Between the Pipes Newsletter: July Edition
Question of the Month
"Life is a series of tradeoffs, and greater results usually require greater tradeoffs.
The question is not, "Do you want to be great at this?"
The question is, "What are you willing to give up in order to be great at this?"
The Power Of Positive Self-Talk
The line between failure and success can come down to something as simple as self-talk. So much of playing the goalie position is centered around what we say to ourselves in the goal. This month, we will focus on the power of positive self-talk and tips implement them into your game.
What is Positive Self-Talk
- Self-talk is the running dialogue you have with yourself
- Self-talk can be purposeful or random
- Self-talk can be an internal or external dialogue
- Positive self-talk most often results in good performance
- Negative self-talk ALWAYS results in poor performance
How can positive self-talk help you?
- Regulate your emotions
- Work more efficiently
- Increase your self-esteem
- Increase your self-confidence
- Control your thoughts, feelings and behaviors
- Attain your goals
More Info from Eastern Washington University
How NFL Athletes Use Positive Self-Talk
Sports Psychology for Hockey Goalies
5 Keys to a Mental Recovery Plan
- Self-Talk - When goalies are in the crease, they need to be intentional about the messages they have on repeat. Their self-talk is critical for top performance.
- Body Language - Positive body language for goalies includes, keeping your head up, eyes on the play, standing tall in between plays, and communicating effectively with teammates.
- Visualization - You cannot outperform your self-image. That means if you don’t see yourself making incredible saves, showing up big in the third period, or shutting down the opponent’s power play, your chances of doing so greatly diminish.
- Re-Focus Cues - It’s easy to get stuck in the last play.. But there is not time to go through that thinking process during a game. With intentional attention shifting you can get yourself back into the present by focusing on exactly what is right in front of you.
- Relaxation - The paradox of being a goalie is that you must be alert while at the same time relaxed. If you become too anxious, you may play ahead of yourself.
Checkout more info from Coach Blaise - a Mental Performance Coach
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Hoyt Crance Yale '19
As an accomplished player and coach, Tim Cassi has developed an incredible understanding of what it takes to become a successful goalie at all levels of the game. Whether you are a young goalie who just stepped into the crease, a coach looking to learn more about the position, or an accomplished goalie looking for additional pointers, Focus Lacrosse is an excellent resource detailing the goalie position. Throughout my high school career, I could always rely on Tim to find issues with my game and create effective drills to eliminate these issues. Without a doubt, I can say Tim/Focus Lacrosse played a critical role in my development as a goalie and was a major reason I was able to play Division 1 Lacrosse.
Virignia High School Head Coach
Focus Lacrosse made big impacts not only for my goalies, but how I coached my goalies. It provides something different than just searching for goalie tips on the internet. As a coach I felt more confident reinforcing the drills and key phrases from Focus Lacrosse and I could see our goalies felt more confident with their play. Focus helped me put the explanations and visuals together better and gave my goalies a big boost - after one of our goalie focused sessions (which is hard to plan with just 2 coaches on our high school staff) our starting goalie had 17 saves against a very good opponent. She indicated the exercises we had gone over from just that one practice made a big difference. By the end of the season, she earned 2nd-Team All-District.If you need a breakthrough in your goalie position, Focus Lacrosse is it!
GW Mix - Former UPenn Head Coach and MLL GM
Tim Cassi is one of the most effective and innovative goalie coaches I have ever been around. He constantly works to enhance the mental and physical drills and exercises he incorporates into his goalie training sessions. For almost ten years, Tim has been consistently developing some of the best goalies in Southern California, including a number of US Lacrosse All-Americans, CIF Champions and NCAA Division I starters. If I wanted to play goalie at the highest level possible, or wanted to be able to coach kids to achieve that same goal, I would spend as much time as I could learning from Tim Cassi and his FOCUS program.
