Coaches Shouldn't Instruct Goalies When They Don't Know!

I had a student in to see me today at our Year Round Goalie Training Centre, she is an awesome 9 year old goalie (one of the best I have seen in my 20 years of goalie instruction) and plays on a competitive team. She and her dad explained that she had been getting mixed messages from myself and the her team coach - dad knew my advice was correct, but both dad and the student was not happy at the mixed messages.

The coach wanted her to dive out after every lose puck that was remotely close to the crease and freeze it. This causes many problems, but the most obvious are:

• the goalie will become 'dead in the water' floundering (usually on their stomach) for position, leaving the net vacant
• if the goalie does manage to cover the puck, it can be called delay of game if it is outside the crease
• the goaltender may get a glove or stick on the puck but with no body leverage to hold the puck on place, it may 'squirt' away, again leaving shooters with an empty net to shoot at

I teach all students to cover lose pucks that are within an outstretched sticks length. The gauge is drop into a butterfly, hold your stick at the shoulders and reach it in front of you as far as you can reach without effecting your balance or moving your hand back on the shaft. This makes it easy for the goalie to know when they can drop and cover and when they can't safely.

Obviously this is much more complicated and depends on the player positions, speed, etc. But this is a good early starting point and easy for the younger goalies to grasp. One of the biggest problems you see with inexperienced goaltenders and goalies who maybe aren't well coached or overly skilled, is that they dive around after lose pucks and wind up 'dead in the water' often on their stomach. This CAN'T HAPPEN. if you dive for a lose puck, you better be 100% sure you can beat the player, cover it and/or poke it to safety.

It is far better for the goalie to regain a solid blocking position and be prepared to stop a rebound than it is to dive after something that can't effectively be covered. Desperation dictates that this WILL happen occasionally, but a smart, well trained goalie knows when to take the risk and when to be smart and simply re establish a good position.

I teach the stick length rule as a guideline for simple covering, if the goaltending student cannot reach the puck within the stick length they must first block the path of the puck from entering the net BEFORE they attempt to cover it. Its amazing how many times you will see goalies try and cover a puck, but not block the path to the net, resulting in a goal. If you put yourself in the path and don't cover it, most of the time the player will 'whack' it back into the well positioned goalie.

Coaches should always teach their goalies to be in a position that puts them (the goalie) between the puck and the net - this is the job of a goalie! A good goaltender will very seldom be in a position where they are diving after lose pucks or trying to cover them without good leverage on their covering glove. It WILL happen, but teach good technique first. The more skilled and positionally correct the goalie is, the less this will happen.

We had a good discussion and both student and dad fully understood the reasoning behind my teaching....if only we could get all the coaches to get some coaching on working with their goalies - wait we offer that program and it's FREE too - but most won't come because they already know it all. LOL