Young Goalies – Training with your gloves at home

‘Tenders Tips #5

Lots of young goalies like to play catch to work on their hand-eye coordination at home. I know I really enjoyed putting on my glove and throwing tennis balls against a wall to pass the time and work on my game.

Try a few variations for fun and training:

• throw the ball so it hits the wall and then the ground so it comes up at you like it does on the ice.
• have someone throw the ball from behind you so you don’t see it until it hits the wall and you have to react.
• play with a buddy face to face – two tennis balls and no gloves and see how quickly you can toss balls back and forth with both your right and left hands, overhand, and underhand.
• do any of these with bent legs as in your set position - to work on your leg strength as well as your hand-eye coordination.
• try an extra bouncy rubber ball so you have to react more quickly than with a tennis ball.

you love to catch – but have you tried training your blocker skills? 

• Trap balls thrown to you with your catcher against the blocker.
• Use the blocker to deflect balls into a corner – how about have a target there for fun (no, you can’t use your little sister).
• just bounce a ball up and down on your blocker as you would with a tennis racket.

Really there are endless things you can do – have fun and challenge yourself!

By the way the title says “Young Goalies” but come on oldtimers – admit it – you never get too old for this stuff.