Exclusive Pasco Valana Goaltending 1&2 Certification from the 2020 WHL / Hockey Canada Goaltending Symposium

One of the cool elements of the WHL / Hockey Canada Goaltending Symposium presented and hosted by InGoal Magazine in June was an overview and walkthrough of the first two levels of the Canadian goalie coaching certification program by Pasco Valana that we can now share.

Valana, who is the goaltending coach for the University of British Columbia women’s team and has published two books on the position, has coached goalies at the provincial and national team levels for years, and was part of the Hockey Canada Advisory Board that worked the development of the National Goaltending Certification Program, which has three levels.

Valana, who also co-founded Elite Goalies schools with former Dallas Stars goaltending coach Mike Valley, shared the key elements of the first two levels of the certification program during the two-day symposium. And while you can’t get certified just by watching them, they were loaded with good information, as well as insights into how the program works, that we thought were worth sharing, whether to help you now as a goalie, goalie coach or goalie parent, or to spark interest in taking the Canadian certification courses yourself in the future.

“From a Hockey Canada side, our goal with the certification program is to utilize the experts that are out there across the country and basically try to get more expertise down to minor hockey,” said Corey McNabb, the Director of Hockey Development Programs for Hockey Canada. “At the end of the day, the more people we have that have a better education on the position of goaltending for the young guys and girls out there, the more it gives them an opportunity to develop a better foundation early on, and then as they come into the emerging high-performance side of thing I think we’re really going to see a group of goalies in the next generation with a better level of the fundamental skills require to get to higher levels.”

Enjoy the full presentation, which starts with the basics (you can see a full list of the elements each level below the video), and moves on to more advanced skills, technical keys and a breakdown of the 10 ways that teams create scoring. There are video examples throughout: