Read Conner's last post "Ron Veit Goaltinding Week 3" if you missed it!

Its been almost 7 months since I started playing hockey now and 4 weeks since I've actually begun to learn how to play the game. Overwhelmingly I can say that I couldn't be happier about my decisions; both to try out hockey at the age of 25 and to play in net despite dozens of warnings about the impossibility of the position given my age. The learning curve has been incredible and every week I'm excited about a new element of my game that I've picked up - the idea of honing my "overdrive" is so awesome considering that less than half a year ago I was trying to learn my "not falling down". To be entirely honest, I still haven't quite perfected the latter skill - the guys at Ron Veit Goaltending put me through a few new movement drills that sent me over my edges and sprawling across the ice a few times.

Crease Movement


This week focused on crease movement, likely the area where I need the most work, so I was excited about the results but not looking forward to the drills. I learned very quickly that the things that the guys on TV do are not only much more difficult than they make them look, but some of the things are just impossible and I refuse to believe that any human could ever make his body move that way. Worse than that, once the movements within the crease were broken down to precise pushes and shuffles for me, even some of the standing adjustments started to feel inhuman. This week started with my confidence level at a reasonable level, tore me down to the point that I questioned my ability to move at all, and finished much higher than I began. I left with a solid understanding of the ways to move around the crease and how to make those movements as efficient as possible.

For those of you who read last week's post, you'll have an idea of just how difficult I found the butterfly slide to be when we had to travel a distance and back. This week had me still lagging behind the class, but able to complete the drill and seeing significant progress from the week prior. Conversely, I felt like I could get by with my T-Push. It's just not a difficult movement, is it? Shove off of one skate, pushing perpendicularly on the other one, then cut sharply to stop. I quickly learned that I had developed some very sloppy habits while teaching myself and those became glaringly obvious when put through the drills. I stumbled my way through a couple of times before a coach shared a few tips with me, the most helpful of them being:

  1. Look at where you're going before you push, it will help you to turn your shoulders and therefore your hips.
  2. Stay low with your weight over the balls of your feet through the whole push. It will help you to maintain balance while travelling, stop more quickly, and you'll be prepared to react to a shot when you arrive.


Finally able to move through my crease with confidence, the other drills became immediately easier to do. The featured drill this week was called the Kirprusoff. If focused on one of the most frustrating situations for goaltenders: the puck is in a low scoring position with a forward at the opposite post with only one defender between them. The goalie must play the shot while respecting the possibility of a pass across the crease. The drill taught us to keep our post pad tight, sealing against the short-side shot while cheating away with the opposite leg. The tendency is to cheat away from the post, leaving an opportunity for the shooter to squeak a goal in. After this drill, I now feel much more confident that I can defend against the short shot and move quickly to defend the pass if necessary.

Next week I'll be writing from the Apex Outdoor Classic which is a tournament held in Apex Resort, just outside of Penticton. I'll be playing for two teams, so I'll have plenty of opportunities to try out all of the things that I've learned during my time at the Viet goaltending school.

Conner



HC guest blogger Conner Galway is one of the social media and web content
developers at Screen World Media in Vancouver BC. Follow him on Twitter here.