Filip Lindberg Wins NCAA D1 Championship With a Shutout

Filip Lindberg wins NCAA D1 championship with a shutout and sets multiple NCAA goalie records on the way. This blog post is about what makes him great and what you can learn from him. You can put these tips into use at the next practice.

Passion - We started working together in the middle of 2010-2011 season when he was still in elementary school. After the first practice, I told other coaches that here we have a future national team goalie (obviously nobody believed it). I have rarely seen the same kind of passion in a young goalie. Even at a young age he really loved to be on the ice and also off-ice training.

Competitive spirit - Every pro athlete is competitive and Fille has been extremely competitive since we met. Some people are naturally competitive at a young age and some become competitive. Every good goalie I know hates getting scored on and when they get scored it motivates them to try even harder. For example, once in a while, every goalie has a practice where he can’t stop even a beach ball and pretty much every shot goes in. Even on those days, the competitive spirit doesn’t allow the goalie to quit trying.

Faith - His path has not been easy. I have met goalies who have given up in similar situations. Fille has had faith that when you keep working hard it will pay off.

Mental toughness - When he was given the opportunities and he had to play well he was able to capture the moments because he was prepared for them. Even though he might have a natural neurological ability to handle pressure well, he still has earned mental toughness with hard work. We have also worked on game preparation since the early days and looks like it is paying off.

Determination - Determination is to do the work when you don’t feel like doing it. He has the ability to push himself to do the work.

Two practical tips - Fille was a competitive gymnast on a national level until he was twelve or thirteen which gave him a physical advantage at a young age over many other goalies and that is also the foundation for his extraordinary strong physique. Don’t worry if you are fifteen or older and never done gymnastics or real lifting, you can still get very strong with the right type of training. If you are a parent of a young goalie (or any other athlete) gymnastics is one of the best off-ice training a goalie can do. Another thing that sets him apart from almost every goalie I have coached is that he does extra skating at the end of every practice. That is a habit we created during our first season together. In ten years that is a lot of extra skating. I have told every goalie I have coached that if you do even two pushes at the end of practice it adds up over the season. This is also a mental thing of doing little extra that carries over to confidence.

If you are a goalie parent and reading this, you must be mentally strong and teach mental toughness to your child. For example, when your kid plays a bad game don’t blame players for it, instead, figure out what was the reason for a bad game. I highly recommend reading about growth mindset by Carol Dweck. When things get tough, as they always do for a goalie, how do you handle it as a parent? When the goalie gets older will you keep supporting the dream of playing pro, how far are you willing to go with financial and mental support, and at what point it is enough?

Hockey means a lot and when you give almost your whole life to it but at the end of the day what happens on the ice should not determine you as a person. Winning feels great and losing should be upsetting because you have put a lot of effort to win, but winning or losing doesn’t determine the value of your life or you as a person.

Summary - I think Fille would have made it no matter who were his coaches. It has been great to be able to have a small part in the journey. And as a coach, it gives perspective on what it takes to become great when you see someone up close to grow into a champion.

On the same note, I have to say that I coached goalies who I’d never imagine making it pro, but they still made it. So, I have learned not to make judgments if the personality traits mentioned above are found in the goalie.

I know this article might make him sound like a perfect goalie but nobody is perfect and the journey to become better never ends. Remember to enjoy the process and the journey.