Goalies receiving financial, mental health support from Goalie Guild

Justin Goldman has been helping the goaltending community for several years. Now, during the coronavirus pandemic, he has taken his efforts to an even higher level.

Goldman, an emergency backup goaltender for the Colorado Avalanche, is using his platforms, the Goalie Guild and the Lift the Mask mental health initiative, to help members of his community in numerous ways.
He has made financial donations to goalies and goalie coaches who have been impacted by the closure of ice rinks due to social-distancing measures instituted across much of the United States to combat the pandemic. He also has used his Lift the Mask initiative to look after the mental health of goalies and their families.
"Our (Goalie Guild) scholarship program has been around since 2015 and every year we send a handful of goalies and goalie coaches to different training camps and different professional development opportunities," said Goldman, who also works full-time as director of athletic partnerships for mindSpark Learning, a nonprofit based in Lakewood, Colorado that's committed to being a direct intersection between education and industry. "So we took those funds and put it into a brand new emergency fund for COVID-19 for coaches who were going to be dealing with financial hardships due to rinks closing.
"I know that a lot of my good friends and everyone that I've worked with over a decade now are pretty much in that boat, where they're relying on rinks to stay open to be able to provide their professional services and feed their families."
Goldman founded the Goalie Guild in 2009. At that time it was a blog with Goldman's scouting reports on goaltenders. A nonprofit since 2015, the foundation helps support, educate and inspire goalies and goalie coaches. The site offers instructional videos, flash cards and recommended reading geared toward goalies.
In mid-March, Goldman re-allocated about $5,000 of the Goalie Guild's funds into a new COVID-19 Emergency Fund. Seventeen coaches have received donations so far and the average donation has been $250, Goldman says.
"It was really a no-brainer to take the funds that we usually provide to underprivileged goalies and goalie coaches in the USA," he said. "For some people it's not a lot. But for others, it's going to save them for a couple of weeks here. ... I tell everyone, I wish it could be more, but I want to be and fair and equitable as possible. That's important to me."

Kelsey Neumann (Buffalo Beauts), Justin Goldman, Liam Cavanagh (Robert Morris University), and Ben Meisner after the 2019 Lift The Mask Discussion Panel at the Global Goaltending Retreat in Breckenridge, Colorado
It's also important that members of the goaltending community are mentally healthy, especially as they deal with a pause to their careers and the real-life issues created by the pandemic. That desire was the genesis for the founding in 2018 of Lift the Mask, an initiative designed to help goaltenders improve their mental health.
On Tuesday, Goldman hosted a discussion panel to address mental health and well-being. Approximately 70 goalies took part in the discussion, with a panel that included Goldman; Ben Meisner, who plays in the second division in Germany; Ted Monnich, a psychological skills coach and professional goaltending consultant; Liam Cavanagh, Robert Morris University director of hockey operations and a mental health advocate; and Kelsey Neuman, a goalie for the Buffalo Beauts of the National Women's Hockey League and an ambassador for the Lift the Mask program.
"A lot of it had to do with things that can help you through tough times, but also ways to double-dip into personal wellness and bringing that to mental performance with your game as well, which I found interesting," Meisner said of the panel, which lasted about an hour. "A lot of the tools and techniques guys were talking about were really cool to do before a game, before a practice. But if you feel you're getting anxious about whatever, you can implement those tools right now, which is why mental health has really come to the forefront of the pandemic we're in."
Meisner, who has played in Germany since the 2014-15 season, was the first ambassador with Lift the Mask, starting in the fall of 2018, not long after he wrote an article for The Players' Tribune about his own struggles with mental illness and how he contemplated suicide.
Meisner said Goldman's work has been much appreciated.
"Justin is a people-first type of guy," Meisner said. "He'll do anything he can to try and help you, and that shows with what he's doing, especially, with the goalie and hockey community."
Goldman said he plans to host a panel each week and introduce other initiatives when he can.
"I'm very fortunate," Goldman said. "I run this nonprofit foundation, it's kind of a one-man army, and I'm able to make decisions really fast in terms of how I allocate the funds we have available. I knew a lot of goalie coaches were going to run into really hard times because they're very underpaid, just generally speaking, and they rely on ice time to do their jobs.
"So now it's a challenge for me, and it's a good challenge, to find more funds from patrons and donors and followers to continue to help these goalie coaches."
Photos courtesy: Justin Goldman