Why Your Goalie Plays Better When They Stop Thinking

Episode: 156Hosts: Jamie Phillips and BujGuest: Bryce O’Hagan, Power Play Training Center / Burlington Eagles / Brantford Bulldogs (OHL)Guest BackgroundBryce O’Hagan grew up in Burlington, Ontario, played minor hockey with the same group of kids from age 10 to 16, and was drafted to the OHL in the third round. He made the Saint Mary’s roster as a 15-year-old, played for Team Ontario U17 and Team Canada U18 multiple times, and finished his playing career at Ontario Tech. He fell out of love with the game at that point, came back to coaching at 25, met his business partner Chris Lowe, and has run Power Play Training Center since he was 25 or 26. He is now 34. This is his first season with the Brantford Bulldogs after turning down OHL opportunities in previous years due to family circumstances.Falling Out of Love and Coming BackAll three hosts went through a version of this. Bryce framed it well: you get to 22 or 23, the NHL dream starts to close, the grind stops being something you chose and starts being something you endure, and the resentment builds. Then a few years later you come back and fall in love with it in a completely different way. You see things you couldn’t see as a player. You appreciate the small things. And you spend the rest of your coaching career trying to pass on the things you wish someone had told you.Biggest Regret: Carrying Every Goal Like a CancerBryce’s most honest coaching moment in the episode. He held onto bad games for days. A goal given up on Thursday would still be in his head the following Tuesday. He needed someone to tell him to let it go. He now tells his goalies constantly: the reason you hold yourself accountable at a high level is the same reason you got here. That competitiveness is not a flaw. The problem is when it tips too far.The goldfish memory concept from Ted Lasso comes up. You play 68 games in an OHL season. You cannot carry each one into the next.Pressure on Kids TodayThree factors the guys land on. Social media means a 12-year-old in Burlington can watch a 12-year-old who looks like a miniature Carey Price from anywhere in the world, and immediately start comparing their own skating. Coaches and parents post wins and best moments, not struggles, so the feed is relentlessly high-level. And the landscape of minor hockey has changed structurally: open borders, recruiting at age 9, the GTHL pulling kids out of their home leagues earlier. The result is that the pressure that used to exist for 18 and 19 year olds trying to get NHL jobs now lands on 15 and 16 year olds.Bryce’s Role with the Brantford BulldogsHe joined in July 2026, so the upcoming draft will be his first. He is on the ice Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from roughly 8am to 1pm, plus all home games. He is working toward being involved in scouting and has already built relationships with NHL teams coming in to interview Brantford prospects, which has given him a window into how pro goalie development guys evaluate at the draft level.What he looks for when scouting: can you skate, meaning can you get from point A to point B cleanly. After that, can you process the game when it comes at you. Size is a factor but he is not a 6'5-or-nothing guy. Adaptability is the third thing: when a save turns into a scramble, can you get yourself out of it.Vilmer: The A-Rated Prospect6'6 Swede, 17 years old, the only goalie rated A for the upcoming NHL draft at time of recording. His hockey IQ is the thing Bryce keeps coming back to. He had one conversation with Vilmer about getting inside the post a little earlier on a certain play. They practiced it for 20 minutes. It was in his game the next night and has stayed there. That speed of implementation at a high level is rare. Bryce also notes that he came over using an overlap quite a bit on certain plays, which is partly a function of being used to wider European ice, and that one conversation was enough to shift it.Chase Petrova: The Blueprint GoalieApproximately six feet, elite feet, methodical. Chase calls his structure his triangle and plays back on a 45. He can articulate exactly why he makes every choice in his game. Bryce’s framing of the blueprint concept is one of the better coaching frameworks in the episode: he will never stop a puck for a goalie, so the question is always how does the goalie want to do it, can they explain it, and can they find consistency within it. Chase passes that test at a high level.Hockey IQ as the Most Transferable SkillThe three hosts reach consensus on this. Buj’s three ways to build it: small area games and battle, video work, and having goalies coach other goalies. Bryce’s addition: doing video with a kid and asking what they see rather than telling them what you see. The ability to explain why you are doing something is the fastest signal of whether a goalie actually understands their game.Regional Tendencies in European GoaliesSwedes tend to do more post work because every rink in Sweden has the peg drilled in. Russians tend to be more dynamic and all over the place and sometimes need to be brought back into structure. Ontario goalies have their own habits. Western Canadian goalies have theirs. Jamie’s Ukrainian goalie is navigating a language barrier through hand signals and WhatsApp translate. Vilmer speaks perfect English.Connor Hellebuyck Not Playing Against the JetsThe news drops during the episode. All three take essentially the same position: if he wants to play, let him play. The “reduced win probability” justification does not hold. Jake Allen is not more likely to win that game than a two-time Vezina Trophy winner. Buj draws two parallels: John Tavares going back to New York after requesting a trade, where the Islanders rallied and won, and John Tortorella playing Eddie Lack over Luongo in an outdoor game against Luongo’s wishes, which helped accelerate the end of both their runs in Vancouver. The point is that protecting a franchise goalie from a hostile crowd does not actually protect him, and it does not go away until he plays through it.Burlington Eagles ProgramBryce runs goaltending development across roughly 30 teams, single A through triple A. Four or five coaches work out of his facility. He moved away from attending team practices because the typical structure gave him five minutes with his goalies and 45 minutes standing on the side. Now goalies come to him Thursday nights, Saturdays, and every other Sunday for dedicated sessions. In a perfect world he would have young goalies play out as a player too, but he acknowledges that is a pipe dream in North American minor hockey.Parting Shots and ShoutoutsJamie: Mason Martin, Ryan Toshiro, and Andrew Crochak won the U17 World Challenge for Team USA, the first American win since 2022. All three train or have trained with Jamie. All three are likely high-profile NHL draft prospects next year.Buj: Lincoln Stinson-Kurtz went 47 of 48 for his first win with the Hamilton Steel after a tough start to the season involving injury and an organization change. Great kid who has battled.Bryce: His sons Bo (7) and Rory (5). Bo has spinal muscular atrophy and uses a power chair. This weekend he plays his first sled hockey game with the Hamilton Hammers against Woolwich. Rory loves art and nature. Bryce also shouts out Vilmer and Chase for letting him be part of the ride.Where to Find BryceInstagram: @ohagangoaltending  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. 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The Goalie Science CurseThey praised Devin Cooley. He got hurt. They called Stuart Skinner a lock. Winnipeg lost nine in a row and Skinner gave up seven on roughly 20 shots. The curse is real. Connor Hellebuyck is the next victim. He has actually looked solid coming off a bad Colorado loss, so we will see.Jacob Fowler and the Billy Ryan War Room ClipThe clip going viral shows Billy Ryan arguing for taking Fowler in the Montreal draft room. The argument: he is not the biggest, not the most skilled on paper, but he has won at every single level he has played. Jamie’s takeaway is that hockey IQ is always a more transferable skill than any technical move. Fowler knew the shot tendencies of every college hockey player he faced. That is pattern recognition and positional awareness at an elite level.What Jamie sees watching Fowler’s film: extreme efficiency of movement. He does not over-push. He does not over-commit. He hits his mark and stays there. That is the template he shows to undersized goalies who are being coached to be fast at the expense of being precise.Carey Price said in a recent interview that Fowler is the one NHL goalie he watches and sees himself at the same age. That is a significant endorsement from the goalie who changed how the position is coached.The eye test problem: scouts saying “he looks like a goalie” is one of the most frustrating things in goaltending evaluation. Most scouts are not goalies. A kid has to pass the non-goalie eye test before the goalie specialist even gets to watch him. Gear fit matters. Vertical gear graphics make goalies look taller. Fowler looks smaller on TV than he is in person.The funniest story of the episode: a dad hired a 6'6 stranger to attend his son’s games and pretend to be the grandfather so scouts would see the family height potential.Askarov and ConsistencyNashville could not get the Hellebuyck deal done and ended up with Askarov. The read is that Winnipeg did not want Askarov as part of the return. He has shown he can come in and have good games but has not proven he can string it together. What the NHL needs from a starting goalie is not perfection, it is consistency.Devin Cooley InjuryLower body. Looks like it may be a knee based on the clip. Jamie points to his Shurkin video as the last time he tried to diagnose a goalie injury on camera and got it completely wrong when a new angle came out showing it was an ankle that was obliterated. He is staying cautious this time.Semyon Varlamov Double Knee ReplacementPartial knee replacements on both knees, roughly a 24-month rehab. Jamie’s breakdown: the miraculous part is not the surgery itself, it is that after 15 years in the NHL and that much pain, he chose to come back at all. Quality of life after knee replacement typically improves dramatically. The hard part is the loss of strength and the relearning of motor patterns, not the knees themselves. He probably feels better out there than he has in years.FAI Surgery as a Future Performance EnhancerThe question Buj raises: baseball parents already pay for pre-emptive Tommy John surgery on teenagers. Will hockey parents start paying for FAI surgery to open up hip mobility in goalies who do not need it yet?Jamie’s answer: yes, probably. The difference is that FAI shaving is a bone structure issue and doing it on a still-growing athlete carries unknowns that Tommy John does not. If a kid genuinely has FAI and is in pain, getting it done strategically at the right time makes complete sense. Using it as a mobility enhancement on a kid who does not need it is a different conversation. Some parents will do it anyway.Side note: genetics matter. People of Eastern European and Asian descent tend to have more open hip sockets, which is part of why certain countries produce more naturally flexible goalies.Osgood-Schlatter in Young GoaliesBuj raises it because he sees it constantly in developing goalies. Jamie’s breakdown: it is not the knee growing too fast, it is the patellar tendon pulling on the tibial tuberosity as the bone grows faster than the tendon length can keep up. It causes the characteristic bump on the front of the knee and discomfort that peaks around ages 11 to 15 in active athletes.What helps: isometrics and eccentric loading to strengthen the muscles and take load off the tendon, not just stretching. Seeing a physio is worth it. It will not go away instantly regardless of how good the program is, but a good strength program can mitigate severity. Roughly 20 to 30 percent of athletes get it versus around 10 percent of non-athletes, which tracks with activity levels being the main driver.For Weston at age 11: Jamie’s recommendation is to start a proper youth strength program this summer, three to four times a week, full range of motion. Prevention is easier than treatment.PWHL Roster ExpansionThe league just expanded from 21 rostered players with 4 low-paid reserves to 25 fully contracted players paid at league minimum. Tia Chan helped explain the details. It is a step in the right direction. The bigger structural gap is still the absence of a farm system: if you are the 24th player on a PWHL roster and not getting game time, there is nowhere to develop. On the men’s side you go to the AHL or ECHL. On the women’s side, you go to Europe or senior A. The long-term fix is probably using NCAA as the de facto development system while the league drafts younger and waits.ShoutoutsCharlotte Payne: 40-save shutout, 1-0 win over Syracuse for Delaware. If Buj is a PWHL team, he is making a call.Gabby Brazil: D3 women’s program at Roger Williams University, first ever program win in a 2-1 shootout with 40-plus saves. She trained at Ghost for half the summer. Buj notes her baby blue gear is unbelievably sick. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jamie’s Grand Rapids Griffins Ebug ExperiencePostava got called up last minute. Jamie got the call from Roope at 5:45 while running a video breakdown session with his mentorship group. He threw on a wrinkly suit, drove downtown, and sat on the bench for the night before being released from his PTO immediately after the game.Highlights: being back in a room where hockey guys are just hockey guys, watching Trey Augustine from the bench instead of the stands and making mental notes for future breakdown clips, and playing against his former team. Fran came. She took pictures. She has now seen Jamie in real hockey gear exactly twice in their relationship. She was fine with it.Jamie’s comeback conditions: win the lottery, sign in the south of France with co-ownership so he cannot cut himself, or somewhere in the Netherlands. That is the full list.Mental Health and the Grinding YearsJamie says he has now accepted, as of a couple months ago, that if he had kept grinding he probably would have made it to the NHL on a full-time basis. He needed to see a sports psychologist earlier and was too proud to do it at a time when mental health in hockey was still something you could be ostracized for. The YouTube video he recorded about this is still unreleased. He will probably release it.The broader point for goalies still playing: you can always get a real job. You cannot go back in time and sign an AHL contract at 33. If you are still enjoying it, grind.The RVH Conversation (Again)To be completely clear for anyone new: the RVH is 1,000% an essential movement at high levels. The game is too fast not to use it. What Jamie and Buj are against is spending an entire off-season doing 25,000 RVHs in training at the expense of everything else. The situation dictates when you use it. Your physiology dictates whether it works for you. Tall goalies with flexibility and skating ability are increasingly being asked to use it more by NHL and AHL development coaches because they fill more net. That is a real trend and Jamie is adjusting how he coaches taller goalies to reflect it. U10 and U12 goalies doing RVHs because their goalie coach teaches it as the default is still the problem.Connor Hellebuyck Trade: Will System Fit Change EverythingThe question Jamie brought to the table: can Hellebuyck replicate his Vezina-level success playing behind a Sheldon Keefe system in New Jersey after spending his career behind one of the most structured defensive systems in the league?Stuart Skinner’s early Winnipeg numbers are the comparison case. Sixth in the league in goals saved above expected at 5.9. Expected GAA of 3.32, actual GAA of 2.6. That is three-quarters of a goal better than the system would predict. Skinner and Hellebuyck play a similar style. Skinner is thriving in the system Hellebuyck just left.Linus Ullmark is the textbook example of how this works in both directions: dominated in Boston behind a system that cut off lateral plays, struggled in Buffalo and Ottawa which gave up exactly those plays, now thriving again under Travis Green in Ottawa with a changed structure. System matters.Both hosts predict Hellebuyck will not replicate Vezina-level numbers this season. They both acknowledge they will probably have egg on their face by spring.Peptides in Youth HockeyReal rumors from the GTHL about parents giving young athletes unregulated peptides to stimulate early puberty and dominant 13 and 14 year old development.What peptides are: chains of amino acids that can turn on or off signals in the body. The GLP-1 class are the ones with actual FDA-approved pathways. Everything else people are buying online is coming from overseas with no guarantee of what is actually in the product.The science problem: a Swedish study on hockey player development tracked athletes who matured early, on time, and late through competitive hockey. By the time players reached NHL age, late bloomers made up a slight majority of NHL players. Early developers dominated at 13 and 14, then got caught. Paying to accelerate early development in a sport where late bloomers win long-term is just bad math on top of potential medical harm.Join the survivor pool: https://docs.google.com/forms/u/1/d/e/1FAIpQLSfoUrKG_ju25pYKU6yJt6ksxHbTMO1BRFKJkWM1NM5O1pOO5Q/viewformUse code GOALIESCIENCE16 for 30 days free in the Ghost Goaltending Club. Link below.https://ghost-athletica.circle.so/ghost-goaltending-app  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Charlotte Payne Update46 saves on 47 shots, 2-1 win over Union at Delaware. Buj’s take: she is the most complete goalie he has ever developed and there was never any doubt she would get here. The off-ice variables are what separate the goalies who make it from the ones who don’t.Devin Kulie on the Unconscious BrainKulie described his best games as ones where his conscious brain stays out of the way. When he is smiling and having too much fun, he shifts into conscious mode and gets beat. Jamie and Buj break this down through motor learning theory: cognitive, associative, and autonomous stages of skill development. In a game, goalies need to be autonomous. The second you start thinking about how to make a save, you are already behind the play.Confidence Training vs. Competence TrainingConfidence training, telling your goalies where you are shooting, produces a short-term bump and a long-term decline. Competence training is hard, feels bad in the moment, and produces massive long-term gains. Both coaches train competence over confidence and the results over a full season reflect it.The Arousal Curve and Pre-Game RoutinesEveryone’s optimal zone is different. Eric Comrie played sewer ball before warm-up. Braden Holtby sat alone in a dark room with a towel over his head. Both were right. Your job as a goalie coach is to help your goalie find their zone and then protect it, not push them into yours.The 1% StatOne out of 64 NHL starting goalies is under six feet tall. That is not doom and gloom, it is math. Smaller goalies have to be consistently better than taller goalies to get the same opportunity. The earlier they understand that, the better.Pre-Scout StrategyLook for trends, not tactics. Give your players something they can actually use in real time. Buj tells the story of putting “five-hole open on wraparound” in a pre-scout 20 years ago, the coach ripped it up, and the team scored a wraparound five-hole goal two periods later.Book RecommendationsThe Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler. Behind the Bench by Craig Custance. Sean Avery’s autobiography. Burke’s Law by Brian Burke.ShoutoutsTJ Hughes scored his first NHL goal off a Nathan McKinnon pass against the Penguins. Gabby Brazil hit the top fitness percentile on her team at Roger Williams University in her first year as a D3 goalie. Buj’s STA U16 goalies have three shutouts in a row and four wins in a row.Buj’s Survivor PoolHis U12A Admirals team is running an NHL Survivor Pool starting October 31st. DM Buj on Instagram to enter. Estimated prize around $2,500 Canadian. He wins every year and will remind you of that. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Episode: 152Hosts: Jamie Phillips and BujRecorded: Monday, October 5, 2026The NDL ExplainedThe National Development League is USA Hockey's attempt to create a Quad A tier with 36 to 40 teams, structured like a junior hockey organization, designed to feed the USHL. Teams would operate at U15 and U17 levels with unlimited out-of-state American players and a cap of two international players per roster.For Fox Motors Hockey, it is a damned-if-you-do situation. Join and risk losing local bubble players to travel costs and distance. Don't join and risk becoming a second-tier AAA organization that bleeds top players at 15 and 16.The rumored rule banning NDL players from signing with major junior programs would be fatal. It pushes the best American players away from the league entirely before it ever gets started. Buj's solution, stated for the fourth year running: just make the USHL part of the CHL.NCAA International Player CapA rumored 20% cap on international players in NCAA D1 hockey came up as a side discussion. Jamie doesn't think it survives the legal exposure. Buj, as a Canadian, admits he'd welcome it. Both agree it would accelerate the fracture of the NCAA model and hand the CHL back its dominance over the junior-to-college pathway.Pet Peeve 1: Changing Stance on Day One of CampJamie's biggest one this year. Goalies coming back from high-performance camps convinced their stances are broken after a single ice session. The problem: you cannot evaluate a stance in structured drills with stationary shooting. You need to see a goalie in real situations, under read pressure, over multiple days.Changing a goalie's stance without that context undoes years of development, creates self-doubt, and makes them play uncomfortable. There is no universal perfect stance. Let the goalie be athletic first, then make targeted changes if something is demonstrably not working.Buj's example from the day before recording: a smaller U15 goalie playing extremely wide, equipment too big, pre-programmed to drop straight down. Only after 30 reps of the same miss pattern did a stance adjustment become warranted. He explained why, pointed to Lucas Dol of Anaheim as a reference, and let the goalie decide. That is the right process.Pet Peeve 2: Making Changes Without Explaining WhyWhen goalies can't explain why they do something, you've built a robot. Both coaches emphasize teaching goalies to understand their game, not just follow instructions.Example: a goalie doing a blocker-side elbow wrap on the post with no idea why, because a coach told him to. The fix was explaining the dead arm concept, walking through all the transitions it enables, and letting the goalie decide if it felt better. It did. Changes stick when goalies understand the reason behind them.Pet Peeve 3: Fix It at the Next Level ThinkingMaking preemptive changes based on hypothetical future problems. Nobody knows what will or won't work at the next level until a goalie gets there. You risk creating present-level problems by dismantling what's currently working.Example: a high-level college goalie being pushed toward more RVH use before playing a single pro game. Jamie's position: if it's not broken at your current level, don't fix it. When you get to the next level and something doesn't work, fix it then.The Roberto Luongo Rebound Control StoryTwo years in New York working exclusively on rebound control. It never improved. He got traded to Florida. New goalie coach simplified the approach: you give up rebounds, so let's work on tracking them out and repositioning. Hall of Fame career followed.The lesson: rebound control is not a skill you directly train. What you train is tracking, positioning, and balance. Stay square through the shot, track the puck off your body, and the rebound goes where your body naturally puts it. Goalies who say they need to work on rebound control are usually being coached to steer pucks rather than read and react, which creates worse outcomes on both the original shot and the rebound.Pro Coaching vs. Private CoachingAn honest conversation about the career crossroads both coaches face. Moving up the pro coaching ladder means censoring opinions, accepting being the whipping boy when goals go in, and playing a political game neither of them is interested in right now.The Sheldon Keefe screaming at Steve Briere clip from the Leafs Amazon Prime series is referenced as the most accurate depiction of what the job actually looks like. Jamie's stated preference on record: AHL, ECHL, and prospects development. That's where the development work actually happens. If anyone in a position of power is listening, he wants the development role, not the NHL bench.Gear CornerBower's new one-piece skate with a connected boot has surfaced in leaked retail brochure images. The concept checks both boxes: the performance stiffness of a fused one-piece boot with the flexibility benefits of the connected system. Buj wore one-piece Trues when playing in Manitoba and loved them but switched out because a broken component meant no skates at all. The newer iteration reportedly addresses that. Both coaches are excited to get them on feet.CCM TAC line pads and glove: genuinely good. Jamie's working with a U14 AAA goalie in them. The V cutout in the blocker cuff near the stick improves grip and squeeze for puck handling. Small design detail, real on-ice difference. Jamie's takeaway from the CCM summit in Montreal: the engineering hours that go into one small design change are significant, which goes some way toward explaining the price.Flow DrillsNot a fan at any age. Buj's preference is five minutes of flow to warm up, then real hockey: two-on-ones, three-on-twos, small area games, PK situations. That's where reads actually develop. Everything should be connected and purposeful from U9 on up. If a coach is running 40 minutes of flow, you're not going to change their philosophy. Coach with people who share your philosophy.ShoutoutsMadden Omera and Matthew Brownley earned their first official AAA starts at the Toronto Titans tournament in their U16 draft year. Both had been DA goalies all the way up. The message: not playing AAA at U14 or U15 does not end your journey.Charlotte Payne: another win for Delaware women's D1 hockey, 35 saves on 36 shots against Lynnwood. 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Welcome back to Goalie Science. Ben Cernick — original co-host, PhD researcher, and the guy who quietly uncollaborated all his Instagram posts with Jamie — is back on the pod. He texted saying we were slandering him. We invited him to prove it. This is what happened. 🎓 Who Is Ben and What Does He Actually Study? Ben is two thirds through a PhD specifically focused on youth hockey development research. His work looks at how rule changes in minor hockey affect goalie and player behaviors. He works directly with the Swedish Ice Hockey Association on questions around net sizes, ice dimensions, and development outcomes at the U9 and U10 levels. He also coaches goalies privately and through association contracts and has for 15 years — contrary to what Jamie may have implied. 🔬 Research vs Reality — The Gap One of the central tensions in this episode is how academic research translates — or doesn't — to the ground floor of minor hockey. Jamie's point: no one in Hockey Canada or USA Hockey is asking coaches like him and Derek what they're seeing every day. The information flow seems to go toward Europe and Scandinavia, not toward the people running rinks in Hamilton and Grand Rapids. Ben's counterpoint: the governance structures in North America are so fragmented and geographically massive that sweeping policy changes are nearly impossible. What works in Sweden — a small, centrally governed country — doesn't automatically translate to a system covering a continent. Derek's take: parents are the biggest variable and they often don't understand the system they're operating in. You can't take parent feedback and build a meaningful picture of minor hockey from it because most parents don't know what league their kid is in, who the coach is, or how the governing bodies work. That's not a criticism — it's just not their job to know. But it means the information coaches gather from parents is filtered through a lens that's often incomplete. 🧊 Half Ice Hockey — What Actually Happened Derek told a story that basically settled the half ice debate for him. His son played both half ice MD hockey and full ice outlaw league at U9. When his U10A team started in September, the best players were the kids who had been playing full ice. By December, that had completely flipped. The kids who came from half ice hockey were the most creative, most capable players on the team — and they developed faster once exposed to full ice because they had better fundamentals. Two years later, of 15 skaters on that U10A team, only four are still playing AAA hockey. Two came from half ice. Two came from full ice. The data doesn't clearly favor either system — but Derek's lived experience does. Ben's point: the reason Sweden studies net sizes and ice dimensions is to answer a policy question — not because it directly translates to Hockey Canada tomorrow. The research informs decisions at a governing body level, not a practice level. 📏 Small Goalies — The Dustin Wolf Debate Ben raised a micro grievance: he said Dustin Wolf had a shorter AHL career than people imply before getting his NHL shot. Jamie and Derek pushed back hard. Wolf won AHL Goalie of the Year twice — 2021-22 and 2022-23 — plus AHL MVP. He made it very publicly known he was frustrated about not getting called up sooner. Michael DiPietro has since won back-to-back AHL Goalie of the Year awards and still hasn't gotten a meaningful NHL opportunity at 5'10. The argument: when you put a 6'5 goalie in who struggles, the organization says he needs more time. When a small goalie struggles, the organization says maybe he's just not big enough. The benefit of the doubt simply isn't equal. Ben acknowledged that organizations are probably more hesitant with shorter goalies — he just pushed back on the idea that it's entirely because of height, pointing to organizational variance and circumstance. Jamie and Derek weren't buying it. The scouting document was referenced again: 6'1 and under must be elite at everything. 6'2 to 6'5 just needs elite tracking and puck handling — everything else can be taught. 6'5 and up needs those two things and that's it. That's the standard. That's the hill small goalies are climbing. 🌍 European vs North American Development — The Real Reason for the Gap The real gap between European and North American goalies isn't systems or philosophy. It's participation numbers. Other countries are growing their hockey participation. Canada and the US are not. A smaller pool produces fewer elite goalies — it's that simple. Ben also pointed to the US soccer comparison: soccer is globally accessible but in the US it became expensive and privatized. The result is a smaller, wealthier pool of players. Hockey in Canada has gone the same direction. The families listening to this podcast are spending $25,000 to $30,000 a year on hockey development. That's not the average family. That's a very specific demographic — and the pool is shrinking. 🏒 Elite Selection — The Unanswerable Question The most honest part of the episode: nobody really knows who the best 12-year-olds are going to be. We know early maturers dominate youth hockey. We know relative age effects are real. We know the best U13 goalie in Ontario in 2010 is probably not playing professional hockey right now. And yet coaches are still evaluated on wins, organizations still select for size and physical dominance, and parents are still spending enormous amounts of money based on April tryout performances. Ben's point: we shouldn't pretend we're selecting for long-term development when most of the system is selecting for next season's results. Derek's point: winning has to matter — because without consequences there's no way to evaluate whether development is actually working. 💰 The Private vs Public Problem All three hosts coach goalies privately. All three charge for it. The families paying for private goalie coaching are not doing it to be recreational players — they're doing it to be elite. So every conversation about making hockey more accessible, more fun, and less selective runs directly into the reality of what the three hosts on this podcast actually do for a living. Ben acknowledged the tension. Nobody fully resolved it. The potential solution floated: a two-track system — a fully private high-performance stream and a government-subsidized broad participation stream. Ben's response: that's essentially what already exists. It's just that the subsidized stream is still too expensive for most families. 📊 The Last Five NHL Drafts — Jamie's Research Jamie actually did research. In the last five NHL drafts: Canada led with 39 goalies drafted, Russia second with 37, Sweden third with 13, Finland, Czech Republic, and USA all at 12. Canada is still producing the most drafted goalies. The problem isn't production — it's games played. Drafted Canadian goalies are not getting the same opportunity to play NHL minutes as their counterparts from other countries. Sweden's Dennis Hildeby leads all recently drafted goalies in games played. 📣 Parting Shots Derek — loved having Ben back. Great discussion. Very punchable face. Ben — everyone is trying to do their best. Coaches, organizations, volunteers, researchers. It's complicated and messy and that's exactly why the work matters. Jamie — genuinely had his mind changed. Supports a two-track system: private elite development and government-subsidized true development league. Wild take. Stands by it. Follow Goalie Science YouTube comments are the best way to engage — Jamie tries to respond. Share the episode if someone in your life would benefit from it. Ben will be back. There's too much left unresolved. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome back to Goalie Science — Episode 148. Derek is ready for hockey season. Jamie is running on an iced espresso and white monster combo and fixing up a house he probably shouldn't have bought. Both are ready to get into it. 📚 The Talent Code — What It Actually Means for Goalie Development Derek came in with notes from the book The Talent Code and broke down what the research actually says about high-level development. Key takeaways for goalies and parents: Talent has to be built. Natural ability is a starting point, not a destination. The 10,000 hour rule has been debunked, but intentional practice — deep practice with a purpose — is what actually drives development. For goalies specifically, that means getting scored on 20 to 40% of the time during training. If a goalie is making every save in camp, they're not getting better. They need to be challenged at the edge of their ability. Short, specific, immediate corrections from a coach matter more than long explanations. The coach's job is not to run drills that look good on video. The coach's job is to design the struggle. Going out and getting a thousand shots with no feedback is spinning your wheels. ⚖️ Sports Specialization — Where the Real Danger Is The conversation isn't about forcing kids out of hockey. It's about not forcing kids to stay in hockey when they want to do something else. Derek let his son miss training sessions to play baseball this summer. That's the model. If the kid loves hockey and wants more, let them have more. If they want to try baseball or soccer, let them. The burnout doesn't come from playing too much hockey. It comes from being in a pressure cooker year-round with no breaks from performing. New skills should not be performance moments. Derek and Jamie both ran RVH sessions this week with U13 goalies. Neither expected them to stop pucks. The shot is the reward for doing the technical movement correctly — not the point of the drill. Too many goalie coaches are screaming at kids who are just learning new things. 📏 Small Goalies — What an NHL Scouting Document Actually Says A client's father works as an NHL scout. After the team brought in a new goalie coach, that coach sent a document to all scouting staff outlining what they're looking for by height category going into the draft. The breakdown: 6'1 and under — must be elite at absolutely everything. No exceptions. 6'2 to 6'5 — must be an elite puck tracker with very good puck handling ability. Everything else can be taught. 6'5 and up — must be an elite puck tracker and able to handle the puck. That's it. Two requirements. This is not an argument against small goalies. It's an honest look at what teams are actually using to evaluate. Dustin Wolf had to win AHL Goalie of the Year twice before Calgary trusted him with a full-time NHL job. Small goalies can absolutely make it — they just have to prove it longer and more definitively than taller goalies do. That's the reality. 🌍 European vs North American Goalie Development One of Ghost's coaches, Coach Dakota, sparked a discussion about why European goalies tend to be more athletic and positionally sophisticated. The theory: European development systems push kids into ball sports earlier — handball, racquetball, badminton — sports that build lateral movement, hand-eye coordination, processing speed, and angle reading. These skills transfer directly into goaltending. In North America, we push kids into football and basketball — more athleticism-based, less skill-based. Goaltending is a skill-based position, not a pure athleticism position. You can be a great goalie without being the best athlete on the ice. The skill of tracking, reading, and positioning drives performance more than raw athletic ability. The other factor: significantly less stigma around youth weight training in Europe. North America still fights the narrative that kids shouldn't lift weights when every scientific study has shown that's false. European programs are putting young athletes into resistance training, Olympic lifting, and plyometrics earlier, building stronger, more powerful goalies long before North American kids get access to the same tools. ⚾ The Two Sports Every Goalie Should Play Derek's picks: Baseball and a racket sport. Baseball for the mental side — every single pitch is a new scenario, you have to update the situation constantly, and learning to stay locked in through a full game teaches goalies to stay mentally sharp through a 60-minute hockey game. Pickleball or racquetball for the physical side — rapid change of direction, quick hands, tracking an object at multiple angles. Jamie's picks: Gymnastics at a young age for mobility and body control, then squash or racquetball for change of direction, and track and field decathlon in high school to build genuine athleticism across multiple disciplines. The bigger point: whatever sport keeps a kid active, moving, and having fun outside of a performance pressure environment is the right sport. Road hockey in the backyard counts. 🏒 Parting Shots Derek gives CCM their first compliment in a long time — the new TACKS Pro pad has actually impressed him, with the only grievance being the off-white colourway. Jamie agrees and admits it even as a Bauer-affiliated coach. Both want more interviews. Drop your suggestions in the comments — who do you want to hear on Goalie Science? 📲 Ghost Rehab Complete Performance Program 365 days of training. Off-season tracks available now. Use code GOALIESCIENCE50 for 50% off your first month. Link below. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. 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Key Topics: 2025 Draft Breakdown Not a single Canadian goalie drafted in the top 15 of the 2025 NHL Draft. Russia had 7 goalies drafted. Czech Republic had 6. The first Canadian goalie taken was Elliott Lennon in the 4th round, and he was US developed out of prep school. The guys break down what the numbers actually mean and what they don't. The Russian Model Russia identifies top goalies around age 11-12, places them near a developmental pathway (MHL, VHL, KHL), and brings them together for centralized camps several times a year to work on shared issues. The result is ultra-athletic goalies with a built-in pro pathway. North America has no equivalent. Goalie coaches don't collaborate. There is no standardized model. What Scouts Are Actually Buying Technique is teachable at the pro level. Athleticism, skating ability, and tracking ability are not. Scouts are drafting ceiling. That means size (6-foot-1 was reportedly the smallest goalie drafted) and raw athleticism matter more than technical polish at the draft stage. The COVID Factor The 2013 Ontario goalie birth year may be the worst in provincial history. Those kids were 8-9 years old during key development years and lost roughly a season and a half of minor hockey. This draft is the first wave. It will continue for several more years before it resolves. Sports Specialization and Burnout Jamie argues that burnout doesn't come from playing too much hockey. It comes from pressure. A kid playing summer hockey as a centerman with zero stakes is not burning out. A kid in Triple A baseball under the same win-at-all-costs pressure after eight months of Triple A hockey is burning out from the mindset, not the sport. Booge adds nuance from the applied coaching side, landing on athlete-led specialization, supported by off-ice athletic development and fun-based multi-sport activity. Over-Coaching and the "Science" Trend Both coaches push back on the trend of over-analyzing goalie mechanics with biomechanical tools and angle measurements on video. Buj example: a goalie with a blocker foot slightly behind him. The fix was a simple feel-based cue. "Push your blocker foot forward. It'll feel weird. That's fine." Solved in one rep. No iPad required. The concern is analysis paralysis and coaching athletes out of their natural feel. There is also a pointed critique of making "silly" warm-up drills appear scientific for content performance. Goalie Power Skating Jamie has brought in a dedicated power skating coach for his goalie group. The result: outside edge work that exposes how over-coached most older goalies are on inversion and inside edges. The younger goalies pick it up easier. The 15-17 year olds struggle and resist. Outside edge development gets a strong endorsement for long-term skating quality and puck retrieval ability. Pad Stiffness and Glove Angle Parting shot hot take: if you are not a fast, flexible lateral skater, you should not be in a soft pad. Soft pads require the athlete to control rebounds. Stiff pads do it for you. Match equipment to your athletic profile, not brand preference. Glove break angle deserves the same consideration. Upcoming Content Tydan skate blade profile podcast (Jamie visiting with his son to test multiple profiles) Pad Skins West Michigan event in August (free gear customization day for local goalies) San Jose Sharks Stan club membership for Buj  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.