This Devin Cooley Interview Is The Perfect Example Of Why Hockey Goalies Have The Most Spectacularly Weird Brains In Sports
This is it. For decades and decades, people have said things like "you have to have a few screws loose to be a goalie". It's been well established that goalies are always the weirdest dudes on a team. But you could never really pinpoint exactly what it is that makes them so weird. You know that they have some sort of psychotic tendencies, but you could never piece together the puzzle that makes the goalie brain as weird as it is.
And then here comes Devin Cooley to perfectly articulate it for you. I'm sure that not every goalie is the exact same way as Devin Cooley, but there's something there to this. It's the ability to tap your brain into different modes. For Devin Cooley, it's conscious vs unconscious. Maybe the modes are a little different for a guy like Andrei Vasilevskiy or Connor Hellebuyck. But goalies can manipulate their brains and get into a zone that nobody else on the ice knows what they are experiencing. That's the reason why you simply do not talk to goalies before a game. Because the more dumb shit you say to them, the more they snap out of that zone and now they are toast.
If you make Devin Cooley remember that he's an actual human being with thoughts and emotions before a hockey game, he is going to get completely shelled out there and give up 7 goals to Colorado. But if you let him zone out and just think about nothing, then you've got a guy who is making 34 saves on 36 shots against the reigning Cup champs. It's not that Devin Cooley has a couple screws loose. It's just that he purposefully takes a couple of screws out so he's not wound so tight.
Weird dude. Absolutely no denying that. But that's why the rarest athlete you'll ever come across is a totally normal goalie. You can't be normal and then voluntarily stand in front of 97 mph slap shots for 60 minutes every night. You want to be normal? Go play center.