Podcast Segment for Goalie Parents – Episode 273

It's a it's a little bit, of progress. Let's get into our Stop It Goaltending U, the app parent segment. Where are you going this week, and, what's happening over at Stop It Goal Tending U, the app?

I'll take the first part. Daily primers on personal integrity this week. So five daily quick hits there on sorta, you know, something that we probably don't talk about enough, although the parent segment's been good for that. Sort of what are your standards? What are your personal standards so that you make sure you have strong integrity as a goaltender?

They've got a really nice quick video on a glove, not just a break in method, but something that one of the prep goalies that works out at Stop It, Chase Anderson shared, using a rubber band to sort of help maintain your pocket so that it's always an easier easy closure. We've seen these various techniques in terms of getting the glove broken in. Well, he does it on the regular even after he's got it broken in. So he walks you through that in a quick hit two, three minute video. And then in the deep dive, Goalie IQ twenty minutes on a couple of Stop It Goaltending students who are now in the National Hockey League or were in the National Hockey League last year.

Joey Daccord and Devin Cooley, a game they went head to head late in the season. Cooley then with San Jose. Daccord, obviously, still with Seattle and with Seattle last year. Just breaking down some of the plays and some of the systems they use when they play the game, kinda like taking our ProReads and having an an independent person walk you through some of the highlights. So it's a great 20 video.

There's lots of little takeaways in there. And, of course, all of that is available at the Stop It Goaltending U, the app. And when you subscribe to Stop It Goaltending U, the app, you also get a free subscription to InGoal Magazine and all of our content at ingoalmag.com.

Hutch, as our dad, as our parents, you've got a very timely conversation this week.

Yeah. I usually just pick up on questions that I'm either seeing or getting directly. If you do have any questions, send them to parents@InGoalMag.com, and we'll be happy to try and tackle them together here. One that has come up a number of times in the last couple of weeks, parents who are frustrated because they don't see their kid getting any goalie specific coaching on the ice. Of course, team practices are set up so much more for players than they are for goaltenders.

We all know that. So they ask the question, my child isn't getting any goalie coaching. Should I speak to the coach? Oh, that's a tough one. It's a it's a very common question, obviously, as we said at this time of year because people are settling into new teams, new situations.

Parents are, in many cases, have worked really hard to get their kids these opportunities with teams. They can be quite expensive at times. And, and then you watch the practice and maybe you're not seeing what you would like to see for your kids. And the problem seems to be getting worse even though Hockey Canada and USA Hockey and other national bodies are trying lots of things to to help and make more goalie coaching available. So I wanted to look at the question guys in a couple of different ways, if that's okay.

One is, how are you feeling as a parent compared to how your child feels and your influence on your child? First, from the perspective of your child. We want them to be resilient, and we want them to learn to control the controllables as we say. So please don't share your frustration with them. If they bring it up, that's one thing.

But we don't need to put our own personal anxiety onto our kids. They might be perfectly happy with what's happening. And and if they aren't, then then help them look at things maybe in a more positive way. What can they do about it? So a few suggestions that you as a parent or or your child could work on together.

Some things that I've said to goaltenders on the ice when I've been a goalie coach out there before. One common issue with practices, the reps are just coming too fast. Flow drills and it's shot, shot, shot, shot, shot, and all you're really doing as a goaltender is surviving. And I'll take a kid and I'll just say, look, there's no way you can handle every one of these perfectly. You know that.

I know that. Let's focus on every other shot doing your absolute best, whether it's follow a rebound, track a puck, whatever. If the other ones go in, let's not worry about it. Or or maybe there's certain players on the team that you know are a real challenge for you. When they come down, you're just gonna give it that little bit of extra attention.

Treat things in practice as much game like as you can. So even if the coach isn't asking you to follow every rebound if you can. Cover pucks even if they aren't coming in to jam that puck in underneath you. There's a lot of drills that start with a pass where you know it's going from a pass to a shooter who will then take a shot, and you'll see a lot of goalies kinda cheat that and just wait with the shooter. And sometimes that is survival because they're coming so quickly.

But if you can, follow that pass out. Treat it as as a game as best you can and that will help you become a better goaltender. Come up with some movement drills that your child can do on the ice before practice. Other kids are typically skating around, just sort of goofing around for the first five or ten minutes of practice. Encourage your child to just pick a little area over on the side and work through some of the skating drills perhaps that you've seen it in goalmag.com.

There's some great ones with Dustin Wolf, Devin Levi, Kristen Campbell, just to name a few. If they just picked one of those little drills and use them before practice, they will become a better goaltender. Don't tell them to go and complain to their coach, but you could give them a little guidance and maybe they make a suggestion to the coach at the right time. Like, hey, coach, do you think on that drill instead of all the players just shooting and peeling into the corner, could you ask them to follow their rebounds and try and jam them home? It's gonna keep me more honest, and it's probably what you want them to do in a game.

Right? That's not threatening. It's just a little suggestion, little request to the coach to make it better for you.

And the coach will look like a genius.

Yeah. Exactly. I'm I'm a big believer guys in finding ways to accept the things that upset other people, that happen to just be part of the game. And finding a way to make it a strength gives you a huge advantage over all the people out there who are frustrated. That's sort of what I'm encouraging that your goaltenders do in this case.

Now, from a parent perspective and and the more specific question that was asked, here's what I would say if somebody asked me and and they do. First, be very careful about talking to coaches. In my career, my son's career, if we can put that in quotes, I can only recall doing this once. And while it's true that my son was always lucky enough to have a goalie coach with him and his head coaches were super receptive to ideas, I promise you all that there have been days, even entire weeks that I've been sitting around upset with how things, were happening out there on the ice for for my kid. But I held them in.

I know it will probably do more harm than good. And teaching my kid resilience is important. And frankly, there might not be anything the coach can do if you do go and talk to them. So you know that old twenty four hour rule where you don't talk to the coach about what happened in a game until at least twenty four hours if you're feeling a bit upset? I think as goalie parents, that goes double and it applies to practices as well where we can often get even more upset.

So take some time, cool down, reflect. The second piece of that would be, can you be part of the solution? The ideas I mentioned for your child should come first. See what they can do, see how that goes. But maybe you could take the Hockey Canada course and learn how to become a goaltending coach and offer to help out.

Especially if you're with one of those teams that don't have a lot of support, recreational teams, house league teams for sure don't have enough volunteer support in so many cases. You could offer to see if you can help out a little bit and you can make a difference for your son, daughter and the other goaltender on the ice as well. Now, especially if you're in a situation where you're on a team where you're paying a lot for your kid to be there, It's a league where parents reasonably go in expecting something more than you get in your local minor hockey organization and there still isn't coaching. What do you do? In that case, I think it's fair to have a conversation, but could I encourage you to frame it positively and frame it as trying to help?

So something along the lines of, hey, coach, I get this is probably just as frustrating for you because I know you want to help all the kids, but I see all the players getting great instruction on the ice, but it's mostly restricted to the forwards and the defense. Is there anything we can do to help get the goalies a bit of position specific help? Is there any way I can help? I think if you put it that way, it's not an attack. It acknowledges as well that the coach may not be the issue.

And in fact, they probably aren't. In one of those larger organizations. Maybe the general manager is responsible for it. Maybe no budget has been given to the coach to hire some support. And yes, that's a problem, but it's not on the coach necessarily.

And that opens it up to be a conversation. If you attack them and tell them how upset you are about the situation, they're just going to push back and it's not going to help you. It's not going to help your kid, but make it a positive gentle nudge. And you know what they say? Sometimes the sticky wheel really does get the grease.

But please keep your frustrations to yourself at home. It's not gonna help if you tell your child that you're upset that they're not getting goalie coaching or ask them if they're upset that they're not getting goalie coaching. Just help them to be independent. Help them to deal with the situation that they've been given. It won't be the last time it happens for them and chances there's other goalies they're facing out there despite what you might even be told that are also in imperfect situations.

And if your child can make the best of it, they get this huge advantage over the kids who do have a goalie coach on the ice with them a lot. After all, Woody, wasn't it Ian Clark who said, you have to be your own best goalie coach?

It was.

Woody nods. Yeah. So those are my thoughts. It's imperfect. I know often there's a whole lot of money involved and you get super frustrated, but, I do think we need to frame things as positively as we can.

If anybody's got specific questions or specific comments, do hit me up parents at ingo mag dot com. Or if you've got a tough situation of your own, just wanna chat it through, please, send me a note and let me know.

That part about not cheating on a drill or playing it like a game situation, that's a great thought on the Yeah. The passes. The the pass happens every shot over, and you you try and play it like it's a game situation. You're not just waiting for that shot to come over on the left. You're tracking the puck across.

A 100% working on your skating skills. You know, look, the tough part for kids is when those reps are coming so fast, it's really hard and exhausting to do that. When you're a goalie coach on the ice, you can give them permission to maybe dog it on every other one, or you can let the coach know that they're working on something specific here and that means they won't make every save. But, if you can open up a positive conversation with coaches, then over time, you'll be able to share some of those thoughts too, I think.

All this positivity has my head ready to explode.

Believe me, buddy, I told you. I steam away at home too sometimes, but, it only works if catch more flies with honey, don't they say?

So you're do adopt some of this into your men's league warm up, Woody?

Not a chance. No? I appreciate it. It's all exceptional, but, it's pretty clear there's no goalie coaching in men's league. It's also pretty clear the guy's shooting on you in warm up.

It you can't those are things that are hard to change, Daren. I've accepted it, as Hutch would tell me. I've just accepted my fate, and I try and make the most of it. Although, I did almost go full out snap show last week when a guy showed up for the first time and decided to stick handle, stick handle, stick handle all the way No. Till about two or three feet in front of the net in warm ups and then four in a row by my ear.

Now keep in mind that I'm on my knees at this point, And from that range, off my ear is off the glass. Like, you're not hitting the net from their butts. You're just ripping it off the glass, but you're putting it close enough. And then he did it in a game, and he missed so bad. And I was just, like, skated to the bench.

I'm like, see? At least I knew he wasn't gonna hit the net from there, but he did that in warm ups. And guys were just like, oh, I probably would have broken a stick on him.

I do not suggest that parents have their kids do this, but I'll tell you what I did in beer league. If they rung them off my head more than once or if the guy came in and stick handled till one foot in front of me, I just skated out of the net. And the guy who was doing it, I'd be skating out of the net as he was getting a foot away before he could even take his shot. Like, if you're not gonna play this right, I'm not either. See you boys.

Warm up's over.

Yeah. I was You guys

wanna work on their breakaways. Yeah. You guys wanna work on their dekes, their moves.

But that's the thing. He wasn't even

right situation. Wasn't even deking.

He just kept stick handling in tight, and then he got to, like, two, three feet in front of the net and basically put it, like, off the top of the glass over the net right by my ear, like, four times in a row, and he couldn't quite understand why I was done with it.

And chances are it's the second shot of the warm up before you've even moved anywhere too. Right? So Oh. Come on, boys.

Yeah. Gotta have the rants, Daren. You gotta have the rants. See, I was all peace, love, zen after Hutch's brilliant parent segment. Now you got me all fired up.