Hockey

Twice a week, Dave Dryden takes his 11-year-old granddaughter, Anaka, to speed-skating practice at an ice complex in Oakville, Ont.

While the former World Hockey Association MVP and NHL All-Star is fascinated by Anaka's new sport, he has grown increasingly perplexed by what has become of his old sport and, in particular, his old position.

Goaltending.

"There are a couple of mini-rinks there," says 68-year-old Dryden. "Places for figure skaters to practice, but they are absolutely packed with little goaltenders. They even have their own goalie dressing rooms. They have their own coaches. They do choreography. They're 10 to 12 years of age, and they've already perfected the moves we used to have."

From 1998 to 2004, Dryden served as the NHL's goaltending "watchdog," checking to ensure equipment was kept to size limitations and advising the league on what might be done to improve safety as well as increase goal scoring.

He may himself be a former goaltender, but he is also one who has come to believe the position has reached a point where it is overly dominant for the good of a team sport.

"It's spun out of control," he says.

"Goaltending has moved from something only an idiot would be to the top of the hockey ladder."

Never before has it been so apparent as in the lead up to the 2010 Olympic Games. Vancouver's Roberto Luongo has a dreadful start to the season and the country becomes a nation of fretting Eeyores, where things can only get worse. Luongo and, by extension, his Canucks then catch fire and, instantly, all is well in the shaky Kingdom of Canadian Hockey. Then he gets injured...

The madness applied to the import of one position in a six-man team game is simply mind-boggling. Martin Brodeur, who led Canada to its only gold medal in 2002, is aging, and therefore suspect. Is Marc-André Fleury the real thing or is it just that he's lucky enough to play for Sidney Crosby's Pittsburgh Penguins? New York Rangers Henrik Lundqvist is hot - the gold medal is Sweden's. The Atlanta Thrashers ice an unknown 22-year-old named Ondrej Pavelec and this past weekend he leads them to a 3-1 victory over the Ottawa Senators despite facing 51 shots - and suddenly the Czech Republic has a chance.

There is no denying, either way, the critical importance of a good goaltender in the short tournament that will determine the gold medal in men's ice hockey. It can be argued that Dominik Hasek single-handedly delivered gold to the Czechs in Nagano in 1998, just as it can be argued Sweden's Tommy Salo cost a brilliant Swedish team its gold in Salt Lake City when he blew a shot from Belarus that a peewee house leaguer would have handled.
But should one position be so important in a team sport? Some say no, that just as pitching was running away with baseball in the late 1960s, and was subsequently lessened by a lowered mound, so too should goaltending today be made less dominant.

"In baseball, they tried to minimize the advantages," says Dryden. He believes something needs to be done in hockey - but, like so many who puzzle over this quandary, is not quite sure what.

The NHL's solution to dominant goaltending has been to allow, for the most part, the oversized padding in order to offer the greatest protection but then to adjust the rules in a manner in which the padding is somewhat cancelled out.

This has created a game in which, as Dryden puts it, "We've got to have ways to get to the goalie." It has created the era of the ugly goal. It has made "crashing the goaltender" a legitimate tactic when, at one time, it was forbidden.

Dryden, of course, played the game at a time when goalies were considered "fair game" if they left the crease but were supposed to be protected inside the crease. Today's game has completely reversed that, with goalies untouchable outside and not only "fair game" but targets inside.

"I have no idea why that is," Dryden says.

There has been no shortage of suggestions on how to de-emphasize this goaltender domination. They have experimented with larger nets and smaller pads but to no satisfactory solution. They have suggested returning to the dangerous iron rods that once locked nets into the ice - a solution that would end deliberately "crashing the net" but endanger players who accidentally crash into them.

Dryden says that in his day with such teams as the Buffalo Sabres and Edmonton Oilers, he always felt in "charge" of a game if his glove hand was strong and he was able to "freeze" the puck whenever he sensed his team was getting in trouble in its own end.

"If you want to minimize the goaltender's influence," says Dryden, "then every time he freezes the puck have it so you can't change lines. They do it for icings. If they did this, you wouldn't have the goalie in charge of everything."

But he doesn't expect much to happen. Goaltending has changed so dramatically since the days when he and his brother Ken were often talked about as the two best goaltenders in the two best leagues that, at times, he can barely recognize the position.

Goalies come now with their own personal coaches as well as a team coach. Dryden never had a goaltending coach in his career. The closest he came to studying video was when Billy Reay, his coach with the Chicago Blackhawks, had a Tribune photographer take some still photographs so Dryden could study his angles.

"We used to be the non-descript person," he laughs. "But the mask changed all that. The goalie becomes the peacock out there. The mask is gaudy, the goalie is gaudy. I get the sense there are regular players who wish they could dress up their helmets.

"It's a total reversal of how it should be."

Goalies somehow became everything in a game in which they were supposed to be but an important part. And it's getting worse.

"The bar," says Dryden, "just gets raised higher and higher."
And never more so than in an Olympic year when, in far too many people's minds, the gold medal will be decided by a man wearing a mask.

"It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.

"So it is."

"And freezing."

"Is it?"

"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately."

Just wait: earthquakes still to come in this story.