Innisfail Minor Lacrosse Association Phantoms players received a visit from National Lacrosse League's premiere goalie Aaron Bold and left their encounter as better goalies.
Edmonton Rush lacrosse goalie, Aaron Bold was in Innisfail to conduct a training camp for goalies at the Innisfail Middle School and the upper room for coaches at the Innisfail arena on March 2. Signing up for the opportunity to learn from the number one goalie in the National Lacrosse League for wins (7) and goals against average (8.25) were 15 goalies and 10 coaches.
Bold spoke about the skills required to be a lacrosse goalie
“It's all about drilling the basics of angles with young net minders. If you can't move efficiently and properly you won't have that much success at any level of goaltending,” said Bold who also implemented more advanced stepping patterns and tracking drills.
The professional goalie was candid about an important skill for goalies to develop.
“It's hard to pin point one specific skill,” added Bold. “But if I had to choose one skill, I would say it is the mental aspect of the game. To bounce back from a bad goal and play consistently is imperative to a goalies success.”
Bold said when he was a young goal tender growing up in a lacrosse community there was no goalie specific training to help him which is one reason why he is conducting these training camps.
“I had to learn through trial and error,” said Bold. “I hope to help kids learn from my experiences and provide some mentorship.”
As for the coach training, Bold added that coaches don't always know how to guide their goalies and gave them some techniques to help them.
He enjoyed the day of coaching.
“I think the kids all gained a lot of knowledge,” said Bold adding that in sports you should just never be "comfortable."
The kids were thrilled with the experience of working with Bold one on one, said Dara Gooder, registrar for the Innisfail Minor Lacrosse Association and organizer of the day. “There were already requests to hold this event again next year from both parents and players.
“This was a very exciting opportunity for both goalies and coaches,” said Gooder. “To be able to learn from such a talented player, especially a goalie is unprecedented in central Alberta. To pull this together, we worked with six different local lacrosse groups.”
She noted that every team who sent players and coaches benefited from the advice that Bold had to offer and central Alberta lacrosse would be a better league. She added, “This is not the first professional player we have brought in as we have had Andrew McBride of the Calgary Roughnecks offer training as well.”
More information on the IMLA can be found at http://www.innisfaillacrosse.com/ and the National Lacrosse League is found at www.nll.com.
