Thoughts on cell phones and young goalies.

You pick up your cell phone. As I understand it, that is the topic of conversation for this week's parent segment. Take it away, my friend.

That's the second curveball you throw on me. And if you don't warn your catcher, you're throwing a curveball. You end up with a wild pitch or a pass ball, and it's not a good thing. Let's hope I can figure out how to block this one. Here we go.

Listen. Did I say that I've throw I pitched even worse than a goal tended and golfed, so my apologies.

Good. So it's a wild pitch and not a pass ball at

your fault.

At least we know that. Alright. Here we go. We are gonna talk about cell phones today, and I will at some point figure out how to deal with your curveball because sometimes they're good things, but sometimes we need to be careful about them. Cell phones have been on my mind for a while, Woody, since I I got a note from InGoal listener, Ted Penzition.

Ted, I think I got your name pronunciation correct there because I actually asked, Woody. And he sent in this story, and, here's what Ted wrote to me. He said, last year, I had an 11 year old first full year goalie, and, we noticed that he was struggling with long shots. And shortly after one of your podcast discussions about eye training, I had an idea. For weeks, he would get dressed and play games on his phone before the coaches started their chalk talk.

I deducted that perhaps his eyes were trained to focus at 18 inches. So one day he walked in with his dad and I asked him to hand his phone to his father. He mumbled a bit, but then we did some eye exercises prior to taking the ice and he pitched his first ever shutout. Literally, word pitched, it fits in with our little discussion there earlier. And, and now this young goalie is playing up a level, and he still gives his dad the phone whenever they enter the rink.

So I'm glad that some of our content here on the pod inspired Ted, and I'm glad that he had the creativity to apply it to his particular situation. He's helped the young goalie, and and it stuck with him. So that's really cool. Now a couple of nights ago, I was at a junior game, not my kid, not his league, and I spoke to a coach after the game. Then we saw one of the players go into the coach's room to collect his phone.

You see the team makes all the kids hand theirs in when they get to the rink. They tried to give the kids some freedom, but during exhibition season, they walked into the room between periods only to see most of these kids aged 16 to 20 sitting on their phones. The problem, it isn't just about young goalies, everybody. So Ted described for everybody a consequence that not everybody might imagine, and that's the effect on your vision. I think we can imagine the distraction and and so on.

But that tangible thing about vision, I think, was really cool for for Ted to figure out. I wonder about attention span as well in a world where few of us can sit for more than a couple of minutes without our phones. I should tell everybody that, we published a lengthy article from sports psychologist and goaltending coach, John Stevenson, over at InGoalmag on the effect of phones. It's titled, is your phone costing you saves? Examining the effects of screen time on the eyes, brain, and stopping pucks.

Go check it out over at ingoalmag.com. If you're one of our subscribers, we will have it linked in the show notes for this week's podcast. So as we embark on a new season, it's a much easier time as a family to set new standards and routines, so I'm raising this merely as a way to provoke some thought. I'm not here to tell you what to do. What you choose to do as a family and how you manage it on your own is, of course, your decision.

I will say that many teams at the junior level either take the phones away or at least provide a place where they expect the players to leave their phones when they arrive at the rink, whether it's for games or practices. Now younger teams may not wish to do this, but they choose to give the parents guidelines about phone use. I will say it is important to be present when you're at the rink. Practice time and game time, it's limited. Creating a good team culture is really important, and mentally preparing for every ice session is important.

Being withdrawn on your phone is really not the way to achieve any of that. The list of negative effects of screen time are too lengthy to mention here, but, John Stevenson does detail them in his article. He believes excessive screen time affects both your visual system and your ability to mentally process and read the game. So while I'm not here to suggest that you have to take your child's phone away as they enter the rink, that's your decision, I am here to encourage you to have a discussion with them. Of course, they want their phone with them, but what's the plan going to be for it?

Because there's little question in my mind that before hitting the ice, they their use is detrimental. The eyes really are the key to everything in goaltending and treating them as an afterthought or even mindlessly engaging in an activity that at very least detracts from preparing the eyes for what is to come. It's a mistake when we do so much more to give ourselves and our kids every advantage. Expensive equipment, expensive lessons, proper physical warm ups, proper nutrition, and more. So why ignore the potential detrimental effect of your phone?

So I'm asking this week, what will your family phone policy be? What will you ask of your child? Will you be like Ted and his goalie who saw the link between the phone and performance and made a change for the better? Let me know. Parents at ingoalmag.com.

I feel like this is one that's gonna be a lot easier for the parents that are already goaltenders. You know, like the the father son, father daughter, mother daughter, mother son relationship because the adult in this discussion will be able to get fully dressed in goaltending gear before trying to pry the phone away from their young son or daughter. And I feel like in past moments where I've needed to do that, I've wanted all the protection I can have.

Oh, I see I see where you're going.

Okay. There's a fear fear factor of goaltending. Trust me. There's a fear factor in taking a phone away from a teenager, which I mean, listen, jokes aside.

And that's why I

said discussion. As anyone.

That's why I said discussion. Right? Like, again, not not telling anybody how to parent, but, walking up to your child at the rink for the first time and saying, hand me your phone. I just heard on InGoal. It's a good thing to do is setting yourself up for failure.

A discussion two or three days before the next practice or game, maybe share some of the stuff from the article, maybe share Ted's story.

Never a bad thing to break the dependency. You talked about the junior kid running back to get his phone as soon as the game ended. It is I mean, I'm living

in right Full kit. Like, most of the kids had gone into the dressing room, and he literally still had his helmet on when he went in to get it. And and, I mean, maybe he had something urgent he had to but I doubt it.

Yeah. Absolutely. Hey. Listen. Like and this is not a this is not us judging the younger generation.

Have a massive problem with the amount

of time I spend on my phone right now. Yep. Yeah. That's it's an important lesson and I love the way you framed it in terms of having a discussion about this rather than trying to dictate it like anything when it comes to that parent child sporting relationship, whether it's hockey or for me with my young daughter with volleyball, all you can do is lead them, and hope that maybe when you you get to the water, they have a sip.

Well, just imagine how well you would do if you went to your spouse and said, hand over your phone. It's, you're on it too much. It's probably how the probably the discussion that would ensue with your child as well. So not easy.

Been on the other side of that one. I can tell you that recently as well. And, you're right. Like, instantly, you know you know it's right, you know they're correct, and yet you the the instinct is for your your back to get up for sure. Yeah.

Right away.

Yeah. Of course. Okay. Of course.