InGoal Magazine April 2012 - Summer Camp Edition : Page 51
InGoalMag.com Visual tracking of the puck provides the sensory input necessary to send the required neurological signals to specific body parts allowing for the correct save selection, accurate placement of equipment (glove, blocker, pads, body, stick etc.), and to have an efficient recovery to the next point of attack. No sensory input means no signals are being sent or received in order for your body to make the correct movements. How can your body make the correct save selection if visual inputs are not there, or are incomplete from poor tracking habits? Very often, if a goaltender is struggling with his or her hands during the course of the season, it comes down to not staying visually attached to the puck. It’s easy to fall into the trap of assumption. The goalie is assuming that he is watching the puck all the way into his glove or blocker but in reality he is taking his eyes off the puck just prior to the save. Sometimes it’s just a matter of an arms length. But if you don’t know exactly where the puck is, you won’t know exactly where to put your glove or blocker. Then you will have shots leaking through the 6-and 7-hole. Or pucks will be bouncing out of your glove, or rebounds off the blocker won’t be steered to the safe areas of the ice. What can be a simple visual habit can have a very significant impact on your game as those subtle errors lead to dangerous rebounds, scoring opportunities, and even goals. It can be a great part of your daily warm-up, as it is for many goaltenders in the NHL. Visual tracking also impacts rebound control off the body and leg pads. Again, it comes down to knowing the precise trajectory of the puck, seeing it all the way into the body to allow for accurate trapping, or all the way into the pads to ensure the correct pad placement and angle. Without the visual input you’re just guessing. Consistent attention to tracking also helps in other ways. Your eyes use muscles to lengthen and compress your eyeball when your focus changes from something further away to something closer. As an example, a shot from the blueline takes less than a second to get to the net. Your eyes must be able to maintain focus on the puck as it changes distance in such a short period of time. This requires work, practice, and even specific exercise. Poor tracking habits will make it increasingly difficult over the course of a goaltending career to maintain such acute focus requirements as are necessary for good visual tracking. Positive tracking habits ensure that you are training the physical component of your visual skills just as much as you are ingraining positive habits so that they become instinctive. For more on visual tracking and how one the the NHL goalies Mike Valley works with uses it in his game preprationg every day, see Eye Training with Dallas Stars Goalie Richard Bachman in this issue. The development of good visual habits is a fundamental part of becoming the best goaltender you can be. Puck tracking is a relatively simple skill to implement in your daily routine, watching every puck all the way A static glove save and/or blocker save drill, into your body and after you have made the whether standing or in a butterfly position, will save. Make visual attachment a part of your help train or reacquire the visual tracking habit. game today. Dalls Stars goalie Kari Lehtonen knows this puck will hit him in the gut, but he has made a habit of watching every puck all the way in to his body to ensure precise control. Visual Habits and Puck Tracking
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