As we come into the final month of 2025, we felt as though the time has come to update SkateGuard.
Three years ago, Mike Jaczko and I set out to put a passion project in motion.
Through his work with NHL alumni members and a professional relationship with a handful of current and former NHL players, Mike had seen some of the unique challenges that hockey players face and wanted to create better outcomes in the hockey space.
Meanwhile, my hope was to create a resource that I wish I had during my hockey career. Whether it was winning an OHL Cup, being one of the top prep-school players in North America, winning a USHL division title, or captaining an NCAA Division 1 team, there were countless times throughout my career that I could have used the guidance and resources that Mike and I would eventually build into SkateGuard – you live and learn!
Navigating any kind of elite-level hockey is very challenging, whether that be the later stages of AAA youth hockey, prep hockey, junior hockey, college hockey, minor pro hockey, or the NHL. Each level comes with unique challenges (and opportunities!). If a player and their family are aware of those ahead of time, they aren’t guaranteed to avoid the pitfalls or avail themselves of the opportunities, but the chances of success go up immensely.
We have had countless conversations, discussions, debates and brainstorming sessions both amongst ourselves and with those who have read SkateGuard since its initial publishing. As a product of those interactions, we identified three areas that we thought would be beneficial to add to the new edition of SkateGuard:
- The billeting experience is one that impacts so many young players, and even in 2025 there are still limited resources to help young players prepare for the realities of living away from home, often for the first time. We sought out the help of SkateGuard Advisory Group member Robbie Long, a longtime billet for the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League, to create a new chapter that provides a blueprint for success when it comes to your billeting experience.
- “The media” in hockey used to involve a couple of interviews each week of one or two high-profile NHL stars on Hockey Night in Canada. Oh how far we’ve come. In 2025, the definition of “the media” has expanded to almost unimaginable breadth and depth, and with the evolution of social media, a player’s “media presence” is something that needs to be monitored and managed on almost a 24/7/365 basis. In the second edition of SkateGuard, we have put together what we believe to be best practices when it comes to dealing with the media.
- Everyone is impacted by mental health, and hockey players are no exception. In fact, some of the characteristics of “hockey culture” have, in the past, made it almost impossible for hockey players to have a healthy relationship with mental wellness. While we do think the game has come a long way when it comes to adequately addressing and destigmatizing mental health, we firmly believe there is still a long way to go when it comes to providing the proper support and appropriate environment for players, coaches, staff and members of the hockey community in general. We are not medical professionals in any way, shape or form, but given how often the subject of mental wellness has come up in our conversations, we couldn’t release a new edition of SkateGuard without providing some strategies for leveraging the resources available to players at all levels of the game.
With the second edition of SkateGuard, we hope to not only continue the dialogue, but also further it. There are so many ways that we can help elite-level hockey players leverage their own skillsets, personality traits and opportunities. There are still far too many very preventable, negative outcomes that occur across the game of hockey. We understand that the problems presented to young men and women who play elite hockey are not insignificant. This new edition of SkateGuard goes even further to provide advice on not just avoiding those problems, but tackling them head on.
Everyone who plays elite-level hockey should be better off for it. That is a big statement, but we wholeheartedly believe that it not only CAN be the reality, but that it SHOULD be the reality. Come join the conversation and put yourself on a path to look back fondly on your hockey experience, and have it serve as a springboard for even greater things once that final buzzer sounds!
