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047 - Advice for Smaller Goalies
97 Plays1 month ago
Show notes are available at https://thediygoalie.com/pod047
3 Shot Hand Warm-Up drill of the month: https://thediygoalie.com/drill/3-shot-hand-warm-up/
This week's episode is a solo episode from host Nathan Park who talks about the things that smaller goalies can do to play bigger. We also talk about certain myths about smaller goalies that need to be dispelled, and if there are actually some advantages to being smaller.
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Transcript
Introduction and Changes
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to the DIY Goalie Podcast, where hosts and goalie coaches Nathan Park and Connor Munday share their insights on how to become ah better goalie.
00:00:19
Speaker
Hey goalies, welcome back to another episode of the DIY goalie podcast. It's a solo episode with myself today. um Connor has some personal stuff going on that he's dealing with. So he's taking a break for this week. I think he'll be back next week, most likely.
00:00:41
Speaker
Um, as you guys can probably hear, I'm kind of at the tail end of a little bit of a cold here. So apologies if I, uh, sound a little weird today, but, uh, the show must go on as they say. So we're here doing the episode anyways, for you guys to try and get you some good content going.
00:00:59
Speaker
Um, Before we get into the meat and potatoes of the episode, we kind of teased it a little bit last week. um I think I may have edited it out. I can't remember. But we are going to be making some changes in the offseason, kind of once things slow down with our true north goaltending side of things, which is our in-person goalie coaching.
00:01:26
Speaker
um So once that kind of slows down, we are actually going to be phasing out the DIY goalie um just to make things easier.
00:01:38
Speaker
We're going to have everything under the True North Goaltending brand. um I had them initially set as two different entities because it made sense to me at the time to have kind of, you know, the DIY goalie be the global kind of online reach with True North Goaltending being the in-person um goalie coaching side of things.
00:02:01
Speaker
ah However, just to be able to keep up with things a little bit easier, Because a lot of what goes on is mostly just me running things um behind the scenes and all that stuff. So it just makes my life a little bit easier to have it all under one umbrella. So we will still have the podcast called the DIY Goalie Podcast, but it will be basically the DIY Goalie Podcast presented by True North Goaltending.com.
00:02:30
Speaker
um And so the DIY goalie website is going to be phased out and everything will be moving to the true North goaltending website. Now we're still probably, i don't know, um a month or two, maybe even more, depending on how things go in the off season from this all happening.
00:02:50
Speaker
But we just kind of wanted to give you guys a heads up, give you that announcement that that is coming down the pipeline. We still plan on giving you guys the same content with the podcast, with the monthly newsletter.
00:03:03
Speaker
um But this is kind of the way that we're going to go in hopes of being able to have a little bit of an easier time giving you guys more content. Because that's something that I think we can do a bit of a better job at. But again, kind of you know have a lot going on. So...
00:03:21
Speaker
um Thanks for sticking with us so far. and So basically all our socials are going to be phased out with the DIY goalie. Everything's going to be under the True North Goaltending Socials um website, all of that stuff. So um we will make an announcement a little closer to once that's going to be done.
00:03:44
Speaker
you know, officially happening. um So stay tuned for that. But yeah, well we'll make sure to kind of give everyone a heads up and and make sure that you guys follow the right socials and get to the right website and all that stuff. And I'm sure that we'll keep the DIY goalie domain for a while and just kind of have it redirect to True North Goaltending.
00:04:08
Speaker
So if you guys do find yourselves going to the DIY goalie site, it'll just bounce you over to True North. Um, so stay tuned for that for right now. Everything stays the same. cause this will be a bit of a project to undertake to switch everything over, but just, uh, wanted to give you guys the heads up on that.
00:04:27
Speaker
Um, it's kind of crazy to me that we are at episode 47 and, uh, we're five weeks away from the one year anniversary, which is kind of cool. So thank you guys for tuning in.
00:04:39
Speaker
Um, we're starting to see bit of a slow, but sure uptick in numbers. So ah thank you guys. If you're a returning listener, if you've listened to all 47 episodes, kudos to you. If you're new and have only been on board for the last couple, or maybe this is your first episode, welcome. We appreciate you, um joining us.
00:04:59
Speaker
We hope that, uh, that you guys are getting a lot out of this. Um, it's a lot of fun for us. We do have a few interviews that are going to be coming in the next few weeks as well. And we're always kind of working on um getting some guests on here and there to to give some different perspectives. So if you guys know of anyone or if you yourself have some interesting takes or some interesting perspectives on something related to goaltending, you can always reach out to us. We'd be happy to have a conversation and see if it's a good fit to have you on.
Warmup and Fundamentals
00:05:31
Speaker
and So since we are starting ah new month, we are in March now, which is kind of ridiculous. um But that means that we have a drill of the month.
00:05:45
Speaker
And I would pick this one. Because it is probably one of my go-to's for warm-up drills. And because we kind of talked last week about playoffs and how we want to maintain and we want to just hammer home the fundamentals and, you know, the tracking, save, execution, skating side of things.
00:06:08
Speaker
Um... I wanted to just do kind of a nice, simple tracking and save execution warmup drill for this one. Um, shout out to Jamie McKaig from above the crease here in the Edmonton area. Uh, this was a drill I did when he was our goalie coach at, uh, Nate.
00:06:26
Speaker
So i'll kind of stole from his playbook on this one, but I do really like this drill. So it is called the three shot hand warmup. And, uh,
00:06:38
Speaker
a very simple drill. As the name states, you get three shots. So you're going to start at your post. You're just going to push out to the top of the crease.
00:06:49
Speaker
You're going to get three shots in a row to the side opposite of the post that you pushed out from. if you push out from your blocker side post, all three shots are going to be to the glove side and they're going to be a little higher so you can get the hands going.
00:07:04
Speaker
track it in, lean the body, make your save out in front of your body, all that good stuff that we talk about. So the first shot, the goalie is going to stay standing. They're going to stay on their feet. They're going to make that save. Now, one thing with this,
00:07:20
Speaker
you guys need to make sure that we're still doing the same principles, the same fundamentals when making our saves while on our feet. Cause a lot of goalies, when they stay on their feet to make a save, they tend to want to pull back or just lean to the side, kind of, you know, lean over their hip as opposed to leaning forward into that save. Um, a lot of kind of bad habits creep in when goalies make save standing up so we just want to make sure that we're still tracking into our body we're making a save in front of our body we're leaning slightly forward into that save and our body's coming with as well and we're not kind of cheating on that save
00:08:01
Speaker
The second shot, the goalie is going to start on their feet, but drop to their knees for the save. So just like you'd basically treat any other shot, um you just drop into the butterfly as the the puck's approaching you into your save. Again, hands out in front, tracking it in, leaning the body, all of that good stuff.
00:08:24
Speaker
third and final shot, goalie's gonna stay down on their knees. And same thing, just a shot again to that same side. So we've been talking about the gloves, so we'll just keep it consistent.
00:08:35
Speaker
So again, staying on the knees, tracking it in, out in front, make your save, all of that good stuff. And then you're gonna get a good solid rotation and get a T-push recovery back to your feet to the other post. So now you'd be pushing back to your glove side post,
00:08:52
Speaker
And you repeat the process. Push out to the top of the crease, all three shots to the blocker, standing, drop for the save, stay down for the save, rotate, T-push recover back to the other post.
00:09:05
Speaker
Nice and simple drill, but it's an awesome warm-up drill. it gets the hands going, gets the eyes going, and kind of works some different situations. Most of the time, we're probably not standing for a save, but it's good to get into that habit too because, again, we talk lots about having tools in your tool belt.
00:09:24
Speaker
You never know when you might not see a puck right away, and maybe you're stuck on your feet and you have to make a save while standing, so it's always good to at least get a little bit of practice with that.
Challenges for Smaller Goalies
00:09:34
Speaker
um But yeah, we will link that up to the show notes. um We'll make sure that you guys can can check that out. For those watching on YouTube, obviously you can see the picture of the drill.
00:09:49
Speaker
um But nice and simple drill, good for this time of year. you can do it pretty much anywhere. You don't even really need a net necessarily. um You don't have to use posts. You can just kind of push in a V pattern.
00:10:01
Speaker
um But good for warming up and all of that stuff. So that is the drill of the month. It is the three-shot hand warm-up.
00:10:13
Speaker
i guess I didn't really tease our ah actual ah you know meat and potatoes or the theme of today's episode in the start. So I guess I left you guys with 10 minutes of suspense here. But we are going to be talking all about smaller goalies and how smaller goalies can...
00:10:35
Speaker
make themselves or make the most of their size and still play big and still get the job done. um I am pretty average when it comes to size, as in I'm five foot ten Now, that's in the normal world. In the goalie world, i would be considered small at five foot ten And it didn't help my case that I also kind of grew up in the J.S. Jaguar blocking goaltender era, where it was bigger or is better.
00:11:08
Speaker
um So fortunately, we're kind of trending a little bit away from that. It's not nearly like it was in the eighty s and 90s, but... but I think people are starting to value a little bit more skill as opposed to size, which is good to see. We'll kind of go through the reasons why i feel like that's good to see.
00:11:29
Speaker
um But basically, when it comes down to it, goalies, kind of like the smaller goalies, they get a little bit of a bad rap because...
00:11:43
Speaker
the thought process is that they don't cover as much net, which to a certain extent is true. However, what a lot of people forget about is the perspective that the puck sees, because the puck is against the ice, the net is a lot smaller than we think it is from our perspective. Like a shooter sees a lot more net than the puck does.
00:12:12
Speaker
So when we start to think about the actual angles of the position and where the puck is sitting and what the puck sees from its perspective, we can really start breaking it down and kind of identify that maybe size isn't as much of a factor as we've traditionally been led to believe.
00:12:36
Speaker
Again, there's a bit of a caveat to that. The one thing I will say that the taller goalies definitely do have an advantage on is their east-west coverage.
00:12:49
Speaker
Like if you've got a six foot seven goalie that, you know, 60% of their body is all leg, they'll be able to stretch across to cover the net a lot quicker than a you know, 5'8 goalie that's only 50% leg and has a longer torso. Yeah.
00:13:07
Speaker
um So there are some instances where there's a distinct advantage that the taller goalies do have. um But when it comes to straight shots, there is a way that we can play that ah even at as as a smaller goalie, you can still be wildly successful. And we're kind of seeing it with the UC Soros and the Dustin Wolfs of the world.
00:13:35
Speaker
um So like I said, we can kind of see a bit of a trend to there being a little bit more of the smaller goalies out there. Obviously, there still needs to be ah ah an elite level of skill for those guys to be at the NHL level.
00:13:48
Speaker
um But before I kind of get into the mechanics of it, um the one thing I will say for anyone out there who's a goalie parent or a coach or anything like that, because it's driving me mental, it's true it's driven me mental for a while, and I know I'm not the only one,
00:14:10
Speaker
But the answer for your smaller goalies, whether it's a 5'10 adult or a 3' whatever 7 or 8-year-old, the answer is not stand up more.
00:14:24
Speaker
And I'll go into reasons why, but that's too broad of a statement. There's so much more that goes into a save than just standing or dropping.
00:14:40
Speaker
And I get that there's a lot of people that when they played, that's what goalies did. They stood up. And nowadays you see goalies get beat over the shoulder and it's really easy to be like, oh, see, they should have stood up there.
00:14:57
Speaker
The problem is, though, is if you go back to the 80s and 90s and you watch the goalies play, they're getting beat with ice burners along the ice that, As we talked about way back in whatever episode, i think 13 or whatever it was that we had Hiroki Wakabayashi on, he yeah he mentioned that you know when he started working with, I believe it was Francois Allaire, that the reason that he started pushing goalies towards playing the butterfly style was because the majority of shots were in the lower portion of the net.
00:15:37
Speaker
And it's harder to get the puck up. It's harder to be accurate when the puck is raised. Now, obviously, the players are have gotten significantly better over the years, and they're better at that.
00:15:48
Speaker
But even still, the percentages say that more often than not, the shot's going to be in the bottom half the net. So if a goalie in this day and age with how quick shots happen, if a goalie tries to hold their feet too long,
00:16:08
Speaker
They're not going to have enough time to react to the shot in time to drop and seal the ice if it is low. So that's why goalies tend to default to the butterfly, especially the elite ones and the high level ones, because the players are elite and high level and they can get those shots off quick.
00:16:30
Speaker
And it's hard to react in such a small amount of time. So the default is to just seal, to play the percentages and seal the bottom half of the net. So the answer is not stand up more.
00:16:47
Speaker
And I'm going to die on this hell and I don't care. it's ah it's It's just not it's not helpful to the goalies, especially if you're working with a young goalie.
00:16:59
Speaker
And they may be getting beat up high pretty frequently, which I'm telling you right now is normal. At the younger ages, your kids are not averaging 920 save percentages.
00:17:16
Speaker
They're probably averaging in the 700
Skill over Size Techniques
00:17:18
Speaker
or 800. So it it's okay. It's part of the process. But trying to hammer home that they need to stand up more is not the answer.
00:17:27
Speaker
um what I tend to teach my goalies is you track the puck and your eyes are going to tell you where you need to go. Now, as you get older and to the higher levels, you're probably just going to default to a butterfly and and track as you drop.
00:17:47
Speaker
But for the younger goalies, teach them to track and teach them to react based off of how they track the puck. So,
00:17:58
Speaker
they don't get confused as to, oh, I need to be standing up. Coach said I need to stand up. Oh, the puck went in ah along the ice, five hole, right?
00:18:10
Speaker
it's It's not a blanket black and white statement. So they need to track the puck to react. The other thing too is even the younger goalies that are, you know, four feet tall or i don't know, however tall, you know, your eight, nine, 10 year old goalies are, and even the smaller adults, the shorter adults, you can still cover the top corner in your butterfly. Because if you think about it, the puck's on the ice.
00:18:41
Speaker
And when it's on the ice, it has to look up to the net, right? To the top corner. And if you actually have a goalie stand at the top of their crease And you look at the net from the puck's perspective, even a small goalie is going to be taller than the net from what the puck sees, just given the angle, right?
00:19:06
Speaker
Because this position is all about angles. And... basically what we need to do is smaller goalies is we need to cut off that angle that's the key and that can be done in the butterfly so the big things are is we need to make sure that we're coming towards that puck when we make our save so that means our hands are out in front of our body our shoulders are forward and we lean towards our save. So that means slightly forward with the shoulder and to the side that that puck is being shot.
00:19:47
Speaker
And that's how we're going to be successful as smaller goalies is by cutting off those angles earlier in the puck's trajectory to the net.
00:19:58
Speaker
And that's the key when it comes to being a smaller goalie. Um, A big thing too, did want to touch on depth as well.
00:20:10
Speaker
um A lot of people are of the mind that goalies need to come way out, like smaller goalies need to come way out of their net to cut off the angle, which in theory makes sense because again, right, this this is a position of angles and the further out you come, the more net coverage you have.
00:20:33
Speaker
That being said, as we kind of touched on earlier, the smaller goalies tend to not be able to stretch across the net as much because they don't have as much body to get over there, right?
00:20:51
Speaker
So the further out you come from the net, the harder it is to get across on a pass or even a deke.
00:21:02
Speaker
So there has to be a balance there. So yes, your smaller goalies might benefit from being slightly um more out of their net than the bigger goalies, but it doesn't have to be drastic.
00:21:18
Speaker
So the difference is to me, i usually tell kind of my larger kind of higher end, more elite goalies,
00:21:29
Speaker
that you're probably looking at getting your toes to the top of the crease, maybe even slightly back, depending on how they play. Whereas the smaller goalies are probably heels at the top of the crease.
00:21:42
Speaker
So realistically, that's not even a step forward difference. Like that's literally just like a length of a foot in difference, right? Whether it's the toe at the crease or the heel at the crease. So it's not really a big difference.
00:21:58
Speaker
And again, the reason for that is because you don't want to be putting yourself out of position for a lateral play or a deke. So what can we actually do to make sure that we can be successful as a smaller goalie?
00:22:15
Speaker
So we kind of touched on it in our save execution, but... I find that with the smaller goalies, you really have to make sure you're a lot more disciplined with how you make a save.
00:22:28
Speaker
But the body is key. We talked about a couple weeks ago, the difference that it can make in your game if you can really get used to using your body. In my opinion, it's the most underused tool that goalies have in their arsenal is to be able to shift or lean or whatever you want to call it.
00:22:47
Speaker
your body towards the puck you are going to cut off so much net by getting used to leaning your body into your save now we talk about it lots but those hands being out in front are going to be massive in cutting off that angle as well and making your saves a lot easier so what i like to do i think i may have talked about this before on one of the podcast episodes but What I like to show my goalies when it comes to this and theory or this kind of explanation is i hold my stick up.
00:23:28
Speaker
in a way that it makes an angle up. So my blade is against the ice and mye the shaft of my stick is on an angle up.
00:23:39
Speaker
And I say, okay, this is the angle that the puck has to go from the ice up to the top corner. You can see that my stick, the shaft of my stick, is that angle.
00:23:51
Speaker
That's the trajectory the puck has to go. So if you go right to the end of the shaft of the stick, the distance down to the ice is the largest, right?
00:24:05
Speaker
So the further back you are, the further away from that puck you are, the larger the area that you have to cover. Now, if you move your hand down the shaft of the stick...
00:24:21
Speaker
Now you can see that the distance between your hand and the ice becomes a lot smaller. And that's basically cutting off the angle, right? So the further forward towards the puck you can get, the more net coverage you have, the more likely you are to make the save.
00:24:43
Speaker
And that's why having our hands out in front Having our shoulders forward and leaning our body slightly forward towards our save is so important because now we don't have to move as much and we cover more net. It's like a win-win situation.
00:25:04
Speaker
So if you're a goalie that's eight or nine or 10 years old, or you're a beer league goalie that's five foot two, five foot three, and shout out to our female goalies out there too, because on average, females tend to be a little bit shorter than males.
00:25:21
Speaker
So if you're of that camp where you're in the quote unquote smaller goalie section of things, you're These are the things that will really help you to cover the net and make you efficient in your saves and make your saves a lot easier.
00:25:35
Speaker
So what can we do to practice this? I mean, doing drills like the ones at the start, um the drill of the month, the three shot hand warm up. where you're isolating the tracking, where you're isolating the hands, where you're isolating the body leans, those can help lots.
00:25:53
Speaker
But one thing I'm a big proponent of too, because again, ice time is limited. If we can use our off ice time, simple ball drills can really get this done, right?
00:26:10
Speaker
ah bounce off the wall with one tennis ball You lean your body. You catch it in front of your body, your shoulders forward. Nice and simple.
00:26:22
Speaker
Bounce it back to the other hand. Same thing. Lean your body, catch it in front, track it into your hand. All of that good stuff. These are the things that we can do to make this a habit, right?
00:26:35
Speaker
So that's what I kind of challenge you guys to do is create the habit of shifting your body.
Improving Skills and Explosiveness
00:26:41
Speaker
Create the habit of having your hands out in front and work on those forward diagonals, as I like to call them, which basically means that in our saves, our shoulders are coming slightly forward on a diagonal motion towards that puck as we make that save.
00:26:59
Speaker
So a couple of other things that can help smaller goalies too. If you look at a guy like Dustin Wolf or UC Soros, One of the big reasons why they're successful is because they're explosive.
00:27:18
Speaker
Skating is so important for any goalie, but especially for smaller goalies. Because you don't have the length to get across as much as a ah taller goalie would.
00:27:32
Speaker
Right. So you need to find a way to be a little bit more explosive in your movements. You need to find a way to get across the crease quicker. And that's also going to help with your save execution, because if you can get your feet set quick and it's a straight shot, now we can implement the hands out in front, the body lean, all that stuff we just talked about.
00:27:56
Speaker
and make a simple save. If you're still moving while you're trying to make a save and you don't have your feet set, it becomes a lot harder. And that's when a lot more holes kind of get exposed on us smaller goalies.
00:28:10
Speaker
So anytime you have the time to practice your skating, I know it's not fun. It's not sexy. It's not easy. It sucks. Trust me, I used to hate skating drills.
00:28:23
Speaker
As a coach now, I love them. Because they're what really make you a better goalie. If you want to be better as a smaller goalie, if you want to stand out more as a smaller goalie, get better at skating.
00:28:40
Speaker
Do your T-pushes, your inside edge pushes, your T-push recoveries, any chance you get. Do the off-ice workouts to make yourself more explosive any chance you get.
00:28:54
Speaker
Jump squats. and Those skating stride jumps, I can't remember what they're called. the The ones where you jump back and forth um from one foot to the other, you land on the other foot in kind of a squat and then jump back.
00:29:11
Speaker
um Anything that involves any sort of kind of explosive jumping sort of movement like box jumps, even sprints, anything like that.
00:29:22
Speaker
That's the sort of stuff that'll translate well on the ice and will make you a better, smaller goalie. um The other thing, and we've talked, you guys are probably sick of hearing it, the word rotations.
00:29:39
Speaker
um But it's something, it's a point that needs to be hammered home. And as a smaller goalie, because we don't have as much coverage with our body, we need to get our body into the lane quicker when we are moving for a lateral play.
00:30:01
Speaker
And rotations are basically the single number one thing you can do to make that happen. So again, we've talked lots about the benefits of rotation rotations and why we want to do it.
00:30:14
Speaker
But it allows you, again, to get into that angle quicker to get your whole body there. So you're not just stretching with a leg or an arm or throwing your paddle out and hoping.
00:30:27
Speaker
You actually get... the full coverage of your body, you're leading with your hand and your shoulder, you're cutting off that lane a lot quicker. And it's just so much easier to get into to get set up and ready for that next shot.
00:30:44
Speaker
So when we rotate, we want to rotate to the point that we're square to our end point. So if it's a pass across, we're looking for the player's blade of their stick.
00:30:57
Speaker
They're receiving player's blade of their sticks. We're trying to beat the puck. The puck's not there yet. We're trying to beat that pass across. So the threat is the player's stick.
00:31:08
Speaker
That's what we want to look and rotate to. Then we can make that push across and it gives us a better angle. So instead of pushing flat and having to take a lot longer to get into the lane, we get back on an angle and that allows our body to get into that lane a little bit quicker.
00:31:28
Speaker
Now going back to the depth thing, Yes, we want to gain as much depth as we can. That makes sense for the situation. But sometimes we don't have the time to gain the depth.
00:31:42
Speaker
Getting on angle and getting square on a lateral push is are the two most important things. And then if we have time, we can gain depth. So even as smaller goalies, our number one priority is to get in the lane. So to get on angle when we push across.
00:31:59
Speaker
So sometimes you might not get where you want to with your depth, but that's going to, it's not going to matter as much because your body is there. So I'd rather be back a little bit, but have my whole body in the lane set ready to go.
00:32:15
Speaker
than to be out a little bit more, but to only have, say, my hand and my foot in the lane because I'm a little late getting across because I'm further out, so it takes me longer to push across, right?
00:32:28
Speaker
So it's a little counterintuitive. you're You're probably saying, wait a second, I thought you just said covering more of the net makes us play bigger. And yes,
00:32:39
Speaker
but it doesn't help if that depth takes our body out of position because we can't get there quick enough so really dial in those rotations to make sure we can push back on our angles and if we have time then you can take a half step out and gain some depth right and if you watch uc sorrows play if you watch dustin wolf play they're not necessarily like two feet out of their crease all the time because they don't need to be.
Managing Depth and Advantages
00:33:15
Speaker
Right. they can they can still play only with the with their toes at the top of the crease. They can still be successful. The next time you get a chance and you watch one of these two goalies play, watch how much depth they gain.
00:33:31
Speaker
There are certain situations that they probably will gain more depth than some other goalies, and yes, that's true, but there certain situations where they won't, and that's because they understand that there's a lateral threat And plus those guys move very well so they can get across if they need to.
00:33:51
Speaker
So just make sure that when you are working on the skating, because we talked about how important skating is, that we really nail down those rotations and we rotate top down. So the head goes, then the body and the hands, then the hips and the feet.
00:34:10
Speaker
And that's going to really help you get that good angle across. We are squaring up to where we want to push to. So whatever the end point threat is, that's what we're looking to. That's what we're squaring up to so we can get across and get into a good position.
00:34:26
Speaker
So is there any like advantages to us being smaller goalies or to being a smaller goalie? And there are a couple.
00:34:38
Speaker
One thing is, is I find the taller goalies that I work with tend to be the ones that struggle more with the really wide stance. So they look like Vasilevsky when they're in their stance, but they don't have the ankle strength or the mobility that Vasilevsky does have, and they kind of get themselves stuck.
00:34:59
Speaker
I find that to be a little bit more... prominent in the taller goalies and kind of less common in the smaller goalies. um I don't know if it's just because of the length of their legs that they kind of feel like they need to get lower to the ice.
00:35:14
Speaker
um But that's one thing for you taller goalies out there. You don't need to get quite that wide. um Yeah, you might want to get a little wider to get yourself a little lower to the ice, but you don't want to get to the point that you're stuck.
00:35:30
Speaker
And if you find that you can't close your five hole in time, just work on driving those knees to the ice a little bit quicker. um so if you're in practice or whatever, you can just work on dropping quick, driving those knees down, trying to really seal the ice.
00:35:46
Speaker
Um, that's kind of one advantage, um, that the smaller goalies have. And the other thing too, it kind of used to drive me nuts when I was, uh, younger and playing still.
00:35:58
Speaker
Um, cause I remember being an Oilers fan. I remember Devin Dubnik at one point, um, in an interview, he kind of mentioned that one of the struggles of a um taller goalie is not being able to seal the ice as quick or seal up holes as quick.
00:36:18
Speaker
And I used to kind of think, oh, boo hoo, your life is so terrible. A little bitter, but as I get into coaching,
00:36:29
Speaker
It is true. Like the holes that the taller goalies leave are bigger because they just have longer limbs. Um, you know, they're five holes bigger, kind of under the arms. Those holes are bigger.
00:36:45
Speaker
so yeah or smaller goalies do kind of have a little bit of advantage in that aspect like it's easier to kind of close off the holes because they're not as big when it comes to the five hole and under the arms and stuff most of the time um so there are some things that the smaller goalies uh uh do kind of have a bit of an advantage i also find and again bit of a general blanket statement, but the smaller goalies tend to have a little bit more speed, a little bit more quickness. And normally that's just straight from necessity, right? Like the smaller goalies have to be a little quicker to to get across a little bit better.
00:37:25
Speaker
um but I don't know if there's something about just, you know, little bit less weight, it's easier to push across or what the deal is with that. But that is something that I've kind of noticed anecdotally too,
00:37:37
Speaker
um I don't know if there's anything valid to that or if that's just you know coincidence that that's kind of what I've noticed. but So there are a couple things that smaller goalies can use to their advantage.
00:37:49
Speaker
The other thing too is you might be able to kind of get away a little bit with the old bait and switch kind of thing, right? From, from the eighties. Not that I recommend doing this, but I'm more so talking about the fact that players, their eyes might light up a little bit thinking there's more net because you look smaller in the net.
00:38:10
Speaker
And from their vantage point, they're like, Oh, I see so much net. Let's go. And in reality, what the puck sees is not really that much, right? If you're playing the right way.
00:38:22
Speaker
So you might be able to have a little bit of a false sense of security from the player where they think they're just going to you know, roast you on what they think is open. That's not necessarily open.
00:38:36
Speaker
and So there are some things that that smaller goalies kind of can have in their back pocket a little bit there, too. But yeah. In general, the big thing is, is it all comes down to, it just boils down to playing big.
00:38:51
Speaker
And by that, I just mean what we talked about. So the shoulders are forward, not to the point, obviously, that you're like bent at the waist and your chest is facing the ice, but just a little bit forward, kind of in line with where your knees are.
00:39:05
Speaker
Your hands are out in front, so when you're looking forward, you should be able to see your hands in your peripheral vision. That's how much I want your hands to be forward. And leaning the body. We talked about it last week um or the week before. They all blurred together. I can't remember anymore. But the body is the most underused tool.
00:39:28
Speaker
Start getting used to using it, and it's going to help your neck coverage so much. It's going to make your life so much easier. So that's how we play big. We don't necessarily need to come flying out of the crease.
00:39:40
Speaker
We don't necessarily need to be staying on our feet more. It's all about how we set up and how we make our safe. That's the key. Work on your skating, work on your explosiveness, work on your rotations and play big.
00:39:56
Speaker
And it won't really matter what size you are. You can be a smaller goalie and you can still get the job done. And I think we need to kind of break the stigma a little bit when it comes to the smaller goalies.
00:40:09
Speaker
um It's trending in the right direction, but I think we can kind of give smaller goalies a little bit more love. and not necessarily go with a guy just because he's 6'7", because that's not necessarily a recipe for being a good goalie.
00:40:27
Speaker
Um, so that's kind of all I have on that for today. and ah shout out to all of you who are, you know, the eight, nine, 10, 11 year olds to the five foot two to five foot 11 goalies out there. The ones that we kind of get the label of being smaller, being shorter.
00:40:48
Speaker
And, uh, unfortunately the kind of initial thought on that is that we won't be able to do as much, but, uh, As somebody who played a decently high level of hockey as a quote-unquote smaller goalie, um you guys can do it. It's just a matter of believing that you belong there and working on the things that we talked about.
Engagement and Resources
00:41:13
Speaker
and So thanks again for tuning in today, guys. As always, you can check out thediygoolie.com for any drills, articles. and We have our 26-video Complete Goalie Breakdown course that goes through everything from the stance all the way up to breakaways and odd man rushes.
00:41:37
Speaker
um You can check that out at thediygoolie.com slash courses. the The show notes for this episode would be at thediygoolie.com slash POD047, pod 047.
00:41:52
Speaker
um You can check us out on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, all at thediygoolie.com. If you want to come work with us in person, you want to check out our facility in Nisku, you can head to truenorthgoaltending.com. You can work with myself or one of our other amazing coaches. We get a lot of good feedback with what we're doing there.
00:42:16
Speaker
And we love working with goalies. We love breaking it down, seeing them kind of really start to understand the game because our goal is for you guys to be the coach. We basically, it's not good business, but we basically want to make our job obsolete. We want you guys to understand what's going on, what you did well, what went wrong.
00:42:38
Speaker
And we basically want to get to a point that we run the drill, you get scored on, you say, oh, I should have done this. And we say, yeah, all right, let's do it again. so You can also come and check us ah check us out for our summer camp. So we have a five-day summer camp going August 11th to 15th.
00:42:57
Speaker
We have a three-day one from July 29th to 31st. and And that's all at truenorthgoaltending.com. um You can also follow us at True North Goaltending on Facebook or YEG Goalie Coach on Instagram for any of the True North ah true north stuff to stay up to date on that.
00:43:19
Speaker
So thanks again for tuning in. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. Leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify.
00:43:30
Speaker
Leave us a thumbs up, comment on the YouTube video, wherever you guys are listening. We very much appreciate it. You can leave a listener question if you want at thediygoolie.com slash podcast, and we'd love to feature you on the show.
00:43:46
Speaker
But as always, thanks for tuning in, guys. You guys have a good playoff push or offseason if you guys are already done. Take care, goalies.
00:43:58
Speaker
Make some saves.