“Goalies are supposed to be crazy, because who else would want the job?”
“It is no accident that the entrance to Toronto’s Hockey Hall of Fame is a panoply of goalie masks. As the key figure in one of our central narratives, the goalie exhibits many of the household Canadian traits: eagerness to please, resilience, neuroticism. At the cocktail party of nations, Canada is the quiet guy on the periphery who looks worried about something. Is it possible that we identify with goalies because Canada is the goalie of the world?”
“As required, then, the goalie can play scapegoat or sacrificial lamb. He is both easily replaceable, a random body; and the embodiment of his team’s current fate.”
“In the end (a goal scored), it is always the goalie’s moment, regardless of the chain of events that led to it. How does one accept responsibility for some ambiguous group failure? Why should he have to own the moment? The goalie is a significant slice of cheese, but he is only one slice.”
“Canadians may be particularly fascinated by goaltenders because we are historically more accustomed to the role of defender. Unconsciously, we favour the goalie because we don’t have the big guns, and maybe we don’t endorse the big guns. We like goalies because they are the eternal underdogs. Perhaps because we feel the game is ours, we need to maintain more intense archetypes. If goaltending is about being one of a kind, aiding your peers, knowing your territory—if it’s about standing on guard—then the goalie is Canadian, and maybe the goalie is you.”