Why won’t you talk to me?

Goals can be a good time to grab a break.

It didn’t take long for me to figure out one thing about the entire goalie position.   Take a look at the design of a goalie helmet and you might notice that it is extremely protective.   The cage has lots of bars in front of the face to keep pucks (and butt ends of sticks) out.  A large chunk of your face is covered by the helmet, leaving only enough for basic peripheral vision.    The chin of the masks drops really low to protect one’s throat.  Oh, and a goalies mouth is almost always entirely blocked by that same chin area.

And back to the lesson learned — nobody can understand a word you say while wearing the brain bucket.  Talk all you want, but they can’t see your mouth moving and they, too, are wearing a helmet with their own ears obscured.

Worse yet, people can’t see your facial expressions, so sarcasm and joking are all but impossible!

And if only to compound this fiasco, I now wear a mouthguard .  Even though it is a good mouthguard that allows me to speak decently enough, (a chipped molar during play once and decided rec hockey wasn’t worth concussions and dental visits) it definitely adds another obfuscation layer.

But you keep ignoring me!

Of course, your D wants to talk to you (and apologize, even if it was your 5-hole that failed the team), but they sometimes take it personally when you appear to be ignoring them.   For this, I must apologize and explain.

That same head cage that keeps me from being able to effectively talk to you also hinders communication going the other way.   Unlike a player helmet, a goalie helmet typically has zero (zip, nada, zilch, nada) ear holes to let sound it.   As if that wasn’t bad enough, imaging having a drum cymbal attached to your earlobes and making a loud crashing sound every single time you move your head.  Yes, this is what a throat dangler can sound like (but believe me, having had my neck saved several dozens of times the things are worth it!).

So, chances are good that if you try to talk to me when you are outside of my field of view I won’t hear you.  If you talk to me in a normal tone of voice, I won’t hear you.   If you don’t get my attention before you start the conversation, I might not hear you.  And even if you do everything right and manage to let me see your mouth so I can add lip-reading into the mix, I will typically only get 50-75% of what you say.

In other words, expect me to spend the next attempting to parse your joke, only to be lucky enough to laugh at it by the time you next get on the ice.

Caveat:  All the above said, I can say that I do manage to hear things (good & bad) shouted at me within the vicinity of the crease.  ”Good Save”,  ”Hate you!”, “Thief!”, “Gotchya!”.

You must be mad at me, you turned your back!

Play stops and players are lining up for a face off.   Or a goal is scored and the ref comes and gets the puck.   Either way, I get 10-15 seconds to grab a drink of water and get a quick face wash.  I’m not mad that you lollygagged your ass on backchecking and allowed a 3 on 1 play to develop.  Seriously, I’m just hot and thirsty and need to make the most of my short break “between shifts”.  Not sure when I’ll get another one!

What did we learn today?

"That's my puck, get off of it!"

Let’s recap — I’m not mad, nor am I ignoring you.  Heck, I’m not even particularly quiet.  We just have an impediment to casual communication.   That said, more often than not, the punchy one-liners do get across and make for a fun game. So keep on chatting!

When I see a player coming into me, I usually take one of two approaches:

1. EJECT! EJECT! EJECT!     I’d rather play another day than have some bozo land on my knee and snap some tendons.   Sure, they get a goal, but they also find that the cold steel post leaves a lasting memory.
2. Elbows Up and Hold On!  When ejecting from the crease is not an option, I have (finally) learned to tighten up, lead with the elbows (or blocker, or stick) and hold on for the ride.  While I tend to be a little softer than a post, the least I can do is help remind skaters that I’m a big guy and I have sharp skates and elbows.

In the following sequence, I don’t think I even had a chance.   I pretty much remember simply ending up with my back against the netting and the net all the way back against the back boards.   I’m glad Jason was there to capture this one, ’cause it confirmed my suspicion that my ‘D had something to do with it.

(Oh, and somewhere in that tangle, you can see that the bloody puck found a way in! )

Bret Sewell carrying the puck, Frank Savino heading for him

Bret Sewell carrying the puck, Frank Savino on him

Bret Sewell knocked off his skate by Frank Savino

Bret Sewell knocked off his skate by Frank Savino, into Red. How'd the puck get there?

Bret Sewell knocked off his skate by Frank Savino, flying into Red

Bret Sewell knocked off his skate by Frank Savino, flying into both Red and the post

Bret Sewell knocked off his skate by Frank Savino, flying into both Red and the entire net now heads to the boards

Bret Sewell knocked off his skate by Frank Savino, flying into both Red and the post with the entire net against the boards and the puck (and Red) both inside the net.

Sometimes after the late (10:45) games, I’ll get home, grab a quick shower and crawl right into bed at about 1 o’clock.   On occasion, I’ll be rewinding and replaying some of the plays of the night as I drift off to sleep.   As a result of my mental playback, I sometimes end up dreaming goalie dreams.

This particular night had been a pretty rough-and-tumble game.  Big guys screening me, bumping me around, getting in my way, etc.  Oh, and I was still in the early stages of learning how to protect myself and my beloved crease.

You see, us goalies don’t get to use the entire ice surface like the rest of you skaters.  Instead, we get a little bit of space at one end of the rink where we find our solace.  Instead of jabbering on the bench with the team, we have posts, a crossbar and some netting to keep us company.   We like our little space, which explains why we sometimes “flip the crazy switch” when our comfort zone gets invaded.   Heck, it’s all we got!

Anyway,  so I’m dreaming away and sleeping pretty hard.   I’m playing a great dream-game in net.  Things are going well when suddenly, from somewhere off-ice, I hear:

“ooowwwww oww oww  owww”

which is weird, since I’m really holding my own in this game…..but I begrudgingly take a dream time-out when it continues with:

“owwwwwwwwwwwww….. Ouch!”

…and drearily open my eyes to see Steph on her back with my elbow jabbing into her ribcage.  Steph is holding her side, nearly falling out of bed and has a look of profound shock on her face.

“Ouch, that hurt!   Why were you elbowing me?!?”, she demands.

And in my half-dreamy state, I  simply reply:  “You were in my crease.”

I tell any new goalies that I meet that the first 3 months are the hardest ever. I’m a former athlete (swimmer) and played goalie in soccer growing up. But starting out goalie in ice hockey was a completely different experience. I’ll whine about starting out in this post, so that in the next post I can list some great goalie resources and web sites.

::Whining::

Your first time out there in goal is a surreal experience. Putting all that gear on is like isolating yourself in a special bomb safety cage with a small viewing port with which to see the world.

::Easy Bake::

It’s hot in all that gear — like really friggin toasty. In fact, it is so hot that you’ll be tempted to pick snow off the ice and shove it down your chest armor, into your helmet and inside your pants. You’ll want to lie down on your exposed backside during breaks and leave behind a melted puddle. But don’t you worry, after a few months your body (re)learns how to sweat profusely and you’ll routinely lose 4-5 pounds of water weight in a game (in spite of downing 2lbs of water during the game to offset the expected loss). The downside in all this is that I now sweat simply at the sight of hockey gear!

::Atlas::

Speaking of weight, goalie gear is heavy. Think about it, you are routinely asking yourself to put on skates and go out in a getup which as much ventiation as a plastic bag. Silly as it may sound, imagine doing 50 lunges on the slippery ice in that outfit — easy cheesy. But all that is just too dang easy to be interesting enough for your average Canadian, so line your plastic bag with about 30-40lbs (16kg for the rest of the world). Now add a time-based component, as your gear will only get heaver and heaver with sweat and water throughout your little “workout”. On the bright side, the next time you go backpacking, your 40-50lb pack won’t bother you one bit and you’ll be capable of deep knee lunges at 10,000feet.

::Biodrome::

Simply put, gear smells and tastes funny (especially borrowed gear). The helmet is its own little biodrome and you get to smell and taste everything you (or the person you borrowed the helmet from) have had on your face or hair for the last few weeks. Once again, don’t worry, you’ll soon lose the ability to taste the yeast growing inside the gear. In fact, I have a theory that all this helmet yeast fights off rhinoviruses quite well.

::Physics::

The first few times you get out there, you quickly find that you can’t stand up correctly in those bloody goalie skates. You see, goalie skates are missing something that player skates have an abundance of — ankle support. You’ve watched other goalies go side to side and you want to do the same. However, there is something unnatural about taking a long metal blade and making it go shortways on the ice. On top of that, if you are unlucky enough to go out the first few times in player skates, be sure to take out ankle and knee insurance. Player skates hate going sideways more than goalie skates, and the extra ankle support is actually a problem when you start to work on butterflies and recoveries. Eventually, you’ll get yourself goalie skates and build some ankle strength and your slides will be as natural as ever. As an added bonus, your edge control will be outstanding and your hockey stops in player skates will be greatly improved.

::…In A Bunch::

Just when you think you’ve gotten a little used to all the confinement, a piece of your gear will start twisting around. Sometimes it’s your chest armor, sometimes it’s the body armor below and occasionally it’s your socks, jock or cup. The amazing thing is that in spite of the heat exhaustion and other distractions (pucks) you are even able to notice the twisting and bunching. Alas, the annoyance of twisting gear never seems to improve — you simply get better at finding ways to keep it from happening.

::Ouch::

Does being a goalie hurt? Sometimes. Depends on where you get hit and how hard you get hit there. When you first step out there, you are pretty darn convinced you are covered head to toe and you feel a wee bit invincible (albeit Michelin Man uncoordinated). Don’t worry, you’ll soon find out you how wrong you are with prompt and immediate feedback. The feedback often comes with a bonus reminder in the form of a nice square puck-sized bruise.

Case in point, like touching a hot stove, you find out that turning your back to a puck is a bad idea. Lifting your chin and exposing your neck is also a bad idea (oh, the road-tracks on my kneck from that one lasted a week). Opening up your elbow lets your jealous armpit and rib cage catch a glimpse of the puck. A fancy kick save with an open leg might grant your groin a souvenir. Above the knee and below the pants is a nice spot for blocking pucks with flesh. In fact, even a correctly angled puck will find a way to slip up the bicep and under the shoulder caps. You soon become familiar with that sickening fleshy thump-sound of a puck finding something other than gear (the dull aching pain follows a few seconds later).

And even if the puck does manage to hit your gear square one, some gear is better than others and you’ll find yourself upgrading out of the beginner gear soon enough. Charlie-horsed arm after taking a shot — upgrade. Entire hand going numb after catching a hard puck — upgrade. Heart stopping when you get hit in the sternum — upgrade. Mandatory 15 minute “rest” after a slapshot to the “groinal area” — upgrade.

::Say What?::

The inside one of a goalie helmet is an acoustic travesty. Unlike player helmets, goalie masks lack ear holes. This makes comprehension difficult to say the least. Since you’ve typically got a piece of reinforced thermoplastic in front of your mouth, your fellow skaters are all but guaranteed not to understand a word you say (forget smiling at them, they won’t see it). This is why goalies are always taking off their helmets to talk — it’s pretty much the only option.

To up the ante, after a couple of throat hits, you might want to –upgrade– to a dangler. A dangler is a curved little piece of polycarbonate that hangs by a couple of shoelaces from your helmet. On the plus side, danglers are great for stopping the errant puck (or stick blade) headed for your carotid artery. On the down side, it’s akin to arhythmic banging on your helmet with a giant plastic drumstick.

And to close off this section, I’d like to mention that getting hit in the face mask is not so much painful as it is L-O-U-D!

::Get Me Out Of Here::

Did I mention how tired you’ll be? A different kind of sweaty, full body exhausted can’t walk kind of tired. So tired that when you are done with the “session”, you stumble to the locker room and suddenly experience an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia. As in, “Get this gear the hell off of me, it’s so hot and wet and stinky and confining that I have to be free!”.

You’ll be tempted to bring a knife with you and simply cut the straps and ties that bind. Don’t do this — it’s the expensive way out. Trust me, the chest armor is the worst, and once you get that off, the panic will subside. And after a few months, you’ll almost get used to lounging around in your gear — the familar smell and warmth of home.

::Ouch 2::

Oh, and the muscles. They hate you. They revolt against you. They despise you. They haven’t been this yanked, tugged, abused in over a decade and they refuse to let you forget about it. You thought you stretched, but they disagree. Your new friends are Advil, Tiger Balm, Polar Lotion, a hot shower and even more stretching.

It’s no wonder they say “goalies just aren’t right…”

Wrapping up a great season with a couple of great teams. Below is our Tuesday night team, the Nomads, posed in front of the (puff-paint) painted “Stanley Keg”. It was an exciting game….complete with a tieing goal with 90 seconds remaining. After a short overtime, we went into shoot-out, with each goalie letting in 1 apiece after 3 shooters. The 4th shooter settled the matter…..and we took the Keg. Go team!

::Background::

While I have short hair, I’m currently sporting the (out-of-style) spiky look. To get said spiky look one has to use product. Not a lot, mind you, but some reasonably stiff hair gel of sorts.

Let me also add that I do not shower after work and *before* I put all the gear on and go play.

When you sweat in goalie gear, you really sweat. After a hard game, my underwear will be soaked through (like a dip in the pool). My scalp also perspires, soaking my hair and dripping down on the now-sopping wet sweat band in my mask. You see, the inside of ice hockey goalie gear is just another water sport.

::Back To The Subject At Hand::

That said, one of the little things I’ve noticed is that different hair products have different flavors. When the helmet sweat spigot engages, some hair products might sting your eyes and some won’t be a problem at all. But more pertinent to today’s topic is the fact that the sweat running down your face invariably gets into your mouth and comes with the added bonus of flavor.

::Tasty::

So, here are my reviews of various hair products and how they taste in the liquid environs of a goalie helmet.

(no particular order)

Redken Hardware – I rarely use this stuff, but it has a mild salty flavor. No sting on the eyes.

Redken Water Wax – This one has nearly no flavor, perhaps slightly salty, but it does manage to dry your throat out a bit and make you cough. In addition, the eye-sting is pretty bad. Because of its waxy nature, it kinda clouds up your eyes as well. So bring an extra eye-rinse water bottle.

Redken [6] Styling Paste – You kinda have to use a lot of this stuff to get it to work, and as a result you get quite a bit of lip-smacking goodness. It’s reminiscent of chewing on a rose petal – not exactly sweet, and it dries your mouth out a little bit. The good news is that it doesn’t completely destroy your vision like the water wax.

Crew Styling Pomade – This is by far the worst offender on the flavor and vision front. I simply had to stop using it for that very reason. Think of a bitter apple, so tannic that your mouth instantly puckers up. Now, add some weird chemical tartness to it that makes your cheeks tighten up. On top of that, throw some vaseline in your eyes. That’s what this stuff does inside a helmet!

Pantene Hair Gel - It might be the cheap stuff on this list, but it’s darn effective as a hair styling product. The flavor is perhaps nutty with a hint of salt — very mild and unoffensive. The eye-sting factor is non-existent. In fact, this is at the top of my “Best tasting hair product mixed with sweat and running into your eyes” category.

Nexxus Exxtra Gel - Another fairly reasonably priced ‘product’ with little flavor (perhaps a wee bit salty). This one also does not have any eye-stinging characteristics. However, it does have a curious effect of making my forehead feel “dry” or slightly chapped. Weird.

::Arousal::

First, some background. A few of you already know that I grew up a swimmer, so water sports (e.g. Ice Hockey) are in my blood. I didn’t start playing in net until 2005 (we’ll cover that in a later installment). The point here is that I retired from swimming after high school and started coaching swimming. During my 15 years as a swimmer and additional 15 years as a coach of all skills and levels, I learned a lot about athletes.

One of the more important things I learned is that every athlete is different and every athlete motivates in a different way. At a gross level, some athletes need to be relaxed to perform, while others need all the weight of the world on their shoulders with a heaping side of high anxiety. Psychologists refer to these varying states as “levels of arousal” (get your mind out of the gutter, this is ‘serious’ business). Not only is every athlete different, but context counts, too. Some athletes require different levels of arousal depending on the event at hand — e.g. high levels of arousal prior to an ultramarathon are probably not the ticket.

As a coach, you learn to differentiate amongst your athletes and work with their needs to tease out the best that they can give. You learn to establish different methods of approaching, motivating, correcting, encouraging, teaching depending on the athlete and the context. As either a coach or an athlete, you work to keep the state of arousal at a level appropriate for the event. As an Aikido buddy once told me: “It’s okay to have butterflies in your stomach, just make them fly formation!”

::Monkey Petting::

As an athlete, one of my former swim coaches used to make us listen to motivational tapes. She would sit us in a room before practice, turn down the lights, and some Jack Handey type would spout motivational garbage about how fast we were and how awesome we really could become. The times that I didn’t fall asleep, I typically spent rolling my eyes in boredom. After all, this guy on the tape didn’t know me, probably didn’t even know how to swim either. Why would I listen to that? These sessions were wasted on me!

However, as a coach, I found that positive reinforcement techniques did work. Positive reinforcement prior to competition or even a tough practice, can really do wonders for performance. Sometimes, positive reinforcement between teammates proved even more powerful. For better or worse, nowadays I casually refer to mental positive reinforcement as “stroking the monkey” or “monkey petting“, where the “monkey” is your ego.

The thing about monkey petting, is it really needs to be personalized, personal, and directed at a receptive monkey for it to be effective. It becomes effective when the target monkey is able to internalize the positive reinforcement. For that to happen, the target monkey has to listen, and believe in the words enough so as not to outright reject them at the eardrum. This is why the reinforcement between teammates worked so well, it can be more genuine sounding (less pandering) than that coming from the coach.

As we covered earlier, back in the day, the tapes didn’t work for me. However, a coach making eye contact and saying few choice words worked even more:

• “Reach!”
• “Stand on it and don’t crash”
• “Balls to the wall”
• “Shake it if you got it”
• “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog.”
• “If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well.”

In fact, one of the best motivational speeches I ever received involved no words at all — simply put, 3 pennies in a well to wish for good luck (I have no idea where or what this refers to, but it worked anyway). Lining up on the blocks, my coach at the time (Coach John “Willie” Williams) casually caught my eye as he stood on the far end of the pool. With barely a motion, he silently flipped three pennies into my lane, one-by-one. The result: one heck of a swim!

::Back on Topic::

So what does this have to do with hockey goaltending?

Even in a beer league, one wants to go out there, play well and hopefully win a game now and then. Even when the prize for winning is a team picture in front of a puff-painted beer keg and a 2-sizes-too-small t-shirt, you still want to win. This can make you nervous at times. As a goalie, you can end up in slumps that last weeks. You can have bad luck throw a perfectly good shutout. You can just out-and-out play like crap. You can find yourself in against an impossible breakway. It could be a penalty shot. It could be the last minute of a 1-goal game with shots dinging off the post. Pucks like to find their way in with less than 10 seconds to go!

Any of these situations will tweak your “level of arousal”. And the problem with all of these scenarios is that the puck keeps on coming — and as a goalie you need to take each shot one-at-a-time and ignore all that came before it. This can be a tough thing to do when your monkey is out-of-whack.

And it was during one of these slumps that I tried a little experiment on myself. Of course, this “experiment” was of no scientific value and shouldn’t even be called an experiment, but we’ll use the term anyway.

You see, I started trying some positive self-reinforcement. “Ooooh, so what?” I hear you say. “Then why are you wasting your time reading this?” I respond in my head. “Dunno…..bored?” you reply. “Good enough” I say. Moving along…

::TMI::

Countless athletes before me have done exactly this, each in their own way. And I’m gonna run you through my descent into darkness as I began talking to myself in the crease.

You see, it all started out simply enough. I kept getting beat 5-hole and was in a slump. So on my drive up to the rink, I would say to myself a couple of times “no 5-hole goals tonight……<repeat>”. Then, as I mostly closed that 5-hole up, I found other things to say to myself. For instance: “Limit the number of stupid goals to one or two tonight…<repeat>”.

You see, talking to myself was working — where the motivational B.S. tapes hit a wall due to monkey-rejection, I found my monkey was actually listening to me. Scary, huh? Don’t worry, it only gets worse!

Like a drug, the monkey petting became habit forming and even more weird. I dragged one out from my Aikido days and started using “Mind, Body, Spirit…. <repeat>” where mentally I was picturing Mind == No Stupid Goals, Body == Good Form, no 5-hole goals, Spirit == Challenging out to meet the shooter.

The monkey petting continued to work and became even more embarrassing (so it makes perfect sense to put all this out there on the web!) While I’m sure every goalie has used the “Be like a wall…<repeat>” self motivation, mine became an internal chant that simply went “I am a brick wall…<repeat>”. And instead of just a few times on the ride up to the rink, it became a game-time mantra (e.g. one of my favorites is “Om mani padme hum“) Believe it or not, this chant/mantra and it’s frequent/constant and near mindless subconscious repetition during games did something to relax me prior to a breakaway or after a series of Kung-Fu saves (to get the heart rate down).

Somewhere around that time, one of my D exclaimed to me “Go, go, Gadget, go!” after I snatched a puck out of the air with an quick extension of my knuckle-dragging arm. And guess what… my mantra/chant/self-motivation subconsciously evolved and and absorbed the words to become: “I am Inspector Gadget. I am a brick wall….<repeat>”. Told you it got weird.

And then came the day I totally denied a shooter his joy in life on a breakaway and I simply heard a passing “Whatever, Spiderman…”. You’re way ahead of me…. and yes, the evolution continued: “I am Inspector Gadget. I am a brick wall. I am Spiderman…..<repeat>”. Wow…. I was starting to scare myself now, but the monkey was responding!

That’s not to say that the basic, deliberate and conscious self-motivations were put aside. The drive to the rink still was a good time to give a little focus on what needed work “Keep the glove out front, get that stick down, no easy goals from the corner…”, etc. This isn’t hard, since something always needs work!

But even a good mantra runs the risk of losing it’s mana. So, I started having a little fun with things and consciously began working on new monkey petting goalie mantras. The funniest thing of all is that just about any monkey petting goalie mantra seems to work — almost as if the words themselves don’t matter! I figure I could simply recite “Peanut Butter, Peanut Butter, Chocolate…<repeat>” and achieve nearly the same effect (by the time you read this, i’ll have tried that and moved on to pig-based breakfast meats!). What mattered was how I internally mantra’d to myself — the intention of the words made the butterflies assume formation.

::OMGWTMI::

Updated: July 23, 2008

So, what are some of the other monkey petting goalie mantras that I’ve come up with. Following is a list, with more to be added as I come up with them. Enjoy (snickering and laughing wholeheartedly permitted!).

• I am a brick wall
• Be like wall
• No 5 hole, hands out, paddle down
• Mind, Body, Spirit
• I am Superman
• I am spider man. I am a brick wall. I am inspector gadget.
• I am agressive and I will challenge the shooter
• Bring it on meat, bring it on
• No soup for you
• And for you haiku fans:
  • Fluid, explosiveagressive, solid and tight

    I feast on pucks day and night

• Peanut Butter, Peanut Butter, Chocolate (This one has been proven to have serious juju)
• Cabernet Merlot Pino Syrah! (Yup… this works too)

last updated: March 27 2009

• We’ve got Spaghetti (thanks Toasters…)
• Don’t you think you’ve made enough good saves for one night?
• Could you suck more, please?
• “The goalie must be wearing some kind of magic pads”
• You tease!
• Nice work, gumby.
• Whatever, Spiderman!
• Go, Go, Gadget Go!
• Nice Kung-Fu Batman.
• Hey, mattress legs.
• Biscuit hippie!
• A 5-hole like a vegas stripper!
• Standards: Goalie, Keeper, Net-man, wall, thief.

This goalie thought is a little insight into how some of us cope with the numbers in lights on the end of the rink.

Yes, the score. You see, the score might determine who wins or loses, but it doesn’t tell the story of how it got that way. Nor does it tell the story of how any one team member played. I’ve had some of my best games in net on the losing side of the battle — there is only so much you can do.

So, in talking with other goalies, I’ve noticed how certain goals bother us more than others. We discount certain goals in our own heads (sure, they are real and they go up on the board). In fact, you can go as far a to say that we goalies have our own way of keeping score. The higher the point value, the worse our performance, kind of like the other team’s goal count (we like low numbers, eh?). So, here goes.

The goalie screwup – Point Value = k*1

These are the goals we hate and that’s why I’m covering them first. These are the goals that I should have had, and easily, but still let in. A classic example is a soft shot along the goal line. There is no angle on that shot, and the chance of it going in are slightly above 0%. These goals are terrible, and more than one of these in a night can really take it’s toll. We know when we’ve let one of these in — whether we show it or not. “k” is the multiplier for how bad you feel (could be as high as 2) or how silly the mistake was. Usually, the higher the “k” value, the less likely you are to make that mistake again!

The basic, normal everyday goal – Point Value = 1

For those of you who watch hockey, there are some goals that are just scored on good shots, or great teamwork. The other team simply creates an opportunity and capitalizes on it. Sometimes they wear you down in your own zone and generate a series of shots. Sometimes they get somebody open on the back door after a lot of work. Sometimes they just beat you fair and square. These are “normal goals” and they happen.

Kung-Fu Saves – Point Value = 1f / x

Sometimes you put together an amazing string of saves. You know, where you make the first save and the rebound gets to an opponent’s stick and comes back so you do the splits and you make another save, but the D can’t clear it and so you launch across the crease to make another save which then gets kicked over and you have to poke check this time. These things happen. Sometimes you put together 5 or 6 of these saves inside of a few short seconds. When you are doing that, you are demonstrating the art of Goalie Kung Fu. Sometimes you get the first 5 but the 6th finds a way to dribble across the goal line. These things happen. Fortunately, with goalie scoring, the point value is 1f/ x where “x” is the number of Kung Fu saves and “f” is a reasonable multipler for your skill level. For instance, I typically use an “f” of 3 (I expect to be able to make 3 Kung Fu saves in a row). If I make 4 Kung Fu saves and the 5th one goes in, the point value is really “3/4″ which is less than the number up on the score board. Translation: I did my job, so I’m not taking full credit for that goal.

Odd Man Rushes – Point Value = (0.5) * (1 / x)

I’ve had teams give up a lot of odd man rushes. These can be your solo breakways, your 2 on 1′s, your 2 on goalie’s…. etc. I’ve even faced (multiple times) 3 opponennts at once! What’s up with that? Anyway, these types of situations have their own point valuation. We start with the basic fact that a clean breakaway is about a 50/50 chance (there are factors about how well I know the shooter, how well they know me, comparable skill levels, number of breakways already that game, etc etc, but we’ll stick with 50/50 to keep it simple). The “x” is the number of shooters breaking in. So for a clean 1 on 0 breakway, if they score it’s a point value of 0.5. If for some reason your D are asleep and you see a 2 on 0, the point value is (0.5) * (1/2) or a value of 0.25. Translation, I expect I might get lucky about 1 out of every 4 times when faced with a 2 on 0 breakaway. You get the picture. Adjust and scale as necessary for the conditions at hand.

Tip Ins and Deflections – Point Value = 1f / x

Tip ins, deflections and odd bounces are a standard part of the game. In this case, “x” is the number of times the puck is tipped (yes, it can be tipped 2 or 3 or even 4 times en route to your face). Even so, we utilize the “f” scaling factor for expected skill level. For a beginning goalie, “f” may equal 0.5, meaning you expect to stop only about 1/2 of the tipped pucks from going in the net. As goalies improve, you figure out game strategies for cutting off tip angles and whatnot. At this point, I use an “f” of 1, meaning I expect to stop the first tip. If a puck is tipped twice and goes in, I’ll give it a score of 0.5. If it’s tipped 3 times, I’d have to claim lack of superhuman speed and paranormal predication and grant it a 0.33 point value. You get the picture.

10/28/2008

Off the post, off the back of your glove, elbow or back, and in the net- Point Value = 1/2

The posts are your friends, except for the rare times that shooters turn them against you by using them. When the shooter hits the post in such a way as to bank it off the back of your glove and then into the net, you have to give them some props. On the other hand, you have to admit that without the post stabbing you in the back, their shot would not have meant squat. So, in this case we’ll simply split the difference and call it 1/2 a point.

The D coughs it up Goal – Point Value = 1/f

There are those times you have just busted out your Goalie Kung Fu and the D gets possession and your team is skating out of the zone with the puck only to cough it up and find the puck in the net. Often during these times you are just trying to catch a few seconds of breath before the next offensive salvo, and so you find yourself a little further back and unprepared than you should be. All of this can be made especially difficult if it is a D that you trust to clear the zone 99% of the time. Either way, the D cough up goal can be a tough “f” value to assign. Does “f” scale with distance from the crease? (Sometimes the D will try to bring the puck tight around the net only to lose it out of your reach and have the opponent “capitalize” on the “opportunity”). Or does “f” scale with the graciousness of the cough-up? You’ll have to figure out your own point value on this one.

Tie Breaker Penalty Shots – Point Value = 0 -or- (0.5) * (1/x)

This one is simply unfair to assign any point value to regardless. It takes a team to end up in an overtime tie-breaker. If you let the critical one in, the game is over and should be put out of your mind. If you make the critical save, you’re a hero. With these types of outcomes, just let it go as a 0 and move on. However, if that’s not good enough and you like to feel the guilt after the game, go for a (0.5) * (1/x) approach, where (0.5) is the familiar 50/50 odds and “x” is the number of penalty shots you have faced that night. The longer things go, the more your skill and luck are stretched.

Own Goals – Point Value = 0

It can be hard enough to track 5 guys circling around in your zone whirling the puck from player to player. What makes it even harder is that there is a small rubber biscuit in the middle of that chaos and you have to keep your eyes on it. What makes this even harder is that you are trying to move all the time to be in the right place so that you can cuddle the biscuit when it gets launched your way. What makes this even harder is there is typically some dude standing in front of you trying to obscure your view of the biscuit. And if that wasn’t enough, your D tries to perform the noble service of clearing out your view, often to end up blinding you just as badly. Oh, and one more thing — I play at night — which is about 7-10 hours after those people in front of me have had their tacqueria lunches (if you know what I mean). So what happens if a shot is taken, you manage to see it, prepare for it, and suddenly your own D tries to help out by tipping it past you? A point value of 0 my friends. This is a goal that simply does not count in my goalie mind.

9/25/2008

Your D falls down and puts them, you and the puck in the net – Point Value = 0

Thanks to Amy for demonstrating this one so cleanly. A guy is coming in on a breakaway and your D is putting pressure on them. As the guy cuts to deke, he loses the puck. Since the cut (and the lost puck) are both a surprise to your D, your D has no choice but to lose both edges, dismount, and slide ass over tea kettle into the puck. Sure, sounds great, except for the momentum part. The puck and the D decide to continue towards your knees at a good velocity (it is ice, and it tends to be slippery). The menage a trois is a nice one and the other team posts a goal. However, being a goalie, you rightfully choose not to count this event as a point against.

10/28/2008

Ringing it in the zone, off an end stanchion, off your back, in the net- Point Value = 0

Honestly, this should never have happened. What are the odds? That’s right, terrible. In fact, if you had not even been there the goal would not have scored. You could even challenge a shooter to make the same ring-in 100 times and they still couldn’t recreate this goal. A goal like this is so beyond belief and so completely random that you could argue it doesn’t exist and never happened. Hence the 0 points.

In The House and On The Button – Point Value = -1

The only way I can figure to mentally knock off points is to put the puck in the house and on the button. What? You don’t watch curling? Basically, this happen when I freeze the puck down low (and don’t desperately need a drink of water, a gear adjustment or any of the other things that players have 2 minutes to do every time they get off the ice. This also assumes you know the refs and they know you, as some refs can get pissy about the goalie “playing” the puck after the whistle blows!) The ‘game’ is simple, after the whistle blows and everyone has had a chance to calm down (players, they get worked up, y’know), gently play/push/shove the puck towards the correct faceoff dot. If you can land the puck right on the dot, take a point off the score!!! Sure, sounds easy enough. Trouble is, the ice conditions change throughout the game and it’s really hard to curl a puck without sweepers (or whatever they are called) working the ice in front of you. And if that is bad enough, players will often skate across the facefoff circle without looking, thereby messing up your perfect toss. Best of luck on this one!

Ding Dong Post Hits - Point Value = +/- x

Somebody recently asked me how I valued shots that hit the post. The answer to this one is simple: If it goes in, x = 1 (or whatever the value from above calculations might be). If it doesn’t go in, x = 0. Yes, it’s that simple. In my monkey, a shot hitting the post means that I was in the perfect position — not an inch was wasted being out of position. Gotta keep things positive!

Every goalie I have met is a little bit “different” (at least that is what we tell ourselves), and we all seem to have various coping mechanisms for the good and the bad times. For instance, imagine hanging out with the guy who put 3 goals in against ya — he’s bragging about scoring 3 measly goals forgetting that you stoned him on his 15 other shots.

I am going to start up a little themed series of Goalie Thoughts. Some of these thoughts will be discussions I have had with other goalies and others will be musings. I’ve got a few ideas in mind, and I’ve been meaning to post them for quite some time.

Keep in mind that by no means are any of them “authoritative”, but they may be good reads into the mind of yours truly and how this particular goalie copes.

Happy reading!