Jimmie Santee is Over the Edge

Hot off the wire! Russian hockey coach Gennady Velchkin is upset that his best player and top NHL prospect Evengi Malkin is gone and headed to the Pittsburgh Penguins. "They all like to talk about democracy, the American way and then they shamelessly steal our best players. This is pure sports terrorism," Velichkin said. Hmm, intersecting choice of words when if you believe internet reports, that say the Russian league is run or at least greatly influence by organized crime. Over the last few years the Russian mob has been linked in the media/internet to many professional athletes. Accurate or not where there's smoke...There's fire. A prominent Russian Figure Skater had their car blown up or so says the news. The Russian sports executive who was investigated for his alleged involvement in the Salt Lake City judging scandal was found shot to death gangland style. There are well documented cases of the Russian mobs attempt to extort money from Russian born NHL hockey pl

Here is a portion of an editorial I wrote in the Professional Skaters Magazine. I took some crap from some of my skating friends but many were supportive of my "shake the tree" mentality. Well I finally got a response to me at work from someone who thought I had no clue... Which in reality might be accurate, but I'll let the reader be the judge. Below is the offending editorial, the e-mail and my rebuttal. Enjoy! Now, as I sit and reflect on the new direction my life has recently taken and the path I would like to see the PSA follow, I keep coming back to one of my favorite saying's, Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way. It reminds me of a recent article written by leadership author, Brent Filson called, The 20/60/20 Rule of Leadership. Don't Go Solving the Wrong Problems. Not that there are problems but if the PSA has 6000 members and only 400 come to conference ... The 20/60/20 Rule of Leadership goes like this. About 20 percent of the people in a group won't

I had a great life...3 jobs that I loved, a nice house in a great community, 3 kids, a wife that tolerates me and my Harley...Not the bike but my wife's idea of humor... A Tibetan spaniel. Sounds good until I tell you that hitting the 40 hour mark on Wednesday evening wasn't all that its cracked up to be. Take away the punishing hours, I really loved what I did. I managed an ice rink, swimming pools, driving range, batting cages, members only dog park, all for a suburban Chicago community. I coached competitive figure skaters, short track speed skaters, Hockey/Power skating and in my spare time worked for the Chicago Wolves in the American Hockey League as their mascot "Skates". Each and every job was rewarding but as a whole it just beat me up. I had enough as the cost of living in Chicago just squeezed my bank account dry. Recently I walked away from it all and I in my would like subsequent blogs to share my experiences to shed some light on numerous ice related top