Martin Brodeur: Big Man on Hippocampus

There’s a familiar cliché in the world of hockey that equates an impenetrable goaltender—a net-minder making seemingly impossible saves—as “standing on his head.”

This, of course, is a cleverly concocted metaphor. No one—not even the most chiseled of modern day athletes—can stand upside-down for 60 minutes. The world record for standing on one’s head is about eight-and-a-half minutes.

New Jersey Devils' goaltender Martin Brodeur is the exception to the rule that says the human body will lose consciousness after several minutes suspended feet-over-neck.

Standing on his head doesn’t cause blackouts for the 37-year-old—it causes his opponents shutouts.

Since breaking into the NHL in 1991, with the Devils, Brodeur has toppled many of the league’s most hallowed goaltending records.

Among the most impressive is the career mark for ice time, breaking Patrick Roy’s record 60,235 minutes. Depending how you look at it, that’s more than 1,000 hours or 42 days or six weeks between the pipes.

There’s plenty of other ways Brodeur could have spent that time, besides equaling the world record for standing on one’s head 7,086 times.

For instance:

· He could have watched Berlin Alexanderplatz, the longest movie ever made (931 minutes), a whopping 65 times.

· If he spent those hours in the air, he’d have garnered the requisite 40 air hours it takes to earn a pilot’s license.

· According to www.sixweeks.com he could have sculpted perfect abs.

· If he were a terrorist (to anyone other than opposing teams), the United States government could have held him the legal limit of 42 days before levying charges against him. It’s a good thing Brodeur is on the up and up with Uncle Sam. Four days after setting the NHL’s new minutes mark, the goalie officially became a U.S. citizen.

· Brodeur’s new mark is comparable to 25 average work (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) days.

· That same time span, cruelly, is also the average life span of worker bees.

· Instead of logging all that ice time, he could have sat through Placido Domingo’s world record for the longest ovation (101 curtain calls, 80 minutes of applause 101 curtain calls and 80 minutes of applause on June 30, 1991, in Vienna, after singing Othello) a mind and posterior-numbing 758 times.

· If it takes 200 minutes (at 20 minutes a pound) to cook a 10-pound turkey, Brodeur could have served up a 3,011-pound bird if he put it in the oven his rookie year. He’d be hard-pressed to find a turkey that size. The biggest turkey on record is 86 pounds.

· At a nonstop and steady pace of 60 mph, he’d circumnavigate the Earth 2.5 times instead of fending off slap shots.

· Roger Bannister could have run 20,078 three-minute miles.

· He could have sat through 48 consecutive Jerry Lewis telethons.

· He could have watched all 452 episodes of The Simpsons 4.5 times.

· Brodeur could have switched to football and played every minute of every game in the NFL this season and still have close to 45,000 minutes of free time.

· If he took the ice on Jan. 1 and played his minutes consecutively, he wouldn’t get a break until Feb. 1.

· Predictions are big business in the world of sports. If Brodeur spent his entire career on the phone with Miss Cleo Psychic Hotline ($4.99 per minute) he’d run up a $300,000 phone bill.

· Gandhi could have watched Brodeur’s entire career during both of his 21-day fasts. The Indian spiritual leader likely would have found the nachos at Continental Airlines Arena—the ones that come replete with three puny jalapenos and a thick layer of plastic cheese—rather easy to resist.

· At six weeks, he’d still have two weeks to wait before his Snuggie arrived via standard U.S. mail. And spending that amount of time on the ice requires something warm and fuzzy to wear.