Blog

Helping Goalie Lessons Carry Over to Team Practice

Topher Scott November 3, 2026

Here’s a great post from Mike Rask, founder of CreaseOS on how coaches can be on the same page with their goaltenders who are taking lessons with separate goalie coaches. A private goalie lesson can give a player a clear focus. At the next team practice, does anyone else know what that focus is? I’m a goalie coach with Lady Liberty in St. Louis, and I’ve been coaching goalies for about five years. Many of the goalies I coach also take private lessons. I want to understand what they’re working on so I can help reinforce it during our time together. That takes communication. Here’s a simple approach coaches can use to connect those sessions. 1. Start by asking the goalie. Before practice, ask, “What have you been working on?” Follow up with, “What does that look like when you’re doing it well?” Give the goalie room to explain it

It’s a Long Season: How to Be a Grounded Hockey Parent

Steph Dukesherer November 2, 2026

Every hockey season starts with a story, and by now your family probably has one. Maybe your player is flying. The coach loves them, the team is winning, and everyone in your house is on cloud nine. Maybe it’s the opposite: a slow start, less ice time than you expected, a coach who doesn’t seem to see your kid, and a quiet voice in the back of your mind asking whether you picked the wrong team. Or maybe you’re somewhere in the middle, watching every shift and wondering what it all means. I’ve spent a lot of years around youth hockey. I’ve seen it from the facilities side, from organization leadership, from life with a husband who coached, and from the stands and the car rides home with my own kids. Here is the one thing I’ve learned that holds true for all three of those families: it’s a long

USA Hockey’s New Development League

Topher Scott October 13, 2026

USA Hockey’s new Development League is the biggest structural change to American youth hockey in over a decade. It’s the third of three big swings by USA Hockey after creating the NTDP in the late 90’s and the ADM in the late 2000’s. Both of those were huge successes and USA Hockey is banking on this new league being the third. The DL looks to create a clearer path for the country’s best midget hockey players but also raises hard questions that every Tier 1 club operator, coach, and hockey parent should be asking right now. I am cautiously optimistic about it, but as with anything as big as this, nothing is perfect and there are pros and cons. So let’s walk through why the DL exists, what it could do, and where it could potentially have some obstacles. Why USA Hockey did it The short answer: Tier 1 hockey

There Is No Such Thing as “The Hockey Mom”

Steph Dukesherer October 12, 2026

Let me start with this: I am a hockey mom. It’s a title I’m so thankful for, and a badge I wear with honor. What I’m not is “the” hockey mom, and neither is any other mom in your rink. Last week, a piece called “Please Stop Asking Men What Women Think About Hockey” made its way around our corner of the internet. If you haven’t read it, go read it. The writer covers a lot of ground, but one idea stuck with me more than any other: stop treating women as a monolith. She was writing about fans and media. I read it as someone who has spent most of my adult life in and around youth hockey, and I recognized the same pattern right away. I’ve seen this game from just about every seat in the rink over the last couple (at least) decades. I started on the

College Hockey’s New World: What Changed in Year Two

Matt Thomas October 1, 2026

It’s that most exciting time of year– college hockey is back! Last fall, I typed that same sentence. And then spent almost 3000 words unpacking all the reasons we were in a brand-new world. CHL players were suddenly eligible. Revenue sharing had arrived. Programs were working around a new 26-player roster limit. The transfer portal was still churning. Former professional players were entering NCAA hockey through doors that had never previously existed. College hockey had changed so quickly that nobody really knew which developments were permanent, which were a market correction, and which were simply the product of one chaotic offseason. Now we have another year of evidence. And the clearest conclusion is this: the college hockey evolution continues. CHL Continues to Rise In 2025–26, 174 of the 516 incoming freshmen tracked by College Hockey Inc. came directly from the Canadian Hockey League. That was nearly 34% of the entire class.

3 Things I’ve Learned From Barry Smith On Player Development

Topher Scott September 29, 2026

I’ve been fortunate to learn so much about hockey from Barry Smith over the past few years. Here are three of the biggest things I’ve learned on player development

An Amazing Note From a Hockey Director

Topher Scott September 22, 2026

An amazing note from a hockey director to his families setting the tone for the season filled with positivity.

The Reality of Stay to Play in Youth Hockey

Topher Scott September 14, 2026

Stay to Play policies for youth sport tournaments are getting out of control.

From People to Process to Principles

Matt Thomas August 24, 2026

Youth hockey organizations are powered by people. And one of the great privileges of our work is getting to know so many of them. The officers, directors, coaches, administrators, and volunteers who give an unreasonable amount of themselves to make this game work for kids. They solve problems, absorb headaches, and routinely take on work that exceeds any reasonable mandate. They are the angels among us and every interaction should start and end with ‘thank you’. Which makes this next part a little awkward to write. Ironically, there’s a vulnerability that can grow alongside great leadership and administration: dependency. Not because those aforementioned people are doing anything wrong, but because they’re doing so much right. They alone possess all the knowledge, experience, and relationships required to keep the organization running smoothly. Things work so well that there may be little urgency or incentive to ask whether they would work without