Skate Profiling for Goalies
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This post describes a few of my personal insights.
I want to start by saying, profiles do make a substantial difference and you should never switch them on the day of an important game. When I switched to the Goalie Sam profile that I use today it took me about 3 hours of ice time to get used to it. This profile has a 10-foot toe, 50mm flat spot in the middle, and a 27-foot profile in the rear. For my entire hockey life prior to this, I had used whatever skate profile was on my skates from the manufacturer. I noticed that the effort required for shuffling has been significantly reduced on the same radius of hollow. I was, in fact, able to go down an entire hollow and not increase the effort required for shuffling compared to Bauer’s provided 30’ skate profile. Many goalie coaches will have kids do shuffles as a conditioning drill, however, kids get fatigued during this and their technique suffers. The feedback I have received from youth goalies who have switched to a custom profile leads me to believe that kids enjoy shuffle drills more because they can actually complete them properly without tiring out. We have all seen kids at the rink doing drills “sloppy” because they are tired. Fatigue is real, and allowing kids to build proper muscle memory over the course of an entire practice is important. The second advantage is T-Pushes. The more “rockered” 10-foot radius at the toe allows for a smoother weight transfer that really lets you get a lot of power in your push. It is also easier to rotate your skate into your “stop”. Many goalies struggle with creating crisp stops, especially on their non-dominant leg.
I can’t overstate that dramatic changes to your skate profile requires an adjustment period.
The Goalie Sam skate profile from Prosharp will expose flaws in your technique when you are pushing off while in your butterfly. Due to the smaller radius on your toe, goalies that rely solely on toe picking for their pushes will have a more difficult time transitioning to this profile. This was EXTREMELY apparent the first time I hit the ice with the Goalie Sam profile. As all goalies will agree with me here, it’s the gear that makes mistakes, not the goalie, right? As such, I was admittedly upset initially with how the profile performed. Once I realized what the issue was, I learned to use my entire blade for pushes and have since become much better at controlling my rotation and quickly learned to engage my entire blade for lateral movements. This was clear during pushes when I was previously relying on just my toe to push around my crease. Some people may like to first try a less aggressive change like a Goalie WIN to reduce the initial learning curve.
I typically use age/years playing goalie to suggest which profile to start with. Under 21 shouod go straight to the SAM. Over 21 that have skated in player skates can go to the SAM. 21-30 years old should chose based on their personal experience and how they adapt to changes in gear. 30+ shoukd consider starting with the WIN unless they have a spare set of steel to switch to if they need more time to adapt.