Every year goalies from across North America train with coaches of the Goaltending Consultant Group. The GCG camps give many of these goalies the opportunity to train together and bond as fellow goalies. The GCG Newswire is a way to acknowledge and share the successes of all of the goaltenders who have benefitted from training with CGC Consultants, as well as enable them to keep current and support each other. GCG clients should feel free to contact us with any awards or accomplishments that we may add to the Newswire - your news is our news!
The Eyes Have It : Dr. Adam Naylor
Nov. 23, 2009
Dr. Adam Naylor leads Telos Sport Psychology Coaching (www.telos-spc.com) and is the director of the Boston University Athletic Enhancement Center (www.bu.edu/aec). He serves as a player development resource for Olympic, major and minor league professional, major collegiate conference (Hockey East, ACC, Ivy, etc.), and elite junior athletes and coaches. He currently serves as the sport psychology resource for young professional, major junior, Hockey East, and high school players and teams and recently published Priming Performance (available at http://stores.lulu.com/telosspc) a resource for finding consistent mental toughness. He can be contacted at adam@telos-spc.com.
Dr. Adam Naylor, AASP-CC
A complement that is often given to a good goalie is, “If he sees it, he’ll stop it.” In some regards it might seem like an obvious statement, nonetheless it can be viewed as a guide for all of your practice and play: “see the puck.” Throughout practice you work on the stance, skating, and stick position – do you purposely take time to engage your eyes during the process?
In this day and age there are computer programs and technological gadgets that purport to train “sports vision.” While there are findings to suggest that such protocol may increase eye strength, there is little solid evidence to support improvement of vision and awareness during competition.
The best way to improve on ice vision is to make a point of having heightened attention during games and live shooting drills. In essence, “nothing beats the real thing.” With this being said, there are other practical ways to improve your vision. They just require some effort and thoughtfulness during your practice sessions.
First, if you are in the crease, use your eyes appropriately. Last season, I watched a goalie, alone in the crease, working on his crease coverage without a shooter or puck. He was crisply working his way around the crease back and forth between the pipes. Throughout this entire exercise, his eyes started looking out over the boards and focused intently upon the top of the bleachers each time he got to a post. I found this a bit strange. I can think of few times during a game that a goalie is in the midst of a flurry of movement while staring at the seats, let alone at section J row 54.
In the crease eyes and body work together, training one without the other fails to display quality practice behaviors. Always strive to train eyes and body in unison. This might take a bit of imagination, but with a slight bit of effort is easily done.
When you are in the crease commit to seeing a puck. If it is during a shooting drill this means trying to see the subtle nicks and marks on the puck every time it leaves a shooters stick. If you are simply working on your skating technique and crease coverage without shooters, imagine the puck being played in front of you. As your body works around the crease, allow your eyes to work around the ice simultaneously. Imagine a 2 on 1 developing in front of you. See chaos in tight and a puck bouncing about. Visualize the sniper taking a shot from the point. Doing these things while working on your movements and technique will make the practice that much more beneficial. It takes some time and effort to create a most vivid imagination during practice. It is worth it however, allowing the body and reactions to be most ready when the puck is dropped.
Later on the afternoon of witnessing the goalie with “wandering eyes,” I took a moment to watch another goaltender on this Canadian Hockey League team. This netminder already had a few National Hockey League starts under his belt and a win or two at hockey’s highest level. While this player always had great eyes in the crease, at this time what was most interesting to me was when he was awaiting his turn in the crease. He would usually be seen down on one knee besides a coach or fellow teammate. Perhaps talking a bit, but always facing and focused on the ice in front of him. As I looked closely through his cage and at his face it was easy to see his eyes darting back and forth always following the puck that was in play. The only time his eyes rested where when the action stopped or practice was over. He made it clear that a goalie’s eyes are his most important resource and taking advantage of every opportunity to train them to read the play and follow the puck is often what separates a good from a great goalie. Practice smart and practice hard… throughout it all engage your eyes.
