KENT, Wash. – Dumpster Fire center Nina Edwards made a sudden and unexpected career debut in goal for her boyfriend’s team yesterday, making 13 saves on 15 shots to lead the Royal Pains to a 5-3 victory over Khaos Hockey at Kent Valley Ice Center.
Edwards, 23, had been in the stands reading Fredrik Backman’s The Winners, which centers around a fictional hockey town in Sweden. Realizing the Royal Pains were about to take the ice without a goalie, she put down the book and swiftly made her way to ice level. Edwards borrowed goalie equipment from her Dumpster Fire teammate Brian Collins, who had just completed a stint as a goalie in the previous game.
During the Zamboni changeover, the 5’2” Edwards lay prone on the floor in her bra and underwear as friends hurriedly used hockey tape to strap her into Collins’ goalie pads, which were intended for a 6’3” man and were seven sizes too large.
“I had never laced up goalie pads before and did not really know how,” Edwards said. “Because the pads went up most of my leg, I couldn’t really reach. So I lay on my stomach like a beached whale on the floor of the locker room while Brian laced me into the gear.”
Edwards and her boyfriend, Royal Pains forward Evan Faulkner, had driven directly to the rink from a Hemlock Peak and Bryant Peak hike that spanned 11.58 miles and 5,027 vertical feet. “Luckily I had packed a change of socks after our scramble so I wouldn’t have to wear my dirt-covered hiking socks to the game,” Edwards said.
Various other players on the Royal Pains contributed gear. Edwards used three balled-up pairs of hockey socks to stuff the roof of the voluminous helmet as well as into the toes of the men’s size 12 hockey skates, filling the cavern left unoccupied by her women’s size 7s.
“I had to borrow suspenders from another teammate to hold up the pants,” Edwards said. “Otherwise I was swimming in them.”
With a stick that extended about a foot over her head, Edwards lumbered onto the ice at 14:01 of the 1st period, with the Royal Pains, who had been playing without a goalie, down 1-0. With elbow pads stiffly covering the joints required for arm bending, she required a teammate’s assistance to drink from her hastily acquired water bottle. The knee hinge in the goaltender leg pads fell approximately at her upper thigh, further impeding movement.
“Suffice it to say, I was not the most confident in my goaltending stance, and it seems like they caught on,” Edwards said. “They started shooting from the red line. I faced a couple of shots from center ice. I faced one they banked off the boards and aimed directly at goal.”
After two saves, Edwards allowed a goal 6:49 into her appearance. “The guy was shooting from his backhand and I couldn’t tell he was about to shoot,” said Edwards. “I just froze and forgot to drop into a butterfly.”
Edwards allowed just one additional goal for the remainder of the game.
“I told the team after the game: I’ve never seen them backcheck so aggressively,” Edwards said. “I hadn’t seen a team play so well since the Carolina Hurricanes did when they had a Zamboni driver in net as an emergency backup goalie and beat the Leafs.”
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