Taking it to the Next Level, Vol. 1: Be An Athlete First, Goalie Second

Be An Athlete First, Goalie Second

Many goalie parents have the highest of hopes for what their child will accomplish as a hockey player.  Their child has dreams of one day playing in the NHL, or at least at the highest possible level.  As parents, we do everything in our power to facilitate that dream.  We make early morning drives to the rink.  We spend a fortune on travel hockey and private coaching and off-ice trainers.  Thousands of goalies are working hard to make the dream a reality, but what does it take to ACTUALLY MAKE IT COME TRUE?  It doesn't happen by chance, that's a certainty.

So I posed this question to one member of our Hockey Goalie Parents group.  Renowned goalie coach, Steve McKichan of FuturePro Goaltending has coached many a college, olympic and pro goalie to success over the years.  Here's a video showcasing just a few. Suffice it to say, Steve knows a bit about what it takes to make it to the Big Dance.

First topic up:  What's the best pathway to success as a hockey goalie?  Here's what Steve had to say:

Be an Athlete First – Goalie Second

One of the key things that NHL scouts look for are multi-disciplined athletes. If an athlete can learn and excel in other sports with different skill sets and physiological requirements than it bodes well for their ability to play the current sport at the higher professional level. An argument can easily be made that mutli-disciplined athletes have a far greater chance of success at the pro levels than one that doesn't.  I have been an NHL and junior scout and know first hand this is the reality.

The biggest issue I have witnessed in over 2 decades coaching goalies and running schools is the fact that too many athletes focus entirely on one sport. In this case, many goalies specialize in their position early in their athletic development, risking their future success.  We have all observed this early specialization in other sports. Amazing skills and feats are highlighted by 9 and 10 year olds on You Tube. It is cool to see the little boy execute perfect chip shots on the golf course but where will he be in 10 years?

I have several reasons for this opinion and it is important to walk through them and understand how early specialization can cause the opposite result from the one most parents want.

The first reason early specialization should be avoided:

“Young athletes who participate in a variety of sports have fewer injuries and play sports longer than those who specialize before puberty.” (Brenner 2007)

–     Journal of American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)

If an athlete focuses entirely on goaltending before 15 – 16 they put themselves at a significantly higher risk of injury.  As well, 22% of athletes who specialized before high school, completely dropped ALL athletic participation once they were in high school. So putting all you eggs in the goaltending basket will see increased risk of injury and a significant risk of athletic burnout.

The second issue that arises in this discussion is the misguided belief that parents have with their children’s “careers”.  They don’t have careers…yet.   And too many parents see their childrens' participation as financial investments hoping that specialization will see their money returned when their kid gets to the NHL. They mistakenly believe that a strict focus on their chosen position and sport will increase the success rate of becoming a pro. This is wrong.

Using goaltending as an example, here are my personal guidelines:

1. Maintain your goaltending passion and hunger by not stopping pucks year round.
   Play during the winter and hit a camp or two in the summer. Play other sports and meet new friends in the spring and summer.  If we can ignore his personal transgressions for the moment, Tiger Wood’s actually had the perfect father for his development. On the driving range, Tiger would beg to stay longer because he loved practicing so much. He had to stay longer. Earl Woods would have none of that. He always left well before Tiger wanted to. This always left him wanting more.  Too many parents tell me that their kid loves hockey so much they really want to play all the time. By not allowing your goalie to play as often as they want is actually helping them instead of stunting their growth and development as a goalie.
   
2. Diversify into other sports so there is some latent learning that translates into helping your goaltending. In the new NHL athleticism is key to get to your positional targets and in the battle for loose pucks. Sports like lacrosse, tennis, racket ball, and soccer have great physiological inputs and hand / foot eye benefits that will easily translate into a higher save percentage.  Modern goalies are now growing up addicted to process and technique. Obviously they are important areas for goalies to develop but not at the expense of athleticism and plain ugly battling.
   By scrambling around in a squash court or lunging to score an amazing goal in lacrosse, we create an athletic diversity that will surely pay dividends down the road.
   
3. Once you reach the age of 15 – 16 then a more refined approach can begin and specialization will become a welcomed approach.
   When legendary goaltending coach, Mitch Korn scouted me as a junior he was very interested in my participation in other sports. I was a starting quarterback, played soccer, baseball and golf.

To reach your goaltending goals you must maintain hunger, passion and become gifted multi-dimensional athletes. Your goaltending development should be secondary.

Did you ever notice that the Vezina trophy winners are invariably dynamic, athletic and are not rigid cookie cutter goaltending robots?

UP NEXT:  What Are Scouts Looking For?

Goalie Guidance with Steve McKichan

I recently had the privilege of talking on the phone with former NHL goaltender and goalie coach Steve McKichan, owner of FuturePro Goalie School.  I posed a question to him that has been gnawing at me for some time.

Are kids so busy practicing, playing games and traveling to tournaments that they no longer WATCH hockey anymore?

Anecdotally, it seems that watching elite level goaltenders play the game is a great way for a young goalie to learn and implement critical techniques into his or her game.  Some may argue that doing is better than watching, but Steve had some very interesting thoughts on this topic.  He was kind enough to put them into writing for us.  Below is a piece Steve wrote exclusively for us here at Hockey Goalie Parents.  

Practice More! Play more Games! Do more Privates!

Of course! We all know that our precious little smurf is well on their way to a D1 ride or a starting spot ahead of Lundy in the Rangers. Especially, if they can practice every night of the week that they are not playing, going to their trainer or doing private lessons.

Let's take a step back and digest this:

•        Doing more private lessons won't get you any closer to the NHL podium.
•        Doing a million practices can actually make you worse.
•        Playing a ton of games won't necessarily give you the required experience and results.

As counter-intuitive as this sounds stay with me….

Many goalies work their technical game to a refined sharp point during private lessons. And in my experience, in the absence of the advice below, rarely it is maximized in game performance delivery.

The overwhelming majority of practices make the goalie worse with: poor gap in drills; little time to follow pucks post-save; and super unrealistic drills like 2-0s, endless non-pressured breakaways and the classic one-timers from a man shooting from the ladies' tee.

Simply playing a ton of games is not helpful, especially when uncorrected errors pervade and when fatigue causes sloppy effort and cheating in certain situations.

Here is my prescription and the hidden point from above:

• Be a kid. Practice less, Play less games and do fewer private lessons.
• Spend more time with friends.
• Spend more time on serious effort on your studies.

If you earnestly do the above three suggestions and follow the advice below you will be FAR ahead 5 years from now. 

Calculate your time spent in the car, time at the rink and time on the ice and MATCH that time with critical study of other people's hockey games.  Don't just watch other games. Study them with cause and effect in mind.

For instance, turn on an NHL game and use your DVR to go through all the scoring chances and puck handling touches. Ask yourself what the situation was. What happened? Why was the scoring chance successful? Why was the scoring chance denied?

Consider this: A goaltender does not stop a mid-speed rim. The puck continues on the the half boards where your winger lets you down. The puck ends up at the point. Then it is slap passed to a guy on the back doors and he one-times the puck bar down.

Now the goalie can blame the players and indicate that he had no chance because it was a sweet shot. But........cause-and-effect observations reveal the entire drama train could have been prevented, not with a huge back door save, rather if the goalie simply stopped the rim dump successfully in the first place.

Learning what you are actually looking for is a learned skill but it needs to start now.  So stop playing and mindlessly watching so much hockey. Get your "thinking brain" on and start critically analyzing games. Dedicate equal time to this as you actually give to the physical playing of the position.

In the future you will thank me and offer me game tickets instead of offering me fries with my chicken wrap.

There are many ways to achieve the kind of critical analysis Steve mentions in his piece. DVR games, as he suggested. The announcers often replay key goals and saves and offer an analysis of the play. Take your goalie to watch your local pro, semi-pro or college team play live and watch with an analytical eye.  If you don't know the game well enough to analyze it, buy a ticket for your goalie coach and ask him to come along.  Social media offers a wealth of information.  Steve posts great content on Twitter at @FutureProLive.  Greg Balloch (@GregBalloch) posts his "Six Saves" on Twitter every night in which he posts short video clips of the best saves of the night in the NHL.

Whatever method you choose, remember that it is critical to allow your goalie to not only execute physical motions but to LEARN and UNDERSTAND the game.  This is truly one of the foundational skills necessary for your goalie to take his or her game to the next levels.