Tips for Helping your Young Goalie Deal with Fear of the Puck

In this Parent Segment, presented by Stop It Goaltending U the App, we share some ideas about how to help a young goalie who is scared of the puck.

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This Week’s Parent Segment: Flinching and Fear of the Puck

This week I had a thoughtful back-and-forth with a parent concerned about her young goalie “flinching” during practices with teammates. Her son is under 10 — but this is a very common issue at that age.

Especially at young ages – Ages where the goalies aren’t used to as many high shots, and aren;t prepared for players who have discovered how to consistently shoot for the top of the net, where there is a wide range in development with some kids 50 pounds soaking wet and some seemingly years ahead in development and shooting like young men – fear of the puck is normal.

You’re facing the unfortunate intersection of every player finally shooting for the top of the net all while being of an age where your height puts your head right in the cross hairs at the crossbar or lower.

This young man shows no fear when facing his goalie coach, is showing some real ability in the net, and most importantly – he loves being a goalie . Yet when facing players in practice mom describes him throwing every part of his body in one direction to make the save even while he pulls his head in the opposite direction for safety.

So a few thoughts:

First – this is so common. Fear of the puck as a young goalie does not mean you should hang em up and find another sport. It’s hard to watch and even harder as a young goalie dealing with that conflict of loving what you do all while fearing what’s happening. But know that you’re not alone.

Second – as much as we want to scream at the team and say keep the puck down, stop shooting at his head – what are the players supposed to do? They need to learn to shoot for the top of the net – you can’t develop a team only allowed to shoot the puck low. And if your goalie’s head happens to be the exact height to be in danger – it’s just a very unfortunate situation.

Now if you’re Daren Millard facing NHL shooters you can feel safe – those players can place it precisely in the corners and what doesn’t hit you doesn’t hurt.

But at age 8,9, 10 or whatever the players are getting stronger, raising the puck consistently – and many if not most have no better an idea where it’s going that your young goalie does. That’s a recipe for fear.

And it’s for a similar reason why they do so well with their goalie coach – they feel safe because they can trust that they are safe.

So, what can you do as a parent?

1. Listen and be understanding. If you’re frustrated you can be sure your goalie is torn apart inside about it and they need a chance to share what they are experiencing.
2. Don’t feed the fear by expressing anger with all the players shooting high. That isn’t going to change and will only give your goalie one more thing to be upset about.
3. Find them some ways to enjoy the game away from the fear of practice. They need some pressure relief that separates the fear from their love of the sport. That’s probably providing some great sessions with their goalie coach. It might be some fun at stick and puck. Be creative here.
4. Engage the goalie coach in discussion – they probably see what’s happening but they may not know how much this is affecting your goalie and their enjoyment of the game. Goalie coaches have a large bag of tricks for helping with puck fear.
5. Ask the goalie coach their opinion about your child’s gear. Does it fit? Is it still of sufficient quality for this new level of play? It won’t always be an easy solution like this but our son at a very young age was flinching on shots after getting drilled in the head…thankfully he was big enough and strong enough to manage it and when we over bought in getting him a pro mask – the fear went away. This situation with your child may be as simple as getting hurt on a regular basis in one place and not a general fear of the puck
6. Perhaps they need to chat with someone who has a lot of experience helping their goalie with those fears – they are real and nobody wants to see them go through this. I believe working with a sport psychologist as a young age is a great thing if you are able to make it happen. Reach out if you want and I can help with some guidance there.

Puck fear is real. It will take time to get over it but if your goalie loves the position, don’t give up. There are plenty of goalies in the NHL today who were diving for safety back when they could barely tie up their own skates.