Antigonish minor hockey goalie faces 103 shots in single game

Ninety-eight saves in one hockey game, just let thatsink in for a minute.

It's the kind of number that would equal the number of saves normally made in three or four games, let alone one.

The accomplishment came Saturday from 13-year-old goaltender Kieran Walker in a game at the Pictou County Wellness Centre near New Glasgow, N.S.

"My team was really short on players, I think we had only nine or 10 players," said Walker. "I remember there was one time when I had five shots in a row before my team finally cleared the puck."

Playing in the Bantam Memorial minor hockey tournament, Walker's Antigonish Bantam A Bulldogs lost the game against ChebuctoAtlantics5-0, but it would have been much worse if not for Walker's 98-save performance.

Oddly enough the tournament committee did not give his team's player of the game award to Walker.

"He had received our player of the game in our game prior to that one and you can only receive one player of the game, so one of his teammates, Dallas Boyle, got player of the game in that game," said WesMartell, the team's coach.

Instead, he was given a puck with"103 shots, 98 saves" written on tape wrapped around it.

The shots were being counted on the arena scoreboard, but Walker knew how many he was taking thanks to a couple of other teams that were watching the game.

"There were two teams down by the boards and every time I would make a save they would yell the number out," said Walker, a Grade 7 student at Saint Andrew Junior School in Antigonish.

"The first period wasn't too bad, maybe 20 shots, the second period it just got worse and in the third period it went up to 103."