What is the Maximum Stick Length for a Women’s Lacrosse Goalie Stick

Bullets and Timestamps:

[00:00:28] Coach Edwards introduction
[00:00:45] Maximum stick length!?
[00:01:00] Coach C’s Training Regime
[00:02:33] Young goalies & restraining line
[00:03:40] Why it’s not necessary to increase stick length
[00:03:54] Coach Edwards’ experience with stick length
[00:04:40] Touching the pipe to keep eyes on ball
[00:05:09] The two ways to touch the pipe
[00:06:52] Coach Edwardspreference for goalies
[00:08:52] Hockey puck drill
[00:12:23] Better ways to work around the crease
[00:13:02] How to make most out of warm up
[00:14:28] Dangers of shortcuts

I got a great question via email this week from a dad who’s a coach, in New York, so this is Coach John C., and this question caught me off-guard. So the first question that I got from him was, “Hey Jonathan, what’s the maximum stick length for a women’s goalie?” And I had to think about that for a bit because I didn’t know off the top of my head.

So I looked in the rulebook and couldn’t find anything about max stick length. Typically if you’ve seen a max stick length…I’ve never had anybody ask me about a maximum, how long a stick could be. So my question back to Coach C. here was, “How tall’s your goalie?” That was my first thought.

So he wrote back and he goes, “5’1. I coach my 13 year old and the sixth and eighth grade girl goalies. I make them tap the side pipes to position themselves as the play comes to them. This way, they don’t take their eyes off the ball. I got my daughter a new goalie stick. It was two inches shorter and it left her missing the pipes, thus being out of position. In addition, I do teach at half field clear. The extra length comes into play there.” So what he means by that is he teaches that he wants his goalies to be able to reach like half field with a pass. “And again, so I figured you would know the max length. We can always cut it back if need be.”

So a couple of the things that came to mind when I heard this question was one, what are we trying to accomplish? What are we trying, as goalies, what is our main responsibility? So our main responsibility is to stop the ball. Our second responsibility is to clear the ball. This argument has kind of raged for a long time on what’s more important, to clear the ball or to stop the ball.

Well, if you can’t stop the ball the ball goes into the net, the ball is automatically cleared into midfield and then there’s a face-off. So if we can stop more balls and then clear the ball and then clear the ball with our team, whether its our offensive players or defensive players or what have you, we need to stop the ball. So let’s address the first question. Actually, let’s address the second thing first.

So, half field clear. With young goalies, what I like to say minimally, on the run they can pass the ball beyond the restraining line. So for women’s, we’re looking like twenty, twenty-five yards up field, okay? Not the full forty yards going to midfield. So trying to get a full half field clear, even from the crease, like standing still, like you’re a quarterback and you’re just bombing it as far as you can, half field is pretty aggressive.

Now, I understand if your team is weak and you’re just trying to get the ball downfield to get the ball somewhere the heck down there so they’re not playing defense the whole time, I understand, I get that. But I don’t necessarily want to lengthen a stick just for that purpose, and here’s why.

Because when a goalie’s in the cage, then that extra length can hurt us when we’re moving to the ball. Especially if the goalie is pretty short, in this case, 5’1. I’m 5’7 ½, 5’8 on a good day, so what are we looking at, like here? This tall? On my goalie sticks, I typically use an attack length shaft. I started doing that really just one, out of cost because I was young and it was a boatload of money to go like a goalie-length shaft, and I was like why? So I did half-length. Also, I did it because it fit in my bag better when I traveled. When I flew places. But also, I was pretty strong. So going with a shorter shaft allowed me, I was okay. I could hike the ball downfield; I could reach the opposite cage by about my sophomore year of high school.

So two things here. One is, I don’t necessarily want to have a really long shaft just to make it clear, because it’s going to affect me in the cage. But let’s address the first question which was, the coach tells the goalies to touch the pipe so that they can keep their eyes on the ball. So basically, if the goalie’s in the cage, they’re in their stance, they’re reaching back to touch the pipe so that they keep their eyes up field, I totally get that. I think that’s a good goal to have. We want to have our goalies up field, if they’re going to touch the pipe they’re going to reach with their vision, it’s up there, they’re not looking back to see where the pipe is. That’s fine, but there’s two ways to do this.

One is, I’m at a wide angle so I’m going to get really close here. So if the wall here is my goal line, and I take a step out and I reach back with an attack length shaft, I’m not feeling that pipe. If I take a half step, I’ve got it. The question is this. If I take two inches off this shaft and now I’m not touching this pipe here, I’m taking an inch back into the cage, only an inch to be able to reach that pipe. So the step we’re making away from the goal line is not a big one.  I’m not losing a bit. The wide angle lens is going to make this look even more crazy, but taking an inch step back to be able to touch that pipe is not that big of a deal. So that being in mind.

The other thing is this. If I’m a goalie and I’m way out, I’m two steps out, I’m not feeling anything, alright? So as a goalie, a couple things. If we start in the cage, and we’re touching the pipe and we step off of the goal line extended, proprioceptively, that’s a big word so go look it up, my hands and my shoulders are really feeling the difference. They’re telling me how far from the cage I am, and I’m not paying attention to my feet.

So what I like goalies to do, I like goalies to be back touching the pipe, but then, when they step away from the cage, they do so without the stick touching the pipe as they do it. Does that make sense?  So instead of being in this position and stepping out into position, what I like goalies to do is, they can feel the pipe to know if they’re centered, so they’re going to touch right pipe, left pipe, they know they’re centered. Now they’re in position, now they step out. So what that’s done is now my feet and my hips have gotten used to just how far I need to go, as well as where I need to go.

So if the ball’s coming side left, and I’m going to step out here, I’m now learning, my feet are telling me and my hips are telling me how far I need to go. My eyes are up, my head’s up, I can see what’s going on, but instead of using basically my stick as a feeler, I’m using my legs to tell me where to go. Now as you’re young and you’re learning about where your angles are and where you need to step to, that’s why we have a coach shooting us in angles at warm up, so that we know if we go out to, let’s say the camera, and you’re shooting at me from side right, I’m in my cage and I come out to you but now I’m off center.

What does coach tell you? “Hey, move over.” So now you readjust, and a lot of times the coach will just shoot right there.  One of the things you can do to reinforce it is say, “Okay goalie. Start in the middle of the cage on every shot.” Now you’re looking from up field straight, the shot’s coming from side right, you step out and hopefully we’re in a good position. And the coach is going to adjust the goalie every time you step.

Another interesting way to do this, this is better done in a gym or if you’re on an Astroturf field or synthetic turf field this works too. If you take hockey pucks, because they’re flat and round and only about that high, and put them in proper position for certain shots. So top center, you put two pucks where the feet would be.  And what we’re going to do as we step out to the puck is, again, eyes are up looking out, we’re going to put two pucks under our feet. So we’re going to stand in position, stand in the correct position for a shot coming straight at you. Stand in position, take two hockey pucks, lift your toes up so that they’re up like this, put the hockey pucks under your feet so that your feet are now standing on the pucks, all right? So now what I want you to do is back to the goal line, get in position, now look left, look right, just get a little bit of a reset going. Now step out to those pucks. And if you step properly, you’re now on top of those pucks. And if you’re off balance your foot’s either going to rock right or rock left. So that’s a good little technique, a good little drill to do.

And you can do that, you can make an arc like that so that a goalie knows where to put their feet, just to get the basics down, you have a lot of pucks for that, I can’t remember how many it is offhand. I’ll have to figure that out for you guys. So let’s see, there’s one at the post, one at my left foot, and then I’m going to go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. So ten pucks or so to get you to know where your feet need to go so that you know where your arc is and you’re not too high or too low. Because if you step too far out, your foot’s going to rock on the front of the puck, if you step too far from the left or the right, it’s going to rock right or left, and conversely if you’re too shallow, okay, so that’s a good drill, the hockey puck drill.

So back to Coach C’s question here. For a goalie who’s 5’1, what the heck, there’s a moth in here. Sorry. So for a goalie who’s 5’1, pretty short, I’m not going too long with the shaft. So asking max length I’m like, holy smokes, what are they thinking? Because when that goalie goes to step to the ball, that butt end may catch on a knee, on the ground, all sorts of things. You’ve got to be pretty strong to operate a stick that is this long to begin with. To have proper cradling, to have a good pocket in there, so I don’t know if I would necessarily add length to the stick because again, what’s the goal? If we’re just trying to get a clear going, then I’d rather either shallow out the pocket a little bit, because most female goalies that I’ve seen, and no offense, your goalie may be a stud or studette, but I have yet to see a female goalie who on the run can hike the ball half field at thirteen. That’s a hell of a throw with any accuracy. Let’s put it that way.

Now, a goalie from here with all day just throwing from the crease, sure. Probably can make that. Let’s not lengthen the shaft just to get that goal down.  I’d rather say, let’s leave the stick where it is, let’s teach some better ways to work around the crease to know where the goalie is within the crease. Let’s use the feet more as a gauge to tell where we are. So instead of just reaching with the butt end, if you’re coming off the pipe, the right foot is going to be on the right side pipe, left foot on the left pipe.

A great way to make the most out of a warm up is to take five minutes, and instead of having the goalie getting shot at from here and you work in an arc, let’s have you here, okay, wow, it’s funny, my hand gets really big on this wide angle, sorry. My hands aren’t really that big. So let’s say you’re going to shoot from there. Let’s have your goalie start on the pipe and then step out to you. Because now she’s stepping out to the center, top center. Now if you’re a little bit top left and she’s coming from the right pipe, she’s going to step out and at that point you’re going to say, “Hey, you’re a little right or a little left.” Then she’s going to reset then she’s going to come out and be a little bit more in the right position. Hope that makes sense.

So there’s lots of ways to teach where the goalie is in the cage. And again, don’t make shortcuts in lieu of, I don’t want to say proper learning, that’s not what I’ve got in mind here, but by lengthening the shaft, that’s a shortcut. I’d rather spend a little bit more time with our goalies and say, “Listen, tonight I want you to imagine there’s a shot here. And out you go.” So yeah, let’s leave it at that for now because that’s a lot to digest. If you’ve got any questions on that please feel free to email me or shoot a comment below the video. But I think that should help a little bit.

And again, let’s not make short-term fixes for goalies who are probably going to grow potentially a little bit, because we may be creating bad habits down the road. Also, we want to break a goalie eventually from feeling for the pipes with the butt end too much. There’s always going to be a little bit, but we don’t want goalies to be in position and every time they snap or touch it. Really, a goalie should be able to get out and then be moving and moving and stepping right, left, wherever they need without feeling for the pipes all the time. That’s important. Because if the game speeds up for that goalie, that habit is going to catch up to them down the road.

Thanks for your question, Coach C. Good luck with it. Keep me posted on how it goes and good luck to your daughter. And anybody else who’s watching this who has got a question, feel free to email me at CoachEdwards@LacrosseGoalieTips.com. Cheers.

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