If the Uniform Fits, He Must Acquit - National Hockey League goaltending consultant Dave Dryden

Hockey Digest, Feb, 2001 by Chuck O'Donnell

THE LONG NIGHT AT THE OFFICE is over for Curtis Joseph or John Vanbiesbrouck or Eddie Belfour, and they can look brick at the past few hours and thank the hockey gods that they haven't been rendered unconscious by a frozen chunk of rubber flying at 100 mph, or splattered across the ice by a goal-crashing fourth-liner, or driven bonkers by a profession where a siren and a red light taunt them every time they make a mistake.

Win or lose, these men behind the masks can come out now, they're safe to towel off, scrub the game away in the shower, gel something to drink, and plan where they're going to grab a juicy steak.

But every once in a while, just after the final buzzer has sounded and the locker room is in sight, the Mike Richters and the Steve Shields of the hockey world find out that their night is not quite over yet. Instead they are whisked into a room by NHL security and the door is closed behind them.

Mr. All-World Goalie, meet Mr. Dave Dryden. His official title at the NHL is something along lines of goaltending consultant. But he's part Old West sheriff, part Cold War spy, and all business. He's Big Brother with a tape measure, a tax auditor with calipers. If you're Olaf Kolzig or Sean Burke and your blocker pad is a little bit bigger than the legal limits or if your leg pads are wider than the specifications, Dryden is going to find out and you're going to be in some serious trouble.

He's been on the case for three years now. He hasn't caught any of the goalies yet, but it hasn't been for lack of looking.

"I haven't found it too stressful," says Dryden, 59. "You have to be meticulous on the job, but I felt very comfortable in the role and I hope the players have felt comfortable."

Dryden came to become the NHL's czar of goaltending a few years ago after a loud hue and cry went out when goals be-came as rare as a civil conversation between Bob Clarke and Eric Lindros. One of the things the league decided to focus on was the goalies' equipment, some of which had reached ridiculous proportions. From Patrick Roy's monstrously large jersey to Garth Snow's immense shoulder pads, the goalies were gaining an unfair advantage on the shooters, whose equipment was held to a higher standard. Plus, as Dryden says, "There wasn't a level playing field." Some goalies would "always be questioning the other guy's equipment and saying, `Oh, geez, the guy on the other end of the ice is doing this. I'm going to have to do something like that to keep up'."

So at a meeting in 1997 with players, coaches, general managers and commissioner Gary Bettman in attendance, it was decided that a watchdog could keep everything on the up and up. If a goalie were caught with equipment that didn't meet the new standards, the NHL decided it would fine the team $100,000 and suspend the goalie for one game.

But who would be the watchdog? Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Ken Dryden spoke up. "How about my brother, Dave?" he suggests.

Dave Dryden, who won 178 games in parts of 14 seasons with five teams in the NHL and WHA, says he's not the perfect guy for the job, but he certainly came in with a few advantages.

"When I was playing, I was very much into equipment," says Dryden. "I used to spend a lot of my summer in Coopers manufacturer, trying to innovate things and what not. I always felt I had a pretty good sense of equipment. Some goalies don't care what they're wearing. They just throw it on and they're fine. Other goalies like myself always wanted to make sure we had the fight stuff. I felt that was a good background."

Plus, being an ex-goalie himself doesn't hurt.

"I'm sure [a non-goalie] could do the job, but it just gives me an advantage," says Dryden. "Goalies understand these things. It probably raised everybody's comfort level when the person is a goalie.

"I thoroughly enjoy it. The goalies are good people. Since I was goalie for a number of years, we understand each other."

The final factor that helped him land the job: He had just retired from his job as a grade school principal in Toronto and had plenty of time to devote to his duties.

At first, Dryden sensed some anxiety from the goalies, but he says by visiting them in the preseason and visiting the equipment managers on the afternoons of games, he's showing that he's not out to "swoop in from the sky" and nab someone. He's not running a sting. His goal is to keep all the goalies operating within the rules.

"At first the goalies were somewhat intimidated," he says. "But now, I do a lot of prechecking. I'll go in the dressing room in the afternoon, for example, and talk to the equipment managers and go through the goalies' equipment so everybody knows we're sort of on the same page. And then when it comes to the check off the ice, I don't think goalies are sweating it so much. They know it can happen and when it does, they've been really cooperative. They come and we go through the process."

The process takes about five minutes from the time the goalie is ushered into the room with Dryden. By now, Dryden has it down to a science. He knows exactly where to look for infractions.