Goalie equipment is, without a doubt, awesome.
You always hope the goalie wearing it is, too, though with both Marc-Andre Fleury and Matt Murray, that hasn’t been a problem at all for the Penguins.
But seriously, their entire getup rocks. They need more protection, after all; they’re the guys volunteering to get hit by disks of vulcanized rubber often travelling well over 90 miles per hour, at minimum. That’s insane. Such insanity should at least be rewarded with some degree of guaranteed safety.
And so: big pads that most choose to not style, and cool masks that most choose to do something with. And with that mask, a goalie cage: something to protect his face.
Until said cage dies a hero, no longer suitable to protect a goalie because it got damaged in the midst of doing just that. Then it goes to the graveyard, and Penguins head equipment manager Dana Heinze has quite the collection.
Goalie mask cage graveyard- when they get bent or dented I mark who's it was and who hit the cage - nice collection pic.twitter.com/e18ddXYm2w
— Dana Heinze (@RealDanaHeinze) December 29, 2016
That is... a lot of cages.
Started a goalie cage graveyard at the Training Center- we only have 4 right now pic.twitter.com/yTpgnPOyNn
— Dana Heinze (@RealDanaHeinze) December 29, 2016
With a couple of standout features, too!
Cage closeup pic.twitter.com/purIOL8906
— Dana Heinze (@RealDanaHeinze) December 29, 2016
Including the latest:
Matt Murray's dented cage from Dec. 20 2016 vs the NY Rangers - Hit by Brandon Pirri #73 first shot of the game. pic.twitter.com/fdKdvYjPwB
— Dana Heinze (@RealDanaHeinze) December 29, 2016
Yeah, I think you can see how that one wouldn’t be used anymore. Good thing that cage was there to serve its purpose!