I showed up to lacrosse last evening having forgotten my stick and my gloves at home. This fact was unfortunate, but shouldn’t have stopped me from playing, because the rink has extra gloves, sticks, helmets, and just about everything else I would need to play.

Instead, I figured this would be a good opportunity for me try out playing goalie for the first time ever. After strapping on pretty standard hockey pants, big knee/shin guards, and an enormous chest/shoulder/arm pad, I was ready to get taped up- to ensure the pads won’t fall off me.

Just standing there in my pads with a slow warm up from a couple of shooters, I had already broken an intense sweat. The gear was heavy, very well protective, but at the cost of no ventilation. Really quickly, warm up just became a test of endurance.

On the rare occasion where I made a save and had the ball in my big goalie stick pocket, I struggled to pass it off to anyone. The pads made me immobile, and the stick was just too long and awkward to use.

In box lacrosse, I have often seen goalies use a lot of shoulder shrugging to make saves. It always looked rather amusing to me to watch these guys work so hard to make saves.

Well, yesterday was a very humbling experience, one that gave me a lot of perspective, as well as a great appreciation for goalies. The stereotype about goalies, especially in hockey and lacrosse, is that those folks have some screws loose and something just isn’t right in the head with those kinds of folks who not only enjoy, but actually want to be goalies and face incredibly hard shots all the time.

During the breakaway type drill we did before the game, guys would come in and try to fake my big self out of position to put the ball past me. My goal was 4 feet tall and 4 feet 6 inches wide. For those that are familiar with ice hockey goals, that’s 1.5 feet narrower than a hockey goal, which is significant.

I felt like a ridiculous puppet controlled by strings with the way I was shrugging my shoulders trying to take away the top corner goals away from shooters. Despite the small size of the goal and my big size (with all the pads), it’s reasonably easy to beat a goalie to either of the top corners of the goal. When people come in on a breakaway, they’ll typically fake a couple times before really shooting.

The outside shots were much easier to deal with because there was more time to see and react to where the ball was going, as opposed to point blank shots that rely more on guesses when to react, and when a shooter is faking a shot.

My team ended up losing 8-4. I do think the other team was a bit better, but there’s no doubt in my mind we lost largely because I was not a very sharp goalie. I’d say I stopped about 60% of the shots I faced, giving up goals on 5 breakaways, stopping 3 breakaways, and the rest of the saves and goals came from outside shots. It’s hard to make saves and react to every different shooter’s fakes and style.

Still, I had an awesome and memorable time goaltending. I appreciate how hard it is to goaltend, and how intense it is. I don’t plan to play goalie again, I love being a goal scorer and playmaker, but will always enjoy looking back on last night.

This past Sunday I had a chance to play lacrosse under Canadian Box Lacrosse Hall of Famer, Bobby Allan. The guy ran our drills. The gentleman is also in his mid-early 70s and damn does he have unbelievable stick skills!! The ease with which he did everything, his dexterity and quickness left me forgetting my drills, and instead I was watching him move.

What I didn’t know was that this guy tore up Box Lacrosse in the 50s, broke some records, and won the Mann Cup (was MVP once).

Perhaps the most intriguing part of it all is that since lacrosse players (even today) are barely known or recognized by anyone, this guy gets no recognition. His humility clearly indicated a lifetime of little or no acknowledgment (though I suspect it’s just ingrained in him). I was able to chat and joke with him afterwards, but when I mentioned to him that it was great to play with a legend, it was almost like he didn’t even want to hear it.

I would be completely surprised if anyone but our head coach and I even knew this guy was a legend.

Just over a month ago, Silver Creek (where I also play hockey) sent out an email that free lacrosse clinics would take place. These would be run by Shaydon Santos, captain of the SJ Stealth lacrosse team. I went to check that out, and the rest is now history.

I’m back to playing lacrosse again. Every Sunday evening there are two sessions, a beginner at 7pm, and advanced at 8:30pm. We do a lot of fundamental drills as well as 1 on 1s and 2 on 1s. Occasionally we’ll scrimmage.

Clearly a glutton for physical punishment, I join the advanced guys too, for a good Sunday night scrimmage beating. I’m always exhausted at the end of it all. It’s no wonder I can’t peel myself out of bed to get into the office at my usual 6:45am on Mondays.