44WeWantMore wrote: ↑Mon Sep 23, 2019 8:11 pm
MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 23, 2019 7:44 pmWe've talked previously about Hop's issues with net play over much of the past decade, with a few terrific moments of glory interspersed, just not enough. It seems to me that ER was a huge part of the problem,
though one does have to wonder whether there have been other coaching style issues also at play.
Did I skim a treatise of yours on that very topic a couple of years ago? I intend to re-read it at leisure, and was disappointed to have been denied the opportunity.
I did try to detail the various issues in a post on LP, in response to an interesting back and forth discussion.
The discussion intersected the specifics of goalie development at various stages, the dynamics endemic to ER, and, more speculatively, Hop's goalie recruitment and management in specific.
I wish there was an easy way to retrieve that discussion as it went into considerable detail!
In short, my thesis is that:
1) Goalie development early on tends to spotlight/reward particular early maturation of athletic aptitudes far more than either a) mental aspects (resilience, leadership, full game perspective, etc) or b) technical excellence. Yet the latter two aspects are more determinative of later steady success than is the early maturation. There is a minimum bar of hand eye athleticism that all top tenders must have but the differential in steady performance is far more determined by the mental and technical aspects.
2) ER selects for this early spotlight on early maturity of athleticism (rather than mental or technical) and is further biased by the 'luck' of the player in terms of older tenders at his school. The HS player who starts on his varsity as a freshman or sophomore is assumed to be 'special' when others simply have juniors and seniors above them fully deserving of their opportunities to play.
3) Early success and acclaim has the unfortunate drag on player motivation to develop technical excellence. Moreover it is a drag on HS coaching attention to technical excellence as many HS coaches take for granted the player's performance. Some players overcome this drag in their own motivations and seek out external coaching development. Unfortunately there is a limited supply of truly excellent coaching of the position (club coaching also tends be very poor in this regard). As goalies come in all sorts of sizes and shapes, the technical aspects need to be adjusted based on their physical attributes. That said, there are some very fundamental aspects (for any tender) of hand positioning, footwork, and building of muscle memory that appear, at least this observer's eye, starkly ignored in the HS development process in many programs. And since the position becomes more and more differentiated by mental aspects the further up the pyramid of play, the harder it becomes to 'train' proper techniques for previously successful goalies.
4) This is why we see so-so performance of previously highly successful goalies as they hit top college play, faster pace, speed and placement of shots. The game moves much faster and likewise the demands on the tender to understand and even direct far more complex defensive schemes tends to really challenge tenders whose HS experiences didn't expose them to these sorts of development challenges. Yet, for a brief burst of play they can simply focus on stopping shots and excel in the moment. More power to these efforts, but it's because they get out of their heads briefly, not because they are reliably prepared to direct their defenses and be a steady bulwark under duress.
5) Indeed, the mental aspects become by far the most important differentiator. Back to ER: if a tender gets a ton of early acclaim based upon early physical maturation of strong talent, it can be very difficult for them to be resilient when success is inevitably challenged. Goalies constantly face a certain amount of 'failure' as balls go in...and they do, a lot. Some of these youngsters really struggle with the psychology of the position and 'wear down'. Terrific coaches understand how to manage this psychology, but that sort of recognition tends to be rare. ER doesn't pick-up on these challenges.
As to Hop, Petro had a tendency to be a first-mover at selecting goalies, earlier and earlier. Frankly, every single one of those very early choices did not live up to that sort of very high expectation. Several either did not end up at Hop or transferred out. Others have struggled.
On LP, a poster wrote a rather scathing, purportedly first-hand account of the experience of being a tender at Hop, primarily how 'mistakes' were treated by Petro and the damage that tone had on various players, including goalies. The LP moderators quickly removed those posts as 'unsubstantiated'.
I have no such inside information so anything I would suggest would be speculative in that regard.
