288 Parents: A discussion about minor hockey warm ups and getting your goalie and team prepared with limited time

Was told. More homework coming up, with the parent segment, brought to you by Stop It Goaltending U, the app. We'll get into our assignment after the latest from our friends over at Stop It Goaltending U, the app.

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Last week, guys, I introduced the idea of getting a baseball glove for your young goalie. And when I did that, I mentioned I was working on a piece looking at the top annoyances of goalie parents. I put it out to the goalie parents Canada group on Facebook and got a flood of comments. And it's gonna take me a while to work through all

of them to finish that piece up. But today, I thought I would specifically address, a comment, a suggestion from a reader on there, Andrew, and I don't have your permission to share your whole name, so I won't, but you know who you are. He suggested that we publish a good warm up for minor hockey goalies. And, you know, my my first reaction to that was, well, we've got lots of warm ups over at InGoal. We've got shooting warm ups, skating warm ups, NHL goaltenders, lots of content.

But of course, Andrew pointed out that most minor hockey teams get all of three to five minutes to warm up on the ice. And of course, that makes sense because ice is expensive. It's in short supply. A lot of parents would have concurred because many of the comments on Facebook were around the idea of the warm up and what's happening out there. So I thought we have a bit of a different life guys, at least in terms of spectating.

We spend most of our times with leagues that get a good fifteen minutes of solid warm up time on the ice and then a flood before the game even happens. We live in a different world except for you guys with your beer league games. But, gentlemen, today we are going to do part one. There will be some homework for all three of us before we do part two next week. But today I'd like to put a homework part.

Yeah. Today I just want to put it out to you. What are your thoughts? If you guys were a coach, what would you suggest that your team do for a warm up to get your players and your goalies ready? You've got three to five minutes of ice time before the whistle goes.

Millard, you can start. You're back in Brandon, Manitoba coaching the U 13 Wheat Kings. What are you gonna do?

So you got five minutes. There's not a lot of time, so I'm doing two drills. I would get my goaltender, the starting goaltender on the far side, the glass side, not the bench side, against the boards between the blue line and the red line and just work on his hands and and squeezing pucks in the belly. Just one shooter there, and everybody else can twirl around and shoot

Don't waste net time with the simple stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. The guys guys are getting their their crossbars and off the glass and all that kind of stuff. And then I'm doing one drill of three lines, right, center, and left, and players just skating into shots, and the goalie has to stop that shot or read the the flow, get a feel for that, and then he push over or shuffle over to the middle and then the left and and then go all the way across. So there's there's some some foot movement in, and both goaltenders would take part in that.

And that there's your there's your five minutes.

Goes fast.

Goes fast. Alright,

thank you. Really appreciate that. I like the idea of the side. I hadn't actually thought of that one. Makes better better use of your ice.

But you gotta pick the side where there's the glass because

Yeah, you're not shooting it into the bench.

Yeah, tipped up and hits your assistant coach. Yeah. Yeah.

For sure. And you probably get a little bit of footwork done there too. Right. Yeah. Okay.

Woody? What do you think? First first off,

I love Daren using the sideboards because we've seen that a lot. I think people think that NHL goalies have perfect situations where they're always in the net. We've seen a lot of NHL goalies and goalie coaches using the sideboards. And published. Part of their morning skate and published a lot of sort of that work as well.

I'm gonna cheat. I'm gonna go with what I watched the Edmonton Oilers do this week, which is instead of starting with the static shooting, you know, just sitting on your knees and, upright taking shots from the middle of the ice, which a lot of teams start their warm up with, they were in a bit of a tighter schedule. They wanted to incorporate everyone into the flow drills of a morning skate faster, so they only had a few minutes. And so they start with a series of shooters in different places on the ice, and the goalies move around into different shots. And we'll actually publish this.

I've got some thoughts on it from both Stuart Skinner and Dustin Wolf, the goalie coach. We should be able to get this up, you know, somewhat quick. I've I I'm working on it today. Can you

say that a whole again? I'm just trying to get a picture in my mind.

Well, basically, it's basically shooting drills, but they're moving into each shot. It's just like combining crease movement patterns with shooting, and you've got shooters. And so there's just a and there's a series of different movements. They have more time. They'll add some post work, little bumps into the post, and then out into the shots.

It all depends on how much time. But it gets the goalies moving, and it gets the goalies eyes and hands, and it gets a a small group of shooters a chance to let the puck go and make passes and shoot. And the rest, to your point, Daren, I do think if you want everyone and you got 20 kids and whatever, they can't all be involved in the goalie station. You've still got another side of the ice where those guys can be doing something a little more active, and then they get into their morning skate, but it gives everybody an opportunity. Like I said, not wasting any time with static shooting.

Everybody's sort of moving. It's not super crazy dynamic. It's not fancy. It's simple crease movement patterns into shots, but essentially, the game is largely just movement into shots. Movement shot, movement shot, just a series of those, and it's a little more dynamic than what we've seen elsewhere in the NHL.

The goalies like it. They feel like they're not wasting any time. They're getting into the things that matter to them, And the shooters that are part of the drill seem engaged enough, and the guy the rest that want a little more dynamic activity for their shooting and their skating are at the other end of the rink getting it.

Love it. Love that we could have an article up that will help answer this question and bring a pro perspective for the parents. And that Daren also referenced something that we'd published before as well in terms of working along the board. So that's gonna be good. I'm gonna add in a few of my thoughts.

I've had a little bit more time to think about this, although I did put the question out to you guys at roughly the same time, as as I started thinking about it.

K. I'm disappointed in that because I I thought it sounded like, Woody and I came up with some pretty good ideas on the fly. No. You did. You just ruined it.

Oh, I see. Might as well it might it might as well have been the fly because I was I think I was covering an NHL game when they when this was posited to us less than twelve hours ago.

Yeah. But you had an hour drive home to think about it even though you're half asleep. Here's the thing, I said you've got three to five, minutes of ice, but I would like to expand that because this is for goalie parents and what they can do. The fact is that I'm not. I'm just expanding the question a little bit here.

Your warm up begins before you go on the ice and I think that's something that we need to acknowledge guys. That's the place to start and we do have some dynamic warm up articles over at ingoalmag.com that people can look at if you don't know what to do, off the ice. A lot of teams have an off ice warm up but your kid might be of the age where that's not very structured within your team and I would encourage you to to help them work on some things off the ice before they go. I would fit in a visual warm up off the ice and I think, if we haven't published one with Josh Tucker, we really should. A way of warming up your eyes before you go on the ice.

Super important. Something you can do. I would suggest that some of the stuff that you do with the basic tracking and hands that you wanted to start, on the ice, Daren, we don't all get the luxury of that much time to do it. So maybe there's a way we can do some of that off the ice. Like the thing is goalies often, especially in minor hockey, come in cold halfway through a game, and they haven't had any of those easy shots to to warm up.

And maybe we don't need to make that part of our habit. Maybe we could find a way around that. It's also one of the values of goalie splitting games when they're younger because they learn that ability to come into a game partway through without having those basic hand and gut warm ups. And, and the fact is that having routines as a young goaltender sometimes makes it harder on you because you don't always get to fit into that routine as we've talked about with NHL guys who have big long routines. We've all been to tournaments where suddenly that warm up gets cut short because something with

Yeah.

Scheduling has changed things. So don't have your kid too reliant on that. Of course, gentlemen, NHL Sense Arena fixes this too because you can get those basic hand warm ups done before you even go on the ice. You can have as much ice time as you want. You can have NHL level ice time if your coach gives you the luxury of having a bit of time before you go out there to work on NHL Sense Arena.

If you want something a little bit more affordable, there's some deliberate ball drills that you can do. Again, I mentioned Josh Tucker. He's got some great stuff working with reaction balls because too many goalie warm ups, you know, they're just knocking the ball off the wall, but it's just kind of a mindless pattern that doesn't really impact them too much other than just routine. So reaction balls are a good way to warm up off the ice before you get out there. After that, here's what I'm gonna say.

I love that you guys came up with some specific situations. I love that you came up with some specific drills, but I would like to reinforce the parents, it's actually okay for the players to try and score. I mean, that's what's happening in the game. Too many parents get tied up in, why aren't you shooting it in my kid's pads? Why aren't you shooting into his hands so he can learn to feel the puck?

The players need to try and score because that's what happens during a game and that's okay. I would say I like Daren's idea of it starting with a little bit of distance in the beginning. I think that's really important. And if I could add in my own pet peeve about warm ups and maybe we could even have a top five annoyances about warm up, article probably guys. I hate when the players just coast in.

This is a big beer league thing. They coast in at about half speed until they're two feet in front of you and then they suddenly just rip one between your pads. You're not going to take him out in a warm up in practice. So make them realistic, whatever those shooting drills are. So that's sort of my things that I want to throw out there.

It's okay to score, begin your warm up off the ice as best you can, Don't become too too reliant on on the routine. And if you can have that mindset that you can fit into just about anything, coming in cold partway through a game, I think you're gonna be better off in the long run. Homework. InGoal Magazine, of course, is about pros, and we've already mentioned a couple of the pro things that we can bring to this question, but we do need some professional opinions on this. So your homework, get out your Rolodex, get out your contacts on your iPhone, or just stop by somebody at the rink this week, and I I need you each to get one opinion from somebody in the pro game of what they would do with three to five minutes of ice time to warm up.

It would be interesting. Would be like in thirty minutes.

Perfect. It would be interesting if it was somebody for whom this is a challenge because they don't normally work with minor hockey kids. It'd be interesting to hear what they say. So if you wanna get her up hanger, that'd be great. Woody, you gotta get it from somebody.

I will do the same thing.

I think my drill with shorty just handled this. Alright. Okay. I'm done. See?

Nope.

You're not allowed to cheat. You're not allowed to cheat.

Yeah. You gotta talk to somebody.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I I don't like talking to people. I don't know if you guys have noticed that.

I know. But you this is homework.

Yeah. Woody hates talking.

I hate homework even more.

We're gonna have at least

three ideas from pros for next week in our segment, warming up for minor hockey.

One more question. Goalie Howe, Hatrick, we need, I need to come up with the T shirt.

The one more question T shirt would be good.

Where are you guys on breakaways and warm up? Hasek used to do it all the time.

Lundqvist did it to help get his flow to help channel his flow.

Yeah. Yeah. I think my kid, yeah, I think my kid finishes all his warm ups that way with specific players they really enjoy doing it with. You don't have a lot of time in minor hockey.

I I have no problem with a couple breakaways at the end of it, but the Hutch's point, like and I think you can open the car doors and give them a scoot shoot to score mandate a 100%, but you have to dictate where it's coming from if you want it to actually be a progressive warm up even in a short period of time. As soon as you let those kids walk into the bottom of the hash marks, you know, leaning on a stick, loading up, no pressure, no nothing. Now it's not realistic for them.

Oh, that's what I'm saying.

Doing anything for your tracking system. It's all about where you position them, and that's that's part of this Oilers thing. Yeah. There's movement. There's die and it's dynamic, and they can shoot to score.

They're not trying to hit it in the goalie's chest all the time, but it's from a distance that it gives the goalie the opportunity to track the puck.

Here's one for you. I was part of a new skate. They've been going forever, but it was my first time out with these guys on Saturday morning. Great group of guys. And their their rule is no BS.

If if you cause any BS at all, you're out. So it's and there's no referee, and it it's it's early morning and you're done. It it was so much fun.

So but the question is, is the goalie complaining about stupidity BS, or do they recognize that that that BS is different to us than it is to everyone else?

It's it's it's definitely different for us.

Recognize that?

Yeah. They they they do. So they did actually did a warm up. I was like, woah. We get to going up.

So they did the half moon. I haven't done the half moon forever, but it was great because I knew that we were going to have this conversation today. So I was thinking, oh, the half moon. Here we go. Wouldn't you know it? Towards the end of going right to left of the half moon, two guys shoot at the same time.

From opposite sides.

And no. No. They're right beside each other, but two pucks coming at the same time. And I was I was laughing so hard. And, fortunately, no.

I didn't get hurt. It it didn't affect anybody. Even even in the half moon, I'd never seen it before in the half moon where two guys shoot at the same time.

Well, well, at least they were side by side, which makes it less likely. But the worst part of the half moon is when the guy assumes you're coming over to his side and you're still over on the far side and he shoots it and you're not looking

really wants to beat you.

Yeah. Like, I'm gonna get it before he gets across. I don't know if it was half moon. I think it was probably something else, but Curtis Sanford, now the goalie coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, once took a shot off the side of the mask in warm ups when he wasn't looking. He was facing another direction, and somebody ripped one that hit him in the ear hole of the mask and pushed enough force into the ear to rupture the eardrum.

Oh, wow.

So it's all fun it's all fun and games till somebody loses their hearing temporarily.

That's that's nasty. I I was spared anything like that. Let's go to Vizual Edge ProReads. Devon Levi is our subject that's going to, entertain us and educate us, this week as, we pay tribute to our friends over at Vizual Edge and, commend them on what they've been able to do.

Yeah. We talk about warm ups and warming up the eyes. Vizual Edge will help you train your eyes as well as the cognitive side of the game. It's an online training tool. You get a set of red and blue glasses, kinda like the ones you get when you go see a 3D movie except a lot nicer version of it.

You log in to your computer. You do a test that identifies your strength and weaknesses visually and then addresses them with a series of drills that you can go through on a daily basis, kinda like Stop It Goaltending. You don't have to dig in and spend hours at a time. Just a quick twenty minute routine every day that will help improve how you see the puck, which, of course, makes them a perfect sponsor for ProReads because it's all about NHL goalies helping you improve how you see the game. Vizual Edge will allow you to see the puck, and our ProReads will help you see where it's headed, anticipate where it's going next, help you see the game better.

And this week, we've got Devon Levi, freshly minted American Hockey League all star, who's dropped in, did a little video session with us talking about paddle down, low high plays, when to get up and hold your edges. And it was interesting because his decision on the paddle down, I think probably a lot of people watched the the the save or the screenshots and thought, I'm not sure a paddle down is good here. It's taking him perhaps delaying him getting up to an option a passing option in front in front of the net. And yet when he explains it, there's a very specific reason he did it to eliminate other passing options. So, again, that's what ProReads is all about.

It's about sort of taking a look at plays and understanding the thought process of the best in the game. And I thought this was a great example of it because where some people might have critiqued that decision, once he explained it, it made a ton of sense and ultimately simplified the save decision process for him.

Paddle down. It's been around longer than we thought.

It has. Well, a lot longer.

It's something that's sort of we talked about Darcy Kuemper. Darcy Kuemper used a lot of, sort of projected paddle down. Like, he's he's assertive with it, and he's got those long arms so he doesn't have to sort of lean and get out of his ability to move on top of it, but Darcy uses it a lot. I was talking to some other goaltenders about scrambles in front of the net and how you manage that because inevitably, it's when you move as a goaltender from your knees that you break your seal to go left or right, and that's when pucks can funnel through you, which you never want. So guys practicing.

We had a drill with Robbie Tallas years ago. Stanley Cup winning goaltending coach Robbie Tallas years ago from Kelowna where he was teaching guys to butterfly push side to side with paddle down to protect that area that they ultimately expose by lifting a knee to make that push. So, not every goalie likes it, but there are some guys that use it. And I had this conversation with Stuart Skinner the other day because for him as a narrow butterfly guy, there's more moving parts to those side to sides and scrambles, but he's not a guy that likes to use paddle down. So very important for him to be quick and precise with those subtle pushes.

So it it it it's fascinating. But I do think increasingly in specific situations, we're seeing goalies use it again.

A lot of people believe Hasek was the guy that brought us that. Further. Way, way back further. Right? Further.

I I might have sent it to educated us on this.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I sent you something somebody put out on Twitter. I feel bad. I can't remember who it was, but it was an image of I think it was Terry Sawchuk, using paddle down.

And is that a comment from Johnny Bauer perhaps that he he used it a lot because there were so many low shots and you're dealing with traffic, even back in the day, and it just helped seal everything up while he could stay in a position that he could look around things. I don't think people would play it that way today, but, but as you said, it goes way back further than we expect. I remember it being such a Felix Potvin was one of the guys I loved when I was younger, sort of early nineties doing doing that so much. And I remember cutting my stick differently because I'd read that, Dominic Hasek actually cut his stick a little bit differently, shaved some off the paddle so that when he put it down, it would, would keep some of the shaft on the ice better. Of course, there's also the old Curtis Curve.

Remember the the Curtis Joseph stick? Was it, was it Christian that did that? Where they had the curved shaft so that Andy Moog used that. Yeah. That's right.

That too. That had the shaft that would would, it wasn't straight. Was curved so that it could lay flat along the ice while you were actually holding your

your fister out that was bent was for paddle down?

That was my understanding.

You guys have opened up

Why else would you do it?

Gigantic can of worms. I thought it was We're gonna get emails from people that are selling versions of these sticks now non stop.

I thought it was for puck handling. And what was my other oh, poke check. I thought it might be easier to to poke jack because you could get firmer

If you start something for one reason, people inevitably find other reasons for doing

right. It it would get the the handle down on the ice perfectly.

That was my understanding of it. Here we go.

I don't think that I should be the one to break this tie because you guys are talking about a generation of goaltending with which I'm not familiar as the young guy in this conversation.

Oh my goodness. You're two months younger than me. Or maybe more.

Okay. Just late to goaltending. Let's put it that way. I wasn't involved when the when the Curtis curve I didn't pay much attention when the Curtis curve was popular, but I'm gonna go touch on this one. My understanding was always that it was a paddle down thing.

I did not know that. And I had one.

Well, clearly, you weren't using it. Right?

To this day, Hasek would tape the knob of a stick differently so he could get the handle down on the ice.

Yeah. So what I tried that might have been his technique was tape the knob, and then it took an exacto knife and cut off the bottom part of that tape job. And I think I'd read that he did that, so I tried it. It was it was effective. It wasn't Curtis curve effective, but it was effective.

I Would use a Curtis curve now.

But Wasn't there a breakage issue with something? Like, why didn't it stick?

I don't know. But I I stop a lot with the handle on my stick, so I'm not sure I need to change the angle of it because it it comes in pretty handy.

There's no reason now with the technology of of carbon fiber sticks that they couldn't make one that would last.

Yeah. I don't know whether there's a break thing.

Oh, I would I

some breakage issues because they were so light Christian goalie sticks.

I would think that having to layer the carbon and have it not like, I I would think that the curve itself would cost you some rigidity in the layering of the carbon and and perhaps expose it to maybe more breakage issues. Just off the top of my head. I'm not sure.

Aerospace, Woody. Here we go.