InGoal Parents: Your most important role as a parent
- Mindset is identified as the area where parents can have the most powerful impact on a young goaltender's development.
- Performance coach John Stevenson's 'performance wheel' breaks goaltending into four equal pillars, with the mental game being just one — though the author argues it is foundational to all others.
- Traits like Carey Price's composure under pressure and Carter Hart's work ethic are cited as real-world examples of elite goaltender mindset in action.
- Parents should actively invest time in understanding goaltender mindset resources, not just gear and private lessons.
- The mental game in goaltending is gaining recognition as more critical than ever, regardless of the exact percentage assigned to it.
What can we do as parents to help our young goaltenders get the most out of the game, besides digging deep for gear and lessons and all the other costs associated with being a goaltender?
Today I’m going to talk to you a bit about what I believe is the area we can have the most powerful impact, where we can make a massive difference in the development of our children in goal.
I’m talking about Mindset.
I’m not Pete Fry, John Stevenson or one of the other experts who help goaltenders and athletes with mindset. I’m just a goalie dad.
We’ve got some fantastic articles here at Premium that I would encourage you to read. In fact, there is a section on our main menu dedicated to mindset. Incidentally, every article we publish is tagged for one of these sections, sometimes more than one. If you’re looking to binge watch some Pro Reads or dig down deep in our Pro Drills or Pro Tips sections, they are all there. But today we’re looking at mindset from a parent’s perspective.
Some say goaltending is 80 percent or 90 percent mental. In his webinar with Braden Holtby, John Stevenson showed us his performance wheel — look for more on that soon here at InGoal — and he said actually that based on the wheel, it’s 25 percent mental. He clearly stated that there are four key areas each with equal importance. The mental game is just one of them. Now I believe it’s more than that — sorry John — because your mental strength and preparation is foundational to everything.
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