The Stick is Your Most Important Tool!

Selection & maintenance

Copyright Jukka Ropponen 2000

One of the biggest if not THE biggest problem I have seen with young goaltenders is an incorrect stance. When your stance is not right, it is not possible to execute your basic saves and moves correctly either. Coaches spend a lot time trying to correct stances when often the problem lies with the stick. Goalies are trying to adapt their stance to a stick that can be too tall or too short or have an incorrect lie. Start your corrections always by checking the stick first.

Principle # 1: Make the stick match the goaltender's stance not vice versa!

Buying a goalie stick

Buying a goalie stick should be done with someone who understands goaltending, so for a parent that has never played it could make a lot of sense to ask a coach or an older goaltender to come along and help choose the right stick. Once you find a right matching pattern stick, get at least 2 sticks so that there is always the same model for a backup. Never let a goalie carry 2 different kind of sticks and switch back and forth between them. By doing this they are alternating their stance all the time. Goalies need to always work from the same stance.

Goalies needs to have their skates with them when buying a stick because the stick that felt like the correct size at the store may not feel the same on the ice if it was purchased with testing at the store done by just standing on the floor with regular shoes on. Some stores that really know their stuff do actually have a little platform in the goalie stick area that can be used to simulate the height of the goalie skates when trying the sticks. Having a goalie standing on the platform with the stick coming to the floor in front is the next best thing from having your skates on.

The goalie should take his/her stance without the stick and then have different sticks brought to him/her and see which one does fit to his/her stance. Read also the article describing proper stance.

The most difficult ages to find the right size goalie stick seems to be the 9-12 year old intermediate goalies that are already too tall for the small youth sticks, but not big enough to use the small adult patterns. Personally I have addressed this problem by choosing the right pattern and then have the store order the sticks a dozen at a time directly from the factory to ensure consistency.

Goalie sticks come properly balanced already, which means that once you have found the right pattern, just tape it up and don't cut it. Cutting a goalie stick will result with an improperly balanced tool that will be tough for a goalie to handle.

Principle # 2: Never cut a goalie stick

Curve

It seems like the young goalies these days are choosing bigger and bigger curves because it is "cool" when they can flip the puck up in the air. The first and most important task for the stick is to use it for stopping shots. Once you start using big curves on the blade, the tip of the blade starts coming off the ice easier and easier when a goalie moves his/her stick to the side causing pucks to slide underneath it into the net..

The other problem that arises with a big curve on the goalie stick is poke checking. It is really difficult to poke check properly with a big curve as you only have a small part of the blade touching the ice.

The younger the goalie the less curve they need. As a matter of fact I would strongly recommend that the goalie should use a straight blade until he has learned the basic saves properly and is ready to start moving to the more advanced parts of the game. This means that you can start using moderately curved goalie sticks at the age 10-13 years depending on the skills and level of play.

Principle # 3: The younger the goalie, the less curve they need

Lie & Heel

In the past it was possible to define the lie with a number and goalies could tell you that they used lie 13 or 14 and it would fit them. These days lies do vary a lot and some brands don't even mark the lies any more as they really don't tell you much. The key is to try the stick and find the one that matches your stance.

Pro goalies are moving more and more to the rounded heels on their sticks as that will allow them to handle the puck better. This is OK for the older skilled goalies, but real dangerous for younger kids that do lack strength and basic skills, as they will easily lose the feel of their blade and don't know when the blade is on the ice or when it is just sitting on the heel. This will cause a lot of missed pucks and extra unneeded goals a little bit like too big of a curve on the stick. I have seen some real bad combinations where young goalies have bought the sticks that are made with the same pattern as their favorite pro goalies and these sticks are too big causing incorrect stances and on top of that a lot of these sticks have rounded heels and big curves.

Taping your goalie stick

Very common problems in this area are overtaping and taping wrong parts of the stick. The correct taping will cover the blade all the way to the heel up to the point where the heel will touch ice during plays. Going over this point will just add extra weight to your stick.

A lot of coaches and parents seem to tape their kids sticks almost all the way up to make sure the sticks will last longer. By doing that they are making the goaltender's most important tool a lot harder to use.

Use black tape for the blade as it is not as easy for the forwards to see the puck in the goalie's blade when he/she is handling it and making plays or passes.

I like my goalies to use stick wax as it helps the longevity of the sticks by not letting the moisture go through the tape to the stick that easy. It also helps tape to last longer and avoid snow sticking to the blade.

The end knob can be done many different ways, but the main principle is to make it big enough that the stick will stop at the knob when a goalie has to slide the shaft quickly to the top on poke checks and other plays. Younger players that don't have a lot of strength will need a bit smaller of a knob than the older ones who have more power to handle the stick.

The end knob must be made with white tape. Never use black as it is illegal in most leagues. Also, having a big black knob hitting the net can cause referees to see it as a puck and you don't want a goal like that called against you.

The older goalies that handle the puck a lot also like to create a better handle at the top of the shaft underneath the knob. If the goalie has good skills and strength to handle the puck this is OK, but younger goalies don't need that.

I also see a lot of goalies taping the grip part of the stick in order to be better able to hold on to their sticks. This is a big mistake and a lot of times it is caused by an incorrect grip where the goalie does not have his/her index finger on top of the paddle providing the needed stability for the grip. Tape in this area also makes it a lot harder to handle the stick well on poke checks and other situations where a goalie needs to slide his/her grip quickly to the top of the shaft and play the puck.

Maintenance

Sometimes when you get cracks from shots on the paddle you can add some taping so that you will get a bit more usage out of your stick as a practice stick, but don't use it for games any more.

When the stick gets worn from the heel and it starts changing causing you to lose the exact feel of the blade or even causing you to alter your stance it is time to replace that stick. Practicing and playing with a stick like that will cause a lot of harm to your game and it is not worth it.

The stick is the most important tool of the goaltender - choose it right and take care of it!

     Here you see a goaltender with the correct size stick that fits to his stance. Notice also how we have simulated the height of the skates by placing the goalie on top of a small platform in order to make sure we will find the right size stick.

     This picture shows you what happens when a goalie tries too small of a stick. The blocker hand gets dragged down too low and his stance is out of balance. Notice that this time we have a goalie with his skates on.

     Correct taping of the blade. No need to add tape higher than this as it just makes the stick heavier.

     Applying stick wax on top of the tape will enhance your stick life and make it easier to handle the puck when snow is not sticking to your blade.

     This is a good example of the knob for a young goaltender's stick.

     Here's a knob of the more experienced goalie that handles the puck a lot and likes that extra grip.

     Here you can see how a big knob will stop the shaft from sliding through your blocker.

     Here's the correct grip with index finger on top of the paddle. Adding tape to this area can cause problems for stickhandling, poke checks etc.