Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the DIY Goalie Podcast, where hosts and goalie coaches Nathan Park and Connor Munday share their insights on how to become a better goalie.
Speaker: goalies welcome back to another episode of the diy goalie podcast presented by true north goal attending um today's going to be just a quick header for me a solo episode here today we are at the tail end of our camps um as you can probably tell from my voice we've uh we've been uh you know working through lots here i think this is we just finished up day nine of the last 11 that are full of camps we've got a couple more left to finish up our camps with true north goal tending and then we've got a couple organization camps over the next couple weeks so been nice and busy but it's a good kind of busy good problem to have and it's that fun time of season again so hopefully you guys are doing well in your season prep and any sort of tryouts that you guys have coming up good luck to any of you who are about to get right into tryout season For those of you who already have a team, hopefully you guys are ready to hit the ground running and kind of work throughout the summer to build, that build yourselves up for the best season you can have this upcoming season. um
Speaker: What I'm going to talk about today is kind of something that doesn't really get touched on a lot, at least that I see. And I've personally experienced this and I know that it's something that can be a struggle. And that's kind of the process of getting better. a lot of times does involve us actually getting worse first.
Speaker: And there's plenty of reasons for that. And we'll kind of go into that. um But so I just kind of wanted to touch on it because it is something that does.
Speaker: Wait on people a lot, especially in hockey, considering that we do have such a, what have you done for me lately type of approach to the game. a lot of it is performance based, especially when you get to the higher levels, you know, if you,
Speaker: aren't playing well if you're not getting results you don't play maybe you get moved down maybe you know you just are out of the league whatever the case is it can be tough so ideally we want to try and go through this process as early as we can in our career and try and get it out of the way before we really hit those higher levels But just as an example from me, and I've kind of touched on this a little bit before, but my first year of Junior A hockey, I was a 17 year old rookie. had basically up until that point gone through my career purely on athleticism. I have had a little bit of training up until that point, but not a whole heck of a lot. um So I was the goalie that could give you like a 52 save shutout and then the very next day I could let in five of the first six shots.
Speaker: um I relied basically a lot on my battle, my skill and just being able to try and throw myself in front of pucks opposed to a lot of technique.
Speaker: And when I got to my first year junior, we have touched on it a few times, but, um, I got Dustin Schwartz, the former Oilers goalie coach as my goalie coach at the time. He was still the oil Kings goalie coach before he moved up to the, the Oilers. Um, but my junior eight team also had him on staff.
Speaker: So he only came out probably, i don't know, once a month or every, you know, two to three weeks, um, depending on the situation. But, uh, He was the first one that unfortunately at 17 years old, the first one that taught me what tracking was, what head trajectory was, stuff like rotations, being efficient, right? Those things that help us be a little bit more consistent.
Speaker: And with that, I had a struggle of a season during that season. Now, part of it was because I made the jump. Part of it was because of the way I played. And part of it was because of me trying to kind of reinvent my game a little bit.
Speaker: um But that reinvention really did play a role in that. And sometimes when we make that adjustment to um try and get better, when we make the implications or I guess we make the adjustments on the things we need to make, Sometimes it puts us in uncomfortable positions. Sometimes it makes us take a little longer to think and process and react. And sometimes it just you know throws us for a little bit of a loop and kind of makes things tough because we're out of our comfort zone. We're doing something new. We're trying to implement something that we haven't before. So most of the time it doesn't go smoothly. As you guys know, our development is a bit of a process. It takes a while to... you know, um establish new habits. It takes a while to have those incremental progressions kind of build on top of each other and make it consistent and make it so we don't have to think about it anymore and can do it naturally and quickly.
Speaker: um So as much as we can, we want to try and make tweaks slowly. Like if you're trying to completely change what you're doing all at once,
Speaker: That's really when we see big, big regressions while we're trying to make these changes. So if you can kind of spread them out as best as you can over the course of a longer period of time, that can help minimize that transition period.
Speaker: At the same time though, sometimes we don't have that luxury, right? Like for me, i spent that one season really trying to kind of figure things out a little bit. um And luckily for me, I did get traded from that team in the off season, but I did i still stick around in junior A and I was able to carve out another three years of my junior career.
Speaker: um but it was one of those things that you know throughout this season the coach that I had um made it pretty clear he was not happy with where I was at in my game. um So it is tough.
Speaker: um You hope that you have people in place, like coaching staff and whatnot, that understand and that have some patience and are able to work with you on it, but that really isn't always the case. and probably more often than not isn't the case.
Speaker: um But it's one of those things that if we can, you know, make minimal changes at a time, we might have less impact on how we perform, right? So if Say for example, for me, I went into um junior with no structure whatsoever pretty much. I was a lot of athleticism, a lot of bat, a lot of compete.
Speaker: And i basically, i still had that in my repertoire, but then I was trying to work on having my hands in front and active hands, trying to track pucks and have head trajectory, shifting my body into those saves, making rotations before I push.
Speaker: trying to scan a little bit more, trying to read the the ice a little bit more, or anticipate the play a little bit more. So there was a lot going on. And I would call it a bit of a reinvention of my game, even though I did keep around the core athleticism that my game was built around. I still did that, but I learned to control it and I learned when to apply it.
Speaker: um So had I maybe tried to implement over a longer period of time, yes, it maybe would have had less of an impact right away um in terms of the regression that I had. But I also think it would have taken too long for me to get to the level that I eventually did. So there is a balance there. We have to figure out like,
Speaker: we I guess we have to prioritize, right? We have to figure out what the most impactful thing that we need to change is and try and change that first. And then we can eventually kind of we weed ourselves down to the other things that we need to work on as well.
Speaker: um But as an example for me, like the tracking and the way I made my saves was probably the most important thing that I needed to change. And once I started to figure that out and once that started to click, that made my life a lot easier because the lateral stuff, even though I wasn't efficient getting across, I was quick, I was explosive and i competed, so I was still able to get across.
Speaker: um But it was more so like once I got there, how I made my saves, how I tracked that puck in, that was definitely one of the biggest things that that helped.
Speaker: um So if you can kind of prioritize a handful of things that are really going to make a difference and hone in on those and really make those a part of the change, that's ah that's definitely helpful, kind of both in the short and the long term. And then that prioritization too, and then spreading out the less um less impactful things, that can kind of help minimize your regression period. Because again, the more things that you're trying change at once, the harder it's going to be and the longer it's going to take to make those changes and to build those new habits.
Speaker: um So we want to make sure that we're really, i guess, like we've talked about with the self-reflection and and the self-diagnosis, we want to really be able to identify what those those top things are.
Speaker: um The other thing too is having that open and honest conversation with a goalie coach that you're working with, if they're the ones giving you the things you need to implement or your teammates or your coaching staff or whatever the case is and just being like, hey, these are the adjustments I'm trying to make because I'm struggling with X, Y and Z. So I'm implementing A, B and c um it It's still a little new to me. I think long term it will help me with my game.
Speaker: However, for right now, I'm going to be a little slow at it. Maybe can we identify some ways to minimize my exposure to this situation in a game? And then maybe that's something that your teammates can kind of look out for to defend a little bit, or maybe your coach can implement something with systems or talk to the team about or whatever the case is. If you are able to have that open and honest communication channel with your team and or your coaches that is a great way to kind of help ease that transition a little bit um and then the other thing too is just really honing in on it and really making sure that
Speaker: that's our priority when it comes to our practices, when it comes to our goalie sessions. Even if you can find some extra ice, like some stick and puck or at the outdoor rink or something like that to try and work on those things, the more development you get, the more you see it, the more experience you get with that. Obviously, you know, the better that it'll stick, the easier or the quicker it becomes a habit. So trying to once you've prioritized what you need to work on, trying to really, you know, lean into that and making it a priority and your focus every single time you're on the ice until it starts to become part of your game that can really help kind of limit how long that regression happens um but there are a lot of things that um it it feels wrong to change and we have that that regression period it's hard to stick with it right so that's the other thing is going into it you need to understand why you're making the change you need to understand what it's going to benefit and with that then you can really try and figure out okay how can i approach this and how can i go towards you know making this better in the most efficient way in the quickest most streamlined way possible so i kind of limit that regression period um Again, a lot of this is going to come down to that self-reflection and really understanding why you're making the change, why you're doing what you're doing. and having a plan going into it so say say you've talked to your goalie coach and they say hey we really need to work on i don't know rotating in your pushes right because even though you push really well across you're always pushing flat so you're having to stretch out and make these big incredible saves but
Speaker: you know, you're making that save only 40% of the time. Whereas if we can work on that rotation and get across a little bit um more on angle and use your body to get across, now you're going to make that save 70% of the time.
Speaker: And that's something that's... ah that really like might seem like easy enough ah to make that decision and be like, yeah, let's go.
Speaker: um But the problem is, is once you start to try and implement those rotations, you're going to be a little bit slower. You're going to be thinking a little bit more and that's going to cause delays in your game. And now you might only make that save 20% of the time.
Speaker: And at that point, it's really, really easy to say this isn't working for me. That's it. I'm going back to my old ways. Whereas had you stuck it out and made that a habit, then you could get to making that save 70% of the time. So you need to understand what the benefit is going into it. You need to have a plan and say, you know what, every practice I'm going to spend two minutes at the start of practice really going through and just working on some skating patterns, incorporating strictly rotations. And I'm going to hammer that home. And that's all I'm going to do for this next month at practice until this becomes easier. And then when you're in practice, give yourself some grace.
Speaker: If you're getting lit up because you're trying to implement what you're um trying to change, but you're late or it's you know something that just feels awkward or whatever the case is um Don't get discouraged. If you're getting lit up, that's fine. Stick with the process and keep working to it. As long as you have a process and as long as you know that this is actually beneficial to you and is going to help you in the long run, um then just keep grinding it out and keep working through. like It doesn't happen overnight. You will see that regression. And sometimes it's just we got to kind of
Speaker: you know keep our head down and just keep going keep trucking along each day will get a little bit easier it'll be you know like like we talk lots about those small incremental improvements like you know that cliche one percent better every day kind of thing um that's how we're gonna get through this and if you have a plan of attack ah ahead of time that's going to really help streamline the process and and make that regression period a little bit shorter and a little bit easier to get through.
Speaker: um That's kind of really all I had on this today. It is a quick hit kind of episode, but I did want to touch on it because it is something that I don't see talked about very often.
Speaker: if at all really actually but it is something that is real it is something that i've personally experienced i'm sure a handful of you guys out there have it's hard to make changes to our game it's hard to implement new things and to try and change our habits it takes a while and in the process we might actually regress a little bit we might actually get worse in our game and that is perfectly fine.
Speaker: We need to have a plan though, we need to approach it properly and we need to make sure that we're trying to minimize that regression and to shorten that time that it takes us to adjust as best as we can and just spread out what you're what you're changing at a time if you can so that you're not changing your whole game rate at once.
Speaker: um Again, guys, as always, appreciate you guys tuning in. If you want to help us grow the show, please share it with a ah friend. Share it with your goalie community.
Speaker: Any sort of likes, any sort of reviews, any sort of... um you know, follows anything like that, depending on the platform you're listening to, that helps us out a lot.
Speaker: um You can check us out at truenorthgoaltending.com to see any of our drills, our articles, our merch to look at what we have available for sessions. So as you guys are getting into the season this year, we do have virtual sessions and virtual programs available, including video breakdowns, including mentorship calls. And we're also going to be adding some kind of off-ice programming as well, virtually. So some cognitive stuff, um some workout stuff, some goalie IQ stuff. So that's kind of in the works that we're building. So if that's something that you're interested to, you can reach out to us. Goalies at truenorthgoaltending.com or you can check us out at truenorthgoaltending.com. There's a contact form page there.
Speaker: um as well as kind of all our other things. So those last couple of programs I've talked about, they aren't on the website yet. um I still kind of have to figure out logistically how that's going to work.
Speaker: um But we trialed some of this stuff kind i in the off season and last season, and it went really well, including virtual goalie sessions. um So if that's something that you guys want to implement in your training regime to kind of help get you better, um feel free to reach out and it's something that we're super excited about and and really excited to kind of offer for you guys.
Speaker: um That being said, you can follow us on our socials everywhere. It's true north goaltending except Instagram is yeggoleycoach. And as always, goalies, make some saves.
Speaker: Take care. We'll see you next week.
