Three national goalie development legends from three powerhouse countries, a world-class goalie training specialist, and one dude who forgot to bring his sunglasses. 🙈😆 It was a real treat to spend some time in Stockholm with Thomas Magnusson, Hannu Nykvist, Steve Thompson, and of course @goalietraining Maria Mountain! 🇸🇪🇫🇮🇺🇸🇨🇦 These individuals have done so much over the past decade (40+ for Hannu and Thomas) to not only educate coaches on an international scale, but to preserve the health and wellness of goalies all over the world. Thankful for the friendships, the mentoring, the learning, and of course the travel adventures! Can’t wait for the next one! 🤘🏽🔥 (fb)

Another reflection post from Sweden 🇸🇪! — David Alexander, who was in Stockholm as Team Canada’s goalie coach, gave a fantastic presentation during the IIHF Symposium on advanced puck handling tactics. Using tons of clips of Jordan Binnington and Joel Hofer from this past season, David showed coaches how he applied a few basic Ecological Dynamics principles to use their puck-moving skills in a way that enhanced the team’s breakouts, surprised opponents, and allowed for more creativity and expression in each goalie’s game. — David focused mainly on action-perception coupling, pattern recognition, and affordances to show how his goalies were able to create more deception with the puck and better timing of their passes, which generated more efficient and unpredictable defensive zone breakouts. He also showed some of the team’s challenges that emerged when dealing with plays like neutral zone regroups, pucks on the high glass, and more. — Beyond the Blues, I expect to see more goalies develop better awareness with the puck on their stick blade, which strengthens the trust of their teammates and allows for safer (defensemen are less vulnerable) and more effective exchanges. I think this will be most noticeable in 3-on-3 hockey, so the plan is to work within Sportlogiq next season to track goalie puck touches in OT and seek out some trends. I say 3v3 instead of 5v5 because of the affordances and creativity the goalies have access to with more space on the ice. — Overall, I think David’s presentation, combined with the one he gave in Gothenburg last year, plus his appearances at the GGR in Breckenridge, proves that some of the best coaches are also the best learners. David is amazing at turning new evidence-based research into tangible results on the ice, so he’s a model of effective learning and coaching goalies based on their unique environments. — Again, I am sharing all of this because it should be all the proof you need as an aspiring goalie coach to dive in and immerse yourself in this new science. If you need help finding a place to start, I have five years worth of online toolkits ready to share for free. More to come!! 🇸🇪 (fb)