Riding the pine ...

One of the, um, joys of coaching youth hockey is dealing with parents who have very, well, different ideas regarding what youth sports are all about. Here's my latest column for the New England Hockey Journal. Let me know what you think ...

RIDING THE PINE …

Aside from team placement, there's probably no thornier topic in youth hockey than playing time. And, like most issues regarding hockey, sports, and life in general, it's typically easy to identify – "My kid's not getting enough ice time!" – but more difficult to address. That's because it can be a very complex issue.

This is especially true for goaltenders, for one reason. There's only one goal to protect, and goalies, traditionally, don't come off the ice. If a youngster is the only goalie on a team, he/she plays the entire game, every game (which isn't always a good thing either, as some shell-shocked 'keepers have discovered). If you have two or three goalies, the situation becomes exponentially more complicated. Here are some thoughts on how to handle it, as a coach and as a parent.

There are "age-appropriate" guidelines for distributing playing time. Assume a team has two goaltenders. For Atoms and Mites, I recommend that each play half the game, alternating starters. Younger goalies can get tired or bored. When their minds start to wander, pucks get behind them. Asking them to only play half the game (with the natural break between periods) gives them a chance to stay mentally fresh.

Things start to change at the Squirt level, and accelerate at Pee Wees. These youngsters are older, stronger, and better prepared to focus from start to finish. That ability to concentrate – keeping your head in the game – is just as important as good technique, but must be developed. Many Pee Wee teams with two goalies continue to have the goalies play half of each game. I'm not a proponent of this approach, especially as kids enter middle school.

Older goalies play the entire game for a number of well-grounded reasons. Foremost, goalies are at their best when they're in a rhythm. That's their comfort zone. Plus, substituting a second goalie halfway through the game puts that child, and the team, at a distinct disadvantage, since they're coming off the bench cold (the worst-case scenario is the second-half goalie gives up a soft goal or two, and suddenly feels the weight of the team on his shoulders).

Again, the only time I vary from this stance is if a team is only playing one game on a weekend; then it's only fair to give both kids a chance to play. Ideally, if you have two goalies, your team will play two games each weekend, and they can each play a full game. The other goalie – and I've found this to be surprisingly controversial – ought to suit up as a backup.

Why? Because at this critical age, young netminders should learn all the responsibilities of the position, not just the fun stuff (i.e. making saves). This speaks to the "team" element of hockey. Taking a turn on the bench is the goaltender's lot. I realize it's another trip for the parents, but as goalies move up the ladder, it becomes more commonplace for one child to play the entire game.

However, the "back-up" goalie is still a vital part of the team. Having two goalies also gives the coach options if the starting goalie gets hurt, or the team is getting pummeled that day, and the starter needs a break. This stuff happens.

Here's another example. In one program I know of, there are three goalies for two Pee Wee teams. When the coach put out a note suggesting that one child play a full game, and another child dress as a backup, he got three distinctly different replies. One family said "Absolutely," adding their son was a part of the team whether he was playing that day or not. Another family didn't respond at all, and haven't made their son available for any back-up duty. The third responded, but disagreed with the coach's thinking.

Essentially, Dad No. 3 said if the kid shows up, he/she should play. He added that watching from the bench in a cold rink wasn't "going to endear the game to an 11-year-old." While I understand the sentiment, Dad No. 3 should rethink his priorities. First, the game doesn't need to "endear" itself to anyone. If watching from the bench discourages a child from playing, then he's in the wrong sport to begin with. Or the wrong position.

Plus, parents should understand that other kids notice the commitment a backup makes by showing up, even if he/she isn't playing. That endears the child to his/her teammates. Further, the back-up goalie can learn a lot about the position by observing from the bench, listening to the coaches, and cheering on teammates.

At the Pee Wee level, kids are transitioning into a different realm of sports, where the better kids play more. There's competition between teams, and within teams. Allowing a child to sit home and not make an effort because they don't expect to play makes a mockery of what sports, and teamwork, are supposed to be about.

Finally, at the Bantam, Middle School, and High School, the rules change again. Now, it can be pretty cutthroat. While sports are always about building character, and teaching life lessons, there's a lot more emphasis on winning. Coaches at this level will put the players on the ice that they feel give their team the best chance to do that.

Sports have now become a meritocracy. I've listened to many parents complain that their child is buried on the bench because the coach is playing favorites, or doesn't like their child. That doesn't pass the giggle test. Ninety percent of the coaches I've met aren't looking to win popularity contests. They want to win games.

Now, what makes things dicey in this day-and-age of high school user fees is this question: "Why am I paying if my kid isn't playing?" Remember, all a user fee does is promise a child the "opportunity" to make the team, to earn a spot in the playing rotation. There are no other guarantees. Period. Sports aren't like band or chorus. There are a finite number of spots on the ice. If you're a goaltender, there's only one. That's a harsh reality. But better goalies rise to the challenge of competing for that spot.

Do coaches screw up sometimes, and neglect to find playing time for the loyal foot soldier (say, when playing a weaker team, or when the score is lopsided)? Sadly, yes. But they're not so much blind to the kids on the bench as they're myopic with regards to the kids on the field. They develop tunnel vision.

So do some parents. The worst thing a parent can do in this instance is enable a child when he/she starts making excuses (or, as often happens in youth hockey these days, find another program). There's much to be said for sticking with a tough situation, and bringing your best effort – your "A" game – every time you suit up. Trust me, those kids always manage to get enough ice time.

FINIS

Back to basics ...

I'm not sure exactly what Lorne Chabot is doing here, but the man won the Stanley Cup and Vezina Trophy, and is enshrined in the Hall of Fame, so who am I to judge?

Happy Black Friday, gang,

Hope you're all recovering from your Thanksgiving holiday feasts. With everyone's waistbands stretched just a little tighter today, I thought it was the perfect time to post my November column of The Goalie Guru from the New England Hockey Journal. Let me know what you think ...

BACK TO BASICS ...

Goaltending is pretty simple: Get to the right spot, at the right time, in the right position, and you'll make the save more often than not. However, getting to that spot, in the correct stance, can be surprisingly difficult. That's goes double for youngsters new to the position, or new to goalie skates and all that bulky equipment.

Don't think so? Try this little experiment (like I did). Have your youth hockey coaches get together for a goalie-coaching clinic with an experienced goaltending coach. Have the goalie coach demonstrate a very simple goalie-specific skating sequence, including shuffles and drop-steps (we won't even get into stuff like butterfly slides or pushes). Then make the coaches to do the drills.

Nine times out of 10 (if not more), regular hockey players will struggle with these maneuvers. Even guys who are been really good players. I've seen it firsthand, over and over. Why? Because goalie-specific skating is so much different than anything a position player ever has to perform. That point rarely hits home unless you make the coaches do it themselves, so they can see for themselves. And I've got to admit, it's hilarious to watch (most wind up looking like the legendary Lorne Chabot, shown in the accompanying photo -- no disrespect to Mr. Chabot, of course).

Now, the idea isn't to embarrass anyone. Good coaches know that. But it's much like the great lesson my brother Sean taught me a few years back, when I told him my daughters were starting to play lacrosse. "The first thing you have to do is get yourself a girl's lacrosse stick," said Sean, who has coached a number of girls select teams in New Hampshire. "That way, you get to see for yourself how much harder it is, and how frustrating it can be."

Sean was spot on. The idea of having every youth hockey coach at least go through the motions of a goalie-skating drill will help nurture an understanding, to clearly demonstrate that goalies have a much different role, and a much different skill set that comes into play on the ice. Plus, if you have a coach who can get pretty good at it, you'll have someone on staff who can help develop better goalies, and probably save your program a bunch of coin (on full-time goalie instruction) in the process. Goalie coaches will always be an asset, due to the intricacies of the position, but having a volunteer coach who can at least make sure the goalies are doing their warm-up skates properly is a big plus.

So, now that many leagues are already past the parity round and into full swing, I'd like to offer a quick primer, featuring several essential particulars that EVERY hockey coach ought to know about goaltenders. If you're going to have high expectations of your young netminder, then you ought o expect the same of yourself. Let's start with the basics:

Stance. You want your young goalies to look balanced, with a nice bend in their knees, chest up, gloves in front, and stick on the ice, about 10-12 inches away from their toes. Imagine a spotlight in the middle of the goalie's chest. If that spotlight is shining straight down into the ice, there's a good chance he's bending too much at the waist, with straight legs, and is off balance, with nose over toes. That spotlight should be shining out at the puck. Get them to bend their knees! Also, beware of the catch glove that's either scratching the back to the goalie's knee (too low), or ear (too high). You want to see the gloves a few inches in front of the body, so the goalie can comfortably see them in his peripheral vision.

Angles. This is another simple, yet critical, concept. Unless the puck is behind the goal line or at a really sharp angle (say, by the corner), you want to be able to draw a straight line through the puck, the goalie's chest, and the center of the net (not the back of the net, but that plane between the two posts). If they set up on the shooter, the shooter is going to have a ton of net to hit. Remind your goalie that it's the puck that he has to stop, not the shooter.

Skating. This involves movement, stopping, and setting up for the shot. (shuffle, drop-step, butterfly slide, butterfly push). The eyes naturally follow the puck. A good goalie follows his eyes with his hands, and then the rest of his body. Try to make sure your goalie can move while staying compact, if his stance, without opening up too many holes. For example, when a goalie shuffles across the crease, his skates should remain parallel, both pointing at the puck. Too many youngsters open up, like a T-glide, and that's just too slow when the puck is in tight. It also opens holes in his stance. Stopping on a dime is just has important, because if a goalie isn't "set" for the shot, they typically wind up on all fours, or on their backside.

Recovery (correctly). Perhaps the most under-appreciated, but most vital, skill a goalie has to master. Experienced goalies recover so quickly they make it seem effortless. Young goalies can look like they're either nailed to the ice, or flopping around like a beached whale (how often have you head a coach yell "Get up!"). Give your goalies adequate time to recover properly after each shot (unless it's a battle drill, where desperation saves are required). Have them concentrate on good technique; the speed will come as they mature. The rule of thumb? Goaltending is rear-wheel drive. Make sure your goalies recover using the backside leg, so they can drive toward the puck.

Following the rebound. This is another critical component of good goaltending. Most goalies can catch pucks because it's become second nature. Following the rebound has to be done just as quickly. This can only be done through repetition. If you don't allow your goalies time to recover toward the rebound, or don't require them to do it, then it won't become habit, and it won't happen in a game.

Last, some random early-season equipment suggestions for first-time goaltenders:

Leg pad straps. Some kids have their pads strapped on like corsets. That's often the result of a well-intentioned parent who simply doesn't know how to put the pads on. Do yourself a favor. Get involved, and have the sales rep at your local hockey shop show you the correct way to strap on pads. Then teach your kids to do it themselves. If the pads are a newer model, they have to be loose enough to rotate when the child drops into the butterfly. The idea is to land on the knee stacks on the inside of the pads, not the face of the pad. That's why those stacks are called "landing gear."

Knee pads. Get some. These will protect your goalie's lower thigh, below their pants.

Boot straps. If the straps that go underneath the skate are too long, cut them back. Excess strap can only result in one thing, and that's tripping up your goalie (for old goalies like me, that's a torn ACL just waiting to happen).

Catch glove. Break it in. Do this while sitting in front of the tube, watching the Bruins, opening and closing, opening and closing. There's no easy way to do this, but if you don't, you won't catch pucks.

Paddle length. Goalie sticks come in different sizes because goalies come in different sizes. Get a stick that allows you goalie to hold it with his pointer finger on the top part of the paddle while in a comfortable stance, blade on the ice. Paddles that are too short or too long will throw your goalie out of balance.

FINIS

Hey! You hoser ...

I admit it ... growing up, hockey wasn't my first love. Nope. When sports first piqued my interest -- and I couldn't have been more than 6 or 7 at the time -- I fell for baseball. In a big way. I couldn't get enough of the game, playing every chance I got. And when it rained, or it was late at night, or there weren't any other kids around (a rarity in my northern New Jersey town), I would bury myself in books about the game. Which led my mom to bark one of her most memorable lines (for me, anyway), when I was struggling with math in grade school: "I don't understand how you can remember Carl Yastremski's batting average for the past 10 years, but you can't figure out a simple math problem."

It helped that my Grandpere -- my maternal grandfather, and a native of Quebec -- was a big baseball fan too. He was the primary reason that my brothers and I, growing up in Yankees country, became diehard Red Sox fans. For that alone, I'm forever grateful.

But Grandpere was no mere spectator. He loved playing, and some of my fondest memories of my childhood are going out back, when my grandparents were visiting from New Hampshire, and playing catch with Granpere until I felt like my arm would fall off. And he was no young man at that time. Today, in my 50s, I have a much greater appreciation for how tough some of those patch and catch sessions must have been on him (especially when he played catcher, as I was perfecting my Juan Marichal high leg kick delivery).

A little bit later, maybe 4th grade or so, Grandpere introduced my siblings and I to another grand sport: hockey. About the same time, we started playing soccer too, spurred on by Grandpere's oldest son, my Uncle Art (who was quite a baseball player in his day). Slowly, baseball's special place in my heart got crowded out, as I became enamored with these new sports.

Still, I've always maintained a fondness for the Grand Old Game. Not necessarily the professional version (I was one of the fans who never forgave baseball for the 1994 players' strike that resulted in the World Series being cancelled. I always thought the game was greater than petty squabbling, even if those squabbles involved millions of dollars). Today's Major League game -- even my beloved Sox -- holds little  for me, with overpaid players bouncing from one team to the next, often mailing it in after hitting their big pay day (Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia being one of the shining exceptions). Even the regular-season games last forever, and the World Series games start so late, I'm typically sound asleep by the fourth inning.

But I still love the sport. And that's one of the reasons this hilarious video -- "Clark the Canadian Goalie" -- never gets old for me. In one short, sweet video clip, it captures so much about what I still love, about both sports. "Bo, Dieon, Clark ... He really could be one of the great two-way players!" Too funny ... Check it out.

FINIS

One puck ...

Cap Raeder (left) during his WHA glory days.

'Morning, gang,

With the hockey season in full swing (it is, after all, early October, for crying out loud), I wanted to address to role of goalies in your typical youth hockey practice. The old saw is that the goaltender "is the most important position on the ice." But you'd never know it watching just about any practice session from high school (and some colleges) down to Atoms. During these sessions, goalies are more likely to resemble cannon fodder, taking shot after shot after shot until they're ready to drop.

So this past summer, I asked long-time coach Cap Raeder, who I first watched play between the pipes at the University of New Hampshire in the mid-1970s (the accompanying photo is from Raeder's professional playing days with the New England Whalers of the short-lived World Hockey Association), what he thought of the barrage of shots that a practice goalie has to fend off. The spin-off of that conversation was this Goalie Guru column for the New England Hockey Journal. The column mentions two goalie-specific shooting drills, but there are dozens that both goalies and position players can benefit from. For details, drop me a line.

ONE PUCK

The key to good goalie drills is keeping things realistic

Robert "Cap" Raeder has been around the block. The former University of New Hampshire All-American goaltender (1972-75) from Needham, MA, followed his Wildcat playing days with a five-year professional career, which included a stint with the original New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association. He's been an assistant coach and head coach at the collegiate level (notably Clarkson, 1985-89) and an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Kings, Boston Bruins, San Jose Sharks, and Tampa Bay Lightning.

So, it's safe to say, Raeder has just about seen it all on an ice sheet. And when it comes to practice plans for goaltenders, he can boil it down to a simple, over-riding philosophy: One puck.

"That's all you need," said Raeder. "And that's how many they play the game with."

Obviously, Raeder is speaking figuratively, but his point is clear, and important. Hockey coaches need to let go of their outdated love affair with having dozens of pucks in play during any one drill (if the drill includes goaltenders). This is especially true during shooting drills, which many youth hockey coaches like to use as part of their warm-up regimen. Somewhere along the line, the idea of goalies seeing a gazillion shots got ingrained in the game's coaching psyche. If 15 shots are good, 50 must be better, right?

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Think of it in terms of simple math. If you have 20 kids lined up on the boards, racing off on a breakaway or a give-and-go shooting drill, the goalie is going to see 20 shots for each kid. If every kid takes five shots (not many, if you ask them), the goalie sees 100 pucks. And that's before the practice is 15 minutes deep.

Here's another favorite – the time-honored 3-shot drill, when three kids supposedly loop around three different cones (at varying distances from the goal) to take three quick shots. That looks great on paper, but it falls apart pretty quickly on the ice. Faster kids catch slower kids and shoot simultaneously, often without even looking up. The result is a goalie who, at best, doesn't know which shot to focus on, and, at worst, risks getting injured by the shot he's not watching.

Again, these drills simply don't reflect hockey the way the game is played. They do have some predictable results, few of which are positive.

Rapid-fire shooting drills are a sure-fire way to produce a shell-shocked netminder. And even if your goalie doesn't develop the yips, he or she is almost certain to develop bad habits. Here's why: Shooting drills like this are exhausting, which translates to young goalies standing like statues in the middle of their crease. They stop moving. They stop telescoping to challenge the shooter, and stop recoiling properly to play the deke. They don't drop on low shots, because dropping into the butterfly means having to get back up again (I challenge almost any youth hockey coach to do that 100 times in less than 10 minutes). And they completely stop thinking about rebounds, because all they're worried about is the next shot (and the next one).

So, in a game, these same goalies aren't as quick to look for a rebound, or follow it, because it hasn't become habitual. They're more likely to stay deep in the net, because that's what they've become accustomed to. They're as likely to recover on the wrong leg as the correct one because, in practice, they consistently rely on their stronger leg. And if they become puck shy from all the rubber they see in practice, that problem becomes magnified in a game, when the pressure is on.

Now, I understand the benefit for the kids taking a ton of shots. That repetition builds critical muscle memory. But they don't need a living, breathing target. Get a shooter tutor. They're cheap, and easy to install. Even better, they don't lie. Instead of a puck slipping through an exhausted Squirt goalie (who then has to watch the ensuing celebration), kids will find that weak shots get stopped. The same way they get snuffed out in a game, when they're facing a goalie who hasn't been run into the ground.

The key is having coaches develop an eye, and some empathy, really, for when a goalie gets tired. You can't just ask them – most youngsters would rather get grounded for a month than admit they're tired. But watch their body language. The legs are usually the first to go, and it's usually pretty obvious. Tired kids simply stop skating.

Even better, think outside the box when it comes to shooting drills. As Raeder says, emphasize drills that focus on one puck at a time, giving the goalies time to follow rebounds, and recover correctly. Here are two favorites that I borrowed from Brian Daccord while working at his Stop It Goaltending camps this past summer.

Two-net drill (any place on the ice along the boards). Set two nets roughly 12 feet apart, facing each other, with a goalie in each. A single player starts between the goalies. Coach (or another player) tosses puck in, and the "player in the middle" can shoot on either goalie. Rebounds are fair game, but bank shots off the boards aren't allowed. If the puck goes in, gets covered up, or goes out of play, coach yells "new puck!" First goalie to give up two goals loses (with a time max of 20-30 seconds). Then players rotate.

High-low drill (using the full offensive zone, or one third of a full sheet). The goalie is in the net, which is set up in the crease. The coach has the pucks at one face-off dot, and the players line up behind the opposite face-off dot. There are two orange cones on the edge of that second face-off circle, about 4 feet to either side of the inside hash marks. The goalie starts by facing the players at one corner of the crease, and initiates the drill by drop-stepping across the crease toward the coach. The coach sends a pass between the cones to the opposite face-off dot, with goalie following the puck. The player receiving the pass must either drive below the lower cone (an in-tight play), or high above the higher cone and across the high slot for a shot. At game speed. The goalie reacts accordingly, protecting the short side on the low drive, and stepping to the top of the crease on the high move. Rebounds are live, and goalies should be encouraged to follow all rebounds, even those that go out of play (Tip: If the player drives high on his backhand, encourage a backhand shot).

These are just for starters. I can't see any reason why coaches wouldn't want to embrace these types of drills, because they're remarkably beneficial to position players as well. They are battle drills, requiring quick hands, quick feet, and quick decision-making. Every one gets a great workout, while developing essential skills. And since the coaches control feeding the pucks, they control the tempo of the drill. Which is a win-win for everyone, including the goaltenders.

FINIS

Welcome home ... !!!

Hi gang,

By and large, Boston sports fans enjoy the reputation of being among the most passionate and most knowledgeable sports fans on the planet. It's a well-deserved reputation for most diehard Hub fans (not those bandwagon-jumping, Johnny-come-lately pink hats that show up every time one of our teams goes deep into the playoffs!). That hard-core fan status was never more evident than one day this past August, during my coaching sessions with Stop It Goaltending at Merrimack College.

Again this summer, I had the chance to work with Cory Schneider, the Marblehead native and former Phillips Andover/Boston College goaltender who now plies his trade for the Vancouver Canucks. Schneider has worked closely over the yeas with Brian Daccord, who owns Stop it Goaltending. This spring, he got some quality minutes during the Stanley Cup playoffs, and acquitted himself well, especially in the finals against the hometown Boston Bruins. No surprise there.

Schneider was and is a tremendous young goaltender, a guy who has continually honed his game throughout his amateur and now professional career. He's patient, which you need to be when playing behind a $6-million goalie like Roberto Luongo. He's also a genuinely good guy -- dedicated, articulate, humble, hard-working, and good-natured. That last trait came in handy one day this summer, during one of our camp's normal end-of-practice "game time" sessions.

Schneider was working out with our older college goalies, sharpening his game after a brief respite that followed a long, long season (making it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals meant Schneider's season lasted well into June). During these afternoon sessions, our Stop It counselors (who are campers themselves, typically older high school or college-age guys) would bring a number of the younger campers to watch the "big boys" play. I love this concept, because it gives these youngsters -- even the most cocky of the bunch -- a chance to see how much better they could be, if they keep at it.

On this particular afternoon, the counselor shepherding the kids was a young guy buy the name of David Cunningham, who played at Belmont Hill and was angling toward a possible Division 1 scholarship. Cunningham is an Arlington kid, competitive as all get out, but with a mischievous sense of humor. As we wrapped up our drills on the ice, Cunningham positioned his fuzzy-cheeked charges in a corner of the Merrimack College stands by one net. Which happened to be the net that Schneider occupied.

Our "game time" is a chance for our shooters -- mostly D-1 guys and young pros -- to stretch their legs a bit after each session. It usually features four nets and four goalies in the offensive zone, and three or four shooters firing at any net, needing to score four goals in 40 seconds to win each "game." If the goalies allow fewer than four goals, they win. Depending on how much time we have left, we usually try to squeeze in a 7-game series.

So for the first game on this particular day, we asked four goalies to jump in the nets. Schneider, showing one of the reasons why he's so good, jumps right up and takes a net by the corner. Next to all the young kids. And how do they show their love for the local guy? By chanting. But not the chant you might expect. The kids in the stands, maybe a couple dozen of them, start serenading Schneider with the classic Boston Garden mantra, "Let's go, Bruins! Let's go, Bruins!"

I started laughing so hard, I just about fell over. In fact, everyone began  howling. When I looked at Schneider, I could see Cory was rolling his eyes, getting a good laugh as well. Schneider might be the local guy, but these kids weren't going to let him forget where their true allegiances were.

To cap it off, the goalies won the "game," shutting down the shooters. As he left his goal, Schneider tapped the glass, letting the kids know that the Bruins might have won the war last spring, but he just won this little skirmish. And they could expect to hear more from him in the years ahead. It was a perfect hockey moment, equal parts competitive and jovial. Just a wonderful snapshot from a great summer on the ice.

Life Behind Bars

Hi gang,

Here's a sneak peek at my September column for The Goalie Guru in the New England Hockey Journal, on the importance of a good mask for goaltenders, and how much they've improved since I first took up the position four decades ago. If you get a chance, let me know what you think.

LIFE BEHIND BARS

I love watching those old grainy, black & white games from yesteryear that the NHL Network pulls out of the archives every now and then. My 12-year-old hockey-playing daughter Brynne is amazed that these guys played without helmets. But when she sees that goalies once played without masks, her reaction is almost disbelief. Me too.

Hockey without helmets was commonplace in my youth, but I never once got between the pipes – not on the streets and certainly not on the ice – without some sort of facial protection. And I'm glad I did. Like most goalies, I have my own tales of on-ice accidents and frightening near-misses.

Shortly after my clan relocated to Manchester, N.H., in my first practice with my new high school team in November of 1974, I learned firsthand just how important a good goalie mask was. Some of the team wise guys obviously decided they were going to find out if the new kid from New Jersey had the stones to play net. We had a big winger named Ivan Bellemare who had a hard, heavy shot. During warm-ups – warm-ups! – Ivan unloaded a rocket from just above the left face-off dot, hitting me squarely between the eyes. I had an old Cooper helmet/cage combo in those days; Ivan's shot separated the cage from the helmet and sent me reeling. The back of my head smacked into the crossbar, transporting me into la-la land.

When I finally came around, I looked at my cage, and the straight bar running from my forehead to my nose was bent perfectly at a 45-degree angle. In fact, when I show people the cage (yes, I kept it, the only high school memento I still have!), most think it was designed that way. Until I show them where all the welds are cracked. That mask, I'm convinced, literally saved my life.

I promptly switched to a Jacques Plante-style fiberglass mask, which looked cool but had it's own shortcomings. The mask was designed to prevent "serious" injury, which it did commendably, but garden-variety shots to my face would still sting like crazy (that's ol' Jacques in the photo above, donning his first rudimentary mask after getting his nose sliced open in a game against the Rangers). Today, though, there's no excuse for goalies to feel like they're not adequately protected from the neck up. The new cage/helmet masks combine the best design elements, making sure the contact points are both raised from the face, and adequately cushioned.

"Masks have benefited from higher certification standards and better materials," says Bauer Hockey's Henry Breslin. "Goalies will always suffer a few bumps and bruises on their body, due to the nature of the position, but now their heads are better protected.

"The position has evolved where most goalies go down to make a save, which makes the head more vulnerable, but the masks have become better at all levels and have helped minimize head injuries."

Breslin is right on the money. The butterfly technique, especially among younger, smaller goaltenders, leaves the head more exposed (high school and college shooters, in the tradition of Bobby Hull, will even buzz a few pucks past the goalie's ear just to see if they can "soften" him up). Yet I still see many youngsters with inferior, or ill-fitting, masks. And I'm not the only one to notice this trend.

"Another huge mistake I see all the time is a parent investing literally thousands of dollars in fancy, custom-colored gear with the big brand names on them, all the most expensive gear from their child's feet to their shoulders, and then look around the shop and say 'What's the cheapest mask you have?'" says Matt Garland of ProMasque and the Goalie Barn in Wilmington. "I courteously remind them that they've started at the wrong end. A properly fitted mask made with the best available materials is the absolute first place to invest their money.

"A bruise on their knee simply does not compare to what damage can be caused with an inferior mask," says Garland.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that buying a good mask is enough. That's akin to the government throwing money at social problems, instead of finding viable, long-term solutions. Goalies, and their parents, need to make sure the mask fits correctly. "It's important to adjust the straps when you try a mask on – that's why they're there," says Breslin. "There shouldn't be a significant gap between the shell and back plate when the mask is on. Finding a mask that is comfortable and fits your head is critical."

Garland agrees wholeheartedly. "A loose fitting mask is an accident waiting to happen," he says. "The mask must fit properly and make contact all around the head and face. Gaps can cause serious 'stingers' or even concussions."

Garland is also a stickler of masks that are designed properly. Like Breslin, he believes masks should properly placed safety straps to keep the mask on the goalie's head, and defective "ridges" to disperse the impact of a shot. "Goalies [and their parents] should be leery of masks that have 'flat spots' in the center of the forehead," says Garland. "This allows for no deflection of the puck, and the goalie will take the full brunt of the shot's G-forces in the head."

In the same vein, you need to make sure the mask can handle the types of shots your young netminder will face. "As the young goaltenders grow and begin to play at a higher level, goalie mask materials must also match their level of play," says Garland. "Many customers are unaware that many masks are made of plastic, or a plastic-composite 'sandwich.' These are very flexible masks that should not be worn much past elite Pee Wee play. The best mask for an elite goaltender is a handmade, hand laminated, fiberglass and bulletproof Kevlar mask."

Likewise, be aware that not all goalie masks at your local shop have cages that are approved for all levels of play. The popular pro-model "cat-eye" cage and the square cage sported by Tim Thomas last year aren't allowed in most amateur leagues, from college on down through Mites. If you're not a beer-league player, look for CSA, CE, and HECC certification.

"An uncomfortable mask will consistently take away from a goalie's ability to focus and hurt performance," says Rob Lauri of GoalieMonkey.com. "Good vision is also a must when choosing a mask, as well as the different cage styles that are available on most masks today."

Last, once you make sure the mask fits, you then have to be diligent that it's worn properly. All the time. This responsibility normally falls to the parents, but needs to be shared by coaches as well. At the Stop It Goaltending camps I worked this summer, we were constantly reminding kids to keep their masks down over their face.

"Many young goaltenders like to emulate their favorite pros, and pop the mask up on their head to get a drink, then just nod their head lightly and the mask falls down onto their face again," says Garland. "That's cool to watch, but very dangerous in reality. If a goalie can easily pop his mask up and down on his head, his opponents can knock it off just as easily in a collision. One need look no further than the accident involving Joe Exter from Merrimack College a few years back. The results can be horrific."

On March 8, 2003, Exter was playing in the Hockey East playoffs against Boston College when he went racing for a loose puck with Eagles' forward Patrick Eaves. The two collided, Eaves' knee striking Exter in the head, knocking his helmet off. Exter's unprotected head slammed into the ice, fracturing his skull. He was diagnosed with a serious concussion, put into an induced coma, and endured a series of operations.

Exter's story has a happy ending. He recovered, played professionally for a brief time, and recently left his position as coordinator of the Warren Strelow National Goaltending Mentor Program to become an assistant coach at Ohio State. I've talked with Exter, and know for a fact how fortunate he feels to have escaped a more devastating outcome. Parents need to take make sure their young goalies don't have to rely on Lady Luck.

FINIS

Measuring a man's heart

Hi gang,

Here's my August column for The Goalie Guru in the New England Hockey Journal. After the amazing championship run by Tim Thomas and the Boston Bruins this past spring, I took some time to reflect on this remarkable competitor.

THERE'S NO WAY TO MEASURE HEART

No one, it seems, has a lukewarm opinion about Bruin's goaltender Tim Thomas. For some reason, the NHL's reigning Vezina Trophy winner as the league's best goaltender elicits strong opinions, and not all of them are kind.

People either love or hate the acrobatic netminder from Flint, Michigan. I can understand why folks enjoy watching the 37-year-old perform his game-time acts of legerdemain. The ones I can't figure out are those who ridicule Thomas, calling him undisciplined, unpredictable, or mocking his dietary habits with taunts of "Tubby." Who are these people?

It's easy to dismiss the bandwagon-jumping, pink hat fans who derided Thomas when, a year removed from his first Vezina campaign in 2008-09, muddled through a middling 2009-10 campaign. Thomas and the Bruins prevailed in the Winter Classic at Fenway Park that year, but by season's end, young Tuukka Rask, Thomas's fabulous Finnish understudy, had become the darling of the know-it-all set.

But even during his remarkable bounce-back 2010-11 season, Thomas had serious detractors among hockey's cognoscenti, people who supposedly are intimately familiar not only with the game, but also the singular position of goaltending. Many goalies, and goalie coaches, sniffed at the media for heaping praise on Thomas, arguing that most ink-stained wretches don't really know the game, or that Thomas benefits from a strong defense that specializes in keeping opponent shots to the outside. They delight in the occasional howler that Thomas gives up, conveniently forgetting that almost every goalie does the same.

Even among my coaching colleagues, Thomas is the guy that drives almost everyone nuts. The reasons why were eerily similar to those that kept Thomas from breaking through the NHL barrier in the first place. He's not a cookie-cutter stylist like the New York Rangers' Henrik Lundqvist. In fact, Thomas's style was a distinct absence of style. To say that Thomas is unconventional is pure overstatement. While we typically teach a calm, compact approach, Thomas is all frenetic energy, with flailing arms and legs and stick.

But there is a method to Thomas's goalmouth madness. He plays the game organically, with an uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time, a sure sign that he can read the play. His lateral quickness is extraordinary, perhaps better than anyone playing the game right now. In a game predicated on getting the goalie to move, in order to open up net, Thomas's knack to get centered on the puck at the precise moment the shot arrives is exceptional.

But that hasn't stopped his detractors. Thomas can't skate, they said. He's a hot head. He's too erratic. Through all the criticism, Thomas never once stopped believing in himself, and that proved contagious, to his teammates, and to many fans.

I've always rooted for Thomas. Maybe that's because I've always been a fan of the underdog, and Thomas's tortuous road to NHL stardom certainly qualifies him for the role. More than anything, I love the guy's heart. Did I have him pegged as an NHL All-Star when he was toiling away for the Providence Bruins? Not a chance. But I can honestly say, with a straight face and my hand on a stack of Bibles, that I liked him. A lot.

The guy simply won everywhere he's played. Why are people so quick to overlook that fact? He won at the University of Vermont, he won as a minor leaguer, he won in Finland, and he won in the best league on the planet. He did it with a frenetic, scrambling style that stymied shooters as often as it stressed coaches and GMs. And he did it with his heart on his sleeve, a heart that drove him to reach levels that his physical gifts couldn't reach alone.

As a kid growing up in New Jersey, I always found myself cheering for goalies who overcame long odds, and did it with a pugnacious nature. New York Ranger Hall of Famer Eddie Giacomin was told to give up the sport as a youngster after he suffered serious burns in a kitchen accident (in the days of the Original Six, with only a half-dozen goalie spots in the entire NHL). Battlin' Billy Smith, one of the original New York Islanders who also ended up in the Hall, endured brutal expansion seasons but hung tough to become the backbone of the four-time Stanley Cup champs.

Plus, what a lot of naysayers fail to appreciate about Thomas is that, despite the chaos that surrounds his net, the puck rarely winds up in it. Does Thomas give up some bad goals? No question. In fact, he's given up some brutal tallies as recently as the Montreal series this past spring. When he did, Thomas's critics were quick to pounce. And, just like he's done all his life, Thomas shut them up, not with barbed retorts or snarky Twitter postings, but with his play between the pipes.

Not surprisingly, the majority of the hockey press was effusive in its praise of Thomas. NHL goalies Marty Turco and Kevin Weekes raved about his playoff performance. The following nugget, by my friend James Murphy of ESPNBoston, captures Thomas, and his 2010-11 season succinctly and fittingly.

"What Thomas was able to accomplish this past season after having off-season hip surgery and being peddled around the trade rumor circuit is simply amazing" wrote Murphy in his season recap, in which he gave Thomas an A+ grade. "Always one to thrive off adversity, Thomas persevered again and this time his perseverance rubbed off on his teammates, who took on the identity of one of the most resilient teams in recent memory. Thomas was 35-11-9 with and led the NHL in GAA (2.00), save percentage (.938) and had nine shutouts in the regular season.

"But Thomas was far from done, as he just got better when the playoffs arrived and was clutch for the Bruins, even as some in the media and a certain opposing goalie questioned his style. He was 16-9 with a 1.98 GAA, .940 save percentage and led the NHL in playoff shutouts with four. Just as he did in the regular season on so many occasions, Thomas put the team on his back and took them all the way to the Cup."

Watching Thomas hoist the Cup, and the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, was indeed one of the most satisfying things I've witnessed in my 45 years of hockey. His second Vezina Trophy, which he received a week later in Las Vegas, was sweet frosting on the cake. Oh, and did I mention his two ESPY's for Best NHL Player and Best Championship Performance?

Murphy chose the word "perseverance," but I prefer "desire." Thomas, through sheer heart and determination, willed himself into an NHL caliber goaltender, and a Stanley Cup champion. He did it with a steely resolve that overcame incredible odds, constant rejection and career-threatening hip surgery (which, I have to add, he never once used as an excuse!).

That's how he plays the game. The key to Thomas's performance lies in his passion. He is a relentless competitor who simply doesn't quit. Ever. Many aspiring goaltenders think they have that trait, but it's rare. And it's almost impossible to teach.

This past month, while coaching with Stop It Goaltending at Merrimack College, I watched a young Casey DeSmith, who is heading to the University of New Hampshire, make a near-impossible save during our "game time." These end-of-practice contests pit shooters against goalies, usually 4-on-4, with no defense. Shooters can fire away at any net. Left stranded by a cross-ice pass, with a shooter looking at a wide-open net, DeSmith dug in and flew across the net, blocking the shot.

"That was a heck of a save," I told DeSmith. "It was lucky," he replied, smiling. "No, it wasn't," I said, "You might have been lucky to get a piece of it, but there was nothing lucky at all about the effort. Nine goalies out of 10 wouldn't have done that. Tim Thomas would be proud."

DeSmith just laughed. He probably had no idea that, in my book, there's no greater compliment.

FINIS

Getting the right gear, at the right price

Hi gang,

The following is my July installment of The Goalie Guru column for the New England Hockey Journal, which coincided with a Goalie Gear Review feature that I wrote. Needless to say, goalie gear has changed dramatically since the days our friend in the accompanying photo, who guarded the nets for Japan in the 1948 Winter Olympics (I think!). Just remember, even the best gear in the world is going to cause problems for you (or your young netminder) if it doesn't fit!

IF THE PADS (AND SKATES AND GLOVES) FIT

You may be familiar with the old real estate maxim: Location, location, location. The equivalent in the goalie equipment formula is this: Fit, fit, fit.

I've often compared goalie equipment to blue jeans. You've got to find the manufacturer who designs jeans that fit your particular body type. When I was a kid, Levis were all the rage. But they were cut narrow through the butt and thighs, two areas where I – as a soccer player and a hockey goaltender – had some extra heft. Of course, I insisted on wearing Levis to be cool, no matter how uncomfortable they were, until one afternoon when my mom managed to drill some sense into my thick Irish skull.

We were shopping together, and she suggested I try on a pair of Wranglers (probably because they cost half as much as Levis). I refused. So Mom called my bluff. It was the Wranglers, or I paid the difference. So I tried them on, and "Voila!" They fit like a charm.

Like so many things Mom taught me over the years, this was more than a lesson in blue-jean finances. It was about me not being afraid to be my own person. That's helped me almost every facet of my life. That includes not only deciding to play goalie, but also in finding the right gear. I don't go with what's popular; I choose what's right for me.

"The most important aspect to consider (when buying goalie equipment) is without a doubt the sizing," says Rob Laurie of GoalieMonkey. "Properly fitted gear is a must for maximum performance. A goalie should use as many resources as they can to assure proper fit, which can include trying on other goalie's gear, looking at local shops, consulting with a knowledgeable customer service rep, referring to sizing charts, and reading web forums with posts from other goalies who have experience with that gear."

Rob is absolutely correct on this score. The more information you have, the better, especially considering the investment. The following is a compendium of advice on proper fit from several of the leading gear manufacturers, including Laurie, Henry Breslin of Bauer, Sonya Dibiase of Reebok, and Eric Marvin of Warrior. Though some suggestions appear repetitive, I left them, if only for emphasis.

What are the most important factors when shopping for goalie equipment? Are those factors different for young players, teenagers, and adults?
Henry Breslin: The most important factor for younger goalies should be fit and comfort. During key development years it is critical to buy gear that fits properly so that goalies can focus on technique, positioning and movement. If you are a teenager or adult playing regularly, it's worth the investment to purchase higher end equipment because it will help your game. If you're playing recreationally, there's tremendous selection and value for your dollar that wasn't available 10 years ago.
Rob Laurie: Price is always a concern when shopping for goaltending gear at any level, but I think value overrides that in the long run. Properly fitted gear chosen at the right performance level is a must. Also, a goalie should choose gear that is designed for his playing style, whether that is more of a blocking/butterfly style (Henrik Lundqvist) or more of a hybrid standup style (Ilya Bryzgalov).
Sonya Dibiase: Goalies should be looking for a product that is comfortable and fits well. To ensure the best fit, it's important to try the goal equipment on in the store. Before strapping on a pair of pads, goalies should be wearing their skates and pants. Always put on a chest protector when trying on gloves and pants.
Eric Marvin: Young players need proper sizing. Buying properly fitted gear will allow the goalie to have an easier time learning the fundamentals and that will ultimately benefit their game. Do your homework and understand the differences between the equipment, and how it will function for your individual habits.

What is the biggest mistake goalies/parents make when buying equipment?
HB: Buying gear that is too big or too stiff. With the speed of the game increasing, it is vital that goalies can comfortably move and not have their gear slowing them down because it isn't the right size. Large and stiff equipment will cause problems, particularly for younger goalies who are still developing.
RL: We see two things. Generally, it is trying to buy gear that the goalie can "grow into," which if taken to the extreme will only hurt the youth goaltenders ability to move properly. Also, buying gear with too much emphasis on price and not getting the proper performance level can be an issue.
SD: The biggest mistake is buying equipment that doesn't fit properly. EM: Buying the proper size seems to be a common problem, but also knowing how to wear the equipment once they purchase it to suit their playing habits.

What is the best way to determine proper fit in leg pads? Does the style of play influence the size of the pad as well as the style?
HB: To guarantee proper fit for a pad, try it on with skates and pants. There are slight differences between companies regarding sizing, and even the different styles of pads within Bauer fit a bit differently. The only way to know you're in the right size is to have the pad on your leg with skates and pants so you can confirm everything fits properly and works well together.
RL: Make sure the knee is properly lined up with the pad's knee cradle. An ankle-to-knee measurement and consulting with a properly trained sales rep is second only to actually trying the pads on and lining up the knee. From there, the plus sizing should be matched to the goaltender's height and playing style. Typically, stand-up goalies go with the smaller thigh rise and butterfly goalies opt for taller pads.
SD: The goalies knee must be in the center of the knee cradle with their skates on. Goalies that have a wide butterfly (knees far apart) need longer thigh rises, which is available in +1 or +2 sizing.
EM: If you're looking to buy a set of leg pads, take your skates, pants and knee pads and try the pads on at the store. This will give you a true fit, because each piece of equipment effects the way the pad sits on your leg and where your knee falls into the knee cradle. See how well you move in the pad. Then decide if you can to add length in the thigh to accommodate your style without hindering your movement.

Four final thoughts. First, don't cut corners on protection. There is nothing that will dull a goalie's enthusiasm for the position faster than getting hurt. Second, if your 13 or older, learn how to put the pads on correctly to maximize their performance. If you're a parent, encourage your child to do the same. Three, when you go to the store, schedule plenty of time. A few hours spent trying on different models will pay dividends later.

Last, get pads and gloves that are predominantly white, with neutral highlights (like black). Why? From a technical standpoint, white pads make it harder for shooters to see the net. But white also goes with every color of uniform. And, believe me, that's important.

"Goaltenders today more than ever want their gear to look good and match their teams colors," says Laurie. "A retailer's customer service should be able to direct a goaltender to gear that fits all of these specific factors and find equipment that not only performs well but looks good while doing it."

After all, I may have switched from Levis to Wranglers, but they were still blue jeans. I wasn't about to wear those plaid, polyester dress slacks that Mom bought for me!

FINIS

The most solitary position ...

Goalie camp? At 43? Why not? Goes to show you're never too old to take a puck upside the head. This account of one of the longest weeks of my life (albeit 10 years ago) appeared in the now-defunct Hockey Magazine. The photo above comes from my once-in-a-lifetime outing in January, 2010, playing at Fenway Park in Boston (which you can read about here).

NET GAIN
A 40-something goaltender tries to recapture his glory days

Lying prone on a cool sheet of ice, gasping for air, I lapse into another Walter Mitty fantasy. I'm no longer at the Mount Vernon Recreation and Ice Center outside Washington, D.C., desperately trying to keep from overheating beneath 35-plus pounds of soaking-wet goaltending gear. No, I'm between the pipes at Madison Square Garden, sporting the home white sweater of my beloved Rangers. The time? Winter, 1974.

Boston Bruins' winger Wayne Cashman is in the corner, mucking it up with Dale Roulfe, my Rock-of-Gibraltar defenseman. The puck squirts to the front of the net. Bruins' center Phil Esposito, on his way to a 68-goal season, pounces on it. He snaps off a lightning quick snap shot, low, stick-side. I instinctively flash my left leg pad. The puck glances off my toe buckle and flips harmlessly into the crowd. In the press box, Marv Albert screams into his microphone, "Kick save, O'Connor, and a beauty!" Color man Bill Chadwick, a Hall of Fame referee, chimes in: "This kid O'Connor came to play tonight ..." A goofy, satisfied grin creases my face.

"O'Connor! Hey, O'Connor! You gonna play sometime today?" barks Gerry "Elroy" Ellison, part-time goalie instructor and full-time drill sergeant. I surface reluctantly from my reverie, blinking the sweat from my eyes, realizing I'm still at the Puckstoppers Goaltending School. Slowly, I pull my bruised body off the ice, and resume my post for the next drill. I want to blame my murky state of mind on taking a puck up side the head, but I can't. I'm hurting because I'm 43. Whatever fitness I brought to camp with me evaporated as quickly as my fantasy. And my instructors aren't cutting me much slack.

At this precise moment, I'm struggling to recall exactly why I signed on for this five-day camp. There are vague recollections - I not only hoped to recapture some of my youth, but I wanted to make sure the guys in the late-night league back home in Boston weren't thinking I'd gotten soft. Several of my goaltending colleagues have been entertaining thoughts about hanging up their pads and skates, which only hardened my resolve to turn back the clock.

Truth is, I never had any formal education in the science of goaltending. My coaches in high school and the early days of college were former position players - forwards and defensemen - who had trouble relating to goalies. As other hockey players will attest, goalies are a singular breed, requiring special tutoring (or, as one derisive teammate once told me, “custom-made strait jackets”).My education was self-imposed - I ceaselessly studied Hall of Famer Jacques Plante's tome, "On Goaltending," until the book’s binder nearly disintegrated, and tried to apply its lessons to my game.

Recently, on the downhill side of my athletic career but still playing a few times each week, my mind shifted into a "now or never" mode. I could soldier on, a half-decent, middle-age goalie, or I could try to pick up my game a notch. What I needed was some top-notch instruction. I found it with Puckstoppers, an Ontario-based outfit that visits Alexandria, Virginia, each summer for a week. You might not think of the District of Columbia and its environs as a hotbed for hockey. Think again.

At the end of every morning session, dozens of pick-up players were lining up for noontime "stick practice." Back home in Massachusetts, many rinks shut down in the summer. Mount Vernon ice director Ernie Harris tells me "This place was originally designed to have two rinks. If I had that second sheet, I could book it solid."

On the first morning of camp, I sat in snarled Beltway traffic, listening with a jaded ear to Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days" on the radio, wondering whether I still had the goods, and whether I'd be the only gray-haired keeper in the class. Heck, I'd have settle for anyone who could legally join me for a beer afterward.

Fortunately, I met two guys my age - Gerry Oakman, who works with the Justice Department, and Joe O'Connell, a family doctor from Arkansas. Both have Boston-area roots, and share an almost inexplicable love for hockey. We hit it off immediately. In hindsight, that's not surprising.

Goalies are naturally drawn to each other. We’re part of a team, yet stand apart – masked loners, solitary watchmen standing guard by our nets the entire game, an army of one. Other players don’t know what to make of us, but most are convinced that only someone with a few screws loose would actually volunteer to play our position. Buried under layers of unwieldy gear and confined to a limited skating area, goalies stick out like ocean liners surrounded by speedboats. Together, we make up an odd fraternity, a fellowship of proud masochists.

Our task is simple: Stop a vulcanized rubber puck, an inch thick and three inches in diameter, from entering a 4-by-6 foot goal. With composite sticks and curved blades, even recreational players can fire a puck upwards of 100 miles an hour. Adding insult to potential injury, the very nature of the position leads to more criticism than applause. We give up goals, but don't score them. We're often blamed for losses, but only occasionally praised for victories. We are, in short, the team’s lightning rod.

Oakman recalls a Plante quote - "How would you like to have a job, that when you made a mistake, a big red light went on and 18,000 people booed?"

"For me, that's a motivator, to join a very select group of men and women who step up to meet that challenge," says Oakman.

Challenge indeed. I always thrived on goaltending’s unique reality – by the position’s very nature, the goalie is the one player who can single-handedly stop an entire team from winning. After all, if the opponent doesn’t score, you can’t lose. And on those rare games when I’m really focused and feeling invincible, the puck looks the size of a balloon, and moves about as quick. In my mind’s eye, it seems I can see where the puck is going even before the shot is fired. Granted, those moments didn’t come often enough to sustain my dream of a pro career or Division I scholarship. But even now, when they happen, they’re magic.

Unfortunately, I quickly realize there’s nothing “magical” about goalie camp. I understand it’s purpose and promise, but I’m ill prepared for the workload. For the next five days, two hours each morning, two each afternoon, Ellison and his Puckstoppers colleagues run us through a gamut of drills and instruction designed to improve our game. Or kill us.

We work on stance, movement, angles, low shots, high shots, deflections, rebounds, breakaways. Shooting machines fire pucks at us relentlessly - one nicks a crease in my armor, just above my blocker, and my elbow stings for hours. During each session, usually following some tortuous skating or agility drill, Oakman, O'Connell and I exchange futile glances and muted words of encouragement. Sweat pours from old pores as we struggle to keep pace with youngsters a fraction of our age. Each day, we wonder aloud whether we can finish the week. Parents of younger campers look at us as though we've lost our marbles. Incredulous, I reply: "Hey, we're goalies!"

The inference, I trust, is crystal clear - goaltenders, whether young or aging, are by definition a bit off-center. We all survive - barely.

"I'm sure people were giggling behind my back," says O'Connell, who admits hoping to play well into his 60s. "Screw 'em. I always wanted to do this."

Two weeks after I hauled my oversized bag of goalie gear from the Mount Vernon Ice Center for the last time, and the aches have finally subsided, my evaluation from the Puckstoppers gang arrives. I glance at the list of the position's finer points, including everything from dexterity, glove saves and rebounds. Most of my ratings fall in the "fair" category, with some "good" and a few "excellent" marks. Charity points, I figure. Head coach Chris Dyson reminds me, "glove in front, pads a bit apart."

"If you work on those small points, your game will be huge," writes Dyson. "Unfortunately, there were so many 'small things' I can't remember them all!"

Dyson's good-natured jab is followed by a happy-face doodle. I can read between the lines. I'm being told, gently, "Don't quit your day job." Walter Mitty would be crushed. Not me. Come tomorrow night, I'll be down at the rink, facing rubber.

Best,
-Brion

Goalie strong

Here's my June column from the New England Hockey Journal (though it can now also be found in the New York Hockey Journal ... all part of my grand plan to take over the hockey universe!). Fitness was once a dirty word for ice hockey goalies. No more. In fact, it is absolutely essential.

GOALIE STRONG

Perhaps the most enduring, and erroneous, misconception about goaltenders is this: Goalies don't need to be in shape. In reality, this notion was never true, and is no doubt a holdover from the time-honored practice of sticking some unfortunate overweight, slow kid in nets during neighborhood street hockey or shinny games.

Today, with the position's emphasis on the butterfly technique and proper recovery, it's essential that goaltenders be among the fittest players on the ice. There's really no way around it. Athleticism is a bonus, but even goalies with less-than-exceptional reflexes can close that gap significantly if they dedicate themselves to getting in shape.

That fact really hit home recently, in two distinctly different settings. The first was a youth hockey practice, where I had a number Squirt and Pee-Wee goalies. The second was a Stinky Socks adult goalie clinic, with netminders ranging in age from 22 to 62. In both groups, the common denominator separating the solid goalies from those who struggled was fitness. For many of the huffing and puffing netminders, young and old alike, it was a rude wake-up call. This is not an easy position to play, if you want to play it correctly.

The techniques we teach now put a premium on dynamic, athletic moves – butterfly slide, butterfly push, recovery – that require not only power, but also endurance. If you think you can "play your way into shape," using only your time on ice to get fit, you won't stand a chance. This isn't, to paraphrase an old marketing slogan, your father's goaltending position.

Time was, hockey coaches would shout to their young netminders, "Stay on your feet!" Now, more often than not, the refrain is "Get up!" Which makes sense. The "stand-up" goaltender is, for all intents and purposes, an anachronism. Instead, youngsters today, enamored with the style they typically see on display at the collegiate and NHL level, are inclined to drop too early too often (which reveals a lack of discipline that the butterfly technique requires). Still, even coaches without much goaltending experience or expertise can see the benefits of the butterfly style on the first shot (provided, of course, that it's employed correctly).

What drives these coaches (and me) crazy, though, is the young goalie who hits the ice, and then gets stuck there like a beached whale. They're quick to flop, but far too slow to recover. And typically the reason comes down to a lack of fitness.

With youngsters, fitness – the combination of strength, power, and stamina – comes quickly, provided they apply themselves. Members of the PlayStation Generation may not be as active as their parents were, but they'll soon learn that strong thumbs won't get them very far on the ice. As I mentioned last month, I'm a big proponent of active sports off ice, such as soccer, lacrosse, roller hockey, and tennis. The more often kids can get outside and play, the better.

On this score, I'm going to cut the older guys (and gals) with work and family responsibilities some slack. The position has changed dramatically in the past 10-15 years, so they're not only adapting to new techniques, but also trying to regain lost fitness. For the plus-30 goalie, it's a question of putting it all together. Most are strong (resistance), but not necessarily powerful (motion). Plus, stamina (or lack thereof) is also a serious issue. Be patient, and take the time necessary off-ice to prepare yourself for the rigors of play.

With the idea of getting fitter quicker in mind, here are a handful of easy exercises that will help any goaltender, regardless of age, better handle the demands of the position. I purposely steered clear of "weight-training" regimens (we can delve into that topic in a later column). For now, I'm focusing on developing a foundation, using simple plyometrics (or exercises that take advantage of your own body weight). Most of these can be done in your spare time, while watching the Red Sox or Bruins' re-runs this summer.

Strong middle ground
Your core, or mid-section, is key to overall performance. A former soccer coach once told me, "When your core is strong, everything else follows." And he was right. A sturdy middle will help you maintain balance, and move with a quiet upper body, allowing your lower body to do the hard work. Excellent exercises include planks, side bends and twists, and sit-ups. Just be careful not to strain your lower back; Keep those knees bent!

Explosive power
Both forward and side lunges help strengthen the all-important quadriceps, gluteus, and hip muscles. These are the big muscles that drive you in those short, dynamic movements that goalies need to be at the right place at the right time. If they're weak, you'll try overcompensating with your arms, and rather than having a quiet upper body (See a theme here?) and compact blocking surface, you'll be flailing about the crease. A series of simple squats and lunges (side to side and forward) will help jog your muscle memory. Wall sits will work your quads, while elastic exercise bands are great for working those big, stabilizing hip muscles.

In good hands
The ability to control your stick is an underappreciated skill. You need hand and forearm strength to be able to control your stick on initial shots, and when playing the puck (another vastly underrated talent). Improve your grip strength by squeezing a chunk of thera-putty or tennis ball, and whip your forearms into shape with wrist curls (tie a piece of rope around an old stick shaft, and attach any size weight, to give you a perfectly functional wrist curl tool).

Rolling into shape
Perhaps the single best – and most fun – off-ice training regimen I can recommend comes with knobby tires, handlebars, and a saddle. Road cycling is fun, but for flat-out fitness, you can't do better than mountain biking. Plus, it's a blast. Riding off-road, especially on tight, twisty singletrack with lots of short, steep hills, helps you develop the explosive power and balance that goaltending requires. It's a full-body workout that engages your gray matter as well.

Stretching it out
Last, a quick word to my adult goalies. Flexibility is inherent in young bodies, but typically AWOL in those of us past 30. Don't forget to stretch. Often. Stretch lightly before and after exercise. Stretch in the morning and evening for good measure. The operate word here is "lightly." Don't overdo it, or you'll risk muscle and ligament strains. Yoga (especially Bikram, or "hot yoga") is another excellent option to regain flexibility.

Best,
-Brion

Hello campers!

A version of the following column originally appeared in the April issue of the New England Hockey Journal, but I thought it was particularly timely now, as school winds down and parents look to summer activities.

HELLO CAMPERS!

Ah, spring. When Old Man Winter loosens his grip on the Northeast, baseball pitchers and catchers report to Florida or Arizona, and the interminable hockey season finally winds down. Let’s not kid ourselves – it is a long season. My daughter’s Pee Wee hockey team had its first hockey game before her first soccer game last September. How crazy is that?

Still, it's during spring, with all its showers and subsequent yard work, that my thoughts invariably turn to summer camps. Am I a fan? Absolutely. Are there caveats? Without question.

Now, if you're a parent, I bet I can guess what you're thinking. "A goalie coach stumping for summer camps … What a shock!" So, before you jump to any conclusions, let me set the record straight. I'm a big advocate of down time, and taking a break from the game. I believe in playing different sports, and developing different skill sets. That gives your body a chance to recover by working different muscles, and helps keep your mind fresh as well.

I’ve seen too many youngsters – talented young goaltenders – lose their passion for the game because they simply play too much and see too many pucks. It just wears them down, and can suck the joy right out of the game. It makes me think Shep Messing. In the 1970s, Messing was a terrific if irreverent soccer goalkeeper from Harvard who went on to play for the US Olympic team and professionally for the New York Cosmos and Boston Minutemen.

Messing was a competitor, but not the hardest worker in practice. He clashed with his Harvard coach about his training regimen (or lack thereof). Messing’s argument was both cheeky and clever: "I only have so many saves in this body. Do you want me to waste them all in practice, or would you like me to have a few left for the games?"

Now, I don’t buy into Messing’s philosophy completely (he was, after all, a product of the counter-culture 1960s and '70s), but there’s a ring of truth to it. You want to have all your players – an especially your goaltenders – as sharp as possible before a game. After seven or eight months, that's not easy.

The September-to-April season can be a grind, and the mental and physical wear and tear on the players is something every coach needs to be cognizant of. I appreciate that pushing through those obstacles can help build character, but only to a point. Too often, goalies are hitting the wall just when the games mean the most – the playoffs – and that's a recipe for disaster. After the season, give them a break. Trust me, your son or daughter won’t “fall behind” by taking time off. In reality, it can recharge their batteries.

Summer goalie camps, after a brief vacation away from the rink, are a chance to jump back into the game with a renewed sense of purpose. The rink, for me, has always been a welcome respite from summer’s sweltering temperatures. You get to hang out with a bunch of other goalies, and you can participate without the added pressure of winning that comes during the regular season and playoffs.

Interestingly enough, Brian Daccord, owner of Stop It Goaltending, sees a distinct difference between "in season" and "off season" approaches to goalie coaching, especially at the higher levels of competition.

“The goalie coaching position is now defined two ways,” says Daccord. “You have a performance coach, and then you have a development coach. All the kids now have two coaches. In the summer, they'll have a development coach, and during the season they'll have a performance coach. How you handle and train the players during the season compared to the summer is apples and oranges.

“In season, it's about results,” says Daccord. “In the summer, you're working on improving technique, improving quickness, working on your strategies and your technical game, so you know how you want to play every situation. You want to work on your weaknesses, try new things, try to implement new facets to your game, new techniques.

“You can't do that during the season,” he says. “In-season, it's about getting that goalie ready for that next game. That means physically and mentally. The mental part of the game for the performance coach is far greater than the development coach.”

In a similar vein, Joe Bertagna, who has run Bertagna Goaltending for 38 years, says camps provide young goaltenders the special attention that the position demands these days, but is typically lacking from most in-season programs.

"With youngsters, we’re educating, and giving them the basic skills they need," says Bertagna. "With older goalies, at the Division 1 college level, we assume they have the tools. That doesn’t mean they can’t adapt and adjust and they don’t need someone monitoring their development."

Bruce Irving, the goalie coach for Harvard who works with both Bertagna and Daccord, agrees. "For the most part, the goalies end up on teams playing for coaches who have never been a goalie," he says. "I don’t think they get the necessary attention in most standard team environments."

Another potential problem with in-season coaching that can be avoided during the summer is an over-reliance on the goalie coach. "The kids are used to having coaches now," says Bertagna. "But at certain levels, the goalie coach has become a crutch. The kid has to go to his weekly goalie coach, and I think they’re over-coached in some instances."

Conversely, during the summer, we assume that there's less stress weighing on the minds of our campers, particularly school pressures. That's why camp instructors, though they expect hard work, also put a premium on fun. It's all about learning in a nurturing environment. The camps I work for feature shooters, but those players understand that the on-ice sessions are designed for the goaltenders, not them.

In short, the summer is a great time to experiment, and tweak your game, in a more relaxed environment, without worrying about the next game or your place in the team hierarchy. As camp coaches, we're not assessing whether you're going to be the starter or not. Our primary focus is to make you a better goaltender. Period.

Last, there's also a question of overnight versus day camps. That's a much more personal decision. I always recommend that parents contact the camp director so they can develop a comfort level. Ask for references. That’s doubly true for overnight camps.

In general, I'm a fan of day camps, which allow my young goalies to concentrate during our sessions inside the rink without any distractions of adjusting to a new environment outside the rink. In other words, they can sleep in their own beds. However, older kids might really thrive in that over-night setting. Again, it’s a personal decision. Just take time to do your homework beforehand. It will pay dividends for your young netminder.

Best,
-Brion

It only hurts when it hurts ...

Avoiding pain is about as primal a human reaction as you could ever hope to find. Masochists aside, there are few people who willingly subject themselves to physical abuse.

Which is why the majority of the general sporting world has always looked somewhat askance at the ice hockey goalie, as if we all have a few screws loose. After all, we willingly put ourselves in front of rock-hard pucks, often fired in excess of 50, 70, even 90 miles an hour. Who in their right mind does that?

But there's more to the position than simply the aches and pains of getting hit by a puck. There are also the psychological "sticks and stones" that can really leave a mark on a young goalie's psyche. It's imperative that, as a parent and/or coach, you keep this in mind. Every other player can make a mistake on the ice, and he or she still has someone covering their back. A safety net, so to speak. That person is the goaltender.

The goaltender, though, doesn't enjoy the same luxury. When a goalie makes a mistake, more often than not, the puck winds up in the back of the net. That's a ton of pressure for a youngster (or anyone, for that matter). Trust me, these kids have feelings. They hear the moans and groans, from teammates, from coaches, from people in the stands. Parents can be particularly callous, not only through their own reactions, but also by what they allow their kids to say.

At the end of the day, it isn't the number of wins and losses that matter in this game. It's the life lessons that can and should be taught. Hockey is a team sport, and one of the most important developmental lessons a coach can impart on his or her team is that "one for all, all for one" approach. There have always been prima donnas in sports, but I'm seeing more and more of them these days. And that's worrisome. Parents, and particularly parents who coach, really have to be vigilant about making sure that one kid isn't held up as a scapegoat for the team's shortcomings.

I take the same approach with referees. When I have a player complaining about the ref, I ask them point blank: "Oh, did you play a perfect game? Refs make mistakes, just like you. You can't make excuses." Likewise, if I hear even so much as a whisper about the goalie's performance, I squash the conversation immediately. Here's why.

On almost every goal scored in hockey, you can find several mistakes that lead to the scoring opportunity. Yes, it's the goalies job to make up for those mistakes, and stop the shots that get through. I don't ever let them forget that. But on almost every single goal, there's usually a series of breakdowns (if you don't believe me, just check out the video reply work by Jeremy Roenick or Eddie Olczyk on Versus during the Stanley Cup playoffs). Goals are often the result of "team" mistakes, not just a goalie mistake. It's critical that coaches remind players that unless those kids played a perfect game themselves (which I have yet to see), then they shouldn't be pointing fingers at anybody else, especially the goaltender.

Now, I understand that goalies give up bad goals. I'm not into coddling. They are responsible for every goal that gets by them. Period. Goalies have to learn to accept that responsibility if they're going to drive themselves to be successful, because the shots only get harder and faster as they move up the ladder. It is not a position for the meek or timid.

That said, goalies also need to know that they have the unwavering support of their team. That's especially true for a kid who works hard at every practice (of course, there will always be kids who hope to get by without putting in any effort, but that's a topic for another column). Parents and coaches have to keep things in perspective, even if teammates might not. If kids are putting in an honest effort, trying hard to improve every time they're on the ice, then they ought to be able to make mistakes without feeling ostracized. And that's the responsibility of the adults.

Several years ago, when I was coaching my daughter's Squirt team, we didn't have a regular goalie. So I made the decision at the beginning of the season that every child would take a turn between the pipes. My reasons were twofold. First, in keeping with my team-oriented approach, I thought it was the only democratic thing to do, since no one wanted to play goal. I'm often amazed to see coaches going back to the same kids simply because those kids had the guts to volunteer in the first place, instead of making sure the responsibility is shared equally.

Second, I wanted each and every one of my players to understand, if only for a single game, the unique pressures that playing goal presents. It was, I'll admit, partly experimental. Whether in hockey, or soccer, or lacrosse, I've always suspected that the kids who were the most reckless about firing shots at the goalies were the same kids who wanted nothing to do with the position. Now, the sample set was pretty small (maybe two dozen games), but suffice to say that I didn't see anything to dissuade me from that premise.

Anyway, with a couple of games left in the season, we had one kid who hadn't played in the nets, and I let him know that his number was up. His mom interceded, and said that "Johnny" was terrified of the prospect. Johnny wasn't scared of getting "hurt," per se. He was mortified of the possibility that he could screw up, and cost his team the game. Because he knew how cruel kids could be about that stuff. I tried to be as diplomatic as possible with Johnny's parents, but I also held firm. The policy was put in at the start of the season, and they never said a word. I couldn't let a parent (or player) off the hook simply because they tried to wait me out. Predictably, Johnny didn't show for the last two games of the season.

That's a shame, because Johnny missed a chance to learn several really important lessons. First, he would have found out, firsthand, that goaltending ain't easy (which I suspect he already knew). Second, win or lose, the sun would still come up the next day. And third, he might have even realized that he was able to face up to his fears and overcome them. Isn't that what sports, in part, is all about. Parents and coaches need to remember that as well.

ESPN columnist and anchor John Buccigross once wrote that the single most important characteristic that a hockey player must develop is confidence. I agree. But confidence needs to be nurtured, cultivated. And that's on the coaches and parents.

Best,
-Brion

All we have to fear ...

"Fear is the highest fence." ~Dudley Nichols

Or, perhaps, fear is a hockey puck. A rock-hard, vulcanized hockey puck, aimed head high. Once you've been tagged a few times, unless you've got a serious kink in your hard-wiring, you're going to have a healthy fear of the hurt a puck can put on you.

Or maybe fear is a bad goal, an embarrassing goal, and the taunts of opponents and teammates alike, and the criticisms of win-at-all-cost coaches and fans who don't always understand and appreciate the singular pressures a goalies must deal with. The proverbial fear of failure can be crippling.

Hi gang. Sorry I've been away for a while, as my "real work" responsibilities have taken me from my "fun work." But this is an important topic, and one that's been driven home lately as we get into the stretch drive of the season. So let's dive in.

There are many fears that can play on the mind of a hockey goalie, and almost all of them need to be conquered if you want to be any good at playing the position. Because fear can paralyze. Fear can cause you to tighten up, and as the old goaltending adage goes, "Tight muscles are slow muscles." If you can't move, you aren't going to stop many pucks.

But the fact is, if you're puck shy, if you let your fears get the better of you, you're going to get hurt, and you're going to give up a lot of bad goals. I guarantee it. Fear is the single biggest hurdle a young goalie must overcome (though that holds true for goalies of any age).

I understand this hardly qualifies as a news flash. All hockey players have to ratchet up their courage in order to play this game, especially those who fling themselves in front of shots without the extra padding goalies enjoy. It's a tough, tough game, which is one of the reasons we love it.

The fear-factor for a goalie, however, is exponential higher compared to the average player. And this is not just a goalie coach blowing smoke. Don't believe me? Just think of all the mistakes that other players can make that go unnoticed over the course of a game. When a goalie makes a mistake, the puck is usually in the back of the net, and the other team is celebrating. That, my friends, is pressure.

So let's start with the fear of physical pain. It's a dilemma for many young netminders, who were initially drawn to the position by all the really cool gear, only to find that the gear has evolved to help prevent serious injury, but not always the painful garden-variety bumps and bruises that come with the position. Pucks can still hurt. The gear, as good as it is, isn't bombproof.

Just the other night, one of my young goalies (a second-year PeeWee) took a shot right above the thigh board. I could tell right away that it stung. And for good reason. My young netminder was wearing regular hockey pants. "Time to invest in some goalie pants," I told his dad.

Another incident, two weeks ago, a Squirt netminder of mine got tagged in the jaw. The shooter, an older kid, immediately apologized (to his credit). And it was obvious that my young goalie was is pain. The tears welled up, and his face went flush. But he shook off the hurt, and got right back into the drill without missing a rotation. I could not have been more proud, because he knew instinctively that if he gave into the pain, and the fear, then it would start to own him. And he wasn't going to give "fear" that satisfaction.

Further, youngsters need to understand that the gear is design to work best when they're playing the position properly. In other words, they have to stay square to the puck, roll their shoulders, keep their stick on the ice and stay compact. If a goalie lifts up on a shot, or turns away from it, the odds of getting hurt increase dramatically, as they often expose unprotected areas (I'm reminded of one puck-shy goalie who, when I asked if he'd ever been hurt from a shot, admitted he got tagged in the calf when he turned away from the play. "That doesn't count," I told him).

So, if your goalie has the yips, try to be patient. Start by tossing tennis balls, soft pucks, and then regulation pucks at them. Let them get comfortable in their equipment, and let them develop a trust that the gear will protect them 95 percent of the time (golfers can appreciate this ... Even your favorite club will desert you on occasion!). Keep them moving, moving, moving, so they don't get stiff (and susceptible to further injury).

But remember, there's no foolproof plan to avoid getting hurt. Pucks can still sting, especially at the higher levels, or when careless coaches are shooting. You should never sugarcoat that reality. It's part of the position that goalies must accept if they're to excel. If they don't, their career between the pipes will be short-lived.

My next post will deal with the "psychological fears," or performance anxiety. Stay tuned.

Best,
-Brion