For Chris Sandy, hockey has been an important part of his life, showing a passion and dedication for the sport at an early age, and then overcoming challenges and ultimately becoming a highly respected and skilled goaltending coach.
Sandy, describes growing up surrounded by a community that loved sports.
“I grew up in Six Nations. I am an Indigenous athlete, and we come from a traditional family. We grew up playing sports; our parents always made sure we played hockey and lacrosse, and sometimes baseball, but we focused mostly on hockey and lacrosse. I watched a lot of hockey, [and] that’s how I learned. I didn’t have the advantages kids have nowadays with goalie development sessions and extra training. I was self-taught, watching the Toronto Maple Leafs any chance I could get,” he said. “We had our own pond at home, so if we weren’t watching hockey, we were playing hockey out on the pond from morning till night…sometimes with fires lit just to illuminate the ice. I grew up surrounded by family. We all lived within two roads of each other on the same concession in Six Nations on the Fifth Line. I had cousins all around me, so everyone was a short walk away. We played a lot of sports together, and looking back, it was the best way to grow up.”
Many of Sandy’s friends and family played multiple sports, inspiring him to do the same.
“My younger brother and I were the main hockey kids in the Sandy family. My dad was a Sandy and my mom was a Maracle, and we were the sports kids out of those two families. Aside from that, our main influences were our older cousins who played sports, so we would go watch them play. Some of my relatives on my mom’s side, the Bomberrys, all played hockey. Geoff Bomberry played junior hockey…and we used to go watch him play. Seeing him showed me that being an Indigenous athlete meant there were places to play outside of Six Nations,” he said.
However, Sandy would go on to play on various teams as a child, earning accolades for his skill on ice.
“I started out as a player in Novice for our local club, the Six Nations Blackhawks. At some point, we didn’t have a goalie, so I put the pads on, fell in love with the position, and stayed in it from then on. I played through Peewee and Bantam [and] when I entered high school, I moved to Caledonia and made a lot of friends there. I played my Bantam year for the Caledonia rep team, [winning] the Silver Stick International Championship [and] where I was the tournament MVP. I was also being carded as an affiliated player to the Six Nations Golden Eagles Junior B team,” he stated. “So, at 14, I was already being exposed to local junior clubs. I finished my minor hockey career in Caledonia, playing Bantam and Midget. Then, the Six Nations Golden Eagles moved up to Junior B, and I tried out for them. That’s when life struggles hit. Being a young male starting out at 17 or 18, I took pathways that weren’t in my favor and began experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Sport wasn’t the focus anymore.”
In his late teens, Sandy faced these issues along with personal losses, which would affect his play and opportunities to play at the next level.
“Right as we were finalizing the roster after tryouts, the general manager pulled me in. He recognized that my development was slipping, and my athleticism wasn’t where it should be. He said, ‘Listen, we know you’re not putting in the extra work. We just had a kid released from the London Knights Junior A team, and we’re going to sign him and release you.’ I share this with the kids I coach now: every decision you make reflects where your path is leading, and sometimes we don’t make the right choices,” he noted. “Back then, I didn’t hold myself accountable; I blamed everybody and everything except myself for my poor conditioning and bad choices. But I was also struggling personally…I had lost my older brother and then lost my mother to cancer. There was a lot of pain and misunderstood feelings, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. This was in the late 1980s and early 1990s. After junior, I played on a competitive traveling men’s team for a couple of years, but hockey still took a backseat to life because of poor choices.”
After some challenging years, Sandy started to turn a corner in his life, starting a career in the trades, eventually meeting a local coach and rekindling his passion for hockey.
“It took me a little while, throughout my 20s, to realize I wasn’t where I should have been in life. I met my partner in 1997, and that’s when my life started to turn around. There were some really dark days prior to meeting her, but she lifted me up. She helped me see that life is what you make it, and that I could do and be better instead of blaming everyone else. Around that time, I joined Ironworkers Local 721 in Toronto and went to work, which gave my life focus and gave me a career. By 1999, I had my head back on straight, worked hard at my trade, and by my late 30s, I wanted to play hockey again,” he recalled. “By then, we had our children, and I got into coaching when my boys started playing U10 in Brantford [and] that’s how I met Kevin Keen. We were in the rep program together. As I started coaching, my passion for goaltending returned, but it evolved into a love for teaching it. I started playing men’s leagues in Hamilton and a competitive men’s league in Toronto while coaching [and] I fell in love with it all over again and just wished I hadn’t lost those 20 years. I still work as an ironworker, but my true passion is my nights at the rink. When I step onto the ice, everything from the day disappears. Working with the youth in our communities is what I enjoy most.”
Nevertheless, Sandy continued to pursue his passion for coaching, while helping his son develop his skills too.
“When I met Kevin and decided to coach, the Brantford 99ers offered a Level 1 goalie certification course. I signed up so we could help our goalies to the best of our abilities. From there, I coached at the rep level in Brantford, following my middle son as he aged up, and started developing him privately a couple of extra nights a week. My son Ryker was my guinea pig. He wanted to learn, but he wasn’t a natural at the position; he really had to work hard, and so did I, figuring out how to teach him. Eventually, other parents saw his improvement and asked if I could help their sons. That grew into a small group on the ice with Ryker and me,” he said. “We also took Ryker to see former Toronto Maple Leafs goalie coach Steve McKichan in London. After talking with me, Steve told me, ‘Chris, you know what you’re doing. You have the knowledge and the skill to help him, so save your money.’ From there, I continued doing goalie development across Brant County, Brantford, Haldimand, Norfolk, and Six Nations.”
In 2023, he saw that Hockey Canada was offering a National Coach Certification Program (NCCP), but found out that applications were delayed due to COVID-19. But he applied in 2025 and went on to earn an invite to the prestigious program.
“They hand-select just 20 coaches from across Canada out of around 80 applicants, and you need support letters. The Brantford 99ers and Norfolk Minor Hockey wrote glowing recommendation letters, which was very humbling because I never viewed myself that way. To my surprise, I was accepted. It was an incredible experience at the Hockey Canada Olympic Training Center in Calgary, Alberta,” Sandy noted. “We stayed in athlete housing, had full access to Team Canada dressing and video rooms where legends like Mario Lemieux sat, and learned from the top coaches in Canada. We also spent a whole day with Hockey Canada’s top player development coach, Dean Seymour, learning how players are taught to score using modern analytics and millisecond-frame video breakdowns of goalie movements….it was a wonderful experience, and I am very proud that a self-taught goalie and coach like myself could get there.”
Through the Hockey Canada experience, Sandy made some deep connections and is looking forward to finishing the three-level program soon.
“Rick Wamsley, a local guy and program director for the Hockey Canada National Certification Program, reached out to me by email saying he went through the roof when he saw ‘Chris Sandy from Six Nations’ was accepted into the program because he was so excited to have high-level goalie coaching in southern Ontario. Though I never played pro hockey, I can now pick up the phone and call Dwayne Roloson, Rick Wamsley, or Dean Seymour (who was just signed by the Calgary Flames as a player development coach),” he explained. “Once I complete my final requirements for the 12-month certification program, which includes a 26-week seasonal development plan and 52-page manual I created for each of the nine Brantford 99ers Double-B teams…I will be a pro-certified goalie coach and program director. This allows me to be hired as a goalie program director and certify new goalie coaches in this area, helping rebuild the national program from the grassroots up so Canada can produce drafted goalies the way it used to.”
As Sandy hails from Six Nations, it was important for him to bring this knowledge and passion to the next generation across the communities.
“I am so happy my community is embracing what I’ve brought. The goal was to bring elite-level goaltending coaching to Six Nations, Brantford, Brant County, Haldimand, and Norfolk because it’s an area that lacks it. Across Ontario, there are only a handful of goalie coaches with this level of training; across Canada, the number is very small. As an Indigenous person, I am the only Hockey Canada Level 3-trained goalie coach in Ontario, and one of only three in all of Canada,” Sandy reflected. “Our community has been incredibly supportive. When I spoke with Cheryl Henhawk at Parks and Rec about my certification, she was thrilled and promised to find me ice time. Between Six Nations, Norfolk (Waterford), and Haldimand, doors have been opened to help secure ice. Most recently, I was contracted by Indigenous Sports and Wellness Ontario (ISWO) to run goalie development programs.”
However, the goaltending coach also founded and continues to operate his own hockey training school, Active Crease Management.
“I started it in 2024 after a previous partnership fell apart. I realized I had to do it my own way and brand it, which was one of the best decisions I ever made. I’ve worked with some great coaches, like Jake Paterson (former Detroit Red Wings draft pick, AHL/ECHL veteran, and current Kitchener Rangers goalie and video coach) and Luke Opilka (former St. Louis Blues draft pick and World Junior player for Team USA, who just completed his master’s in kinesiology),” Sandy noted. “Having Luke brings an incredible understanding of joints and biomechanics to our training. This past summer, I also ran a pilot program introducing yoga and hip mobility classes prior to our ice times, led by a high school teacher from Simcoe. Knowing the toll the position takes on the body, especially since I had a Birmingham hip resurfacing procedure done on my right hip in 2024; strengthening these joints is vital. We are looking at starting goalie-specific hip conditioning with the 99ers after Christmas as well.”
Nevertheless, he shared his experience, and skills as a coach throughout leagues and teams in Southern Ontario.
“I am currently the goalie coach for: the Norfolk Knights U15 AA, the Brant Battalion U16 A, Hamilton Hawks Girls Hockey Club U15 A, and I am also a consultant for the Brantford Ice Cats. I hold a Sunday morning development at the Wayne Gretzky Centre, and a Sunday evening development at the Six Nations Arena for all the Brantford 99ers teams. I’ve also hired Austin Hill (former Brantford 99ers AAA goalie) to help him develop his coaching skills while I manage Active Crease Management as lead coach, scheduler, and director of operations with my wife’s help,” he stated. “We are also launching a new product line through Active Crease Management [which is] a custom management/break-in system for goalie catching gloves. When I grew up, breaking in your equipment was the goalie’s job, not an offshore or out-of-town company’s. We’ve sent our packaging off to suppliers, hope for a Christmas release, and plan to pitch it to local sports stores, Source for Sports, and Pro Hockey Life.”
Looking ahead, Sandy has a lot of plans to grow goaltending training in the community.
“We are thinking really big. My wife and I are in the planning stages of building our own private training facility; an 80-foot by 120-foot state-of-the-art ice rink surface equipped with advanced angle and depth video tracking, a dryland training area, synthetic ice, a virtual reality area, a classroom, and a skateable treadmill. We want to keep it home in Six Nations [and] surrounding cities like Brantford and Hamilton and counties like Haldimand and Norfolk. These communities have always been welcoming to our athletes for decades when they had to leave to play at higher levels….and we want to give back and build a proper facility to invite everyone to Six Nations for top-tier player and goalie development,” he said. “We’ve also partnered with former Memorial Cup champion Brendan Anderson (local to Six Nations), who runs 71 Hockey Development. Instead of paying random AAA to shoot on our goalies, I hire Brendan as our ‘shooter tutor.’ Goalies get elite instruction, and Brendan helps shooters fine-tune their release points and weight transfers.”
Lastly, he shared some wisdom for hockey players and youth in the community and beyond.
“The most important thing I want to share with youth is: make the right choices. I tell my own sons that we are all one bad choice away from being on the street or struggling with addiction. Life is precious….surround yourself with the right people, put in the hard work, and everything will go in the right direction,” he said.
