The NHL is a league that is filled with silly traditions and rituals, but no player in sports has weird rituals than NHL goalies. Whether it is Marc Andre Fleury kissing the posts, or Ed Belfour not letting anybody touch his gear, Devin Cooley has taken his gameday preparation to a whole other level.
The Flames backup goaltender has started to become one of the NHL’s more interesting personalities, and for most is becoming one of the most likeable guys in the league. His personality is bubbly, and his attitude is everything you want from your players, but his warm up routine has given fans even more reason to like him.
Before games Devin Cooley has been seen to use his VR headset to warm up using the NHL sense arena game through virtual reality. If you thought Cooley couldn’t get any cooler, he just did. Warming up as a goalie takes high physical body strain, lots of concentration, and high volume shots and speed during pre game warm ups, but for Cooley, it is just two virtual guys firing pucks at him while he hangs out by the locker room.
Overall the NHL hasn’t been one of the USA’s biggest sporting leagues, and has often been seen to be left behind when talking about technological advances of the game, but it’s guys like Cooley who are showing the game has come even further than people think, and the NHL itself is making massive strides to becoming an even bigger and advanced league.
The NHL sense arena isn’t going to be everybody’s cup of tea, and for some goalies it may even be a bad advancement, but for the NHL as a whole, it shows it isn’t lagging behind, they are still ahead of the curve, and it is guys like Cooley who are ensuring the game as a whole makes big strides, and excels to the level its should be.