New apps ensure beer league hockey teams always have their net covered

For beer league hockey teams, ice time can be expensive and availability is limited. So when the goalie drops out of a game, the team is left scrambling.

Now, new apps, including the Toronto-based Puck and the Montreal-based GoalieUp, allow teams to rent on-demand goalies in towns and cities across Canada.

"GoalieUp is a [geolocation] app that will send the information about a game if a captain is missing a goalie at the last minute," said Mark Manning, founder of GoalieUp. "The goalie that's closest to the arena will receive the info first, so you have a better opportunity to get a goalie last minute. We categorize all of our goalies. We have five different categories from very low to very high. We cater to leagues. We're [the] Uber of goalies."

Manning says about 8,000 people in Canada use the app, with 3,800 goalies on the roster to choose from, and that number is growing.

For their work, the goalies get paid. At GoalieUp, they make $30 for a one-hour game and even more if the game goes longer or if it's played late at night. Manning says some goalies play up to 15 games a week.

Women make up a small segment of the goalie-app business

Women's hockey teams looking for goalie replacements make up about five per cent of the GoalieUp business.

Annick Trudell has been playing for GoalieUp for about a year and says, based on her experiences, women's teams are more likely to fill the net themselves, rather than hire a replacement goalie.

"For playing in both women's and men's teams, I saw that women are way more courageous, so they tend to go in net themselves," said Trudell. "They just want to try it. They want to try everything and so they prefer to go in the net, [rather] than renting a goalie."

Trudell also says women are generally more organized than men are, so they don't find themselves scrambling to find a goalie at the last minute.

Some teams say apps are 'ruining hockey'

Not everyone is on board with the new technology. Manning said some teams are set in their ways with a list of go-to backup goalies that they prefer to work with and wouldn't pay for a replacement.

He said he has experienced pushback, with one team telling him he was ruining the sport.

"They're like, 'You're ruining hockey. You're taking all the goalies and we can't find any goalies,'" said Manning. "That's not my intention. Goalies will always want to play for free. I'm trying to help the people who are stuck who want to save a game and are trying to do it at the drop of a hat."

Manning says team captains with this attitude are the exception, not the rule. Likely because ice time is in high demand around the country and if a team has to forfeit because they don't have a goalie, it can cost as much as $300.

The growing popularity has meant Manning has received requests for goalies from the U.S, Finland and Russia. He hopes in the future to offer replacement referees in addition to goalies.

Down the road, Manning says he can see this idea transferring to other sports, like beer league softball and baseball for replacement pitchers, bringing us one step closer to the day when no team ever has to forfeit a game due to a missing player.