BASINGSTOKE – UK, Rec hockey can be a strange place at times. Where professional teams have solid rosters and always bring two goalies to games in case of an injury or if the starting netminder has a bit of a nightmare and has more holes than Swiss cheese in him, there’s no worry about who to throw in the net.
However, what if your team only has one goalie to use as some knuckle head broken the other goalies’ hand in training (I am sorry guys). Worse yet, what if that other goalie is late. What if that goalie says that he can’t make it in time for the face off? Do you beg and plead with the ref and the other team? Well yes, you do. You try and get as much time as possible, but soon the inevitable happens and the puck is going to drop.
Out of nowhere though some one stands up and says “I’ll go in net.” You would think that the guy is joking, but the look in his eyes is serious. That was the case when Basingstoke Cougars played against the Solihull Wolves in Coventry. The Cougars’ netminder was stuck in traffic on the M6 and the Cougars were forced to start the game with six outfield players, with James West standing between the pipes as an extra defence man. With no goalie kit on.
The strange thing is that where normally any team would think the game would be over and done with as there is no way an outfield player will save anything, but somehow after 10 minutes of play the Cougars were up 2-1. James West had allowed 1 goal in those ten minutes and had taken some hard shots, getting whatever he could on the puck to keep it out.
During the first period break ‘Westy’ was sat in the changing room with bruises to his hands, shoulders and was still, somehow, all smiles, though he did say: “You can call me the fool who risked all for nothing.” Westy’s team mates were probably thinking, how does he still have his teeth and more importantly, how are we still in the game?
The Cougars did eventually get their goalie in between the pipes and the game was clean with no major incidents, despite what the penalty stats to the Wolves would suggest, infact the Wolves were probably one of the cleanest teams yours truly has played against this season. The Cougars won the game 6-5, but only in overtime.
I suppose it is stories like these that make recreational hockey great. Where else would you get a story like this? If you ask Westy why he did it, he would say that it was something that had to do for the team, though he did admit that most people would call him crazy. Crazy or not, players like him are what a team sometimes needs to make the best out of a bad situation.
Though he might be nursing a potentially broken foot from one of the saves is he really the fool who risked it all for nothing, or a player who helped his team to win a game by laying his own health on the line?
If there are any similar stories any reader would like to share, I would love to hear about it.
Janne.virtanen@prohockeynews.com
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