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10U Q-and-A: My squirt wants to play goalie. What should be the primary focus?

09/23/2014, 2:45pm MDT
By Kevin Reiter, USA Hockey NTDP Goaltending Coach

Q: My squirt wants to excel as a goalie. What should the primary focus be at this age?

A: At the squirt level, goaltenders are still at a very raw stage in their development, both physically and mentally. This is often a stage at which goalies and players are discovering what position they enjoy the most. Now that your child is serious about becoming a goaltender, the emphasis needs to be on fundamentals and athleticism. As a parent, your focus should be on creating a positive learning and playing environment that will allow your child to have fun and build new, healthy friendships.

At the squirt age classification, it’s important to grow and develop a solid fundamental base that can benefit your young goalie through the rest of their playing career. The majority of that fundamental base is comprised of skating and proper technique. Branching out from the fundamental “tree trunk,” it’s important to emphasize the development of athleticism and eye-hand coordination. Overall, this focus on building a fundamental base with proper technique will enable your young goalie to build muscle memory and form good habits in the early stages of their skill development. 

Remember, however, that developing this solid fundamental base does not require over-coaching or weekly visits to a goalie camp. At this impressionable age, it’s beneficial to allow time for your goalie to self-teach and self-learn through trial and error and experience. Allow your child to develop the mindset of a goalie naturally, in his or her own unique way. Guide and observe their progress, but don’t try to spoon-feed them all of the answers. Allowing them some opportunity to learn and discover the intricacies of the position on their own can help boost a squirt goalie’s mental and physical maturity. It not only improves their puck-stopping instincts, it also instills a stronger work ethic and a problem-solving mindset that will benefit them throughout their career.

Also, remember that specializing at the squirt level is not a priority. Many times, goalies put on the pads too early in their skating development. I often recommend that parents have their youngsters skate out as well as play goal, in order to develop the skating skills that every hockey player needs. Goalies need to be athletic in order to move around the net and be effective at gaining position, reading the play, and stopping the puck.  So, at this stage of development, emphasis needs to be placed on helping your son or daughter become a better overall athlete. Once a goalie is ready to progress into the position full-time, much of his or her success is dependent on skating ability and technique. Being a better skater will allow them to get into and maintain good position, as well as recover to a new position faster and more efficiently. So the main goals at 10U are to build athleticism, expand knowledge of the position, develop better understanding of the proper techniques and grow the fundamental skill base. All the while, you want your child to have fun while playing the position.

The fundamental base of a goaltender’s education starts with stance and positioning. It’s also important to make sure he or she understands the main principles of angle, “squareness” and depth before progressing further. Once these fundamentals are understood, your biggest focus should be on skating and mobility.

Remember, being in good position affords all goalies better shot preparation. Better shot preparation equals more saves, and we all want to stop more pucks.

Skating progression is very much dependent on a specific goalie’s ability, but at the squirt level, it’s important to develop your goalie’s mobility on his or her feet. Shuffling, c-cuts, and t-pushes should be the main focus, so as to create good technique, build strength and muscle memory, and develop confidence while moving around the net. As mentioned earlier, it’s very important to maintain good position, both with the stick and the gloves when skating. In building upon skating, lots of attention should be placed on recovering after saves to ensure that your young goalie can move efficiently from Point A to Point B. Recovering from saves, both on and off our feet, is a skill that needs to be practiced purposely, with proper technique. The key coaching points are 1) locating where he or she is moving next with the head and eyes, 2) rotating properly in order to stay square to the puck, 3) recover/push with the proper leg depending on which direction he or she is moving, and 4) stopping with the proper leg to ensure that he or she arrives in control and with good positioning. 

With all of this in mind, be sure to incorporate skating and recovery drills that use either a cone or puck to allow your young goalie to locate and maintain eye contact when moving throughout the drill.  Practice and repetition with proper technique in skating and recovery drills will build correct muscle memory. By building this correct muscle memory at the fundamental base, we can help ensure that young goalies develop good habits to draw upon now and later in their skill development.

Drills for the Young Goalie

An ideal approach for young goalies is to utilize drills that allow them to work on different individual save techniques using all of their equipment (stick, glove, blocker, body, and leg pads) to stop pucks. I prefer simple drills that incorporate proper skating and recovery techniques and pair them with simple saves selections (e.g., stick saves, butterfly, glove saves, blocker saves). These types of drills hone the child’s athletic instincts by allowing them to work on both footwork and eye-hand coordination at the same time. They also enable young goalies to follow pucks off their body and recover properly with the correct leg, which is a skill that should be taught early in their skill development. Implementing these simple drills will ensure a continued focus on good habits and developing proper muscle memory. Good habits now mean good habits later.

Most importantly, I emphasize to parents and coaches the importance of making it fun. That’s the biggest reason we all play. So keep it simple and keep it fun to help ensure that your young goalie continues building confidence and skills in goal.

For more information, videos and drills specific to goaltending, visit USAHockeyGoaltending.com.


The author, Kevin Reiter, played seven years in the professional ranks after four seasons at the University of Alaska-Anchorage. In 2007-08, Reiter earned IHL Goalie of the Year honors after helping his team win the Turner Cup championship.

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