308 Parents: 5 More Gear Tips for Parents of Young Goalies

Well, context is a perfect way to segue into our next segment, the Stop It Goaltending U, parent segment with David Hutchison. Stop It Goaltending U providing all kinds of

But first, Kevin Woodley.

Great, great input and guidance in the world of goaltending.

Well, it comes from the twenty five plus years now of experience led by Brian Daccord of Stop It Goaltending U. We've talked about his background, both playing professionally overseas, coaching the Boston Bruins, goalie scout with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and a director of goaltending with the then Arizona Coyotes, now Utah Mammoth. He has done it all. He has seen it all. He has led Stop It Goaltending to one of the premier schools in the country through it all.

They have an incredible facility, and they also have an incredible app that gives you weekly tips and advice to help you become a better goaltender, whether it's their daily primers, quick one minute videos that you can use to sort of focus yourself and think about different things as the week goes on. This week, it's on the power of focus. Video goalie playbooks where they break down how different goalies do it, sort of think of it as their version with their coaches leading it of a ProReads. They watch pro film and walk through the decision making process with their coaches talking about it. Dustin Wolf is in the spotlight this week.

And drills, weekly drills. This week, they've got one on a behind the net wraparound. So walk you through a drill that you can take out on the ice and work on with your coach. It's all part of the Stop It Goaltending U app. And, of course, as we always say, one of the in our minds, the best part to the Stop It Goal Tending U app is it comes with a subscription to InGoal Magazine premium.

So you get our ProReads where we do the same thing with NHL goalies explaining their decisions. You get our drills. You get our articles. You get all of it. Stop It Goaltending U and InGoalmag premium, the best of both worlds to become a better goaltender, all available when you buy a subscription to the Stop It Goaltending U app.

Hutch.

I can't say anything until you say

that, Daren. It just makes my day.

For people listening who obviously couldn't see, I just had to gesture my hand towards Daren and say, Give it to me.

Let's go.

Okay. Today, I have 10 tips on gear largely directed at parents of goaltenders of younger ages, but I think some of them will apply at all ages. In fact, it's not 10, it's five this week and then we're gonna do five next week. So Kevin, I need to give you a warning. I do want you to chime in on some of these, but you're not allowed to jump to your own new tip because it might already be on tap for next week.

You got that, Woody? Nothing new, but you can comment on what we're doing. Okay. Let's get right to it. First tip, make sure they are protected.

It is no fun when it hurts. If you want your young goalie to have fun and to grow into a confident goaltender who doesn't shy away from the puck, who can play the game the way their coach wants them to play the game, they have to have gear that protects them. And I know that kind of sounds crazy, but I do think it's important that we think about that and make sure in so many ways that our kids are protected so they can enjoy the game. So I would rather you get them something used that protects them rather than waiting another year to afford something new. I'd rather you invest in a helmet that fits than shiny new pads.

Or take some time and that's a tip later on next week to make sure the gear they have works for them. Number two, coming on from that one is that old gear is okay. We talk a lot about the features of the latest gear here and the innovation is incredible. But even ten year old gear has better protection and more features than the gear Daren and I grew up playing in. It's an expensive sport.

Don't be ashamed to try and save a little. If little Johnny needs new pads to get excited about going to practice, is he really excited about being a goalie? Sort of reminds me about guys about a close friend I had, different sport. He was a tennis player. He was so good.

He was facing that decision about to the parents mortgage the house to send him to Florida to train with pros. And everyone he played in and around Toronto would show up with six or 10 of the most expensive rackets you could afford and all the top of clothing and the best shoes. And my buddy'd show up in ripped shorts and a ripped t shirt, one racket and he would beat the pants off all of them. If you love the sport and you're talented at the sport, it's okay to not have top of the line everything. So association gear, something used, it's okay.

Number three, and that reflects on what we were saying in the Gear Segment this week. If you do buy new, second tier gear or even third tier for the younger kids is incredible. We were asking the question just offline. The 7.9 from today's segment or the Bauer SV Pro, incredible gear. Kevin, it's better than the top level gear of how many years ago?

You don't have to go back far.

You don't have to go back far. We don't we didn't we never came up with an answer to that. The 7.9, for example, carries features that were not even available in last year's EFlex 6, but then last year's EFlex 6 had some great things too that maybe you don't get in the second tier gear. But if you wanna go back to ten years ago, I'd take this year's second tier gear any day. It's okay.

Number four, sometimes it does just hurt. One stinger doesn't mean that you have to race out for new gear. The fact is that at every level, pucks have a miraculous way of finding seams. You could give the CCM Innovation Lab NASA's research budget, guys, and pucks will still find a way through the best defenses. So don't go home feeling guilty that you didn't get little Johnny the new chesty after he left the ice for a few minutes in tears.

If it happens too often, obviously, we've got a problem. But a couple of stingers don't mean you have to book a call with Cam. Number five, I think we need to say that they have to be able to move in their gear. Fit is so important. Old gear that fits is better than new gear that doesn't. If they can't move like an athlete, they won't learn how to play like one. Sometimes parents chasing bulletproof protection for their kids end up buying gear that is too much for their kids.

It just isn't right. You know, a CCM pro chesty is incredible but it's not made for an eight year old no matter how badly you'd like it to fit her. Trying to save a little bit of money by buying gear that's going to last for a couple of years when they're not landing on the knee stack properly this year. Well, maybe it won't hurt and maybe it'll save you a few bucks, but if they can't skate because they're tripping over their pads, if they can't catch because the glove is too big for their hand, they are gonna end up hating the game faster than you can buy the next piece of gear. Let them be an athlete out there.

It's so important. Those are five tips guys. I've got five tips to follow on from that that can help parents at all levels next week. But I think that's a great way of giving a little bit of context, especially to the new goalie parents who are so worried about doing everything just right. Relax, make sure your kid's got some gear that fits and protects them and let them go out there and have fun.

Love your comment about sometimes pucks just get through and sting you.

Yeah. And believe me, like we've we've all done it as goalie parents. You see your kid get hurt, leaves the ice in tears, and meanwhile, you're on the hockey shop on your phone wondering what piece of gear you're gonna have to buy to fix it for them. Yeah. And sometimes you just gotta I

I do that and I don't even have kids that play goal. It's for me. Go to the bench.

We have a few.

I go to the bench. I have I have a little cry. Everybody's like, where the hell the goalie goal? And I search it up on Hockey Shop.

And and we'll get into some of the ways we can help our gear work better for us next week. But but sometimes, yeah, sometimes there are seams like take a take a and I will talk about a solution next week for this one, but take a chesty where if you've got extra long arms, maybe you'll loosen up that shoulder and let the arm out a little bit more, but that's gonna leave a little space exposed. There's no way of avoiding that. Or if you have shorter arms and you pull them up, maybe that changes something at the bottom. There there are things that happen and pucks find ways.

So it's okay.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with fiddling with here. If you're getting if your kid or you are getting hit in a certain spot, adjust it in the sense of

Adjust it.

Add a add a piece of padding there.

It Okay. Let's not go too far because that is a part that is a part for next week. So I will just I will just say, adjustments that you've made for your gear, Daren, come back with your favorite one or two because guys our age tinkered with our gear all

the time. Older goaltenders who are listening to this right now, send me a note this week, podcast at ingoalmag.com. If you've got a cool adjustment that you used to make to your gear when you were younger, we'll remind everybody of my very favorite one from Glenn Hall when we meet next week.

Can I send a picture of Sergei Bobrovsky's shoulder floats?

I don't think that was because of stingers.

Those things are huge. Listen, I'm gonna add a little note to this. K. Parents, I don't I I I guess it would be too pointed of you to send this to the evaluators, but I would like those goalie coaches that serve an evaluation role to listen to this segment because I've been a part of it. I've seen a kid cut the house because he just didn't look the part.

And sometimes we prematurely judge based on and I you you guys I I use this with Darcy Kuemper, and Hutch almost killed me. Looks like a goalie. He just, you know, looks like a goalie. Man, we gotta watch that in our evaluation. And there's a lot that goes into that.

Like, you just judge on

Calvin Pickard.

Time when you

Calvin Pickard.

100% plays goalie like an unmade bed. So did Tim Thomas. That's the last guy I used that line for, and he did just fine. So so when it doesn't always look like it's brand new out of the box professional, don't judge a kid based on that, folks. I've seen it.

And people are like, that wouldn't happen. I've seen it happen. So 100%, if we're gonna have these rules, then the bloody people evaluating the goaltenders at next year's tryouts need to pay attention to them too.

I had a coach once, won't name the brand, but he just said, if I see a goalie in that brand, he's cut and he was joking. But was he?

Really?

Yeah. And he was joking, but it does serve to underline some of the stuff that's going on out there as as Woody describes. Obviously, nobody's cutting a kid because he wears the wrong brand, but they are judging them.

Wow.

I would have been cut for sure with my old Miller stuff.

That's great gear.

Yeah. I can I can I can walk in wearing the best stuff in the NHL and I'm still getting cut? So

it took me a while to come around to the DNR pads, but I like those back in the day. The little pre curve.

You come around to? I was so jealous of my buddy who had those. I wanted them so badly. Really? Because they had the pre curve to them.

I just had my straight Coopers and my buddy, who has helped us and done some writing for InGoal. He's he's a broadcaster in Montreal now. Michelle Godboo had had these DNR pads that had the pre curve to them and I was so jealous.

Really? That's funny. That's beautiful. We came up to that from opposite directions.

Completely different angles. Yeah.