It's not lost on me that this is a tired, age-old discussion: How do we include and develop our goalies when teams lack a dedicated resource. After tackling this for 10 of my 13 years as a coach and goaltending director, I’m centralizing my thoughts and resources here for the organizations I coach, and for my fellow coaching nerds.

My goalie colleagues may disown me here for killing business, but coaches need to understand one simple truth. You don’t have to be a goalie to coach goalies. While there is a time and place for specialized coaching, having a goalie coach on hand all the time is highly impractical and uncommon. Instead, some of the best goalie clinic assistants I've ever had were never goalies at all. They were head and assistant coaches who approached with curiosity, focused on the game itself, and gave their goalies autonomy in the process. Any player learns well when they’re given structure and then set free to experiment — to see what works for them and what doesn’t — and goalies are no different.

Rebuilding the message

To steal from Steve Thompson, USA Hockey’s Manager of Goaltending Development, the goaltending position needs a rebrand. The perception of being different, complex, and even weird, has made the position unapproachable especially for youth coaches around North America. The result — goalies are often shoved to the side as extras, objectified as targets, and their development is overlooked.

Fortunately, there are great, concrete recommendations coming from Steve and the goaltending community to break this perception. “Pass the pads” at younger age groups fosters empathy among players when everyone tries the position. And rotating goalies, even in high school, allows goalies the chance to debrief and observe, all while building “game stamina” and resilience gradually. Yet the biggest hurdle still remains — helping the average coach embrace change.

Below are 5 core concepts that, in my experience, set coaches up for season-long success.

1. Teach hockey, not skills

From mites to midgets, help your goalies understand the game itself. What do plays look like? How do they develop and progress? Open with a question like, "Hey, goalie, how do you think you could solve this situation?" As goalies, we want to develop our own systems to tackle a given situation.

2. Encourage dialogue

Your goalie sees everything on the ice, which makes them a great source of information for your players. But it goes both ways — your players are also the best source of information for your goalies. Facilitate that exchange in practices and games.

• "What opportunities did you see?"

• "What was the biggest threat?"

• "How would you approach this differently?"

With a good setup, your players can coach each other.

3. Direct and debrief

One of the most harmful things you can do is push your goalies away during practice. No, they don't always know what to do, whether it's warmups or doing their own drills. Self-sufficiency is only learned when the right guidance is provided.

While you don't always have an assistant who can just watch goalies, you can always leave them with a few seconds of direction.

• "Let's work on lateral movement. How can we do that?"

• "How can we work on forward balance while the team does passing drills?"

And once they've done their drills on autopilot, be sure to debrief so the learning sticks.

• "How'd we do here?"

• "What was easy and what was difficult?"

• "Is there anything you'd take away and keep working on?"

4. Build drills from the net forward

USA Hockey's CEP shows us a world beyond boxed-skill drills. Remember the mantra from your classes — "looks like the game." As a head coach last season, I eliminated "flow drills" and those with repeated shots as much as possible. How realistic is it when a shot comes from the same place every time, in quick succession, with no follow-through, opposition, or retrieval?

Instead, identify the scoring opportunity or situation you want to simulate. What does each player—including the goalie—need for success? Do we need to isolate a specific skill or behavior, or do we need to work on the entire play as a unit? Build your drill from these questions. Alternatively, you can always reference Ice Hockey Systems or here, The Coaches Site, as great drill resources.

And even with boxed skill drills, your goalies can do more than you think. Always include them in skating drills. Use them in passing drills to sharpen their puck handling. We need to eliminate the mindset that goalies are a burden or slow us down. If including your goalies hurts the drill, then is the drill actually helping the team? After all, we're not running practice for the sake of the drill.

5. Start small

To be clear, none of this is an overnight change. It takes patience, grace from your team, and good helping of self-analysis. The starting point will be different for everyone. If it’s early in the season, try updating your drill library before your players get used to them. Already in a rhythm with your roster? Then try starting some brief conversations with your goalies and players during practice. Find little ways to weave them more tightly into the fabric of your team.

And, of course, keep the game itself at the center. Hockey IQ is universal to all positions. Approach with curiosity, ask guiding questions, and challenge your goalies to think through solutions. The best gift you can give your athletes is self-awareness.