Your Goalie Needs an Identity Beyond Hockey (Parents, Ep. 372)
In the Parent Playbook, presented by Stop it Goaltending U the App, Hutch uses Canadian Thanksgiving as a reminder to celebrate normal life outside of hockey, and to make sure your goalie has, and recognizes the importance of having, an identity beyond the game.
- When a goalie's entire identity is tied to the position, poor performances and the eventual end of competitive hockey become significantly harder to process.
- Goalie parents should use natural breaks — holidays, off-weekends — as reminders to celebrate and invest in normal life outside of hockey.
- Professional athletes who struggle after retirement are a well-known story, but the same identity crisis can hit youth goalies who don't make a junior team or lose their path in the sport.
- Building an identity beyond hockey takes deliberate effort, because the sport is designed to consume the entire family calendar if you let it.
- Encourage your goalie to pursue other sports and activities now, not as a backup plan, but as an essential part of who they are.
Episode Transcript
Guys, it's Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. Happy Thanksgiving. Yay. To our American friends, you can take today's advice and save it for a month or so. A lot of you are probably spending this weekend at a tournament.
Maybe you're listening to the show as you're driving to or from the tournament. I hope it was a great weekend. Here's my message, and, my wife who edits this show might fall over when she hears me say it. Don't forget to celebrate. See, I'm not really a big celebration guy.
Not big on large gatherings, kind of an introvert. I'm much more of a hangout with the family kind of person. So why am I telling you to celebrate? Well, because what I really mean is don't forget your normal life outside of hockey. This game can be all consuming.
Takes the whole weekend, then the next one, and pretty quickly your family calendar is nothing but hockey. Nothing wrong with that, you say. The heck with hockey life balance. Fair enough. I could certainly be accused of being that person.
But one thing we talk about a lot is making sure your goalie has an identity beyond hockey and beyond being a goalie. That takes some effort because it's incredibly easy to get swept up in everything around hockey. Thing is, when all they see themselves is as a goalie, the days when it doesn't go well become a lot harder. And someday, when competitive hockey changes or ends, that can be really hard as well. We hear lots of stories about professional athletes who struggle when their careers are over, but it happens to kids as well.
Maybe they don't make the junior team they dreamed about. Maybe there isn't a path beyond junior. Maybe hockey simply starts taking a different place in their life. For a highly competitive kid who has spent years of dreaming about the NHL or the PWHL, that transition can be difficult. So we need to take every opportunity to help our kids become more.
Other sports, other hobbies, school, friends, a job, learning something completely unrelated to hockey. Whatever helps remind them that being a goalie is something that they do and something they may absolutely love, but it isn't everything they are. And a tournament weekend is actually a pretty good time for that reminder. Maybe it's a team Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe it's a family stop for a turkey sub somewhere.
Or maybe, and we're always really good at this one, you just postpone Thanksgiving until a date that actually works for your family. But do make it happen. Celebrate something together that has nothing to do with whether they won or lost or stopped 35 shots or let in six. Because as hockey gets busier and more important, it's worth reminding them and ourselves that there's more. Your goalie will thank you for it someday, and I hope that day is a long, long way away after they've had every chance to chase the hockey dream as far as it can possibly take them.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
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