Interview with Beer League Captain Anthony LoVullo

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
0:10

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Beer Leaguer podcast. On this episode, I'm joined by one of my friends from hockey. He actually captains another team in the league that you hear me and Mason and the other guys talk about a lot, but in a higher division. So he has some similar stories and probably some stories about much better players than we normally have about. So welcome to this week's episode, Mr. Anthony LoVullo.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
0:39

Hello, yes, so you have kept it upon scum. Division three currently may be changing next year. We'll see. We'll see what the roster makeup looks like. But yeah, that's where we are.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
0:53

So one of I think the biggest topic that we cover on these shows that I'd love to hear your take on it is what makes a good locker room culture or it could be things that make it bad. And how do you like, how do you keep that going? You know, how do you how do you make sure you have a good locker room culture for your team?

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
1:19

I think a good locker room culture is just a group of people who are able to take jokes and but not be too cruel with the jokes that are made. So like good-natured ribbing, but not making it too malicious or too mean essentially, but always having running jokes about like everybody's got a characteristic or an incident that's happened that has now become their sort of identity within the team. So whenever anything relates to that, just calling back to that joke and just not being too mean about it, not being mean-spirited about anything, just being able to get along and not having anybody, not that I don't think we come across it in the level that we play, but like being a prima donna and just being better than everybody, just not just on the ice, but just like in life in general or anything like that. So that way, just we all know we're here, we all know that it's 10, 15 on a Tuesday, and just having fun in the locker room and just making jokes, I suppose.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
2:48

I will say, I think that there are prima donnas at our level, but I think you being kind of, I don't think you're right in the middle of the levels for our league, kind of in the middle, is I think in the upper, you definitely don't have that because the upper is usually people that have played some somewhat higher level of hockey and kind of know like, all right, I guess I capped out playing in college and now I'm here playing Beer League, but it's the lower level because I see that in the lowest level.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
3:24

Yeah, I think that's, we talked about it before, just hanging out and talking, but just the people stereotypically at the lower level are just getting to play, and they haven't grown up in the sport. So this is their initial outlet to where people who have grown up with, get that out of their system when they're 12, 13, 14, especially when they can hit, when hitting is all the rage, where there is that one kid on the team who is head and shoulders above everybody else, and everybody knows it. But at this, with how supposed to be evenly matched everything is, unless something goes wrong, or people aren't paying attention properly, there's nobody who is that head and shoulders above everybody else, or at least there's some other people to match them along the way. But yeah, having it be at the lower levels with it being so introductory, yeah, I can definitely see that.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
4:25

Yeah, I'll say someone has gone through and watched a lot of these like beginner teams and stuff like that, where it is mostly people that have never played organized hockey, and a lot of them haven't skated, is it tends to be someone that maybe played some very low level organized hockey, that was not very good, but comparatively, like, oh yeah, I played hockey. I used to skate, like I played some kind of like pick up or something while I was a teenager. And so I have some background, and they're comparing themselves to the other 20 people that have been on skates for the first time. And it seems to be those are the people that are like, oh man, I'm so good. I'm so much better than everybody. And they are comparatively, and then they start playing the other people that are in the beginner division, or even play people that are slightly above, and realize, oh, oh, like, that's the thing I've noticed, especially during the summer season, we were just talking about summer, those teams kind of get bundled up, and you will see that a lot of times where you have these people that play beginner, and then they wind up playing kind of the lower half of the people in the league that are not very good. Like I put myself in that category. I know I'm a garbage player, but I'm better than a lot of those players. And it's funny to watch them get humbled very quickly seeing that.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
5:47

Yeah, there's, to quote Star Wars, there's always a bigger fish. So there's always a better hockey player. So, I mean, it happened with me going, and most of my team going up from Division 4 to Division 3, because the reason why nobody gets moved up is your head and shoulders above most everybody else in that division. So you can't play there anymore. And now, we're having to work our way up and be humbled by those better teams in that upper division.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
6:19

And so kind of talk about that, because you guys did move up, and it is, it's another level up of things. How was that? Like, how was that, you know, the transition of, one, dealing with everybody, telling them that they're moving up, so they know they're gonna be playing better competition, you know, consistently, but then also trying to get your team to just be better, you know, finding better players and getting your team to try and match the upper competition.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
6:44

So we've done it twice. This we're part now in part two of that. So the first time was back in 17, 18, I think, because the previous year we had went basically undefeated through division four. Like, most games weren't even close. There were some memorable goals that I remember happening in that year that like, it's this type of year happening for us. And we basically were gifted going to Toronto in January with the knowledge of, oh, by the way, you guys are moving up next year. You go to Toronto, you guys get championship for the season, but you're not playing here next year. So the next year did not go well at all. We won maybe two or three games. We were getting shelled every single game because we had more or less the same exact team. Maybe one more player than we had the year before, but it was just mostly the same team moving up. And we didn't have that good of a team at that new now upper level. So it didn't go well. I think we did two season and two seasons there. And then I had to do a very hard thing and cut players because we all the not we all, but the majority of the team wanted to move back down to 4A. And in order to do that, we had to remove some of the better players. So I had to make the unfortunate outreach to say, hey, nothing against you, but we'd like to move down to division. We can't have you on the team next year. I'm sorry. I can help you find a new team, but it can't be with us. So we did that. I think we're kind of middle of the road. Then we picked up a couple other players that ended up being very good. So it kind of skewed the level of 4A that was happening between our team and the Stampede. Because at a certain point, it starts to feel like an arm race of like, all right, well, this team has this really good player, so we need to now get a good player to match them. And then we get that good player, now another team, and it just keeps going and going until the teams keep moving up. So that kind of happened with all of us, which is where the top few teams from division four got moved up to division three, and then a couple of new teams came in as well, so that's where that all split. So now we're back to part two. So to answer your question on how to get better, that is something that I try very hard not to do, if that makes sense. Like yes, I understand we're division three and we want to compete, and I know a lot of the players on my team want to compete, but I want to be very careful on who I'm adding to the team because I don't want to over-correct. Like all right, well, we went really bad last year, have to get a really good player, and now whoops, they're too good, or we get too many good players, and now the balance of the team, we have to move up even higher. So I'm very careful, and I kind of backfired on me this year because I turned down the suggestions of adding a few other better players, thinking, oh, well, we'll probably be at the top of the division, and we won't need extra players. And turns out we had a commutative errors of people having children to hold them out for most of the year, or people got hurt, or they just had work obligations. So we went from having starting shorthanded because we just wanted to have less people for better ice time. Think so instead of having 16 or 17, I think we had 14 or 15, and people backed out to the last minute, all that stuff that I just mentioned. So we were regularly having between seven and nine people show up at every game all year. So that wasn't very fun. So I try not to add really good players just to balance or compete better with our division because I don't want the median of the team to get off-center to know we're getting even better and better and better and have to keep moving up, which there are definitely players on my team that won't compete at a higher level than we're already at now. Kind of barely compete as it is, myself included, but getting better and better just means we need to move up higher and higher. And now we're going to unfortunately kind of skill out the more veteran players on our team that have been with us the longest. And I value them being on the team more so than winning.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
11:32

Yeah, it's… That's one of the toughest things that I know I deal with, with trying to run a team, is that balance of you want to be good and you want to get better, but you don't want to get… You don't want to get every… Like, the best player everybody knows and add them to your team. Because at least for me, I always hear about somebody going, hey, I got a buddy that would like to play. He's really, really good. And you know, it's the thing of… Well, is he really… Like, would he be really, really good on our team? Or is he just really, really good? And he's also going to make the team be way better, which is great, but then it's going to be, oh, now the team's going to have to move up because of one or two guys. You know, it's this constant balancing act of that, of bringing in people and, yeah.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
12:20

That type of situation happened where I had recommendations from people on our team, like, hey, these two or three guys, they want to play with us. You know, all right, all right, cool. That's fine. Here's the evaluation skates. They can go and we'll see what happens. And I show up to watch as I always do. They're there. And it's clear immediately that they are way too good for our division, like their division one players and all of the other people sitting around me, Chad, all the other admins just ripping on me like, oh, you want to try and get these guys on your team? I've never met them before these. I'm seeing them for the first time with you guys. Obviously, I don't want them on my team. They can play with whoever, but I get it, not us. But yeah, it's always an X bag. If you don't know them individually and can gauge whether or not they'd be appropriate for your skill level. But yeah, I'm more of the mindset of I'd rather play with people that I enjoy playing with, regardless of skill level, than load up my team trying to win championships, because I'm past that stage of competitiveness.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
13:36

Yeah, it's, I mean, that, yeah, that's it. It's always a mixed bag with that stuff, and it's tough. And I openly admit the reason that I got on the second team that I'm on, that I'm on Hurricanes, is because, only because I have two, there's two things that got me on there. One, I show up. Like I show up for, I'm at most every game, you know, I pay on time, I do all those things. So I have like the least problematic, I think, person. And two, I'm definitely nowhere near good enough to make the team have to move up or be considered. Like, I'm not the worst player on the team, but I'm a lot closer to that than I am the best player. You know, so it's like an easy, like, okay, we need more bodies at games. I can be a body at a game, you know. So that's, yeah, it's, and it's tough too, because there's, at least around here, usually people that are, when you're bringing in new people, they're, you know, they're friends of friends and stuff like that, friends of people on the team. But they're not playing in the same league. So we don't see them, so we don't know them. So it's really hard to gauge, because the other leagues around here are like house leagues, where it's just like a mixed bag. And you could say somebody's really good at that league, but I don't know how that translate over. They might be playing the equivalent of the beginners for us, or they might be mediocre in that league, but playing the equivalent of like our top one or two divisions.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
15:00

Yep.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
15:01

Yeah. So it's always a tough. Yeah, I always feel bad when people bring up, hey, I got a boy that wants to play. That's OK.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
15:10

Yeah, like one of the guys on our team, his son is turning 21 this year, and he obviously wants to play with his son on a team, you know, just that type of thing. But like I've seen his son play drop in before. It's iffy whether or not he'd be at our level. Like, yeah, I get you want to play with your son, but we also have to adhere to the skill level that we're playing at because we're in this league for this reason, to be in a competitive, properly skilled league, because I've played in Strongsville. I know what it's like to have the ringers come in whenever to just play and score and win. And that's why we don't play there anymore.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
15:53

Yeah. Yeah, it's hard when… It's hard to do that, but then it's even harder when you care about doing that, and you're trying to not be someone that makes it worse. You know, because if you didn't care about that, and you're like, yeah, whatever, bring your kid in, he'll be really good. If he's a little too good, that's okay. You know, but you actually care about trying to keep stuff competitive. Like, I will say that, well, for one of the teams I was on, for the upper team, we had, I think, the best division. It wound up being only four teams after teams kind of got shuffled around. But of those, like, when we played those four teams, every game, I think, was within three goals. Most games were a two-goal game, and it was great, because even when you, and everybody said it, because it was like, even when you lost, you were like, man, that was fun. Like, everything was close. No one's, like, wildly outskilling anybody. Because they're close, nobody can really kind of be a jerk about stuff. It's a lot harder when games are close. And it's like, man, just every game, you're, you're, you know, even whatever, hey, we lost, you know, six to four. Wow, that was a really good game. Hey, the next game we won, you know, five to three. Wow, that was really good. And both teams are doing it. And it's like, that was such an ideal thing that lasted for most of the year, that it's going to kind of ruin me, I think, going for a little while going forward, that I know that's not going to be the case. But it was so good. And I know most leagues don't have that, most divisions don't have that or anything, but it was just such a nice thing to have that, where every game you knew you had a chance to win, but you also knew that you couldn't coast.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
17:34

I think most divisions in H&A overall this year, with like one exception, maybe two exceptions, were pretty close. Like maybe, like if you were to go back and look at all the divisions over maybe the last seven, eight years, maybe a little bit longer than that. This probably has been the year where there was not like one 19 and three, or one 20 and two team, where they just ran over everybody. Like most of the divisions, I think maybe, I'd guess probably 17 wins is probably the most any one team had across Cleveland this year. In our division, we had two teams show up late, weren't one wasn't really eligible for playoff. So it's like a weird situation. Renegades, I don't think that my opinion, they shouldn't have been brought back down to our division to begin with. But that's a whole conversation for another day. But yeah, I mean, I just looking across all of the divisions that is close. I mean, the third place team in our division won the championship this year. So, maybe we won a playoff game, which is the most we could ask for, I suppose, given where we were. But everything fell where the standings were. There weren't really any surprises, but they were relatively competitive.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
19:01

And I think that that's really all you want, that they have stuff be competitive. All right, so kind of switching gears a little bit, away from team stuff, just kind of on you, on you stuff. Okay. So, you and me have a oddly very similar background with hockey, which I think is very funny.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
19:24

Yes.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
19:24

And it's an intermingled background, which I think is funny. So would you want to talk about that a little bit of kind of how you got started and eventually got into, you know, ice hockey?

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
19:37

Yes. Yes. All right. So I got into hockey when I was eight. Summer between third and fourth grade, I think it was because we had new neighbors move in next door. And they had a kid who was, I think, seven or eight years older than me. I forget exactly how older, but just a little bit older. And he played hockey. So he played for the local high school team. Like, oh, I want to make friends with the new kid that's moving in. So I want to play hockey, having never played hockey outside of maybe messing around if we had it for gym class. So I've been out to play with him. I had a stick that my parents, my dad got from college or something, from somebody who knew because he went to BG, and cut it down for me. And then I go outside and play street hockey. And then that got me into playing for a YMCA League at some tennis court over at State Road Park. And then I went to play after that at USA Skates, which was like a roller rink in Parma. And that we played, if you can envision a roller rink with like a divider down the middle, we played on one half of that divider vertically. So they had two games going at once. It was very weird. Craziest goal I ever scored was off the face off in what would have been my own defending zone. I just like swatted it, pushing it forward, except I sent it straight up into the air, and it sailed the entire way towards the other net, took one bounce over the goalie's glove into the net. A goalie who had never played goalie before and was like seven years old or something like that. So little skill needed, but yeah, that was the craziest goal I've ever scored. And then in my fifth grade class, I had a friend whose uncle had bought Roller World, which is now the volleyball place which is next to Barron's. So I started to play there, and then I got really into competitive inline hockey. Played on a travel team for a while, played at NHL Breakout, our team won NHL Breakout. That was very fun. Traveled all around the Midwest for different tournaments and stuff. Then, went to college, or for that, got into ice hockey because I hadn't played ice hockey. I played inline the entire time up until ninth grade. And then, they had, I think it was just like open tryouts or something for our high school, Valley Forge. So me and another one of the guys who had played in the youth league that I played in went to go play. So he was already a junior and I was a freshman. So we tried out. Anybody can play. They weren't cutting anybody at that time. So Valley Forge was not a upper level team by any means. But I got to practice. I learned how to skate, taught myself how to stop, because they don't teach you fundamental skills in high school. You just are expected to know a lot of stuff going in. So I taught myself how to skate. It's not much different from inline, but a little bit different, as you know. But stopping was something I had to figure out on my own. Which I didn't get until near the end of the season. And then I played high school. Did not play the first year. I was the designated server of the two-minute penalty of a two-minute and ten-minute. So somebody had to serve for those two and then skate back to the bench, so somebody else could go play. I was the two. Which gave me my story of where we played at the time Gundarina against our rivals. Somebody got a two-minute and ten-minute penalty, so I had to go serve it. So unlike many of the other rinks that we played at, the penalty boxes were on the other side. So I had to skate the entire length or width of the rink over back to our bench. And I was so focused on just getting back to the bench and not screwing up that I did not notice that the puck was coming around the boards to me. So had I stopped and looked down, I could have picked up the puck and had a very slow, terrible, awkward giraffe breakaway. But no, I just ignored that and just went right back to the bench. And I just sat on the bench for most of the year, except we had maybe a couple of blow-up games where our coach let me take a shift or two. But yeah, didn't play much. Sophomore, junior, senior year, got a little bit better through summer leagues. We only had record, repeating record here, maybe eight or nine players, sophomore, junior year. So I had to play. They had nobody else to play except me and other people. So I got better, then went to college, took a couple of years off, and then I got back into inline again at Pinnacle in Badina, and this is where our stories start to connect, because you played at Lost Nation, right?

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
24:38

Yep.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
24:39

Right. So whoever was in charge of the two leagues somehow got in contact with each other and decided to set up an all-star game. And I, playing travel inline growing up, got to be very good at inline. And when I would play both at the same time, I was probably much better at inline than I was playing high school hockey, for example. And I was playing ball hockey much better. I probably stick handling all that than I am at ice hockey. But anyway, we'd play a all-star game between the players, the best players of my league and the best players of Mike's league. So we have that game. And a somewhat notorious player in our division happens to now work for the Cleveland Monsters. We're all fond of them. Jeremy, I'm sure if anybody listens to this, probably run into him at some point. Also worked at Piranhas for a very long time. You've probably seen him if you listen to this. Anyway, growing up, Jeremy was a bit of a loudmouth, a very rambunctious character. And at an all-star game, an exhibition decided to start to pick a fight with players at that game on Mike's team. And you can't really tell from the webcam, but I'm a very wiry, skinny guy. Jeremy, pretty skinny himself. We're both average height. We're not by far anybody that could win fights. But Jeremy would pick them, and he picked one, and it started more or less a bench-clearing brawl at an all-star game. Very awkward, typical experience playing with Jeremy. Yeah, but yeah. Oh, so to continue the story, to get to where we are now. Playing in line, I think this is maybe a couple years after this, my friends and I, and you can kind of tell from the pucks in the back, the bottom row are all pond hockey pucks from a group of my friends and I going to pond hockey tournaments, starting in Lake Placid, New York, and then moving out to Colorado in the mountains. But I had not played ice hockey for probably nine years since high school when we're about to go. So I'm talking with the guys I'm playing with the time, is like, hey, I'd like to get on the ice to try and play ice hockey again, because I'm going on this trip. Do you know anybody that's looking for anybody? And it just so happens that one of the guys, Matt Eaton, on our team, still on the team to this day, said, yeah, we got to get a group. You know, I'll give you the contact information. No, and we'll get you out there. And that was, I think, winter of 2022, or early 2020, or sorry, 2012, or early 2013, something like that. And ever since then, I liked playing ice hockey with them, stopped playing in line a few years later, and now I'm all back in on ice hockey. Yeah, I have many stories along the way. I could dedicate an entire hour to just things I've experienced, and witnessed, and filed police reports for. It's been a crazy ride.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
27:52

Why does everybody have police report stories? I feel like everyone has a story that's involved.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
27:59

I've teased out that one. I'll explain that one. So, part of the reason in high school we had so many seasons of being short is we're in a public school, ice hockey is not near the top of the list of things people want to do. So I grew up in Parma Heights, Valley Forge is in Parma Heights, and 20 years ago, they had a city team, a suburban team, Parma Heights, similar to Parma, Strongsville, Leary, all that. But that rink closed in 2002, 2002 is when that closing became soccer courts. And at the same time, Strongsville had been built, so they had kind of sucked up all of the players into that facility instead. So sophomore year, we have a brand new coach, our old coach, retired or fired. I was too young to know what happened, but new coach. So he's relatively young, like I think he's old as I am now, starting to coach his first team. So our running practices, all this stuff, our very first game is down in Columbus. Worthington-Kensington. I will never forget this school's name. Worthington-Kensington. They are akin to Eds in our area. They're a very good team. Like they're probably going to be in the finals of the Columbus area every year. And here we are, Valley Forge and no-name school in the area. Guys who can barely skate. We're going to go play them. It did not go well. It was probably 8-0 after the first period. They're easily killing us. So after the second period, it's 13-0. I forget the exact score. But the goalie on our team starts taking his equipment off at the end of the second period. Just like, I'm done. I don't want to play anymore, because he's probably faced 60 shots. It's not been fun for him. I get it. So one of our assistant coaches ended up working at Iceland, Winnerhurst, for a little while. So I might have seen him sharpening skates. But again, shorter guy on our team, smaller than me, said something to the goalie. Goalie snapped back with a witty comment. I don't remember exactly what was said. But the goalie was like 6'3, pretty tall kid. This coach grabs the kid by the scruff of the shirt and holds him up against the wall and is yelling at him. And then a couple players and another coach had to restrain him from doing this. So goalie leaves, Sharer goes to talk to his parents, police get called. He's… We never really see that guy, the kid again, except maybe in school or something. But yeah, he quit the team. That the coach ended up spending the night in jail, had to be bailed out by parents, and players had to fill out police reports. And then to finish out the season, we only had, by the way, he was our only goalie. So he, our only goalie quit. We had to borrow a goalie from the other team to finish the game. Always fun, which reminds me of something else. Because again, I have so many stories. We had to borrow a goalie to finish out that game, ride home, most awkward bus ride home ever, especially for a first time coach. Very fun for him, I'm sure. So we had to have a meeting with all the parents and the players our next practice night. Like, all right, well, we don't have a goalie anymore. What are we going to do? And somebody in my grade who was just starting to play hockey, who had grown up with in line with me, he's like, yeah, I'll play goalie, I guess. Never having played goalie before, borrowed a senior's pads who had just graduated the year before. And he was our goalie that year. We only somehow won maybe four games that year against somehow worse teams. But yeah, that was when I had to file out, file a police report in the locker room.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
31:57

That I will say, honestly, that sounds like a beer league story of having white.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
32:01

No, I was 15. The kid was maybe 17.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
32:08

Wow. Okay. That's pretty good. That's pretty good.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
32:17

Yeah. Yeah. So totally finished the story. So I was sidetracked with that story. The finish, where I am at now, and how I got into hockey. So I started playing with the team I was on in 2013. Then we played Strongsville for maybe a year, which the final straw was we had our championship game canceled because the other team didn't pay. And we found out, this was Mother's Day of whatever year that was. We found out on Mother's Day, oh, by the way, your game tonight's canceled. You win the championship. The other team didn't pay. All right, we're done. We don't want to do this anymore. So somebody else is running at the team at the time, and either they didn't want to do it, or I was just vocal enough like, you know what, I'll take over. I'll figure out where to take us, because I just played with Lawrence, somebody else we work with, with the Monsters. I filled in with him for H&A over the summer, for Gary's Summer League way back in the day. And then I think 2014, 2015 is when we moved over to H&A and have been there ever since.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
33:56

Let me take a quick moment to invite you to head over to thebeerleaguer.com, where you can check out previous podcast episodes, keep up with all the goofy and sometimes informative social media posts, and contact the show. There's an easy to use contact form, a button to leave voicemails, and a newsletter sign up. All of us here would love to hear your thoughts on this episode, or ideas for future ones. Now back to the show. That's a lot, that's a lot of, yeah. It's a lot of moving around and a lot of back and forth between roller and ice. Yeah. And I'll just, I'll throw in here for people, because you mentioned Lawrence, who we work with, that just in a previous episode, I had talked about kind of the benefits of running a team. And one of the things is you get to meet a lot of people and meet a lot of people in the league. And the whole reason that I have that I met Anthony and I do, Anthony got me a job working for the local AHL team, local minor league team, is because I'm a captain. I'm a captain things. I do scorekeeping. I do these things so I get to meet other like I get to, at this point, I know kind of everybody in the league. We get to meet people like that and getting to have that connection, which led into him going, hey, we need somebody. I know somebody that somebody was me to getting a job, to then finding out the other people that we play with that I know that work there. And it's because we didn't I didn't know. And you well, we didn't know when I started that we had cross paths like 20 years ago or whatever. Yeah, we didn't know that we had no idea that that was a thing that came out while we were just talking about random hockey stuff.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
35:45

So, yeah, I think it just came across like you knew somebody that I knew. And then it just kind of went from there like, oh, we both played in line with the same person. Oh, I didn't know you played in line. And then, wait, you were at that game too?

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
36:01

Yeah, so yeah, so it's a very good illustration of that point of getting to know people and the people you meet through hockey is, I'm always amazed by it because it's weird, the connections that are made, because it's not just, hey, now I know a bunch of guys that play hockey. You know, it's, I know somebody that got me a job. I know a lot of people that get, like, their dentist or their attorney and stuff as somebody that they know through hockey.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
36:27

We have an attorney on our team and he has been used by a player who is slash was on our team. So, yeah, it's, and we have a doctor who gets used once a month by either somebody on our team or somebody we're playing.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
36:42

Yeah, it's, it's, I don't know, to me, that's one of the funniest things that I don't think people talk about with Beer League is, yeah, it's great, it's a great way to meet people. It's a great way to make friends as an adult and all that. But it's meeting, like, meeting people for professional purposes in a completely unprofessional setting. And it's funny to me how common that is and how much that comes up. So that's, I don't know, that's something I just always, I always think is very funny because I hear that all the time, that someone, and for some reason, at least here, I don't know if this is everywhere, but at least here where we're at, I feel like at least a third of the league is CPAs or like lawyers slash attorneys.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
37:27

Interesting. We just have the one. I think we had a CPA, one of the ones that played with us early on. But now we just have a random smattering of different professions.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
37:39

There is always that. There is always really weird professions too, which is something I always ask new people on the team, like what do they do? And it's really just because I want to hear the weird stuff, because we've had pilots. We've had, I'm trying to think of some other cool ones that we've had. Like we've had multiple pilots, which is…

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
37:58

Yep, we had a pilot.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
37:59

Weird. Yeah, a lot of like kind of those professional things. It's always very oddball stuff too. It's not usually like the generic jobs. Like all my friends have kind of generic, you know, businessy jobs, you know, that you think of like, oh, I, you know, I'm, you know, senior vice president of this, whatever firm that does advertising or something. And it's like, no, it's never like that. It's always people that I meet through hockey always have, seem to have like goofier jobs that… Yeah. I don't know anybody else that has that. I don't know if you're running into that, Dr. Lawyer.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
38:39

I think we did have a pilot. He retired because of age. Salespeople, tech people. I think anybody had any crazy, weird jobs. But yeah, it's just always interesting, just the population of people that you'll fall in with.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
39:02

Yeah, it's an odd, it's always a thing, too, of whenever anybody needs something, like, oh, man, I wish I knew somebody that worked for X or knew about whatever. It's always like you just have to ask two people and oh, yeah, I know a guy that plays in the league that that's exactly what they do. You know, like, oh, I wish I knew somebody that was an advertising professional. Oh, I could tell you right now there's at least three of them in the league that I know about. So like, what exactly are you trying to look for for advertising, you know?

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
39:33

So which? Yeah. What what what version of advertising or do you want print? You want radio?

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
39:38

I got a guy for each exactly like it's. That's what I don't know. Like I said, I find that very funny that the the breadth of jobs that people have and the backgrounds that they come from.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
39:53

Like it's it's surprisingly like a big world, but also a small world at the same time. Like there's. We're up to what? Like. 50 teams now in H&A in our in our area, somewhere around there.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
40:10

Yeah.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
40:10

So I mean, every team's got, we'll say 15 unique players. So that's what 650 people right there. I mean. In general, that's not a big population, but it is in like the hockey community and everything. Just. You'll just run into somebody that you know somewhere. I mean, the the hotbed of it is go into a monsters game. You're you're bound to see somebody that you know that you weren't expecting to see there. Mike and I cheat. We're there every single game. So we'll see people all the time. But it was a joke with my wife and I for the like the first half of our relationship, like any time we'd go out, there's a shot that I would know somebody either through hockey or through work or something that I've done. I would just know somebody like, oh, hey, there's Jim.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
40:58

Who?

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
40:58

Oh, yeah, I play hockey with him. You wouldn't recognize me if I saw him, but I know him.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
41:04

Oh, yeah, I had that for for years and years. I had that go into every and it wasn't just like Monsters games, any kind of local hockey ish activity. And honestly, it's pretty much any local sporting event. There's a decent chance. But hockey, for sure. I'd run into somebody and, you know, it'd be someone would would recognize me or something. I get that a lot going to like baseball games because they got a lot of baseball games. Yeah, I get a lot of just even a concert.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
41:30

Just yeah, you're bound to run into somebody that you know at a concert, maybe not just for hockey, but just somebody in general.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
41:37

Yeah, I get a lot of people that yell at me from like across, you know, hallways and stuff. I get a lot of that.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
41:44

And I'll get texts, I'll get texts of the back of my head. OK, I see you. But now I got to pinpoint where you are so I can turn around and wave.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
41:55

What happens to me is I get a lot of people that recognize me and I'm like, oh, I know, I know this person usually from like the hockey people, especially like I know them from hockey. I don't remember their name. I don't remember what team they're on. I don't remember, you know, it's like, hey, guy. Because like I show up to like all the like tons of stuff now for hockey. And so it's like, I don't, you know, I get into things like, I don't know. I mean, if they don't really say anything, sometimes they'll give me clues and I'll know. Oh, yeah. OK, I played you recently or something like that. But then there's times where they're just like, oh, yeah, yeah. He, you know, he's in our, you know, in my league, like they'll introduce me to somebody. And I'm like, I don't like, did I play against you? I don't think so. Did I just like, did you just start? And I came by and met the beginners and you recognize me? Are you somebody from an upper team that just knows who I am because I'm around all the time? So I feel I feel bad about that, but there's a lot of times that that happens to me. Okay, so kind of moving on to some other thoughts that you have for Beer League stuff. What is your favorite part of playing Beer League? It doesn't have to be on the ice, it can be on the ice, off the ice, it can be something that happens every game, something that happens once a year, it could be something that barely happens. But your favorite part, something that keeps you wanting to play to do that or have that happen again?

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
43:24

It's such a cliche, because I know a lot of the pros say they miss it when they retire, but it's just like being around the guys in the locker room. Like, we could have lost 12 to nothing, but just being there with those guys, especially for as long as I've known them and played with them, it's just a lot of fun. Because I'm not out to win, maybe some guys are, but that's not why I'm here, it's not what team I've tried to put together. But just being in the locker room, just being with the guys, having fun, just that environment is just like a comfortable feeling. That's like my favorite. I mean, winning, scoring goals, obviously very good feelings, but just the favorite part is just being around the guys.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
44:12

I don't think it's cliche because I think people mean it. Because I think that's what everybody says, too, is that when you have a good locker room and a good group that you get to hang with, it's super fun. It's great.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
44:25

Yeah. Years ago, not years ago, but like four years ago, my mom passed away during the season, just coming back after COVID type stuff. And the guys on our team pitched together, bought flowers for me to send to the funeral home, got me a card. In years past, they've gotten me like gift cards for stuff. They've like recognized that like I'm running the team, doing stuff for them, which yeah, it's stressful in work at times. But I mean, it all goes back to the guys that I'm with. Either they can make it easy on me or they can make it hard on me. And for the most part, it's usually really easy. So I don't have much of a particularly, but just those guys are awesome. I love playing with them. But yeah, just being around them is why I keep playing.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
45:16

Yeah, it's one of the things I always bring up is, as you get older, it's really hard to have friend groups because you don't really do a whole lot of stuff besides work. And then if you have kids, maybe you know like your kid's friend's parents, which you're kind of stuck getting to know, which you may or may not like. But it's hard to know anybody else outside of that. And that's what I always tell people. One of the great things about playing hockey as an adult is you have a whole nother group. And like we said, it's people that are very different backgrounds. So it's not everybody that you work with and has similar things that people that do all different kind of stuff. But you at least know you all like hockey at the very baseline.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
45:59

Yep.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
46:00

And have that to have just a different group of people to get to know and get to hang out with and see different faces. Yeah.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
46:14

I mean, that's kind of how I am. I mean, I'm right there with you. Just I don't really know outside of hockey. Last time I made a new friend. I mean, I guess you, but you're through hockey, so hockey. Yeah.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
46:29

Yeah, I think that's the thing. Like I, you know, I meet people through work, but especially now, like I always work remotely. So it's like I don't even meet these people usually. You know, I see people on the other side of a screen and that's it. Yeah. Okay. Are you up for some rapid fire questions? Sure.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
46:49

I will try to keep my responses short because I have not been short yet.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
46:53

Well, these are quick ones. These are these are they should be short answers.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
46:57

Okay.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
46:57

You can you can save and give an explanation at the end if you think you need to.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
47:02

All right.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
47:02

One. Base layer, no base layer.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
47:07

Base layer. I I'll expand, but yeah, base layer.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
47:12

OK. Skate socks, athletic socks, dress socks, no socks.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
47:20

Dress socks is weird. I'd like to hear more about that if you know people who play with dress socks. But I've gone every other thing other than dress socks I've done. Growing up, athletic socks was the only thing. Then I tried a summer of no socks, but that was indoors at Pinnacle. And that is just it just got gross, bad, fast. And then it might have been an incident with an NHL player where their leg got cut or something like, you know what, I should get one of these Kevlar socks. And I've been Kevlar socks ever since.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
47:53

Good man, good man. All right, slap shot or wrist shot?

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
48:00

Slap shot, because I have these baby wrists, I have no wrist shot.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
48:06

Wheelbag or backpack bag?

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
48:11

Can is carry bag a separate third option?

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
48:14

No. It's wheelbag or backpack bag.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
48:18

Then backpack, I suppose. But I only only just bought a wheelbag only for travel purposes, because I'm too old and out of shape to carry my bag through airports anymore. But I've carried my bag outside of my goalie bag.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
48:32

Wheelbag, then? If you see how a bag is useful.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
48:37

I don't want to. I'm that's that's my one like no, no, no. A guy's got to carry his bag to the rink. Goalies are an exception, but everybody's carry your bag to the rink. All right, that's my one toxic hockey mech masculinity thing.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
48:54

I have no problem with wheelbag. My next bag is probably going to be a wheelbag.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
48:58

So there will be a time where that bag turns into my everyday bag. I promise that happens.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
49:03

I just I have too much crap that I take. Like I have it. My bag is so heavy. So it's yeah. Parking lot cookout or locker room beers?

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
49:14

I'm not a beer guy, so I will say parking pocket parking lot cookout, but that has not happened yet. Maybe I should start doing that.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
49:21

Oh, yeah, you should.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
49:22

But there are guys on my team will bring beers. I'm not a beer coordinator, so it's BOIOB if you want it.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
49:28

See, we do it. I do a beer bucket, which is a big hit. It just gets passed around. Somebody brings it. And because we have non-beer drinkers on the team as well, is it's when you bring the beer bucket, you also have to bring some. You know, usually it's like a gatorades or whatever for the non-beer drinkers. So everybody has something to sit and enjoy.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
49:50

So why my guys are awesome is one of one of our playoff games, guys brought beers because it might have been the last game. You know, you know, farewell, those type of thing. But he knew I didn't drink beers. He knew that I like Crown. So he brought me a couple party bottles, like, you know, fun sized bottles of Crown. So that was for me. Because he knew I didn't drink beers. Nice of them.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
50:10

See, I get occasionally some guys will bring bring me a root beer. Very so often, guys will bring me a fancy root beer. So that's what I know. They really care.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
50:21

All right.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
50:21

And then last one, 6 a.m. game or 11 p.m. game.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
50:28

Now, like me at 39 years old.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
50:30

Yes.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
50:33

645 game. I've sort of done that recently. I got to be part of the somewhat super secret monster skates in the morning of like front office employees. And those would always be really early in the morning at like 7 a.m. So which means I had to be up at like five or whatever to get there, to get dressed, to get on the ice and all that. But yeah, now 10, 15, it's too late already. I don't I'm I'm already to the point where I don't want to go to those anymore. And even just a few years ago, I wasn't bed and I had it. No, I played I have played one 11 p.m. game. Happened to be the Sunday night that I drove back from Lake Placid, New York, from a pond hockey tournament. The game was supposed to be a 10. Like, all right, well, no, go home, chill out for a couple hours and go to the game. Turns out a kid at a tournament earlier that they got super hurt and they had to bring in an ambulance, all this stuff. So everything got delayed, which means even the men's league games later. So it was just a cascade of everything getting delayed. So I showed up at 930 for what I thought was going to be a 10 o'clock game, which ended up being like an 11, 1130 game because the game had barely started when I got there before us. But yeah, nowadays, no thanks. I want to sleep at like 10 o'clock, let alone start a game at 11 o'clock.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
52:01

So you say, like now, this is my bedtime.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
52:03

Can we can we, you know?

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
52:06

So you say from you say show up at 930 for an 11 o'clock game. And I'm thinking, yeah, that's about right. Like about 90 minutes before a game. That's that's about the time.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
52:16

I still show up about 45 minutes before a game for high school. That kind of trained me to be at a game an hour ahead of time. I don't know why we had to be there an hour ahead of time, but we did just to make sure everybody's there for the people that were late or whatever. But I still show up 45 fish minutes before a game. Just get there, make sure the locker room is all set up. Nobody's locked us out. Get a locker room and just I don't know what not formally welcome, but just be like, be there for the guys who are showing up.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
52:45

See, I've gotten better. I used to be two hours before every game. Like until about two years ago, I was two hours at least. And even if they were the late games, like a 10, 15, I'd probably be like, because I'd be getting antsy, I'd probably be there before eight for 10, 15. I'm like, I don't know what else to do with myself, and I can't take a nap or anything. And so I've gotten better. I'm now like 90 minutes before the game.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
53:13

Do you have a guy or guys on your team or gals on your team who will show up as the Zamboni is out there and that will get dressed faster than the people who've been there for the last half hour?

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
53:25

There, well, one guy used to do that. Now he shows up kind of early, but…

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
53:29

Hey, us too.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
53:31

But we do have that. We actually have on my second team, on the Hurricanes, we actually have a guy, like I get there like 90 minutes before the game, and I get like half, you know, I'm like half dressed before usually anybody else gets there. And I'm sitting there and blah, blah, blah, doing whatever. And this guy will show up. I mean, it's not even 10 minutes before the game. It's like when the Zamboni is out there. And before I can finish getting dressed, he's already out there and like stretching and waiting for the door to open. And same thing of when we leave is it's like, I have like I'm like half undressed and like trying to decide like, should I use the showers here or not? And he's already out the door. He's some of them aren't bad. Some of them aren't bad. But yeah, he's like, I'm like doing that and trying to like look at, you know, trying to make that figure out. He's already out the door changed, gone. And I don't know how physically I could put on or take off clothes that fast.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
54:32

I don't have that skill. I don't know what I'm missing in my life to be able to get dressed in 45 seconds, but I don't have that skill.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
54:42

I'm just my skates. My skates take like not a long time, but my skates take, you know, two, three, four minutes to take on and off.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
54:51

And I catch my breath from pulling the strings.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
54:56

I just figure I'm not catching my breath the whole time from when I start putting my skates on till I get in my car to go home. I haven't caught my breath. I just know that.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
55:04

Yeah, I'm unintentionally first. Well, it's somewhat intentionally the first person show up because nobody's going to show up earlier than I would. Maybe one guy. But I'm usually the last to leave just because I always take too long. Getting undressed. So I'm usually like the last one off the ice, because I'm always grabbing the score sheet so I can grab that. And then by the time I even get into the locker room, some guys have their top layers off, getting their skates off. And then I'm just sitting there just like decompressing because I'm more often than not on that final shift. And out of breath from that final shift. And then like, all right, I got to catch my breath right now start getting undressed. And by that time, most everybody's gone.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
55:45

Yeah, see, I always I try to, if I can, make sure that no one leaves by themselves. And it's not a safety thing, because I'm not worried about a bunch of it. On my teams, we're a bunch of adult dudes. If we had girls on teams, I'd be more concerned. But it's also think of, I just, I feel bad leaving anybody alone in the locker room, you know, because I've seen that where everybody leaves. And it's like, you know, maybe the goalie takes a long time to change or something like that. And everybody's taken off and they're in there still undressing. And it's like, they just feel bad. So I always make sure that I always make sure that I'm not usually the last one to leave, but I'm leaving with the last person. So there's a lot of times when I will like be completely changed, be done. And I'll just sit there and I'll hang out with whoever until they're ready to go and then walk out with them.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
56:36

So your first question, baselayer or no baselayer? I was always baselayer. I was never one to get fully undressed in the locker room, even in high school, just not something I was comfortable with. But when I was a freshman, we had a senior who would best play on our team by far. Growing up playing hockey, you allegedly played for Team USA at some level for something. But I will never forget amongst the fact he was also buzzed for the Lumberjacks back in the day because he showed up for some event and it was him. But when he would play hockey, fully naked underneath the pads, like it was just like the bear jock, no like support shorts or anything, no socks, no baselayer, just pads on just bare skin. I don't know how anybody could do that anymore. That's just gross.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
57:29

I've had times I've forgotten pieces of my baselayers and I feel gross. Like I've had times where I don't have like the undershirt on and I've forgotten it at home. So I've just put my shoulder pads on and it feels gross. And then not wearing that stuff, I think that's a big key to not having your stuff stink. Having a good baselayer because that gets disgusting underneath your stuff, but you can easily wash that. Yeah, you know, where you can't easily like you can wash your gear, but it's not as easy as just throwing something in the washer.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
58:04

Yeah. Yeah, I started because of the shoulder pads would not sit too well and just bare skin, because I would just play without a shirt for a while. And then whatever shoulder pads I had just get rashes or whatever. I'm like, all right, I got to wear something underneath. So I just put on some like Nike under armor type of thing. And now after the incident with the guy in the UK last year, like, all right, you know what, I'll go back to going neck guard because I had to wear it for high school and in those leagues back in the day. I'm like, all right, I'll get one of those and just got one of like the bower full long sleeve compression type of things.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
58:46

Yeah, I think I just think those one, they're easier to I think they're easier to keep your stuff clean and not be disgusting. It's your gear is a lot better because just, I mean, not being anything gross, but it's your gear slides around while you play, you know, so you're not having like the back end of Velcro rub your raw skin.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
59:07

That's yeah, that's why I started wearing the shirt.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
59:10

Yeah, and then also too, yeah, like you said, like having the integrated neck guard and stuff, like honestly, I'm not going to go out and buy like one of those Velcro neck guards to wear, but it's built into my shirt. So great. Same thing. It's like got the wrist guards built in. Great. Like I'm not going to wear individual wrist guards, but you know what? I'll have that extra protection because it's on my shirt. Perfect. You know, and you have and it's, you know, it's nice to have that stuff. And then, you know, the stupid stuff like having the Velcro on your pants for the socks and everything. Yeah, unless unless you want to be like an 80 year old and have a garter belt.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
59:44

I wore those in high school because that's the fashion at the time, apparently, it's all we didn't have those fancy like compression short ones. They I think they were just starting out then. But yeah, I definitely had like an Easton garter belt, basically. I think I wore it for some. I think maybe I brought it back when I was playing goalie for a little while for in line or so. I forget, but I had it in my bag for some reason, and I had worn it or tried to wear it for something. But yeah, now the jock shorts with the velcro and everything, that's nice.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
1:00:19

Yeah, just easy. That's my biggest thing is just it's easy.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
1:00:24

OK, quick fire question.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
1:00:26

Bask it back at you.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
1:00:28

Old style knit or the new fabric kind? Of socks. Of like colored of color socks of like team color socks.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
1:00:39

Oh, for like like the over hockey socks.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
1:00:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
1:00:43

Yeah. Quick answer, old school. Same the old school like wool kind of ones. Longer answer is I like some of the like I have both and I have some of the new ones and they're really nice. But the problem is I have giant shin guards. And usually they don't they don't have any give to them. And their sizing is not great. Usually when I've seen them, it's usually like you have a kid size and adult size, and that's about it. Or they'll have like a giganto size that I usually wind up getting to fit over my shin guards. But then they don't hold anything in place, which I don't like. So the old school ones have like a lot more give and a lot more stretch and do a lot better job of kind of holding everything in, even around my shin guards.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
1:01:36

Yeah, same here. I just. I tried with a different compression short thing a while ago, and they just the socks didn't stick. I don't want to keep wearing these if they keep falling down. So I just go back to wearing the knit socks, and I've just been wearing the knit socks ever since. I have some of the I was calling like Reebok Edge, but that was like ten years ago that those came out, and I'm sure they're because they were like the first kind. But yeah, now I have some, but I prefer to use the old knit socks wherever I can.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
1:02:12

I'm pulling out here because for people, they're not watching video. These are the very new kind of socks there. Like one slick piece of material.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
1:02:25

And I don't even like it's a polyester. I don't know what that fabric is.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
1:02:30

I have no idea. But one of the things I don't care for these versus the knit ones, is they have all the ones I have usually have like a Velcro tab somewhere. And so that's where you have to have them hook on to your pants. If you use the Velcro, whereas the knit ones, you just kind of pull them up to what's comfortable. And any part of that can go on to the tabs that are on your pants or your shorts. So you can make them as, you know, as much as they're a lot more, it's a lot more forgiving for what you want to have. If you want to have kind of sloppy socks or tight socks or whatever, whereas those ones you're kind of stuck with just using those little tabs. But they can do a lot of cool colors in those.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
1:03:08

Yeah, I had, I bought with our old team colors, I had to buy a custom set from this company in Canada for the socks for like, it was like Vegas, gold and green, not a regular, you can just buy off the shelf type of socks. So I did a giant order so I could make the custom socks. And I think I finally gave away the last couple pairs in the last year, because I had to buy like 20 of them for an order of four or something like that. And then we stopped using those colors. They just sat around in my basement.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
1:03:40

I have around here, I have a bunch of… I'm looking around. I'm in my room that has all my hockey stuff, if you can't tell, with all the jersey and stuff. And I have around here, this is like my bag of socks for the teams that I play on now that I take with me. And then I have like a giant bin over here that's a bunch of the thick knit socks that are all random colors and stuff. That is the one nice thing with the new socks is they're not knit, they're like dye sub, dye sublimated socks usually. So you can get not just any color, but all sorts of goofy patterns. So a lot of times the teams, like the pro teams that do like kind of the goofy uniforms, that the socks look like something funny, they'll have those. Or if you want to do like goofy patterns or anything like that, you can do those on there, which you couldn't do on the knit socks. So that's nice and that's fun.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
1:04:32

Or put somebody's face on the socks, as my one pond hockey team does.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
1:04:38

Yes, that would be a possibility.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
1:04:41

Our namesake, Jake, is the face that is on the front of our jersey and our socks.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
1:04:48

That's great. That's really great. All right. Well, I have taken up a lot of your time this evening, Anthony.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
1:05:00

Yeah. I'm not saying that yes, you did. I'm acknowledging that we've spent a lot of time talking.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
1:05:07

Yes, I've taken up a lot of your time. Thank you. Is there any parting words or parting wisdom or any final thoughts or something? You want to make sure you get out there before you say our goodbyes?

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
1:05:21

I wasn't prepared for wisdom. I was prepared for funny stories.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
1:05:26

Sometimes here's my bit of wisdom. A lot of times, those funny stories have a little bit of wisdom in them.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
1:05:33

Very nice. Yeah, don't assault teenagers, guys. That's the important takeaway. Don't be a coach and assault teenagers. That's no play. For those of you who are listening to play, play, find the ice time where you can practice. If you want to put in the effort to do off ice skills, definitely do that. But yeah, skate as much as you can when you can. And even as much as I was complaining about it, we were talking about divisions and everything, playing against better players is the only way that you're going to get better. You're not going to get better by just dunking on people who don't know how to skate or how to play. Yeah, it'll get you the win in the moment, but overall, you're not going to be better for it.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
1:06:33

All right, well, thank you very much, Anthony. I hope you had a good time on this. I think this was a lot of fun.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
1:06:39

I did.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
1:06:39

I think everyone will love it.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
1:06:40

I talked a lot. I wasn't expecting to talk this much, but I did talk a lot. So thanks for allowing the discussion.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
1:06:48

Hopefully you'll come back again.

ANTHONY_LOVULLO:
1:06:51

Whenever you'll have me.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:
1:06:51

Have some more stories. Perfect. All right. Well, that's it, everybody. Thanks to the wonderful Mr. Anthony LoVullo for joining us on this episode of The Beer Leaguer Podcast. Thanks a lot, everybody. Catch you in the next one.