The Organization and Hockey Operations is thrilled to announce James Pierson will be returning for the 2019-20 season as the Director of Goaltender Development for the Phantoms Youth.   Over the past 2 seasons he has built a goaltender development program that is rivaled by no other DVHL organization. His personal attention, commitment, and training techniques are the foundation of this season long program. To learn more, please contact James directly and we are always looking for new goaltenders at all ages to embrace this truly unique training opportunity.

James' Bio:

James Pierson has been passionate about youth athletic development for a very long time. For the last 20 + years, James has served as a coach, mentor and student of the game of hockey. His coaching journey began when he was a Midget goalie with the Lehigh Valley Comets in the DVHL; James used to spend days at the rink helping younger goalies hone their skills.

After Junior Hockey and a degree in hand, a job presented itself that prided itself in coaching and developing. The years of experience and promotions led to an acquisition of development skills that would serve youth athletes for years to come. With the education and experience, mixed with a stroke of luck, James found his way back into coaching in 2010 and has been involved since.

The use of challenging and competitive environments, alongside an emphasis on control and edgework, are a staple to his style. Goaltenders are tasked to use their problem-solving abilities to resolve deficiencies and improve their skills. The use of experience mapping and age specific programming help James provide the goaltenders with a balanced approach that improves baseline skills and elements.

Most recently, Coach Pierson started PPG, a goaltending development company and set up a week-long summer camp that saw the attendance of 24 goaltenders, most of them Phantoms. He has put together a staff of over 8 instructors that frequent the Phantoms Goalie Clinics during the season. Pierson utilizes older goalies as mentors to model desired behaviors to speed up the development process.

Over the past two seasons, James saw tremendous growth in the Goaltending Program serving as the Director of Goaltender Development for the Phantoms Youth. This past season goaltenders were provided with weekly sessions that targeted skills, game scenarios, power skating, and conditioning. The weekly sessions were broken into two groups; an older group and a younger group. This allowed for a focus that was geared to the age of the audience.

Additionally, James serves as a member of USA Hockey’s Instructor Staff; where he provides coaching tools and resources to coaches throughout the Atlantic District to develop goaltenders all throughout the United States. After a positive year of growth among goalies he has worked with, Coach Pierson will be looking to continue the growth from where this past season left off as the Director of Goaltender Development for the 2019-2020 Season.