New to Goalie Help Please!

[Axxion89 32]

Hi guys so I played goalie for the first time ever after getting all the necessary equipment and, well, I sucked

My main problems were going down when needed and moving in the goalie skates. After the game, my ankles were in extreme pain my legs were shot and my knees were all chafed from the socks I used. Don't get me wrong I had a blast made a few nice save too!

However my main questions are:

How do i butterfly?? I go down and my instinct is to go into a prayer position and not spread my legs with the pads out like you see most goalies do, is there a secret or technique?

I know I will get the hang of moving side to side in goalie skates in time, but is there any tips for getting used to it?

All help will be appreciated thanks!

[Thepandamancan 0]

I played my first game too just a few days ago and gave up 10 goals...but had a blast doing it. My whole body hurt afterward, but it was totally worth it.

I'm sure someone with more experience will chime in, but I found that having a wider stance may help you out. When I dropped, I brought my knees in as I fell so my legs were already somewhat spread out. Ironically, the one 5 hole save I made was poorly executed and I fell in the "prayer position".

[EvilPepe 24]

There is really a lot of info out there for goalies just starting out. I suggest heading over to the goaliestore BB and looking in the "Doctor" forum and reading some of the posts there by the various coaches/schools.

As for making the pads flare out in the butterfly, a lot of it has to do with how you have the pads strapped - too tight and they won't rotate. If you put more weight on one side when you drop that pad won't rotate either. If you drop straight forward they won't flare out (as you pointed out). When you are dropping, don't "hop" and let gravity take you to the ice - drive your knees together and downwards so that you seal the ice quickly without any holes. It is hard to drive your knees to the ice quickly in the "prayer" stance, so try and focus on that.

That being said, your butterfly shouldn't be your biggest concern starting out. For now just concentrate on your skating, recoveries, and start trying to get a grasp of proper angles/depth. If you can't move around the crease, you might as well just be a pylon in the net. There are lots of basic skating drills you can find videos of - for now focus on the basic t-pushes and shuffle movements.

There is a lot of free instructional stuff out there - check out those "Doctor" forums, especially the FuturePro one. In the end though, just get out there and have fun and develop the foundational stuff (body positioning, movement, rebound control).

[Axxion89 32]

There is really a lot of info out there for goalies just starting out. I suggest heading over to the goaliestore BB and looking in the "Doctor" forum and reading some of the posts there by the various coaches/schools.

As for making the pads flare out in the butterfly, a lot of it has to do with how you have the pads strapped - too tight and they won't rotate. If you put more weight on one side when you drop that pad won't rotate either. If you drop straight forward they won't flare out (as you pointed out). When you are dropping, don't "hop" and let gravity take you to the ice - drive your knees together and downwards so that you seal the ice quickly without any holes. It is hard to drive your knees to the ice quickly in the "prayer" stance, so try and focus on that.

That being said, your butterfly shouldn't be your biggest concern starting out. For now just concentrate on your skating, recoveries, and start trying to get a grasp of proper angles/depth. If you can't move around the crease, you might as well just be a pylon in the net. There are lots of basic skating drills you can find videos of - for now focus on the basic t-pushes and shuffle movements.

There is a lot of free instructional stuff out there - check out those "Doctor" forums, especially the FuturePro one. In the end though, just get out there and have fun and develop the foundational stuff (body positioning, movement, rebound control).

Thanks a lot! I played goalie a lot in street hockey so positioning I know of, its just applying it to ice that I'm working on. As far as skating, its deff a change from forward but I think I'm adapting.

I also loosened up my pads towards the top a bit and finally got that rotate the knee idea down, I just need to use pads because otherwise my knee sticks to the knee roll and rug burns like hell when it gets wet. Definitely going to practice a lot more!

[Dubbs 0]

Just a suggestion, I played some roller hockey goalie in college (don't ask for a stat line ), but one of my biggest problems was once i got into the butterfly position, was being properly balanced on my knees, I'd fall forward or back a lot and that left me out of position and really difficult to recover. If you have someone helping you learn, you might put your pads on get in the butterfly position and try pushing or pulling your upper body in different directions so you build some strength in the stabalizing muscles. or maybe one of the actual goalies on here have some other suggestions for that

[nicholus.h 0]

Hi guys so I played goalie for the first time ever after getting all the necessary equipment and, well, I sucked

My main problems were going down when needed and moving in the goalie skates. After the game, my ankles were in extreme pain my legs were shot and my knees were all chafed from the socks I used. Don't get me wrong I had a blast made a few nice save too!

However my main questions are:

How do i butterfly?? I go down and my instinct is to go into a prayer position and not spread my legs with the pads out like you see most goalies do, is there a secret or technique?

I know I will get the hang of moving side to side in goalie skates in time, but is there any tips for getting used to it?

All help will be appreciated thanks!

My number one hint for you is to drive your knees to the ice when you butterfly. Don't just fall. I think this helps a little with the width, but honestly the width is not a big deal. A narrow fly has it's advantages and disadvantages just like a wide fly, and plenty of narrow fly goalies have had success in the NHL (Turco and Jiggy, the most famous. Maybe not the best examples NOW, but...)

Moving side to side, I think you will struggle with for a long time until you get a hold of the balance required to get a good push. Don't get frustrated if it takes you a long time, it's hard and it's something most people don't learn about when they learn to skate. I've been playing for around a year now after skating all my life and I still have problems with my pushes to the right. My advice is to practice slowly, and make sure you focus on getting your weight over the foot that is pushing off.

[Law Goalie 147]

To the OP, the best advice you're ever likely to get is freely available here:

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B08jDXjuLylQZDUzZmExZTItMjc2OS00NGRkLWI3ZGQtYjEyNThkZGM2OGFm&hl=en&authkey=CPnxxe4G

This is a draft version of a goaltending manual written by Steve McKichan, formerly the Leafs' goalie coach and arguably the single most important mind in the position today. It's a rough draft, but the information is first rate.

If that doesn't work, here's a mirror:

1. Go to Soundtrax - Soundtrax.com | Music Download Cards

2. Enter this 8 digit case sensitive code- Mbqzn78s

3. Click “GET YOUR MUSIC”

The file will be saved as a .zip.

My number one hint for you is to drive your knees to the ice when you butterfly. Don't just fall.

That's not a hint so much as a universally recognised truth.

Moving side to side, I think you will struggle with for a long time until you get a hold of the balance required to get a good push. Don't get frustrated if it takes you a long time, it's hard and it's something most people don't learn about when they learn to skate. I've been playing for around a year now after skating all my life and I still have problems with my pushes to the right. My advice is to practice slowly, and make sure you focus on getting your weight over the foot that is pushing off.

This is extremely misleading. The 'pushing foot,' which is generally called the backside foot (because it is necessarily on the backside of the play), is only important insofar as the leg will drive the push at right angles to the blade position. 'Getting weight over the foot' leads to absolutely goofy, exaggerated, and much slower movements.

The only requirement for lateral movement is that the leg be biomechnically loaded. That doesn't mean it has to be right under your shoulder - let alone under your centre of gravity, which is what Nicolous has implied - but rather that it just has to be in a bent, athletic position. You can't get much power in a jump from a straight-legged position. A proper stance - which, again, is very well illustrated in Keeks' manual, and in Jukka Ropponen's writing - will allow all the lateral power you'll ever need.

There are a lot of people who try to complicate this stuff. It's really simple. Everyone who skates uses the same basic principles of generating and modulating power. Even something as alien to a forward's game as a shuffle is just a peculiar sort of one-foot stop if viewed properly.

I would wager that Nicolous' year-long struggles with lateral movement are a result of badly exaggerated form rather than some sort of inherent musculoskeletal weakness.

[nicholus.h 0]

That's not a hint so much as a universally recognised truth.

Well...right. But it's only a universally recognized truth amongst goalies. I'd bet it's probably something he hadn't heard before and it's important.

The only requirement for lateral movement is that the leg be biomechnically loaded. That doesn't mean it has to be right under your shoulder - let alone under your centre of gravity, which is what Nicolous has implied - but rather that it just has to be in a bent, athletic position. You can't get much power in a jump from a straight-legged position. A proper stance - which, again, is very well illustrated in Keeks' manual, and in Jukka Ropponen's writing - will allow all the lateral power you'll ever need.

I would wager that Nicolous' year-long struggles with lateral movement are a result of badly exaggerated form rather than some sort of inherent musculoskeletal weakness.

I notice that if I'm in my butterfly and I pick my right leg up to push to my left but stop before actually pushing, I can balance well in this position. I can stay like this for awhile. Doesn't work the same way on the other side. My left skate just won't stop slipping, whether or not my knee joint is loaded I'm not bottoming out on my cowling. In fact, even if I try to bring the shin up completely vertical I still can't really balance well on the skate. What this is a symptom of, I don't know. I'm not having a problem generating power in the leg, I'm having problems getting that power through the skate and into the ice. When I try and push, I can't get a good edge. Just get slippage and go nowhere. Kinda happens a little bit doing T-push recoveries, too. But not during a standing T-push or my normal skating stride.

BTW, thanks for the manual. And if you've got a hint or tip for my little problem that'd be great. Or if it's in the manual just tell me that because i haven't had a chance to read it yet.

[jcp2 2]

Pivot, plant, push. It's in the manual, pp 29-32. I knew about plant and push, but not pivot. Also seemingly related is the section on shimmys, pp 20-22. There is a difference in the difficulty going one way versus the other, but I think the general tendency is opposite to what you describe.

[nicholus.h 0]

Pivot, plant, push. It's in the manual, pp 29-32. I knew about plant and push, but not pivot. Also seemingly related is the section on shimmys, pp 20-22. There is a difference in the difficulty going one way versus the other, but I think the general tendency is opposite to what you describe.

I knew about the pivoting. I'm really having balance issues doing this and I think that's the thing. I don't have good balance on that left inside edge. My crossovers going clock-wise are pretty bad, backside pushes off the left skate are bad, T-push recoveries off that skate are bad. I really need to just hit up an early morning public skate and work on it, but it's pretty hard to find the time.

[Axxion89 32]

Thank you all of you and Law Goalie I downloaded that manual the second he uploaded it and its has helped me a great deal! I fixed my butterfly and have it very well down. I have a nice new pair of Warrior Swagger pads coming in the mail, the first set I got were to small but the rotation difference and comfort were light years ahead of the TPS Xhales I was using and my butterfly is so much better. I need to hit the ice more but every-time I play I feel I get better especially with skating.

[Law Goalie 147]

I notice that if I'm in my butterfly and I pick my right leg up to push to my left but stop before actually pushing, I can balance well in this position. I can stay like this for awhile. Doesn't work the same way on the other side. My left skate just won't stop slipping, whether or not my knee joint is loaded I'm not bottoming out on my cowling. In fact, even if I try to bring the shin up completely vertical I still can't really balance well on the skate. What this is a symptom of, I don't know. I'm not having a problem generating power in the leg, I'm having problems getting that power through the skate and into the ice. When I try and push, I can't get a good edge. Just get slippage and go nowhere. Kinda happens a little bit doing T-push recoveries, too. But not during a standing T-push or my normal skating stride.

BTW, thanks for the manual. And if you've got a hint or tip for my little problem that'd be great. Or if it's in the manual just tell me that because i haven't had a chance to read it yet.

I knew about the pivoting. I'm really having balance issues doing this and I think that's the thing. I don't have good balance on that left inside edge. My crossovers going clock-wise are pretty bad, backside pushes off the left skate are bad, T-push recoveries off that skate are bad. I really need to just hit up an early morning public skate and work on it, but it's pretty hard to find the time.

As jcp said, the generalities are there in the manual: if you do what it says, it will work for you. What you're asking for is a rather particular bit of diagnostic work. My best advice would be to get an hour with a local goalie coach, or even a power-skating coach: show up in your goalie gear and go over it with them at a public skate or something. Failing that, make yourself a mirror board: a big, cheap plastic mirror sheet from Home Depot laminated to some kind of rigid substrate with a proper mastic, and a couple of hooks to go over the boards. Watch yourself skate: self-diagnose.

I confess I'm a little confused by your description, and this kind of diagnosis-by-distance rarely works, but I'll take a crack at it.

In my experience, the vast majority of goalies (and skaters, and athletes of all kinds) who have asymmetrical balance or movement issues are not suffering from any inherent musculoskeletal deficiency: leg-length discrepancy, muscular weakness, etc. A small number have some kind of equipment issue (uneven edges, for example) but these too are in the minority, though easier to eliminate. The problem is usually that one side (the 'strong' side) is doing the movement properly, and the other is not. Symmetry in skating is very hard to achieve.

If as you say your T-pushes are reasonably good to both sides, but your backside recoveries (that is, recoveries from butterfly to stance) are somewhat less reliable on the left leg than on the right, and your butterfly movements even less so, that represents a pretty common problem.

The addition bit of information that you feel unstable with your left leg up in the VH position (that is, right knee on the ice, left knee up and ready to push with left skate-blade on the ice) is actually quite helpful.

When you're in this position, your weight should NOT be on the skate. This is what I was getting at earlier when I mentioned the myth of weight shifting being equivalent with biomechanical loading. If you're going to stand straight up from the VH position, sure, shift your centre of gravity as far over the left skate as possible. If you're going to slide (or recover) to your right, you need to have your weight somewhere between your left skate and your right knee. Too far over the skate, and you'll get no lateral power; too far over the knee, and you'll spin out as the knee-wing drags, or just fall over.

The next issue is backside foot placement. Keeks' book discusses this in detail, but from your description, my guess is that part of the issue is that you're planting your left foot differently than your right in preparation for a butterfly slide. Whether your left foot isn't getting in tight to the frontside (right) knee laterally, or whether it's not coming forward enough, I can't say. It could also be that when you plant the left foot, you're not really planting the whole inside edge of te blade, but only part of it.

Alexander Goaltending has a pretty good illustration of this. Just ignore what he's saying (terminology and pedagogy are pretty wonky), and skip to 1:10 in the video, where he shows backside foot placement from the rear in slow-motion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Cc6wWHIC5Q&feature=related

Ignore the fact that this is dealing with backside recoveries: the mechanics of planting the backside foot in the butterfly are identical to a butterfly push.

Finally, it may well be that your right leg simply unloads more fluidly than your left. This is of course just a question of repetition. Start with a broken-down movement for informational purposes to make sure there aren't any stage-by-stage errors, then perform the movement smoothly and slowly for, say, ten reps, then faster for five, another ten slow, and so on, increasing the intensity gradually. Do alternate legs so you can compare one to the other. Don't rush the movements: if you get a chance to watch NHL goalies in practice, they do this stuff very, very methodically and purposefully, without a hint of hurriedness.

You want to get to the point at which you can 'swing' back and forth like a butterfly pendulum.

Dave Wells of Performance Goaltending has a great video illustrating how well-trained goalies do this:

Look closely around 0:47 and the later times when it goes to slow-motion, and you'll see exactly where the plant foot is in relation to the knee, where the goalie's weight is, how the legs unload to drive the movement, and so on. Wellsie's goalies are very, very well-drilled; most of them also learn by teaching younger goalies, so they know exactly what they're doing.

Ideally, you want to be able to master this in three dimensions: not just moving on a linear lateral, but a full range of diagonals, and recoveries up to skating movements in all directions.

Hope that helps!

NB: that's not Dave's ugly erse in the picture.

Pivot, plant, push. It's in the manual, pp 29-32. I knew about plant and push, but not pivot. Also seemingly related is the section on shimmys, pp 20-22. There is a difference in the difficulty going one way versus the other, but I think the general tendency is opposite to what you describe.

One of the things Keeks was instrumental in identifying was how the pivot movement works, and can be optimised. Many goalie coaches teach this (and everything else) as a series of herky-jerky broken-up movements, rather than a powerful fluid movement. Breaking the movement down is fine as a teaching process, but the performance should be smooth. What Keeks realised is that the best goalies don't even separate pivot and plant: they actually plant the backside foot in such a way as to generate the pivot as they're pushing.

Thank you all of you and Law Goalie I downloaded that manual the second he uploaded it and its has helped me a great deal! I fixed my butterfly and have it very well down. I have a nice new pair of Warrior Swagger pads coming in the mail, the first set I got were to small but the rotation difference and comfort were light years ahead of the TPS Xhales I was using and my butterfly is so much better. I need to hit the ice more but every-time I play I feel I get better especially with skating.

Thank Steve! He's the one who poured two decades of sweat, blood and wisdom into 400 pages, then gave it away gratis; I'm just nitpicking his pronoun agreement.

[fruitangoxx 0]

wow thanks a ton law goalie. That 400 page goalie guide is unbeievable information. As I have played goaltender for over 15 years, and I even found it incredibly useful. The book itself even points out flaws in Kiprusoff and other professionals game, so for anyone to say that guide was not helpful, is simply lying. Even elite caliber goalies should be encouraged to look through the essiential to goaltending guide, if nothing more than a refresher course as well as some useful drills that are also in it. No matter how advanced of a player you are, getting a refresh course is never a bad idea.