PORTLAND, Ore — Serving as goaltenders coach for head coach Bob Durocher during the national championship season of 1999 is just one of the many great memories Mike Toshack collected at St. Lawrence University from 1994 to 2003.

Toshack is looking forward to reliving some of those memories with Durocher when he returns to SLU on Dec. 8 to instruct at a goaltenders clinic with current SLU goaltender coach Luke Seymour.

Seymour is a Canton product while Toshack hails from Prescott, Ontario, just across the St. Lawrence River from Ogdensburg.

“Working with Bob Durocher was fantastic and it was a great place for me to launch my career to other opportunities,” said Toshack, who is completing his first season as the goaltenders coach for the Major League Soccer expansion Portland Timbers.

“We have a young team and didn’t make the playoffs but this a fantastic place,” Toshack said of the Timbers. “We sell out 21,000 every game and we recently played Seattle at the Seahawks stadium and drew a 66,000-plus sellout.”

Seymour is happy to have someone with such high-levelexperience working at the clinic.

“Mike has coached against David Beckham, many of the greatest players in the world, and helped the Houston Dynamo win an MLS title (2007),” Seymour said.

Whether playing before a crowd of 66,000 or at junior varsity game before parents and friends, Toshack said that focus and fundamentals are the keys to goaltending success.

“The game is changing because the ball movement gets better and better all the time,” he said. “My goaltenders play against guys who can bend a kick around a wall so there are some shots that you are not going to get to.

“The key for goalies is to make sure they are good at what they can handle.”

Toshack said he will also pass on a few “tricks of the trade” to youngsters just as he does with Seymour.

“Luke Seymour has done a fantastic job with the SLU goalies and he works me at Boston at the developmental program,” he said. ““We talk all of the time and any time I come a across new drill or anything that will help, I pass it along to Luke. He is going to have a great coaching career.”

The clinic is for boys ingrades 7-12 and will run from noon to 3 p.m. at the SLU indoor fieldhouse. The cost is $40 per participant and anyone wishing register should contact Luke Seymour (229 5333 or at lseymour@stlawu.edu).

Thousands of readers like you have made Northern New York Newspapers the number one ranked website* for local news and sports coverage in the north country.

You can continue on to this article in a few seconds, or you can visit one of our websites:

• Watertown Daily Times
• The Ogdensburg Journal
• Daily Courier-Observer