How to improve goaltending development in Canada

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Every #worldjuniors, we seem to have a lot of complaints about goaltending development here in Canada. As someone who went through the ranks as a goalie and has worked in goaltending development for 13 years. Here is a thread of things I think we can do better for our goalies.

I am based in Toronto, and that’s the system I understand best, so, my terminology will be based on the development path goalies travel here.

Many of these suggestions are based on the fact that goaltending development more than any other position in hockey is reliant on learning how to play games.

Goalie training is great, but, it’s very difficult and $$$ to run game situation drills that create the complexity and decision making of a game. Don’t get me started on team practice as a place for goalies to develop. Team drills are not designed for goalies, nor should they be

1st, until u14, ENFORCE A GOALTENDING ROTATION. It doesn’t necessarily have to be 50/50, but, having a NUMBER 1 goalie at a young age, reduces the number of goalies we are giving opportunities to. We are also very bad at identifying goaltending talent, so let everyone play.

in select hockey here, many teams only have 1 goalie, because the “top” goalies will only play on teams if they are the only goalie. This is ridiculous and needs to stop. All this does is cut down the talent pool. 2 GOALIES SHOULD BE MANDATORY IN SELECT HOCKEY.

The next one is the most complicated to fix, but, I believe the most important. LACK OF PARITY IN MINOR HOCKEY HURTS GOALIES. At every age group in the GTHL, there a few orgs who dominate the standings. The recruiting system perpetuates this.

The problem for goalie development in a recruiting first system is that, the top teams don’t give up many shots and the bottom teams don’t leave their zone. So goalies rarely matter from game to game.

Goalies on top teams try to stay awake, and bottom teams are getting their heads kicked in every game. Either way, the stakes are too low and that is very bad for development. In a position where at the highest levels, consistency is the biggest skill, every save should matter

A goalie on a bad team can stand on his head, and lose and eventually, they realize that what they do in a game doesn’t really matter, so, they start allowing bad goals, but, who cares, the team was going to lose anyway.

The opposite route to the same “who cares” moment is taken by goalies on the top teams. No matter what they do, they’re going to win the game, so, again, bad goals don’t matter. But when they get into games against other good teams, it’s a new experience and they’re not prepared

In this system, there are maybe 4 teams who are playing close, realistic games every night, where the goalies actually matter. Giving us at the aaa level a maximum of 8 optimal development spots for goalies, but, with number 1 goalies, it’s really closer to 5 or 6.

In the current system, most goalies don’t play games that resemble the score lines and stakes of what we would call “real hockey” (NHL, junior a) until they get to junior a and they are competing for playing time with goalies sometimes 4 years older than them

Next, WE NEED TO INVEST MORE IN GOALTENDING DEVELOPMENT. Every team should have a goalie person on staff. Most coaches only care about goaltending when it’s bad. One of the most important skills a goalie needs to know is how to “ignore the coach without them realizing it”

So, goalies get blamed or praised for things that they didn’t have much to do with, and ignored at other times. How many times do you see a goalie get pulled for three goals in a period, even though they had no chance on them? That’s the most coaching most goalies get growing up

Having someone on staff who can communicate with goalies in their language, help coaches communicate with goalies and help design drills in practice with goalies in mind will not only help our goalies thrive, but also help skater development too.

Coaches have a lot on the go in practice and games. Just having someone at practice who can remind the coach and players that skating full speed up the ice and taking slap shots from the hash marks or closer or making 14 passes isn’t realistic helps everyone.

I’ve been a minor hockey head coach for 10 years at different levels and a jr goalie/assistant coach. I have done many of the things I’m blaming on coaches, because it’s a big job, you have 16 players and the team structure to handle, you don’t have time to worry about goalies.

Next, I think we need to ELIMINATE UNDERAGE AND OVERAGE RULES FOR GOALIES IN JUNIOR HOCKEY. This won’t lead to a ton of goalies playing Jr A at 16, but, it will at least give the ones who are capable the option.

How it works now, coaches don’t trust young goalies because they don’t have “experience.” So, a 16 year old decent OHL “prospect” goalie will play a year of U18, which is fine, but, doesn’t really count as “experience” then at 17 will play in a league like the OJHL for a year…

If they’re lucky, they’ll play 30 games, then at 18 years old, they graduate to OHL backup, then starter at 19 and if they don’t kill it in that one year, they don’t get an overage spot or sign an NHL deal, they’re back in the OJHL, trying to find a CIS backup spot for next year

For a Cdn goalie trying to go the NCAA d1 route, it’s just as difficult. If you can get a spot in NCAA, which has become incredibly hard, you get a few extra years of development time, but, it’s very rare for a goalie to start as a freshman and it takes patience and confidence

Scholarships often don’t come until a goalie’s 19 or 20 year old year and you have to have a lot of faith that it will happen to turn down CHL packages for that backup role I mentioned earlier, while playing in a league that is skill wise and reputation wise lower than the CHL

Again, as a sport, we’re really bad at identifying goaltending talent. Most scouts care more about size than ability. So, giving our “average” goalies 1 year of make or break hockey is an incredibly inefficient way to develop goalies. We let so many fall through the cracks.

There are a ton of other, smaller tweaks (better pegs in minor hockey rinks, please) that could be made to improve our goaltending pathway, but, to me, these are the major ones. If you read all the way through this, please share it. If you have arguments/suggestions, let me know.

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: typefully.com/goalie_school/DieWCfy