I can't say it enough: an ice hockey goalie gets all of the credit when his team wins and none of the blame in a defeat.  As a matter of correcting this journalistic injustice, MYFO dusts off its recurring featire, "Better Know a Rented Mule," so that the hockey-watching public can learn about the life and times of a recently owned netminder.  Should you like him enough, maybe you'll agree to give him a ride home.  It's sucks to have to walk after being taken to the cleaners and left there without cab fare.

/scans box scores

You're kidding, right?  Him?  Really?  Fair enough.

Today's rented mule is Calgary Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff.

Typically this feature is reserved for back-up keepers who get a rare start and no opportunity for a rare finish.  Mediocre backstops that don't often see the light of ice time and their visibility to the point is obscured by seven layers of rust.  And yet, today we find ourselves on a fact-finding mission for a thrice nominated, once winning Vezina goal tender who an entire Scandinavian country is counting on come Vancouver in February.  I guess that's what happens when you're on the back end of a 9-1 rout at the hands of the San Jose Sharks.

Miikka, I was thought you were the best goaltender with a 6-letter first name of which there are two sets of double letters that ever was.

Now I don't know what to believe.

What was it about the Sharks last night?  This screamed revenge game for you.  After all, they did draft you in the 5th round of the '95 entry draft, no doubt to be the heir to Arturs Irbe.  You spent eight long years in the organization fighting for back-up ice time with the likes of a guy who gets schooled in a Gatorade commercial?  And then, they decided after all your hard work you were worth nothing more than a Calgary 2nd-rounder, with which they'd take Marc-Edouard Vlasic?

That's right.  Traded for a stork.

And despite having all that ammunition, you let the Sharks obliterate your sterling reputation.  8 different players scored goals last night, and you were the netminder for 6 of them before getting yanked for McElhinney.  Just listen to some of these sharpshooters you anointed:

Manny Malhotra.  His eighth of the year.

Jed Ortmeyer.  His fifth of the year.

Scott Nichol.  His second of the year.

Damn, Miikka.  You're lucky Pat Falloon wasn't in the building.  He may have registered a hat trick.

If I'm the President of Finland, I'm starting to worry about my country's prospects with this turnstile in the crease.  It's the Olympics, man.  You can't rest on the laurels of what you've done in the past.

/watches Miracle

It's time to bench Kiprusoff.  If he's going to let Scott Nichol score goals, who knows what he's capable of on a world stage?  Get Niittymaki in between the pipes.  He's got the double letters in his name, too, Miikka.  It's time to pass the torch.  You know, before you tell Keith Brooking to run over to the Sharks bench in defeat.

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