289 Parents: The Top 5 Annoyances of Goalie Parents
The audio segment published here takes you directly to the Parent Segment from this episode.
- Head-high shots during warm-ups rattle goalies' confidence and risk injury — but parents should also recognize players are still developing shot control at younger ages.
- The absence of dedicated goalie coaching at team practices is driving some young goalies away from the sport, forcing families into costly private training to compensate.
- Blame directed at goalies from teammates and parents after goals creates a damaging environment that contributes to kids quitting hockey.
- Unnecessary roughness after the whistle and last-minute starting decisions are systemic issues the goalie parent community wants coaches and leagues to address.
- The Goalie Parents Canada Facebook Group is an active community resource where parents share experiences and advocate for better youth goalie development conditions.
In our Parents Segment, presented by the Stop It Goaltending U app, we summarize the Top 5 Annoyances of Goalie Parents as shared on the Facebook Group Goalie Parents Canada.
We also share our thoughts on the importance of addressing a few of these that are easy to fix – because they driving some kids to leave our sport.
- Head-high shots in warm-ups
- Lack of goalie coaching at practices
- Blame from teammates and parents
- Unnecessary roughness after the whistle
- Last-minute starting goalie decisions
Summary
Top 5 Annoyances of Goalie Parents
As goalie parents, we know that watching our kids between the pipes comes with unique challenges. We asked the community to share their biggest frustrations, via the Goalie Parents Canada Group – and here are the top five complaints:
1. Head-high shots in warm-ups
Warm-ups are supposed to prepare the goalie for the game, not rattle their confidence—or worse, injure them. Yet, too often, players treat warm-up as a shooting contest, firing head-high slap shots instead of helping their goalie get ready.
Agreed!
I do think we need room for players to shoot to score as I said last week but I think as parents we also need to consider our criticism here. I remember my son telling me the shot he feared the most at U15 was from a teammate even though he wa practicing with a Junior A team. When I asked why he said “because I don’t know where it’s going and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t either!”
The thing is you have to get up to a pretty decent level before the kids have complete control over their shots – if that ever happens. And while we can encourage them to be careful we do need to understand that they are still learning – and buy a good helmet!
2. Lack of goalie coaching at practices
One of the biggest frustrations is the lack of dedicated goalie coaching during team practices. Many goalies are left to fend for themselves, acting as little more than targets while their teammates work on drills. This often forces families to seek out private training, adding extra costs and time commitments.
This one came up a lot and the sad thing was the comments about kids not liking the game anymore and not wanting to play. We’ve said it a million times here – we need more people who can support our goalies. I spoke to one association recently where it is mandatory for one coach per team to have taken the hockey canada course and I know they aren’t alone. That’s a start.
Especially if you have a younger goalie please consider taking the course yourself and volunteering. More on this later as I have another coaching your kid segment teed up.
3. Blame from teammates and parents
It’s a team game, but goalies often bear the brunt of the blame after a loss. Whether it’s teammates pointing fingers in the locker room or parents in the stands saying, “My kid would have stopped that,” the pressure on young goalies can be overwhelming.
100% the pressure and the blame on a goalie can be brutal. I’m preaching to the choir here but we need to be better.
4. Unnecessary roughness after the whistle
Few things frustrate goalie parents more than watching players repeatedly jab at their child after the puck is covered, with referees letting it slide. Not only is it unnecessary, but it can also lead to injuries and bad habits that go unaddressed.
Yup it’s tough and I did a segment on this already but…as parents we need to lead here and try to teach our kids not to be upset by it – because it’s not going to get better- watch a junior or pro game. I agree we need to protect the youngest – but we also need to help them cope with a situation that is unlikely to change.
5. Last-minute starting goalie decisions
Confidence and preparation are key for goalies, but some coaches don’t announce who’s starting until just before game time. Finding out in the dressing room—or worse, right before stepping on the ice—adds unnecessary stress and prevents goalies from mentally preparing for the game.
This one is frustrating too. First off in minor hockey I don’t get it. They should be splitting evenly so having a plan is quite simple. This simply should not be an issue.
I know of one NHL team who has a plan a full month in advance. That’s the gold standard.
But again…teach your kids to always be ready. But you know I don’t think this is really an issue of having time to mentally prepare. You can learn to be ready…but can you imagine taking your 12-year old to the rink on the weekend and they don’t know if they get to play? That’s why we join hockey – to play the games! Come on coaches – sort this out.
At the end of the day, we all want kids to love being a goalie. It’s an incredible position that builds resilience, leadership, and mental toughness—but it should also be fun! Unfortunately, challenges like unsafe warm-ups, lack of coaching, unfair blame, unnecessary roughness, and last-minute lineup decisions are making it harder for goalies to enjoy the game. When these frustrations pile up, some kids start questioning whether they want to stay in net at all. If we want to attract and keep more young goalies, we need to address these issues, create a more supportive environment, and remind everyone—players, coaches, and parents—that goalies aren’t just targets. They’re a vital part of the game, and they deserve the same respect, preparation, and development as everyone else on the ice.
This segment is from InGoal Radio Episode 289 with Washington Capitals goalie and Vezina Trophy candidate Logan Thompson
Episode Transcript
Parent segment sponsored by Stop It Goaltending U, the app. Top five annoyances for goalie parents. We'll get into that. But first, message from our friend to Stop It Goaltending.
Stop It Goaltending U. The app is the best place for you to develop your game online tool, whether you wanna do a minute a day with their daily primers, five minutes heading into the weekend. They've got drills. They've got tips. They've got video breakdowns of NHL goalies that you can learn from.
They've got a little bit of everything. All twenty five years of their experience led by Brian Daccord, who's coached at the National Hockey League level, been a director at the National Hockey League level, whose son Joey, we just mentioned, plays in the National Hockey League, coach lots of National Hockey Leaguers, all the that experience, him, his coaching staff, everything rolled in this to the Stop It Goaltending U app. And, of course, the best part, well, in our minds, we're biased. The best part of the Stop It Goaltending U app, every subscription comes with a free subscription to InGoal Magazine premium, so you get the both best of both worlds. In the goaltending world, all the information we provide weekly with all the information they provide weekly, whether it's a deep dive or a quick hit each day to to gradually improve, you become a better goaltending through the Stop It Goaltending U app.
Impressive. You kept the top five annoyances for goalie parents to five.
Well, I could have gone further, but, I sort of tried to summarize, what people have put together. We we talked about one of these and then I put it out to a Facebook parent group and I said, tell me your annoyances as goalie parents. There were over 200 comments posted by goalie parents about this and then just tried to summarize it into the top ones. This is not a scientific poll. Somebody actually asked me why I wasn't conducting a poll, and the answer was I wanted to hear what everybody had to say and not just sort of stack my reasons.
But I do want to acknowledge that last week I said, I gave you guys some homework and we were gonna come back with some more stuff on warm ups, but this one had been left for a couple of weeks. And I feel like I owe it to the parents to come back to this one, and we will get back to warm ups in the next week or two. So top five annoyances from goalie parents. As I said, some of these probably fit for, you two guys in recreational hockey because the number one that came up was head high shots in warm up. And along with that, people, parents feel that the warm up is about preparing the goalie for the game, not rattling their confidence or maybe even injuring them.
But too often, players treat warm up as a shooting contest firing head high slap shots instead of helping their goalie get ready. We did address this in a previous segment a little bit. I do agree and understand that this is frustrating for parents. I mentioned that I think we do need to have room for the players to be able to shoot to score, as I said last week. But, you know, the other thing I think we have to consider here, guys, and this also applies to your beer league buddies, I remember my son telling me one time, I think he was in U15.
He told me that the guy who shot he feared the most was actually on his team despite the fact that he was practicing quite regularly at the Junior A level. And I asked him why, and he said, because I don't know where it's going, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't know where it's going either. And, I think the thing is you gotta get to a pretty decent level of hockey before kids have control over those shots if it ever happens. And, and I think while we can encourage kids to be careful during the warm up, I think we need to understand that they're still learning too. So we need to invest in a good helmet for our kids.
K. Number two, lack of goalie coaching at practices. Probably close to being number one here. One of the biggest frustrations of parents was the lack of dedicated goalie coaching during team practices. Many of the goalies are left to fend for themselves acting as little more than targets while their teammates work on drills.
This often forces families to seek out private coaching and, of course, that adds more costs and more time. This one came up a lot as I said. And the thing that was sad about it guys was that what came along with it a lot was about their their kids not liking the game anymore, not wanting to go to the rink, not wanting to play. And, we said it here a million times before that we need more people who can support our goalies. I spoke to one association recently, and they told me it's actually mandatory for one coach on every team, to have the Hockey Canada course if they wanna be coaching.
That's the goaltending course. So so I think that's really nice. It's a start. But I would say, especially if you have a younger goalie, please consider taking that course or the USA hockey course yourself and volunteering to help out. I'm gonna have more on that in a segment that I prepared on coaching your own child that'll be in the next few weeks as well.
K. Third one, guys, was blame from teammates and other parents. It's a team game, but goalies often hear the brunt of the blame after a loss. Parents feel that whether it might be the teammates pointing the finger in the locker room or other parents in the stands saying my kid would have stopped that, The pressure on young goalies can be overwhelming. I agree with you a 100%.
The pressure and blame on a goalie can be brutal. It's one of the toughest position in sport as a youngster, especially. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but we need to be better.
Just a note on that. Yes. Parents are more sensitive to that than the actual goaltender.
I disagree. Yeah. I disagree. I I I think maybe in terms of that individual game, but I think it's that death by a thousand cuts builds up over time, puts those questions in the back of your mind during a game.
Goalie goalies take it upon themselves. They they they know when they've screwed up, and maybe they can feel a little bit of the eyes flare.
So don't so don't pile on. So don't pile on. You know?
But parents parents definitely feel a little bit.
Alright. I'm sure we see we see things differently. We definitely do. But but look, we're trying to make the game more fun, so let's make it a little easier for the goalies out there. Number four came up in today's show.
I know it happens in beer league too. Unnecessary roughness after the whistle. See few things seem to frustrate the goalie parents more than watching players repeatedly jabbing at their stick or their pad or whatever after the puck is covered. Woody talked about guys coming into the crease and and the referees let it slide too much despite the worries parents have about injury potential. I might suggest, Daren, that I think this is when the parents feel more even than the goalies feel, because they get really upset when they see somebody jabbing at the kid's glove or whatever.
And I did do a segment on this already, but I think as parents, we need to lead here and try and teach our kids not to get upset by this. They will reflect your feelings if you're too, vocal about it. It's not gonna get better. If you watch a junior game, if you heard us talk about the NHL game today, you know it just keeps happening all the way up. And I do agree with the especially with the younger kids, we need to protect them, but we need to help them learn to cope with a situation that is not gonna change, Woody.
All the way to beer league. I have a broken finger from somebody who thought that, they had the right to that puck that was already long since under my glove.
And that's the NHL influence. Because the puck goes to the goalie. They they're taught to whack until the whistle goes.
100%. Yeah. It's tough. And then the last one, number five, was last minute starting decisions on who's gonna be playing that game. Parents tell me, they think that con confidence in preparation is really important for the their goaltenders and too many coaches are announcing who's starting a game in some cases until after the warm up even, guys.
Kids are finding
out That's silly.
Yeah. That's crazy. But here's why I think it's crazy. Because we're talking about minor hockey here. They should be sharing the net.
They should be having equal number of starts. So I don't get why you can't come up with a schedule. It just doesn't make any sense to me at all. Guys, I know of one NHL team who knows a month in advance which goalie is playing which game. They have a plan in place for a full month.
So I am sure a minor hockey organization could figure this out. Come on coaches, you gotta do better. But, you know, I don't think this is really so much an issue of having time to mentally prepare. I mean, you've gotta be ready to come into a game mid game if something happens, whether it's an injury or a pull. You can learn to be ready.
But guys, can you imagine taking your 12 year old to the rink after they spent all week excited about the game coming up, the game they love to play, and they don't even know if they're gonna get to play that week? You just have to arrive at the rink and maybe you get to play, maybe you get to sit on the bench. Find out when you get there. That what talk about a rug pull.
But guys, can you imagine taking your 12 year old to the rink after they spent all week excited about the game coming up, the game they love to play, and they don't even know if they're gonna get to play that week? You just have to arrive at the rink and maybe you get to play, maybe you get to sit on the bench. Find out when you get there. That what talk about a rug pull.
Well, Steve Thompson told us in our bronze level course, there are other sports that see what we do to goalies in that exact regard and the phrase they use is abuse.
100%. So coaches, sort that one out. That is dead easy to sort out. At the end of the day, we want our kids to love being goalies. It's an incredible position that builds resilience, leadership, mental toughness, but it should also be fun.
when this all adds up, some kids start questioning whether they want to stay in net at all. If we want to attract and keep more young goalies, we need to address these issues. We need to create a more supportive environment and remind everyone from players to coaches to parents that goalies aren't just targets. They're a vital part of the game, and we all deserve the same respect, preparation, and development as everybody else on the ice.
And unfortunately, challenges like all of these we've been talking about that parents have identified for us are making it harder for goalies to enjoy playing the game. And when this all adds up, some kids start questioning whether they want to stay in net at all. If we want to attract and keep more young goalies, we need to address these issues. We need to create a more supportive environment and remind everyone from players to coaches to parents that goalies aren't just targets. They're a vital part of the game, and we all deserve the same respect, preparation, and development as everybody else on the ice.
Well said, Hutch. I I I think I got something for you for this one when you post it. I think I found video of Jacob Markstrom's warm up. We're talking about him earlier where it was a new shooter. And as he gets after he does the blocker and the glove, he's tapping his head, like, shoot it up at my head.
We've talked about this before. Like Markstrom
as active. Well. Yep. Nice.
Goaltenders would like as much notice as possible when they're gonna play. Parents, the goalie, the child, obviously. If if the coach wants to leave it to give himself enough flexibility for whatever reason, I'm not I don't agree with it, but they they wanna leave it to a last possible moment. What's what's an appropriate time? Is it two days?
Is it the last practice before, a game?
I think that's very common. Either the last practice before or the day before when you get to the junior hockey level. But again, it shouldn't be an issue because they're kids. Right. It should be easy to do.
No. It should.
It You know, this is a parent This isn't this isn't how to coach NCAA in junior hockey where I know things are a little bit different. Yeah. I I don't understand. I don't understand why you
need I got good news for for everybody, though. What's that? When you do get to the recreational level You know. You know. You know who's starting every game, and it's really good news because there's only one of you.
Well, maybe not for my teammates, but yes.
Yeah. Going back to the parent side of this because so often I hear people say you have to have two goalies on a team because what if one gets hurt? Many times have you guys played recreational hockey and not being able to have a game finish because the other goalie got hurt?
I was gonna take a different route and go imagine if if recreational leagues decided we we wanna have two goalies.
Oh, I quit
I Who's put signing up for that?
You can't even find one half the time. I can play every single night if I answer.
That's actually a great perspective.
Hey. Nobody's signing up for that. So
So good.
To to back up on on your 08:00 game.
Yeah. Hey. Can you come out at 09:45? We need a backup goaltender. 09:45 on a Tuesday night.
We really need you. We really need you. Please come out and play. Yeah. Yeah.
We need somebody to sit on the bench and and open the door.
Or or even not that. Hey, can you please come out at 09:45? We'll tell you when you get there if you're gonna play.
Yeah. Yeah. That's that's the best. Yeah. That's it's insane.
It's nuts.
I'm pretty sure where where the decision would lie. I don't need somebody to slip me a note.
I love that you put it in adult context. I think all the coaches should consider if they were playing recklessly, what would they want?
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