Tampa Bay Lightning goalie scout Jared Waimon was key in the organization\u2019s selection of Stepan Shurygin with the 186th\u00a0overall pick at the 2026 NHL Draft. Now, he\u2019s helping the netminder from Samara, Russia, beyond the crease.<\/p>\n
Waimon spent this offseason meeting with the goalie virtually, blending lessons in goaltending with teaching the English language.<\/p>\n
Shurygin couldn\u2019t attend development camp in July due to the distance between Russia and Tampa. Waimon still found a way for the Saginaw Spirit goalie to keep developing from afar.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to continue to make a connection with him because we weren\u2019t going to be able to get him to development camp, and I really wanted him to know we\u2019re excited to have him,\u201d Waimon said. \u201cAnd I also wanted to make sure he maintained the English he knows.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of Waimon\u2019s friends, Parker Carroll, is a goalie coach who is currently learning to speak Russian. Suddenly, Waimon saw a perfect opportunity.<\/p>\n
Waimon, Carroll and Shurygin held weekly virtual meetings, talking through video clips of goalie work while mixing in chats about everyday life, too. Sometimes that conversation was held in English, and other times they talked back and forth in Russian.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d have small talk with what\u2019s going on in his training and his life with friends and such, and same with us. Parker would speak in Russian, and Stepan would correct him. Then Stepan would speak in English, and I would try to help him and Parker would try to help him back in Russian and we\u2019d go back and forth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think all three of us really started to look forward to the calls, and we were kind of bummed when they ended with the season starting up. The big goal was to make sure he kept the English that he had and pick up on some more technical words so when he came to prospect camp and back to Saginaw, he was going to be a little bit better with some of the technical words as well as some of the technical things in the position and the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Waimon said Shurygin\u2019s English has improved at least a letter grade along with his willingness and confidence to speak the language.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s helped me a lot with my English, and I talk to him every week,\u201d Shurygin said of learning from Waimon. \u201cHe\u2019s a really good guy, so it\u2019s been very good for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Waimon has worked for the Lightning since 2019. This marked the first time he combined hockey with teaching language.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hockey stuff usually works itself out through maturity, repetition and experience. Being a goalie is hard, playing in the OHL is hard. Working to one day play in Syracuse and then in Tampa, that\u2019s hard,\u201d Waimon said. \u201cIf we can find a half-hour a week to make him feel a little bit better about all of those hard things and understand a little bit more, that\u2019s only going to make him more comfortable, and anyone who feels more comfortable is going to be more confident.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Lightning goalie scout Jared Waimon was key in the organization\u2019s selection of Stepan Shurygin with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-398921","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\/398921","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=398921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}