What if I promised that if you read this article and followed my advice that you would NEVER get beat over your glove hand again? If you don't believe me, then you don't understand angles as they apply to goaltending...yet. Once you do, I promise, you will not only be seen as "that goalie with the great glove hand" but a goalie who gives up a lot less goals! Take my word, this article will completely change the way you look at the position...
To demonstrate how angles affect goalies, I have enlisted the help of ten year old stand-out Ronan Mobley. If a ten-year-old's glove covers the top corner, I bet yours does, too!
The first key to understanding angles, is that it does not matter what the shooter sees, only what the puck sees, because the puck travels in a straight line. To demonstrate what I am talking about, look at the pictures below.
The above picture shows that Ronan is only a foot or two off of his goal line when these pictures are taken. You can see he has a solid stance, with his hands and stick well in front of his body (taking away a little extra angle from the shooter), and his weight is well balanced over the balls of his feet.
This photo show a shooter's eye level view of the goal. Notice that most of the net the shooter sees is above the hands.
Now here is the view that really matters: the puck's eye view. As you can see from this angle, Ronan has the top of the net well defended, even though he is not out on a big angle, and his hands are at a normal height.
The blue line in this picture represents the what the shooter sees, and the red line indicates the path that the puck would have to travel to get there. As you can see, to get to the top shelf, the puck would have to go directly through Ronan's glove. There is absolutely no way to get over it!
The last two pictures are meant to demonstrate how effective a blocking butterfly save can be at taking away most of the goal, even when utilized by a ten-year-old goalie, that stands well below five feet tall.
From a shooter's eye view, there is plenty of net to shoot at above the shoulders and gloves.
In reality, from a puck's eye view, nearly the entire net is covered. This is what makes the blocking butterfly such an effective save for point blank shots, and shots that come through traffic.
A common mistake that nearly every goaltender makes is to drop his hands as the play nears his goal. The next time you are in net, and a shooter winds up, see if your hands don't drop, and your knees don't bend a little extra in preparation for a shot. It is this inadvertent human reaction that opens up that top corner above your glove and blocker. As you can see from the pictures, the further in front of your body your hands are, the more impossible they are to beat over the top.
If you have a basic understanding of angles, and make the conscious decision to keep your hands out in front, then you will NEVER be beaten top cheese again...now how SWEET is THAT!?!?!?
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