As a young boy growing up in Canada, l can still remember watching Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday night. Like most other children, l wanted to one day play for Toronto Maple Leafs. At the age of nineteen, my dream became a reality. I had to be the luckiest kid in the world, or I thought at the time.
My hockey background went as follows; London Knights in the Ontario Hockey League draft. Drafted in the first round, seventeenth overall to the Boston Bruins organization, at the NHL draft. To my surprise, l suddenly became a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning organization, when they used one of their draft picks to select me as their ninth forward in the 1993 expansion draft.
As you can see already from reading my resume, I was chosen in the first round of every possible hockey draft in North America. Not bad for a kid who grew up in a small town of Aurora, Ontario at the time with a population of 10,000 people playing single “A” hockey. Even after being a first-round draft choice and playing in the NHL. I can honestly say, l didn’t make enough money to retire when l was finished playing professional hockey.
As a family, ask yourself this question: How could a first-round draft choice of the NHL not make enough money to retire on? I can only say one thing is looking back now on my professional hockey career. If the only l knew the business sides of professional hockey like l know it now, l would be worth close to $20 million dollars today. I want you as a parent, player to always keep this in mind at all times when reading this hockey manual that l personally wrote, so players and relatives have a concept of what they will face and all of the decision you will need to make. This manual is published and has been sold to me at many cold and lonely hockey arenas but the ones who did buy my manual had a much brighter direction on what to expect from all the different angles of professional hockey; Lawyers, General Managers, Coaches, and Agents. One of the biggest decisions you will ever have to make is who you pick as your son's agent. The agent will have one aggressive goal, and that is to get as much money out of your child’s pocket. Real but also sorrowful, happens all the time at this level of the business side of professional hockey and all other sports.
I wrote this manual with the desire that l could prevent many players from making the mistakes l made as a Professional Hockey Player, as a player our careers are short due to injuries, politics and many other reasons that happen on a daily base in all professional sports. So as l player you need to be able to avoid the mistakes l made, review my track record of draft picks. No matter how high you go in the draft, you still need to know what l did not know as a player.
More information on the manual itself on how you will be able to own your copy, the manual is written has been sold at many local arenas and now, we will be publishing it on the internet within the next few weeks. Why because this blog is new, still under construction and most of all, we want to provide you with logical information that will enhance your knowledge of the hockey business side at all different levels.
Written by,
Shayne Stevenson and
Joseph F. Botelho One Gram at a Time
Joseph BotelhoFollow @jfbmarketing
"Pay Yourself First Because the #Economy that Matters Most... is the One in Your Own #Home" https://t.co/wo7XWWjaFZ pic.twitter.com/VSVAtkJ6El— Joseph Botelho (@jfbmarketing) January 19, 2016
