Last tip we talked a little about off-season conditioning and training. Since that time, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about specifics for a training program. They range from sprint workouts, to length of program to types of agility drills. First off, there is no perfect one size fits all training program for every keeper.

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To borrow a line from Shakespeare, "Now is the Winter of our discontent." For keepers in the Northern Hemisphere, Winter means snow, sleet and a break from outdoor hockey. For those in Southern Hemisphere, Summer and the heat provide the break. Wherever you are and whatever the time of year, at some point you're going to have a break in your hockey season (my source of discontent). As the holidays approach, I've received a lot of questions about off-season training programs and activities.

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There have been a lot of questions about what to do in situations where a keeper is faced with a forward bearing down on him or her alone. Most centre around what the keeper should do. There isn’t a text book answer that says, “If the forward enters the circle with a five yard gap between him and his defender, at a 45′ angle to the goal and the ball on his front stick, the keeper extends his body in a prone position to his strong stick side at a rate of speed of 15 mph, bisecting the path of the ball at his midsection.” That’s certainly one way of handling the situation, but the fact of the matter is there isn’t any one way to play any one situation, especially one on ones with the keeper and a forward.

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There is no more essential skill to a keeper in the game of hockey, than kicking. Just as a field player must have stick skills, a keeper must have kicking skills. The importance of this most basic of skills is often overlooked. People tend to think all a keeper need do is worry about saving the ball. A keeper can make all the saves in the world in a game, but if he can’t clear the ball, he almost assures himself of allowing goals.

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No matter how talented a carpenter is, with bad tools he'll be hard pressed to produce a good product. The same holds true for a keeper. A good keeper with bad pads has a hard job, made harder.

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When you’re working on skills, it’s important that you isolate them so that you can evaluate technique and success. Skill work is different than situation work. When I work with keepers in situation drills, there are a number of skills they can use in a situation and be successful. When we work on skills, we’re focusing on specific form and results. Any time you work on skills, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

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