Podcast Segment for Goalie Parents – Episode 264

Okay. Time for a parent segment. Comments keep coming in. And recently, and I apologize to the listener who sent this in because I don't have it with me here in Kelowna, but someone kindly mentioned to me that they felt the segment is not just for parents because they're learning so much each week. I really appreciate that.

So thank you very much. But before we get to what we're gonna say this week, Woody, the parent segment is presented by Stop It Goaltending U, the app.

The content continues to flow from Stop It Goal Tending and the Stop It Goaltending U, the app. And I'm sure there's a bunch more on the way because they just finished up with their big prospects camp. I believe twenty second annual

Multiple sheets of ice.

Hundreds of goaltenders, guest appearances from coaches like Joey Daccord of the Seattle Kraken. Saw some tidbits on that. Andrew Raycroft's a regular out there and one of their coaches, all the top coaches at the university level on the East Coast involved. So that's the level of expertise and right from the goalies. They've got a tip up recently in the last ten days from Matthew Carone from BU.

They take the expertise of the goalie coaches and the goalies that they work with, and I would argue there's probably few that have more of those just given the size of Stop It Goaltending And they put it in an app in a way that makes it easy for parents and young goalies to digest whether they wanna dig in for an hour or just a minute a day with the quick tips and the daily primers. There's something there that's gonna help you become a better goaltender. Like I said, whether you wanna invest a little bit of time every day or a little bit of time every day and then a bunch of time one day a week, however you wanna manage it, if you use the Stop It Goaltending U app, there is information on there that will help you become a better goaltender. And even better now, if you subscribe to the Stop It Goaltending U app, you get a subscription to another fantastic resource, InGoal Magazine premium membership, ingoalmag.com with all the content that we bring, including a bunch of fresh stuff coming from up here in Kelowna.

These are the best of both worlds, and you can access it both through a subscription to the Stop

It Goaltending U app. Good chance to feel a little bit of what we are lucky enough to feel when we're in a place like this. You can hop onto the Stop It app, and you can learn from a whole bunch of different goalies and a whole bunch of co different coaches, and that's something we love to do. Okay. Today, I would like to talk a little bit about being both a goalie coach and a parent.

As I've said, I've had questions come in from a number of folks right up to the NCAA asking me about being a parent and a coach, but today isn't just for experienced coaches. In fact, I wanna talk a little bit in a framework that's, good for all of us parents. There's something whether you're wondering about coaching your own child or having your child work with someone else even as you are a professional coach yourself. So something for everyone. Kevin was thrilled recently to learn how many people are certified at the bronze level in The United States as goaltending coaches, thousands. 2,200.

There you go.

That's a ton. Hockey Canada also has a certification process which is aimed at giving you the basics. So even if you're a regular coach or an incoming parent coach, you can know how to work with young goalies. We need more certified coaches. I had coffee the other day, Woody, with one of our son's head coaches from his younger days growing up, and what struck him was how little coaching is available.

Maybe there's a weekly session for an association. Maybe there's a coach on the ice once a week who only gets a few minutes alone with the goalies. But compared to the players, he said, it's nothing. It is, in fact, one reason that we started to work with associations to make InGoal available as a resource for all their coaches and families because there simply aren't enough goalie coaches. Now there's a lot of talk about young goalies being too structured and learning not learning to go out there and just stop the puck and well, I'll agree to a point.

It's important to understand what people mean by that. They don't want robotic goalies who just drop and block. They don't want six year olds living in the RVH, But you still have to learn how to skate. You still need a stance. You still need to learn how to catch, how to control your stick.

Can you imagine sending a kid out to play tennis without telling him how to hold the racket? A golfer out onto the course without teaching him the grip. The basics matter and they have to be learned so you can go out there and then just play without thinking. But again, there aren't enough people who can help. So today, I would like to respond to the experienced coaches who want to learn about balancing their role as coach and parent, but also to those who might consider volunteering even if they never played the position.

There are a lot of people responsible for our son being where he is today, but I'm pretty confident that without me volunteering, it wouldn't have happened. He was lucky enough in that sense that he had a goalie coach teaching him the basics at most of his practices growing up. He also had great head coaches who were happy to listen to a goaltending coach to help them make their practices better for the goalies and the players. And those are times on the ice I will honestly cherish forever. It's more powerful even everybody as a goalie coach because you're on the ice working closely just with your child and maybe one other kid, and it's like a bit of alone time enjoying what the two of you love to do the most.

So if you start early when they begin playing, you can learn along with them as well and make a difference for them and their team on the ice at practice. And where your child is most at risk of being ignored, they're getting more attention than most other kids in the position, but not too much because balance is important as we'll talk about. So having said that, hoping lots of you will consider getting out there and helping, your young boys and girls enjoy the position more. But for the goalie coaches who want to hear a little bit more about balancing the role, I'll just tell you a few things, maybe some of my top tips. I never made decisions or recommendations on who should play on a team my son was part of.

Of course, at a young age, that playing time should be equal anyway, but I made this sort of personal policy very clear to the goalies and to the head coach. I do believe there's a role for goalie coaches to help with this in hockey, but I didn't think that the optics would be very good with myself as a as a parent and a coach. Obviously, I worked equally with both kids on the ice. I think that's, of course, it's imperative. My son also happened to be really good friends with all of his partners growing up.

I don't know. Did I have a role to play in that? I hope so. I didn't push as hard as perhaps I thought I should purely as a coach. Our relationship as a father and a son mattered more to me than that athlete coach relationship because because our parent child relationship is gonna be for a lifetime.

I recognized also, and we might hear from Dan DePalma something on some of this later, that there are times that the goalies just need space. So I would back away on the ice. Maybe I wouldn't even go to the rink. To a degree, this is knowing the athlete and you, of course, you know your child better than anyone. And it's a strong belief I have that there's a time for technique and there's a time to just let them play.

When they get to work with other coaches, whether it's a goalie coach or a or a head coach, I step back. I probably give more space there than again, you're probably going to hear a little bit from Dan and his role. I I loved as I was putting this together, listening to the his experience as a coach and mine. And and again, being a parent coach, I felt I had to play a slightly different role than than you'll hear Dan did at times. As my son got older, we worked more collaboratively.

I'd asked for his input more often, his thoughts on what to do, what he needed, what he was seeing or feeling. I think I sort of learned that because of our personal relationship and turns out it's really a good way to work with any youngster that you're coaching. I think that's just good coaching, good teaching. And it's good practice, but it's also set him up because later on when I'm not around, he's more in control of his own game. Now at the u eighteen level, they had a policy of no parent coaches, so that was when that break happened and I wasn't his goalie coach anymore, even though we'd still work together a little bit in the summers.

And when he had another coach, when that time came, he had my support 100%. I think that there's a ton of value in learning to work with other coaches and other approaches, but I also feel it's more important that your child believes in their coach and only have that one voice in their head. So even though I was a goalie coach, when he was working with another goalie coach for a season, all I am is dad. I believe that, if another coach had a different approach than me, I'm not worried about that. I'm I'm I'm not gonna ask my son to listen to what I might do over his coach.

Him buying in completely and trusting his team goalie coach is of far more value than of him trying to manage different opinions on the ice and at home. So I stay out of it. It turns out I probably agree with his coaches most of the time anyway. Actually, at this point also, I would just say I don't even know what he's doing on the ice with his coaches. I keep my distance on that and I respect that relationship that he has with them.

And when he plays now, we just discuss the game as if we're friends. If he wants to talk about it, that's his call and it's under his direction. I have no opinion on how we should play. I just listen. Otherwise, as I've said before, he gets a hug.

I tell him I'm proud. Maybe I tell him something I love that he did on the ice just like any other parent would. So I hope in some of that today that there's something of value for the experienced coaches who now have a son or daughter, taken to the crease. I hope there's some maybe inspiration for some of the rest of you out there to get certified and volunteer while you still can because you 15 or you 18 or whatever level it is that provides team coaches, believe me, it comes all too quickly. So get your chance while you can.

I would also say that certification and getting involved at the younger ages, just to go back to your discussion with, oh, they're overcoached and, you know, sometimes these kids get too much structure too soon. It's not it's not like you're in there trying to teach reverse to eight year olds. It's about making sure that the eight year olds, 12 year olds, 13 year olds even are having experiences that are conducive to them learning. And sometimes that's about having a voice at a practice whereby they're not just sitting there doing nothing for long stretches, or they're not just seeing one shot after another with three second gaps and no time to recover and actually play the position, that you're a voice with them and for them in those practices to make sure the environment not only will help them enjoy the position. We've talked a lot about retention and people wanting to be goaltenders.

And the the structure of the practices even within the team environment will be beneficial to them, but inherently, it becomes better for the team and the players as well. So there's it's don't just think that by becoming that that first level certification goalie coach for your son or daughter at the entry level is about digging into some of the stuff that we get into the weeds with sometimes within Goal, you know, in terms of the really technical stuff. The skills and the skating and the sticks and all those things that Hutch talked about are there, but it's also just about making sure that it's an environment where not only can they learn about the position, but where they're having fun playing it.

Yeah. 100%. The basics are so important. We give it to all of our players and our goaltenders deserve it as well. So if you can help, that would be fantastic.

Speaking of certification courses, I sat in little over a year ago on a great certification, course for new goalies, new goalie coaches, excuse me, new new parents who want to be goalie coaches, and that was led by someone we saw today, Travis Hoy. Travis Hoy of Travis Hoy Goal Tending here in Vernon, British Columbia happens to be one of our partner coaches now. All of the kids going to his camps this summer up here will also be getting an InGoal membership, Kevin. So one of the great young coaches around here, and and we're thrilled to have worked with him.

And to continue the theme of tying this like, everything is just coming together. Another one of those guests that we'll have in the next coming week coming weeks that we've connected with up here was also on the ice with Travis Hoy. Connections they made through Hockey Canada, none other than PWHL goaltender of the year, Kristen Campbell, who we've had a the pleasure of being both on the ice and in the gym with for the past couple of days. So I really gotta say, like, it none of this is planned. It's all just kinda coming organically.

But, boy, do we have a whole bunch of really high end guests coming and some fantastic content coming in the coming weeks.

I edited my bit for the parent segment week and a half, probably two weeks ago, and then actually listened to today's featured guest just today and how much it resonated with what I'd written down for for goalie parents. It was awesome. And and I love this this week's guest. Our featured guest presented by NHL Sense Arena VR is Dan DePalma. And, Sense Arena is is huge as we've heard from a number of people recently.

Woody, we were let me start and then you jump in. We just finished helping Pete Fry, as you remember, host his goalie mindset pro seminars. And one thing that Pete does is have his goalies craft a plan. Might be a thirty day plan, sixty day plan. It sort of depends on what lies ahead for you.

He gives them examples of the sort of things that his goalies have used, including Jeff Glass who wrote down a thirty day plan, followed it, and ended up in the National Hockey League thirty days later. The kids took some time, ten minutes or so, to draw a mind map. And then they shared some of the things in their plan. And guess what? Pete had not mentioned Sense Arena even once that day, but NHL Sense Arena kept coming up in the plans.

I don't know how many kids as they shared their plans around the room said, I'm gonna do NHL Sense Arena every day. I'm gonna do Sense Arena four times a week. It was just part of their plan for getting where they wanna get in the next sixty days. And I know you've also been speaking to a few people who've used Sense Arena around here again. It just sort comes up now.

I was gonna say if you wanna talk about a plan in terms of getting better as a goaltender, it was one of the questions. We had a really long chat with Devon Levi, the Buffalo Sabres today for, again, another interview that we'll bring you in the coming weeks and months. And he meant he brought up Sense Arena as he has less time in the in as a pro hockey player now than he did in college. More games, less rest, more worried about managing his body and feeling good. He's using NHL Sense Arena to make sure he gets reps and touches without having to get on the ice all the time.

And he he uses it in several different ways. But again, to sort of have that come up more up organically as part of our conversation and hear the way he uses it, just further validation that whether it's the aspiring future pros at Pete Fry seminar talking about how good a tool it is and making sure that they've got it in their plan to make sure they're using it regularly, or a guy who's just starting his NHL career with a very bright future talking to us about how he uses it regularly. NHL sense arena, the proof is there. The proof of concept, we've been talking about for a while, but we keep getting this validation all the way up to the highest levels. And so another reminder over the past two weeks between Pete Fry seminar and our time with Devon Levi up here, that this is a legitimate tool for training goaltenders to become better goaltenders.

Goalies who are doing all they can to get ahead are choosing NHL Sense Arena. You should give it a try. Sensearena.com, check it out. Learn everything you can about Sense Arena, give it a try this summer. Okay.