Jr. Lightning youth hockey program<\/a> as well as other area youth and high school coaches. Regardless of age, coaching should always be about creating a team atmosphere and working toward the same goals, Garlock said.<\/p>\n\u201cYou are not going to get anywhere if you’re not enjoying it a little bit. It can be a grind. It doesn’t have to be fun every second. It’s challenging. It’s demanding when you’re on the road all the time, but these are humans. Professional athletes, they’re people, man. They\u2019ve got families. They\u2019ve got their own stuff to worry about. If you’re always digging into them, they’re gonna tune you out. They’re not gonna listen. They’re just not going to. It’s human nature,\u201d Garlock said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMake it fun and make it relatable and give them some authority in this whole thing, too. You have to make it a partnership. Obviously if we’re teaching nine year olds, you shouldn’t be asking them, ‘What kind of D-zone do you want to play?’ But the older you get, if they have some ownership in some of the decisions, it’s going to make them own it and enjoy it even more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garlock has worked more than 1,000 NHL games and hundreds of victories in Tampa. He hopes coaches at Saturday\u2019s clinic saw him as a kid from Michigan who found his own path to a career in hockey through coaching and now has his name on the Stanley Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They can do it, too, if they want.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think you need to have NHL pedigree as a player to have a coaching career in this league. I think there\u2019s a path that\u2019s different\u2026So if the story of me being an equipment guy in junior hockey and then getting his name on the Stanley Cup and helping figure out how to beat the Montreal Canadiens in the Stanley Cup Final helps somebody make it, that\u2019s worth it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gehrig Oppenheimer is working as an assistant coach for multiple Jr. Lightning teams this season. He said hearing from Garlock at Saturday\u2019s clinic offered a unique opportunity.<\/p>\n
After all, it’s not every day that coaches get to take notes from an NHL video coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust hearing the words come out of his mouth and growing up in the hockey world and being around all sorts of coaches, the big takeaway is he\u2019s just like any other regular guy, but his game knowledge is so much deeper,\u201d Oppenheimer said. \u201cThere\u2019s so many little key details you can learn from an NHL guy and learning certain ways of how to teach youth hockey and become better as a coach.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oppenheimer left particularly impressed after hearing of Garlock\u2019s video experience, saying the Jr. Lightning program can utilize some of his advice.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving a video opportunity is gonna help them see the game from a different perspective of, \u2018Hey, this is what we look like and these are some things we can work on,\u2019\u201d Oppenheimer said. “And as a coach, it helps you also see it because when you\u2019re watching the game there\u2019s so many parts of the game going on, and watching video back shows what they were thinking and shows you a whole different perspective of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oppenheimer occupied one chair in a studious audience, one filled with coaches across multiple USA Hockey coaching certification levels. Most live in the area, while one traveled all the way from Buffalo, New York, and another visited from Maine.<\/p>\n
Garlock found the large turnout encouraging. He believes strongly that providing youth hockey coaches multiple tools to be successful matters within the sport, one that continues to grow.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t have to convince me that Florida and Tampa in particular is a hockey state and becoming more of one. I\u2019ve seen it here when we won, and it\u2019s crazy,\u201d Garlock said. “So to see the grassroots level and the youth level getting bigger and bigger and bigger, it\u2019s not surprising anymore after 15 years\u2026You see it now. There\u2019s NHL kids from all over the place, whether it\u2019s Arizona, Florida, Texas, California.<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s no accident. It\u2019s not surprising, and it\u2019s a really good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Lightning video coach Brian Garlock spent his Saturday morning giving back at Benchmark International Arena. Garlock…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-385349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}