Buddehjus, where do you live? I've never heard of a place that actually pays goalies to show up!
I'll echo what most of the rest have said. In the beginning of warmups (the whole 3-5 minutes long), I'm trying to get a feel for the puck. By that, I mean I'm making sure I track the puck all the way in to my body, follow it out on rebounds, am moving correctly and on angle, reaquiring depth appropriately, and that my timing is appropriately. I prefer basic shots from distance to start out with so I can do that. Then I'd like two-on-nones, because that gets me reading the play while maintaining angle/distance. Then I'd like about 30-45 seconds of goal mouth scrambles. They are a totally different set of techniques and puck vision that won't get warmed up any other way. I don't want a single breakaway in warm ups. For me, the reason is that the saves I use most commonly against a deke breakaway (which is what you usually see in warmups), are saves that put a heavy demand on my groin and low back muscles. I have a history of groin tears, and I won't risk reinjuring them by using those saves when the muscles are cold and the result doesn't matter.
Bob Cole - Like I said above, I prefer to break a warm up into three sets of shots. For the first half of each set, I want you to shoot on me. Then I want you to try to score. Give me one or two easy ones to turn on my goalie brain, then make me work for it.
BudehJuS - Probably the thing I've heard most often from my teammates is "wow, you're really normal, for a goalie." But I understand the testiness some feel.
First, we goalies put alot of pressure on ourselves to be perfect. We go into the game believing that every shot can be stopped, and after each goal, we identify what we did wrong that allowed the puck to go into the net. At the moment the puck is in the net, it doesn't matter if you blew your defensive coverage and we were facing a 5-on-none of Peter Forsberg clones. We made a mistake that allowed the puck to go into the net. It's our fault, and a lot of us don't handle it well. It's not until we are off the ice and the goalie brain has shut down that we can let it go.
Second, a lot of outskaters don't understand much about goaltending. We constantly have guys telling us to stand up more, go down more, get up quicker, close the 5 hole, etc. Very rarely do any of those guys know enough about goaltending to understand what we did and why. We get a lot of criticism from guys who don't have a clue. Likewise, there are a lot of people who will happily blame the goalie without ever considering how the play developed. I don't know how many times I've had someone tell me I should have stopped that 4th shot with three open guys in the crease, for example.
Third, goaltending is about see-think-react in an instant. At the best of times, it becomes see-react. There's no time to think. That instant reaction comes out in our emotional reactions to other people. We don't mean to be testy. But our social brain that knows you didn't really look at me funny has been set aside so the goalie brain can take over. A lot of goalies use various rituals to get the goalie brain to turn on. They do the same thing before every game. They don't speak to anyone the day of a game. They get screwy if the patterns are broken, because they are afraid the goalie brain won't turn on, they will get scored on, and they will fail the team.
