What's New

Well, hockey is back! What a great time of year! Nothing replaces the speed. I love football, playoff baseball is great, good drama, watching clutch players making plays, but hockey has so much more. Fast, hits, great passes, hard shots, terrific saves, now the shootouts. It's so much fun to watch with the new rule changes, no lead is safe. It has allowed the players to skate and use their skill. The biggest difference to me might not necessarily be the "rule change", but the referees calling the penalties the way they should be called.

What does this mean for goalies? Well, let's see: faster game play, more room for players to make plays, shootouts…to me, goalies have to be mobile. Skating will be key. You'll see the goalies who have success will have to be fundamentally sound. They'll need to have good posture, a good stance, proper positioning of the hands, better skaters will be the better goalies, still need a good butterfly, but will have to be able to recover and be ready for the second shot as the defensemen can no longer clutch and grab.

Kiprusoff, Lehtonen, Brodeur…I think they'll have good seasons since they all have sound fundamentals. I'd even add Vokoun in there, he's in position and a good skater. They all are in position and can move across the net well.

This is why I spend so much time working with the young goalies on fundamentals and skating. At Huron Hockey we start with it and focus on it all week. The private lessons and youth hockey programs I work with all ask me for an assessment, and skating is almost always something I see that needs improvement.

Coach Shuey