As a graduate student, I had one question “Why do so many talented goalies fail to reach their full potential.” For years I had seen goalies that looked to have what it takes to excel. Only to see most of them struggle at the next level or be out of the game altogether. After two years of research, the answer finally hit me, because goalies are no longer developing themselves as athletes away from the ice and they ignore the areas of human performance that are vital to success in sports.
Now what does that mean for you or your child?
It means that by simply developing yourself as an athlete away from the ice you will be able to improve your skills as a goalie. When you improve as an athlete, you improve as a goalie giving your body and mind the ability to maximize your performance on the ice.
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As goalies advance to each level of hockey, the game becomes more challenging in a variety of ways and at times can be very complicated to understand what is improving your performance and what is just luck or a one-off set of performances.
At the end of the day, you will need to put in a significant amount of time, dedication, hard work, and sacrifice in all areas of the development pie over many years to develop into an elite goalie.
Success is not going to happen overnight and I know from experience that when you embrace and trust the process of developing as an athlete first your performances on the ice will be elevated faster and be sustainable throughout your career.
Below are the stats of a goalie I began working with the spring of his sophomore year in high school. As you can see there was a dramatic improvement in his stats during each of the next two seasons. During his junior and senior year, this goalie made it to the Minnesota State High School hockey tournament finishing as the consolation champion his junior year and runner up his senior year.
These results did not happen by accident, they were the result of following and trusting the process of developing one year at a time as an athlete first.
Video Courtesy of Tony Holler: Illinois Track & Field Hall of Fame and Co-Director of Track Football Consortium
Throughout my career working with goalies off the ice this process has produced great results and given goalies the foundation for performance development.
If you are looking to figure out everything off the ice on your own and leave it up to chance, then I wish you the best of luck on that journey.
But if you are seriously looking to develop off the ice as an athlete in a program that will pinpoint the areas you need to work on and guide you through that development to an opportunity to play at the next level, then you have come to the right place.
