Goalie Lesson

Today I was handed a DVD with short video clips of our recent Atom/Bantam league play with Saskatchewan in Brandon. I have only started to go through the various clips but had to post this one immediately. It is an excellent example of basic goalie skills and shows one of Canada's best young goalies as she demonstrates technique that will last a lifetime.

This is a 13 year old goalie, Claire, who has a sister playing goal in the NCAA (Hawaii). Claire shows the impact of proper basic technique while a player under pressure attacks the net with the ball. As they near the goal she raises her hands so that as the shooter turns and faces the goal there is an intimidating goalie with hands up. This presents an obstacle that has to be processed by the shooter, with defense on the shooters back. The result is loss of control and the ball comes free. This is where you see instinct that foreshadows great goalie potential; Claire instantly reads the distance to the ball, the proximity of the opponent, and sprints to make a steal.

That sounded like too much analysis of a 13 year old goalie, it's not. It reflects exactly what I seek at the Atom and Bantam level - transfer training to game play. Claire is growing and working on patterns as she builds size and strength. So, as she raises her hands she shows that she has processed that instruction and can apply it under pressure. Sprinting for the ball shows she has the correct idea of what to do and the confidence to do it. This is pure athletic development as it should be.

I love writing about this sort of positive competition result, not the game score, the performance. Next blog entry will be about the Atom team at this same Brandon event. It will include a video of Natalie scoring one of her several goals from a swim off and it shows a field player repeating lessons learned in training.

Brandon Weekend

Bantam Girls action - Brandon

This past weekend we had a great chance to see our Atom and Bantam teams play against opponents that we know quite well. It was a good thing too, no question about how the training-to-performance ratio is demonstrable through game play. Our Bantam teams have some skill, broad range of it, but not until Sunday did it start to gel. If we played every month in a league it would be amazing to see the progress. I am working toward that with the Saskatchewan Provincial Coach so it may happen sooner rather than later.

We could also see the difference between the Bantam boys team with half the players who have practiced very little so far this season and the Saskatchewan teams who practice much more and for a longer time this fall.  The Bantam girls are trying to figure out who is who and what their team members can do. With a few new players, one only in her first week of club water polo, it was hard for them to know what to expect. Now everybody has a starting point.

The Atom team is like a few previous generations, lead by players who have played for a few years and have a high skill level - swimming fast and shooting hard. I was experimenting with mentoring novice players, rotating them through while looking for leadership from the experienced ones. This worked very well. By the final Atom game I was able to play all 3 new Atoms at the same time with just 1 mentor in the water. This meant they had to initiate things on their own and figure out who to cover, when, how etc. It was a good sign that in these situations we played pretty much equal to the second place team. I look forward to seeing these kids in a 7 vs 7 event so all the players can feed off each other.