Side to Side movement

ok movement on goalie inlines is pretty close to the same movements as you would on the ice. C cuts to propell you forward and backward and correct the angles/postion you are in while standing is important to learn/know. Since there is no pushing side to side as on ice to stay square to the puck, shuffling in small movements is key to moving side to side and staying square to the puck. When you need to move across the crease to the otherside while standing, T-pushes are used just as you would on ice to gain distance across the crease to the puck. While in the butterfly the best thing to learn is the "butterfly shuffle" and this is the same principal as doing it on ice. You will get use to the skates soon just practice alot.

Originally Posted by Bill

ok movement on goalie inlines is pretty close to the same movements as you would on the ice.

It really isn't. While generally you'll find that the better inline goalies are those who grew up playing ice, I think it's more due to athleticism and knowing angles rather than movements. Ice and inline movements are incredibly different.

What you'll want to do is not step at all. Instead, you're going to position your feet so that you are able to roll back into the opposite goal post. So, imagine that there's a guy going behind your net and you're at your blocker side post (for all intents and purposes, I'm assuming this is the right post). You'll leave your stick flat on the surface, near the post, while you position your feet to where you can follow him, visually, as he wraps around your net. By the time he reaches the mid-point behind the net, your left foot will have hit the left post, and you can now easily rotate your body around.

Likewise, if he's coming in on your glove side post (left post), you'll position your stick so that it's at the post and you'll skate backwards, rotating your legs circularly, so that your right skate will hit the right post.

My favorite part about this technique -- and one reason I've found it useful in ice goaltending, as well -- is that it allows you to watch the player as he goes behind your net. You're less apt to get tricked by those quick forwards who stop and come back to the short side post or make a short-side pass to another forward who's trailing him. In addition, should he stop and try that short-side wrap around, your stick's already in great position and your body is still facing that side of the net for a strong push back in that direction.

It's a little complicated to describe; you'll get it much better in video.

At 2:07 in this video you can kind of see me do it, but as I was getting up from a paddle down the angle at which my foot had to move backwards was less pronounced. At 2:24 you can see a better example, although I follow him visually a little further than I generally like. 3:07 is a good example, too. Usually I keep my stick down, though. I likely didn't in these instances because of familiarity with the team and knowing if there was anyone even available for a pass into the short-side slot.


If you need more video, let me know and I'll dig through game video and find more/better examples. I have some pictures that display this perfectly at home. I'll post them up later.

Another video:


And, yeah, sometimes I got lazy and got up on the wrong leg. Whoops.

everyone has their own style my worked well for me and I was passing that on thats all... I noticed Syn your vids are played on sport court which is alot less friction then playing outdoors on a tennis court type surface or ashphalt which is what I played alot of and alot of things I could do on sport court could not be done as well on pavement because of the higher friction hence why I used a different style to adjust to that.

Fair enough. But as far as holding your post goes, it's about the same. It's all about foot positioning. There is more friction on a tennis court style floor, but while playing on that I haven't noticed that big of a difference. My main point is that there great advantages of using more fluid movements as opposed to steps. Generally those goalies who are still stepping to get across the crease don't follow the puck around the back side of the net, which allows them to get beat rather often. It takes much more time to step across the crease, and then you lose visual awareness of the skater and what he's doing, which puts you at even greater of a disadvantage.

For a perfect example of the disadvantage, check this clip out:


The goalie steps, loses visual awareness, and gets dominated. Had he kept visual awareness of the player and been able to face that direction, he would have been fine.

ahh you misunderstood and I did not explain well enough...I was not talking about playing the posts but more of when you play the top of the crease and using small shuffle type steps to adjust to the incoming player as you would make small pushs to the side on ice to adjust to the incoming player in the defensive zone.

Aaah, sure. Small steps for small movements, then; t-pushes for larger movements at the top of the crease. I tend to use my toes/the front wheels as a pivot very often for more fluid top-of-the-crease movements. Can probably see that pretty well in the aforementioned videos.

When I played roller, my movements were made easier by setting up my skates specifically to aid me with friction reduction. I had Bauer skates similar to these:
Nike Bauer Vapor XG Lite Sr. Inline Goalie Skates
What I did was put the hardest wheels I could find in the back 4 positions, and a soft wheel at the toe for pushes. I believe someone else had a similar setup, and discussed it in another roller thread in this section. I found that the harder wheels allowed side to side shuffles a little better on anything except asphalt/blacktop.

Pics as promised..

Wrapping around the glove side...


Right foot ends up right at the post.

Wrapping around the blocker side.


Glove side skate ends up right at post with stick in good position.


Stick ends up in perfect position to break up any pass into the low slot.

Hope those help.