24 ms·

Hockey goalies are too big now

322 points by emptybits 6y ago

Larrikin 6y ago
I wonder if it's a viable start up news idea to have deep investigative journalism like articles that all have a sister article written in an Axios style that boil everything down to the major points. The article was well written but I just am not interested that much in hockey to read the entire long form without any idea of the general points.
- deleted 6y ago
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- a0zU 6y ago
  The death of writing is a bullet-list of major points, put some effort in, maybe you'll become more interested in hockey after reading the article.
  - Larrikin 6y ago
    I enjoy reading well researched articles, just not all the time. The ideal would be this article with an alternate version, not the reduction of the article to the bullet points only. Books aren't dead just because wikipedia has a plot summary on every important one.
    - andrewzah 6y ago
      What I do in these cases is bookmark the article / save it elsewhere, and read it when I'm in a mood to digest a longer article. For what it's worth, I enjoyed the prose of this article and I would rather see more articles like it, than condensing everything to bullet points.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    But the pinnacle of journalism, the gold standard, the One True Way that's taught to every journalist - and then promptly forgotten when they go to work - is the Inverted Pyramid. The LOD/mipmapping equivalent for words: start with a very short summary of most important things. Then expand the details. Then expand them more. Repeat recursively.
    - jacurtis 6y ago
      The inverted pyramid is used for news stories. That is what you would expect from the NYTimes, CNN, or your local newspaper. But The Atlantic isn't news stories. They are general interest essays. They are all long form stories that tell a narrative and dive deep into topics.
  - peferron 6y ago
    I loved the article and read it entirely, but I'm definitely even less interested in hockey now.
- kergonath 6y ago
  I know nothing about hockey, will certainly never play and probably never watch a game. The article was well written and interesting even from my distant perspective. I learnt a couple of things, which, admittedly, will never have any use to me. Still an interesting read. I think a kind of executive summary would make this drier and less engaging, with less flavour and context. So a worse article overall. In any case, the TL;DR is already in the title.
- TheButlerian 6y ago
  Fuck off, lazy cunt.
- thekyle 6y ago
  Some sites (CNBC comes to mind) put summaries in the form of a bullet list at the top of most of their articles which I think is pretty cool.
- bscphil 6y ago
  I totally get you, but maybe the better conclusion is just that the article isn't for you? I mean that in the opposite of a judgy way; think for a second about just how much knowledge there is out there. Even if you leave out stuff that goes infinitely deep like the sciences, there's way more details to all the topics you might come across in life than anyone can learn in a lifetime. For example, sometimes I'll watch videos of snooker games on YouTube. Chances are you know absolutely nothing about snooker, but the thing is, I don't really either. I can't keep the rules straight because I so rarely pay attention to it. I can't name more than one professional snooker player. It's fun to watch and can relieve a few minutes of boredom, but that's about it for me. And ... I think that's okay? Some sports, like lacrosse, I know absolutely nothing about, and that seems okay too! I guess what this comment boils down to is that I don't think I understand what you would get out of a "bullet points" version of an article like this. Do you need to know anything about hockey? Preparing for a Jeopardy tournament or something? Despite not really enjoying hockey myself, what I got out of this article was some pleasure inherent to reading the thoughts of someone who has obviously thought very hard about a specific subject, and writes about those thoughts in a clear way.
  - jacurtis 6y ago
    > the better conclusion is just that the article isn't for you Yes. I love The Atlantic. They are long-from general interest stories and usually written exceptionally well. But they post a lot of essays every day in a wide range of topics. Not all of them are for everyone. You got to pick what you want to read. There are plenty of essays that they publish that I have no interest in. But that's ok. They are interesting to someone. And isn't that what makes life so interesting? That everyone is so different? I think we forget that now. Every story must be written for everyone collectively. It leads to less interesting stories. To be honest, this story wouldn't benefit from bullet points. Not everything can be summarized. Imagine a campfire story and you say, "i don't want to wait until dark and make a fire and hike into the woods to hear the story, just give me the bullet points". It would be pointless. Life is about the nuances.
mrspeaker 6y ago
Atom and His Package called it years ago in his song "Goalie" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpe7R_KgdVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpe7R_KgdVo) In hockey, you must score a goal. Which one can not do if between me and the net there's no hole.
- krrrh 6y ago
  Wow, there’s a name I have not heard in a long long time. Thanks for the waves of nostalgia.
  - justinator 6y ago
    And almost like magic “Happy birthday Ralph, I love you” plays in my head as if it was only yesterday.
- deleted 6y ago
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keiferski 6y ago
This is written by Ken Dryden, a well-known retired goalie. Very cool. Essentially he is just arguing that because of the size of goalie pads, the most successful strategy has become cause chaos around the net and then try and push the puck in while the goalie is distracted. He’s right, I think, in that it does slow down the inherently high-speed nature of the sport. So for shooters and coaches, that is the strategy. Rush the net with multiple offensive players, multiple defensive players will go with them, multiple arms, legs, and bodies will jostle in front of the goalie, and the remaining shooters, distant from the net, will fire away hoping to thread the needle, hoping the goalie doesn’t see the needle being threaded, because if he does, he’ll stop it. The situation for the shooter is much like that of a golfer whose ball has landed deep in the woods. He’s been told many times that a tree is more air than leaves and branches, but with several layers of trees in front of him, somehow his ball will hit a leaf or branch before it gets to the green. Somehow, the shooter’s shot will not make it to the net. So he will try again. Because what else can he do? I played hockey for about a decade growing up, alternating between goalie and defense. One “unofficial” solution I had to this problem was to make it extremely unpleasant for other players to be around the net. In hockey, you have a lot of leeway in terms of physicality and you can push, shove, lock the stick of your opponent, and do a number of other things that are completely penalized in basketball or soccer. The result was that opposing players became hesitant to get too close to the net, thus solving the problem somewhat. If a player was on a breakaway, I’d also try to do stuff like this (as the goalie), which of course makes opponents stay far away from you. https://youtu.be/W5u0khFnHUg https://youtu.be/W5u0khFnHUg A possible solution could be to expand the goalie-only area around the net. That would, in theory, force opponents to focus more on shooting and not on piling around the goalie.
- garmaine 6y ago
  > In hockey, you have a lot of leeway in terms of physicality and you can push, shove, lock the stick of your opponent, and do a number of other things that are completely penalized in basketball or soccer. The result was that opposing players became hesitant to get too close to the net, thus solving the problem somewhat. Also the goalie is given waaay more leeway. The goalie can get away with things that would definitely result in the penalty box for anyone else. I don’t know whether is is by convention, or because penalizing the goalie is such a heavy disadvantage that it isn’t done lightly.
goache 6y ago
I created a blog post a few years back showing goalies aren't big enough http://randomlyunique.com/data/2015/goal-goalie-girth/index.html http://randomlyunique.com/data/2015/goal-goalie-girth/index.... :-D
- syntaxing 6y ago
  Hah, that was a fun read. I like the other posts too like the first post on the site about if your wife loves you more or not.
  - goache 6y ago
    Thanks for this comment - it made my day :-)
ErikVandeWater 6y ago
The author makes 2 basic mistakes 1. Suggesting that goalies are nearly equally suited on their knees as on their skates. 2. Forgetting the goaltending rule exists in basketball.
- keiferski 6y ago
  The article is written by a goalie who has won six Stanley cups.
  - tempestn 6y ago
    Also nothing in the article suggested a misunderstanding of the goaltending rule.
    - ErikVandeWater 6y ago
      Here you go: > Only the ball needs to get to the hoop, and in this NBA game, it doesn’t matter whether you are 7 feet tall or 8 feet tall; a ball shot from beyond the 23-foot-9-inch arc will loop over the outstretched arm of even the tallest player. That is absolutely untrue. Any player that can dunk can goaltend any shot.
      - tempestn 6y ago
        I think you're misunderstanding the point the author is making. The goaltending rule only prevents blocking shots on their downward trajectory. Blocks on the upward trajectory are still allowed, but they become more difficult as the play becomes more spread out, which happens when longer shots are encouraged.
        ErikVandeWater 6y ago
        If he stated what you stated I would be misunderstanding.
  - ctab 6y ago
ondrek 6y ago
This also answers why goalies aren't huge fat guys. As the rules limit how big a goalie's pad can be, a huge guy might take up a lot of space, but much of his body will be unprotected from 150+ km/h slap shots.
tyingq 6y ago
Try "Ian Laperriere face" on google images for how fast the pucks move. I'd be wearing every bit of padding I could.
- m8s 6y ago
  Or Sean Walker (of the Los Angeles Kings) from this season. It's the worst puck-to-face shot I've seen. Warning, graphic and not for the faint of heart: https://mobile.twitter.com/AugieLens/status/1355249355507163144 https://mobile.twitter.com/AugieLens/status/1355249355507163...
  - stan_rogers 6y ago
    I'm old enough to remember maskless NHL goalies (IIRC, Glenn Hall was the last of the breed). It wasn't pretty. And Terry Sawchuk's mask when he finally started wearing one, with all of the stitches he had gotten, and all of the stitches he would have gotten, painted on. And - remember that the first masks were basically just a fibreglass face covering with nearly zero padding - Jacques Plante spending a significant part of the late '60s and early '70s unconscious on the ice.... again (he stopped a lot of pucks with his face).
jgon 6y ago
This article is written by a famous retired goalie and it contains a lot of good points in it. Everything the author says about the modern method of scoring goals being to "scrum" in front of the net is pretty accurate, and it honestly takes away, at least in my opinion, a lot of the aesthetic enjoyment that hockey used to have. Sure goals may not be going down in number, but they're definitely less fun to watch being scored. But I think that the title, and a large part of the article, ignores or at least only pays lip service to the other half of the problem, and I think that by focusing solely on goalie equipment, we actually limit the probability of the problem actually being solved. And the other half of the problem is that players can shoot way too hard now. Its a chicken and egg problem, and I don't know which came first, but any attempt to cut down on goalie padding is going to have come up against the very real safety concerns caused by modern hockey sticks. Anyone who has used one of the new $300+ composite sticks can tell you they aren't just for showing off your income, these things actually work, and they honestly work too well. Goalies have a legitimate point that goaltenders of old could wear the equipment they did because players were probably shooting 20%+ slower on average. Right now every hockey player is walking around with the equivalent of a corked bat or an aluminum bat in baseball. And so I think that any attempt to scale back protective equipment to something that doesn't strangle the game is going to have to be matched with a similar regulation to go back to plain wood sticks or something similar, to prevent any sort of composite material voodoo. Matching up a decrease in protective bulk, with controls on stick material and I think that you still have a faster, more skilled game, but you'll really open up the ability to express that skill and still keep goalies "safe" (I use quotation marks because they're still crazy people putting themselves in front of a rock hard rubber bullet, but hey some folks are just different). Just addressing the equipment is going to be a non-starter and even if it did get forced through I think it might open the game up too much and lead to too much scoring. There's definitely a compromise to be struck on both sides here.
- wilsynet 6y ago
  Over time, as goalie equipment changed, so did the way that goalies covered the net and stopped pucks. The way that a goalie plays today is very different than the way Hasek played, and the way Hasek played is very different than the way Fuhr played and the way Dryden played. I think the argument is: scale back protective equipment to something that doesn't strangle the game, and goalies must play a different style in order to stay safe. Which they will. Having said that, I agree, we should also go back to non-composite sticks. The game was no less fun to watch when Mario and Wayne were playing the game with wooden sticks.
jbluepolarbear 6y ago
Watching Hockey in the states is very different from Canada. I grew up near the Washington Canadian border and so I was able to watch all the Hockey games on CBC. I didn’t know Hockey wasn’t regularly aired on TV until I moved. Going to a Hockey game is really fun.
- Dma54rhs 6y ago
  I'm from European country with bad level of hockey and couldn't enjoy watching NHL despite dad loving it. For some reason very difficult for me to follow the puck. Went to see a local game Live, what Canadians would see as total amateur show but it was amazing and easy to follow. You could really feel and see the shots and appreciate the players strength but skills of skating and being elastic/acrobatic at the same time. Still can't get excited seeing it from telly for some reason. But live experience was awesome!
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    The more you watch (and probably play) hockey, the less you follow the puck and the more you can infer where it is from body positioning. That's why long time fans like your father can enjoy televised hockey more, while everyone can enjoy live games.
    - macspoofing 6y ago
      Heh. Brings to mind the Fox Sports 'FoxTrax' [1] which placed a glow on the puck. Hockey fans hated it. I'm not sure if non-hockey fans cared either way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FoxTrax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FoxTrax
      - veggieburglar 6y ago
        Oh no, the glowing dot! But remember this was well before HDTV. Watching hockey on a grainy old TV was not accessible for those who didn’t know the game. However, I don’t think it was successful in bringing in new viewers, and people who were already fans hated it because, well, it sucked.
tempestn 6y ago
For me this brings to mind Formula 1 racing. Each year teams pore through the rules looking for any possible advantage they can gain within their strict letter. And each year the FIA looks at which teams managed to do this a little too well, and tweaks the rules the following season to prevent whatever they did. They also plan ahead, making significant changes to car design parameters every few years, in order to correct shortcomings in the state or trajectory of the sport. It isn't always executed perfectly, but the attempt is made and is certainly impactful. I don't see any reason the NHL couldn't do the same. Goalie pads too long? Set a max length above the knee. Torso pads billowing too much? Specify a maximum difference between torso circumference with and without pads. Or find some other way to measurably define the problem and then regulate against it. Any issue severe enough to be a problem can be specifically defined and therefore corrected. And if necessary, you can make larger changes as well, like F1 is doing with ground effects this year to allow cars to follow more closely without sacrificing so much downforce. For example (not saying this would be a good change, just an example of the sort of large change that's possible) the pad shape could be redefined with a bulge at the top so that they wouldn't lie completely flat on the ice. These problems are solvable; it just requires a willingness to continually tweak the minutia of the rules when things aren't going as desired.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  Wouldn't Formula 1 be more interesting if everyone had to race with the same car? Then it would just be about driver skill? Otherwise all of the rules are just too easy to game for a season and dominate.
  - kaoD 6y ago
    F1 is a team sport, car engineering is part of the competition.
  - tempestn 6y ago
    It can become boring when one team is very dominant, as has been the case for a number of years now. Absent that though, differences between the cars can make the sport more interesting. The engineering competition is a part of it. As are the adaptations the drivers and teams need to make to take into account their cars' relative strengths and weaknesses compared to others. Plus, if the disadvantage isn't too great, it can be fun to cheer for an underdog who overcomes a disadvantageous car and still manages to win. Spec racing certainly has its place, and it is indeed also nice to see drivers pitted against each other on skill (and luck) alone. But that's never been Formula 1.
soperj 6y ago
I honestly don't know what hockey Dryden is watching here. The game has gotten faster, and the players smaller over the last decade and a half. Most goals are tip shots, one timers, dekes, or power play goals. I agree that the goalie equipment size is out of whack, especially compared to what came before, but the rest of what he said makes me think he hasn't watched hockey since the 90s.
- soperj 6y ago
  For comparison sake, lacrosse goalies have bigger equipment, and a smaller net, and yet let in way more goals per game than any NHL game.
  - 0dana 6y ago
    Lacrosse has a larger net, and goalies have far less and smaller equipment.
    - frockington1 6y ago
      There are differences between indoor box hockey up in Canada and the open field variety more common in the US (both countries play both of course)
      - InitialLastName 6y ago
        Field hockey is present in the US, but ice hockey is far more popular. This article is about the US/Canadian top-level ice hockey league... I can't say I've ever heard of professional field hockey play in the US, much less a nation-wide league.
        soperj 6y ago
        They meant box lacrosse.
    - soperj 6y ago
      I was talking about box lacrosse, not field: https://laxgoalierat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/BoxLacrosseGoalie2-1024x768.jpg https://laxgoalierat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/BoxLacro...
Grustaf 6y ago
Extremely well written piece, but isn't the solution obvious? Make the goal larger.
pubby 6y ago
One suggested improvement is to make the game 4-on-4 instead of 5-on-5. Less players on the ice typifies more offense, and less bodies covering the net causing chaos. In some ways the game is already moving towards this, by changing overtime and the All-Star Game to be 3-on-3 a few years ago.
alkonaut 6y ago
The removal of hookings and slashings from the game still makes it a much more open affair than it was back when goalies did acrobatic saves in smaller pads. The speed and skill allowed now is completely different. The composite sticks means players can release shots without warning, that would take a full second to prepare back when everyone had a moustache. Goalies had a chancee because the guy with the moustache and wooden stick was getting slashed or cross checked while taking his shot. It was way less enjoyable than the game is now. The SV% and GAA is also mostly unchanged because of this. If the hookings were removed, players had the speed and composite sticks of late 2000's but goales looked and played like in 1980 - it wouldn't really be watchable. Also, I love that a hockey article is at the front page of HN.
- soperj 6y ago
  GAA & SV% is actually much higher than in the 80s. Grant Fuhr had only 2 seasons with an above .900 sv% and those were in the last half of the 90s. Mostly had a GAA of over 3.5. You wouldn't be an NHL goalie with those numbers these days.
  - lunatuna 6y ago
    IMHO, Grant Fuhr was underrated for his skills. He was left to do most of the defending himself while the rest of his team was out hunting goals. Even lots of beer and old video of his games would likely not settle this, but I put this out there. The goal differential was strongly in the Oilers favour.[0] So leaving Fuhr to his business looked to work. Comparing to the Habs[1], the Oilers had a full goal + on any other team. Plus the Oilers were averaging 5 goals a night with some 8-0 and 7-1 out there. Likely still could have won some of those games without a goalie. alkonaut - This is really cool. I was a bit struck seeing this on HN and from an Atlantic article and Dryden writing the article. [0]: https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/EDM/1985.html https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/EDM/1985.html [1]: https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/MTL/1985.html https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/MTL/1985.html
    - soperj 6y ago
animal531 6y ago
A long time ago in cricket there were no limit on bat sizes. So the entrepreneurial minded players started using bats that were wider than the combined width of the stumps. Eventually laws were introduced to set limits.
jgilias 6y ago
I feel like I would like to agree with the article, but I don't. It's described in a way that makes one believe that it's completely impossible to score a goal in a one-on-one situation, as the goalie can just sit on his knees and not move. As is evident by any recent shootout one may watch, this is not the case. And regarding the good old times when goalies had to be acrobatic to actually make saves. Just yesterday I saw a highlight of Korpisalo from Blue Jackets making a crazy reaching stick-save to deny an empty-netter. I think it's fine. I find the game exciting and dynamic enough to watch.
- adventured 6y ago
  I agree with what you said. Goals per game are comparable to where they were at 15-20 years ago, as well as in the 1950s and 1960s. Goals are considerably down from the late 1970s and 1980s. Larger goalies are merely properly offsetting the offensive gains made from better sticks and the slap shot, which had temporarily provided a scoring advantage and boosted goals per game. Rather than it being a problem as implied by the article, larger goalies have balanced the game back out and returned it to where it was.
- bradfa 6y ago
  I played ice hockey goalie growing up, in high school, intramurals in college, and then men's league for a while. The game definitely changed over the course of me playing it. I started playing goalie around 1991 and fondly remember having to do "kick save" drills and learning to "T glide". The game has changed, no goalies do kick saves anymore, it's just not an effective way to stop the puck. But to say that goalies today aren't acrobatic or fit or flexible or amazing athletes is totally wrong. To be able to put your body into the butterfly position, to be able to push off to move while staying in the butterfly, to be able to slide post to post as the puck moves behind the net and keep the post-side leg upright: THIS IS EXTREMELY HARD! Goalies today are basically 6 foot+ tall gymnasts. My knees, groin, and hips surely can no longer perform the kinds of movements which I used to be able to do. I was not anywhere near being NHL caliber, so maybe I have a different appreciation for watching top level goalies today. But damn, these goalies today are seriously impressive in how they can move their bodies. Sure, the equipment regulations might need to change for bantam or midget level leagues and up, but the younger kids aren't big enough to take advantage of the equipment so any changes the NHL wants to implement shouldn't affect the vast majority of kids playing the game today until (if) they get to a high level of play and high school age or beyond. I think the NHL should continue to change the rules, not just for goalies, but for the whole game. And if things work, then other leagues should adopt those rules over time, too.
docdeek 6y ago
Nice article, though my first thought was a scene from 'The West Wing': Sam: You know what I'd do if I owned a hockey team? I'd hire a sumo wrestler. I'd give him a uniform, transportation, 500 bucks a week to sit in the goal, eat a ham sandwich and enjoy the game. My team would never get scored on. Josh: Your team would get scored on constantly. Sam: Maybe, but we'd sell a few tickets. Josh: Yeah, 'cause sumo wrestling sells out all the time in big hockey towns. Sam: My idea's totally inviable? Josh: Well, you're a Democrat. It's a pretty big club.
jgilias 6y ago
Having thought about this a bit, I think the suggestion to increase the goal/reduce the goalie would make ice hockey considerably less interesting to watch. It goes something like this. The inherent thrill of watching a sports event comes from multiple things: pace of the game, ratio between attempts/scores, watching skillful people do tricky things, but most importantly - not knowing who is going to win. So, it's not very exciting to watch a coin tossing championship, because there's no skill involved. But at the same time, it's not very exciting to watch something where the nominally stronger team wins with near absolute certainty. Like a game with a high attempt/score ratio with a single mode of scoring. Basketball solved this by introducing another mode of scoring that's also inherently more uncertain. So they introduced asymmetry and more uncertainty leading to more interesting games, as the certainty with which you can say who's going to win is reduced, as that depends on wider skill-sets across the team and also more luck. Now, take a game with a low attempt/score ratio. The uncertainty about who's going to win is baked into that ratio. With some luck, the nominally weaker team still has a chance of winning the nominally stronger team. And this is what makes ice hockey interesting in my book. This is how Finland could win the world championships without any NHL players last year. Increasing the goal would increase the attempt/score ratio, without adding any other offsetting asymmetry to the game. This will reduce the uncertainty of who's going to win, making the game less interesting to watch. For a game with a relatively high attempt/score ratio that's also highly dynamic with a lot of attempts per game, and has somewhat similar strategies to hockey, I invite you to check out Innebandy/Floorball. It's a fun game, but not that exciting as a spectator sport. Because the nominally stronger team will win any given game with near certainty due to the large amount of attempts per game coupled with a high attempt/score ratio.
ohashi 6y ago
There is a lot of history and posturing. And it's coming from one of the best goalies to ever play the game. But, I still think he's wrong. There has been a slow crackdown on goalie gear size. We have seen scoring slightly go up. But what's not talked about in the article is that the game really isn't static. The players have gotten better and better at picking up those tiny gaps and holes in the body. They are looking at video of movements of goalies, picking apart every weakness based on hundreds of hours of film. They offense is more equipped than ever to know and understand NHL goalies. We see hot rookie goalies like Andrew Hammond or Elvis Merzlikins come out with phenomenal numbers and generally fall to earth. Why? I think a large part is coaching/scouting. There are teams dedicated to exposing goalie weaknesses on each team (Video Coaches). They can look at everything goalies have done and along with other coaching staff adapt strategies to take advantage of perceived weaknesses/tendencies/etc. If you actually watch NHL games, look at where the players are shooting. You'll often notice a pattern, are they going glove or blocker side more? Are they going high or right above the pads? Are they trying to make cross ice passes near the crease to get goalie moving side to side? There is probably a good chance the team thinks it sees a certain weakness somewhere in the goalie's play and is trying to exploit it. And then sometimes you just have players say fuck it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-m8Fd93faw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-m8Fd93faw No weakness in normal hockey? Just pick up the puck like a Lacrosse player and dunk it in a tiny hole from behind the net (originally called The Michigan, some calling it the Svechnikov after the first NHL player to do it). Dryden wants to talk about how soccer players can bend the ball, the newest big move we get to see on rare occasion is the move in that video. It starts with one guy doing it at this level (Svechnikov - 3 times I think). And now Filip Forsberg has done it. Other players have made attempts (Kuznetsov 2018 before anyone had ever done it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGFQkWfkjxk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGFQkWfkjxk). Nils Hoglander, canucks rookie did it three times in Sweden and their fanbase is excited to see his first NHL goal in that fashion. I would bet money it happens at some point given his history with the move and talent. Point is, players are getting more creative, better with puck handling, the game is getting faster, and every little detail is being scrutinized deeper and deeper. Hockey has the most parity of all the big sports in the US and the most uncertainty. Seeking out every edge is what separates the teams with long stretches of success and the mediocre teams which sit puzzlingly at the bottom year after year despite often drafting immensely talented players. One of my favorite goalie coach quotes, you can't teach size, is definitely true. It's an advantage for sure. But is it ruining the game? Not even close. Maybe he's watching a different sport than the rest of us.
pattle 6y ago
Surely they just need to make the net a bit bigger?
- ajcp 6y ago
  And take away play-space? Nah. With todays advanced materials they should make goalie padding simply protect the goalie, and let the G-man protect the net.
siruva07 6y ago
"Take away the goalie’s eyes. If he can see it, he’ll stop it." One heckuva instigator, NY Ranger Sean Avery, figured this out in the 2008 playoffs against NJ Devils Martin Brodeur. video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec_2oKWe2Gw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec_2oKWe2Gw The day after, the NHL made a rule that makes it illegal for a player to stand in front of a goalie and wave his or her stick in the goalie's face. Dubbed "The Sean Avery Rule," it results in a 2 min unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. And yes, this play still has me riled up! :)
- old_fart_dev 6y ago
  The fact Sean did this multiple times makes me smile. This should be legal in beer league hockey. I spend a good amount of time in net with my defense men standing right in front of me, facing away from the net - I would love someone to come in and fan away all the beer farts from the crease.
justinlink 6y ago
I find it interesting the author didn't mention field hockey. My daughter is a goalkeeper for her youth club. The goalkeepers wear very similar pads, and face shots at similar speeds with the same safety concerns. (I wouldn't want to be hit with a puck or a field hockey ball). The cage is much larger in field hockey: https://i2.wp.com/hockeyanswered.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/gettyimages-1025376630-594x594.jpg?resize=594%2C594&ssl=1 https://i2.wp.com/hockeyanswered.com/wp-content/uploads/2019... The save percentages are about 70% vs the 90%+ in ice hockey, but the game scores tend to be similar to ice hockey. If the goalkeeper is getting bigger because of the gear, even adding a few more inches onto the net to maintain the desired scoring percentage makes sense at least at the professional level.
Pinus 6y ago
Neither following nor playing either sport I'm on thin ice here (or maybe that's exactly what I'm not!), but isn't bandy sort of like hockey but with soccer-sized goals (and a ball instead of a puck)?
- rrock 6y ago
  Yes, and is played on a frozen soccer field, 11 on 11. No boards, the ball can go out of bounds. Scoring is much higher. (Others may correct me, I’ve been to one bandy game my whole Life)
old_fart_dev 6y ago
Ken Dryden is a legend - he was a tall butterfly goaltender in the 70s and is the prototype of professional goaltenders today. I think it's funny he thinks goalies are too big given he was a huge goalie himself. I do think goalies might be too mobile on their knees, which Ken alluded to in this article. Knee stacks and landing pads change the game in the early 2000s. Goaltenders now can drop in a butterfly and slide across the crease still on their knees, allowing them to cover backside plays, passes from behind the net, and wraparounds, which used to be bread and butter plays for offenses. Getting rid of the pads would force goalies to play the same "drop and pop" style Ken did, where goalies need to get to their feet more often to more laterally. This would give offenses more incentive to get the puck to behind the back line and open up the ice more. Alternatively to that, goalie skates have also gotten smaller - there's less protective covering on them. This makes it easier for goalies to push off with their skates while on their knees, since more of the blade of the skate can touch the ice. I can image the NHL could declare "for goalie safety" that goalie skates must have a certain thickness of protection around the skate, which would make sliding less effective. Of course, amateur goalies (such as myself) should be able to keep knee stacks, since they also reduce stress on the hip caused by the knees dropping into the ice. ;)
- soperj 6y ago
  Ken Dryden was not a butterfly goalie. Almost no one was until Patrick Roy popularized it.
  - old_fart_dev 6y ago
    I feel shame - I confused Ken Dryden with Jacques Plante. In my defense, I'm a Bruins fan and we're not big on having well-informed opinions. ;)
    - soperj 6y ago
      hahaha. I've been to a bruins game in TD Garden, and while I agree with you it still was pretty fun. Jacques Plante, best goalie to ever play for the Oilers!
Markoff 6y ago
I've never understood why they don't just hire extremely obese goalie (or some former sumo warrior), if you dress him in all protective gear therw won't be space for puck to pass, is there any NHL regulation about it?
- ajcp 6y ago
  Those guys tend to be big and tall. Tall = a lot of space your body takes up is above the net. You'd want a very fat, short guy, right? Well even if he manages to be as wide as 80% of that net that leaves a massive 20% of unattended space. So now this extremely obese, extremely squat goalie needs to move faster than a puck to protect that 20%? Not gonna happen. And that's just hoping he can survive until the 1st intermission before you have to drag him off the ice as he's, you know, extremely obese.
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  There are max size rules for some of the pads, so a really large player would have exposed area. I don't know if you've seen the bruises that pro hockey goalies get even when they take a puck through the pads, but I really wouldn't want someone with unprotected flesh to have to make a decision about allowing a goal or getting hit.
- ooboe 6y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrgHA56uEDQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrgHA56uEDQ Garbage TV link, but they address your question. One thing they get very right is that, in non-game, non-rushed environments, even the worst NHL hockey player can pick any corner of the net.
AcerbicZero 6y ago
Maybe the professionalization of classic games has just gone too far? Perhaps what was fun for kids in the winter wasn’t actually designed to be taken seriously by grown men/woman, with millions of dollars at stake? I don’t know. I still watch F1, so perhaps I’m just off base here, but it seems that there is a disconnect between the sport and the spectacle.
fc373745 6y ago
Why not make the goal bigger? Bigger to the point where we can see double digit scoring? One thing that turned me off from watching Soccer one year was the amount of 1-1 games that led to PKs, and after just doing a little bit of research, Hockey has the longest overtime games by far, and occurs more often by far. > The average NHL team has gone to overtime in about 23.1 percent of its games over the past three seasons. The Flyers have done so in about 31.1 percent of their games It's not enjoyable for the casual viewer. Betting on sports which have O/U of 0.5, 1, 1.5 is ridiculous tbh.
- dionidium 6y ago
  Speaking of betting, overtime is also frustrating, because it turns a bet based on slight edges over 60 minutes of play into a ridiculous prop bet. You can bet strictly on regulation time, but the bookie I use doesn’t offer a push, so it’s not an attractive bet.
- jp57 6y ago
  Part of the reason for so many overtimes is the ridiculous point system for overtime games: For a game that ends in regulation, one team gets 2 points and the other gets 0. For game that goes to overtime each team gets at least 1 point, and the winner gets two. This situation reduces the incentive to play aggressively and take chances to win when a game is tied late in the 3rd period. For comparison, before the addition of shootouts to resolve games still tied after overtime, each game was worth exactly two points: both went to the winner, or they were split in the case of a tie. Now there is the weird situation that teams are not competing for a fixed number of standings points. Instead rather a new point gets created whenever a game goes to overtime. This makes a huge incentive not to try to break ties in regulation.
  - flurdy 6y ago
    That is why football/soccer introduced 3 points for a win to combat the 1980s trend of playing for a draw. Made enough of a difference.
runnr_az 6y ago
Of course, this was predicted by Adam and his Package: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpe7R_KgdVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpe7R_KgdVo
ukd1 6y ago
Shouldn't there be a fixed ratio of goalie surface area to goal face? Otherwise, this ends up in a Red Dwarf goalie for the 2224 World Cup which was a genetically engineered rectangular block of muscle the exact size of the goal...
- AtlasBarfed 6y ago
  Why not a sumo wrestler?
jlizzle30 6y ago
Former college hockey goalie here (now a SWE). Dryden is correct. Hockey goaltending has become incredibly technical and an essence of the game has been lost as goalies have gained mastery. This is less about equipment being 'too big' and more about the technologic and strategic progression goalies have made. There aren't any equipment regulations that can unwind this progress. While I played, I was vehemently opposed to changing the net-size. Now, as an outsider with no horse in the race, I think it's the right thing to do. Every so often at practices, myself and my goaltending partner would agree to make 'highlight reel' saves for a drill or two. What this meant was abandoning our technique and adopt an athletic, intuitive style that resembled something of the past (kick saves, stacking the pads, catching the puck dramatically). We did this because it was fun; the shooters enjoyed it more too. Making the nets bigger would inject these elements back into the position.
etempleton 6y ago
It is interesting to compare hockey goalie strategy to lacrosse. The key difference is that the goal is significantly bigger—6x6 feet. Goalies in lacrosse general wear less pads then the other players on the field—often foregoing elbow and shoulder pads—for optimal mobility and because goalies are crazy (most do not wear shin pads because they will be made fun of by other goalies). So I think another solution, that would surely be controversial, would be to make the goal slightly bigger. The minute goalie pads do not cover the whole area goalies will be forced to prioritize mobility over pad size.

322 points by emptybits 6y ago

I wonder if it's a viable start up news idea to have deep investigative journalism like articles that all have a sister article written in an Axios style that boil everything down to the major points. The article was well written but I just am not interested that much in hockey to read the entire long form without any idea of the general points.

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a0zU 6y ago
The death of writing is a bullet-list of major points, put some effort in, maybe you'll become more interested in hockey after reading the article.
- Larrikin 6y ago
  I enjoy reading well researched articles, just not all the time. The ideal would be this article with an alternate version, not the reduction of the article to the bullet points only. Books aren't dead just because wikipedia has a plot summary on every important one.
  - andrewzah 6y ago
    What I do in these cases is bookmark the article / save it elsewhere, and read it when I'm in a mood to digest a longer article. For what it's worth, I enjoyed the prose of this article and I would rather see more articles like it, than condensing everything to bullet points.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  But the pinnacle of journalism, the gold standard, the One True Way that's taught to every journalist - and then promptly forgotten when they go to work - is the Inverted Pyramid. The LOD/mipmapping equivalent for words: start with a very short summary of most important things. Then expand the details. Then expand them more. Repeat recursively.
  - jacurtis 6y ago
    The inverted pyramid is used for news stories. That is what you would expect from the NYTimes, CNN, or your local newspaper. But The Atlantic isn't news stories. They are general interest essays. They are all long form stories that tell a narrative and dive deep into topics.
- peferron 6y ago
  I loved the article and read it entirely, but I'm definitely even less interested in hockey now.
kergonath 6y ago
I know nothing about hockey, will certainly never play and probably never watch a game. The article was well written and interesting even from my distant perspective. I learnt a couple of things, which, admittedly, will never have any use to me. Still an interesting read. I think a kind of executive summary would make this drier and less engaging, with less flavour and context. So a worse article overall. In any case, the TL;DR is already in the title.
TheButlerian 6y ago
Fuck off, lazy cunt.
thekyle 6y ago
Some sites (CNBC comes to mind) put summaries in the form of a bullet list at the top of most of their articles which I think is pretty cool.
bscphil 6y ago
I totally get you, but maybe the better conclusion is just that the article isn't for you? I mean that in the opposite of a judgy way; think for a second about just how much knowledge there is out there. Even if you leave out stuff that goes infinitely deep like the sciences, there's way more details to all the topics you might come across in life than anyone can learn in a lifetime. For example, sometimes I'll watch videos of snooker games on YouTube. Chances are you know absolutely nothing about snooker, but the thing is, I don't really either. I can't keep the rules straight because I so rarely pay attention to it. I can't name more than one professional snooker player. It's fun to watch and can relieve a few minutes of boredom, but that's about it for me. And ... I think that's okay? Some sports, like lacrosse, I know absolutely nothing about, and that seems okay too! I guess what this comment boils down to is that I don't think I understand what you would get out of a "bullet points" version of an article like this. Do you need to know anything about hockey? Preparing for a Jeopardy tournament or something? Despite not really enjoying hockey myself, what I got out of this article was some pleasure inherent to reading the thoughts of someone who has obviously thought very hard about a specific subject, and writes about those thoughts in a clear way.
- jacurtis 6y ago
  > the better conclusion is just that the article isn't for you Yes. I love The Atlantic. They are long-from general interest stories and usually written exceptionally well. But they post a lot of essays every day in a wide range of topics. Not all of them are for everyone. You got to pick what you want to read. There are plenty of essays that they publish that I have no interest in. But that's ok. They are interesting to someone. And isn't that what makes life so interesting? That everyone is so different? I think we forget that now. Every story must be written for everyone collectively. It leads to less interesting stories. To be honest, this story wouldn't benefit from bullet points. Not everything can be summarized. Imagine a campfire story and you say, "i don't want to wait until dark and make a fire and hike into the woods to hear the story, just give me the bullet points". It would be pointless. Life is about the nuances.

mrspeaker 6y ago

Atom and His Package called it years ago in his song "Goalie" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpe7R_KgdVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpe7R_KgdVo) In hockey, you must score a goal. Which one can not do if between me and the net there's no hole.

krrrh 6y ago
Wow, there’s a name I have not heard in a long long time. Thanks for the waves of nostalgia.
- justinator 6y ago
  And almost like magic “Happy birthday Ralph, I love you” plays in my head as if it was only yesterday.
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keiferski 6y ago

This is written by Ken Dryden, a well-known retired goalie. Very cool. Essentially he is just arguing that because of the size of goalie pads, the most successful strategy has become cause chaos around the net and then try and push the puck in while the goalie is distracted. He’s right, I think, in that it does slow down the inherently high-speed nature of the sport. So for shooters and coaches, that is the strategy. Rush the net with multiple offensive players, multiple defensive players will go with them, multiple arms, legs, and bodies will jostle in front of the goalie, and the remaining shooters, distant from the net, will fire away hoping to thread the needle, hoping the goalie doesn’t see the needle being threaded, because if he does, he’ll stop it. The situation for the shooter is much like that of a golfer whose ball has landed deep in the woods. He’s been told many times that a tree is more air than leaves and branches, but with several layers of trees in front of him, somehow his ball will hit a leaf or branch before it gets to the green. Somehow, the shooter’s shot will not make it to the net. So he will try again. Because what else can he do? I played hockey for about a decade growing up, alternating between goalie and defense. One “unofficial” solution I had to this problem was to make it extremely unpleasant for other players to be around the net. In hockey, you have a lot of leeway in terms of physicality and you can push, shove, lock the stick of your opponent, and do a number of other things that are completely penalized in basketball or soccer. The result was that opposing players became hesitant to get too close to the net, thus solving the problem somewhat. If a player was on a breakaway, I’d also try to do stuff like this (as the goalie), which of course makes opponents stay far away from you. https://youtu.be/W5u0khFnHUg https://youtu.be/W5u0khFnHUg A possible solution could be to expand the goalie-only area around the net. That would, in theory, force opponents to focus more on shooting and not on piling around the goalie.

garmaine 6y ago
> In hockey, you have a lot of leeway in terms of physicality and you can push, shove, lock the stick of your opponent, and do a number of other things that are completely penalized in basketball or soccer. The result was that opposing players became hesitant to get too close to the net, thus solving the problem somewhat. Also the goalie is given waaay more leeway. The goalie can get away with things that would definitely result in the penalty box for anyone else. I don’t know whether is is by convention, or because penalizing the goalie is such a heavy disadvantage that it isn’t done lightly.

goache 6y ago

I created a blog post a few years back showing goalies aren't big enough http://randomlyunique.com/data/2015/goal-goalie-girth/index.html http://randomlyunique.com/data/2015/goal-goalie-girth/index.... :-D

syntaxing 6y ago
Hah, that was a fun read. I like the other posts too like the first post on the site about if your wife loves you more or not.
- goache 6y ago
  Thanks for this comment - it made my day :-)

ErikVandeWater 6y ago

The author makes 2 basic mistakes 1. Suggesting that goalies are nearly equally suited on their knees as on their skates. 2. Forgetting the goaltending rule exists in basketball.

keiferski 6y ago
The article is written by a goalie who has won six Stanley cups.
- tempestn 6y ago
  Also nothing in the article suggested a misunderstanding of the goaltending rule.
  - ErikVandeWater 6y ago
    Here you go: > Only the ball needs to get to the hoop, and in this NBA game, it doesn’t matter whether you are 7 feet tall or 8 feet tall; a ball shot from beyond the 23-foot-9-inch arc will loop over the outstretched arm of even the tallest player. That is absolutely untrue. Any player that can dunk can goaltend any shot.
    - tempestn 6y ago
      I think you're misunderstanding the point the author is making. The goaltending rule only prevents blocking shots on their downward trajectory. Blocks on the upward trajectory are still allowed, but they become more difficult as the play becomes more spread out, which happens when longer shots are encouraged.
      - ErikVandeWater 6y ago
        If he stated what you stated I would be misunderstanding.
- ctab 6y ago

ondrek 6y ago

This also answers why goalies aren't huge fat guys. As the rules limit how big a goalie's pad can be, a huge guy might take up a lot of space, but much of his body will be unprotected from 150+ km/h slap shots.

tyingq 6y ago

Try "Ian Laperriere face" on google images for how fast the pucks move. I'd be wearing every bit of padding I could.

m8s 6y ago
Or Sean Walker (of the Los Angeles Kings) from this season. It's the worst puck-to-face shot I've seen. Warning, graphic and not for the faint of heart: https://mobile.twitter.com/AugieLens/status/1355249355507163144 https://mobile.twitter.com/AugieLens/status/1355249355507163...
- stan_rogers 6y ago
  I'm old enough to remember maskless NHL goalies (IIRC, Glenn Hall was the last of the breed). It wasn't pretty. And Terry Sawchuk's mask when he finally started wearing one, with all of the stitches he had gotten, and all of the stitches he would have gotten, painted on. And - remember that the first masks were basically just a fibreglass face covering with nearly zero padding - Jacques Plante spending a significant part of the late '60s and early '70s unconscious on the ice.... again (he stopped a lot of pucks with his face).

jgon 6y ago

This article is written by a famous retired goalie and it contains a lot of good points in it. Everything the author says about the modern method of scoring goals being to "scrum" in front of the net is pretty accurate, and it honestly takes away, at least in my opinion, a lot of the aesthetic enjoyment that hockey used to have. Sure goals may not be going down in number, but they're definitely less fun to watch being scored. But I think that the title, and a large part of the article, ignores or at least only pays lip service to the other half of the problem, and I think that by focusing solely on goalie equipment, we actually limit the probability of the problem actually being solved. And the other half of the problem is that players can shoot way too hard now. Its a chicken and egg problem, and I don't know which came first, but any attempt to cut down on goalie padding is going to have come up against the very real safety concerns caused by modern hockey sticks. Anyone who has used one of the new $300+ composite sticks can tell you they aren't just for showing off your income, these things actually work, and they honestly work too well. Goalies have a legitimate point that goaltenders of old could wear the equipment they did because players were probably shooting 20%+ slower on average. Right now every hockey player is walking around with the equivalent of a corked bat or an aluminum bat in baseball. And so I think that any attempt to scale back protective equipment to something that doesn't strangle the game is going to have to be matched with a similar regulation to go back to plain wood sticks or something similar, to prevent any sort of composite material voodoo. Matching up a decrease in protective bulk, with controls on stick material and I think that you still have a faster, more skilled game, but you'll really open up the ability to express that skill and still keep goalies "safe" (I use quotation marks because they're still crazy people putting themselves in front of a rock hard rubber bullet, but hey some folks are just different). Just addressing the equipment is going to be a non-starter and even if it did get forced through I think it might open the game up too much and lead to too much scoring. There's definitely a compromise to be struck on both sides here.

wilsynet 6y ago
Over time, as goalie equipment changed, so did the way that goalies covered the net and stopped pucks. The way that a goalie plays today is very different than the way Hasek played, and the way Hasek played is very different than the way Fuhr played and the way Dryden played. I think the argument is: scale back protective equipment to something that doesn't strangle the game, and goalies must play a different style in order to stay safe. Which they will. Having said that, I agree, we should also go back to non-composite sticks. The game was no less fun to watch when Mario and Wayne were playing the game with wooden sticks.

jbluepolarbear 6y ago

Watching Hockey in the states is very different from Canada. I grew up near the Washington Canadian border and so I was able to watch all the Hockey games on CBC. I didn’t know Hockey wasn’t regularly aired on TV until I moved. Going to a Hockey game is really fun.

Dma54rhs 6y ago
I'm from European country with bad level of hockey and couldn't enjoy watching NHL despite dad loving it. For some reason very difficult for me to follow the puck. Went to see a local game Live, what Canadians would see as total amateur show but it was amazing and easy to follow. You could really feel and see the shots and appreciate the players strength but skills of skating and being elastic/acrobatic at the same time. Still can't get excited seeing it from telly for some reason. But live experience was awesome!
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  The more you watch (and probably play) hockey, the less you follow the puck and the more you can infer where it is from body positioning. That's why long time fans like your father can enjoy televised hockey more, while everyone can enjoy live games.
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    Heh. Brings to mind the Fox Sports 'FoxTrax' [1] which placed a glow on the puck. Hockey fans hated it. I'm not sure if non-hockey fans cared either way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FoxTrax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FoxTrax
    - veggieburglar 6y ago
      Oh no, the glowing dot! But remember this was well before HDTV. Watching hockey on a grainy old TV was not accessible for those who didn’t know the game. However, I don’t think it was successful in bringing in new viewers, and people who were already fans hated it because, well, it sucked.

tempestn 6y ago

For me this brings to mind Formula 1 racing. Each year teams pore through the rules looking for any possible advantage they can gain within their strict letter. And each year the FIA looks at which teams managed to do this a little too well, and tweaks the rules the following season to prevent whatever they did. They also plan ahead, making significant changes to car design parameters every few years, in order to correct shortcomings in the state or trajectory of the sport. It isn't always executed perfectly, but the attempt is made and is certainly impactful. I don't see any reason the NHL couldn't do the same. Goalie pads too long? Set a max length above the knee. Torso pads billowing too much? Specify a maximum difference between torso circumference with and without pads. Or find some other way to measurably define the problem and then regulate against it. Any issue severe enough to be a problem can be specifically defined and therefore corrected. And if necessary, you can make larger changes as well, like F1 is doing with ground effects this year to allow cars to follow more closely without sacrificing so much downforce. For example (not saying this would be a good change, just an example of the sort of large change that's possible) the pad shape could be redefined with a bulge at the top so that they wouldn't lie completely flat on the ice. These problems are solvable; it just requires a willingness to continually tweak the minutia of the rules when things aren't going as desired.

oh_sigh 6y ago
Wouldn't Formula 1 be more interesting if everyone had to race with the same car? Then it would just be about driver skill? Otherwise all of the rules are just too easy to game for a season and dominate.
- kaoD 6y ago
  F1 is a team sport, car engineering is part of the competition.
- tempestn 6y ago
  It can become boring when one team is very dominant, as has been the case for a number of years now. Absent that though, differences between the cars can make the sport more interesting. The engineering competition is a part of it. As are the adaptations the drivers and teams need to make to take into account their cars' relative strengths and weaknesses compared to others. Plus, if the disadvantage isn't too great, it can be fun to cheer for an underdog who overcomes a disadvantageous car and still manages to win. Spec racing certainly has its place, and it is indeed also nice to see drivers pitted against each other on skill (and luck) alone. But that's never been Formula 1.

soperj 6y ago

I honestly don't know what hockey Dryden is watching here. The game has gotten faster, and the players smaller over the last decade and a half. Most goals are tip shots, one timers, dekes, or power play goals. I agree that the goalie equipment size is out of whack, especially compared to what came before, but the rest of what he said makes me think he hasn't watched hockey since the 90s.

soperj 6y ago
For comparison sake, lacrosse goalies have bigger equipment, and a smaller net, and yet let in way more goals per game than any NHL game.
- 0dana 6y ago
  Lacrosse has a larger net, and goalies have far less and smaller equipment.
  - frockington1 6y ago
    There are differences between indoor box hockey up in Canada and the open field variety more common in the US (both countries play both of course)
    - InitialLastName 6y ago
      Field hockey is present in the US, but ice hockey is far more popular. This article is about the US/Canadian top-level ice hockey league... I can't say I've ever heard of professional field hockey play in the US, much less a nation-wide league.
      - soperj 6y ago
        They meant box lacrosse.
  - soperj 6y ago
    I was talking about box lacrosse, not field: https://laxgoalierat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/BoxLacrosseGoalie2-1024x768.jpg https://laxgoalierat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/BoxLacro...

Grustaf 6y ago

Extremely well written piece, but isn't the solution obvious? Make the goal larger.

pubby 6y ago

One suggested improvement is to make the game 4-on-4 instead of 5-on-5. Less players on the ice typifies more offense, and less bodies covering the net causing chaos. In some ways the game is already moving towards this, by changing overtime and the All-Star Game to be 3-on-3 a few years ago.

alkonaut 6y ago

The removal of hookings and slashings from the game still makes it a much more open affair than it was back when goalies did acrobatic saves in smaller pads. The speed and skill allowed now is completely different. The composite sticks means players can release shots without warning, that would take a full second to prepare back when everyone had a moustache. Goalies had a chancee because the guy with the moustache and wooden stick was getting slashed or cross checked while taking his shot. It was way less enjoyable than the game is now. The SV% and GAA is also mostly unchanged because of this. If the hookings were removed, players had the speed and composite sticks of late 2000's but goales looked and played like in 1980 - it wouldn't really be watchable. Also, I love that a hockey article is at the front page of HN.

soperj 6y ago
GAA & SV% is actually much higher than in the 80s. Grant Fuhr had only 2 seasons with an above .900 sv% and those were in the last half of the 90s. Mostly had a GAA of over 3.5. You wouldn't be an NHL goalie with those numbers these days.
- lunatuna 6y ago
  IMHO, Grant Fuhr was underrated for his skills. He was left to do most of the defending himself while the rest of his team was out hunting goals. Even lots of beer and old video of his games would likely not settle this, but I put this out there. The goal differential was strongly in the Oilers favour.[0] So leaving Fuhr to his business looked to work. Comparing to the Habs[1], the Oilers had a full goal + on any other team. Plus the Oilers were averaging 5 goals a night with some 8-0 and 7-1 out there. Likely still could have won some of those games without a goalie. alkonaut - This is really cool. I was a bit struck seeing this on HN and from an Atlantic article and Dryden writing the article. [0]: https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/EDM/1985.html https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/EDM/1985.html [1]: https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/MTL/1985.html https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/MTL/1985.html
  - soperj 6y ago

animal531 6y ago

A long time ago in cricket there were no limit on bat sizes. So the entrepreneurial minded players started using bats that were wider than the combined width of the stumps. Eventually laws were introduced to set limits.

jgilias 6y ago

I feel like I would like to agree with the article, but I don't. It's described in a way that makes one believe that it's completely impossible to score a goal in a one-on-one situation, as the goalie can just sit on his knees and not move. As is evident by any recent shootout one may watch, this is not the case. And regarding the good old times when goalies had to be acrobatic to actually make saves. Just yesterday I saw a highlight of Korpisalo from Blue Jackets making a crazy reaching stick-save to deny an empty-netter. I think it's fine. I find the game exciting and dynamic enough to watch.

adventured 6y ago
I agree with what you said. Goals per game are comparable to where they were at 15-20 years ago, as well as in the 1950s and 1960s. Goals are considerably down from the late 1970s and 1980s. Larger goalies are merely properly offsetting the offensive gains made from better sticks and the slap shot, which had temporarily provided a scoring advantage and boosted goals per game. Rather than it being a problem as implied by the article, larger goalies have balanced the game back out and returned it to where it was.
bradfa 6y ago
I played ice hockey goalie growing up, in high school, intramurals in college, and then men's league for a while. The game definitely changed over the course of me playing it. I started playing goalie around 1991 and fondly remember having to do "kick save" drills and learning to "T glide". The game has changed, no goalies do kick saves anymore, it's just not an effective way to stop the puck. But to say that goalies today aren't acrobatic or fit or flexible or amazing athletes is totally wrong. To be able to put your body into the butterfly position, to be able to push off to move while staying in the butterfly, to be able to slide post to post as the puck moves behind the net and keep the post-side leg upright: THIS IS EXTREMELY HARD! Goalies today are basically 6 foot+ tall gymnasts. My knees, groin, and hips surely can no longer perform the kinds of movements which I used to be able to do. I was not anywhere near being NHL caliber, so maybe I have a different appreciation for watching top level goalies today. But damn, these goalies today are seriously impressive in how they can move their bodies. Sure, the equipment regulations might need to change for bantam or midget level leagues and up, but the younger kids aren't big enough to take advantage of the equipment so any changes the NHL wants to implement shouldn't affect the vast majority of kids playing the game today until (if) they get to a high level of play and high school age or beyond. I think the NHL should continue to change the rules, not just for goalies, but for the whole game. And if things work, then other leagues should adopt those rules over time, too.

docdeek 6y ago

Nice article, though my first thought was a scene from 'The West Wing': Sam: You know what I'd do if I owned a hockey team? I'd hire a sumo wrestler. I'd give him a uniform, transportation, 500 bucks a week to sit in the goal, eat a ham sandwich and enjoy the game. My team would never get scored on. Josh: Your team would get scored on constantly. Sam: Maybe, but we'd sell a few tickets. Josh: Yeah, 'cause sumo wrestling sells out all the time in big hockey towns. Sam: My idea's totally inviable? Josh: Well, you're a Democrat. It's a pretty big club.

jgilias 6y ago

Having thought about this a bit, I think the suggestion to increase the goal/reduce the goalie would make ice hockey considerably less interesting to watch. It goes something like this. The inherent thrill of watching a sports event comes from multiple things: pace of the game, ratio between attempts/scores, watching skillful people do tricky things, but most importantly - not knowing who is going to win. So, it's not very exciting to watch a coin tossing championship, because there's no skill involved. But at the same time, it's not very exciting to watch something where the nominally stronger team wins with near absolute certainty. Like a game with a high attempt/score ratio with a single mode of scoring. Basketball solved this by introducing another mode of scoring that's also inherently more uncertain. So they introduced asymmetry and more uncertainty leading to more interesting games, as the certainty with which you can say who's going to win is reduced, as that depends on wider skill-sets across the team and also more luck. Now, take a game with a low attempt/score ratio. The uncertainty about who's going to win is baked into that ratio. With some luck, the nominally weaker team still has a chance of winning the nominally stronger team. And this is what makes ice hockey interesting in my book. This is how Finland could win the world championships without any NHL players last year. Increasing the goal would increase the attempt/score ratio, without adding any other offsetting asymmetry to the game. This will reduce the uncertainty of who's going to win, making the game less interesting to watch. For a game with a relatively high attempt/score ratio that's also highly dynamic with a lot of attempts per game, and has somewhat similar strategies to hockey, I invite you to check out Innebandy/Floorball. It's a fun game, but not that exciting as a spectator sport. Because the nominally stronger team will win any given game with near certainty due to the large amount of attempts per game coupled with a high attempt/score ratio.

ohashi 6y ago

There is a lot of history and posturing. And it's coming from one of the best goalies to ever play the game. But, I still think he's wrong. There has been a slow crackdown on goalie gear size. We have seen scoring slightly go up. But what's not talked about in the article is that the game really isn't static. The players have gotten better and better at picking up those tiny gaps and holes in the body. They are looking at video of movements of goalies, picking apart every weakness based on hundreds of hours of film. They offense is more equipped than ever to know and understand NHL goalies. We see hot rookie goalies like Andrew Hammond or Elvis Merzlikins come out with phenomenal numbers and generally fall to earth. Why? I think a large part is coaching/scouting. There are teams dedicated to exposing goalie weaknesses on each team (Video Coaches). They can look at everything goalies have done and along with other coaching staff adapt strategies to take advantage of perceived weaknesses/tendencies/etc. If you actually watch NHL games, look at where the players are shooting. You'll often notice a pattern, are they going glove or blocker side more? Are they going high or right above the pads? Are they trying to make cross ice passes near the crease to get goalie moving side to side? There is probably a good chance the team thinks it sees a certain weakness somewhere in the goalie's play and is trying to exploit it. And then sometimes you just have players say fuck it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-m8Fd93faw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-m8Fd93faw No weakness in normal hockey? Just pick up the puck like a Lacrosse player and dunk it in a tiny hole from behind the net (originally called The Michigan, some calling it the Svechnikov after the first NHL player to do it). Dryden wants to talk about how soccer players can bend the ball, the newest big move we get to see on rare occasion is the move in that video. It starts with one guy doing it at this level (Svechnikov - 3 times I think). And now Filip Forsberg has done it. Other players have made attempts (Kuznetsov 2018 before anyone had ever done it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGFQkWfkjxk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGFQkWfkjxk). Nils Hoglander, canucks rookie did it three times in Sweden and their fanbase is excited to see his first NHL goal in that fashion. I would bet money it happens at some point given his history with the move and talent. Point is, players are getting more creative, better with puck handling, the game is getting faster, and every little detail is being scrutinized deeper and deeper. Hockey has the most parity of all the big sports in the US and the most uncertainty. Seeking out every edge is what separates the teams with long stretches of success and the mediocre teams which sit puzzlingly at the bottom year after year despite often drafting immensely talented players. One of my favorite goalie coach quotes, you can't teach size, is definitely true. It's an advantage for sure. But is it ruining the game? Not even close. Maybe he's watching a different sport than the rest of us.

pattle 6y ago

Surely they just need to make the net a bit bigger?

ajcp 6y ago
And take away play-space? Nah. With todays advanced materials they should make goalie padding simply protect the goalie, and let the G-man protect the net.

siruva07 6y ago

"Take away the goalie’s eyes. If he can see it, he’ll stop it." One heckuva instigator, NY Ranger Sean Avery, figured this out in the 2008 playoffs against NJ Devils Martin Brodeur. video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec_2oKWe2Gw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec_2oKWe2Gw The day after, the NHL made a rule that makes it illegal for a player to stand in front of a goalie and wave his or her stick in the goalie's face. Dubbed "The Sean Avery Rule," it results in a 2 min unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. And yes, this play still has me riled up! :)

old_fart_dev 6y ago
The fact Sean did this multiple times makes me smile. This should be legal in beer league hockey. I spend a good amount of time in net with my defense men standing right in front of me, facing away from the net - I would love someone to come in and fan away all the beer farts from the crease.

justinlink 6y ago

I find it interesting the author didn't mention field hockey. My daughter is a goalkeeper for her youth club. The goalkeepers wear very similar pads, and face shots at similar speeds with the same safety concerns. (I wouldn't want to be hit with a puck or a field hockey ball). The cage is much larger in field hockey: https://i2.wp.com/hockeyanswered.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/gettyimages-1025376630-594x594.jpg?resize=594%2C594&ssl=1 https://i2.wp.com/hockeyanswered.com/wp-content/uploads/2019... The save percentages are about 70% vs the 90%+ in ice hockey, but the game scores tend to be similar to ice hockey. If the goalkeeper is getting bigger because of the gear, even adding a few more inches onto the net to maintain the desired scoring percentage makes sense at least at the professional level.

Pinus 6y ago

Neither following nor playing either sport I'm on thin ice here (or maybe that's exactly what I'm not!), but isn't bandy sort of like hockey but with soccer-sized goals (and a ball instead of a puck)?

rrock 6y ago
Yes, and is played on a frozen soccer field, 11 on 11. No boards, the ball can go out of bounds. Scoring is much higher. (Others may correct me, I’ve been to one bandy game my whole Life)

old_fart_dev 6y ago

Ken Dryden is a legend - he was a tall butterfly goaltender in the 70s and is the prototype of professional goaltenders today. I think it's funny he thinks goalies are too big given he was a huge goalie himself. I do think goalies might be too mobile on their knees, which Ken alluded to in this article. Knee stacks and landing pads change the game in the early 2000s. Goaltenders now can drop in a butterfly and slide across the crease still on their knees, allowing them to cover backside plays, passes from behind the net, and wraparounds, which used to be bread and butter plays for offenses. Getting rid of the pads would force goalies to play the same "drop and pop" style Ken did, where goalies need to get to their feet more often to more laterally. This would give offenses more incentive to get the puck to behind the back line and open up the ice more. Alternatively to that, goalie skates have also gotten smaller - there's less protective covering on them. This makes it easier for goalies to push off with their skates while on their knees, since more of the blade of the skate can touch the ice. I can image the NHL could declare "for goalie safety" that goalie skates must have a certain thickness of protection around the skate, which would make sliding less effective. Of course, amateur goalies (such as myself) should be able to keep knee stacks, since they also reduce stress on the hip caused by the knees dropping into the ice. ;)

soperj 6y ago
Ken Dryden was not a butterfly goalie. Almost no one was until Patrick Roy popularized it.
- old_fart_dev 6y ago
  I feel shame - I confused Ken Dryden with Jacques Plante. In my defense, I'm a Bruins fan and we're not big on having well-informed opinions. ;)
  - soperj 6y ago
    hahaha. I've been to a bruins game in TD Garden, and while I agree with you it still was pretty fun. Jacques Plante, best goalie to ever play for the Oilers!

Markoff 6y ago

I've never understood why they don't just hire extremely obese goalie (or some former sumo warrior), if you dress him in all protective gear therw won't be space for puck to pass, is there any NHL regulation about it?

ajcp 6y ago
Those guys tend to be big and tall. Tall = a lot of space your body takes up is above the net. You'd want a very fat, short guy, right? Well even if he manages to be as wide as 80% of that net that leaves a massive 20% of unattended space. So now this extremely obese, extremely squat goalie needs to move faster than a puck to protect that 20%? Not gonna happen. And that's just hoping he can survive until the 1st intermission before you have to drag him off the ice as he's, you know, extremely obese.
InitialLastName 6y ago
There are max size rules for some of the pads, so a really large player would have exposed area. I don't know if you've seen the bruises that pro hockey goalies get even when they take a puck through the pads, but I really wouldn't want someone with unprotected flesh to have to make a decision about allowing a goal or getting hit.
ooboe 6y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrgHA56uEDQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrgHA56uEDQ Garbage TV link, but they address your question. One thing they get very right is that, in non-game, non-rushed environments, even the worst NHL hockey player can pick any corner of the net.

AcerbicZero 6y ago

Maybe the professionalization of classic games has just gone too far? Perhaps what was fun for kids in the winter wasn’t actually designed to be taken seriously by grown men/woman, with millions of dollars at stake? I don’t know. I still watch F1, so perhaps I’m just off base here, but it seems that there is a disconnect between the sport and the spectacle.

fc373745 6y ago

Why not make the goal bigger? Bigger to the point where we can see double digit scoring? One thing that turned me off from watching Soccer one year was the amount of 1-1 games that led to PKs, and after just doing a little bit of research, Hockey has the longest overtime games by far, and occurs more often by far. > The average NHL team has gone to overtime in about 23.1 percent of its games over the past three seasons. The Flyers have done so in about 31.1 percent of their games It's not enjoyable for the casual viewer. Betting on sports which have O/U of 0.5, 1, 1.5 is ridiculous tbh.

dionidium 6y ago
Speaking of betting, overtime is also frustrating, because it turns a bet based on slight edges over 60 minutes of play into a ridiculous prop bet. You can bet strictly on regulation time, but the bookie I use doesn’t offer a push, so it’s not an attractive bet.
jp57 6y ago
Part of the reason for so many overtimes is the ridiculous point system for overtime games: For a game that ends in regulation, one team gets 2 points and the other gets 0. For game that goes to overtime each team gets at least 1 point, and the winner gets two. This situation reduces the incentive to play aggressively and take chances to win when a game is tied late in the 3rd period. For comparison, before the addition of shootouts to resolve games still tied after overtime, each game was worth exactly two points: both went to the winner, or they were split in the case of a tie. Now there is the weird situation that teams are not competing for a fixed number of standings points. Instead rather a new point gets created whenever a game goes to overtime. This makes a huge incentive not to try to break ties in regulation.
- flurdy 6y ago
  That is why football/soccer introduced 3 points for a win to combat the 1980s trend of playing for a draw. Made enough of a difference.

runnr_az 6y ago

Of course, this was predicted by Adam and his Package: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpe7R_KgdVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpe7R_KgdVo

ukd1 6y ago

Shouldn't there be a fixed ratio of goalie surface area to goal face? Otherwise, this ends up in a Red Dwarf goalie for the 2224 World Cup which was a genetically engineered rectangular block of muscle the exact size of the goal...

AtlasBarfed 6y ago
Why not a sumo wrestler?

jlizzle30 6y ago

Former college hockey goalie here (now a SWE). Dryden is correct. Hockey goaltending has become incredibly technical and an essence of the game has been lost as goalies have gained mastery. This is less about equipment being 'too big' and more about the technologic and strategic progression goalies have made. There aren't any equipment regulations that can unwind this progress. While I played, I was vehemently opposed to changing the net-size. Now, as an outsider with no horse in the race, I think it's the right thing to do. Every so often at practices, myself and my goaltending partner would agree to make 'highlight reel' saves for a drill or two. What this meant was abandoning our technique and adopt an athletic, intuitive style that resembled something of the past (kick saves, stacking the pads, catching the puck dramatically). We did this because it was fun; the shooters enjoyed it more too. Making the nets bigger would inject these elements back into the position.

etempleton 6y ago

It is interesting to compare hockey goalie strategy to lacrosse. The key difference is that the goal is significantly bigger—6x6 feet. Goalies in lacrosse general wear less pads then the other players on the field—often foregoing elbow and shoulder pads—for optimal mobility and because goalies are crazy (most do not wear shin pads because they will be made fun of by other goalies). So I think another solution, that would surely be controversial, would be to make the goal slightly bigger. The minute goalie pads do not cover the whole area goalies will be forced to prioritize mobility over pad size.