In a move that may draw some resemblance to the story of Vince Papale, the Los Angeles Kings have announced that will hold open tryouts in order to find their new emergency goalie. The tryouts will take place on September 27 at the Toyota Sports Center. In order to attend the tryouts, you’ll have to meet certain conditions. Candidates have to be at least 18 years old and they need experience in playing at the high level of amateur hockey. The final requirement is that the candidates can’t have a signed contract to play in a professional league. The most successful candidate will have an opportunity to “provide emergency goaltending duties at all of its 2017-18 home games at STAPLES Center.” The team also noted that only 30 goaltenders will be selected to try out. If you think you have what it takes, you can sign-up by following this link.
“The NHL requires each home team to have an emergency goalie in the stands for every game and we thought this would be a good opportunity to see who in our area is best qualified for the job. It will be interesting, that is for sure,” said President of the LA Kings Luc Robitaille.
If you think this is the first time NHL team does something like this, you are in for a surprise. As Yahoo Sports noted, Minnesota Wild tried a similar thing in 2012. Wilds invited 11 goalies from around Minnesota to participate in the on-ice competition. A panel of judges was selected in order to find the two best candidates. The candidates were then to participate in the shootout, with the winner taking the role of Wild’s emergency goalie.
Even if LA Kings don’t manage to find a proper candidate, this could still be viewed as a great media stunt and a way to distract fans from disastrous few seasons Kings recently had.
