The main reason NHL goalies have face cages on their masks is to keep them healthy; otherwise their teammates would open mouth kiss them with tongue after every win, and the spread of germs would get out of control.
Thinking about the way career backup goalies function in the nhl and specifically this quote: “You have to find a way to become a supportive partner to somebody who has the job you always dreamed of.” From a goalie coach, Adam Francillia. To be a backup is to make a career out of always being the 2nd best.
There are 11 players on a soccer team, but goalkeepers stand alone, wearing different shirts, playing by different rules, and often positioned far from their teammates. Now new research suggests goalies process the world around them in a different way too.
Researchers in Ireland looked at a group of 60 individuals, including professional soccer players (20 goalkeepers and 20 outfield players), as well as 20 people who didn't play the game at all.
"Unlike other football players, goalkeepers are required to make thousands of very fast decisions based on limited or incomplete sensory information," says behavioral neuroscientist and former professional goalkeeper Michael Quinn, from Dublin City University.
"This led us to predict that goalkeepers would possess an enhanced capacity to combine information from the different senses, and this hypothesis was confirmed by our results."