A Little Hockey Interlude

Today is my first day not on the ice in about 10 weeks.  There are no more junior games, spring hockey is winding down, and even the Stanley Cup playoff games don't start until tomorrow night.  I don't know what to do to keep myself busy while I wait for a couple of coaching meetings in the meantime.  So I delved into my "to write about" folder, and I found a link through my Youtube channel with a great video of a young goalie that I have been working with since his first year atom, Ryan "Huggy Bear" Hebert.

Ryan has been a stalwart net-defender for the Dartmouth Whalers organization and played Pee Wee AAA last year.  He is making the big jump from Pee Wee to Bantam with his eyes on playing Major Bantam this season.  Best of luck to Ryan with his endeavours!

Anways, enough with the long-winded intros.  There is a couple of great save sequence in this video where Ryan uses his battle skill to make a goal line stand and in the other, he flashes the leather on what should have been a sure goal.  The second sequence shows the shot getting deflected on its way to the net and right onto the stick of the Bedford player driving the net.  The Blues player has nothing but mesh in front of his eyes, but Ryan not only gets a cobra-like trapper sweep through the target area, he gets an outstanding backside skate edge push to give him those precious extra inches to reach the open part of the net.  Making a difficult physical move, like a on-ice backside edge push, while also executing an intense hand-eye execution with the trapper, is what big-league goaltending is all about.

It was a beauty!!