Written by Brian van Vliet - February 25, 2008
It’s time for ALL of minor hockey to get its head out of the sand when it comes to development and on ice training of young goaltenders in the system. Goaltending parents such as myself are getting tired of community coaches who don’t understand that goalies need to be worked with in practice and can no longer be considered merely targets that are just there to stop pucks and challenge their team mates.
Goaltenders need a qualified person on the ice with them for the purpose of error detection and correction, breaking down situations and teaching the netminder proper movement, depth etc. Just as any forward or defenceman, young goaltenders require constant reinforcement and reminders. With the evolution of the goaltending position, it is no longer effective if the team goalie coach is not up to speed with the latest techniques. More often than not, the goalie is saddled with a coach who played a little goal in the 70’s and knows how to stack the pads and poke check.
Head coaches are required to constantly upgrade their skills and attend courses. There are no mandatory courses available for goalie coaches.
Goalie parents, how many times have you heard minor hockey head coaches say…
“I don’t know anything about goaltending, just stop the puck.”
“I’m not changing my practices to accommodate the goaltenders.”
“The goalie gets to see lots of shots in practice”
“You get your training outside of minor hockey so put that training to use and stop pucks in practice.”
“If he didn’t drop down in that butterfly, he wouldn’t let in so many high shots.”
All of the above statements are misinformed but seem to reverberate throughout the minor hockey system at all levels. How much a goalie trains outside of his community team should have no bearing on the amount of training the goalie gets from his community coaches. More often than not, goalies are told that they are part of a team, but then are pushed to the outside when it comes to equal coaching and training.
In order to properly develop a young goaltender, the following conditions must exist.
A head coach needs to be open minded and understand that while practicing, the goaltender needs to work on things just as the forwards and defencemen do. This may require the coach to slow down the speed in which he sends the shooters so that the goalie can properly track rebounds. More often than not, shooters are sent in one right after the other. This forces the goalie to either forget about tracking rebounds, or just focus on one out of three shooters.
The team should supply an up to date, qualified goalie coach. Practice ice is a major component of a goalie’s development.
The goalie must be willing to attend one on one training sessions to fine tune his skills.
Minor hockey Associations should be willing to subsidize teams to help pay for a goalie coach if no qualified coaches are available.
Agree or disagree, I’m off the goalpost.
