Product Of Environment, Goaltending and Coaching
Reading various goaltender forums on the net MTN has started to believe that
goaltenders become what and how they are coached. Even some goaltenders can
be chastised for their little understanding of the position.
To properly train for this important yet misunderstood position, one must be able to recognize what happens in the game and how one reacts to these game situations is vital to how one should practice.
Practice situations should resemble game like situations. Sounds simple doesn’t it! Yet answer me this. Ask yourself, how many times in practice drills have you or your goalie made a save putting the first puck in one direction yet the next second puck shot at the goalie comes from a direction that is opposite of the first pucks placement. Now how often does that happen in a game! The goalie has just put the first puck to his right but by some miracle they must now react to a second shot opposite to that first direction. Over and over it goes in practice, now when game time comes, the goalie puts the first save to his right and the rebound comes from his right side. This is new to the goaltender as this has rarely happened to them in practice and now the rebound is a goal. Who is to blame? The goalie for giving up the rebound and not properly reacting to it, or the coach who never gave his goalie a chance to see this situation in practice?
Goaltenders become a product of their environment! Even good goaltenders cannot compensate for bad coaching. Eventually they will only be able to react to what they see the most in practice.
Vision is the fundamental start to goaltending. The goaltender must be able to follow three steps in a save situation.
1. See and read the release of the
puck off the shooter’s stick blade.
2. Follow the puck to the body.
3. Be able to read the puck off their body.
If they consistently get to follow these three steps in practice, they will increase their puck tracking skills and game situation awareness. Now when one of these three situations is taken away from them, they will be able to react accordingly.
What does MTN mean by this? After
time if a goaltender has consistently been able to follow the three steps, try
taking one step away from them. For example, if a goaltender has constantly
been able to follow the puck off his body they will instinctively know where
the puck will go by what part of the body it hit. Try having the goalie close
their eyes, shoot the puck at them and have them react to where they think the
rebound is. A goalie with a good feel of the puck off their body will be very
close to reading the right rebound situation. However this is a skill that has
to be developed and once again we harbor back to the three steps of a save situation.
Goaltenders do not think that coaching at higher levels will improve your game-like
practice situations. Watching a recent Sask First Zone 5 Tryout (the Elite Program
to start to recognize potential players for Team West and the Under 17 World
Tournament http://www.sha.sk.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=62&Itemid=77
), on-ice coaches running drills had no knowledge how to properly run the drills
during the goalie sessions.
An example of an on ice evaluation drill was as follows; 5 shooters in the offensive zone (one at each face off dot, one in high slot, two at blue line at opposite sides). The rotation is as follows: player at face off dot shoots, player at other face off dot shoots, player at blue line high from shooter one, shoots, other blue line shooter high from shooter 2, shoots, finish with player in slot shooting. Sounds simple yet if the shooters have no direction, it is a hapless drill. The shooters should shoot so that the goalie must be able to react to the next shooter as in a game situation. If this is allowed to happen, an evaluator can evaluate such things as a visual head and shoulder rotation to the puck, showing tracking abilities, compactness of save position while moving to the next shot, etc. Yet this did not happen! Shooters were allowed to shoot anywhere making all goalie’s movement irrational and desperate. The proper scenario should have been as follows:
Shooter 1, at face off dot shoots
low and to the far side (this will mean that the rebound could have likely gone
to the second shooter at the other dot).
Shooter 2, shoots far side and high, this means that the rebound could have
either gone wide around the boards and back to the shooter at the opposite blue
line or in the corner and passed back to the blue line.
Shooter 3, shoots low and to far side, resembling a possible situation where
the puck goes around and back to shooter four, at the blue line.
Shooter 4, shoots middle of the net, so rebound could have gone to shooter 5,
in the slot.
Shooter 5, shoots at will.
These so-called Elite Certified Coaches had little understanding of this drill and if they ran this drill like that all year it would be more detrimental to the goalie than helpful. Making the goalie a product of their environment!
For more information on practice read:
Perfect
Practice Makes Perfect
The Four P’s of Practice
http://www.mtngoaltending.com/articles.htm
