The 5 Things About Goalies Every Coach Should Know

Everybody agrees that goalie is the single most important player in any team. Yet goalies are usually only told to "get in the crease" and coaching them consists of different versions of "be better". This makes no sense but is actually not unexpected since most coaches don't have any idea about being a goalie. In floorball this is even more true than in most other sports as it is so much different from any other position in the game. With my background as both a goalie and a coach I hope to be able to help bridge that gap of need and offering.

In this post I list the five things I consider the most important parts of goaltending that can be understood and taught without having personal experience. There are other important aspects but I wanted to keep this short and sweet so five points it is. Please remember that reading this does not a goalie coach make but it's a step in the right direction and will hopefully be helpful for all the goalies out there who are suffering with little to no guidance.

1) Positioning

The basic rule of thumb is that the goalie's body should always be centered between the ball and the center point of the goal line with ankles just about on the crease line. Being to the side of the ball-goal center line or too deep causes the goalie to cover the goal less. It is also not wise to come too much forward as the distance required to move to a sideways pass becomes greater quickly. That said moving closer to the ball when needed is very important and should be encouraged.

To train this there should be a lot of shots from different directions and distances. The goalie should be encouraged to find points of reference to help her figure out the correct position in all situations. While close to the goal posts the goalie should check the actual position of the post with her hand for guidance. To make all this worthwhile the coach should try to pay attention to the position of the goalie and fix it if necessary. Just stop the action, walk over to the goalie and explain what is wrong with the position.

2) Posture

A good basic posture is one that covers the goal mouth well while still being balanced and ready for movement. Keeping weight low and back relatively straight helps in anticipation of movement. 50-50 weight distribution between ankles and knees is a good rule of thumb here. Preloading muscles helps make all movement explosive. Preloading means that the goalie should not sit on her feet and should not rest her hands on her legs or the floor but instead rely on the muscles to keep steady. To make sure the posture actually covers as much as possible she should try to eliminate most gaps between limbs and torso. It should be noted that no part of the body should be squeezed against any other part of the body because it causes muscle preloading in the wrong direction. 

The coach should pay attention to whether or not the posture covers the goal mouth well and whether the start of any movement seems clumsy or not. Teaching this usually requires constant hand holding to fix the posture every time it seems to go wrong. It should be noted, however, that there is no single best posture for every goalie, it is always partially individual.

3) Movement

If a goalie is good at moving around it usually means she is able to stay in the correct position while finding the correct posture quickly and effortlessly. The movement can be propelled using legs only or using hands to help. Hands should be put on the floor only if necessary but not disallowed completely. 

Training movement is probably easiest here as it mostly only requires planning drills that require the goalie to move. Teaching proper techniques should be left to goalie coaches. All kinds of movement should be in the drills: short, long, fast, slow, forward, backward, diagonal and sideways. Usually this means that there must be a pass before the shot in the drill and changing the endpoints of the pass will change the required type of movement. The goalie should be required to move along with the pass even if she knows where it will end up. It should be noted that moving long distances fast is very, very demanding physically. If your goalie says she is tired after only a dozen or even fewer repeats it usually means exactly that. It is also important to make sure the goalie has proper time to reset to the starting position. Otherwise she will just start cheating and the movement training is lost.

4) Balance

Maintaining good balance through a save or movement is very important. If the balance is lost when moving it is impossible to react to a shot quickly and if the balance is lost on the first save reacting to rebounds is impossible. If the goalie falls forward or backward or if it takes abnormally long to react after a save or movement it means she lost her balance. Also if after moving the goalie needs to "climb" back to the normal posture she most likely lost her balance. 

Being able to hold balance requires good core strength and training it is vital. Any off-rink balance training helps a lot too. To practice the actual movement concentration is very important and sometimes it makes sense to let the goalie concentrate on the balance and let the actual blocking of shots slip to secondary preference. The coach can mostly only encourage concentration but must also pay attention to any cases of lost balance and demand trying as hard as they can to keep the balance while remembering to compliment on progress and trying.

5) Reading The Play

The best goalies always seem to be a step ahead of the actual play as if they were able to read the minds of the opponents. This can be achieved by watching the little details in the players' movements and making educated guesses on what they plan. For example the blade position pretty much reveals if the player is going to shoot or pass. Obviously during a game there simply isn't enough time to consciously look at every player's blade, feet, torso, hands and head to make the guess. Instead, the goalie must rely on the unconscious part of the brain but that part also needs to be trained to focus on the right things.

That training can be done in multiple ways and obviously experience in actual gameplay is the best possible training. Any coach can improve their goalies in this aspect by running drills that have a moment of uncertainty near the shot. Give the field players a choice of shooting or passing, perhaps even a choice between multiple different passes, shot or breakaway. Making the player choose and encouraging inventive choices forces the goalie to read the play and anticipate multiple outcomes.  

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My hope is that every coach would have a basic understanding of what the most important aspects of playing in goal are and how to take advantage of that knowledge. The young and inexperienced goalies can gain a lot from a coach who is actually interested and knows at least the basics of the art of goalkeeping. And to be honest, I think that is all it takes to help a goalie to make at least some progress, no matter what level.