Featured Goalie – November: Ken Lithwick

We’re proud to announce that Goalie Army Academy’s Featured Goalie for November is Ken Lithwick of the Ottawa West Golden Knight Minor Midget team.

Goalie Training Background

Ken has been a student within Goalie Army Academy’s goalie training programs for three years, and demonstrates a vast knowledge of the R3E System during his games, team practices, and goalie training sessions.  He has a great work ethic and is absolutely dedicated to consistently improving his game with constantly paying attention to detail, and working on all of the “little things”.

Statistics

Ken Lithwick closed out the month of November with a 6-1-1 record, 4 shutouts, and a GAA of 1.23 ranking him as the top goaltender at the Minor Midget B level.  Ken implements the goalie training lessons from our weekly Academy Clinics into his games during the regular season, and he attends our clinics and Goaltender-Specific Power Skating goalie training sessions throughout the off season.  By bringing what he has learned from our goalie training sessions, Ken has enabled his team to climb to  the 1^st place overall position in his league’s standings with a team record of 10-2-3.

We first met Ken Lithwick 3 seasons ago when he started playing as a goalie at the Major Peewee level as an affiliate goaltender to the Ottawa West Golden Knights.  At the time, Ken had little to no knowledge of the goaltender’s technical game, some balance issues, and a minimal understanding of in-game theory.

Over the past 3 years, Ken has participated in countless goalie training sessions with Goalie Army Academy.  Ken’s association and team support his development by allowing Goalie Army Academy’s coaches to work with him and his goaltending partner during their team’s practices with semi-private goalie training sessions.

Off-Ice Training

In addition to playing hockey for his team and his on-ice goalie training with Goalie Army Academy, Ken remains very active by playing soccer for his high school and taking part in an indoor soccer program on a weekly basis throughout the winter.  Ken also participates in his school’s outdoor education program which promotes fitness and wellbeing through physical activities such as rock climbing, hiking, and cycling.

Although already faced with a full schedule, Ken still finds some time to work on a slideboard to help him to add power, agility, and improve upon his balance and stability.  To train his eye-hand coordination while improving his reaction time, Ken uses a tennis ball against a wall rather than a reaction ball in order to maintain great weight distribution within his ready stance instead of reaching forward to catch the ball.

Ken’s dedication to his goalie training regimen, his open-minded approach to learning, his desire to lead a healthy lifestyle, and the great amount of support he receives from his family have led Ken to accomplish so much over such a short time.

 

Congratulations Ken!