283 Parents: Parent question – what to do when their child’s goalie coach is teaching “wrong” and undoing the work of previous coaches?

A dilemma that, has occurred at every level of hockey. That is the subject that our Stop It Goaltending U, the app parent segment this week. Stop It Goal Tending, one of our great partners this year.

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Okay. This week, guys, I took this one straight from the goalie parent Facebook group that I follow along with. And the question was, how do you deal with a team goalie coach that is undoing prior goalie coaching by teaching the wrong things? I do wanna say before I jump into this guys, I don't know the individual very well. I don't know much about the situation.

I didn't hop in and answer something on there because there's too many nuances involved. So anything I'm doing here or saying here is not directed at that individual. I would ask a lot of questions before I jumped in and answered this one. But in general

My first question is, how do you know they're doing the wrong thing?

Well, exactly. Right? I was gonna say there's there's so few absolutes in this game. There's so few things that if you got a group of goalie coaches and put them together in one room, they would all insist on your kid doing. So unless that kid's being asked to make a skate save or to never look at the puck when they catch it or something like that, I was really curious.

What do you call is wrong?

And, you know Whatever Woody's doing.

Yeah. Like there aren't many absolutes also because of the reads in the situation. Like think about last week's ProRead with Joseph Woll where he went into the RVH in a place so many coaches would say is an absolute, you must never do it. And yet he did have a reason for doing it there. So the first thing I'd say is I would really encourage a discussion that is framed more in terms of making the assumption that you don't completely get what the coach is asking and then trying to learn from their perspective.

I think you're gonna have an easier discussion with them if you approach it that way. And keep in mind again what we hear from so many NHL goalies that it's about tools in the toolbox. Like give it a go, try what they want. I think even Eric Comrie in that last interview talked about it. And if it doesn't work for you and you've really tried it, well then we get to a discussion about how you can talk about it.

But but first, I would also say to parents that if there's going to be some level of discussion with a goalie coach around this, I would encourage you to help your child take responsibility for that. This is not the time to call a parent meeting to tell the goalie coach that you think there's a problem here. Taking the time to help your child learn to handle these things on their own is so important, and it's gonna be essential as they get older in the game. It's gonna be essential away from the rink as you handle other situations in life. And if your child is nervous or they're unsure about it, then role play it with them.

This is a big deal for them. I really do believe that. So taking the time to work at their approach and to help them learn how they'll deal with this discussion, that's a skill you're going to help them with. It's going to help them in life way after they're making stick saves or dealing with puck tracking or whatever. So what would you say?

I would say something like, I just want to make sure I understand what you're asking me to do here because in the past, I've had some coaches ask me to do it another way. Were they looking at things in a different way? Or maybe you could explain to me the advantage of why you're asking me to do it a little bit differently. I'd try to be looking at it from different angles. And if I still really felt like I'm in the right here, still approach it from that maybe I don't completely understand perspective and see what you can learn in a discussion.

It's less threatening. It's not going to have the coach with their backup wanting to argue with you. They're gonna see that you're just trying to learn from them as well and and maybe even include that idea. But when you say something like, hey, coach, I I really do think it's important for me to try new things and I've been working at doing it your way over the last little while in practice, but I'm still struggling with it. Can we talk about this a little bit, please?

And and maybe you even talk specifics, in in what it is that you're trying to do and and that's okay as well. But it is about relationships with you and the coach as well. I think I need to say that. And, but if you present it the right way, you might find that you're more or less on the same page or maybe you're gonna learn something from the coach when you have a good discussion about it rather than a come in saying you're wrong about this. We need to do it a little bit differently.

And you know what else I've seen happen before, guys? When you have those proper discussions, the coach might learn something from you as well. I've certainly learned things from all sorts of different athletes I've worked with. Your relationship with the coach is so, so important that it needs to be in the right place. So you need to preserve it in how you're having this discussion.

You also need to recognize, is it in the right place to even be jumping into this? Because just like a coach needs to earn your respect, you need to earn their respect before you go in questioning what it is that they're doing. Have you been that kid who really digs deep, tries everything, puts their head down and works? Then you're gonna have more respect from the coach and more opportunity to questions. So is it the right time to even be going at this?

But please, please, please don't just jump into it and say, coach, that's not right. Or my other goalie coach says I have to do it this way. Or at my goalie camp this summer, they taught me. That's just setting up an adversarial relationship and not that partnership that you want with your coach. Imagine for a second that you were teaching something and your student didn't didn't agree with you.

How would you want them to bring it up with you? Try and do it that way. I was on the ice with an NHL goalie a couple of summers ago and he wanted to discuss every suggestion that came his way. I actually like to do it this way. Can you explain to me what you mean by this?

It was literally every suggestion it came up with. But you know what? He's in the National Hockey League. He's earned that opportunity to have that discussion. He was still open to talking about it, which was fantastic.

But a younger goalie is not in that same position. So you got to be careful you're not going to harm that relationship if you question everything or you question too often or you don't approach it in more of a shared relationship way. The reality, as we've said, is there's so many different ways to play this position. There's so many different variations on a situation. So be open to other things and learn from other coaches as best you can.

Give it a go or find some time at home to practice what's going be that best approach with the coach.

Put in the work. You don't have to use it in every game, but put in the work. Because we always we all learn something, trying something different or new.

Yeah. I mean, look, even if the coach is telling you to stand up in the post and not use the RVH, what another coach has asked you to do. Try it. See what happens. You might learn why you like the RVH.

You might learn that maybe there's a situation that his technique actually does work for you. I think it would be a very rare coach that would be teaching everything completely wrong and say it's my way or the highway. If if if that really is the case, well, reach out parents@ingoalmag.com and I'd be happy to talk your specific situation through.

Trying to think of Woody.

Well, know what?

On the back

of the net.

Well well, me. I mean, anything I do is wrong. But you know who I had this conversation with recently was Joonas Korpisalo. Because there's a guy who went from Columbus starting with Ian Clark to Manny Legace to LA with Bill Ranford to Ottawa with Justin Peters and now in Boston with Sergei Bobrovsky in a matter of what? Like, the last three teams are all within, like, a year and a half.

Lot of different voices, lot of different ideas. We had a long chat about sort of how to manage different coaches and different voices. And much like our Vasilevskiy chat earlier, not enough to be a feature interview, but I think I'll I think I'll see if it's it was just in the locker room with voices in the background, but I see if we can package that, maybe include that because I think it would be a be a good part, a good answer to that parent segment to hear an NHL guy talking about all the different things, that he's added to his game and his approach. Tools in the toolbox was how he put it. Mhmm.

Always be willing to add them.

That would reminds me, as you mentioned, Bill Ranford, the segment we published out of the Hockey Shop's day, where Bill Ranford was talking about the net play system for the LA Kings, and he had my son Matthew demonstrating. And they had a discussion beforehand as as Bill was teaching the system to Matty. And and Matthew just said to him, hey, Bill, like, I think this is really awesome, but my goalie coach in Vancouver wants me to do something a little bit different in this position. And it wasn't an argument. It was a discussion.

And Bill came back at him and said, that's fine. Do it his way. But here's what you can pick up from my system that maybe you can add to what he's asking you to do. Really great way of doing things.

And I think it's a great conversation on the on on the Facebook group. I I think it's really a great question.

And Korpisalo integrates elements of Bill's

There you go.

Play thing. Yeah. And still uses part of it, but has blended it with some more new things that he got from Sergei Bobrovsky. So it's really it's fascinating.