Lloyd,

Your post made me recall another story that shows one way Plante found to create
confidence for his young D.

I think it was Mike Pelyk that told the story years later. At Plante's first
Leaf practice he had all the D line up at the blue line and fire shots at him.
Plante deflected many of them behind him over the glass (there was no netting in
those days of course). After 10 minutes or so of this seemingly pointless
exercise, Pelyk asked Plante why he deflected so many over the glass. Plante's
reply ... "those pucks were no good, they had chips in them." Plante's best
ability was seeing the puck.

An unrelated note, I saw Ed Belfour's goalie coach demonstrate some unique "see
the puck" drills once at a 'do' the Leafs put on for minor hockey coaches.

#1 - white pucks. He figured if the goalie can get used to seeing them come in,
the black ones will be easy to pick up in traffic in a game.

#2 - swimming goggles with the eyes taped over. He figured if the goalie
couldn't see, his body would memorize the movements needed to move around the
crease on its own, and the goalie would become accustomed to the sounds of the
game like a forward moving into position at the far post, etc. I guess it also
made sure you weren't afraid of the puck.

Yup, us goalies are, in the polite words of Douglas Hunter, a breed apart.

Dave in Whitby


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