Are goalies different?
Henry and Linda Staal raised three NHL players on the family farm in Thunder Bay, Onatrio. Jordan plays for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Eric is with the Carolina Hurricanes, and Marc is on the New York Rangers.
Jordan and Eric are forwards, Marc is a defenseman.
Please note there’s not a goalie among them.
The suggestion that he would wind up tending goal is almost offensive to Jordan Staal.
“No, I didn’t get loony like most of the goaltenders,” he said. “I got smart and stayed out of the nets.”
Such is the life for goaltenders. No one understands them outside of their small fraternity, and most teams only carry two goalies. So there are two guys who understand what the job involves, and 18 others who think they’re crazy for signing on for puck-stopping duty.
“I love it, I love it,” Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said. “You get to stay on the ice the whole game, and I love to dive around and make saves.”
It takes a certain mentality to embrace that job. The quote has been around forever and is mostly commonly attributed to Hall of Fame goalie Jacques Plante:
“Imagine if when you made a mistake on your job a red light would go off, and 17,000 people would stand up and scream at you.”
What’s amazing is that the idea of a full-time goaltending coach is a fairly recent development.
The Penguins have Gilles Meloche in that role, but previously it had only been a part-time duty. Meloche was a Penguins scout, and was assigned to help the goaltenders whenever his schedule gave him time with the team.
“I think now teams realize that goalies are an important part of the team,” Fleury said. “If there’s a coach for the defensemen and the forwards, there should be one for the goalies, too.”
Goalies are the last line of defense, and the first to get blamed for a goal.
At last summer’s Stanley Cup celebration parade, Fleury felt the need to thank fans for sticking with him when “I give up a soft one,” and to apologize for sometimes using some bad language when he gave up bad ones.
It’s a strange existence, and goalies deal with the stress in different ways.
Legend has it Plante would get physically ill before every game. Greg Millen, a Penguins goalie from 1973-82, used to relax by playing the piano that was located on the wings of the Mellon Arena stage behind the Penguins’ dressing room.
Some are serene. Some, like Fleury, tend to be hyper.
Fleury didn’t start as a goalie.
“My first year I played forward while I was learning to skate. Then when I was six years old, I started playing goalie.”
But here’s the secret: When he’s far away from the NHL, playing the game just for fun, Fleury is a forward again.
“If I’m playing a game on an outdoor rink or playing in the street, I always play forward,” he said. “I love to shoot the puck.”
In the NHL, though, it’s a different story, and one that Staal doesn’t pretend to understand. Why would someone want to be a goalie?
“Some kids like it,” Staal said. “I don’t know how that works. They have something wrong with them.”
Question of the week:
What is your favorite road city to visit?
-Matt Cooke: “I always enjoy Colorado. It’s always sunny, you have the mountains in the backdrop, and it’s just a beautiful place.”
-Pascal Dupuis; “Montreal. It’s home.”
-Mike Rupp: “Vancouver. It’s kind of a different city.”
-Sergei Gonchar: “New York, probably.”
-Marc-Andre Fleury: “I like to go to Montreal since I’m from there. I have family and friends that I get to see. It’s always cool to go there.”
-Brooks Orpik: “Probably Boston. I like the warm places, but Boston is where I live now and I have a lot of family and friends there.”
-Jordan Staal: “New York.”
Where are they now?
Ron Stackhouse, a Penguins defenseman from 1973-82 is now 60 and a high school teacher who presides over business and computer classes. He lives in Haliburton, three hours north of Toronto.
Few of his students would suspect their gray-haired teacher once played in the NHL. The league Stackhouse sees today bears little resemblance to the one he knew as a player.
“I’m in awe of the conditioning of the players and the speed of the game,” he said. “I don’t think they’re all necessarily better hockey players than we were, but there’s such a difference in the approach to conditioning.
“My wife owned a gym and a couple of the local kids who are supposed to be top draft picks worked out there. I was astounded at how dedicated they were to their conditioning. I don’t think I’d want to be a hockey player today. It’s too demanding.”
He doesn’t have especially fond memories of his time with the Penguins, He was often a target of abuse from fans, who thought a player 6-foot-3 and 190 pounds should play a more physical game.
“Pittsburgh likes a winner,” he said. “When things don’t go well, they find a scapegoat, and that was me.”