This weekend I had the opportunity to not only attend but also present at the USA Hockey level 4 coaching clinic in Tempe Arizona. It was a huge honor to be able to speak alongside so many talented hockey minds such as United States Air Force Academy head coach Frank Serratore , technical director for USA Hockey's ADM Model Ken Martel and my former coach at Colorado College Joe Bonnett. The amount of knowledge and passion these three shared for the game was simply awesome. It was also great to see and meet former NHL players Ray Whitney and Ketih Carney who are involved in their local hockey associations since retiring from playing. Having two players and people of their caliber wanting to give back to the game as coaches is what makes hockey so special.
As for how the presentation went, coming up with ideas and topics on what I wanted to speak about was fairly easy, since I've been playing the position for basically the last 20 years of my life. Creating a powerpoint and delivering a presentation for the first time in 8 years, well that was a different story. I talked about things like early specialization, what other countries are doing to develop goalies, the physical, technical, and mental aspects of goaltending and how coaches can incorporate goalies into practice. All in all, it was a great experience and opportunity and one that I was fortunate to be apart of.