Let's talk about lacrosse-style goals and vent a bit about the state of my industry
Hope this post makes sense. Thank you for reading.
It’s gonna be a fun week here hockey-wise.
Starting yesterday, I’m on the ground this at the Under-17 Five Nations tournament in Plymouth, Michigan at USA Hockey Arena, featuring some of the top 16 and 17-year-olds from USA, Sweden, Finland, Czechia, and Switzerland.
Yesterday, for example, we witnessed a pretty slick goal from Finnegan Sears, who scooped and scored on a lacrosse-style goal in Team USA’s 5-2 win against the Swiss.
It’s kind of wild how common and, frankly, easy it is now for players to pull this off. Two decades ago Mike Legg did it once for Michigan and we all lost our minds, teenagers are doing it without shame in international tournaments.
Speaking of Michigan, the Wolverines are the No. 1 ranked team in the nation right now and were first on my power ranking that I just filled out for Elite Prospects. Michigan State ranks second and they play this weekend in Ann Arbor and then in Detroit on Saturday night for the annual “Duel in the D.”
It’s a pretty fun time to be a college hockey aficionado in Michigan, with three of the top-four teams in the country in my mind — Western Michigan is No. 4 — all playing pretty elite level hockey.
And then of course, we are closing in on the start of the Winter Olympics. The women’s tournament starts on Thursday, while the men’s tournament, the first best-on-best tournament since 2014, opens next week.
I’ve got some fun things planned around the Olympics both here at Shap Shots and at other places. For example, if you haven’t give this story a read from D Magazine about Jake Oettinger.
Truthfully speaking, the blood is boiling a little bit this morning after some official news that dropped this week about the Washington Post slashing their sports department, including laying off Capitals beat writer Bailey Johnson. Pair that with some other recent decisions that have led to others losing jobs, and I’ve had way too many conversations lately with friends in this industry about how they’ll land on their feet and figure it out.
As I said on social media, I don’t have a great answer. I wish I did. The weirdest and saddest part about all of this is that I’ve survived in this industry as long as I have because I got “the call” myself before others, I was able to carve out a weird and wonderful space between this Substack and other publications because of when I got the boot from the traditional space.
The saddest and toughest lesson I learned, and have sadly had to tell people wanting to get into this field, is to not love your employer more than they’ll love you back.
Anywho, sorry about subjecting you to some quick outward written therapy…. let’s talk about hockey and finish the story sandwich talking about the lacrosse-style goal yesterday from Sears.
I’ve written about “The Michigan” before, or as Marty Turco has told me to call it, “The Legger,” and as someone who still attempts to stop pucks on Wednesday nights in beer league I have a some conflicted thoughts on it.
For starters, I have the natural goalie inclination that it’s annoying. Not a big fan of someone whipping their stick around my head near the post, and when I spent two weeks in South Carolina filming The Late Game, part of that included having Zac Bell nearly decapitate me a couple times with his schtick that’s made him internet famous.
Also as someone who likes to be entertained and see cool stuff, the lacrosse-style stuff is good for hockey. Think about the upcoming Olympics, I’ll watch a ton of hockey, but I’ll also tune into other sports that I typically ignore and the more cool stuff I see, the more I'm likely to watch that sport again — the biathlon, for example, always inspires me to write a random story in my head about some James Bond-level spy stuff where skiing and shooting combine.
The lacrosse-style goal, and the one that led to this whole discussion, also isn’t just fancy. Sometimes, like Sears goal last night, it’s the right play. The goalie was sprawled out after an initial save, the Swiss defender went to seal the post for him, and the only place to even score that goal on a wrap-around was with elevation.
It’s kind of funny, in a positive way, how the game has evolved and in 2026, I’m writing about a goal scored with flair that was also scored out of necessity.
Anywho, I’m not sure if this post makes sense, truthfully. As I said it’s weird day between the internal frustration of this industry and the natural joy of knowing I get to watch a ton of hockey this week.
If this hasn’t made sense, I’ll do better in the next post. Thanks for reading.
The precipitous fall of The Washington Post is genuinely stunning. The closure of the sports desk, in particular, feels like a national loss. The Post didn’t just cover games; it explored the deep relationship between sports and society — race, politics, culture, and power — and showed how inseparable “real life” is from what happens on the field. What makes this decline so frustrating is how much of it feels self-inflicted. Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, a lack of stewardship and integrity in the paper’s direction has cost the Post hundreds of thousands of subscribers over the past two years.
Also… lacrosse style goals irk me as well. I don’t have a legitimate basis for this dislike, just that it feels overly flashy, and mostly unnecessary. But I need to stop commenting on this post, and get to my front porch to yell at children for being on my lawn. Ha!
Not loving your employer more than they’ll love you back is sadly good advice in every industry now.