I’ve never seen a girls hockey team or player that scores too many goals.
And the majority of them don’t score nearly enough.

And I think I’ve finally figured out the biggest reason why.

==> No one has a good snapshot <==

The vast majority of goals in girls hockey are scored from the hash marks down,
inside the dots. You may have heard this area referred to as “home plate”.
When they talk about it at the pro and international level, the area gets extended up
to the blueline between the hashmarks. You see some blasts from the point from
this area in the girls game, but again, the majority of the pucks are going in from
the low slot.

So knowing this information, which shot do you think we should focus on the most
when teaching young female players to score?

::: Not the wrist shot – especially the version when your butt/bellybutton are facing the
side boards. I refer to this as the ‘butt wiggle” wrist-shot. It takes way too long to get
off which gives the goalie plenty time to set and the defender plenty of time to check
your stick.  Wrist shots where your belly button is facing the goalie are much more
useful but are rarely taught and still take time to get off.

::: Not the slap shot – you simply don’t have enough time and space down below the
hashmarks to get this off.  Remember that the defending team is trying to get your
stick off the ice in the scoring area, so by having a big wind-up, you’re doing their
job for them. A slapshot with a tiny backswing is better – but again, you’re belly button
isn’t facing the net and it still takes too much time.

You need to be able to shoot a hard & quick snapshot to score in tight.

So what’s with my obsession with the belly button facing the net when executing
these shots from in tight?

First, you want to be in a great position to get the rebound if the initial shot doesn’t
go in.  If you aren’t square to the goalie, it’s going to take you longer to react
to the rebound which decreases your chance of scoring.

Secondly, most of these in-tight goals are what I call “christmas gifts”. It’s typically
a puck that’s just sitting there waiting to be smacked into the back of the net
quickly. Usually, you are skating into a puck like this so you don’t have time to
turn your hips sideways to get the wrist-shot or snap-shot off.  Keeping your belly
button pointing at the net is going to help you score more goals in tight – period.

I’ve got a really brief video for you to look at it see a snap-shot in-tight in action.
You can check it out here: https://youtu.be/6nYw6tyyEPI

I also wrote an article about the best way to fix your snapshot a few years back (find it here: https://totalfemalehockey.com/this-will-make-or-break-your-snapshot/)

I hope this helps you score more goals with your team throughout the end
of the regular season and the playoffs.

Work Hard. Dream BIG. Shoot Fast.

Your friend and coach,

Kim

PS:

In addition to working on snapshots in every single camp we run (all details found on https://totalfemalehockey.com/camps/), I also cover snapshot, slap-shot, wrist-shot and backhand details in our Total Female Hockey Shooting & Stickhandling Elite Video series. There are 16 videos that take you through how to take your shooting and stickhandling to the next level without having to step on the ice.  You can check out the details here:  https://totalfemalehockey.com/products/elite_shooting_stickhandling/