“For Hamilton, staggering NHL salaries are motivating today’s players to train harder and longer. He said his starting salary when he turned pro back in the 1960s was $13,000, which hockey players can now earn in a single shift.

“There is incentive,” he said. “It’s a huge industry now of parents spending thousands and thousands of dollars on training for their kids.

• Helmets are mandatory – it was originally frowned upon to wear a helmet and players were even considered sissies for doing so -Hell, goalies used to wear nothing on their heads!
• I miss seeing the bench clearing brawls Edmonton Oilers had with the Calgary Flames. You were almost guaranteed one per game.
• Star players were rarely traded and would play a whole career with just one team. Now players sign contracts that last only a few years to be able to negotiate higher wages elsewhere.
• The Canadian dollar used to be at a disadvantage to the U.S. dollar – now they are on par.
• And yes, the Edmonton Oilers used to be a shoe in to make the playoffs, alas not so much these days.

The season was going great, we were winning every game with high scoring for and low against. We were set to win it all. Then we played St. Mike’s. They destroyed us. It was like we didn’t even know what hockey was. Embarrassing.

Other teams were still no problem to beat.

The second game with St. Mike’s we practiced hard, even watched game tapes. And yet, we still got our asses kicked.

The third game – more was on the line as it was minor hockey week and we were one of the teams that could have taken the title – but again! Defeat.

It was really embarrassing because in each game the opposing players would taunt us, get us to react and take penalties, they threw us off our game every time. We were now intimidated and looking weak.

Soon after minor hockey week we were to go against our rival enemies again. This time our coach called us to the rink early so he could go over our “new game plan”.

Now this may be some of the stuff parents don’t want to hear but the new plan was this.

Forget the puck – hit they player. Hit hard. We even had a designated player on each line whose purpose was to hit. We needed to throw them off their game plan, make them hesitate, rethink what they were going to do with the puck. If we were going to get penalties, make the other player feel it.

The game was one of the hardest hitting games I have seen – by the third period the other team was reluctant to make plays, We had achieved our goal and we went on to beat them. This was a pivotal point in the season as we also gained confidence that we could be unstoppable if we just followed our plan.

We ended up winning the league championships and if we did not have a specific plan to beat St. Mike’s, I truly believe we would not have taken the title.

Alright – carrying on from the last posting – If you haven’t read it go back and read it now!

• Songwriting
• Performance
• Touring
• Image
• Booking and Promoting Shows
• Administration & Accounting
• Lead Generation – Building Contacts / Networking
• Merchandising
• Team Building

• creating a work ethic
• staying on track and not getting ahead of your self
• if anyone comes to you with an offer – make sure it fits the plan and add it otherwise say NO! (ever accept a gig that did nothing for your band and was a waste of time?)
• creating a blueprint to use again and edit once you reach the end of your timeline.

Hockey is seasonal. Every year each team creates a plan, executes then once the season is over they evaluate and adjust. For the most part the next season is the same timeline – things get easier when you are doing the same thing but just getting better and more efficient.

Alright so with music what you want to do. But what do you really want to do?

What do you want to get out of music?

So many artists start off on the wrong foot wanting to get into music for the wrong reasons without really thinking about what they really want to achieve, and when things don’t go the way they want it to – they often look for someone else to blame.

This is your career, your business – it is up to you to make it. You need to take the time to plan it out.

Best thing you can do for your career is stop everything. Breathe and think about what you want to achieve.

Then write each of your goals down on paper, next to them a date. Set deadlines for your goals. This is the start of your blueprint to success. Without it you are leaving things open to chance which usually doesn’t go in your favour.

Be as precise as you can but broad goals are ok too. As long as you are consciously thinking about it you will be better off than before.

I usually use the month of January as a time to look forward to the year and try to set goals for the year, then break them down for each month setting deadlines.

I then prioritize them – high, medium, low. Nail the high priorities first!

Set dates!

Get in the practice of referring to your goals, sticking to it and accomplishing your goals.

Next January you look back and see what goals have been met, which ones haven’t and why – create new goals and sometimes you will start seeing patterns. Yearly goals, monthly goals, daily goals that you use over and over again – meaning once you have a system and are plugged in and working it, things get easier.

The hardest part is starting and being consistent.

HOMEWORK:

Yes, time for you to do something – write out your goals for the next 6-12 months, write deadline dates and prepare yourself to do the work.

I was a late starter as it wasn’t until grade 7 I started playing hockey. All the other kids had been playing for years and could skate circles around me. But that didn’t matter I wanted to be like the Oilers – I loved the game. I worked my ass of – I took speed skating twice a week, I would practice anytime I could, I read about hockey, I watched hockey on TV, I practiced, lived and breathed hockey. I was surprised that none of the other kids were in speed skating – in fact I was ridiculed by the other kids that I was spending time skating circles on one foot backwards while holding my stick up behind my back.

I wasn’t the star on the team – I wasn’t even close – I think I had a couple of assists all year. But it didn’t matter – I was playing the game I loved and it took up every spare minute I had. I was passionate.

The first year I was awarded ‘Most Improved Player’ – which is really a pat on the head, “good job” just enough to motivate the young player to come back again next year despite sucking all season.

Off season – more speed skating, playing street hockey all day, shooting a tennis ball against the garage door until night and coming in only because I couldn’t see  - sorry mom! the garage door had so many dents in it by end of summer.

The next year I cam back more prepared. More speed skating. I had switched positions to goalie and once again was awarded ‘Most Improved Player’ at the end of the year for starting off as a shitty goalie and ending up as a goalie that could win games.

Thew third year was a different story – I finally knew what I was doing and had a good year. At the end I was awarded ‘Most Valuable Player’.

I truly loved the game. Practicing outside in -20 weather (it’s Canada so that’s celsius) freezing, tired, hurt, sick… didn’t matter, I was going to play and no one could stop me.

It took three years to get any kind of respect from my team mates but that’s ok, I had to earn it. Nothing is given for free.

It is part of nature – you have people who sports comes naturally to without having to do much extra work (Ernie Schroeder – hockey, baseball, football – he played them all and excelled), and there those of us who have to work step by step to just be on the same playing field.

Music isn’t much different.

When I switched from playing hockey to playing guitar I was starting from square one and years had gone by so I was once again starting late in comparison to others around me.

That meant lessons every week, lots off practicing before and after school, weekends – I was a teenager that didn’t go out, I stayed in and played guitar. My mom actually came to me one weekend and asked, “aren’t you going out? All the other kids go out?” – She was either weirded out by a teenager who didn’t sneak out and get wasted all the time or she was trying to get me out of the house. Regardless, my passion was now music and playing guitar.

The whole reason I started either was passion.

I lived it and pushed hard to be the best.

It kills me when I watch bands today and they look like they just showed up after shop class, there is no aspect of a ‘show’ in their performance and they come off stage saying how they are best band in town.

Really?

For some reason bands have gotten into an attitude where everything is owed to them. They feel they should have a manager, a booking agent, and for christ’s sake why the hell they aren’t signed to a multi-million dollar deal doesn’t make any sense to them.

Bands have to earn the respect from managers, bookers, labels – they have to work hard, in fact BE THE BEST to even attract any sort of attention from the industry.

First question to any band.

“When was your last tour?”

Oddly enough most bands, I’m guessing 90%… no wait 95% of bands will say they haven’t toured. And a tour involves more than the three day weekend, it’s more like at least 30 days on the road.

Common answers include “We won;t go out until it makes sense” – meaning someone who doesn’t know you from an ass hole in the wall is going to take their hard earned cash and just give it to you so that it makes sense to you to drive to a city you have no fans in so you can play to an empty room. It only makes sense to the band.

So here is the root of the problem – bands by nature are often selfish and have a huge ego (that’s ok if you are the kid who everything comes naturally to but unfortunately there’s not too many Gretzky’s around).

Bands have to be willing to sacrifice, do everything it takes, practice, work, live , breath music – day in day out. It may take a few years to get it down and to earn the respect of your peers. It may take more than 5 years. But if you as a band are not – going on tours that help you in improving your skills, growing your audience, selling tickets, selling merch – you will not get the respect of others easily.

We hear about the bad managers, bad record deals, bad booking agents – rarely do we hear that the truth of the story is lazy band never went on the road but managed to get a manager and he didn’t have much to work with, booking agent picks up a band because he likes the music and there’s something to work with but the band is hard to work with and aren’t willing to take the bookings offered.

It all has to come down to why are you even doing this. Forget money, forget working with managers, bookers, labels – passion. Remember the passion and hold onto it and go full steam ahead. Don’t even approach other people to help you – just be the best band and people will naturally come to you.

In hockey they call it scouting – people who are paid to go find the stars. Do you think Gretzky was thinking about what NHL team he was going to be on when he was ten years old playing for the Brantford Nadrofsky Steelers and scored 378 goals and 139 assists - media paying attention since then. If you are a hockey fan we have all seen the home video of young Gretzky skating around on the home made rink his father, Walter Gretzky had made.

Passion will take you far – forget about everyone else, they will come to you if you are good. To get good you need to practice your craft and for bands that means more than rehearsing – get out on the road and practice performing, grow your audience and get known. Every time you play, play your hardest.

IF – however you find your self pushing it and it seems like work and you don’t taking the time…. maybe music isn’t for you.

Growing up in Canada, every kid gets to know about the game of hockey.

It is something we are passionate about and are practically bred into believing that it’s the best thing on the planet (for those of you in the U.S. think football/baseball, those in Europe think football/soccer…. you get the idea).

Playing the game means lots of prep work and practice, usually meaning getting up at 6am on a Sunday just to skate laps until you puke. But we are passionate about the sport so we are willing to do that and more – hell we’ll practice every day after school, we’ll practice outside in minus 20 (celsius) weather and in the summer it’s called street hockey. Just put a stick in our hands so we can hit a little piece of rubber and we are in utopia.

The sport pits one team against another each led by a coach, a manager, sometimes general manager…and don’t forget the trainers and assistants.

There are stars on the team, there’s special teams for the penalties and of course the muckers – the guys who grind it out in the corners and they usually take a beating all in the good for the team. Broken bones, broken teeth and often broken dreams all come as part of the package.

Every year each team plays the season with hopes to be the year’s elite and get into the playoffs to play for the title spot and the honor of being able to say that for one year they were the best. All to start over next year and do it all over again.

There was a time when the players played for the passion of the sport – and now they understand they all have a limited shelf life and need to make as much as possible in the shortest time possible and work with big companies who endorse and sponsor them.

There are the amateurs and the pros and every year there is a cycle – off-season, tryouts, training camp, pre-season, the season and the playoffs. At the end only 1 team, 1 group of players out of thousands that stands on top.

The music business is similar in all aspects.

Growing up and playing hockey, dealing with the politics as a teenager and then leaving the sport for music just to find out that the two are similar in all aspects has led me to this blog.

I am going to try to help musicians and bands by offering up some stories and advice using hockey as a metaphor to understanding the music business – hopefully entertaining as well.

Upcoming blogs:

• For the love of the game
• Learning what it takes to win
• Creating a game plan
• It’s not like it used to be
• Wear the team colors
• Its a business and a sport
• Roles and responsibilities
• Pre-season
• Life’s rough, wear a helmet
• Keep your stick on the ice
• You can’t ignore the fans
• Make sure to pick up the collectors cup, trading cards, official team jersey, player hockey stick and 1 time limited edition pin on your way out
• Creating the winning team
• Pro vs. amateur
• It’s only a few teeth
• You are a player on and off the ice
• There’s a season and an off-season
• Sitting on the bench
• Special teams can win you games
• Not every one is the star
• “He’ll be a star in 5 years”
• Even Gretzky was traded
• Win together – lose together
• I like winning more than I do losing
• The coach drives the team
• Let’s hear it for special teams
• Let’s take a timeout!
• Being in the right spot at the right time
• Making the playoffs
• Sudden death overtime
• Scoring the winning goal
• A championship team
• Winning the cup

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZWxErEbQkY

Our site is pretty basic for now but it will grow as we develop. We will be adding more features once everything is up and rolling.

So if you are a band, solo act, duo, singer, musician; punk, rock, acoustic, jazz, urban –  and are looking to get ahead in this crazy business – STAY TUNED!!

Updates are going to start soon – they will first be in the style of a blog/newsletter containing information on the format of i101 and what is to come.