Courage and Fear in a Vortex of Violence

• Share

He needs the glove of an all-star shortstop, the agility of a gold-medal gymnast, the reflexes of a championship racing-car driver, the eye of a .400 hitter and the mind of a geometrician. Even then he is nothing if he has not conquered fear, for he lives in a vortex of violence in the world's fastest team sport. He is the hockey goalie, the masked man, the magnet for action in a war on ice.

As in no other sport, the essence of his game is violence —bodies hurtling, players smashing each other into the boards, sticks slashing, fists always at the ready. Even when the skating and body checking are clean—and they often are not—the play is fierce and frightening. And it is all directed at one target—the man in the reinforced fiber-glass mask.

Alone or in clusters, attackers bear down on him at breakneck speed, their razor-sharp blades ripping into the white ice. From any angle, in the open or from behind a screen of players, a shooter fires and the rock-hard puck hums toward the goalie at more than 100 m.p.h. He has less than a second to react. If he fails, there is no reprieve: the goalie is the last line of defense, the difference between winning and losing.

Though he rarely strays far from the net, and does not have the flashy moves of a high-scoring center, it is the goalie in his lonely vigil who embodies the savage, bruising and ultimately mesmerizing nature of his sport. He is an imposing knight in polyurethane padding as he crouches before the goal, ready to strike out in any direction with glove, skates or oversized stick. But behind his ghostly synthetic face, he is still vulnerable. No padding or mask that leaves him free to move can fully shield him from the potentially lethal blow of a slap shot or misguided stick. Danger is his way of life.

No one knows the goalie's risks better than the Philadelphia Flyers' Bernie Parent. "You don't have to be crazy to be a goalie," says Parent, "but it helps." If so, Parent must be crazier than most. For the past two years, he has been the best goal tender in hockey. Last year Parent all but carried the Flyers to the playoffs. He appeared in 73 of their 78 games, led the league in shutouts (twelve), and had the lowest goals-against average per game (1.89). In the playoffs he shut down the high-scoring offenses of New York and Boston, and helped the Flyers to make hockey history by becoming the first expansion team to win the Stanley Cup. For his extraordinary performance, Parent was named playoff Most Valuable Player. This year, with the season two-thirds completed, Parent is once again setting the pace for goalies with nine shutouts and a goals-against average of 2.01. Even after a recent letdown, the Flyers own first place in their division of the National Hockey League. Says Flyer Captain Bobby Clarke: "Bernie makes you feel like you can walk on water."