"Starting in Goal, Number Seventeen..."

A curious story in the NHL as the regular season gets underway concerns the Vancouver Canucks and their new captain, Roberto Luongo.

What's curious about it is that Luongo is the Canucks' goalie.

The official role of the captain in ice hockey is actually pretty limited...the captain (or one of his alternates, if he is not on the ice) is the only player empowered to engage in discussions with the officials about the rules (and then only when invited), and has various other relatively minor functions concerning communications. The captain is identified by a letter "C" stitched to his sweater.

The rules of the sport prohibit goalies from acting in the capacity of captain or even from wearing the "C". (The intent is to prohibit the goalie from constantly leaving the crease and interrupting play to converse with the officials.) Apparently the Canucks are going to get around the latter provision by painting a "C" on Luongo's mask, but there's no way they'll be able to get around the former.

Of course, the unofficial role of the captain--to be the team's emotional leader, to be the go-to guy at critical moments, to provide a source from whence the other players can draw confidence and intensity when adversity strikes--far outweighs any official nonsense about who supposedly gets to talk to the refs. So since Luongo is by far the best player on a weak-looking Vancouver team, maybe making him captain makes sense...although it smells a bit gimmicky to me, and besides is something that Just Ain't Done.

I understand the purpose of the rule prohibiting goalies from being captains. But another thing that Just Ain't Done, apparently, concerns the numbers worn by goalies. In all my years of watching hockey, I don't think I've ever seen a goalie wear a sweater number between 2 and 19.

There are plenty of goalies who are number 1, and there are plenty with really high uniform numbers--Jose Theodore wears number 60, just to name one. But you're not going to see any goalies wearing 8, or 11, or 17.

What's up with that? As near as I can tell there's no rule governing how players are numbered, as long as it's with an integer between 1 and 98 (Gretzky's 99 having been retired league-wide). There are particular rules that apply only to the goalie, but his identity on the ice is of course obvious...it's not like scrimmage football, in which uniform numbers serve to distinguish eligible from ineligible receivers. As near as I can tell, it's just a cultural thing.

Does anyone have any insight into this? Can anyone provide a counterexample of a goalie wearing a uniform number between 2 and 19? In the NHL or any other league? If you can, please leave a comment...I'm interested in hearing from you.