Tips for Helping your Young Goalie Deal with Fear of the Puck

Hutch. Daren, this week, I had a thoughtful back and forth with a parent who, who was concerned about her young goalie flinching as we say during practices with teammates. Her son is under 10, but, really, this is very common at that age, so I thought it was something that we could address. I certainly remember being the flincher myself, especially young ages. These are ages where goalies, as you alluded to earlier, Daren, aren't used to as many high shots, and they definitely aren't prepared for some of these kids who've figured out how to consistently shoot at the top of the net.

And at that age, there's a wide range in development. You've got some kids that might be fifty pounds soaking wet, and you've got some that, are years ahead in development and honestly can look like they can shoot like young men. So fear of the puck at that age, totally normal. You know, you're at this unfortunate intersection. I like to think of it as is where you've got every player out there wanting to shoot at the top of the net while your young goalie is of the perfect age that puts their head right at the crossbar or even a little bit lower.

Apparently, this young man that we're talking about was showing no real fear when he was training with his goalie coach and showing some real ability as a goaltender. But most importantly, he just loves being a goalie. Yet when he's out there facing players, mom described it to me as him throwing every part of his body towards the puck to try and make a save and, even while he's pulling his head in the complete opposite direction for safety. So I had a few thoughts that I wanted to share with her and with everybody else. And the first is that point I've already made.

This is very common. Fear of the puck as a young goalie does not mean that you need to hang up the pads and go find a different sport. It's really hard to watch and, your young goalie with that conflict, you know, of loving what they're doing even while they're fearing what's happening out there in practice. But just know that you're not alone. Second, as much as we wanna scream at the team and tell them to keep the puck down and stop shooting at his head, really, what are the players supposed to do?

They have to learn how to shoot for the top of the net. You can't develop a team that's only allowed to shoot the puck low. And if your goalie's head happens to be at the exact height to be in danger, it's a it's a tough, tough situation. So if you're Daren Millard facing NHL shooters, you probably feel safe. Those players can place it precisely in the corners.

And, as Woody said before, what doesn't hit you doesn't hurt. But, at age eight, nine, or 10, whenever the players are getting stronger and raising that puck consistently, many of those players have no better an idea where the puck is going than your goalie does. And that is a recipe for fear. So that's, you know, for a similar reason, I think that's why they feel safe with their goalie coach simply because they can trust where that goalie coach is gonna place the puck. And so they they can feel like they're in a safe zone with their coach.

So, six tips here for what you can do as a parent if you're in this situation. Number one, listen and be understanding. If you're frustrated, you can be sure that your goalie is just torn apart inside, and they need a chance to be able to share that with somebody without judgment. The second thing, please don't feed the fear by expressing anger about all the players shooting high. That is not gonna change, and helping your goalie learn to be angry about it is just gonna give them one more thing to be upset about.

Number three, find them some ways to enjoy the game away from practice and away from that fear. Now that probably mean you know, they need some sort of pressure relief that will separate, their fear from their love of the sport, I believe. And that's probably providing some great sessions with that goalie coach that they feel comfortable with. It might be some fun at stick and puck where things are a little bit safer out there. I I'd like to think at least what I've seen in some public skates around here.

Yep. You just need to be creative so your kid can have some fun playing the game and not be worried. Number four, engage the goalie coach in a discussion. They probably see what's happening, but they might not know how much this is affecting your goalie and how much it's affecting their their enjoyment of the game. And goalie coaches have a large bag of tricks for helping with that puck fear.

Not gonna get into those here. We might be able to, but this is more for the parents than the coaches. So just trust your goalie coach. They can help. Ask your goalie coach their opinion about your child's gear.

Does it fit? Is it still of the right quality for this new level of play that they moved up to this season? It won't always be an easy solution like this, but I'll recount one quick story. Our young son was flinching on shots, quite frequently after he'd been drilled in the head as a young goalie. And, thankfully for us, he was big enough and strong enough at that age that he could manage it when we definitely overbought and got him a pro mask.

The fear went away immediately. I actually read this segment to Matthew and asked him what he thought about the whole piece, and he said, I was thinking exactly the same thing. Don't go out there and spend $400 on a stick for your young goalie. Spend some money on a helmet. He said, like, those kids can't shoot the puck, but they can sure get a concussion.

My point being, it might not be as simple, but it might be as simple as the fact that your kid's getting hurt on a regular basis on one place of their body because of some equipment, and maybe you can fix that. And then, perhaps they need to chat with somebody else who's got experience helping them work through those fears. They're real. Nobody wants to see them go through this, and I believe that working with a sports psychologist at a young age is a great thing if you're able to make it happen. Won't go through a list of them.

You've heard us talk about lots of people on the show. If any individuals would like some advice, please contact me, parents at InGoal mag dot com, and I'll be happy to share. Fuck fear fear, everybody. It is real. It will take time to get over it.

But if your goalie loves the position, don't give up. There's lots of goalies in the NHL today who were diving for safety back when they could barely tie up their own skates.

I went through it when I was Yeah. Younger, like, 13 to 15 age group. Thank you, Bob Lawrence and Brayden Pilling for instilling that and, forcing me through that stage, two guys that came in and took clappers from 20 feet away.

I had a technique when I was younger that was easier to pull off back in the days when Kelly Hrudey used to face shots from the top of the hash marks all the time. My strategy was just get out of the net as far as I possibly could, so I'd take it in the shins before it got high enough to catch me in the head. Little harder to do that in the game today.

And the kids at that age are really discovering the use of the slapshot. And Yeah. That's when they're engaging in in that area, and it's it's a perfect storm for what we're what we're listening to here.

Yeah. And I don't think you could ask those kids not to do that. They wanna be out there at practice having fun. They wanna learn how to shoot the puck. You can ask the coach to make sure there aren't three of them shooting at the same time like they do in Woody's Beer League warm ups.

Control it to that extent, but the the kids have to be allowed to play the game, I think. And and for me, the big one is not getting your kid into that anger cycle. Like, we all joke about it semi seriously about going after guys who shot at our heads in practice, but, I don't think that's the train of thought we wanna be giving our young kid when they're worried.

You talk about the the National Hockey League guys. You you never get hit with with the pro guys. They they're just they're so good that they can control it. It's, it's more at the lower levels that you end up getting them buzzing around your ear or whacking off the the top of your head, unless you're woody and you're diving over.

Unless you're that guy in the RVH and you got some skilled NHL forward

Yes.

Goal line backing it off your ear and in.

Even then, they're so good. It's it's just going in. I wouldn't mind it if it whacked off the bucket, because the bucket is, such a a highly, perfect performance part of my gear that, that I don't mind that every now and then. Woody, when was the last time you got hit in the head and and rang hard? You're on a good run of that, I feel.

I feel like that's almost a pretty much game by game daily. Every time I skate basis, I take one. But that just means I'm centered in position on the pucks. Not my fault. They can't shoot, Daren.

And I may spend a little too much time on my knees. What can I say? Patience is not something I possess. Holding your edges is something we only talk about at ingoalmag.com, not something that I, as one of the writers of those stories, am able to exercise. Thank you very much.

Vizual Edge brings us ProReads every week. Visual Edge, one of the great partners of ingoalmag.com.

Well, in this week's Visual Edge features Cam Talbot. We've told you about guys right up to the NHL, 50 goalies in the professional leagues, American Hockey League, and NHL that have used Visual Edge to help sharpen their visual skills as well as their cognitive tools. We've talked about Jordan Binnington using it every day on a game day basis to get ready to play, both warming up his eyes and his brain. Cam Talbot is one of those guys. He's talked to us in the past on the podcast in his ProReads about the fact that he uses visual edge and that his use of visual edge, he believes, has played a big role in his ability late in his career to sort of become an all star, to take big steps in the National Hockey League long after he entered it.

So this week's ProReads with Cam, it makes him the perfect sponsor because goalies like Cam and our weekly ProReads show you how they read and anticipate the game, and Vizual Edge, of course, is helping Cam see the game better. This week, he breaks down a scoring chance from the top of the circle off a low high pass where his defenseman is rushing out to it. And the first part of the breakdown deals with what side of that defensive screen he positions himself on. So, Daren, I will ask you on the spot, buddy. This is my revenge for saying I gotta get on the ice with a GoPro.

Which side of that screen are you staying on, and what factors dictate that? Top of the circle, defenseman rushing out to him.

I usually go lean towards the hand that the shooter's taking the shot from, and that's an old John Garrett tip. And I still subscribe to that and try and cheat there. Or I will look at which side that the if I have to do it really and sometimes I don't have time for this, but which side the defenseman, if if it's my own guy, is is covering, I will lean over and take the other side and just improve my odds a little bit. And if if they put it beside my defenseman, that's a good shot, and, and I feel like at least I put some some thought into it.

I like it. Ding ding ding, Daren. Really? Hit all the notes, not only in terms of and in this case for Cam, it was short side, but the short side was dictated. His defenseman was flexing out kinda right in the middle lane, so he had to pick one of the two.

And it's the handedness of the shooter. The fact it's a left shot that influenced his ability to go or his decision to go to the short side or on the side of the hand of the shooter. Now that's not where this ProReads end. There's a pass that comes. Cam talks about the decision, how he comes across, whether to slide or skate, and how he skates across, shuffle, not t push, which ends up resulting in a a difficult a high quality chance in the slot being made to look like a routine save.

So we've got that video up at ingoalmag.com. We're not giving away all the secrets that Cam does. Gotta be a subscriber to get it. Make sure you check it out. Cam spends about three minutes walking through the keys to this save, managing the screen, that decision on how to move across, and, of course, a reminder.

Vizual Edge as a sponsor of the ProReads segment also gives InGoal readers a discount. Everybody gets a standard discount using the code InGoal. But if you're a member, go to ingoalmag.com, click in any recent ProReads, and you will see a discount code that doubles how much you get off of Visual Edge. Can't give it away, obviously, on the air, but if you remember, make sure you check it out. Save some money on Visual Edge.

Check out ProReads. Get better at reading the game like Daren has because he watches all our ProReads. That's why he nailed that. All at ingoalmag.com on a weekly basis. New every week.

What are we up to, Hutch? Like, almost 300 of these things? It's gotta be, like, 290 now?

290. Let's say about 290 is a good guess.

290 videos of NHL goalies watching footage and explaining their decision making process, there is no better deal in the game to learn how to read the game than a subscription to InGoal Magazine. Shameless plug by me because it is that freaking good.

Can't believe I nailed that. That's awesome. It it was I was today years old before I discovered that teams have systems set up where the defenseman will take a certain side, and the goalies will cover off the other side, and you spread your your coverage out. And the goalie isn't just standing in the middle peering around everybody. And I think that's an unbelievable edge.

Even if you don't have the system there, the defenseman is usually one way or the other slightly, and you can lean in on that.

I always told guys I played with because I didn't play on the team very often that had a good system. I would especially, league. I just told the defenseman, if you're gonna be rushing out at a guy, shift yourself just a little bit towards his inside shoulder because I would much rather take that shot from an angle where I've got a better chance to deal with it. And I'd much rather take it than forcing him into the middle where there's more chance of a screen and rebound issues and so on. So just shy a little bit to try and get him and and that was also a point on giving me some vision because, of course, if your defenseman is playing goal, they'd better stop the puck because you're not gonna see any of it.

And that kinda matches. Daren mentioned the systems. I would say every team has that baked into their system in terms of, hey. This is where a defenseman, this is the lane we want you in flexing forward, whether it's on a PK or even a five on five, we need you to flex out in this lane, and it's almost always the short side. Your players are trying to box out or flex out on a shot in the inside lane so that the goalie handles the short side.

Because most pucks into the inside, there's more traffic. We've gone through it before. Different things it can hit. Puck has the fastest path to the net on which side? The short side, so it makes sense for the goalie to make that a priority.

And if you're on the same page as your defenseman and your forwards in terms of what lanes they're in, everybody's job gets easier as opposed to the helter skelter crap that I deal with at beer league. I was just trying to

make it really easy for the beer league folks out there. Go with his inside shoulder.

So you're playing. Go with the inside shoulder. That's where you take the angle.

That's what I would tell the defenseman to do. Just shade to the side that's inside a little bit, please. Just keep it real simple.

Also, keep in mind, in pro hockey, the defenseman's or defender's gonna do everything they can to block that shot if it's in. In our leagues, Woody, they're doing everything they can to get out of the way, so you can't totally rely on it.

It's interesting you say that, though, because I saw an incredible breakdown by Steve Valiquette, and we love his work here. And he was going through the percentages of the chances of a defenseman scoring on a clear sighted shot versus the risk to one of your skilled players coming out trying to block that shot. He's just like and he he did it right by numbers, of course, as Woody probably will now, but we can stop those shots.

Yeah. All you're doing is getting in the way and creating more chaos a lot of the time. Now you can't let guys that said

Can't let him walk in.

You can't let him walk in and also a forward flexing out to defenseman at the point. You're right. If there's nothing else between the goaltender and that shooter, but chances are at the National Hockey League level, there's also a screen and a defenseman on the inside in the slot area. Now if you allow that defenseman to have a clear lane, clear sight, and pick either corner with a layered screen of a defender and another forward in front of you, that becomes a 40% scoring chance. So telling the the guys on the outside not to block it, well, I understand, only works if there's not other layers of traffic that you have to deal with as a goaltender.