Driving Range Goalies
By Steve McKichan
At a recent adult clinic I was chatting about
goal tending with a fellow rec leaguer. He
had spent a ton of time coaching a young goalie
and sometimes the technical skills the youngster
displayed in practice didn’t appear consistently in
games. He was a practice goalie not a “gamer”.
This syndrome I have seen frequently so I have
decided to coin the term “driving range goalies”. I
spend considerable time at the golf course and at
the driving range.
The obvious implication is something I have seen
first hand. I can groove an expensive 64 degree
lob wedge 6 miles in the air and land it tight to the
pin……at the range!
When I bring out this lob wedge on a real course
it betrays me more than it helps me. Then I watch
sheepishly as a 69-year-old man with dirty old
golf shoes and a $10 used 7-iron chip his ball up
from about the same spot to within 12 inches of
the cup.
Needless to say, this guy has seldom been to a
driving range but actually plays the game 36 holes
a day.
Initially lets discuss why I think this happens
and then continue on to formulate a strategy to
make your game results mimic your best practice
results.
Pressure does funny things to an athlete and this
is one reason for the DRGS (driving range goalie
syndrome).
Lets go back to golf for an example to help
illustrate this. When a player is putting on a
practice green things are free and easy and there
are no error consequences. The smoothness in
your stroke allows you to drain tough puts on this
practice green.
Once you get to the 17th hole and you need
a 3 footer to save par, your smaller muscles in
your forearm and wrists tighten up and that
smoothness and touch can leave you. This is
exacerbated when people are watching and the
score does matter.
As a goalie, pressure can make you lose your
smoothness and it reveals itself with imprecise
rebound control, imprecise puck flight tracking
and fidgety puck handling.
The solution I have had great success with is
actually quite simple. Once a baseline of technical
skill is developed in a core area pressure must be
applied in increasing doses.
Practice must become harder with respect to time
and space so that games are easy. For example,
Johnny can get blue line glass 9 out of ten times
from his crease with stationary pucks.
Once limited faux pressure is applied and the
puck is moving first, this number immediately
dips to under 50 % success. If this pressure is
consistently applied in frequent practice sessions
and then is gradually intensified, you will see this
translate to improved game play.
Another reason DRGS exists is because many
goalies have yet to learn “how” to play the game.
What does that mean?
Again I will go with the golf analogy. If you rarely
watch how PGA players manage their games on
the course, yet spend hours on the range you will
likely still be a high handicapper.
You could have a God’s gift swing at the range and
be able to groove balls precisely where you want
them.
However if you don’t learn how to approach the
green from the correct angles and you don’t learn
when and when not to attack pins you will struggle
to score well.
This is also clearly the case in hockey. You need
to be able to connect the dots and read the play.
Understand when scoring danger is present and
be able to use intelligent anticipation.
This is developed by years of critically analyzing
games and determining cause/effect and
outcomes of scoring chances. I would suggest
that you should spend 2 hours critically analyzing
NHL games for every hour you practice your goal
tending technical skills. The game results will
astound you.
In many cases you could take a goalie with very
average technical skills yet elite game readability
and he will win championships. In my private work
with Ed Belfour, I was quite surprised how average
his crease movement skills were in his 40’s. Yet
once the game began his game management and
ability to read the play took over.
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