312 Parents: 8 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your Goalie Camp This Summer

We are going to talk about having your best goalie camp experience. I am probably speaking more to goalies than parents, but parents, this is for you to help prepare your young goaltender as they head off to camp. I don't know how many tips, Daren. You can keep track as as we're going down here with your list and then I'll know how to title it later. As I mentioned before, Woody and I have both been to a bunch of camps in the last little while and there's more to come.

Quick shout out to the online directory. If you are still looking for a goalie camp this summer, head over to InGoalMag.com and there is a link at the top. You can go into our directory and you can search and find a camp in your area. I know I've seen people in the parents group saying, I'm gonna be in Saskatchewan this summer. Where do I take my kid to goalie camp?

And I just respond with, head over to the guide, type in Saskatchewan, and you will find several camps listed there or wherever you might be looking. I did want to share a few thoughts on making this, you know, your best camp experience because parents have invested a lot of money to give their kids a great experience at camp and and we want to make sure they get the best out of their time there. Number one I want to mention is nutrition. You probably think you need more food than you probably need more food than you think you do and it's really important that you ensure it's healthy. We're all in scramble mode.

We got a lot going on. We're trying to get our kids out the door to camp and sometimes that nutrition can fall by the wayside. Some of the camps you go to, if you're lucky, they're already catered. The Eli Wilson camp I was at last week, all the meals were catered for these, high end goaltenders and that was fantastic. But a lot of camps you have to bring your own lunch for example and snacks and so on and you're not gonna get out there for two ice times and a dry land session on junk food.

I was amazed. I am always amazed when I go to camps to see the number of kids that are passionate about goaltender. They love the sport. They love everything about it. They would do anything to become a better goaltender.

And then they're snacking on a bag of chips and a pop between skates. Can't let that happen if you wanna have a great experience. Nutritious food, plenty of it, lots of water. Go out there and have a great experience. Number two, put your phones away.

You don't need to remind everybody of the problems that phones can cause. We've got actually a great article with doctor John Stephenson over at InGoalMag.com. If you want to know more about that, I just want to remind the young goaltenders that you're there for the whole experience of the camp, not just the drills on the ice. Making friends, building relationships that are gonna last a lifetime, learning from fellow students and coaches just through random conversation that will not happen if your nose is buried in your phone. Put it away for the day.

Number three, sleep and recovery. As I mentioned before already, it is a grind at these camps and you they're putting in more than you normally would in a training day because we're trying to make the most out of a limited amount of time, and your body needs to be ready to handle those situations. So rest and recover. It's an important part of becoming an elite athlete right up to Olympians. Make sure you're getting rest.

Side note, parents, don't get FOMO, fear of missing out, and try and cram your kids through too much. I was at two camps that overlapped last weekend, and a number of the kids were doing both those camps. They were doing four skates and two hard dry land sessions a day and they were under 15 years old. It's too much. It's okay to stop, step back, and rest.

Next tip, have an open mind and work hard. It's not gonna be easy at these camps, especially later in the week. You're getting tired. It's okay. Push yourself to get the most out of each time you're in the net and try what the coaches ask of you.

Even if it's different from what you would normally do in that situation, give it a go. How many times have we heard a guest on the podcast say, it's more tools in the toolbox. You've got to learn. On a related note, we often comment on here about what makes a drill good, what makes a drill maybe not so good, having to be game related and so on. I actually saw a drill that I didn't think was super game related said to the coach, did you ever think about doing this to make it more game like?

And he said, sure. We could do that, but so many people out there are saying goaltenders need to be more athletic and do things in tough situations. We can't program every drill to be exactly like a game. We gotta have situations where kids must break from structure all the time and just be athletes. So don't be too critical of what you're seeing, in those things.

Don't worry about what you've heard from us. Just go out there and give it a go and make the most of it. Next one. Kind of related to that, it's not a tryout. You've got to go out there and learn and try to do your best in these situations, not thinking you have to make every single save.

It's okay to try something new even if it might be a step back in performance. Sometimes we have to take a step back so that we can take a step forward. I heard that from a coach talking to the whole group of kids, last week saying it's important that you understand you might need to take a step back. I watched my son go into the net this week and he announced to the coach, he said, just be ready. There's gonna be a lot of goals here.

I thought, what's that all about? He said, I am trying to practice what he called extreme patience. He wanted to be so patient on the release that maybe he'd be pushing it a little bit too far and some pucks would go by him. That was a pretty mature approach to, to what he was doing and good to let the coach at the station know that he was trying to do something special there. And then getting in towards the last one here, go meet somebody older, go meet somebody younger when you're out on the ice.

It's a little bit harder to say this to the youngest kids there, but the relationships that that happen on the ice between the younger goalies and the older goalies, I love to see that. The mentorship between the older goalies and the younger goalies when you're a junior age kid and you've got a 14, 13 year old goalie out there, go out there, take them under your wing. You will develop from the experience of working with another goaltender and they're gonna look up to you forever. And I think that's just one of those special things that comes out of these camps when I see mentorship, develop. As a bonus, parents, I see you standing quietly over in the corner watching the camp.

Take some time and reach out and meet another parent. I would love to see a goalie coach, by the way, run a camp where you put something on for the parents to do, during that camp. I've said it many times before. If any of you do, let me know. I'd love to hear that you've taken that innovative step.

But parents, you're part of a bigger, wider goalie community and it's fun to get to know the other goalie parents. As I said to the kids, we're not there to try and make a team. We're there to try and make everybody better. So don't feel you have to hide. Just just meet some other parents and learn from their experience as goalie parents too.

It's all one big goalie community. Gentlemen, I don't know how much I had, but would you like to add to the list?

Eight.

We got eight. Eight.

Tips on how to make the most out of a goalie camp.

Woody and I use one of your tips all the time.

What's up?

Guys, there's gonna be a lot of goals today.

We all do.

There's gonna be some goals today. Alright?

But you know

what I mean?

I am all about setting a low bar, baby.

Yeah. Yeah. But some people won't try because they're terrified to get scored on in all situations. Yeah.

It's not about how you look out there. Yeah. You can't be worried about how you look out there.

And what do you think about parents eavesdropping on the session, like, trying to get as close as they can to that end? Do do you like that part to be able to hear the conversation between the coach and the athlete? Or Well would you rather the parents step back and talk to their child after about what the the coaching aspect was?

Thinking from the perspective as a parent, I would love it if a coach let them in on as much as possible. I know some coaches invite parents into the room when they do off ice sessions with the kids, when they're doing lectures and so on. I think that's fantastic. Get everybody on the same page. We're all one team trying to help the kids enjoy their experience more and become better goaltenders.

I've never thought of a coach being mic'd up or something on the ice so the parents could hear what's going on. That would be that would be pretty cool to see that happen. I did have a conversation. Connor Ingram's name keeps coming up here. We had a conversation after his camp about, he had incredibly presented drills for all of his coaches, drawn up very professionally.

I said, hey, you ever thought of just sending those out to the parents the week before the camp? This is what your kids are gonna be doing. These are the teaching points in the station. I'm not asking you to be their coach, but just so you know what's happening when you when you see something going on out on the ice, you might not understand. I think that's a really, really neat idea.

Yeah. See how some coaches might not or maybe even kids. Right? Like as long as you're having the parent trying to listen in isn't at it, like, kids afraid to look, you talk about not being worried about how you look and trying things. Yep.

But you're but you're right. Increasingly, we see at InGoal, like, a big part of our audience is parents because they these kids go to these camps, they spend all this money, but quite often, sadly, are left to their own devices once the season starts. So having a parent that's educated that can help sort of be a part of their development when development opportunities are otherwise limited in the course of a season and helping them educate themselves seems like a really smart thing to do. I just I do get you have to be careful about how you do it.

Yeah. Yeah. But coaches from a business perspective, the more you can do for the parents, the better. They're the ones who foot the bill for these great experiences the kids are having. I can tell you I'm lucky that I get to go on the ice at a lot of these camps and sometimes I watch the sessions from the stands, sometimes I'm skating at these camps and, it's a heck of a lot more fun when you're standing there watching your kid up close, hearing the sounds, hearing what the coaches are saying, seeing the interaction between kids and shooters.

Yeah. It's a whole lot of fun. I don't know how you would make that possible. On a large scale, you got five nets going. You're not gonna have five coaches mic'd up and parents hearing everything that's happening out there.

But if there is a an innovative way of including the parents a little bit more, I'm not suggesting they're in there to ask questions and provide feedback during a drill. That would become pretty untenable pretty quickly. But, do get the parents involved if you can.

Thoughts of a daily journal at your goalie camp to try and remind yourself or lean on during the course of the season or what you worked on that day?

That's actually not a bad idea because Great tip, Daren. Reference point, you can go back to it during the season. Know, again, not everybody's even aware of it, but a lot of people let's help like, you know, in my kids, like that's one of the ways they studied was by making notes. Like everybody learns differently and sort of writing it down tends to allow you to absorb it more. And then you're right.

Like, just to have that reference point to go back to like, hey. Like, we worked on this in this camp. I'm struggling with it now during the season. I can't remember exactly what the coach said, but it really resonated at the time. Boom.

Check your journal, and there it is. I like it, Daren.

Yeah. Love it.

I do a lot with my golf. What's

that? I was just gonna say a lot of camps provide something like that, some sort of resource for the off ice sessions, and that's if they don't provide a space in there that I think, as you're suggesting, supplementing that with some of your own notes is a fantastic idea.