Mirtle (paywall): Canada’s ‘mind-boggling’ goalie crisis has been a decades-long descent

Great article here by Mirtle. diving into the Canadian Goalie lack of development. its a long read but a very good one.

the TLDR of it really is that the hyper focus on winning at such a young age has robbed kids of exploring goaltending as an option, and really lowered the number of kids trying out to be goalie. kids are learning one position... and to focus on winning....vs other countries where being a goalie at a young age is discouraged and more of a shared responsibility. it 'finds' other goalies.

i've long been against these super teams and having kids play hockey 12 months of the year. camps and training all summer to play rep hockey in the winter. its not healthy, it doesnt develop.

one great point brought up is how goalies are trained how to move and react and its drilled into them... but plays get broken and shots come from not anticipated angles. the reaction to that is flawed, as the coaching is on muscle memory, vs reaction.

talks a bit about the coaching...and the disconnect between the different levels of coaching.

anyways....a good read if you have an athletic subscription

link: Canada’s ‘mind-boggling’ goalie crisis has been a decades-long descent - The Athletic