The Four P's of Practice: Daily Practice Goals

[harri1]

Again, MTN believes this kind of approach to practice is integral to goaltender development.

The Four 'P's of Practice: Daily Practice Goals

Over the last few years MTN has worked with a number of very hardworking goaltenders from all levels. Of course, a strong work ethic is always valuable in life and goaltending, but is hard work the only thing a goalie needs to get better? In an earlier essay MTN expressed the idea that "perfect practice makes perfect." Many goaltenders will then ask; how can I practice perfectly?

Often the phrase "work smarter, not harder" can be heard and this attitude can help fast track a goaltender's development from one perfect practice to another. In response to the idea of working hard and working smart MTN has come up with:

The Four P's of Practice

Purpose: Before the start of each practice and each drill the goaltender must ask themselves a number of questions. What is the purpose of practice? How can I get the most out of every drill (even the drills that work on defensive coverage or regroup/breakout drills)? How can each drill make me better than I was before? How can I get better everyday? **The purpose of each practice and drill is to make you better as a goaltender mentally and physically.**

Precision : Since perfect practice makes perfect, it makes sense that a goaltender should work to be as precise as possible with skating, positioning, save selection/body control, reading the situation and reading the puck's release. Practice is the time to think about what you want to play like on a game. **The best goaltenders in the world are very well known for precision on a daily basis. i.e. J.S. Giguere**

Power : In the card game that is goaltending power trumps foot speed. Power is the tool that will help a goaltender become precise and patient. Goaltenders need quick feet for save selection and recoveries but should strive to get into position before the puck has arrived. The only way to get into strong position is to ensure that all movements can be made with POWER and PRECISION. **Goaltenders must ensure they are equally powerful with both sides of the body.**

Patience: Since game habits are perfected in daily practices practice is the perfect time to work on strong patience. Even a strong butterfly goaltender must develop the skills to read the release of the shot. Patience is beneficial not only for save selection but also for playing situations strongly. If you have confidence in your precision and power then you must develop patience to make your arsenal strong. Even in today's game there are still times where a good standup save is required. **To work on reading a shot release try this: On any shots from the top of the circles and further out wait try to stand up on shots belly button height, in ready stance, or higher and go down on shots that are below the waist. Very challenging but very beneficial**

The Four P's are a tool that can be used on a daily basis to ensure the fundamentals and advancing of skills takes place. At the very least, goaltenders should set the goal to get better on a daily basis thus utilizing Purpose, Precision, Power and Patience. In order to gain the most from the Four 'P's goaltenders need the most important 'P'... PASSION!!

[harri1]

Here is another article that is at the foundation of MTN instruction both on and off the ice. Hopefully this all makes sense.

Perfect Practice Makes Perfect

One of the greatest myths in goaltending is that practice makes perfect. This is a myth because a goaltender may practice something improperly and become really good at doing something really poorly. It sounds harsh but…only perfect practice makes perfect. Realistically, no person will ever be able to practice perfectly (if someone has, we’re not worthy!). Despite the fact perfection is hardly ever achieved this does not mean that goaltenders should just try to stop everything no matter how it is done. Goaltenders need to realize that there is always a smart way to work hard. There are always fundamentals that need constant improvement. Goaltending involves knowledge and practice of little details; focusing on doing little things properly is the way to practice perfect.

In order to practice perfect the goaltender needs to realize that there are some fundamentals that constantly need work/improvement. The biggest fundamental to work on is proper shot preparation. If the goaltender cannot get into the Fundamental Save Position (FSP) efficiently, powerfully and in control then the game is going to be very hard to play. Shot preparation involves goaltender specific skating (while in the basic stance), understanding of depth, precise angles, and being set for the shot no matter what the situation. Save selection and reading the shot is another fundamental that must always be improved. Practice is a good time to work on being patient as well.

Aside from the fundamentals of the body the goaltender needs to work on the fundamentals of the mind and vision. Goaltenders need to try to make practices as game like as possible. In order to make practice as game like as possible it is very important to remember that there is only one puck in a game on which you place all of your attention. Goalies need to ensure that they play one puck at a time. Do all of the proper shot preparation that you would in a game on as many pucks as possible. **Even in a rapid fire drill it is important to play each puck entirely.**

Playing the puck entirely means that you concentrate on skating efficiently, finding the proper depth and position, maintaining visual contact through the save movement, and reacting to the result of your save selection. Visual contact needs to be focused on one puck at a time. Keeping visual contact involves watching the puck as it moves from player to player, from the stick to the body, from the body to the rebound destination. **Keeping an eye on the puck means that your eyes and head turn with the puck. Do not stare straight ahead when a puck is coming your way. Even if you get scored on you should know exactly how it went in.** There are times where you will let in goals because you have focused on finishing one puck at a time. Do not be discouraged; you are only trying to make the drill more game like.

Aside from the increased focus and concentration that you will gain from maintaining visual contact with the puck in play, you will gain “puck sense” as well. “Puck sense” dictates that you will develop a sense of what the puck will do when it hits different parts of your body/equipment through strong visual and kinetic connections. By improving your “puck sense” you will be able to react better to the saves you make through traffic. If you do not see the puck hit you, there will be an automatic recognition of where the puck has most likely gone and you can react accordingly. Although “puck sense” comes in handy during high traffic plays it can only be developed by strong visual contact/tracking of each situation faced in practice.

Many goalies playing high level hockey try to stop everything regardless of how out of position they are at the end of the drill. By the end of these drills the ‘tender is exhausted and frustrated. Goaltenders need to understand they should focus on the puck in front of them, you know, be in the moment. Aside from the proper physical practice habits MTN has developed some ways to improve mental toughness and concentration in practice.

The first thing to do is to work on keeping calm after disappointment. Goalies can get really mad in practice if they let in too many goals or let in a softy. Most goalies, find getting mad only makes their practice worse and less fun. To combat this frustration a goalie can decide to NOT show any negative emotions after making a bad play. Even if teammates taunt you about a soft goal you need to make a point to treat each goal against the same way that you want to respond in a game, only at an accelerated rate. Being able to make calmness a routine, on a daily basis, will really help when it comes to game time.

Really focusing on playing angles properly, every practice, also has a positive effect on concentration. When you concentrate on making every little angle adjustment in practice your in-game angles are easier. The key to this is to be aware of all the little adjustments players make to get you off angle. If the forward winds up but is still moving down the wing you should work to stay on the angle. This concentration on angles give practices a daily purpose. Staying on angle as much as humanly possible also teaches patience.
Concentration on trying to arrive at a passing destination before or on time helps with focus. This also forces the goaltender to notice which hand the pass receiver is and make the proper positional adjustments. Patience, again, is improved. This should be done, especially, if the pass is made above the hash marks. Any passes made lower than the hash marks should use an instinctive, blocking, sliding stop.

Goalies can work on concentration and focus by trying to read the release of the shots before making a move. If the puck was shot between the high slot and the blueline it helps to read the release of the shot by standing up on shots above the belly button and going down on shots lower than the belly button. This is hard to do at first but there are still times where a standup save is an asset.

Make rebound control on all shots between the high slot and blueline a priority. If you can control shots from further out you will be better at controlling shots from closer in. If the rebound goes into the air or in the corner try to be on your feet before the puck lands or hits the side boards.

The last thing a goalie can do to improve concentration is to move the eyes and head to follow every shot. Even in the semi-circle rapid fire drills the goalie should watch every puck that hits them, even the ones around the feet. Do not just stare ahead and wave arms. Monkeys can wave their arms as well.

Basically, if you focus on a few concepts, every practice, the mental concentration and preparedness required to play better will be improved. In reality, it is not practice making perfect. PERFECT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT!

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle

References

Haley, J. (2006). The right way to practice. E-mail newsletter retrieved May 2006 from The Goalie's Mind - Just Push Play. The missing ingredient of your goaltending game. Mental Training.

Clarke, I. (1998). Practice habits build great goaltenders. From The Crease. GDI Publishing: PA. (Vol. 4, Mod. 6).

[harri1]

Recently my partner with MTN had posted in the "AAA goalie coach - what should be parents expectations?" thread. In prkinggoalie's post he gave a perfect example of adding purpose to practice and to a drill that many goaltenders would just stand around and watch. The post goes as follows

Posted by prkinggoalie - The Midget AAA team that we are affiliated with, we act more as consultants than as coaches.

When we attend practices we get very little on ice time with the goalies(relating to goalie only drills).

However I feel that attending these sessions are very useful. We have a very good relationship with the head coach and this ensures that the goalies can perform within the team's systems.

During one practice the team was doing a regrouping drill, after the regroup they would attack with passes from the neutral zone entering the offensive zone. If the first pass was to far a head of the intended target the goalie would wait until the players got possession of the puck and then face a shot. We asked the goalie if this was the way he would play that situation in a game, just wait for the offensive team to get possession. He said probably not, that he would have tried to get to the loose puck and clear the puck out of the zone. We told him then to practice like he played. The coach reiterated to him that leaving the puck for them was not helping the team out any. For if the goalie could get to the puck and play it out, that would teach the team to bear down and make better passes, which in the long run would benefit the team.

We believe that goalies must be self motivated in order to improve. Watching their habits in practice, (ie: using their spare time wisely, warming up properly, etc.) gives us feedback to talk about after the practice.

Goaltenders, even if your team is doing something like working on neutral zone transition and you are not getting shots you need to make sure you turn that drill into something that will benefit you. Get used to tracking the puck and getting into initial depth as the puck crosses the red line, not the blueline which adds too much complication to save preparation. Move with the puck as it moves around high in your zone. Basically, be ready to cover up for a bad break in order to make a difference and it starts by taking everything possible out of each and every practice and each and every drill, no matter what the drill is working on.

Always ask yourself, how can I give purpose to this drill? If you do you will find improvements in all areas of your game.

[harri1]

I need to do some writing to get my brain going so I can finish a new article or two tonight.

In our thread "The Four P's of Practice" we have gone onto a deeper discussion about purpose in practice, now it is time to integrate further discussion about precision.

How does one work on precision on a daily basis?

There are several ways to work on precision on a daily basis both when working by yourself or during a full team practice.

Precision by Yourself:

Usually when working by oneself a goaltender is working on net orientation and goaltender specific movement. Even when working on things by oneself there are a number of ways to ensure precision is a focus:

1. Make sure all movements adhere to the guidelines set forth in "The Basics of Goaltender Specific".

2. ALWAYS work on your visual lead. Often when a basic goaltender movement messes up or angle is off a strong visual lead and attachment has not occurred. It is amazing how the lower body will move naturally if the eyes and then the rest of the upper body move first.

3. Remember to make precise, powerful starts and stops. Get used to moving out to different depths and make precise stops to ensure that you become comfortable with playing at different depths. Basically you should be able to play comfortably 1' inside the crease, at the top of the crease and 1' outside the crease, as a general guideline. Powerful stops are just as important as a powerful stop as it quiets the feet prior to having to make the save. Your feet should be as quiet as possible when getting ready to face a shot.

4. Once each stop, in movement, is made precisely always make sure that you are square to the puck and that the puck intersects through the middle of your body to the middle of the goalline. ALWAYS make sure you are set on angle as though each target is a shot in itself. Again, if you move around aimlessly, for the sake of moving, without a proper focus on precision your angles will be off in a game. **Remember, practice is when you can think your way through a particular skill so it is instinctual in a game.** If you do not take the time to set, on angle, with each target then your in-game angles will be off and less precise.

5. Make sure that you can do all movements equally well in all directions.

Precision in Team Practices

Precision in team practices is where you should see the benefits of the workouts done by yourself. Again, here are some things to look for when facing teammates in practice. Remember, it all starts with vision.

Always stay on angle with the puck, while staying on your feet, right up to the actual release of the shot!

This sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, this is harder than it sounds because there are nuances to this idea that many young or beginning goaltenders do not know yet, such as:

1. If a player moves down the wing and is taking outside shots, from the top of the circles, we often see a player wind up and take a slapshot. Often goaltenders will set their feet when the player winds up, which is a problem because the puck is still moving and the player is still skating into the puck. By the time the puck is actually shot it has moved 6"-12". If you find yourself getting beat in practice on this kind of shot or as a player cuts into the middle you may need to focus on continuing to move with the puck until the shot is released. Jussi Jokinen of the Dallas Stars uses this knowledge to his advantage in shootouts as much as possible. This can be surprisingly hard to pick up on at first.

2. Try to stay on angle when a player moves from the forehand to the backhand if it is done to try and gain a reach advantage, which it usually is. If a player is stickhandling in front of their body you should not try to stay on angle with each tiny little puckhandling move as you will not be ready to be on angle at the point of release. Once the player pulls the stick to the side for the shot then you make sure that you move to the new position on angle with the puck. A good example of this is the old Mark Messier shoot off the wrong foot on the wrong wing. That shot worked because a goalie did not adjust to the stick moving into the shooting position and the goaltender would then be centered to the shooter, which is a huge problem.

3. Be aware of the toe drag release or the push release. All good shooters are able to shoot while in full stride and rarely will they shoot the puck from a direct shooting position. High level shooters will always pull the puck into their body or extend the puck out about 4-8" depending on the reach of the shooter. This quick little adjustment by the shooter is designated to take you off angle. Make sure you are aware of it at all times and work to make that last split-second adjustment, on your feet to remain, on angle with the puck. Your adjustment, mathematically/geometrically, is only a fraction of the movement of the adjustment the shooter; be sure not to over adjust.

4. Make sure ALL rebounds on shots from the top of the circles or higher are controlled properly. When you control ALL rebounds from the high slot you will eventually gain strong rebound fundamentals on the shots in closer. Try to use body activation on as many shots as possible as this ensures that you are more likely control the rebound at the body, which is the number one rebound control priority in a game.

5. Make sure you are on angle with the PUCK only on a breakaway/shootout. It is amazing how negatively breakaway or inverted-Y practice without a player can effect how we play breakaways in a game. When you watch an NHL shootout, from the perspective behind the net, see how many times the pros even set up on straight on breakaways with the player because they have always done net orientation up the middle directly between the hashmarks. If a player is coming straight down the pipe…their stick and point of release are outside the pipe. If a goalie is stretching to make a save attempt on a shot attempt on a breakaway and still miss the puck, again, they are not entirely on angle. Don't get me wrong the breakaway practice by yourself is still needed just remember that in a game rarely do we see breakaways where we have the exact set up of what we do on our own.

5. Make sure all puckhandling/transition is done to the specifications of your defensemen and team systems. Lazy sets, passes and communication in practice sets a bad precedence in games.

I know there is more but I will end it here. **REMEMBER: If you focus on being on angle with every single puck in practice as a conscious thought you are bringing purpose and precision to your game leading to instinctual precision in a game.**

[Goalieman33]

totally great. defently going to use most of this stuff..