320 Parents: How and when to tell them who starts

Get more on that, with Dylan on the NHL Sense Arena feature interview in just a little bit, but first Stop It Goaltending U the app parent segment with Hutch as we pay tribute and appreciate the partnership with Stop It Goaltending.

Well, the Stop It Goaltending U app has a lot of great features every week. This week, it's loaded. So there's new material every week to help you become a better goaltender. What they do a really nice job of is breaking it down into quick, easily digestible items, but then also giving you things you can dig into that are a little longer. They've got their weekly primer.

So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you get a quick one minute video. This week, it's about process versus product goals. They also give you NHL video. They've got Kevin Lankinen with an off center tip where they break down the video and watch how he handles it. Jacob Markstrom, a little bit of a deeper dive into how he manages a low versus a high stance, and a drill that you can take out on the ice yourself.

Two shot net drive pass drill. All available this week on the Stop It Goaltending U app. There's new content every week. They bring twenty five years of goaltending experience led by Brian Daccord, former Boston Bruins goalie coach, Toronto Maple Leafs goalie scout, Arizona Coyote's director of goaltending, and now the Detroit Red Wings director of goaltending. All the knowledge from his twenty five years in the game wrapped into an app.

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It's one of the most popular parts of InGoal Radio, the podcast, the parent segment brought to you by Stop It Goal Tending U the app, Hutch.

Thank you, Daren. I'd actually this segment that we're we're about to do, I'd I'd actually prerecorded this in case I'm not able to join you guys for one of the shows. And I was gonna write something separate for today. I've actually got a couple of things that that I'm working on. And then today got away from me because I have been on the phone since 07:00 this morning, pretty much nonstop with goalie coaches all over North America.

Fabulous conversations. I am learning a ton from all of them and, talking to them about a program that we have for hockey associations. And so if you are a coach, if you are a parent who is an executive on a on an association, anybody who's got an interest in goalie development, I would love to have a conversation with you. And, very easy. Just find me david at ingoalmag dot com.

And because I haven't left this desk in the last twelve hours pretty much, I didn't get a chance to finish off what I had hoped to do this week. So I will I will come back with a couple of these other things next week, and we're just gonna dip into what I recorded and, but do it do it live here, of course. I got a question from a parent. I think it was probably a somewhat loaded question, but was wondering what is common in deciding when a goalie should be told if they are starting a game. I I don't know the exact situation.

I'm not using the parent's name because I both didn't get permission and because I sensed it was a an uncomfortable, drive back from a hockey tournament where this had been sent from. Shout out to him though because he did say that he was listening to the InGoal Radio Podcast for the entire drive home from this tournament, so that was awesome. And, and just wanted to know what is common. And I must say that virtually every goalie parent goes through this and most goalies wondering how should this be done. I'm I'm not we are never here at InGoal to tell you how you must do things.

We're just gonna share some of the stuff that we know. Daren and Kevin, if you have experience with this, I would love to hear what you'd like to throw in. I will just tell you what I told this parent. The day before a game is very common, probably more common than it should be. I know goaltenders would like more notice.

In minor hockey, I have to say, if I could stand on a soapbox where goalie should be splitting their games evenly, coaches, if you're listening, it makes sense to let the goalies know at the beginning of the week who's gonna be playing in the games on the weekend. It's not just so that your goaltender can be prepared, but there are practicalities like not wanting to be that parent who has to drive your kid four and a half hours to a game to watch him sit on the bench when they maybe could hop in with another family. Or grandparents wanting to come out and see their kid. This is minor hockey. This is for fun.

Coaches, let's tell the kids what the rotation is as early as we can. In junior hockey, it gets a little bit different because it's all about winning and they make decisions often quite late. I don't know that they need to. I think there should be a plan, but I know that decisions can often be made based on the previous game's results. Sometimes, late at night, sometimes even the morning of the game.

That's kind of the reality of what guys end up stepping into. National Hockey League level, I think most teams are a little bit better than this. I know of one team specifically that actually plans it a month ahead. And both goalies know

which team they're doing.

A lot perfect. Thank you. That's that's great.

More common than than not.

Remind me at the end of this to tell you about the one time the goalie coach was pissed because the head coach got the final call. And on Friday night, he still hadn't informed either goaltender who was starting a Saturday afternoon game.

There you go. So back to minor hockey for some of these guys in the National Hockey League. It look, it's a little bit easier in the NHL where often you're riding a guy and you're planning out his rest based around what the schedule looks like. However, we can definitely do better with the young kids. Here's the advice though that I did give.

As frustrating as it is, there's probably close to zero you can do to change it as a parent. It's great to learn what's normal, but really honestly, I think it's probably only helping you feel justified. And in practice, like I said, it's not going to make much difference. Maybe if you're a coach listening and you hear what other people do, that's useful. But as a frustrated parent, I don't know how much it helps.

I would say if you feel compelled to speak to a coach about this, frame it very gently. You can share why it would be helpful. You can explain about the logistics for families and grandparents and friends. You might find that the coach hadn't thought of those things, honestly, but be ready for them not to care. I wouldn't lean too hard on the I need to be ready aspect of it because most coaches, even though it's not completely fair, are gonna expect their goalies to be ready no matter what happens.

They're gonna give you the old, well, what if he has to go in because of an injury? Needs to be ready. This is why I would recommend something that I talked about in a previous week's show, which is to use the uncontrollable stuff to your advantage. Make the decision consciously that you're gonna thrive even in situations that other people find frustrating. Don't buy into the frustration.

Decide that you're the kind of person that doesn't care. If your goalie partner and their family are upset, you're gonna be the one that doesn't care because you can deal with it. You are ready whenever you're called, whether it's the morning of a game, halfway through a game, whenever. I promise you that that kind of a mindset, which does take practice, builds into a real mental strength over time, that knowledge that you can thrive in other situations where other goalies are rattled. I also think as a parent, need to think long term.

Even if you could change things this season, next year, your kid's gonna have a different coach and they're gonna have different challenges. And developing that ability to thrive under any circumstance prepares your goalie for whatever comes later. And at the highest level, you're gonna have zero control. So why don't you help your kid get ready for that now? For what it's worth, I have not said anything more than hello to any of my son's junior hockey coaches in the last four seasons.

You're not gonna have any control. One caveat I am gonna say though, I do let my kid express frustration. Bottling up that frustration with situations, be it this one or another one is not a good thing. I think it's important that we let our children acknowledge their frustration, acknowledge their upset, but don't add to it yourself as a parent by carrying on with the venting. Instead, listen and then pivot and say, yes, I know it's tough but I know you're strong enough to handle it.

You're stronger than others even. So what's frustrating to some is actually to your advantage. So that balance between allowing them to feel frustrated while reminding them that they can still thrive despite it is gonna build resilience and help them when they move forward in the game and in life. That's just my 2 cents, but I hope it helps somebody this week.

It depends on what level you're at when the goaltender when we believe the goaltender should be told that they're starting. A minor hockey, more advanced notice and taking some life particulars into play. And junior hockey, probably the day before is the norm, and NHL, a little more planning.

Yeah. I I think there's a lot of junior teams that do it a little further out too because you're in a situation where you can plan. But, yeah, for me, I think that the message is if you're a minor hockey coach, there really isn't that much to think about. Please don't tell me that you need to mull this over right up to the day before the game to decide what's best for the team based on what you saw in practice. Like, this is not the most important thing on the planet this week.

Tell the kids when they're gonna play, get on with the games. Like, really, they should probably be rotating at almost every level of minor hockey anyway, it should be a fairly simple thing is how I believe. But I know that doesn't happen out there everywhere.

Let them both play. Mhmm. Split the periods. Yeah. Let's get let's let's make this a civilized game again.

Okay. So what what will come up in a future week, and it's one of the ones that I started to write on was a parent talking about a team, of what I believe is eight year olds where the coach wants to rotate in period much like Alex Auld told us about. And the comments were, shall we say very strong against the team's head coach. So I kinda like what the coach was doing, and I'm gonna hop in on that topic next week or the week after.

You should talk to Paul Campbell. Our own Paul Campbell used to do a lot of writing for us. His young goaltender, they went through this. He's helping out with the team. And despite a little bit of pushback, got agreement from the coach, and they're switching every, I believe, every period.

So every kid plays every game. Love it. So they'll one will get two and and one, and then the next game, the other will get two and then one. I love that. Me for me, the biggest key here is that all roads lead to beer league.

And as much as we wanna know when we're starting, if you think it's bad not finding out, you know, that you're not starting the night before, try showing up at the rink and having your team be like, yeah, we don't really need you tonight. We found, like, some guy passed out in the corner and he's better. So we're gonna put him in that. So it's when they don't start you, that becomes the real problem.

If you if you split in game, do you you mentioned swapping the guys in period. So halfway through the period, you would switch?

Yeah. Look mean, look, like there's there's different models. Let's not not go too too deep since we're gonna talk about it another time. But in this case, I think it was halfway through the period. I think Alex Auld might have had a certain number of shifts they were going.

But there's a lot to that. A lot of ways you could do it. But

Embrace the chaos. Change on the fly. I

love that. And you will find a lot of young goalies if they're doing a tryout where there's multiple kids trying to get ice time. I've many times had them switch on the fly and the kids absolutely love it.

You're right. You don't have to wait for that stoppage.

Yeah.

Which could drag on.

Oh yeah. Or the play starts coming your way and you're in the middle of a change and yeah, embrace the chaos. It's fun.

Had a coach that used to do that in AAA midget, would change the goalies on the fly.

Love it.

Just to keep everybody involved. The players loved it. The goalies loved it. And, it was fun to watch. As as far as when to know that you're starting, there was coaches back in the day that would base it on a warm up.

I've heard that.

Yep. And and that was just mind blowing.

Which is hilarious because we're gonna hear from Dylan in in the feature interview talking about how some of his best performances in game have come after his worst warm ups and the idea of being able to get past needing everything to go perfect leaning up to a game to feel confident about your game.

There's there's something there about a bad warm up and great game. Always has been, over the years. The NHL Sense Arena feature interview hooking up with New York Ranger and Hartford Wolf Pack goaltender Dylan Garand, who's going into his fourth full year in the American Hockey League. Played as a 20 year old and has played a ton of games in the American Hockey League as we, give credit to NHL Sense Arena.