Episode 363 Parents: 7 Tips to Help Your Goalie’s Puck Handling

Alright. We're on to the parent segment, my friend. Time for you. I've been talking enough. People are sick and tired of hearing me.

Let's go parent segment presented by the Stop It Goaltending U app. And since you were just in Boston, I'll handle this read because if you would like twenty five years of NHL goalie experience at your fingertips, if you would like to tap into the goalie parenting expertise that helped Joey Daccord reach the NHL, all you gotta do is get a subscription of the Stop It Goaltending U app. All the knowledge from Brian Daccord has been an NHL goalie coach, scout, and director, as well as all the insights and expertise from his staff at Stop It, which includes a long list of veteran NCAA coaches, NHL goalie scouts, and pro scouts at every level, all delivered in easy to digest chunks including five short daily primers, weekly style analysis, breakdown videos, and drills that you can take onto the ice with your team and coach. Plus, I was talking about that InGoal subscription and how important it is to get other discounts and all the great information we have on there. It's included with the subscription to Stop It Goaltending U the app.

You get the best of both worlds. So check it out now at the App Store or Google Play and get your subscription to Stop It Goaltending U the app and a subscription to InGoal Magazine included. Hutch. It's

summertime and I think it's one of the best times that you can help your young goalie learn to handle and shoot the puck. Everybody loves a goalie goal and We do. Shout shout out to our goalie goals page. My kid loves handling the puck. I think I worked it out that he'd average 15 to 20 handles a game.

He just loves doing it, but he's also been playing the puck since he was very, very young. And it's not a new idea, by the way. Two of the best hand puck handling goalies of their era, Mike Smith and Carey Price, both credit the habits that they've built as kids in some of our discussions with them. So here's a few things. I'm gonna call this seven tips for helping your young goaltender learn how to handle the puck.

Number one, I think this applies on so many levels, play out as long as you can. Before your kid commits to being in the crease full time, let them keep playing out as as a skater. If they wanna do both for a while, that's great too. If your system will allow you to do it, but every shift as a forward or a defenseman is building stick handling, passing, and skating skills that a lot of goalies never get or never get enough of. Number two, speaking of Stop It Goaltending, use a player's stick when they're too young for a goalie stick.

I know. I know. Lots of you think you gotta force them to use those big mitts and the big heavy goalie stick or they'll never learn it. Well, I got news for you. Joey Daccord himself on this podcast made the point with his father that they learned with a regular player stick.

And I've seen him on the ice with a player stick in Boston and he can rip the puck. You're just not strong enough to do it as a kid. It makes it hard. It makes it unfun, miserable experience. Let them use a player stick.

And I'm also gonna give credit to coach Angelo Maggio over here in British Columbia on this one. A lot of goaltenders shoot right handed natively, but then when you carry that stick in your blocker hand, you have to shoot left handed as a goaltender. So around age seven, Angelo had us get a left handed player stick for our son. Never used it exclusively, but he did use it in the backyard for reps and it helped him learn how to shoot the puck left handed. Shoot pucks in the backyard as we're talking about that.

Just like any skater, reps are reps. It doesn't just build skill, it builds strength. Get yourself a couple of shooting tiles, piece of plastic, whatever it is, bucket of old pucks and shoot a bunch every day. Twenty, fifty, a 100, whatever your goal might be, have some fun with it. We would tie tin cans to the corners of the net so that he could shoot for the targets.

Just go out there and as I've always said before, mom and dad do it with them too. Build strength. This is tip number four, build strength. We have an article specifically on this at ingoalmag.com from our good friend Maria Mountain and I will link it in the show notes. Some simple exercises you can do to build strength specifically for shooting.

Number five, learn the technique. Of course, handling the puck isn't just about confidence, it's about footwork, it's about body position and knowing where to play the puck before you get there. That is a long huge topic we can cover but you need to get that opportunity to learn to play the puck. Whether it's one of your summer camps, whether it's being lucky enough to have a coach who supports it in your regular practices, but we really have to learn how to to do it properly as well. Number six, speaking of practice, pass every puck you possibly can in practice.

Don't just freeze it or kick it into the corner if you get a chance to make a play, make a play. If, you're just moving pucks around to help the coach, make a good pass. You see players going around and you're at the end of the ice on your own, make a few passes. Do what you can in practice all the time to work on this skill. And number seven, finally, work on your skating, especially getting behind the net, getting back in front.

If again, if the puck's at the other end during a drill and you've got some free time as a goaltender, use some time to rip back behind your net as if you're stopping a rim and then getting back in as if you've got to get back there in a hurry. Learning to look up ice and see what traffic is there. Just learning the footwork to get back there as quickly as you possibly can. It's gonna help you with everything you do on the ice. So seven tips to help you become a better puck handler.

The summertime is a great time. If you haven't done it already, get out in the backyard and start ripping some biscuits.

I got tip number eight.

Go for it.

Dylan Garand, the end of his skating session. I've been promising for a little while, I've been working on it all morning, we'll have it up soon. Guess what he does? He goes back behind the net and handles pucks for the final like ten minutes He is

so of his hour long skating session. So on It clearly makes it a part of his summer routine. It's not an accident that he's good at it. So we'll have that up for you at ingoalmag.com shortly. Great advice, Hutch.

Dylan's ability to stop a rim on the glass and pull it down with his stick is unbelievable. The eye hand coordination that guy has obviously comes from years of practice.