Teaching Philosophies:
My philosophy is simple: To help make the goalies better through analysis, repetition, education and correction…and to assist them in staying balanced psychologically. My approach when working with a goaltender is not necessarily to change the goalie, but to make him better and more comfortable in all areas within the style that physically works for him. Not everyone is built the same, nor do they possess the same strengths/weaknesses and thus goaltenders cannot all play the same.
Often goalie coaches try to introduce too many complicated and restricted techniques which provide the goalies with less of an opportunity to utilize their “instincts”. Though coaches play an important role in all stages of development, goaltending techniques should not be too mechanical, complex or restrictive. If we cling blindly to them, goalies eventually become bound by their limitations. A goalie should simply move without any deliberation or without any form of paralysis. Rather than one response for multiple situations, a goalie should have multiple responses, with my job to educate the ability to “read and react” with the correct, most appropriate response.
What makes great goalies great is that they have spent thousands of hours understanding how to eliminate the unessential and unnecessary movement patterns and they have come to understand how to minimize over thinking. When the puck drops they are trained to Just Play!
~ Mike Valley, Elite Goalies Inc.