303 Parents: Juggling With Your Young Goalie – 5 Easy Tips for All Ages

Let's slide over to, Stop It Goaltending, the app, Stop It Goaltending U, bringing us our parent segment.

Well and and this is just complete coincidence. This was not planned Hutch told me as we started to record this, told Daren and I what the parent segment was on this week, and I had already looked up the weekly updates for the Stop It Goaltending U app. And guess what? They're similar. The daily Great minds minute.

Like. Great minds think think alike. Simple seldom differ. We'll go we'll go with great minds this time. Learn to juggle the quick hits every week at Stop It Goal Tending U, the app, you get five Monday to Friday quick videos.

Simple, doesn't take too much time, things that will make you better as a goaltender. And this week's are five quick lessons that will help you learn how to juggle. It can be a great thing to do in the off season, and I know Hutch is gonna talk about that as well in the parent segment. As usual, that is just one part of several different elements you get fresh each week combining the twenty five years of goalie coaching experience from of Stop It Goaltending, the school led by Brian Daccord, son Joey Daccord with the Seattle Kraken. Brian, of course, has has coached, played professionally, coached in the National Hockey League as a goalie coach, goalie director, goalie scout, done it all, and he wraps that all into a weekly app for you to help you get better as a goaltender.

Stop It Goaltending U, the app, gives you the five quick hits, gives you one quick video, and now a drill of the week. Adam Mercer voicing over a drill that you can take on the ice this summer with your goalie coach. This week is a three shot with breakaway overspeed drill that Adam walks through. Great way to sort of look for different tools if you're a goaltender or if you're a goalie parent or a goalie coach. When you get on the ice this summer, different ways for you to get better.

It's all part of the weekly drop at the Stop It Goaltending U app. And, of course, best of both worlds. When you get a subscription to Stop It Goaltending U, the app, you also get a subscription to InGoal Magazine Premium, our premium product behind the paywall. I don't know why all of you aren't already subscribers if you're listening to this, but this is the way to get it rolled in. Best of both worlds.

Stop It Goaltending U, the app, and InGoal Premium all in one stop.

I like that breakaway drill. That sounded cool.

Yeah. And and Adam does a great job. They've added a voice over this week, just to sort of make it a more of an explanation as you walk through the drill and the drill simulation roles. So just make it that that much simpler, that much easier for peep easier for people to connect with the key points of it. Hutch.

Daren. Hutch. Daren.

This is the one The parent segment.

What what he stayed out of this? This is good.

I yeah. It's fun that, this week's parent segment was all planned out, and it turns out that it's over on Stop It Goaltending U, the app. We'll see whether we had some similar things to talk about. Of course, Stop It Goaltending U is there for all goaltenders. I tend to address the parents, but I do think this is a good one, maybe for everybody as well.

Quick little segment today. As I said, mostly for the parents of the young goalies, but maybe a few beer leaguers could use some of this as well. Us goalies are famous for our pregame routines. And, by the way, how about your prepractice routines too? Maybe we'll talk about that another day down the road.

I hope you have one. A big part of this, of course, is ball drills for so many goaltenders. Some of us is just bouncing a ball off the wall and catching it with or without our glove. It could be wall juggling. It could be good old fashioned three ball juggling.

But in this age of, screens, and I mean the electronic kind, endless digital entertainment and so on, these kinds of hand eye drills, I think they risk getting lost especially with the youngest kids. So I thought I would mention five quick tips for parents who are looking to encourage their kids or even join in on the fun. And that is the number one tip is make time to do it together, especially if you have younger children. One of my best childhood memories, guys, and Woody will tell you, I don't have much of a memory, so this is a powerful one. If it's stuck with me since age six is juggling oranges in the kitchen with my mother.

Partner juggling. They'd fall on the floor. She laughed. We both had a great time, and I developed my hand eye skills from about age six with my mother. Number two, it's easier to learn than you think.

Many of you know we have a video over at ingoalmag.com. We will link it up again this week featuring Braden Holtby's former coach and sports psychologist, John Stevenson, walking people through how to juggle the basics step by step. You too can learn very quickly using John's method. I encourage people to check it out and try it if you are not a juggler yet. Three, you are never too young, or boys, you're never too old.

If the balls are too tough to start with, I encourage parents to grab some scarves or some bits of light material. The key is that it's very light because it floats longer in the air and you can work through those patterns that John is teaching, with a lot more time to catch those scarves as they're moving around. And even at a very young age, the ages that we all start to learn how to skate, you can learn how to juggle working with light scarves. Number four, keep it challenging. When I was in teacher's college, one of our professors said to us, what level do kids want to play their favorite video game on?

The answer was one higher than the level they're doing right now. Everybody wants to be challenged. Same thing goes here. So find some ways to add some different progressions into that juggling, whether it's working off a wall with a partner, two balls in one hand, you can find a million progressions on YouTube. Challenge your kids to try those different ones and encourage them when it's going well.

And then the fifth one is add a physical twist into this. Try juggling while you're standing on one leg. Try it while you're on a balance board, doing a squat, kneeling on an exercise ball. Get creative, but it's all about coordination and control. Juggling isn't gonna instantly make you an elite goalie.

That repetitive pattern thing isn't necessarily conducive to being a great goaltender, but it will build your kids' focus. It will build their control and their confidence. And you know what? It's kind of a way to feel like you're connected to that wider goalie community. It's something most people learn doing at some point.

If you're doing something fun or creative with your young goaltender, as always, we would love to hear about it. Please email us and let us know. Send me a video. parents@ingoalmag.com showing me what your kid's doing with their juggling or post it on social and tag InGoal there. We'd love to hear from you.

That's it for me, boys. Off to try some juggling.

Love that Hutch.

The idea of parents doing it, and it reminds me of the video that you're gonna link to with John Stevenson when we initially put it out. It wasn't just kids that learn. Remember Corey Cooper? Who, of course, some of you will know is a former longtime goaltending coach, in the American Hockey League with Belleville, in the OHL, with Kingston, and is now currently actually with a bunch of different teams in the OHL, but is now actually the general manager of the Kingston front and acts in the OHL. I'll never forget him showing us the video that he had learned how to juggle.

After all those years as a goaltending coach, it was that video that he had used to learn how to juggle. So parents, it is possible. Maybe I'll have to try juggling to prove it. Because if anybody would not be able to juggle, it is ultra uncoordinated me, but you don't have to be this 16 year old goaltender to figure it out. Hutch give you great ways to sort of get involved and and stay involved with your kid doing this, and we have proof from other older goalies like ourselves that you can do

it. How long can you go?

Who are we talking to?

Pretty long time. Yeah. You mean just keep keep three balls up in the air, you mean?

Yeah. I am not I like it. It's I've I've I've really worked out at the times, and I can't really get I can't really progress.

If you get to the point where you can do it a long time, it's probably not doing you a whole lot of good, and it's time to try something else. Oh.

Add a ball.

Yep. There you go. I I do do stuff off

the wall.

I throw tape off the wall, two things of tape, and and try that because it's more real.

Ball like probably.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But but the juggling, just I lack those skills.

Can you watch that video this week, Daren, and try for five minutes for us?