At 15 years of old, Kim Muir was asked to teach the children of a hockey parent how to skate more efficiently.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were watching me skate and decided the only way their sons were going to progress as far as they could go is to skate as well as they could for the game,\u201d Muir said. <\/p>\n
Those twin boys grew into six students in a month.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople always want what other people have,\u201d Muir said. \u201cBy that summer I probably had about 100 students.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two years after her first lessons, Muir founded Can\u2019t Skate Can\u2019t Play.<\/p>\n
When it came time to graduate high school and attend college, her students numbered more than 200. Her methods were so popular that it paid for her college education.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was making way too much money for a high school graduate,\u201d Muir said. \u201cMy parents thought I would drop out of college.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, four degrees later (biology, chemistry, education and physicians assistant), Muir has made mom and dad proud and continued her business success.<\/p>\n
This past week Muir, now 43, brought her teaching methods to the Treadwell Arena ice for five days of instruction for youth and adult hockey players.<\/p>\n
Muir\u2019s path to Juneau came about by a chance meeting with then-Juneau Youth Hockey coach Tom Rutecki.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe begged me to come to Juneau from 2005 to 2007,\u201d Muir said. \u201cI came in 2007 when I was four months pregnant. I ran the camp by myself and people loved it. I told them if you like it with just me coming, you will like it more if I brought my staff.\u201d<\/p>\n
She has been back every year except during a three-year hiatus training players in Sweden. Her schedule stays busy considering the number of NHL coaches asking her for help. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople here in Juneau are really amazing,\u201d Muir said. \u201cThey are very welcoming and friendly, and they like hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Figure vs. hockey skating<\/strong><\/p>\n The Muir house was decorated in Detroit Red Wings colors with a tinge of the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n Her brothers went on to play college and then major junior hockey, but it was Muir who eventually made it to the NHL. <\/p>\n \u201cI used to tell my brothers all the time that they should be doing this figure skating move or that figure skating move,\u201d Muir said. \u201cAnd they just looked at me like I was crazy. They always knew I was a good skater but I don\u2019t think they understood that figure skaters were better and stronger technical skaters than hockey players.\u201d<\/p>\n At first they didn\u2019t take her advice but now they admire her methods.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s not one day do I regret that I was never a hockey player,\u201d Muir said. \u201cI loved the game but I am truly a performer and I loved my years of figure skating. And that is who I am. When I am on the ice it is a performance of teaching but in the best way that I know how. In the parallels it is a performance for me. Sometimes I get out there and do a random figure skating move, but it is just for myself, to say that I can still do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Muir said the easiest thing to teach young hockey players is \u2014 everything.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can go into their backwards skating,\u201d Muir said. \u201cJust form, posture, stride, stride size, and stride strength. The same thing forward and backward, lateral movements, transitions with and without the puck, stopping and no stopping in the game. Transitions without stopping is probably the hardest to teach. Everyone sees something at high speed and the thought of wanting to do it without having to stop and change direction is probably the hardest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Muir\u2019s best moment on the ice was doing a back flip.<\/p>\n \u201cI am only one of only three women in the world that can still do one,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I haven\u2019t done one in 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n Muir has a 7-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter. \u201cYes, they both skate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n From humble beginnings to NHL skating coach<\/strong><\/p>\n Muir\u2019s success as a professional coach is all the more remarkable due to her humblest of beginnings. At six months old she was found next to a trash bin in South Korea, and lived in an orphanage for the next four years.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one claimed me,\u201d Muir said. \u201cI had no name tags.\u201d<\/p>\n Her one memory from being in the orphanage is true to her personality.<\/p>\n \u201cBack then they had shoes lined up outside the rooms,\u201d Muir said. \u201cIn an orphanage everything is first come first serve, to includes clothes, food, shoes, everything.\u201d<\/p>\n There was a hierarchy in the pod of kids Muir was in the orphanage with.<\/p>\n \u201cI particularly got these pair of shoes that I liked, usually first,\u201d Muir said. \u201cOne day some other girl got to these shoes \u2014 I didn\u2019t like it. I knocked her down at recess, I took them off of her and that is my only memory of orphanage is getting in trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n Muir was adopted when she was four and put her her first pair of skates a year later.<\/p>\n \u201cI was blessed to have parents who didn\u2019t care what I looked like,\u201d Muir said. \u201cThey respected me, my nationality and religious background. <\/p>\n \u201cThe emphasis was on my learning English and being socially integrated,\u201d she continued. \u201cOnce that happened my parents put me in figure skating, my parents being old school traditionalists. They didn\u2019t believe that girls should play hockey, but I grew up in a hockey family. I was the youngest of three.\u201d<\/p>\n Muir was raised in Trenton, Michigan, just southeast of Detroit. Her two brothers were 10 and 12 years older and she was taken from rink to rink when they played hockey.<\/p>\n \u201cHockey was the only sport I knew,\u201d she said. \u201cI knew from the get-go I would never be a hockey player because my parents would not let me, but I took a liking to figure skating and did well with it.\u201d<\/p>\n Well included eight years as a national competitor with the U.S. Figure Skating Association and a junior ladies freestyle championship.<\/p>\n \u201cAs an amateur I wanted to make it into the Olympics,\u201d Muir said. \u201cI ended up in Colorado Springs for one year, broke my ankle when I was 15 and that was the year I decided I wanted to be an adolescent and have friends outside the figure skating world.\u201d<\/p>\n She has been back to South Korea since she was adopted, but that could soon change. <\/p>\n \u201cThey are hosting the Olympics in three years,\u201d Muir said. \u201cI am trying to see if I can help them with their national hockey team.\u201d<\/p>\n When the Red Wings came calling<\/strong><\/p>\n Muir said her moment of validation as a skating coach came in 2010 when Detroit Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock phoned.<\/p>\n \u201cHe called to ask me to come out and work with the Red Wings,\u201d Muir said. \u201cThis was a Hall of Fame coach.\u201d<\/p>\n Muir had already been a private skating instructor to Babcock\u2019s children and had some college and semi-pro students.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Mike took over as coach of the Red Wings he was looking for a skating coach,\u201d she said. \u201cSomebody in the organization recommended me and I was blessed to take on that job. Doing the private lessons for so long with his son and daughter one day turned into me coming out and working with the big boys. That is the validation \u2014 being respected by the respected.\u201d<\/p>\n Muir said that first day of practice was amazing.<\/p>\n \u201cI stepped out on the ice at Joe Louis Arena and looked around the bleachers and stands and felt like I had made it,\u201d Muir said. \u201cThe crazy part is during the very first drill I demonstrated I actually fell over my toe picks.\u201d<\/p>\n Muir said Red Wings player Tomas Holmtr\u00f6m asked, \u201cJust like that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJust like that,\u201d Muir replied. \u201cI didn\u2019t have a come back. They were probably thinking \u2018we have to learn from this girl who can\u2019t even stand up on her skates.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n They did learn and the floodgates opened for Muir. <\/p>\n The Carolina Hurricanes called next, and then even more NHL players and teams began requesting her services. Muir has also traveled to Sweden to work with that country\u2019s elite team. <\/p>\n Muir said the difference between youth and professionals is the skill set.<\/p>\n \u201cThe NHL guys know the game better, not necessarily the skating better,\u201d Muir said. \u201cMy college hockey players are my better skaters but my NHL skaters are better about hockey awareness.\u201d<\/p>\n Muir has a standard move that she uses when hulking players aren\u2019t paying attention: she shoves them over.<\/p>\n \u201cYou always have to be ready,\u201d Muir said. \u201cThis particular sport is about body contact and at any given time you have to be prepared to pass, shoot, score or have and accept the body contact. If I see a kid who is not really paying attention to me it is kind of my go-to move to catch him off guard and knock him down. The gratification, however, is when you take a kid who didn\u2019t know how to do the drill in the first day and (later) they can do it, you can instantly see their development. They are trying and respecting the drills and seeing a purpose for it all.\u201d<\/p>\n It is not uncommon for professional players to thank Muir profusely after her lessons.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is when I know I belong,\u201d she said. \u201cAny time you second guess your abilities are to the highest level, and when you have those moments where NHL players can\u2019t do your drills, or are asking a lot of questions, and want to spend more time with you to learn, then it is that \u2018aha\u2019 movement.\u201d<\/p>\n As for those first two pupils, 5-year-old twins Tony and Brad Zancanaro, they went on to be hockey captains at Providence College and Boston University, respectively, and both ended up playing in various minor and professional hockey leagues.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were always tough, gritty little kids,\u201d Muir said. \u201cAnd they are still that way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At 15 years of old, Kim Muir was asked to teach the children of a hockey parent how to skate more efficiently. \u201cThey were watching me skate and decided the only way their sons were going to progress as far as they could go is to skate as well as they could for the game,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":17853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-17852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17852"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=17852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}