Goalie Science

By Elite Goalie MethodSports Science Hockey

Goalie Science episodes

October 07 The NDL, Rebound Control Myths, and Coaching Pet Peeves
Episode: 152
Hosts: Jamie Phillips and Buj
Recorded: Monday, October 5, 2026
The NDL Explained
The 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 Cap
A 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 Camp
Jamie'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 Why
When 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 Thinking
Making 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 Story
Two 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 Coaching
An 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 Corner
Bower'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 Drills
Not 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.
Shoutouts
Madden 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. The Blue Hens are building.
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1 hr 19 min
September 10 Should Europeans Be Banned From Major Junior?
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1 hr 22 min
August 29 Goalie Q&A: Everything Parents & Coaches Are Getting Wrong
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1 hr 18 min
August 05 Small Goalies, and Why Hockey Canada Is Failing - Epi 139
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.
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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.

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1 hr 23 min
August 01Small Goalies Are NOT Back — What an NHL Scout's Document Actually Says
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?
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52 min
June 29Why North America Has a Goalie Problem (And It's Not What You Think) | Goalie Science 147
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

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1 hr 3 min
May 20 What was Missing in Tryouts | Episode 146
Tryout season is done. And whether your kid made the team or didn't, this episode is for you.
Derek Boogaard just finished three weeks of evaluations — two teams he coached personally, five or six more he assisted with, and conversations with roughly 250 players. And the same problem kept showing up everywhere.
It wasn't skating. It wasn't hands. It wasn't compete level.
It was Hockey IQ.
Kids who couldn't answer basic questions about strong side, weak side, or what they're supposed to do away from the puck. Kids whose hands were moving faster than their feet. Kids who could score 25 goals at Double A but had no idea how to earn ice time at Triple A.
This episode breaks down exactly what coaches are looking for — and it's not the 15 most skilled players. It's the right players. The ones who can play a role, kill penalties, win battles in the d-zone, and connect the dots in real game situations.
If your kid didn't make the team they wanted — or if they did and they want to stay there — this is the episode to listen to.
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10 min
May 06 The New NCAA 5-Year Clock Rule Is a Nightmare for Goalies
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1 hr 34 min
April 15 I Cut Him Twice. Now He's Signing an NHL Deal
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1 hr 8 min
April 07 Don't Get Cut - Tryout Season Survival Guide
Tryout season is here and Jamie and Derek are in the thick of it. This episode is a full breakdown of everything happening right now — how real tryout decisions actually get made, what coaches are doing in January that most parents don't see, why the 7-day tryout window is mostly theater, how to evaluate goalies when practice formats don't tell the whole story, what happens in the war room, and why your reputation as a parent matters more than you think. Plus a gut-check for parents of young kids who are rushing their way into the wrong level too soon — and a shout out to Bauer for stepping up for a family that lost everything. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com
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1 hr 8 min

About Goalie Science

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Goalie Science is a podcast by goalies for goalies. The podcast covers hockey rehab, performance and science, and is hosted by former professional hockey goaltender Dr. Jamie Phillips and professional…