Brad Fogal: From NCAA Goalie to PWHL, OHL and Team Canada Coach (Ep. 366)

Intro

Working off Phantom Power. This is InGoal Radio, the podcast. Daren Millard, Kevin Woodley, the man that is fully connected, David Hutchison. You sound great with the aid of phantom power.

Coming from you, that means everything. I don't know if it was phantom power that makes me sound great, but I appreciate that.

Okay. We we were having trouble hearing you as we got ready to record and now you sound great. So you you just you plugged yourself in? What did you do?

Daren, you've spent more time behind a microphone than Kevin and I combined a 100 times over.

And I have nothing to do with the connection or anything. Guys should know that. Technically, I don't know what I'm doing.

Listen, I'm gonna be honest with you, when you guys were to said Phantom Power, I assumed you were talking about the tragically hip album of the same name. I was gonna,

you know Hutch, can you sing us some?

Little Bob Cajun?

My friend no chance

about a

little Bob Cajun? Yeah.

Great tune, but I'm not singing it.

I agree. There should be no singing on this podcast. I've I've I'd say I've heard him sing, I haven't, I don't want to and nobody wants to hear me sing. Daren, unless you're going to do a few bars, we'll just leave it at that.

Anyone I coach has heard me sing. When I have happy days on the ice, I start singing.

Do you? Mhmm. What's your go to tune when you're on the ice?

The theme to hat The theme to happy days.

I don't know. Little Bob Marley, Little Three Little Birds for sure.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

When I get happy.

That's a I love that. Now you guys have just got me in my hole. My brain is just spinning music.

The theme from Happy Days gets in your head, it's tough to push that thing out. That's a great tune.

Yeah. We're also aging ourselves here. There's a whole bunch of like young goaltenders listening to this like, what's happy days? And all I can say is look it up, look up Arthur Fonzarelli, The Fonz.

I dropped that in the office recently, like The Fonz Mhmm. And the people that I was talking to had no idea. Was like, you guys don't know what I'm talking about, do you? Nope. Mike.

I'm like the coolest dude in the world for a while. Hey. The Fonz.

Hey. Arthur Fonz are really Listen. Listen. There was one phrase though, I guarantee you everyone in that office, all the young the youngs would understand and it came from happy days and it is the phrase jump the shark.

You're right.

It is true.

I thought you were gonna say sit on a potsy.

No. That's no. Again, none of the youngs would have known that one, although I'm laughing as soon as you said it. But let's be honest, like in terms of the the lasting impact of happy days, jump the shark is quite literally where it originated and that's a phrase that continues today. So you gotta look that one up on YouTube as well, you young goaltenders that are like, what the hell are the olds talking about?

Got a great NHL Sense Arena and a feature interview, Brad Fogal coming up. I will get to know him and his journey of Vizual Edge ProReads as well as the Stop It Goaltending U the App parent segment with David Hutchison. Hutch, it's good to have you, like, with us this week.

It's so great to be here. It's much more fun when I'm here. I thought I thought you missed a really nice opportunity for a segue, and a segue is no good unless you point it out to the world most broadcasters, seem to think. You could have said Woody. Is Connor Hellebuyck gonna jump to the sharks?

Oh, that would have been Yes.

Is Winnipeg jumping the shark with this Connor Hellebuyck dilemma?

Okay. So what do we have? We have an update. I think there were widespread reports that Connor requested a trade. He came out this week.

Why are we talking about this? Because his camp came out. He issued a statement through his camp, through his agent, Ray Petkau, friend of the program, that he had indeed asked for a trade. What does that mean moving forward? I mean, the reality is he asked for it before the draft.

It didn't happen. There are some reports and things I've heard about in terms of that Buffalo deal, including obviously UPL, who were also a big fan of going the other way to Winnipeg as part of a package. There is some word behind the scenes that maybe Winnipeg and its desire to get more out of that package waited until UPK's no trade kicked in, and he, at that point, was no longer an option. Because I believe he had one that kicked in on July 1 and the act the right to exercise the no to a trade like that. So there's lots of different scuttlebutt out there.

I think all that we've got this week is confirmation that indeed he wants out, and let's see where it goes because he's not the only one. Right? US Olympic teammate. Dylan Larkin with the Detroit Red Wings asked out a long time ago, and that's still not done. Obviously, the the Brady Tkachuk, who is also a teammate on that US Olympic team, if you can sense a theme here.

He did ask out and got moved to the Florida panthers, but there's other guys that, like, I don't know if this is I don't know if this is you get what you want. We'll see. And I'd be curious to see if there's there's scuttlebutt out there that he might not report to camp. Obviously, it would be a pretty big distraction if he did with this hanging over everyone's head, but I'm I'm really, you know, just genuinely curious to see which way this goes. It gotta be tough if you're a Jets fan.

Right? Like, is a three time Vezina trophy winner, Hart trophy winner, Olympic gold medal winner, one of the best, if not the best goalies in the game. He's certainly on that short list. He's an elite goaltender. And after worrying about him leaving just three years ago, him and Scheifele re up, confirm, say a lot of nice things about staying in Winnipeg long term, and now he wants out.

That's that's gotta be tough as a fan to swallow. I understand that. But for the rest of us, it's now just wait and see what happens next. And I would think probably a lot of pressure on on on management in Winnipeg, Not just I don't mean pressure in terms of making the deal. We'll see.

But pressure in terms of if you do it They've they've

known about this this request. They have management has been aware of this desire by hell about going back to the end of end of the season.

Yeah. And and and obviously, we're working on deals to make it happen. And so some of this falls on them for not making it happen, whether it's before a certain trade protection kicked in on the other end of a potential deal, but also a sign. Like, if you're playing devil's advocate on the Jets behalf, it's also a sign that, you know, they feel they should get more for their three time Vezina Trophy winner and Hart Trophy winner than what's available, and that they're not going to make a bad deal just to make a deal.

Well, because Helibuck's contract is very manageable. Oh. And there's there's turns Especially, though.

That's

right. Never mind the the talent. Yeah. Don't know all that.

Well, one of one of the talent one of the talents is ability, like durability. The ability to play games. Right? Like, nobody's been more consistently available than Connor Hellebuyck. Like, he checks all the boxes.

You know? And yet, we've seen goaltending as an asset be depreciated for a while now. So it's kind of a tough kind of a tough spot to be. Right? Like, in terms of, know, there are only so many chairs.

And even if you're an acquiring team, if you'd like, this is the irony. If you're an acquiring team, if you're a team that's in the Connor Hellebuyck market, and I don't know why you wouldn't be, he's an upgrade on on most number ones in the league. There's a short list of other guys that are are at that same tier. But in theory, you're already paying a guy to be your number one. And so, you know, outside of maybe New Jersey where Jake Allen goes into the season as a number one on more of a backup one b pay scale, everybody else has one.

And in order to bring on Connor Hellebuyck, they probably need to move that guy Yeah. To Winnipeg as part of the deal. And I just said there's a short list of guys that are like, so if you're the Jets, I don't know that you want a lot of the guys coming back. Do you know what I mean? Like, the it's a short list of guys that would be like, yeah.

Hey. We think this guy's really good. Salary's manageable, and we can see him being a part of, you know, a tandem with Stuart Skinner moving forward who they signed on July 1. It's it's a lot more complicated than I think it gets made out to be just because of the nature of goaltending and the fact there's only two spots and the fact most teams have a guy in the number one hole. And if you're the Jets, you're looking like, okay, we want him back, but he's not like, that's not the big asset we want.

Like, we want They're other

not getting a goalie that matches him, so there's no way they're gonna be happy with that.

That's what the

then the market undervalues goalies.

Already with Stuart Skinner. So Right. But but you but the other teams have to give you their number one. Like, the Detroit Red Wings can't make this deal without including John Gibson.

My prediction is, and I've stood by this from the moment that we started getting sort of little nuggets that Connor Hellebuyck would like to be moved, I think it's gonna be Winnipeg pulls off a a three way trade or multi team transaction in order to make all of this happen. There's gotta be three teams involved. Goes here, the the the starting goal tender there goes somewhere else and

What did I and what did I just say? It's a more complicated deal than I think people realize because, you know, and so where's your prediction? Is Detroit one of the teams you like, I mean, we've we've had we've talked to Connor Hellebuyck about growing up watching games in Detroit, why he wears the number 37, watching Olaf Kolzig against the Detroit Red Wings. Like, I mean, it it would fit. It's his off season

goal I with would include Detroit due to the Dylan Larkin situation.

Is there a way to move all those?

Yeah. But they don't have a manager.

In terms of moving Dylan Larkin or in terms of, hey, if we do this, maybe Dylan Larkin wants to stay. In what I

would say moving Dylan Larkin.

As part of the deal?

Yeah. Don't think he's saying yes to Winnipeg.

To a, Hellebuyck goes to Detroit and

Oh, I see.

That way. Moves like Yeah. No no. Larkin Larkin doesn't go to Winnipeg, it's it's a three way shuffle.

And there's another there's another complication. Right? Like, everybody wants out, but only to select this is the new NHL. Right? Like, I want out, but no, not there.

I wanna go here. Like, it's you know, like, if this is these trade Hello. I can't

be as picky as Larkin.

Well, but but he has the right to be. Right? Like, he had they all have the right to be, but general managers also have the right to say no. Yeah. And this is where I'm curious.

This is not a this is not being critical of Connor Hellebuyck or Dylan Larkin in any way. But at some point, there's gonna have to be some pushback. I I I think from from the management side. And all this to say, what is my golden rule at the expense of somebody coming barging down the door and stripping the union of goaltending card out of my wallet? I avoid term.

This is why as a general manager with goaltending, I avoid term wherever I can.

The other problem with this is it's hard enough to trade a superstar. They always say whoever gets the best player wins, but then goaltenders are undervalued by the market. So now it's really impossible to get what you want back. There's no package that's going to give Winnipeg something that's going to have them say, Oh yeah, it's worth giving up the best goalie on the planet.

Well, wouldn't if they didn't have to.

No. Of course they wouldn't. Like they're being

forced into.

To get value is It's hard enough when you're trading, know, a Quinn Hughes for example to to get value back. It's basically impossible when it's a goaltender because everybody but you undervalues them.

What does Winnipeg have if Connor Hellebuyck doesn't report? And I don't know whether he he is planning on going to training camp or not, but let's look at the side where if he takes a step back and waits for a trade.

They have not a lot of NHL experience beyond Stuart Skinner. The beauty is they have a one b in Skinner who has shown he can be a 50 game starter in the NHL. That's your you got that box checked. Right. Beyond that though, you know, top of my head without pulling up a depth chart, I believe it's Domenic DiVincentiis who I'm not sure if he's made his NHL debut or he's had a game yet.

I don't think so. Lot of talent there. Thomas Milic as well, who's from our neighborhood here in Vancouver, our neck of the woods. Again, two really good prospects who have been slow cooking a little bit, like they've they've been in the minors for a while, they might be ripe for an opportunity, but they don't have experience at the highest level. So I think, if there's no Hellebuyck deal, if he's not in the picture, if they need to go find options, it would be a, unrestricted free agency, whether that's a Connor Ingram or a James Reimer type.

I mean, the fact that InGoal isn't signed to this point given the year he had, and I know the playoffs weren't great, but, you know, he had the best numbers of anyone relative to environment on the unrestricted free agent market, and it's August 29 as we record this and he hasn't signed. So he's a guy that can give you one a, one b. Like, that'd be a good tandem. You look at the waiver wire. The Jets obviously don't have first priority.

I think because that's here in Vancouver where they have first priority, and I think they might potentially use it on a goaltender depending on some things. We can get to the fact they have Chris Driedger in on a PTO. But there are gonna be some really good goalies on waivers if you're Winnipeg this September, in theory. And we talked about this last like, can think a guy's gonna end up on waivers and all of sudden that team joins the ranks of we don't wanna lose them, we're gonna keep three. But when you look at the names that in theory should hit the waiver wire in the three hole right now, like, Garand, Even Levi Merilinen, as tough as his year was in Ottawa last year, he's still a young goaltender who I think a lot of development people and goalie scouts, you know, rank as a potential top 10, you know, 23 age guy who two years ago was really good in the NHL.

So guys like that might be attractive on the waiver wire. They you know, if Tampa Bay decides to not carry three and they go with Jonas Johansson in this in the two spot and Dennis Hildeby goes on waivers, there's a guy who had success that you could claim. So there will be options out there, but for sure, at least from an experience standpoint, with no Connor Hellebuyck in the picture and presuming there's no there's no trade done and so you don't have a goalie coming back, yeah, the experience is pretty thin in Winnipeg after Stuart Skinner.

Explain the PTO offered to Chris Driedger by Vancouver.

I mean, I can't officially because I actually talked to their new general manager, Ryan Johnson, a couple of weeks ago and and he said, as he has maintained throughout, they never put a timeline on Thatcher Demko's return and so he didn't with me for our nhl.com, August pre team previews.

Okay. And and

But there is growing speculation that he won't be ready for the start of training camp. An abbreviated camp. Reported that it's double hip surgery was reported this week, which matches matches what I had heard as opposed to single hip surgery. I don't think that makes a difference, to be honest with you.

Like Yeah.

At the end of the day, though, this guy's just been through the wringer. And if it takes a little bit longer for him to be fully healthy, like, that's all you want is when he's back, he's back. Right? Like, that's your goal here. And if that's not gonna be the start of the season, they need some insurance.

Now whether that is because they might need somebody at the start of the season and they wanna get Tolopilo through waivers, speaking of guys who could get claimed, odds are probably a little lower than some of the other names I gave you, but could in theory get claimed. Send them down early. You've got Driedger in training camp. It might just be training camp protection. Preseason games.

I know there's only four of them, but if Demko's not in the picture, you need somebody to play. If it's Tolopilo playing one, Lankinen in playing two, does Driedger get the other one, or does he split it with one of their young kids? Again, if Demko isn't in the picture at the start of the season, and that's an if, that's not me reporting, but if he's not and if that extends into October and maybe even November, you have Kevin Lankinen, Nikita Tolopilo, but then no experience behind them. And so Driedger might be that guy, whether it's just for training camp or beyond, could depend on on where they're at with Demko, but he gives you an option to expand the experience. Because after those two guys, Lankinen and Tolopilo, you're into, you know, again, a lot of promise, Aku Koskenvuo, Vuo, Ty Young, but no NHL experiences and guys that are still getting their feet wet at the American League.

So, again, just expand your options with NHL experience. And, obviously, Driedger just coming back from the KHL last season, but he's not that far removed from having some really good seasons. I thought that, you know, up until the injury in Seattle, I just I liked where his game was at. Haven't we've we've exchanged text messages since the signing, looking forward to catching up with him when he gets into town, but I don't know what his mindset is going into it. I just have a, you know, an idea of where I think the Canucks are on this.

You guys see the press release from Minnesota Wild this week?

Oh, groundbreaking. Earth shaking.

I didn't didn't know if teams were putting out press releases on on the on the ebug.

Yeah. But it's Fun. It's great fun that they're announcing the e bug and if I was him, I would be printing that and putting it up on the wall. I love I love the whole thing. What what do you guys think about all ebugs wearing double zeros?

Okay. Before we get

to double zeros, which you do have to get to. Like, let's be honest, part of the reason there's an announcement here is he also has a somewhat significant role with the organization. They didn't just hire an ebug. They've decided that their practice goalie, e bug, is going to have a hockey operations

Most of them do now, don't they?

Not all, but yeah. Most of them. They have some role with the team. A lot of them do.

I think that that's the value. Right? You gotta be able to do something else.

Right. And not all are going to though. Caveat, I know some that are coming and they're just purely there to be goaltenders. But for him, like, is somebody who came up and had, you know, has has worked with the Chicago Steel, has has built his hockey like, he's built his chops Peter Thorne on the yeah. Right.

Sorry. He's built his chops elsewhere. Right? So this is an announcement that without the e bug portion probably doesn't get the same attention, but it probably still gets announced. Now maybe it's it's a press release that just goes on the website as opposed to sent out to the media, and maybe that's all that was the case here.

The e bug is what gets attention and gets it tweeted and quote tweeted and referenced from people around the league, especially Hutch, to your point, the double zeros being included, which we'd kinda known about, but hadn't heard for sure that that is gonna be what all e bugs wear. But I I do think it's more about the other job as much as anything that this gets an announcement.

Peter Thorne, analytics department with the Minnesota Wild now, along with being the e bug, which every team now has to hire or supply their own e bug this season, and they will all wear the same number if they go in, double zero, which how many times have

we seen that? Was forbidden. The the league gonged it. The league gonged double zero, specifically goalies were not allowed to wear it. I believe the last one, and I should have done more homework on this, I apologize.

But top of my head, I feel like the last one was Martin Biron and Kevin Weekes might have also been a part of that group that wore the double zero.

Didn't do it in the NHL, I don't think. I think he only got it in the minors and then switched to 80 when he came to the NHL wanting to get as close as he could.

So I'm pretty sure it's Marty Biron as the last double zero. The league forbade it. Like it's this is something this is this is a conscious decision to bring it back but only for this role.

Makes sense too. Right? That it's just Are you a

calling me a zero?

Everybody has to wear well, everybody has to wear the same number. It's like, no one nobody's it doesn't put any pressure on an organization to find a number that's not in use.

Nobody's gonna go into Montreal and demand to be number one?

Yeah. Exactly.

Right. They're running out of numbers in Montreal because they're all retired. I'm surprised zero zero isn't retired there. Probably one of the few numbers that we could find that wasn't retired somewhere. Yeah.

No. I I mean, it does make sense, and it's a number that goalies used to sort of you know, there's the fact it was for forbidden, there's a forbidden fruit aspect. There were some goalies that wanted this number for a little while, and they were told no. And so that it gives it like, it's a it's a cool angle. Right?

And the reality is, how many times are we gonna see it? How like, for all the hype over this, how many times are we gonna see it? How many times have we seen it? We got the accountant, Scott Foster in Chicago, the Zamboni driver in Toronto.

No e bugs got in last year.

No. It's been a it's been a little while. Right? Get to, like, to the bench maybe, and then you got then your numbers and your name bar is there, but not actually onto the ice. Warm ups, we've had a few warmies, so I guess you got a jersey on for warm ups.

Yeah. Okay.

Zero zero, Marty Biron and John Davidson. Two goaltenders that wore double zero.

I forgot that JD wore there you go.

Neil Sheehy, a defenseman wore zero in a game, but but the double zero, John Davidson and Marty Biron.

So we need to have Marty on to ask him how he feels about this.

Exactly. And why did he wear double zero? Yeah.

One of the reasons allegedly when I did a little search on this that they banned double zero was because the NHL software had trouble with it.

In what way?

No phantom power? No. In the same way that when we all thought the calendar went from 1999 to 2000, we're Yeah. All gonna

I I find that bizarre that that could even be possible but it's just something I read.

I I totally agree. Lot of attention. Some of these e bug announcements, some of the teams have released it or the announcements have come out through other channels regarding some of the organizations.

Cole Keeler who we know from, was represented by the same agent as Connor Hellebuyck, Ray Petkau from, camps up in Kelowna, net the old Net 360 camps that, aren't run anymore, but we used to love going to. He was in the June did he ever make it to

the pro group? He's in the

junior or the pro group, Hutch?

That that part I don't remember.

I think he might have actually transferred to up to the pro group at one point, and it was announced by his senior league team that he's gonna be the new e bug for the Winnipeg Jets. So they're going they were going full right. A full right E BUG. I like that. A little change up.

If you ever do get into a game, you're gonna throw throw a different look at the guys. So congratulations to him. It's interesting, though, to see these announcements. And as I I think I've mentioned once before, I know a few other names that haven't been announced, have been on the ice with a couple of guys that are like, I'm gonna be the guy. And then half an hour later, could you make sure you don't say I'm gonna be the guy?

Because I don't think it's official yet, and I'm not supposed to say it yet. Right? So, there's a lot of that going around right now, and that's part of the job. Right? Like, this is part of the job.

Like, as much as we laugh about it, like, the ability to sort of toe the line and what happens in the room and not share is a massive part of this. A massive part of this. Know there's

a concern like like, they don't want this person walking around like they're part of the team all day. They're part of the team.

Well, are. Yeah. And this is a very fine line, right? And and it's important to have the right personality. I'm not gonna name names, but I know one person who had a backup sort of practice goalie gig, and decided to, I don't wanna say assert themselves, but just wanted to be a little more present.

So went into a PK meeting, and I don't think that went over very well. So the roles have to be very defined.

I'm laughing because I I'm trying to picture the coaches going, oh, why are you here?

The roles have to be very carefully defined and it's not just on the ice. It's off the ice too because you're traveling with the group. Yeah. And you know what? Groups probably get like, if you're a good guy and you better be a good guy because you are gonna get abused in some of these skates.

Like, you better have the best, like, bring it on, never tired mentality you've ever seen. That's what I've heard from some of the guys that have done this job. Yeah. You're also going on the road. And if you, you know, you fit in really well, you're gonna get invited to a few things.

And you better be able to keep what goes on

the You

road better be

waiting to get invited.

Yeah. A 100%. There you go. Like that that's part of it. Like this I've had a few goalie coaches around the league talk to me about this.

Like it's so important not just to get the right skill level, and a lot of them are looking for college kids that didn't quite get a pro offer, and they actually have a fear that that they think these call that the college kids will get a couple of years under their belt in this job and think, I could play pro again. Like, I think I could do this. That's an actual fear among some of the guys that they won't be able to retain these people, but

Are people using it as a springboard to get?

Well, or that they they they don't even they don't even come in thinking it's a springboard, but they face NHL shots for a while and get confident and think, you know what? I could do this. I mean, obviously not at this level, but like I could play in the American League or the ECHL or, you know, kids get called up and they see themselves against that kid and they're like, hey. You know you know, I'm 24 or whatever. I I've still got this.

But the the bigger concern than that, that's one I've heard a few times, but the biggest concern I've heard from these guys is that, man, like, you have like, know your role, do it quietly, and just know how to fit in. Be a good guy, but without being outgoing. Right? Like, you have to let it come to you. It's like being a goalie.

You gotta let it

Sounds like a good t shirt.

Let it come. You gotta let it come to you, you can't force anything.

Know your role, let it come. What else do we wanna put on there? Hutch, like, you're the marketing arm of this thing.

What would you put on and shut up and make saves.

What what what should be front and center on the e bug t shirt?

Shut up and get hit. Duck. I'm just here to get hit. Yeah.

Well, Hutch, you're you're the guy that keeps us in line and tells us like, know your role. Right around here. But interesting stuff that I would feel like

why was the e bug somewhere?

Will, do you think fans will know who each team's E Bug is?

Depends on the market. Briefly. Depends

on I'm the with you briefly.

No. Actually, you know, maybe it doesn't depend on the market because we had there was one here in Vancouver, not an official role, but the practice goalie. Mhmm. And I think in the hockey media circles, most people figured out who it was, but some really didn't.

Mhmm.

Depends on whether you care to make that a story you invest in because there are some great stories, like some great stories involving these guys. And so, you know, I know in Utah, they they they've sort of done features on the guy that they had in last year. They're a team that I applaud for being ahead of the curve in terms of having a guy in. You know, first guy out on morning skate. Yeah.

Morning skate. Like, the this is the best example. Utah's guy and and and his name, I apologize, is escaping me off the top of my head. Maybe one of you guys can Google it while I ramble. But, and this this fits.

This is one of the benefits of having a practice goalie that you really believe in, and that is Utah would come up for a morning skate. Now power play always works after line rush drills, and the power play guys don't love that because the ice is chopped. They would prefer to work right away with fresh ice, just like power plays tend to be more successful on fresh ice. But that's not possible because everybody else has to get warm and the goalies need to get warm. So in Utah's case, the goalies would go to one end and work with Corey Schwab, and the goalies being last year, Vejmelka and Vanecek.

Those were your two. The practice goalie would go to the other end, and PP one would be out there early getting reps against him. So there's no risk of injury other than to him. He for his his first touch on the ice was quick quick lap, little stretch, and, oh, here you go. Here's a five on o p p against, like, some of the best shooters in the, in the league.

But he would take care of those duties, which allowed power play one to get their reps early. While the goalies one and two, Vejmelka and Vanecek were getting warm at the other end with the goalie coach Corey Schwab, and shooters were involved in that. So just a way to make sure you're getting more. And I've heard that complaint before from power play guys. They want fresh ice, and they don't get it in morning's gate because by the time they get out there, everybody else has done their work.

So, there's an example of a team using it to their advantage in in a couple different ways. Getting their power play one out early without having to ask one of their goalies to go out and take those types of reps as the first thing they do, let alone at all. Like, let alone at all. That's not work any goalie wants to do. So

I've done that a couple of times. Gone out with the the power play at the start of practice.

The five on o's?

Yeah. It's humbling.

I can imagine.

It's humbling.

Do you sit on your goal line and like try to build the passes by not moving? Yeah.

They just look up and go,

I think there's another one. Snipe. Snipe. Jack Jack Eichel Jack Eichel one time, please don't hit me. Please don't hit me.

How good it didn't hit

I remember looking up in Chandler Stevenson back when he played with Vegas just looking down going, like laughing, enjoying it. Colton McEntire, I believe is the

Yes. Yes. Gentleman. Thank you, Daren. Thank you for Utah.

And again, Utah ahead of the curve. They saw this coming, and they just they saw not every team's gonna do this. Some some teams are just gonna, you know

And some some teams' goalies wanna be more involved.

100%. 100%. Some goalies wanna be out there for all this, but usually there are at least some reps that the goalies don't wanna have anything to do with, and I think the teams that allow somebody else to take those reps are using it, to more an advantage than those that just leave the guy, you know, in the office until he's needed as an e bug. So there is a way to make this work for you to get more out of your one and two or to rest them more or to keep them out of reps that if they're honest with you, become counterproductive after a period of time.

Yeah. I I think fans will know who the e bug is at the start of the year and then it'll just, like, disappear.

Well, if I ever got one of those jobs, fans would definitely know because that'd be all over social media and they cut me within a week for for

Oh, so you'd be pumping your own tires?

Yeah. I'd be like, I'm naive. Zero zero. Yeah.

Zero zero bike tires.

Finally, a number that represents who I truly am. Double zeros.

That would be a good cool press release, press conference introducing Woody.

Yes. Oh, I would have a good time with that one.

Getting your getting your gear approved by K Whitmore in the National Hockey League?

You have to, right? That's another part of this.

KW, people would think it was just your initials on on the pads.

I mean, what they don't tell you, Daren, is that I sign all my pads anyways. Right? Like, just in case.

Just in case. So

I can poor K Whitmore getting the measurement. Are you sure this is for somebody who's gonna be facing NHL shots? These are the shortest legs I've ever seen. We're gonna give him we're giving him thirty one plus ones. What do you mean this guy wears thirty four plus two in beer league?

This is nuts.

I'm I'm glad it's just a like a black and white number that Kay has to deal with. Can you imagine him if he had to like make decisions based on feelings? Like, oh, this it's it's not fair to give this

person Some big ones. Yeah.

Be as big as you can.

Woodley? What eighteen inches.

Why are all the vertical measurements so low, but he needs this big a waist on his pants? Yes. They call it beer league for a reason, Kay.

Gear

InGoal Radio Podcast, Daren Millard, David Hutchison, and Kevin Woodley. Let's slide into our Gear Segment brought to us by our presenting sponsor, The Hockey Shop Source for Sports Langley, thehockeyshop.com.

It is so busy at The Hockey Shop Source for Sports right now, and I would ask that you give them a little grace because they are just hammered. And yet, they have such a good staff, such a deep staff that'll be able to help you that I'm confident that they will get through it. In part, because of how good the crew Cam has put around him, all people that play the position, that understand the position, that love the position, but also because they have so much inventory. Let's be honest, folks, it's late August. Season starts soon if it hasn't already.

If you're looking for new gear, we are way past the best before date of ordering custom. You order custom right now from some companies and you're looking at February. So if you need something that's gonna fit first and foremost your game, your style, and the experts to make sure they have that product set up for you perfectly, but also colorways, size options, everything you need, it will be at The Hockey Shop Source for Sports. Having trouble finding it elsewhere? Call them.

Hockeyshop.com, Hockey Shop Source for Sports, they will have your options. I guarantee you, can't guarantee everything, but I guarantee you, you have your best chance of finding what you need. Even if you need it off the shelf, you need it tomorrow, you need it on the ice at The Hockey Shop Source for Sports just because they have so much inventory and because guys like Cam, we get a lot of Source for Sports exclusives that we've talked about over the years, special features. So when you're buying an off the rack second price point, third price point, even the the one just a hair below custom right up to pro, it will have features special and specific to them that you can't get elsewhere that will benefit you as a goaltender. That's what you get from the Hockey Shop Source for Sports, the hockeyshop.com.

It's that extra level of expertise and more than enough selection to make sure they've got something for you and for your game. So check them out. And this week this week, we're gonna get into one of those products. One of those well, I've kinda let the cat out of the bag. If I were to tell you, Daren, that we were gonna talk about the Vaughn Ion Pro, would you assume we were talking about their top price point?

Yes. But we're not.

Well, it's because it's the Pro.

Right. So this is one of my pet peeves. We may lead with that. One of many. I I mean, let's let's be honest, I'm a big pet peeve guy, got a few Hutch pointed out accurately.

But let's let's hear let's hear more about this line with Cam at the Hockey Shop. Vaughn's ION Pro. Am I talking about their top price point? No. Despite the fact it's called Pro, we know this is a pet peeve of mine.

Still, this is a pretty good product. I'm actually really impressed with the pad. So besides the fact it's called ION Pro, from a product standpoint, I kinda like what I'm seeing on the Vaughn ION

I don't make you a pro yet with this Ion Pro here because you've already started to like a lot of the features out of the pad that have been brought down into this mid level price point. Let's go through it.

You're right. I was you pulled it out and I'm like, this is a nice product.

Obviously, standing out right away and you already talked about it a little bit too on that quick slide material makes its return.

Yeah. Excited about that. Good calling on the blocker but reality, the fact they have it on a second price point on the pad, I mean, is a material that slides exceptionally well.

You can

hear that. You're gonna a whole DJ magic canvas. Yes.

So all the way through with the actual side gusset of

the pad. Very similar to the Primo that you find on Brian's.

Stiff slide surface which we know helps to create that stability, which helps to create that slide.

It's a good high wear material which makes sense for put the paddle down. Guess my thumb would

No. The exact same integration is what you would find on the ION select pad, so very top end price point but again still a fused in knee portion with how they've laced it in creating that stability for that pad as well. Opening up the back a little bit more, we do see Vaughn's strapping system. So easy to replace full, easy to be able to modify. Nice open but also tight fit in the calf too depending on exactly how tight you do strap the pad itself.

So you get kind of a best of both worlds situation. Moving on to the boot. Again, we do see all

that quick One thing I really like here. Alright, go for it. Again, like like on a second price point, so lower price point, the more expensive high quality material extends right down to this little flap. Again, it's a the quick slide is a really good high wear thing as well down into As

well into the boot.

That's what I'm It's a really durable material, so credit where it's due, they're not cutting as much as there will be materials in here that are less than the the higher level. I was gonna say pro. I was gonna say pro. The higher level Ion pad, they have not skimped completely. This is this is a this is a nice call out.

This where Very very deep in that calf too as well in terms of how that sits in. So you can see how we've got that cut in. That extends out into the boot which the boot still remains quite flat. This still will sit a bit higher. This is a characteristic as a Vaughn pads that we have seen over the past couple generations.

The pads do fit on the big side of things so don't be surprised if you have to size down if you haven't been in a Vaughn pad for a long time.

Now the other thing too is as much as this is their, you know, flat faced carrying over from the SLR line more more butterfly pad like there's a soft feel to this and they, you know, like that there's a lot of sort

of Supple connection.

We went to the same word. Wow.

Yes. However

I kind of feel the pad

itself in that mid level though has been It's different. Correct. So a little bit more rigidity, little bit more in line with the actual marketing of the style of pad that it is. So not as flexible as what we saw in that SLR, that mid level pad. A little bit more rigidity that will pay off in longevity of that pad as well as overall rebounds over an extended period

of time. Materials though, second price point tend to be like on the inside of the

You're not getting that exact same core.

Right. So it's probably might soften up a little bit over time. That's correct. It will.

Yes. 100%.

Of course. Every every pad does but maybe a little quicker in the second price point than it might in the top. That's why there is a top price point. That's why we go. Okay.

Gloves, blocker. Continue It's got quick slide on the bottom so my Paddle down is really fast. Okay. Honestly honestly, jokes aside, pet peeves aside, the call out may not be about quick slide but the reality of paddle mat like it's a more durable material and so having it down there

That high wear area in particular, especially on that blocker, that's gonna help to protect it, make it last longer.

When you punch that guy in front of you or that in the crease it's gonna slide right across.

Don't do that. Don't do that. Overall backhand, very similar to what we found in that SLR four blocker as well. Similar thicker blocker board surface that we would find in

the Velocity series. A little more material than that like

I mean I don't have the biggest hands but like it

I was gonna say chunky but you say

A little bit. A little bit more material than we've seen brands go to sort of less material in the palm, a tighter fit and feel. This is a little looser, a little more traditional. That's correct? K.

Still able to nice and kinda nice presentation. There's a wedge on the back there to sort of keep it. I like it. So this

is where I've seen actually quite a bit more improvement to the glove especially in that mid price point model. A little bit more rigidity in the tee featuring a double tee versus a single tee from last year in

the S R four.

Skate lace, better closure and feel out of the box. This glove is a much much improved feel. Before we used to see a little bit of sloppiness kind of in the tee, this wouldn't close quite as flush right out of the box. Kind of a little bit empty but this is fresh, no bake, ready to go. A little bit more padded in terms of actual into the palm.

Again, it's not featuring any of that carbon technology or anything like that.

So

that's Less material, second price point. Separates those two price points. This is that 60 degree style of glove. So like a $5.90 if you're gonna coin a CCM term here. So that's that same index finger with the base of your thumb because you gotta go false.

So yeah. Questions?

Color sizes, questions for Cam about what they've got available. This is this is we're getting into that time of year where if you need gear for this season, you gotta walk into the store and walk out of it. Nobody has more selection than the hockeyshop.com, The Hockey Shop Source for Sports. If you got questions about what he's got in, some of the different fit features that he talked about, make sure you give him a call.

(604) 589-8299 or 1-800-567-7790 or you already set up at the hockeyshop.com.

If they just wanna email you personally, Cam, become like best friends, send notes.

That's what what is that? InGoal Magwoody?

Happened again.

Send us an email off of our website. Our email is up there just to sales@thehockeyshop.com and they can get ahold of us quite easy too as well.

So the Pro is the second price point. It does get confusing just from a consumer perspective.

It can.

And I've worn Vaughn, I love their gloves, but when you see pro, you think top. Like, it's just the way it is. Mhmm.

Yeah. And and and We'll have to do like

youth hockey and the the top of the line can now be super elite AAA pro.

Yeah. Makes it challenging.

Title influence.

Well, mean, the the highest end stuff is just called Vaughn Ion. So, hey, listen, at the end of the day though, Kevin's pet peeves aside, I actually was really impressed with this gear. I was really impressed with this, especially as a second price point line. Little thicker, like it's just the way Wave On tends to be, at a time when other companies are going thinner and thinner, but there's a really nice there's a really nice feel to it. So, you know, credit where it's due, we will nitpick over the pro thing.

They're certainly not the only company that does it, but it it's a nice product. And again, back to the point that before we did the Gear Segment, and a reminder, can go check if you wanna sorta see what that thickness looks like, make sure you go check out the YouTube segment that comes with this and check us out on our it'll be on all our social media. We'll tease to it. You can check it out directly on YouTube so you can see the gear as we're walking through these features. But this is just another nice option and frankly, Hutch, we've said this many times before, but an option that short of a couple layers of certain foams or carbon fiber additions, probably would have gotten passed off as as the actual pro elite top of the line price point just a couple of years ago.

So kudos to Vaughn for, like I said, good good natured ribbing aside about the name and the way they've set it up. It it's a product that I was impressed with.

Was ordering some gear the other day and going through trying to finalize things and I used you the Gear Segment, a previous Gear Segment with you and Cam, Woody, to to fine tune my decisions and So dial it right thank you for that. I was I was going back through the archives of the Gear Segment.

And we got you the answers you needed.

Yes. It it was it was awesome. So just it it gives you the information that you want at the time, but also they're up there and you can use it as a resource when you're when you're looking through different decisions that you have to make, and and I did that with with you and and Cam.

Some aim to please, we aim to educate.

Hey. On the e bug side of it, like, there's an opportunity here, Hutch, for some of these guys to go out and just go full, like, custom with some cool kits.

If the team will pay for it because some some of these guys can't go full on full on. I I would think but I sure would want to. I mean, what the heck? I you guys can talk about not jumping in on meetings and waiting to be invited and everything but in my brain, I'd be full on part of that team and I would live every minute

of it. Like, would you want to stand out with the coolest custom set or you just want to

Well, you don't

have the coolest setup, you'd stand out. Like, if you walk out onto the ice and you've got your all white helmet and red pads, you're gonna stand out. Yeah.

I wanna know if they're getting paint jobs. Fit in. They seem to be mandatory. Like, at least I

would think paint jobs would be there. Like, every every one of them would would have some kind of a team paint job. Paint job. Wrap. Wrap.

Yeah. Wrap.

Yeah. I don't I don't think we'll see the somebody going out there with a a paint job that doesn't reflect the organization.

Like somebody going out in different colors. Yeah. So like

That's not gonna

I'll I'll I'll give you the example. Now, again, it wasn't in an official role and I have no idea if they're gonna hire him for the official role. I hope they do because he was really good in it, and he works really hard, and he's an incredible story. But the Canucks had a practice goalie last year, again, not full time, but they brought him in from time to time, you know, to to rest their other guys. And he's done it at at the American Hockey League level, and we've talked about this before on the show because his son is a Islanders draft pick and was a guest on the podcast.

But Alex Cotai, who is a local mortgage broker and keeps himself like, I'm, like, so jealous of the conditioning he keeps himself into, which you have to in this job, but he grew up a huge Dallas Stars fan. And every year, from the Hockey Shop Source for Sports, he gets himself a new custom set of Dallas Stars themed colorways and gear, and some of it's really sick, really good looking stuff. And honestly, like, people may hear that, a new gear every year for for a quote unquote beer beer league aged goaltender, this guy plays a ton. If anybody needs new gear every year, it's Alex because nobody puts in more wraps than him. So this is legit.

But it was Dallas themed. So I would think that if, and again, it's an if, I have no idea they were gonna give him the job, I would hope they would buy him something with Canucks colors because it was a little off put, not off putting, it stood out in a stark way to see those Dallas colors out on the ice for practice.

Like, if you're gonna be part of the organization traveling every game and and practicing

Right. Right. And that and that wasn't the case have. And that wasn't the case before. Right?

Because before, quite often, we would actually seen the guys who were the e bugs for the home team go out and practice with the visiting team. So to have matching gear wouldn't have made sense anyways before the role was official because half the time you were out with the visitors when they needed a goalie on short notice and didn't have somebody traveling. But now that you have your own guy there, you're right, Daren. So believe me when I say that, it was in no way a shot at the organization for not buying him gear in the past. It it didn't make sense to.

But now, if whoever it is, I would think we'll get the opportunity to get matching gear and not just this will be the this will be the test of who's who's willing to spend. Who gets to order their own gear

and who just goes it has has to be Oh, because it has to the NHL.

That's right. So you can't just go into the closet and pick out

Yeah.

The stuff that guys wore last year cause it's not

K signature on it now.

Yeah. But all the stuff in the closet has K signature on it.

32 e bugs. How many of the that group will have a bug on their mask.

Oh, never thought of that.

I bet I bet you half of them.

I don't think half are gonna think of that.

Because I didn't think of it. So that's two thirds of us didn't think of it. I'm going one third max, Daren, that's my over under. Really? Because you're the only one that thought of it.

I'm going five max, but we'd probably be able to check, sadly. Good point.

Yeah. Well, I know somebody who can check.

Woody?

It just takes me all year for them to come through. They cycle through the room. They're getting changed in the same room. I can ask.

Yeah. I bet. I I I

because you know I have nothing but nothing but free time on my hands these days.

Vizual Edge ProReads.

Daren, you can imagine this. I apologize for interrupting here, but you can you imagine the PR guy? Holy crap. Woodley makes us stick around for the backup goalie and now he wants to wait around in the room until the e bug gets off the ice? Yeah.

I would be persona non grata in a hurry amongst the media relations crews of the NHL. They'd like to get back to the hotel. Thanks.

Yeah. I'm not sure how many e bugs will be talking to the media or available to the media.

I have talked to a few over the years, but some have been held like, some I've been denied permission to talk. I won't name teams or specifics. I get it. But I've asked a few times and sometimes I get a yes informally, but on the record, longer conversations have been a little more difficult. I I think the nature of this position, there will be some allowance for it if it feels they have a good story.

But if you don't get in, not sure you should be.

If you've got a good background story, I why not? Would you be telling honestly, this Yeah. Needs to tell more I'm a writer.

Maybe maybe that's just about my the debug,

so Yeah. That's my writer bias coming through.

Thank you for that. Thanks for swinging me over to to that side of it. ProReads brought to us by Vizual Edge.

Well, every goalie knows the feeling, especially if your name is Daren Millard. There's those nights where the game feels slow, you're tracking pucks clean, reading plays early, and nothing seems to surprise you. Then there's the other nights, the woody nights we'll call them, where you're reacting instead of anticipating. You're just a split second behind. Nobody wants you to be their e bug.

That's me. Most goalies try and solve that by getting more reps on the ice. Vizual Edge takes a different approach by training the visual and cognitive skills that help you process the game faster. Things like tracking through traffic, picking up releases, recognizing patterns, and making quicker decisions under pressure. From your laptop or tablet take a personalized assessment, identify your visual game and where it can improve, strengths and weaknesses, get a customized training plan that takes about fifteen minutes a day just three times a week.

Plus an open gym mode to get you as many exercises as you wish, and an eight minute warm up called game day mode to get your eyes and brain locked in for puck drop. That's what Jordan Binnington uses before every game. So head to visualedge.com and use the code, and we've only got a couple more days on this through August 31, IGFALL50, IGFALL50 for 50% off your first three months. Valid through August 31, you're running out of time, and if not, remember, if you're a subscriber to InGoal Magazine, you get 20% off year round. Head to AnyProReads to get the custom discount for subscribers only to save 20% year round on Vizual Edge.

What do we have this week?

Eric Comrie, six on five. May not be applicable for a lot of us beer leaguers, although I guess we do get the goalie pulled. There are tons of elements on this one. Depth decisions, but also reads. Patterns in terms of how he moves across the crease, but once he gets there, and a little late by his own admission, where does he think the shot is going?

He references Connor Hellebuyck in this one as we're trying to make our way through Eric Comrie's last sort of set of ProReads well with the Winnipeg Jets now that he signed with San Jose. A really great breakdown of sort of the way he moves across the crease rather than rushing and getting wide, it looks like he's a little late, but it sets him up to make a really calm save. And in part, he describes that as the way he moves and the way he gets to his position, but also what he reads as he's on his way, and the information that allows him to determine before the shot is taken whether it's heading to the glove or heading to the blocker. And so you can watch the video of the save, you can watch some freeze frames at the latest ProReads and see if you can figure it out, then watch it live, see what happens, and have Eric explain the details that allowed him to be ahead of this shot even though he was behind on the pass. Those are the type of information you get every week at the ProReads presented by Vizual Edge and ingoalmag.com.

I would argue one of our best features, one of our most popular second most popular Hutch, the ProReads over at InGoal.

Yeah. Technically, the ProDrills are get read just a little bit more, which honestly shocks me.

I mean, there's no better way to learn ProReads. No no better way to learn to read the game than to watch NHL goalies explain how they read the game. And that's what we do at ProReads presented by Vizual Edge this week with Eric Comrie. I can't wait. We're getting into September here.

We'll have a whole bunch of new names, new features, new guys walking into ProReads in the next couple of weeks. Just gotta get through our last ones with Eric Comrie and a little bit of Dustin Wolf before we kick kick it off for twenty twenty six, twenty seven with some new goalies breaking down their game.

And do you need equipment for the the Vizual Edge experience?

Comes with glasses.

Glasses?

Yep. It comes with it come I I guess you could use any three d glasses, but when you subscribe, they send you a set of glasses.

Okay. Nice. Good stuff. Vizual Edge helping us become better goaltenders. Stop It Goaltending U, the app, also a great resource when it comes to being able to add a foundation to your game and then add to it throughout.

They present our parent segment.

They also present twenty five years of NHL goalie coaching experience delivered to you on your tablet or your phone or your computer. Do you wanna tap into the goalie parenting expertise that helped Joey Daccord reach the NHL? 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, goalie scout, and now goalie director with the Detroit Red Wings, as well as all the insights and expertise from his staff at Stop It, including 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, and drills you can take onto the ice with your team and coach. Plus, and this is a big one, get an InGoal subscription included with your membership to Stop It Goaltending U the app.

So make sure you go check it out now at the App Store or Google Play and get the best of both worlds with a subscription to Stop It Goaltending U the app and included a subscription to InGoal

Magazine. Hutch.

Parent Playbook

This time of year, we have a whole new crop of goalie parents joining us. New season means new kids are donning the pads and that means we have new goalie parents out there. So I thought I would just share a little message for them that maybe will be a nice reminder for all of us. If your kid just strapped on the pads for the first time or if you're a few months into this and still figuring out which end is up, welcome. Welcome to the goalie parent union.

And trust me, it's a real thing. You'll start noticing it pretty quickly. Get a nod from another goalie parent at the rink, conversation with a complete stranger about whether those pads there are too big. Maybe the parent of the goalie at the other end of the ice bumps into you and understands exactly how you're feeling when your kid gives up a tough one because they've all sat there and felt it too. Goalies are a different breed and so are us goalie parents.

It's a strange little community and there's a code to it mostly unwritten that the veterans pick up over years of time in cold rinks, expensive equipment, great saves, tough goals, and nervous drives home. So if you're new to all of this today, I want to hand you a bit of a cheat sheet, some of the things I've learned over the years, often the hard way, some and of the things I wish somebody told me when we were getting started. This is not, I should say, a development plan. I'm not gonna tell you how many goalie lessons your kid needs or explain the RVH. In fact, one of the most important things we'll talk about is why you probably shouldn't be worrying about any of it.

So here we go. 10 things. Number one, cheer for the other goalie too. This is the clearest sign that you're in the union. You cheer for your kid's partner, and yes, every now and then you even cheer for the goalie at the other end of the ice too.

Watch a game even at the highest levels and every once in a while, you'll see one goalie just give a little stick tap or nod as at the goalie at the other end of the ice after a great save. It's a sign of respect, goalie to goalie. Model that as a parent and your kid is gonna learn faster than any speech you'll ever give them. Number two, don't make excuses for your goalie. Nobody likes the parent who blames the defense, the ref, or the scorekeeper, anything but the goalie every time a puck goes in.

It doesn't protect your kid. It just tells every other parent in the rink that you think your goalie needs protecting, and it puts a target on their back you didn't mean to create. Let your goalie own their game good and bad. That's how they build the toughness the position actually requires. Number three, stay out of the shadows.

At some point, another parent's gonna corner you at the rink and a group chat wherever and tell you your goalie is the better one, that she should be playing more than the other goalie. Feels good because somebody is pumping your kid's tires. But what they're really inviting you into is a conversation that requires tearing down somebody else's kid. Don't take the bait. Don't let the conversation happen in the shadows.

Be better. This is minor hockey, especially when they're young. Both goalies should be playing and developing. Don't let another parent recruit you into a campaign against somebody else's kid. There is no version of your kid deserves more ice time than the other goalie that's really good for anybody including your own kid.

Number four, help them own their prep at any age. This is one I've talked about many times. Independence is a gift that you can start giving early. I'm not saying hand a five year old a 40 pound bag and walk away. That's not realistic and it's not the point, but there's always something they can own.

Carrying their sticks, hanging up their own gear after practice, packing up their own gear, you name it. Small ownership now becomes real independence later, the kind of goalie who shows up prepared without being told because it's always theirs to handle. Number five, you need your own plan too. Being a goalie parent is stressful. I mean that seriously.

It's a different kind of stress than being a forward or defenseman's parent because every mistake is lit up on the scoreboard in real time. Your goalie needs a plan for how they handle a goal. You need one too for how you handle watching it happen. Your kid is gonna look up at you after a goal someday, maybe not obviously, but they're gonna do it. What do you want them to see?

Number six, have fun with them off the ice. Not everything has to be development, although this kind of is. Do some fun things off ice like learning to juggle together. I've mentioned before how my mother used to juggle oranges with me when I was a kid and I still think about it. Go outside and play catch, mess around in the driveway, whatever.

Let the position be part of a childhood that's still fun and not just a project. Speaking of which, number seven is don't build a program before they fall in love with the position. If your kid is new to goaltending and excited, it's tempting to go all in private lessons, off ice training, a full development plan right away. Resist that. Your first job isn't to develop a goalie, it's to help create an environment where they might fall in love with being one.

And if somewhere along the way they decide they don't love it anymore, that's okay too. That's allowed. Number eight. Fit beats price every time. Properly fitting your gear matters more than expensive gear.

A goalie who can actually move, who can get into and out of the butterfly, shuffle, recover is learning the position correctly. Gear that's too big to grow into or ill fitting but you got it because it was a great deal is gonna get in the way of it. It's hard to be successful and fall in love with goaltending with gear that isn't right. A properly fitting used set is better choice than an expensive set that's too big. Number nine, learn what to say after the game.

This one is big. In the car after the game, let them drive the conversation. Don't open with goals against or even with the saves. Maybe just, do you wanna talk about the game? Then listen.

Above everything else, make sure they know two things, that you love watching them play and that you'll love them no matter what the result was. I always try and pick out one specific thing as I've said before that had nothing to do with the score. Sometimes not even a flashy save like, I loved how you beat that pass on your feet during that power play. It's a real example that I've used. It tells them that you're actually watching them and not just the scoreboard and it teaches them to evaluate their game based on process and not not results.

Oh, and do you want to grab an ice cream? That's another great way of handling most situations.

Oh, I thought you're talking to us there.

Oh, yeah. Oh, I all over

save that.

Percentage. Save percentage and goals against average are almost meaningless even at the national hockey level and that's a hill I will die on. And if they're a tough way to evaluate an NHL goalie, imagine how ridiculous they are for evaluating your nine year old. For kids, it's worse. Giant nets relative to their size, no defensive structure yet, unbalanced teams from week to week, none of that reflects development or how they played.

More than that, chasing a number was never the point. Learning to love the game is. And number 11 is a little bonus. Read some in goal articles together. It's a simple one.

Sit down with your goalie and read an article together, especially ProReads. It's a low pressure way to talk hockey that isn't about their last game and it shows them the position has a whole world behind it that they're now part of. Learn together. You're not the coach though and that's not the point. So that's the goalie union or rather the goalie parent union.

There's no membership card, no secret handshake. It's just this strange little community of people who understand what it's like to sit in the stands while your kid plays the loneliest position on the ice. Most of us learned it the hard way, buying the wrong gear, saying the wrong thing after a game. We worry too much about things that didn't matter, probably didn't appreciate enough the things that did. And we're all still learning.

That's also part of it. So if your kid's just getting started, enjoy this part. Let them fall in love with the position before you worry too much about where it might take them. Learn the game with them. Celebrate the great saves.

Don't panic about the bad goals. And remember that your job isn't to build a goalie. It's to be their parent while they figure out whether they want to become one. Welcome to the union. We're glad you're here.

Question, and well done. Just on the subject of of gear, and you said fit is more important than anything else. Mhmm. The great deal. But are you are you okay with gently used or second hand gear along the way?

Yeah. Yeah. No. I I said that and I think it's a great way to go, especially now. I mean, the gear today is so much more durable than it used to be.

The the second price point stuff lasts even longer than some of the best stuff years ago. Absolutely.

No there's no break in? Like like honestly, like it's like for especially for the young kids, stiff gloves and stiff like part of the fit is the stiffness and if it's too stiff and it hasn't been broken in, that that again, it affects your ability to move, which affects your ability to play, which affects your ability to have fun.

Just make sure that the fit's there that will complement the the savings on on new gear. Otherwise, go to Cam and Company over at the Hockey Shop, they might tell you the same thing.

Well, Woody said this before, he's he stood in there and watched Cam tell them to buy a cheaper piece of gear because it fits them better and it's better for their game. He wants you to enjoy it for a lifetime, not just for one sale. Yep.

And I liked visiting the dairy bar too.

Oh, always. I must admit once they hit junior hockey at a tough game, it's often you gotta buy him a steak, not just an ice cream, but such is life.

Steak took over from from ice cream?

Well, when he's living away from home and you don't get to see him too often and then things don't go as well as either one of you might have hoped. Yeah. Sometimes you have to do it that way.

It's all about a little protein.

Mhmm.

Tough to get out of the You know, gotta cut down on the dairy.

Feature Interview - Brad Fogal

Sense Arena feature interview. This week, we're going to catch up with, Brad Fogal, and we're going to get an idea on his journey into goaltending and the goaltending coaching side of things. But first, a word from Sense Arena and NHL Sense Arena.

Absolutely. NHL Sense Arena, of course, presents all of our feature interviews just like this week. NHL Sense Arena is VR training built specifically for goalies, although they now have it for players and even for tennis players. I'd love to try that one sometime. Here's the thing I keep coming back to though.

NHL Sense Arena points out that 76% of NHL goals are scored through traffic. Screens, tips, second chances, and that's exactly the kind of situation that your goalie gets the fewest quality reps at because you can't safely set up a screen drill over and over at a Tuesday night practice. Everybody, by the way, says goalies are crazy. I think it's the players that stand in front of the net that are crazy, but I digress. In the headset, they can set up all the screen drills they want.

Stationary screens, flash screens, different looks, different shot speeds, and the drills that teach them to actually find the puck rather than just guess at where it might be. Of course, there's a lot more than shot volume here too. There's a full path on angles and box control with three d replay so a goalie can see their own positioning. There's a course on reading the shot release even. And then of course, there's the mental preparation side, visualization and activation work.

Just a few minutes before they step onto the ice. Your goalie can train in their own glove and blocker or use controllers as a virtual glove and blocker when space is tight. NHL Sense Arena is so realistic, you're gonna feel those pucks almost. So visit sensearena.com and as always, use the code I g m 50 to save even more.

Tell us about today's conversation, Woody. It's it's

a little wide ranging because our guest, Brad Fogel, who we've known for years now through the company he runs out of Toronto area, out of the Ontario, is GTI, Goaltending Training Institute. They're one of our first sort of partners on a sort of program wide adoption. I love the way they use InGoal and our resources, but he's also had a fascinating sort of minor pro career, NCAA division three, and then into minor pro, transitions early into coaching. He's worked in the OJHL, in the OHL with Owen Sound, including Carter George, drafted by the Los Angeles Kings, one of one of the guys that he's worked with there. Been with the Toronto Sceptres and the PWHL the last couple of years.

And when we caught up with him on a visit to Vancouver, he was working with Hockey Canada as he has for years as well. This time as the U18 goalie coach on the women's side. So Brad Fogel is a guy that we've known a little bit about, but we get to sort of dig into his past, his path, and most importantly, because he's so well organized and well thought as a as a goalie coach. Some of his philosophies and some of the way those things have evolved as he works with players at higher and higher levels. So it's it's wide ranging, but it's loaded with great stories, great advice, great tips, great insights from a guy who's seen it from every angle, and a guy who, you know, I think has a bright future.

He's already doing a lot of great things in goalie coaching, but has a really bright future as well depending on where he wants to go with it because I think the that path is kinda whatever he chooses.

Enjoy getting to know Brad Fogel in our NHL Sense Arena feature interview on InGoal Radio, the podcast.

Really excited to welcome to the InGoal Radio Podcast, Brad Fogel. We've caught you here working with Canada's 18 women's team as part of I guess, I don't know tournaments the right way, an exhibition series with The United States, two games into three. Thanks for spending some time with us today.

Thanks for having me. It's, obviously a huge honor and and pleasure to to be on the pod.

Pleasure and honor is all ours. We've done some work with The Goalie School you run back in Ontario, GTI, The Goalie Training Institute. We appreciate the support. You're one of our, I guess, guinea pigs would be you you were one of our sort of founders, sort of come in and and bring in Goal to all of your students. So that is it's been a, I think, a success for you.

It's definitely been for us, and we appreciate that support.

We wanna provide subscriptions to all of our all of our goalies that have signed up for for the summer, and it's easily become one of the most asked questions when kids are signing up as do we get our InGoal subscriptions again this year?

Yeah. I guess a few years ago, as part of our summer program, we were looking for ways to add into our packages for for our goalies, and we had obviously been been following along on the on the platform and reached out and said, hey. We wanna provide subscriptions to all of our all of our goalies that have signed up for for the summer, and it's easily become one of the most asked questions when kids are signing up as do we get our InGoal subscriptions again this year? So it's

I like hearing that.

Yeah. It's been it's been fantastic. It gives us a resource to guide them too so they can try and figure out the answers to their questions themselves and then come back to us and create talking points and situations that we can easily work through with them because they have a visual and an understanding.

Love it. Love it. So you're with the U18 women's team right now, but you've worked with the national team, with the development team for the past number of years. You've been working with the Toronto Sceptres in the PWHL, Owen Sound in the OHL, Kingston in tier two. You've been coaching for a while, but I wanna before we get into coaching and the evolution of your coaching, walk me through the playing days a little bit because you played some some tier two junior, little minor pro, CHL, even a couple little AHL back backup stints.

Yep.

That path, told me before we started recording that it started without ever playing AAA hockey, and yet you were able to make your way up that ladder.

Yeah. So my my hometown organization is the East Goldenbury Eagles, just north about forty five minutes north of Toronto. It's a small single a, double a center. And then the local triple a team is the York Simcoe Express. And it was just one of those situations where every year, try out.

That was the only triple a team I would try out for, make it towards the end and and released released late. And I just we had a great group of of guys at that in our organization, and I never felt the want or the need to go and try out for another AAA organization. So I was released, go back to my home center, and and play there. And I did that all the way up through midget. Got the opportunity to try out and play Junior C, 17/18.

Made that for the Georgina Ice. Played there for for two years and then made the jump to to tier two. Played with the Huntsville otters, Newmarket Hurricanes, which was nice. I got to come home. That was my local tier two team, so played there for a few years and then finished up with the Pickering Panthers.

You know, it's for me, it was always the want to play at the next level, and it didn't matter what level I I was playing at. Just continued to to work towards that and just the love of the love of playing, you know, allowed me to not really look around, you know, yeah, you know, I had a lot of buddies that were playing playing AAA, but I felt that I could compete with them and just kept going. And from there, tier two to Adrian College, which was a division three school in in Michigan. I got to be a part of that that school's inaugural men's hockey team at the NCAA level. I there for for four years.

We had a ton of success, you know, I think one, maybe two undefeated defeated seasons. Our senior year, we lost in the national championship. But, yeah, had had really had a really great four years. Good enough playing resume coming out of out of that to get the opportunity to sign a contract in in the central league and jumped around in in the Central and the East Coast for for a few years. Yeah.

Now there's a lesson there, like because I just feel like and obviously times have changed. Right? And the pressure on kids has changed as well in terms of finding places to play and being at certain levels, but that it doesn't you don't have to be at the highest level when you're 12, 13, 14 to still carve out a path in this game. I I I was was my takeaway. Am I am I reaching there?

No. Not at all. I think I think times have changed, and I don't know if my path is something that could be achieved in in today's day age Right? It it would be much, much harder.

But, yeah, I think, for me, it was never a pro aspiration. It was always play for the love of the game and play, you know, play at the highest level or push myself to play at the highest level I can. And, you know, as I got older, then it was, okay, what's the next step? So as I, you know, got into u 15, u 16, then I started looking towards junior. Then I got into junior c, k, what do I have to do to now get to tier two and junior a?

Got to junior you know, knew that the OHL wasn't wasn't an option for me, and looked towards the school route. You know, two, three years into school, okay. My record's good enough. I'm playing well enough. You know?

Is is pro something that might be attainable? And then working working towards that and seeing what options were there. You know, it's kinda step by step, you know, I wasn't somebody who had those pro aspirations right from right from the start. And to be honest with you, doing what I am right now was the ultimate was the ultimate goal. So even playing pro, my mindset was how much can I learn?

How long can I stick around here to build a resume and create the knowledge needed to give back to students when I started when I started coaching? So you

just had an eye towards coaching. Correct?

Yeah. So that, you know, that was a lot of my a lot of my drive through through those years was, yes, I'm playing, you know, minor pro hockey and that that's amazing. You know, I was realistic that the NHL was never for me attainable unless something crazy happened, but the knowledge that I was gaining playing at those levels and traveling around and training and things would one day ultimately allow me to give give that back to that knowledge back to my students.

I'm curious, what did you take in school? Like, if you had an eye towards coaching, was there any education component of schooling?

Yeah. So in for me in schooling, I did athletic training because I my again, my thought is I wanna stay in the game. So if I if it wasn't on the playing side, coaching side, that would give me an opportunity to work my way up on that side and then as well as an education. So I would, you know, I did I did the education stream as well. Again, how much can I learn and, you know, learning my students and and things like that?

Because at the end of day, coaching's teaching, right? And, like, they're they go hand in hand and sometimes, like, there are people that know a lot about hockey, but knowing a lot about teaching is a different thing, like how to reach people, how to get your message across. So it sounds like that was a part of your education path

for sure. Yeah. And I'm sure if you ask any of any of my teachers, you know, through elementary and high school, they would have said, you know, Brad's gonna be, you know, a high school gym teacher kind of thing. So so, yeah, it it was always that education piece has always come naturally to me and then on the teaching side, so yeah, so education and then and with the athletic training that gave me, you know, a baseline knowledge but into biomechanics and how the bodies move and react and things and how, you know, prehab, rehab, those types of things. So, it was just kind of trying to build out the best resume I could for ultimately doing the job I am today.

Where's the passion come from for the position? What's it rooted in? Because clearly to to be thinking about your path outside of playing while you were playing, you know, you clearly have a ton of passion for this position. Where did what's that rooted in? Where'd you find the love for this for not just hockey, but goaltending?

It came organically. My dad can't skate. You know? You know, we weren't a crazy hockey family. You know?

I grew up just playing playing hockey. I I played rep as as a defenseman for my first couple first couple years. I was given the opportunity to try out for a goalie. We only had one goalie at the time. I would jump in if he was sick or on vacation, and I had a coach that said, Next year, try out for goal, and if you don't make it as a goalie, there's a spot for you on defense.

And so he gave me that opportunity and, you know, I tried out for goal and made it that first year on the single A team and never looked back. I think, you know, for me, I've- I worked with goalie coaches growing up, but never had that one guy. Steve Davies is a legend in and around the Toronto area, and he was still a very close friend of mine, and I would do his camp every summer, and we became very close. And he's the one that got me into the coaching side and helping out with his camps and stuff like that. But back then, it was a weekend, you know, a week long camp in the summer here, a week long camp in in the summer there.

I didn't we didn't have the resources to have somebody consistently year round. So I think for me, watching hockey and watching the goalies on TV, my thought process was like, I like that. I'm gonna try that. And you go and you try it and practice. Does it work?

Does it not? Kind of figuring that out. So I think for me, that stemmed a lot to the love of it, is that figuring it out and, you know, what works, what doesn't, why can I tweak this? Okay, I didn't feel bad with it, but I didn't love it. So I think, you know, the thought process of solving problems is kind of what's built the built the passion, and then it's a position that and a sport that is constantly evolving.

So, you know, you're you're constantly trying to find trends and and figure things out. So it's it keeps your brain your brain working and I think I think that for me in my mindset is is one of the things that just drives the drives the passion.

Work at different levels. Like I said, PWHL with Toronto for the past three years, as part of their coaching staff, different levels with Hockey Canada Junior. How does it does the coaching change at all depending on the age and experience of the kids? Obviously, it does to a certain degree, but even at the highest level from, you know, say Owen Sound and you've got a Carter George and then over to Toronto and the Scepters or, you know, like these various levels with the national team, is it what changes? How is it different at each level?

I think the the biggest thing is just how how you're delivering your messaging and what conversations you're having with with those goalies. You know, you take somebody young who might just be starting out and coming up, you know, through my personal company, we're trying to build their foundation, so there's more kind of do this, do this, you know, this is how you do this, right? We're we're trying to teach them a foundation so that as they grow, they work off that foundation and create their own identity. When you get to the junior levels, major junior and pro, and here with the national team, there's more of a conversation base of what is your foundation, right? Who are you as a goalie? And then from there, you kind of dive into, okay, what tweaks are you looking to make in your game? What are we seeing in game and from film and and go from there? So you're making more minute adjustments, right, that have more of a performance based decision making, and then with the younger goalies, we're trying to create that foundation.

So it might be a little bit more black and white with the younger goalies at the start as they create that foundation, but then they grow, you you give them a little bit more freedom to figure out who they are and what style they are and their individualized approach to the position, and then you work through that.

So it might be a little bit more black and white with the younger goalies at the start as they create that foundation, but then they grow, you you give them a little bit more freedom to figure out who they are and what style they are and their individualized approach to the position, and then you work through that. So, you know, yes, there's a lot of variations. I think the messaging is the same in terms of this is the position, you know, and we're still all covering the same size nets. Right. We're working, you know, through the same crease, so a lot of similarities, but it's the conversations that are held before or during training sessions or competitions that that varies.

For the kids, for the for the youth ones that you're starting from the ground floor with, what does that foundation look like? Like, what what to you is the key to building a good foundation if you're starting from scratch with a young goalie?

Yeah. So, for for us, and, know, I'm glad that it's become more of a trend is is movement, is is feet. You know, unfortunately, we are seeing more more younger kids convert solely to the position at a younger age, and they don't have that skating foundation underneath them first.

To put you on the spot, but if you could, would you have more kids stay in keep skating out longer?

100%. And and we'll, you know, if if a student does come to us at a young age, say, you know, six, seven, eight, you know, and they tell us that they want to start training and playing golf full time, the first conversation we have is no problem, but we still want them to do power skating lessons and learn their edges and learn how to control their body as well. So that, you know, that's a big message that- that we put forth to the- to the parents. We can teach the technical aspect of it pretty simply, but the- the athletic side, the the movement side is a lot harder, especially for a younger kid who doesn't have that skating mobility foundation to now slap a bunch of gear on them and ask them to still be as agile as, you know, a forward would be with their stops and starts and their edges and their body control.

So as much as our skating as goalies sometimes exists at least within a crease, within a box, so to speak, it's important to go outside of that box to learn to control. Like, a lot of the stuff we see in terms of skating and edge work isn't directly how you see a goalie move around the crease, but we we know there's value in it to help them move around the crease and help them be creative and athletic and access edges. Is that a fair way to

put it? Yeah. You your, you know, your primary movements as a goalie is a simplified version of what the forwards and defensemen are are doing, but we have to be more precise, more explosive, have better decision making, the ability to hold our edges or release our edges. So, you know, it's a simplified version, but there's more layers to the complexity of it. So I think you if we if you don't have the ability to shift edges, shift shift your weight from side from side to side and control your body while we're asking you to do so many more dynamic things with your head, your hands, your shoulders, your hips, it becomes a lot.

And younger kids struggle to do multiple things at the same time and that's where we just get locked off and very boxy or our weight's not proper and it takes longer to break those habits or create those athletic features in young athletes than it does to, you know, take somebody who is hypermobile and, you know, almost all over the place and, okay, you're a great athlete, let's simplify this a little bit a little bit more. Yeah.

Okay. I love that. And then when you're working with the older athletes, you talk about they all have I mean, again, you presume as they get to that level that skating and movement is a strength, but then they all have other strengths and other focal points. Is language important? There are so many different terms.

So when you're working with a new athlete or new goalie, are there times where it's like your term for something might be different than their term for something? And do you need to make sure you're all on the same page? We've seen some NHL teams. I know where a Goalie director will come in and basically build their dictionary Yeah. So that everybody that comes into the system is not just speaking just using the same terms and the terminology to speak the same language.

Yeah. We we do the we do the same thing, you know, so before our season, if I you know, when I'm working with our our higher up athletes, we'll we'll sit down and we'll work through our terminology, we'll work through our systems and our zones and things like that and how my natural verbiage is and terminology is. And then, you know, there are certain spin offs, you know, working with with Carter George, you know, and prepping him for LA, I now ask him, you know, what are the terms? And I, you know, and ask ask their their development team, what are the terms you're using? So, you know, for someone like him, I would try my best to replicate those terms.

You know, we use the term drift for that small kind of movement backwards, they use motion. So, you know, in in those cases, you know, I'm trying to use that terminology so it doesn't complicate things for him and it's it stays consistent. If there's not a situation like that, then we're we're going to use our terms so that everybody's on on the same page.

Left shoulder dominant post play, I would imagine it'd be something he would have learned quickly and sort of that just a very different system.

Yeah. And, you know, and and as as the coach for that that team at the at the time, it it's it's my job to make sure that's being reinforced. Right? Whether it's the terminology, how he's doing it, talking, you know, about what what his feels are with with those and, you know, he's gonna have his own his own way of doing it within within their system. And then it's, you know, it's yeah.

It's having like I said, to the other question, it's having those conversations with them and and making the small adjustments needed.

You mentioned drift, motion, recoil. We've heard it something that we've seen come back into the game more widespread. I mean, it's I think it's always existed. Guilty myself of when I first heard recoil from Boston of making it seem like it was brand new, but others have used it, throughout. Are we seeing it pot more?

I mean, I noticed just doing it you doing a drill just now with with your 18 team Canada athletes, you know, there's a it was very slight. I think it was maybe heels out to middle of the crease on the middle of the skate before movement, but is that, as the game becomes more dynamic, something that maybe you've always emphasized, or is it something you're emphasizing even more these days? How's that evolved?

Yeah. For for us, it's always been been a part of our teaching package, but I think the biggest difference now is how much we're- what's the depth that we're starting from, right? As the game gets more dynamic, you know, back when, you know, I played, we were getting out three or four strides above the crease, making that hard stop and, you know, and cutting back-

It's a lot

of fun. Spotting back and, you know, creating a lot of flow and a lot of motion. Now, we're not there.

It's more like, almost like a releasing of the edges and just ever so slight.

Exactly. So, you know, for now it becomes a timing mechanism, you know, and more of a weight shift to create that that motion or that drift recoil rather than a c cut to work backwards. So now one of the hardest things for for our athletes anyway is controlling the pace and and understanding what what that timing feels like when we're asking them to maybe only go one skate blade distance. Right. Right?

So we we use a percentage wise, so if our toes are at the top, touching the top of the crease, we call that a 100%. And then their skate blade, you know, one skate blade, 12, you know, 12 inches ish back is now 75. So feeling that distance of going from a 100 to 75 to 50 and, like, kind of knowing what that what that feels like is something that we work on a a lot because it's easy to go fast, it's hard to go slow and controlled and just create that little bit extra, you know, pre movement that that we need.

That fine balance between having that little bit, like, them being able to do it without ending up on their heels with their weight. Like sort of still stay over pucks while moving backwards. Like you talk about the, you know, the biomechanics and stuff like that. Like that's one thing that, I mean, maybe just because I'm an old man, I struggle with that. As soon as there's that try to do a little bit of the drift, the tendency is to get on the heels and now everything is coming off.

Yeah. You know, and and some goalies are different, you know, and it's you know, we we talk to our athletes about what are your feels? What are you feeling? I know what I'm seeing, but what are you feeling? And that those feels are what we try to get our athletes to relay to us.

I love that, because what you, how, sometimes you may be thinking in the same terms, but how they express it or sense it is different than what you see. That's key.

Yeah. So if if, you know, they they say, you know, they they feel like they're getting heavy on their heels, k. Well, we wanna counterbalance that. So I want you to feel like your hips are rising up a little bit and that's going to force, you know, hopefully put the the weight back transferring to the balls of their their toes. And, you know, is it something that I'm seeing from a spine angle posture thing?

Are they flattening out and, you know, creating and getting their head disengaging from the puck? So, you know, walking them through. Finding out what their feels are allows us to hopefully simplify the fix and create that. Some goalies, well, everything looks good, they still feel they're getting stuck. So now is it an ankle issue where we're just being a little bit too heavy on our inside edge?

So we call it, you know, getting to the flats where you know, or the two thirds of of the blade. So if our blades are three millimeters wide, right, if I'm very heavy on my inside edge, I'm only gripping with that one millimeter. So if I can kinda manipulate my ankles a little bit, you know, and and get a little bit taller with my ankles and now get on two thirds of my blades, I'm gonna now release and be able to work a little back a little bit more.

Ever had this is out of right field I'm throwing at you, but as you you have that conversation, I think, of balance points and all these biomechanics you're talking about. You ever had a point where, like, hey, like, a simple adjustment to your profile of your skates can actually change the balance and the distribution? Has that become part of the conversation for some of especially the high end athletes?

Yeah. It is. You know, not not a lot because, you know, usually usually those athletes They're comfortable. Are are comfortable. Some people are are very big into those profiles, and some people, I would say most aren't.

Don't know. Don't know and don't- don't try, right? So unless they've been given somewhere down the line the opportunity to have multiple sets of steel and try different profiles, but, you know, it it is a conversation with the, you know, with the athletes that do have, you know Access to access to that, you know, and it's just, you know, what are you using right now? Do we wanna rock her a little bit more? Do we wanna rock her a little bit less?

And, you know, it it can come down to looking at the skates that they're that they're using as well. Different brands, different pitch angles, you know, lengths of blades, things like that.

One of my favorite things is that when the Hockey Shop had their Tendy Fest a couple years ago, one of the blade company, I think it was Pro Sharp, came out. And so, obviously, with the quick quick release on a Bauer, they brought all the different profiles. And so goalies were able to and multiple sizes of goalies were just trigger release and go try a different profile. And, obviously, that's really hard to do on a on a widespread scale, but it was really interesting to sort of watch that and watch the feedback from some of these kid and how it, you know, in some cases, such a subtle change can significantly alter sort of how they felt on their blade.

Yeah. Abs yeah. That's a cool thing to be able to to try to try that. You know, and a lot of the time, it would have to be a specialty event, especially for for the mass number of athletes.

An idea out there, folks, if you're listening and you happen to run one of these companies. You talked about what you see versus what they feel. Where does video I mean, you had the iPad out today. Where does does video can there are times where video can be a massive help to that because a goalie might feel like they're presenting a certain way or doing a certain thing, but it might not might surprise them to see how it looks. Have you ever run into that?

Yeah. Think, you know, for for today's athlete, video is huge, but I think we have to be aware of, like you said, I prefer to have the conversation first, I want to know what their feels are and what they are feeling, have the conversation of what I'm seeing, and then go to the video to- to- to show that. If we can get away from doing it without seeing the video, for me, that's the ideal because we don't have video replay in games and during practises. So, you know, if we're looking for long term self development and self growth, those fields become so much more important because that's what they're we call it hunting fields. So in practices, if we're looking to make adjustments, then if something feels we're trying to make an adjustment and it feels awkward, that's that awkward feeling that we're hunting because we're making that adjustment.

If we're not feeling that awkwardness, we're back to kind of what we're trying to get away from. So video is there for those things as a reinforcement.

But they don't help you in a game or in a pro that's a great point, haven't Right. Thought of

So, you know, we call it hunting our feel. So I the more we can hunt that awkwardness and that positive awkward feeling that we're getting

We know we're making a Exactly.

And the more and more we do that, the less and less we're actually going to feel it, and now it's becoming more natural and we're working towards the, you know, the positive adjustments being needed.

Okay, this is a little bit out of right field. I think it's my second out of right field question. I went to a baseball game recently, so I'm I'm stuck in their verbiage. Three goalies. You've had three here.

Not on the like, the ice session just now was two for a game day, but you've had three here. You deal with three in the PWHL all the time. This is about to become a huge question in the National League. How do like, as a goalie coach, how do you manage that? What's the best way to manage that?

There's a whole bunch of guys in in the NHL that are gonna be trying to figure this out this year. What's what's your experiences with having three goalies, especially in a, you know, professional environment like the PWHL, but even here, like, this is a professional environment that you're operating in this week with Team Canada?

Yeah. It's it's a conversation that's that's come up a few times, and even in Owen Sound this year at the start of the year, we had we had three three as well. On the woman's side, it's not that big of an issue because they've all gone through college. And then college, you have three or four goals. Of course.

So, they're more they're more aware and used to that system, that rotation, and and kind of the ebbs and flows of getting in, getting out.

I hadn't thought of that. Yeah.

Yeah. On the guy side, it's it's very new to them as we see I'm sure over the next few years as we see more CHL players going to the NCAA and kind of experiencing that.

They'll get used to it.

They'll get used to it. The biggest thing with managing that for me is our calendar. So let's say we have four days of practice, we have Monday through Thursday, It's setting up that calendar and that expectation. K. Monday and Monday and Tuesday, right, we're working a three goalie carousel.

You're getting in. You're getting your six to eight eight shots, and you're grabbing a drink as you skate by the bench and you're going down to the other side, and we're gonna carousel and kind of flow back around. Nobody's getting overworked. Let's make sure that when you're in there for those six to eight, it's high quality reps. It gives them the opportunity to, when they jump out, get a couple quick things from me before they jump down to the other side and get into the same this that same drill.

As we get closer, k, now we're gonna start playing with the percentages a little a little bit if, you know, maybe you know, if we know who's gonna play or start that closest game towards the weekend, they're starting to get a little bit more net time. The other two are gonna work off. And then as we, you know, the day before a game or whatever, then it's the conversation with the starter is, what do you want? Do you want the starter do you want the starter's net in, let's say, 80% of of the volume, or do you want a lower percent? How are you feeling o over the week?

So having those conversations with with the athletes and kind of working it, you know, through through the calendar, in in my opinion, is the best way way to do that, but it's each team's a little bit different. Each goal you know, goalies are a little bit little bit different. Obviously, goalies want the net. It's just making sure that, you know, the the quality of of work that we're putting in while we're in there remains high.

Do you have to be sensitive to that it's not the same goal that it's always getting the skill session reps? Or and that that like, I mean, the player skill session reps, and that's maybe that's a question. Like, how do we find value in those reps where it's all about the forwards working on skills in situations that might not be game realistic, goalies for a long time. I mean, I was guilty of running stories about it, how it can be bad for goalies, but the game's gotten so dynamic. How do we can we find a way to make sure those are positives?

We can. I I I believe we can, and, you know, it's the goalie's mindset. If if you're walking into one of those sessions already thinking, I I'm just here to get hit hit by pucks, then that's what you're going to get out of it. You know, if you're walking into those sessions and, you know, if you're a younger goalie or an older goalie and you don't have a coach there, you know, it's about what can I get out of this? What am I working on with my coach or my team that I can try and maximize my time my time on the eyes?

Right? Exactly. Exactly.

And can it does it sometimes have to not be results?

100%.

Because because I mean, at the end of the day, like, know, I'm watching mean, we're in Vancouver, so some of the skill sessions around here are like, Macklin celebrating walking into the hash marks with time and space in his head up, right? Like, there's there's a real there's a reality aspect to that, but but sort of finding things you can work on without getting tied up in the results.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and it's it's being a little bit selfish, you know, maybe the players don't love it as much if you're holding your edge and you're just focusing and trying to tell yourself, you know, glove or blocker and reading re reading releases, you know, and not going down every every time. But, you know, you're out there, yes, for them to have somebody to to shoot on, but you need to get something out of out of it yourself. So it's going in with a game plan, and that might change from drill to drill. If we're even in practice, coach draws up a drill on the board.

I'll take the goalies for a quick quick second, and it's, k, how do we dominate this drill, and then how do we challenge ourself for this drill? So let's say it's a two on one kind of a POP or a pass off pad drill. K. How can I dominate it? I'm going to look for fars for far side low, and I want stick on puck from a distance I'm comfortable with.

Right? And preset my eyes and preset my thought process through the through those mechanics. If they try and go short side high or far side high, I have to react to that. Right? It might be a split second late, but I need to realize that.

So I think as long as we have a developmental mindset throughout practice, throughout training, we can maximise as as much as we want.

I need to under understand what that rush type or that situation type, what's the most likely outcome that's coming towards me. Once I can get some good reps in into there, then it's, k, how do I challenge myself? Whether it's a depth adjustment, whether it's I'm going to if it's low, I'm going to just work on tracking down hard with with my eyes, let it go off my pad, and now I'm working on my explosiveness east to west to recover on those. So I think as long as we have a developmental mindset throughout practice, throughout training, we can maximise as as much as we want.

I noticed in your drills today there was a I think the word you used was processing. There was a a decision making element even though you were the only shooter. Found a way to work that into drills. Is that at every age important so that there are times, I guess, where we're just working on technique and trying to drill things and and make sure we've dialed in the biomechanics. But as as the game becomes so dynamic, is it important that we don't have too much of that push to here, push to there, push to there, shot in the gut patterns that everybody can almost go on autopilot with?

Where do you find that balance?

For for me, it's the balance of what are we trying to get out of that that session. And each athlete might have might have a different different keys for you know, on the on the same ice and and the same session. For us here, you know, it being a pre a pregame skate, you know, it for I think it's important to not just go through the motions and, you know, and physically get get hit with pucks, but we're pry trying to prime our nervous system and our decision making.

And turning the brain on, not just the body.

Yeah. Right? You know, we we want to be able to to touch on all of those for in a in a morning skate, and it doesn't have to be a complex multi option drill. It can be very you know, something very simple, but I just have a you know, for us today, it was a quick decision making of feet versus slide, And it wasn't I was at the same distance, it was just, you know, getting those early eyes, seeing a situation, and, you know, make making that quick decision. And a lot of the time, the simpler it is, the harder it is for for some of the goalies because they they overthink, they overmove, they overreact, and, okay, now it's process, execute, repeat.

Love it. Love it. Brad, I've taken up more time than I said I would, which is what I tend to do. We've got one more game tonight, so best of luck there. It's been a great series so far for for your team and and your goalies.

I am looking forward to picking up this conversation and continuing it as you continue to coach at all these different levels. It's been a real pleasure and we and and again, we do thank you too, like on the other side of it. Seeing how you guys use InGoal with your goalies has reinforced for us that we're doing some good things and it's helped us expand the idea of being a resource for goalie schools. So being sort of first through the door and being your idea and coming to us for that, it means a lot to us. So thank you very much.

More than welcome. Thanks for having me.

Cool, dude.

Yeah. With with a fascinating background and just some of this we've we've been privy to some of the stuff that they do at GTI and the way they set set up their program. And, you know, we've had a chance to sort of look over the the goaltending, for lack of a better term, manual that they give to their kids once they reach a certain age to sort of help them think through the game. And there's just there's a ton to it. Like, it's a lot of really well thought out approaches to the position, really well explained and organized.

And so not surprised that this was a really great interview. And like I said, hopefully, first of many. PWHL right now working with Hockey Canada and yet still really young as a coach. So it was really enjoyable. I'm I'm glad he made the time amidst a busy week with Hockey Canada to sort of catch up with us.

It was fun to watch his team play. They they won two of three against the Americans in a little, sort of series that wrapped up their training camp. Team USA's U18 squad came up to Richmond and played a three game series, and it was nice to see sort of good crowd out to support it and good hockey. And, it was nice to watch him work with his goaltenders as well. Got to watch some drills that he was doing, in a morning skate ahead of the final game.

Went out there for that and just, again, just him as a shooter and two goalies using one of the goalies as a passer and using different elements, how he held a stick or where he positioned himself so that when the goalie looked across early eyes on the lateral pass, they knew whether to slide or come across on their skates. In other words, adding decision making, understanding the value of not just making it a repetitive drill, but making them think their way through it just like you have to think your way through a game. So adding a dynamic decision making element to a drill where he didn't have any other shooters to help him. I I think just a sign of the type of thoughtfulness that goes into his work at GTI with the PWHL and with Hockey Canada.

Outro

So many, avenues for these, people that are giving back to the game and helping goaltending and the goaltending journey through minor hockey, and obviously, where we're focused on a little bit more at times at the professional level. Hutch, just just looking at this right now, phantom power, did did it hold up the entire day or did you need to reload it?

I don't know. I'll tell you when we edit the podcast at the end. But if you don't reload it, it's a button. I sure hope it held up.

You sound magnificent, so I'm I'm hoping as well. If if if this is any indication as to the quality that's going into the the server, then then I think you're pretty good.

All I had to do is press a button all these years.

Yeah. I'm surprised that it's the tech guy you hadn't figured that out sooner. You're you're the tech genius in this crew. It's not a good sign.

I'm kind of disappointed in him too.

Don't put genius in quotes on that one, please. I'm not sure. Air quotes.

Expected better from you on the technical side of it.

Yeah. Daren, I'm gonna be honest. I expected better from you on the technical side of it too. Like, you should know what Phantom Power is.

You gotta pick something up in that studio. No idea what Phantom Power

am the one of these three that nobody should have any expectations for. But both of you two, I hold to a higher standard. I'm just Daren, can

you just do me a favor? Next time you're in the studio, ask somebody who should know what Phantom Power is. Report that.

Okay. Like, is there is there a button or something that I can get to lean into the phantom power? I feel like I should be flying them Millennium Falcon. No. No.

Just just before going to air. Hey, has anybody checked if we got phantom power here?

I could need more phantom power over here.

I don't know. Like, the kids have tuned us out. Between Phantom Power and the Tragically Hip, the Millennium Falcon Millennium Falcon reference, although maybe more of them are are up to tune with Star Wars, and Arthur Fonzarelli in Happy Days, we have lost the youngs. We are all about the olds.

I think Tragically Hip should really be the band of all goaltenders. Tragic hips and all that.

Oh. Wow. Dad jokes to wrap us up.

That's really good. Well, I have big expectations for next week's episode on InGoal Radio Podcast. Thanks, fellas. Talk to you next time on InGoal Radio, the podcast presented by The Hockey Shop Source for Sports Langley at hockeyshop.com.