How to train your goalie - Practice/Game prep
The video is of a NCAA division 1 goalie, warming up for practice. I want you to focus on the simplicity of the drills we are using. Goalie development can get complicated and overwhelming, especially if you are getting your information from social media. The development and foundation of a College or Pro goalie is exactly the same as a U9 goalie. The expectations and execution will look different but in the summer when elite goalies return home, their focus is always on their fundamentals, skating, stance and control/save selection. Goaltending is broken into IQ (knowledge/Reds), Save Selections (Angle/Squareness/Depth) and Skating (Mobility/Edges). You do not have to be a goalie coach in order to help your goalie(s) develop, we will help you develop a fundamental knowledge base in which to draw on to train any goalie.
We always start with the goalie receiving shots on their feet, this will help them to develop confidence on their skates. You want to make sure that they are seeing the puck and getting good visual attachment to every shot. The biggest problem when developing young goalies, is getting them in their butterfly with the first drills we do. If you want your goalie to develop confidence on their feet, they have to make saves on their feet.
The second part of the drill is in the butterfly as goalies do have to be as effective in their butterfly as on their feet. You want to see good head trajectory (visual attachment to the puck) not just head movement and the eyes need to be over every shot. You want to see the goalie tracking the pucks in and out of their body. If time permits, have to goalie following the rebounds as well. Limit the number of shots you take/use per drill. This will force the goalie to commit to every shot and there will be time for tacking and recovery. Goalies and Coaches confuse a high rep count with “warming up”. Goalies pre-practice and pre-game need to have a routine that is scalable to help them prepare. A lot of goalie time, especially at the start of practice is wasted on high reps to accomplish a narrow goal.
The final prep drill we like to do is getting the goalie to control shots on the body, in this case we elected for shots along the ice with a good stick and recovery. This type of drill helps prepare the goalie for the first series of drills with the team. Before the goalie resets on the shooter have them identify (ID) their location and hand, this will help prep the goalie’s neurological system as well.
