- Red Hook High School
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GOALIE (CARDINAL RULES)
Cardinal Rules - The Cardinal rules of goaltending:
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W A TCH THE BALL, not the shooter or any other distraction.
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Be in a READY STANCE, knees bent, hands out from the chest, weight on the balls of your feet,
and TAKE A STEP on each shot.
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Cover NEAR PIPE first (make the shooters shoot across you to the far pipe, a harder shot to make
without missing).
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Position your hands out from your chest so that you can nearly sight the ball by looking over your
top hand thumb (we call this EYE-THUMB-BALL). Don't get too literal here--your top hand should be a bit to the side of the helmet so that your helmet covers part of the goal and your hand and stick covers another. But, DO GET YOUR HANDS OUT FRONT in your field of vision so your body and mind can follow your hands to the ball.
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Play with hands high so that the shooter, who wants to shoot high, especially in close, believes that you have the high area covered. (This also makes the off-stick side save high easier.). When the shooter tries to change his shot, he may miss, but in any case he will take more time, time that may bring you a defender to check the shot or shooter.
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Play a little pigeon-toed so that the push off is off the balls of your feet and is powerful and smooth when you step. This helps you avoid the much slower rock (on the off-ball heal) and kick (with the ball side foot) that is not as effective as the faster step to the ball (see the Getting Your Body In The Game column).
Over half of the shots that go in shouldn't and that the reason is that the keeper is out of position or distracted. So try playing goal using these 6 rules on every shot and you will improve.
Winter Workouts - What can you do for off-season training. Here are a few tips:
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Fatigue is the enemy of a goaltender. To fight this a keeper needs strength in the quads (upper legs) and upper shoulders. Weight work doing the military press and its variants and squats and their variants are good for these areas.
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Playing goal is basically an anaerobic (strength) not aerobic (endurance) activity. So running needs to consist of sprints complemented by distance for general conditioning. The sprint I like the best involves running 20 yards in one direction and turning sprinting back 20 yards in the opposite direction and doing that 12 to 14 times in one minute. Once that is mastered shorten the distance to 17 yards and begin to work your way up to eighteen of those in one minute. This drill really gives you the legs that you need to play with. We use it at Towson for all our players. Don't just do one; work up to three or four sets and you will improve.
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The best drill that you can do to become better is a thing called walking-the-line. Jumping rope and playing catch to learn to handle the ball better both are good basic things. But, walking-the- line helps you work on save skills. It works like this; setup in your stance, you can even do this in your room, and think about a shot to an area of the goal and then decide the shot is coming. Then, make a move to save that shot. After each shot evaluate your technique. Adjust and try again. Take a step on each shot, preferably a triple. Getting your feet coordinated with your hands in your best off-season drill.