Portland Jr Hawks Goalie Pearls of Wisdom

The goalie must be the best skater on the team.

While this statement is absolutely true, it is often misapplied by coaches who require their goaltender to spend half the practice doing forward sprints, crossovers, and inside/outside edgework with their teammates. Goalies must learn how to master their inside edgework, move laterally under control while keeping square to the puck, move forwards and backwards while maintaining proper body and stick position, and how go down and get up under control. Drills that develop these skills are position specific and, when guided properly by a coach, provide aerobic and anaerobic conditioning.

Goalies need lots of shots in practice.

It depends what kind of shots you’re talking about. Goalies need to learn how to focus on ONE puck, maintain proper position, control rebounds, and read and react to game speed situations. Wave after wave of half-speed skaters stickhandling five feet in front of the crease during a 2-on-0 drill doesn’t help goalies or shooters. Rapid fire drills that don’t allow a goaltender to follow rebounds or provide a consequence for sloppy rebound control can teach goalies bad habits that carry over to games. During a 45-minute game a goaltender will spend maybe – maybe – 45 seconds actually stopping pucks and 44 minutes working on being in the right position. Shooting drills are great--just make sure the drill is teaching the goalie (and shooters) proper habits that will become automatic come game time. Lots of time working with goalies on movement, WITHOUT pucks, is imperative.

Goalies should never get scored on between their legs.

Often these “five-hole” goals are because the opposing team forced the goalie to move sideways and the shot came before the goalie could get set, or the puck was deflected right out in front. As shooters get older and smarter, many of them force the goalie to move and purposefully shoot between the goalie’s legs. Goalies certainly can work on limiting this type of goal, but recent statistics show that over 25% of goals in the National Hockey League – with the best goalies in the world – go between the goalie’s legs.

Goalies need to stay on their feet.

Patrick Roy, Dominik Hasek, or successful goalies at any level would disagree with this statement. While staying up is oftentimes the right play, going down properly at the right time - while under control with proper body and stick position - is a powerful weapon in a goaltender’s arsenal of saves. While it’s true that goalies that go down at the wrong time can look absolutely awful, so can a goalie that never goes down and is constantly beaten low or from in close.

The goalie really blew the angle on that one

Maybe. Sometimes a goalie’s angle is really off and it’s obvious, but unless you were lying on your stomach with your eyes directly behind the puck when it’s shot, it’s a pretty tough call to make. The only angle that truly matters is from the puck (not the shooter) to the net. Coaches on the bench or parents in the stands rarely are in the right position to accurately assess proper angle play by the goaltender. And when shooters are in the slot, it is impossible for a goalie, especially a small youth goalie, to completely take the net away from the shooter purely through angle play. Proper depth, angle play, and learning when NOT to move are some of the toughest things for goalies to learn.

I played hockey for years, but I don’t know anything about coaching goalies

Guess what coach? – time to learn. Do baseball coaches ignore their pitchers because they weren’t pitchers when they played? Of course not! And hockey coaches can’t ignore the development needs of their goaltenders, either. Teams without good goaltending simply don’t succeed at any level of hockey – taking the time to learn how to properly coach goalies is simply the most effective way to improve a team’s goals against average and turn a good team into a great one.

Portland Winter Hawks

PSU Vikings Ice Hockey

CPA to the Jr Hawks:
Bernards & O'Rourke, P.C
38265 NW Harrington Rd.
Cornelius, OR 97113

503-324-6274

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