Whitehorse goalies had one last opportunity to hone their skills at the third and final World Pro Goaltending clinic of the 2007-08 season.

The clinic was held at the Canada Games Centre's Multiplex on the weekend and consisted of three jam-packed days of drills, which were supervised by World Pro goalie coach J.F. Martel.

"This is what (J.F.) does for a living and he is very good at it," said Gerry Perrier, a Whitehorse Minor Hockey Development co-ordinator.

"It is nice to get a guy that comes in and works with them. I guess (it) raises the stakes a little bit. He's quite serious, he is very professional, he knows what he does and they really respond to that."

The Whitehorse Minor Hockey Association and the Yukon Amateur Hockey Association (YAHA) paid the majority of the fees involved in hosting the first two World Pro Goalie Sessions. Both events were open to goalies in Whitehorse Minor Hockey.

The final clinic, however, was an invitational and Whitehorse Minor and YAHA chipped in for the ice, while the parents of participating goalies paid the additional costs involved.

Goalies who had been training in clinics on a consistent basis for the entire season and, had to have participated in the first two World Pro sessions were selected.

This insured all participants at the camp could handle the amount of work involved over the three-day period.

Altogether, 16 goalies were chosen to participate and divided up into two groups of eight. The younger group featured goalies from the ages of nine to 13 years old, while the older category had goalies ranging in ages from 13 to 18 years old.

Both groups had six to eight hockey players, who shot on net. Shooters in the younger group were primarily PeeWee players, while midget and junior players shot on goalies in the older category.

The two goalie groups took turns sharing the NHL ice at the Games Centre and switched off after a set amount of time had passed between individual sessions.

The clinic began by identifying the seven zones on the ice for a goalie. Three of the zones are in front of the goalie and four are below the goal line.

The first day focussed on working to identify the zones and also the key skating movements that a goalie needs to make in order to get to them.

On day two, Martel had goalies work on the butterfly slides, which involved getting across the crease in the butterfly position.

The butterfly position is one of the key movements in for goalies, which has been developing for the last 10 or 15 years.

This position allows the goalie to cover the bottom and the middle part of the net, leaving just the corners available to the shooters and making it as difficult on them as possible to score.

Besides taking away the majority of the net, an advantage to using the butterfly position is that it allows the goalie to keep his or her game simple.

On day three, drills were set up that involved a player coming at the goalie in a breakaway situation or from below the goal line.

Throughout all three days, additional work was done to improve their glove handling skills by making sure they were in the proper position to catch the puck.

The difference between the two age groups was the younger goalies devoted more time on the basics and didn't cover quite as much as the other group.

The basics involved the skating part of the game and the first two days were focused on moving well in their net and getting into position quickly.

Perrier said he was very impressed with the progression the goalies made over the weekend.

"Particularly with the younger guys, because they have the basics and (Martel) is able to move them along so quickly," he said.

"Part of it is because each of these guys is getting six hours of intense training over the course of a weekend and for us that's about a month worth of training.

It takes four to six weeks to get them where he gets them; well, it's even faster than that because they don't have time to forget what they have learned.

They are back on the ice a couple of hours later and it just takes them from that point forward, so we do an awful lot in the course of a weekend here."

He said the most rewarding part of putting this clinic on is getting a large group of like-minded players together.

"Goalies are part of the team, but a different part of the team," Perrier said.

"They have their own unique pressures, even the little guys, and there is a heavy demand placed on them.

Teams are very reliant on goaltenders and there are only two of them on a team.

They don't really have a lot players to rely on to alleviate that stress, so it's nice that all of them get to be together."

Perrier said these types of clinics are essential.

"It's nice to send these kids away with a good evaluation and one last hard core training session," he said.

"This will sort of be the last thing that they are thinking about before the season ends and it will give them some pointers on staying fit and being prepared for next fall."

Martel has been with World Pro Goaltending for three years and this was his third time coming to Whitehorse this season.

He said one of the clinic's aims is to keep the position simple for participating goalies.

"Basically, with these kids we work on simplifying their game," Martel said.

"We want to keep it as simple as possible.

Identify about a dozen key movements we want to work on with them and then we want to show them when we use them.

Then we go from there and we work on repetition, making sure it becomes natural to them."

Martel, who also coaches NHL stars Carey Price and Ray Emery in the summer, said there was a major improvement with the goalies from the first clinic, which was held in November.

"It's day and night," he said.

"The kids are a lot more consistent with technique and they are more aggressive too I'm very happy with the progression and a lot of that comes with the work ethic. It's just a good time coming up here working with these guys.

They want to learn, so it's good."

Steven Harlow, 15, was one of the goalies who participated in the older age group.

Harlow said some of the areas that he improved the most during the three clinics were things such as his reaction time, positioning and overall technique.

He said Martel is a great instructor.

"He is an awesome guy," Harlow said.

"When he talks to you, he is easy to listen to. It makes you want to try harder and he pushes you."

Harlow plans on participating in the World Pro Goaltending clinics next season and said he is more confident about his abilities in net after taking part in the past three sessions.

This was the 10th World Pro Goaltending clinic held in Whitehorse.