OTHER FOOD FOR THOUGHT

There are a few other topics that can help young goalies develop their skills to be good goalies. Some of these deal with work ethic some deal with the mental/psychological side of a goalies skill.

WORK ETHIC: Don’t be afraid to work hard and push yourself to work that little bit harder and get over the top to be a great goaltender.

As I mentioned earlier a few times, REPETITION, is key to any position, in any sport and with any skill you are working on. Skills are not developed by doing something once, twice or a few times. It takes doing one thing only approximately sixty thousand times so that your body will remember it and do it properly. So always take the time to work on developing all of your skills.

EXPLODE; this is a key word I like to use with goalies while doing drills. A goalie MUST learn how to move quickly, not just side to side and in and out but also up and down. He/she must explode in to all movements required to play the position. First and foremost, get the drill down first before trying to do it too quickly.

MENTAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS: Strive to make yourself the best goalie you can. Once you have the skills to be a good goalie the rest is getting yourself into the right mental frame of mind to be a great goalie.

CHALLENGE YOURSELF: In practices don’t be afraid to challenge yourself. Stand back towards the goal line and give your teammates more area to shoot at and see if you can still make the saves. This will force you to react a lot further and quicker for the shoots. Then when you move out and challenge it will make it easier to stop the puck.

CHALLENGE YOUR TEAMMATES TO A CONTEST: Get ten pucks from the slot and ask your teammates how many times they are going to score on you? There should only be one answer to this question by you. ZERO! This will start putting you into the correct frame of mind for what it takes to be a goalie and lead into the next mental aspect of what it takes to be a goalie.

PERFECTION: As a goalie I always try to approach every practice and every game with the same mental frame of mind. That is to be perfect. Not let in a single goal. “I hate letting the puck in the net. Even in practice.” You are the last line of defense before the puck goes into the net and your job is to stop the puck. This is how I challenge myself. If you think you will let in a goal then you will. This will allow yourself to relax and not be sharp or be at the top of your game. You now have taken away that one aspect of the mental game that puts you over the top to be that great goalie you want to be. When the coach would say put the pucks into the nets at practices, I still tried to stop all of them and put the pucks into the net myself so that no one else could say they scored on me. You will never know but the goalie at the other end could be thinking this way and if you aren’t you might lose a game 1 to 0. You can put yourself into position to make some of those impossible saves by striving for perfection which pushes you or at the very least allows yourself the opportunity to make the save.

Marty Wakelyn