My week-long holiday trip to Costa Rica was exactly what I had hoped for; a life-altering experience. For the first time since I started watching hockey 18 years ago, I left the country during the NHL’s regular season. I’ve been so “plugged in” and dedicated to the game that I simply never wanted to pull myself away from evaluating goalies on a nightly basis.

I have to deal with this aspect of my life every single day. I’m considered a “workaholic” by almost everyone I know. They think I spend every waking moment “working” on The Goalie Guild.

It’s not easy to admit this, but they’re almost 100-percent right. My work ethic is through the roof, often crossing over to the point of unhealthy.

However, I firmly believe that what I do is not work. I don’t have a boss. I don’t have to wake up at a certain time, wear a certain uniform, or travel to a certain office. I merely strive to learn new things about goalies and goaltending every day, and then I write out my thoughts.

This is me, down to a single phrase: I scout goalies because it is my passion. It’s literally my favorite thing to do. Not swimming, not running, not partying with people I hardly know. It’s just watching goalies move and react, evolve and develop, talk and transform.

I am completely obsessed with the way a body moves; how it reacts to different stimuli, how muscles move bone, and how those muscle and skeletal systems differentiate between hundreds and thousands of goalies. Movement is beauty, in every sense of the term.

Therefore, I have to believe that playing hockey with my friends, watching hockey every night, listening to music every day, and writing about the thoughts that consume my mind on a nightly basis is not work. It is just my way of life.

If that makes me a “workaholic” to others, so be it.

I won’t lie; I’m proud to be known as the only independent goalie scout in the world. Everyone that knows me recognizes that I’m one of the hardest workers around, and that my success has been earned. That is what it takes to be truly independent, and I have to live a basic life to make it work.

On top of scouting, I also take the time to run an annual charity hockey tournament (Quest for the Crown) to benefit Hockey Fights Cancer. I have raised and donated over $20,000 in four years, and it feels great being able to make that financial commitment to an important cause on an annual basis.

This charitable path is one that I’ve chosen, and this is the path I want to take during my short time on this planet. I strive to be a good person, egoless and motivational. I have been this way since I was very young, it comes naturally.

Over the course of the last 18 years, many instances have transpired in my life that have reinforced my personal mission. I met my idol, Chris Osgood, as a young Red Wings fan during the late 1990’s. I met him again in a professional setting back in 2006 as the editor of Colorado Hockey Insider following a game against the Avalanche.

As I interviewed him for a solid five minutes, I knew the whole time that it was one of the most amazing moments of my life. Through years of hard work, patience and dedication, I knew this chance to interview Osgood was something I had truly earned.

Everything he said was unforgettable. Time slowed down. Words resonated.

“I’d just tell them to focus on the puck, to track the puck with intensity,” Osgood said to me. I had asked him for one piece of advice that he would give to all young goaltenders.

Since that moment, focus has been the cornerstone of what I do. I have to focus as much energy as possible on tracking hundreds of goalies. Again, this is not work. This is a way to train, exercise, and expand my mind. This allows me to better inform and educate others. This is how I reach “homeostasis” in terms of how I love to live, and how I live to love.

These numerous moments of great influence continued when I watched Osgood notch his 400th career win right here in Denver, right in front of my face. I was at that game, in the stands instead of the press box, for my own personal reasons. Ultimately, it was not a coincidence. It was a true encounter of my life’s monolith; it was meant to happen. It proved many things to me.

That game will never be forgotten because of how he won it; essentially on one leg. He worked harder than everyone else on the ice, and he once again proved to me the value of an egoless work ethic. Nobody will forget that Osgood won more than 400 games in his career, but very few will remember how he earned win #400.

All of these moments have created a mountain of memories that prove to me I’m heading down a path I was meant to travel. And since I truly feel this way, I am always happy, always willing to love everyone, willing to share my ideals and my egoless approach with anyone who is willing to listen or follow along.

This trip to Costa Rica put many aspects of my life in perspective. It was a much-needed mental refresher, a rare chance to re-evaluate things mid-season. But it wasn’t the waking-life experiences like deep-sea fishing or skim boarding that made my trip so special – it was a few lucid dreams that I had in the dead of the night.

One of them was extremely powerful, while the other was more of a moment, a vision, a short sequence.

I rarely tell people my dreams, mainly because they’re too intricate to reveal. I also feel that many dreams shouldn’t be shared. They’re private conversations with ourselves; a message from our subconscious to explain certain aspects of the flow of our centric energy and aura. They are meant to be experienced alone.

But since this blog is made public for the sake of ‘putting it out there’ in the universe, I have no problem releasing a few of the details of this one. It’s part of my decision to reveal my mission for 2012 and beyond.

This specific dream found me sitting in the office of Nashville Predators head coach, Barry Trotz. In his hand was a simple unmarked white mailing envelope.

He handed me the envelope with a small, sly smile on his face, not wanting to reveal anything that might allow me to know what was coming. I waited with great anticipation to open it up. I was so excited that I simply couldn’t focus on reading the first few lines. I noticed it was a set of pages, folded into thirds.

I unfolded the papers and read the first paragraph. As I was reading, Trotz was speaking to me, but I couldn’t make out his words.

In my hands, a contract to become the team’s assistant goalie coach and goalie scout. As soon as I read it, I looked up at Barry, only to see him smiling. I instantly broke down, clutched the contract in my hand, and completely lost control of my emotions.

No, this certainly wasn’t a very masculine reaction to have. But everything had turned into a vacuum of pure black, and all I remember from that point is looking down, putting my hands on my knees, and hearing Trotz say, “You earned it.”

The following day, I received a Twitter DM from my friend, Shawn Roarke, a managing editor for NHL.com. I had sent him a DM the day before to wish him a Merry Christmas.

“Merry Christmas, Shawn! Hope you have a great time with your family. I’m very thankful for the opportunity you have given me with NHL.com.”

“You too buddy,” he replied. “Happy I could give you the opportunity. You earned it.”

It is man’s nature to draw parallels between different moments in life for the sake of believing something we really want to believe. We see what we want to see in order to put our mind at ease, or in order to prove ourselves right. In general, our mind is a chasm of self-righteousness, and it’s not easy to admit wrongdoings.

But due to the dreams I had during my trip, and based on past experiences, and due to the direction I feel my heart and mind is being drawn, it is not difficult to make a new oath and seal it with my dreams. That oath, you ask?

To make my dream come true, to experience manifest destiny, and to sign a contract with an NHL team to be an assistant goalie coach, mainly in charge of video analysis and scouting. For I once told myself, if I never “make it” as a player, I want to make it as a pro in another area of the game. And I feel fully confident that my ability to scout and analyze goaltenders will one day be worthy of an NHL contract.

It happened in my dreams, and I will work my hands down to the bones to prove that dreams can come true, if you’re willing to work hard enough to make them happen.

The science that exists between my inner spirit and my waking life experiences is a pure mystery. It’s an icon of discovery, a path uncovered by the astral light in the deep reaches of space. Where, or when is not nearly as important as why or how I do it.

So with humility and obedience, I’m even more committed than ever before to fulfilling the role of the independent goalie scout. And I will not quit until I am finally an employee of an NHL organization, wherein my independence will maintain existence in my mind.

If this mission fails, so be it. Good will still come from it, and experiences along the way will make me stronger and smarter. For a young man’s deeds becomes an old man’s wisdom, and without an extremely lofty goal, I will fail to recognize the potential of my own true power. Humans are amazing creatures, but we must truly believe we are capable of amazing things before we find the motivation to go out and achieve those things.

Most of the “changes” you’ll see heading into 2012 are a direct result of my trip to Costa Rica, my influential dreams, and all of my past experiences related to the goaltending position. The run-of-the-mill scouting reports that detail and document a goalie’s strengths and weaknesses will always remain. But as I have strived to do since 2007, my website will be a realm of pure creativity.

When 2012 begins, The Goalie Guild should not be regarded so much as a full-blown scouting service, for I am only one man. Instead, regard it as the home and haven for my personal body of creative work. It must be known that I am striving to earn a pro contract with an NHL team, and the subtle changes to my mission statements and website layout will do the trick.

I know there is a disconnect between the website being called The Goalie Guild, but having it act as a haven for one person’s work. But I strive to be egoless, so my work strives to benefit everyone else as much as it benefits myself. I write to educate, inspire, motivate and appreciate. I don’t write to get clicks, views, hits, traffic, or anything else volumetric in form.

Starting next week, you will read about intricate and insightful goaltending topics that you will read nowhere else through the return of the School of Block. I refuse to duplicate or replicate content. I only want to create new things, find new ways to inspire, and do it all for the sake of educating and motivating. I have a lot of really cool ways to make that happen, so the future is exciting.

PadsTracker and PadsFactory is going to be handled by my very good friend Mathew Abraham. We are close to announcing some big developments with both tools, and I am excited to have that portion of The Goalie Guild grow. His templates are beautiful, and it’s really fun for me to balance some of the hardcore scouting and goalie analysis with some visuals of goalie gear.

Ultimately, I can only hope that if you made it this far in my personal blog, you understand where I’m coming from, understand where I’m going, and enjoy your stay along the way.

“And I feel revived, sacred and honored, one of a kind. And I feel this life is something I was chosen for.” –Insomnium