New Year’s Day is here and my trip to Sweden is finally underway! Team USA looks like a solid Gold Medal contender heading into the 2024 World Juniors quarterfinals, and the International Hockey Convention officially kicks off on Wednesday afternoon (local Gothenburg time).
As a primer for the convention, I recently served up a two-part preview for InGoal Magazine readers. A huge thanks to them for making these free and accessible to everyone.
Part 1: Steve Thompson: Goalie Training in Team Practices
Part 2: Dave Alexander: Thinking Beyond the Paint
After my discussions with Thompson, Alexander, Thomas Magnusson, and a few other keynote speakers, I believe this event is going to greatly contribute to the recent shift in how coaches are re-defining skill and player development.
Like my previous trips to Europe, immersive learning is my main focus while I’m in Gothenburg. That means it’s all about the people; meeting the speakers, the coaches, the experts, the players, the old friends, and all the new ones. The people, along with the culture, the environment, and of course the buzz of the World Juniors, are the experiences I’m looking forward to the most.
As usual, I’ve done minimal scheduling outside of the convention in order to leave ample time and space for activities to naturally emerge. The tournament culminates with the Gold Medal game on Friday night, and then I have the whole weekend to explore Gothenburg before heading back to Colorado.
If you’re following along from home, reach out anytime if you want to chat about the event, and thanks as always for supporting The Goalie Guild!
Goals for Gothenburg
My goals for this trip are twofold. First of all, I want to continue learning from a wide domain of sports performance experts and increase my competency in goalie development and coaching education. Secondly, I want to bring back some new ideas that can be shared and further explored at the 2024 Global Goaltending Retreat.
To this end, I also want to support the convention by openly sharing my knowledge and research, including my 2022 and 2023 GGR Toolkits. By doing this, I hope to collaborate and connect with the other coaches in a way that enhances our self-awareness and efficacy as practice designers.
Since the 2023 GGR in June, much of my time has been spent deepening my understanding of the latest research surrounding those topics. More specifically, the impact of Enframing has recently captured my attention. Sure enough, this convention provides me with a perfect chance to view this dynamic ‘in situ’.
The original idea of Enframing focuses on our changing relationship with nature and technology. But the concept itself can be applied to all walks of life, as none of us can escape advanced technology and its impact on our lives.
Within the context of hockey training, Enframing can refer to the way in which coaches consciously and subconsciously perceive, utilize, and view goaltenders. All of the coaching behaviors we have adopted over the years, and how we can shift our mindset, is a topic that was also recently discussed by one of my favorite sports scientists, Dr. Alex Lascu.
Getting the chance to support an event where coaches from all over the world are able to freely explore and evolve their perception of goaltenders (and the playing environment) is a rare treat, so I’m truly excited for all of the discussions that will take place over these three days.
While the convention is a chance for us to learn new coaching strategies together, it is also a chance for us to “unlearn” some of the traditional methods that might be holding us back, and then continue to re-learn what skill acquisition means in 2024.
For goalie coaches, considering the increased rate at which goals are being scored in the NHL right now, it looks like the time to re-learn is right now.
As Farjestad’s goalie coach (and symposium keynote speaker) Masken Szwoch recently told me, “the greatest gift you can give your goalies is the gift of self-awareness.” If we can do the same with ourselves as coaches, especially in an international environment like Gothenburg, then the positive impact can go even deeper than we ever imagined.
Latest Updates…
+ We recently held our first-ever #GoalieLove campaign for the holidays. Check out the 15 unique mask designs and feel free to share them with your friends.
+ The latest Lift The Mask discussion with coach John Carratu from Stop It Goaltending was an awesome interview and a great one for coaches.
+ Invitations for the 2024 Global Goaltending Retreat will be sent out in mid-January. The event is being held June 12-16 in Breckenridge, CO.