Farmington Goalie Stunt

[Scott M]

Deadspin

Feb 13, 2013

Tuesday was Senior Night at Farmington (Minn.) High School, and senior goaltender Austin Krause was among those honored. But Krause wasn't particularly in the mood. He has spent this season being demoted to backup, losing playing time to a sophomore. This was just Krause's ninth start in 23 games. According to a team manager (via Puck Daddy), Krause had been planning to quit. He finally did so, spectacularly.

With three minutes remaining, and Farmington up by one, Krause corralled the puck behind the goal. The video picks up there as he skates it in front and casually slips it into his own net. He sends a middle finger to his bench, fires off a salute, and skates back to the locker room. The game was tied, and Farmington—with a third-string goalie in net, the sophomore was out with an injury—would concede another goal a minute later to lose.

Garrett Paulzine, the Chaska senior credited with the tying goal because he was the last to touch it, called it the goal of the year and dubbed himself a sniper.

Minnesota high school hockey blog Follow The Puck has been filling in some of the details, and it sounds like this goaltender controversy has really been tearing Farmington apart. Follow The Puck calls it "a season-long feud" involving the goalies and their families. I guess it had to boil over eventually—just not necessarily on the ice in a one-goal game. This is surely Krause's last high school game, and most likely the last non-beer-league start of his career. What a special Senior Night.

Krause's Facebook Status after the game:

Quote:

"They played this sophomore goalie for the starter, he was terrible, I would try and talk to the coaches about this and tell them I want playing time but they never really listen to me or gave me a chance to show them that I'm a better goalie but still wouldn't trust me so I had it it with I asked a few of my players if they care if I did it and they didn't care they thought it would be funny so at the third period they dumped it in I stopped it put in my net started to skate off then flicked the coaches not the team the coaches then I saluted them then got off."

He added: "My hockey season is over. I did it for myself. (Like my status) if you think the coaches should quit:)"

********************************

As far as sportsmenship, this kid makes A.J. Barker look like Walter Payton. What a news day, coverage of the Dorner nutjob, coverage of the Oakdale nutjob, and this kid. Highlighting bad behavior.

This kid thinks he's sticking it to the coach? He's sticking it to his teammates no matter how he spins it. I'm sure his parents are proud. If he were my kid...wow, I don't know where to start on what he'd have to do to get out of the doghouse.

[mrklean]

great to see our wonderful news report this just gives kids more of a reason to do stupid things so they can become "famous"

[leech~~]

I guess teens today just aren't as worried about getting their Ars kicked by half the school like I would have been when I played Goalie in High school?

Funny story with me, one time we went to play a nonconference tourament in Madison WI and I got scored on twice by my own defenceman!

They were bring it out from behind the net and tried to do some kind of Bobby Orr move with no one from the other team even near them. My coach started yelling "cover the pipe"! Which I yelled back "on my own team"!

[Dave S]

Giving this kid the air time is as bad as parents who see kids bawling because their favorite team lost feel compelled to shoot video of their kid doing the same. It's as bad as the pictures plastered all over FB with kids holding a sign that says something to the effect of "My daddy says if we get 1 million likes we can have a puppy".

Everybody wants their little piece of the airwaves. Look at me, I'm special.

IMO society is becoming so pathetic that this is what they dwell on.

[schmitty3]

Ha! What a punk. What's sad is everyone cheering him on after he does it in the video.

[otterman91105]

Pretty sad for everyone else on the team that he does that just cause he wasn't getting enough playing time.

[Musky Buck]

I was Captain and fortunately the fastest skater so I would've beat my teammates to him I hope, and I promise my goalie doing the same would've left the ice on a stretcher. You can be as mad as you want, frustrated, etc. but you don't hurt your teammates/classmates/parents/ etc. in that way and to top it off wield the bird to who ? To the grandmothers in the arena ? The coaches that weren't your coaches the first 10 years of your playing days? Ish.

[Scott M]

The stats don't even back this kid up:

Quote:

Krause played 492 minutes in goal this season and had a record of 5-4-1 as the starter. His goals-against average was 2.8 and he stopped 87.7 percent of opponents’ shots. Sophomore Gage Overby has logged about 548 minutes while earning a 5-5 record, a 2.42 goals-against average and a 90.1 save percentage. Nick Schoening has played 203 minutes in goal and has a 2.76 goals-against average and a 1-3 record.

[nofishfisherman]

Just another case of a stupid teenager not thinking about the consequences of his actions. I'm sure he thought he'd be kicked off the team (probably wanted to quit anyways) and he'd maybe be suspended from school (free vacation). He probably didn't think about how this incident will follow him for a very long time.

He probably won't fully realize how stupid this stunt was until the employer at his first job interview googles him and comes across the video. Its going to be hard to explain why he did it without sounding like a spoiled brat whinning about how unfair life is. Things like that don't help you land good jobs.

[RK]

Hiya -

Happen to know a few details about this. My kids play hockey so word got around the hockey community pretty fast. Also know someone in the Farmington YHA, and got some info from him on the whole situation.

Apparently this kid had been the starting goalie for most of the season, but after the team had an especially bad game, the coach sat some of the seniors to send a message to the team. Using playing time a motivator is not a revolutionary idea for a hockey coach at any level (Pierre Mark Bouchard was a healthy scratch for the Wild Tuesday night). Some of the seniors got an attitude about it, and on top of that the 10th grader played well enough to keep the net. This kid had been telling his friends he was going to do something like this for a while apparently.

Here's where it gets truly nauseating.

So this was planned in advance - he told his friends to film it, and if you watch the video, someone opens the gate for him when he skates off the ice. On some rinks gates are tough to open unless you jam the butt of a stick in the latch because it's flush to the top of the dasher.

So who opened the gate for him?

The kid's freaking *dad*...

So his dad was in on the whole thing.

The dad has a reputation in Farmington hockey already. His other kid is a daughter who plays 10U (10 and under, so basically 3rd and 4th graders). He's been banned from the arena by the Farmington YHA for screaming obscenities across the ice at his daughter's coaches during a game, then confronting and threatening the coaches after a game. So this is a guy who went mental enough to get banned for screaming at coaches about a 9 year old's playing time, at a level where pretty much every kid plays a regular shift.

Farmington hockey has had a reputation of being kind of rough and tumble and the parents are pretty vocal (I had a Farmington mom come up to me and tell me my daughter belonged in a cage after her team beat Farmington in a tournament game) but this whole thing is unreal. Just so many things wrong with it.

There's some talk out there about the players not liking the coach. Big deal. I hated some of my coaches but they're the coach. Deal with it or hang up your skates. There are certainly coaches out there who perpetually coach next year's team. They play younger players so they can 'develop' and in the process sit the kids they spent last season 'developing.' There are HS and even college coaches famous for it. But this doesn't seem to be the case here.

As for the kid who did it... First of all, way to go team player. You want your playing time back? Play better. Kids do stupid stuff and make bad decisions all the time, but way to screw your friends on the team. This happened with his team up 2-1, so he ties it up and Chaska scored on the power play they get for the unsportsmanlike conduct minor and ended up losing 3-2. I know if I'd done something like this I'd have spent the next 5 years looking over my shoulder because one of my teammates would have eventually caught up with me and mopped the floor with me.

What nauseates me more than anything else though is that clearly the dad thought this was not only acceptable, but he supported the kid's actions. He opened the darned door for him.

I've seen some crazy stuff at hockey games over the years, and barked at a few refs, but never said a word to a coach about my kid's playing time. Players play, coaches coach and parents parent. Man, this is nuts.

The *only* good part of this is that the game's official scorer gave the kid the line for the whole game, including the GA on the power play goal Chaska scored after his little demonstration. So not only did he make an silly-me of himself, he also took the loss. Way to end a playing career hotshot.

[leech~~]

He and his Dad should know that he will never play collage level now, no team will ever let him step on their ice for a stunt like that. Hopefully he doesn't cry when he loses in the grown up world later in life!

[nofishfisherman]

With a dad like that this kid never stood a chance.

I'm sure his playing days are over for good now. I just wonder if him and his dad realize that or if they are delusional enough to think he'll find a team willing to take him. Usually the only way you can over come a bone head move like that is with a high level of talent. But if he was getting out played by a sophmore I kind of doubt he has the talent to make up for his attitude.

Its a sad deal when a 17-18 year old kid is obviously so poorly equiped to handle life. He thought life was unfair before? He should wait to see how hard life can be when everyone knows you're jerkbait before they even meet you. Makes it awful hard to earn respect or get a fair shake in life.

[bobbymalone]

I'm sure his playing days are over for good now. I just wonder if him and his dad realize that or if they are delusional enough to think he'll find a team willing to take him.

His playing days were already done. He doesn't have the stats that send kids off to the U on a hockey scholarship. Maybe no-name university wanted him, but I doubt it. And not anymore.

On a side note, my wife coached JV volleyball for a number of years. She always says no matter what a PITA some player can be, there is a parent that is ten times worse.

[RK]

Hiya -

Sifty (rightfully) pointed out that my post sounded negative about Farmington hockey, and that wasn't my intention. So apologies are in order.

When I said Farmington has a reputation as rough and tumble with vocal parents, I didn't mean either as an insult. They do have a reputation for physical, hard nosed teams, and from the games my kid's played against them it's a justified one, but not a negative one. (There are 'high skill' teams around with far worse reputations for chippy, borderline dirty play). They're tough to play against if you can't handle physical play is all, and I think that's part of the hockey culture there. They do have pretty passionate vocal parents, but far from in a negative way in my experience. My point was this incident occurred in the context of a pretty passionate hockey community and emotions run high to begin with.

Also apparently some question as to whether his dad was the one who opened the gate or a friend of his. I have now heard both from pretty credible people. Either way, a sad state of affairs.

[RK]

On a side note, my wife coached JV volleyball for a number of years. She always says no matter what a PITA some player can be, there is a parent that is ten times worse.

My daughter's current coach says his dream job is to be the hockey coach at an orphanage.

[skee0025]

If I was a coach I would think hard before considering having the daughter on my team. After the stunt pulled by her brother with the parents approval and the actions of the parents at other games, she's a poison pill that sooner or later is going to go the same way.

[nofishfisherman]

I wonder how long it takes him to regret that his last memory of his hockey carrer is him acting like a complete tool?

I coached high school track for a little while and was lucky enough to not have to deal with any parents. Track is one of the few sports where it is very easy to determine who is varsity and who is running the JV meets since its simply determined by time, there is no real way to argue it. It was also pretty easy to deal with the rare silly-me athlete. If they wanted to argue with a coach we'd just run them until they weren't in the mood to argue any more.

We did have one kid who thought it would be funny to pick on some of the underclassmen. That stuff is pretty normal but this kid took it too far. He was a big offensive lineman who threw shot put so he wasn't a runner at all. Since he liked making hismself the center of attention by picking on freshman the coaches decided we'd put him at the center of attention and we entered him into an open 400 meter race. He didn't take to kindly to it but he ran and he finished, about a minute behind everyone else but he finished. We told him next time he'd be running the 2 mile if he didn't shape up. He was a model citizen after that.

[PierBridge]

Quote:

I wonder how long it takes him to regret that his last memory of his hockey carrer is him acting like a complete tool?

In today's narcissistic society I'm betting he never ever regrets it.

[nofishfisherman]

Sad but probably very true.

[itchmesir]

Hiya -

So who opened the gate for him?

The kid's freaking *dad*...

So his dad was in on the whole thing.

The dad has a reputation in Farmington hockey already. His other kid is a daughter who plays 10U (10 and under, so basically 3rd and 4th graders). He's been banned from the arena by the Farmington YHA for screaming obscenities across the ice at his daughter's coaches during a game, then confronting and threatening the coaches after a game. So this is a guy who went mental enough to get banned for screaming at coaches about a 9 year old's playing time, at a level where pretty much every kid plays a regular shift.

was his dad Randy Marsh?

[Scott M]

LOL - Randy Marsh...Reminds me of...

[Musky Buck]

I wonder how many goalies in the state heard this today, if you do what that goalie did "you're dead". with plenty of lol's. I told my wife last night that there must be much more to this scenario to come, how could you embarass your family that way, dad was proud, hard to embarass that. This goalie also must be somewhat a bully or why would the players nearly stand up for him some or something, he's likely one of those loud mouths with a loud mouth dad that everyone wishes would just go away but since they're not we'll try to sift through the seasons. Don't want him on my bad side etc. The daughter on the team, makes you wonder how many feel, they'd never say, but geez 8-9 more years of this guy meaning dad, great. It's unfortunate in any sport to have players/families that don't pull as 1 for the team, all players, the school and the community, I've dealt with too many like that having coached football,hockey,baseball for 20 years, just resigned all my coaching positions for now, just today lol and had zero to do with the goalie, last Spring I put in 2 guys to replace 2 guys who had struck out each of their first 2 at bats, they were 0-4, I turn around to have a dad in my dugout yell out " If you put those 2 in the game we're gonna lose", this was game # 1 of a 7th grade team last year. It's hard for an old guy like me to have to play parent, babysitter, therapist, counselor, then finally coach the guys who may or may not come to practices or games, our numbers are we barely have enough for a team, so you kick players off the team and then you have no team at all punishing the ones who truly want to be there and see it through till 12th grade. If I were the goalie's coaches, I would've been mumbling good riddance, thanks, now we can move on, move forward, and play some team hockey, finally. I don't doubt these coaches would've loved to boot this kid out before, but in many communities no one will stand up to the belligerant parent, the revolving door of athletic directors, so being new you don't want to come in guns blazing but you should, but you hope the issues will resolve themselves, go away, or graduation can finally send them packin, I can't even begin to imagine around his supper table over the years, it was all about me I and my, he heard that message for years, I doubt they ever left the rink happy, the rides home must have been negative negative negative, I feel sorry for his future wife and kids really if he doesn't see the light.

[fishing tech]

I have a coworker who's son plays on that team. I have not talked to him yet. They have a very good group of 10th graders this year that my son has played against and I have coached against. It will be interesting how they handle this. Next season there will be seniors that will be cut or warming the bench and some of those parents are a little wound up.

I think it was a classless and selfish move on his and his dad's part. The Dad is a mouth.

I had a hockey Mom tell me this:

She was at a Peewee tourney a couple weeks ago in Osseo. This Dad was yelling and cussing at the his son and anyone that would listen. Another Dad told him to shut up. His response was " I played D1 where did you play?" The response to that was "You obviously didn't get a D1 education did you?" The guy kept on barking. Very sad.

[TruthWalleyes]

I can't believe i get to fight in the championship!

[bobbymalone]

I do find the commentary about the kid never standing a chance and isn't equipped to handle life a little humorous.

In the grand scheme of things is freakin' high school hockey. I barely even graduated high school, managed to turn out alright.