InGoal Radio Episode 297 Matt Weninger, WHL Goalie Coach and Goalie Manager for Hockey Alberta.

Intro

That's the music. Gets in your head. When you listen every week, you hear that music, it's like, Pavlov's dog. You gotta start getting excited about Goaltending. You're making big windmill saves.

Daren Millard along with the cofounders of InGoal Magazine, David Hutchison, Kevin Woodley. Don't don't you feel that way when you hear

the beep beep beep beep? Well, I mean, I'm pretty much just a drooling mess on most mornings, so I'm kinda like Pavlov's dog a lot of time.

The only Pavlov dog for Woody is he hears the goal horn in his head all the time.

Oh, that's not very

the other thing.

And all a sudden, my my neck gets sore from the sunburn. Right?

So, yeah, that's the one I used to get teased about.

I gotta tell you this story. I'm part of a new skate twice a month on Sunday mornings. And it's a it's a great group of guys, but one of them brings their kid to to the skate. It's 7AM on Sunday mornings, and so it's it's a good opportunity, I guess, for his father son, bonding. But the kid likes to work the microphone during the the the game and plays the goal horn in the timekeeper box.

So we're playing this this pickup scrimmage, 7AM on Sunday morning, and he sounds like goal horn every time a puck goes in. And then he's doing the announcing, like, the white team goal.

That's awesome.

Dark team goal. And and and he's just making up names, and he's just screaming it. But after, like, you let it in three in a row, like, can can somebody

get junior to to go for a pop something? That's Kid's kidding.

Pavlov's dog. That's exactly what I what I

Daren's by 07:30, Daren's curled up in his net in the fetal position while the goal horn goes off over and over again. Yes.

You know what they do, though? The and and I've always thought that this should be the case. Either you get one of those old volleyball scorecards where you flip it with the

Oh, believe me. I know all about the volleyball flippers.

Yes. Yes. So so you either get that on the ice for your pickup games to five, or this this skate, they actually use the score the kid uses the scoreboard. So he he puts up the the goals. So there's no debate on, I thought we were up four three with that you get inevitably

Does he do shots on goal and drive you crazy for getting them wrong?

Oh, I keep track of those myself.

Attaboy, Daren. Attaboy. You know what you need to do? Find out if he's got a brother or sister, hire them to come in and track shots so at least you get good numbers out of it. The volleyball flipper is actually a pretty good idea.

Yes. There's two two things about the volleyball flipper. A, it's the only thing I'm allowed to do as a volunteer parent at my daughter's volleyball games because I'm not smart enough to keep score at this level. It's quite a complicated system, and I'm not bright enough to figure it out. And I haven't been allowed to do the lines ever since I asked a coach if he wanted to step outside a couple of years ago.

Volleyball score Complicated complicated system? Have you ever done subs on a volleyball score sheet, and you have to track the rotation?

Oh, I thought you were just talking about the rookie on the

You said keep score. I'm like, Woody, ball hits the ground, the other team gets a point.

I know. I know. The the referee points in which direction you flip on that side. No. The actual score sheet is actually quite like it's like rocket science for somebody as stupid as me.

So all I'm allowed to do is the flipper. And and, Daren, that brings us to another point. We absolutely need that flipper at my Monday and Fridays. How many times have you been the goalie? And you're in, like, your I'll be honest, an hour and a half skate.

You're in your third game best of five. Yeah. You're gassed because these guys are half your age and twice as good as you. Maybe I'm speaking from personal experience here a little too much. And maybe by the end of an hour and a half skate, we're into the fourth game because I suck.

But at the end of the day and they turn to you and they go, what's the

score? Score.

And you're just like, dude, like, I can I'm basically concentrating on making sure my next breath comes out of my lungs and my heart continues to beat. What do you mean what's the score? I lost count of how many goals I gave up forty five minutes ago. Let's go. Come on.

Should be a pickup skate portable score system like the flipper.

Daren, you're giving it away too soon. You could be making dozens of dollars when you take this to the shark

It's for the love of the game. I just wanna make the game better, Hutch. It's it's not about the money.

Somebody's idea, grab it out there, call it the Millard scorekeeping system.

And I was with you, Hutch. I I thought Woody was having trouble figuring out how to keep score in in How

to how to flip? Like Okay. Listen, guys. Low bar is pretty low, but it's not that low.

Since they went to the rally system, it's like, okay.

Volleyball Yeah. It's pretty tough. Pretty tough to know who gets a point.

How's the goalie guide coming along? The the goalie school guide.

Oh, man. It's been so great having a couple of days having launched. Just like we said last time, we we wanted to make life really easy and for everybody out there, so we confused them with two different versions. We have an online searchable directory that's got something like a 156 coaches in there all over North America, and there might even be one or two outside North America. Great opportunity for you to go have a look, see where you might wanna do some training this summer, meet a new coach.

You can even message them directly in the online directory. And then this week, we also published the or last week, I guess it is now, we published the, guide to goalie schools and coaches, which is a magazine style flipbook that you can also read on the InGoal site, and it's got in addition to those 150 plus coaches, it's got a bunch of great original content that Woody has put together, including an exclusive cover story with one Marc Andre Fleury. So you can find some great stuff in there, some, Kristen Campbell from the PWHL. We got a little Carey Price in there. We've got, all sorts of great content for you to dive into and read and beautifully designed.

And, just a a super opportunity for you to, again, check out some of the different coaches around around North America. And, as we've said before, great opportunity to train with somebody new this summer. And sorry, burying the lead Hutch here because I'm not the professional writer that Kevin Woodley is. The online guide, the guide has a chance for you to win a CCM custom mask. All you have to do is flip through, find the CCM ad, click on it, and you'll get the form to enter the giveaway.

It's very simple to do. You can enter every day if you would like, one entry per day. And on April 15, we're gonna randomly pull one name, and that person will get the opportunity to have a custom CCM mask. That three d printed liner molded to your face. There's one little asterisk to it in that you need to be able to get to an authorized CCM retailer so that you can be fitted for this.

If you live a little too far afield to do that or you don't wanna make the trip to do it, then we can substitute one of the off the shelf masks. Or if you have a youngster that you'd like the mask for and they don't fit the custom sizes, then you can also get a youth mask instead. But chance for a free mask if you just get in there, go find the CCM ad in the guide. Please check out a bunch of our partner coaches who were in there and click on a few of them in the online directory and ask for some information about their summer programming. Lots more coaches still coming in by the way too.

So if you're not part of it yet, send us a note. Coaches@InGoalmag.com.

I'm flipping through right now.

I was just saying that's a good point. The coaches that missed out on the first opportunity, it's too late to get into the the magazine style. That's obviously laid out magazine style, so you can't just add pages to it. But the online directory is already becoming an invaluable resources for goalie and goalie parents as it was intended. We're gonna expand the searchability of it as we go here, and you can still get in on that at any level, whether it's just a free listing because we wanna make sure it's as inclusive as possible, or whether you want a little more profile and you wanna boost where you appear in the listing, add some logos, add some ads, whatever it is.

The online directory options remain open for coaches that want to get involved in that. I'm willing to bet by this time next year, there's very few that don't.

There's Eli Wilson's school, Summerland, BC. I didn't know he was in Summerland, BC as well as Edmonton and Toronto.

Sure is every summer. Great place to

You know what else is in there, Daren, as you flip through there? There's an ad for our featured guest this week or at least linked to it. Hockey Alberta and the program they're running, Matt Weninger, goalie coach and the Moose Jaw Warriors in the Western Hockey League. Through this program, this guide, and Matt reaching out to us, we have entered a partnership with Hockey Alberta. And I gotta say, and we get into this a little in the future interview, a bit of a mea culpa.

I've been pretty critical of Hockey Canada compared to The US as we've gone through The US programs and all the resources and the way they're trying to develop goaltenders. And I will give myself credit because I've always added the caveat. There are great people doing great things in Canada, and I think we've discovered one with Matt Weninger and what Hockey Alberta is doing. The program they are running at a provincial level is you know, frankly, echoes a lot of what we'd like to see at a national level. So we had a chance to sit down with Matt and get into some of the keys of that, why it's been successful, and what they're trying to do.

That'll be in this week's feature interview prevented by Sense Arena. Presented rather than prevented.

Yeah. They did they're not preventing any interviews. They are goal,

so it just kinda comes to mind.

Yeah. No. But just just so everybody knows, our sponsors cannot tell us who we do or do not interview. They're not preventing people from coming on the show.

Walk me through Sorry. Lining the the the goalie mask and being able to be in the eligibility side of of getting the CCM custom mask.

Was I clear as mud as always?

So simple that even Kevin Woodley who can't keep score at a volleyball game can actually find the ad, click on the mask, and enter to win it. Although he is not eligible. Just find the ad. There's a QR code. If you wanna scan it, you can do it on your phone, or just click on the ad.

It'll take you to the entry form, and you can win, as Hutch said, a CCM AXIS pro mask custom if you can get to a location where they can do the fitting. And if not, we'll we'll just find the size that fits you closest thing and get you one of those or, as Hutch mentioned, junior masks as well.

So you go to ingoalmag.com?

Yep. Right at the very top of ingoalmag.com, you'll see this blue band. And on it, there are links to both the online directory and the the guide. There's also a story on the front page of InGoal mag that links to it. But, yeah, a couple places at the cover of InGoal, you can get to the guide.

That's this is the magazine style version and flip through until you find the CCM ad. It's really easy to find. It's a giant white mask And then click and you will get your entry.

I'm scrolling. I'm scrolling.

You can't win either, Daren. Sorry, buddy.

You you can't tell me whether who can and cannot win.

Can you enter away to your heart's content, Daren?

There's actually all sorts of regulations for the giveaway listed on the entry form. And Oh. And I don't think it's I don't think it says Daren Millard can't apply, but I maybe I can update that today.

This is outstanding.

I'm gonna update that so people can have a little fun. Go check out the rules and regulations.

I found it.

And by the time you listen to this, it's gonna say no Daren Millard entries, please.

I found it. But this the I I was in the online version, and now I'm in the magazine format. It's beautiful. Well done, you guys.

Thank

you. I'm not just saying that because you're my boss. This is really well done.

Credit to John, our designer, John Hodis, who's where's John? Phoenix these days?

Not met John

at John. It's this wonderful online world we live in, and John is and has been a professional designer for many, many years and worked with us over a decade ago, and we brought him back. And and great to partner with John because he's one of the few people that can work with Woody and I, which means last minute, middle of the night requests for changes.

I didn't realize that

He does it with a smile.

That if we had

staff meeting, there was there's people other than the three of us.

We've been meeting behind your back, Daren. Sorry.

That hurts.

Yeah. If you'd like to help with the layout, buddy, be happy to bring you into the next meeting.

Well, we didn't wanna be interrupted by the goal horn going off all the time.

The Hockey Shop, a Source for Sports Langley, thehockeyshop.com brings you InGoal Radio Podcast every week. We've got our Gear Segment coming up, and this is fun. I got a sneak peek at what you and Cam performed with the CCM eFlex 7 customizer, which is now live.

Yeah. And we'll get into that in the gear segment because not only is c CCM eFlex 7 got a lot of great new features, but the customizer at all three levels, total custom pro, total custom, and for the seven point nine second price point, you can now have custom options. The customizers for all three are all new. They're beautiful, much like our goalie school guide. They really pop off the page with bright, vibrant graphics.

Cam's gonna explain that in the segment, but it's just kind of the tip of the iceberg. The EFlex 7 is in store at the Hockey Shop, and every time we're in there of late, there are boxes being brought out for the back from the back, opened up, and new gear going on. It is that time of year. New chest protectors and pants from Warrior, new sticks from multiple companies, new gear launches from multiple companies. Brian's got one coming up.

We got the new Bauer line coming up. It is the most exciting time of year to be a goalie. I know we've talked in the past about how other brands are launching at different times of the year, so there's a constant flow of new equipment. But the spring is when a bunch comes in at once, and so exciting times there. And, of course, as excited as we are for EFlex 7 and the customizer, as excited as we are for all those new launches, because they're such a big store, because they have so much buying power, because they have so much inventory, that usually means the previous generation of that model is gonna go on sale soon.

So make sure you keep your eyes out if it's not on sale already to clear space on the shelves. Keep your eyes out for those sale prices. I saw a bunch of 30% off stickers tagged on pads while we're in there last, so make sure you check them out at the hockeyshop.com, not just for the latest and the greatest, including the EFlex 7 customizer launch, but also for all the stuff that's going on sale to clear room for it as we get ready for a huge spring and summer of new goalie gear.

Get your thoughts on the customizer and what you guys have been able to do playing around with it. But first, let's go over to The Hockey Shop Source for Sports Langley, thehockeyshop.com, your source for goaltending. Here is Cam and Woody.

Gear

Welcome back to The Hockey Shop Source for Sports. I'm InGoal Utopia with Cam Matwiv. We're not sitting down today. We're standing up at the computer because guess what? The EFlex 7 Customizer has launched.

EFlex 7. Yes. They've got it in store. You can check it out online. The Customizer is live and much like a lot of the pad and the glove and some of the improvements, the customizer is all new as well.

That's correct.

Cam, we're gonna get into some of the tech inspect a little later on as we get a chance to sort of break it down and check it out ourselves on the ice, but we wanna go through the customizer today and give you some of the new options and new features.

Let's start with the pads. Looking at the actual physical customizer itself, you now see their new graphic.

Very sharp.

Very slick graphics.

Yes. There is some

[crosstalk] this is a big improvement. Oh, sliding zone. CGT. CGT. Ah, this is where we get into one of the new features.

Cross glide technology. They've got a new sliding surface. They've done all the testing. We'll get into that in our full review, but the numbers come back. This material slides better both on brand new ice and on beat up ice, the kind of stuff we go to endure.

Maybe not in the NHL, but at every other level. Cross glide technology, all new in the EFlex 7. And more colors on the inside there.

More colors and just bottom line, it's it's better than Speedscape.

Alright. Color going. Alright. Go to the glove. I love the look on the new customizer.

Big improvement. Some new things

that we are gonna see. Some that we can talk about, some we can't. Big highlight so far. 580 is gonna be the stock glove, and there's finger stuff. Very ease of closure out of the box.

Some more additional options here. Stock, they are adding an extra inch of depth to the pocket as well. So a nice little added feature. You can obviously go to the NHL legal options.

Because the plus one's not legal?

Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And, you see those cross form or you can get a traditional wrist strap. So far from what we've seen, some of the pro palm gloves have been extremely easy to close out of the box, so we've been really happy with that.

I was gonna say we'll get into a full review on this with all the details, but at the end of the day, this is the best closing glove since they made the major changes at CCM. The closure as Cam said is so good that they've ordered all Pro Palm stock and right out of the box that they have no problems with. So last but not least, certainly when it comes to CCM is the block. Block. Again, just I love the way it pops on this customizer.

Speed skin. Fact? Oh. Similar suspects that we've seen in the past. No necessarily

changes. No big changes

on Exactly. Exactly. Don't fix it. Exactly. Exactly.

Folks, we've given you the quick nitty gritty breakdown on some of the changes. We're gonna dig into that a little more as we get a chance to get the pads on the ice more, try them out, give you some of the feedback on it. Check out the customizer because all the options are listed there. It's exciting new look for the customizer for CCM. They went to great lengths to sort of improve the customizer experience for you with this new EFlex 7 launch in part because there's a lot of excitement around the evolution of the product itself.

They extended that to the customizer. Have fun. Don't lose an entire weekend. Remember to mix in a water. Yes.

Check it out.

That's the customizer. It's it's kinda strange. Usually, you do the the equipment first, the gear first, and then the customizer, but this is kinda flipped a little bit.

Well, honestly, it's been the way a lot of companies have done it, and it here's the thing. I find it a little frustrating at times.

I think it's too frustrating. Wow.

Yeah. Kel. They do this quite a bit. But as soon as the customizer launches, you can place an order. So you can go customize your gear, CCM eFlex 7 at the customizers, which are launched now, and finalize an order and and place it through Cam and the Hockey Shop.

But a lot of times, they're not allowed to talk about or at least publicly talk about, including us, a lot of the features on the new gear, which seems silly because the features are what sells it. The beauty of the way CCM has done this is their full 2025 goalie customizer catalog is linked from the customizer. So we can give you some Cole's notes here. And I should say, make sure you go to the YouTube page this week because that audio tease that we just did is a much abbreviated version of the full segment and obviously will show off the customizer on the YouTube page. We've also got an article up at ingoalmag.com that walks you through it as well as some of the highlights, and they include a new sliding surface.

Cross Glide Technology CGT. It's smooth to the touch. It's clearly a different material. They've done a bunch of testing on it. We haven't had a chance to test it out much, but they've done a bunch of, like, lab and on ice and science backed numbers to understand that it slides better on both fresh ice and chopped up ice compared to Speed Skin, which was good on one, not necessarily on the other.

Cross Glide Technology CGT. It's it's smooth to the touch. It's clearly a different material. They've done a bunch of testing on it. We haven't had a chance to test it out much, but they've done a bunch of, like, lab and on ice and science backed numbers to understand that it slides better on both fresh ice and chopped up ice compared to Speed Skin, which was good on one, not necessarily on the other.

So they've made the change away from Speed Skin on the inner edge. You can still get Speed Skin on other if you like the texture of it and like the durability of it on the face of the pad, but on an inside edge, it'll be cross glide technology. So that's one big improvement in the CCM eFlex seven. There are other parts of the pad. There's a new QMSS calf wrap system version 3.0.

I like the improvements on. The glove though, 580, not 581. Finger stalls are back. It's been reengineered, redesigned. They knew they had some closure issues that the glove took longer than people would like to break in, that it didn't just snap open and closed on the shelves the way, you know, retailers would like, and they fixed it with this new EFlex 7 glove.

So it's a 580. It feels a lot more like a traditional five eighty on your hand. Opens and closes. It opens and closes so well that Cam and the Hockey Shop ordered Pro Palms, and they're still snapping like butter when you're in the store out of the box. We had one our our website has a video of a quick open and close out of the box of a new glove.

So much improved there. Can't wait to sort of go for the full review and tell you all about the line, in in the near future here as we do our full deep dive. But a lot of those details and a lot of the different ordering options are all available if you download or take a look at the PDF guide for their 2025 goal of gear, which is available linked up the customizer page.

Well, Woody just threw in a little jargon there that not everybody will be familiar with unless you've been listening for a long time. The ProPalm CCM gloves come in three different palms. You've got the Game Ready, which is the the lightest protection, easiest closure, the ProPalm, and then there's the practice glove, which unless you're playing pro or maybe top level college or junior, it's unlikely you would ever order the practice glove because it's very, very difficult to close but very protective. The pro palm in the middle of the range, still great for a game, still great for practice, and that's that's what the hockey because it tends to close a little tougher than game ready in in previous years. A lot of retailers haven't ordered the Pro Palm.

It's only been for custom, but as Woody said, Hockey Shop ordered the Pro Palm.

It just closes that much better overall as a glove. And to Hutch's point, not to complicate matters further, but depending on which level of customization you want, if you get into Total Custom Pro, which is basically all the options the NHLers have, you can select those three different stages and then a couple of them with or without d three o. So if you want the impact absorbent d three o foam as a part of your palm at either Game Ready or Pro Palm level, you can, or you can order a traditional build, which is just extra layers of felt to provide the extra protection. So you have a choice there.

Why why would you not do D30?

That's kinda how I feel, but it's a it's an extra layer in there. And so sometimes in with some of the past models, it hasn't closed quite as well. Oh. But everything I'm seeing on this one, that's not an issue. I should say some people maybe felt that.

I I never had an issue. I always I always went for the D30 myself.

So the people

But I'm soft. I like protection.

Without being able to know everything about it or see it firsthand, you've got the customizer live. People that would order that would be fans of the EFlex line. Like, they've used

And there are lot of them. It's the most popular line. And, you know, it's funny.

So it makes sense that that people would automatically go, okay. I want this.

This is what I want. That certainly happens. And if you wanna check it out, go to the store. It's it's the it's they have it on on on the racket at the hockey shop in person.

On the YouTube clip that I saw, who threw the pad into you?

Hutch, it was a pretty good toss.

It was.

Not bad.

At first, I thought it was an edit. I was sort of watching and doing something else, and then this pad appeared. And I thought, did they just do an edit? And so I rewound it, and here comes this pad flying in.

No credit to the catch.

We like to have a little fun.

It's the first rebound I haven't spilt in years. That was one take, Daren.

Really? Woody was game ready

right there. Oh, yeah. I was game I was

game We only ever do one take. Let's be honest.

Yeah. Because if I had stumbled and dropped it and knocked coffee all over the computer we were using for the customizer, we definitely would have left that in.

And, on the YouTube, the version, they've got all kinds of colors that are popping up that you guys put side by side with your presentation. And there there's some cool colors that I didn't even think about putting on a pad.

Well, you can go wide with the colors.

Yeah. Cam's a little color blind. He went he went a little full. It was almost like Tim Thomas when he was with Dallas, but still in Florida gear, kinda one of his concoctions that he drafted up there. I will say this in with a nod towards constant improvement and much like the gloves, that not all experiments work and going back to the finger stalls in the EFlex 7 or not all, I should say not all innovations work for everyone because I actually kind of like the last generation too.

The one little thing on the customizer that they're working to add is when you highlight a zone, like right now you go through zone to zone and then you gotta pick your color, but it doesn't highlight on the customizer to show you which zone you're working on. You just proceed a, b, c, d, e all the way through them. They will add that that highlighting sort of as you click on a section to know which section you're adding color to exactly, that highlight will be there in mid April. So something that that was missed earlier when you change completely your customizer from old to new and redo all of your systems, tie that into ordering, it's quite a process and that little that one little step is one that's still yet to be added.

That that's a big help having gone through that times that

It is. It is. It took me It's

true, but the way but the way they walk you through each of the zones, as you see when we're doing it there, is very logical and very quickly you understand exactly what piece is about to come up next, and it's easy enough to go back and forward.

The only thing is you have you have to add color to know what section you're doing. If you're just doing white and keep doing white, it's a little harder to tell.

Good point. Yeah. There goes your logic. No room for logic on this podcast.

Definitely not. We're a bunch of goalies.

Parent Playbook

Stop It Goaltending U the app parent segment. What do you got planned for us this week?

We're we're gonna do a little summer gear draft. How's that? Oh, I want Do I need to tell you more?

I want We're gonna

have a little we're gonna have a little fun inspired in part by this week's featured guest, but maybe Woody can tell us a bit about something else you could be doing to get ready as a goaltender.

I was just gonna say I want first pick in whatever draft we're doing. Oh, excellent. Excellent. Because you know what I'm gonna take.

Because you cheated already.

I am a cheater.

One of my first picks, I'm not allowed to pick this one for the actual exercise that we're about to go through in terms of a draft, but one of my first picks as a goalie or as a goalie parent would be the Stop It Goaltending U, the app. Because daily primers, five one minute videos each week, this week's self improvement. And who doesn't need some self improvement one minute at a time if not me? Longer video this week, Sean Gauthier, NCAA goaltender with some goalie tips on early eyes. Quick five minute video to talk about the benefit of early eyes, something we hear a lot from NHL goalies when we're doing our ProReads and the various types of drills.

Getting eyes early on the puck. Five minute video on that. Great lessons in there for goalies of every age. And in goalie systems, they get into crease management with a twenty minute video breakdown. That's all just this week.

New content every week. That's what you've got this week at the Stop It Goal Tending U the app. And, of course, with your subscription to the app comes a subscription to InGoal Magazine, a premium membership, which gets you access not only to the latest that we've uploaded, and we've got some great stuff, a really unique warm up from the Utah Hockey Club goalies, Karel Vejmelka and Jaxson Stauber, last week's guests, sort of walk us through the keys to it. We've got fresh ProReads up there. We've got more ProDrills coming.

You get full access to InGoal Magazine Premium and our archive with over a thousand stories, videos, tips, and drills right up to the NHL, all for one low monthly price of $9.99 and the Stop It Goaltending U the app. Check it out today.

Alright, boys. I noticed that our featured guest on social posted four images that made up his recommended summer training kit for goalies. Makes a lot of sense. Matt is with us in part because of his, work as a provincial level development model guy, and so that he would be commenting on summer training. Made a lot of sense.

Turns out when I went back just to double check because I knew you guys would ask me what those four things were, And we've already teased me about my memory 14 times today or I forget how many times. Don't remember teasing. Was a repost. Yeah. It turns out this was a repost from a coach in Edmonton who is doing great work with associations there.

And, he's a very creative coach, really thinks the game, and he's done some pieces at the Old InGoal. And I'm talking about Cortex Goalie Developments, Evan Carrillo. Go find him in the guide. He, he posted this actually six years ago. So, anyway, I'm not gonna spoil this by, telling you just yet what Matt and Evan posted for theirs, but I just thought for fun guys, we would raise the question.

What would you suggest that young goalies used to train this summer? We're not talking on the ice things here, and the one little caveat is that you can't use anything from any of our show sponsors because, of course, Stop It Goaltending U, Vizual Edge, Sense Arena, all those things are great to to train with. Let's do this kind of draft style. We're gonna go around the table here maybe three, possibly four times. And since Woody, as always, jumped the gun in our chat last night, he can get things going with the first pick.

Is it a snake

first pick.

Is it a snake grab?

Where oh. Oh, sure. We could do that. Would you like to do that, Daren?

Well, otherwise, it gives him a huge advantage.

Okay. Okay. Oh, well, the other thing, just making sure he doesn't get a huge advantage, I thought I'd let Woody know he's not allowed to claim all three right away because he likes to get as many things into a sentence as he possibly can. Woody, you only have one pick in the first round, and, Daren, we can do it snake style if you would like. Kevin Woodley, what are you gonna start with?

With the first pick in the tools for summer draft, Kevin Woodley selects tennis racket.

And why did you do that?

You knew that was coming, boys. You knew that.

I knew it was coming. How come, Woody?

Because I'm just a massive Henrik Lundqvist fan, and he used to talk about how he used it to train in the off season. And when you start to think about it, the lateral footwork, the quick feet required, the legwork from a, you know, side to side movement perspective combined with eye hand coordination, the ability to sort of track a moving object that's bouncing up at you off the court quite often in tennis, so coming up towards you and then coordinate with hand.

Because I'm just a massive Henrik Lundqvist fan, and he used to talk about how he used it to train in the off season. And when you start to think about it, the lateral footwork, the quick feet required, the legwork from a, you know, side to side movement perspective combined with eye hand coordination, the ability to sort of track a moving object that's bouncing up at you off the court quite often in tennis, so coming up towards you and then coordinate with hand. Like, I just think there are enough similarities that it makes sense that it a lot of the skills required and athleticism required should translate. And frankly, one of the best goalies of all time like to use it in the off season. So I think that's proof positive.

So give me the tennis racket, and I will find a place to, in my case, go get my ass kicked by my wife on the tennis court.

We might have to play over in Vancouver next time I'm over Woody. Daren, would you like the privilege of the second pick in the draft?

Yes. Swimming.

Right. Swimming. Do tell.

Yeah. Just just cardiovascular. It it's an underappreciated sport when it comes to fitness. And you're also in the water, and you you don't have to just swim laps. You can hang out and do different we had guys who used to play water polo. I I talked to Mark Stone. Used to play water polo in the summer as part of his training with with a bunch of junior hockey compatriots.

And that was a huge first physical fitness. But just swimming in in general is awesome for your cardiovascular to the point where you at times, you don't even know you're doing the training because you can fit other aspects into it.

Hold on. Hold on. So I said tennis racket, and you're coming up with a pool?

Yeah. Well Daren Daren's training kit is very large.

Daren Daren's training kit is very large.

Yeah. You can go to your Big training kit.

You can go to your neighborhood pool, can't you?

Yeah. Yeah. It's just goggles in Daren's pool. That's all.

Listen. I mean yeah. Listen. Listen. Listen.

You can go to your neighborhood pool or your local YMCA, but some of us have a little issue with germs. So as my after watching my kid at her weekend volleyball tournament get into the hot tub in the hotel we were staying at, and I yelled down to her, you better be bathing in Lysol after this. I'm not sure I can do the public pool.

Oh.

So Daren's kit just cost me a 145 k and a big hole in the backyard.

Bloody hot tubs do not count as training. Okay. Daren, that's awesome because you came way out of left field on that one. I did not expect water polo. I love it.

I'm gonna also be a little bit out of left field because everybody is probably thinking hand eye coordination, fitness, and so on. And I'm gonna say golf clubs. And I'm gonna say golf clubs not because of the physical side of the sport, but the mental side of the sport. It's you alone. You need a next shot mentality.

There's a real good chance that you're not gonna be very good at it. Those of us who are very good at it are the exception. I said us, but I'm not one of them. And, also, it is a lifetime sport. So you're helping your child develop a a passion for a sport that will last a lifetime.

And if you think that being a goaltender is financially crippling you, wait till your kid gets into golf. It's actually a super affordable sport for junior kids. It's actually one of the reasons I love it because you spend about what you would spend, you know, for house league hockey, but you get access to the golf course all summer long. It only becomes expensive when they rope you in as an adult. But, yeah, golf clubs is my pick.

And since it is a snake draft as Daren called it, I guess I get one more pick now. And I'm gonna go on a similar line of the mental side. I'm gonna say a baseball glove. And I think we all know that baseball is an incredible sport for catching. We've had people tell us on the show before that learning to catch a a ball is actually an underdeveloped skill in goaltenders right up to professional hockey.

But I would also just like to suggest that if you can become a pitcher, that is another great mental battle because it is you alone out there, all eyes on you, and, developing that ability to next pitch, next shot, really good for your goaltending as well. So there's my two picks, Daren, and it's back to you.

I'll go a pair of runners and three tennis balls, three T shirts, three pylons. Doesn't matter. Stuff that you can just throw

in Just filled your kit out like I told Woody was going to.

Just throw throw them out there and you can create all kinds of different activities, shuttle runs or lateral lunges, a pair of runners, and anything to run around, and you have millions of of workout options.

I like the creativity aspect too. Challenge your kid to be creative. Yeah. Creating little obstacle courses. Yeah. Might be. Yeah. Have a lot of fun. Woody?

Oh, you guys want big ticket items. I'm gonna keep this a little simple.

I went runners.

I'm gonna say my yeah. After you went pool oh, Hutch has got a golf membership at the local country club.

Says the guy with a tennis court in his backyard.

Tennis courts are everywhere.

As long as he's a kick Well, he does not have a tennis court in his backyard, by the way.

Public tennis courts are available everywhere. And, also, there is one catch. Oh, you gotta kick those pickleballers off. That's the problem. Too many pickleballers.

The irony of the irony of Woody not wanting his daughter in a hot tub is he does not have a tennis court in his backyard, but he does have a hot tub.

Yeah. Then nobody other than other than family and Hutch every once in a while are allowed into. And Hutch doesn't know this, but when he leaves, I change the water.

I peed in the last time I was there.

Okay, Woody. What's your second here, buddy?

I'm going simple here, boys. It's called the towel. Not only will my towel allow you to dry yourself after you get out of Daren Millard's private pool with all your swimming, but the towel is one of the essential tools of James Wendland's Five Damn Things for the hips. Oh. That stretch has

been a Stretching into sponsored territory, although James is not a sponsor. He's just a contributor.

He's just a contributor. There's no sponsorship there. And the simple towel, the resistance training, the muscle energy technique, warm up that he taught us has been a lifesaver for me going into pretty much every time I play goal. And I would imagine that at my age, that also translate whether I'm going in the pool with Daren because you can get really tight hip flexors if you're doing swimming laps, or if I'm playing tennis with my first object, again, keep the hips loose. They're so important to everything.

Or just pretty much whatever it is, I end up with tight hips, golf, tight hips, a towel, and James Wendland's Five Damn Things is all I need.

How? 2 picks.

Oh, I get another one. Oh. Yeah. I'm ill prepared, but you can probably guess what my next one is.

I actually don't think I can. Foam roller?

Foam roller?

Terry can can. Unbelievable.

Yeah. Not to be too obvious. But, again, the aches, the pains, the foam rolling helps sort of relieve some of them. It wasn't really debates on how invaluable or how valuable it can be. But for me, it's a staple and sort of as much as where a lot of this is focused on exercise and training, I do think that recovery, and recovery tools like, listen, if I was gonna get bougie and have a pool and a golf course membership like you two, I would say something like because they're not a sponsor, probably should be, but they're not a sponsor.

Something like a NormaTec boot to take all the pressure out of the legs.

You go. No. No. Well,

there you go.

Now you're

going roller.

Taking another draft pick early. Woody can't help himself. By the way, the only guy who plays golf as much as nobody plays more golf than Woody does, mister Bougie.

Woody played seven rounds last year. Let's not get into this.

It's five more than me. Back to you, Daren.

Brutal. I I like the the pressure sleeves. I like that idea. Is that where you

were going with Woody's not allowed to use that one, so that could be your pick.

Yeah. I I love those things.

The NormaTec boot? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They're they're a little slice of heaven.

They're also a k a piece.

So Yeah. No. You can

get you can get more affordable ones.

We just got a set at Costco actually, about two weeks ago for a quarter of the Normatec price.

Oh, so there goes my yeah. Thanks for spoiling my chance to pitch Normatec as a sponsor, boys.

You've had a couple years trying, buddy.

No. Those those those are outstanding. I my buddy

has them.

Hey, do you want to explain what they are for people who don't know because we're being insiders here, Daren.

They're they're, like, big, basically, leg sleeves that go up to your thigh, and they they it applies pressure, and it increases blood flow and stimulates blood flow throughout the legs. It's great for post workout to to get get rid of everything that that your leg needs to flush.

Yeah. And, Daren, as a cyclist, you probably love it too. Yeah. Right? Like, like, any anytime your legs are tired, you put these boots on.

It's like having them it's like a like, hey. We don't have NHL trainers to give us massages post workout. As a matter of fact, most NHL teams have the NormaTec boots or some version of them. Long plane rides, just to get the circulation going. Brock Boeser, for example, here in Vancouver missed game seven of the second round last year because of blood clots.

One of the things that I know they told him to do this year after now that he's recovered fully from the blood clots to make sure on those long plane flights after a game, there is no worries is have the NormaTec boots because it gets the circulation going.

One of the first places I saw them was at the Ryder Cup, and team Europe was using them in between sessions on a double session day. So it's it's it's very cool. And golfers walking in it and stimulate it.

So Daren doesn't need them when he golfs because he's in a cart.

Yep.

And every now and then, like, twice around, I'll I'll be, like, a 150 yards out, and I'll just tell my partner, I'll walk up. That's fine. And then I'll get my

Of course, you you do play golf in a place where it's, like, 40 degrees Celsius in the summer, so it's fair. Your cart your carts probably require misters.

Yeah. Okay. I've I've had two now. Daren, you've only had two. So this is gonna be an odd little snake, isn't it?

It's gonna come back and stop at you, I think. Spikeball. Spikeball, fantastic game. You can play it anywhere. You don't need a lot of space.

It is not expensive. It is athletic. You get to develop those athletic skills that we are accused of not having enough of as goaltenders. You often see them at goalie schools, in fact, for some of the off ice training. Somebody like Eli Wilson.

Go check him out in the guide. Uses it at his camps, I know. Spikeball's a great one. I actually saw online a variation where somebody took one of those spring loaded trampolines, the individual person trampolines instead of a spikeball net and used a medicine ball. That looked kind of crazy.

It would be fun to try that out. So that is my third, and I will say final, and then we get to go back to Daren for his third.

Woody?

I thought we were doing four.

Well, if I I was then gonna say if anybody really needs to make one more pick, what do get in?

I don't have a four, so we wanna stop at three. That's great.

I said three to four. I said three to

four.

Cycling. Get get get in your bike. Beautiful. Just be safe.

Yeah.

Wear a helmet. Don't don't tootle around the neighborhood without a helmet. Please don't

park buy a Peloton. There's no traffic in your basement.

True. I just I I need to be outside, honestly. Yeah. I like the Peloton. I enjoy it, but the I've got a maximum time that I can do it for because I get bored.

When I'm outside, I I'm I'm I'm pushing myself beyond what I feel like I'm I'm going or intended to go, and and it's awesome. And even if you just wanna use it as a mode of just transport commuting a little bit, you're still gonna get some fitness in there. Just just be safe with it.

Yeah. Back and forth to the tennis court or the local pool.

Yeah. That works. But but I have my my Olympic pool in the backyard, so I wouldn't get very, very much on it. And and the velodrome, my velodrome goes around my pool in the backyard.

It's not nearly as impressive as the golf course in Woody's backyard.

It's just a putting green.

Hey. I, as as we wrap this up, unless Woody is dying to throw one more I, of course, cheated. And, although I only used one thing in my list from my cheat, I asked my good friend chat GPT, what are some out of the box things you might use for training as a goaltender in the summer? And, you can guess which one I cheated with in a second. One of the things that it suggested that I did not choose reminded me of one of the best chirps I ever heard from a coach.

Shout out Lucas Simpson to my kid after a tough session in a in a a goalie day a goalie training day. He looked at him and said, hey, Maddie. I'll bet you're really great at dodgeball.

Oh, that's a good one, dodgeball.

Yeah. But, of course, yeah, he

needs to

get out of the way of it.

But It can get a little violent. Have you ever gone on YouTube and and just watched clips from dodgeball competitions? It's intense.

Yeah.

Yeah. I always think of it as the the grade four game that you played in gym. No. It's serious, and they're good.

Yeah. They they so so we have to put a warning on that one. I also feel like if we rewind it a little bit, I'd like to put a warning on the spike ball. It is a fantastic activity. Would not recommend doing it as you get older with kids that are, you know, a third of your age.

We may have a spike ball in the backyard. And a few years ago, my father decided that he'd be okay to keep up with the teens. And I don't sure his back was ever the same after that. Oh, jeez.

That's so if well, the rest of you are training hard, Woody will be found as safe as possible in his freshwater hot tub. He has just cleaned it. Yeah. That's the extent of safe training for Woody.

With my tennis

racket Probably my wearing water wings. Probably wearing water wings just to make sure.

Yep. Tennis racket and my towel nearby. Won't bring the foam roller in because my foam rollers vibrate. So can't have

Like, electric if somebody pops over and they wanna have a hot tub, will you let them, or are you too concerned?

My neighbor, as the hot tub was being installed, was like, oh, hot tub. Hasn't been in it. That was five years ago.

So you don't let strangers not strangers, but

I love my neighbors too. They're fantastic people. But I just it's a it's yeah. No. I keep it pretty clean.

Has Hutch been in your hot tub?

Woodly germs only with the exception of Hutch, and some of my daughters have had friends over in there. But, again, I dump a crap ton of chlorine after they leave.

You're weird. I'm a germaphobe. You're weird. It's a hot tub. It's supposed to be dirty.

There are levels of dirty, Daren. There is backyard hot tub with friends and family and mostly just family, and there is hotel with 400 people staying in it hot tub. Yeah. That's Who knows what's been in there?

Come on.

That's that's Close

to it. In Lysol.

NHL Sense Arena feature interview coming up, but first, the Visual Edge ProReads. Who do we have this week?

Alex Lyon, who has been a very popular fan favorite, I would say, in this format. He is so good. It's our second to last one with Alex. I actually thought it was our last one with him from our extended video session last summer. But funny enough, as we got through the end of this one, the start of the next clip came up, and he's like, I know that's safe.

Let's do that one too. So we've got one more coming from Alex, but this week, we get into six on five. There's a great mindset tip in there about how he mentally approached this six on five that reminds me of a lot of the advice we hear from Pete Fry, the goalie mindset guy, about embracing tough things rather than worrying about them. So Alex shares that, and then he gets into the breakdown. A little reverse VH from a dead angle against an elite player.

How much is he committing to that versus looking for passing lanes? Some skate or slide decisions coming off his post if if and when that pass gets through. And then, hey. We talked about with the Stop It Goaltending U app having a five minute video on early eyes. Early eyes and breaking down the mechanics of his movement that allow him to get set and square on an elite shooter, and might be interesting for people to hear against an elite shooter from what I thought was a pretty good look, just how much time and space Alex thought he had and just how much he thought that was a save that he has to make every single time.

So breaks you into the mindset of an elite goaltender as well as giving you a lot of play reading tips all in this week's ProReads with Alex Lyon of the Detroit Red Wings and, of course, ProReads the presentation now of our friends over at Vizual Edge. If you are an InGoal member you will save on your Vizual Edge program. Vizual Edge is a cutting edge online cognitive and visual training tool. You take their Edge test, It will give you scores in several different key visual fields, and then it will build out a program that you can use just whether it's fifteen minutes a day or less to refine and improve in all those areas. We've heard from Alex Lyon's teammate with the Red Wings, Cam Talbot, in our podcast and in his ProReads about just how much he feels it's helped him late in his career, finding pucks through traffic, tracking pucks off open releases, all the different elements that require improved visual skills, visual edge will help you gain.

Never thought of a six on five mental approach.

Because there's a lot of

stress with it. Be it it's always late in the game, and you're trying to protect the lead. I I never really thought that there might be a a specific training that you could do for that in in advance. Well, I

mean, there's the tactical elements of it. Yeah. And then there's the the mindset and the mindset. And we've heard this from Pete at his seminars over the year. Like, if you go into it, you're you're it's like a penalty kill, basically.

But you're right. The added pressure at the end of the game of they could tie it, and we saw it last night. Saint Louis tied it with thirty one seconds left against Talbot and the Red Wings on a on a great pass. But having the mindset of rather than, oh, crap. In this case, Andrei Vasilevskiy is going to the bench.

They're having extra attacker. It's it's a bring it on mindset. I want my teammate to take that penalty because I'm ready to kill it. All those types of mentalities that Pete talks about, Alex embraces quite easily and quite naturally at the start of the six on five.

I want my teammate to take the penalty to get him the heck off the ice because we're better off six on or five on four than we are with him on the ice.

Sounds like we got a few same teammates.

Yeah. We're playing them. I'm on Wednesday. You're on Tuesday. Same guys.

I had some rough games where I tried to decline the penalty with the referees for our team because shorthanded was was not a friend to us.

I think I think my favorite one of those, not to make this about us, but I think my favorite one of those ever was in an actual playoff game at the beer league level. Up a goal, get a power play late in the game, look up ice, and rather than killing the puck, both of my defensemen are below the opposite goal line, and we sure enough give up a 2 on 0.

That's outstanding. On the subject of line, what what save when you were scrolling through did he see? And what what kind of save was it that he wanted to go do for ProReads?

I'm gonna be perfectly honest with you. I just saw the start of it. Didn't go have a chance to go through. We do the ProReads one at a time because I'm not, you know, I'm not smart enough to work that far ahead and and do all the video at once. So I'm not sure.

It's cool that he they remembered that that save, though. Yeah.

It's funny it's funny because we got a lot of different guys. Alex remembered this save. As soon as he saw Vasilevskiy go to the bench at the start of this video session, he was like, and I I don't think I started the video in terms of what we share, but he's like, oh, I remember this one. This is a good one. And so it is amazing.

Happens a lot. Yeah. Definitely. That tells you something about these guys and the level they get to. The number of times we see them in these sessions where guys absolutely remember the save that might have happened the previous season.

Mhmm. It's usually the previous

pulling up these clips. Yeah.

Right. And Guys like Dubnyk can walk you through goals they've given up from ten years ago. I don't remember the shooter in the exact scenario if you presented to him. It's unreal.

And it's not split saves or anything dramatic. It's more routine stuff that that fits into the flow of a game, and they recall it.

Yeah. And and I you know, there is a lot of laterals. We do do a lot of rushes. Like, I do when I start searching for them. You can't just look for highlight reel saves because that's usually recovering from a mistake.

I'm looking for high difficult saves, but with a degree of control. Like, what have they done well to set themselves up to make a tough save look easy, when I searched for the video for these guys? So you're right, Daren. It's and I think as goalies, they recognize, hey. This was a tough situation, and and the key is that I didn't need to go into the splits.

Right? And here's why.

Mhmm. I guess golf, we all remember shots throughout around. We can replay it in our in our head.

We usually do for our wives when we get home.

Yeah. They love that too.

I think they just absolutely like, I don't think there's any better part of my wife's weekend than me telling her about the seven iron I hit on 13.

Waiting. Just waiting at the front door. We go over your round of golf, please?

Can define exactly how you got to 99 on a par three.

Tell me about the sixth shot on 17. I need to know about that. The NHL Sense Arena feature interview this week.

It is the NHL Sense Arena feature interview, and we are heading into the summer for a whole lot of hockey players. I know minor hockey seasons are over in so many places. And even though summer is the off season, guys, it doesn't have to be time off for your game. NHL Sense Arena is the ultimate off ice goalie training platform. It's trusted by NHL teams, junior teams, NCAA teams, elite goaltenders, coaches around the world designed to help you stay sharp even when you're away from the rink.

With NHL Sense Arena, you can train your tracking, your hockey IQ, situational reads in a fully immersive virtual environment. The drills are built by pro coaches. They're used by pros, so you know you are getting high level reps, and you can do it all in the comfort of your home. Making sure that you have enough space so that unlike Kevin Woodley, we do not want you bashing your hands into desks and chairs as you're making those highlight reel saves, but you do not need ice. You do not need gear.

Summer is the perfect time to focus on the mental and visual side of your game, and NHL Sense Arena gives you the edge with targeted measurable training. Whether you're preparing for a big camp or trying to make a team, just wanna stay ready for next year, NHL Sense Arena is the tool that can make a difference. Visit sensearena.com, and don't forget to use the code I g m 50 at checkout to save even more.

Like when you go announce their voice.

I love it. You just you're living my dream.

If I could add one more thing because I got a nice note from Andrew Alberts, former NHL defenseman and and a big part of the development team now at Sense Arena. They've got a they've got a sort of for all approach that they're working on, focusing on a younger audience with new content that's gonna be released this month in April, which as Hutch has talked about before is one of the better parts of Sense Arena. It's constantly updating. And they've been working with Brian Daccord on sort of drilling down on three main teaching topics, sort of foundational development instructional plans for Sense Arena for young goalies to master their angles, challenge shooters, correctly react and read shot releases, and how to find pucks through traffic. So you're gonna see a lot more sort of focus, on the youth level as much as it's just a good tool overall to sort of stay on top of your game.

There's gonna be a lot more very specific development tools that are added this month to NHL Sense Arena.

I'm awful in traffic. Terrible. Even if it's just a a one player screen drill that will do what? I'm awful. I

think I forget sometimes how hard traffic is because my Monday and Friday skates, as competitive as they are, they're also and it's yeah. Like you said, we need the volleyball counter to five and everything, and these guys are all much better than me because they played at higher levels. Well, in my case, any level's higher than what I played. So but they don't, like, they're not crashing the net and, like, purposely they're trying to create plays. They're not typically heavy traffic games.

Yeah. It's not zone time. Yeah.

Right. Well, they'll have zone time, but they'll be zipping it around as opposed to, like, me trying to find you know, there's no two guys parked in front. They're not purposely creating layered screens like we see in the National Hockey League, one of the toughest things to to to manage as a goalie. But then you go to beer league, and you make the odd save early in the game. And next thing you know, you've got a crowd of three in front of you on the power play, and it's like, I I forget because I don't play.

It's pretty rare that I do that. It's only once or twice a year now as a fill in, somebody's desperate. I forgot how hard traffic is because I don't see it in a in a focused manner at at my normal skates.

And how you how you move your body, how you cheat to to one side, it's it's it's predictable. Like, one if you're thinking about it and you're prepared for it, it's predictable. But, man, it takes me a while to get there, and I'm not very

hard. There are a lot of young goalies in the National Hockey League right now that the biggest thing holding them back from becoming NHL regulars is learning how to manage traffic at that level. It's it's it's a very real difficult thing. You're right, Daren. It's there are plans.

There are rules. There are systems in place. But amid the chaos, it's sometimes very difficult to stick to them.

What do we have this week?

Feature Interview - Matt Weninger

We have Matt Weninger. We teased it earlier on. Hockey Alberta. I think we're just gonna we're just gonna let him go here. Introductions are at the beginning.

We established sort of how he got started early in his career, played NCAA hockey, a very small taste of minor pro, and then right into coaching. And it's a it's an interesting journey because the coaching side happened while he was still playing and some great advice on how that can help you. And maybe one of the tools we should have had in our our parent advice tool bag was a coaching kit to advise kids to go back and work with younger goalies in the summer as a tool to get better themselves. If you can teach it, you will see it from a different aspect. He gets into that.

And then into a lot of the development efforts that he's been making with Hockey Alberta, and there are some great lessons and takeaways within there. This isn't an advertorial for what they're doing. This is, how can other organizations recognizing like, let's not wait for the national body to tell us how we develop goaltenders. We can do this as a smaller organization, whether you're Hockey Alberta, which is an entire province, or even down to a single minor hockey organization in a city or town. There are some great takeaways about the way they have gone about this, creating volunteer coaches who are armed with knowledge about the position and letting it grow from there.

So a lot of great lessons and takeaways with Matt Weninger of the Moose Jaw Warriors and Hockey, Alberta. Really excited to welcome to the InGoal Radio Podcast for the first time, and, I have a feeling it might be the first time of many. Matt Weninger. It's been a while since we caught up at the old Hockey Canada POE camps. He is the goaltending coach for the Moose Jaw Warriors in the Western Hockey League as well as the manager of goaltending for Hockey Alberta and caught my eye because of the programs, not only because I know Matt who played some played hockey right up to college as a goaltender, but the programs he's running in Alberta.

So we're gonna get into all of that. But first off, just good to see you again.

Great to be here, Kevin. I appreciate it. Yeah. It's been a while, so excited to be on here.

Yeah. We well, we'll leave the fact that the last time we saw each other was at a POE, and it's been a while because there's a reason for that. But let's let's start with let's go back to I wanna get into everything you're doing with Hockey Alberta. I wanna get into, you know, the life and role and job as a goalie coach, in the Western Hockey League, Canada's top junior league. But let's go back to the playing days.

Ended up at at Saint Lawrence University for four years in the NCAA. Little bit of a stint in the minor pro after that. But

Certainly will. We

had to include it,

though. Yeah.

What, where like, where does it all start for you? Where does goaltending come in?

Goal tending. Well, I mean, I, don't know. I mean, I came from a passionate hockey family. Like I had two cousins that played division one college hockey at Michigan Tech. One of them was Washington Capitals traffic and they were quite a bit older than me And I just kind of looked up to them and again, my dad was a passionate hockey guy and I just followed in their footsteps, goaltending, came right up, grew up in Lethbridge and was probably a little bit of a late bloomer.

Late bloomer and average, I guess, just I was listed by the Spokane Chiefs at one point, went to the Saskatchewan Junior League and was lucky enough that I did get an NCAA division one scholarship, but that's Saint Lawrence and was lucky enough ended up there as goalie for four years and and really was a starting goalie for four years and then

Played a lot of games there.

Yeah. I think I have the record for, most games and with that comes most losses. So up close on the wins, but, first on the losses.

What, I mean and and it's a different era too, wanted to tie this in a little bit because now you're coaching, and I wanna get into how you transition to coaching, whether you always knew that was something you wanna do. But you're coming up as a as a youngster sort of you know, I'm looking at you're u 15 around the time I started sort of learning about this position and covering it, like, thousand and three, 2004, which was also a time where we still had NHL goalies that would do things like get up with the wrong foot. Like, the technical part of the game wasn't as drilled in then as it is now. I'm just kinda curious. What were your experiences, you know, twenty years ago from a goaltending coach perspective as you're coming up as a young goalie that 14, 15 year age range?

I remember being able to do a backside push. I remember like learning how to do that as a EFPSO band of AAA, learning how to do that and like I said, now I sit on the coaching side the other way and my son is, again, first year U13 and he does a heck of a back side push. Yeah, learning that way but yeah, I mean I got into coaching probably more along the lines like I grew up in Lethbridge and there really was no goalie coaching period. No coaching, no specialized anything. So you learn on your own like I mean I kind of grew up in the era of like Miikka Kiprusoff in Calgary and it was just like, you know what I mean?

It was just like watch Miikka Kiprusoff and watch the highlight packs and watch the games and see the things that he did and try to emulate them but really was no coaching. You know, when I ended up going to school at St. Lawrence, I would come home and have the best job ever in the summer was just would come home and run goalie camps and coach and that was essentially how I did it and almost started as a 21 year old with a monopoly in Lethbridge because there wasn't anybody else. Yeah, so that was basically how I got my foot into coaching in that transition from playing to coaching because yeah, I didn't have really a full time goalie coach till I went to St. Lawrence and I actually got lucky with some good ones like Andrew Allen was my first one at St.

Lawrence who's been with Buffalo in Seattle and then I had Paul Schoenfelder next after Andrew got a job with Buffalo, I think. Yeah. I think time

No. The time I think that timeline sounds about right. Obviously, Andrew's been on the and Paula both been guests on the podcast before and and guys that we know really well. So in terms of having your first goalie coaches, those aren't bad samples to choose from.

No. Exactly. And then I had Chris Mayotte for my last two years and he's been the USA Hockey World Junior goalie coach, slash assistant coach a few times. So my four years there, I got a wealth of knowledge.

It's funny because we've talked to guys who recommend in your playing days and actually older guys that say this now to younger kids, like, go coach in the summer. You will learn a lot by if you if you can teach something, you will learn it down to its foundation, And you'll also see what other kids are doing as they learn new things and different things sort of that tools in the toolbox philosophy.

It's a it's a different perspective for sure. I mean, especially coaching higher end goalies, which again, I was I was lucky to do it. Like, I was playing division one and coaching, like, junior a kids and Western league kids. I got to see, like, high end guys and coach them through things, but it, you know, it just became collaboration, I guess. And like you said, yeah, it helped me as a goalie.

I mean, it was kind of like you're sitting there going, geez, I wish I would have had somebody for the ten years prior, whatever that would have, you know what I mean? That would have been able to help me. Yeah, no, I agree. Mean, I think that's for young for for goalies, yeah, go coach and and learn learn how to teach, learn how to learn how to just see the game from a different perspective.

Now you're the guy. Right? And and you're the guy that's helping make sure that the next generation, whether it's you personally at some camps or others, have access to this in Alberta. So, I wanna get into the role with Moose Jaw as well. But let's let's just skip over to the Hockey Alberta side because I was really impressed with the program you guys are running.

And as I said, I've been critical at times of of, you know, some of the lack of of a national focus on goalie coaching and and programs in Canada, but I've always tried to couch it with a that I know we have great coaches, I know a lot of them are doing great things. There might just be a lack of national support. And then I stumble into I feel like I owe him a couple here because what you guys are doing in Alberta is really, really impressive. So maybe start with an overview of what that program looks like and what the inspiration for it was to make sure that that exact support you just talked about, the wish I had this ten years ago, is there for this next generation of goalies coming through the ranks in Alberta at all levels?

So I started at Hockey Alberta 2016. So it's like eight, nine years ago. I was lucky kind of right off the hop, you know, with my coaching. I've been only done playing for a few years and somehow I got lucky, to kind of get some involvement with the Hockey Canada program of excellence, kind of when they had that with those POE goalie camps and stuff. I was able to get my foot in the door, you know, cross paths with guys like Paul again and just introduction to other people who are doing some great things and that like I said, that's kind of how I got my foot in the door.

Like I started with Hockey Alberta as I can't remember my title, regional manager or something like that years ago and kind of or Hockey Albert at least kind of had this idea that they wanted to do more for goaltending. I don't think they knew what that looked like and I don't think I knew what it looked like. But really our first foray into it was we decided to run like a U15 AAA goalie camp. I think we called it our elite goalie camp or something like that and I just thought, okay, let's get let's try to get the best coaches in the province involved and let's try to get the best goalies in the province involved and like I remember sitting at the table and some people being like this isn't going to work like nobody's going to register for it, nobody's going to want a part of it and you know, mean, I was lucky, came through a good time in terms of like, I think there was willingness for collaboration with people. Because at the end of the day, like if you know, what our programs offer is, I think the best coaches and the best network of coaches.

So I was able to get, you know, Jason LaBarbera, Ian Gordon, like, I mean, there's guys that have moved on from like that are coaching higher levels now, but we're coaching major junior in Alberta and I was able to kind of get all of them and they all came in and then the kids registered and it's just, that's where it's kind of evolved into more and more. And that's allowed my position to evolve into the manager of goaltending. So, know, I've been lucky enough that that the people at Hockey Alberta have entrusted me with the ability to go from, know, a regional Southern Alberta regional manager to, you know, running goaltending for the whole province and that we've been able to make enough impact that they can justify having that be my job.

Okay. So that's that's it starts at in your case, it started with a high level camp, sort of got everyone involved. How has it trickled down? Have you tried to make sure it trickles down to the lower levels, to the grassroots? Because it because it is more than you you still run the elite programs.

I don't wanna get into that. But it's it feels like when I look at the program, you're making sure that it starts at the bottom so that you're feeding more kids into those elite camps later on.

That's where we started. For most people, yeah, usually it starts with the the lower levels. We just started at the highest, and and now now it has. It's trickled down. The concept and the philosophy for our program is like, let's just so we kind of run three different streams for our goal tending.

Like number one would be coach development. So like we have goalie and coach mentorship that we ran this year and it's again, it's continued to evolve and with the coach mentorship part, it's like we've had partnership with the flames and the Oilers. They've done a lot for, you know, like Dustin Schwartz and Jason LaBarbera, for example, like the two goalie coaches for the teams in Alberta have done a great job like I'm able to bring guys into pre game skates and they're going to sit around and you know, chitchat after and offer mentorship for coaches in that regard and then so that would be kind of our first prong. Guess the second would be you know the grassroots so you know we look at some of our programming this year like we run like a U11, we call it U11 prep program. So goaltenders that are basically new to goaltending, you know, province really don't become a full time goalie till U11.

Like there are some nine kids that play full time and whatnot under our umbrella, but U11 kind of tends to be the beginning. So we start there with programs there and we try to run programs for everybody. And then we have our lead stream model, which now we start at U11. Like I said, we started at U15 AAA many moons ago but now in Alberta, Hockey Alberta runs our U11AA league. So our programs start at U11AA.

In theory you come into our elite stream programs at U11. So U11AA and then we run up U13AA, U15AA, U15AA, U17AA, U18AA, and then we run a female one as well. That female one encompasses U13AA or sorry, U13. So with female obviously they can be, the lead stream female can be a little bit all over the place in terms of playing boys, in terms of the AA leagues for girls, etc. So we do U 13, U 15, and U 18 for those programs.

Curriculum, how you built it out, you talked about the grassroots with with coaches, collaborative effort, how how have you developed that? What models have you used and how how you find that balance between especially you 11, not overdoing it, letting them sort of learn some of this stuff on their own and and develop some of the natural instincts, I guess, as opposed to being coached on everything?

Oh, again, for me, like, my biggest thing is I don't think these elite stream programs run with just just my name or just Matt Weninger. Like, it has to I have to bring in good coaches. And again, I've been lucky to be able to do that. I'm lucky on the buy ins for people. So yeah, like our goalie camps aren't, they're not the Mat Weninger goalie camp.

It's the Hockey Alberta program. So again, we bring in, try to bring in the best coaches that we can and I want the best coaches coaching these kids. So like our curriculum per se, all of our camps right now, they're weekend camps. We look at five ice times. First ice time, start with skating.

Start with skating, that's probably the most important. Know some Yeah, it's a tough sell for kids sometimes, but you know what I mean? You to be able to skate to play and you know that Kevin and I think anybody that coaches or plays knows you have to be able to skate to play. We start there and then we do some real simple tracking stuff on the first ice time. So again, we're five ice times, so the first ice time on the Saturday, so the second ice time.

Simple tracking, then we kind of do more advanced tracking, so tracking passes, tracking player movement on that third ice time, then we go to in tight play fourth ice time and then we go to more game situational play on fifth ice time. That's that's the general curriculum, the drills, the teaching points, etc. Like that usually for each camp, like I try to let each coach have the opportunity to run a session, or at least you know, our more experienced coaches run a session. I want to learn and everybody does. Like if you're going to come into a group of six, eight coaches, however, like you want to learn, you want to be able to steal drills or like I'm saying you but I do for sure.

I want to be able to be in that environment and I want to able to steal drills, steal ideas, steal philosophies and just learn. I think that's, again, when it comes back to that coach development, I try to set the coach development up to be what I want to learn because I'm a coach. That's what I go with and that's, like I said, that's kind of the format that we use. Again, I'm lucky because I've had good people buy in.

Now you mentioned the first stream is coaching. How have you sort of it reminds me a little bit of the first focus when we talk about national programs in Sweden. Right? They talk about, hey. We want better goalies.

Let's build better coaches and focus on that, and then we'll inevitably get better goalies. How have you guys gone about, you know, trying to educate more coaches on goaltending at a provincial level?

Well, I mean, they have they have the Hockey Canada instructional streams. You know, those are they're good. The content the content's good. I I think they've been at times associate like, need association buy in and I think at times that can be that can be the challenge, I think, with those.

Like, you want you want coaches to take the the courses. Yeah. But having somebody tell them they have to, I'm guessing is a different thing. So you have to get that buy in versus mandate.

For sure. For sure. Yeah. I mean, like I said, honestly, I think like our mentorship program, I started that three years ago. I mean, I started it sort of like 30 people.

We just, you know, got some Zoom sessions going post COVID when Zoom kind of became a thing. Yep. Yeah. That's that's where it started. Like I said, I was able to get, Jason LaBarbera and Dustin Schwartz to buy in and be willing to

I think we I think think we might have been a part of some of those early WHL symposium.

Yeah. Well, that's yeah. That was a little that's a little bit different, but I know like, I know Dustin originally had started at WHL. The Western Hockey League, I guess, had started. Dustin was spearheading it.

Same similar names getting involved, giving back to the position.

Yeah. And I mean, I think this past year, had 190 people in our mentorship program.

On the coaching side?

On the coaching side, yeah. So, yeah, I might have a might be a little off on that number, but it was it was roughly that. And, within that group, I think we had 40 at a Flames game, 40 at an Oilers game, the rest were kind of just virtual. So again, I'm finding ways grow it. I think, you know, our partnership with InGoal Magazine, I think will be like like really, again, from my perspective, I'm looking for when I'm trying to grow goaltending in Alberta, I'm looking for who are the people doing the best things and how can we incorporate them?

Well, there's InGoal.

Like, yeah. I we appreciate that. The the 190 that, like, that's a that's a really good number, you know, especially when you think of Alberta as, like, having some rural concentration or some some sort of, like, concentration in two big cities, but then spread out quite a bit as well. It sounds like you've gotten that buy in. I'm just curious.

Like, are most of these parent volunteers? Are some of them aspiring to move up the ranks and and into the WHL or coach junior hockey? Where do you see

The majority are coaches. But, again, when we go back, like, our job as a branch or nationally, coaching is volunteerism, right? And where are you getting most of those volunteers? You're getting them from parents, right? And again, I think of my kid playing and knowing minor hockey from my experience as a parent, those parents are on the ice with those kids two, three times a week, whatever it is.

To build that expertise, you have to when the parent wants to learn, when the volunteer wants to learn, those are the people that are probably going to make the biggest impact.

To build that expertise, you have to when the parent wants to learn, when the volunteer wants to learn, those are the people that are probably going to make the biggest impact. Obviously throughout our province, throughout our country, there's a lot of people running their own private goalie schools and camps and like I said, I do get the majority of those people involved in different ways as well. But for the people that want to be part of these mentorship programs and stuff, that's where it's parents and it's volunteers and I think the one thing that I've probably learned is like, don't scoff at that. Know what I mean? Sometimes people want to know

And what's in the that's not how you grow it. You have to grow it in terms of that coaching and development. It's the dad who cares about his kid and wants to see his kid get better and knows that his kid's only been on the ice twice a month with a goalie coach. There's plenty of times he's going to be on the ice and he wants to be able to make sure that that kid is getting the development in those ice times.

So giving them the tools so that when they're out there volunteering, there's an educated aspect to what they're helping.

Yeah. And again, even if it's like, I'm not, they don't need to, they're not going to be experts, right? Like not everybody's, not everybody's an expert. But you know, there's so many simplicities in our position that can, that can be taught by somebody who wants to learn. And I think that's, again, that's what I'm learning in this job, this position in coaching.

The majority of what we teach, whether it's teaching our guys at Moose Jaw, teaching our U11 kids, it's the simplicities of the game that the majority of people, if they learn and care to understand, they can teach a lot of those. They can teach a lot of those.

I love it. I love it. And that's and that's it kinda feels like that's where the focus needs to be on a broader scale. I won't ask you to comment on that, but that like, are more of the volunteers with at least a base level of knowledge, whether they're a head coach that wants to make sure his goalie isn't just sitting at one end of the ice for half the practice and getting peppered to an unrealistic degree for the other half or a parent that's helping that coach. Like, just more coaches with more knowledge is how you grow it at the grassroots level from the bottom up.

How have you seen the impact of that in terms of on your goaltenders and and the evolution up? I guess it's probably more anecdotal or do you see some numbers?

It's probably gonna continue to be more anecdotal, but I mean, you know this from going to the rink too a lot, Kevin. Right? Like like, the one thing that drives me nuts when you watch goalie development is, like you show up to the rink and you're watching the U13, I'm just going use an example, you're watching the U13 AA team on the ice and they're doing skating for the first ten minutes and the goalies are just sitting there stretching and it's like okay, well that's a waste of ten minutes in this practice. If you're doing that half your practice is like, there you go. There's twenty minutes of development that those kids are missing.

If we can just educate, if we can educate one person or whatever that coach so that they're finding a way, whether it's an assistant coach involved, a parent, whatever, that they're getting twenty minutes of development extra week on goalie specific stuff, that's going to make a significant difference in that player's development and their experience in the game.

If we can just educate, if we can educate one person or whatever that coach so that they're finding a way, whether it's an assistant coach involved, a parent, whatever, that they're getting twenty minutes of development extra week on goalie specific stuff, that's going to make a significant difference in that player's development and their experience in the game.

Again, that's more broad hockey, Alberta, but, like, yeah, like, their experience in the game by feeling like they're getting more more care and attention.

I guess it would depend on the level, how many coaches are on the bench. Again, depends on the level and who's done the mentorship program. But even being able to come to the bench and having someone that can actually talk you through what you just went through on the ice with some degree of understanding, I would think would be a benefit. I don't know how much you guys do man I guess not mandate or encourage, you know, shared nets and things like that at the at at different ages or if the program has that kind of mandate to to sort of encourage different things in that regard or just

And we are trying to implement standards throughout minor hockey. At the end of the day, It's hard because each association comes up with their own standards, their own bylaws, but try to implement it. So it's things like fair play. Well, I mean fair play, but distribution of playing time, those sort of things that just help encourage and I guess, like I said, give goalies the best opportunity to develop.

Obviously, we've done a lot with USA Hockey, so I was just I was more curious. Like, I'm sure you have some personal opinions, but in terms of, you know, how you manage at certain age, who's in the net, things like that. I just wasn't sure how far the program went in that regard. But like you said, you still have to defer to associations. I guess, like everything, like the coaches, there's a little bit of education that goes into it, and then everybody makes their own decisions based off it.

I mean, we have, feels like, we have standards. You know? And now it's just probably finding the best ways to mandate or implement them.

Okay. So let's switch a little bit over to the other side of things because you've you've been working with Hockey Alberta, but you've also been coaching, Moose Jaw Warriors for, I think, the last five or six years, actually longer than that, seven or eight.

Yeah.

You were at the University of Lethbridge on the women's side before that, little Yorkton terriers in the SJ. That process of coming up, like you said, you started coaching while you were still playing. But if you had a young coach that, you know, beyond the volunteers, one that wanted to pursue this as a career, what would be the advice from a starting point for you if you look back on your early days?

Gee, that's a tough one, Kevin. I don't even I'm gonna start enough. But

Well, like you said, yours was unique. Right? Because you came into an area where there wasn't much and you were coaching all you know, like like you said, while you were still playing. So the models change. The amount of people that want to do this for a living has probably changed as well.

So but you probably do get those questions. So I'd just be curious what they what that first piece of advice would be.

Other piece of advice I would give guys would be, like, just get involved and give it your best. Like, whatever level that you end up coaching that you can create a network with people that will give you the opportunity to do it. Know, obviously, I had started like I was from Lethbridge, played in the SJ. So when I was done playing, I ended up living in Regina and just through mutual contacts and whatnot, Trent Passan hired me in Yorkton for two years. I mean, I was and then kind of started the Hockey Alberta thing and was from there.

So it was in and around the Lethbridge area. Obviously, I live in Medicine Hat now, but then yeah, ended up doing the men's and women's programs at the University of Lethbridge. Yes, somewhere in there, was Alan Miller gave me an opportunity with the Moose Jaw Warriors and hired me there. So well, Alan Miller and and Tim Hunter. So that was yeah.

This I just completed my eighth season with Moose Jaw, so it's it's been a minute. I've seen, I mean again, with this job with Hockey Alberta, the benefit that I have is like, okay, I get to see the highest level of junior hockey that a lot of these kids are aspiring to. And then I'm starting, like I said, these programs are starting, our lead programs started at the U11 double A level. So you go from there, now it's okay, now try to help these kids bridge the gap from U11 double A all the way up to the Western Hockey League. I see the deficiencies that a lot of our goalies have in Moose Jaw and it's like, okay, why are they having these deficiencies?

Where are they coming from and how do you coach your way through them? Like I said, when you asked about the, advice for for coaches, like build a network and and do the best job that you possibly can, and then you'll get the opportunity to move up. I wouldn't have got the opportunity with Moose Jaw if I didn't do a good job in Yorkton.

Well, I was gonna say too, and one of the reasons I originally said five or six years is because at like, in the last five or six, it's been primarily that. But before that, when you look at the old HockeyDB, there's multiple teams listed for the same years. You were this is the reality of starting out. Like, take as many opportunities as you can and still do a good job at. You were working for multiple teams early on.

Still do. Yeah. No. But that's like like I said, that's that's that's the reality. I mean, that's that's part of being a goalie coach I think is there's probably not enough There's a lot of people trying to do it, there's not enough experts.

So yeah, you get reached out to do a lot of things, then you got to pick and choose the things that you're passionate about and that you want to do. Yeah, I mean, like, for example, like when I go to Moose Jaw, I help Prairie Hockey Academy, there as well, on top of the Hockey Alberta. Again, it's like, you know, when you want to be a goalie coach, you're going be a man of, many titles. I feel like, I feel like I have that. You you make the point, yeah, you go look on elite prospects or Hockey DB, and it's probably when you see a lot of guys coaching Kurtz, it's hard to follow.

But, if you sit them down, they'll probably be able to, give you a justification for it.

Where are we at? What do you see, you know, from the goalies, you know, over the past eight years that have come through Moose Jaw? The way the position has changed, the way the demands of the position have changed, scores have started to evolve. They finally figured out that the off season is for skills like goalies have been doing for twenty some odd years, and we probably shouldn't have let them know that. We should have left them just training to get bigger and stronger faster and not figure out all the shooting.

But as you've, yeah, as you've seen the game develop, like, what what kind of changes are you seeing? How do you see it reflected in the kids that are coming in or that have come through for the past eight years? And and what's sort of being asked of them?

Well, I mean, yeah, the expectations are are getting higher on on the athlete and higher on the coaches. No question about it. I mean, I think the demand is for more and more and more from everybody. You make the good point. Players are doing more than they ever probably have before in terms of the skill development and stuff off ice.

it's the first time that they've sat down with a goalie coach and done video of their games that you've been working through them with reads and just game situation stuff that, again, the majority of them and the majority of the time that they've had coaching is all skill development. Now here's like, okay, now we have to teach you to understand the game.

I mean, you got to be able to keep up and evolve, evolve with the game the best that you can. I mean, I do know like for our guys in Moose Jaw and what I've noticed probably as much as anything is like that's their first time that they've had a goalie coach truly with their team and I think it maybe has evolving to the lower levels now. I see lots of you, 18 AAAs that have full time goalie coaches but like it's not just skill development anymore from their goalie coach. We got our guys in Moose Jaw and it's like, okay, it's the first time that they've sat down with a goalie coach and done video of their games that you've been working through them with reads and just game situation stuff that, again, the majority of them and the majority of the time that they've had coaching is all skill development. Now here's like, okay, now we have to teach you to understand the game.

Is there a lesson there? And I'm not asking you to preach or lecture to other levels and other ages or the kids themselves. We've heard from a lot of people that don't think kids in general watch enough hockey to sort of figure out the patterns of the game. Sounds like you might echo that. But, like, would there be value if I'm a young up and coming goalie to finding to finding a way to spending some of that time, whether it's with a coach or on my own, to sort of look over and analyze my game and try and figure out some of these patterns as opposed to waiting till I get to the WHL for that first exposure.

I mean, I think it's it's balancing both. I think, you know, you get to the 11 kid, u 13. Like, it it really is Probably a little early for the game table.

For sure. But like, yeah, U15 and U18, AA, AAA, like, yeah, there's a point to be made there. It's even like at InGoal, you guys have the ProReads. That sort of stuff is probably eye opening for a lot of people. Okay, it's not just a backside push here.

It's like, hey, what's your read? Like, you know, what's the situation that you're presented with? Is the guy left handed? Is he right handed? Where is he coming from?

What are his options? Etcetera. Like, those are the things I think that, that's the intricacies of the game and that's a lot of what coaching is, again, especially at the higher level is just being able to just kind of teach that and it's like I talked to Jason LaBarbera a lot and it's like that's the probably You can sit there and watch Dustin Wolf, but from talking to him, it's like that's the differentiator for Dustin Wolf is how smart he is and the reads that he makes in a game. Yeah, we don't need to necessarily get into that, but that's example.

Yeah. No. No. And that makes sense. Right?

Like, that's that's the skill it's a separator that as much as we work on the technical skills, I I do think it is something that can be worked on. And and so hearing you reflect on that with it being the first time with by the time you see these kids, it's like, does it need to be the first time they've done that? So it's I think it's a good takeaway. Alright. Well, listen.

We're looking forward. We're gonna be at a camp with you this summer. I'm super excited to sort of reconnect and really excited about the partnership with InGoal and Hockey Alberta. Was really excited to learn. And so I feel like I owe an apology as well for being as much as I was critical of Hockey Canada, not maybe recognizing that were some of these programs at the lower levels, at the branch level, in in in Alberta, at least in particular, that are, you know, really drilling down into this in a way that I think is a good model for goalie development everywhere.

I mean, like I said, it's it's a starting point. I think our program has has ever evolved. And again, try your best to keep up with, keep up with the growing trends in the game, keep up with the demands of of the participants. But again, for me, it's and I've learned like it's finding ways to get the best people involved and that's what I've been lucky enough to do with our coaches. You know, like you said, like the guys that I have involved in our programs, know, we're talking to the top major junior coaches in the province and junior A guys and I said, I'm really excited for the InGoal, addition to our programs because I just think it's again, it's more opportunities for our goaltenders to learn, more opportunities for our parents and coaches to learn.

And again, it's both getting the best resources into everybody's hands and I think that's, like I said, that's where the development's going to happen.

Well, I love it. We're really excited about the partnership. Really excited to have you on the InGoal Radio Podcast. And I agree, like, on a lot of those points. And and so I I give myself a little bit of a break because as critical as I've been, I always add the caveat.

We know there are great coaches and great people out there doing great things, and I'm really glad that they were we were able to, first off, highlight those things that are going on at Hockey Alberta and now become a small part of it. So thank you for that, and we're looking forward to seeing where this goes over the years. It's exciting.

Can't wait to have you guys in Calgary. That'll be a lot of fun.

Outro

Did you guys notice Hutch, I'm talking to you more here. That that Woody got a couple more little ads for the exercise that we did during the the parent segment.

Did not go unnoticed. Did not go unnoticed. Woody's expecting me to announce that, we would like all listeners to write in to podcast at ingoalmag.com and tell us who won the draft. They would like Woody's hoping that we will ask all the pundits out there to rate the draft picks and see who had a successful draft.

He's up to about eight things now too.

Yeah. Yeah. Most of them quite passive, by the way, other than the tennis. But

Well, the truth is I thought we were only listening one. I didn't know we had to do a draft, so the tennis was the only one I had. Everything else is off the top of my head. But I but I still won.

If if you guys spent fifteen minutes having coffee with with Matt, like, what what would be the one area that you would like to, like, dig into with him? Because there's a there's a lot there.

Yeah. And and by the way, I've never had coffee with Matt. Oh, really? Yeah. It's it's some people will put two and two together and know that he's my kid's goalie coach.

Matt and I have spoken, just for a couple of minutes, and and I never bring up my kid when we chat. But I I just like to dig into the the coach mentorship program. I thought it was amazing. Was it a 150 he said they had I last

think he said.

190? Yeah. And and by the way, Hockey Alberta, he mentioned some InGoal content in there. Everybody who's part of that coach mentorship program. I believe we'll be getting a a membership to InGoal Magazine as part of that program, and quite a few of the, high level goaltenders that are go through their development program as well.

I don't think all he's gonna do it by age this year. We're hoping to expand it a little bit next year, but I really appreciate the fact that they consider InGoal Magazine a great part of their development program for this season. All that to come back and say, I I'd just love to know more about the coach mentorship program. How is it structured? How do they put it together?

I'd love to dig in so that others can learn how they can do it in their area, but just love that they are focused on grassroots because we can do all sorts of things for young goaltenders, and that's wonderful. But the more coaches we can create out there, the more kids are gonna have fun, the more kids are gonna learn right from day one. I think it's a it's a great initiative beyond just hosting clinics, which are super important, but then they're taking it to another level. What happens after the clinic? Woody?

I was gonna say the same thing. I'd be and and not just how you do it, but the way that parents engage on the volunteer basis to become coaches. Like, I I'd be curious to see, we got a little taste of it with the bronze level. You know, how do you engage them? And then what's the feedback you hear back from them in terms of their kids wanting to learn?

Sort of that that parent the volunteer parent coach relationship, they get to go boots on the ground and see how the kids are reacting to the stuff that's being taught. And I'd just be I'd just like to sort of pick at that a little bit and learn some more selfishly, actually, because we do see ourselves as a tool at InGoal. We are not a curriculum. We've always made it very clear that nothing we publish is telling you how to do things, but more showing you how other people do things so you can maybe try some of it and decide what to take away. We know that the ProReads, we've heard it from goalies and goalie coaches right up the NHL, are an invaluable tool to sort of see the level of thinking that goes on at that sort of highest part of the game when you're reading a play and learning how to read a play.

I'd wanna pick the brains of parents and their interactions with coaches that are doing this these volunteer programs to see what's successful at the grassroots level with the younger kids, because I'd like to see us add more of that at InGoal as well. And I think this partnership is gonna be mutually beneficial in that when we're in Calgary later this month, we're gonna be able to sort of learn from what they're doing and not just bring drills and videos back to our audience at InGoal, from some of their top coaches, but hopefully bring a sense of what's working into some of the elements that we deliver to our audience.

Foothills Of The Rockies, Calgary, not the Prairies.

You can see the prairies from the 2nd Floor, Daren. That's why I said I was in the prairies last weekend.

That was an off air conversation. And Woody is like? I was on the prairies in the last week, and Hutch and I both right away. Calgary is not the prairies. It's very different.

It's it's within arm's reach, but it's not the Prairies.

My wife's from Winnipeg. She's gonna give me crap too.

Yeah. I'm not sure Winnipeg counts as the Prairies either, does it?

Totally does. Does it?

Oh, absolutely. Now I got you two going.

Where does it where does it end?

It doesn't.

I'm one of those InGoal Toronto guys. I grew up in

Kenora, Ontario. Okay.

So the West Side Of Canora is Prairie and the East Side is

Yeah.

Canadian Shield.

And then we get right on through Brandon and Portage and Moose Jaw and Swift Current.

Who knew you could get a geography lesson with InGoal Magazine as well?

Saskatoon.

Daren Millard. Love it.

Davidson, Saskatchewan. Yorkton, Saskatchewan.

Prairie professor. Yorkton where Matt Weninger got his start as a goalie coach.

I worked there, GX ninety four, covering town council

in Melville and Yorkton.

Wow.

To all the young kids who think you just apply for a job at a major sports network and get your career started, that's not the road.

One of the stories I remember, I to this day, from Melville City Council in Saskatchewan, came back and did a story for the morning news the next day and a voice over where the the anchor throws to to me on tape. It was about building a a ship in a bottle on the HMCS Melville. I did a whole story.

Oh, the glory.

Time to go.

And now you've got a velodrome in your backyard surrounding

your Around an Olympic pool.

Look at how far you've come.

Yeah. And and Boys, let's shut her down and meet a Woody's hot tub after this.

And the best part about my backyard is you there's a tunnel that if you don't wanna because you don't wanna cross over the velodrome in case somebody's cycling, that's dangerous. There's a little tunnel underneath the velodrome, and it brings you up, and then you can get jump in the pool.

I've been through those tunnels because jokes aside, volleyball BC's headquarters and where they run a lot of their tournaments is in the middle of a velodrome over in the East Part of Vancouver.

I wanna I wanna ride on a velodrome so bad.

It's it's a little trippy when you're watching your kid play volleyball, and there's these guys flying around at all kinds of weird angles on the velodrome as it's all going on. And they fly out.

Oh, some of those short velodromes, the walls are so steep. Steep. Terrifying.

Yeah. Thanks to Matt. Thanks to Cam. Thanks to you for listening to InGoal Radio, the podcast presented by The Hockey Shop Source for Sports Langley at thehockeyshop.com. Check out the EFlex 7 Customizer now and go over to our YouTube channel and check out what Cam and Woody were able to do with that EFlex 7 Customizer.

There's a lot of visual aspects that will certainly add to your enjoyment and your recognition of it. We'll talk to you next week on InGoal Radio, the podcast.