Purchasing Ice Hockey Goalie Skates
Some people that are new to hockey do not realize that hockey goalie skates are completely different than normal hockey skates. The goalie skate is a very finely tuned piece of goalie equipment that is necessary when playing goalie at just about any level of hockey. Skates for goalies not only provide more protection to prevent broken toes and such, but they also have a completely different blade that allows goalies more flexibility to move laterally than the normal player skates have.
Many people think that goalies just stand there and do not have to be very good at skating because they do not move very much, however anyone who thinks this is completely wrong. Goalies need to be just as good, if not better skaters than the other players on the team. Though they don’t have to cover as much ground during a game as the forwards or defense do, goalies must be able to transition from forward to backward to sideways at the drop of a hat. Goalie is all about reactions and making sure that you can get from one spot to another as quickly as possible. Diving around and losing control of your positioning is definitely not the answer to get to the puck most of the time. Usually the hockey goalie wants to make sure that wherever the puck goes he or she is square to the puck, this means that your skating ability must be superior especially when you get to playing a higher level of hockey.
Now that we have established that the goalie absolutely needs to be able to skate well, we can now go into more detail about goalie skates and why they are important. The goalie skate has a much different blade than the forward skate, it is very flat and the rocker is very different. Also the hollow to get goalie skates sharpened at is also much different than normal as well. 3/4″ hollow is what worked best for me in my goalie playing days, but you will just need to test out a few different hollows to find out what will work best for you. The reason why the blade is setup so different from the typical hockey skate blade is because the goalie needs to be able to shuffle. Shuffling is basically moving laterally, or side to side. If you can’t move laterally, you will never be a good goalie. The specific way that goalie skate blades have been engineered is to allow the goalie to easily move from side to side and transition from shuffling to skating and back to shuffling.
If you are new to goalie, make sure that you are purchasing your first pair of goalie skates from a hockey shop with someone who has knowledge of the position of goalie. If that isn’t possible, you will definitely want to do plenty of research online to see what goalie skates will work the best for you.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.