Holy crap.
One save on the first eight shots. My second save didn’t come until nineteen minutes in, and it took nineteen shots to get my save percentage over .500. I know that because I was counting, because I felt like shit and wanted to know when I’d at least be stopping half of them.
It was shinny, so nobody keeps score, but I feel like we lost, bigly. I try to give up less than a goal every ten minutes, and over 87 minutes I let in 17 on 46 shots, which is about double that.
The blood on my hands didn’t register as blood at first.
I’d thrown my mask off after the shot. Reflex. Pain management. Give the jaw some air. The pain was sharp and then immediately dull, the kind that makes you think stinger before it makes you think anything else. So I knelt on the ice, head down, eyes on the white below me, and stayed there. A couple of guys skated over. Told them I was fine. Just a stinger. Give me a minute.
Easy save. I could smother it, kill the play. Instead I kick it out to their other forward.
Not a mistake. A choice. I’m bored and my team’s up four goals and I want to make another save. So I manufacture chaos, create my own work, turn an easy night into something that feels like hockey.
That’s the first thirty-six minutes.
The second half, I’m making four saves in a row and watching the fifth one trickle past my pad anyway. My defense is skating like they’re underwater. Passes are dying on sticks. I’m doing everything right and we’re getting shelled.
Well, maybe not everything.
Look, being a goalie is objectively ridiculous. You strap on forty pounds of equipment designed to protect you from frozen rubber traveling at speeds that would make physicists frown. Then you stand in front of a net and dare people to shoot at you. It’s a strange job.
But here’s the thing: being a goalie is basically the same job as running ops, or security, or honestly, any part of software development where you’re the one who has to keep the thing from breaking.
I remember the moment vividly—a hard shot struck the lower side of my mask. The impact was sharp, a bolt of pain radiating through my face. I dropped my head to the ice, letting the sting settle before pushing myself up onto my knees. It wasn’t until I stretched my neck, looking around, that the blood started flowing. When I glanced down, the realization hit—red pooling rapidly beneath me. Instinct took over. I stripped off my blocker, glove, and helmet, heading straight for the dressing room. Players were already scrambling for medical supplies as I pressed a hand to my face, trying to assess the damage and scrambling to find the source of the blood.