Eight-year-old Lucas Konarski had submitted a heartfelt essay in hopes of becoming a DICK’S Sporting Goods Jr. Starter of the Game, expressing just how much he loves being a goalie. He does a special dance to cheer on his team and always stays positive, win, lose, or tie - with his attitude and playing style inspired by a certain fan favorite netminder.
“I have been playing hockey since I was 3 years old, and fell in love with (Marc-Andre) Fleury,” Lucas wrote.
He gained the memory of a lifetime on Tuesday night when he got the chance to stand on the same ice with his hero. The Lil’ 66er skated out to join the Penguins during the national anthem ahead of Fleury’s final game in Pittsburgh, standing alongside goaltender Joel Blomqvist.
They watched warmups from the Zamboni gate before Lucas’ big moment. His mother Courtney and grandmother Sue were cheering him on. “There’s my goalie!” could be heard from his loved ones. Lucas said afterward that he was “kind of nervous, really happy!”
Lucas can’t pinpoint exactly when his love for Fleury ignited; it just seems to have been from the start. Courtney admits that she was a bit surprised to see how much Lucas adored Fleury, given that he was born in 2016, a year before Vegas claimed him in the Expansion Draft.
However, she explained that they had all been “huge Flower fans, and so, it was natural. We put in goalie saves on YouTube and then we started just putting in Fleury saves, and he just loved Fleury, the way he goaltends.”
Before that, Lucas had attended games since he was just a few months old, but his interest peaked when he was 3 years old. They were watching the Penguins during the holiday season, and a January game against the Sharks sparked Lucas’ interest. So, Courtney enrolled Lucas in the Learn to Skate program at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex.
“It just made him completely fall in love with the game and the goalies and everything about hockey,” Courtney said.
While that ignited his love to be a goalie, he did not start out as one. As his mother, Courtney hoped Lucas might be interested in skating out, seeing as the cost of equipment for goalies is higher. However, “Marc-Andre Fleury had other plans in mind. Apparently, by being so awesome, he couldn't help himself.”
Lucas got the chance to follow in his idol’s footsteps after the kid who usually played goalie for their Lil’ 66ers team got injured in a game. Since they didn’t have a backup, the coach needed a replacement so they didn’t have to forfeit,
“Of course, my kid's hand goes up, so he's out there in regular player gear, regular stick, saving pucks, flying around like a crazy man, and actually has a shutout for the part that he was playing,” Courtney laughed. “And then from that moment, he's like, ‘I want to be a goalie. I don't want to do anything else.’”
Now, Lucas and a good friend of his, another goalie, share fist bumps and critique one another in between periods. They share what each other did well and some areas for improvement. The “little goalie besties,” as Courtney refers to them, have a great time sharing the ice together.
Courtney notes that it is funny - Fleury’s style of goaltending has evidently inspired the young goalie, and can be seen when Lucas plays.
“He really relates to the Fleury style of goaltending, because that's how he goaltends, which is really cool to watch,” she said. “Because anybody that knows him and knows Fleury and knows hockey are like, ‘oh my gosh, you could tell that's his favorite goalie and that he studied him, and that he watches him a lot, because he's the same type of goalie.’ It's really cool.”
As Lucas has progressed along, his family started contemplating ideas for how to fundraise money to help him get a new goalie stick. Lucas suggested doing a yard sale, saying he could get rid of his old toys and things he no longer needed. He then had the idea to draw pictures of himself as a goalie on the signs advertising the yard sale. As customers were checking out, he asked if they’d be interested in buying a poster, some of the customers even asked him to sign it.
“And a couple of them were really good sports about it and were like, ‘I’m going to have you sign it so that when you make the NHL one day,’” she said. “So, it was super cute how everybody played along and loved it.”
