Goalie Goals Or Fat Guy Touchdowns--Who Ya Got?
PWe saw one of the rarest sequences of events in hockey take place last night as that sick, sick bastard Pekka Rinne went the full 2 hundo feet on a snipe and potted home his first career goal in the NHL. In the history of the NHL, Pekka Rinne is now just the 7th goalie who has scored a goal by launching a UFO all the way down the ice from around his own net (Ron Hextall did it twice). There have been a few other goalie goals scored before in the NHL but those ones were own-goals after the goalie was the last person on the scoring team to touch the puck, so we don't have to actually count those. But piss missiles like this one?
Well that's the first goalie goal we've seen in the NHL since Mike Smith's in 2013. It's only the 2nd actually goalie goal we've seen since 2002. Kids who were born in 2002 are going to be getting drafted to the NHL this summer and there has only been 2 real goalie goals scored in their lifetime.
But is a goalie goal better than a Fat Guy Touchdown?
I mean my immediate answer is no. It's just a matter of optics, ya know? The only way to make a fat guy touchdown more comedically appealing would be if he was getting hit in the nuts on his way to the end zone. Maybe add a couple of fart sound fx as he's waddling his way in and all of a sudden you just put Comedy Central out of business.
But that's not really fair now, is it? And I realize that life's not fair but what if we had a fat goalie scoring a goal in the NHL? That would cancel out the optics part of this argument and all we'd be left to determine is whether or not scoring a 200' goal in the NHL is more impressive than catching a touchdown pass in the NFL. By the way--I'd really prefer if we were only talking about offensive fat guy touchdowns here because I feel like the defensive ones where guys just scoop up a fumble on the 5 yard line aren't nearly as great.
When you take all of that into consideration, I think this question is a lot closer than you'd initially think. And honestly--based on the rarity of the accomplishment, I think I'd have to go with a goalie goal. Only 8 goals have been scored in the history of the NHL with a goalie getting credited for the shot on goal. I feel like there have definitely been more than 8 fat guy tuddies. So congrats to Pekka Rinne for accomplishing what is quite possibly the greatest play in all of sports last night. Maybe that's just what the doctor ordered for those bastards in Nashville to finally turn their shit around.
Now to pay tribute to some legends...