Hockey Goalie Advice
I’m sure most of us have gotten caught up in a heated moment and said something to an opposing player in hopes of getting under their skin. There is also the hockey goalie out there who just talks trash just for the sake of talking trash. In my opinion I think every hockey goalie should keep the trash talk to a minimum, and here is why…
Our position takes so much mental focus if you want to be successful at an elite level. In the few times in my playing days where I let my temper get the best of me (and made a ’smart’ remark to the opposition), it always came back to bite me in the butt. The reason why it backfired on me is because once I made that remark, my focus shifted from helping the team to win, to focusing strictly on making sure that the player I was mixed up with would not score. Once you start saying “I can’t let this player score” it does two things, A. It makes you focus too much on that one player leaving you vulnerable to the other players on the ice, and B. You psyche yourself out and try to hard (yes there is such a thing as trying too hard as a goaltender…I’ll get into that at a later date though). There is the hockey goalie that can actually thrive on this type of behavior, one that comes to mind for me is Patrick Roy, but he was such a head strong, and for lack of a better word “cocky” hockey goalie, that it actually helped him and he would rise to the occasion.
My advice to you is that unless you fancy yourself a truly head strong and cocky goalie, you might want to steer clear of the trash talk because more often than not it will backfire.
As skating is so important to the success of the hockey goalie, it should be a given that sharp skates cannot be overlooked. I have heard some younger goalies that I have coached tell me that they like dull skates because they can shuffle side to side easier, however, the problem with dull skates is that you can’t get as much power on your push with dull skates which actually makes you shuffle across slower. My advice to any hockey goalie is to make sure you get your skates sharpened at either 1/2″ or 3/4″ hollow (You don’t really need to know what that means, just tell the person sharpening your skates and they should know).