Two sessions in and this goalie camp is going GREAT. Players are learning, asking questions, and being challenged each night. Looking forward to tonights session and getting players trained up! The players are FOCUSED at training and really soaking up all that NJLT has to offer – its great to have on the field and its great to watch new skills become routines and practice plans for these players.

Goalies are on the mind this week for obvious reasons and we always seem to draw players from other sports – soccer players gravitate to playing middie, basketball players are often very successful defensemen, and everyone wants to score goals at attack no matter what position you come from! I am looking forward to the day that lacrosse players come from lacrosse and its not compared to other sports in either gameplay or technique. One day the sport will be there….

Back from this tangent…Hockey and lacrosse are very similar sports. Hockey goalies are usually very successful lacrosse goalies once their skills and fundamentals have transitioned properly to lacrosse but it takes the training and the dedication to get there.

Goalies who are still developing their lacrosse skills tend to lean into shot and use legs/shins/feet to get out to make the saves that are hard to reach. The sweeping motion of the stick makes it is obvious to tell which goalies between the pipes come from a hockey background. This is not a bad thing, its just easy to spot when players have transitioned from hockey to lacrosse. It is almost an advantage to have a hockey background as the more challenging saves to learn how to make are the low shots and hockey goalies spend all their time saving shots at or below their waist. Its great to see hockey goalies get dialed in and become the complete package after training and transitioning smoothly into lax!

One piece that is evident is the fearlessness of hockey goalies on the lacrosse field. I don’t know what it feels like to get a shot with hockey leg pads on but those players making the transition to lacrosse from hockey are undoubtedly the most fearless players on the field.

see you on the field!

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