published book requires a whole different skill set.

You're dealing with agents, publishers, marketing.

How did you structure your approach to the publishing world, and what parallel advice would you give an entrepreneur seeking investment or, say, a distribution deal?

I had an idea that they wanted, so that was a huge, huge plus.

They gave me the freedom to structure it as I wish.

But we collaborated on the thought of it before we started.

I really started putting it together.

So it was collaborative in the idea.

They liked it from the beginning.

I had written a short outline, chapter outline, et cetera, synopsis.

And we basically came up with the idea of like 15 to 20 chapter breakdowns.

Chronological.

Working in family, working in Olympics, working in islanders, working in post cups.

So the publisher was really helpful in terms of setting me up with an editor there who was outstanding copy editor and idea person.

So she helped the process immensely.

That's the best.

A huge deciding factor.

If you're working with someone at a publishing house that's working with you, you're 80% there because it's a dialogue.

I sent her a few chapters as we were working on it.

It's just what you had in mind.

I felt like you can't just send 70, 000 word draft and say here it is.

There's got to be progression with the deadlines looming.

And I'm really good with deadlines.

But it gets harder as you get down to it.

Being that this book was a collaboration, it was me writing, Ken, reading us editing together.

There was a lot of back and forth before.

So we.

Chapter at a time, chapter at a time, chapter at a time to build it to the draft, when you finally hit the button is a lot.

It's like the endless term paper that never ends.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And I'm always doing my homework the night before guy.

So dead are terrible for me.

But I've had to learn to develop the habit of going the other way.

You know, Ken Morrow was known for his quite consistent approach to the game.

How did this style of leadership, you know, one based on performance, not, let's call it volume, contribute to his team's long term success?

And what could a CEO or a leader learn from that approach?

I mean, he embodied substance over sizzle, Right.

So his leadership was really defined by reliability.

He wasn't allowed his voice, but he was always the first to execute a difficult play.

Right.

How can we adapt that into the business world?

Doing a job the right way, not complaining, just team first.

He listened to his teammates.

His goalies loved him because as big as he was, he didn't screen them.

He just pushed forwards to the outside.

He didn't let them get in the lanes at all.

Like Billy Smith, who would say something if defenseman was giving him problems.

Loved Ken Mara because most every shot was he could see it.

And Ken knew that.

He knew the people around him.

He played he didn't take bad penalties.

He used his huge reach cleanly.

A lot of guys said it was like playing against the grapevine because he was just doing anything and he didn't.

But he didn't take the penalties.

So frustrating as could be for his opponents who never quite figured out.

Guys on the Olympic team said they hated going against him in practice because it was impossible.

And he just.

This is what Herb Brooks saw when he saw this huge defenseman playing for Bowling Green who he had to have on his team.

So there's a lesson in just being that sort of indispensable, important defensive defenseman which every winning team needs.

Played it smart.

He allowed an offensive partner to do his thing, if that were possible.

He made goalies lives easier.

He didn't have to physically dominate, but he was big enough to clear space, clear the middle of the ice, clear the crease.

And then on top of all that, he scored big goals at key times.

Found him.

He's out there on the power play randomly in the playoffs.

He's out there scoring overtime goals with Pot Van Gillies, Nystrom, Trache Basia, on the ice with Kamara.

So he found ways to be important beyond the theoretical defensive defenseman.

And he just said, all I did is play my game.

I didn't feel like I was doing anything super special.

I think there's a lot to be said for that.

I think a lot of leaders learn from that as well.

Work hard and do the right thing every day.

He played hurt.

He got hurt early in the playoff run in 1980.

His knees had multiple knee operations.

Never, never complained.

And later in his career, he had to have his knee drained before games.

Needles in the locker room, never complained.

The guys marveled at this.

Hear about it, it hurts.

So I mean, playing through pain, uncomplaining.

And for the team, for the team.

It was always for the team.

He also learned from his coaches.

He had three tremendous coaches in his life.

Ron Mason, Bowling Green, one of the winningest U.S. college coaches, the great Herb Brooks.

And then Al Arbour with the Islanders.

Teacher, mentor, father figure, respected him immensely.

It was a two way street.

Both Herb Brooks and Al Arbour let Kenmar keep his beard, which was super sign of respect because no one else did.

And the line with the joke was that Kenny came, joined Olympic team with the beard and her books said, okay, you can keep it if you started out with it.

And Al Arbour something similar.

He called Kenny Moses with the beard.

As an Islander, his teammates called him Wolfman.

And the beard became A lucky charm, a rallying point.

And it was right around that time that the Islanders started growing the beard as a team.

In the 80s.

That's what led to today's trend of playoff beard.

Did a lot of beards irritating because it makes you a little cranky and stuff, so that makes you irritable, and that goes a long way in hockey.

Let's talk about the resilience and learning from failure in sports and business, because it's all about resilience.

So the world of professional kids defined by setbacks, missed shots, tough losses.

What did Ken's experiences teach you?

About how high achievers mentally process and quickly recover from defeat, which is a vital skill for entrepreneurs who face inevitable failures.

Always turning the page, always looking to the next game, thinking long term, not fearing losing.

It came across in his case, there were these moments where the dynasty could have been upended easily.

Game here, game there, bounce here, bounce there.

And he was marveling at how, wow, we were just fortunate.

We won big games at big times and.

But we never thought about losing.

The Stanley cup was ours until someone took it from us.

It was a possession game for them.

And as hard as it was to win the first one, they weren't giving it up so quickly.

So the losing, you know, the long season, the pacing through the 80 games every year and getting back to the playoffs and defending and.

Yeah, it was the same with the Olympic team.

They faced adversity.

They fell behind in six of the seven games at Lake Placid.

They had to find ways to win these games under extreme pressure.

And they had been through the ringer.

Playing 61 games as a US national team before the Olympics.

Unprecedented.

You would never have that in today's world, have a team play that a whole season, basically, for stipends for their country, risking injury.

Risking.

Exactly.

Well, he definitely had an unwavering focus on process over outcome.

And they always had impossible situations, but they never lost faith in their system.

Right.

Their commitment to that next shift, the next game.

So that means, you know, things fail for us.

But keep focusing on the process if you've got a winning process, because it kind of works out.

Ken Morrow's story is framed as a lifetime of hockey for our listeners who are building their own preferred legacy.

What's the single most important lesson from Ken Morrow's journey about what truly defines a successful, enduring career in your mind?

It's the perseverance.

It's the perseverance that he employed and has continued to employ professionally.

He's not only played for the islanders for those 10 years, not only won the gold medal and played four years of college hockey before that.

He was drafted by The Islanders in 1976.

He has been a scout for them since the early 90s.

So it's 30 plus years of dedicated service to the organization.

Since his playing career ended in 2026, it'll be 50 years that he's an Islander, essentially.

So talk about perseverance.

That is a monument to that, that anyone can respect.

50 years, basically with the same organization, essentially four years of college and then he signed with them in 1980, but he's been part of them since.

Jimmy Dano, the super scout, discovered him in the winter of 1975 as a college player because he randomly went to a game in Toronto to see a college player that he'd heard about playing at Toronto school, sees this guy, notice him, writes his name down as drafts in fourth round in 76.

So moments that are connected, like the randomness, the random atoms of our lives that come together and even can learn stories about that, that draft legacy, how it all came together, he didn't even know.

So the perseverance is what's most impressive.

I did ask him early in the process, is that when you were playing for the Olympic team, when you were going to Lake Placid, were you ever worried about getting hurt or something going wrong?

You would never have a professional career.

It's like it never entered my mind.

I was going to graduate from college, get my degree, four years.

I was going to play for my country, give my all, get to the Olympics, dream come true, and then worry about the pro career.

So amazing that, yeah, that's the focus.

And then he joins this team that needed a jolt.

The Islanders needed something special in the latter stage of 79, 80, the year before the Rangers had upset them in the playoffs was an epic moment when you're 14 in New York City.

And the Rangers beat them when they had the best record.

Shocking.

But the Islanders found a way.

They had multiple disappointments in the late 70s playoff year after year.

They needed something.

They had.

They got Kenmar.

They were able to then trade for Butch Goring.

And Butch Goring became the catalyst that helped them to that first and four Cups.

They also acquired Gord Lane during that that season.

So they made these moves, but if they didn't have Ken Mara in to inject, the second move wouldn't have happened.

If the second doesn't happen, maybe they don't win.

And then he scores an overtime goal in game three in Los Angeles in the opening round of a very tight short best of five again.

Tied one one.

They a crazy game.

They won four three at the Forum, the Kings had the Triple Crown line with Dion Simmer and Dave Taylor.

If they found a way, they might have won that series in four.

There's no dynasty.

The honors maybe break it up.

So the perseverance sort of creates moments of happenstance that aren't accidents.

Maybe that's what comes through with his.

Telling loud and clear.

I think that's one of really the key takeaways of the book, you know, for me and going through doing our research for our episode, is that the true success is really defined by compound persistence and consistency.

And Ken Morrow, he just wasn't a sudden superstar, but he was consistent, a reliable force over two decades of playing the game, 10 years professionally.

His legacy isn't one particular spectacular moment, but it's that compounding effect of showing up, doing the work, maintaining integrity every day.

And for entrepreneurs, our legacy isn't going to be one deal.

For business people, it's not going to be one thing.

It will be the sum total of our daily habits, our ethical decisions, and the consistent persistent value that we deliver to the people we serve.

So I think that comes loud and clear and I think you capture it well.

And the story is excellent.

The book is called Ken Morrow Miracle Gold, Four Stanley Cups and a Lifetime of Islander Hockey.

So whether you're a hockey fan or not, but if you're a fan of business and you're a fan of taking your game to the next level, lots of good gems in there.

Then the paperbacks on Amazon and now it's some updates about the draft lottery that the Islanders one thanks to Ken Mara in May, early May now bringing Matthew Schaefer to their ranks.

And we also did go to Lake Placid to sign some books where it happened on Main Street.

Fabulous.

And we were reminded.

He reminded me.

And then you hear it as they play the clip of the countdown.

Mara to silk.

You've got 10 seconds.

His name is in every clip of the countdown.

So here's his quiet, unassuming defenseman whose name pops up in the consciousness of, of everyone watching and hearing about this.

And then of course, the movie Miracle in 2004 with Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks, brought it to a whole new generation.

So we've learned that in the course of the book, the events and the signings that young fans really respond to his story because they know it from the movie.

And it's a thrill through 20 something great movie.

An Olympian well done Alan.

Great job.

Thanks for sharing the story with us and thanks on our show.

You're welcome.

Look forward to next time we get to catch up.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much.

As you are listening to this episode, what is one idea that you've heard that's caught your attention and why does it matter so much to you?

And who is one person who you can share that with, either sharing this episode or just sharing that insight that occurred to you while you were listening?

Perhaps it is how high achievers mentally process and quickly recover from defeat, which is a vital skill for any entrepreneur.

Or how your legacy won't be the one major deal, it will be the sum total of your daily habits, ethical decisions, and a consistent value you deliver to your network.

Thank you for listening, for learning, and for investing in yourself so that you can become the best version of you.

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Until next time.

This podcast is created and associated with Summit Media.

My Executive producer is Beth Smith and Director of Research Tori Smith.

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Goodbye.