You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.
Go to Page...
Thank you for crosschecking our sponsors!
About This Page: This is a discussion on LA Kings Talk within the LetsGoKings.com forums, at Los Angeles Kings Hockey Fan Forum. Originally Posted by Maddogg420
Um well, I don't know about goalie confidence per se... but I do know about lacking confidence at a fairly young age. When a feller is
Um well, I don't know about goalie confidence per se... but I do know about lacking confidence at a fairly young age. When a feller is a tender age, say 12-20 or so... it only takes so much to do long term damage to ones psyche. Take me for example... I am one handsome dude(all vanity aside... I do think I'm pretty good looking) and have been for years...but because of a few stupid incidents when I was younger... my confidence was nonexistent until about a year ago.
And now...like the caterpiller that turns into a butterfly.. I am spreading my wings and flyyyyyying away.
it isn't that their psyche is any less "strong" than any other player, it is just the position that has the worst consequences for any lapse of concentration or performance.
you can be a defenseman, center or winger and get away with 90% of your game. 90% of a game for a goalie and you let in another goal or two.
This whole idea is why DL wants to build from the back out. Mistakes are made at every position but where they are most maginified is 1) Goaltending, 2) Defense, 3) Center, and 4) Wing.
We have seen plenty of evidence of this concept this year and last year. Even if the defense is bad, it is still the goalie's job to stop the puck from getting into a 6 x 4 foot area. Each small misake by a goaltender is a huge advantage for the other team, a little less when D makes the mistake, a little less when a center makes a mistake, and a little less when a winger makes a mistake.
Confidence is a cooky thing. Look at Rick Ankile of the St. Louis Cardinals, he was a phenomenal young pitcher, and one day he threw 3 to the backstop in one inning, had to be pulled, tried to make a comeback and eventually had to retire from pitching and try to make it as a position player. When you start to think in sports it is not going to turn out well, you just need to be able to react.
well, since I'm possibly one of the people you're talking about I'll defend myself
1) Storr had fantastic skills - you don't become the top rated goalie in the draft by having marginal skills
2) Storr never got over Geoff Courtnall running him over and then giving up 5 goals in 5 minutes
3) This would always show up whenever he was given the chance to take the #1 role. He would play great in the first game, really well in the second, then he would give up a soft one in either the third or fourth game and his head would just be shot. Kings lose by 4. THe problem was that everyone would remember the first couple of games and how he showed flashes of what he was supposed to be, so he would keep getting shots to take over as the top goalie.
He had #1 goaltending skills but a #2 goaltender's psyche
Now since I just completed three years of school and now have a Master's degree in Sport Psychology I think I might be able to answer this question.
Have any of you ever made a mistake in something (be it sports, or work, or school, etc) and then the next time you go to perform you think about that mistake and ultimately make it again?
The problem is that the term "confidence" is far too broad to be able to accurately describe any single situation. It has become the catch all phrase that encompasses so much more.
Here are some things that can affect confidence: Negative Self-talk (for instance if you think, to yourself "I can't ever seem to make that save", or ”Don’t screw this up”) When you think that just before going to make a save, you are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy and therefore you are much more likely to make that mistake again and then have these thoughts again, etc, etc. It’s a vicious cycle if you don’t know how to break yourself out of it, and that it takes a lot of practice to do, especially since you may not know you are thinking it. This can then affect your focus and everything just gets worse.
Some people are never able to find a way to do this, and it ultimately ends their career because having mental skills are as important as having physical skills.
Needless to say, there is often a lot more going on and it is not always even easy to see exactly what is causing the problem in any on person’s mental game, because everyone is so different. The other problem is that most people do not have the tools that they need to correct their mental game when they need to. Hence the reason I have a job.
I hope that helps, it’s hard to put all of it in a post, but I can try to give more info if you want it.
If you have a challenging job with a lot of responsibility heaped upon you, and you take it remotely seriously, you probably have some idea how hard it is to get comfortable doing that job at the beginning, and how much it gets into your head when you FEEL like you could have done better, particularly when the outcome wasn't good. Those things pile up in your head, even if you KNOW you have the ability. The kiss of death is when you then start to think too much when it should all be second nature, which happens when you're brought along at a good pace.
I'm a teacher in NYC.. I get the idea of bringing it into the real world. And I was thrown into the frying pan with NO experience and every expectation in the world heaped on me because of a desperate program trying to fill the too many vacancies in the Board of Ed. However, I can honestly say that my first years were HELL. I had no confidence in what I was doing because I had no what I was doing. But once I learned what to do, I was able to rebuild that confidence. Even still, after 5 years, there are days I think I did a damn good job and days I thin I deserve the be fired.. but I think that comes with the territory of a high-stress, high-exposure job. You just learn to suck it up. And even worse, there are times I think I did damn well but because of a stupid test that a poor 7 year old is supposed to nail, I'm told I did crap. It sucks.... such is life.
Having said that... reading what Pita and Footnight said made alot of sense and I can understand what they are saying. I still have a hard time with it wiping out a whole career and a lifetime of work to get to that point. If I changed jobs everytime I felt my confidence was shot, I'd changed careers 10 different times by now.
ETA: Pepperdine-- I wasn't talking to you sweetie, it was a general thought from another thread. It isn't towards any one person. Promise.
it isn't that their psyche is any less "strong" than any other player, it is just the position that has the worst consequences for any lapse of concentration or performance.
you can be a defenseman, center or winger and get away with 90% of your game. 90% of a game for a goalie and you let in another goal or two.
the numbers behind this are staggering. to be an all-star baseball hitter, you need to be successful about 1/3 of the time. as an all-star basketball player, you'll probably shoot in the 50% neighborhood. the best football quarterbacks complete a little under 70% of their passes...and, in addition to taking half the game off anyway, get a lower workload when things are going well. if you're a soccer goalie, you see 10-12 shots in a game on a busy day, and half of those aren't even on goal.
if you have a 0.900 save rate as a hockey goalie, you're probably not even a starter, if you're even in the pros. meanwhile, if your team is doing well, you get peppered as the other team claws back. oh, and if you're doing poorly, it's probably because you're getting peppered. OH, and not only do you have to make the save, you have to make the save with style so that rebounds are minimized. OH!!!, and your position consistently involves contact. OH@#$^!!, and your sport allows power plays, so that for significant stretches of the time, you don't even have a complete defense in front of you. OH!#$^@$^*#%& and you never get a line change.
hardest job in pro sports. the mental game has to evolve as much as the physical one.
job
