The mentality of a goalie

30 Nov in goaltending, ice hockey, youth hockey

Spending the weekend at a youth hockey tournament gave me the opportunity goalies of all shapes and sizes competing. It's really something to see and it reminded me of a core concept of taking the position. You are the team's backbone. You are the one that the team looks to for strength, calm, intensity. When you let in a bad goal, it's imperative that you maintain that calm and show your team that it's ok. It might make you feel better if you let out a fit of frustration but it may make your team lose just a little bit of confidence in you. They're not sure if you're mentally back in the game. There are two possible outcomes of that (both of which are detrimental to the team:

  1. They overcompensate defensively and try to stop everything coming at you. This leads to deflections and open players in the slot area or...
  2. They overcompensate offensively by feeling as if they have to press for the goal because you're sure to let up the next one. All of a sudden, your teammates are taking chances out of the ordinary leading to odd man rushes the other way.

Either way, it's easy to see that your attitude after the goal is more important than the goal itself. You have to let goals roll off your back. More importantly, you have to help your team let it roll of theirs. Strength, calm, intensity.