Old Dogs Session # 1 Recap
For those that may be interested, here is the first recap of the "Old Dogs" clinic that I run out of Shearwater. It has been a very interesting experience for me. I have found a group of goalies that are as eager as any Atom goalie that is in love with the position. I look forward every week to being out and working with them.
After Session #1, February 25th
Dear goalies,
Thank you heaps for coming out to the inaugural session of "Old Dogs". I was thoroughly impressed with your dedication in the drills and your enthusiasm to learn and work the techniques was highly infectious.
Anyways, I have decided to do three more clinics out of Shearwater before moving to another facility for April. The upcoming dates with their related/planned themes are as follows...
March 3rd...Shuffles & Riding the Arc: Learning about ASD (angle, squareness and depth)
March 10th...The Down Game Part I: Introduction to the Butterfly and Butterfly Recovery
March 24th...The Down Game Part II: Turning your lateral movement into the butterfly slide
Please confirm dates that you would like to attend so I don't overbook shooters. I can also offer paypal invoicing for those that want to prepay for a session.
I will announce other dates and their related themes shortly. I want to give everyone an idea about what is coming up so they can attend the sessions that matter most to them. I understand the sessions are not cheap, so I'd like the members to be able to choose a la carte the most important things they want to work on. The overall plan is to have 12 sessions and themes and once they cycle is finished to start over from the top.
Also, since we will typically run these sessions in the evening, my main goal is to have an hour and half ice session (at the same cost). I will be able to do this with 12 attendees. I think the hour and half ice time give the goalies the best bang for their buck and it lets me explain the drills in detail rather than rushing through things. In addition, the hour and half will ensure that we will have a middle skating station where you can work on your movements skills with lots of repetition. I want to keep the max number of goalies per net to two so everyone gets lots of work with a reasonable work/rest ratio.
Last little tidbit, which I thought was relevant to you all is a story that was well known in the goalie coaching community. During the lockout in 2004-05, many goalies went away to play to stay sharp for the new season, but Chris Osgood spent some time looking in the mirror at himself and decided that he had to change his game to survive. The best part of the first article talks about Osgood's first interaction with Bandits Head Instructor (Matwijiw), and then his first time on the ice...
“I asked what he has was looking for out of this, and his exact words were ‘I want you to tear my game apart and rebuild it,’ so that’s what we tried to do,” Matwijiw says, admitting he didn’t really know what that would entail until that eye-opening first session on the ice. “Boy, he had a long road ahead of him, let’s put it that way. Everything from not stopping with the correct leg, to not looking where he was going, his angles were poor, he couldn’t get off his line, I mean everything was wrong. Everything. To the point that 45 minutes in, picture him gas tired and all we’re doing is movement, and he has his elbows on his knees and he’s looking down at the ice and he shakes his head and he just picks his head up and says to me, ‘I feel like a Mite goalie out here, this is embarrassing.’ And after an hour and 20 minutes of straight movement I called it a day because he was so frustrated and … almost ashamed of himself.”
But the results were in the pudding. Ozzie went on to win two more Stanley Cups and, in my opinion, the Stanley Cup run that he ultimately lost to Penguins near the end of his career was probably one of the best playoff goaltending displays I ever saw. Had Detroit won that finals it would have been Ozzie's Conn Smythe.
Anyways, I hope the article and interview are inspirational in showing that it is never too late to "learn new tricks".