Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
050 - Creating a Development Plan for Minor Hockey Goalies with Evan Kurylo
81 Plays29 days ago
Show notes are available at https://thediygoalie.com/pod050
This week we sit down with the Director of Goaltending of the KC North elite stream in Edmonton, Evan Kurylo. Evan sits down and talks about his research based approach to creating a development program, which provides a unique perspective on how we can ensure goalie's get the development they deserve.
Recommended
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 Munday share their insights on how to become ah better goalie.
00:00:19
Speaker
Goalies, welcome back to the DIY Goalie Podcast presented by True North Goaltending.
Guest Introduction: Evan Carrillo's Background
00:00:26
Speaker
I am back soloing another episode here today on the DIY Goalie Podcast. Nathan is away on assignment today, and by assignment we mean that he forgot that he had a family thing to go to tonight, so we're going to...
00:00:39
Speaker
Throw him under the bus and say, Nathan, good luck with that. And we have a good friend of mine and a former coach that I used to work with a very long time ago, Evan Carrillo from Cortex Goaltending. Evan, are doing today?
00:00:52
Speaker
ah Doing well, Connor. Thanks for having me on. Perfect. Well, we're very glad to have you on today. Just a little bit of background on Evan. Currently has a stance right now. He is the goaltending a development director for Knights of Columbus Hockey here in the Edmonton, Alberta, particularly in the elite level stream.
00:01:12
Speaker
um He's also done some work with a past gold ah past guest and ah and the goalie coach that we've had here on the channel, Ian Gordon. And as well as a few other things.
Evan's Hockey Journey & Academic Path
00:01:22
Speaker
So we're going to talk a little bit about Evan's playing career, but mostly talk about his his kind of experience with coaching and being in the elite level stream here in the ah Hockey Alberta, Hockey Canada realm.
00:01:34
Speaker
And just kind of chat some ah chat some stuff about that here. So ah we'll just get right into it here. So let's just, you know, it's the standard question that we always ask. ah How did you get into hockey and what drew you to goaltending?
00:01:46
Speaker
My dad was a goaltender. um i just remember going to the arena watching his men's league games and that that was back in the Furland and Forrester gear era days. I don't know if anybody remembers those brands, but um no I loved it. it was that does not That does not sound familiar to me.
00:02:06
Speaker
It was the lunch plate size blockers. um It was probably one of the first generations away from the all brown, like deer hair kind of stuff here.
00:02:17
Speaker
And I just remember him bringing all that new gear home one day and there's cool equipment all over our basement and we just put it on all the time. So it was probably watching him play and then the gear was around all the time. So ah probably the gear that drew me into it. Okay.
00:02:35
Speaker
right Yeah, no, I get that. like My dad still has his old Cooper, like the like the proper brown Cooper ah pads with the waffle board blocker and and all that there. So we did did a did a lot of hallway hockey back when I was like four, five, six years old. Yeah.
00:02:51
Speaker
thats that was That was fun. ah We'll talk a little bit about here, just kind of your playing career. You spent a couple of years in the KIJHL with Grand Forks, ah Border Bruins, and then spent some time in the BCIHL with Simon Fraser University, and then kind of capped off ah with the Edson Ice here in the NCHL Alberta Division. I think that's what I'm looking at here.
00:03:13
Speaker
Um, so, but ah specifically, I want to talk about, um, Simon Fraser. ah we had Luke lush on couple of episodes ago and we were talking about his time in college university playing hockey. So what was kind of your experience like playing, uh, with playing hockey at Simon Fraser and what did you study at Simon Fraser?
00:03:32
Speaker
I actually transferred to SFU from the ACAC. So I had a couple of years. It doesn't show up HockeyDB for whatever reason, but ah the first two years that Portage College was in existence, I was up there and had a couple of years.
00:03:48
Speaker
um it that was a good program up that way, but you sort of outgrow it pretty quickly. And then um just decided I was going to spend a little bit more energy on the academic side of things. So wanted to upgrade and see if I could earn ah degree out of it. So SFU actually came up to Lac La Biche and played Portage in bit of a season opening tournament that we had one year. And opened my eyes to the BC College League.
00:04:15
Speaker
And as soon as my second year was done ah in the ACAC, I reached out to those guys at SFU and um went down and toured the campus and checked out Thompson Rivers University as well in that league. And um SFU seemed to be like they rank fairly high in Canadian schools. And it seemed like it was going to be a good choice to to go there. So, yeah,
00:04:39
Speaker
um I played out all 10 semesters, so two years at Portage and then three full years at SFU and actually dressed for an emergency semester for an 11th semester at SFU as well.
00:04:54
Speaker
It was a good time. like they It was a younger league, so they were they were growing fairly established. Well, there was maybe seven teams at the time.
00:05:06
Speaker
The league's transformed a little bit right now, um but we would play exhibition games. We were starting to get some Division I schools that were coming up, like North Dakota and Princeton.
00:05:17
Speaker
ah We had them up for ah one Christmas, and we'd have UBC across town that we started a bit of a rivalry with as well. And
Career Transition and Educational Pursuits
00:05:28
Speaker
so we got some good – we had some – Some pretty good competition that came through there.
00:05:35
Speaker
ah My first year there, I was backing up, but we won a championship. Obviously, I wish I would have been playing a little bit more that year, but I was behind ah an established starter and he he did well winning us the championship. And the second year, we started to get into a little bit more of the Canada West. It was still CIS at the time.
00:05:56
Speaker
and then some Division I opponents as well went down to Wenatchee and we met Air Force Academy ah for the first Division I game. So that was an eye opener being involved in that speed of hockey.
00:06:08
Speaker
And um
00:06:13
Speaker
yeah, it was it was a good time. I'm glad that I did it. I always say that my playing career I don't think was anything too special. um But I'm still grateful for those opportunities as well. And then at SFU, bounced around my degrees or my majors a little bit and ended up with a major in psychology, a bachelor of arts degree.
00:06:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's ah that's interesting. um and you know you get to You hear about all these college experiences and university experiences and whatever else. I've only been accustomed to what we have here in Alberta with U-Sport Golden Bears and Nadukes and all ah all those guys.
00:06:52
Speaker
i want to talk quickly about so your return to Edmonton. ah You did spend some time at Concordia University. ah So what did you study there? And i don't think you had any playing career over there, did you?
00:07:04
Speaker
No, no, no. My playing eligibility was all done at that point. And I was starting to feel it my hips and lower back and everything anyway. So, um yeah, I couldn't have played even if I wanted to, at that time. So I moved back to Edmonton and originally I just came back with my bachelor of arts and I had a summer job in Vancouver as a, on a construction crew with a scaffolding company.
00:07:28
Speaker
And that boss was interested in expanding up to Edmonton where I was moving back to. So long story short, i had a as soon as I moved back, I had a job as a project manager. we got into the Rogers Place construction downtown in Edmonton here. So um that was really the one job that I wanted to be a part of. I knew that I wasn't going to stick around in that industry for too, too long.
00:07:54
Speaker
Um, but I'm grateful that I managed to wrangle us that contract and kind of had the, uh, the keys to get in there whenever I wanted to. And if we had a meeting one morning, I'd always go in early and check to see the progress on the Oilers dressing room and what seats are going in and, um, kind of full reign around the place. So that was pretty cool.
00:08:13
Speaker
Um, but I did that for a little while. I coached full time and the more I coached, the more I was starting to meet other coaches who were you teachers and, realized that that's probably going to be a really good fit.
00:08:26
Speaker
And I looked at Concordia and they had a two-year after degree program for a Bachelor of Education. So that's what the the two years at Concordia were, um just sort of a condensed degree that pulls a lot ah from a lot of the credits from the previous degree.
00:08:42
Speaker
And got my two teaching practicums in both at hockey academies, which I was grateful for, and finished up in 2018 with a teaching degree and been going ever since.
00:08:57
Speaker
Righto. Yeah, um that seems to be a common thing with most... with most coaches that they have some kind of a ah teaching background there. Vimy Ridge Academy being a notable one here in the Edmonton area. St. Effects is another.
00:09:12
Speaker
ah Mount Carmel, another one. Those are just the three that I remember off the head there. But those seem to, those two seem to really go ah go synonymous there. And I think it kind of works kind of both ways there, right? mean, like coaching is a form of,
00:09:24
Speaker
a form of teaching, right? So you kind of, there's a little bit of a kind of skill transfer when it comes to that both teaching academics versus teaching athletics.
00:09:36
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. It's like the the planning helps one way or the other, and then the communicating and getting a message across, challenging, but not, you know, putting something out of reach.
00:09:49
Speaker
ah for the students. So I think the planning element was probably the biggest part of the the education degree that helped me with my coaching. Okay. Yeah. Right on. um
Coaching Philosophy and Experience Sharing
00:10:00
Speaker
Okay. So Just having a brief look at your bio here with Casey Goalies.
00:10:06
Speaker
um Wanted to talk about winning a scholarship ah to attending net diy to attend the Network Goaltending Symposium. Where is it here? Madison, Wisconsin. How did that come about? Because that was back in 2016. Yep.
00:10:23
Speaker
yeah Good question. How did that come about? i think, ah so another random job that I had, the year of the Fort McMurray wildfires, I had a job as a helicopter hot refueler, which meant that I would spend days and days and weeks and weeks up in the bush with this big fuel tank and the helicopters that were fighting the wildfires would come down, touch down, they'd stay running and I'd run out and fuel them up and they would take off and keep going on their day.
00:10:52
Speaker
There was a lot of downtime with a job like that. So i got to know ah started following a lot of um the goalie accounts and got to know ah Justin Goldman and a lot of the work that he was doing and saw that Network Goaltending was holding the symposium and they were accepting some scholarships. So I just applied for one of the scholarships, which essentially just meant that they covered the the registration fee to get down there.
00:11:25
Speaker
ah So I applied for that and Justin reached out one morning and ah said, congratulations, book a plane to Madison and That one was really cool. was the first introduction to um like a really big goalie-specific symposium with goalies from all over the world. and um ah There was one point where I had a rental car and I was going back and forth between the university and the hotel. and um I had met David Hutchinson and Kevin Woodley.
00:11:56
Speaker
And if you've ever met Woody, he's a very, very passionate speaker. He'll talk your ear off. And ah I mean that in the the highest form of respect.
00:12:08
Speaker
ah He's got a lot of passion in the subject. were just down in the parking garage and he's like demoing like butterfly and reverse BH and all this stuff and um get in the car. He's like, can you give a couple of guys a ride back to the hotel? So ah had like him, Hutch,
00:12:25
Speaker
ah Rick St. Croix, who I didn't even know who it was at the time, but Winnipeg Jets goaltending coach. And i think Tomas Magnussen might have been in there as well. So it was it was a fun, was an interesting ride. I wish I would have grabbed a picture driving back because I don't know if that'll ever happen again.
00:12:44
Speaker
Yeah, I wish you did too. Could have linked that in the show notes there. um Okay, so so what so i got I guess I got to ask this question then because I i have a bit of an idea, but I'm just i' curious about it. So what what goes on at a network goaltending symposium or something like a global goaltending retreat like you attended with ah Justin Goldman like we were talking off camera there?
00:13:08
Speaker
Those were two pretty different events. um The network goaltending symposium was run like a series of lectures almost. Like it was in one of the big lecture halls at University of Wisconsin, the Madison ah campus. And they had just several speakers coming through and it was more just goaltending coaches, player coaches, um anybody involved in an elite level in the in the industry great.
00:13:39
Speaker
presenting basically on what they were most knowledgeable in. And it was kind of a lecture format. Uh, there was a little bit of collaboration time, like sitting down for lunch with the guys and like, we're all at the same hotel. So, you know, you see everybody around all the time there, but, uh, most of the structure was, it was mostly structured as a like a lecture format.
00:14:00
Speaker
And then the one in Breckenridge was way more, ah collaborative and, we we had some ice as well. The one in Wisconsin, there was no ice to get onto. We did get a tour of the Kohl Center where the Badgers play.
00:14:15
Speaker
um But in Breckenridge, we had access to the arena there that Justin was talking about. was the highest elevation arena in U.S. North America or something like that. Yes, something like that. You definitely feel it.
00:14:30
Speaker
Yeah, you definitely feel it and Even for an Edmonton guy, like you're kind of, it's like you're, you're winded all the time walking around there. And there were a couple of guys that came up from Miami. So like almost sea level, it was a heck of an adjustment for them.
00:14:45
Speaker
um but it was the kind of back and forth between the lodge where there were, it was a little bit more informal, like just kind of a conference room. There were still speakers like projectors set up.
00:14:57
Speaker
Um, a lot of non goalie people, uh, came and did some lectures and, sort of just for us to try and make some connections, um, that we probably wouldn't have made if we're just kind of stuck in the goalie rut.
00:15:16
Speaker
And, um, yeah, then we would get up to, uh, the arena and there was a bunch of demo goaltenders that were skating as well. So, um, we'd get on the ice and a couple of guys would, it was kind of set up that, uh, we'd get together in groups and the groups would make different drills and,
00:15:34
Speaker
Guys from Russia would be showcasing what the kind of things that they're doing, and the Canadian guys would showcase what we're doing, and the the Finns and the Swedes. There's a goaltending coach from Mexico City, one from Australia.
00:15:46
Speaker
ah Maria Mountain was on the ice cruising around, and it was a cool experience, ah but very, very different structure for both of them.
00:15:57
Speaker
Shout out to the Aussies, our third, ah one of the top three demographics in listenership on the DIY Goalie podcast, um which is kind of like an odd stat, to be honest.
00:16:10
Speaker
um okay well Okay, well, let's talk about this. We've... I touched on a little bit here, but how did how did Evan Carrillo get started in to goalie coaching, um starting your company with Gore with Cortex Goaltending?
00:16:25
Speaker
ah You also have a YouTube channel under that under the same name that showcases different aspects on how to be a better goalie. And so just the overall question is, how did you get into the goaltending?
00:16:36
Speaker
Why did you start your own company and how did the kind of all of it come about?
00:16:42
Speaker
ah When my playing career ended, we that was with SFU. I was actually backing up that game and just the way it all ended, I wasn't happy with how the season was done, but it was like, okay, that's my eligibility is up. There's no more.
00:16:57
Speaker
I knew I wasn't going to go pro. ah It was just time to pursue something a little bit more academic and a little bit more stable and to get sort of going with life. I remember sitting on the bus on the way back to Vancouver, though, and I just think, like, I still, I got to be involved still.
00:17:14
Speaker
Like, I've got, I'm not done with this game. I've got so much that I feel like I want to do And there's no age limit with coaching. So I'd been not, probably not coaching, but instructing for, oh quite a while since I was maybe 14 or 15 back in the old goalie center days with John Stevenson and his crew.
00:17:37
Speaker
um I used to do John Stevenson's camps and then Perry Pern's three on three in the summers as well and um started coaching with Perry Pern and actually built a bit of a relationship with him too and got some really good advice ah throughout the way.
00:17:54
Speaker
um But moving back to Edmonton, i just I knew that I needed to get into coaching. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do at the time. This is a few years before the teaching career started. So i was bouncing
Key Skills for Young Goaltenders
00:18:05
Speaker
a few things around and thought I'm going to dive full into goaltending coaching.
00:18:10
Speaker
And a I didn't know if I was ever going to get into the big camp format. Like Edmonton's very, very blessed. We've got a lot of really good goaltending coaches and a lot of good people that run really, really good programs here.
00:18:25
Speaker
um I looked at that and I thought, like, there's no need for me to start my own here. There's a lot of other people that are really well equipped with some good instructors and good partnerships that do a really nice job.
00:18:40
Speaker
ah So I wanted to stay... I guess perhaps a little bit more, little bit smaller and a little bit more one-on-one and working. ah I needed an association to work for. So I think I just, as a young guy, fresh into back into Edmonton, I emailed every association that I could find. Casey needed a coach at the, what was then major midget triple A level.
00:19:06
Speaker
And so started with them and actually kind of bounced. had two roles as a goaltending coach and an assistant coach with them. And I established Cortex Goaltending that same fall just because I i wanted a brand. And I like figured the idea of growing something would have been fun.
00:19:25
Speaker
And at that time, started at KC. There was a group of other guys, Adam Surgery, who's now the GM of the Shrewd Park Crusaders. Brennan Menard, who's ah coached in the OHL.
00:19:37
Speaker
of Canada West, AJHL is now coaching in Sherwood Park as well. And Aaron Menard, who's ah one of my colleagues at KC, um elite level coach as well, ah coaching the BCHL, CSSHL. So really good crew that we all happen to start sort of at the same time.
00:19:59
Speaker
And just kind of stuck, stuck with each other, stuck together. And, uh, actually Adam was a teacher as well. And I did one of my teaching student teaching practicums under him at, uh, St. Edmund, uh, at the hockey Academy. So it was kind of cool to have a mentor teacher. That was also my buddy at the time.
00:20:17
Speaker
And from there, it just, uh, started a YouTube channel. I've always been interested in editing and creating videos and, um, it's It's a fun way to do it.
00:20:29
Speaker
I've found in the hockey world and I'm sure as you guys have seen too, the internet's just strange with how it works. like you could Ingoal Meg posted that one video of was it Devin Levi taping his stick and taping the knob of his stick and it 7 million views or something.
00:20:49
Speaker
and then you could spend like I've got videos where I've spent 10 months doing research um on ah how visual systems work, nervous systems, and make this 10-minute video. and four years later, it's got like 300 views.
00:21:03
Speaker
So the ah social media world is kind of funny that way. But i still enjoy doing it. And I like putting it out there because like my big part of the philosophy is if I can help somebody like a remote goaltender in northern Manitoba somewhere that just doesn't get any coaching and find some use from one of these videos, then perfect.
00:21:27
Speaker
I'll put the time in. Yeah, no, for, for sure. That that's, that's something that kind of we found here at, at the DIY goalie, you know, i mean, we're, we're, we're brutal on the content front. Like really the, the podcast is kind of the only thing that, that keeps us going here. But, um but no, like watching, like I've, I have seen a few of your videos over the years. And then again, obviously within goal and all that kind of all the other content stuff, having,
00:21:56
Speaker
goalie content, whether be something as silly as Nick the goalie's videos or um something, you know, for example, from Ingle or from ah from you and just something a little more serious to talk about the technical and provides a little bit of coaching for that remote goalie up in and ah and Manitoba and the northern side of it there. um it It does help, and i definitely need we definitely need more of that out there. The more that we're able to get the the knowledge and experience out there, the better.
00:22:27
Speaker
um Speaking of that, what is what is your coaching philosophy when it comes to when it comes to working with your goalies?
00:22:36
Speaker
Most of my work is with the grassroots guys. So starting from U11, U13, U15, and not so much with the junior and um college pro guys. But ah I do know that as they get a little bit older, robust athletes tend to pick up the finer details and the more specific ah elements of the position a lot faster. So um with coaching experience, like a lot of it, actually, I would take off the ice to um like starting off as a fairly robust athlete and kind of shaping the position out of that athlete um strength and speed and range of motion.
00:23:22
Speaker
ah That's all got to be there. I mean, there's only so much we can, simplify a C cut. If there's, you know, just really for lack of a better word, a week goaltender or a week athlete.
00:23:38
Speaker
Um, with that, as they get a little bit older, like I've come to realize that certain things just come online a little bit later. Um, and as we know, Things ah like skill sort of converges as you get a little bit higher.
00:23:51
Speaker
So you get into the u seventeen you eighteen and junior, and a lot of guys that are around the same level are all pretty similar skill-wise. And the separating features start to be with play reading ability and anticipation.
00:24:05
Speaker
um So with coaching philosophy, I mean, physically, the foundation has to be there in terms of strength and athleticism. um Goaltending-wise, a good place to start, I believe, is with mobility.
00:24:20
Speaker
And um with that, like it's all tied into strength. So my definition of mobility is like a strong skating goalie, someone who's minimized, removed any physical limitations that would otherwise prevent them from hitting the right spot positionally.
00:24:37
Speaker
And then with
Development Stages and Coaching Methods
00:24:38
Speaker
that definition of mobility, you build out words into understanding your positions and when you're taking ice, when you're drifting, when you're set, um based on certain, based on the scenario that's in front of you.
00:24:51
Speaker
Um, with minor hockey, I think puck handling is kind of a, an undervalued skill just with, Um, number one, like having an understanding of how the goaltenders work within a team structure.
00:25:06
Speaker
And a lot of them, they're just, they get kind of scared to number one, make a mistake with handling the puck because it's really obvious. And everybody in the arena sees the goalie cough up the puck and they're in the corner and that's wide open.
00:25:21
Speaker
Um, but a good puck handling goaltender, like I know a lot of our brains would go to somebody like Mike Smith. yeah Um, he, he, I tell the goalies, you don't have to be able to sauce the puck from goal line to far blue line in the air to be a good puck handling goaltender. Number one, just stop a rim, please, and understand that you're greatly disrupting a forecheck when you do so.
00:25:47
Speaker
And from there on, the the issue is more like, what do I do with the puck after I stop it is where a lot of the hesitation comes from. ah But we build outwards from that with with video and understanding the the scenarios and having a little bit of an understanding of a forecheck.
00:26:04
Speaker
I'm not going to tell goalies that you need to be paying attention and taking notes when you know you're in the video sessions and coaches describing how your 1-3-1 forecheck works. I was certainly never that guy.
00:26:15
Speaker
um you know Listening to drills drawn up at the board when I was playing, was almost a surprise every time the puck came down to me because... they kind of spaced out. I knew I was getting the shot and I kind of liked it better that way because, you know, you have to react and read things as they're happening.
00:26:33
Speaker
Um, but, uh, I guess for philosophy, um, it's sort of built up. Like I have a full report card development, uh, program that I have here.
00:26:44
Speaker
If I had to break it down, I think, um, like It's just so different because it depends on on the ages too. It sort of scaffolds and skill stacks as you get a little bit older.
00:26:55
Speaker
i think a good starting point is just with athleticism. um And then it gets just into ah mental preparation, properly dealing with a bad goal, and then just all of these little these little consistencies that goalies should try and build into their game to You know, routine wise, just be a little bit more of a mature, consistent goaltender. And instead of being somebody who's capable of making a big save or having a good period, you want to be a goaltender who's capable of having a good season and having a good career and not just fluking one out once in a while, kind of like i did.
00:27:37
Speaker
Yeah. a Quick puck handling story. I think it was my second second year midget. um Puck came down, stopped it in the far corner, had the guy coming down on the half wall towards me on the near side. So I tried to throw it around the other way. i Ended up catching the stanchion in the right spot. Sales over the top of the No defense to be found. Nice wide open goal there for them. So.
00:28:02
Speaker
After that, refuse to play the puck after that. But, yeah. um No, definitely. And I think that's the thing as well. i mean, you know, like, the better, the best goaltenders, you know, are, well, some of the best goaltenders are puck handling goaltenders. But even then, the best goaltenders are the ones that are able to see the play and and watch it develop. Again, like I...
00:28:23
Speaker
we all I praise and I'm sure you do as well you know Ingalls pro reads you know getting to watch you know watching the pros or the the NHL guys AHL guys and and PWHL girls ah see and you know just kind of what taking the step by step you know watching those um watching those plays develop seeing what's going on in their mind and for lack of better a term basically anticipating what they're going to do or what's going to come next Yeah, there's never a one-size-fits-all for a situation like you hear ah who was just on there. Cam Talbot ah was just on in goal for 1-2. And it's it's just ah like a lot of constant problem-solving. And, you know, those little habits that are built in, the scans off the puck, the younger goalies, maybe they're scanning and they just notice that somebody's kind of over there.
00:29:16
Speaker
And maybe that's all they're able to process at that time as a U13 goalie, say, but that's fine. As you get older, i can't expect a U13 goalie to process ah handedness and path and a lane opening up the same way you would expect a U18 or a junior goalie to be able to do that.
00:29:33
Speaker
But at least if we're setting the foundation, like, look, there a guy over there? Yep. Okay. I have to potentially adjust for this. Yeah. high importance of reading or looking off the puck to kind of seem to play develop around you.
00:29:49
Speaker
um Speaking about Goal Magazine, we know we've talked about Woody. We've actually had David Hutchinson on the on the podcast at one point. Still very jealous that I didn't get to be part of that conversation.
00:30:00
Speaker
um But it's also been my understanding that you were, I guess, contributor to In Goal Magazine. and I'm presuming that kind of came about after having the conversations at the Network Goaltending Symposium with Woody and Hutch and just kind of keeping connections there and and stuff like that.
00:30:18
Speaker
Actually, that was before I actually met those guys. um Same kind of thing. Like when I was starting out, i I didn't know like how big or established or well-known I wanted to be. I knew that I wanted to contribute and it started off with an article that I was watching somebody do a goalie session one time and it looked like they were working on foot speed and the drill was lasting for like 45 or 60 seconds and the goalies were just gassed by the end of it. And they're like, it's a high explosive, high intensity drill.
00:30:50
Speaker
And I was watching that and I just, my brain kind of connected something from the the kinesiology days um in university about just the different metabolic energy systems that we use. And the one of them, it's an anaerobic system that we use. And think about if you're in in Edmonton, we've got those river valley stairs, for example. And if you're at the bottom of those,
00:31:15
Speaker
and you were to just do an all-out sprint up that that staircase, ah you would be able to go as hard as you could for maybe 15 seconds or so. And
Publishing and Research in Goaltending
00:31:25
Speaker
then you start to slow down because you run out of that anaerobic ah ATP as your fuel source.
00:31:33
Speaker
And with a high intensity movement like that, I'm thinking if you're trying to do a 45 second drill at 100% speed, you've long burned through that fuel source. So you are now operating a little bit slower than you wanted to.
00:31:46
Speaker
And if the intent is to build foot speed, it's probably better that you're doing a shorter duration drill, but at full maximum speed. And then, um, so anyways, long story short, that sort of kickstarted a big research project into, a drill about increasing foot speed.
00:32:05
Speaker
And it was maybe a six month research, um, ah project as well just a deep dive that I kind of did and wrote a big article I had a website going at the time I've since um removed it just because I'm terrible at maintaining that kind of stuff um but I wrote a full-on article I reached out to ah David Hutchinson and said just would you be interested in running this set in gold meg and he looked at it and he he was interested in running it they ran sort of an abbreviated version and he made it look like a lot better than i had it on my site with good pictures of uh i think it's his son maddie actually when he was when maddie was really young ah but they dressed it up and made it a good article and
00:32:51
Speaker
um it was after that that I saw Hutch and Woody in Wisconsin and I'm like hey I'm Evan Carrillo I'm the guy that did the the 15 second rep article and then it was like oh okay we kind of stuck around together for the rest of the weekend and those guys are super generous with their time and super salt of the earth people and um I'll still reach out to them. Like was asking Woody um is DMing him about some goalies and some of the clear site numbers that are on some guys and ah messaging Hutch yesterday. I think actually a couple of days ago, just about some other things as well. And Maddie used to, for a lot of summers, they would come up and attend Eli Wilson's camps up here.
00:33:37
Speaker
And, uh, my house is actually just kind of around the corner from the arena where Eli holds those. So once I saw that they were up here, it reached out to Hutch and like, know, come over, we'll hold you guys, uh, host you guys for a dinner or something. And, you know, we've kind of stayed in touch ever that ever since then, Maddie's had a couple of games in Edmonton. Um, one of the giants and then, ah one of the, uh, Moose Jaw warriors and Hutch will reach out and be like, Hey, Maddie's in town.
00:34:08
Speaker
Get out watch him if you can. So we'll ah try and get out and see Matty play whenever we can too. Yeah, because he was just recently traded to Boostjaw, wasn't he? Yeah, not too long ago. I think in January or so.
00:34:21
Speaker
Bit of a tough situation. Yeah. We'll, ah we'll link. Well, how I'll have to go find that article. if If you have the link, feel out feel free to send it to us, but we'll, ah we'll link it in the, in the show notes here. Evan Carrillo's drill on the increasing foot speed there.
00:34:37
Speaker
um I guess just kind of synonymous with that question. Just you've talked about it before, you know, doing different types of research ah for content purposes. Yeah.
00:34:50
Speaker
how does that kind of come about? You know, is there just like a, like a random idea that pops into your head that you just kind of want to deep dive further into, um, just what, what, what goes into the, into the research process when it comes to doing something like footwork, for example?
00:35:08
Speaker
It usually starts off with an observation and then the research part of it's actually really fun. It's really enjoyable. Um, there's not a lot in the academic journal databases that's goaltending specific. Uh, Dr. Rob Gray out of Arizona state university has some literature on it. And I think he was actually a goaltender too, but, um, there's not a ton. And it's interesting because it's such a unique position in terms of the, the timing and the interception and, uh, the eye movements and the processing.
00:35:44
Speaker
Um, but, uh, All it takes is to find one good article and then all of the references at the back of it will lead you on to three more articles about something.
00:35:55
Speaker
And so to answer your question, it usually just starts off with an observation. And then ah need to, like, I just kind of have to do a deep dive on it. I did another one a few years ago on flinching.
00:36:09
Speaker
because I see goalies that would do it all the time. And I actually had a period where I was struggling with it too. i was at a junior camp and in Canmore and for the goalie session, was last session of the day. And it took a shot high and hard and ended up breaking my jaw in a couple of places.
00:36:27
Speaker
And ah so I was out for a few months and then come back and like you, you couldn't have passed me a puck and without me pulling up and flinching at it. So um, it took a while, but I got over it.
00:36:41
Speaker
And then it's sort of, as a coach, you see it coming up all the time. And I want to be armed with something a little bit more than just, Hey, don't flinch. Hey, watch the puck a little bit more. So, um, it was a pretty big, I think I've got a full binder on it down here somewhere too.
00:36:58
Speaker
ah yeah. So this one was full of like articles for, flinching research and that took a little while to kind of sift through the relevant parts of that and i feel like I have a pretty good handle on it now I've posted some videos about it um just if it's going to help somebody because goalies I've found are not likely to come up and ask you about and I'm flinching really bad can you help me out it's one of those sort of stigmatized things I think unfortunately.
00:37:30
Speaker
um But yeah, it's it all just starts off with an observation. I'm starting another one on some quiet eye research. If goaltenders are interested and a name to dive into, there's one ah Joan Vickers out of the University of Calgary. If you want to understand ah about eye movement and tracking and proper tracking, she is like literally the authority on it.
00:37:55
Speaker
Um,
Hockey Alberta Program Involvement
00:37:56
Speaker
and this is kind of taking me down a rabbit hole as well here too. So, um, yeah, i heard, uh, your podcast with Ian Gordon too. And he was saying like a lot of guys think that they teach tracking, but do we really know what tracking is? And, uh, he's absolutely right. Like it, it goes so deep into how the eye is moving, how the brain is piecing the scene together in front of us. And, um, the mechanics of goaltending tied in with that too. Like there's a lot that goes into it.
00:38:25
Speaker
so yeah it just starts with an observation yeah which in turn has created this whole cognitive training um thing that we're starting to see pop up more and more uh more and more recently there um shout out to ariana krezik uh looking to get her on the podcast as soon here for with the cage performance and um just kind of getting the insight on that a little bit of pun intended there but uh Yeah, um no, definitely. so I'm going to have to going to have to pop by your house here at some point and kind of go through some of those binders that you have there because those are those those seem a little interesting there for sure.
00:39:00
Speaker
um I think this kind of segues really nicely into the next question here. um Talking about doing the research and stuff. couple years ago I had attended, and i ironically enough, I didn't know that it was you ah hosting it until day of, uh, the, uh, goaltending development one program with hockey, Alberta.
00:39:23
Speaker
Um, So how how did you get involved with that in Hockey Alberta and being and being the facilitator for the Goaltending Development 1 program?
00:39:34
Speaker
um Is there something that you had some input on or was it something that Hockey Alberta had just kind of said, hey, here's this PowerPoint presentation or was it just kind of a bit of a mixed collab?
00:39:50
Speaker
The exact same way actually that I got involved within GoalMag. I was the one that reached out to them. There's like no recruiting ah me or anything like that. Like I found that like I'm not coming from an NHL name or any pro playing experience or anything. i don't have that benefit of the doubt backing me up here.
00:40:10
Speaker
um So if I'm going to, I know that if I'm going to work my way up, it's going to be strictly merit based and So like, unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, like the grind of it is good too. Like i the networking and reaching out to people and being proactive is kind of what has to happen ah for perhaps guys like us that don't have that name.
00:40:33
Speaker
um you to lean on. So it was the same thing. Like I was ah early on, moved back to Edmonton and I was looking for goalie ah certification courses and just hungry for some goalie knowledge and browse the Hockey Alberta website. And there was one, there was a clinic in, was like Olds or Carstairs, Alberta or something like that.
00:40:55
Speaker
And I drove down there and sat in or registered for the clinic. And ah somebody was Hockey Alberta representative was there and I just introduced myself and said, hey, if you need, ah this is who I am. I'm doing some coaching. This is my background. If you need an Edmonton guy, be interested in being that guy for you. And ah for a number of years, that's ah that's how it worked out is whenever there was a clinic or an association that needed something in the Edmonton area, they reached out to me and there was a time where I'd put on maybe for facilitate three or four of those clinics a year.
00:41:32
Speaker
Now it's trickled down to I'll maybe just do one ah one a season kind of thing. But it's a really basic look into goalie coaching. If I had to...
00:41:46
Speaker
uh, really distill it. It's kind of built for that coach who knows nothing about goaltending that gets stuck with the goalie at the start of practice, um, or the head coach who's building the, uh, their practice plans and want to include the goalie a little bit more. It's more built for that demographic.
00:42:04
Speaker
And when I first started teaching it, like hockey, Alberta would send this PowerPoint and, um, At the time, gotta be careful with what I say here too, but at the time it was very, it was outdated. Like the demo goalies in the slides were using like second generation, 12 inch wide Vaughn velocity pads still. This is like 2017 maybe that we were doing this and the demo video was filmed at like Rexall place, which I guess fair enough, it was still open at the time, but it was a little bit outdated.
00:42:37
Speaker
um And Hockey Alberta was good. they were They were generous. They said, hey, if you if there's something that you want to update um or tweak a little bit, feel free. And I took that probably a little bit too far at first. I just wanted to just flex some goalie knowledge, I suppose.
00:42:55
Speaker
And, you know, i'm talking about like reverse VH post-seal connections and stuff like that to this group of coaches that hopefully found it interesting, but probably left those clinics.
00:43:07
Speaker
without a lot of value. And so it's evolved over the years. And now whenever I do it, it's more just so like, here's some really basic drills um that you can do if you're stuck with the goaltender.
00:43:21
Speaker
um If you are a head coach, here's some basic tweaks to your existing drills that you can do to make them a little bit more goalie friendly. um Things like just minding where the shooters are coming from. Cause head coaches, I think they, they are well-intended.
00:43:35
Speaker
there's just a lot going on on the ice and it's tough to design a drill around a goaltender and our needs. Um, and like I, I, in a way I understand.
00:43:47
Speaker
so the thing that I've become really sensitive to saying I'm at team practices all the time is like coaches are really good with drawing up these four dot neutral zone drills, you know, pull up here, shoulder their check, open your blade, uh, Mohawk pivot turn, like all these really great feedback and details for the players.
00:44:05
Speaker
And then it just ends with, and then go in and shoot. And that's the part that starts to, uh, to catch my attention. So I wanted to target that and go in and shoot part of the drill and just set some constraints, like go in angle on your backhand, have this a no shoot zone or have some kind of a followup play perhaps, or stand in front screen, just, you know, anything to tweak the existing drills. So that's how those kind of evolved.
00:44:34
Speaker
But hockey, Alberta has been pretty good with at least in the early days, sort of understanding the, the limitations and saying, yeah, if you've got something else you want to add to this and you want to modify it, then, then go ahead. Okay.
00:44:49
Speaker
Yeah. We, yeah over at the DIY goalie and kind of bit of shameless bugger, we do have a, a podcast episode and an article with ah talking about how to run a goalie friendly practice. And it's not necessarily talking about, you know, gearing all the drills towards, know,
00:45:09
Speaker
goalie development but um gears more so talks about kind of what you were talking about say there's some limitations or some kind of some boundaries are here when you're going and shooting on said goalie um here's what you should be doing and then maybe even incorporating a um Some drills in that regard there as well. The biggest key point that I kind of took away and it was kind of the motto that I use for the entire for the entire episode was just it's the coaches. It's the head coach's responsibility to to develop all aspects of the team forwards, defensemen and goalies.
00:45:43
Speaker
And I think that kind of gets lost sometimes, you know, because a lot of coaches, yeah Evan, you and I both know they were all once former players and former or former defensemen. ah Very rarely do you get a head coach. I was once a former goaltender. Shout out Brian Monday, my father.
00:45:58
Speaker
um So very, very, very rare that, you know, you get that. And so
International Goaltending Perspectives
00:46:05
Speaker
I think if we can kind of start putting that message out there more and say, hey, if you're the head coach of a team, whether it be at grassroots level or at the double a triple a junior ish level it's your it's you it's not only ah bad idea to develop you know your your front end and your back end but you also need to incorporate your goalies as well there so again the motto just being just develop it's your responsibility to develop forwards defensemen and goalies and by providing the most optimal drills to be able to do that yep well said
00:46:39
Speaker
Um, okay. So I got, I gotta be careful on how I asked this question. Cause I know you do have close ties with hockey Canada and hockey Alberta. Um,
00:46:50
Speaker
What I guess would be your evaluation of the current state of goaltending development with hockey, Alberta, and by proxy hockey, Canada, there has been a lot of ah obviously criticism with that. Nathan and I have done the very same thing here on the DIY goalie podcast.
00:47:10
Speaker
um Obviously, they are trying their best and we can respect that. But mean when you watch when when you see development programs like the US, and i they they have their 51
00:47:24
Speaker
was it 51 by 30? 30, I think. Yeah, 51 by 30 narrative, ah which is 51% of the minutes played by 2030 for U.S. goaltenders.
00:47:35
Speaker
you Finland and Sweden are really made huge strides when it comes to their goalie development, Russia in the same boat. um So what what would be your kind of evaluation for for Hockey Canada, Hockey Alberta, and where do you think on like kind of the goaltending totem pole does Canada sit?
00:47:54
Speaker
at this point. Obviously, we were number one at one point, but now where do you think we kind of sit now? Do you think we're still a number one or do you think we've kind of fallen down a couple of rungs? couple of rungs um Yeah, I think I can speak a little bit more to Hockey Alberta than I can to Hockey Canada. I have a theory with Hockey Canada.
00:48:13
Speaker
um With Hockey Alberta, the the people and the personnel that are being put in place are are really good. So the goaltending lead in Hockey Alberta with Matt Wenninger ah Matt's very good at what he does.
00:48:27
Speaker
a Really good leader. I've worked a couple of camps with him. He's like, he runs a really tight ship and um the goalies that have come through Moose Jaw. So like, well, Matthew Hutchinson's over there with him right now. And, you know, that's a great guy. And obviously with, with Gordo or Ian Gordon ah in the Edmonton area too, like the personnel is, is very, very good.
00:48:50
Speaker
um In terms of the the programming, like i I really don't know from Hockey Alberta's standpoint like how much they can mandate different associations for goaltending development. I know they are offering more and more camps ah in the spring in the summer, and there are clinics that are available as well.
00:49:14
Speaker
Is it perfect? Probably not. I don't know if I... If I would have a solution for that myself in terms of like what they could be doing better at this point, um perhaps implementing something like, you know, with my role at KC with these organizations that have a director of goaltending development would perhaps be a start.
00:49:38
Speaker
ah But again, it's a really difficult thing to mandate because then like it's it's a budgetary thing. um And in Alberta, we're facing the challenge of a lot of other leagues that are not under the Hockey Canada jurisdiction that are popping up as well.
00:49:53
Speaker
And they're really appealing for a lot of players to go to. um And Hockey Alberta's got like literally no say in what happens with those leagues. And seems like there's more and more of them popping up.
00:50:08
Speaker
I've got my thoughts on that as well, but ah we'll keep it there. In terms of Hockey Canada, I mean, i think the, the world juniors and international competition is sort of people's measuring stick every year for what our goaltending is, is doing.
00:50:28
Speaker
Um, I'm going to throw out a name. so like with Carter Hart, obviously with, uh, with what he's gone through, if, if that whole thing hadn't happened and I'm i'm really cautious even going here, but like he, he,
00:50:43
Speaker
Possibly would have been a really good option for team Canada at the international level. We've got another one, Devin Levi, that's coming up. Jordan Binnington as well showed what he can do. And like in that case, how good do you really want a goalie to be? like Yeah.
00:51:01
Speaker
Binner was, he's a very good goalie. a professional guy. You know, if Carey Price were still around, I don't know that we're having this kind this same conversation with
00:51:13
Speaker
With the Hockey Canada thing, like the U.S., s once you know clubs like Arizona have grown, ah Vegas, the California teams, the Southern Florida teams, Dallas, like the hockey market in the U.S. is growing more and more and more and tapping into a population that's 10 times the size of ours. So just by way of numbers, once they catch up or get near or even surpass the the number of their, the people, their population that's playing hockey.
00:51:48
Speaker
I think you're just going to start to see more goaltenders come out of the U S just because just by way of population, there's more and more people engaged in the sport at at higher levels.
00:51:59
Speaker
um I think perhaps there's an element that that's what's happening. It's, maybe not so much that Canada is getting really bad with developing goalies. I don't think we've gotten worse.
00:52:15
Speaker
I don't think we've gotten worse at coaching goalies. um And like, certainly people are going to disagree with this too. I just, I think part of what we're seeing is just that the hockey market in the U S is just tapping into more and more of the population and gathering more and more people. And then just by way of that, more people,
00:52:36
Speaker
people are emerging as, uh, as good goaltenders. So the U S is like, they've got a strong development program. uh, you know, you guys have spoke about it before on the podcast. If you're using the USA hockey versus hockey, Canada, um, websites as a resource.
00:52:54
Speaker
Well, which one would you rather use? Right. Like in terms of what's built up a little bit more. So i think the, uh, The position is a little bit more guarded and professionalized in Canada at the younger grassroots levels as well. like Steve McKeegan has a channel where he speaks to this as well, where we are we do just seem to be kind of guarded with our material. And I get it, like people are trying to run businesses and they're trying to stay true to their philosophies without that you know sort of getting out and they want to stay separated. so
00:53:30
Speaker
ah Long story short, I don't know. I have no idea. i think part of the story, though, is just the U.S. population. More and more of it is is joining hockey. And we're just seeing that emerge at the elite levels with the numbers that they're putting out.
00:53:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think, um you know, in Canada, we've been very, very blessed with guys like Marc-Andre Fleury, Martin Broder, Carey Price. um You know, so those ah those so those guys are legends when it comes to hockey, when it comes to goaltending in Canada.
00:54:04
Speaker
And... I suppose because we've gotten so accustomed to that, you know, when you have guys like even I like I all admit like I had my doubts about Bennington and Aiden Hill and Sam Montemble for, you know, the World Cup, but not the World Cup of Hockey, the the Four Nations.
00:54:22
Speaker
um you know, as an example there, because, you know, those aren't typically, for lack a better term, household names, we'll call it, um you know, that, you know, that we're accustomed to. Again, you know, that's, that, that is, it's, ah it's definitely, ah it's definitely been a hot, a hot topic there for certain. And, you know, for somebody like yourself and, you know, and being part of hockey, hockey, Alberta and
Knights of Columbus Hockey Association's Program
00:54:44
Speaker
hockey Canada, having just kind of that relationship there is interesting to kind of see what your thoughts were, uh,
00:54:49
Speaker
We're on that. um We'll kind of jump into it here. You probably have taken up a little bit more time than you would like, you know, you know the Kevin Woodley special. um Talk quickly about here. um You and I have crossed paths many, many times, most recently every Monday, right around five, six o'clock ah at the Casey arena. You're the director of goaltending for the Knights of Columbus Hockey Association, ah particularly in their elite level stream here in the Edmonton, Alberta.
00:55:18
Speaker
ah You got a lot of great staff members there as well. ah Yaman Cardinal being one of them. I've met him a couple of times. um How did that come about?
00:55:28
Speaker
and um And how did you end up bringing the people on that you have there to kind of deal with that? And kind of what's the what's the structure there?
00:55:36
Speaker
ah Yeah, again, so the Knights of Columbus, KC as they're known around here, they've been very, very good in terms of just bringing in, like at the time it was me,
00:55:48
Speaker
Sorry, it was ah like Adam Surgery, Brendan Menard, Aaron Menard and myself that kind of had this idea to just build the development. And they've been really good with, for the most part, giving us the keys to do so.
00:56:00
Speaker
um There was a time like that first year where I just had the major midget AAA Pats and years after that, sort of with the Squires or Bantam AAA team. And then I gravitated and sort of spread out to the other teams in the elite stream.
00:56:16
Speaker
And there was a year where I was the goalie coach for all, it was 10 teams, I think that we had at that time. So i would get out to 10 different teams every week and work with all their goalies.
00:56:28
Speaker
And um for those coaches who are married, you'll understand that you're going to get some resistance if you're out of the house that often.
00:56:42
Speaker
I've got a very patient wife and this was before the days of kids. So like, it's kind of like I'm out again and it's kind of funny. Like I got home after school today at three 30 or four 30 and I'm like, Oh, this is what my house looks like in the daytime. Just cause you're never here during the day. Right.
00:56:59
Speaker
Yeah. But yeah, but I realized doing it that year that like i'm I'm just not doing a good job. I'm spread too thin. um i know my philosophy is good. i know my communication is good. I'm just spread way too thin. I'm not able to catch up on the video with all these guys. So I'm just kind of recycling drills here and there um rather than giving the guys what they need. So um it was around then that i just finished Justin Goldman's What did it have been second book between, between two worlds?
00:57:32
Speaker
I think it was that It's the really, really thick one um where he just explores the goalie development and like across the world. And the chapter in Finland, Finland and Sweden with a Hanyu Nyquist and Tomas Magnussen caught my attention because the fin, the the finished structure was a little bit more like Casey's structure where um we don't have,
00:57:59
Speaker
19 goalies trying out for Bantam AAA team. There's years that we have six trying out. So we, it's not so much a matter of like set up the drills, the best will emerge and we'll take them. It it became like, okay, well you 15, 15,
00:58:17
Speaker
um It's a really strong birth year because the ah the guys at U13 are really well developed. And ah for me, it was more of a matter of how can we hit the guys um in the entire association. So um we built a development program where I staff each one of the elite teams with a dedicated goalie coach.
00:58:37
Speaker
And those guys just stay with that team throughout the year. They build a relationship. We've been at it for a few years now, so some of those coaches are kind of moving up with the kids as they get older too.
00:58:48
Speaker
And they're able to build these longer-term relationships and and stay working with them. And we've got a style of play at KC that Aaron and Brennan and Adam have sort of laid out. And I've come in and added a goaltending element to that. So KC is a big possession player.
00:59:08
Speaker
base style of play where they don't really dump the puck in. There's a lot of um like F3 activation. There's just with the way the the system works, how can we build the goaltenders into that style of play?
00:59:24
Speaker
And what are the things at the different levels that the goaltenders need in order to be successful? Plus, what are we going to have to do to prepare for the next level? So I've got this big um It's structured almost like a report card that you would get in school. And it just hits these different levels, these areas of understanding from personal. And it it gets down into the really, really simple stuff. Like how are your pads strapped? Are you bringing a water bottle on the ice? What's your paddle size for your stick?
00:59:50
Speaker
um What's your skate sharpening that you're using? um How are you doing your toe ties on your skates? Because I'm sure you've seen it. You have to stop a drill half the time because toe ties or laces are coming loose. So yeah.
01:00:04
Speaker
it's, I would put a lot of those things into the category of um Something that you would expect somebody to have taught these kids at some point, but they just never, never have. So we try to cover all these things. Then it just sort of zooms out from there. So goalie's interaction with the net and the posts zooms out even more. So goalie moving through the crease, controlling the puck around the crease, and then it zooms out once more into a global understanding of the game, understanding like a face-off mismatch or possibly facing a set play or what your role is in disrupting a forecheck or,
01:00:39
Speaker
um you know, lineup mismatches or a puck gets sent in on you at a certain point of the period. Are you playing it or are you covering it up? That kind of thing. And we grade each of the goalies. They get, ah they get a score on it.
01:00:52
Speaker
And when I do all the exit meetings at the end of the year, I'll go over it with them and just give them something to, to go into the spring and the summer with ah to sort of focus on. So so There's a little bit to it. and Now, rather than me getting out to nine different teams ah on a weekly basis, I've got my three teams that I'd get out to on on a weekly basis. And
Advice for Aspiring Goalies and Coaches
01:01:15
Speaker
I'm on about a three or four week rotation where I'll get out to each of the others. And sometimes it works where I'm on the ice at the same time as the staffed goalie coach. And if it's a younger guy, I can um give that coach some feedback as well. So I can coach the coach as well as coaching the goaltenders.
01:01:31
Speaker
and, um, just build sort of a, um, I would call it a vertically integrated program. So the goalies can are aware of what's coming next and what they need to, what they need to do to be successful at the next level.
01:01:45
Speaker
Yeah. I like that. I like that a lot. And that's, uh, that's something that we were talking about, not to that extent, but, uh, something that we've been talking about here over at, over at true North goaltending.
01:01:57
Speaker
um I think, you know, i was, I was going to comment on this earlier, but I liked that, you know, you have dedicated coaches to each team. And I was mentioning it in another podcast episode where it's like in my perfect world, every minor hockey team would have a dedicated goalie coach to some degree, whether it's,
01:02:20
Speaker
somebody who is a a goalie coach such such as you and you or myself, or again, somebody who's you know dedicated to that position, not necessarily being stuck with the goalies, but you know somebody who does have that that level one, we'll call it certification. i think it's i For me personally, I think that should be a requirement of every minor hockey team in Edmonton and more more broadly the entirety of Alberta, but we'll so we'll start small here in Edmonton.
01:02:48
Speaker
Yeah, let's let's start small and then we'll we'll worry about the bigger issues later. Yeah, exactly. Um, well, Evan, this has been uh, a slice here today. I, again, I really appreciate you coming on here. And, um, I do want to leave you with, uh, with a couple of things here. What would be your one piece of advice for all the goalies at different levels out there?
01:03:12
Speaker
And, uh, are there any kind of final, uh, final thoughts that, um, you kind of want to get out there while we have the the podcast platform here for you?
01:03:23
Speaker
Um, I've got a solid, I got two. I'll try and keep it as quick as I can. So there's another guy on YouTube, Jamie Phillips, Dr. Jamie Phillips. He's got some really good content and he had one recently, an idea called don't major in the minors.
01:03:38
Speaker
So the idea that like put your energy in parts of your game that have the most, that stand to have the most um impact on your performance.
01:03:51
Speaker
So rather than, I guess, focusing too much on like your, your ability to shoot the puck and, you know, put one off the crossbar, or rim it around the glass. Like once you're, once you've hit those basic parameters of a lot of these skills, you're probably good and focus in on something that's actually going to um stand to have a ah big return in your game. So, you know, perhaps flexibility, core strength,
01:04:17
Speaker
um something like that. And then just to tie that in, um there's ah there's an article that I i read a couple of years ago ah called The Mundanity of Excellence.
01:04:30
Speaker
And it was basically following a swimming program out of a little town called Mission Viejo in California. And it was this, the article is basically about how boring the process is to become really, really good at something.
01:04:48
Speaker
And the idea was that this swimming program that since 1976, I think, was producing elite swimmers that were going to the Olympics, like in in every Olympic year since 1976, the idea was that this program was doing something amazing technologically or with these new advanced training methods.
01:05:07
Speaker
And there's an excerpt in that article. wrote it down here. I'll just or read it out. um Every week at the Mission Viejo training pool where the national championship ah team practices, coaches from around the world would be on deck visiting, watching as the team did their workouts, swimming back and forth for hours.
01:05:29
Speaker
The visiting coaches would be excited at first just to be here. Then within an hour or so, they would become very bored walking around back and forth, looking at at the deck, glancing around at the hills, ah reading the bulletin boards, blah, blah, blah.
01:05:44
Speaker
um when wondering when something dramatic and something amazing was going to happen with this coaching and this development program. And of course it never did. It was just the, ah the mundanity of it's time to put in the work. It's time to swim some laps. It's time to ah it's time to keep on doing the little things and build it piece by piece. So um they've all come to Mecca and can't even read my own writing here.
01:06:13
Speaker
They've all come to Mecca and see what we do. ah They think we have some huge secret, but we don't. And I would say for goaltenders, there's all sorts of options on where to play.
01:06:27
Speaker
There's always going to be really good sales pitches that appear that the grass is greener somewhere else. There's only so many different ways somebody's going to tell you you need to bend your knees. um there's a lot of it's just going to come down to you and just loving in that grind.
01:06:42
Speaker
um you know, you have to be the goaltender who, if you see a blank sheet of ice and nobody on it and you're allowed to be on it, like it should just be killing you inside that you don't have your gear on already and that you can't be out there.
01:06:55
Speaker
um You can't get dressed fast enough to get out on the ice. If it's ah waking up in the morning is a grind and people are pulling you out of bed and pulling you to practice, it's going to be tough. You know, no program anywhere is going to be able to develop past that. So a little bit of it is just that fire and,
01:07:12
Speaker
building piece by piece, um focusing the energy on the areas of your game that stand to have the biggest return. Yeah.
Conclusion and Call to Action
01:07:21
Speaker
And that's like that type of mindset is just great for for life in general, you know, applying that same applying that similar mindset, you know, to to academics or to, um you know, I'm trying to get back into the gym again, ah very horribly doing so, um you know, for my for the little one that I have for the that I have coming on the way there. So.
01:07:44
Speaker
Again, it's the grind that I think kills a lot of people, but you know eventually once you are able to reach the the top of the mountain of that climb, it's all it's all worth it worth it in the end there.
01:07:58
Speaker
um I did want to leave this as well. I meant to mention it in ah in a similar point. talked gatekeeping we talked about earlier when it to kind of the the gatekeeping you know we had we had talked about earlier when it comes to we'll just We'll just say coaches as a whole, but more specifically when it comes to goalie coaches, you know everybody thinks that they have, like, oh, we have this special secret sauce whatever. And maybe you do, maybe you don't, but it's especially in today's day and age you know where you have social media, and I think it just we all have to be talking to each other. We can't keep cards close to our chest anymore. Maybe certain things, yes. Maybe certain things, no.
01:08:36
Speaker
um But I think just we all have to communicate with each other now, and so... you know It's no more about like, oh, Steve McKeekin, again, love him, is better than Evan Carrillo or Evan Carrillo is better than Ian Gordon or or whoever. right It's like we're all working on the same playing field. We all have the same goal at the end of the day.
01:08:56
Speaker
um So let's talk to each other and let's all collaborate like we do at the network goaltending symposiums rather than no, don't go to so-and-so because they don't teach what you know what I teach her or anything of that sort.
01:09:10
Speaker
um So just something to end on there. I don't know if you agree with that or not, but I hope you do. But um to that's that's something that I know that we've been trying to push here as well.
01:09:22
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. I think at the end of the day, we're all trying to reverse engineer the same position and the same thing and figure out what, what works and what doesn't. So there's a really good chance that we're all seeing something very, very similar anyways.
01:09:38
Speaker
And yeah so let's, i don't I say, i say, let's work together. Like you could put out your entire coaching philosophy somewhere. Doesn't mean that just anybody's going to be able to pick it up and teach it the same way that you can either. Exactly.
01:09:53
Speaker
Yeah. It all, it all gets communicated differently at the end of the Evan, ah lastly here, Ken, I really feel like Woodley at this point. um Where can people find you? How can people reach out to you they have any questions or if they want to see what you're doing on the over on the socials?
01:10:08
Speaker
oh Like I said, I'm terrible at updating these things. Maybe in the spring here now that things have slowed down a little bit, but at Twitter, at CortexGoal, C-O-R-E-T-E-X, and then Same thing on YouTube, Cortex Gold Tenor Development. Probably get a hold of me in one of those two channels and be the best. And I promise within ah four to six weeks, i'll I'll reply to a message there.
01:10:36
Speaker
Perfect. Perfect. Well, we'll have that all linked ah linked up in the show notes there. Evan, can't thank you enough for coming on today. Again, you're another inspiration for me when it comes to coaching. And I very, ah very much was happy to be working with you when i went when working with you and Gordon there.
01:10:53
Speaker
But again, just thank you for coming on the pod. i Really appreciate it. Hey, appreciate you having me on, man. It was good to catch up and talk goalie for a little while here. Yeah. let us Let us know when you've completed your research on, what was it? the the what was it with the but what are you What are you working on again?
01:11:12
Speaker
It's called the Quiet Eye. Okay, yeah. So let so let us know when you're when you're done with the Quiet Eye research. We'll get you back on here and we'll get to talk about it. You got it. Perfect.
01:11:23
Speaker
Well, goalies, thank you very much for watching. If you are watching over on YouTube at the DIY goalie channel, if you are listening on your favorite podcasting platforms, Apple, I heart Spotify, et cetera, thank you very much. If you are a new follower to the DIY goalie podcast, first off, thank you for watching. If this was your first time watching or your first time listening, make sure give us a follow or subscribe. It's free. You don't have, doesn't charge anything.
01:11:48
Speaker
ah The more goalies that we're able to bring together and share the knowledge, the better. Beyond that, if you want to follow us on the social media side of things, just give us a follow at True North Goaltending. We're going to be um migrating all of that stuff over to True North Goaltending. Anyways, go check out the previous two episodes talking about that.
01:12:04
Speaker
But yeah, go go give us a follow at True North Goaltending on all your favorite social media platforms, except for Instagram, because we like to be different. You can follow us there at Y-E-G Goalie Coach. You can follow myself at Monday GC over on Instagram.
01:12:18
Speaker
And beyond that, check us out at True Notes Goaltending as well for all of our summer sessions and our facility sessions in the Nisku area. um And yeah, we'll cap it off there. Make some saves, goalies. We'll see you guys next time. Take care.