What kind of person volunteers to get in the way of six ounces of vulcanized rubber screaming at speeds somewhere between 50 and 80 miles an hour? What kind of sick fucker does that?
"Hey, you're going to fire that little black disc at my head? Really? WOW, that sounds like a great time, where do I sign up?"
It's just not normal. Truth be told however, most kids (well, at least when I was a kid) didn't choose the position, it chose them. For me, well, I didn't start playing hockey until I was twelve, although I had been on skates from the time that I was three. Somewhere around that particular age it began to dawn on me that the kid that hid himself in the back of the classroom, sketching away, not paying particular attention to anything was never going to get a girl. Period. But the kids that were playing sports, yeah, the girls liked them...
It seemed like a good idea to me, play hockey, get girls. It started out simply enough, I wanted to be a defense man, I wanted the three "Gs," Girls, Goals, and Glory... Hell of a plan, but my father was my first teams head coach, and as it goes with so many kids who end up being goalies, he didn't want to ask anyone else's kid to play goal, knowing full well that no other parent would go for that deal. So I got the job, by default. And I hated it, absolutely loathed it... I was terrified the first couple of times, mortified that I was going to get hurt, end up a vegetable, eating my meals intravenously... By the third time though I realized that it seemed virtually impossible for me to get hurt, with all of the classic (and borrowed) 1970's old school leather Cooper goalie gear on I was invincible... (Clearly, this is when the "goalie psychosis" set in)
I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker... The equipment, the opportunity to be out on the ice for the whole game, the ability to take a penalty but not have to serve it... The occasional flashy glove save, and even the one "A" didn't seem to bother me, the ABUSE. The timing must have been just right for me, and possibly the fact that I had no idea what the hell I was actually doing, but I was able to move quickly from the "In-House" program to the travel hockey program where I had the good fortune of skipping an entire age classification. So at thirteen I was playing Bantams instead of PeeWees. Talk about learning on the job. We lost every single game that season except for out last one, we tied that one, and it has been the only tie of my life that has ever felt like a win. That was hands down my favorite team. We were the Bad News Bears of hockey, and you would have thought that after getting my ass handed to me every game that I would have come to the conclusion that this goaltending bullshit had to go... Nope, not quite.
I got my first job that summer and saved all of my money to buy newer, fancier equipment. Well, as fancy as my five dollars an hour could afford. The first thing on my list was a new chest and arm protector, because the one that I had basically amounted to a quilt with sleeves, not a whole lot of protection there. I bought a D&R CA, it was all white and offered light years more protection than the circa 1972 CA that I had been wearing to that point. I also managed to scrape enough money together to buy a brand new Cooper GM9 blocker (all white, which was a big deal as goalie equipment had just begun the "color" trend, up until then you were stuck with the all brown leather classics...) because my previous blocker, which was used had several flaws, one, there was no palm whatsoever, and two, it reeked of cat piss. The new GM9 was a huge improvement. I managed to get my hands on a used pair of Vic leg pads (tan and black), the boxy ones like Tom Barasso used to wear, and a slightly used GM9 catching glove (tan and black).
I started to get a little crazy at that point, pouring over hockey supply catalogs, checking out every single new piece of gear, dying to get my hands on it... A couple of years after my first Bantam season I was facing much bigger guns at the high school level and needed to procure some equipment with an even higher standard of protection, so by my sophomore year I had moved up the equipment ladder to the Vaughn Legacy series... Holy crap, this was the stuff that guys like Andy Moog and Mike Richter were wearing... I spent the entire summer saving to buy my first brand new pair of Vaughn Legacy 3000, 34" leg pads, (I had already bought the 1050 blocker, and had gotten the T2000 glove for christmas) and when they finally arrived I couldn't wait to get out on the ice with them. They were black and white, and I can still remember how they smelled brand new out of the box. They were perfect. I was also one of the first goalies locally to get my hands on a "pro-style" goalie mask, which was HECC certified and allowable for use in youth and high school hockey. It was made by Van Veldon... It was a little ill fitting, and I wasn't thrilled with the HECC approved wire cage, but at least I had a cool looking mask...
I could go on and on about what I bought or received as a gift, what color it was, when I got it, but I need to get back to my original point, goalies are freak shows... And like I said, for a host of different reasons, but the primary reason that I am such a nut job, I have to match the team that I am playing with, so I have two sets of Bauer Supreme SE 2 all white, and an all black set. The sets are identical in every way, leg pads, gloves, blockers... I have two identical ITECH 960 goalie masks, one all white, and one with a design on it in blue (my OMHL team wears blue and white). I have two pairs of goalie pants that I use regularly, one royal blue pair of ITECH pants, and one black pair of Vaughn pants and a John Brown 2100 chest and arm protector.
Now, I have more gear than that, two more Bauer gloves (black/red, black/blue), another Bauer blocker (black/red), an additional pair of Vaughn leg pads (white), another pair of Vaughn pants (red), and two more helmets (all black, and mostly red with a design) a Brian's CA, and a Sher-Wood CA. I mention all of this stuff to illustrate a particular sickness that infects most goalies, the want and desire to match everything, all of the time. Now there are some players who feel the same way, my father was like that, but for the most part, the don't seem to give a shit one way or the other... Shit, I paint my goalie sticks to match the teams I play on...
Now if I was married, had kids, shit like that, I probably wouldn't be out buying up goalie equipment everywhere I looked, I wouldn't be painting my sticks to match my team colors... But I am not married and I don't have any kids, so that means I get to do whatever the hell I want to do. Part of me spends a lot of time trying to convince myself that I buy all of this shit because I am a "team first" guy. I think the truth is, well, I just love goalie equipment, hell, if I could, I would open my own store selling hockey gear. Think about it, that might just be the most perfect job in the world... Sitting around, talking about hockey, playing with new gear, testing out new sticks, sharpening skates all day... I hope that is what heaven is like when I finally shit the bed.
Anyway, yeah, I'm a fucking wing nut, fine, I can live with that, I'm a goalie. I'm supposed to be crazy and a little weird.
So here are the stats after 20 GP, 11-6-3, 2.55 GAA, 2 SO...
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