It is within the letter of the law of NHL hockey to employ a goalie who is obese enough to sit on the ice and obstruct the entire mouth of the goal. But can you get away with it?
As strange as it may sound to anyone with a sense of decency, there is actually sound reasoning behind it. Because of the geometry of the game, the potential for one mammoth individual to change hockey is staggering. Simply put, there is a goal that’s 6 feet wide and 4 feet high, and a hockey puck that needs to go into it in order to score. Fill that net completely, and no goals can possibly be scored against your team. So why hasn’t it happened yet?
One answer is that professionalism and fair play prevent many sports teams from doing whatever it takes to win. This is also known as “having no imagination.” Additionally, in hockey the worry of on-ice reprisal from bloodthirsty goons would weigh heavily on the mind of any player whose very existence violated the game’s “unwritten rules.”
Hit the link for the full analysis, including a field experiment. In a WSJ excerpt from a book entitled Andy Roddick Beat Me With A Frying Pan. Helmet huck: Arthur Robson.
Cheap Talk 
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March 31, 2011 at 12:55 am
Vinnie
Even if such an enormous individual existed, I think they’re underestimating the difficulty of that person assuming the required position for sixty minutes while getting plunked by a speeding puck dozens of times. Other than that, I’m sure it’s the whole sportsmanship thing.
March 31, 2011 at 6:03 am
tomslee
Just a thought, but everyone has to grow. The mythical goalkeeper would not be able to play in any of the youth leagues or take part in any of the junior competitions. Until they grew to the right size, chances are they would be a terrible player. Parachuting in to the NHL would be a difficult route to take, institutionally.
March 31, 2011 at 8:52 am
Bob
It doesn’t work for two reasons. The first is that the pads are a regulated size so if you are really 6×4 you will have body parts exposed to 100 mph pucks. The second is that people may be 6×4 with some effort of staying up but if you are morbidly obese to be 6×4 you will not be able to maintain that position for an hour straight. If you expose any part of the goal consistently then it is easy for NHL players to take advantage of that.
I don’t think it has to do with professionalism, I think the NHL hires the people who do the best at preventing pucks from getting in the goal.
March 31, 2011 at 8:52 am
Anonymous
If that happened NHL would change the rules immediately. This is why it is not happening.
March 31, 2011 at 8:58 am
jeff
what would the rule be?
March 31, 2011 at 6:13 pm
kerimcan
have a slightly bigger goal?
March 31, 2011 at 9:11 am
Kelvin
Most of the points here (standardized pads, health issues) are already mentioned in the full article (which I highly recommend, especially the part where the Washington Capitals get involved).
The physics of it suggests that even if you go past the social norms and unwritten rules, there’s diminishing returns to adding mass toward increasing cross-sectional area (especially in the upper regions) that make it very difficult to achieve 100% coverage, and the goalie finds it practically impossible to cover the remaining gaps.
March 31, 2011 at 9:11 am
Matt
Heaviest goalie currently in the NHL: Jason LaBarbera of the Phoenix Coyotes, 230 lbs.
March 31, 2011 at 9:13 am
Matt
Btw, you really only need to find a guy who is 4 feet wide and over 6 feet tall, and then just tell him to lay down on the ice in front of the goal.
March 31, 2011 at 10:52 am
Sean
I think Jeff’s right that this is not currently an equilibrium, because (at least) one team has an incentive to hire a superfat goalie and become invulnerable.
But once they hire a superfat, other teams will have to follow suit. This would make the game boring and force the NHL to implement a rule change which either specified a maximum weight for goalies or else increased the net size (or similar).
Then the original deviator might be locked into a expensive contract with a now-useless superfat goalie but would not have gained any lasting advantage. So perhaps the expected gain is less than the expected costs and we’re already in an equilibrium after all.
March 31, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Lones Smith
Fair play did not prevent St Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck from playing a dwarf in 1951. Edward Gaedel, 3 feet 7 inches, became the shortest player in the history of the major leagues. He made a single plate appearance and was walked with four consecutive balls before being replaced by a pinch-runner at first base.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Gaedel
April 1, 2011 at 10:03 am
Kelvin
It’s already been mentioned in the second sentence of the actual article.