Consider the following a cautionary tale heading into your 2017-18 hockey season.
Perhaps the worst thing for a dedicated coach is to see a team fail to reach its potential. All things being equal, wins and losses are usually predicated on talent. And talent, particularly at the high school level, can vary dramatically from year to year.
Getting the most out of whatever talent you have on the ice is the goal. When a team doesn’t, it’s incredibly frustrating. To illustrate, I’ll refer to a girls team that I knew well (I’ll refrain from identifying the squad, to protect the guilty and the innocent alike).
Part of the reason this particular team fell short of its potential is the predictable dilution of talent that often happens with girls high school hockey programs. The 2016-17 team I’m referring to lost its best natural sniper, who led the team in scoring as an eighth-grader, to a local prep school. They also lost another talented eighth-grade defender to a full-season "select" program.
I saw this changeover firsthand. The year before, during the 2015-16 season, I was part of the staff as a goalie coach. The first-string netminder that season was a freshman who had come on board the year before as an eighth-grader, having never played hockey, much less goalie. She hardly saw the ice that first year, backing up a senior. Her mom even told me that she was happy in the role, content to record stats and cheer on her teammates.
This youngster (I’ll call her Patty) was a very good student, and a solid little athlete, playing field hockey and softball. Those are all good things. But it was also clear that hockey was going to be number No. 4 on her "depth chart," behind academics, field hockey and softball.
Patty worked hard, made nice strides during the 2015-16 season, and actually was given the "Most Improved Player" award at the team’s banquet. It was nice to see.
The following summer, things went sideways for me, as health issues forced me to step back from my coaching role. My lower back tightened up in early July. By August, I was losing feeling in my feet. A visit to a back specialist led immediately to an MRI on my spine, and a next-day appointment with a neurosurgeon. The prognosis was spinal stenosis — an arthritic narrowing of the spinal column and nerve openings — and two herniated discs.
By mid-October, I was scheduled for surgery, with a three- to 12-month recovery period. When it became clear that my back wasn’t going to allow me to get back on the ice, I immediately told the head coach that I wouldn’t be able to work with Patty.
Another longtime goalie coach attended a few early season practices, but that was it. That’s not going to make much of a difference. The instruction has to be consistent to have any lasting impact. There was also a former All-American goaltender who lived in town, but no one bothered to reach out to her.
That gets to the very core of my frustration with this team. When you, as a coach, have an obvious need, you have to be creative in addressing that need. That’s an integral part of coaching. You need to go beyond the X’s and O’s.
Out of habit, I attended several practices, and quickly noticed that not only was Patty not getting any specific instruction, but also she was victim of the traditional "goalie killer" drills. Warm-ups consisted of players waltzing right down the slot, on their forehands, without any pressure, ripping shots. Seriously, how the heck is this supposed to "warm up" the goalie? Instead, it’s the perfect recipe for developing a case of "the yips." And Patty had the yips in spades.
Moreover, Patty wasn’t doing any of the goalie-specific skating exercises that I gave her the previous year. Those exercises are specifically designed to allow goalies to limber up without getting peppered by pucks. So I went home, drew up a set of three goalie-specific shooting drills (which, by the way, are also excellent shooting drills for the forwards), and a "save sequence" warm-up developed by Brian Daccord at Stop It Goaltending.
This sequence is a form of physical visualization — or "ghosting," as Daccord calls it — where a goaltender mimics the basic saves: stick left, stick right, smother, butterfly glove, butterfly blocker, standing glove and standing blocker, following the imaginary rebound (except for the smother and glove saves). I walked the coaches through the "save sequence" warm-up, and the drills. I reiterated how important the drills were for the shooters as well as the goalie. Shooters had to go at game speed, stay on their backhand if they cut in on their backhand, and drive the net for rebounds.
The first session was encouraging. And then … nothing. I checked in occasionally to make sure the goalie-specific drills were being run and was disheartened to learn they weren’t. It was if the other coaches felt that single session would make a difference.
News flash: It won’t. Goalies, especially young goalies, need to work on these basics, over and over again. If you’re coaching kids at the high school level or younger, you have to make sure they’re adhering to a good warm-up routine and good practice habits. That’s your job.
Almost predictably, Patty’s development stalled, and the team finished two games below .500, and out of the playoffs. In short, nowhere near its potential.
So here’s the bottom line: It doesn’t matter if you’re not a "goalie coach," per se. You owe it to your goalies, and ultimately your team, to learn the basics and be able to run some rudimentary goalie-specific drills. Your goalies will benefit. And if they benefit, your team benefits. What other motivation do you need?
