Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1257458
L E AV E I T T O O N E O F T H E GREATEST GOALIES of all time to sum up the solitary nature of the position. "Suppose you were working at your job one day, and you made a little mistake. Then all of a sudden a red light went on over your desk, and 15,000 people stood up and yelled at you," Jacques Plante, the Hall of Fame netminder, once said. Whether it was superstition or tradition, hockey coaches have historically kept their distance from the men (and women) behind the mask, asking only one simple yet nearly impossible thing of them: Just stop the puck. But those in the know have always acknowl- edged the importance of the position on the outcome of a game, a tournament or a season. "I think they're going to change the name of the game to goaltending at some point because it's just so damn important," said Kevin Reiter, the director of player personnel at USA Hockey's National Team Development Program and himself a former goalie. "Ask any coach and they love getting off the bus with the best goalie." Reiter doesn't have to look far beyond the walls of the USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, Mich., to find comrades who share that opinion. Seth Appert, the head coach of the U.S. National Under-18 Team, is a former goalie, as was Scott Monaghan, the senior director of operations for the program. And down the hall from Reiter's office sits one of the greatest American goalies of all-time, John Vanbiesbrouck, who now serves as USA Hockey's assistant executive director for hockey operations. "It's so nice to have so many resources to bounce ideas off of and try to help these kids chase their dreams," Reiter said. Building A Foundation And that's been the driving force behind the organization's efforts to bulk up its goalten- ding development initiative that began to take off in 2015. Starting with the hiring of Phil Osaer as the first goaltending manager for the American Development Model, USA Hockey has been on the fast track to expand not only the qual- ity but the quantity of puckstoppers at all levels of the game. Working in conjunction with the organiza- tion's coaching education efforts, the Goalie Development Program is designed to give every coach, regardless of whether they ever stood between the pipes, the opportunity to hone their knowledge of the position. The goa l is to have at least one coach on e ver y yout h s t a f f q u a l i f ie d t o t e ac h t he ba sic s of t he posit ion . To get t here, US A Hockey created a three tier system—Bronze, Si lver a nd G old—to g ive ever y coach t he proper tools to help them work w ith their young netminders. To aid in the learning process, USA Hockey has also created online modules, instruction- al webinars and various goalie drills on its website and mobile app specifically aimed at goaltending education. I t 's a l l p a r t o f U S A H o c k e y 's d r i v e t o become "world leading " when it comes to the development of goalies. JUNE/JULY 2020 USAHOCKEYMAGAZINE.COM // 17 RAISING THE BAR A L I E I N I T I AT I V E TA K E S A I M AT L O F T Y G O A L S BY HARRY THOMPSON