332 Parents: Thoughts on Christmas for goalies and their families

Hutch will join us in just a second with the parent segment brought to you by Stop It Goaltending U, the app. Well, twenty five years of NHL goalie experience at your fingertips. Sound pretty good to you, Daren? That's pretty good to me.

I would take it.

That's what you get from the Stop It Goaltending U, the app. You get all the expertise of Brian DeCord and his staff. They've been doing this for over twenty five years at Stop It Goal Tending U, the brick and mortar coaching facilities that they have in the Boston area. Brian's been a goalie coach for the Boston Bruins. He's been a goalie scout for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

He's been a director of goaltending for the Arizona Coyotes and now is the director of goaltending for the Detroit Red Wings. He's, of course, the parent of Joey Daccord of the Seattle Kraken and kinda cool to see them on the the dad's trip recently this week. Saw some of those photos. Look like a good time for father and son. But all that expertise, not just from Brian, but from the staff he's built of goaltending experts at Stop It, all condensed into something you can access on your phone or tablet.

The app, Stop It Goaltending U. Every week, you get new daily primers. You get breakdowns on NHL goalies. You get drills every week that you can take out on the ice to help make you a better goaltender. All that content, new every week from the Stop It Goaltending U app.

And as a bonus, you get to access our best stuff at InGoal. Every membership to Stop It Goaltending U, the app, comes with an InGoal premium membership. It's the best of both worlds in goaltending to help you make more saves. The Stop It Goaltending U app, make sure you check it out on the App Store or Google Play Store wherever you access apps for your devices.

Not here for the full episode, but David Hutchison did leave us with this parent segment, Hutch.

Thanks, Daren. Holiday breaks, pressure, and doing what's right for your goalie. One thing I really wanna talk about around the holidays is the break we often take from hockey and especially from goaltending. That break matters and what it looks like should be different from every goalie and every family. That's actually the whole point.

There's no single right way to handle the holidays. And I want to be very clear about that because this is a time of year when a lot of parents feel pressure. Pressure created almost entirely by comparison and FOMO, the old fear of missing out. You see other hockey family skating. You see posts about camps and lessons.

You hear about extra ice, extra training, extra everything. And suddenly, it can feel like doing nothing is a mistake. It's not. If your goalie needs a break physically, mentally, emotionally, and you take one, that's a 100% okay. In fact, for a lot of kids, it's exactly what they need.

Rest is not lost development. Recovery is part of training and is part of development. On the flip side, if your team doesn't get much goalie coaching and you feel like the holidays are a good time to go to a camp and take a couple of private lessons, that's great too. If your goalie is energized by it and excited to learn, go for it. On the other hand, maybe what you need isn't training at all.

Maybe it's stick and puck or shinny. Maybe it's throwing on skates as a player, messing around, laughing, shooting pucks with friends, and remembering why the game is fun in the first place. That counts. And if what your family needs is to take the gear off entirely for a week or two and just be a family, that counts too. Some of you will have Christmas tournaments booked.

If that's the case, my hope is that you can frame those as experiences, not evaluations. Fun, not pressure. Memories, not measurements. Here's the key point I really want parents to hear. One week, two weeks, whatever you choose, That time will not break your goalie's game, not today, not this season, not over the course of a career.

Training because you're afraid of falling behind, Skating because everyone else is skating. Pushing because you feel pressure instead of purpose. That's how burnout sneaks in. Quietly, gradually, often with the best of intentions.

What can cause problems is doing things out of fear. Training because you're afraid of falling behind, Skating because everyone else is skating. Pushing because you feel pressure instead of purpose. That's how burnout sneaks in. Quietly, gradually, often with the best of intentions.

I've said this many times and I'll keep saying it. There is nothing more important in this game than having fun. Fun keeps kids engaged. Fun keeps them learning. Fun keeps them wanting to come back.

So whatever your holiday break looks like, more hockey, less hockey, or no hockey at all, if it's right for your goalie and right for your family, you're doing it right. Trust that. Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone in the goalie union.

Hutch as a goalie dad, of a Western Hockey League player, it had me thinking about, Little Hutch, big Hutch, when I saw Jacob Fowler make his National Hockey League debut and the emotion that, that mom displayed.

That was so cool. Like, just just you're smiling the whole way. And, I mean, the kid's obviously an incredible talent. We talked about that list I did this summer talking to goalie directors and goalie coaches about the top prospects around the league. Jacob Fowler was top five on every list, if not top two in most.

So an incredible talent. I know maybe they didn't plan on using him this early this year, but to to have a game like he did on that stage. And to see his mom reacting that way, the emotions of it, like, just it it warms the heart, frankly. We get a little bitter and old in this in this game sometimes as journalists, but that one that one was exciting. The the entire goalie union was sitting there and with with him, and I'm guessing the entire I'm not a goalie parent myself, but I'm guessing the entire goalie parent union was sitting with her in that moment and and soaking it all in with her and and and the emotions that come with it.

It's a tough job being a goalie parent, but when you get to see the rewards like that, it makes you smile.