290 Parents: Coaching Your Own Child: Some Thoughts on your Evolving Relationship

Don't judge. The parent segment brought to you by Stop It Goaltending U, the app. All kinds of advice in this area of our podcast. What's happening over at Stop It Goaltending U?

We always tell you about Stop It Goaltending U, the app, and how they have fresh content every week, and they divide it into three unique segments. There is the daily primers, quick hits, one minute videos. This this week right now, we're towards the end of it here, they focused on creating consistency. So five quick one minute videos you can watch every morning to help you become a more consistent goaltender. Their quick video, their five minute video for the week, Kelly Hogarth from Merrimack going over overlap.

How to use it? When to use it? Technical, tactical, and then their full goalie system breakdown, their twenty minute breakdown is an RVH comparison. How different goalies at different levels and then up to the National Hockey League, including video demonstrating it, use and execute their reverse VH or RVH. So just another great example of how Stop It Goaltending U, the app, gives you new content weekly, and you can digest it in small bits daily or deep dive and go back through the archives and basically lose a whole weekend trying to become a better goaltender.

There's twenty five years of goalie coaching experience built into this app, and you could probably spend twenty five years going through it all. But I love the way they do it for daily quick hits. You can digest it at your speed when you need it. It'll help you become a better goaltender much like ingoalmag.com. InGoal premium will help you become a better goaltender.

And when you buy a subscription to Stop It Goaltending U, the app, you get a subscription to InGoalmag premium, the best of both in the goalie world combined through your membership, through your subscription to Stop It Goaltending U, the app.

I become a big overlap guy. I just love it.

Where were you all my life?

Yeah. Yeah. And it took me a long time to really figure out how to use it properly instead of just sliding over more. But it's given me confidence in certain place to slide through.

Okay. So what place are you using overlap, Daren? Let's have it. Let's dig in.

I use it as almost a replacement for the RVH.

On dead angles.

Yeah. Yeah. On that side. I try not to

Both sides or just or do you like it more on one side than the other?

I definitely use it more on the glove side, but I consciously try to encourage myself to get into it on on the on the blocker.

Interesting. I I find myself tending into it more on the glove side too. I wonder if there's a

I don't Probably It might be a lack of confidence in my glove. To be to be quite honest. Like, that might be totally it.

It's totally fair. They call me Dan Blackburn out there because it's like I have two blockers on, so that would apply for me too, buddy.

I wanna use two sticks and two blockers.

See if I can That would be fun.

We have dominant Edward Scissor hands.

We have dominant legs just like we have dominant hands, so it would make sense that you would feel more comfortable going into RVH on one side versus the other and hence why you might choose overlap on maybe the opposite side. Just a crazy thought.

I hadn't thought of that. Nice. I've only got one leg that works. I'm pretty sure that's my dominant leg. There

you go.

What's happening with the parent segment?

Well, I've had a few questions again about, being a goalie coach to your child. And, look, maybe it was just because of the USA hockey, symposium or at least the coaching course and having taken the Canadian one. And then these questions about being a coach and parent and, not to get too philosophical, but into my head pop the phrase goaltending is a metaphor for life. Or at least the way the coach athlete relationship evolves kind of mirrors the journey of a parent and a child in in any quick case in life. So first I want to say, if you are considering coaching, even if you just want to volunteer because your child is new to the game, I would like to encourage everybody to take that step.

You don't have to have played the game yourself. Just as we all began parenting without any experience boys, you can begin coaching the same way. You learn, you adapt, you grow with your child, and of course, we end up with this cool experience and bond with our kids that we wouldn't trade for anything. There are lots of great resources available. As I was mentioning, having taken that Hockey Canada, course and then having taken the USA hockey course, what stands out in both cases is that there were a lot of parents taking the class along with us and wanting to be able to help out their kids.

And I think that's a great role of that program. We were also, as I said, all new parents one time and made some mistakes and we learned and we raised our kids that we're proud of regardless. And I think coaching can be that same kind of journey for you. In the early years when your kids are just taking their first strides on the ice, you're, I would argue, the most influential person in their development as a goalie, obviously, as you are as a parent with a young child. But as they grow, your role has to evolve.

And being a goalie parent and coach means finding the right balance. You've got to support their growth without overshadowing their independence. Personally, I think I've said it on here before, I didn't ever wanna jeopardize my relationship as a parent with my child. So I probably pushed less than others might have. And there were times I know my kid got frustrated that I wasn't more hands on and I let him work out some things on his own.

Another theme that popped into that USA hockey coaching course was not dictating too much to the kids out there. So maybe I was doing something right. But looking back, I think what I did made him a better goalie. He became independent. He did value coach feedback, but he also really liked working on his own and and still does.

If I'd been that overbearing taskmaster trying to control every bit of his development or every bit of every drill, he wouldn't turn out to be as self sufficient and confident, as he is today. So parents, don't stress about pushing too hard out there. Your role as a goalie coach is gonna last for a couple of years, but your role as a parent is gonna last for a lifetime. Some of us have the experience to remain as a coach for a lot of years, or maybe we choose to continue longer because we commit to that learning and development along with our child. And it's totally possible.

Lots of great coaches have climbed the ranks without much of a goaltending background. On the other hand, maybe you just might choose to help out for a few years, in which case that's fantastic as well. However, however long you choose to go, that parent coach relationship faces a transition at some point. Just like we prepare our kids to go off to school and learn from experienced teachers, we also have to prepare for them to learn from other coaches. That moment comes at different times for everybody, as I said.

Maybe it's just a few seasons for that volunteer parent at the u eight level or later on maybe as a teenager for us that came at, the u 18 level. It was admittedly hard for me to make that change, not unlike dropping our kid off at school for the first time. It came earlier than maybe I'd hoped, but at the same time, I was really excited for my kid to have that new experience of working with a different team coach. You know, throughout their childhood as parents, guys, we work to expose our kids to all sorts of different experiences. Take them to skating lessons, they go to preschool, maybe dance classes.

There's all sorts of different social and skill development opportunities. And those are not all about just giving parents a break. They're there because we want to help our children develop skills and develop independence. And parenting, of course, is about preparing our kids to leave the nest and thrive. Maybe not easy for us, but it is a sign of parental success when they do that.

And I think that applies to goaltending as well. From an early age, I made my sure my son worked with all sorts of different goalie coaches. He was exposed to different perspectives. He learned about himself as a goaltender from other people. Playing other sports also played a role in shaping that development.

And all of it built a strong foundation so that when the time came, he was ready to move forward on his own. As he grew older, for us working together, that relationship evolved. I didn't have all the answers as he got much better and learned a lot of things from a lot of other people. Other people taught him things I couldn't. But we worked together, we discussed ideas, we learned from each other, and it was a pretty cool experience.

If I'd tried to control too much of as he was growing up or worse, if I'd been his only coach, I think he would have missed out on a lot of those invaluable learning opportunities. No matter how well he may have played at the time, he wouldn't have been prepared to stand on his own going forward. So now he's out of the nest. He works really well with his team goalie coach. He thrives when he's training on his own.

We still talk about goaltending, but now he leads those conversations. And I think that makes him a stronger goalie and a stronger person. But all of it was built on the foundation of the years we spent together on the ice and that relationship we nurtured along the way. So for those of you who are navigating the balance of being both a coach and a parent, I hope those thoughts maybe offer a little bit of perspective. And for those of you who are hesitant to coach your young child, I would encourage you to give it a try.

The unfortunate reality right now is that without you, your kid might not get the support that they need because we know goalie coaching is in short supply. More importantly though, coaching is gonna give you that unique opportunity to build a bond with your son or daughter that's gonna last a lifetime.

Just to jump in on this. I get to watch through being in Vegas. Sean Burke, the director of goaltending for the Golden Knights, not only work with the National Hockey League, but his son Hudson, 11 years old, is a aspiring goaltender. And I've talked to to to Berkey about this because he he's on the ice with with Hudson all

the time.

And Sean's goal is for him to have fun and explore the position. He teaches him a couple of fundamentals, but then allows him to have room to try different things and and isn't turning him into a robot or a blocker or this save selection at 11. It and this is a guy at the highest level of of our our game and and coaching platform in Sean. And I I think that's an amazing lesson that that all of us can take when when we're talking to our goaltenders and not having them so structured.

I'd be interested to have a conversation with Sean and ask him if that philosophy or or if that relationship evolved based on experience. Because, of course, his son Brendan was a goaltender as well. Yeah. And did he take a different approach with Brendan, or did he just learn that something worked well?

I think it was very similar.

I I I agree. I think it sounds like the most healthy way. And as you remember from that USA hockey coaching course, having that ability for goaltenders to figure things out on their own while still learning the fundamentals is really, really important. So if I had it to do all over again, I'd I'd I like to think I did it similarly, but if I had it to do all over again, would certainly wanna take that approach. I do think that goalie coaches get a bad rap for creating robotic goaltenders and too much technique because there are so many other sports where we drill technique into kids from a young age.

And and I don't think that you're quite right. I don't mean you, Daren, but people are quite right when they they jump too much on goalie coaches creating robotic goaltenders. But that's just a just one of those little bugbears, but I'm not gonna get onto my woody high horse here.

Well, no. Interestingly enough, I've seen the same with Ian Clark And his son Blake, who plays locally here in Vancouver for for an academy and and was drafted by WHL team, you know, up until a certain age, just left him to his own devices, was there supportive, worked with other goalie coaches, just didn't try and over structure thing. And and I think it's a matter of sort of knowing when the ages are where you start to add certain things. And I I would encourage anybody that wants to get involved. And we saw this on the USA hockey call.

There were parents on there. Right? It's just a matter of giving yourself a little bit education. So in situations where your kid doesn't have an advocate on the ice, doesn't have anyone to make sure they're not just a target for twenty minutes and standing there freezing cold for the next twenty, to take that course or course like it. You know, we have one in here in Canada as well.

First level course that just to help make sure you're bringing something to the table. Not to, you know, pat our own backs as well, but if you're looking for drills and ideas like, you know, InGoalmag premium's got lots. You know, we just had one last week, on the premium subscription site with the Edmonton Oilers, and it was just a very simple warm up drill to sort of help the kids get moving. And there was no, this is how you should make the save. It was just, you know, a a series of movements that that gets them ready for a game that you could use at any level in terms of, hey, guy here.

We're moving. We're moving our feet. We're getting our hands active. You know, those types of things. There are things we see at the NHL level that aren't about refined technical applications that can just be about going and competing and playing.

Heck, what do we see when the PWHL came into town? Some saw them play in rebound. Right? Like, as a game that just, you know, gets the competitive instincts going as well. So there's lots of different ways to do it, and there's lots of resources out there, including us, to sort of find, you know, new or different elements or just to give you some support in that journey as a parent who wants to add a little goalie coaching to the to the resume and repertoire.

Glad you stood up for the goalie coaches, Hutch, because you're right. They do. They they get they get a bad rap. And for for being too structured. And it's it's not fair because they're doing a great job, and we we need more of them.

And balance balance that out was was great.

Thank you. I watch a tennis player from a young age learning this is how you hit a forehand. You watch a baseball player learning the correct footwork as they're going to pick up a grounder. I mean, the the basics, the fundamentals are really important, and jumping on goalie coaches for teaching those fundamentals is is unfortunate. I think one of the things they addressed in that USA hockey course is that we can't have too many drills that are too predictable.

You know, if you're learning to hit a forehand in tennis, not every ball arrives in exactly the same place. Although there's a lot of repetitive work in it, of course, but we do have to create some unstructured ways for our kids to work. But, I I don't I've not been on the ice with many coaches that are prescribing this is exactly how you must make a glove save and turning them into robots. And I haven't been on the ice with a coach who creates blocking goaltenders. I don't think we've seen that for a very long time, or maybe I'm just lucky with my experience.

I think there's a lot of great coaches out there, and you have to teach those fundamentals so that when they stop thinking or when they're playing in the way we want them to, which is to not be thinking out there, then they have that foundation to rely on. And I think a lot of great coaches out there are doing that now.

Woody, why were you laughing?

Because I'll I'll play devil's advocate. I'm not naming names, but I have seen coaches who are getting paid a lot at a really high level, at the minor level, absolutely turn kids inside out by doing a lot of things that, right down to how you hold your glove and and things like that. So, there are there there's two sides of every coin, and it's not painting them all with the same brush, but I I've definitely I've heck, I've seen goalie coaches turn junior kids inside out with overcoaching. So it's it's there's not a one size fits all approach. There are more than not that are doing exceptional things.

It's just a matter of finding them.

What I think turns kids inside out is an unfortunate habit of a lot of goaltending coaches and perhaps other sports as well, is every single shot that goes in finding a reason that it went in. And I know it's trying to be helpful, but it creates this overthinking environment. If only you'd done this, if only you'd done that, there you should have done this. And the the two problems with that is that, one, as I said, it makes you overthink, and two, it creates no focus in any practice. I I think it's in this week's feature interview, in fact, we hear, Cam Talbot talking about going out into practice with just a couple of focuses for that day.

And a lot of young coaches, especially, feeling they have to help all the time, end up creating this practice where the kid's thinking in a thousand different directions and overthinking every single thing they do.