Sharks Goalie Duo: Nabby and Vesa

I have two goalies to write about for this assignment: Evgeni Nabokov and Vesa Toskala, who are co- number one goalies for Los Tiburones (why does “sharks” sound so much cooler in Spanish?).

Much has been made of Ron Wilson’s goalie rotation. There are the articles asking if the two resent each other, speculation about possible trades of one or the other, the question of which has played against the tougher teams. A recent article addressed the first. Apparently, though they both would like to be the sole number one, they accept the situation with grace and recognize that it has been working so far. I, for one, like Ron Wilson’s theory about his experiment: no Pacific Division team has won a Stanley Cup. He suggests that perhaps that one starting goalie gets too tired from all the travel by the time the playoffs roll around. Makes sense to me! And Sharks fans everywhere are hoping that the experiment helps to bring that big shiny thing to San Jose.

As for their personalities and if they are crazy, well, I have not really paid much attention to these two, even though I adore goalies: I may be still in mourning (even though it is not really logical) from the trade that sent away my two favorite Sharks for one Mr. Teemu Selanne (really, both of them at the same time...OUCH). I think I know a bit more about Toskala, so let’s go with him.

Vesa Toskala is from Finland and his best friend is Ville Nieminen, also of the Sharks. Apparently, you can’t talk about one without mentioning the other. When they were young they played on different teams but would travel to games together in Nieminen’s car. They would sleep in it, too, and they say it would get to stinking badly. On a recent episode of Shark Byte they introduced Jamie Baker to the joys of cooking sausages in a sauna. It was rather amusing and yes, there they were, all shirtless and wearing towels.

Unlike many goalies, Toskala has no superstitions, just routines. To get pumped up for games he listens to 80’s dance music, and I completely just looked up old Sharks live chats to get this last paragraph!