Hockey Goalie Drills for Beginners

Players new to goaltending are wise to focus on the fundamentals. According to Hockey Canada, beginners should spend 75 percent of their training time working on general movement and positioning, 20 percent of their time on save movements and 5 percent of their time on tactics. Developing skating proficiency is most important for new goaltenders. As Hockey Canada suggests, a goaltender “does not necessarily have to be the fastest skater on the team, but the best in terms of control and mobility."

  1. Scull Warm-ups

    • Start your goalie at the center of the goal-line in the ready position. On the whistle have them scull forward (propelling themselves by carving out half circles with their skates, with their feet remaining on the ice at all times) straight out to just beyond the top of the crease. Stop them with another whistle blow and have them scull backwards to the starting position. Do this drill ten times, then switch angles, having your goalie scull out of the crease at 45 to 60 degree angles from the center of the goal-line.

    Letter Movement Drills

    • Letter drills are movement plans that direct goalies through a series of lateral, forward and backward movements; the patterns of the movements resemble letters. For example, to complete the ‘T’ drill, goalies start on the center of the goal line and t-push (driving foot perpendicular to the leading foot) out to the top of the crease where they come to a complete stop. They then drive hard off their right foot and shift to the left, stopping with a hard push off their left foot. Next they drive and stop, and drive and stop, moving twice to their right by pushing hard off their left foot. After these movements they drive back to the center of the top of the crease where they stop, then t-push backwards to the starting position. Similar drills move the goalie in ‘U,’ ‘V’ and ‘W,’ patterns.

    T-Push Butterfly Slide Drill

    • Start your goalie at the left hand goal post and instruct him to t-push off the left foot out to the right hand side of the top of the crease. There he must come to a hard stop on the right foot, and then slide to the left in a butterfly position (pads down on the ice, stick covering five-hole, glove and blocker up). Before the momentum of the slide stops, the goalie must get back up and t-push off the left foot backward to the right hand post.

    Angle Introduction

    • Arrange five pylons just inside the blue line in front of a net with a goalie. Group a few shooters in a loose formation behind the pylons and instruct them to approach the goalie from different angles one at a time, and shoot on net – angles are created by approaching the goalie through one of the six lanes created by the pylons. Goalies should react to the shooter’s choice of lane and push out to the top of their crease on the appropriate line; the shooter should not be able to see any of the net's mesh.