Photo by Arnie Hamel

Leah Bosch makes her 3,000th varsity save in the second period of the Royals' 5-3 win over Buffalo on Feb. 5.

Just for the fun of it

For overworked Hopkins/Park senior goalie Leah Bosch, making 3,000 saves has been nothing but a good time

There are few, if any, more conflicting statistics in sports than the hockey goaltender reaching a gaudy save milestone in her career.

Like a home security system that repeatedly thwarts attempted burglaries, a goalie with 3,000 saves has done an incredible job – you only wish she wasn’t called upon to do it quite so often.

Unless you’re Leah Bosch, for whom stopping pucks is lots of fun. “Mostly I’m just looking forward to a game where I get close to 60 shots; those are the most fun games for me. I don’t know if I can speak for our team but…”

And since a goalie’s job is to stop the puck, not many have done it better or in more prolific fashion than the Hopkins/Park senior goalie.

When Bosch made a pad save and smothered the puck with her glove hand early in the second period against Buffalo on Feb. 5 at Minnetonka Ice Arena, the senior had made save number 3,000 in her high school career.

That’s a lot of pucks.

First and foremost, such a milestone requires a long varsity career, and for Bosch that began in ninth grade, a season in which she was called upon to start in all 26 games. Hopkins/Park struggled through a 5-20-1 season in 2018-19, with Bosch tallying a synchronistic 777 saves.

Hopkins/Park senior goaltender Leah Bosch is wrapping up an historic four-year varsity career, having made over 3,000 saves.  Photo by Arnie Hamel

Leah’s sophomore season was much the same, with Hopkins/Park going 5-19-1, and Bosch denying another 892 pucks. “We’re in a lot of close games with a goalie like Leah on the back end,” says Royals’ head coach Ryan St. Martin.

But the reality is that Hopkins/Park has been on the short end of the stick more often than not in recent years. Bordering Minnetonka and Wayzata to the west, Edina to the south, and private school powers Benilde-St. Margaret’s and Blake to the east, Hopkins/Park is surrounded by one of the most concentrated areas of girls hockey excellence anywhere in Minnesota.

So while coach St. Martin sees encouraging numbers of players at the youth levels in Hopkins and St. Louis Park, building a winning varsity program has been a sizable challenge. Now in his fourth season with the Royals, St. Martin’s team enters the unforgiving Section 6AA playoffs this week with a 7-18-0 record and a likely first-round loss.

“Our team, it’s no surprise, we’re the underdog,” Bosch admits. “But I think we all have this mentality of we’re here to play hockey because it’s fun and we like playing hockey. Personally, my motivation is I just want to save as many shots as I can because I think it’s fun, and I want to play good so that’s what I do,” she says with a laugh.

Leah Bosch first got into the puck-stopping business at the casual suggestion of her dad. “I do remember the day I stepped in the net and I had my skater gear on and my dad said ‘do you want to put the goalie gear on?’ and I was like ‘Yeah!’ and then I was a goalie from there on out.”

Bosch eventually played one year of Bantams with the boys before embarking on her historic high school career. In total, Bosch has 21 wins, 4 shutouts, a .900 save percentage, and, of course, those 3,000+ saves.

“She’s very sound positionally,” St. Martin notes. “She’s really an underrated athlete. She makes a lot of saves on second and third chances.”

And sometimes a fourth and a fifth.

Bosch says: “It’s not really about winning and losing, it’s more like just putting it all out there and playing because it’s fun.”  Photo by Arnie Hamel

“Our team, it’s no surprise, we’re the underdog. But I think we all have this mentality of we’re here to play hockey because it’s fun and we like playing hockey."
-Hopkins/Park goalie Leah Bosch

“I’ve definitely picked it up over the years,” said Bosch of her acrobatics between the pipes. “Playing on this team for so long you just kind of have to pick it up or you're not going to be as good at making that second or third save.”

Though the Hopkins/St. Louis Park cooperative team’s record may not suggest it, Bosch has improved her save percentage every year. This year, Bosch has a career-best .928 save percentage, made even more impressive when you consider that the team is 5-16 in those games. As a junior, her percentage was a nearly identical .924 as the Royals scratched and clawed their way to a COVID-shortened 6-8-2 record.

Bosch credits an evolved mental toughness for her steady improvement as a goaltender. “I definitely have to say experience, but also mentality. Going into it freshman year I’d always get really down, and if I played bad I'd take it very personally,” she says. “But I really transitioned that and now I just look at playing hockey as: it’s fun! So even if I played badly I still got to go on the ice, it’s still fun to play.”

Sometimes facing over 20 shots in a period, Bosch makes sure she keeps things in the proper perspective. “It’s very exhausting but I think it’s fun and if I make a really good save and you can tell the other girls are frustrated, I’m just like, ‘that’s what I like to do!’”

Bosch, a Hopkins student, hopes she can continue doing what she likes to do in college. “I would love to play college hockey,” she says. “I’m just looking into a couple of schools right now.”

With her high school career quickly coming to a close, Leah enjoyed one last home game on Senior Day, capping off a 5-3 victory over Buffalo with an assist on the clinching, final goal to go along with her 3,000th save.

And wherever she ends up playing next year, it’s safe to say that Leah Bosch will maintain her positive, cheerful attitude toward the game, no matter how many pucks come her way. “It’s not really about winning and losing, it’s more like just putting it all out there and playing because it’s fun.”