The crease dive is back and the lacrosse goalie position is being tested, to say the least. This new rule change has brought a lot of controversy for the first part of the years, but I think things will sort them selves out. In today’s video I discuss just what a lacrosse goalie should do to defend themselves, and the goal, to crease dives.
Crease Dives Are Bad For Lacrosse Goalies
Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good crease dive. I’ve been around long enough that I remember the first time Gary Gait jumped over the back of the crease and stuffed one over the cross bar!
That morphed into the hail-mary-myself across the front of the crease, and sometimes making contact with the goalie.
This move seems ok in indoor lacrosse where the lacrosse goalie is padded like one of those guys in the Charmin Toilet Paper commercial.
We have a great post inside our facebook group that shows a young (but big) box lacrosse goalie stuffing the failed attempt at a crease dive by a rather small attack man. You can see it in our lacrosse goalie group by going here.
I Get Sort Of Aggressive On This
In the crease dive, the idea is that the offensive player is supposed to dive “away” from the front of the goal. So instead of diving into the goalie they must be diving away and not be initiating contact.
In addition, the goalie is not supposed to initiate contact and will get a penalty if he does so. (Which I think is a little unfair for a goalie trying to make a save)
We already saw this year, a couple of times, where the refs made very strange calls regarding this and it affected the game in a negative sense. (Syracuse anyone?)
How To Defend The Crease Dive
You’ll want to watch the video above because I go into a little more visual detail on this.
- The bottom line is that the move the goalie needs to make in order to make this save is lateral across the net instead of out at the shooter.
If the goalie moves out at the shooter the shooter will most likely get his stick around the goalie faster than the goalie can get to the stick to make the save.
2. If the goalie is standing on the near pipe and his stick is also on that pipe, he is going to have to make a very large, dynamic move to cover the lower part of the cage towards the far pipe. (i.e. Righty goalie standing on the right pipe trying to make a save on a player diving from the goalies right to his left.)
3. We will see the lacrosse goalie of the future start to experiment with switching hands to have a better chance of making this save. If a player dives across the crease he is still able to fake low, and then shoot high. This will force the goalie to have to cover the low shot and then recover to save the high shot. This can’t be done if you play it like the example in #2 above. But if a goalie is switching hands, and moves laterally across the front of the goal mouth, he has a better chance of making the save.
Waste One Save and Make a Statement
One of my first hockey coaches told our team, “Ok, the first shot on net is always at the goalies head! That way he’s going to duck at anything else!”
That was back when you could say something like that and parents didn’t get too ticked off.
But the point is valid. We will see, in a game that really matters, a relentless coach have one of his players launch at a really good goalie just to get him out of the game. The injury potential is so big on this play that it is bound to happen.
Best case scenario the goalie is a little bruised. Worst case scenario, the goalie blows out a knee and is never the same.
It will happen.
So Do I Like The Crease Dive?
Sure, kind of like they probably like watching the lions eat the slaves during the Roman empire.
One day, someone said, “This probably isn’t a good idea.”
Is it fun to watch? Sure.
Are most lacrosse goalies butchering it? Very much, yes.
Should it go?
I think so. I think it’s unfair to ask a goalie who enjoys the safety of the crease to now have to prepare himself to be launched at.
We don’t allow it on face offs. We don’t allow players to leave their feet in ice hockey. If I slide into you cleats up in baseball that’s not allowed either.
But here, no problem.
I look forward to your comments!
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