Every team has an emergency backup. And sometimes they will let the other team use them if there is a situation that requires it, since they don't travel with the team.
Happened a few days ago in a game in Colorado. He was dressed and everything (no jersey though), but he didn't end up playing.
They just sign one day contracts with the teams if they have to suit up. And it's only a few hundred bucks if I remember correctly.
Speaking of which, back before the NHL took over all team website architecture with common branding, the Capitals were infamous for having the best website.
My understanding of the emergency backup rule is that: each team dresses two goalies, and if both of them are unable to play then the team has the right to dress "any available goalkeeper" in the area. The de facto way this works is that each team keeps a running roster of local "talent" that can dress at a moment's notice.
So road teams don't travel with an emergency backup goalie[1], which is why they use whoever is on the list for the city they are in.
As a side note, I'm a WPG fan so I've had the pleasure of listening to every single news outlet that doesn't normally cover sports rub it in my face today that we got stomped by a 36 year old accountant last night.
EDIT 2: This actually reminded me of a less heartwarming but equally fun story that arose from the very liberal emergency goalie rules. One of the greatest goaltenders of all time was a guy named Patrick Roy (French, pronounced "wah"), who was not only incredibly talented but well known for… let's say shenanigans on the ice you don't normally see from a goalie. He ended his career in Colorado in the early 2000s, and in 2013 ended up becoming the head coach of the Avalanche. In 2016, Colorado found themselves in a situation where they almost needed an emergency backup goalie, and Patrick Roy was prepared to dress and play in net for the team. Unfortunately this never happened, but I would love to visit the alternate timeline where it did.
EDIT: Here's the full goalie substitution rule from the NHL rulebook:
"In regular League and Playoff games, if both listed goalkeepers are incapacitated, that team shall be entitled to dress and play any available goalkeeper who is eligible. This goalkeeper is eligible to sit on the player’s bench, in uniform. In the event that the two regular goalkeepers are injured or incapacitated in quick succession, the third goalkeeper shall be provided with a reasonable amount of time to get dressed, in addition to a two-minute warm-up (except when he enters the game to defend against a penalty shot). If, however, the third goalkeeper is dressed and on the bench when the second goalkeeper becomes incapacitated, the third goalkeeper shall enter the game immediately and no warm-up is permitted."[2]
[1]: Other comments have pointed out that the emergency backup is often a team employee, and this can be true (often times goalie coaches or equipment managers act in this capacity so road teams can leverage that), but just as often it can also be a local amateur. Emergency backup goalies are almost never used.
> As a side note, I'm a WPG fan so I've had the pleasure of listening to every single news outlet that doesn't normally cover sports rub it in my face today that we got stomped by a 36 year old accountant last night.
Rubbing your face in it is one of the defining features of Hockey.
> EDIT 2: This actually reminded me of a less heartwarming but equally fun story that arose from the very liberal emergency goalie rules. One of the greatest goaltenders of all time was a guy named Patrick Roy (French, pronounced "wah"), who was not only incredibly talented but well known for… let's say shenanigans on the ice you don't normally see from a goalie. He ended his career in Colorado in the early 2000s, and in 2013 ended up becoming the head coach of the Avalanche. In 2016, Colorado found themselves in a situation where they almost needed an emergency backup goalie, and Patrick Roy was prepared to dress and play in net for the team. Unfortunately this never happened, but I would love to visit the alternate timeline where it did.
I think he was also dressed and on the ice during practice when Varlamov was handling his civil trial and Pickard was sick, since he would have dressed as the backup goalie, but Pickard ended up being healthy enough to play.
It's more every city/arena has an emergency backup. Each team has to have someone on call who can get to the arena in the event either team has a last minute injury to one of their goaltenders. The backup for Philly has "played" for both the Flyers & Hawks.
I don't think they even get money [1]. They do get to keep the jersey though!
They get signed to a one day try out contract. If they are college players they cant accept any money to retain their amateur status but otherwise they get a small amount of money, around 100 bucks
They had to failover to a warm standby only minutes after their hot standby failed too.
I'm impressed that there is a process in place for this. I would not have been surprised if the story was that the equipment manager has put on whichever goalie's equipment fits him better, in order to get into the game to prevent a forfeit.
Teams have a list of standby players like this in the list. Some teams equipment managers are in the list, and have training if it comes to it. To have to go four levels deep is pretty rare.
From the times I've seen this level of standby dressing for the game, usually the first stringer is already injured and the back-up gets hurt in warmups. Then the third-stringer is playing and the fourth-stringer (equipment manager, extreme backup, whoever) is dressed but doesn't play.
I'm surprised its not just one of the players on the roster. Somebody who played goalie in high school or something. In soccer you occasionally see a hurt or red carded goalie replaced by a field player if the team has already used their allowed substitutions for the game. But I guess goalie is just that different in hockey.
Getting the equipment on is a bit of a process, so I doubt teams would want to be down a rostered skater in the event they need someone to sit on the bench as a goaltender.
It's also extremely rare for these backups to see playing time. This is only the second time it's happened in the NHL; the previous was last year when an equipment manager stood in for 8 seconds.
I played hockey all through college as a forward and a couple times have thrown on goalie equipment just to try it out after practice. I have found that being a goalie is a completely different skill set than being a skater, it's almost like you are playing a different sport. It's all about playing angles, body positioning, quick reflexes, and spatial awareness - those skills are important for skaters but we usually focus on play formation, north/south speed, agility, and passing.
Pretty much. If you're in a rec league and your goalie can't make the game you have to scramble to find one, or forfeit the game (or play without one, which trust me, sucks for both teams since the other team feels like they have to take it easy on you even though they really shouldn't.)
Usually the league you're in provides this service though, there's a sort of standby list of goalies that can get called on if you know enough in advance that yours can't make it.
Goalies also almost never pay the league fees (the team distributes the fees amongst the skating players and doesn't make the goalie pay). Not having a goalie is basically the death of a team.
Agreed! The other thing is if you don't play goalie mainly, many skaters just would rather not. I know I would much rather play as a forward than get shot at all game.
In my beer hockey league (Charlotte), goalies have to pay the league fees too. And it's up to the player-coach to find a sub if the primary goalie can't make the game. Our league is relatively "formal" in that we all have to be registered with USA Hockey; our games have real refs, time keeper, etc. But I've been in other leagues, less formal, where goalies skate for free.
In my league the payment is per-team, not per person, so the league doesn't care who pays, they just need payment. But traditionally, a team will divide the cost among N-1 of them so that the goalie doesn't have to pay. It's quite a nice system IMO.
It also is worth pointing out that it's not just because of the "rarity" of goalies teammates do this - it's also a substantial cost burden for a goalie to play due to the expense of equipment. This helps distribute that burden a bit more fairly since as you stated early - the team doesn't exist unless you have a goalie.
A family member recently outfitted a junior high goalie and the total came to about $1,000.
I always imagined the goalie as the main tank of a raiding guild. They got special privileges just due to their importance and "upkeep" costs.
The comparison to a keeper in football is close, but in hockey it's a far more important and specialized role. In the NHL, a typical # of shots on goal is 30-35 [1]. Seems like 3-7 is a typical number of saves a football keeper would have to make [2].
Also, the equipment a hockey goalie uses is specialized, whereas I think the only extra equipment a keeper has is a different coloured jersey and gloves.
You are correct, football keepers make a much lower amount of saves - but goals tend to be fewer and hence "heavier" in football, so having a bad keeper will still likely result in a loss. And it's still the sort of role no regular player wants to do - which results in some funny differences at the cultural level.
At the very least, I guess this concept could work as a feature for all those apps people use to arrange 5-a-sides.
They have to have the full goalie gear on in advance and for the entire game. You'd be sacrificing a skater for that game. It's not like baseball, where some non-catcher on the roster is considered emergency catcher (generally anybody bilingual and with past catching experience).
I saw this happen in pro roller hockey (RHI) where the San Jose Rhinos' then-GM (but previously a champion goalie) had to sign himself to a 1-day contract and dress for a game.
The equipment manager story happened, too [1]!. In that case, he only went on to play the last 8 seconds of the game so it wasn't as crazy as this occurrence since Scott got to play 13 minutes of NHL hockey.
In fact, down 3-1 with under 2 minutes left, it's very common to have an empty net in order to have an extra forward out to enable potentially scoring last-ditch effort goals! The only reason I could see for them playing Alves at all in this situation was if the faceoff with 8 seconds left was in the defensive zone for the Hurricanes.
It's fun to think of a goalie in hockey as equivalent to the database in a classic web architecture. How many of us that built apps in the 2000s actually had a codified plan of what would happen in the event our hot standby also failed before we could reprovision a new primary?
I'm impressed that there is a process in place for this.
It's not that uncommon, at least to get as far as the bench.
The NHL mandates that each team have two fully-dressed-and-equipped goaltenders at the ready so that a replacement can be a drop-in with little time loss. (They don't even get to face warm-up shots or much warm-up time.) If there is an injury to either, a goalie is called up from their AHL (the top minor league, like AAA in baseball) or ECHL (AA) affiliates, but short notice or far travel can preclude that, making the occasional need for an emergency goalie.
Typically, an emergency goalie is a local college or club team goaltender (as available). They sign a 1-day NHLPA pro contract and (ideally) ride the bench all game.
The San Jose Sharks have used club goalies from San Jose State before (SJSU is only Div III in hockey).
He was put in because Chicago’s third-string goalie injured himself in the pre-game warmups, and their fourth-string goalie who started the game was injured in the third period. It is REALLY unusual for an emergency goalie to actually play in a game.
I'm not a huge fan of hockey but the sport seems to have so many interesting things like this that really sets it apart from other major sports. Could you ever see the NFL letting an amateur walk on the same day and play in a real game?
Can you imagine a team putting a dwarf on the field as a publicity stunt now? Moral outrage would explode. I’m not sure how much change has occurred though as other body shapes are used for publicity purposes and don’t cause outrage, so it’s all a bit complicated.
I don't know a ton about hockey either, but apparently goalie is more analogous to kicker or punter than "regular" positions in football.
Even so, in the case of a kicker/punter injury a NFL team wouldn't call someone out of the stands to fill in - they'd sign someone out of free agency to play the next week and would adjust their strategy accordingly during the current game.
It's really cool that pro hockey has a unique system in place for edge case situations like this.
That's a good point though - a lot of times the backup kicker or punter on an NFL roster is someone from a totally different skill position.
Ndamukong Suh is a 300 pound defensive tackle but he was the emergency placekicker for the Dolphins for 2017. There are a bunch of QBs who can punt as well.
It's not common for those backups to actually kick, but it does happen. Wes Welker was placekicker for the Dolphins for one game as a rookie in 2004, besides being the team's kick and punt returner. He successfully converted both kicks he attempted. He did not catch a pass in that game, despite being nominally a wide receiver (and a future Pro Bowler at that position). Six years later, at New England, he served as the backup placekicker again and made a single extra point, finishing his career perfect as a kicker.
The legendary quarterback Doug Flutie kicked the last successful "drop kick" in the NFL for an extra point in 2006. However, that was more of a novelty than out of necessity; New England's kicker was healthy, they were well ahead in the game, and the team knew Flutie would retire after the season.
The hockey goalie is an interesting role because it is a very specialized skill relative to the other players, and typically done by the same person for most of a season, with a backup that plays maybe 10-25% of games.
I think the closest thing would be a pitcher in baseball, but even there, it's hard to imagine an injury scenario that would result in an amateur being put in, because there are so many relief pitchers, and others not in rotation that could sub in.
The baseball thing is actually an interesting point. One of the most interesting things that occasionally happens in baseball is when a position player has to pitch, because the game has drawn on so long.
It's interesting because these position players often have good stats for their brief appearance, but (almost) never move into pitching even part-time as a result. This is because none of the opposing hitters have studied that player's pitching, making the hitter's job that much harder. That is, the results don't completely reflect how well the pitcher actually pitched.
It's possible that a similar effect is in play here.
He was stocking shelves, but he was also an absolute stud in the arena football league and went on to lead the league in touchdowns in NFL Europe. Might be one of the only NFL Europe success stories that I know of. I'm a Rams fan and share the same alma mater as Kurt, so I'm extremely biased, but he definitely has one of the best stories in football in my opinion.
There is a very variable gap between novice, amateur and professional in different sports - and I think the closer to "natural human movement" the sport is the greater the gap.
for example, you could pick any one from the Olympic stadium, give them running shoes and there would be zero chance they would be anything but last over the finishing line.
For something like football (soccer) the gap is almost as large - you could take any enthusiastic amateur and put them in the premiership and the results would be obviously bad. Only as you go up the amateur skill rankins would you start to see a closing of the gap - and football / soccer has spent so long honing that gap that even professional players in the second division would usually be shown to be woefully inadequate (Leicester City being the exception proving the rule)
But NHL hockey has a huge amount of skill / equipment / training needs before even starting a game - and so the gap between amateur and top player is much smaller than we expect.
What I guess I am saying is that 99% of humanity could cross the finish line in an olympic spring (seconds off the time obviously but still finish). but probably 99% of humanity could not even stand up on the ice let alone skate and hit a puck.
As such i conjecture that professional hockey has a lot further it can stretch that gap between top professional and amateur - in other words the team that finds how to develop its skills so that a third string goalie would never stand a chance is a team that will lift a lot of trophies.
Another comment I saw elsewhere said that the Elite league he plays in regularly is full of very good amateur/ex-pro players as well. It's not like they picked up a guy off the street and threw the pads on him. He had a ton of experience playing against players just below the caliber of current NHL players.
That's not to diminish what he did though. It's amazing that the NHL has something like this place, and the guy seems to have taken it very very well with a lot of humility.
Not necessarily. If you are college-educated, can make high-five-figures / six-figures as an accountant, and have given up on the NHL dream, why schlep it for less of half that salary in the minors? Not to mention if you have a family and don't want to take long bus trips to away games all winter.
For marginal players, being semi-pro is as much of a lifestyle choice & opportunity cost calculation as a statement of ability.
Minor league hockey players earn on average ~$43,000 / 6 month season. Factor in health risks, job insecurity, and being on the road most of the time it becomes much less appealing.
I think you are greatly understating the difference between amateurs and top players in the NHL. Watching the players coming from the feeder leagues to the NHL, you can tell that there can be a _huge_ difference in skill.
The Blackhawks this season are a good example to look at. If you just compare the goalies this year you will see a large difference. Corey Crawford has been their goaltender for 2 Stanley Cup championships, and was injured in the middle of this year. He has not played since then, and it has forced the team to try and find a replacement. I think looking at the statistics shows the difference even between the most elite goalies and those that are close to that level.
W is wins, L is losses, GAA is "goals against average" per game, SV% is save percentage
Which of these metrics would be most important in evaluating a goalie?
I know nothing about hockey, but my intuition would be that you can throw W/L out the window - if you have an amazing offensive team you could let in 5 goals a game and still win. GAA is a reflection of both the team's defensive ability and the goalie's performance. It seems like SV% is the "purest" metric to compare apples to apples here. Unless I'm only looking at first-order effects here and the team's entire strategy changes based on who is in goal...
All of the stats are heavily affected by what the rest of the team is doing. If the team knows it's playing in front of a weak goalie, they'll play more defensively so that more shots are blocked in the field and only lower-percentage shots ever make it to the goal in the first place, raising the SV%.
SV% does have team and score effects, but it's the best single metric. It's often best to compare 1 - SV%, as that tells you roughly how many goals they're letting in.
So on 1000 shots, crawford allowed 71 goals, forsberg 92, Glass 102, Berube 109.
Goalie W-L is typically bullshit, but comparing goalies on the same team it can be useful. With crawford they were winning 64% of their games, without him around 35%.
"There is a very variable gap between novice, amateur and professional in different sports - and I think the closer to "natural human movement" the sport is the greater the gap."
I find your comment interesting but I am not so sure it is correct ...
I have heard it convincingly argued that hitting a major league pitcher is as difficult a task to complete as anything else in sports - and it appears to be true. The gap between someone who can do that and everyone else is huge and also appears to be innate - either you can do that or you can't.
And yet, it's a completely arbitrary action that has no real relation to natural movements.
Also, as long as I'm picking apart your argument - skiing has all kinds of specialized, unnatural equipment (like a hockey goalie) and it is not a natural movement ... and yet if you picked a random spectator from the crowd to make it down the super G, they might fare even worse than your spectator for the footrace.
I think those are similar arguments - there are some sports (NHL, skiing) that are just difficult - the bar is high immediately just to be able to take part.
These sports seem to have a smaller gap between the lowest performer and the top players - either because anyone able to compete at all is already quite good, or as i suspect, that the top players are not as good at say hockey, as the top sprinters are at running - partly because you are selecting from a smaller population, partly because (and this is my point) there is still a long way for humans to go to manage the skills - Usain Bolt is considered to be near the limits of human performance (what is physically possible with levers the length of a human thigh etc) - but that is not the case with ice skates etc
how shall i put this ? Moneyball teaches us that baseball is unlikely to be the only sport that would see huge gains by rejecting industry machismo. Could NHL see gains from basic changes? yes. Do i know what those are ? No.
Let's redo this. I can happily imagine that every child in the USA gets to find out if they are any good at hitting a baseball (#). So we can be fairly sure that the population of possible baseball picks is as wide as it can be - and is a proper bell curve.
But the population of those who have had chance to skate on ice and hit a puck is, even in canada, is not as wide as possible- so it won't be a bell curve - maybe double hump?
this gives us in my head a situation where even the top players in NHL are not the best possible from the whole country - but the baseball players are closer to that ideal because they draw from a more complete bell curve.
as such i speculate that NHL top players are not as good as possible because
- the top players are not the best possible from population compared to say sprinting
- the set of all players is more closely grouped (thinner curve) so any player is closer in ability to top players than say sprinting
- most sports probably still have plenty of "moneyball" left on the table
All of which is a long winded way of saying, if there is a sport where a non-professional can come in and perform distinguishedly, then there should be plenty of scope for investment and improvement and so consequent profit (wins at any rate)
(#) every male child at least, but let's not go down that road now.
"I can happily imagine that every child in the USA gets to find out if they are any good at hitting a baseball (#). So we can be fairly sure that the population of possible baseball picks is as wide as it can be - and is a proper bell curve."
That's a very good point - thanks.
I suppose the same point could be made, even more emphatically, for skiing.
"most sports probably still have plenty of "moneyball" left on the table"
Actually, I reject the Moneyball principle and its prescriptions, but that's another story ...
In France, for example, there are a few examples of lower levels teams reaching the semi-finals or even the final of the national cup. I remember for example Calais in 1999 or 2000 (amateurs forth division), they reached the final, losing quite honorably to Nantes (a top flight team) and beating one or two second division teams, and two first division teams including Bordeaux (first division champion the previous year, and still in the top 5 in 2000). And it's not an isolated case, there are other examples.
I would agree that a cup leaves more room for surprises as everything is decided on one match. And generally over the course of a complete season, things tend to equalize, teams with better players get better results overall.
But, first, soccer is a team sport, meaning that it's not because you have 11 great players that you get a great team (Porto win in the 2004 Champions League comes to mind, it was a really elegant team, able to unbalance the other teams with a well oiled system and very precise ball circulation and placement).
Secondly, the formation schools of professional clubs create a lot of very decent players, but not all these players make it to top flight teams. A lot of them end-up in second to forth level divisions. So a lot of these players were educated to be professionals players with all that entails in term of life hygen, tactical understanding, knowledge of training exercises, etc.
Thirdly, there is "amateur" and "amateur", in the forth level (which is amateur in France), the training is quite extensive, the players trains everyday after work (and very commonly, they take part time jobs to do it). It's not as extensive as professional clubs trainings, but it's a world away from amateurs training once a week at most, and taking a beer after there sunday game.
So amateurs, specially ones that train a lot and with potentially a professional background can do well, or even very well over the course of one match.
I actually play with a emergency goalie that plays for the Minnesota Wild. He does practice with them on a regular basis so its not like he goes in cold or goes from playing with ex-D1,D3 guys to NHL caliber players.
It's interesting to hear him talk about the the level of skill the players have. He said there is a small percentage of guys on every team who can put the puck into a hole that has little more space than the puck itself every time. He said then there's quite a drop off where you have roughly the other 80% of the team who are obviously NHL quality players, but make up the difference in skating skills, speed and power.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 148 ms ] threadHappened a few days ago in a game in Colorado. He was dressed and everything (no jersey though), but he didn't end up playing.
They just sign one day contracts with the teams if they have to suit up. And it's only a few hundred bucks if I remember correctly.
I know the webmaster for the Washington Capitols is their backup.
(I had to do it. It’s Friday.)
So road teams don't travel with an emergency backup goalie[1], which is why they use whoever is on the list for the city they are in.
As a side note, I'm a WPG fan so I've had the pleasure of listening to every single news outlet that doesn't normally cover sports rub it in my face today that we got stomped by a 36 year old accountant last night.
EDIT 2: This actually reminded me of a less heartwarming but equally fun story that arose from the very liberal emergency goalie rules. One of the greatest goaltenders of all time was a guy named Patrick Roy (French, pronounced "wah"), who was not only incredibly talented but well known for… let's say shenanigans on the ice you don't normally see from a goalie. He ended his career in Colorado in the early 2000s, and in 2013 ended up becoming the head coach of the Avalanche. In 2016, Colorado found themselves in a situation where they almost needed an emergency backup goalie, and Patrick Roy was prepared to dress and play in net for the team. Unfortunately this never happened, but I would love to visit the alternate timeline where it did.
EDIT: Here's the full goalie substitution rule from the NHL rulebook:
"In regular League and Playoff games, if both listed goalkeepers are incapacitated, that team shall be entitled to dress and play any available goalkeeper who is eligible. This goalkeeper is eligible to sit on the player’s bench, in uniform. In the event that the two regular goalkeepers are injured or incapacitated in quick succession, the third goalkeeper shall be provided with a reasonable amount of time to get dressed, in addition to a two-minute warm-up (except when he enters the game to defend against a penalty shot). If, however, the third goalkeeper is dressed and on the bench when the second goalkeeper becomes incapacitated, the third goalkeeper shall enter the game immediately and no warm-up is permitted."[2]
[1]: Other comments have pointed out that the emergency backup is often a team employee, and this can be true (often times goalie coaches or equipment managers act in this capacity so road teams can leverage that), but just as often it can also be a local amateur. Emergency backup goalies are almost never used.
[2]: http://www.nhl.com/nhl/en/v3/ext/rules/2017-2018-NHL-ruleboo... (Section 2, Rule 5.3)
Rubbing your face in it is one of the defining features of Hockey.
He played the 'alumni' game that same year, and he's still pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WehgkIDodU4
[1]: https://www.secondcityhockey.com/2016/12/3/13829264/eric-sem...
Can't be sure if that's good a resume or not, but it's at least as good as being Big Bird in Ice Capades.
This man would be given honorary Canadian citizenship if he wanted it. He made seven saves!
I'm impressed that there is a process in place for this. I would not have been surprised if the story was that the equipment manager has put on whichever goalie's equipment fits him better, in order to get into the game to prevent a forfeit.
From the times I've seen this level of standby dressing for the game, usually the first stringer is already injured and the back-up gets hurt in warmups. Then the third-stringer is playing and the fourth-stringer (equipment manager, extreme backup, whoever) is dressed but doesn't play.
It just so happens in this game, it got to that.
It's also extremely rare for these backups to see playing time. This is only the second time it's happened in the NHL; the previous was last year when an equipment manager stood in for 8 seconds.
https://www.puckapp.ca/
I don't think anyone would need anything like that in football (soccer), but maybe there is a business opportunity I had never thought of...
Usually the league you're in provides this service though, there's a sort of standby list of goalies that can get called on if you know enough in advance that yours can't make it.
Goalies also almost never pay the league fees (the team distributes the fees amongst the skating players and doesn't make the goalie pay). Not having a goalie is basically the death of a team.
A family member recently outfitted a junior high goalie and the total came to about $1,000.
I always imagined the goalie as the main tank of a raiding guild. They got special privileges just due to their importance and "upkeep" costs.
Also, the equipment a hockey goalie uses is specialized, whereas I think the only extra equipment a keeper has is a different coloured jersey and gloves.
[1] http://www.nhl.com/stats/team?reportType=season&seasonFrom=2...
[2] http://www.footcharts.co.uk/index.cfm?task=basics_shotsontar...
At the very least, I guess this concept could work as a feature for all those apps people use to arrange 5-a-sides.
I saw this happen in pro roller hockey (RHI) where the San Jose Rhinos' then-GM (but previously a champion goalie) had to sign himself to a 1-day contract and dress for a game.
[1]: https://deadspin.com/the-hurricanes-playing-their-equipment-...
Thank you for explaining this in terms I can understand.
The NHL mandates that each team have two fully-dressed-and-equipped goaltenders at the ready so that a replacement can be a drop-in with little time loss. (They don't even get to face warm-up shots or much warm-up time.) If there is an injury to either, a goalie is called up from their AHL (the top minor league, like AAA in baseball) or ECHL (AA) affiliates, but short notice or far travel can preclude that, making the occasional need for an emergency goalie.
Typically, an emergency goalie is a local college or club team goaltender (as available). They sign a 1-day NHLPA pro contract and (ideally) ride the bench all game.
The San Jose Sharks have used club goalies from San Jose State before (SJSU is only Div III in hockey).
Even so, in the case of a kicker/punter injury a NFL team wouldn't call someone out of the stands to fill in - they'd sign someone out of free agency to play the next week and would adjust their strategy accordingly during the current game.
It's really cool that pro hockey has a unique system in place for edge case situations like this.
Ndamukong Suh is a 300 pound defensive tackle but he was the emergency placekicker for the Dolphins for 2017. There are a bunch of QBs who can punt as well.
The legendary quarterback Doug Flutie kicked the last successful "drop kick" in the NFL for an extra point in 2006. However, that was more of a novelty than out of necessity; New England's kicker was healthy, they were well ahead in the game, and the team knew Flutie would retire after the season.
I think the closest thing would be a pitcher in baseball, but even there, it's hard to imagine an injury scenario that would result in an amateur being put in, because there are so many relief pitchers, and others not in rotation that could sub in.
It's interesting because these position players often have good stats for their brief appearance, but (almost) never move into pitching even part-time as a result. This is because none of the opposing hitters have studied that player's pitching, making the hitter's job that much harder. That is, the results don't completely reflect how well the pitcher actually pitched.
It's possible that a similar effect is in play here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Warner#Professional_caree...
for example, you could pick any one from the Olympic stadium, give them running shoes and there would be zero chance they would be anything but last over the finishing line.
For something like football (soccer) the gap is almost as large - you could take any enthusiastic amateur and put them in the premiership and the results would be obviously bad. Only as you go up the amateur skill rankins would you start to see a closing of the gap - and football / soccer has spent so long honing that gap that even professional players in the second division would usually be shown to be woefully inadequate (Leicester City being the exception proving the rule)
But NHL hockey has a huge amount of skill / equipment / training needs before even starting a game - and so the gap between amateur and top player is much smaller than we expect.
What I guess I am saying is that 99% of humanity could cross the finish line in an olympic spring (seconds off the time obviously but still finish). but probably 99% of humanity could not even stand up on the ice let alone skate and hit a puck.
As such i conjecture that professional hockey has a lot further it can stretch that gap between top professional and amateur - in other words the team that finds how to develop its skills so that a third string goalie would never stand a chance is a team that will lift a lot of trophies.
That's not to diminish what he did though. It's amazing that the NHL has something like this place, and the guy seems to have taken it very very well with a lot of humility.
For marginal players, being semi-pro is as much of a lifestyle choice & opportunity cost calculation as a statement of ability.
The Blackhawks this season are a good example to look at. If you just compare the goalies this year you will see a large difference. Corey Crawford has been their goaltender for 2 Stanley Cup championships, and was injured in the middle of this year. He has not played since then, and it has forced the team to try and find a replacement. I think looking at the statistics shows the difference even between the most elite goalies and those that are close to that level.
W is wins, L is losses, GAA is "goals against average" per game, SV% is save percentage
- Corey Crawford: 16 W, 9 L, 2.27 GAA, .929 SV%
- Anton Forsberg: 10 W, 16 L, 2.97 GAA, .908 SV%
- Jeff Glass: 3 W, 6 L, 3.31 GAA, .898 SV%
- J-F Berube: 2 W, 5 L, 3.93 GAA, .891 SV%
Statistics taken from ESPN [1]
[1]: http://www.espn.com/nhl/team/stats/_/name/chi/chicago-blackh...
I know nothing about hockey, but my intuition would be that you can throw W/L out the window - if you have an amazing offensive team you could let in 5 goals a game and still win. GAA is a reflection of both the team's defensive ability and the goalie's performance. It seems like SV% is the "purest" metric to compare apples to apples here. Unless I'm only looking at first-order effects here and the team's entire strategy changes based on who is in goal...
Save percentage of .908 is not great for an NHL goalie.
So on 1000 shots, crawford allowed 71 goals, forsberg 92, Glass 102, Berube 109.
Goalie W-L is typically bullshit, but comparing goalies on the same team it can be useful. With crawford they were winning 64% of their games, without him around 35%.
If you want to see scary-fast hockey, go to an NHL training camp where everybody is fresh and rested, and half the players are fighting for jobs.
I find your comment interesting but I am not so sure it is correct ...
I have heard it convincingly argued that hitting a major league pitcher is as difficult a task to complete as anything else in sports - and it appears to be true. The gap between someone who can do that and everyone else is huge and also appears to be innate - either you can do that or you can't.
And yet, it's a completely arbitrary action that has no real relation to natural movements.
Also, as long as I'm picking apart your argument - skiing has all kinds of specialized, unnatural equipment (like a hockey goalie) and it is not a natural movement ... and yet if you picked a random spectator from the crowd to make it down the super G, they might fare even worse than your spectator for the footrace.
These sports seem to have a smaller gap between the lowest performer and the top players - either because anyone able to compete at all is already quite good, or as i suspect, that the top players are not as good at say hockey, as the top sprinters are at running - partly because you are selecting from a smaller population, partly because (and this is my point) there is still a long way for humans to go to manage the skills - Usain Bolt is considered to be near the limits of human performance (what is physically possible with levers the length of a human thigh etc) - but that is not the case with ice skates etc
how shall i put this ? Moneyball teaches us that baseball is unlikely to be the only sport that would see huge gains by rejecting industry machismo. Could NHL see gains from basic changes? yes. Do i know what those are ? No.
But the population of those who have had chance to skate on ice and hit a puck is, even in canada, is not as wide as possible- so it won't be a bell curve - maybe double hump?
this gives us in my head a situation where even the top players in NHL are not the best possible from the whole country - but the baseball players are closer to that ideal because they draw from a more complete bell curve.
as such i speculate that NHL top players are not as good as possible because
- the top players are not the best possible from population compared to say sprinting
- the set of all players is more closely grouped (thinner curve) so any player is closer in ability to top players than say sprinting
- most sports probably still have plenty of "moneyball" left on the table
All of which is a long winded way of saying, if there is a sport where a non-professional can come in and perform distinguishedly, then there should be plenty of scope for investment and improvement and so consequent profit (wins at any rate)
(#) every male child at least, but let's not go down that road now.
That's a very good point - thanks.
I suppose the same point could be made, even more emphatically, for skiing.
"most sports probably still have plenty of "moneyball" left on the table"
Actually, I reject the Moneyball principle and its prescriptions, but that's another story ...
In France, for example, there are a few examples of lower levels teams reaching the semi-finals or even the final of the national cup. I remember for example Calais in 1999 or 2000 (amateurs forth division), they reached the final, losing quite honorably to Nantes (a top flight team) and beating one or two second division teams, and two first division teams including Bordeaux (first division champion the previous year, and still in the top 5 in 2000). And it's not an isolated case, there are other examples.
I would agree that a cup leaves more room for surprises as everything is decided on one match. And generally over the course of a complete season, things tend to equalize, teams with better players get better results overall.
But, first, soccer is a team sport, meaning that it's not because you have 11 great players that you get a great team (Porto win in the 2004 Champions League comes to mind, it was a really elegant team, able to unbalance the other teams with a well oiled system and very precise ball circulation and placement).
Secondly, the formation schools of professional clubs create a lot of very decent players, but not all these players make it to top flight teams. A lot of them end-up in second to forth level divisions. So a lot of these players were educated to be professionals players with all that entails in term of life hygen, tactical understanding, knowledge of training exercises, etc.
Thirdly, there is "amateur" and "amateur", in the forth level (which is amateur in France), the training is quite extensive, the players trains everyday after work (and very commonly, they take part time jobs to do it). It's not as extensive as professional clubs trainings, but it's a world away from amateurs training once a week at most, and taking a beer after there sunday game.
So amateurs, specially ones that train a lot and with potentially a professional background can do well, or even very well over the course of one match.
NHL stunner: A 36-year-old accountant, who has never played pro, stars in win
It's interesting to hear him talk about the the level of skill the players have. He said there is a small percentage of guys on every team who can put the puck into a hole that has little more space than the puck itself every time. He said then there's quite a drop off where you have roughly the other 80% of the team who are obviously NHL quality players, but make up the difference in skating skills, speed and power.
Good for him, it's a cool story. Hardly a starring role.
See "5:59 Stoppage - Goalie Stopped - Player Injury" 5:59 into the 3rd period