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