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079 - Behind the Scenes of a Minor Hockey Goalie Director with Kurt Rackel
147 Plays5 months ago
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We sit down with Kurt Rackel, the goalie director of KC North, a minor hockey association in the Edmonton area. He shares his insights on what the day to day is like as a goalie director for a minor hockey program. We also talk about some ways to help improve the buy in from coaches and other individuals involved in a minor hockey organization and how to provide better support for goalies.
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Transcript
Introduction to DIY Goalie Podcast
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to the DIY Goalie podcast where hosts and goalie coaches Nathan Park and Connor Monday share their insights on how to become ah better goalie.
00:00:18
Speaker
Goalies, how are we doing today?
Meet Kurt Raquel, Goalie Director
00:00:20
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of the DIY Goalie podcast presented by True North Goaltending. And we've got a guest with us today. So it's just myself hosting. Connor isn't with us again today.
00:00:35
Speaker
um But so we've got Kurt Raquel from casey North, who's one of the minor hockey associations we work with in the Edmonton area here. He is their goalie director and he's going to kind of give us a little bit of a background on what it's like to be a goalie director for a minor hockey association and kind of some of the duties that go with that and the behind the scenes look.
00:01:01
Speaker
So ah We appreciate you coming on, Kurt. Thanks so much for taking the time. How are we doing today? I'm doing fantastic. Thanks for having me on the podcast. Appreciate it.
00:01:12
Speaker
um Yeah, looking forward to chatting about kind of what happens behind the scenes for minor hockey clubs and goalies. Yeah, for sure. I'm sure you hear too much about the players, so it's probably nice to kind of get into the goalie side of things a little bit.
Kurt Raquel's Hockey Journey
00:01:28
Speaker
Absolutely, So why don't we kind of start with a little bit about yourself, kind of an intro, a background on you, what kind of turned you to be a goalie when you played and kind of a little bit about your playing career leading up to this point.
00:01:44
Speaker
Okay. Well, um originally I'm from the Battleford, so small town Saskatchewan where there was not a lot to do in the winter other than hockey. um This was, I was born 79, so right when the Oilers were getting hot, Gretzky hit the and NHL. So a big part of my young childhood was watching the amazing Oilers, ah Dynasty days on TV.
00:02:10
Speaker
um And I actually kind of gravitated towards watching Grant Fear. That was kind what got me started. On my goalie journey is that i wanted to be like Grant Fear. I just thought it was amazing what he would do. the equipment was awesome.
00:02:24
Speaker
So, yeah, kind of where it started for me. I didn't get a chance to play goalie actually until I was about 12 or 13. yeah like My dad was like, no, no, you've got learn how to skate first. You should be a defenseman.
00:02:38
Speaker
um Yeah, he probably just didn't want to buy all equipment. yeah Eventually, I got to play goalie in house league and I turned out to be pretty good at it and made some of the rep teams in the Battlefords.
00:02:54
Speaker
and got to play some pretty good hockey around Saskatchewan, some tournaments in Alberta, stuff like that. um Graduated high school, played actually a year of beer league after high school and I finished my hockey just because it was still fun to play and I wound up coming up to the city here for Nate and some post-secondary and tried out for the Ooks and wound up getting invited to a junior B team, the Edmonton Royals and had a lot of success with them. They had a great team, so a couple trips to to the Keystone Cup Junior B National Championship, stuff like that. So, um you know, all in all, had a pretty fun and amazing minor hockey league career.
00:03:34
Speaker
yeah And that's why I'm still in Alberta. Came here for school and never left. Yeah, fair enough. No, that's awesome. I find the gear is probably the number one recurring reason why I hear goalies get into the position. Oh, that's so cool.
00:03:53
Speaker
yeah I mean, I'm so old, they didn't make street hockey equipment back in the day, so I would like try to fashion my own stuff out a cardboard or whatever whatever we could find, right? Yeah, I'm sure. It's still a little bit less in the frozen streets.
00:04:07
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure the color palette on custom gear back then was a little lacking too. and Brown or brown. Yeah, exactly.
Roles and Responsibilities of a Goalie Director
00:04:18
Speaker
and So getting kind of into the thick of things then, um as a goalie director, what is kind of your, I don't want to say day to day look like, but kind of what sort of things are you tasked with? What is kind of under your umbrella and what do you have to do as as your position?
00:04:39
Speaker
Um, essentially anything kind of goalie related. Um, so one of the things that, uh, I set out to do is that i actually, first of all, like, what is my budget? How much money do I have to play with?
00:04:50
Speaker
Um, we originally were just kind of over five or $6,000 budget wise. So I'm like, well what can I do with that? Turns out not a whole lot. Um, so we've got a very receptive, excellent board of directors and,
00:05:07
Speaker
they let me double the budget, they let me bring in a whole bunch more goalie development specialists, you guys yourselves included. um And that really kind of helped start things off. And then from there, yeah, you got you got to do the goalie evaluations, we didn't really have a rubric. So we created a scoring rubric, um got to watch all the games, figure out who's, you know, who's the top, who's middle, who's lower end and just kind of go from there.
00:05:38
Speaker
Yeah. Once you get all the teams built, then yeah, sometimes there's parents that aren't happy and you have to kind of go through that stuff with them too. Yeah. Basically anything that's goalie related, it kind of falls on me.
00:05:51
Speaker
Again, from the budget to picking teams to being there to support goalies, parents answer questions. Stuff is easy as here. You put on your goalie pads properly because some kids, again, have never done it before.
00:06:07
Speaker
Yeah, that' fair enough. If it's goalie related, balls on me. Yeah. Fielding all the questions. That's the one thing I like about being a goalie coach is I find most of the time there's not a lot of complaints because people are just happy that you're there. But I imagine being part of the association, that's a little bit different.
00:06:30
Speaker
um So, yeah. yeah So um I know this will vary from organization to organization, um but kind of, guess, how did you go about getting this role as the goalie director? And like, what do you think is kind of some of the things that if somebody else they're listening wants to kind of get involved with their organization as a director of goaltending or something like that,
00:06:59
Speaker
What do you think is kind of some things that can help them stand out and maybe, i don't know quote unquote, get the job?
00:07:08
Speaker
um Kind of a funny story. I kind of fell into it. My wife was at the KC North annual annual general meeting last season and they needed a goalie director. So she quickly texted me and says, hey, do you want it?
00:07:26
Speaker
And me just said, okay, sure. Um, and yeah, I wound up getting it that way and kind of voted in and, um, the previous director, they didn't, they didn't really have anything. Like they couldn't hand me a binder and tell me anything about it. So I just kind of had to figure it out for myself. And, um, yeah, not going to lie. The first couple of months were pretty crazy. Just trying to figure out, again, like I said, budgeting and like, how are we going to do this? How are we going evaluate kids?
00:07:57
Speaker
Um, i I have a teaching background as well, so I'm big on like marking rubrics and basically having like a tangible assessment that, again, if a parent asks you, this is where we kind of came up with those numbers from.
00:08:12
Speaker
Yeah. So that was yeah another another thing that we kind of had to put together. um But, again, it was successful last year. They asked me to come back again, so I got reelected again. And, again, if they ask me next season, I'll probably say yes as well.
00:08:29
Speaker
Just on a personal note, buy find it very rewarding working with the goalies and, you know, a kid comes up to you and says, thanks, folks, you taught me this. you You know, I learned this stuff from you guys.
00:08:40
Speaker
It's a pretty special feeling. Yeah, for sure. I totally thought you were going to say that your wife's all untold you. And I think oh we all know that feeling. But yeah.
00:08:53
Speaker
Not in this case, no. No, and no. Just every other case. and Yeah, no, that's awesome. And i do agree, like, it's awesome to kind of get that feedback from the kids and just see that, you know, there is ah difference that's being made. And it's cool to see too, especially, um you know, once you get into this, I'm sure you'll see some of these kids for, you know, four years in a row and kind of get to see their development, maybe even more than that with the U9s too, that seem to gravitate towards goaltending. But um a lot of...
00:09:29
Speaker
the problem with goaltending as a position is just the lack of support that there is around it. And a lot of that kind of does fall on minor hockey organizations and, you know, the the governing bodies, I guess, like Hockey Canada and USA Hockey and all that stuff.
Challenges in Goalie Support Culture
00:09:52
Speaker
um I know you mentioned there wasn't really much that you took over from the previous goalie director. So how hard do you kind of find it to change that culture a little bit and to try and push for a little bit more for the goalies, a little bit more support, a little bit more resources and development and all that?
00:10:14
Speaker
um I'm pretty lucky. As I said, we've got a really excellent board and they were very receptive to it. I mean, I've talked to other people that have kind of worked as the the goalie person in their minor hockey club and people haven't been as receptive.
00:10:31
Speaker
Well, number one, again, it's not cheap, um but our board was pretty pretty willing to do it and they were very supportive to, you know, kind of spend the money as needed and get more goalies. I mean, straight up, we had a shortage of goalies. We had to have some U9s come up and play, you know, like U11.
00:10:52
Speaker
just to fill all the holes. I joke with the board as well. we're This is Connor McDavid's city. Everybody wants to be Connor McDavid. So not as many people want to be Skinner. Not as many people want to be you know another goalie.
00:11:10
Speaker
That was kind of the challenge, you know convincing the kids. um Personally, I think U9, maybe even U7 might be a good a place to start just to kind of start encouraging to explore the position and find those kids that really love it.
00:11:27
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. and So what do you think might be some things that if you did come into a board that wasn't as receptive, what are some of the things that you think you might have done to kind of help try to push that a little bit more?
00:11:45
Speaker
um Straight up to show them the benefits of you know, having a solid goaltending program in your minor hockey league club. um I mean, at the end of the day, if you've got great goalies, you're probably going to have a successful team.
00:12:00
Speaker
um So, yeah just showing them the value of it, whether that's showing them, you know, a short little budget, this much gets you this kind of development, um possibly showing them some other clubs that have serious goalie development programs and, you know, like look at their success.
00:12:17
Speaker
um Yeah, just comparison stuff like that. And persistence, I would say, would be a big one. Keep pushing them. I don't know. I don't know why the position's still a little bit neglected. Again, you can see the the difference just watching some NHL games when goalies are hot.
00:12:35
Speaker
It makes a huge difference in the game. Yeah, for sure. and So you kind of mentioned that when you came in, you were able to push for ah bit of like a budget increase, like doubling it. and and What are some tips then for anybody who does want to be a goalie director out there or even just maybe somebody who's involved in a board, not in a goalie related position just on just trying to get a bit more of a budget and do you have any tips on kind of properly allocating that and making sure that you're getting good value from the development that you're putting the money into and all of that stuff?
00:13:19
Speaker
ah Best suggestion or tips I can give is do your homework. um Contact the different training providers. I know that we sent out a whole bunch of tenders, um got responses back.
00:13:31
Speaker
um you know, some of the price points were great, but there wasn't a whole lot of meat to what they were doing. They would send you a couple of coaches and there wasn't a curriculum that they would follow. Again, my whole teaching side of things, I try to take that into the goalie development, like show me what I'm getting.
00:13:51
Speaker
If I'm investing this money, in you what are my goalies going to get out of it? um So yeah, ah biggest thing is do the homework, find out what you're getting value wise and um try to make the best decision for providers that way.
00:14:04
Speaker
That would be the biggest thing. Like I said, the the first month or two of the first year that I took the director role was a lot of digging on the internet, a lot of calls, you know just trying to see where we could get you know maximize our investment.
00:14:21
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And what do you think are some of the things that can be implemented that make a good goalie development program for an association?
00:14:34
Speaker
ah Third parties, definitely bring in a third party because, again, they've got the time and the skill to provide. Again, most minor hockey league, it's all volunteer stuff.
00:14:45
Speaker
To
00:14:47
Speaker
yeah um be honest, that yeah, that would be kind of the biggest one for me.
00:14:54
Speaker
Yeah. And what do you kind of want to see from the third party then, like in terms of like, I know you mentioned having a solid curriculum, but if you get a couple providers giving you a curriculum, what are some of the things you kind of look for that, ah you know, that would kind of set them apart or that you think would be, you know, the better route to go or or something like that?
00:15:18
Speaker
ah Coaching ratio would be a pretty big one. ah Part of the package, what is the ratio? Is it, you know, one coach for five goalies, one coach for four goalies, that kind of stuff?
00:15:29
Speaker
um Because again, that maximizes their ability to learn. um Yeah, sorry. I got a five second attention span. What was the other part of that?
00:15:41
Speaker
um Just like kind of some of the things that, you know, if you're given a couple curriculums, what would set one of them apart? Like the things you would kind of look for to yeah to make your decision.
00:15:55
Speaker
Okay. Probably like the rubric of like their their curriculum. Like what what are they grading on? Are they grading on angles? Are they grading on stance, position? Like how into detail can they get to provide a really accurate assessment?
00:16:11
Speaker
um Obviously, price point might be a little bit of a one as well. um Those are the big things that I kind of look for. And again, just ah do they integrate technology? Kids love iPads, stuff like that. So again, if you can get a video and a kid can log in and check his stuff out on the program, he's going to be a lot more involved. And if they don't have that option, um report cards, some kind of evaluation feedback that they can get.
00:16:40
Speaker
another excellent thing where goalies can go like oh okay well I'm great on my positions but oh you know what my my stick working's a little bit of uh improvement ah likea yeah yeah I uh we had a goalie that um anytime he comes and sees us every time we turn on the recording he waves at the ipad that we have and I asked him about it the one day and he's like, oh, just wave into my mom.
00:17:10
Speaker
So it's kind of funny to see the interaction when it comes to that. Sharpening his interviewing skills at the same time. Yeah, yeah. and So you guys fall under the Hockey Canada umbrella, obviously, and the Hockey Alberta umbrella.
00:17:27
Speaker
um I know there's lots of... people doing good work with those streams. I also know that you know there's a lot of people that are pretty critical as well. And I know we've been critical on some of the things they're doing as well on the podcast, but um what do you think that systemically um the Hockey Canada and Hockey Alberta side of things are doing well as somebody who's kind of more boots on the ground and closer to you know the actual happenings on the ice?
00:18:04
Speaker
I got to be honest with you, I don't pay a lot of attention to Hockey Canada or like the higher national level stuff. um I am a lot more focused on community, what's happening in Edmonton, who's was using who, what's available to be here, are some successes, you know what doesn't work well, who's struggling for goalies, who's got lots of goalies.
00:18:30
Speaker
um I heard this year, I think it might have been St. Albert, they had 22 goalies for 10 teams or something like that, which is pretty much unheard of.
00:18:40
Speaker
Yeah. Just again, just trying to keep my ears on the ground locally and kind learn from there. Yeah, again, I don't I don't pay a whole lot of attention on what happens at the national level.
00:18:53
Speaker
Yeah. OK, does um like probably not so much Hockey Canada, but does Hockey Alberta kind of um provide you guys as an organization with any sort of like.
Resource Scarcity in Goalie Development
00:19:05
Speaker
resources or direction or anything like that? Or is that something that you guys kind of have to actively go out and find or seek? I've gotten a few emails from Hockey Alberta saying, here here's some goalie development, goalie coaching sessions. They've got some in Calgary. They have some in Edmonton, um which means if you're from a small town, that's going to be a little bit more difficult to attend.
00:19:31
Speaker
I haven't seen a whole bunch of online resources where the smaller town clubs in that could access it, but I know if they are willing to travel, there's some pretty excellent opportunities people can attend and, you know, sharpen their goalie coaching skills and even just running a development program would help that way too.
00:19:49
Speaker
Yeah. So then being a part of an organization, then, is there something that you think... um, could be done better or that's lacking or anything like that, like from those organizing bodies?
00:20:06
Speaker
Um, well, again, you can never have too much support from those organizing bodies. Um, again, we live in the digital age, so, I mean, even easy access to videos on basic movements, maybe just here's how you dress a goalie, here's how you size the goalie, just that entry level stuff people don't really know.
00:20:26
Speaker
Um, An excellent example. We had our first goalie development session and I was late to get on the ice because I was dressing a whole bunch of U9 goalies because nobody really knows how to do it. Right.
00:20:37
Speaker
Some had missing equipment, some had shin pads on under goalie pads and they're like, no, you don't need that. Yeah. Yeah. We had one that got hit in the knee and, um, didn't even know that like knee pads were a thing for under the, under the pads there. And, uh,
00:20:55
Speaker
We also, I think, had to tell probably 75% of the U9s how to hold their stick properly. and Yeah, you know exactly. Yeah, and I can imagine that if you're somebody that doesn't really have that experience as a goalie, that's pretty tough to kind of help out and stuff.
00:21:15
Speaker
um But yeah, do agree that the the lack of resources, I think, is the biggest thing. And then also the lack of communication. Like I do find There are a lot of, I shouldn't say a lot, but there are a few events and stuff like that, that Hockey Canada and Hockey Alberta run that you kind of are like, oh, I didn't know that was happening or that that happened two weeks ago whatever the case is. um Yeah, like they said, i only get a couple emails, you know, per season from them.
00:21:46
Speaker
It's not like constant, hey, here's an opportunity, here's an opportunity. Yeah, for sure. So for you, um because I know you had mentioned like the third party providers being an important part of a solid development plan.
Strategies for Positive Goalie Development
00:22:03
Speaker
But what do you think is a goalie director um that you can influence is kind of the and like one or maybe a couple of the most important things that you can do to influence a good goalie development plan in your organization?
00:22:22
Speaker
Oh, um for me, it's to support the coaches. um So I have to commend the DIY Goalie website. Excellent, excellent resources there. So I've used a lot of those to basically put together um ah binder.
00:22:39
Speaker
We call it Intendi We Trust and distributed it to all of our U13 coaches. And it gives them a whole slew of different drills that they can do, stuff that the goalies can do.
00:22:52
Speaker
When they're not on the ice, just like some stretching and stuff like that, working on their hand-eye coordination, just really pushing and, again, helping to support and being available for coaches to answer any kind of questions and help them out with their goalies during practice so they're not targets for you know an hour straight.
00:23:13
Speaker
Yeah. So, yeah, big thing for me is just make sure that you can support the coaches and give them the info and the help that they need. Yeah. Yeah. If anyone's out, if anyone out there is a goalie director or will be down the road, i do think that's the best way to kind of bridge the gap of the lack of support that we have now, which it is getting better.
00:23:35
Speaker
um But to get to where we want to be, I think getting more knowledge and in the hands of the actual team coaches um and even just having one person on staff that even just has the basic knowledge of, you know,
00:23:50
Speaker
save execution, tracking and skating. um i think that's kind of the way to go to really, you know, build a good support system for the goalies. So,
00:24:04
Speaker
so When it comes to the coaches then, do you frequently get a chance to kind of like sit down and talk with them or is it mostly just through email or kind of how does how does that support system look for you guys? um like A lot of the information flows via email ah with the document packages and stuff like that.
00:24:30
Speaker
um Conversely, I'm at the rink a lot. They're at the rink a lot. So again, if I run into coaches and they have questions, they definitely know that they can fire away. um Or if again they don't see me, they can always text or email me.
00:24:45
Speaker
But again, in-person is always better. um Something I was going to mention before interwebs kicked us off is um love what you guys do and you invite coaches out to actually be part of the goalie development. And I think that is absolutely um Paramount, if you want goalies to develop, is, yeah, designate somebody from your team.
00:25:07
Speaker
Have them come and attend Monday goalie sessions or whatever their goalie sessions are. And, you know, just learn that basic yeah kind of coaching skill. and Most people that grow up playing hockey don't play goal.
00:25:20
Speaker
People grow up playing hockey. Yeah. So, yeah no just having that opportunity big. Yeah, and the classic, I don't know anything about it, so I'm not touching it.
00:25:32
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, on that note, yeah, i encourage people to come learn. It doesn't matter if you don't know anything, you can learn it. Check out a second. Have you ran into the situation yet where you've come across a coach that isn't really receptive or is kind of like, ah you know, kind of more of that old school?
00:25:55
Speaker
Yeah. mentality on it um i've had a couple that aren't huge fans of it um until their goalies come back from a couple goalie development sessions and are now making saves that they weren't making saves before and the coach is like oh okay well i guess it works I guess it works.
00:26:18
Speaker
Yeah. So is that, do think the best way to to kind of change that viewpoint, I guess, or that opinion is to kind of just show them the results?
00:26:32
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, positive results help everything. Absolutely. But yeah, it's kind of like I said earlier, you got to show piece show them the value in it. I always joke if there's no goalie, there's no game.
00:26:47
Speaker
yeah no it's great the This game starts from the net outward. So um the more people can realize the value of that, the better their goaltending situation is going to wind up.
00:26:58
Speaker
um And yeah, just encourage goalies young. That's kind of what we're trying to do is get as many U9s as we can fired up for the goalie position. And you know that way, hopefully we don't have shortages going into or
00:27:13
Speaker
Yeah, I do find it funny because there's been a couple organizations that have reached out to us for their goalie development and we fire them our or organization package their way.
00:27:24
Speaker
And then they kind of go, oh yeah, that's great. Like, looks awesome. um We just don't have the budget for that or whatever. or We found somebody that was like half the price or whatever the case is. yeah And these organizations are struggling to fill tendy spots on every team and then they continue to struggle to find tendy spots on every team.
00:27:48
Speaker
And it's kind of like, well, if you have 10 teams in an age group and you only have six goalies, I don't know how that's going to work. You're going to be sending basically, you know, 40 to 60 kids home saying, Hey, sorry, we don't have a goalie for your team. So yeah.
00:28:06
Speaker
Um, They got to be figuring out how to convince some of those 60 kids to be goalie. Yeah. Or that. Yeah, for sure. Hey, we don't have a development program, but we need you to be in that.
00:28:19
Speaker
So yeah. So if you're out there and part of an organization, invest in your goalies. It's better for your organization as a whole. ah Money well spent, ladies and gentlemen. Money well spent.
00:28:31
Speaker
So... so We did kind of touch on it, but some is there a way that you've kind of gotten coaches excited to get on board and kind of encourage them to come out to the sessions or to actually read the material you're getting? Or do you find that they're mostly pretty receptive and and take the onus on themselves?
00:28:58
Speaker
um Not every coach has been rah-rah with all that kind of material. but um we've been able to find at least one coach on the team that is, and they'll kind of take on that material and ah they'll be like, okay, well, I'll be the goalie guy for this team.
00:29:17
Speaker
And yeah, then we invite them to come up to the sessions and stuff like that. That's a good thing when you can have, you know, five to six hard cards per team is that you'll generally find at least one coach that's receptive to it.
00:29:29
Speaker
um Or, you know, maybe their kid is is the goalie on the team. Dad is the coach. doesn't know anything about playing goalie, but now here's his opportunity to learn. I've actually got a couple of those, that situation where, you know, dad maybe didn't play a lot of hockey kids, the goalie, he's helping to coach, but they've got that resource book that we give them. And now they're all in, like they're doing homework, they're doing off ice stuff there, you know, they're fully invested.
00:29:57
Speaker
Yeah. I was going to say too, uh, it, uh, I guess worst case scenario, you can always pull the goalie parent out of the stands and say, hey, here you go.
00:30:09
Speaker
so Exactly. um so Yeah, I've had a lot of goalie parents actually like, hey, can you send me that book too? I'm like, absolutely. i can Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I think the more resources, the better. And I think that's the biggest thing lacking in the position.
00:30:23
Speaker
and So what has kind of surprised you the most, I guess, ah about about being a goalie director that you didn't really anticipate ah when you kind of started the job?
Unexpected Challenges in Goalie Coaching
00:30:38
Speaker
um ah I didn't anticipate there being such a gap, such a learning gap. yeah ah How little is known one about the position.
00:30:52
Speaker
um of ah Again, again i I grew up playing goalie. I was obsessed with the position. I was reading goaltending magazines. you know I did all that stuff.
00:31:03
Speaker
um So personally, I was a little ignorant that there wasn't that much knowledge everywhere else. Yeah. Yeah, there's just, again, grew up with Gretzky and Connor, so everybody else wanted to play out.
00:31:20
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And that's... um That was a big reason why I started to get into the coaching side of things was like I was 17 playing my first year of Junior A and that was the first time I heard anybody tell me about what tracking a puck was.
00:31:38
Speaker
And it's kind of crazy the lack of stuff out there. And like even a spent a season on a coaching staff with a Junior B team and we had kids at tryouts and whatever and I'm working with them during the tryout session and they're like, oh yeah, this is the first time I've ever had like anybody do any sort of formal goalie coaching with me or whatever. And I'm like, and you're whatever, 18, 17, 19 years old and trying for a junior B team and no goalie coaching whatsoever. It kind of baffles me, but at the same time growing up in it, it doesn't, but that's kind of the sad truth about it.
00:32:21
Speaker
No, you're 100% right. I didn't have goalie coaches or anything. It was all kind of knowledge you had to go find yourself or you could find the odd like Betamax video of an 80s goalie instructor teaching how to do pad stacks or, you know, skate saves. But yeah, it wasn't a whole lot of the new generation stuff to teach. So yeah, it was it was an interesting time to grow up, I think.
00:32:46
Speaker
my first goalie camp I went to, I was like 15 or 16 and it was actually Ian Gordon when he played in the WHL. He was a WHL player at that time. Yeah.
00:32:57
Speaker
Yeah. It's, frankly, it's come a long way, but yeah, there's still a long way to go yet. Yeah. I remember my very first goalie camp. It was, uh, run by the Nadeukes. It was that camp. And, uh,
00:33:10
Speaker
I remember being taught half butterflies and pad stacks and stuff and the good old days. But that was the only camp that I got that teaching. I think by the time I got a little older, that was phasing out. But if you didn't have any constraints, like no budget or, you know, you kind of had all the resources at your fingertips.
00:33:38
Speaker
what do you think would be the one or two things that you would like to implement that you think would make the biggest difference in supporting your goalies and your organization?
Envisioning an Ideal Goalie Program
00:33:49
Speaker
Oh, brand new gear, brand new pillows and all that stuff, right? The nicest, finest stuff. Cause kids would be all over it. Um, more ice sessions.
00:34:01
Speaker
If I had no constraints, there would be couple goalie developments. Um, Age specific, I do U7, I do U9, I do U11, I do U13, all in their own individual ones.
00:34:13
Speaker
um I would do that. I would have a whole bunch more resources that they would get. Maybe there'd be a bunch of printed material. um Oh, I do a lot of more dry land stuff, you like renting racket courts, squash, stuff like that. Just, yeah, I would, I'd probably go crazy with that kind of stuff, a whole bunch extra dry land work.
00:34:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. yeah Well, if you want our new website now, we actually ah got AI to code me up a a concentration grid generator so you can start pushing that on the goalies.
00:34:52
Speaker
And the DIY goalie is... going to officially be shut down pretty soon here it's all on the true north site so if any of you are still using the diy goalie site you included kurt you'll have to make your way over to a true north bullettan yeah so uh and one of these days i'll put the new drills that we have up there too but uh you know baby steps i guess always looking for some new ideas for the kids yeah so before we let you go do you kind of have
00:35:22
Speaker
one piece of advice out there for, for the goalies or maybe the goalie parents or coaches or, or maybe one for all three. I don't know, but what do you kind of have as a wrap up last piece of wisdom for us?
00:35:40
Speaker
Oh, I'm a goalie coach. I'm not supposed to be full of wisdom. Fair enough. i To be honest with you, I don't really know what I would say other than just, you know if you love it, put the time in.
00:35:53
Speaker
You know, parents invest the time, spend the money. They're only young once. Where's the goalies go? you know, work hard. Stay off your devices.
00:36:05
Speaker
Again, we didn't have that. There was nothing else to do. We'd go outside and play hockey all the time. There's so many distractions nowadays. um Yeah. go Go find stuff to do.
00:36:18
Speaker
that you know Build that skill. Go outside. Go stretch. Go you know, bounce balls off the wall, go play catch with friends, work in your glove. Yeah, just find stuff to do. And if you love it, you know, do it every day.
00:36:34
Speaker
That's the best thing I could tell people. Yeah. Goes by quick before you know it, you're old and washed up and sitting behind a webcam doing a podcast episode. Before you know it, you're playing Dua League and blowing out knees and groins. So, yeah.
00:36:49
Speaker
Oh man, I threw out my back like probably a month and a half ago playing mini hockey with my kids. And I was like, Oh, I'm at that stage in life now. So, yeah. Um, but no, I very much appreciate you taking the time, Kurt, uh, to kind of give us a little bit of a background.
00:37:07
Speaker
Um, I don't know if you're much of a social media guy or if you kind of have, uh, anywhere that people can reach out to you if maybe they do have questions for their own organization or maybe they're thinking of getting involved and kind of wanted to see what it's like.
00:37:24
Speaker
um I don't know if there's anywhere that people can reach out to you. Yeah. Yeah. If people want to find me, they can go to the Casey North website. I'm want listed on the board of directors. So there is my email is listed there.
00:37:39
Speaker
um not yeah i'm not a huge social media guy i do have an instagram account ah it's ra r a c k s at coach at coach racks if they want to reach out to me that way but yeah best way honestly shoot me an email off the kc north website if they have questions on uh what it's like to be goalie director or you know anything like that awesome yeah and we'll put all of that in the show notes for you guys so um somebody does have any questions about any organizational stuff, you can reach out to Kurt.
Innovative Evaluation Techniques
00:38:12
Speaker
Kurt's been awesome to work with on our side of things, um, as the third party provider. So appreciate that. Um, before we go, the one cool thing that, uh, Kurt did do this year during evaluations was we had a, uh, goalie specific fun skate kind of halfway through evaluations to just kind of have, that
00:38:35
Speaker
a little bit of a stress reliever, have some fun. And yeah so was that was pretty cool to do and and to see. So we got to run just literally an hour of fun battle drills. We had goalies doing badminton on the ice and a couple other cool things. So that was fun. um They had a blast. I don't think I've ever ever seen them sweatier either.
00:38:56
Speaker
people Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, Kurt's got some really cool ideas and is doing some pretty cool things with Casey Norris. So if you guys want to pick his brain, we'll put all that in the show notes.
00:39:09
Speaker
um Thanks again for Kurt for taking the
Closing Remarks and Follow-Up
00:39:12
Speaker
time with us. And thank you guys for listening. As always, if you like what you hear, you can follow us either on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, wherever you guys are listening.
00:39:24
Speaker
You can leave a like or a comment on our YouTube channel. Share the the episode and the show with your friends. That's going to help us grow and find more goalies out in the goalie community.
00:39:36
Speaker
You can find us on truenorthgoaltending.com. We've got drills, courses, merch, apparel, basically everything you can think of there. um You can follow us on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube at truenorthgoaltending and Instagram is y-e-g-goaliecoach.
00:39:54
Speaker
Thanks again, guys. It was a pleasure to have you here with us today. As always, take care. Make some safe, goalies.