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Red Bull Hockey
In part 2, we covered Red Bull Soccer’s infinite mindset around coach development. The final part will cover Red Bull Hockey and their infinite player development system.
Academy
Starting to notice more German players making their way into the NHL? Your mind isn’t playing tricks on you… It’s a real thing.
The German Ice Hockey Federation is starting to get serious about hockey. And they are producing great players from a non-traditional European market that soon won’t be able to be called “non-traditional.”
Why?
Well, one of the reasons is this place.
And sure the place looks amazing, but it’s what’s going on inside the walls.
They are perfecting their player development machine.
They have great coaches focused on maximizing everything that they can be.
Speaking of great coaches… Let’s learn about the pro team now.
Pro
Play chess when everyone else plays checkers.
There’s no competition when you’re playing a different game.
Under normal circumstances, two professional hockey teams in Europe would compete for a similar pool of players.
But when your organization is playing the infinite game, instead of competing… you collaborate.
This is what Red Bull Hockey is doing between their 2 professional teams in Salzburg and Munich.
Enter Matt McIlvane
That’s quite an entrance.
Matt McIlvane is versatile when it comes to pro hockey. Starting his coaching career in the FHL with the Danville Dashers, Matt was able to dive headfirst into the demands of pro hockey. He wore many hats, dealing with coaching, and managing tasks, but was also responsible for ticket sales, sponsorship, and the day-to-day of operating a hockey team.
From there, he had a one-year layover in the ECHL before heading across the pond to coach professionally in Europe. Coaching under Don Jackson, a very decorated coach in his own right, McIlvane got his first introduction to the Red Bull machine, coaching on Red Bull’s German Elite League team, EHC München.
Player Development for the Organization, Not the Team
This is where the infinite game between McIlvane and Red Bull began. Matt coached with EHC München before being promoted to Red Bull’s Austrian Pro team, EC Salzburg.
In coaching with Salzburg, McIlvane describes the environment he is able to work within. The average age of his players in Salzburg equates to 24.81 years of age, relatively young for a professional sports team. But the beauty in this is that this is not by accident.
EC Salzburg is striving for consistent competitiveness and the pursuit of championships… But winning is a byproduct to them, instead, they focus on maximizing development and creating the best environment. Like Bill Walsh says, “the score takes care of itself.”
Red Bull understands there is a bigger opportunity available to them.
Generally speaking, Salzburg consists of younger players, who need further development. In this system, McIlvane’s staff works diligently with each player to develop them to reach their full potential.
Each player under 26 (looking at the average age, that’s a lot of them), has an individual development plan created for them to help ensure they are staying on the right path. And in following this path, they are being prepared to be promoted to EHC München.
You read that right. EHC München. Their competitor. But also, their partner.
Both EC Salzburg and EHC München are both run and operated by Red Bull. And as we alluded to, Red Bull isn’t in the business of playing the finite game. They are playing the infinite game and looking at both Salzburg and München, they are another model example.
Why look for outside players for their teams? That’s checkers.
Chess is being able to promote players from the academy to EC Salzburg, to then EHC München. This way, they know the development is exactly what they want for how they play.
Don’t play on hard when you can play on easy mode.
Chess, not checkers.
Part 3 was another collaboration with Kevin. Check out his newsletter here.
For more discussion on the Infinite Game, check out this podcast: