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Playing Subconscious: The Science Behind Devin Cooley’s Viral Quotes
You don’t have time to think up there. If you think, you’re dead.
InGoal Magazine has run that memorable quote from the original Top Gun movie by too many NHL goalies to count over the past 20 years, and while some professed they were too young to have watched it — at least before the 2022 sequel, which also references that line, made it relevant again — almost all agreed the sentiment applied to stopping pucks.
Which brings us to the viral post-game interviews with Calgary Flames goalie Devin Cooley that have taken the hockey world by storm this season. While much of the attraction lies in the incredibly open, genuine and passionate way Cooley shares his thoughts on everything from reading with his pet rabbit, Tito, to studying linear algebra and reading old engineering books for fun and to keep his mind challenged, the interview that really got people talking, even outside the hockey world, was one that had most goalies nodding along knowingly.
Cooley delivered his thoughts on trying to play in his subconscious mind rather than the conscious mind 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 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,” he continued. “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.”
Most goalies around the NHL knew exactly where Cooley was coming from.
“I think he described just in his own words what every goalie is thinking in their own way,” Joey Daccord said in an NHL Instagram post from the Seattle Kraken’s Finland trip.
“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.”
The idea that overthinking is bad for goalies certainly isn’t new, but why specifically is it better to play in the subconscious mind instead of the conscious mind?
Still ahead in this article:
The former NHL goalie who answered that question holds a master's degree in sport psychology from Boston University — and his explanation of what the conscious mind actually controls starts with a number that reframes everything Cooley said.
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