Tips 6-10
6) COMPETE
Compete could have been in the top 5 and even number 1. It’s something you hear all top level coaches, regardless of the sport, say that they look for in their athletes when scouting them. Being competitive is essential if you plan on playing at elite levels. The problem here is that you tend to have it, or you don’t.
Often in today's world where we are all about happiness and comfort (which is great, buuut) it’s becoming more and more rare to see highly competitive individuals, not impossible, but less frequent. Combine that with the type of specialized training that tends to be overly technically focused, and it’s no wonder kids these days aren’t very competitive.
There’s a great notion going around these days about alter egos in professional athletes. What this means is that off the ice you can be one way but on the ice you’re another, this is so important for those who aren’t naturally competitive. As coaches we like to use different phrases to help individuals realize what being competitive means; such key phrases are “want the puck”, “want the best players best shot/move”, “imagine your life depended on making the save”. The last one sounds extreme but it’s simply used to get the point across.
Physically the best thing you can do to “create” this “want” is to roll your shoulders forward in your stance and all other basic positions.
How does this apply to team practices, well “simple”, you’ve got to want to stop every single shot all the time. One of my least favorite sayings I hear goalies say is “when’s that going to happen in a game”. I have news for you, random situations like 2-0’s, weak slot coverage,players cutting in with time and space, double deflections occur and often lead to goals. It’s a good idea to understand how unlikely such situations are so as to not get frustrated, but you should still try your best.
Another excuse we often hear in team practice is “I’m tired”. I’m sorry but I’m tired has no business being on the ice, off the ice, ok, rest up, treat your body better, sleep etc. On the ice you need to finish drills the same way you start them. Rest during the breaks, practice good breath work, but work and compete the entire drill.
Another goalie coach pet peeve is just watching a player shoot a puck in a wide open net while the goalie sits there watching. This is an unfortunate side effect of poor goalie coaching at a young age where goalies are told to get their body there and not to dive or stretch (Granted we need to work on getting there, but all in time). What ends up happening is the goalies then learn that there’s no point of even pushing because they know they can’t get there “properly”. Compete until the end, you never know what might happen.
Then there’s the “my D should have had it”... not trying on third rebounds or passes backdoor on a 2 v 1 isn’t acceptable. I AGREE your D should have had it, but he didn’t, what are you going to do, just give up a goal?!? I’m not saying you’ll stop them, but try, try things out stretch, stick check whatever. Your goal is to keep the puck out of the net, that’s your job. Imagine our D partners giving up everytime we weren’t doing our job…
Here’s another good one. Coaches moving the nets to work a battle/compete drill with the players and move the net to the middle of nowhere. Now I know how annoying this is, but what can you do about it? Deal with it? Yes , I'd recommend moving your net slightly to have some kind of center net reference, but from there, accept it and move on. Too often goalies get pissed off and set themselves up for failure by being in the wrong mindset. You’re wasting valuable time where you can work on scrambles, low wide stance, stick checks etc.
Multiple shot drills. Now ideally the coaches give you enough time to get set and ready for the next shot. I say that loosely as I then see goalies take their sweet time to get ready so it’s double edged. Regardless, these multi shot drills can be great for reactionary saves, or save when you’re out of position, learning what nets available. All these valuable lessons if we’re willing to put our excuses away and compete.
The list can go on and on. I know we're all guilty of some of these examples, change your outlook and you’ll add a level to your game. Now, a few disclaimers, if we aren’t doing this at all then maybe start by working hard and competing every other shot before working our way to all the time. I should also mention, don’t go all out until you’re properly warmed up, no need to pull something. Lastly, while eventually the goal is to compete all the time even if we are practicing calming down our game, for now if you’re focusing on staying more controlled during a drill, it’s ok to not compete as intensely for that drill.
7) THE “MARTIN BRODEUR” RULE:
If I’m honest, this is probably my favorite lesson on this list. Brodeur, not to much surprise, wasn't a technical advocate. He once went to a Francois Allaire goalie school (Patrick Roy’s goalie coach) and left half way through the week saying repeating the same moves over and over again wasn’t for him.
Now it goes without saying, in today’s game, a certain amount of repetition is necessary, footwork and consistency is a must. So how was Brodeur able to play like it was still the 1980’s well into this century?! Well, the famous quote says it all “ In practice, I practice never letting up back to back goals”.
What a quote! To explain how cool (goalie coach nerd cool) this quote is, this isn’t on a drill where the players are shooting at the exact same spot, that would make sense. Rarely are two situations the exact same so it isn’t a technical solution. It isn’t only on simple plays or good goals that he applies this. It's every single time a goal goes in, his sole focus is stopping the next shot, clearly it’s a state of mind solution.
While we aren’t in the late 90’s anymore so simply focusing on this one trait probably wouldn’t be sufficient, it can easily be combined with another focus point. Say you’re focusing on standing taller in your stance, then a goal goes in, immediately shift to stopping the next puck (don’t do this in goalie practice or I won’t be pleased ;) but in team practice it makes complete sense.
It’s nice and easy for me to write this on a screen versus actually applying it in practice. As with anything it takes practice, it takes awareness and being able to let go and be present as well as a calm determination to stop the puck. That simple! Ok, not that simple. It will force you to try different mental tricks to help bring you back to the present, cliche I know.
Another worthy note is that it applies at the beginning of practice as well as at the end when you’re potentially rather physically tired. Doing this when you're fresh is one thing, now adding fatigue, which we all know affects our mental game, is a whole other challenge.
The benefit of mastering this skill goes without saying. Letting up back to back goals is a guaranteed backbreaker for any team, this skill will do more than that. This skill will allow you to snap out of being in your head, regardless if you let up a goal or not, it can help with off games, boring games, sudden death OT, shoot-outs.
All this to say, I highly recommend starting to work on this ability. I will warn you not to obsess over mastering this skill immediately as with any skill that’s a sure way to fail. Instead, be conscious of it, sometimes just forget about it, it isn’t worth getting frustrated over as that goes against the entire notion.
8) FOOTWORK
I’d have to assume one of the most obvious items on the top 10, practice your footwork. While proper technique and tips can help speed up the development of your footwork, I’ve seen many goalies, even in the NHL, with a lack of mastery of the technical elements who can still push very fast. What this means is, outside of physical fitness, this comes down to reps and familiarity with the various patterns you’d see in a game.
There are so many times in practice where you can get relevant reps in it’s ridiculous! The amount of times goalies simply sit there waiting for the next shot as opposed to following the play is absurd. Follow the play! Follow break-in break outs! Most of all follow your rebounds!!
Now, this isn’t the only time that you can get reps in. The most obvious one is between reps. Why not do crease drills? Often players do laps, maybe do footwork then? There’s definitely time while the players/coaches are setting up and demoing the drill. I would go as far to say there’s time while the coaches are making corrections to the players during the drill.
You could always be proactive and add footwork to drills where the drill does require any. A boy we used to coach (who played Major Junior) would do his own goalie version of suicides to finish off every practice the last 2-3 minutes. When there’s a will there’s a way. The biggest problem is that everyone wants to play top levels and few people are actually willing to put in what is required to play there.
The thing with footwork, outside of getting technical tips from your goalie coach, is INTENSE, FOCUSED, REPETITION! I can’t tell you even during goalie sessions specifically designed for footwork with ample work to rest ratio, how long the goalies who don’t want to work try and take to reset for the next rep. You need to take pride in becoming a better skater if you have any hope to play top levels when you’re older.
9) BE UNREALISTIC AND REALISTIC
I’ll keep this tip a bit shorter than the others, or at least the plan, as it’s kind of covered in a few different places. Be realistically unrealistic, another one of these brain teasers. In simple terms, you should try and stop every single puck to the best of your ability regardless of how ridiculous the situation is, but understand when the situation is ridiculous.
The most common example, which happens every practice, is the classic flow drill where F’n (freaking ;) players come in off a flow drill straight to the hash marks, take the slowest wind up ever before ripping a slapshot bar down. Ok, hopefully it isn’t that bad, but I’ve seen it, while a slight exaggeration, often players end up shooting from the has marks on these drills or simply randomly decide to deke even though the coach told them to shoot from the blue line.
Here’s where being realistically unrealistic comes into play. You shouldn’t get annoyed with how ridiculous the players are, be realistic, talk to the coach and accept what’s outside of your control. Be unrealistic in trying your best to stop their best Connor McDavid impression but realistic in understanding that you won’t. Be realistic in understanding the save percentage of those shots in a game are maybe 85% tops.
Continue the reality check by realizing that stats in a game, where there’s time and space constraints on the player, not to mention defense, most of these guys would never be able to shoot from there in game. That there’s also game pressure, nerves that don’t seem to apply in practice. The fact that they’d be skating a lot quicker and less able to aim their shots perfectly. Oh I should add, be realistic when expecting less than a few players actually understand this and practice accordingly.
When you combine all these factors the new realistic save percentage is maybe 60%. So understanding that in a game in those situations, if you’re strong in high danger chances you’re saving 17 of 20 shots in that situation, versus practice it’s closer to 12 of 20 of those shots. I want you to be unrealistic and want to stop 20 of 20 but realistic in understanding if it doesn’t happen it’s nothing to be upset about.
The same can be related to a lot of different situations in a practice. I’ve had goalies get upset because they couldn’t control rebounds on shots on the ice with 5 feet of them with their stick…Push for more but understand the reality.
10) REBOUNDS
Every lazy goalies worst nightmare, finish your rebounds…PROPERLY. It’s tough, it’s tiring, it’s basic and essential. I’m going to use this one of my favorite phrases again. EVERYONE WANTS TO PLAY THE BEST LEVELS AND HAVE SUCCESS BUT FEW ARE WILLING TO DO WHAT IT ACTUALLY TAKES. This strongly applies to finishing your rebounds…Properly.
Outside of the most obvious benefit, becoming quicker, finishing your rebounds leads to faster whistles in a game, knowing where pucks go when they hit your body in different places, clearing pucks from danger, repositioning immediately for the next play and even anticipating your movement prior to making the save.
Note how we’re talking about finishing your rebounds and not “simple” following them. Following your rebounds is one aspect, hopefully done with your eyes near the puck (didn’t say on the puck on purpose) a good body rotation, push, and hopefully a set stop. This alone is “asking a lot” but is actually just the base of finishing our rebounds.
Following your rebounds is more than the base movement above, it’s also pushing back to your post (ideally with a drift) so that you're in line for the next play (generally 30 degrees off the goaline). Too often I see goalies “chase” the puck and end up outside their post when the puck is in the corner, or pushing to their post but at a 90 degree angle. Assuming the pucks in the corner, try and make it one motion back to your post and 30 degrees to the goaline. To add to this, you should be ready at your post, not just there. But wait, there’s more. Ideally you throw in a head check to gather some information. In practice it could be as simple as seeing how much time you have before the next player shoots. Annnnnd REPEAT over and over again.
For rebounds close to you, gathering loose pucks, anything within the paddle length of your stick, not the entire stick length. Ie- Bring the puck towards you with your stick before freezing it with your glove. Ideally form the habit of looking up quickly after you’ve frozen the puck to see if you have time to make a play with it. In practice, if the next shot isn’t coming right away, that could be a cue to play the puck back.
Pucks just outside a paddle length range should be poked away or time depending, get up quick and play it to a teammate (or to the corner in practice). Sounds simple, and it is, but forming the habit and doing it regularly is something else.
The boring “rebounds”, shots that miss the net. GET OVER IT. Your player misses the net, it happens, too often, but the same guys do the same thing in a game, they don’t get it, it’s ok! Now your part, follow the pucks, get to know where the pucks go depending on where they were shot from and where they miss the net. I can always tell in a game the goalies that follow these shots in practice and the ones that don’t. The thing is in games, that delay by simply watching the puck ends up costing goals since other players are there in a game.
This ones a bit of a reach, but why not. The lazy player rebounds. We all have those teammates that take a random second puck instead of actually hustling to get the right puck. Play it anyways, why not, not only will these ones tend to lead to more “fun” athletic saves it will also lead to more “juice” in the practice when you stop them regularly. As goalies we have the power to make practices better by being the example. I know how easy it is to say “well they aren’t trying so why should I”, well someone has to lead. If you haven’t ever gone through a practice facing over 300 shots and letting in less than 10 goals, you haven’t ever really practiced.
Then there’s the “Fun” rebounds, the ones that are within the players reach, ie- the ones we most likely didn’t control properly. I think this goes without saying the importance of playing these; decision making up, down? Compete? Time to get there? body language of the players? Quick shot vs getting back and controlled for a deke. Players F’ing around getting too close, poke/stick check? There’s so many useful reps being wasted simply but not finishing your rebounds.
Now this isn’t to say that I don’t wish for you to concentrate on controlling every rebound, I do, but I’m realistic. Try and find a balance and push yourself to follow every possible rebound. In situations where there isn’t much time, maybe follow one rebound and then compete on getting back in position for the second shot. There’s always a way.