Starting in Goal as an Adult

[psulion22 402]

12 hours ago, IPv6Freely said:

I am a garbage goalie. I don't know where to even start. Strength? Flexibility? Goalie coach? All three? 

We're trying to save for a house now so not a lot of money to throw around, but even without hiring somebody I just don't know where to start. 

The honeymoon period where I knew I wasn't very good and it was fine because I was new to the position is over, and now I'm getting frustrated by my play. I'm not used to doing things I'm not good at and I'm really bothered by being this bad. 

Sometimes I wonder if I actually prefer the idea of being a goalie and having cool pads as opposed to actually getting on the ice and playing. I love hanging out with the guys but going to the rink is starting to be a chore. 

I'm lost.

I'm going to say this as gently as possible.  In no way am I trying to be mean or disrespectful, so please do not take it that way.  I just want to be straight and honest, so hopefully it might help.

My impression from your posts on here is of someone who thinks they are much better than they are and doesn't really want anyone else's help.  I've stopped offering pointers or critques of your videos because of it.  I thought you didn't want to hear them anymore.  It may not be how you feel, the loss of context over the internet often causes misinterpretations.  Maybe you do it subconsciously.  Or maybe you're the kind of person who likes to figure things out on their own.  Maybe a combination of these and other things.  I can't be sure.  You were recptive to the discussion of that puck you missed on the cover, so I know you still want to learn.

You definitely have improved, so don;t think you haven't.  Your skating and edges are better, as is your control and movements.  You had a good understanding of angles to start with.  However, when you start at the bottom, you only can go up (and that's a statement that applies to all of us who began playing goal, not that you sucked).  You can make large improvements in a short period of time as you figure the big things out.  But once that happens, you have to be willing to fix the smaller things to continue to improve.  And that's where I think you've hit a snag.  You got better quickly, so you felt that you should have kept getting better and haven't.  Unfortunately, goalie is a position that relies on the small things.  The struggles you are having now are because of the things you haven't improved since you started, mainly your edge control, butterfly, and movements/recoveries.  I know you have limitations, and an injury.  But I wonder how much is  you using those as an excuse or a crutch.  The things you need to improve are tough, and will mean a lot of adjustment.  When you're improving well, you don't feel the need to worry about them.  Now you might.

You need to start with your butterfly.  I know you have flexibility issues.  But I don't believe your struggle is as much with that as you think.  Your issue is with instincts and tendencies.  Like Tim Tebow and his bad mechanics, when you're in the thick of things and acting instinctually, you revert to bad habits.  The biggest problem is that you pull your heels together when you drop down.  You drop forward on your knees, bring your feet behind you, and sit your butt back over your feet.  This is problematic because it locks you in place on the ice.  You can no longer move laterally or get back to your feet without big movements.  To move, you essentially have to put yourself into the correct position first.  Why not cut that step out?!  This is also expending a tremendous amount of energy to do.  You're working harder, and getting tired faster.  Efficiency is the name of the game with goaltending.  You want to make as little extra movement as possible.  You really need to focus on pushing your hips forward when you drop, instead of sitting down.  Push your hips forward and bring your knees together, not forward.  This will bring your feet out and put you into a more mobile position.  It may not be a very wide butterfly.  Mine isn't either.  Even if your feet are straight back and not out at all, that will put your hips and weight in a better position than having them touching behind you like they are now.  If you feel tightness with this, loosen up all the straps on the pads.  You need to learn to get into a position where your weight is forward over your knees and not back over your feet.  That may take practice, strength and flexibility training, coaching, and most likely a combination of that.  But once you start, those things will take care of themselves.  And i promise you that you will see an improvement in your game.

You've hit a wall.  To get over it, you have to find the small handholds and work harder.  We're here to help you if you're willing to listen.

[Thinkingjack 51]

I've been playing on and off for three years now including almost 1.5 year of time off from injury in the last two years

 

I'm aware I suck but I'm a gamer when needed

 

i went to Las Vegas for the NCHL draft tournament and they finally sent me the video from February where I won the shootout for the B championship

 

ive never won shit in hockey as a forward or goalie so this was a cool feeling 

 

 

[Thinkingjack 51]

And thanks to my friend Matt for giving me pointers in the last few weeks 

 

there's a reason I like putting up footage, so better goalies can help me out 

he's been talking to me how to challenge more which I felt I was doing better In This one 

 

theres lots for me to improve and thats been a glaring one 

 

 

[IPv6Freely 2095]

On 5/8/2017 at 1:41 PM, psulion22 said:

I'm going to say this as gently as possible.  In no way am I trying to be mean or disrespectful, so please do not take it that way.  I just want to be straight and honest, so hopefully it might help.

My impression from your posts on here is of someone who thinks they are much better than they are and doesn't really want anyone else's help.  I've stopped offering pointers or critques of your videos because of it.  I thought you didn't want to hear them anymore.  It may not be how you feel, the loss of context over the internet often causes misinterpretations.  Maybe you do it subconsciously.  Or maybe you're the kind of person who likes to figure things out on their own.  Maybe a combination of these and other things.  I can't be sure.  You were recptive to the discussion of that puck you missed on the cover, so I know you still want to learn.

You definitely have improved, so don;t think you haven't.  Your skating and edges are better, as is your control and movements.  You had a good understanding of angles to start with.  However, when you start at the bottom, you only can go up (and that's a statement that applies to all of us who began playing goal, not that you sucked).  You can make large improvements in a short period of time as you figure the big things out.  But once that happens, you have to be willing to fix the smaller things to continue to improve.  And that's where I think you've hit a snag.  You got better quickly, so you felt that you should have kept getting better and haven't.  Unfortunately, goalie is a position that relies on the small things.  The struggles you are having now are because of the things you haven't improved since you started, mainly your edge control, butterfly, and movements/recoveries.  I know you have limitations, and an injury.  But I wonder how much is  you using those as an excuse or a crutch.  The things you need to improve are tough, and will mean a lot of adjustment.  When you're improving well, you don't feel the need to worry about them.  Now you might.

You need to start with your butterfly.  I know you have flexibility issues.  But I don't believe your struggle is as much with that as you think.  Your issue is with instincts and tendencies.  Like Tim Tebow and his bad mechanics, when you're in the thick of things and acting instinctually, you revert to bad habits.  The biggest problem is that you pull your heels together when you drop down.  You drop forward on your knees, bring your feet behind you, and sit your butt back over your feet.  This is problematic because it locks you in place on the ice.  You can no longer move laterally or get back to your feet without big movements.  To move, you essentially have to put yourself into the correct position first.  Why not cut that step out?!  This is also expending a tremendous amount of energy to do.  You're working harder, and getting tired faster.  Efficiency is the name of the game with goaltending.  You want to make as little extra movement as possible.  You really need to focus on pushing your hips forward when you drop, instead of sitting down.  Push your hips forward and bring your knees together, not forward.  This will bring your feet out and put you into a more mobile position.  It may not be a very wide butterfly.  Mine isn't either.  Even if your feet are straight back and not out at all, that will put your hips and weight in a better position than having them touching behind you like they are now.  If you feel tightness with this, loosen up all the straps on the pads.  You need to learn to get into a position where your weight is forward over your knees and not back over your feet.  That may take practice, strength and flexibility training, coaching, and most likely a combination of that.  But once you start, those things will take care of themselves.  And i promise you that you will see an improvement in your game.

You've hit a wall.  To get over it, you have to find the small handholds and work harder.  We're here to help you if you're willing to listen.

Hi @psulion22, thanks for the reply. Where are you getting that impression from? I'm well aware of the level I'm at and that I'm just a beginner. I definitely don't think I'm good at this (though I DO think I got better at goalie in 6 months than I did as a skater in the 6 years prior to that...  I was never good skating out!) I want any and all critiques and suggestions. Some of them will be "yes I know I need to work on that" and some things will be stuff that I didn't notice I was doing.

I agree butterfly is one of my biggest issues. And you're right that when it comes time to make a save I'm definitely just doing what I have to do to stop the puck without any regard to technique. Or, to put it another way, the technique hasn't had enough reps yet for it to BECOME the instinctual reaction. The problem I'm having is that no matter how many people tell me the exact same thing (the "drive the knees to the ice" thing) I still can't do it. Even when not pressured and when focusing specifically on that movement. I wish there were better videos on how to do it properly. All the instructional videos just say the same thing and make it sound like its something that should be easy to "just do". You mention to push the hips forward and bring the knees together. The part I'm struggling with is how am I supposed to get my knees together without also getting my feet together? I'm definitely not able to put my knees together with my feet apart.

My angles are generally okay as you've said, and depth is not USUALLY a problem, though I do sometimes fall prey to not being in the right place. 

Even bigger than the butterfly seems to be my general ability to use both sides of my body. For example, while in the butterfly I can use my left foot to push me across the ice. Not very well, and I still can't decide if its that my pads don't slide well or if my technique sucks, but I CAN do it. Going the other direction... not at all. If I can even get my blade planted AT ALL (rare), I just end up spinning. To take it a step further, if I need to get across the ice quickly I can drop my right knee down and push across in one motion, moving left to right. Going the other direction, I can't do it. I literally can't. Again, even during warmups where I'm specifically trying to do it correctly, my brain says to go left knee down first and the body kind of hesitates before going right knee down. I truly can't fathom why I'm having this trouble getting my body to do simple movements. 

I need to take some video during a stick time or something, but finding the time to go to those is almost impossible. I spend pretty much all day every day at work now... 

When it comes to games there's obviously no time to  work on anything. Pickups I generally try to focus on improving one thing each week but by the half way point my lower back hurts so much I'm just trying to make it through. I also figured out its not actually my back that hurts so much as the complete lack of flexibility is causing my back to take the brunt of every movement.

I do appreciate the feedback and will try to work on the flexibility because that's pretty much the cause of all my issues, including the simple butterfly.

 

On 5/8/2017 at 6:58 AM, marka said:

Howdy,

 

First, there's no shame in cutting back.  I mean, don't leave folks in the lurch, but don't keep doing stuff if you're not having fun at it either.  The question is if you're not having fun because you think you suck or if its just not as fun as it was before to put in the time/energy and you wish you were doing other things.  The only help for the 2nd one is to go do those other things and see if you prefer having your time spent there.

But for the first one...

I get the "not improving" frustration.  I started playing a year and half ago and all of the easy to see big steps seem to be done.  I was getting a little discouraged.  Talked with my wife and other people some and they pointed out various small things that I take for granted now that I couldn't do as well six months ago.  They were small enough things that I didn't think of them as "improvements", but once pointed out, I remembered being frustrated by not being able to do that stuff.

And so now I look at smaller stuff when I'm looking for encouragement.  Like lately I've been working a bit on elevating the puck on in close shots and playing with that in warmup for games, etc.  I'm seeing a way that that works now, whereas before I just couldn't ever make it happen.

 

Your "honeymoon period" is a great phrase.  To me, the honeymoon period is when you're making huge strides every time out, having fun even if you totally suck, etc.  I think that exists in any skill (it certainly does in motorsports, my other big addiction).  The trick, for me, of going beyond the honeymoon period is to look for the smaller improvements that you ARE still making and accepting that those improvements still matter.

Mark

I haven't been to a pickup since 4/25. It's really more the games though that are the issue since getting scored on and losing the game because I let in a bad goal is really becoming difficult for me to handle mentally. I don't know why. But I really think it's the honeymoon thing like I said. At this point I EXPECT to make those saves. Great goals are one thing but I get really frustrated with myself when I let in something that should be an easy save. A slapshot from the blue line with no traffic should NEVER go in!

 

On 5/8/2017 at 6:14 AM, Jamarquan said:

Disclaimer: I've played goalie for all of about 10 hours, just kind of throwing ideas at you here.

First off: Temper your expectations. you started playing a difficult position at an older age than most people start. You've put in a lot of time and money on being a goalie. But this stuff takes a while.

The best place to start is to identify the problem, which should be fairly easy to do considering you've got dozens of games on YouTube (and probably more that aren't on the Internet) where you can see what you do well and what you need to improve upon. If it's flexibility, that stuff is easy to improve / fix with Googling some excercises, maybe some cheap equipment like a resistance band and excercise balls for your glove hand. The two are about $20. Strength might be a little more difficult, especially if you don't have the space or equipment. Some stuff is easy to do at home: squats for legs, twists / planks for core, etc. If it's just that you need to be a better goalie, not a stronger one, there's literally thousands of videos online, and a whole community here at MSH that can help in place of expensive goalie coaching. Write some notes down from those online videos, then try to get into a pickup session and work on them. Roberto Luongo did this the first time around with the Panthers, even with no shooters. He'd just go into the rink and imagine scenarios around him, and then react to them. (Source: Jamie McLennan's book.)

I took a break in writing this to watch some of the GoPro videos. Again, I have virtually no goalie experience, but you seem uncomfortable / slow to move in the butterfly, like you're shuffling on your knees as opposed to sliding, so leg and core strength seems like it would really come in handy there. 

And use your teammates. Tell them to try to cover the cross crease passes, because it requires you to move the farthest laterally.  Make sure somebody is home for the rebounds. Little things like that. 

You're going to have things that take more time to be good at, or that you maybe just aren't good at yet. Again: this stuff takes time. It takes time to get good, or at least competent, at everything, but if you decide to stop after putting in a little bit of time because the results aren't there, then you'd probably have quit a lot of things by now.

If nothing else, maybe take some time away from goaltending, or hockey in general. You said you're saving to buy a house. I'm not an adult, but that sounds incredibly stressful. 

 

I'm very slow in my butterfly and in movements in general. I've never been a very good skater so that isn't helping. There are definitely times I'll shuffle on my knees instead of sliding, generally either when I'm tired (in the case of pickup) or when i'm not sure I have enough time to get back up (in games). It's usually in a situation where I'm moving right to left (which I can't do pushes very well for) and don't have enough time to get up. 

All in all, my flexibility is still killing me. And I'm having a terrible time finding time to work on it. 12 hour days 5-6 days a week at work are brutal. I get home, eat, and go to bed. Rinse, repeat. Hopefully work eventually calms down.

[IPv6Freely 2095]

This is from pickup on 4/25. I haven't had time (as I mentioned in the above post) to actually edit the video until this morning. Not the best night from a goaltending perspective but a really fun time with the tuesday night guys. This included the birthday celebration of one of our guys who just turned 82. He had photographers there and we had some fun in the first 10 minutes (watch the video!) and got some photos. He had cake afterwards :) He actually had each of us hold up a sign with our name on it and got photos of all of us "for when [he] can't remember who the hell [we] are"

 

[Thinkingjack 51]

you need to work on flexibility bro.  I dont know if you work out, i take my lunch hour at work at just spend the entire time in my in house gym at work.  Work on stretches, work on leg strength building.   No better way around that, when i look at my videos from the last two years (been playing for 3 now) i can tell a huge difference in my flexibility and movement. 

 

simply put, stretch, work out. 

[psulion22 402]

18 hours ago, IPv6Freely said:

Hi @psulion22, thanks for the reply. Where are you getting that impression from? I'm well aware of the level I'm at and that I'm just a beginner. I definitely don't think I'm good at this (though I DO think I got better at goalie in 6 months than I did as a skater in the 6 years prior to that...  I was never good skating out!) I want any and all critiques and suggestions. Some of them will be "yes I know I need to work on that" and some things will be stuff that I didn't notice I was doing.

I agree butterfly is one of my biggest issues. And you're right that when it comes time to make a save I'm definitely just doing what I have to do to stop the puck without any regard to technique. Or, to put it another way, the technique hasn't had enough reps yet for it to BECOME the instinctual reaction. The problem I'm having is that no matter how many people tell me the exact same thing (the "drive the knees to the ice" thing) I still can't do it. Even when not pressured and when focusing specifically on that movement. I wish there were better videos on how to do it properly. All the instructional videos just say the same thing and make it sound like its something that should be easy to "just do". You mention to push the hips forward and bring the knees together. The part I'm struggling with is how am I supposed to get my knees together without also getting my feet together? I'm definitely not able to put my knees together with my feet apart.

My angles are generally okay as you've said, and depth is not USUALLY a problem, though I do sometimes fall prey to not being in the right place. 

Even bigger than the butterfly seems to be my general ability to use both sides of my body. For example, while in the butterfly I can use my left foot to push me across the ice. Not very well, and I still can't decide if its that my pads don't slide well or if my technique sucks, but I CAN do it. Going the other direction... not at all. If I can even get my blade planted AT ALL (rare), I just end up spinning. To take it a step further, if I need to get across the ice quickly I can drop my right knee down and push across in one motion, moving left to right. Going the other direction, I can't do it. I literally can't. Again, even during warmups where I'm specifically trying to do it correctly, my brain says to go left knee down first and the body kind of hesitates before going right knee down. I truly can't fathom why I'm having this trouble getting my body to do simple movements. 

I need to take some video during a stick time or something, but finding the time to go to those is almost impossible. I spend pretty much all day every day at work now... 

When it comes to games there's obviously no time to  work on anything. Pickups I generally try to focus on improving one thing each week but by the half way point my lower back hurts so much I'm just trying to make it through. I also figured out its not actually my back that hurts so much as the complete lack of flexibility is causing my back to take the brunt of every movement.

I do appreciate the feedback and will try to work on the flexibility because that's pretty much the cause of all my issues, including the simple butterfly.

 

 

I don't know.  I guess responses that you've posted to suggestions that have been put forth.  Kind of a "I'm doing well doing things my way, I'm not going to change it".  But again, it's the internet, so context is lost.  I apologize if i offended you or took your responses the wrong way.  That was definitely not my intention.  I'd love to help.

So here's the key point, I'm glad you said something.  Because of the physics of the human body, when you drop your butt down and back, your knees and feet have to be in the same line because your toes have to point straight down.  When you say you can't bring your knees together without bringing your feet together, it's because you are dropping your butt back.  What you are actually doing is pulling your feet to touch behind you, dropping your butt almost to sitting on your feet, and spreading your knees.  Also, loosen your pads.  I don't know how tight they are, but loosen them anyway.  Make it so they are held on only with whatever elastic there is.  Your knees don't have to be touching.  Mine don't.  It would actually be difficult with pants, knee guards, and thigh rises in there.  But you have to be pulling your legs together and keeping your butt forward rather than pulling your feet together.  Having a knee stack that is higher than the rest of the pad also takes strain off joints.  Maybe look into knee stacks.  

I coach the goalies at the adult clinic at my local rink.  I have seen several with the same issues as you.  They almost always come down to pads being too tight and pulling their feet behind and dropping their butt.  Those things combined put way too much stress on their hips/knees/ankles and they all complain of lack of flexibility.   Here's what to do to try and learn.  Next ice you get, even if it's warmups before a game or pick up, or during a stoppage in the other end, drop to your knees. Spread them maybe 6-8" apart, and get your hips forward so you are sitting almost as tall as you can.  Then push your feet apart as far as you can.  You'll find that you can get them about parallel to your knees, so both 6-8" apart. It will be a very narrow butterfly.  But again, it's significantly better and different than what you are doing now by tapping your heels together behind yourself and then sitting on them, and having your knees spread out.  I get you don't quite see the difference by taking what we're saying and what you're actually doing.  But there is one.  Maybe get that GoPro back there se you can see it both ways and compare.

The movement problems you are having is because of your weight distribution.  The spinning in place when you push is the indicator of that.  What's happening is that all of your weight is over your left knee.  So, pushing to your right with your left foot works, because that is the proper technique and position.  But you literally can't push with your right because your weight is still on your left knee.  When you try to lift your leg to engage the blade, you can't because your leg doesn't really bend like that.  To get the leg near perpendicular to the ice, you have to have the weight on that side, or at least over center.  If it's over the wrong leg, you can't lift the leg up, so you can't engage the blade or get any push.  If you do push, the weight over the lead leg causes too much friction and you just spin and grind into the ice.  The good thing is that this can be fixed.  But focus on your butterfly and getting your hips forward anweight up first.

Your back hurts because you are essentially doing crunches every time you drop.  You don't have great core strength and your back doesn't have any support.  If you think about it, the way you drop and move is forcing your abs and back to tense to support all of your weight and keep it upright.  That causes lower back pain if you don't have the strength.  Seriously, it's like you're adding a pilates workout to playing goal.  Every time you want to move or get up, especially if you have to do it quickly, you have to use your core to get to the position you should be in, then move.  That's rough.  Go sit on the floor on your knees with your feet touching behind you.  Then sit back on your feet.  Then lift up so your shoulders are up and your hips are forward.  Then sit back down.  Then up.  Repeat.  If you really want to make it fun, go from sitting to upright, then stand up.  Repeat that.  See how quickly you get tired and your back starts to hurt.  Then do it omitting the sitting back and then back up step.  You'll see the difference right away.  Also contributing to this is that you aren't sticking your edges into the ice for support.  It's something we've mentioned before, but you're still doing it, though not as badly.  What's happening is that your feet are constatnly sliding on the ice.  Your edges aren't engaged into the ice.  Watch a video of yourself and see how your feet are just sliding when you are in your stance, especially when you have to make small adjustments like backing in or a player moving laterally.  This is also causing you to have to use your core to keep your body upright.  You can't use your legs because they aren't stable on the ice.  Generally lower back pain is caused by a weak core and abs.  You are making your core do wayyyyy too much work, and your back hates you for it.

It may look stupid, but when the puck is in the other end, you'd have a little free time to work on small things, like dropping correctly or weight control.  Getting open ice is hard, so use every little bit you can get.  Another idea would be to use your schedule the best way you can.  If it doesn't allow getting to more ice sessions, you can do what you can at home.  If you're eating dinner or watching some tv before bed, do it sitting on your knees in the right butterfly position and work on pushing your feet out to increase flexibility.  Throw on the pads and just practice dropping correctly or shifting your weight to the push side and lifting that leg on both sides.  You don't have to get crazy, but just little repetitive movements like that will help.  I know that I had all of these grand plans of going to the gym on a regular basis.  But life gets in the way, and honestly I'm lazy.  Getting changed and getting to the gym before it closes just doesn't happen by the time i get home and deal with dinner and what not.  So I started just doing simple body weight exercizes while I'm watching tv or before bed - push ups, crunches, planks, and other things that I do during intermissions of the playoff games.  It isn't ever going to make me look like the Hulk.  But I have lost fat in my stomach and added strength and muscle in my core, abs, chest, arms, and back.  I'm happy with what I've gained, and the idea that it's simple and can be done in my own time has kept me doing it, where if it was just going to the gym in time (or open ice sessions in yours) I probably wouldn't.  And now I get to the gym to do harder work when I can.  But I don't feel like I have to in order to actually do anything.

[IPv6Freely 2095]

2 hours ago, psulion22 said:

Also contributing to this is that you aren't sticking your edges into the ice for support.  It's something we've mentioned before, but you're still doing it, though not as badly.  What's happening is that your feet are constatnly sliding on the ice.  Your edges aren't engaged into the ice.  Watch a video of yourself and see how your feet are just sliding when you are in your stance, especially when you have to make small adjustments like backing in or a player moving laterally.  This is also causing you to have to use your core to keep your body upright.  You can't use your legs because they aren't stable on the ice.

So I'm going to need to re-read this a couple times (when I'm actually not at work) to digest it all, however I do have one question on the quoted bit. Can you clarify what you mean? I'm having a hard time visualizing.

 

 

[Axxion89 32]

On 5/14/2017 at 6:27 PM, IPv6Freely said:

Hi @psulion22, thanks for the reply. Where are you getting that impression from? I'm well aware of the level I'm at and that I'm just a beginner. I definitely don't think I'm good at this (though I DO think I got better at goalie in 6 months than I did as a skater in the 6 years prior to that...  I was never good skating out!) I want any and all critiques and suggestions. Some of them will be "yes I know I need to work on that" and some things will be stuff that I didn't notice I was doing.

I agree butterfly is one of my biggest issues. And you're right that when it comes time to make a save I'm definitely just doing what I have to do to stop the puck without any regard to technique. Or, to put it another way, the technique hasn't had enough reps yet for it to BECOME the instinctual reaction. The problem I'm having is that no matter how many people tell me the exact same thing (the "drive the knees to the ice" thing) I still can't do it. Even when not pressured and when focusing specifically on that movement. I wish there were better videos on how to do it properly. All the instructional videos just say the same thing and make it sound like its something that should be easy to "just do". You mention to push the hips forward and bring the knees together. The part I'm struggling with is how am I supposed to get my knees together without also getting my feet together? I'm definitely not able to put my knees together with my feet apart.

My angles are generally okay as you've said, and depth is not USUALLY a problem, though I do sometimes fall prey to not being in the right place. 

Even bigger than the butterfly seems to be my general ability to use both sides of my body. For example, while in the butterfly I can use my left foot to push me across the ice. Not very well, and I still can't decide if its that my pads don't slide well or if my technique sucks, but I CAN do it. Going the other direction... not at all. If I can even get my blade planted AT ALL (rare), I just end up spinning. To take it a step further, if I need to get across the ice quickly I can drop my right knee down and push across in one motion, moving left to right. Going the other direction, I can't do it. I literally can't. Again, even during warmups where I'm specifically trying to do it correctly, my brain says to go left knee down first and the body kind of hesitates before going right knee down. I truly can't fathom why I'm having this trouble getting my body to do simple movements. 

I need to take some video during a stick time or something, but finding the time to go to those is almost impossible. I spend pretty much all day every day at work now... 

When it comes to games there's obviously no time to  work on anything. Pickups I generally try to focus on improving one thing each week but by the half way point my lower back hurts so much I'm just trying to make it through. I also figured out its not actually my back that hurts so much as the complete lack of flexibility is causing my back to take the brunt of every movement.

I do appreciate the feedback and will try to work on the flexibility because that's pretty much the cause of all my issues, including the simple butterfly.

 

I haven't been to a pickup since 4/25. It's really more the games though that are the issue since getting scored on and losing the game because I let in a bad goal is really becoming difficult for me to handle mentally. I don't know why. But I really think it's the honeymoon thing like I said. At this point I EXPECT to make those saves. Great goals are one thing but I get really frustrated with myself when I let in something that should be an easy save. A slapshot from the blue line with no traffic should NEVER go in!

 

I'm very slow in my butterfly and in movements in general. I've never been a very good skater so that isn't helping. There are definitely times I'll shuffle on my knees instead of sliding, generally either when I'm tired (in the case of pickup) or when i'm not sure I have enough time to get back up (in games). It's usually in a situation where I'm moving right to left (which I can't do pushes very well for) and don't have enough time to get up. 

All in all, my flexibility is still killing me. And I'm having a terrible time finding time to work on it. 12 hour days 5-6 days a week at work are brutal. I get home, eat, and go to bed. Rinse, repeat. Hopefully work eventually calms down.

I'm not going to go into super detail as most people have already covered the details, I just want to throw in my 2 cents. First, playing in lower level games suck, always has always will. You can't expect your team to play well in front of you or expect predictable play. You will be screened, you will see fluttering shots, you will see 2 on 1s and uncleared rebounds / turnovers in front f your face. As you are an older & newer goalie, you will also be expected by your teamates to let in some soft goals, trust me. What I'm saying is you need to set your expectations & be ok with the reality. I play Tier 4 / Tier 3 goalie in games & pickups and while having a bad game sucks, you gotta get over it, its only a game. Sometimes its your fault, sometimes its the teams, sometimes the best thing to do is have a good attitude.

2nd is practice. Not playing games or pickups, I mean open ice and practice. The best thing you can do is get a friend or 2 and find some open ice and just work on angles, moving on your skates, going u & down, etc. You won't work on it in a game & this is your chance to. Worse case is rent a sheet of ice at the cheapest rate you can find & really just make the most of the time. Hell you can even suit up in your house and practice going up & down to work on your butterfly. You don't need lessons you just need time.

Last is know your limits. If I remember right you have a bad knee and other ailments. If your body can't allow you to perform certain techniques, don't try and do it. There is one goalie I play with who is in his 60's and his knees are shot. He plays like an 80's stand-up goalie with very little butterfly & more pad stacks and aggressive play. He knows his limits & plays his style. You need to evaluate the same. If your hips or body won't let you do a butterfly then don't try & do it too much. Try other techniques and get better at them. You're only playing mens league and at the level you are playing I don't think anyone is expecting you to be Patrick Roy. Assess yourself and work out a style that works for you. I'm not saying any of this to be mean or to put you down, I'm just saying you might be trying to hold yourself to a level that isn't there at the moment or maybe might not ever be there. Just go and have fun, as long as you do that you will be fine

[IPv6Freely 2095]

2 hours ago, Axxion89 said:

I'm not going to go into super detail as most people have already covered the details, I just want to throw in my 2 cents. First, playing in lower level games suck, always has always will. You can't expect your team to play well in front of you or expect predictable play. You will be screened, you will see fluttering shots, you will see 2 on 1s and uncleared rebounds / turnovers in front f your face. As you are an older & newer goalie, you will also be expected by your teamates to let in some soft goals, trust me. What I'm saying is you need to set your expectations & be ok with the reality. I play Tier 4 / Tier 3 goalie in games & pickups and while having a bad game sucks, you gotta get over it, its only a game. Sometimes its your fault, sometimes its the teams, sometimes the best thing to do is have a good attitude.

2nd is practice. Not playing games or pickups, I mean open ice and practice. The best thing you can do is get a friend or 2 and find some open ice and just work on angles, moving on your skates, going u & down, etc. You won't work on it in a game & this is your chance to. Worse case is rent a sheet of ice at the cheapest rate you can find & really just make the most of the time. Hell you can even suit up in your house and practice going up & down to work on your butterfly. You don't need lessons you just need time.

Last is know your limits. If I remember right you have a bad knee and other ailments. If your body can't allow you to perform certain techniques, don't try and do it. There is one goalie I play with who is in his 60's and his knees are shot. He plays like an 80's stand-up goalie with very little butterfly & more pad stacks and aggressive play. He knows his limits & plays his style. You need to evaluate the same. If your hips or body won't let you do a butterfly then don't try & do it too much. Try other techniques and get better at them. You're only playing mens league and at the level you are playing I don't think anyone is expecting you to be Patrick Roy. Assess yourself and work out a style that works for you. I'm not saying any of this to be mean or to put you down, I'm just saying you might be trying to hold yourself to a level that isn't there at the moment or maybe might not ever be there. Just go and have fun, as long as you do that you will be fine

I'm trying to be realistic, but that's where I'm struggling. I'm happy with being a good D5 goalie. I won't ever be playing in D4 or higher so that doesn't really matter to me. And I think that's actually part of the issue with the current confidence level. I think I've mentioned it before... I'm not used to doing things I'm not good at. Rarely GREAT at, but pretty much always good at. So that makes things even more frustrating.

Hills sent me some IMs yesterday of things to try so I need to get on that. What I really need is to find a stick time session that I can get into with my gear and a gopro.

I totally agree with you though that playing at lower levels is awful. I used to play in a rookie league of beginners and THAT can make you look foolish pretty easily. Like, PLEASE just shoot the puck hard so I can make an easy save... lol. 

[IPv6Freely 2095]

While we're on the topic of confidence and frustration, here's last nights game. I thought it was going to be one of "those nights" after the first period. It wasn't pretty by me or my defencemen but if I'd made a save in there it would have been a different story. Ended up winning 5-4, though the other team kind of got robbed in the last 30 seconds by the refs. 

 

[Axxion89 32]

12 hours ago, IPv6Freely said:

I'm trying to be realistic, but that's where I'm struggling. I'm happy with being a good D5 goalie. I won't ever be playing in D4 or higher so that doesn't really matter to me. And I think that's actually part of the issue with the current confidence level. I think I've mentioned it before... I'm not used to doing things I'm not good at. Rarely GREAT at, but pretty much always good at. So that makes things even more frustrating.

Hills sent me some IMs yesterday of things to try so I need to get on that. What I really need is to find a stick time session that I can get into with my gear and a gopro.

I totally agree with you though that playing at lower levels is awful. I used to play in a rookie league of beginners and THAT can make you look foolish pretty easily. Like, PLEASE just shoot the puck hard so I can make an easy save... lol. 

Sounds like playing goalie is a humbling experience for you. In any case, getting some time to just work on ice will do a lot to help you. Spend about half the time just moving around, sliding on the ice, post to post moves, shuffling, up & down, etc. Then spend the other half facing shots of all kinds, low shots, slap shots, glove, blocker, in close far away, etc. 

Also, don't overanalyze things too much. Watching yourself on video is good but if you let it consume you by nitpicking everything you will brick yourself mentally. At this level, you will make mistakes and have bad games but the best thing to do is put it behind you & focus on the next game & the next save

[IPv6Freely 2095]

2 hours ago, Axxion89 said:

Sounds like playing goalie is a humbling experience for you.

Understatement of the year!

I'm going to see if a couple of my teammates would hit a stick time with me, if I can find time to get to one myself. 

[rusty_black 17]

I had my 3rd game on the weekend.   

First game 7-0 loss -   21 shots to 9  

Second game 1-1 tie 23 shots to 19

third game  4-1 loss 28 shots to 9

First one was a breakaway, I've noticed that with breakaways I just can't seem to out wait the attacker and then just drop into a blocking butterfly stance and try to throw out a pokecheck. they then just make one move and throw it in an empty net.  I think it's just a mind thing, but I ALWAYS make the first move.  So that guys scored pretty easily.

The second goal was my fault, the guy came down the left and put a low shot in. I can't yet control my gloves/stick to smother a puck, so I kicked it out to the right side straight to an unmarked guy who tapped it in the net as I was still trying to recover from kicking out the rebound.

3rd goal was really frustrating as I've spend maybe 10 mins a day downstairs trying to work on my VH stance for this play and then come game time they shoot the puck in, and beat out D to it, and I go into VH but then stand up and peer around the post to look behind the goal.  the guy then passes it infront and I feel a bang on my foot, and hear him celebrating. I look down and half my skate is outside the post angling into the net.

4th goal was a PP goal 1 minute later. I play in the bottom league so no one can shoot a rocket shot from the point... or so I thought.   Puck comes high to the blue line and my guy rushes out to block it, I drop down to butterfly expecting a low shot and as the puck goes past my guy I lose sight of it, then see it again but its going high and it goes upstairs and hits my bottle. 

FYI: game 1 and game 3 were to the same team who are 5-0-1 with 25GF and 6 GA.   my team is last with 1-4-1  8GF and 16GA  (they won 4-0 last week as well)

 

I also just picked up some Passau knee pads from someone and god damn they are lovely, felt nothing at all when dropping down and no bruises the next day.

[IPv6Freely 2095]

Well, with the exception of the last goal against that was absolutely brutal (but hey, it made things exciting!) this was one of my better games. Square making easy saves easily, and scrambling when I needed to. Shutting the door with 1.1 seconds left was a huge highlight for me. 

Now we're off to the finals to go for our 4th straight championship title. 

 

[rusty_black 17]

looks like you were getting square to a lot of the shots. (which is something I struggle with... see pic below)  90% of the job is done already when you're square to the shooter.

Apart from the one goal that you've talked about the rest were off the back of breakdowns/mistakes or a terrible backcheck from one of your guys  (I think he was coasting back at the blueline when his guy put it in).   I find those really annoying as a majority of the time noone thinks they've messed up and just put it on you for not saving it.  Sometimes I think they need this film played to them and you be like  SEE THIS, DO NOT DO THIS, LOOKS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DO DUMB ****

 

Good luck in the final!

What's worse, my angle or the fact that he didn't score?

 

Edited May 24, 2017 by rusty_black

[rusty_black 17]

Found out the local shinny run by the rink management was free for goalies :D      I went last night at 9.45 and it ended up going for 2 hours, I was buggered after it. 

Was about 16 skaters and 2 goalies.

it's so much easier to face good players, their shots go in a straight line and not arc or dip, I got lit up but made some saves and tried to work on my angles, but I think I've got a long way to go.  Still suck at breakaways and even worse when thy come down one side and cut to the middle and try a deke.  

I took a couple of shots to the kneecap, and to my surprise, the Passau knee pads did their job and I didn't feel a thing, also have no bruises on the side of my knees from 2 hrs of dropping down to my knees. Best $50 I've spent.     next game is Sunday night, so hope my team pulls finger and scores some goals for me so I don't go into  panic knowing we're gonna lose if I let in 2 goals.

[IPv6Freely 2095]

30 minutes ago, rusty_black said:

it's so much easier to face good players, their shots go in a straight line and not arc or dip

Totally agree. Playing low divisions is really frustrating! 

That said... I play against one guy who takes super hard slapshots that have a tendency to drop sharply at the last second. Really have to concentrate on those! 

[magnets 98]

Been a while since I've posted, but I've moved up a couple divisions this year to Senior A (only 2 levels below the national competition here).

It's been a very tough season.  I've dropped down to a 0.809SV% with a terrible 5.43GAA.  I'm not playing terribly, but I've lacked some rebound control (most goals on third+ rebounds) and faced way too many odd man rushes.  Our club is fairly new too, so the other clubs are stacking teams from higher levels to avoid being the ones beaten by us.  Last four games we've been outshot 114 - 51, making it very tough to win.

While I know my team mates need to take a lot of the blame on these, I'm not one to pass the buck.  A score on me is a score on me.  Technically, I'm the best goalie I've ever been, but I need to draw more on the big desperation saves to feel like I'm making an impact.  On the positive, I keep thinking the day I don't take getting scored on personally is the day I need to hang up the pads.

It's hurting my confidence a lot, and I need to work on clearing my mind and resetting after a goal against.  

Sorry, not much content here, just needed to vent to some people that I'm sure know what I'm feeling right now.

[rusty_black 17]

Another game update.

Lost 6-1 off 20 shots to 13 even though we had 7 PP's.

Brutal 1st 5 mins with 2 goals including the 1st shot of the night being tipped in by my own player.

Also the last goal just topped off the night, a dipping "clapper" from the blue line. The perils of playing lower division hockey I guess.

Current stats for the season are 0 wins 1 tie and 3 losses,  4.5GAA and .804% ... also with me in net my team have scored 3 goals in the 4 games, so it's a really stressful time knowing that if I let in 1 or 2 goals, we're probably gonna lose. How would I shake that mindset?  I normally don't think about it until i've let in the 1st goal.

 

If you guys see anything I can try to prioritize in working on i'm all ears.  I don't have a lot of ice/rink time available to me, but don't mind getting kitted up in the garage etc.  I've included the warmups in the video aswell.

 

 

Edited June 5, 2017 by rusty_black

[Axxion89 32]

10 hours ago, rusty_black said:

Another game update.

Lost 6-1 off 20 shots to 13 even though we had 7 PP's.

Brutal 1st 5 mins with 2 goals including the 1st shot of the night being tipped in by my own player.

Also the last goal just topped off the night, a dipping "clapper" from the blue line. The perils of playing lower division hockey I guess.

Current stats for the season are 0 wins 1 tie and 3 losses,  4.5GAA and .804% ... also with me in net my team have scored 3 goals in the 4 games, so it's a really stressful time knowing that if I let in 1 or 2 goals, we're probably gonna lose. How would I shake that mindset?  I normally don't think about it until i've let in the 1st goal.

 

If you guys see anything I can try to prioritize in working on i'm all ears.  I don't have a lot of ice/rink time available to me, but don't mind getting kitted up in the garage etc.  I've included the warmups in the video aswell.

I have a slow day at work so I gave a look and here is my not so professional opinion;

Warmups - Tell your team to take shots from the point to help warm up your angles & ability to track the puck. If they want to take breakaways all day, they should earn them in the game or find a pickup

Goal 1 at 2:34 - Yea it was deflected but you should have your stick covering 5 hole & close in the butterfly. Also from that angle you could hug the post in the butterfly & have your right leg extend  right to take away the low area

Goal 2 at 2:52 - Seems like you misread this, if I remember right you looked left but puck went in right. You tucked your right pad in & let it in. Kick out your right pad & its a save

Goal 3 at 5:20 - First you are off angle cheating left, shooter had your whole right side to score. Your chest should always be in center line with the puck, not the skater. He shoots it into you & there is a rebound but you didn't get your pad kicked out / flush in time for save

Goal 4 at 7:35 - Knocked the puck up right, not terrible but not ideal. Your mistake was trying to reach to grab the puck, you should always move you body & pads to the puck & try to cover for the scenario that happened to you (missed the puck with glove). It was a nice play by the skater for the rebound but you were caught planted in the center with all your weight behind you as you reached

Goal 5 at 9:27 - I could drive a semi through the 5 hole you had on that goal. As with goal 1, stick on ice & close the butterfly. I'm not saying you need to have an NHL butterfly where the tops of the pads seal it, but if you see that puck coming dead on or you expect the puck to go 5 hole, jam your knees together & your knees / thigh / knee stacks will help seal the 5 hole. Even if the puck is off ice around groin high, it should hit your chest at least & then you hold it there / cover if it falls to ice

I didn't see any 6th goal

Overall, focus on closing the 5 hole & kicking out the legs to make saves. Focus on keeping the whole pad flush to the ice, you will need your hips, legs, & core to do this effectively. Also when you move while down (butterfly slides) practice keeping the leading leg pad kicked out & flat to take away more net. Angles weren't bad & try & come out a little more but it all takes practice so don't worry about it

As for the mental aspect. you can't worry about what your offense does. If they can't score they can't score. Your job is to stop the puck so focus on that. If you go into a game & say if I let in 2 goals we lose, you already lost. In the games I play we've won games where I needed to hold the team to 1 goal & I've won games where I had to not let in the 6th goal. Every game is different but when I play each of those games I go into as "I'm gonna get a shutout & everyone else just needs to build me a nice lead to make it easier for me". Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't but just worry about what you can control (and this advice applies to any goalie reading this of any skill level)

[IPv6Freely 2095]

Our championship was last night. I didn't have to do much, but did make one key save when it was 2-1 and they had a 2-on-0. 

 

[NotLawReview 0]

Long time reader of this thread, first time poster...

I recently picked up all the gear to play goal and have skated out twice now... The first time I played for my regular team which allowed our normal goalie to skate out, and the team we played was one at the bottom of the standings. I think I faced 10 total shots and gave up 3 goals (though 1 was not a goal, the ref just saw my d-man pull it out from under my pad with his glove and figured he was trying to get it out before anyone noticed...). But overall I did not look that great and could not get my pads to rotate into the butterfly.  After going back over some things in this thread and some others on this site, I loosened up a couple of straps and tried again two nights later at a drop-in:

 

The things I've noticed straight away that need work:
- I tend to drop to my right knee instead of both, which pulls my head to the right and opens up a ton of space on my glove side (and also pulls my glove away from the shot)

- When I drop, I drop my hands at the same time instead of keeping them high

- Don't have any real strategy when pushing up against the posts, and desperately need to work on my butterfly slides so i can go post to post

- not coming out of the net far enough to challenge shooters

- too much waist bend, not enough knee bend

 

I'm a little over 6'5" 195ish so I should be able to eat up a ton of net if I keep up my posture when I drop. 

The gear I have is:

bauer supreme one.7 skates

bauer vapor x55 pads 36" +0

vaughn kneepads

vaughn v3 7500 blocker/glove combo

CCM Premier C/A

Bauer Reactor 7000 pants

Bauer NME7 Helmet w/ vaughn dangler

Montreal Nitro Lite 27" stick (regular hand)

 

Let me know what else you guys see that I need to work on!

 

Thanks,

Pat

 

[rusty_black 17]

6 hours ago, Axxion89 said:

I have a slow day at work so I gave a look and here is my not so professional opinion;

Warmups - Tell your team to take shots from the point to help warm up your angles & ability to track the puck. If they want to take breakaways all day, they should earn them in the game or find a pickup

 

Overall, focus on closing the 5 hole & kicking out the legs to make saves. Focus on keeping the whole pad flush to the ice, you will need your hips, legs, & core to do this effectively. Also when you move while down (butterfly slides) practice keeping the leading leg pad kicked out & flat to take away more net. Angles weren't bad & try & come out a little more but it all takes practice so don't worry about it

As for the mental aspect. you can't worry about what your offense does. If they can't score they can't score. Your job is to stop the puck so focus on that. If you go into a game & say if I let in 2 goals we lose, you already lost. In the games I play we've won games where I needed to hold the team to 1 goal & I've won games where I had to not let in the 6th goal. Every game is different but when I play each of those games I go into as "I'm gonna get a shutout & everyone else just needs to build me a nice lead to make it easier for me". Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't but just worry about what you can control (and this advice applies to any goalie reading this of any skill level)

Thanks for taking the time to take a look.  Any opinion is good at this stage.

I'ts quite funny that when i'm actually doing the sliding etc I feel like pushing really hard and I'm leading with the leg extended and it's flat along the ice etc, but when I watch on video it's nowhere near extended and it's actually pointed behind me) and it's so slow! Same for the butterfly, it feels like its really wide etc but in reality it's not.

You can see in the video that I try to square up while the play is going on with a quick check of the post, so that's something I'm actively working on, but still not exactly sure where everything lines up with ice markings etc and I think you're onto something as I do seem to line up with the shooter and not the puck (possibly coming from my 10 years playing out as a defender?)

I'll ask the guys to take shots for warmups as that's 3 games in a row I've been beaten from long shots, which shouldn't happen in this league as they're not bullet shots.

As for the mental side, I think its got something to do with me starting to doubt my abilities, especially if I let in a stinker quite early on.  Looking back at the box scores, if I let in goals in the 1st, I also let in more in the 3rd, (second period is my best by far) could be due to my team pushing to score in the 3rd or just giving up in the 3rd (i'm gonna go for the pushing to score option here) :p 

If I work on body position and closing the 5 hole I should be OK  i'm 6'4 so should take up a fair bit of space in net!

[rusty_black 17]

5 hours ago, IPv6Freely said:

Our championship was last night. I didn't have to do much, but did make one key save when it was 2-1 and they had a 2-on-0. 

Congrats on the win! How's that for a confidence boost after all your doubts?

Jagr wanted that puck bad on the 2 v 0.  Did he throw a tantrum at his own player after you made the save?