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Valley: With each goalie we’ve interviewed, we kind of started by asking why you wanted to become a goalie. What was it at a young age that attracted you to the position? Obviously the equipment is fun, but there’s something else there. Can you take us through your experience playing and your route through college? Elliott: “Well my dad has a story and I have a story, but my brother kind of got into it before I did, and I always wanted to do everything that he did, and I tried to do it better than him every time [laughing]. I was a player and I liked scoring goals, but I had a hard time coming off the ice because I always wanted to be out there. My dad always says he asked me when I was young why I wanted to switch to being a goalie, and I told him I wanted to make a difference in every game, and be out there all the time. So he said he was okay with that, and we’d do what I wanted to do. I think even from a younger age I was always put in net in road hockey out on the street because I was the youngest kid out there. They just asked who wants to go in net, and nobody would, and they made me do it, otherwise I’d get beat up [laughing]. But it was fun you know, stopping all the shots from the older kids, they could never score on me. Some of the guys I used to play with on the street see me now try to take credit for it.” Valley: You became a goaltender at a young age, so you’re in that mode where you play and have fun. At what point did pressure start to come into your game as a goalie? Did you ever feel it, or did it kind of transition in your junior years? Elliott: “I hardly ever played rep hockey. I played house league as a player and I was happy doing that because I had a lot of friends from school that were on my team. I didn’t really want to go out for the rep teams because I didn’t have any friends there. Once I finally made the switch to goalie, I started playing up a year with older kids, so I wasn’t with my friends anymore, and that’s when I decided to go out for the Select teams. Then I made that transition, but they said I should probably go out for Rep level hockey. So I was able to participate in the AA tryouts to get ready for the single-A tryouts, and ended up making the AA team right away. So after all of that, I still wasn’t able to play with my friends on the singe-A team. I think I was 13 or 14 before I made a rep team. The following year, I went out for the AAA team and made it, so everything kind of happened pretty fast for me, and while all of this was happening, I never really had a goalie lesson. When I was really young and first started out, I went to a couple of really basic goalie schools in the summertime, but I kind of just watched on TV and would go out and try to emulate the guys in practice or on the street. I was just trying to be like Curtis Joseph, Felix Potvin, or Eddy Belfour. That’s when it kind of came around for me, and then when I start playing at the AAA level, you start thinking you can do something with this, like maybe play in college or go to the OHL.” Valley: We talked before about how you faced a ton of shots when you jumped to the junior level. How did that help you out, as opposed to being on a stronger team, facing less shots, and posting great stats? Elliott: “To this day, I think it’s a blessing in disguise that I got cut from my hometown team, because they were one of the best in the league. If I stayed with them, I probably wouldn’t have gotten noticed. Even the guys I got cut for might regret it, because they’re not really doing anything right now. They went to college and basically sat on the bench there, so it’s kind of crazy how that all worked out.” Valley: From there you jumped into college hockey, as you got your scholarship to the University of Wisconsin. But for the first two years, you didn’t get a lot of playing time. How did you manage that? Elliott: “I was so happy to be at Wisconsin. If anything, I was just happy with a scholarship, and if that was where my career ended, that was fine. I didn’t think of it that way, but looking back now, that’s probably what the outside world was thinking. But my dad called me all the time and said he had talked to the Kitchener Rangers and they wanted me, so if I wanted to come to the OHL, I could still get all the playing time. But I never even blinked an eye, because that’s not where I wanted to be. I knew that Wisconsin had a two-year system, where you sit on the bench for two years and then the next two years are yours to run with. I knew that I was good enough to do that even based on my sophomore season, even though I only got six to nine games. So I was just kind of steadfast with that, and I didn’t worry about it too much. I just knew that when my junior season came around, it would be my turn to run with it, and it all worked out.” Valley: We all know that you dominated your junior and senior years at Wisconsin, so we’ll delve into a different topic now and discuss managing pressure. We often say that experience is the best teacher, and you learn what works for you. If you think about your development as a goaltender from playing juniors to now being an NHL All-Star, talk about experience. What has it done? What have you learned and what were some of the lessons that have been huge for you throughout your career? Elliott: “I think a lot of the lessons you learn, you don’t even realize that you’re learning them, so I don’t know if I could put it into words. I think just the experience in itself is something that you have to go through in order to really understand how you deal with them internally, and without even thinking about it, you just kind of learn a way to deal with good and bad things. Even from growing up when I was little, I used to cry if I had a bad game and I let a bunch of goals in. I just couldn’t handle it. I think every kid goes through those stages where you want to be so good that it takes up all the energy you have, and you sometimes break into tears afterwards. If you’re serious about it, and you have that drive about you, I think for the guys that go places, you have to really care about it. I think you have to go through a little bit of that phase where you take games really hard and you’re being overly-hard on yourself. I still go through that at times, and I’m still learning to deal with the pressures, because when I came out of college, it was a pressure-filled atmosphere, but you had a standing ovation after every game just for trying. The fans were really on your side and they were backing you because they liked the school and they were Badgers. But when you get to the pro level, if you don’t produce, it’s your job, so if you don’t, you’re gone. So it’s a different kind of feeling. There’s times where to manage things, you have to learn to forget about it. If I go home and start thinking about a bad game or a loss, or even if I had a good game but a bad goal against, I won’t sleep. I think all elite goalies have a short memory. There’s times after the game where my d-men will come up to me and start discussing goals, but I won’t even remember goals at all, so I’ll have to watch the tape because I don’t remember it happening. So I try to have a short memory; tomorrow is the next day, and you just come out and work harder. Good, bad, or ugly, I treat it the same way.” Valley: So basically you’re trying to let go as quick as you can, move on to the next day? Elliott: “Yeah, because the bad experiences I’ve had are when you can’t let go. Every good run, you don’t think about your success, you just go with it. I think right out of college, when I first got the call-up to Ottawa, I tied a rookie record for consecutive wins. They were like, ‘how did you do that,’ and my answer was that I wasn’t really thinking about it. I’m not trying to do that, I’m just trying to save every puck. It’s not a game as a whole, it’s just that every shot is a different scenario, and hopefully after all of those scenarios, you come out with a win.” Valley: Well that’s a good answer and it’s similar to what Backstrom said in his interview. He said he never met a man that was able to change the past, so you just focus on living in the present and you don’t over-analyze things, so that helps us reinforce the same message. Elliott: “Thinking about what Niklas said, one lesson I did learn -- and I remember it and anyone who is having trouble, I pass it along because it meant a lot to me and still means a lot to me -- it’s on the same lines of that. We had a team psychologist who was with Edmonton in the Mark Messier and Wayne Gretzky days. When I was struggling in the AHL, we went out to lunch because I was worrying about things, and I was feeling the pressure of not producing wins in my first year as a pro. He said, ‘What can we do about it? Are you worrying about it?’ and I said, ‘Well yeah, I’m worrying. This is what I want to do, and I’m not doing it, and I don’t know what to do about it.’ And he said, ‘Well, how about I come over to your place later tonight and we’ll sit down and worry together, and we can worry for however long you want. I’ll stay up all night and worry with you if you want.’ You laugh after that, and that was it. That was his lesson; what is worrying really going to do for you? It’s counter-productive. I can worry all night about things, but it’s not going to get me anywhere. So you have to let it go, because worrying doesn’t do anything for you.”