Thoughts on Being a Goalie
I was reading a blog post from a blog that a friend passed along today, and I was thinking just how hard it has always been for me to get shutouts when playing goal.
I've been playing goal since I was 11, and honestly was never a shutout goalie. I don't know why that is, but it is an interesting thing... I won several awards both in high school and later in college, but those were never really tied to shutouts. I mean, I played three years as a full-time starter for Lakeland High School's hockey team, and it wasn't until the last two weeks of the season of my senior year that I got my first one. Playing at Oakland University, I don't think I ever had one, though they don't have our results from the first couple of years up on their website, so I can't check. (By the way, I'm still a little disappointed that I'm not mentioned in the history section of the team's website, with all that I did for them. Bad feelings still linger, I guess.) At Richmond, despite a 1.80 goals against average, the BRHC's GAA record and Save Percentage record, I think I had only two shutouts my two years playing for them - both 11-0 wins against Appalachian State.
I don't know what to attribute this to, seeing as how I've always had very low goals against. Maybe there is just a mental hump that I was never able to successfully get over. Shutouts are incredibly hard to get, and invariably some little thing would always happen to ensure I didn't get one. Maybe someone on the bench all these times uttered the dreaded "s" word before the game was actually over... That's a pretty big one - never say shutout before the buzzer sounds, or else you aren't going to get one. Maybe those times that I missed out by a couple of minutes was because I was thinking about getting one too much.
The frustrating thing is that it even carries over to adult hockey. Despite how good I'm playing, or how bad the other team is, I always end up letting one in. So much so that I've started telling teams I'm not a "Shutout Goalie." If you score 2, we'll be fine. But count on them getting one by me. It's sad, but the truth.