Meet Anthony Gaudette

We were lucky to catch up with Anthony Gaudette recently and have shared our conversation below.

Anthony, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

I started this podcast in 2020 when covid set in and they shut everything down here in Canada. There was literally nothing to do and the thought of starting a hockey podcast had crossed my mind more than once. Let me tell you the work ethic you have to have for a podcast is a lot more then just firing up the mics and talking. There is research, searching for interviews, sponsors so you can get the proper equipment, marketing ect. The other challenge with it is staying consistent, the average podcast usually last only about 10-15 episodes and we are now over 200.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

When I created the show back in 2020 it was to focus only on hockey. Covid had shut the world down and there was nothing else to do but watch hockey on tv. The game has always been a huge part of my life. I had zero media experience, no marketing experience, all I had was a vision and the passion for the game. In July of 2020 the first episode of Hat Trick Hockey Podcast was released and we never looked back from there. We have had several guests on the show who are current and former NHL players. Some of those NHL guys have won Stanley Cups, league awards, gold medals its pretty cool. After a few years the doors started to swing open when we started working with local junior hockey teams in our area. Then our broadcasting journey started where we call hockey games for the Essex 73’s in the PJHL, and are studio analyst on Yourtv Windsor for the Windsor Spitfires. Now we have careers in podcasting, broadcasting, merch stores, the future is bright here at HTH.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I would say the three qualities you’ll need to be a good podcaster are consistency, being able to step out of your comfort zone, and always push yourself to reach that next level. A lot of podcast don’t last very long so we tried to pick a day and release our show on the same day every week. As time goes on some episodes will cause you to step out of the comfort zone where a topic may come up out of no where that you aren’t exactly comfortable talking about or hearing. You just have to roll with the punches when that happens and push through. Its all a learning curve whether it comes to what you would do different on a episode or learning how to fix equipment when it messes up, or if guests cancel late on you because that happens a lot in podcasting. You just keep pushing and don’t give up. We never gave up don’t matter if we had one or ten thousand downloads, we do it because we love it! In the end if you keep that in the back of your mind it will be a more enjoyable experience.

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

Our biggest area of improvement in the past 12 months has been our social media. Across all of our social media platforms we have between ten and fifteen thousand followers. On our Hat Trick Hockey Podcast facebook page we have 2.5 million views in just 90 days. Instagram over 330 thousand views in thirty days. Social media is a huge part of making this whole thing grow.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hattrickhockeypodcast?igsh=N2Jlc296M3Vnejl3&utm_source=qr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1B8jwBNY42/?mibextid=wwXIfr
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@hattrickhockeypodcast?si=P2_iV-CSt7B6KkIh
• Other: merch store- https://hat-trick-hockey.printify.me/