Eyesight and goaltending

Blog vol 4.25. Eyesight and goaltending.

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to go to the Hockey Hall of Fame with my three sons. All avid hockey fans, two Canuckle Heads and a St. Louis Blues, all donning their jerseys as we took the Go train into Toronto.

I grew up in Northern Ontario, where hockey is (or at least it was) a way of life. My Dad was so good that he signed with the Chicago Blackhawks back in the days of the original six. I mostly played goalie and my hero was a tall, lanky goalie, who wore number 29 on his Montreal Jersey, Ken Dryden. I had the luxury of watching Montreal win many Stanley Cups in the 70’s and 80’s.  At the Hockey Hall of Fame, they have the Montreal dressing room with Dryden’s jersey and his gear and mask. Back in the 60’s goalies were still playing without a face mask. Hard to believe that a player like “Gump” Worsley would stand in the net and face Bobby Hull’s 100 mph slap shot. Crazy.

My son sent me a really neat article from the NHL website on goaltending and the eyes. Goalies are not only wearing masks but they are also involved in some sophisticated visual training (see here).

We watched Jake Oettinger, a Dallas Stars goalie, play the Canucks the other night and his reflexes and the speed of his glove were unbelievable. He and many of the elite goalies are getting extra help with using their eyes. One of the companies helping is True Focus Vision out of Minnesota. They assess your vision, the movement of your eyes in tracking objects (pursuits), in jumping from object to object (saccades), and how well the eye movements are coordinated between the eyes. They use infrared sensors to measure and document.



Once all this data is gathered then the training begins. Using balls of various sizes and colours with and without numbers, they work on increasing eye skills and hand-eye coordination. They also use strobe lights and special goggles and screens to train the eyes. In Optometry we have a whole field of Visual training called Sports Vision that works on improving these skills and keeping them honed. 

You can go to YouTube for Conor Hellebuyck’s (Winnipeg Jets) visual warmups; it is something to see. If you or your child are a goalie or just want improved vision for sports, contact us and we can do preliminary testing. I could have used some training when I was at the Hall using the goalie simulator. Thankfully, I will keep my day job and content myself in watching the real stars stop the rubber.

Til next week,

The good doctor