Parents: The Comparison Trap Your Goalie’s Path is Their Own

Got a double conversation coming up in our Sense Arena feature interview. But first, Stop It Goaltending U the app presents our parent segment. Looking forward to this conversation with David Hutchison, but our friends over at Stop It Goaltending U the app have all kinds of things going on.

How old is your oldest daughter, Hutch?

21.

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Hutch.

Daren. This week, I just wanted to talk about comparisons. I've seen a few people out there talking about decisions and where their kids should play and all sorts of different things and and thought I would chip in with a few thoughts that will probably lean into another, few parent segments coming up. In a lot of minor hockey leagues, we're not far off from playoffs. Seems crazy, but a lot of leagues tend to shut down sort of February time for playoffs.

Spring hockey emails are already flooding parents' inboxes. And if you're like most goalie parents, you're watching. You're watching who's getting the playoff starts. You're watching whose stats are better, which kids are committing to which spring programs, and you're wondering, is my kid on the right path? Are we falling behind?

Here's what makes it harder than ever. The pathways to success in goaltending are being rewritten as we speak. Any CHL players, for example, can now go to the NCAA. A lot of junior a routes that used to exist to preserve kids chances of playing college that those are disappearing or at least changing, what looked like the right path two years ago might not even exist anymore. And in the middle of all this change, we're doing what parents do.

We're comparing. We are watching other families make decisions and panicking that we need to keep up. That kid's going to this elite spring program. That goalie just committed to a tier one team. That family's hiring a private coach, and and we we all think, are we missing something?

The comparison trap, I call it, has always been dangerous for goalie parents, but right now it's worse than ever because nobody actually knows what the right path is anymore. Here's the reality. When nobody knows what the destination looks like, comparing your kid's path to someone else's path is completely pointless. You're measuring yourself against a standard that is shifting beneath all of us.

Are we making a mistake? The comparison trap, I call it, has always been dangerous for goalie parents, but right now it's worse than ever because nobody actually knows what the right path is anymore. Here's the reality. When nobody knows what the destination looks like, comparing your kid's path to someone else's path is completely pointless. You're measuring yourself against a standard that is shifting beneath all of us.

The kid dominating at 13, he might burn out at 16. Your kid who's struggling right now, he might not peak until he's 17, 18, 19. The elite path one family is chasing might not even be relevant by the time these kids are draft eligible. We simply don't know. What we do know is the goalies who keep developing, they stay engaged, they don't burn out, and they will have opportunities.

Maybe it's the CHL, the USHL, college, who knows? Maybe it's a path you can't even see yet. But comparing right now at 11, 13, 15, it tells you nothing about where these kids are going to be later on. Goalies develop on completely different timelines. We know they always have Some, yeah, peak early, but then they plateau.

Some are late bloomers and maybe they figure it out later at 16, 18, 20, even later. The position is too complex. It's too mental. It's too dependent on physical development that happens at different rates. Look, I've lived this.

Our family took the road less traveled, guys, as you know. We kept our son home longer than most families who were chasing that elite dream. He had some success in the CHL. Now his path has taken a different turn than he's in the BCHL. Do I look back and wonder what if about decisions we made?

Mhmm. Absolutely. Every goalie parent does. But here's the thing. There's no way to know if we made mistakes.

The alternate timeline doesn't exist, so I can't have any regrets. What I do know is that years of family time that we wouldn't have had had we been chasing that elite path earlier, we got those. We got dinners together. We got them at home. We got to watch them grow up, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

The alternate timeline doesn't exist, so I can't have any regrets. What I do know is that years of family time that we wouldn't have had had we been chasing that elite path earlier, we got those. We got dinners together. We got them at home. We got to watch them grow up, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

And I have no idea if the other path would have worked out better, so here's where we are. For everybody else, when those spring hockey decisions come at you and they're coming, remember this. You can't make good decisions when you're stuck in the comparison trap. You can't see what your goalie needs when you're too busy watching what everybody else is doing. Just do what's right for your family.

Make sure your kid's having fun. Make sure he's developing. The rest will follow. Next week, we're gonna talk specifically about navigating spring hockey in this, crazy landscape. But for now, take a breath.

Your goalie's path is their own, and that's exactly how it should be. As always, we'd love to hear from you. What comparisons are you wrestling with? What'd you think about my thoughts today? Maybe you have a different opinion.

Email us podcast at InGoalmag dot com.

Remember the movie sliding doors?

Mhmm.

Like, that's that is down the path of what would have happened if one of one of the great movies that make you think about every decision that you make, big decisions that that you make.

I often think about some crazy decisions, in the past that got me to where I am or got other people to where they are and had that one little decision not been made. There'd be massive changes in life and it's a crazy one. But at one point I was coaching this girl who, she got a full scholarship, down to the US as a rower, I was, I was a rowing coach and we had a conversation about it and the only reason she ever took up rowing is because she happened to move in, beneath a rower and she kept seeing the Rowing Canada magazines showing up on the sort of the front step. But the only reason the person above them even got into rowing was because another guy volunteered to tape ankles for a basketball team and recruited them all down to the rowing club.

So it's like had this guy not volunteered to tape ankles, she doesn't get a full ride down to The States as as an NCAA athlete. Like there's lots of those stories if you think back to your life, small decisions. The reality is if you're happy where you are today, you can't really have any regrets because you don't know what got you there.