When the Goalie in Front of You Is Also Your Client

The Hardest Part of Evaluating Athletes

There is a side of coaching that people do not talk about enough.

It is easy to talk about development. It is easy to post the success stories. It is easy to celebrate the goalie who makes AAA, earns the starting job, gets drafted, signs somewhere, wins a championship or reaches a level they have spent years chasing.

Those are the moments everybody sees.

What people don't always see is the other side of it.

Sometimes the goalie standing in front of you during evaluations is a goalie you have coached for years.

You know the family. You know how much they have sacrificed. You know how many kilometres they have driven. You know how much money they have invested.You know how many early mornings that goalie has dragged themselves out of bed for.You know the bad practices, the great practices, the tears, the frustration, the injuries, the confidence struggles and the breakthroughs.

Maybe you remember when they could barely shuffle properly. Maybe you remember the first time they learned to read a release instead of simply reacting to it. Maybe you remember them as a little kid coming into your program nervous and quiet, and now they are standing six feet tall in front of you competing for a high-level hockey team.

You've watched them grow. You've invested in them. You've built a relationship with them.

And then one day, somebody hands you an evaluation sheet.

Now you have to decide whether that goalie is good enough to make the team.

That is one of the hardest responsibilities in coaching.

Because there are times when the answer is no.

And sometimes you are the person who has to say it.

Coaching and Evaluating Are Not the Same Job

This is something I believe very strongly.

When I am coaching a goalie, my job is to help that goalie become better.

I am trying to identify weaknesses, build strengths, increase confidence, challenge habits, create better decisions and prepare that athlete for whatever level they are trying to reach. I am completely invested in their development.

When I evaluate a goalie, however, my responsibility changes.

I am no longer asking:

How much has this goalie improved?

I am asking:

What is this goalie showing me right now?

Those are two completely different questions.

Development is about the journey.

Evaluation is about the evidence.

And if you confuse those two responsibilities, you can very quickly become unfair.

Maybe one goalie has improved tremendously over the last year.

That deserves recognition.

But another goalie may still be better today.

Maybe a goalie has worked incredibly hard all summer.

That absolutely matters to their development.

But another goalie may perform better during evaluations.

Maybe I know one athlete extremely well and know what they are capable of at their best.

But if another goalie demonstrates more during the actual evaluation process, I cannot simply substitute what I know the first goalie can do for what they actually showed.

That is where integrity becomes real.

Integrity is easy when the decision doesn't hurt anybody you know.

The real test comes when doing the right thing is uncomfortable.

The Slate Has to Be Clean

I have said this to our families many times over the years.

When evaluations begin, the slate has to be clean.

It does not matter whether you spent $10,000 training with us during the offseason or never spent one dollar. It does not matter whether I have known your goalie for ten years or ten minutes. It does not matter whether your goalie has attended every camp we have ever offered. It does not matter whether they wear an Action Reaction Goaltending shirt, an AR3 jersey, another goalie school's logo or no goalie-development logo whatsoever.

None of those things should determine who makes a hockey team.

Training is not purchasing a roster spot. Training is purchasing an opportunity to improve.

That distinction is incredibly important.

When a family hires a goalie coach, they are paying for coaching.

They are paying for knowledge. They are paying for preparation. They are paying for repetitions. They are paying for feedback. They are paying for an environment designed to help their athlete become better.

They are not purchasing future loyalty from the evaluator.

And any coach who allows that relationship to influence selections has crossed a line.

I understand why this can become emotional.

Families make enormous sacrifices in youth hockey.

Money is only one part of it.

There is travel. Hotels. Equipment. Missed dinners. Changed vacations. Early mornings. Late nights. Parents sitting in cold arenas year after year. Brothers and sisters getting dragged around because one child has hockey.

There is a tremendous amount invested in these athletes.

So when a goalie gets cut, a parent is not simply thinking about one evaluation skate.

They are thinking about everything that came before it.

They are thinking:

After everything we have done, how can this happen?

I understand that emotion.

But none of that changes the evaluation.

It can't.

A Relationship Cannot Become a Debt

There is something dangerous that can happen in athlete development if we are not careful.

Relationships can slowly turn into an unspoken sense of obligation.

A family may never say it directly.

A coach may never consciously think it.

But underneath everything there can become this feeling of:

We've supported you, so you should support us.

That is understandable emotionally.

But in an evaluation environment, it cannot exist. Because the moment a coach owes a roster position to a paying client, the entire evaluation process becomes compromised. And once that happens, everybody loses.

The team loses because it may not select the best player. The other goalies lose because they were never truly competing on equal ground. The organization loses because its evaluation process loses credibility. The coach loses because their reputation becomes questionable. And ironically, even the goalie who benefits loses.

Because somewhere down the road, they will reach a level where relationships cannot protect them anymore.

Eventually, performance wins.

It always does.

Maybe not every single time.

Maybe politics exist.

Maybe questionable decisions happen.

Maybe connections sometimes influence opportunities.

Anyone who has been around hockey long enough knows that sport is not a perfectly fair world.

But none of that gives me permission to contribute to the problem.

I cannot control every evaluation process.

I can control mine.

What You Show During the Evaluation Has to Matter

When I say the evaluation has to be based on what a goalie shows in the moment, I do not mean that one bad goal should destroy an athlete's entire tryout.

That would be ridiculous.

Goalies allow goals… Sometimes bad ones. A puck gets tipped. A goalie misreads a release. Someone loses an edge. A shot finds a hole. A rebound lands in exactly the wrong place.

That is hockey.

Evaluation should look at the complete body of work available during the evaluation window.

How does the goalie move?

How do they track?

How do they arrive at their spots?

How do they read releases?

How do they manage rebounds?

How do they handle traffic?

How do they recover?

How do they communicate?

How do they play the puck?

How do they manage broken plays?

How do they respond after allowing a goal?

How competitive are they when the drill stops being clean?

What happens when structure disappears?

Do they make themselves available to the play?

Are they composed?

Are they chasing?

Are they patient?

Are they reading?

Are they simply surviving?

Can they make the routine saves routinely?

Can they find an extra save when the team needs one?

That is evaluation. It is a collection of evidence.

What it cannot become is:

"Well, I know him and he is usually better than this."

Or:

"She has trained with us for five years, so I know what she can do."

Maybe I do know.

But the team is not selecting the goalie based on what they did at one of my camps six months ago.

They are selecting them based on what they demonstrate during evaluations.

That pressure is part of competitive sport.

At some point, development has to become performance.

Potential Is Different From Performance

This is another difficult conversation. Very difficult sometimes.

Sometimes I see a goalie and think:

There is a ton of potential there.

Maybe the athlete is raw.

Maybe they are athletic.

Maybe they are growing.

Maybe their technical structure is still developing.

Maybe they have tools that could eventually take them very far.

That matters in long-term development.

But potential and present performance are not always the same thing.

The team may need a goalie today.

Not two years from now.

There are certainly environments where projection should be part of the decision. High-performance programs, development teams and certain age groups may legitimately consider athletic upside, physical maturation and longer-term potential.

But even then, projection should not become an excuse to ignore the evidence sitting directly in front of us.

You need to be able to explain why you believe one athlete deserves the opportunity over another.

Not because of friendship.

Not because of a business relationship.

Not because a parent will be upset.

Not because it will be awkward the next time they come to training.

Because of hockey.

That should always be the foundation.

Sometimes We Have to Cut Our Own Goalies

This is the part that hurts.

There have been times when a goalie we work with is competing against someone we do not work with.

And the goalie we do not work with performs better.

What am I supposed to do?

Pretend I didn't see it?

Move the numbers around?

Find reasons to justify my own athlete?

Protect the relationship?

Protect the revenue?

I can't.

If the other goalie deserves the spot, I have to say so.

That might mean one of our clients gets released. That might mean an uncomfortable conversation. It might mean a disappointed parent. It might mean someone questions why they trained with us in the first place.

And yes, there is always a possibility that we lose that client.

That is the reality.

But if keeping a client requires me to compromise an evaluation, then I should lose the client.

Because there are things more important than revenue.

My name is one of them.

My integrity is one of them.

The reputation of our company is one of them.

The trust of the organizations that hire us is one of them.

And fairness to every athlete on the ice is absolutely one of them.

I built Action Reaction Goaltending from the ground up.

There was no giant company behind me.

There was no corporate machine.

There was no massive marketing budget that created credibility overnight.

There was coaching.

There were relationships.

There were results.

There was word of mouth.

And most importantly, there was trust.

People trusted that when I told them something about their goalie, I meant it.

I cannot spend years building that trust and then throw it away because telling somebody the truth becomes uncomfortable.

Honesty Does Not Mean Cruelty

There is another side to this.

Being honest does not give coaches permission to become cold. I sometimes think people confuse being "brutally honest" with being unnecessarily brutal.

Those are not the same thing.

You can tell an athlete the truth while still remembering that there is a human being standing in front of you.

Especially when they are young.

Getting cut hurts.

There is no clever coaching phrase that magically makes it painless.

An athlete may feel embarrassed.

They may feel angry.

They may feel like they failed.

They may question whether all their training was worth it.

They may compare themselves to the goalie who made the team.

Parents may feel the same emotions ten times over because they are watching their child hurt and cannot fix it.

That deserves empathy. But empathy should affect how we communicate the truth.

It should not change what the truth is.

There is a huge difference.

If I genuinely believe a goalie was the third-best goalie in an evaluation where two positions were available, I cannot tell the organization they were second because I care about the kid.

What I can do is communicate respectfully.

I can explain what I saw.

I can give the goalie areas to improve.

I can remind them that one roster decision does not define their career.

I can help them understand that development is not linear.

I can be available after the disappointment.

That is coaching.

Changing the ranking is not coaching.

That is favoritism.

The Business Side Makes It Even Harder

There is an uncomfortable reality here that coaches who own development businesses understand very well.

Clients pay our bills.

That is simply true.

Ice costs money.

Coaches cost money.

Facilities cost money.

Equipment costs money.

Insurance costs money.

Operating a business costs money.

So when the same person who owns a development company is also asked to evaluate athletes, there is an obvious potential conflict.

We should not pretend otherwise.

The conflict is real.

But a conflict of interest does not automatically mean someone is behaving unethically. It means you need stronger standards.

I actually believe it puts more responsibility on us.

If I evaluate one of my clients, I need to be even more conscious of bias. I need to ask myself difficult questions.

Would I give the same score if this athlete trained somewhere else?

Am I giving credit for what I know they can do instead of what they demonstrated today?

Am I being harder on them because I am trying so desperately not to appear biased?

That last one matters too.

Bias can work both directions.

Sometimes coaches become so concerned about appearing to favour their own athletes that they accidentally judge them more harshly.

That isn't fair either.

The goal is not to favour your client.

The goal is also not to punish your client for being your client.

The goal is to evaluate the goalie.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

Reputation Is Built in the Difficult Decisions

Anybody can talk about integrity.

Companies put it on websites every day.

Integrity. Respect. Honesty. Accountability.

They're great words.

But words are cheap until they cost you something.

If honesty costs you nothing, it is easy.

If being fair means everyone remains happy, it is easy.

The real question is what you do when honesty might cost you a client.

What do you do when fairness creates an uncomfortable conversation?

What do you do when telling the truth means someone who has supported your business may become angry with you?

That is where your values stop being marketing language and become real.

I have always believed that my reputation is worth more than one registration.

More than one camp fee.

More than one private session.

More than one family.

That does not mean families are disposable.

Quite the opposite.

Relationships are one of the most important parts of what we do.

But the only reason those relationships have value is because there is trust underneath them.

If parents begin believing that training with us buys influence, our credibility is gone.

If organizations begin believing that we push our own clients ahead, our credibility is gone.

If goalies who train elsewhere believe they enter evaluations already behind, our credibility is gone.

Once people stop trusting the process, it is incredibly difficult to get that trust back.

Parents Deserve the Truth Too

One of the hardest things in goalie development is managing expectations.

Parents naturally see their children differently than evaluators do.

That does not make parents unreasonable.

They see the hours of work.

They see their child's commitment.

They see the saves from the stands.

They see the games where their goalie kept the team alive.

They see the potential.

They also see everything through the lens of loving their kid.

They should.

That is their job.

Our job is different.

A coach has to be capable of saying:

"Your goalie has improved tremendously, but right now another goalie is performing at a higher level."

Those two things can both be true.

Improvement does not guarantee advancement. Hard work does not guarantee a roster spot. Investment does not guarantee a result.

That can sound harsh, but I actually think pretending otherwise is much crueler.

Because false hope delays development.

If a goalie needs to improve their skating, tell them.

If their reads are behind the level, tell them.

If their rebound control needs work, tell them.

If they struggle to manage traffic, tell them.

If their compete level disappears when they get frustrated, tell them.

If they simply got outperformed, tell them that too.

Give them something real to work with.

"Great job, keep working hard" might protect feelings for five minutes.

It does not necessarily help the athlete.

A Cut Is Not a Final Verdict

This might be the most important message for goalies themselves.

Being cut means you did not earn that particular spot in that particular evaluation against that particular group of athletes at that particular moment.

That is painful.

But it is not a permanent label.

It does not mean you are a bad goalie. It does not mean you cannot eventually surpass the goalies selected ahead of you. It does not mean your career is finished.

Hockey development is filled with athletes who were cut, overlooked, released, underestimated or developed later than someone else.

What matters is what happens next.

Do you complain?

Do you blame politics?

Do you blame the evaluator?

Do you quit?

Or do you ask the harder question?

What do I need to become so good at that next time the decision becomes obvious?

That is where cuts can become useful lessons.

Not enjoyable.

Useful.

Disappointment has a way of revealing athletes.

Some run from it. Others use it.

My job as a coach is not to make sure a goalie never experiences disappointment.

That would be impossible.

My job is to help them become capable of handling disappointment when it inevitably arrives.

Because if they stay in competitive sport long enough, it will arrive.

We Hurt When They Hurt

I also want parents to understand something.

Good coaches care. Probably more than most families realize.

When one of our goalies gets released, we think about it.

When a goalie we have trained for years has a poor evaluation, we feel it.

When we know how desperately a kid wanted something and it does not happen, it affects us.

I've walked out of arenas thinking about decisions long after the evaluation ended.

I've replayed saves.

Goals.

Drills.

Details.

I've questioned whether I saw everything correctly.

That is not weakness. That is the responsibility of knowing your opinion can affect somebody else's opportunity.

But eventually you have to trust the process. You have to trust what you saw. You have to trust your experience.

And most importantly, you have to be willing to put your name beside the decision.

That is the standard I expect from myself.

If I recommend one goalie over another, I should be able to explain why.

Not necessarily to satisfy every parent because that may never happen.

But I need to be able to look myself in the mirror and know the evaluation was made for the right reasons.

We Cannot Control Every Hockey Decision

There is also an important distinction between giving an evaluation and making the final roster decision.

Sometimes goalie coaches provide recommendations, but the head coach or organization ultimately chooses.

Sometimes several evaluators contribute scores.

Sometimes coaches value characteristics differently.

Sometimes there are team-building considerations beyond the crease.

And yes, sometimes there are decisions I personally disagree with.

That is part of hockey.

My responsibility is to make sure my piece of the process is clean.

I cannot promise every hockey decision everywhere will be perfect.

Nobody can.

What I can promise is that if somebody asks for my professional assessment, I am going to give them my professional assessment.

Not the answer that makes my business look better.

Not the answer that keeps a client happy.

Not the answer that avoids an awkward conversation.

The answer I believe is correct.

Why This Matters Beyond Hockey

There is a much bigger lesson buried inside all of this.

Sport eventually teaches athletes that effort and outcome are not the same thing.

You control your preparation. You control your attitude. You control your habits. You control how seriously you train. You control how you respond to adversity.

But you cannot completely control the result.

That is life.

You can prepare for a job interview and somebody else may get hired.

You can build a business proposal and someone else may win the contract.

You can work incredibly hard and still experience failure.

The answer cannot always be to assume the system betrayed you.

Sometimes we need to look at ourselves. Sometimes someone else was simply better that day.

That is a difficult lesson.

It is also an incredibly valuable one, because once an athlete understands that, they stop searching constantly for excuses and start searching for solutions.

The Standard Has to Stay the Standard

At the end of the day, evaluating our own clients will probably never become easy.

I don't want it to.

If cutting a goalie I have worked with for years ever becomes completely emotionless, I would probably need to ask myself whether I still care enough about coaching.

The difficulty is evidence that the relationship matters.

But the relationship cannot change the standard. That is the entire point.

When your goalie trains with us, I want them to feel like we are completely invested in their success… Because we are.

I want them to know we will celebrate with them when things go well.

We will challenge them when things are not good enough.

We will help them after difficult games.

We will help rebuild confidence.

We will push them outside their comfort zone.

We will teach.

We will listen.

We will coach.

We will care.

But if one day I am sitting on the other side of the glass with an evaluation sheet in my hand, I owe them something different.

I owe them fairness.

At that moment, I am not evaluating a customer.

I am not evaluating a friend.

I am not evaluating somebody who has supported my business.

I am not evaluating one of "my goalies."

I am evaluating a goaltender competing for a position, and whatever they have done before that evaluation cannot buy the decision. Never.

They have to show it.

They have to compete.

They have to perform.

They have to make the decision difficult… or better yet, make it obvious.

That can be incredibly hard for us to say. Sometimes it is even harder for us to do.

But I genuinely believe it is one of the most important promises a coach can make to the athletes and families who trust them:

I will care about you enough to help you succeed.

And I will respect you enough to tell you the truth.

Because without honesty, development means very little.

Without fairness, evaluation means nothing.

Without integrity, a reputation is just advertising.

And without trust, we do not have much of a coaching relationship at all.

This company was built from the ground up on relationships, honesty, respect and integrity.

Those values cannot disappear when they become inconvenient.

Actually, that is exactly when they matter most.

So yes, there will be times when one of our own goalies gets cut. There will be difficult conversations. There will be disappointment. There may even be families who disagree with me.

I can live with disagreement.

What I cannot live with is knowing I compromised what I believed was right because I was afraid to disappoint someone.

I owe more than that to the athletes.

I owe more than that to the organizations that trust us.

I owe more than that to the coaches who work beside me.

I owe more than that to every family that has helped us build this program.

And I owe more than that to the name I have spent years putting behind this company.

The goalie who deserves the opportunity should earn the opportunity.

Whether they train with us or not.

Whether I know their parents or not.

Whether making that decision is comfortable or not.

That's the job.

It is one of the hardest parts of the job, but it is also one of the responsibilities I take most seriously.

Because when the evaluations are over, the scoresheets are put away and the teams have been selected, I still need to be able to walk into the rink, shake every parent's hand, look every goalie in the eye and know that I treated them fairly.

For me, that is worth protecting at all costs.

My integrity.

Our reputation.

Their trust.

And the game itself.

See you at the rink!

Coach Adam