Devan Dubnyk and Lyle Mast: The Science of Head Trajectory (Ep. 369)

Intro

If you listened last week, we are working our way towards the next. Won't give it away just yet. It's InGoal Radio Podcast presented by The Hockey Shop. Thehockeyshop.com, Source for Sports Langley. Daren Millard.

There's Kevin Woodley, David Hutchison. We all ready to go today. Got a good gear segment, parent segment coming up. Also, NHL Sense Arena feature interview, a doubleheader or a two on one today on on the feature interview.

We do. And honestly, I think this is a first. Have we ever done this? We've had two interviewers, but I don't know that we've ever had two guests.

You've had goalie and goalie coaching.

Oh, right. Right. Oh, they got Swayman Swayman and Swayman. Yep. And And Elfie.

Elfie, Michaud. Yeah. Okay.

Looking forward to that. Lyle Mast and Devan Dubnyk coming up. Well, what's what's the focus on that today?

Well, actually, this is the first time Lyle Mast has ever done any media anywhere. Obviously, a name that I think of the goalie coaching community, we think of head trajectory. I think there's a lot of people that, believe they know what head trajectory is. As I've heard many times from many coaches and many goalies, isn't this just looking at the puck? And we're gonna have Devan Dubnyk and Lyle Mast explain why that's not the case.

It's funny because I've had a lot of NHL goalies that say the same thing. It's just looking at the puck. We've always taught that or I was always taught that. And then they learn it, and they're like, this is different. So you know what?

After a long time and a lot of speculation and a lot of different conversations around of it, we're actually gonna bring it to you with Lyle and with Devan Dubnyk, who's one of the early adopters and had a lot of success with it. So we figured having both sides of that conversation, Lyle explaining the science, we're into vestibular function and balance points and a whole bunch of technical stuff, and then Dubnyk explaining how it feels on the ice. And I think one of the biggest things, and we'll get into this in the in the interview, but I'll just set it up. There is there is a Lyle's finally gone public in part because there's a product involved, the goggles, the trac optic goggles. And the reason that matters, and you'll hear me and Dubnyk talk about it a little bit, and it was a frustration for me because I would watch these guys work on it in the summer, and they were just on every puck, And they looked like they couldn't be beat.

And these would be at camps like Net 360 where there was NHL shooters in the slot. Like, they just all over the puck. And then two months into the season, it was gone. And what we would hear from an outside standpoint was it's not working. Head trajectory doesn't work.

And I'd be watching it on video and being like, that's because he's not tracking the puck anymore. You know? So as we talk about, hey. Let's just look at the puck. Well, if he's not actually looking at it the way he should be looking at it, he would lose it.

And the goalies struggled to sort of recreate that feeling, struggled to fully understand it in the early adoption phases. And they would lose it in season. Like, you can lose a lot of things. What the goggles are done, they're like an on off switch. When you've got them on, you know whether you're on it or not.

So we're gonna get into all of that with Dubnyk, with Lyle Mast. I think this is a conversation that probably a lot of people have been waiting for. It's a conversation that, frankly, Hutch can tell you I've been pushing Lyle to have with us publicly for a decade. Told them to come out and own it. It's taken a while to get there.

And honestly, having seen some of the stuff behind the scenes in terms of, you know, some guys, the way he's been treated, some of the mistakes he's made along the way, frankly, some of the conversations around it, I actually understood why now why he waited. I just wish it hadn't been this long. But the wait is over, folks. We're gonna explain it, or at least he is.

So you guys talk goggles?

Talk everything. Yeah. It's a it's a full forty five minute conversation. And the hope is that we follow this up with a video presentation so people can start to see the difference that they're describing.

Looking forward to it coming up in the NHL Sense Arena feature interview. On the training camp front, there is some news. Connor Hellebuyck is not in Winnipeg's camp. We speculated on that a week ago. What what do you think the next step is here?

Do do we have an idea of of where this goes short term and long term?

I think we're in a difficult spot with this. At least I think I think Winnipeg might be in a difficult spot with this because they're under some pressure to do something and Connor has and his agent have applied some public pressure now as a result of this. And Winnipeg has come out of course and said, Well, we're not going to make a move until we get what we think is fair value. They're kind of gotten painted into a corner here because they If they make a move too soon, then people could quickly say, You didn't get the value you said you could have had. And they can look back at some of the scenarios we've heard presented publicly as perhaps what things that have been offered.

I don't know. I feel like we could be in for a bit of a long one here just because both sides are painted into a corner to an extent.

Alright. And and and I and to to sort of play devil's advocate on the Hellebuyck side of thing, I think there's some frustrations. Obviously, we know some people that are close to that side of things, and I think the frustration, which was articulated a bit in Connor's statement about his belief that they've had enough time to sort this, is that they believe the offers in and around the draft a long time ago should have been enough to get it done and that maybe the jets held out for too much and now those offers may not even exist. Some of the people going the other way at the draft that didn't have no trade protection at that point now do and would control their ability to be a part of such deal. And I and so whether you know, where the truth lies, probably a little bit of here, a little bit of there, but at the end of the day, I think that's their frustration.

But based on either their knowledge or some of the reporting around it, they felt that the best deal could have been made already. And that by holding out for a little bit more, they've now painted themselves into a corner as Hutch suggested where it's gonna be hard to even get what was on the table at that point because it can it included draft picks and draft pick swaps. And But

it's it's difficult and I'll I'll look from the other side at this. Like, player or the representative have a different opinion on what is compensation, acceptable compensation than the organization.

Right. It's a it's a three time Vezina trophy winner and a Hart trophy winner and a Gold medalist. Like, you know, you're obviously looking for a pretty good package in return here. You know, I

It's kinda funny, isn't it? Because normally players are the ones who have to stand up and say, I'm incredible, you should be paying me more. And now he's sort of like, hey, look, I'm not that good. I mean, I know he's

not That was saying fine.

You know what I mean?

We should have done that deal.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Come on.

That's plenty for me.

And we've talked about this. This is this is complicated in part because, you know, teams that teams that might well, I mean, listen, Connor Hellebuyck's an upgrade on a lot of goaltenders around the league. That's not an insult to a lot any, you know, any of the goaltenders. Right? Like, the the trophy case is what it is.

But anybody acquiring him that already has a number one, and in theory, pretty much everyone except the Jets have a slam dunk number one going in the season. Maybe the devils don't. You know, you can make an argument about San Jose. Do they have a, you know, a star one or just a one a one b situation? But any of those teams, like, most of them need a goalie to go the other way.

And and if you're Winnipeg, that goalie might not be the one you you want. Like, you might prefer somebody with more upside in the future. We made the Detroit example. Does does Winnipeg want John Gibson short term or the or would they wanna Trey Augustine in return? So it's it's it's a fascinating situation.

As Hutch said, I think he put it best, it's it's hard to see how this ends because both sides have kind of put put themselves in a situation where there's not an easy resolution here.

And following some of the reporting, there's not a lot of calls being made about Hellebuyck because teams are waiting to see how their own stable sorts of stuff up.

In a position with a ton of volatility for a goaltender who is as much as we talk about how exceptional he is, finished last season, you know, basically as a league average goalie relative to environment. The environment loosened and so did the performance. Although I would add the caveat that up until the knee surgery, Hellebuyck was Hellebuyck. Like, he was near the top of the league saving them two goals on every 100 shots relative to expected. Again, just outperforming his environment at a Vezina trophy level after the knee surgery and coming back really quickly from it and then into the Olympics.

The play wasn't quite the same. There were a number of injuries in front of him in terms of the way they were playing defending. Obviously, all the hoopla around the Olympics and what happened coming back, which some have speculated is one of the reasons he wants out in terms of the reaction to him and going to the White House and all those things in Winnipeg and in Canada and some of the online vitriol that followed. Regardless, like, if your worst season is league average, that's a pretty good sign. And the reality is for the first two months of the year before the surgery, it was it was vintage Connor Hellebuyck.

So if you're if you're worried about performance, I don't think I would be.

I'm with Hutch. I think this is a longer term situation than before the start of the regular season, which is right around the corner. It doesn't give us much.

It'll probably depend on how Winnipeg goes out of the gate or some other teams that might feel Good to point. Find a goaltender. I guess the one thing that's taken pressure off of Winnipeg is they're not sort of seen as that contending team that they were a year or two ago. So if things don't go great out of the gate, they can probably afford to wait.

Well, mean, and and that's part of the argument. Right? They think their expectations are to bounce back and and as Hellebuyck articulated at the end of the season, he doesn't see it, which is one of the reasons he says he wants out, which is to be able to compete. I mean, what's the difference between Connor Hellebuyck, no show on a camp and Dylan Larkin going to Detroit as uncomfortable as that is? Because he wants out clearly.

He's made that clear. They don't even have a GM in place. They they give Sean Morecroft an interim tag. You know, like

Well, I think there's a big difference that one guy's there and one guy's

And I guess that's my like, is it is Larkin trade more likely to happen now because he's there versus Hellebuyck because he's not? It'll be interesting to see how those pressure points materialize as the season starts. Because the there's no deadline until what is it, Daren? Is it December 1 where if you haven't played by that point, you're out for the season? Yes.

But how about this one that you've brought up many times in the past when guys have held out, Woody? How how do guys do when they come back having not been through training camp?

Ask Jeremy Swayman.

Bit of the year.

Yeah. Right. We know how good he was because he was that good last year, but the year before with all the contract and all the all and and listen, again, people forget the Bruins dropped off a cliff defensively that season in front of Swayman as well, and there was no Linus Ullmark, no partnership there. But you're right. Typically, camp struggle out of the gate.

And if you're an acquiring team, you've gotta worry about that too because everything is I mean, short preseasons, everything is gonna be hit the ground running, intensity out the wazoo right away, playoffs, you know, like, there's so many tough having a goalie who might need three weeks to get up speed wouldn't be a great thing.

I wonder if he's skating.

That Gotta be.

I would think so. Yes. I would think so.

Thatcher Demko not in camp with Vancouver. That was expected. What do you know?

He was in camp. He just wasn't on the ISIS part of the main group. So they again, they have Ryan Johnson's been really careful as the new general manager not to put a timeline on this at any point. The fact the surgeries were in January would lead you to believe normally that there's enough sort of runway there to be ready at this time of year. The fact he's not I I don't know that it's panic time because he's progressing towards it.

That all indications are that he will be, and their hope is that by giving him more time, this is it. Right? How many times have we seen over the years where nagging, recurring, groin, back, knee injuries ultimately end up being tied to hip problems? Like, anything that yeah. Causes There's compensation.

As soon as your hips are no longer look. I mean, the hips don't naturally internally rotate, but as soon as they're blocked, as soon as there's an impingement that prevents them from internally rotating, and that was the indication from Demko at the season ending presser, zero degrees of internal rotation, the same thing, same same line he used, same thing he said, when he had the hip surgery in college, the first time having both his hips done, you start to compensate and other things get hurt. We've seen it from tons of goalies. And then once you solve the root problem, those other problems, I don't wanna say go away forever, but they dissipate. They're not as they're not as regular concern.

And that's the hope the Canucks have is that by finally fixing the hips and, hey, in fairness, I don't couldn't find anybody else that's had his hips done twice. Also in fairness, we don't know to the extent of this surgery. Mean, you say hip surgery, that can be anything from labrum repairs to completely resurfacing the top of the femur to micro fractures on the inside of the hip designed to create new cartilage growth, and we don't know what extent this was. At the end of the day though, they believe that if they wait, they have a chance to get Thatcher Demko back, and when he's back, it's back for good. At what work rate, we'll see, but back for good and back not compensating for other things.

So the fact he's not ready to be part of the main group at the start of the camp as much as that might complicate their depth chart and some waiver decisions, I don't know that it's reason to panic. As as much as I fully understand from the outside, it's really easy to look at that and say, oh, man, here we go again. I don't think that's fully the case here.

Do you know if he's skating?

Yeah. Absolutely. He's skating skating up a camp, been skating through was skating I think he's skate been skating since June. Ryan, the one thing and listen. I understand general managers are gonna say what they need to say to sort of control narratives and protect their assets, But there's a there's a level of integrity and honesty in Ryan Johnson where when he says this, I believe him.

He was very clear that this was not a setback. And that's the reason they never put a timeline on it because they weren't sure the progressions would get him to the point where he could be in open drills, know, puck can go anywhere, but he's like as far as I understand it, he's butterflying, he's doing a lot of the movements. The last step is uncontrolled stuff. Right? Like it's one thing to go through a goalie skate where you know where the puck is going next.

It's once you, for lack of a better term, open the car doors and you've gotta react to wherever it goes, that's kind of the last step. And there's a progression to get there and he's just not there yet.

Well and and seeing it firsthand in in what we've just gone through in the start of training camps, and you're doing your flow drills, you're doing your your your reps in in different situations, and then two days later, there's a preseason game. I get it's zero literally zero to 60 in the randomness of the game.

Yeah. And the randomness is what you know, like, it again, the randomness is the game now for goal tenders. Right? The chaos in front of us, the pucks bouncing off everywhere, the traffic, the degree of skill. We'll get to this week, our first ProReads from Dylan Garand this week is is absolutely one of those plays when we get to that prevent presented by Vizual Edge.

And so the ability you've gotta be pretty comfortable that your body's a 100% before you get up to the 60 miles an hour with the snap of fingers. And like I said, my understanding is that's the last step in his progression.

Alright. On the injury front, how about a shout out to Semyon Varlamov? Who who is at Islanders Camp participating after double partial knee replacement.

I need to get ahold of him to find out what a partial knee replacement, not just because I'd like to I'd I'm trying to figure it

out too.

Do they just like cut your knee side. Do they just well, it's both sides, Hutch.

You have both knees, but partials.

Well, no. This is what I wanna know with partial. Because obviously, for those that don't know and as somebody who's basically on a wait list and has the time ticking on when he gets one, my understanding of a knee replacement is they saw off your shinbone, they saw off your femur, they stick metal rods and a fake knee in between. So is a partial just means they sawed off the bone and inserted the rod top or bottom? Like, I I that's what I'm curious.

Also, I wanna know if this is an option for me because I dread this surgery mightily, and I'm doing everything in my power to push it back. I had a beer league teammate that had this surgery years ago, and he's in the medical community, does medical sales and supply stuff, and that, I was gonna use a bad word there, but we don't use bad words. That jerk had the surgeon take a picture of his knee splayed open as they were doing the cutting and then showed us the before and after. And if vom insert vomit emoji here into the group chat, and now I can't unsee it and now I absolutely do want nothing to do with that on my on my own knee.

I don't blame you at all on that front. Let's let's turn it in a little more

Less graphic?

Visually appealing. A visually appealing conversation. You guys see Devin Levi's Ode to Grant Fuhr with his Oilers mask? Oh, yeah. So nice.

Isn't isn't it interesting that I

mean, look, we we we love Grant Fuhr and we love the look, but isn't it interesting that somebody now going back to just a simple design has got everybody's attention when masks have become so, so complicated and beautiful works of art. I'm not taking that away from any of them, But now if somebody comes up with something simple, bold, kind of retro and it's got the whole world's attention.

So now we have to have a conversation about that because he's not the only one. Like I love that mask and interesting, his CCM Tacks setup that he's wearing this year, like, complements it beautifully. Yeah. Like, it just it's the whole kit is fantastic. I can't wait to see Devin here.

Actually, maybe as early as this week, depending on which goalie they bring out. Also, quick note, did you see that he's actually wearing the the CCM toe bridge, like the I did. And Yeah. No. The the lock and push toe bridge.

He's actually wearing that on his Tacks. So we're gonna have a conversation about him with that because that's been a bit of a hit and miss at the pro levels. Him and Annunen kept it, others have have removed it. So, fascinating

to challenge with wearing that?

Depending on how you wear the pad, there were times where for our testers, it interfered a little bit with your skate. So, like, the the block nature of it, if it's not sitting out in front of your skate as you move around, that the thickness of that toe bridge can get caught on your skate and even dropping into a butterfly can, depending on how you've got it done up, prevent a perfect seal right away because the the block and the bottom of the pad gets caught up on the skate as you draw. Shift the pads as a result. Yeah. And just not get that that don't get that perfect seal.

And we had that was came back. That feedback was from a pro, and when he told me that, I thought you're just not getting to the ice, and then he showed me the video, and it's like, all it takes is a slight delay and that puck will get under your pad. So, interesting to see that Levi's wearing it. Again, I think it's all about how you do up the pad, but I've digressed here. The trend hey, as I do.

Hutch is laughing his ass off because I always digress. The trend towards simple beautiful masks. I had this conversation with Jake out. Do you remember Sergei Bobrovsky's winter classic mask? Come on, boys.

Just, like, three colors. It was basically just blocks of color. And I remember talking to Jake Allen, like, a week later, and he's like, he loved it. Now the story behind it is the artist accidentally ghosted New York Rangers logos on the original mask that Sergei had to wear for the winter classic. Oops.

Not Florida Panthers logo. So the mask wasn't usable and they had to, in a short notice, basically just paint straight, like, just blocks of color. But a lot of goalies took notice and loved it. And for all the appreciation that Levi's mask is getting, go look at Jake Allen's masks for the year by by, I think it I think it's is it Sylvie or side of the think

it's Sylvie.

Think it's Sylvie. And look at those

He's been on that trend for

a while. I know, but he's he's got some small details when you get close, but it reminds me of the Alex Auld mask, the Dryden tribute.

Oh, one

of a distance, it's just big, bold logos. And so there are some guys around the league that took note of Bob's. Nobody's gone to that extreme. And as as I just said, Bob's intention wasn't to go to that extreme either. But we are seeing this as a trend when it comes to mask art.

Guys, Even if they maintain some up close details that really pop when you're when you see it in your hands or up close, that that look from a distance is easily distinguished and recognizable.

The answer to the question that we tossed around last week regarding whether or not the third goalie in your roster could go in as the e bug during the regular season. We'll give that to you in a second, but first, a message from The Hockey Shop, thehockeyshop.com, Source for Sports Langley. Busy. That would

be the message. It's hard to get a message in to Cam and the crew right now because they are so busy. Obviously, it's back to hockey season, and they've had their back to hockey sale. But right now, it is just packed in there on a constant basis as goalies go in, either getting kitted up, maybe some guys for the first time ever buying new stuff, looking for new colors. Listen.

It's not just the fact that they have more inventory than anyone, thanks to the being in a 35,000 square foot space and having separate warehouse space for extra gear. Folks, you would not believe how high the stacks are in the back of Goalie equipment. That gives them more sizes, more brands, more options within each brand, more color ways if you're switching teams, everything you could imagine, they've got available for you on short notice. Walk in the store, walk out of it and you're all set. Plus, and maybe this is the most important part, the expertise, thanks to Cam and everybody that works there with him, all goalies, all play the position, all have deep passion for the position.

They won't just make sure that they've got the right gear in stock, but it's the right gear for your game. Beyond all the colorways, it's how it fits, how it feels, how it performs. They've got the expert to get you the answers and the gear that will play the way you wanna play this upcoming season.

Gear

Gear Segment brought to us by The Hockey Shop, thehockeyshop.com Source for Sports Langley. This week, continuing our look at the Bauer GSX line.

Yeah. We did pads and gloves last week, and this week, Cam is gonna walk us through chest and pants, and how those things integrate.

Enjoy.

Welcome back with the Hockey Shop Source for Sports where we continue to move through Bauer's mid and lower price point lines. We did the elite pant and chest a little while ago. Now we have the GSX pants and chest. So we talked about good, better, best. This is this is good.

This is the base level for Bauer, right?

Yes.

Okay. So just walk me through the features overall, the good of the good. What are the highlights and then let's talk a little bit about what you're not getting. Yes. Because obviously if you're saving that much money, it is quite a bit lower price point product, it's gonna be at the expense likely of protection.

Yes. To a degree. To a degree. So again, we're we're talking about something that has existed before. This is a bit of

an update to the line. Not new product, just an update to it.

An update to it. Correct. And there are some a few refinements to it. You're getting some better flex especially in the elbow and the hinge and things like that. So we'll get into that here in a Let's clarify kind of like who this product's for.

So this is available in senior and in junior.

It better be senior because these are the biggest pants I've ever seen. That's I a could even fit my fat butt in there.

Well you could. What we're talking about for say like a senior level, know, some of your kind of first timer out on the ice, you know, really looking for the most like price point economical gear. You know, I wouldn't be playing any like mid tier and above hockey with something like this.

As an adult?

As an adult for sure. Yeah. Like, I think you would get into the territory of like, oh, it probably could be getting a couple bruises here and there. That said, even beyond ice hockey, that one we talked about like roller hockey, even ball hockey and stuff like that. Tuna is a great great option because it's nice, it's lightweight, it's breathable and it's gonna give you still the protection that you're gonna need for that kind of Oh.

To hockey. I started playing ball hockey in university. Those little orange things used to leave marks. We did not have this and I'm just like imagining back about how nice it would be to have this.

There you go. There you Oh,

the welts.

So looking on the inside, we do start to see a lot of like familiarities from like Bauer chests.

That's pretty good. Like on the lowest price point, GSX, we have an adjustable arm. So flexibility in terms of fit.

Exactly. So that still remains again that more flexible style elbow modeled after that higher price point into the elite. Really nice mobile, still actually giving pretty good coverage in terms of for that level of protection as well.

Okay. So you still got ear you still I mean, you still have plastic in here like a Yeah. It's just it's not the old days. We're not just late sending you out there in foam blocks. Exactly.

And then we start to see things there where they do get a little bit more onto that, I would say less refined features. So like even the wrist strap and stuff like that, bit of a different material, different what you're gonna see on that elite chest as you bump up.

Single shoulder cap whereas even on the elite we got into a double? Correct.

Moving on to the front Floaters of my

are just a little more flexible which is good for fit, knees fit but just a little less protect.

Correct. Okay. So we still have our belly extender.

Again, another from a fit standpoint, the fact you've had some adjustability here and a low price point, lowest price point for Exactly. That's a positive.

So it keeps things

Less around padding.

Less padding, still mobile, you know, again, we'll call it even like recreational is probably a good term to use. More of that general just easy get you out on the ice kind of fit. Okay. So before you go to pant though Okay. Okay.

What I do want to point out is again, this line is available in junior. This GSX chest has been updated and is actually quite a bit better of a cut than it was in the previous version of it. This is one where it's not just a little bit of a lipstick update.

Yeah. That's this is a way Sort of form fitting.

Yes. This has changed the cut. The shoulder floaters now wraparound, give the unit a little bit of a better presence especially in that junior category. This has kind of taken it from a little bit more of a, you know, basic chest to now something that's definitely a direct competitor of the other options that are available in junior

for sure. Well, and again, like at that level, I know kids shoot harder than ever before but like less protective isn't as big an issue.

Yeah. I wouldn't even say that it's less protective because it actually has received a reinforcement over its previous year's model as well. So you're getting some good value and a good upgrade. So ignoring the senior price point for a second, junior definitely has seen the biggest upgrade over the previous model.

Okay. Let's quickly do pants. Other than being really large

So we picked an XL one just to show off.

Inner belt.

So that would kind of fall in line with some of the, you know, like pro features that it kind of brought down. You don't get the length extender with this pant. Again, that's something that you would see at the higher price point. You still have nice wide open thigh, no removable thigh pads. Again, something you would see about

Extra protection, but as you said on the other one, you're taking it out anyway. For the most

part, you're taking it anyways. This is actually a bit of a thicker foam and plastic than the previous year's model so it has received

a little bit a

grade protection? Correct. But it's not like it's leaps and bounds. Again, I would still look at this pant as like if you're paying anything above like a like a mid level tier, this pants probably not gonna cut it when it gets into that level for sure.

You're gonna feel a few.

That's correct. Still that removable, non removable belt. Beyond that, great overall lightweight fit. Again, good option if you're kind of looking more at that recreational price point. Awesome.

Cam, if

they got questions about whether this works for the level they play at, they wanna send you videos of them playing, you can break down their game while you tell them whether to buy this or not.

And that's an extra service. So 604-589-8299 or 1-800-567-7790.

Have we started Cam's Beer League coaching yet?

Yeah, we could. Check us out at thehockeyshop.com where you could also find last year's stuff on sale.

You picked up on something that the guys are talking about, the ball Yeah.

I I thought it was interesting that Cam brought up that this set of gear that maybe isn't made to withstand withstand NHL NHL shots shots but but is is still still a a quality quality piece piece of of equipment. Equipment would be really appropriate for ball hockey or deck hockey, guys who are playing the position just that we all love but not wearing skates. But maybe that ball doesn't hurt quite as much as a heavy puck and this gear would be a little bit lighter, easier to manage. I don't know enough about I feel so bad but I don't know enough about roller hockey to know whether it would fit in there as well. But

I think a lot of the On the roller hockey side, they have like things they can add to the bottom of the pad to make it slide. I don't

fully Ball hockey as well. Yeah. Ball hockey as well, but I'm just sort of talking about the uppers and the pants don't have to be quite as quite as bulky.

I All I know is that as somebody that started playing ball hockey, like I may not have come to goaltending until my mid thirties, but when we played ball hockey when I was a student at UBC, I was the goalie probably because of my baseball background, and I did play with a with basically a hockey glove on my blocker hand, a baseball mitt on my glove hand, and like a chest protector. So the arms were not protected other than the jersey. And man, did we have some guys that could rifle that bloody orange ball.

Like Oh, the orange balls. Everybody's got memories of those.

Oh, the orange. Yeah.

Oh, there were some welts, there were some marks, There were some guys who played junior hockey that used to play. We're we're in the quote unquote super league of ball hockey at UBC. It was actually pretty intense. And man, I would have given my right arm. Would have been tough to make a blocker's save, but I would have given my right arm for that that Bauer GSX line compared to what we used.

Yeah.

Was that back when you played football in university, Woody?

Yeah. No. This was this was clearly intramurals, you jackass.

How'd you find time? Like, does that qualify you as a dual sport athlete?

Yeah. It's a baseball

too. Tri sport.

The time was the let's just say the education suffered. We used to forget forget the league stuff that we used to play. We used to go to the Armories and play ball hockey pretty much I don't wanna say every night, but, like, four nights a week from, like, 10PM till 11:30. Game always ended at 11:30 because that's when the pizza went on 50% off at Sassomat, which everyone in Vancouver will know Sassomat Pizza. And so you would order it and as long as it arrived after midnight, it was 50% off and then we go back and watch Magnum PI.

That's an outstanding reference.

Good for you. What's better, the Sassimat or the Magnum PI?

The Magnum's pretty good.

Yeah. I I I this weekend, use the code Woody for 15% off.

It was 50 back then. They used to be like, people are gonna like, find this hard to believe, but I I believe a small individual pizza was less than $5.

Wow.

Yeah. You can't even get a slice for that nowadays.

Present the question and the topic that we debated last week because I have an answer.

Can the third goalie, if an NHL team carries three during the regular season and a goalie gets injured, we all know the new rules, much much ink has been spilled about it, that you have to have an e bug, each team has to have one. Can the third goalie, if it's an NHL goalie, for example, the Buffalo Sabres, Colton Ellis, come out of his suit and get dressed if UPL or Alex Lyon gets hurt, and basically be the guy on the bench ahead of the E bug in the regular season. We know in the playoffs, the Black Aces can come and get dressed. In the regular season, can the third goalie go into onto the bench and and be the next option up rather than the E bug. Daren, I have answers from I had I have answers from five people, three of them are pretty confident, two of them weren't sure.

What's your next question?

Got a new question to go with it when you guys are done too.

Okay. Daren, what's your answer?

And the third goalie has to be on the roster. Like, he can't just be part of the organization Yep. And on. So if you're carrying three goaltenders on the roster

If you've got an if you've got a goalie in the NHL, he's on your roster. Otherwise, he's in the American League.

The answer is the third goaltender can go in. And I didn't think that was the case.

What do you win? I'm thinking

the other way.

I haven't had a lot of w's lately boys. We're taking this one.

But that that is confirmed, that they if you carrying three goaltenders, you actually have a elevated e bug, I guess, in waiting. But but

you still have to have an e bug.

Now, here's the catch. I am gonna give you a catch. Yes. You still have to have an e bug mister Hutchison.

But But the e

bug doesn't have to be there, right?

But if you're on the road and you have three healthy goalies on your NHL roster, you don't have to bring the E Bug with you. Now if one of those goalies gets hurt in a game, he's gotta be there before the next game, so hop on a flight. But if you have three NHL goalies on your roster, so we're thinking Buffalo Sabres we know are going to, Seattle did last year, Montreal did for long stretches last year. If you've got three on your roster, you do not need to travel your E Bug as long as all three are healthy. That I didn't know.

That was an interesting revelation to me. The benefit would be, hey, he gets to stay home and maybe skate with injured players. You're still using him as a quote, unquote practice goalie. Now some teams might still want him to be a practice goalie. I I don't know, but it's it's interesting.

Two things are interesting to me about this. The first, of course, is that I was right last week and I win this argument. The second The argument

wasn't whether it was allowed or not. I just said it'd be dumb if it was allowed.

I'm not

even I didn't agree with him. I thought he was wrong.

I was right. I was just being difficult. I needed a dub here, boys. I needed a dub. My actually but actually, to be honest with you, the interesting thing is that out of the five queries I sent out, two weren't sure.

They genuinely weren't sure. And I was like, wow. Like, the fact there's this much uncertainty around something that, so much of us are talking about, and maybe we shouldn't be talking about to the degree it has been, but the fact there's so much uncertainty about it, like, you know, is is is a little interesting. But, yes, folks, there you go. The answer, the definitive answer from multiple sources is that the third goalie, if you have three on an NHL roster, can now here's the here's my question, Daren, and I never thought to ask this for clarification.

Is that third goalie bound by the same rules as the E Bug? In other words, one guy gets

hurt extra question.

Right. So it's not like, so one guy gets hurt, say it's the starter gets hurt. Backup goes in, third goalie, normally the e bug comes onto the bench. In this case, it's your third roster, he comes onto the bench. Can he go into the game anytime, or can he only go into the game if the other goalie gets hurt?

The latter. Only if the other

goalie So gets and that and that rule would also apply to a third goalie on our roster, not just a okay. There you go.

So a third goalie on the roster essentially becomes the E bug. Right. Under those parameters.

Okay. So there you go.

But but we Mine's a minor one, but it pre it it comes before that one, Woody. Can he go into the game? Before that, I was under the impression if an E bug had to get dressed, he could not go and sit on the bench. Did he

have stay the room? Changed. No, like basically

I wonder if that's changed

as Yeah. They sit in the room, they wait to sign the contract, they're sitting there, they're sitting there. If the other guy gets hurt, they sign the contract, they run out. They're fully dressed but you're right, they don't go on the bench in part Hutch because they don't want them to sign the contract until they absolutely need them.

So that's a good explanation because

you've already signed the contract.

Yeah. And this And the E BUGS already signed.

Is that the third reason though?

Because Yeah. It is. Yes. It is. Okay.

Well, that's a good that's a good explanation then. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. So as and the third goalie, obviously, wouldn't have to worry about signing a contract. He's already under contract and on your NHL roster. Yeah.

So, but I wonder for the E BUGS, the permanent E BUGS, the guys who've been named to this position, whether they automatically go to the bench. Like, do they have a contract they signed at the beginning of the year? We know their gear's measured by Kay Whitmore. Like and that's the other thing. Like, I'm here in Vancouver and and and at nhl.com, we're gathering sort of names.

Like, we're trying to put together a list. Like, they've asked us all to ask. And so we went in a training camp, and I I pulled the GM aside after and said, hey. Have you got an e bug? He said, oh, I got lots of options, but we haven't decided yet, basically.

It might have just been him not wanting to tell me and not wanting to not be truthful, but because because, again, he's got a ton of integrity, and he I put him on the spot. Maybe he would have preferred just not to say yet. But I read a story, I think it was in The Athletic talking about, hey. Like, NHL teams don't have to name their e bug till forty eight hours before the first game. Okay.

Put forty eight hours sure as hell isn't enough time to have their equipment measured

It's gonna

be busy. And signed off by Kay Whitmore because that's the requirement now. So I thought that was interesting.

I think all the equipment will be signed off, they just don't wanna make it public. Don't think everybody Yeah, wants to make it

I mean, I get I think which goes to my point, if you're using him as a practice goalie, we're all gonna see him anyways. But if you're just leaving him in the press box and he's in case of, you know, in case of emergency break glass option, you're right. You don't have to we we don't have to know. And I again, I'll be honest, I prefer the route the the Utah Mammoth went last year where they hired a practice goalie in advance and used him on a regular basis, and that's one of the reasons that Karel Vejmelka was able to play as often as he was because they reduced his reps and the wear and tear on a day to day basis using a a former college goalie who would go on the ice as a practice goalie. I don't wanna say the way this rule was intended because clearly not everybody's interpreting it that way, But certainly, I would argue that that's your ideal world.

Now, hey, listen. I'm obviously a super giant goalie apologist who thinks they should probably not have to deal with as much as they do in practice, and obviously a ton of teams don't agree. So curious to see who does, who doesn't and who utilizes them in what manner.

Win for Woody. And all this came out because we were talking about three goaltenders on the roster and then the e bug, I'm thinking, do do equipment staffs have to carry around four sets of goalie equipment on road trips?

The answer is the answer is they don't have to.

Can, but they don't have to. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a good hey, that's a good one. Hey, listen, It's there's so much around this, so many different aspects to it. It's it provides us with fodder as we wait for the games to actually start.

Yeah. Soon, we'll talk about what really matters.

Yeah. The the e bug conversation is fun but it's not really impactful on our game.

Well, because it's

the one thing in all of sport really that gives guys like us a little just a tiny sliver of hope. So it's a good thing to talk about.

And I would argue, you're absolutely right. In terms of actually getting into a game Yeah. And how rare that is, it's not impactful at all. Part where I would argue

Tell that to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

But the part I would argue in terms of impact is again, and and this isn't just me. It's not. You know, like, have I been banging the drum for a practice goalie for seven or eight years now and the the potential value of it? Yes. So am I biased towards that as I just said?

You're not gonna meet a bigger goalie apologist than I am. Right? Gotta keep my union card some way. But I'm not the only one. Like, I've got quotes from other NHL goalies around the league that really believe this can be a difference maker from a rest perspective.

So the fact it's not being treated as such by all is is is at the very least interest.

You're not just beating the

drum breaking it. Hey. All I keep hearing from coaches is there's no time for practice

Anyways. Now.

There you go.

So Well, isn't this year gonna be a little different? Like, I'm hoping I'm hoping to get more access because I'm hoping guys are gonna have two, three days between games as opposed to last year when it was just I talked to guys that

There's not a lot

of those days, those gaps. Yeah. At least on the schedule that I I follow with the Vegas Golden Knight.

So so you guys know that, you know, obviously one of the most famous the most famous e bug situation was a Zamboni driver coming on to the ice and winning a game in the National Hockey League.

David Ayers.

Did you see that that will not happen in Colorado now?

Right. No Zamboni driver. No Zamboni driver. Yeah. Here's the thing about the autonomous Zamboni.

You still need somebody there to shovel the ice and the snow off after the the vehicle leaves the

For now. Somebody will figure that

one You still need somebody to move the nets Yes. Out there. Like, I'd rather have somebody driving the thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Especially when the autonomous one hits somebody trying to move them.

Yeah. It's yeah.

Speaking of the eBugs being a glimmer of hope for all of us, I think a lot of us would love to drive a Zamboni still too. So

So good.

Yeah. From a liability perspective, I'm pretty sure they're not piling kids onto the, automated Zamboni for cruises around the rink and waving to the crowd, which is a a feat a feature of many minor league rink, intermissions.

The Zammoth in in Utah.

Yeah. That thing's sick. That is the best.

That thing is is really good. Congratulations. Hey. You wanna take a bow once more in time, like like a little curtain call?

Yeah. Listen. My my hockey DB is loaded with l's lately, so I'll take a dub.

Finally catch a break. Visual Edge ProReads this week at Dylan Garand as we acknowledge our friends over at Vizual Edge.

Listen, Speaking of catching a break, we caught a break when Dylan Garand joined us for ProReads ahead of his regular season. Exceptional. Exceptional. And before we get to some of the specifics of this one and and the first of many from Dylan, I wanna talk about our friends over at Vizual Edge. Because I think we all want the puck to look like a beach ball, and there are nights when it all happens for us, where that puck looks huge, where you're ahead of every play, you feel calm, you feel patient, you are in total control.

Then there are the nights where you're half step late. You see it, but you don't really see it. You're reaching, you're guessing, you're fighting it. That's not your technique, that's your eyes and your brain not processing the play fast enough. Vizual Edge fixes that.

It measures how well your eyes track and process the game and gives you a custom plan that trains improvement. Three fifteen minute sessions a week on your laptop or tablet, laying on the couch, sitting on a desk in bed before you go to sleep. It's what NHL goal is used to make the game slow down when it matters most. And using the code InGoal, INGOAL, all caps, get 10% off on your subscription to Vizual Edge. Even better, if you're an InGoal member.

If you subscribe to InGoal, and no, that doesn't mean you follow us on Instagram, it means you actually subscribe to the website and you get to check out all these great ProReads with guys like Dylan Garand, you save 20%. The code, I'm not gonna read it here because then you'd save it without being a member. You gotta go to AnyProReads and the member code, the exclusive member code is there to get you 20% off. That 20% off of Vizual Edge subscription that you saved there, the membership to InGoal pays for itself with that alone. So make sure you check it out, including on any ProReads, but this week's with Dylan Garand.

So this one, I get to tease you guys a little bit and ask some questions. Pucks in the corner to your left. Guys, what? Love this stuff. You guys love this.

Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy, Daren.

I think this is the best part of the of the ProRead and it's probably not even the meat of it. I think I know where you're going.

Try and keep up here, Daren. Now I know you guys I know you already took an l today. I'm gonna give you a chance to get a win like me. Left shot coming out of the corner, puck still below the goal line, but he's approaching, getting close to where that trapezoid line, so he's getting closer to the net.

It's a right shot, I think.

Where's the pot coming from?

Pretty sure. Your left. You're on the post. Was it a right shot? Okay.

Anyway, it doesn't matter when. Regardless

It matters.

He's below the goal line. And now Hutch is gonna make me look it up. He's below the goal line as he comes through. The question becomes He's a right shot. Are you okay.

Right shot. There we go. Right shot. So take that information as you will. Good job, Hutch.

Paying closer attention than I am. As that puck comes towards you, are you holding edges or are you in reverse already? There's a guy cutting through the slot is the primary pass option, which Dylan's already established because he's looked off the puck. We'll talk about that as well. Are you holding your edges or are you dropping to your knees?

Two, if that pass is made across the slot, like like low high and lateral through the middle slot line play, are you coming out to that guy at the far hash mark on your knees or on your skate? Those are my two questions for you.

I hope you're not telling us what Dylan did. No.

But we should have Jeopardy music now. That's on the producer.

I would be in the RVH. Okay. And for if it's if it's a higher pass, I'd probably get up and and challenge if it's Top

hash mark? Top hash mark?

I'm probably sliding out.

Okay. K? There's no wrong answers here. Everybody has it, and that's the beauty of ProReads, that's the beauty of of Dylan Garand. He breaks down why his answer might be different than yours.

And in a game that becomes unpredictable, when things change and maybe what we expect to happen doesn't happen, why his priorities fuel his ability to continue moving in dynamic sequences. And I'm not gonna give away what he does in both, but he does. He walks you through the entire thing. And again, with the caveat that there is no wrong answer. He talks about other goalies will do this differently, but he explains why his way for him fuels his game and why up until a certain point, and that threshold is probably a lot closer to the net than him, his priority is gonna be to hold edges.

And we walk through his play and you sort of see as things get crazy.

He gave it away, Woody.

No. I'm talking about on the post, that wasn't the giveaway.

Gave it yes, you did.

If you watch Dylan Garand in all our drills all summer, you know him talk about his foundation as holding edges. Same as we've talked about with us and Wolf. Doesn't mean you do it every time, but he explains the why, and you see it perfectly in this one.

Again Is that because he's an above average skater?

For him, and if you can be an above average skater too if you do his skating drills that we premiered at InGoal through

No, but does he hold his edges? Is he able to hold edges because he's above

That's a piece but that's not the entire reason for his decision.

Okay.

Right. And then it's also he's And hey, guess what? Let's tease the feature interview.

Some guys just can't do what he can do.

No, for sure. The other thing I enjoyed about this ProRead honestly was that he actually questions himself and what he did there. He didn't say Which really He

never claimed perfection.

Yeah. Well, I think it doesn't suggest perfection is one thing or the other, it's that situations change and that you don't always want to do it the same way and, and that there are more than one way of of doing things. And and I don't think he's trying to say this is what you must do in this situation all the time.

This is what he does, but also he explains why. And again, that's the beauty of ProReads. What pieces of information might lead you to do it differently and breaking down what to look for so that goalies can become more sort of have better hockey IQ. That's what it's all about. And Dylan does a great job, and he's gonna keep doing it.

We've got another new one. We've got a returning guest next week on our ProReads presented by Vizual Edge, Alex Nedeljkovic. Spent close to an hour with him this week breaking down video. Guys are getting ready for the season. NHL goalies, they loved going through the video.

Gets them into sort of game mode. And two of the best and interestingly enough, to tease our our feature interview with Lyle Mast and Devan Dubnyk, both Dylan and Alex talk about vision and visual leads and PuckDot getting underneath their vision and how they keep their head down. And Dylan, as you saw, if you watched our at ingoalmag.com, our skating series with him, there are times in his skating series where he does put on the goggles that he got from Lyle Mast and the work he does with him. And you say, Daren, you know, how much of this is the fact he's an excellent skater. And this is one of the key points of our feature interview when we get to it.

A lot of people think of tracking and head trajectory as purely being about off the release. And the biggest thing you're gonna learn today, it's about how it fuels access to edges and the ability to move powerfully inefficiently.

Good stuff.

That's a tease. We call that a tease Usually, in the

on this show, it's a giveaway.

Well, that's me.

But the piece is good.

I I do. I operate this show the same way I handle the puck.

The the only thing I I will give Woody here, because I do think he gave a piece of it away, is that it's actually the piece we gave away on social media and it's a nice time to underline, you've already said it once, Woody, but, the number of kids I bump into at camps who say, Oh yeah, I subscribe to InGoal. Oh, do you really? Yeah, I see all your videos on Instagram. That is not subscribing to InGoal. But we did post a piece of this on social media, on Instagram, where you can see a piece of Dylan's decision but you cannot see the entire thing unless you actually go to the website and subscribe. Talk about beating a drum, Woody. We've been beating this one for a while.

Soapbox time for Woody, because I gotta tell you, Hutch, I've had that same conversation with goalies coming into the NHL. I've always subscribed to InGoal. I follow you on Instagram. Guess what, boys? That 30 tease is just a snippet.

Many of these ProReads are four to five minutes long, complete breakdowns, including this one and the first one from Alex Nedeljkovic. Like, they dig into the weeds to help you become a better goaltender. We love teasing it on Instagram, but please understand that that is just a tease. And if you really wanna learn from these guys, please subscribe to ingoalmag.com.

The NHL Sense Arena feature interview coming up with Lyle and Devan in just a little bit, but first Stop It Goaltending U, the app presents our parent segment.

Well, at first, a word from our friends at Stop It, because if you would like to have twenty five years of NHL goalie coaching experience at your fingertips, if you would like to tap into the goalie parenting expertise that helped Joey Daccord reach the NHL, nice little blank sheet for Joey in his first taste of the preseason through forty minutes last night too. Liked the way his game looked. That's what you get with a subscription to Stop It Goaltending U, the 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 Goaltending, which includes a long list of veteran NCAA coaches, all delivered in easy to digest chunks including five short daily primers, weekly style analysis, and breakdown videos, as well as drills that you can take onto the ice with your team and coach. Plus, you get a subscription to InGoal included.

That that's right, folks.

An actual one.

You won't just be able to watch it on Instagram. You can get the whole ProReads because you get a subscription included to InGoal Magazine with your subscription to Stop It Goaltending U, the app. So check it out now on the App Store or Google Play and get the best of both worlds with a subscription to both InGoal and Stop It Goaltending U, the app.

Parent Playbook

Just following up on last week's parent segment with David Hutchison, talking about the game day routine. Hutch.

Thanks, Daren. Okay, goalie parents. A few weeks ago, we built routines on practice days, and I told you why, because practice is predictable. Tuesday at five, same rink, all season. It's the best classroom you've got because nothing moves.

So let's go somewhere a little harder today. Game days, which at least get scheduled and then tournaments where you genuinely don't know what tomorrow looks like until somebody emails you at 09:00 at night. Travel deserves its own segment, so we'll leave that for a little later. Today's about what happens to the routine when the schedule stops cooperating. So here's the shift.

As your kid gets older, the routine stops being a schedule and it starts being a set of principles. So I eat at 04:30, that's not really a routine, that's a timetable. And a timetable of course breaks the first time you get a 02:00 draw in a tournament. I like to eat about two hours before I play. Now that's a routine.

It can survive a 04:00 game, a 09:00 game, and a tournament schedule that changes a couple of times without you knowing. Your kid can carry that anywhere. So listen for which one they're building as they put the routine together with you. If everything they say has always got a time attached to it, gently just pull it up. Not what time do you eat, but how long before you play do you like to eat.

It's the same habit but in a more portable way. And then, don't carve that one in stone either because you're not eating two hours before a 7AM game, nobody is. So the principle bends as well. You have to eat a little bit closer to puck drop, well, maybe you eat less. Know you'll be starving by the second period?

Then something goes in the bag for the bench. Admittedly, this one's harder to dial in this whole concept. Be patient. It's gonna take time. It's probably gonna be shifting over the years.

And yes, I sat on the bench and I know not every coach is gonna be cooperative with this one, but I watched our kid skate back to his crease two nights ago during a TV time out and he was still chewing. That's not a failure of preparation. That's a kid who knows what he's gonna need and he solves it. Okay. I think it's really important that you involve them young.

Not because a seven year old needs a pregame routine, of course they don't, but because you want them in the room while the plan gets made because that's where they learn. A seven year old, of course, isn't stuck in routines yet and please don't get them stuck. Build a rigid little machine at seven because it's easier for you and you're gonna be the one taking it apart when they're 12. But you want them to hear you adapt out loud. So, games at 08:00 in the morning, we can't do the usual, what do we want to do instead?

Because if they only ever get told what's happening, then they learn compliance. If they watch you think it through, here's what we're keeping, here's what we're moving, here's what we're dropping, they learn the method. And the method is what they're gonna need as they grow up. Our son started a game the other night, the very next day, early afternoon, three hours away on a bus, had to start another one. Not telling you that because he's special, he's just a regular goaltender.

I'm telling you because on that bus, nobody's managing it for him. Either he's got a method or he doesn't. You don't build that one in the moment, you build over years of letting them watch you do it and then letting them do it badly a few times. Changing plans isn't a disruption to the routine, changing plans is the routine now. So you put all this effort into the system and then it breaks.

Now what? 05:00 game, Johnny likes to eat two hours out and uh-oh, you're out of rice. Now it's pasta. Depending on the kid in the day, you might have to talk him off a ledge about it. Fine, that happens.

But watch what happens after. Because if it goes fine, and let's face it, it usually does, you've got a short window to subtly point it out and most of us, of course, will say nothing. And if you say nothing, he's gonna forget it and move on. Worse actually, some kids won't forget it. They're gonna draw the wrong conclusion.

One goal game, a win, and now it's pasta from now on. Congratulations, you've traded one superstition for another. So say the thing and be careful what you praise. Don't praise the pasta, praise the part that's actually there. Something like, hey, it's awesome to know what helps you play your best.

That's a real system you've got. What I love is that when it changed, you didn't let it stop you. Great game today. And then stop. We're not giving a speech.

We're just kinda putting a post it note on a situation for them to remember. It doesn't hand them a new rule, it tells them the routine gave them confidence and a break in the routine didn't take it away. That second one is gonna be paying off in ten years. We're not looking for a better pregame meal, course, we're looking for a kid who's hard to knock off balance. One more and, it's the one that we all get wrong from time to time because we're human.

Think back to when they were tiny and they fell over. Remember the look? That half second where they turn and check your face to find out how they're supposed to feel about it? If you came flying in worried, the crying started. If you smiled and laughed and said, Uh-oh, you fell.

You get a laugh back. Now, at least that was our experience. That never stops. That look just gets subtler. So the tournament email lands and it's an 8AM start.

What happens at your kitchen table or in the hotel room? Do mom and dad groan and start complaining about the early wake up and the drive? Or do you get interested? Oh, look. Look who we drew.

We're gonna have to find somewhere cool for breakfast on the run-in the morning. They're reading your face. They always were. If you handle it well, they'll learn the same habits. So build principles, not timetables.

Put them in the planning when they're young enough to be flexible. And when the routine breaks and they handle it, say so out loud and praise the resilience, not the pasta. And a little foreshadowing for next week, I'm not gonna give it away. I'll just acknowledge that having a genuine smile on your face about an 8AM Sunday game in a hotel room you paid $200 for knowing your kid is going to be sitting on the bench. If you can pull that one off, mom and dad, congratulations.

We're going to talk about it a bit next week. See you then.

Nice stuff. Because game days can be out of control, less predictable at at different levels. Managing that is important.

Yeah. And I talked about it this week because it's a it's a step up in complexity for younger kids than than regular practice days to an extent, but we can still rely on some principles that help us get through them.

What's your game day routine, Woody?

Principles. What are talking about? Principles? Yeah.

Game day routine. If if if a day routine Arena, I know that part of Woody's routine is changing into a suit in his car, you might have a little bit of fun checking that out if you're down near Rogers.

I got tinted windows, you turkey. Listen, he didn't mean NHL game day routine, did he? Because my NHL game day routine, Daren, does include an nap. I leave the house with traffic now and and don't get me started on the fact we should have a bridge between the South Suburbs of of Vancouver. Is that

not done yet?

Yeah. Stop. Stop. Was thinking this this will get good way

of going.

This this is gonna get ugly fast. But, yeah, I leave at eight and I don't get home till after midnight, so I have a nap. It just happens to be in my car. So you ever see the guy that's sleeping in his car across the street from Gate 9 at Rogers Arena, that's me. And, the closest I get to being Superman is to pull my Clark Kent change out of my morning casuals into my suit for the evening in the back.

It's not a phone booth. We don't have those anymore. It's the backseat of my car, so that's reporter to better dressed reporter. I don't have a Superman mode, but that's the closest I've got. That's my game day routine there.

Game day routine for actual game day requires a lot of mobility work, a lot of stretching, a lot of warm up. James Wendland's five damn things is an absolute essential for my hips. I like to mix in Visual Edge game day, I like to mix in some reps on the headset. In other words, Daren, my pregame routine to go play on a Monday night is probably close to an hour. It's It is what it is, man.

I gotta be ready. I'm not good enough to not be prepared.

Hey, I'd suggest if you're You

ever have nap in your car?

I was just gonna say if you're down near Rogers Arena on a Canucks game night and you see a guy awkwardly sleeping in his car, tap on the window and say, hey, I subscribed to InGoal, I watch it all on Instagram.

Did you just mention the mention the lack of lack of a bridge and you'll complete the trifecta of snap tastic Woody. I might come through the window at that point.

Do Lyle and Devan talk car naps in this week's NHL Sense Arena feature interview?

No, they do not.

Well, let's get into it right after we had a word from NHL Sense Arena.

NHL Sense Arena where it is back to hockey month, and, we're into week three of it. This week's feature interview, of course, is brought to you by NHL Sense Arena '26, which is the next generation hockey training platform. And in week three of back to hockey month, the focus is making the team. It's being ready to do whatever your team needs from you. For the goalie union, of course, that means making saves, tracking pucks, reading plays, and showing your coaches.

You put the work in this summer. It also means being mentally prepared. On ice and off ice, that's exactly what Sense Arena is built for. Reps, reads, tracking, and mental preparation with our good friend, Pete Fry, right from home or wherever you have that headset. You might even catch Woody outside Rogers Arena with the headset on practicing before a game.

And the giveaways in back to hockey month keep rolling. This week, they're giving away a brand new stick. It's up for grabs just for being active on socials and the grand prize is still live. It's gonna be a spark skate sharpener as part of the ultimate back to hockey package. So go follow NHL Sense Arena on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, or Discord to enter NHL Sense Arena twenty six.

The season starts here, and I hope it starts with the code I g m 50 when you check out to get your subscription.

Feature Interview - Devan Dubnyk and Lyle Mast

Woody, set things up for us.

Honestly, like, this is just a conversation we've been waiting a long time to have. You're gonna hear me talk about the first time I referenced head trajectory at nhl.com, which put Devan in a spotlight he wasn't ready for or comfortable with, which is which is my bad even though I'd actually talked to him about it before we wrote the article. You're gonna hear about the origins sort of of of him and through Steve Valiquette learning about it, having a great season, and then starting to work with Lyle. And I think for the most part, you're gonna hear from Lyle about what it really is. Is it look at the puck?

Yes. It's how you look at the puck, and it affects how you move, the way your body balances, the way you access edges, the way you access your hands relative to just looking at it. It's it's more how you look at it, and he explains all the science behind it. I think does a pretty good job here, Hutch. It it gets complicated at times, but the irony is when it's working, it's the simplest thing in the world.

And, again, not to turn it into a pitch because, you know, I didn't want this to be a pitch, but the reality is the goggles help form an on off switch that allows goalies to sort of understand when they are and when they aren't actually tracking the buck. And, again, that's not just when the it's coming at you off a shot. It's in movement, it's in rotation, it's in East West recoveries, it's in a lot of elements. As Alex Auld said when he learned it while working with Lyle and Eddie Lack, I I remember that line. There's nothing in your game that this doesn't touch, and in theory, there's nothing in your game that this can't help improve or fix.

And so I do think it is that foundational. If you just do this and just does that mean it solves everything? No. Of course not. And I think sort of understanding that is important too.

But it's basically a root of good goaltending. And you'll hear us talk about other NHL goalies who retired not knowing the difference between their good nights and their bad nights learning this, and that's what they said. Yeah. I thought I was looking at the puck. Now I understand that on my good nights, was doing it a certain way, and on my bad nights, I I wasn't.

But it's basically a root of good goaltending. And you'll hear us talk about other NHL goalies who retired not knowing the difference between their good nights and their bad nights learning this, and that's what they said. Yeah. I thought I was looking at the puck. Now I understand that on my good nights, was doing it a certain way, and on my bad nights, I I wasn't.

So, that's all rolled into here from Devan, from Lyle. You'll hear from me as well. Am I biased towards this? Did I take an absolute beating when I first wrote that article? As Steve Valiquette said at the time, first run through the wall always gets bloodied.

We definitely did on that one. But now almost ten years later, here's the whole story.

Enjoy the NHL Sense Arena feature interview on InGoal Radio Podcast brought to you by the Hockey Shop. Hockeyshop.com is Source for Sports Langley.

I've been trying to wreck my brain to figure out whether we've ever had two guests on at the same time. We've certainly had two hosts with one guest, but we are breaking new ground here on the InGoal Radio Podcast. We've got a returning guest, Devan Dubnyk, and we've got a new guest, a a a guy whose name has been around goaltending circles for a while. I've written about it. I've talked about it.

Duby's talked about it. Duby's worked with him as a goalie in the National Hockey League, and now as he transitions into coaching, He has a new product out called TrakOptics, but really, he is the godfather. Do we are we allowed to call you that of head trajectory? Lyle Mast, I think this is your first public interview. Are we are we breaking that ground too, Lyle?

Yeah. For where we are and what we're gonna talk about for sure. And The Godfather only fits because of my age, but other than that, let's try it.

Okay. So let me let me start here. Origin stories and understanding head trajectory. Because I think there are a lot of people that heard about it and some a lot of people never heard about it. Then there are people that heard about it think they know what it is.

I think we've had experiences even even recently, like in the last month, and I won't name teams or names, where NHL goalie coaches that were exposed to it for the first time thought they knew what it was and realized it was more or different than that. So I'm gonna start with you, Lyle. In simplest terms, and I realize that is easier to say than do, the foundation of what head trajectory actually is.

Basically, it is access. First of all, it's access to vision, proper vision, which is a discussion in and of itself. And once you're actually targeted and you have access to vision, then you have proper access to balance. And once you have proper access to balance, then you have recruitment in your body, which gives you the ability to maintain speed and acquire the necessary muscles that are involved in certain movements, certainly as dynamic as goaltending is. You're constantly needing to rely on different parts of the body to get in different directions. And then that constant ability to recruit access to vision and balance and and the muscles that are necessary to maintain speed of the game leads to performance and consistency in performance.

Basically, it is access. First of all, it's access to vision, proper vision, which is a discussion in and of itself. And once you're actually targeted and you have access to vision, then you have proper access to balance. And once you have proper access to balance, then you have recruitment in your body, which gives you the ability to maintain speed and acquire the necessary muscles that are involved in certain movements, certainly as dynamic as goaltending is. You're constantly needing to rely on different parts of the body to get in different directions. And then that constant ability to recruit access to vision and balance and and the muscles that are necessary to maintain speed of the game leads to performance and consistency in performance.

Okay. So there's a couple things I wanted to touch on there because I do think a lot of people when they think of head trajectory, think simply of pucks coming at us, save execution. And you talked about balance and movement. I'm gonna maybe bring Doobie in on this one too. Your experiences with it, Devan.

You know, we we could tell the stories and rewind all the way back to the origins, but the concept the the perception perhaps that it is about vision only as opposed to integrating how the body moves as well.

Yeah. And, Lyle, you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but, I'll try to kind of explain it the way I explained it to goalie families that I work with. And and, really, it is it's all of that. And when I when I think about tracking, when I when I hear people say that they you know, well, my goalie tracks or I know what tracking is, You know, it's not just turning your head. It's it's how you look at the puck.

That's why we'll get to it, why the goggles are are as cool as they are. But the way I try to explain it to people, in the in the easiest sense is if you couldn't move your eyes, they're stuck in the middle of your head, and you're gonna line up on a puck, how do I how how would you be able to look at the puck? If you sat your butt down and your chin was back, you'd be looking at the other end of the ice. So if your eyes were stuck, you have to tilt your head forward, you have to look down at the puck. That's kind of the start of it.

That's what the goggles force you to do is look down at the puck. Now from there, it it pertains to everything we do. It's it's the first thing we do, and it's not just turning our head. It's again, turning our head down, tracking down, looking at the puck as if your eyes were stuck in the middle of their head. That's where all all the things that Lyle's talking about, the way the body works, the balance on your on the balls of your feet, on your toes, not bobbing up and down, being able to access all of the muscles that you need to use and being able to access them with the power and the balance.

That's kind of where it all comes from when you're using your head and your eyes to move. So when I'm talking to to people about moving side to side, whether that's on our knees, whether that's that's on our feet, when I'm doing drills, at the start, what I really try to break down is it's it's head first. Like that that is what starts everything. And it's not a look up, it's a look down. And that's that's the kind of the basis behind it.

And then it goes into basically every single not basically, actually every single part of the game where you tie that into everything we do. And when that becomes obviously, it gets quicker. Right? When we start, I go super slow, like, look, now move. And then the pace picks up.

So where we get come more comfortable and more comfortable of using that, it's look first and I'll let Lyle get into all the other stuff about all that information that that first of all, looking gives you the information you need that then tells your body what to do. But it's look first and look down and then move. And it it truly truly is it's game changer.

Okay. So I wanna go back to Lyle here because the one part there, like the movement aspect for sure, to me, I think gets overlooked a lot. Right? Like and and honestly, like when we first started this conversation, Lyle, like, we're over a decade now, right, since I sort of first was introduced to you, sort of sought you out and started to learn these things. And I do think a lot of people have started to look at movement and the efficiency of movement.

A lot of the things that this fixed automatically ten years ago, people have coached out of guys even if they don't recognize the trigger and the starting point. Like we see less counter rotation and opening and closing in goalies than we did ten years ago. But I remember ten years ago like this was like I couldn't stop looking at it. As soon as you learned about it, every time I watched a goalie, I'm like, oh my like, these inefficiencies that were there. So Dube talked about how you look at the puck.

I think a lot of the blowback early was, of course, we tell our goalies to look at the puck, but I had guys whether whether it was Devan, Alex Lyon, working with Eddie Lack. I remember him after their first session saying, there's nothing in your game this doesn't touch, and in theory, nothing it can't fix. But the biggest thing all the pros said was nobody ever taught me how to look at the puck. And not just from a save execution and setup, but from a movement standpoint. So, Lyle, why does it matter?

Can you explain to me some of the vestibular function stuff? And again, big word, simple terms. Like I remember at the beginning you put me on my knees and you're like, now turn your head up and I could feel the pressure point go to my toes and my butterfly wanted an arrow. Now turn your head down and watch how the rotation goes. Can you explain why it's so important to sort of have that center of the socket head first down movement?

For sure. And, you know, when Dubi explained it, it's actually really quite similar to that, but what is actually going on. You gotta think of function, the way your eyes function. First of all, you can't stop what you can't see. And any goalie coach, any goalie, any parent, any human would agree that if your head is turned around to the back where the goal light is, you're never gonna see the puck.

So somewhere between there and actually facing the puck, you know, you've gotta turn your head around to get your head into a position where your eyes can function. Does that make sense? Yeah. So function Yeah. Yeah.

The way so to the ability for your eyes to function to get on the puck have to do with, obviously, the direction of your head. Where it gets really, really sticky now is is how your eyes actually function. The ability for your eyes to focus on the target comes from their ability to both be on the target at the same time. And that's why when Doobie said, if you just kinda had your eyes stuck in the middle of your head, you'd have to look down because they would be your eyes couldn't go down. Right?

The idea is is that your eyes need to converge together on a target, and that's why it happens in the middle of your eye sockets because when your head goes up, it's also a vestibular ocular reflex that when your head goes up, your eyes go apart. Now you cannot focus because you have two independent views. Both eyes are coming from one side and the other trying to put that image together. When you tilt your head down, giving it structure, now your eyes can function properly and converge and diverge based on the distance of the puck away from you. So when we start with that agreement that you can't stop what you can't see, the way that you acquire vision starts with head trajectory. The interesting thing is is now the relationship that your ocular, the way that you see, and the way that your brain understands where that target is comes from now how your balance centers are giving your body information and starting to acquire muscles to put itself in a position to where your eyes are telling you the target is.

And that's where the relationship begins between vision and balance.

The way we move our head and what it does to our ability to move into space, whether it's off the release or in a post save recovery or in a t push. Can you explain sort of how that that vision and acquiring that vision ties to vestibular function and balance?

Sure. So in your ears, you're in your ear, so you have you have different balance centers. You have your vestibular, which is your main balance center. Then you have your ANS system, your CNS system, and then there's information coming from the pads of your feet and your ankles and flexion and angle of your ankles. Those are all working together, But they need to be connected, and they need to be connected to the stimulus that it's responding to.

So that's why when we start with vision and if you're properly acquiring vision, the body doesn't use two system. It uses one system. And that same starting point where it's actually now can see the puck and it can tell the brain the distance and the speed and the angle, now the body is also positioned properly if it's seeing it properly. So with with that and with the way that your body works in terms of balance towards that, every time you move your head up and down, you're dealing with a few different things. You're dealing with reflexes.

Your body is designed to balance so that you don't fall down and bump your head. We're trying to use that system to stop pucks. So where we get into trouble is as if you're violating that a little bit, then you're having to add extra speed and extra movement to compensate for the body's inability to get there, if you will. When you're on the target and your body is balanced towards it, if we start with kinda how your eyes work, and anybody can do this, when you look down, your eyes go up, which allows you to stay on the target. And a lot of people think that you'd be turning your head to see it, but it's actually as you go down, that's how your eyes lock on it.

And if you actually were looking at a puck, how much does it actually go to your right or to your left? It doesn't. By staying down on a puck coming up, your eyes can stay focused on it all the way up. If my head comes up, my eyes go down on a puck coming up, and then you lose sight of it. Right?

Gets underneath your vision.

Gets underneath your vision. And now because you think it's over here, you start even coming back off it more. So that relationship is happening real time based on how you see it and based on where your body is orientated to balance. Maybe made a comment of, like, if your eyes were stuck in the middle and your head was up there, you know, number one, you're look you're looking way out the end of the board, but that's also information to your body that's telling you wherever the target is. Even if you were blind, the body thinks that it's way up over here.

So it's aligning its balance to stay balanced to a target that's up here, but the puck is always down. So in its simplest terms, if we can grasp that, that lends to how you now you access the puck in terms of how you get your hands to it, how you get your proper vision to it, how you stay balanced towards it. And then that leads us into probably a part of the conversation. Like, there's so obviously, so much more there that lends to the support of what we're talking about. But then we get into the accessing of the speed of the game.

Because one thing that every goaltender has to learn to adapt to is speed from peewee to pro. You know, you make these big jumps from major junior, let's say, to the American League and then from the American League or or college and then to the American League and then to the NHL. There's these increases in speed. And if you're using your maximum amount of speed in your body to get to places, then you're gonna run out of speed. So you have to also tie this into how does speed actually work and how do you actually get faster.

And once you're disconnected from what we just talked about, that's when you run out of speed. Because speed in its essence is you have to learn how to move less, move less distance, and then eliminate delays in your movement. So if you're not balanced, you're adding delays. When you can maintain maintain balance, then you're eliminating delays.

Perfect. And that's what I wanna talk about. The the delays in movement a little bit. And and to me, and maybe this is my bias here, but, like, again, when you talk about the puck coming at you envision it all makes sense. A lot of sort of similar theories on box control, right, and and the amount of space you have in front of you.

Dube, maybe how you experience this. I remember for me, it was Lyle telling me like the whole balance thing. Right? Like, even on a t push standing up, when we when we turn our head backwards, our body thinks we're falling. And that's why it it innately wants to counter rotate and go the other way to maintain that balance.

So we're trying to move left. Our body and our brain are telling us we need to pull something back the other way to counterbalance that, and those are delays that were innate in almost everyone's game. I watched ten years ago, we've seen them shrink. This is a method to sort of increase that efficiency. It was like, did you I'm not doing a very good job of asking this, but did you you've experienced that?

Like, as a goalie, you're already in the National Hockey League having success. As you sort of learn this, could you feel that?

Yeah, absolutely. And this was all like, you know, discovering along the way for me. And and I think that, you know, when I talk about it, I think that a lot of it, a lot of my consistency came from this, is that being able to work with Lyle and when things started to go off off track and I wasn't tracking, you know, I didn't have these goggles to work with. I had to just go off of feel, and a lot of times it felt like I was doing it and I wasn't. And again, I was just learning how it pertains to all of the movements we do.

You know, the best example I can give when I feel like I'd be on it, maybe I was initially, but then as things approached me, I would start to sit down and get my chin back and you could see it in my lateral movement because once that happened, like you said, and and one thing, you know, working with kids now too, that that you can really show them how this works is when you open up and you start to go without without properly tracking is you lose that load on the leg that you're pushing off of. So you're already you're probably three quarters extended by the time you go to make your push because you've opened up and you've started to go with your body before you've actually looked at where you wanna go and and got your turn. So you don't get a good push, and and then when you know you don't have a good push, you reach that lead knee to try to get to where you wanna go. You're reaching to where you wanna go because you're not really getting there with the strong push. And that was kind of the the the telltale for me when I'm like, I'm playing fine, like, stopping the puck.

You know, nothing's nothing's getting by me and Lyle will be showing me video and he'd slow down these lateral movements, and that opened up knee reach. And I was big big t push guy obviously, but that opened up knee reach was kind of a telltale sign that I was sitting that I'd sit down as it as it started to come. Because I played I played really wide and like a pretty aggressive stance. So when when they'd come like that feeling of of sitting or me getting ready, it was it was pretty close to the same feeling because of my aggressive stance. And when that was a telltale, it was that that lateral push of reaching that knee outside of my body to try to get in from there, then all of a sudden, the head comes up and down and and the stops take longer and that's the the extra movements that you don't need.

Those are those are the delays. When we when when Lyle's kept the catchphrase around this is eliminate delays, those are the delays. And I love your answer because this used to drive me nuts. And we can talk about how the goggles fix this a little bit. I would watch you guys in the summer and I would other guys, James Reimer and I had you know, the guys that you worked with in the summer and I'd be like, oh my god.

Like, nothing would be at a camp and nothing would get by you. And NHL shooters and elite and time and space, and you were on everything like a fat kid on a smarty, just on the puck. And then we get into the season, and they're inevitably for every goalie, there's gonna be ups and downs, and everyone would be like, see, tracking's not working now. And I'd be like, yeah. Because they're not tracking anymore.

It used to drive me nuts. But that balance between sort of knowing it and feeling it, just, you know, I'll go back to you, Doobie, before we get back to you. Was sorta how hard was that to sort as you're learning this new thing, and then, like, how much simpler would it have been if if these goggles existed when you were playing as opposed to now when you're coaching? You're seeing it in the kids.

Well, that's the thing. Right? Is these goggles the the whole thing is training your body like like training for anything. Right? You do it over and over and over and over again, and then it just becomes your how how you work and you it's you just know that feeling and and your body knows exactly what to do.

So I was trying to do that, you know, over video in practice with the knowledge that I had, but sometimes it was such a fine line, like I said, with with my stance and the way I played that there were times I felt like I was doing it and I wasn't. And again, I was learning all this stuff. I understand it more now. But when I'm trying to do it just based off of feel and kind of on my own with obviously feedback from Lyle in the video, yeah, there's plenty of times that I thought I was doing it just fine, and I wasn't. And that's the cool thing about the goggles is that you're you know right away because you you because you can't see the puck, if you're not doing it properly.

So that would have been certainly nice to have, as a training tool. But, yeah, it's again, I I think it's funny when you're you're saying like, yeah, their tracking is not working. It's because they're not tracking. And and it's it's really cool to go back. And I mean, now coaching, I see it in the kids just more and more and more.

And, I mean, it's like it it, like, haunts you because it's all you can see. And they're, you know, 12 years old and and 10 years old, but it's like I mean, the difference from that, like, and then you talk about delays, like, when you move, it's not just you can move you get a better push, but then also once you get there, you're where you wanna be. You're on your toes. So you might get there if you don't track and you don't push properly. You know, you might get there.

You'll probably get there based off your athletic ability in skating. And then you might have time, you're gonna stop probably on your heels, and then you're gonna reset to where you wanna go. So eventually, it might not bite you because you're going to get to where you want to be at some point. But if that play happens, boom, boom, that's when you get caught. That's when you because you'll get over there and you'll be on your heels and they'll beat you up high because you're reaching back.

And if you get readjusted, maybe make that save. It looks like you're tracking properly, but you rewind the whole thing and that was that extra movement and you eliminate that delay of when you arrive, you're already in that spot. And then next time that play happens, boom, boom, that same play, but you're on your toes and you're balanced and you're seeing the puck and you make that safe.

Yeah. And that's, you know, like I I think of that as like, not only are you arriving sort of in more of a save ready position, but to me the other part was, you know, again, I'll go to the old t push like the, you know, the head over the shoulder, lifting the chin up, the everything sort of almost like you're moving, you're you're in one place, you're creating all this movement opening to make your push, you're not actually gaining any angle or any like, because you're you're basically like a figure skater, you're twirling away from it. And then when you do get there with that big push, these goalies would have to then reset all those elements of angle. Whereas the idea of this chin down rotation allowed them to set the angle and it would be there when they arrived. Lyle, how much easier does the so we think of goggles and wearing goggles under masks and the TrakOpti goggles, we think of them as just using them off for release, but I know you've got other goalies that use them in movement because it helps create that sort of my term, and it might not be the correct term, but that top down rotation that allows them to eliminate some of those delays.

How much have the goggles helped on that side?

Well, you know, we back this up to over the years, you know, where a lot of people started to reject tracking. And I think rightfully so because we didn't have something that allowed you to not think. You know? And we have to put tracking into its proper value. You know?

It's not more valuable. There's so much to learn about goaltending, and there's so many technical and tactical components. And, you know, we have to, like, also acknowledge, in my opinion, the gold standard is your reason, your position. That has to continue to increase and become a separator between you and, you know, the other guy on your team. So 64 goalies in the NHL, we can ask the question, which two play the same?

I mean, I think the constant answer is nobody. But the guys that are performing, you know, now the ones in the blue paint versus the guy on the bench, there's your first separator. These are not guys that don't have the ability and capability. These are the guys that are stopping more pucks. They have more access on a consist consistent basis.

And in my opinion, that starts with your reads and your positioning. Now when we're a coach and we're looking at that and if we start from the top down look at the elite level where you're trying to find millimeters and milliseconds, right, because you're at the highest level of speed, Now you're starting to look at, hey. If the guy if you're sitting down with a goaltender and you're talking, okay. What was your read? And the read was correct.

Then the other part of that is knowing where to go with that read, your positioning. That takes time and experience in that environment. Now where you start to be able to help a guy if he still can't get there and you start to see trends in his game, whether it's an East West play or it's a broken play or it's off the rush, you know, or whatever the case might be, then you have to start to look at the movements because the movements are where you create your delays, and the remove movement are where you find your speed. Right? So tracking can become a hindrance if you just try and layer a tracking.

Where you come into it is if you start to see these delays, and then you can use tracking as a solution. Most goalies at the NHL level are tracking somewhat really, really well. But, you know, the areas where it creates delays, it affects the whole game. Once you're behind, you're behind. You know what I mean?

And the game is dynamic. It's always moving. So what I'm talking about now is your movement fuel everything. So when you start looking at the movements and when you start seeing consistent delays, there are typically patterns in a guide, then you can start to see options for a solution where tracking could come in. The thing about the goggles is is that it actually auto corrects everything.

We are visually dominant. We can cheat with our vision, and we don't know it.

We are visually dominant. We can cheat with our vision, and we don't know it. When you put the goggles on, like, used the word feeling, it gives you an instant feedback. It gives you an instant feeling of being on it and seeing it. I mean, to be honest with you, it feels, like, kinda horrible the first time you put them on because you feel blind, but that's only telling you how much you're actually cheating, how much you're not moving your head to actually look at things.

But when you immediately put them on, now you start to have access to proper vision, which sets you up for proper balance, which now gets us to one of the main topics that I think most goalie coaches will agree with. And I I'll say right now, I'm working with eight goalie coaches in NHL, and they're using these goggles with their athletes. And we're finding these millimeters and milliseconds. We're not saying to that individual athlete, and some of these are pretty elite guys. Like, they're names that everybody would know.

But what we're doing is is we're giving them access to the one main thing, which is your backside leg recovery. You know, Doobie mentioned about getting that lead leg out side your body. Once that lead leg leads at all, then it delays backside leg recovery. You're not actually trying to get your front side of your body to the puck. You're trying to get your outside edge of your body to get angle and set and rotation.

You've gotta get early rotation. Right? So that rotation comes from backside leg recovery. What's interesting is is when the game speeds up, we push harder and longer extending our backside leg more, which delays backside leg recovery, which gets us in trouble when we get there because we're not set up for rotation to finish. That's where you see counter rotation.

That's where you see all these delays or dropping your butt to finish the turn. And you know what I mean? And the body is doing a lot of different things to try and get you back into position. Like, said, you'll get there, but then you're still trying to work to get back over top of the puck, and you run out of time.

The game speeds up and so we feel like we have to go faster rather than just being more efficient.

That's right. So everybody's working on efficiency and everybody is doing a lot of the right things. I think what I've learned, and I've worked with a lot of really, really great goalie coaches, and they know their stuff. They're not in the NHL for no reason. You know, they understand goaltending.

The things that they're trying to accomplish often, and this is where I come in, and like you mentioned at the beginning of the podcast that, you know, when we've had an opportunity and certainly over this last couple of years working with certain coaches, they thought they knew what it was when they actually saw the simplicity of it and why getting on it and how the goggles now were introducing the goggles. Turn that into an event where there doesn't require any thinking. That's where it starts to bring everything together very, very quickly. And so when you are forced to put your eyes on the puck properly, then you're forced into balancing properly, which means you now have access to teach these technical and tactical skills on a consistent basis, which then becomes part of the athlete's way he moves. And if that becomes consistent, then the way you go there.

And let me add in one more layer here. Depth. Big discussion. What is the right depth? You know?

And what is it should be? It seems intuitive to move a guy out further to, you know, block more net. But, realistically, when you actually look at it, even some sub six goalies, which, you know, I've worked with, and they're having success in the NHL, it's about access. Right? And you still have access deeper.

When you find the range for that individual athlete, meaning how deep can he be and stop the puck and how far out can he be and still get back, we're adding in some a lot of conversation here. Right? We know how much the game has changed below the dot. It has increased significantly in terms of number of plays below the dot, which means you need quicker rotation, you need quicker access, which means you gotta get back faster. So this is all pointing towards what we are now talking about and training it so that it becomes part of the way you're actually wired.

We could get into the science at any time about neuroplasticity and how the body is constantly plastically in the brain changing and adapting to what it's being asked to do. And if it's never asked to being looking down on a consistent basis, then it's always training to balance itself more up because it's easier to balance when you're standing straight up. Do you see what I mean? So you're fighting a natural tendency. That's what Doobie experienced.

It's like, I'm on it. I'm on it. I'm on it. And I stopped thinking about it, and slowly my body drifts back up. Okay.

He gets the bat phone call. Doobie, we're getting off it. Let's get back on it. Dang. So we get on it, and it so you're constantly doing that.

The thing about now we've added a few dynamics about why we should be addressing this and why it should be important and how we can, as goalie coaches or athletes, get to these points of efficiency and consistency more. When you start to play with a proper depth, proper depth will allow you then to consist get more consistency in your movements because your patterns become more consistent. More consistency in your movements gets more consistency in your positioning, not just being in front of the puck, but being set over top of it. And access, more access produces more saves. So there is a model that you can follow that you can see when the head comes off these delays.

And it's an it's it's with every individual. So you're not asking any particular athlete to change him because he's gonna be one of 64 goalies playing in NHL. What you're doing is is you're giving him not only when you start to track properly, your reads get better, your positioning and your ability to get into positioning gets better, And now you've started to eliminate delays all over your game. You see kinda what I'm saying. I hope I did that justice.

Right? It all kinda I mean, you used to talk about the save cycle. Right? Like, it it all kinda it affects all parts of it. The goggles are almost like an on off switch.

I mean I mean, who gives a crap about Kevin Woodley's beer league experience? But I remember the first time I put them on, and I'd I'd watched goalies. I could spot it instantly whether they were on or off. And again, don't forget ten years ago, man, the number of goalies that opened the net because they didn't do this was off the charts high compared to now. Yep.

I think some of this has become somewhat adapted even if not everyone has the source knowledge, but I thought I understood it. I thought I did it. And even at the Beard League level, I put the goggles on and everything's getting under my vision. I lost the puck off the release and I'm like, holy crap, I wasn't actually doing it. The goggles become like an on off switch.

Do you be like, again, you didn't have them when you were playing, but you're seeing this now with with some of the young guys.

Yeah. And I think it's, you know, I I I think about coaching and I think it's the the by far, it's the easiest way and best way to to do it because I think it's like with anything. Right? You could I'm sure there's different verbiage and different ways that you could talk somebody into what this is and and whether, you know, they can call it something else. And and they the the player could end up tracking perfectly all the time by a different way of coaching it.

This takes that that thinking side out of it. Because like you said, you it's instant feedback. As soon as you get out there, if you're not looking at it, you don't you're blind. You don't see it. And then you're obviously, you're in the net.

You're gonna be like, I need to find the puck. Okay. I'm gonna look. I'm gonna figure out how to get around these goggles to to look at the puck. And so, yes, you could you you can get there through, you know, coaching like I had to do where you're, you know, you're you're figuring out and and learning what your body feels like and what what's right and what's wrong.

Well, these goggles just tell you instantly. And so then you can you know, it just it just speeds up this entire process, like, astronomically because you you don't necessarily have to feel or wonder or guess if you're you know, am I am I looking at enough? Am I sitting my butt down? Because any of these things that you do that you're not supposed to do will instantly remove that access of vision on the puck. Those goggles just the instant feedback.

Yeah. It's it takes the thinking out of it. Right?

Yeah. And then you can think about the other parts of stopping the puck when you get there and and the technical sides and it and this part, it just takes that thinking out of it.

Usage, you know, Lyle, I've like I said, I mentioned watching warm up, just just off the release. I've seen other guys use it a little more often in skating. You know, I I don't wanna be careful in, like, site names or anything. Don't know who's all comfortable talking about their use of it, but, know, I've seen NHL guys that use it sort of early in drills where they where they wanna get the movement and and and dial that down. What where do you see this you know, like, how do you implement them within the understanding of what this is?

Well, for sure. And, we frame this all in the word access. Like, it's never perfect. You know what I mean? But, access is really appropriate when you start to understand it.

When we started talking about it, it gives you access to proper vision, which leads to access to balance where the body knows where that puck is and everything starts to recruit and balance in a position to, you know, be in front of that puck. We talked about now access to backside leg recovery, and I'll just finish that thought before we kinda roll through that. So when you think about this, and any goalie can try it, and then when goalie coaches start watching video, it becomes evident. When I try to gain more power to handle the speed of a lateral play, let's say, or a recovery, and so I really push that backside leg out there and I fully extend it, well, then my weight ends up staying back there, and it delays that backside leg recovery. It's intuitive to use more power, more energy to get across the net laterally.

But, realistically, you're trying to generate rotation. So the more that you learn to shorten your backside leg push, don't extend it all the way. A shorter push and a quicker recovery starts the momentum laterally, starts the rotation, and then it then it eliminates the delay of holding back too long. And so a shorter push, quicker recovery keeps that momentum laterally, and it also earlier rotation into set feet. Now you have option because you're coming into rotation earlier.

The other thing is is it it manages your ability to stay tracking the puck across the ice too and coming on to target, if you will, like finding stick blades and getting them. Right? So when we think about that and then we start to think about the simplicity of using the goggle, really what you're trying to do is you're trying to like, you use the word on off switch. It literally is like that. You gotta turn it on.

So if you're not sure you're tracking or not and you don't wanna think about it, which we don't, you just put them on and it clicks it on. Now you have access to all these things. It doesn't mean the work is done. It means the work begins. You see what I mean?

And the true work of of of trying to accomplish all these things we do with our athletes as coaches and athletes as athletes, you now have access to it. Does it work for everybody? Yes. It does. To what capacity?

It really depends on you. So I'll frame the goggles in this way. When we start with guys, we just let them be who they're gonna be. Then we put the goggles on. And if it's skating or releases or whatever it is, it doesn't have to be very dynamic.

They feel it right away. Now all of a sudden, it's on. And then when you take it off and you get your full field field of vision back, then all of a sudden, feel better. So what you're doing is is you're separating our natural tendency to cheat with our vision. And when our vision can no longer cheat, it actually literally, like it's kinda like that old or that movie, like, Inside Out, you know, where you have these different emotions fighting with each other, and then all of a sudden, they gotta come together and work together.

Well, it's like as soon as you stop being the big kid on the block vision, like, got this, and it realizes it doesn't, it engages the vestibular. And the more you do that, that becomes a new wiring in the brain called neuroplasticity, and then that becomes a habit. It becomes a way you move. It's it's a modality. So you never have to think about it.

You can train it without ever thinking about it. Now the interesting thing about that is is if we framed it in another way, and I think this will help people understand it, it's not and this is what I've learned over the year. I always thought it was a bit of a destination. You'd become a tracking goalie. You're a tracking goalie, but it isn't like that.

You're fighting natural tendencies to come off it again and not know it. And then you gotta think about it again, and that created a lot of that, pushback, if you will, that tracking can be too much. It can actually get guys too focused, puck focused. And I would have to agree through that our whole learning curve, we learned that, and that's why the goggles became a a thing. Right?

So if we said hydration, hydration is not a destination. It's a discipline. Meaning that you can work really, really hard to get hydrated, and everybody understands the value of hydration. You know? Like, you you could be an elite elite athlete, but if you're dehydrated, you're gonna underperform.

You know what I mean? But the sec so you get fully hydrated. The second you stop drinking water, you're immediately becoming dehydrated. So you have to have a maintenance function in there to stay hydrated so that all these other functions that rely on hydration can function. Tracking is the exact same way, and the goggles allow you to do that.

You do it basically daily. As a matter of fact, the body is very objective. Meaning, it doesn't matter whether you're brushing your teeth, you're playing golf, hockey ball, you're fishing, you're going to pick up, you know, your shoes off the ground. The body responds to how you move. So when you that's why in our ProPact, you'd have a set for at home by your bed that you wear first thing in the morning so that you're forced to pick up your toothbrush by looking at it at first instead of reaching for it half dead because you're not even thinking.

And you can train this just as a human in your day to day. Then the way I would frame it is is when you use them on the ice, you're training yourself to be a better goalie. When you're using them in other environments at home or in your training and how impactful that is in an injury situation, and there's many athletes that I could name that did that, what you're doing is is you're constantly reinforcing that on switch to the point where it just stays on. It's it becomes wired in you. But if you stop using them at any time, the light switch will slowly dim to off, and you gotta have to build it again.

You see what I mean? So it's not a destination. It's a discipline. And it's not more important than the technical tactical tactical game than reason positioning, than hydration, than physical conditioning, than flexibility, and all these other things. Right?

It actually supports them all, and it has its own place in the aspect of vision, balance, speed, and consistency.

I would argue that it can be a trigger for all of them those things to work in the right way.

It brings them all together. It allows access to each other. So when we talk about recruitment, we're talking about tensegrity in the body. And you've had guests on, like Adam Francillia and stuff like that, that do things that help create tensegrity in the body through the kinetic chain. But, again, that's function.

To access that, it comes with where the stimulus starts, and it comes with where the head sets the tone for the trajectory of the target. And then that allows that recruitment. If you don't ever train your body to know like, you know, to work together at any capacity, then you'll never have recruitment anyways. Tracking won't help you. So the training and the relationship of training and then how you access it come together with head trajectory.

Speaking of coming together, I left this for the end. It's a great story. I probably should have let Doobie tell it at the beginning, but I maybe left it for the end because it throws me under the bus a little bit at nhl.com. How you guys got together that first meeting, and it was actually with Steve Valiquette, Doobie, where where you sort of first touched on this. And I wrote a story, got some great quotes from from Steve about the impact and where he saw this going, and it kinda blew up and it kinda a few of us got kicked in the junk over it.

How you got started in all this? Just maybe explain that a little bit and and how this developed in your game over time a little bit.

Yeah. So, obviously, everybody was super excited with timing because it happened it happened in the in my, little comeback year there. But it was the summer before, so it was, you know, I had fallen off a cliff and and I signed my one year deal with Arizona. I got invited to a camp in Vail and Steve with a with a bunch of really good players and Steve Valliquette was there. And so this was before, toward the end of summer, right before training camp, might have been in September, even actually beginning of September.

And I got to the airport and I ended up Vally was there to help with the goalies and we ended up, getting a car together from the airport to Vail, which is about two hours. And Steve's a great guy, still keep in touch with him. So easy guy to talk to. So we're telling stories and and the car is going good. He starts telling me about this this head tracking that he's he's just recently discovered.

And he's super excited about it. He's like, Doobie, this is this is, like, life changing. And, you know, he had just met Lyle, and he was kinda just starting to discover all this stuff as well. So he's kinda sharing with me. He's scratching the surface.

He's sharing with me the scratches that that he's got, and I'm sitting there kinda trying to grab on to what it is that he's telling me. And we, you know, we spent five days in Vail, and, we you when I look back on it, it was definitely not at all, like, my understanding of it now. But what it did do is it it changed my position stance wise and also, like, looking at the puck without really realizing it because we weren't really talking about looking at the puck then. It was more getting over your chest and head over top like that part of it, which looking at it will will just naturally do for you. I was actually thinking about just like more like getting my chest and my head over top and how it allows you to to, you know, cover high when you're when you're over top of the pocket, those high shots, the angles they come at, being able to close off angles, all that stuff.

That was kind of more the concept that I was grabbing at the time.

And if I could say at a time when a lot of like coaching was to be like upright and back with your spine angle.

Yeah, exactly. And and that was one thing that Vally had kind of discovered was that that Lyle had talked to him about was the actual like ability to when you are over top of being able to actually get the mobility of your arms up there. Whereas when you're back and you do this with your shoulder, like you stop right here, and as soon as you bend over, you can get it all the way up. That was I just remember that in the car ride, him kind of explaining that a little bit. And then, you know, I I took that into the season, and that was kind of my general understanding of it.

I had those five days, and I I certainly think that, you know, from that time to the end of my career, I was able to implement it a lot more. But I do think that it helped me a lot during that season. Of course, that was kind of the fairytale season. I I started playing well in in Arizona, and I'm getting traded to Minnesota. Things really took off in Minnesota, and it was about, I wanna say maybe a month, maybe a little bit longer after, you know, I played, I don't know, 20 games in a row or something at that point, and and things were going really well that that that nhl.com reached out, and and they had put this together and pieced it.

And I remember, you know, that that I had, like, worked with Lyle, and I didn't know Lyle. And I knew that that was it was his stuff, but they wanted me to talk about it and how this had, like, changed my life, and this is why I was playing like this. And so

In fairness, the original article, which I was the guy at NHL, I did talk to you in the room, and I I don't think it No, I'm not

talking about that one.

Had to do a

phone call.

Wasn't Right. This this was the follow-up to me releasing that story. It took another level and I think probably because the the quote that Valliquette gave us was, it's the biggest thing since the butterfly, and I thought that was Obviously, I'm putting that in the story, but it took on another life at after that point. I'm giving I'm bailing myself out here a little bit doobie.

Yeah. No. When I talk about the nhl.com story, was not I I don't remember who it was, but it was I remember I was, I think we were maybe in Edmonton or something. I remember being in the hotel and and thinking, you like, getting ready to do this call. I mean, like, I don't

even know. NHL network kind of thing.

Yeah. Yeah. And, like, I don't even know what I'm talking about. And I don't even know Lyle, and I didn't wanna, like, you know, offend Lyle by pretending he like, I like, I know all his stuff. And and, so I, you know, I kinda just tried to go say that.

Like, I don't really without you know, I I also didn't didn't wanna say, like, it was nothing. It was just like, didn't know what in between I was at. And I at that time, also, I was, like, I definitely wasn't thinking about it that time. I was playing every other night. I was just rolling.

And then, fortunately, you know, after that year, with Lyle being in Vernon, I that was actually the first summer that we moved to to Kelowna. And so it just you know, fate would have it. We were in the same place, and and I met up with Lyle that summer, and we started working together. I started doing his his video program throughout the season. That was you know, we touched on before about about the video, which is what I'm starting to do now as well.

I started my own video program, based off of doing that with Lyle and knowing that it works and knowing that you can train this, you can talk to it, you can watch video and discuss it and make adjustments through video. And now, you know, fortunately, there's the goggles that that they can put on and do themselves. And whereas Lyle had to walk me through slow motion of of what it was and what it wasn't. But I when I look back, I think on obviously, it's great. We've we've got a great friendship now, and it's been, gosh, I don't know, twenty not twenty ten plus.

Twenty years,

maybe, something like that.

I feel like it's yeah. Time is a flat circle.

We can't yeah. We're we're going on twelve years now.

Yeah. We're on twelve years. That Minnesota year was, like, 2015.

It's 2015.

Yeah. Yep.

But when I look at truly, I I think the consistency side of it for me was a massive part of where it really affected my career. Obviously, the puck stopping and everything. But, you know, when he talks about that and we talked about, you know, arriving and then having a reset, sometimes it doesn't bite you in the ass, but eventually it will. And I was playing more games than anybody else in the NHL for four years in a row. Was sixty seven, sixty five, 68 year after year.

Now you can't do that without consistency because if you're not consistent, nobody's gonna play for 65 plus games in a in a hockey season. And when when I look at the consistency, that's where this really came in was working with Lyle is like, you know, hey, you're you're getting off of it. You're you're moving. So you're starting to sit. You're starting to open up.

You're starting to do all these things that in and, you know, my pushback was like, well, we just won four to one. I stopped 35 shots. Like, what? And he would kinda always be like, yeah. But, like, we're trending in the wrong direction here.

Like and and we're trying to get on it. So instead and that and that was what would happen really is instead of it becoming a bad game turns into two, turns into three, turns into like you're off the rails, and now you've got to, like, sit down with a with a psychologist and reinvent and figure out what what's happened to your life. You know, maybe it was one, maybe it was two bad games, but then you're back on it. And that's where that kind of consistency came from was getting on it before it before it was the fourth bad game in a row. And then you're scrambling.

We were kind of on it before it started. Maybe it was a little bit late and we got a couple bad ones, but it was never that five, six in a row.

And that's, you know, it's funny because I what what I think of when I hear that and I heard this from some of the guys that played in the league that learned it as coaches, whether it was Valiquette or whether it was Alex Auld, the two that jump out the most because they really dug into this, knowing the difference, understanding in retrospect what the difference was between the good games and the bad games. Whereas during their career, they were left guessing to not guessing, that's not fair, but they didn't have that same certainty about what the foundation was for the good versus the bad nights.

Yes. And that's also what I would you know, when I would argue early on, less arguing needs to be had now because of everything that Lyle's just talked about in the research, and and there's no there's no arguing to be had about how this works and why it works. But early on when there was the pushback, it was like, well, yeah, you know, NHL goalies, of course, they track. And I was like, they do, and then they don't. And so do they act do they understand like you just said?

I think that the I I don't think they know what they're doing right when they're doing it. I think they just if everything feels great. And then like everybody who plays Goal, you know, all of a sudden it doesn't. And for me, it was I understood the difference between the two and why it was happening and was able to to stop it. And when when I would look at goalies, I'm not gonna mention the name because I don't know if he actually did work on it or whatever.

He's one of my favorite goalies of all time. But he would go from actually, I can say his name because I don't think it doesn't matter. I I don't know if he did or didn't, but Sergei Bobrovsky, when he was in Columbus, was a guy who was un unbeatable. Like, I would watch him play, and I'm like, this isn't fair. Like, you can't score a goal on him unless it goes off three shin pads and hits the guy in the face.

And if it doesn't do that, you're not scoring a goal.

Two Vezinas.

And then all

of a sudden, it was like short side shelf under the arm. Like, all of a sudden, could score six on them. And it was in I I'm I'm trying to remember his I think it was playoffs against Pittsburgh. And and not just goals going in, but he looked like a different goalie. And that was like, to me, that was kind of an example.

And like I said, I don't know if maybe he was just off or whatever. But when I watched him that year, I'm like, here's the guy who was tracking and then isn't and maybe doesn't have maybe doesn't have the the training of, like, knowing what that was because he's obviously capable of doing it because he he was a Vezina. And like I said, I mean, it was ridiculous. But but knowing what it is, I think, was what a lot of goalies didn't. And when guys said, well, my goalie tracks is like, maybe they do, but do they know they're doing it?

And do you know what what to do if they're not?

That's and that echoes a lot of what I heard from the guys. Like I said, later in their career, learned it as they were transitioning to coaching that it was you know, I used the term on off switch with the goggles. Like, it was just that, oh, I wanted think that's what drove Valiquette, Steven, to to sort of search it out was that what he wanted to know what it was that was the difference between the good nights and the bad. And this, for him, unlocked a lot of it.

Yeah. And and, I mean, I I don't know, like because I and I think of the Bobrovsky one because I think that that he's gotten that consistency way more and more and more. And, obviously, you know, like I said, he's one of my favorite goalies of all time, and and in the last few years, just ridiculous. So I I'd be curious to talk to him if he did get get training and understand it or not. But, yeah, because there is again, and there's so much that goes into why we feel good and why we feel bad, obviously.

But when you can really, instead of starting to to to go down some rabbit holes on what you ate and if you've slept on the wrong side of your body or all these weird things that we can let our heads go to, we can go back to something simple and something tangible and something that we can narrow our focus on is are we tracking? Are we on our toes? Are we looking at the puck? All of these things rather than when that when we talk about that difference of why am I feeling good? Why am I not feeling good?

This is something simple to focus on. And now the science is there to prove it.

And and what it looks like and feels like to actually be looking at the puck. Because that was the other thing that I heard a lot from guys that retired. Everybody said, look at the puck. Nobody ever said how.

Yeah. And I had Lyle in my corner and there'd be times where I'm like, I'm doing it. And he's like, no. You're not. I'm like, I don't know.

Okay. And we have to really break it down, but I'm like, I'm sitting there rattling rattling off reps thinking I'm the man. And he's like, it's not it. And I'm like, what do you mean? And so that you know, like, it is like you said, guys, be like, I don't know what it is and what it isn't.

And now these goggles, there's no there's no guessing.

Lyle, we went away from you there for a while. Was my We probably should have led with that story because it was such a good story by Dewey, but I again, like he kindly didn't back the bus all the way over me on that one, but there's a reason I put this at the end of the episode. There's so much that we've talked about here. I do wanna wrap this up because I feel like there's gonna be and I'm hoping to have you on, and we're hoping to do some webinars and let people sort of see this. As Dube said, once you learn it and see it, I think one of the hardest parts, and I know Alex went through this for a while, like, you can't unsee it in the game.

And back in the day when very few people were even close to it, it was really hard not to see sort of where the inefficiencies were. I'd argue there's less of them. So I wanna get back to that, but just really quickly, the off ice stuff. You know, I wanna make sure we give some credit to some of the guys you've worked with. Obviously, we've had James Wendland, on the on the InGoal mag, sharing off ice drills that he does with his goalies where they're wearing the goggles.

Josh Tucker, who you won't find a bigger fan of than us, and I know Duby works with him as well and has worked with him in Minnesota. You know, just fantastic person who also teaches visual. He's come aboard. Like, the off ice component of this, and we can use this as a tease to come back with them later, but, the importance of this not not just existing on the ice and some of the applications. I had one of my best rounds of golf ever after walking through this with you on the course.

Well and it is fascinating because it is the human experience. You know? Is the Bob as an example, and he's a great example. And we've done you're you're aware of this. We've done a lot of video of Bob when he's on it and off.

Let's be honest. This is a natural process. You know? Like, it's part of your capacity as a human to do it right and do it wrong. When you're trying to look at a puck, you're gonna get into that zone where you're trying to see it, obviously.

And so you're probably gonna do it relatively well, if you will. But then when you add in the dynamics of movement and positioning and access, like, to making saves and stuff like that, that's where the intentionality starts to separate what Doobie talked about, the ability at the elite level to manage consistency. Like, we you know, I'm not doing promos now, but right on the box, says, access you, your best game, being one of those 64 goal within the NHL and hopefully one of the top 32. And then at the end hosting one of those shiny silver cups at the end. Right?

The idea is is that and when Doobie said it's not deniable, this is a reality. It doesn't increase the value of tracking over everything else that we're training and goaltending. It gives you access to it. Once you have access to it, then you can increase the consistency in those efforts that we're trying to make. So keeping it that simple allows you to understand that if you can be a better athlete at anything because it's gonna be an effect in any sport.

I just came back from Vegas, and I was talking with guys there. We're starting to work with the UFC. I started actually in Pro golf and the beta testing in Pro golf and what we did there. I worked with fighter pilots, snipers in the army, tennis, did a lot of work, which I did at an arm's length with another guy in hitting and baseball, working with pro archers now, working in gaming, increasing guys' abilities in gaming, like, and right. It's unbelievable, actually, to see the results in gaming.

So why I'm saying all that is is that when you have recruitment, when you have access to every function in your body, it's going and you can target it towards, like, something like goaltending. You're gonna increase your like, so you have your ability and capability, but it's the application of who you are that is important. So you can, I don't know, kinda use two names just to as a visual? You could have a guy like a big goalie. Let's just use a big goalie who's not super athletic and then a small goalie who's very athletic.

So this guy has to be faster because he's not athletic, which means he's gonna have to be super efficient to get all the potential speed out of him that he can. This guy who's super athletic can't rely on his athleticism, so he has to rely on efficiencies with all that speed and athleticism. And then you have an extra gear with all that athleticism. But they both have to come to the same discipline. They both have to come to that same nonnegotiable, the ability to see, ability to move, ability to eliminate delay.

So, you know, it becomes, individual, but it's kinda one of those nonnegotiables that tie it all together. And like Doobie said, and I'll kinda end it there, is is that it starts to provide answers as an individual. You can actually start to feel when the switch goes on, and you can turn it on. And I can mention a lot of names of guys that learned that, and they would literally would. They wouldn't worry about it anymore.

It even has such an impact on your mental game. You know what I mean? When you start to actually have confidence in this and you learn to trust it, then you're not sitting there worried about exactly how it's gonna go. Because if I ask you, would it be how many blocker saves you're gonna make tomorrow night? You'd be like, I don't know.

And I go then don't focus on your blocker. Focus on access so that it's either your glove or your blocker at any particular time, and you're in a good position to recruit the ability to move in that direction at any particular time. That can be done with intentionality, and now we've learned how to do it without the cognitive thinking part of the game and train it right into your neurology. Last thing. You mentioned James Wendland.

You mentioned Josh Tucker. So we, over the last ten years, have come up with literally, like, this whole sequence of becoming that athlete and accessing everything. Tracking is one part of it. But your vision, how many guys have even have have had their eyes tested? So if you're compromised in your vision, tracking's gonna help compensate for that, but you still need work on your vision so that your eyes are properly converging and diverging and saccades and all that.

You can look into that under Josh Tucker. Once you have your eyes working, then there's alignment issues. You know, that structural thing. If you can actually even move with impingements in your neck and guys go back to those five damn things that you guys did on your podcast, and you'll start to understand how important alignment is in the equation. Once you have vision and alignment, then you can start to work on the proprioception, office, recruitment, balance, like the Adam of the world and these types of things.

Mark Fitzpatrick Fitzgerald. Which one? I lost it. Was in. I I don't know why I just had a brain fart there.

But, you know, know, the things that they're doing, Travis Martel, these guys are all working on recruitment in their off ice training. So now you build the body up. You build your eyes up to work better, but you have to now use your head to access it. And that's the that's the magic potion, if you will, or that's the value of what tracking is. Now I agree.

We probably have to have a lot more podcasts and break it down into different parts because I'll I'll be honest. I'm a fan. I'm fascinated with this. I don't look at myself as the founder of a trajectory and all of that. I look at myself as a student.

I look at myself as a person who's privileged to work with elite athletes like UV, elite coaches. Like, there's eight of them right now in the NHL. And what we did this summer working with some of the best in the business right now that, you know, we've helped with this simple on off switch and then putting it wiring it into their game. So

So that means to be continued. We've got more coming.

Yeah. So if if I can do this, and I'm not doing this as a promo, but, you know, you can go to the site. It actually took me years to come up with simply giving you a bit of a read and then a little bit of video and, you know, to help you digest this a little bit to get you on your own personal journey. So you can go to the site. I mean, buy the goggles.

Sure. But, I mean, learn about it. Like, honestly, even no matter what sport you're in, we could talk again about other things we've talked about, lowering morbidity in the elderly and all these other things we're doing in rehab and recovery. These are all important things to us as a human and the things that we wanna do and certainly as we relate it to goaltending. You know, I think that would be a good start.

I'm gonna throw it out there. Podcast at ingoalmag.com. I think there's gonna be a lot of questions about this. That's the best way to send the email. Maybe that's one of our follow ups as we move forward.

Like I said, hoping to have Lyle on video, share some things with us here at InGoalmag. Guys, it's been over an hour. I think we covered everything, Doobie, although we kept you longer. I I think that's kind of what I'm famous for, so I had to keep you longer than you originally planned. Thank you.

Thank you. I've been pushing for Lyle to maybe share some of this background for if you said it's been twelve years since you guys started, I've been pushing for the last ten. It's it's nice to sort of have it out there in the open now, and I think a lot of people will benefit from it. A lot of people will have questions. That's fair too.

Make sure you send them to us and we will relay them and get the answers. Guys, thanks for your time today.

Thank you. Thanks guys. You too.

Goalies listening to that conversation, incredible stuff with Lyle and Devan. What like, what's their next step along the progression if you wanna follow that that path?

Well, that's a really good question, Daren.

Great question.

We're hoping to do some video with Lyle. And I have video because listen. Like, there's a bias. I've known Lyle for a while here. The first time I met him, it was because it was before it came out, and it was because I heard language from a couple of different guys.

Eric Comrie when he was still in junior and Laurent Brossoit at a junior all star game, Western Hockey League, CHL. I can't remember. Was a Russia series or whatever. And I asked talking goaltending with both of and they both used this language I'd never heard before, and that's what led me to the source of that language. So I've known him for a while.

I've vetted it first with NHL guys like, does this make sense? And so I've sort of seen it like, you know, the Alex Auld reaction, him working with guys. Like, we've we've sort of seen this throughout the year. So there's, you know, there's a relationship there. There's a bias there.

I'd I'd like to have more videos to show you guys. I do think that I've got videos of Braden Holtby working on it. I did video support for, you know, Mitch Korn and and the Washington Capital sent Scott Murray who talked about it. I mean, Scott Murray's got an eight part series on InGoal about sort of tracking. Right?

Like, we we have that.

Place to start, actually.

Yeah. That's actually a good place to start. Ingoalmag.com. Maybe we should put it up on the top of the site. I never thought of this.

But Scott Murray did a presentation after working with Lyle, after coming to Kelowna with Braden Holtby and working with us. He did a presentation on sort of the new science or the new philosophy of tracking for a symposium that Hockey Canada put on. And we actually hosted that and produced it, and as part of that got the rights to the footage and we broke it out as a multi part series at InGoalmag.com. So you can find that. We'll try and put it up into the slider at the top of the site, sort of highlighting it even though it's buried in the archives right now.

That would be a great first step. Next, the, you know, TrakOptik website, which we'll we'll link to in the show notes. Yes. There's a product involved, but a part of that is is when you buy the product, there there are links that take you in behind the scenes to explain it a little bit, including videos like the ones with with Holyby from way back when. You know, I I some of the other goalies that he's worked with were careful not to name drop there, but, you know, I know there's some videos of some of the guys that that have worked with this, some some attestations from, you know, Devin Cooley who's who's worked on this with Dustin Wolf and other guys.

We mentioned Dylan Garand. I've been on the ice with him and Lyle. So there's information out there. I know a lot of people were upset that when it first came out that he didn't just make everything public, and yet I've seen enough examples since then of people taking what they did learn and and privatizing it that I kinda understand why he didn't. It's out there now.

He's owned it, and there's a lot of material, like I said, available at ingoalmag.com. More to come. And check out TrakOptics because there's there's a lot of it's not just one thing to slap on the goggles. You have to know sort of what you're trying to do. As much as they sort of help eliminate the overthinking that led to a lot of the on off guys leaving town and a month later not being on it anymore, they sort of provide that, oh, I'm not on it anymore tell, cue and allow you to sort of feel it better.

I think that, there is some teaching that goes with it once you once you purchase a pair. I think there's a I wanna speak two out of turn here, but I'm pretty sure you get a link with your purchase to a sort of backdoor part of

the website with some more materials on it. There's also You mentioned James Wendland and his work with the goggles.

Right. We've Over got

at ingoalmag.com. We've also got some of him, I think Kristen Campbell principally him working with

Off Ice.

Yeah. Mhmm.

And and then And he's got

a really interesting take on it because you mentioned it's more about just off the release. James wants you to put him on soon as you get out of bed in the morning just to sort of reset your system.

Your vestibular, the way your body balances and the way it sees through central vision. Like, there's a lot of there's there's there's some ties and and I don't think enough sort of proof or, testing officially to make any definitive statements, but there's guys that have had success coming off injuries, including concussions, where it sort of helps reset that that vestibular tie between, you know, your balance and your hands and things like that. When Lin for sure uses it in at ingoalmag.com. We should probably highlight that on the website. Dylan Garand.

Like, this he's got them on for some of the skating videos he does. You know, again, reemphasizing that it's not tracking is just not about seeing pucks coming at you. It's about sort of initiating a sequence of movement that allows you to get early angle efficiently rather than pushing and opening and closing and having to reestablish it once you get to your destination. It eliminates to use the catchphrase, it eliminates a lot of the delays from some of the old school methods of movement that were taught, like simple t pushes, the way they were taught for years involved a ton of wasted movement. A lot of open and close without going anywhere, without gaining depth, without gaining angle, and then arriving to your spot and having to build all those elements.

If you change how you move your head before you make that movement or as part as you get comfortable all in one movement, it builds that early rotation and allows you to arrive set in square as opposed to opening, closing, and having to build it all once you get there. Which again, in a game where we talked about the Garand example, the puck moves so quickly even when we expect it to maybe come from somewhere, it goes somewhere else. Every time you've got one of those delays and you're getting there and setting up on it, that puck's already going somewhere else. Now you're even further behind.

So the head does drive everything? Like riding a horse where you're you're looking where you wanna go? That's the analogy that

Surfboard I can where you where you aim your head is is where where you like, a 100% as soon as you look up to the horizon, you have a tendency to lose balance on a surfboard. There they has been approached by there's some different things, through the Red Bull team that where they've seen it sounds like there's been some work done behind the scenes with some of those types of athletes, hasn't made me a better surfer. But I have used he's applied it helped me use it apply to golf. I've had some of my best rounds with some of the simple philosophies of in terms of, the way the body moves in connection to proper vision. So much of our vision and and, like, listen, it's not perfect.

You can't be on pucks all the time. But so much of the stuff we rely on, and and Nedeljkovic talks about this with, in our ProReads coming up in the next couple of weeks, you know, pucks getting underneath his vision. And so once it's not in the central, you're taking a whole bunch of information and trying to connect your brain's trying to connect it to what you think is happening versus what you're seeing it, and this just allows you to see it a little longer.

Outro

Great stuff. Fun episode and a win for Woody. That's we'll title this in the show notes, win for Woody.

I don't take I don't get many of them, Daren, but I was glad I was right about the e bugs.

It's impressive. Given the amount of people that we talked to about this and there was like a lot of wavering about it, you were you were you were pretty confident from the start?

That was a little alarming to be honest that when we did the check ins, there were the number of people in very high ranking positions that didn't have the same certainty or conviction that I had. And then to find out, you know, that that my side was correct and they, you know, still aren't certain. Like, I'm gonna text some people back and be like, hey. Just so you know. Not that I was right, but, Just so know, like, again, probably teams that weren't ever considering carrying three.

Right? Like, that's just not in their in their DNA as a team, so why would you think about it? But it it is interesting that

And teams won't carry three No. Because of that

Teams are gonna Teams are gonna carry three because they either don't wanna lose a guy on waivers. They've got tons of cap space, they don't wanna lose a guy on waivers or or they they think it's necessary, you know, they they're just in a balanced rotation.

Let's go out and play some ball hockey. Okay?

Yeah. Can I get the GSX chest protector and what Daren can rifle orange pucks at me?

I never really played ball hockey. How's that? Seriously? I hated it because it

Like road hockey?

I hated ball hockey.

As a kid and and I'm on the maybe I'm just a little soft, but I never knew where the net was because I didn't have all the lines on the ice reference.

Well, that sounds like something I would say.

It does actually. Yeah. Guys, hang on a second. Hang on. I gotta paint some lines on the road here before we get going.

Yeah. 100%.

Oh, the lines are gone. Yeah.

Oh, man. That's like Hutch, sounds like a pure Woody ism, so I'm glad

that's true. Absolutely the truth.

I feel bad for you right now, not having those experiences.

Oh, I Yeah. That was the best. Not enough. Yeah.

Enjoy. And we'll talk to everybody next time on InGoal Radio, the podcast presented by the Hockey Shop. Thehockeyshop.com and Source for Sports Langley.