Goalies
Goaltender Development at OCMHA
Our Approach
Goaltender skills have become increasingly specialized in recent years. No longer
is it enough to strap on some pads, stand between the pipes and hope for
the best. Today’s butterfly style goaltending requires focus on skills that are very
unique to the position.
To ensure the proper development of our young goalies, OCMHA recognizes the
need to provide development opportunities for our goalies throughout the season
beyond what they receive during team practices. Our goalie development
program provides skill development opportunities for goalies at all levels with
emphasis on our younger goalies.
OCMHA we strongly encourage goalies at all levels to continue to develop their player skills.
As a result, we strongly discourage full-time goaltending at novice and atom levels. Players in the
older divisions are also encouraged to alternately dress as player and goalie for team practices and
games. The result for our players is more complete development as hockey players and more fun.
Skill Development
Our skill development program for goalies has three elements:
- pre-season development clinics for all goalies to shake out those summer
cobwebs before the season gets fully underway
- regular goalie development sessions throughout the season to ensure
that goalies continue to develop their skills throughout the season- training for OCMHA coaches to ensure that goalie skills continue to be
properly developed during team practices.
See the Goalie Skills Clinics page for details on upcoming preseason and in-season goalie skills clinics.
Goalie Equipment
Hockey equipment is expensive and quite specialized. When you have to buy
goalie equipment in addition to player equipment, hockey becomes considerable
more expensive. Also, for players new to goaltending, goalie equipment can be
confusing and complicated. To reduce the expense, OCMHA has a number of
sets of goaltending equipment available for rental. For more details on goalie equipment rental,
please see the Goalie Equipment page.