Shootouts are always exciting, but they give me a knot in my stomach no matter who is playing. Here is a shootout story I shared in a different thread a few days ago.
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I was always glad that our sons, now 31 and 28, were not goalies.
Our older son's high school team always struggled, losing many games 1:0. Finally, one game in his junior year ended in a tie. It had been so long since they'd tied that I'd completely forgotten that conference games could not end in a tie, so I got up to leave - not so fast!. 2 OTs later, still tied, so on to a shoot out. The mom of one of the captains called out to me, "Hey, Martha, Greg's going to be in goal for the shoot out." Yeah, right, I thought, certain that she was yanking my chain.
I almost lost it when I looked over to the pitch and saw my kid putting on the goalie gloves and walking toward the net. I thought the coach had lost his mind, and was certain that we would lose the game. I gave serious consideration to going to the car so I wouldn't have to watch what I was sure was going to be total humiliation. I felt like I was going to throw up.
My son not only put in his own shot (he was a left-footed forward with a really hard kick), he stopped 2 others and his team won. I will never forget it.
Unbeknownst to us, he had been blocking PKs during the week. He'd been having some knee trouble, so to give him a break, the coach put him in goal during practices to give his knees a little rest. It turned out he was pretty good at blocking PKs - better than the regular goalie. The regular goalie's mom was NOT happy that her son was taken out.
The coach put him in goal for 2 other games, and they won those also.
I was delighted at how those 3 games turned out, of course, but glad he was never put on goal again.
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