Crease Lightning Performance

Your struggles develop your strengths 💯

To be an elite goalie, you need elite skating.

Developing elite skating comes from repetitions and precision.

Sometimes, the same old crease skating patterns get boring (Even though crease skating is EXTREMELY important, and still needs to be done, OFTEN‼️).

Sometimes, you have too many goalies for crease skating! There are always ways to incorporate goalie ‘power’ skating into each practice.

We always start each session with at least 10 minutes of skating, and then incorporate those same skating patterns into the sessions drills⛸️

Above are a few of the skating drills I did with my goalies throughout the summer…

Here is a breakdown of the clips:
⚡️The first drill has the goalies spread out around the zone with coaches/shooters in the four corners passing the puck around. Give the goalies a different mode of movement to get from point A to point B (T-push, lateral release, long shuffle, butterfly slide, etc)
⚡️The second skating drill has goalies developing their edges with different line skating patterns. (Wide cuts, single leg, c-cut/glide/t-push)
⚡️The third is a a fun one that really builds athleticism, with goalies one foot hopping over lines and then going straight into a butterfly slide (credit: Robert Halyama “Coach Robbie”)
⚡️The fourth uses the centre circle and tendies can shuffle, t-push, slide, etc) around the circle (also great for bigger groups!)

🤯Here is a fun fact: you can use the ENTIRE ice for goalie skating - the lines, the circles, the hash marks.

Sometimes I’ll start at the centre circle on the red line, and do different skating drills while progressing down the ice to the crease (not all examples in this particular video), but it would look like this:
1️⃣Circle skating
2️⃣Line skating
3️⃣Hashmark skating inside the zones circles
4️⃣Crease skating drill with a warm up shot

Understanding how your body moves and building athleticsm doesn’t *always* have to happen in the crease.

Aaannnd thats a wrap!🥅

Could not have asked for a better summer working with more motivated and hard-working goalies!

Thanks to both the Tendies and their parents for putting their trust in me to develop their skills through useful, clear and constructive feedback.

Here are just a few of the highlights from some of the goalies I had the privilege of working with this summer ☀️

STAY TUNED! Information regarding fall clinics and private sessions coming your way soon ;)

Boots are on FIRE🔥⚡️

K**b of stick coming in clutch 🙌

(Ok, maybe my shot was a liiittttle early)

Lead with your eyes👀

Why?

Because where your eyes go, your shoulders and hands go, and where your shoulders and hands go, is where the rest of your body goes.

If you’re not looking to where you want to go - you’re not going to get there efficiently. 👊

Fight to see the puck 🤺

Drill simulates a rush into the zone ➡️ puck carrier goes to the corner➡️ pass to high slot ➡️ find the puck behind a screen (most likely your own defence) and read the walk

COMPETE FOR THE PUCK ⚡️

Staying over the puck 😎

No wasted movement ❌🤯⚡️

Blink and you’ll miss it🏎️

Let’s talk about what I’ve come to refer to as your “trigger”, the quick rotation into a fast, strong push, as shown above ☝️

Your trigger is the first half a second before a backside edge, tpush, butterfly slide, etc. it’s the transition time and speed at which you go from one movement into another… like pulling a trigger.

What happens you you pull a trigger? Things happen FAST. 🚄🥅

Bailey Nash giving off Aerin Frankel vibes and I am SO here for it.