Goalies and a Czech Hockey Player

What’s up with the goalies lately? I mean that they are getting hit straight on like Roberto Luongo in Florida. Did you see that hit he got from Alex Ovechkin? Ovechkin who stands at 6 feet 3 inches and weighs in at 230 pounds skated right at Luongo with the puck.  To me, it was magical. It was like watching a one on one moment. The goalie was struck down with great force and just laid there for a few tense minutes. He did get up and no penalties were called. Luongo finished the first and second periods but he was a bit off so he didn’t play the third. We don’t get to see much action with goalies as they mostly just stand beside their net area. So, when they do anything out of the blue it is news worthy no matter where they do it.

Take Christian Engstand, a goalie in the EBEL League in Europe. His team was playing the EHC Liwest Black Wings Linz (on December 26, 2014) when he got the puck and tried as a true goalie, to shoot it around the net. ‘Oops’ said the crowds as he dropped to his padded knees as the puck was shot into the net instead of around the net. Matthias Iberer would be credited with this second goal of the night and the Liwest team would win 3-1. When I heard about this single act, I almost wanted to cry. I mean, to see your own team score on itself is an event. To see the team’s own goalie score would have been priceless!

To another topic that hit my desk, a sadder topic.

Vlastimil Bubnik, a Czechoslovakia hockey player has died at age 83. He played ice hockey. His former hockey club, Kometa Brno did not release cause of death. He had 121 goals in 127 international games and 300 goals in 330 games in the Czech league. He won the ‘Best Forward’ in the 1961 World Ice Hockey Games. He played hockey at the 1964 Winter Olympics and won 1 silver and 2 bronze medals with the National team at the World Games. In 1997, he was inducted into the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame.  He was a talented hockey player and will be missed by all who knew him.