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Goldman: Is this when you finally started working with goalies at a high level? Granqvist: “Well I hadn’t played for about three years, so I tried to make a comeback first. I started out in the Allsvenskan [Sweden’s second-highest league], but I realized very quickly that I had been away from the game for too long. So I was immediately drawn to the coaching side of the position, and automatically started supporting the other goalie on my team. From that day, I was a goalie coach. I realized I had more talent coaching others than stopping the pucks myself. That’s a long story leading up to this point in our conversation, but this is the honest background of who I am as a current goalie coach for Farjestad. In the beginning, the players probably looked at me like I was like a UFO in the sky. They seemed fascinated by me, and while they really liked me, they thought I was one of the strangest guys they had ever met. They thought, ‘Who is this guy and what is this peace and love and stuff?’ It was exciting for them, but I know it was also a little bit strange. But then they started to mention to the head coach and other players how I was such a good mental supporter, and after working with me for a short time, how they felt comfortable and confident in the net. It was at that time I started to realize that I needed to really study the technical part of the game. I played the old school style in the 1990’s, so I knew I was behind the times a little bit.” Goldman: How did that learning process work for you? Granqvist: “Well, when I first started to really improve my technical understanding of the position, I knew the game was changing. Francois Allaire and his brother Benoit Allaire started to come over and hold his camps and address the blocking part of goaltending, like we saw for example with J-S Giguere and many other goalies in the NHL. It was the beginning of that era, when the blocking became more prevalent, so we started seeing it here in the NHL highlights and in games on a more consistent basis. Allaire would hold goalie camps here in Sweden, so I’d sit and watch and learn as much as I could regarding his teachings. That’s when I really became a student of the game and position. I worked really hard at this, almost 14 or 15 hours a day. It became my total obsession, and I was so passionate about studying the position and learning from school and goalies, reading anything I could get my hands on regarding Henrik Lundqvist and other goalies and coaches in the NHL and other leagues. I knew I already had an advantage as an emotional supporter for the goalie, so because of my previous experiences, I wasn’t afraid to support a goalie regardless of their mental state or situation. That gave me the confidence and freedom to work with goalies at a high level in my own unique way.” Goldman: I have to say, your story is amazing. I had no idea you started out as a kindergarten teacher and went on silent retreats and studied meditation before becoming a goalie coach. Granqvist: “I haven’t talked so much about it, to be honest. I just started a couple of months ago and thought to myself that I could be more transparent and share more. If we have 25 guys on a team, even though I only work with the goalies, I think maybe a few other players will have the same kind of reflections about not being truly happy that I had when I was playing at a younger age. These type of things can easily occur. I’ve now been part of winning three championships, and I think it’s great to do things together and support the guys so we can win together. But winning championships doesn’t even come close to helping players become one with themselves. So for me, I started to think, why not share this with the world? I can still enjoy coaching in a way that will support a goalie’s growth and awareness and skills. But beyond helping a goalie stop more pucks, it is inspiring them to realize the beauty of just being. The combination of freedom, giving 100 percent in your role, and winning together as a team is priceless!” Goldman: So how would you explain to the reader exactly what type of coach you are? Granqvist: “I like to work with the whole puzzle – human being, mental, tactical, technical, physiological, and equipment. I break down my approach for you and the readers of your book, at the root and under the surface of it all, I love the goalie as a person. I really appreciate goalies as human beings, they are fantastic. But on the surface, for a couple of hours a day, we just work really hard on the technical and developmental aspect of the position. I ask them for their goals and what kind of coaching they want and how they want to be supported. For example, I ask them how they want me to be when they’re lazy. I ask them what they need, what they want, and what expectations they have for me as a coach. Then I can support them in that way. After a performance, we analyze what was good, we look at what we can do differently, and what things we can work on. We work on the ice to develop what we see. After that, we may not have won every game or the league championship, but I always make sure to address to every goalie that they’re still a wonderful person. When we do something on the ice, in the gym, or video analysis, we do it 100 percent. We take full responsibility in our role, which is stopping the pucks, being totally involved and helping the team. This kind of approach is natural for me, otherwise it wouldn’t be worth it for me to be a coach. They do it for themselves and for the team, not for me as a coach.” Goldman: How exactly did you channel your past experiences in a manner that allowed goalies to process your teachings in a way that also improved their on-ice game? Granqvist: “I had gained so much knowledge on the technical and tactical side of the position, but to take things further on the counselor side, I started working with a mental coach here in Farjestad named Lennart Carlsson. He gave me some great tools that I started to use on my goalies to help support their overall development. We worked together on different things, and came up with something that works extremely well. It was in the process of working with Jonas Gustavsson that we tried different things over time, but what worked best for Jonas was utilizing what I call open coaching questions like, ‘How do you experience this situation in the net’ or ‘How did you see this play develop’ or ‘What can you do differently’ or ‘What other solutions do you see in this situation’. Whatever it was we were discussing, I always used open coaching questions so that we both assumed together that he already had the knowledge and the answers inside him. I just used different questions in different ways to make him search and find the answers inside of himself. Ninety-nine percent of the time, he said, ‘Oh yeah, I see now…I could have done this.’ From there, we’d imagine himself, see himself and feel himself using those alternative techniques or tactics, then move on to the next situation. Every game we’d watch every situation he was in, and if it was something we wanted him to keep doing, great. If it was something we thought he could do differently, we just asked those open coaching questions and looked at alternatives that forced him to think and find new answers. I’d ask him to visualize him making those new adjustments, or trying those new things. This kind of coaching method I developed together with Carlsson, and Jonas was our special test subject. The results were so positive that I kept doing it with the other goalies I’ve worked with. I’ve come to find that it’s a very efficient method, due in large part because it is so respectful to the goalie. I don’t say they have to do something, because if I do that, I take away their own natural knowledge and their own instincts for the game and the position.”