While the mass brawl which erupted between Dublin and Galway was certainly the major talking point coming out of last night’s Hurling Classic in Boston, the American media also could not fail to be impressed by the athletic abilities on display.
The Super 11s version of the game on show at Fenway Park meant plenty of action for the goalkeepers, and the shot-stoppers of both counties earned rave reviews for some typically brave net-minding as the Tribesmen ran out winners by 50 points to 47.
Kevin Dupont of the Boston Globe wrote:
Once the baseball-like sliotar was thrown in, the running never stopped. The ball was constantly in play. The clock was halted only rarely by the referee. And the scoring, with goals varying in value of 3, 4, and 5 points, gushed at a rate near equal that of the hot chocolate that streamed from John Henry’s silver urns.
Aside from the goal scoring and some spectacular (make that, s-p-e-c-t-a-c-u-l-a-r) goalkeeping, the other main highlight was a nasty, at times vicious, melee that broke out midway through the second quarter after Dublin keeper Conor Dooley hit the ground with a knee injury.
For the next two minutes, the 21 other players, virtually all with their hurleys in hand, mixed it up in a scene straight out of the NHL, circa early-’70s.
It would be impossible to overstate the athleticism and skill of the goalkeepers. To guard the soccer-sized nets, fending off shots upward of 100 miles per hour, the keepers are outfitted identical to the rest of the lot, save for their sticks (hurleys), which have heads (bas) only slightly larger than standard.
All the goalies, five of whom saw action, made stops that rated somewhere between impossible and something out of the Pixar animation lab.
Take the three best goalie saves across the NHL on any given night, none would compare with those which Galway’s Colm Callanan and James Skehill and Dublin’s Dooley, Gary Maguire, and Alan Nolan fashioned across the 60 minutes.
