Friday morning open was great. Not only did I skate my tail off (2 straight hours on the ice, SAWEEET), but a bunch of guys I haven't played with in a long time showed up. These guys usually play at another rink but occasionally come to this one. About 2 years ago they were there all the time, and I loved playing with them. They're all very good, most of them play about 4 times a week, and a few have been at pretty high levels at some point or another. But the thing I like about them is that although they take it pretty seriously (always keep score and play til one team gets 5 goals and then reset), they're also pretty laid back. This group has the feel of my old outdoor roller group- everyone ragging on each other and playing each other hard but not dirty (ok THAT sounded dirty), and just overall a great atmosphere. And though I suck compared to them, and 2 years ago I REALLY sucked compared to them, they've never made me feel like shit. So here's to the McKaye guys. (Plus they have a few Russians. And everyone knows I like Russians.)
Given that atmosphere, I was able to relax and just play, not feeling humiliated like I did a month or so ago with all those college kids out there. I didn't play all that great (started out pretty decent but then switched sides to the No-D-Side and that was pretty frustrating), but I figured something out. And that's always good. Now the trick is to figure out how to fix it. Now comes the pretty boring (to non-goalies) technical goalie talk. You plain old skaters can just skip this if you want.
I discovered that I have instinctively been "cheating" on some lateral movements. For some reason, I only to this to the right side. Let's say I'm at the top left corner of my crease, and I have to get over super-quick all the way to the top right corner. (Like you have to do if you have no D. Which is how I figured this out.) If the pass is far enough out I'll just t-push over, no problem. But if it's close in, I end up doing kind of a combination push/butterfly-slide to get over, regardless of how high the puck is going to be. Which puts me at two disadvantages: 1) I'm already down on the ice so it's real easy to flick the puck right over my shoulder, and 2) I never bring that trailing leg close enough to the leading leg to seal up the 5-hole as I'm sliding across.
So, why do I do this instead of some quick shuffles? Because GoalieBrain knows that I'm too slow to get over if I do that, and this is the fastest way for me to get where I need to be. Push, slide. It's worked great for me in the women's league because as a general rule, they don't get the puck up high. So bam, flash, I'm there, and it looks like I made an awesome save. I get away with it sometimes in the men's league, but I get caught a lot on the gaping 5-hole mid-slide. So somehow, I have to come up with a way to be quicker and stronger with my shuffles. Should I be able to go across the whole crease on one shuffle? Or is two acceptable? (Not sure how many it actually takes, I'll have to check next time). Do I need to strengthen my legs more, to get that push? Or do I just need to do it over and over and over to get faster? (I think it's probably option 2). Also, how do I get myself to bring my trailing leg in as I'm sliding? I think I leave it out because then I'm covering more space, but in reality, because I'm not flexible enough to do a split, there's a big hole right there in the middle. And the guys I play with definitely have the aim to put it right through there. (Yeah yeah, again, dirty sounding. It's hockey. Deal.)
I think I need to noodle this around in my brain a bit more until I figure it out. I'm sure repetition to increase muscle memory would be the answer but I don't have that kind of access to ice time (nor do I have the discipline to kick my own ass the way it would have to be kicked to get this done). I think there might be something I can try in the gym, at least for the strength on the push. Bringing the trailing leg over- that's just going to have to be an adjustment that's made on the ice over time I guess. But yay for identifying a problem. That's the first step to fixing it.
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2 comments:
Hmm, if I'm understanding the problem right, what if you concentrated on making sure your stick is over your 5hole? It sounds like, if they're in tight, doing a b-fly slide is a reasonable choice.
I was reading about this "hop-step" thing yesterday. TGG has mentioned it a few times but I had to look up what it is. For me, it's above my skating skill I think (though I haven't really grasped what the actual footwork is), but it appears to be the quickest way to get across the crease on foot.
http://www.thegoalieguild.com/?p=2828
I know you don't get much in the way of practice time, but maybe it's something to play with in warm ups or when things are quiet on your end.
Whoa. I've never seen that before. Definitely have to play around with it. Shouldn't be too hard to incorporate, because I had to do that a lot in roller hockey- can't push to the side on rollerblades. Tnanks for that link! Trick I think is to not let it replace a t-push etc, like the article says. Interesting.
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