Goalie Coach or Goalie Coaches

Are goalie coaches doing your child a disservice by training them with a “my way or the highway” attitude?  Should goalies learn from a variety of goalie coaches throughout their playing careers?  Or should they stick with one goalie coach that they like?

The answer is really quite simple.

Over the course of the past 25 years, I have had the chance to train under and work with some great goalie coaches from the minor hockey to professional levels.  Throughout this time, I was taught plenty of techniques which I found to be extremely useful, and some which I filed under the “nice-to-know” column.  Although many goalie coaches may have differing opinions on the techniques used in their lessons, in some cases they may have one thing in common:  an overall lack of flexibility to stray from what they teach, or their “brand” while working with their students.

As a goalie coach, it’s an amazing feeling to meet new students looking to you for assistance and training.  Coming into contact with these students is great because they may have had little-to-no previous training experience, and the younger that we’re able to begin training them, the better.  Optimistic goalie coaches who are confident in their lesson plans and the systems that they teach, see each one of these students as a blank canvass with the limitless potential of becoming our own goalie-masterpieces.  Unfortunately, working with only one goalie coach, may actually be doing more harm to goaltenders than good.

Stopping Pucks With Efficiency

As a firm believer that knowledge is power, it’s contradictory for me as a goalie coach to say that there is only one way to stop a puck.  After all, the game is constantly changing.  Therefore, coaches have a responsibility to our students to continue to remain educated and be open minded to new techniques and theories which enable us to be the best possible resource of information for our them.  However, stopping pucks efficiently (see R3E System) is linked to the overall in-crease effectiveness of each goaltender.  Unfortunately for goaltenders, not all goalie coaches currently working with minor hockey-level goalies feel the same way, and unlike countries like Sweden, we do not have a nationally appointed head of goalie coaching at Hockey Canada to oversee all goalie coach training and development.

 

Student vs. Goalie Coach “Brand”

Instead, there seems to be no shortage of goalie coaches who promote their own style, or brand of goaltenders.  Some of which are unwilling to adjust their teaching plans to customize their training to fit the existing technical foundation of each of their students.  Therefore, if you or your child is currently working with a coach like this, then the coach-student relationship has most likely gotten stale, and it may be time to move on.

Students Deserve Better

Although we as goalie coaches may truly believe that our methods and techniques are the absolute best in the industry, we owe it to our students to compromise on the most important aspect of the game:  an overall simplification of technical movements.  Using the KISS method (Keep It Simple “Silly”) will enable our students to focus on so many of the little things for goaltender techniques.  In a game with limited time to process thought and react accordingly, a simplification of the goaltender’s game can only create a positive impact.

A lot goes into the thought process for goaltenders when faced with any one scenario in a game.  But the key to success for goaltenders is to get to a point where they are recognizing and reacting efficiently without thinking at all.  For youngsters, this is achieved through practice, correction, and repetition.

Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed some goalie coaches teaching their over complicated methods/brand to their students.  Resulting in setting up students with a lot of confusion, their in-crease inefficiency results in more goals against them.  Essentially, by teaching goalies things like lining up to the puck if carried by a left handed shooter on the left side of the rink, and  lining up to the shooter if they are a right handed shot on the left side of the rink, or applying a vertical-horizontal (VH) when the puck is carried to the corners, but applying the reverse vertical-horizontal (RVH) when the puck carrier comes out from below the goal line into the same position, goalie coaches who educate their students this way are over complicating things for them.

If you’re interested in learning more about how Goalie Army Academy can help to simplify your goalie’s game, we have a variety of goalie training programs designed with every goalie of every background or technical “style” in mind.  By training individuals rather than applying cookie-cutter training for groups of students, we ensure that each student enables themselves to become more efficient in their role on the ice.