InGoal Radio Episode 301 with Dwayne Roloson

Intro

We have stuff we're giving away. Does that get your attention? Welcome to InGoal Radio, the podcast brought to you by the Hockey Shop Source for Sports Langley, the hockeyshop.com. We are into the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, maybe out of it by the time you listen to this moving on to the second round. And it's been eventful.

We'll get into some of the happenings in and around the Stanley Cup postseason. Also, our feature interview is gonna revisit a former Edmonton goaltender, and Dwayne Roloson's gonna stop by. Here's Kevin Woodley and David Hutchison. Hey, Woody, if if we had Rolly on?

We have not, and that is a very bad omission by me because this is such a good interview that, you know, normally guys that played and and really played eighteen years in the NHL, you start with their career, you know. We went straight into everything he's done since playing, including coaching in the National Hockey League and then becoming a player development coach in recent years in the NCAA and filled more than an hour loaded with advice. And outside of Edmonton and his time there and how it leads to a mindset tip, we never touched his playing days. Like, was we touched him in the sense that a lot of what he's done since is informed by his experiences playing and that weaves throughout this entire conversation. But it is let's just say we left room for a part two just to go to his playing days.

Normally, would be the opposite, but this guy has done so much and has so many great ideas and opinions. This is and I say this a lot. This is a can't miss her. Like, this is a can't miss interview. Rolly was amazing.

He's thinking about getting back into the NHL after leaving for family reasons, leaving the Ducks for family reasons, and I'm glad he caught up with us. There's probably a lot of teams that are gonna listen to this and be like, I'd like some of those ideas in my organization.

Great timing given what's going on in Edmonton, and he was with the Oilers on a great fabulous march to the Stanley Cup final in which they had three goaltenders and were moving things around. So there was similarities in a way that that there was a goalie situations that are unique to those parts at the time and the Edmonton Oilers right now. Here's a hotshot. I got to say we have something to give away. What is it that that that we have that's available?

How about a custom set of CCM EFlex 7 gear, pads and gloves? I think it's a great opportunity for everybody out there, but you need to do just a little tiny bit of work to do it. You don't have to go and design the gear early and paste post it up on socials or anything like that. It's quite simple to enter, but you need to go to ingoalmag.com. You need to click on the link for the guide to goalie coaches and goalie camps and find the ad for CCM's EFlex 7 gear.

Click on that ad or use the QR code that's on there, and you will get taken to the entry form. You can enter once a day right up until the end of the contest, and great opportunity to set yourself or your son or your daughter up with a custom set of gear. You'll be able to go into the customizer, choose everything you want. This isn't the full all out version, but you will have access to all sorts of great opportunities. Just a little side note, if your son or daughter is too small to fit the senior gear, you won't be able to customize it because they don't customize junior sizes, but we will replace it with something that, fits whoever you would like this gear for.

So great opportunity. And check out that guide to goalie schools and goalie coaches or check out the online directory where you can search for one in your local area or one that offers the kind of program that you're interested in. There's a 165 plus schools in there now, and it continues to grow. Just a great opportunity. You can get right in there, and you can ask questions of the individual coaches through a link on each listing.

Been a labor of love for us, but we're pretty proud of what we put together. A great resource for goalie parents and goalies out there.

Go to ingoalmag.com and check it out and get involved in your chance to win a custom set of EFlex 7 gear. We we've got another first round that's full of multiple goaltenders. Woody.

News

Funny how that happens. Right now, I don't love that some of it's because of injury. Hate even more that some of it's because of crease collisions, but you gotta have two to get through the season. You gotta play two to get through the season. And as we're seeing in the playoffs quite often, you need two to get through the postseason.

Where it gets interesting to me is some of the decisions made, and we haven't really seen this. Like, Carolina had to make the decision because Freddie got ran, so they went to Kochetkov. I was wondering if that series dragged on if they made and they did they go to double OT the other night. Like, for the goalies that don't play a lot during the regular season, I wondered if we might see some of these by choice. We have an in Toronto, and Anthony Stolarz isn't the problem as the senators come back from a three o deficit to make it three two.

But this is where the risk comes in. Okay? Is your guy wearing down as the series goes on and now you've waited so long the other guy hasn't been on the ice for ten days or hasn't seen game situations for ten days? So I'll be curious to see if anybody regrets not making a switch earlier, but you're right. So far, we've seen a lot of switches and none bigger than in the Edmonton series where Calvin Pickard is three and o since taking over for Stuart Skinner.

Has he played better than you expected?

He here, expected is a good word here, Daren. Because when we talk about expected save percentage, which is a measurement of the environment each goaltender faces, and this is a trend I do Edmonton Radio and a trend I've followed all season long. The Oilers and their coach alluded to this between games three and four when asked about whether he go back and stick with Calvin. They play better statistically for Pickard than they do for Skinner. Now some of this is circumstantial.

It could be the opponents you see during the regular season. Here we are in the playoffs. It's the same opponent five games in a row, and I I do think still there's circumstances. The Oilers clearly did not have their best game in the first two, and they found their game in the next three. And game five was domination like we haven't seen in any other point in the playoffs after being dominated to a similar effect in game one.

But through five games, Stuart Skinner's expected save percentage after the first two was eight seventy two. And after game five, Calvin Pickards is .914. That is two goalies playing behind the same team and not seeing the same stuff, not seeing the same environment in front of him. Now Can

you explain that for for people that that don't understand the the math that you presented?

What the league average goaltender would stop based on the quality of shots faced is your expected, say, percentage. It's a way of measuring your environment. Obviously, .872 is low for Skinner. In other words, tough defensive environment. A lot of that a lot of that was game one, five on three, two minute penalty kill that he got through where they were just bombarding him with grade ace.

So that built up a lot of his, you know, tougher defensive environment, but it's a measurement of defensive environment. .914 is well above league average for Calvin Pickard, but it's been this way all season. Pickard's .905 in the regular season was the highest in the entire NHL.

So he has an easier environment?

Easier. I I always hesitate to it's different and and statistically easier. I mean, sometimes low shots are tough mentally. Right? Like, there's different ways to measure easier, but at the end of the day, based on the numbers, it's an easier environment.

Now that said, the interesting thing here is through the first two games, Stuart had faced 19 high danger chances. Pickard has faced 19 high danger chances after three games. Stu gave up nine goals. Pickard's only given up three on those. So he is the irony is overall his environment has been easier or better defensively, but on the tough chances, he's made a lot more saves.

And that was sort of the argument after two games that you heard around Edmonton was like, yeah, they're given up a ton, but you're allowed to save those too. And so neither goalie is above expected, but Calvin and and, again, Knobloch alluded to this. In key moments of some of these games, when there's a high danger chance no. They're not one after the other after the other like they were in the first two games, but when there is one, he's rising to that occasion and making those saves. So, it's a really fascinating study.

They couldn't be more opposite as goaltenders, in terms of how they move, their size, but for whatever reason, and Pickard is as popular a teammate as you will find, the Oilers defend better in front of him. They have all season statistically, and they're doing it again in the playoffs. And that's you know, at the end of the day, I said after two games, again, because I do Edmonton radio on a weekly basis. I said after two games, they're going nowhere unless they improve their defensive play because the first game against the Kings was more high danger chances and more expected goals against than any single playoff game from their run to the cup final last year. It was their worst defensive performance, worse than anything they did last year, and the worst single game defensive performance that we'd seen in the playoffs overall up until the Kings last night against Edmonton in game five.

So is Calvin Pickard the difference right now, or is he just not being the difference? You know what I mean?

Not having to be.

Yeah. He is making more of the tough saves than his counterpart did earlier in the series. If he's the reason they play better defensively, and I can't answer this, Hutch was asking about, you know, is puck does puck handling make a difference? Stu handles it more. Does that change where their defenseman come back to and their their breakout and their forecheck?

There's a lot of questions. I don't have the answer on why, but if having him in the net is what allows you to get to the defensive identity that got you to the Stanley Cup final last year, then he is making the difference courtesy of them being able to get back to that game with him in there.

And let's not forget, the best defensive environment is when you've got the puck at the other end of the ice, and it was at the other end of the ice a lot last night.

And it was well, and that's what I mean. Like, last night, the Kings had three high they had three high danger, one mid danger, and expected goals of one. Like, they did nothing.

Yeah. And it's it's a little easier to make some high danger saves when, as you said before, they're not one after the other. I'm not sure every high danger save is is the same.

It was kind of a reversal of game one. Like, the Kings were all over the Oilers in game one and bombarded Stewie, and the Oilers were all over the Kings in game five at a similar rate without the pushback, though. The Oilers pushed back in game one. The Kings had no pushback in game five. Now the difference is, lest we forget, Vezina Trophy finalists have been named, and the guy at the other end of the last night, Darcy Kuemper, who's a deserving finalist, led the league in goals saved above expected.

Yes, folks. Had more goals saved above expected than Connor Hellebuyck. Led the league in it. He was really good last night to keep that thing close.

Darcy Kuemper, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Connor Hellebuyck, the Vezina Trophy finalists. Oddly, all three trail in their series in the first round. There's no link there. It's just strange when you think about that. But

Woah. Woah. Woah. Do you get a crystal ball? Because I'm pretty sure the the jets and the blues are tied to two.

Right. It just feels like they're trailing.

It does feel like that, doesn't it?

Connor Hellebuyck's been pulled in back to back games. That didn't happen all a year.

Yeah. And this you talk about spotlights. We get into what the focus is like, the glare is like in Edmonton with Dwayne Roloson in our feature interview because he's lived it in the Canadian market. I can't imagine that it is any brighter than it is shining on Connor Hellebuyck right now. Like, there is he's gonna win his third Vezina trophy, two in a row.

That is like, that got like, guys, like, his career path right now is rubber stamped to the Hockey Hall of Fame. The trophies he's piling up. Like, it is do not pass go, do not collect $200 straight to the Hockey Hall of Fame. And yet, here we are in the first round of the playoffs again, and the spotlight is shining very bright on, you know, why he hasn't been able to match that. And I do think some of it, we get into environment.

You know, he's given up 14 goals in the Stanley Cup playoffs. You know that nine of them are a combination of screens and broken plays. We've talked about what make Connor elite the ability to read the game. I think when we get to the playoffs, teams do such a focus and incredible job of taking away his ability to read the game by taking away his ability to see the puck. And in the past two games, that has led to chaos and scrambles at a rate the jets haven't given up all year.

Seven of the eight broken play high danger chances are in the last two games. Five goals off those four of the five in the last two they're just creating chaos in front of him. And right now, he's also not getting any bounces. Like, the bounces are all off somebody's ass and in as opposed to off a leg and out. And so it's really interesting to he was better than the average bear.

He was well above expected in both screens and broken plays in the regular season. But I think right now, the intensity with which teams are attacking those things, is just really hard for any goaltender and requires a higher level of urgency from some of the guys in front of his crease helping him out. Screens are not just about goaltenders picking the right sight line. They're about shot blocking forwards being in the right lane and then actually blocking a shot. And we've seen a couple of examples in this series where the focus was on forwards not getting out and blocking a shot they should have.

Truth be told, they weren't even in the right lane as they headed out there. So they're creating layered screens on their goaltender by not being in the correct lane per the system. And as I've talked to you guys about before, everybody thinks, you know, shots from distance, I don't care if you they if you didn't see it, you gotta stop it. A layered screen that hits the top corner either side of the net goes in more than a breakaway in the NHL over the past two years. These are not easy.

Connor Hellebuyck still has an opportunity to rescue this postseason and advance. He just, needs a couple of, performances in the final three games against the Saint Louis Blues and Jordan Binnington, who has been great again as those two square off against each other. Hellebuyck wins it. Who who's the who do you think is the the runner-up for the Vizna or the the winner? Because Hellebuyck had the felt felt like Hellebuyck had this thing won In December.

Yeah. In December. And his numbers fell off in 2025 after January 1 a little bit, but the lead was so huge. How about instead of how about I give you guys a quiz, Daren? Because we talked earlier about environments Mhmm.

And expected save percentages. Two of the three Vezina Trophy finalists named this week, Vasilevskiy, Hellebuyck, and Kemper, two of the three also had two of the three easiest environments, highest expected save percentages in the league. I already told you that Calvin Pickard was first. So if you were picking the names of those two out of those three who were in the easiest environments, who would they be? We'd need some Jeopardy music, the producer.

Los Angeles is a goalie friendly environment, is it not?

Yeah. I would pick them.

So who who's them? LA. And? There's two of the three who are in the easiest environments, which is how you get raw numbers like they got. It's not taking anything away from their performance, but a lot of the raw numbers that this voting is based on is team influenced.

I'll go LA and Winnipeg.

Daren? Vegas?

No. No. The two of the three Vezina Trophy finalists finalists. Two of the three Vezina Trophy finalists played in the easiest environments in the league.

So it's it's not Winnipeg?

It can be. You said two of the three.

Two of the three.

Back to Winnipeg and and LA.

And LA. It's not LA. Really? It's not. It's Andre Vasilevskiy and Connor Hellebuyck.

Now I think that you can make an argument that they influence those environments with their consistency because players have to trust the system and they have to trust a goaltender behind them to execute within it. And if you have that belief, you are less likely to chase plays outside of your system and come apart defensively because you trust the guy behind you. So this is not to discredit either one of them in any way, shape, or form. I actually think in both cases, they influence a positive defensive environment. But the reality is Vasilevskiy and Hellebuyck had two of the highest expected, say, percentages in the league amongst guys that saw a couple 100 shots or more, only Calvin Pickard was higher.

And it really goes to show you the narrative about the Kings slip this year, and a lot of their success really was as we saw in game five. And in fairness, haven't really seen to this point in the series, but Darcy Kuemper was that good. And that's why he leads the league in goals saved above expected in the regular season because the environment was looser than you thought, and he was that much better and full value to be a finalist. And and honestly, Daren, I think he probably finished his third in the voting, but he should finish second.

I actually think the goalie can influence that environment through their play as well, Kevin, not just the psychological aspect of the team knowing that they have somebody who can shut the door behind them and that they can trust. You know, rebound control would be a a really simple one. I stood and watched a junior game, with an NHL goalie scout, not watching my child, just to be clear. And he wasn't sold on the goalie he was watching because he gave out so many little short rebounds that got stuffed right back into his pads. It made him look better because the numbers climbed.

Of course, they're really easy rebound saves. But that might make the defensive environment look worse because there's so many more shots happening. Your puck handling can influence the defensive environment, although I'm not sure it's a 100% clear how that is. But if you're really good at it, and I think Connor Hellebuyck was better this year than he has been in the past, you're gonna get more breakouts for your team and there's gonna be fewer opportunities. So let's not discount the goaltenders ability to influence that as well.

I a 100% agree on rebounds, but just a quick note on the those little in tight ones that have no chance of going in. They get

count Yeah. They're low danger.

They get countered high danger by most models, but not by the one I'm referring to, Clearsight Analytics. Because there were a number of sort of second chance opportunities in a game recently. I think it might have even been the third period in overtime of game four against the Oilers for Darcy Kuemper where there were lateral plays and pucks on net, and he made the first save and that was high danger. But then two or three whacks right in front of his pad where he's already in position, those ones did not count as high danger. And I'm pretty sure every other analytics system out there based on the location of them would have labeled them.

But as you know, as a goaltender, as the system measures, once you're there, it ain't going through you.

Interesting. We got we got a few notes from Shannon Szabados this week over a couple of things and I noticed her doing some teaching on online. I think it was a Facebook video she posted about dealing with some of those in tight situations, and she was talking about how easy they were if you use your pads appropriately. That's just a little aside there. But Woody, can you just explain for people out there just to be really clear because I'm waving my parent flag here again, and parents love to count shots and think about what's happening in front of them.

Are you saying that those little shovel into the pads are counted as high danger by some companies simply because they're sort of in the house in that area between the dots and the slot?

Yes. And I would say that almost all public models, are based on play by play and largely distant reliant, count them as high danger.

Edmonton just flooded Darcy Kuemper's feet with pucks, like, over and over and in front of his pads and just jamming away at it. And on a one off, you're like, okay. He's got it. But it he was under siege with with that last night, and I felt anxious watching it happen over and over.

And to be clear, the stuff the banging in off the pads I was referring to was game four. And in third period in overtime, I didn't get to watch game five last night because I actually got to go play myself.

Oh, good for you.

I'm looking largely at the numbers.

How was your save expectancy?

You know what? Last night was my first skate in, like, six weeks, and it went a lot better than I expected, Daren. So for first time in a while

Kevin's expectations weren't

My expect my my expected Kevin's expected based on performance, not environment, is always low. It's it's important to go in with low expectations. But I had two guys that played pro tap me on the pads after the game and say that's the best they've ever seen me. So it's like that first round of golf before you set the expectations, it always goes better than expected.

That's great.

I wonder if it's I wonder if it fits with the little tip I would give for people in those scrambly situations in front of the net. Because too many goalies try and adjust too often. I need to be doing something. I need to get a little closer to that puck rather than realizing you probably have the entire net covered and the best thing you can possibly do is nothing. Oh.

Oh. Because soon as you try and move, you lift your pad, you create a hole. So Woody, if you're immobile and don't move, you're probably making a lot of saves.

Yeah. We don't get a lot of, like, guys flooding the net for jam plays at the Tuesday night's game. But my point

Buddy, I'm just trying to give you some props here.

I suck. Let's be let's be honest. I I I

Woody, be nice to yourself.

I had a horse

shoe on be would he be nice to himself day, and I'm not gonna chirp at you.

He he's so good. He even stops the conference. Article. Folks, we have this article online. We have this article featuring, like, half a dozen NHL goalies explaining how to manage those situations.

The scrambles, the chaos that we talked about Hellebuyck facing in these like, what's the best thing to do? And it's the hardest thing to convince yourself of. We have half a dozen. Go find it online at ingoalmag.com. I'll I'll I'll create a link to it.

It's in the archives. It's from earlier this season. And they all talk about just a little drift back and stay home. Like, do not chase in those scrambles because as Hutch said, as soon as you move your opening holes and it's really hard to convince yourself you don't have to move, but you've all been there as goaltenders where as soon as you do, the puck squirts through. And so, you know, in Darcy's case, Darcy uses a lot of paddle down, maybe more than any other goalie in the NHL, but it's a great tip for anybody who may be experiencing the same thing.

The chaos in front of the crease has never been higher in the NHL, and we've got a handful of NHL goalies that advise you on how to survive it.

So looking for the puck like you've got a leash in your hand and you're chasing your dog around the house to go for a walk isn't the way to handle that?

I mean, it's how I do it, but probably not the best way. Yeah.

Woody, be nice to yourself. We're gonna call him out every time he flags himself today.

I was freaking great last night. Let's put it that way. So there we go. Thank you. I'm nice to myself.

Good day.

Your favorite save? Good job, buddy.

Favorite save would actually probably not be the one. I mean, I had a I had a couple where I was fully extended and I got the glove up.

Choice is good.

You know? Kinda kinda like the Frederik Andersen off the end boards and, like, little bit sprawled and just lifted and got it. And there was visual connection, and so the glove was but those there's an element of luck in that. So the my favorite save would be a guy cutting in under the left circles and having early identification. There was a backdoor, and he's an elite shooter.

And and my temptation would normally be to stay, like, step out on him, but I got across for the backdoor. Is is there any better feeling than the backdoor tap in that they slam off your pads because you've read it? I think that's my favorite save in the world. Like, the guy just absolutely uncorks one, but there's nowhere to go. It's and it's because you've made a read, you're there early, and the puck has nowhere to go, and he just slams it off your pad, and everybody makes, like, oh, and you're like, yeah.

I read that one perfect. The save execution actually isn't difficult. It's all about the read. Right? I think that's my fave what's your favorite save?

That's my favorite save.

I just I enjoy it just when they when they shovel into my pad. Even if it I'm not really making the save, they more miss the shot, but it looks like I'm making the save. I enjoyed that one.

I'll take that. Yeah.

I'm on board with that. Let's get to oh, we should mention Dwayne Roloson expected in here in a little bit. Looking forward to that conversation with the Sense Arena feature interview. But right now, the Hockey Shop Gear Segment, the Warrior Ritual V 4 stick coming up as things crank up over at the hockey shop and the hockeyshop.com.

Gear

Yes. You'll hear in this Gear Segment with Cam, one of three Warrior Sticks that launched recently, including what we suspect might be the best value in goaltending. We're gonna go through all three of them, but you may have noticed that's a lot of Warrior. That's three weeks in a row with new Warrior equipment, and there's more coming. It's that time of the year when companies roll out new gear.

And right now in stock, they've got a lot of Warrior equipment, a reminder, because not all companies allow the Hockey Shop or any company to ship cross border, but Warrior does. And so when you hear the prices around these, they are in Canadian dollars. If you are American, you can get this stick delivered to you. So, some real savings there and also real savings all around the hockey shop as the new stuff arrives and they clear up the old stuff. I actually know somebody.

We had this discussion a couple of weeks ago over the pants guys. You know, remember we're talking about the the golf wedges and would anybody go out and buy the Warrior pants previous generation because of the flat front

Yeah.

Now that it's discontinued and is more of a rounded NHL style barrel? I know somebody that went out and bought a new set of Warrior pants because they didn't want the rounded barrel. They love that flat front. So those are I believe the old previous generation of Warrior stuff is up to up to 50% off at the hockey shop right now in the hockeyshop.com. So this is what happens.

The new stuff comes in. They gotta have room for it. In addition to 30,000 square feet at the store, they got, like, another 10,000 in warehouse where all this new stuff gets shipped into and stored. They need to make room on the shelves for all the new gear, and that means great savings for you. Check it out at The Hockey Shop Source for Sports and hockeyshop.com.

All as the new stuff comes in, you'll see the old stuff discounted.

What's the previous line?

Before V4, I think it's V3

Okay.

It's about the only thing about their price points and labels that make sense to me.

So if you're

looking As you'll hear.

The old line Go V 3, the new line is the V 4, and we're talking about twigs.

Warrior Ritual V four. Shaft geometry changes throughout the lineup. Exciting news that we're going to get to before the end of this video. Welcome back to The Hockey Shop Source for Sports. I'm InGoal Utopia with Cam, and we do have the Warrior Ritual V4 version four of the stick.

Three different models. I feel

like you're stealing my thunder here. Like, I I I mean, just that was all I let

the people know what's coming, Cameron. Yeah. Waiting until the end is called burying the lead. Twenty five years in journalism, I still do it all the time. So Warrior, Ritual, V 4.

What's new?

What's new? Let's talk about this. First of all, nice, shiny, chromed out V 4 sticks that they've updated their graphics, especially for the Warrior logo themselves. That nice shiny chrome pop. I mean, you're gonna see this thing from the other side of the ice.

Catch the light, maybe, you shine it in the shooter's eye a little bit. Maybe a little bit of advantage on your side.

I don't know. I mean, I I think it could be an advantage. Shiny.

Trying to beam the light off the camera there. Okay.

One thing that you noticed,

I know

you don't

go to

the gym, but how lightweight the stick is. Like, you're not struggling to hold it at all. So like, that's important. Right? I'm soft as butter and I don't work out.

So absolutely.

Is soft. Can you give me a gram measurement on this thing?

So clearly, Kevin would ask a situation like that and clearly Cam would have the number and it's just gonna appear above my head due to a nice little bit of camera editing from our wonderful editor, Dave Hutchison.

But clearly Cam didn't actually have the answer, so we had to edit that in later. Come on. What's let's let's go. K. Three different models.

Flying forward here, the biggest thing here that I really, really like, and this is now evident on all three price points, RTL, Pro, and just the V 3 or V4. Sorry. So hold on. ASG shaft. Okay.

I'll let you do this. ASG shaft. ASG shaft. So what is the ASG shaft? I can read.

It's the asymmetrical shaft geometry. So

That's the

one that has that little sorta it's it's got a twist. It's rounded. It's all of these things.

So we can play props here for a quick second.

Oh, yeah.

Props. Yeah. So when you go to go play the puck off this mid kick stick, by the way Mid kick point? Yes. So the glove slots nicely into that overall feel.

So let's show it off a little bit easier, the actual camera. When I go to go play, I can get supreme torque out of that very, very much. You can really put your palm and you can really put that pressure into the stick to get that

flex out of it. It's kinda hard to see, but, like, it's thinner. If you think about the way your fingers would would grip something, you can sort of see that it's thinner on this edge, a little thinner on that edge, and as you round through, it's a little thicker on this edge, so just kind of naturally slides into the hand.

Has the glove my slots right in there. Best thing, rounded edges as well all the way throughout that shaft,

so we're reducing flat points in terms of for shots as they're coming off

of the stick. Where do sticks break when they get hit in the shaft? On the sharp edges, and there aren't any sharp edges. So that's gonna reduce shaft breakage.

Correct. Great call out by Warrior. Great overall innovation by Warrior. It's something we saw on the previous sticks. I think the the M 2

was the first Try not to get confused. It's now on all three the whole point here. It's on all three of the Ritual models. Now what are some of the other differences in the models? Why don't we start?

Because I know I'm gonna be confused by this, and yes, folks, I'm easily confused. Yes. But what is the lowest price point? K. Which one is that?

So that is the V4. This is the lowest price point.

Well,

it's still really light.

Yes. First thing it does stand out, weight, number one. A little heavier, but between the three, yes, it is gonna be obviously the heaviest. It's the lowest price point at $179. 99. That's Canadian dollars.

It's literally half of the highest price point, less than half. So it's a significant difference. So $179 I mean, I can think of sticks that are a higher price point than this that way more to be It's

a nice stick. So you don't get quite the same shiny poppy graphic?

No. Not the same level of

carbon heavier.

Yes. That's why that heaviness comes into that stick. Right. But you still have the cap. Exactly.

Exactly. And I think that's a great, great benefit and a

great options in terms of curves and lies? So when it comes to curves, you're gonna see twist all the way through. So twist is similar to a P 31 curve, a P 4 curve in CCM's world, T31 or m C 31 in True's World in particular. That's all that's available on this through all three or just on the the lower model? Through all three stock off of the wall.

Now Right.

Pro Custom order. Okay.

And RTL do have custom options, and there you can get the mid curve as well as the wedge.

Okay. So let's go to the second price point then.

Second price point. Which is what?

What's it called? V three Pro. Oh, they did it again. The Pro is the second price point? The Pro is the second price point.

Because I've always aspired to be an RTL goalie at the NHL, not a pro. Just kidding, Warrior. I I I tease because I love. Okay. Confusing confusing levels of sticks aside, the Pro is a second price point.

Tell me how that makes sense. What are the differences?

So basically it comes down to the carbon count of the stick. So higher minimum carbon count when you're using the RTL. Beyond that spec wise, we're still very, very similar. So what's that mean? RTL is still going to be a lighter weight than the Pro.

Okay. So you just basically get better carbon and lighter weight as you move up Exactly. The options. And the second price point, Pro $259, the highest price point RTL, you're into a $379 stick. Of course, that is Canadian currency.

I think that's like the price of two cups of coffee in The States right now with the exchange rate. And because it's a Warrior product, you can ship it across the border.

So for our American friends, you can take advantage of your dollar relative to ours and save some more money and get it shipped down there. Once again, custom is available at both the Pro and RTL

price What so what are we looking at for custom? Colors?

Colors and curve. And curve. And you put put your name

on it. What name, colors, curve.

Anything else? That's to be it. Slightly different shoulder shape. Can get a steeper shoulder shape if you wish. Just the steeper shoulder.

And and folks will remember the Warrior a little bit thicker their shoulders I find, but softer edges this time. Yes. In the earlier versions, I found that the edges here, some goalies complained that they were a little too sharp and felt them in their hands. This one feels a little better. Last one, Cam, because this one's important.

We've talked about it before. Sizing. Paddle sizing. Are we now conforming Yes. With everyone

That's correct. So this is something that we saw on the m four model. So Yes. These sticks, the new

Ritual V4, all three models, your length of your paddle is going to be similar right around the same as Bauer CCM.

25 Bauer, 25 Warrior now lining up. Important if you're ordering

online because in the old days, right, the 26 and a half would be the equivalent of a 25 roughly. They had a different measuring system. Now they're on board with everybody else, so there's similarities. Again, if you're a long time Warrior user, something to be very cognizant of before you order this stick online. Three different price points, three beautiful sticks.

I gotta say like as impressed as I am with the high end, the 179 v four price point, that's a really good price point. Getting the shaft geometry, the ASG in there. I think that's gonna be a really attractive stick for a lot of people too, and the one thing we've learned over the years is sometimes the lighter carbon also can break a little easier. Sometimes the cheaper sticks can be a little more durable, so really good value there at $1.79. Cam, if they got any questions about the different models, what you have in stock or custom ordering because if you're gonna custom order one, might as well do it

from the guys that know best. (604) 589-8299 or 1-800-567-7790 or check us out at the hockeyshop.com.

See, that was an education. Not just on on the sticks, but the fact that you can find a real quality product at a lower price point and lower level on the hierarchy of a of a team's product line.

Yeah. And as we said, what makes this one special, the base model Ritual V4 stick has the special shaft geometry that they've added at the higher price point. It's the first time they brought it down to the lowest price point. So and listen, this is a conversation that goes beyond Warrior in terms of as the price gets cheaper, the lower price point sticks. What you're typically dealing with is a lesser quality carbon fiber or you're not getting it's not gonna be as light.

The kick point might not have quite as much whip to it. Like, it might be a little bit of a stiffer, less feel when you're passing the puck. But one of the things about that carbon is it tends to be a little more durable. I'm experiencing it right now in CCM. I ordered the second price point stick.

I ordered three of them. I liked it so much. Same kind of thing. The the XF Pro has the new shaft geometry that a lot of guys love, sort of thicker at the top, little more rounded edges, thinner down the bottom fingers. I really like it.

And you also get it in their second price point stick, the XF not pro, just the plain old XF. And I have found anecdotal as it is, not science, but the same guy keeps beating me blocker side and going off the shaft of my stick in warm ups, and the pro lasted only so long. I mean, it's just the reality of any stick if you get it up there. And the XF has lasted quite a bit longer. I bought three.

I'm still in my first one, and that was around January. So, you know, you can get more durability out of the second price points in a lot of different brands.

Don't make the assumption that the heavier stick, which is a little less whippy as Kevin says, don't make the assumption that that's a negative. Some people want that whippier stick because they feel they can really launch the puck if they're going for that long outlet pass. But the more important thing is, can you stop a puck behind the net when it's getting rimmed and you have to make a defensive play? And a lot of goalies like a stiffer stick in that situation. Of course, if you're big and strong like Daren is, you'd like the stiffer stick for taking those long shots as well.

But do think about there's multiple reasons for why you wanna stick a certain way. And so that stiffer one might actually be the better move for you anyway. I was wondering, guys, Woody rails a little bit about how they name the sticks. Maybe somebody will be courageous enough to refer to their three sticks in their line as the the practice, the warm up, and the gamer.

I don't mind that.

If they do, they will probably at least order them correctly as opposed to having pro as the lowest for the mid price one. I tease I tease because I love.

I thought you were onto something when you said you've got the the pro model and then you've got the not pro model. I think that's a good way to to label them as well. Would anybody go down that path?

Well, I'm evident well, it's a little tougher when you have three. And and like I said, Warrior's New Ritual V4 line has three. It's just this plain old V4. The Pro is the second price point, and the top end is RTL, which in fairness, as much as I've railed against it, and let's be honest, I rail against a lot of things because I'm old man yelling at clouds, in fairness is consistent throughout their lines. They've simplified their offerings in chest, in pant, and they've stuck with this nomenclature throughout even though I vehemently disagree with Pro being the second price point.

It is at least consistent throughout their new line.

And Warrior is not the only company that does this.

Right. As we pointed out. Bauer does it. Doesn't Bauer do it too? Don't they call, like, the pro at their second price point as pro?

Speaking of consistency, consistently, other companies call their second model.

This this is going

be something there. It's gotta be a marketing angle.

Oh, much much smarter.

Minds than us and what they're doing.

Much smarter minds than us, Daren. But it doesn't mean I have to like it even if it becomes an industry standard. Again, old man yells at clout.

Love it. And I really, really do appreciate everybody over at the hockey shop, the hockeyshop.com, and what they do for InGoal Radio, the podcast, when we stop by for all of those gear segments, make Woody and Hutch just feel right at home. So keep up the great work there, and can't wait to see what's next on your shelves. Let's get over to the Stop It Goaltending U, the app parent segment. And before we dive into what Hutch has on offering today, Stop It Goaltending U, the app, cranking up for what is the already the off season for a lot of people.

Yeah. And once again, multiple levels and layers for you to choose from in terms of how you use the Stop It Goaltending U app this week. You've got the quick hit primers focusing using the words I am. So a lot of self talk, how to make sure you frame yourself talk properly. Oh, framing.

That's something that we get into with Dwayne Roloson. That's part of the quick one minute primers. They've got a video this week. Their quick hits are five minute videos. If you wanna invest five minutes in getting better as a goaltender, this week's interestingly enough giving our giving our conversation earlier is on simplifying chaos.

How do you simplify things when it's nuts in front of you? So simplifying chaos, they've got a goalie IQ segment where they watch film and break down tape with one of the Stop It Goaltending coaches focusing on Jake Oettinger and Mackenzie Blackwood, two of the big names in the playoffs so far. And a drill of the week, two player behind the net with pass out options. You can walk through that one, see if it's one. Maybe there's something in your game pass outs from behind the net have been an issue.

They've got a nice easy to follow drill, two players pass out options that you can take on the ice at your next practice if that's something you need to work on. So all those options available this week in the Stop It Goaltending U app and, of course, in our minds, and we're biased a little best of all, you get a subscription to InGoal Magazine as part of your monthly subscription to Stop It Goal Tending U, the app. Hutch.

Parent Playbook

This week, answering a question from a parent who wants to know what to do with their eight year old goaltender this summer, and specifically, is it appropriate to send them to a goalie school? I have some thoughts on this that I wanted to share. I probably talked about what's best in the summer and so on in the past more generically, but specifically to the younger goaltender, and I'm talking five, six, seven, eight years old here. So what are what are my thoughts that I wanted to share? Well, first, as you can imagine, number one has to be fun.

If your kid is not having fun, there is no point doing it. You are only gonna harm their love for goaltending and their love for the sport. So don't send them somewhere that they are not going to have fun. And that sounds like an easy thing to say, but I do think as a parent, have some specific things that you should do to ensure that this is true. It's okay to go to a goalie school in the summer, by the way, especially if you're one of those kids who doesn't get enough support during the year.

Getting a little development, learning some basic skills will only make the sport more enjoyable and more successful for your son or daughter next season. So by all means, if you wanna spend a week or two at goalie schools this summer, go for it. But do a little bit of research so that you can ensure that they're having fun. And I would say, are they a good personality match for your son or daughter? Whether you have the opportunity to go and see these coaches working now before you make a decision or whether you go to the online directory, look up a couple of schools in your area, and click that button that allows you to request more information from the school.

Ask a few specific questions about how they handle the youngest kids. I wouldn't be afraid to say, could you put me in touch with another parent of someone who has worked with you at a similar age so I can ask them some questions? And find out more because you're making a significant investment for your child and this is going to be a significant moment in their development. So I think it's okay to ask some questions. Are they a good personality match for your son or daughter?

The schools that my child went to at age five and six, and yes, I know it sounds a little crazy, but my six year old was at a goalie school. He was just out there to have fun. He actually didn't participate in the entire camp. He did the ice sessions and then the other stuff. We actually went to a golf course one afternoon and just hung out as as father and son.

But those schools were a really good match for his personality because the primary thing they did was have fun. And the coaches knew how to interact with the kids so that it would be fun. They weren't just managing bodies on the ice and making sure they got through the drills. They were really interacting with the kids on a personal level. I actually think finding a school if you can with a lower student teacher ratio would be best especially at the young ages.

We find this flip typically because just the economics of coaching, usually, you're charging less to the younger kids. And so you have a few more kids on the ice than you would with the older kids who tend to be spending a little bit more money. But the younger kids can actually handle a lot more reps in the net. Their bodies are not stressed by the moving around the creases as they are when you get to be six foot two and a hundred and eighty pounds and having to start and stop around the crease. That's exhausting.

And kids have a limited attention span. So whether they have a lower student teacher ratio so your kids can be in the net a little bit more, or are they doing something between drills to keep the kid's attention? We've talked here before and we've talked with coaches before about how there's real value in the time when you're not in the net to observe the other goalies and and mentally prepare for your time in the crease and so on, but that's too much to ask of a of an eight year old. So are they doing something like some puck handling drills and so on? I've seen schools where they have a coach dedicated to keeping the kids amused who are not in the crease for a particular drill.

And it's not just amused, it's doing useful things as well. I would ask, is the off ice conditioning appropriate for a kid of that age? Like I said, my son opted out of some of it. We were in a I know that based on what we do for a living, it's a little easier for me to ask these things, but we did some other things rather than the off ice training in some of these camps. I've seen camps that absolutely bury kids and take away from their on ice experience because they think they need to be so cool and work so hard off ice.

On the other side of it, if I can give credit to our friend Eli Wilson, he brings in a very experienced PE teacher to run his off ice sessions. Happens to be a goaltender as well, so he understands the position. But he's providing a really good atmosphere where the kids can learn some things off ice, but still be ready to go on for that next ice session, which is what you're investing the most, time and energy into. So that's my thoughts about the camps. I would also just add, as we've said here before, skating, skating, skating.

You don't want to drive your eight year old into the ice with power skating if they're going to hate it. But the more opportunity they have to be on their blades, player skates to be a player or a referee, They will be better goaltenders or better players later on down the line. You need to build that skating foundation. And finally, get them out there playing other sports. Don't make it a summer of goaltending only.

Baseball, soccer, tennis, whatever it might be. You've heard it here before. Your eight year old can do those things as well. So gents, those are my thoughts on goalie schools for young children.

Can I have the guy that did the amusement stuff come out to my Beer League game for when it's a little slow?

I just For when there's something at the other end?

Yeah. Just, you know, a little entertainment. Sure. Some things that help me out, juggling, things that help my skills.

It's actually it's actually not crazy, you know, with the young kids and hockey when especially when they play full ice at a very young age, you should have somebody down there to amuse the other goalie. Yeah.

Really? You get bored, Woody?

No. I'm usually trying to catch my breath there and that's reality. I just I just like the idea of somebody being there for my amusement. You're like, get away from me. I'm

to breathe over here.

My amusement today. We're signaling to the referee. I I when I last night was a little rough. So by the end of it, I was a little gassed. I had been riding the bike, but I haven't been doing that type of fitness in the six weeks off ice.

And so nobody came to take my net down to the far end for the Zamboni guy. So I'm like, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna grind this out. I put all my stuff on the net, and I turned around and I give it the hard pushes all the way down to the end. And got there and I was like, whoo, a little way above.

Little wheezy.

Zamboni guy's like, I made a joke about asking him where the defib was in the rink. And for a moment, he's like, he looked at me and I guess I'd washed out pretty pretty pale. And he's like, are you? Like, are you okay? Like, really?

Really? You asked about the defib. I'm like, I was joking. He's like, yeah, but I'm looking at you right now and I'm not so sure you are.

It's funny and then there's not funny.

Yeah. Speaking of, being amused in that time when you're not in the net and signaling, I heard Woody just say there, I'll just say, next week we're gonna address a parrot question that I think will be a jaw dropping moment for both of you. And I will just leave it at that. There is a jaw dropper of a question from a parrot that I chose not to answer this week because I still need to wrap my head around it. But come and join us next week for a really good one.

Oh, that is our first next week tease on the parent site. It is. I'm I am fat I am on like bated

breath We've a for few when they're we've had a few when they're two or three parters and I was raging about stats and things. But but no, this one, I'm not gonna tell you what it is, but it'll be it'll be fun.

Oh, intriguing.

Jaw dropping. Make sure you wear your chin cup though. Like like, don't be taking that thing out of the chin slick.

Oh, speaking of teases about content on the site, have has everybody checked out Kevin's fantastic piece on goalies losing their teeth when they play. Kevin Kevin's photo is in the article. There's a tease. Go check it out so you can see a photo of Woody without tooth. And Woody always posts this stuff on socials and the first comment on the article came from none other than Carey Price.

No way.

On Instagram. Yeah. He's like, what was it? I would recommend not getting kicked in the head because he's lost some chicklets on the ice too.

And we missed that. To be fair, we missed that one in the article. We probably should go back and add it because there is video out there of Carey Price getting kicked in the face and losing his teeth. And if I can use the term that the kids seem to use these days, it was one of the most nails moment with a goalie I have ever seen as he just coldly skates to the bench, hands over his tooth, skates right back into the crease, and continues the game. It was like nothing had happened.

It was unreal.

CP commented then on your your social post?

Instagram. Yep.

It's good indeed. Nice. Yeah. Visual Edge ProReads this week.

Devon Levi, who is having a great start to the Calder Cup playoffs with Rochester Americans, had a great season with the Rochester Americans. It is the last of our video breakdowns from our session two years ago, and so that may feel a little old. It's from his first taste in the National Hockey League, but we didn't wanna waste his insights because they have been so valuable. And so this week in the ProReads presented by Vizual Edge, Devon gets us into the importance of not relaxing when the puck is still in the zone. He told me in college, he used to put his arm up on the posts on the crossbar and lean back because he trusted his defenseman to get out cleanly.

He has quickly learned in the National Hockey League that those counterattacks come quick. And so there is a really good takeaway in there, and then he breaks down the resulting rush play as well in terms of how he handles it. But the key being that he was prepared for it, which allows him to get out early and get a little flow, which is how he plays. Devon also gives some great advice in this week's ProReads. So go to the go to the website, ingoalmag.com, and you'll be able to click on and and watch him give this advice on the summers, on how you train, on the importance of not being too programmed and having dynamic elements to your summer skates.

So there's some great advice this week, not just on the ProRead itself, but on how you structure your off season as a goalie and in your goalie training. And so, some some great insights all at ingoalmag.com. And as usual, the ProReads is presented by Vizual Edge, a great cognitive and vision training tool that you can do on your computer, on a tablet. Guys right up to the National Hockey League use this to help make their eyes and their awareness better. We've heard guys like Cam Talbot talk in ProReads about finding pucks through bodies and coming off of moving screens better since he started training with Vizual Edge.

Our ProReads are designed to allow you to read and see the game better. So what better partner than Vizual Edge that gives you concrete ways to see the puck and the ice better? They're the perfect partnership. Make sure you check it out at ingoalmag.com for your discount. If you're a member of InGoal premium and you can read the ProReads, that means there is an increased discount for you available in each week's ProReads as well as the standard $5 off per month discount using the code InGoal.

Woody, is there a chance we might get some more ProReads done with Devon Levi this summer?

There

And where might that happen?

There is, which is a great reminder that we are going to spend some time with Devon's coach this summer. If you haven't seen it already, make sure you go to the Goalie School Guide. There's an ad in there, and it's part of the partnership that we have with Marco Raimondo and his schools. There is a camp this week. It's kind of a it's not quite a turning pro, though it could be.

It's for goalies making the next step. How do you get to triple a bantam? How do you get to junior? How do you get to college? What are the next steps?

And Marco is throwing together a camp, not throwing together, put together a camp with some great names to help you get there. It is Stephane Waite, two time Stanley Cup winning goalie coach of the Chicago Blackhawks and and coach Carey is with the Montreal Canadiens. Mike Condon is gonna come in with some advice in terms of mental training, something he's focused on in his education as well. Devon Levi's university coach. There you go.

That's right. And actually Devon refers to Mike in this week's ProReads. Danny Sabourin, who was coaching the San Jose Sharks AHL affiliate, had to leave that job for personal reasons. But all the work we've done with him both at Hockey Canada experiences for me and with the Sharks, like, is a excellent, excellent coach. He will be there.

Manny Fernandez, who park partners with Marco in these camps. He will be there. It there's gonna be we will be there. July 21, one week camp, Montreal. It's actually only $800, and it is a lot of value because they are bringing a lot of names to help goalies hit the next level, whether that is moving into triple a in your draft year, moving on to junior at the major junior or junior a or junior b level or moving on to college or even pro.

This camp is really focused on what they do at those levels and helping you get to them.

Manny Fernandez. There's a name that ties in nicely with today's feature interview. Fernandez and Dwayne Roloson together in the Minnesota Wild back in the day as

Oh, there's a memory, Daren.

We get into our Sense Arena feature interview. I love Manny Fernandez stance and his gear. Like, he just everything about it was awesome. But and Dwayne Roloson was a guy I got to know a little bit during their run-in Edmonton through a few mutual friends, and and Dwayne was cool in his work ethic both on and off the ice and with video. Like, he he looked at things just uniquely, and you you think back and knowing what you know now, you go, oh, it's natural that he would become a a goalie coach.

But, the feature interview brought to us by NHL Sense Arena.

It sure is. And, guys, have you, I wonder, or how many people out there listening have checked out the new three on three mode in NHL Sense Arena? Kevin has.

That might have been why I played so well the other night. I actually managed to get out. I didn't just do drills because I like I said, it had been six weeks, maybe even longer since I've been on the ice. So my first focus was to get back into Sense Arena and see and see some pucks. And I thought, why not try out the three out because it's a little more game dynamic.

I I mean, I'm not saying it's why I played my best game in a long time, but you never know. It certainly didn't hurt. I'll tell you that much.

That's awesome. We didn't set that up either. I had no idea that Woody had actually done that. So that's really cool. It's three zero three hockey on a full size rink.

So you can actually compete for the Stanley Cup now at home, in your living room, in your basement, wherever you choose to do Sense Arena, just not in the office like Kevin Woodley so you're not breaking your hand on the desk as you go to make a big blocker save.

It was just Whether

wanna play the full game as a goalie or if you wanna switch between stopping pucks and scoring goals, now it's possible. It's really easy. You can just get in there as a player, be a forward, be a d man, whatever you want, make that switch. You can join one of 16 Stanley Cup playoff teams, play your way through the best of seven series progressing round by round in sync with the real 2025 playoffs. And hopefully at the end, you can hoist the cup if you make it all the way.

You play full three period games of three, five, or ten minutes. You can be a forward as a goalie or a goalie, as I said, switching roles just with the touch of a button. And with this controller only mode, you don't even need a stick mount. So you just gotta grab your meta controllers and go. So check it out now at sensearena.com.

And as always, use the code IGM 50 at checkout to save even more.

Rolling the goalie. Nice to nice to connect with a guy that, did a lot a lot late in his career.

Absolutely. And had a great career. As you said, did a lot late. Obviously, well known for the run-in Edmonton, and we get into that a little bit. Some some fascinating stuff on how he actually felt going to Edmonton and how he overcame it.

The time with Minnesota, but to be honest, all the things that he learned during his career and how he's applied them, including analytics and developing his own analytics system a little ahead of the curve in his early days with Anaheim and how he saw the game through a goalie's eyes, how that has transferred into his goalie coaching, work that he did in the NHL with the ducks first, then privately even today in Tampa Bay, which is where he finished his career and lives during the season, as well as coaching players on how to score. We roll all of it into a can't miss interview this week. It's a long one, and there's still room for a part two. That's how fascinating the career and thoughts of Dwayne Roloson are. Really excited to welcome to the InGoal Radio Podcast.

First time guest, and that's probably on me. Should have caught up with him a lot sooner than this. I enjoyed covering parts of his career in the National Hockey League. Eighteen NHL seasons. Has been doing some coaching since then with the Anaheim Ducks as a goaltending consultant for three years, about ten years ago, and with a variety of different organizations, into the NCAA in different roles in recent years.

Feature Interview - Dwayne Roloson

Dwayne Roloson, welcome to the InGoal Radio Podcast. Thank you for taking the time today.

Well, thank you for having me.

What let let's maybe catch some people up with what you have been doing because, you know, I know after you stopped playing, you were with the Ducks in a in a goalie coaching role and then spent left to spend some time like, family became a focus, moved to Vancouver Island, which, hey, by the way, is where InGoal originated, and sorta did some different things. And now when I, you know, I check out the old HockeyDB, it's listed as, you know, not so much a a goalie coach per se, but director of player development with Niagara University. So walk us catch us up on what you've been up to.

Yeah. So, so when I left, Anaheim, you know, my kids went to moved to Vancouver Island. They went to, Shawnigan Lake School there. They and then they one graduated, started playing in the BCHL, and then the other one moved to Edmonton. So, when I was on the island, I was working with the Victoria Royals, doing a little bit of everything, like player development, goalie stuff.

So I had my hands in doing a little bit of different things. Our assistant coach there was educated in Germany on analytics. He went to sports analytics class over there, and I had a bunch of analytics stuff that I designed in Anaheim, and so we played around with that. So we did a lot of goofy things with analytics and how we could use it there. Then from there, the kids went to play junior and COVID happened, and I didn't feel like I wanted to go into a bubble and Kamloops with the rest of the Western League.

So, I stayed out of the bubble and just did everything remotely, via computer and everything else. And then my kids end up playing in the North American Hockey League, and we moved to The US. So I didn't wanna be from in two different countries just in case something were to happen to them. So in that point, the oldest went to school at Lake Superior State and watched him and the other one actually moved back to Surrey. He was playing junior in Surrey and got to watch them a lot.

Then the next year, Lake Superior State School, a guy left and they asked me to come in and help them out. And so I did a bunch of different things, primarily goalies, but, we had two ice times in the morning and in the afternoon. So I did a lot of development stuff in the mornings with the players. Evenings was all goalie stuff, so focus on the goalies and be around the team and and all that stuff. So I did that for a couple of years and then both my boys transferred, to Niagara University this past season just because they're both in science and they couldn't practice in the afternoons.

They'd be missing practice all day long. So they moved to Niagara. And so I came on board there with Jason Lamers, who's a good friend of mine. So I did a lot with the offense there. I tried to create offense, try to help them.

And in the past, I've done some consulting with him and just like talking offense, to help him build within. And so I I was focused on that. Then towards the end of the year, the goalies started questioning why I wasn't helping them and doing anything with them. So I did take on a little bit of goalie responsibility towards the end, but my main goal was offense.

So that is a whole bunch of different like, I'm curious about analytics. Obviously, I mean, you played eighteen years in the NHL. You had experiences beyond that internationally and before the NHL career started. There's so much from an experience standpoint of stopping pucks. But now analytics has my eyebrow raised, working with players has my eyebrows raised, all those different roles at a time when we're seeing how the game is played in front of goalies change how goalies have to play in reaction to it.

You've got a pretty full scope there and a pretty good look and a pretty good picture at how this all interacts. What, you know, what are some of the key thoughts that come out of that? Big question. Are there any things you can simplify from patterns that you see changing and evolving?

Yeah, so the analytics was something I was sort of playing around with in Anaheim, just sort of charting shots and seeing where they're coming from, and it came from a finished model of 10 ways to score. So I used that model to start my analytics, but I didn't know where to go with it. And then we hired the Anaheim, not we, but Anaheim hired an analytic staff that I just remember one night we're up in San Jose, Frederik Andersen gets scored on. It's a backdoor tap and it goes over the crossbar two times and backdoor tap it. So I asked the guy.

He actually came into town the next week. I'm like, yeah. Can I see my goalie's analytics? And I remember the game, and I said, so this one, you got Freddie as a analytics five. Why does he have five goals against?

He goes, well, the goal will score from there. I go, what happened before that goal? Well, I don't know. That's just where it was from. I'm like, okay.

You cannot use your normal analytics for goalies. Right. And you got to know what's going on before, what's happening, what's all the way around, the situation that goes the pot goes into that. And then he's like, well, I wanna learn more. So then I started teaching him, and then we came up with a great scheme that or not scheme, but a great great pattern.

He was able to take my shot charts, whatever. I came up with the numbers. I came up with all this stuff, and then he inputted them into the spreadsheet. And then when I charted my games, I would just I would literally scan, and I'd have an updated version right like that night. And what it was funny because then you can see when I'm the only person putting it in.

So analytics, whether you believe in it or not, if you put the same thing in, you're gonna get the same thing out. Right? So if you and I are doing a game, we're gonna have different analytics because what you see is totally different than what I see and vice versa. So I was the only one putting those numbers in so I could get a good, clear grasp of what was going on, how goals were going in. And when I charted it, I was charting what those things were doing and where they were going in and the net.

So now I could go back and look at the analytics, grab my video, and then I could sort of say, Hey, John Gibson, who's having a tough time, high glove shots, wanted to go east west from blocker two to glove side. He wants to split. He doesn't wanna come over clean, and he's getting beat there. So then I could design drills to help him. And then Freddie on on the other side would be, you know, blocker side.

He has a tendency to drop his blocker. Well, I could take those numbers, take the video, and go to Freddie. This is what's going on. This is how we why we've been trying to stop you from dropping that blocker and sort of get them to understand, which it helped me design drills and to make my goal is better at the time at the NHL level. So it it really helped me become a better goalie coach, to be honest with you.

It it just you know, because I was putting the numbers in. I was getting everything back, and I was keeping everything in in check with what I knew and how I could help our goal is. And then it was funny because once we started I started doing things, I started sort of marking where the puck was coming into the zone. Now we're playing LA, I think, in the playoffs. I'm like, hey, Bruce, just so you know, LA likes to come in on the right side 90 of the time.

And he's like, how do you know that? And I'm like, well, just for my analytics stuff here. You know? So maybe we can change our forecheck to maybe overload it. You know?

So we're able to play around. Like, I was able to play around and give Bruce a lot of credit because he he actually listened, and we were able to sort of offset what some of the teams were doing to us as it as the same sort of group. So it was a lot of fun playing around with it, and then I sort of designed my own little analytics spreadsheet just for scouting, like when I'm scouting goalies and all that stuff and something that in Victoria with the Royals, we have a good scouting staff, but everyone was afraid to scout goalies. And I'm like, k, I'm going to design something for you all to use, and it's very simple. It's very easy, and you can just it doesn't matter.

It's not me. It's you. I want your number, your perspective, your everything. Then I'll get it from all the scouts and then I'll put them all together. Then I'll narrow it down and then I'll go back out and see the top five or six or whatever depending on how many goalies we're going to drop that year.

Our scouts loved it because it took a lot of their their inexperience to make them feel good. Well, I'm a good goalie guy now. I I trust myself. And so it was good for them to understand, especially some of the older scouts that we had on staff, they were like, I don't want to deal with the goalie. I don't want to look at a goalie.

I don't want to pick a goalie. I'm like, No, I'm not going to Northern Saskatchewan to find a goalie to waste the team's money when you're already there. So it it actually at the end of the day, worked out really well and we're able to to do a great job with, you know, picking some goalies and understanding, and getting some the kids from out in the middle of nowhere, that that were great goalies. Getting them into the organization or understanding where their weaknesses are, excuse me, when they came into the organization so we can make them better.

Context. Like you're talking about context when assessing a goaltender and making it simple for people. We always hear the goalies are voodoo. I think if you give them the rules of context of the how and why pucks end up in the net, it allows them to assess things a little better, whether it's you as a coach designing drills or a scout looking at a position he wouldn't normally care to look at. Thank you very much.

Yeah. So it was so it was neat. And, you know, I I spent a lot of time with our with our head scouts and and with, some of the like, when we come in for training camp, we'd we'd have a goalie meet, with our scouts in and sort of bring them in and understand this is what we're looking for as a staff, as a group, and here's how you guys can evaluate it. Here's the easy easy way to look at it. You can look at it goalie like a defenseman.

You guys are okay evaluating your D man, but you're afraid to evaluate a goalie. We do the same thing. We move the same way, but we're inverted, b instead of a v, and we shuffle or we slide. You know, we still have pivots. We still have tee pushes.

We still have to drive. We still have to change angles. So, you know, getting them to actually relax and they're able to come up with some good evaluations that we were able to find some pretty good goalies.

What were some of the attributes that you maybe looked for or didn't look for in a goalie that you could sort of maybe not reverse that, but engineer or look at numbers they would tell you, like, hey. If if he's only getting beat on these type of things, maybe there's a strength or a weakness here. Are there certain attributes you were looking for that the numbers helped identify? And then I guess the next part would be video. If this is his biggest weakness and it's fixable, we might have a goalie.

If this is his biggest weakness and it's not something we can solve because it's physical, maybe we pass.

Yeah. We didn't go that deep with our staff. We did that internally once we got their numbers and we got it down to a smaller number. Linden, Mateo and I, we would do it ourselves that way. But more like for the scouts was like, k.

Body position. Do you like visually what he sees? Is he leading with the sticks or like a demon stick on butt? These are the terms that I would use is what about his rebound control? And next one would be, want you to if he gets cold or he lets in a bunch, I want you to go see him the next night.

I wanna see how he responds to that because at our level, they need to be mentally tough and have to bounce back and you know Carter Hart when we're talking in Anaheim and he was up for the draft and I was like Murph, like, look at any time the Carter's been pulled, you know, he's either gonna shut out or it's one goal against. That's the guy that you want. You know, he's mentally tough. He's able to bounce back. He's able to do all this stuff.

So when he was coming up, those were the things that we looked at, and I tried to bring that off onto our our junior scouts. You know, it's hard because they're seeing so many games, and they're in the middle of nowhere and could be out west. You never know. You got a you got a snowstorm that's dropping four feet of snow, and they wanna get to the next location. They don't have that luxury, but at least I could go on video and now watch and see, hey, I'll get to do the next night or whatever.

They can send a quick text. It worked and allowed them to be confident with their scouting style with a goalie in it. We just gave them like 10 parameters and rank them out of ten, one through 10, get a base out of a 100, and and we go from there.

Goalie coaching side, because you mentioned you still still do some of that as well. I'm guessing that might be where the passion still lies?

Yeah, it does. I started branching out into the development side as my kids started getting older and moving on from peewee hockey to then, trying to get them, you know, working on their shooting, their passing, their smarts, and and all that stuff. But still, the foundation is goaltending. You know, I still have a passion for it. I still love working with the guys and try to have fun with the guys.

Like, I still have most of my guys just got back to Florida here from junior and some of the youth that have moved out of Florida could go play higher level up in New York State and things like that. They're just coming back now. So I'm starting to get really busy here before I head north for the summer. So it's still a passion. It's still like what I love to do and still love to teach and still wanna be around the guys.

And so you have a lot of private consulting then that you're doing with guys. Like, you're in Tampa right now. I didn't pretext that where you're where you finished your career. That's that's the home in the off season, and and you still have guys that come back and work with you there?

Yeah. So I I'm here in the wintertime, and then I travel travel. Like last year, I was going on one week a month up to Lake Superior last couple of years. And then this year with a different role working on the offense, was up in Niagara a lot more than I was in Tampa. So but, yeah, I got some guys playing in the North American League, USHL, the tier two elite leagues like u sixteens, u eighteens, and stuff like that.

Then couple of younger kids here that are sort of like 14, 15 trying to pull AAA up north and couple of them are trying to get on hook up with some junior teams. So so I got about five or six guy younger guys that I work with, and we use a lot of video win season and do a lot of stuff, but that they're capturing or getting captured and sending it to me then. It, you know, those are it's a lot tougher that way because I don't wanna step on the goal weight coaches that aren't there. Right? So, excuse me, just keeping them within my own our own little foundational part pieces, and then letting them grow with their goalie coach and understanding, I'm going to say something, the other goalie coach might say something completely opposite.

You know, you got to do what's right with you in that situation because he's your goalie coach right now. You know, or we can break bad habits or good habits after and make them more efficient. So, you know, I just when it's in season, I try to stay awake. I just sort of help clean them up a little bit and keeping them within the structure that we want, to help them grow and get better. So so right now, it's just getting those guys back to, you know, back to net zero and then build them up again.

Okay. So still COLI coaching. I mean, you've you've obviously played at the highest level, and I wanna get into your career a bit, but also coached. You were an NHL goalie coach with the ducks. You mentioned Gibby.

You mentioned Frederik Andersen. Like, you've coached at the highest level. What do you see in these kids? Like, when you is the foundation different, I guess? Has that evolved for you, or is the foundation are there still elements of that foundation that you're teaching these kids that existed when you played or when you coach those guys?

What are some of the examples you can share?

Well, it's it's funny that the old goalie coach, Warren Straddle, one of the best guys out there. Know, I I learned a lot through Bob Mason, some of these other guys who wore Warren's pupils, Pete Peters. And so my teaching is still similar to that. Foundational, foundational, let's learn to move first, and then we'll figure out technique after that. And now these kids, a lot of these goalie coaches are teaching reverse VH or reverse VH, whatever you want to call it, right?

Yep. And I'm trying to get them to learn a pivot. I said, Okay, you guys want this. I don't teach that. I'll teach you how to get out of that, but I won't teach you how to use it and why to use it.

And they're like, most of them are looking at me. I said, well, I want you to learn this. And he goes, well, why learn that and not that? I'm like, well, in an average NHL hockey game, 30 shots, just average, nothing major, how many times would you would a proper technique for a reverse VH or VH be used? They're like, eighteen, twenty, and, like, no.

Point two five.

Because because you have the numbers.

Yeah. Not even one. Not even one. But in an average NHL game, this pivot would probably be used three to 400 times. So I'm gonna focus on the three to 400 times, not the point two five times.

And then then they understand and then they get grasped and then these kids just buy in and they're just like boom boom boom and they just take off. So so it's it's great great for me because I have those numbers, but at the same time, getting back to where the game is and the foundation. Yeah. The foundation is still there. You know, moving the more efficient guys move, bucks are hitting them in the chest.

When guys don't move well and they don't focus on it, now that's the scramble. There's desperation all the time in the game. It's just using it at the right time. Know, we're getting into reverse is way too early. You're seeing all these goals that, go over goal with shoulders or off their heads and the goalies are like, Well, it's not my fault.

That's why my goalie coach just keeps me. No, no, that's your fault. If you stayed on your feet, it would have hit you in the chest anyways. So these things that I see that have come into the game have actually hurt goalie's numbers, but at the same time, it's a tool that actually, when used properly, is a great effective tool. It's just trying to get these guys understand when and where and how to get out of it quickly.

Being able to have power feet to power legs to be able to push to the next best play, right? So, these are the little terms that still are in the game. It's just trying to get everyone to like my students and and the guys that I've been teaching with teams to understand that and that's sort of hard to break those molds because they're so used to getting into that reverse and just sitting in it and and I don't you know, for me watching NHL games, it just like, I cringe when I see guys sitting in it way too long, you know, because now all of a sudden, there's a low to high pass or low to high cross cross the royal road, and now they're always struggling. Now he's behind the play, and now now he's trying to catch up, and bad things can happen from that point on.

Now on the flip side, when you are helping teams with offense, are those some of the tendencies and tactics that you're looking to go after?

100%. You know? Guys, if you have nothing, you're at the dot. Look at shooting center bar. Like, try to hit the center bar, NHL games, college games.

You got a Gatorade bottle right on the back of that center bar. That's your target. Shoot it right there. Just, you know, you're hitting the spot. You're going right over the goalie's shoulder.

You know, if he's sitting in his reverse, let's get that low to high, and let's get that across the middle midline to put some stress on him. You know, guys that wanna get into it early, let's let's use that to our advantage. So that's yeah. 100%, you're you're trying to I'm thinking on the other side, what I hate about Goal Tenney, goalies are using that. I'm gonna try to exploit that that, that tool that they're using that, could benefit us to score more goals.

So much of that foundation you talked about, is movement and skating, and the game has never been faster, I don't think. At least goalies keep telling me this, east west, the type of offense we're seeing created, the skill, the creativity. But even even, like, point shots and the way teams are using them, like, they're not wasting them. It's with layers of traffic. It's it's so purposeful.

There's very few easy chances. I'm guessing those foundations play very well into that because if if you can't move and keep up with all those things, you're putting yourself a step behind.

Yeah. Exactly. And that's, you know, the way my focus with, like, my younger kids especially is, like, let's be efficient. Let's make the game easy for us. You know, like, I had a kid that played in Chadwick in the national team.

He was, you know, old Detroit seeing, like, with Cujo and Hockey, you know, seeing 18 shots a night. You know, now he goes to a NHL team who's very weak and now he's seeing 50. I go, which game is easier? He goes to 50 shots because the way that I'm moving, it's it's easy. I just move.

I get set. Move. I get set. And pucks are just coming at me. You know?

So where the other one, it was more taxing mentally just try and stay into the game. So, you know, so my goal is to try and make make them efficient movers so the game becomes easier at the end of the day. And and they seem to all grasp it and love it and understand where we're going with it. Obviously, that's the foundation part of it, then we build on from there. And, you know, for the people down south, when I say foundations, they're like, what are you talking about?

Because there's no basements in Florida. So they don't understand, but, you know, so I bring in you know, I have to use something else to for them to relate to, but but it's it's neat. It's it's great to see these younger guys grasping it and understanding it and and give them credit. You know, they're They're buying into, to me, teaching them and doing what I'm asking them to do, but they'll look at me sometimes and go, Do you really want me to do that? I'm like, Yeah.

Just try it. Humor me and try it and see if you have success. Then right away, they're usually smiling or shaking their head at me. It's like, really? It's not easy?

So it's a lot of fun working with these guys because they're they're higher level kids and and they they all they all have great personalities. So it's a lot of fun for me to to work with them.

Once you've got that ability to move dialed in, are the adjustments, you know, at different levels as they move to different teams, do they become just more tactical? Like, we know you can move, but maybe in this situation or at this level, we need you to move less, so you back up a little bit. Or in this in this situation, hey. Because you can move, you could take more ice. Like, is is that sort of the evolution once you have that foundation built?

Yes. Exactly. You know? And, like and it's the movement side of it, you know, and that part hasn't changed. I try to get them, I don't want them over challenging like-

Old school.

Old school coming out, standing up, just straighten up, right? My terms are heels and toes. I want your heels outside if there's no traffic, toes if there are. It's okay, we can move. You're good movers, don't worry about backdoors, you can get there.

And it's getting them to trust that if their toes are at the top of the paint, that they can still get there in proper form, proper technique to cover more than that and also be ready to go with once we make that save. If they're in and they're efficient, now they can recover easily to a rebound or anything else or wherever the puck goes from there, or if there's another pass on that situation. That's the goal with these kids is just working with them at their level. As now we're my junior kids back and higher level, some minor league guys, passes go a lot quicker. I'm passing it.

And it's getting them to trust that if their toes are at the top of the paint, that they can still get there in proper form, proper technique to cover more than that and also be ready to go with once we make that save. If they're in and they're efficient, now they can recover easily to a rebound or anything else or wherever the puck goes from there, or if there's another pass on that situation. That's the goal with these kids is just working with them at their level. As now we're my junior kids back and higher level, some minor league guys, passes go a lot quicker. I'm passing it.

I'm controlling the passing tempo. I'm trying to make it make it fast, so they gotta challenge themselves to get over there and in control.

It's interesting because you talked about working with them on video during the season when they're when they're off with these teams. Is a big part of it, like and and it kinda blends into what you were just saying, but is is a big big element of it the reads and understanding the different situations and how pace changes and how you need to react to it positionally positionally, tactically, things like that. And is that video key to helping them connect the patterns at different levels?

Yeah. And especially with a couple of my guys that we're working on hand position for them. Blocker is a pet peeve of mine and glove position is a pet peeve of mine. When you see goalies now, it's it's funny. They all wanna mimic what they see on the NHL at the NHL level.

Right? Vasilevskiy, he has a stick in it. You know, he's standing up. You know, all you see is his blocker face, and it sticks more towards his feet. But when he goes down on the butterfly, that's not the situation.

His walker's in a different spot, sticks on a different angle. And but these kids don't understand that. So getting them you know, for me, when we're doing video, it's you know, what are your hands doing? What's going on? Because if I get into telling them how to play a certain thing in season, their goalie coach might be telling them totally different.

Right?

So Yeah. Fair.

So I can't cross that line. I try not to because I don't wanna confuse my guys. It's more about their technical, you know, what are you doing in this situation? You're gonna be on a reverse here where you've probably had a little more time to to stay on your feet or use a little overlap here to be able to stay square because you don't have a backdoor threat. So just more like fine tuning that way when it comes to video.

Now they're here, now I can go on to reach. I'll clean them up, get them back to the proper where where they should be foundationally. And now we got a righty. We got a righty over here. You don't and we got a lefty or righty coming in over here.

I want you to be able to find out, is that a lefty over here door or a righty backdoor? You're gonna be able to know when you can take that quick snapshot of what's going on with the pass, how's it gonna be defended? Is there And I have some stuff that the guys either gotta pass through or pass over from my skill development stuff, so I use some of that and be able to saw us. Or if it's going under, if we're doing everything right and doing everything right, it saw us. Well, now we have a split second longer because that puck's gotta land and we get so we have a little time to get there.

Maybe we get there on our feet instead of a slide now. Know? So these are the reads that we will get into as they get into the ready to go off to June 2, their season and things like that. So we build them up and then get them ready to go and try to get reading. The higher level kids now, that's where we're at.

We're almost at the end of where we're going to build them. Now it's all situational reads and things like that, you know, understanding time and and things like that.

Well, it's funny. We've had a couple of people in recent months talk about maybe kids not watching enough hockey to sort of connect those patterns themselves. Sounds like you've really baked the importance of that pattern recognition into your drill work even in the off season. I think we hear a lot about doing it on video, but it doesn't need to just be video. It can be incorporated in in drills in real time on the ice in the summers as all part of it.

Yeah. And and it's knowing what you have for your shooter's abilities is one. You know, I I'm lucky enough down here in Tampa. I have some of the some of the junior kids that are coming back so I can utilize them. When my kids are back, I can utilize them.

When I'm up north, I have my kids there. So and then I have all the college kids and then usually in the summer, I'm I'm running all pro junior and college skate for development, so I can pick those guys to come and shoot because they all want to shoot. They all want to score. It's a lot of fun, I can get those guys, the higher level guys. Then when we're working on things, they're working on scoring.

You know? So they're working on, k, I wanna score. I wanna challenge this guy. And when I when I'm setting up drills, first four or five shots, making sure our reps are clean. Now let's shoot the score.

It's game on. Let's let's oh, let's get better. Everyone's getting better. The shooters are gonna get better as the Louisville is willing to.

Is that an important is that, like, in your experience to maintain that? We do see at times, and there's probably a place for it, but things can be so structured that if there's not a dynamic element, if there's not a read element, kids can just sort of, hey. I'm gonna go here. I'm gonna go here. I'm gonna go there, and it's gonna hit me in the left pad, and then I move here.

Or it's gonna hit me in the chest, then I better cradle it. The importance of sort of keeping that dynamic nature so that they're building beyond the repetition of the movement itself.

Yeah. Like, the foundation part of it and the reps are are important. Right? So we wanna be able to rep it and rep it properly. It's at the end of the rep, the shot is the variable, right?

So the movements, the patterns, whether it's sliding, staying on your feet, they all stay the same. The pattern is the pattern. It's now the biggest variable is the shot, and trying to control the shot, trying to get there efficiently is a pattern. And as soon as we get there efficiently, now you see the higher success rate of the rebound control, right? Being able to come across and be in control and the guy's going high glove, well, I'm just gonna reach up and grab that high glove shot, right?

So the movements, the patterns, whether it's sliding, staying on your feet, they all stay the same. The pattern is the pattern. It's now the biggest variable is the shot, and trying to control the shot, trying to get there efficiently is a pattern. And as soon as we get there efficiently, now you see the higher success rate of the rebound control, right? Being able to come across and be in control and the guy's going high glove, well, I'm just gonna reach up and grab that high glove shot, right?

Or it's going back against the green blocker, boom, it's in the corner instead of pushing it out. So getting them to understand the rebound control at the end of it, at the end of the pattern is where I start focusing on now, click the reads, understanding that. Now we're doing pattern work. Okay. I want rebound control here.

You know, anything below those dots into the corners, boom. I got time to get a breath to get back to the post. Every drill, almost 90% of the drills we do start from the corner, and all the players are in the corner. So if we can get it there, our defenders should know what's going on, should know how to defend from a corner, our forwards know what's going on. That buys me a split second of take a breath, relax, k, let's evaluate the situation.

Where where where is our next best play to go to? And then, you know, so that's where we we build. We don't go that extreme because I don't have 10 guys on the ice, but our focus point is the pattern work, the shot, the variable. Let's control the rebounds. Let's get it to corners.

Let's get it somewhere safe. And if it does have to go, if we do have a rebound that we can't control it, let's try to get it back to where right where it came from. Cause now I don't have to move again. You know, if I'm pushing it out into the slot, now it's a risk.

So the reactive portion of that, and that's sort of reading the release and making the save, and like you said, executing rebound control within that. Patience. Obviously, if you set the foundation and you get there set in square, you've you've put yourself in position to now sort of give yourself the best chance of doing the next step. Yeah. But but that patience we talk a lot about patience off the release.

I mean, your reactive game was always, to me and I think other observers, one of the things that stood out. And I think non goalies think of reactive as spectacular. I think of it in terms of being able to not just make saves with the hands, but control play and control pucks with the hands. It was a separator for you. I I I believe.

I don't I don't know if you would agree. Yep. How do you teach that? Like, how do you how do you convey that when you were you were so good at it? Now you want it out of these guys.

And to me, it feels like an element that's somewhat instinctive. Are there, again, foundational pieces beyond getting there first that can help you be better at that? I guess pan position would be one of them. Walk me through that step for kids and maybe for pros too and college guys.

Yeah. And that's a tougher one, and I try not to dabble into changing hands too much. I try to focus on their hands when I'm building foundation. Once I get them into a good spot, then I try not to really focus on it because it comes back, subconsciously their hand position comes back once you start doing pattern work. It goes back to what they know, their muscle memory.

Right? So then I'll let them rep it a few times, and they're gonna get beat. And I'll tell shooters to shoot it here, and there'll be, you know, guys that go like this with their blocker, I said, shoot it at his blocker. Rebound's gonna come to the slot and just bury it in the empty net. So get them to understand the negative side of having that.

I go, now, clear your hands. Since I have them, I've already broke it. I still I gotta get rid of the muscle memory stuff to to change it. And the one we're doing pattern work, it just your muscle memory just goes back to that. And so to break a hand position is really tough in season.

I need to take you know, that's why all my kids that come back, they said, All right. And I can tell what their goalie coach told them, what their hand positions. I'm like, We're taking three weeks off because I gotta change your hands again. So now hopefully you're hoping that the firing patterns and the muscle memory is gone so I can break that. So now once we start doing pattern work, I can use it because they'll they'll come back to it every once in a while, use it, okay.

Make sure we get our hands in a good spot. Because once they have some negative responses, they fire back to the positive response and get them to relax. The hands and the battle side of it, of InControl is the hardest one to teach sort of the patients in the battle, because most kids will do the desperation move first and then try to do something later, where I want the movement first, then desperation after. Because if we can get a little bit of movement, the desperation, we're we're gonna know how desperate we have to be. If it's just diving with our paddle or I'm gonna have to do a little split here in my reverse snow angel in the in the blue paint or swimming in the blue paint here, or do I have time to sort of get over there?

Right? So it's it all comes with with it all, and and it's all situational, but trying to get them with the patterns, with the firing patterns, with the hand position that they don't have to be desperate until it's like three passes across and next thing you know, you got a wide open net and you got to do whatever you can to stop it.

Are there general guidelines for you for hand position or is it like, again, everybody's unique. There is no absolutes in this position. Is it just about making sure they're relaxed? No tension? Like, what are some of the keys you look for to make sure a kid's whether he's got good hands or not, is in a position to use them most effectively for his skill level?

Yeah. And that's the biggest thing. It's it's it's like a golf swing. Right? Everyone's golf swing is different.

Everyone's movements are somewhat different. Everyone hand hand position are somewhat different. But for me, if you got a bigger goalie that's got their teeth or their glove pointing to the the rafters, I'm like, what are you you're you're protecting people in the stands right now with that glove position. Right? So and you probably get the high glove because your first movement in with your glove right now is to go down.

Now, all of a sudden they go over your glove and now you gotta pull that back up. So for me, I like the glove lower, make sure that it's in front of your pads and things like that. But each school week that I have is different where they hold it. My six point two, six point three guys you know, that have really long arms. Their their their gloves are a little lower than where it probably should be, but I rather them low because I can bring it up.

I can't it's hard to bring down. So and then some of my smaller guys, I have their hands in a little higher position just just above their knee height. And so when they're going down, it's you know, they can still have the the glove in a proper position to you know, you really don't have to move up much if it's in the right spot. You know, you only have to worry about the ones that go between your pad and glove.

I was just gonna say you're probably teaching shooters on the flip side. Now that you've gone over to the dark side for for some of your roles, you're probably teaching them to look for certain glove patterns and then exploit them based on where it's being held. I mean, we see that in the NHL all the time. Yep. It's not shoot high or shoot low.

It depends on what the guy's glove action is, and that can change from a set to when he's moved.

Yeah. Exactly. And, you know, with some guys, they move and their gloves are nonexistent. They're, you know, they're moving towards a glove and it's on the other side of their body, and, you know, some guys have it up. Like, I'm not I don't wanna critique Vassy because he's one of the best.

Right? But, you know, where where have teams exposed him? Middle and neck left side. Right? And, you know, that should probably never go in, but that's just that's a hand position situation.

Right? With the bar downs, no going on them. It's the middle of the net, club side things to go in. Right? So for me, it's playing with what the goalie feels comfortable with and where he's having success.

And getting them it's funny because you'll see these guys that come to me and I'll take their glove off their hand. I'm like, take a look at the glove, take a look at the thumb. Like, this is the way the glove is designed, but you you're holding your glove in this position. What do you see? Well, I see the thumb.

I'm like, what do you think is gonna happen? It's gonna hit there and go straight out. Now what do you see? It's gonna hit your thumb and go into your glove. Like, that's how the the glove's designed to hold it in this position, not this position.

And then once I get that, then we can change. Then I can they're buying in, and then comfortably, I'll get it to where they're happy with. Right? So I don't want it dragging, and I don't want it up here. I want it somewhere comfortable that can go get a plex if they need to.

So it's that one's a tough one. It's it's really tough to to get guys' hands active, you know, unless they were a baseball player or a back catcher. Sometimes the back catchers get a little too aggressive with their gloves, but I'd rather have the aggressiveness than than not.

Equipment. I mean, in that part of the conversation, I mean, is interesting. We just had I just had this conversation with an NHL guy worried about double coverage of the glove and changing the glove angle. And it wasn't so much about where the pocket sat as the glove naturally a certain break put his hand in a certain position that created some of it. Understand like, do kids understand that enough?

Like, take a look at the glove and how or do they take glove that they think feels good in their hand and then try and make their hand go to to a specific spot? And we talked earlier about tension. Like, as soon as you're forcing the hand into an awkward position to achieve a look, maybe that isn't the right glove for you.

Yeah. And and that's a tough thing. Like, even, you know, the glove is one thing. Stick stick paddle heights is another thing for me. That's a pet peeve.

But a lot of that's retail for these younger kids. Right? Like, oh, most of my students have to go get a find a 24 and a half inch, 25 inch paddle because you can't find them in a store. They're Can

you it's all 20 okay. So we've seen that trend. What in your because we've actually seen that trend in the NHL level, and we are seeing a trickle down. At least we need to get this to your local stores, obviously, Duane. But here, there's a lot of 20 fives and 20 fours available because goalies are starting to look for.

What in your eyes, when you see it, what makes you want them in that shorter paddle? Like, what needs to work?

Well, for me, it it puts your blocker in a tough spot.

If it's too long?

If it's too long. So now your your stick's up here. So now look at my blocker. It's so bad at blocker on. Now it's loosening up.

And now you lose with your wrist in this position, that's every police officer's dream if they're going to arrest you because they're just going to push your wrist back. So now you have zero strength. Anything that hits you in the stick, it's going to end up in your feet or go in, And so you don't have any stick strengths, blade strength at all. So you gotta be able I want their hands down and sort of out in a position like oh, stand out, so more into this position so I can have control over my stick Right. And get it away from my feet so it allows me to move efficiently.

So as we bring that paddle height down, now our hand comes down on a better spot, and now we can move it. Like, it's great. You get six four, six five, six six goalies, but their arm length is longer than the average six foot goalie. So why do they need a twenty eight eight inch paddle? They're not just 28 inch paddles.

So why are you selling 28 inches paddles? Right? So let's get I'm trying to get the kids, my students, with lower paddle heights. Now, as soon as they get into a lower paddle height, they're like, Oh, this is way easier. This is way much better.

Look at the strength I have. They can handle pucks. They can do all this stuff that's, you know, unfortunately, when before they couldn't. And a lot of times I take their sticks, kids that haven't had the opportunity or financially can't afford, like I'll just take their sticks away from them while we're doing drills just to make sure we can get their hands in the right spot.

It's a it's a great lesson. Are there other things? Were were you an equipment guy during your career?

Yes and no. Like, I wasn't great. I had set things that I wanted and I switched companies and at the end of my career, Warrior was trying to make a glove for me, but they couldn't. So I was still Vaughn T-eleven 50, same model, just different logoing on the outside, but a lot of things didn't change for me. I wanted everything to break, break just below the knees and things like that, just to feel consistent all the way through.

So I changed companies, but at the same time it was the same foundation, the same pattern that I had. When we came in with the 12 inches pads, before the new skates and before all this stuff, I was shaving my inside of my skate off. When I first got to Minnesota, he was like, What are you doing? You're wrecking your skates.

Were cutting the cowling off before everybody realized it.

Yeah. Shaving it down, so it was just on the outside of my boot. Then it was funny, Kay Whitmore came in to measure my pads. And so he does this with my pads. He's like, oh, then he's gonna do this with my pads because I cut the inside off so the pads would come straight down.

We'd have 12 inches at the boot or on the scoop, I'm like, Well, I don't want all that on the inside because I'm gonna bottom out. I wanna take my pad and I want this cut off on this angle, and I want you to whatever you cut off there, put it on the outside.

So you're is your yeah. So you tapered it on the inside so it wouldn't interfere with your butterfly and recovery. Yeah. But you still wanted that material and coverage, so you had it put on the outside. That that sound about right?

Yeah. It's exactly it. Then Kay would come down. He goes like this, then you have to pull off, and then he'd go like this, and he'd laugh. I mean, he's like, good job.

Good job. This is the first I've seen because a lot of the once you cut that off, now you're down to 10 inches down there. You're a butterfly. Why not take the two extra inches? You don't know.

At least a couple saves in here.

That's so funny. I I I think the one thing I remember about your equipment, and and I I may have this wrong. It's been a long time, and I've been hit in the head way too many times by pucks in the meantime. But, I covered the cup final for USA Today, and if not mistaken, when when you got hurt and Ty had to come in for you, he was wearing a set of your pads. Like, had he switched?

He had tried it somehow. He had a long absence. He tried them, he ended up switching to your style pads, he wore them in a cup final.

Yeah. There I forget what what happened there. I think I had a set came in there wrong or something. There was just something really small about them, and Ty started playing around playing around with them. He's like, oh, I really like these.

I'm gonna I'm like, go ahead, time out of bed. And Barry Stafford was happy because he didn't have to buy tie another set of pads. So it worked out for Barry and myself and and tie.

You talked about mental toughness, and I wanted to ask you a couple questions as wanna relate it back to Edmonton because you've been in that fire, that furnace, that intense focus of Stanley Cup playoffs in a Canadian market. But at first, I wanted to rewind because you talked about the kid that went from Shattuck in 18 shots to the NHL in '50, and how much easier it was because of the physical training he'd done and the skating was so good, but how much harder the 18 was. You mentioned Cujo in Detroit. Like, this is still a challenge for goalies. I would argue it's becoming increasingly so in the NHL because teams don't get 30 shots anymore because they won't take the low danger stuff from the outside that they used to be encouraged to because they know it doesn't go in, and it makes the goalie feel good.

So what advice were you giving him when he was at Shattuck? Like, what would your advice be to a goalie that's struggling with a, low event environment where he's not busy, where he's not feeling pucks, and still has to come up with tough saves now and again?

Yeah. It's one of those things that I I use some of these two terms really that's with the guys and they understand that they have and it's easy to teach. It's called framing and parking. They're simple. You can look back the jerseys behind you.

If you change the black frame and put pink on it, you probably wouldn't think that's a great frame, right? Black, it looks good. So being able to frame things the right way and then parking is like when you go shopping, you park your car, you leave it, you come back to it later, right? It's in the same spot, you just leave it. So using those terms with the guys.

So when we start doing with the kids specifically that you're talking about, I've had him for the last three or four years, and he's gone from playing triple a here in Florida to playing triple a in Windy City in Chicago, then going to Shattuck and now into the Null and, you know, hit his bat, his college, and probably played pro. And from the early beginning with him, he was playing on a triple a team here whose manager father was the other goalie's dad. So he was getting a lot of mental challenges. So we started talking about it earlier, know, how do you get over this? And so now we just keep building every year with them.

You know, like with Shaddock, it's a tough one. It's a tough environment. Know, you haven't seen a lot of shots and all of a sudden they give up a three on one or a breakaway and you gotta be ready for it and You know, he was gave him a lot of credit. He had a lot of success in that in that environment just because of his mental training and and his ability to stay in and out and and not worry about, oh, what's my parents doing up in the stands because they haven't seen a shot in twenty minutes, you know? So, so he was able we we started touching on it really early in, some of the kids that that are moving and getting out of here, so the ones that are here all the time and I'm around, we do it on a regular basis, like when when I see them weekly, and we just sort of talk about it and just sort of how you feeling, what's going on, and just sort of rush on it.

When the kids are leaving and they're gone for the year, we really hammer. Here's how we focus. Here's how we reset. Here's here's how we deal with this. And then a lot of the lot of the video stuff is, you know, some the video app that I use, I can voice record over.

So then we'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. I'll do all the changes, but I'll but I'll also throw in some of the mental side of it. So they're like, oh, yeah. I gotta forget about this now.

I gotta be able to reset for the next one because something bad could happen or whatever. Right? So

So parking makes sense, like, putting something beside and maybe so don't think about it during the game, I'm guessing, and then you can go evaluate later. Just park it for now. Yeah. I understood the framing in terms of things look different. Can you give me an exam like, where did you learn that in your career?

Can you give me an example of how a goalie should frame something, you know, like you mentioned the jerseys behind me so that it looks better? Like, in what way do you use that?

So I'll I'll use, a pro golfer just just because it's easier to describe.

Yeah. There's a lot of similarities between both worlds. I also suck at both.

A buddy buddy of mine played on tour for a while, and when I was playing here in Tampa, he was down in the valve spar. He was in the valve spar turnaround, and he was like, I've never worn I've never done well and never made a cut at this event. That was Sunday night when we had an afternoon game. We went and played nine holes at the course here, and I've never had success here. I'm like, Okay.

I said, Why? I started asking, Why's, why's, why's, before why became a big thing in the world now today. So we started explaining why some of the reasons. I was like, okay, tomorrow, I said, You're going for your practice round. I want you to do this.

Okay? Do your regular routine. And the Caddy was a friend as well. So I talked to the caddy, I talked to him, I said, when you're on the driving range, want you to pitch something that you love about the driving range. I don't care what it is.

It could be that the water fountain's right there or the water tap. Now, once you get on the first hole, find something that you like and then go through all 18 holes and then something in the clubhouse that you like. So now, as you're driving up to the clubhouse, think about what you like about the clubhouse. Now you're ready, you're getting ready to go up to the range, think about what you like about the range. Then first hole, second hole, all the way through, right?

So we took his mindset of, I've never made a cut here, to finding it could be a blade of grass that you like on that hole, changing his mindset to something he likes. You

know? Positive.

It's a positive mindset. And he actually used it for five or six tournaments. He placed top 10 in them, and then he stopped using it. So he doesn't have his cue card or his his card anymore. But, you know, like for me, before I got traded in Edmonton, I always hated going in Edmonton.

You know? Really? Different different environment, different ranks, small. Right? It was it was tough to play there.

You know, I started finding something I liked about it. You know? Like, Before I became good friends with Joey, I love when Joey comes down and makes fun of the guys or whatever. Love seeing Sparky. I've been around enough to see a lot of the guys, right?

So I love this. I love the hotel. I try to spin my brain from, Ugh, this is the upper end to play. This is this, this, this, and try to spin it to a positive, right? Sort of sets you up to feel a lot more confident going into the situation.

I love that. So how would you frame I gotta I gotta pick at this one because this is a big one. How would you frame a low shot environment? Like, how do you like, rather than, oh, man. I haven't seen a shot in ten minutes, you you find positives to focus on to keep you away from that mindset?

Yeah, so the positives, you know you're coming into a low shot environment like Detroit. That's just something you Back in the 90s and early 2000s, it was a low shot environment.

Low shot, high pressure.

Yeah. So understanding that before you get to the rank and then the low shot environment in game is where you use the parking. It's not, Well, I haven't seen a shot in ten minutes. It's like, Oh, park it, park it, park it. Let's focus.

Let's focus on the puck. Let's focus on what you know, here's their tendencies. Let's focus on these things and keeping your mind into the game instead of letting it trail off somewhere else. Right? Because that's the biggest thing in a low shot environment.

Your mind trails off. In a high shot environment, you don't have time for your mind to trail off, right? So that's where, like, you know, why you know, Kud struggled when he first got there because of that change, right? Coming from Toronto to that, you know, to a lower shot than Dom. Like I saw Dom when he got traded there.

We're in Minnesota. We went out and had something to eat, and he's like, really, it's tough to play here as in his accent. Right? And I'm like, yeah, Dom, because you're used to seeing thirty, forty, 50 shots a night. You're seeing 18, and, you know, you'd have to mentally figure out what you can do to stay involved in this in the game and stay focused.

Right? Because his his game was all on reads. Right? So, you know, being able to read, you know, before the two line the red line got taken out, like, he's poke checking Dave Gagne at the blue line because he saw Zuboff getting ready to pass it to him. Right?

So, you know, things like that that he couldn't be able to do as much because he wasn't in the game when he wasn't seeing a lot of shots. So he started being more active and being able to stay in the game that way, and that's when he started having a lot more success in that low environment situation there.

Like like, Pecorini in Nashville when they changed, he started handling the puck more to keep himself more engaged. We had a sports psychologist who said that every goalie loses focus. It's not a nobody can concentrate for sixty minutes. It's about developing the skill to recognize when it's drifted and a tool to bring it back.

Yes. And that's it. That's parking. Yeah. And that's pretty much this small little tool.

It's an easy tool too because everyone can relate. I brought it up to Frederik Andersen, language barrier and all that. Freddie had been over for a while, but in Danish, Hey, what's the word parking mean in Danish? Oh, this. So I'm like, so what do you do when you do this?

Right? And then framing, that was a lot harder to get him to understand the framing part. But, like, you can use it because everyone can relate to those two things. Right? So there it's easy to to teach a young kid this or a wily veteran or beer league guy that's seven years old.

So it's easy to to these things or to talk about. And Bill Hughes, our old holy coach in Calgary when I first broke in, was in the minors with us. He gave us I can't even remember the book. It was before sports psychology became big. He's like, You and Ian, read this book, let me know.

I got those two things out of this book. And the book was probably like an eighth of an inch thick or whatever, but I got these two things and I started using it then. Then I learned about it. Then when I was in Edmonton, John Dunn, hopefully it's okay, John, that I'm using your name, was our sports psychologist on staff, and he's the dean of psychology at U of A. I'm not going to tell you about all of his successes and what he does in real life, but this was just a hobby for him with the Oilers.

We became good friends and I started talking to him about this. He goes, Yeah, those are simple, especially for you where you need something so quick. I can't think of anything better for a goalie, those terms because it's instantaneously, you're back. If I give you something, it's not going to happen that quickly, and especially with you already using it, I'm not going to change that, but we would talk about different things and how to use things differently and to help me get better at it. So it was great.

I loved my time with John and he's a he's a unique individual. So anybody that gets a chance to run into him, pick his brain because he's one of the best.

I love it. I love it. Well, Edmonton, I wanted to ask you about that. I I can't believe, given how well it went, that that was your mindset going in. So, obviously, that's a key part of it, being able to flip it, you know, using the framing.

Managing the expectations in the Canadian market, we see the pressure. I mean, on the goalies in Edmonton right now, we see it a lot. I know Stu and and Cal. Look look at Connor Hellebuyck in in Winnipeg right now. Like, the focus on those markets, on the individuals, how any advice?

Like, how would you how did you manage it as well as you did? What was it like? What do you remember?

I don't remember much because-

You're in the moment.

Purpose. Right? I know Stu well and he was a young guy when this was all going on. So I'll text him every once in a while when things are going bad or Google or whatever. But I knew what was going on before playoffs started.

I texted him a couple of days before. I'm like, no media, give your wife your phone, you know, just get a burner phone so she can text you, no apps, no social media. It's all back. Don't read anything. Just focus on you and having fun.

Right? Sue's pretty relaxed and likes to have fun. I'm like, focus on having fun. And, you know, each goalie is different. Right?

For me, I was pretty pretty dialed in, pretty focused, and being able to get away from the ring, not look at the media. Try not to look at the media. No that that my area, no social media, so I have to worry about that. But, you know, I I was staying at the Cantera Suites in Downtown Edmonton, and the the lady at the front desk, think, weekend, she's like, what do you want me to do with those papers? I'm like, roll them out.

You don't need to deliver to my front door anymore. I'm just stepping over and I'm going into the room because I don't wanna read them. And she started laughing. She actually held them all because of our runs, so which was great of her, but I read them after. But, you try to not to focus on that.

Right? Because all of a sudden, you know, somebody could say something great about you and then all of a sudden you get your expectations are, you know, off the charts or somebody says something negative, now you're down, right? So stay in the now, stay in the focus of what you can do to help your team win. And that's literally as a goalie. That's all that's our job is to give our guys a chance to win day in and day out.

And we can't score goals. We can only stop them. And some of them we can't stop because of the situations that are around us. Right? So focus on you, focus on what you can do to help your team.

Connor was at role when I was volunteering there. I try to stay out of his way, but every once in a while I'll get a text like, how do I handle this? Or what's up with this? Or whatever, you know? So it's just trying to stay away from all the outside doors and just focus on you and your family.

And at that point, your family is your teammates. Right? Most wives know that they're they're off they're off the clock until end of playoffs are over. So, you know, staying with your guys and understanding that, and that's the number one thing. You know?

So it's hard. It's really hard.

I was gonna say in a social media age for a lot especially the younger guys, like, do you have advice, like, for the college guys you work with for these young kids? Not necessarily at the scale of, you know, being in the playoffs, but, you know, about social media. I mean, it's such an integral part of a lot of these young people's lives. I see it with my kids, and I couldn't imagine if they were reading about themselves or seeing, you know, the like, nowadays, everything from the media forget reading. It's all, like, the clips on the shows when the analysts are talking.

It's all cut and clipped and put on a social media. You would not be able to avoid it if you were on your phone.

Yeah. And it's, you know, like, for my own my own two kids, like, you know, they're on social media all the time, but they're watching their social media clips are the NHL. They're watching other people do their thing. Right? They don't look at their their team stuff.

They don't look at any of that on a weekend. Colleges leave usually Friday, Saturday nights or Saturday, Sunday. They'll look at it on a Monday or a post game on a Saturday night, right? But if there's something important, my wife will send it to them. But they won't look at anything that's part of their lives in the sport world on the day of the game or right before the game until post game after the weekend.

Right? And they're up and coming. They try not to either. Like, Mondays is usually a big splash out who they're playing, and they they all look to see who who's the poster boy for the for the week. And But other than that, they try not to look at themselves or focus on that.

You know, I didn't get that detailed with the teams, but with the goalies, I try to win my own kids. They that's what they do. And it's hard, like, because that's that's the world we live in. It's that's what's driving everything right now is social media. You know, I wake up in the morning because I I'm not staying up anymore to to to watch the games.

So two or three in the morning, especially the West Coast games, and they go to overtime. I first thing I do is I go on to nhl.com, and I I can watch the videos right there. It's like being at the game or watching the live. So, you know, it's so I understand where it's at, but, you know, all these apps and all these tools and credit to a lot of the TV. Right?

They've they've grown the game to a to a better place and keep on growing it. These podcasts, all this stuff is just it's just growing our game and being able to manage it now is is it you know, it's it's a tool and probably need a lot of advice from outside sources to how to deal with it. You know, I'm not I'm not any expert on it and sometimes I get caught on it and go down the rabbit hole of, looking at stuff and being on it too long, but, you know, it's it's it's a tough thing and trying to navigate that world is tough.

Well, I I was gonna say having somebody like yourself around to help these goalies navigate, whether it's that, it's on ice, it's, you know, how teams score, like, what a like, the world of experience you bring to this must be such an incredible resource for these kids and and for teams. And so it sounds like are you, like, are you thinking of getting back? Like, you left for family. Are you thinking about the NHL again? Is that something that you see in in your future, or are you kinda content with where you are?

How does it pull you back in every once in a while? Where where are the thoughts for the future?

Yeah. I I would love to get back in. My oldest just graduated, and he's looking to go play in Europe and so which is great. And my youngest has two more years of school left. Well, two more years of eligibility left.

I'll say that. Just he

actually Hey. Hey. I went when I graduated, I I took the long route. I was a computer science and statistics major. When I finally did get my degree journalism, I'd been in school for eight years, and I had a friend that did a similar path, and I introduced him to my dad.

And I said, see, dad? A lot of people go to school for eight years. And without missing a beat, he said, yeah. They're called doctors. So I can see I I guess where this is going, Duane.

So well, no. He's actually gonna be what you just said. He's he just got early acceptance in the University of Buffalo med school, and so he's got two more years of

So he he's gonna do it the right way?

He's gonna he's gonna probably be six to eight years of after the two years. So, yeah, so he he's dialed in. And now, like, we you know, I miss so much of their lives growing up. You know? Now they're they're men now.

They're they're responsible. They're, you know, like, I'm almost a pain in the butt when I come up to to Niagara and work with them and, you know, get in their way a little bit. So, you know, I I think it's time to, you know, if there's an opportunity to get back into the game, I I would love to, you know, whatever level that is, you know, know, just trying to help and try and grow guys and make them better. It's always been fun for me, and, you know, I think now is doing everything that I've done in the past sort of has helped me understand too. Like when I was a young guy, I would be looking at different things where now I know to stay in the lane and not speak out of turn or whatever else.

You learn some different things and as you get older, learn. So, you know, for me, if I can get an opportunity to get back in, would love to get back in and, you know, it's just, you know, making sure the boss, the wife is understanding with the whole situation too. So it's, you know, she wants me to get back out working again too. So it's, it'd be nice to be able to get back in and, you know, help a team, help, you know, potentially wanna stand the cup. It'd be great.

Do you see I mean, we've seen a shift in the positions available too. Right? We see directors now as well as goalie coaching. You do a like, do do you wanna be hands on on the ice? Like, is that a core part of what brings you joy, or do you see the other roles as an option for you?

I I think, yeah, like, doing it all, any of it would be, like, you know, obviously, getting day in and day out with guys is awesome. Right?

You like that part.

You you see you can see the instantaneous feedback. Right? So Right. You know, seeing a guy, like, always smile, when he makes a save because you just helped him make it easy, that's just gratification. But at the same time, with the guys that we have, I sort of laid out a groundwork of setting them up, okay, this is what we're doing, this is how we develop, here's how we're going.

Giving them step by step all the way through their season until they get back so we lose our foundational part of understanding that too. So, you know, being able to navigate both sides of that, being able to to work on development and help come up with a development plan for guys or, you know, working with a guy one on one is is great too. So being able to navigate both of them is, you know, whatever option is is there to to get back into the game, I I'd love it.

I I will we've loved this conversation. And the funny thing is, normally with guys that played, we just go right to the playing days. So I feel like we've missed an entire portion here because the information was so good on how you've taken what you learned playing and applied it to different aspects and on the coaching side in different fronts. I feel like we got a part two in us here where we can just go back over the playing days until I wanna hear I wanna hear some of the stories because even the Conklin and the gear stuff was so k measuring it. I feel like we've just scratched the surface, but we're over an hour here.

As usual, I've kept you longer than I said I would. So maybe we park that and we just book it as a chance to catch up again and have you back on as a guest in the future.

Great use of parking. I love that. Great use of parking right there.

Love it. Dwayne, thank thank you so much for taking so much time. This was fascinating conversation. I know a lot of people are gonna get a lot out of it.

No problem. Thank you for doing it.

Outro

I just looked at the clock. That it was it was a long one, but I I didn't notice that it was going longer than usual. That was that was a fun conversation. May maybe it's my tie to to Wayne, but it's cool.

Yeah. He's there was so much in there. Like, we get into the fun like, the fun stuff about the pads, like, you know, how about Kay Whitmore coming in and being like because he had tapered his boot, you know, to help him in the butterfly by not having the pad interfere along the ice when he was down in the butterfly, but where everyone else tapered the boot, he took he's like, well, if I'm taking material off the inside of the boot, I wanna add it to the outside. So instead of just the taper on the inside, his pad actually was the full max width across. He added stuff to the outside to match the taper on the inside.

How about cutting the cowling off long before companies were doing it? Yeah. Shaving down the inside of the cowling to have better access to his edges to push out of a butterfly way before anyone else or companies were making that standard, and now we don't even have cowlings. Dwayne Roloson was very much the analytics, very much ahead of his time. And when you hear the way he thinks the game and the way he applies it to the young goalies he works with today and the success they're having coming out of Florida and going and playing elite level hockey all over the country, whether it's Shattuck or college.

There's interesting. Now that his kids have moved on a little bit and he's got some time, the fact that he wants or is considering or would consider for the right situation getting back into the NHL, I have a hunch we're not the only ones who are gonna be calling him in the near future. For us, for part two, hopefully, the NHL team that eventually lands him allows him to do part two.

Hey. Heading back to our gear segments of late, there's been a lot of Warrior, Dwayne Roloson, one of the few goalies we've seen play in Warrior gear in the National Hockey League.

And he talked about that in the interview. Although, as as he mentioned, the the glove may have said Warrior, but it very much was not.

Oh. Oh. That would have been a good tease before the interview, wouldn't

it? Yeah. I know. I know. I mean, there was so much as you guys have now heard.

There was so much in there. I couldn't remember all of it to tease.

He just approaches the position, approached it when he played. And and now in a more cerebral way than a lot of people, and it's it's fun to dig into that a little bit.

Well and what's fascinating is sometimes the guys that think too much about the game can get caught up in their own thoughts. You know, you can overthink. That's a real thing in goaltending. So what was fascinating to me was all the mental aspect stuff that he shared. You know, you talk about, you know, some of the different philosophies framing and parking were just two of them that he got into.

And and I really appreciated that he was willing to dig into them beyond just using the phrasing, explain what it meant and sort of help people that heard it from him, you know, maybe learn how to apply it. And, of course, the other one I should have teased before that everyone's heard now about the shorter paddle length, big proponent hates the fact that his local sports stars all sell 26, 27, 20 eights, and he thinks most should be in a 24, maybe a 25. So that was a great part of the conversation. Well, so many different takeaways there.

I didn't know the phrase or the term parking.

No. Because you grew up in Manitoba, so you don't have to, you know, mean, parallel parking.

Can do we can do whatever we want there.

You just park wherever. It's just one giant flat piece of land to park on.

It's it's funny how words can mean the same thing. Like, you're familiar with the terminology. Oh, but that's that means that.

But And is he and that's the thing because when Frederik Andersen came to him in Anaheim from he had to find the term in Danish that meant parking Mhmm. To explain the concept to Frederik Andersen. So it's just so much good stuff in there.

So have you done number two yet? Have you set up the appointment, the date for part two of Dwayne Roloson?

No. We were having so much fun. We should have just rolled right into it and just said, okay. Let's pretend this is part two and get it done now. But after an hour and ten minutes, you know, guys have other places to be.

And he was in Tampa, and it was a nice day. I think there might have been a tea time in his future that I I might have pushed back into.

He is one of those guys

it was.

That that could have given you one more story. Is it okay if I tell this last story? He he is one of those that could go toe to toe with you on the one more.

Well, and framing. Right? The story was about a PGA tour golfer buddy of his who came in and used framing and had success at a tournament tournament that he hated. So so many great stories in there, and I I think this is one that people are gonna go back and listen to twice.

Great stuff. Hutch, Woody, looking forward to the merger and the spillover into the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, where we'll have more stories and more goalies and more drama to talk about, from this, world of goaltending. Appreciate it, from you guys as well as Cam, Rollie, and all of, your involvement, as the listeners. Make sure you keep that feedback coming. We've got some great notes lately.

We do respond to every one of them. Maybe not right away, but we will get back to you. Let us know how you're doing in the transition to the summer months on the ice and off the ice. It's InGoal Radio, the podcast presented by The Hockey Shop Source for Sports Langley, thehockeyshop.com.