I remember the moment vividly—a hard shot struck the lower side of my mask. The impact was sharp, a bolt of pain radiating through my face. I dropped my head to the ice, letting the sting settle before pushing myself up onto my knees. It wasn’t until I stretched my neck, looking around, that the blood started flowing. When I glanced down, the realization hit—red pooling rapidly beneath me. Instinct took over. I stripped off my blocker, glove, and helmet, heading straight for the dressing room. Players were already scrambling for medical supplies as I pressed a hand to my face, trying to assess the damage and scrambling to find the source of the blood.

In that moment, I wasn’t thinking about the pain. I was thinking about getting back on my feet, assessing the damage, and figuring out my next move—just like in an on-call incident.

Being an amateur hockey goalie mirrors the world of DevOps and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) in ways that only those who’ve been through the chaos can truly appreciate. Both demand the ability to anticipate disasters, react with composure under pressure, and recover quickly when everything goes sideways. A goalie can’t afford to dwell on the last goal any more than an SRE can get stuck in post-mortem blame. The job is about resilience, adaptability, and learning from every incident—whether it’s a slapshot to the mask or a production outage at peak traffic.