Unmasked: Goalies relating to Cooley's flow state, unconscious brain

Devin Cooley's postgame interviews for the Calgary Flames have become can't miss for how he openly shares insights into the mind of an NHL goalie, but a lot of his puck-stopping peers find themselves simply nodding along. 

The knowing looks may not always extend to Cooley's interviews about reading with his pet rabbit, Tito, doing linear algebra for fun, or reading old books on engineering, but most goalies can relate to his thoughts about playing in the subconscious mind and seeking flow state.

To quote Maverick, the fighter pilot played by Tom Cruise, in the 1986 film "Top Gun": 

"You don't have time to think up there. If you think, you're dead." 

Stopping pucks in the NHL is not quite as dramatic, but it is a fitting quote for Cooley, who first went viral three seasons ago with the San Jose Sharks for sharing the in-game mantra he used to avoid overthinking: "Nothing matters. Nobody Cares. We're all going to die."

The "Top Gun" quote is also one most NHL goalies have long understood. There really is no time to think out there. At least not consciously, which brings us to Cooley's subconscious quote, delivered after a 34-save, 3-2 win against the Carolina Hurricanes on Oct. 18. 

"I felt nothing," Cooley told Sportsnet's Brendan Parker. "The problem with me is I have a lot of fun playing, but when I start having too much fun, it makes me from an unconscious goalie to a conscious goalie, and my conscious brain is really bad at playing goalie, so I have to let my unconscious brain do the work, because it reacts a lot quicker.

"When I'm having too much fun and I'm smiling and talking to everybody, what happens is that shifts me into a more conscious brain goalie, and then I can't react in time, and then I'm slow, I'm behind the play, and then I give up seven goals. But today it was just unconscious, don't think about anything. If you ask me how I made it save, I'd be like, 'I have no idea.' My unconscious brain does it and that's what you work in practice for."

Interviews like that have resonated outside the hockey world, whether its psychologists working in other sports, or as a topic on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast. 

"Devin's a really smart dude, so I think he verbalizes his experience very well," said Philadelphia Flyers goalie Joseph Woll, who has been known to think a little deeper and outside the usual cliches himself. "He talks about it in a very intelligent way, and other people or athletes may not know or may not think too much about what their experience is in that way, but I think does a good job of putting words to it because he's such a thoughtful person." 

Some may roll their eyes or dismiss it as "goalies being goalies" and a position known for its quirkiness, but the actual goalies know exactly what Cooley is talking about. 

"I agree with that," said Lukas Dostal of the Anaheim Ducks. "Once you get into the state of flow, it's just basic knowledge you don't really think. You just keep playing."

"I'm a big believer that when you think too much in the net, I don't think it's a good thing for goalies," added Ducks goalie Ville Husso. "Nowadays there are so many different goalies. We're all a little different, but stuff like that we can agree with. You play the best when you are in that flow mode and let the game come to you instead of thinking the game."

Getting into that state is another thing altogether, something Cooley has been equally willing to discuss, but a question that elicits a wider variety of answers ranging from mediation to visualization to simple practice habits. The desire to get there is more universal.

Mike Condon is perfectly suited to explain why it matters, and how it works. He lived it as an NHL goalie for 129 games over four seasons, then coached goalies for two seasons at Northeastern University after retiring. He went back to school to study the psychology behind it, earning a master's degree in counseling psychology and sport psychology from Boston University in 2025.

He now runs Condon Performance Consulting as a mental performance counselor for athletes and was invited by one of three former NHL teams, the Montreal Canadiens, to work with young goalie prospects at their development camp last summer. 

"I like think of it as your brain and mind are like an iceberg, and the water level is your awareness," Condon said. "We know most of an iceberg is under the water compared to what is above the water. The conscious mind is above the water. There's a bunch of studies that say the conscious mind is only five percent of your brain. I don't know how they measure but the moral of the story is way more stuff is happening subconsciously below the water -- below your awareness -- than is happening consciously." 

The conscious mind is for solving complex problems but also tends to seek relief from discomfort, uncertainty and fear. For a goalie, that creates problems after allowing a goal or when worried about making a mistake. The instinct is to think more, monitor movements more closely and try to exert control, but doing so can interfere with the automatic processes that make elite goaltending possible.

"If a player is coming down on a 2-on-1 and you're saying, 'Keep your glove up,' how much of your energy is focusing on where your glove is versus where his weight is on his blades or where his eyes are looking, or the cues other we rely on as goalies to read whether that player is going to pass or shot," Condon said.

Trying to consciously control movements that should be automatic can also compromise the movements themselves, said Condon, who has shown Cooley's clips to clients.

"When you have an automatic movement, something you already know, and you try to control it using the conscious mind -- because it wants to control it, especially if you don't feel good -- you're going to have clunky movements," Condon said. 

Some neuroscientists have pegged the difference between how much information the brain processes in the conscious mind at 50 bits per second, while the subconscious mind handles the rest of the 11 million bits per second of incoming information. It's not hard to guess which part of the brain is going to react faster, especially when the subconscious mind is responsible for identifying patterns. That is essentially what goalies do in trying to read and anticipate such a fast-moving game with so many variables.

"It does make sense," Flyers goalie Dan Vladar said. "Obviously, everybody is a little different when it comes down to thinking about the game, but I think the basics are the same. Obviously less is more, especially when it comes down to your thoughts."

Most just don't discuss it as openly and enthusiastically as Cooley after a game. 

"I'm not a type of guy that would come out saying it publicly like that," Vladar said. 

Some goalies are grateful that Cooley is going public. Some have reached out. Others, like Pittsburgh Penguins rookie Sergei Murashov, thanked him in a postgame interview of his own for being so open with his thoughts on the mental side of the position. 

"I want to pass a media message to Devin Cooley," Murashov said after a 5-2 win at the Los Angeles Kings on Nov. 7, the 22-year-old's first victory of the season. "I saw he was really popular recently and I think most goalies (are) going through something like he's talking about, but not a lot actually speak (it) aloud. … Thank you to him, what he's saying, and it genuinely just helped me a little bit too."

Murashov isn't the only one happy for Cooley's candidness but as a fellow goalie, he knows thinking about not thinking is about a lot more than entertainment.