Who Are You?
I'm Darren Hersh, Founder and Executive Director of The Goalie Academy. I am also currently the Goalie Coach for the ECHL Reading Royals, the AA affiliate of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins.
What have you done?
I founded The Goalie Academy in 1996 after I retired from professional hockey.
I grew up playing hockey in Hershey, PA, where I played minor hockey for 10 years from 1976 to 1986. From Hershey, I went to prep school at Lawrence Academy in Groton, Massachusetts. There I was selected to the ISL All-League, NEPSAC All-New England, and HNIB All-Scholastic teams. I was NEPSAC All-New England Honorable mention my junior year as well. In 1989, we won the ISL League title as well.
I attended Bowdoin College from 1989-1993 and there I was earned Goalie of the Week several times and in 1993 I was named ECAC Playoff MVP during Bowdoin's Championship Season.
From Bowdoin, I played in the ECHL with the Johnstown Chiefs, backed-up for the AHL's Hershey Bears, and won a CHL Championship with the Wichita Thunder.
Since founding The Goalie Academy, we have grown from only doing summer camps to coaching goalies full-time on a year round basis with a full time staff of 4 coaches and we are continually getting bigger.
Why should hockey players listen to you?
Players should listen to me because I have helped produced top level goalies in a very non-traditional hockey area such as Central Pennsylvania and the Washington D.C. metro area. In addition, I have actualy developed these players from young ages such as 8 and 9 and some of these goalies are now on NCAA D-I college teams, the USHL, and minor league professional hockey. Many coaches can say that they have worked with high end players, but I pride myself on having trained the majority of our top flight goalies from the ground up.
Beyond that I think hockey players should listen to just about everyone. I learned some great lessons from people I didn't necessarily care for too much. But if you keep an open mind, you can learn something from everyone that can help you be a better player. Also listen to the critics! This is difficult, because you probably won't like what you hear, but critics will tell you the hard truth. If you can get past your defenses, you can learn what you aren;t doing well which gives the opportunity to change and to improve.
What style do you teach your goalies?
Personally, I don't like the term "style" being used to describe how a goalie plays. I see style as being how a goalie plays the position rather then what he/her does in the net, if that makes sense. All goalies perform the same save selections. What sets them a part is how they look doing it. Just as you can tell goalies apart by how they wear their equipment eventhough they may be wearing the exact same thing. That is how I look at it. All goalies are doing the same thing, they just look differently doing it. That is style. You can't define style by wether or not they butterfly or stand up, because all goalies do those things depending on the situation. Goaltending is all situational!
At The Goalie Academy, we have discovered and developed The Principles of Goaltending. These are the underlying basis for everything goalies do and why they should do certain moves in certain situations. Goalies always need to maximize net coverage, do things with the most efficiency, maintain balance and control, have the greatest range of motion, and perfect their timing in situations. These five concepts are the basis of how we teach. It has nothing to do with style at all. I like goalies to be themselves and play the way they need to play. I don't like cookie-cutter camps that simply teach one way to play. Goalies are different sizes and have different levels of abilities and even given these differences they can still be effective. I think certain styles are limiting. I want goalies to have a wide range of skills and be able to apply what they need for them to succeed individually.
What are some of the main areas of focus that a goalie should focus on before he/she gets to high school?
The primary focus before getting to high school is SKILL DEVELOPMENT! You have to develop skating skills, save selection, recovery, and reading situations so that you know when to apply your technical skills at the right moments. Working hard, practicing, and being dedicated to your craft is very important if you want to extend a playing career. Once you get to high school, it starts getting very competitive. It is always competitive, but it only gets tougher. Put in a lot of work now, so that you can get a shot beyond high school.
What about in high school?
In high school, the focuses expand to continued skill development, exposure to colleges and junior programs as well as GRADES! Good grades provides players with options! You may need options. You can't go into the road to college hockey thinking you are going D-I and will get a hockey scholarship. It could happen, but you have to prepare for the worst case scenario, not the best case scenario. I always tell kids, "why do we do fire drills?" Prepare for the worst. So if you get good grades and you don't get D-I offers, then the next best hockey is D-III. The best D-III hockey is NESCAC, with schools like Bowdoin, Colby, Middlebury, Williams, Amherst, Babson, etc. These schools are very competitive to get into, so you need to have solid academics along with being a top notch hockey player.
College?
Again, don't sleep on grades! Hockey may not work out, so be prepared! As far as hockey, you need to refine your skills and maintain a high level of play. You always have to focus on details and fundamentals. You will have a solid skill set by then. It isn't about learning new skills, but rather about staying sharp and not allowing techniques to slip by getting into bad habits.
Another big part of hockey in college is learning to be mentally tougher to get through high pressure situations and how to deal with things going on outside of the rink and putting them aside once you get into the locker room. College is a sprint. Games are fast, guys play as hard as they can all the time, and losses are huge. In pro hockey, it is more of a marathon. You need to learn how to pace as a pro, but in college it is full tilt. Learning how to mentally deal with that pace and even the pace change from college to pro is something to really focus on.
What are the 3 most important things a goalie can do on the ice to reach the next level?
1. Never believe that you are too good to improve each and every time you step on the ice. If you think this way, you will stay as good as you are and very likely that isn't good enough. Listen to coaches, take advice and practice hard everytime you go out there. Focus on techniques and don't allow yourself to get into bad habits.
2. Skate, skate, and skate some more at every practice. Don't goof off with the other players. Do crease movements all the time before and after practice and during times when you don't get a lot of shots.
Goalies have to be able to move incredibly well to reach higher levels. Hockey is always the same game, but the difference is the speed as you move up. The best way to be able to deal with the speed changes is to be able to keep up with the pace of passes by being an explosive skater. At higher levels, everyone can stop the puck. It is those goalies who can follow the play the best and who can get into position the earliest who move on to do greater things.
3. Pay attention to details. Goalies have to be detail oriented to be successfull. The puck is only 3" wide and 1" high so sometimes little errors of 1-3 inches is all it takes to cost a goal, cost a game, cost a shut out, cost a playoff run, cost a championship, or cost a starting job. So work on being technically sound and as perfect as you can be. No one is perfect and every one allows goals. It is a position of inches and percentages, so you have to use detail to be on the side of the statistics.
Recap 1. work hard at practice everytime and practice as hard as you play games or even harder, 2. skate, 3. pay attention to details.
Stay tuned for Part 2 and check out Darren's goalie articles posted on this site and on www.goalieacademy.com
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