Prevailing scholarship, particularly that on talent selection, shows a lack of predictability when it comes to athletic outcomes, particularly when an athlete is younger. According to Dr. Joe Baker, Ph.D. of York University, "Player development systems are poorly designed, inadequately understood, and delivered by humans with brains that are not designed for the task.”$^5$ To put it simply, even if we know who is the best athlete today, it is unlikely that they will be the best athlete tomorrow.

The conversation on evaluations and selection, therefore, must change from ranking talent and skill to choosing based on organizational fit and development opportunity. Dr. Baker summarizes this by stating, “High-performance sport is a resource-limited system. Evaluations are about making decisions as to who gets access to those resources.”$^6$ Therefore, organizations should start with a realistic self-analysis to understand competencies, resourcing, and need before recruiting any athlete, let alone a goaltender.

Identifying Organizational Competencies

In order to effectively evaluate fit, an organization must have the self-awareness to understand its own strengths and weaknesses. Leaders and coaches should reflect on the following questions:

• Do we have a goaltending coach or goaltending staff who are able to support individualized development, or can we only develop a goaltender in a broader team context?
• What internal resources do we have to support athlete and goaltender development, such as strength coaches, mental specialists, etc.
• What is our team and organizational culture, and what types of community and support does it foster around goaltenders?
• If age appropriate, what kinds of systems do we teach and what qualities in a goaltender help support those systems?

With those answers in mind, leaders and coaches should then review the map of holistic criteria and come up with their own ratings:

• If the organization needs to prioritize a goaltender with certain traits, those traits should be rated “beneficial” or “strongly beneficial.”
• If the organization has the competency to develop certain traits, or if certain traits are less of a priority, the organization should rate those traits as “detrimental” or “strongly detrimental.”
• For any uncertainty around traits, or for traits that are not classified using the descriptions above, a “neutral” rating should be used.

Organizations should be as realistic as possible and should seek consensus on these findings among all coaches and leaders. If a majority of traits are weighted toward the same side of the scale, the organization should revisit its findings. As is discussed in the next section, goaltenders who rate “detrimental” in most traits may not be ready for your organization’s skill level; likewise, goaltenders who rate “beneficial” in most may be above the skill level of your team, and may not want to play for your organization if higher-level opportunities are available.

Finding a Goaltender Who Fits

An organization can use its own ratings to formulate its own radar chart, which can then be overlaid and compared to that of the goaltenders being evaluated.

The goal here is to find goaltenders’ charts who closely match the organization’s competencies at an appropriate skill level. It is important to note that goaltenders whose charts are entirely above or below the baseline tick mark may not be appropriate for the level of competition that the organization faces. This is especially true if the goaltender has been evaluated in a competitive environment that includes a team’s current and future players, such as a training camp scrimmage.