Shelby Brown focused on stopping pucks for Crocus

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This article was published 30/01/2024 (598 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s not about gender when it comes to stopping pucks, according to a rookie goaltender with the Crocus Plainsmen.

Instead, Brandon-born Shelby Brown welcomes the challenge facing the boys as one of two female goalies playing for Crocus in the Westman High School Hockey League.

“Gender does not matter to me, as a goalie,” she offers during a break from studying for Grade 10 exams this week. “The way I see it, the both of us (Kelsey Dell) want to play, and we want to win.

“When you see a team with two female goalies, we’re just goalies. We both had to compete to be selected for the team, and that’s who the coaches pick.

“There were five goalies trying out, and the two females made the team. We’re both here to compete.”

And compete Dell and Brown have done for the ninth-place Plainsmen (9-11-0-1), a team looking to finish among the top eight for the playoffs, and have already improved on last season’s 3-27-0-1 record, with that squad being outscored 252-87. This year’s edition of the Plainsmen have scored 95 goals in 23 games, while allowing 105.

In 15 league starts, 15-year-old Brown, who grew up on a ranch in the vicinity of Wawanesa, has a 6-6-0-1 record, 4.64 goals-against-average and .842 save percentage. She has allowed 64 goals from 375 shots fired at her net.

Coming off her U15 season with Wawanesa, the then ninth-grader backstopped the team to a provincial championship during the 2022-23 season.

Looking at something different this season after seeing Dell play last year for Crocus, Brown decided to try out in the fall.

“I also wanted to gain more experience facing the boys and the more physical style of play,” she said. “I am always critiquing my game, and playing the boys makes me think faster because the game is much faster in front of me.

“I quickly realized in practice, and games, that boys have a different set of skills compared to the skills and mindset of girls. The boys shoot harder, and come at you faster, so it makes me think faster and be ready for their shots.”

Brown has noticed facing players standing six-foot and taller that their shots are especially challenging, as they tend to fire the puck at higher angles. She’s used to her butterfly move for shots she faced playing U15 girls which came lower, so needs to be sharp for higher shots, especially blasts from the point with taller traffic in front of her five-foot-six stature.

“The girls’ game is a lot different from what I played in Wawanesa, to what I’m seeing with Crocus,” she said. “The boys like to shoot low on the blocker side, so I have to be ready for those shots.”

Looking back to her start in minor hockey, playing in both Wawanesa and Oak Lake, Brown said her initial introduction to goaltending in U9 did not go so well.

“I tried it and I hated (being a goalie),” she recalled. “I said I would never try it again. When I tried it again, I liked it because I can’t skate very well on regular skates, so being a goalie was best for me.”

She played with the boys up to first-year U13, when she transitioned to girls hockey.

“I love being a goalie now because I like being under the pressure of being the last line of defence,” she explained. “I like the intensity of my position where I am in a position of stopping the puck.

“I like to think my strength in net is my hand-eye co-ordination. And I like to think I have a good eye watching the skates coming at me on a deke … I look at where they point their skates, how they hold their stick, and whether the puck is on the toe or the heel of the stick as they move in on me.”

Knowing how opponents beat her in net from previous games, Brown uses the next weekly practices to hone her skills when it comes to improving her game.

“If I know I’ve let in some goals on bad shots, then I work on my angles and also rebound control after stopping the first shot, but the (opponents) score on the rebound.

“I also try work on my speed … I need to be faster against the boys when it comes to my side-to-side movement using the butterfly, so I’m ready for the next shot.”

And Brown and her teammate Dell see plenty of rubber during WHSHL action, especially when facing teams like cross-town rivals, the first-place Vincent Massey Vikings (20-3-0-0)

In her rookie season, her favourite victory came in a come-from-behind early season triumph facing the ninth-place Virden Golden Bears.

“For me, we were down early after the first. But our team kept playing its game, and came back to win, which helped with my confidence in myself and the team,” she said.

Like most goalies, Brown does have her pre-game rituals and superstitions. If she’s winning, her favourite purple T-shirt continues to be worn, and won’t see the laundry hamper until after a loss.

She only has eggs and toast for a pre-game meal, and will arrive at the arena where she will listen continually to the song We Didn’t Start the Fire sung by the band Fall Out Boy.

“I tap my right post twice with my stick, then my left post with my glove, then move to the top of the crease,” she said of another on-ice quirk she ritually follows when in net.

With the playoffs just around the corner, Brown wants to help her team move up in the standings to play among the top-eight teams. It’s not about personal records for her, she wants to help her team triumph when she’s between the pipes.

“As a goalie, I can always do better and it does not matter my record, as long as the team’s record improves after each game,” she said.

Brown, Dell and their Crocus teammates return to the ice following exam week when the fourth-place Neepewa Tigers (16-2-0-1) visit Brandon for a Feb. 4 tilt at Flynn Arena. Puck drops at 6:30 p.m.

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