All About Goalies!
Bill Pilat, Roanoke

OK, so your humble correspondent is not the sharpest tool in the shed. I have enjoyed doing podcasts and articles with Coach Bill Pilat back in 2009 and 2012. I loved those sessions and I guess you did too, based on the reaction to the 2V1 Behind to 4V3 article from the last podcast. Anyway, so I had the Premier Goalie Camp guy since…well forever… on the air and never really talked or focused on goalies. So now we changed all that. We spent an hour on the podcast talking about coaching goalies and philosophies and I learned a ton. And thus this article.

Maybe you have an awesome goalie coach, who played goalie and really knows how to communicate and teach goalies. Or… Maybe like me you are not sure how to coach goalies so you just do not do it as much as you should.

The dialog with coach was fascinating and a lot more philosophical in nature than I expected. Although there are a handful of cool drills in this article I found his philosophies the most interesting. If you are an inexperienced coach you will learn a lot, if you are experienced coach, perhaps you might think some of this is basic, but I can tell you after 35 years of coaching this article really made me think. In no particular order here is what I learned from Coach Pilat.

Having a goalie coach is an awesome advantage so I guess that comes first. Next I was a little surprised at his next comment. “We spend a lot of time talking to our goalies about what they think that they themselves need to work on.” Now there is a thought eh? The point being your goalie knows if he needs work off hip, or high bouncers, or ‘low-to-low”… so ask and then spend time on that specific area.

Goalie Warm Up

In this area coach might be still considered a little old school, but I have sent all my goalies to his camps and I have seen the dramatic results. Coach places an extremely high emphasis on the accuracy of the person or player warming up the goalie. If your shooting is not what it once was as a player, then delegate this with the following guidelines. Speed and accuracy are two different areas, and in this case a coach re-living his past cranking the ball to the parking lot, well, it is not the best choice. And coach suggests the best player to warm up a goalie may not be you starters, if there is a more accurate shooter somewhere on the roster.

Basic Warm Up

Arc Position Shots – the detail here might surprise you… [private]and Coach Pilat recommends in these phases of the warm ups, we communicate with the goalie as to where the shot will be located on each shot, thus the extremely high emphasis on accuracy.

1. 10-15 yards outside the crease
2. Stick Side High 5-10 Shots
3. Stick Side Low 5-10 Shots
4. Stick Side Hip 5-10 Shots
5. Non Stick High 5-10 Shots
6. Non Stick Low 5-10 Shots
7. Non Stick Hip 5-10 Shots
8. “5 Hole” 5-10 Shots
9. Stick Side Bounce Basic 5-10 Shots
10. Non Stick Side Bounce Basic 5-10 Shots

Let me stop here for a moment, Coach Pilat is a strong subscriber to the “Step” approach, with the goalie stepping first with the foot closest to the shooter or shot side. The method to his process is beginning with all steps with one foot (Stick Side as an example) then a series of shots with the opposite foot, usually a weaker foot or step in many cases. Coach did address a philosophy that would change the process to switching on these sequences from right foot (Stick Side) to left foot (Non Stick Side w righty goalies) but prefers to stay with one foot with the sequence and then the other foot,

Now it got a little interesting as the Warm Up progresses.

Warm Up Continued

11. Just Bounce Shots
12. Worm Burner Low to Low Shots
13. Different Angle and Stick/Hands Position Shots
a. Pure Overhand
b. ¾ Shoulder Shots
c. Low Stick Position
14. Then just a full array of different High Shots
15. Now a period of stepping back a bit and shooting anywhere without communication shots

Shooting off of a drive from X & One on Ones

I was a little surprised that this was important (Driving from X to goalies) but not necessarily a huge priority for Coach Pilat. However having goalies react and practice one on ones with the goalie was a major priority with distinct rules. Coach suggested a ‘football pass’ type analogy. Three things can happen if the goalie stays home in the cage on a one on one to the cage… first, the ball goes in, second, we make the save, or third the ball misses the cage, and in the words of Coach Pilat, two out of the three are good!

This was interesting to me, as I see more and more goalies being coached to come out of the cage in a one on one scenario. But it is hard to argue with the Pilat track record.

Coach breaks this down into two segments — if the shooter sees you…then stay home in the cage. If the shooter does not see you, then it may be appropriate to come out and check the shooter. However, like you we are seeing more and more penalties called on goalies at the youth and HS levels for ‘avoidable’ checks, and losing the goalie to a Man Down at a key time in the game might be worth the possible goal from my perspective.

I have laughed with coaches in the past identifying two types of goalies, “Baiters” and “Guessers.” I am pretty sure I first heard it in a podcast with Bill Tierney. In the case of a one on one in close, coach suggests staying tight to the pipe and perhaps “Baiting” and then expecting the shot to the far side of the net.

Coach also suggested that into practice another great practice technique is a goalie who may not be in the current team drill, or before or after practice working on their one on one technique in slightly more advanced sequence. Again this could be with tennis balls to start, but the shots are in close so progressing to real balls will work after a while as well. This is all about in tight shots and stick fakes and coach suggests it is an element most goalies do not practice enough. Although if you decide to add this to your practice plans please be patient and encourage your goalie to be patient the first few days. With serious reps.

Stick fakes- Fake high shoot low, fake low shoot high
Head fakes- combined w stick fakes

This is pretty interesting too. After a while coach suggests that really good goalies will although the primary focus is on the shooters stick and release point, also be able to read the shooter’s hands. I loved this! If the shooter rolls his hand, in all likelihood a fake, if his hands remain in position, a shot.

Outlet Passes

This is another area where I was kind of surprised with the response of Coach Pilat. If you know Roanoke, you know to say they are a transition; ‘move the ball and shooting’ team might be an understatement. Thus their mantra “CHAOS” (Constant-Harassment-And-Opportunities to –Score) describing their style of play.

But there was a huge exception here. Coach Pilat strongly encourages his goalies to take the full four seconds, or clearly three seconds before their outlet passes. They try and count it out in practice and release on the third second. This was interesting to me with them being such a huge fast transition team that they are significantly more patient with the outlet. The first look is to the side where the shot initiated to pass to a defender who broke out while the shooter was still stepping forward. We had a good dialog on this subject, and coach (26 yrs Head Coach experience) suggested that a fast immediate outlet does not usually result in as much transition as we might think. I can see this point being true especially with the increase in the size of the box.

Coaching Goalies

Coach is big proponent of coaching goalies with tennis balls, especially early in the season, in fact he sees a bucket of tennis balls as a ‘must have’ for coaching goalies. This is his primary tool in dealing with rebound issues as well. And I can attest this does help develop better ‘catching hands’ for goalies and very quickly demonstrates any potential issues with the pocket of the goalie’s stick

Stepping – As we mentioned, coach remains a huge proponent of stepping with the foot closest to the shot, necessitating pretty good feet on his goalies, thus they also have their goalies skipping rope to help with quicker feet.

Practice Tip One: Coach even recommends placing a stick down just outside the goalie’s feet, and in his warm ups occasionally have him step over the stick on each shot. Interesting eh?

Practice Tip Two – While warming up the goalie with tennis balls, have him step a little forward, and have the coach positioned behind him, actually between the goalie and the cage. As the shot is released gently (key word gently) push him forward into the ball. OK I have to admit I tried this one, it was awkward at first, but seemed to help the step in a big way.

Day of the Game

In this case at Roanoke they warm up goalies in reverse order, in other words the ‘starter’ is warmed up last, with the repetitions above. The other goalies are at the end line w balls in their sticks, to keep the process moving, remember to pick your most accurate shooter, and announce the locations of the shots through most of the first series of reps.

Game Day

Whether it is a ‘stat’ person, an injured player, the goalie coach, track the location of where the goals were shot from, as well as where they went in on the cage.

The Preview sample for all Free Members, is coach Pilate describing the warm up. The Full podcast is loaded with ideas for the Premium Members. To listen to coach describe just the warm ups, click here, then click Free Preview.

For additional ideas, some slightly different we have an awesome Guest Article from Coach B in Michigan, you review that one here… just click here

To listen to Coach Pilat describe warming up goalies click here and then click the ‘Preview’ for all of our Free Members…

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Love to get your comments below, mike@laxcoachmike.com [/private]

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