GOALTENDER RESPONSIBILITIES

• Most Knowledgeable hockey people place the Goaltender’s value at 60% or more to a team’s success. Yet until the Goaltender starts scoring he can’t win you a hockey game. The best a goaltender can do is give his team a chance to win. However, a Goaltender playing poorly can definitely lose a game. 
• Goaltenders must be mentally tough, confident, extremely competitive, and willing to carry the weight of the team on their shoulders. Accept all challenges that come your way and have a burning desire to make a “Difference”.
• The goaltender must accept responsibility, handle pressure, and have a very tough skin/psyche. 
• Goaltending requires discipline. As the Goaltender cannot come to the bench between shifts this requires self-discipline.
• Goaltending is 80% self -confidence. The Goaltender must be able to withstand any event, which may chip away at self-assuredness or assaults the ego.  
• Focus. Be in the game and feel/control the tempo. The Goaltender must achieve a calmness that allows their skills to be unaffected by outside influences or distractions. A relaxed focused energy is needed.       
• Being a goaltender requires the mastery of many skills. The toughest skills are not physical but mental. It has been said that the mind is the final frontier.    
• Practice like you play. 
• Understand team concepts such as power play breakout, fore check, penalty kill, etc.   
• Set goals: by period, by game, etc. be realistic in your goal setting. No one ever made the NHL right out of novice.     
• Goaltenders often receive undo blame for goals. As a result the goaltender often tries to pass the blame onto a teammate. There are always at least two mistakes on every goal, one by a teammate and one by the goaltender. DON’T FINGER POINT, accept your responsibility. 
• Goaltenders are needed to cover up for their teammate’s mistakes. No mistakes, equals no need for the goaltender. If you accept this responsibility your teammates will be more willing to sacrifice for the goaltender.   
•   Look forward to, and anticipate mistakes. It is the mistakes that enable the Goaltender to make a “difference”.   
• It is the Goaltender’s responsibility to bail out the team when things are not going well.  
• If you give up a goal, accept it and move on.  
• The main responsibility for the Goaltender is “KEEP THE PUCK OUT OF THE NET”.