TransWikia.com

Goalie drills for beginning street hockey goalies

Sports Asked by user16435 on February 2, 2021

I am just starting as a goalie in street hockey. Are there any good drills to do? I need to work on my hand eye coordination and reflexes mainly.

I am good on butterfly saves, I just need help on glove and stick saves.

One Answer

I have been playing goalie for about 15 years, including inline. The best drill, even though it sucks, is up-downs. Just to practice getting into and out of your butterfly quickly. I know you said your butterfly is good, but this will increase your endurance as well.

With that out of the way, make sure to work on your positioning. A lot of stick-side / glove-side goals given up by beginners is because they are squaring up to the body of the shooter instead of the puck. You need to stop the puck, not the player, so make sure your positioning is directly between the puck and the center of the net.

One thing that helps with positioning is skating. Get good at your t-pushes to get into position efficiently and quickly. Practice going from the post to the top of the crease and back, and practice squaring up to one point, then across to the other and back.

To work on your reflexes, you can do the classic drill of bouncing a tennis ball off a wall, alternating hands as you go. Or keeping the same hand. You can always enlist the help of a buddy to set up in front of you with 10 or so pucks and tell him/her to shoot blocker and glove at random, but always one of the two. This keeps you from cheating but helps improve reflexes.

This may sound silly to say, but also make sure you are actually watching the puck all the way into your body. A lot of newer goalies don't have the skill or reflexes to keep their eye on the puck all the way until it hits their body, and it really decreases your hand-eye coordination.

One last drill that can help improve your game quickly is rebound control. Not allowing the other team to get second chance shots on you will help your game quite a bit. Have someone take shots on you from the top of the circles or slot, and focus on sending each puck to the corner or trapping it. Every time you let a puck bounce back out, you're giving the team a free scoring chance with you out of position.

Let me know if you have any other questions! Brian Daccord wrote a great goaltending book for beginners called "Hockey Goaltending" (Amazon Link) that is full of drills, including for inline goalies. Look up drills on Youtube, too.

Most importantly, actually play! Game situations are the best learning tool for getting better at game situations. Have fun!

Answered by Pawr on February 2, 2021

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question

Get help from others!

© 2024 TransWikia.com. All rights reserved. Sites we Love: PCI Database, UKBizDB, Menu Kuliner, Sharing RPP