Parents: Creative (and Affordable) Christmas Gifts for a Goalie – Focus on the Experience

Slide over to our parent segment brought to you by Stop It Goaltending U the app. Hutch is standing by. Stop It Goaltending U the app, a great partner with InGoal Radio, the podcast.

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Happy holidays, Hutch.

Thank you and to you, Daren. This week, I wanted to chat about some creative Christmas gift ideas and, and maybe even some that are a little bit more affordable. Well, definitely some that are a little bit more affordable. Because, look, there's a lot of pressure on goalie parents right now. We see NHL goalies with multiple sets of gear every year, multiple masks, special event setups that might only see the ice once, sometimes not even at all.

And it trickles down to minor hockey, us all getting that FOMO, the fear of missing out and wanting to give our kids everything. So I wanna say something this week very clearly. Christmas for your goalie can be special without costing an arm and a leg. And in many cases, it's more meaningful when the focus is on the experience and not the features. So here's a few ideas.

Used gear. It is totally okay. Used pads will still stop pucks. Used gloves still build confidence, and sometimes that first set of their own gear, even if it's secondhand, means more than brand new gear ever could. Maybe it matches the team colors.

Maybe it looks like something one of their idols wears. The story around it is what matters. Guys, I've sold used gear before, and when the kid comes along with mom or dad to pick it up from us, the smile on their faces is every bit as big, if not bigger, than when a brand new custom set arrives for a goalie. Trust me. Another affordable option is a helmet wrap instead of a paint job.

From 30 feet away in the stands for under a $100, they look every good as a actual paint job, But here's a way you can make it even more exciting. Take the time to pick it out together. Take the time to apply it together. Yes, mom or dad, you could put it on the helmet faster on your own for sure. But if you can find a way to do it with your son or daughter together, it will turn it into a memory.

Look, maybe they're five or six years old and all they can do is open the package and tell you which piece to put on next or maybe they can actually do it themselves. But doing it together makes it an experience. You could even maybe give them a gift certificate for the helmet wrap only and then together you can sit down and go through the website and, come up with the right design for them just to make it part of the experience. How about homemade helmet art, guys? One of my best memories ever is when my father did a homemade helmet design.

Just some plain vinyl, an exacto knife, nothing fancy. This was the nineteen seventies. Nobody had painted helmets then. And I say helmet, Daren, because I'm talking about the old Cooper SK 600. The helmet and the cage.

Nobody had them painted, but my dad went out and got some vinyl and he stick it up in a custom way for me and I knew how much effort went into it. So here I am enjoying that experience here today, forty five years later or whatever it is. I did the same thing for our kid years later twice. One of them still, in fact, on the on the shelf right beside me, stickering up in a bucket just for him. It's a memory that will last longer than the gear.

How about tickets to a game, but you make it an event? Junior hockey games are perfect for this. Get them some tickets, take them to a game. But it isn't just the tickets that are the gift. It's the night together.

Go early. Stand behind the net for the warm up. Track pucks together. Sit somewhere they can really watch the goalie. Ask questions of them during the game.

What did you notice? Why did they go down there? Why did they not go down there? And, yes, concessions at games even at the junior level can be expensive, so make that an experience too. Prep the snacks together.

Talk about what you're gonna take. Show up with something better than an overpriced hot dog. And I don't mean buy some snacks and pull them out of a bag and hand them to the kid when their friend goes off to concession. If you plan and make them together, they're going to look forward to that experience. The point isn't saving money.

It's being included together in the experience. How about hockey cards? Common thing to give at Christmas. You buy a pack of cards, you stick them in the stocking. Quick and easy.

But guess what? They pull them out. They open them. They toss them in the pile with all their other cards. And that moment is gone and forgotten.

How about hunting together for cards? Scroll on Facebook marketplace together. Whether it's the excitement of finding one special card out there in the community, maybe selling off a large box of cards for cheap. I've done that before. At least I bought them that way before.

There's no rush. Just enjoy the time together. Or maybe take your kid to a local card shop with a budget. This could be another gift certificate opportunity for you. What's better?

10 random cards from a pack that you picked up at Walmart or one special card that you went to a store and found on display together? I went on eBay one year, guys, and I found cards of some junior goalies that our kid liked and, some that he'd even skated with. Those cards were appreciated way more than any NHL card. And while that's maybe not an experience, so to speak, they built on the experience of their relationship with those young goalies. Those are often mean way more than, than one from the biggest NHL star of the moment because it's connected to their world.

How about over the holidays? Go to stick and puck together. If you're a mom or dad who has never played hockey before, rent some skates and lace up anyway. Get out there. That alone would be a gift for your kid.

I promise you. How about get them a player stick, even a used one? Maybe even try a different hand. Shout out to Angelo Maggio of Magic Goal Tending who told me to get my kid a left handed player stick. He shoots regularly right handed.

When he was about seven years old, he was going to Angelo and Angelo said he's going to have to shoot left as a goalie, but get him a left handed player stick and let him mess around with that. And reminder to everybody when Joey Daccord told us he really believes that his time as a young goalie with a player stick that he was strong enough to handle helped him become one of the best puck handlers with a goalie stick in the game. Another experience you could have together is tape jobs. Make it an experience. Google images of goalies they like.

See who they like, how they do their sticks, what they like about it, and then work together to replicate that tape job or go out and grab some colored grip tape, some new stick tape and experiment together. Try them together, mess them up, rip them off, try again. Tape is relatively cheap, but curiosity and creativity are priceless. Last one I think here, guys, books and stories are a great shared time. Go out and get a goalie book, get a goaltending story, maybe even an audiobook for the car that you listen to on the way to, on the way to your games or practices.

Go through a chapter a day. Talk about it. Let it be a slow experience. I promise it's going to be a much better experience than just handing them an expensive gift and walking away. There's one thing I want you to take away this week.

It's this. The most meaningful gifts are not things, they are moments. And they don't have to be expensive moments to be unforgettable. Everybody else out there, what are your thoughts? Do you have some more suggestions that we could offer to people for great memories, great experiences and affordable gifts?

Any experiences you've had, either that you've given to a child or received from one of your parents, I would love to hear from you. Podcast at ingoalmag.com.

Well said.

Found myself getting a little emotional in that. There there are some really cool bonding opportunities there.

And if I may add a shameless plug to those bonding opportunities that had us emotional, Custom cages, Google that if you're looking for the deckle kits. Our friend Basil over there doesn't sell full wraps online. That's sort of just for for friends and family so to speak, but they do pretty much close to the next best thing. All kinds of different customized stencils. You can add your logo to it and as Hutch said, at a very reasonable cost compared to what everyone else does.

So he does an he does awesome work and it is it is a bit of work. Maybe make sure the arts and crafts is is something you have in your back pocket before you try that one with your let's just say that uncle Woody would not be the guy to apply decals with the young child's goalie mask without some degree of frustration, but everybody else could.

I can't believe more people don't do wraps, to be totally blunt with you guys. They look great. I have a couple and and the the cost difference is extraordinary.

And not not just cost. I mean, it's hard to get time with a painter these days. They are so busy between all the things they're doing for junior and pro teams. You've got a long long way ahead of you quite often to get a decent paint job, whereas you can have those stickers applied really quickly.

I would like to design stickers for Woody. Can I do your next mask?

You wanna you wanna design mine? Yeah. You can, Daren. You you absolutely can. Do you know that I haven't had a mask with art on it in about five years?

So it's time, Daren. Get on that.

Alright. We'll start with the woodpecker and then we'll

that will My be my first yeah. My my first painted mask was Woody Woodpecker. On one side, he was wearing vintage goalie gear, making saves. And on the other side, it was Woody Woodpecker is the famous Jacques Plante image, holding up the mask with the bloodied face. That that was that was the two sides of Woody Woodpecker.

And appropriately, it was all done over the top of the mask was a skull with a massive fracture that was sewn together with the like like like like a metal a metal thread, basically, holding it all together. So I feel like that was also appropriate at the time.

Did you have a favorite bailing wire. Out of your list there, Hutch?

A favorite you mean of those items or are we talking paint jobs?

Those items.

I mean for yeah. I mean for me it was actually doing the custom vinyl myself. First as I said, what my dad did for me, I'd never seen before and I knew the time it took and then, taking that time to do it for myself. I literally went to the local art supply store and I found a sheet, maybe three sheets of vinyl in the different colors that my kids team used and then I stenciled it on paper and I cut them and I applied them and yeah, for me it was reminiscing about times that I'd had before. And, and if you haven't been through something like that, I promise you're going to plant a seed that your son or daughter will remember, you know, twenty, thirty years down the road when when they get to return the favor.

If I could add one, and I didn't didn't pop into my head right away till we were just talking about it, and at the risk of making this another episode, he's been a featured guest of late and and making this one about him as well. But Kasimir Kaskisuo, the mask he's wearing in the ECHL is one he painted himself, and he's got a great how to on his on his social media, I believe on his YouTube page, sort of walking you through

He did it himself?

He did that himself, and he sorta he did the whole process, like the cutting and the stenciling. And if you're patient and you have a little bit of artistics, it is something you could do, and it would be a really cool project to do with a parent. Yeah. So, like, yeah, there's there's there's lots of great resources out there that can help you do that, you know, and again, shameless plug, but I find myself having reinvested in his content. He does a really, really great job after meeting catching up with Montreal, and and that was one that jumped out to me is like, hey.

This this, you know, Hutch, you you sort of brought those worlds together for me as you were talking about that. It's I I can imagine a young goalie doing that with a parent and how special that time together would be, whether it's a stencil or taking it to the next step and painting it yourself. It's pretty pretty cool stuff.

I also loved your idea of going to a game and making an event with your child and standing behind the net for warm up and the snacks and the conversation and the the car ride. Maybe maybe you have to go an hour or so, and you've got that discussion on the way. That that brings back memories.

Well, and and and another tease for our feature interview, but Drew Commesso was inspired by sitting behind the net. Now he was blessed enough to have in his family Boston Bruins tickets, but as you're gonna hear from him, his origins and roots that will ultimately lead to the NHL were watching from behind the net as Tim Thomas and Tuukka Rask were on the big stage. So you can see the game from a different perspective back there. And and when he talks about it in this upcoming feature interview, folks, you'll hear how much of an experience that and how that inspired him. Doesn't have to be the NHL as Hutch said, but it just sitting back there and investing that time to go early and watch that process could really light a spark for your young goalie.