“I always wanted to be a better goalie than I was, but unfortunately when I was playing there were no coaches,” Alexander said from his Moncton home earlier this week. “You just went out and stopped the puck the best you could, and if it was good enough then fine and if not then that was it.”
Alexander, now 66, was born in Stephenville and lived in Kippens. He strapped on the pads as a youngster and eventually played some senior hockey with guys like Wayne Hounsell and Art Barry, as members of the Stephenville Monarchs in both the Bay St. George Senior Hockey League and a few years in the provincial senior hockey league.
He was a familiar face at the Co-op in Stephenville where he worked as a member of the management team until he was transferred to Dartmouth, N.S. in 1978. Two years later he was transferred to Moncton, where he calls home today.
He was intrigued by goalies and the huge role they played in the success of a team. It was a passion of his and he was determined to learn more about what it takes to be a quality puckstopper.
He found himself volunteering his services to help out any goalie camp he could, freezing his feet to find out what works and doesn’t work, and being on top of things as the game evolved as he rubbed shoulders with goalie coaches at clinics in Ontario and Quebec.
His son David developed an interest in being a goalie at the age of 14 and the real journey began. They would plan vacations around goalie camps where David would be put through drills from guys like Martin Brodeur, Patrick Roy and Vladislav Tretiak along the way.
Dad would sit in the stands and watch each session unfold. Whatever he could learn he would apply as he pushed himself to evolve with the rapid changing of the game and the position.
His 32-year-old son shares the same passion today, working as a goaltending coach with the Syracuse Crunch of the American Hockey League. For the past 21 years the two have worked together as operators of Alexander Goaltending, a Moncton-based goaltending training business where they deliver professionally-designed programs for over 175 puckstoppers throughout Atlantic Canada.
He didn’t make any money when he played in net, and he’s not going to get rich coaching goalies. He figures he makes enough money over the course of a year for a small vacation, but it by no means puts the bread on the table.
“Seeing them being successful,” he said bluntly of why he does it. “You wouldn’t do it if that’s not where you derived your satisfaction from.”
Through his travels, he has seen goalies with tons of skill who he figured he could do a teaching video on them they looked so good, but they didn’t take their game to a higher level.
They were missing the two things he figures separates the elite from the average Joe. He believes there’s no replacement for hard work and a person’s attitude is everything in life.
“You will either succeed or not succeed depending on your attitude,” he said. “The saying that ‘hard work will beat skill if skill doesn’t work hard,’ that’s exactly true.”
For information on goalie camps being offered in New Brunswick this summer by Alexander Goaltending, email [email protected].
