NHL goalie John Gibson has played for the Anaheim Ducks for 12 years and is a three-time all-star. He is currently one game away from becoming the 85th goalie in NHL history to play 500 games, has made 15,243 saves in his career, and a week ago he led the Ducks to a 5-1 win over his hometown Pittsburgh Penguins.
But back when he went to Baldwin High School, he tried out for the school’s varsity hockey team – and got cut.
Today, Gibson downplays the situation, saying it did not have any effect on his development or hockey career.
“Honestly it’s just more of a story than anything,” Gibson said.
When Gibson tried out for Baldwin’s hockey team, Matt Schmidlin was the varsity goalie. He had been a longtime teammate of Gibson’s.
“We were teammates during middle school,” Schmidlin, a Class of 2010 Baldwin graduate, said. “We were on the freshman team together.”
Schmidlin remembers Gibson as a great teammate with a laid-back attitude.
“Obviously we were both really competitive guys, but it was never a ‘not wishing the other person well’ type of way,” Schmidlin said. “We both got on very well and helped each other out.”
Schmidlin became the varsity goalie instead of Gibson, beating out a competitor who would one day reach the NHL. Today, Schmidlin looks back fondly on the memory, and his friends sometimes joke about it with him.
“It’s a cool tidbit to tell friends and family,” Schmidlin said. “I remember when he got drafted, the one thing in all the articles and the news was ‘John Gibson didn’t even play on his high school team.’ So you get to tell everybody that you were the guy who played over him, which is always a fun story.”
Nevertheless, Schmidlin recognized Gibson’s talent even at the time.
“He obviously fits the mold of a pro goalie – just a natural athlete, good build, and a hard worker,” Schmidlin said. “That’s the biggest thing if you’re going to get to that level. He made sure that he was working hard to get the most out of those abilities.”
Brian Proud played with Gibson all the way up until Gibson’s last game with Baldwin.
“We were teammates on Baldwin’s team from seventh grade through ninth grade,” Proud said. “He was the type of goalie that just took away the net. Even early on, he was big in the crease.”
Proud remembers the last game he played with Gibson against Moon Township.
“The last game that he played for Baldwin, we were in the playoffs for JV,” Proud said. “We lost 1-0. He stood on his head, but we just couldn’t produce any offense. He was amazing.”
Gibson’s hockey story, though, began much earlier, when he started playing for a local youth hockey team at age 4. He became interested in hockey as a 2-year-old after watching the Penguins play on TV.
“When he was 2, for Easter he had gotten a set of toy cleaning supplies with brooms and shovels,” his mom, Sue Gibson, said. “And he would stand in front of the closet door and say, ‘Shoot on me. I want to be a goalie,’ holding a broom.”
It was a great time for kids who were Pens fans, Gibson said.
“Growing up I watched Mario Lemieux, and then it was (Sidney) Crosby and (Marc-Andre) Fleury as I got older,” Gibson said. “It’s every kid’s dream to play in the NHL, so from a young age it’s your goal.”
His love of being a goalie only increased as he began to play on hockey teams as a child.
“My first team I played on, everyone took turns being goalie. But whenever I wasn’t playing goalie, I was still in the net next to the goalie,” Gibson said. “So from a young age, I wanted to be a goalie.”
One of the key steps on his journey to the NHL was playing for the Pittsburgh Hornets, an amateur-level travel hockey team. He had played for that organization earlier, and then in his last year in Pittsburgh, he came back to the Hornets.
Jeff Potter, who was the coach of the Hornets for eight years, recruited the 15-year-old Gibson after seeing how well he competed against the Hornets.
“He was a very tall and athletic kid as a young player,” Potter said. “I was certainly very impressed with what he had done against my teams.”
Potter remembers that Gibson’s first weekend with the Hornets was a big one.
“We played a tournament in Minneapolis. It was a North American Hockey League showcase,” Potter said. “We made it all the way to the finals because the goalies were unbelievable. I played (John) above the other goalie – which wasn’t always easy, but he had earned it that weekend.”
Even though the Hornets ended up losing in the championship game, that tournament established Gibson as a young player to watch.
“There were a ton of scouts all the way from junior USA hockey to the NHL,” Potter said. “All of a sudden, we’re in the finals, you got a 6’2” 15-year-old goalie no one has ever heard of, and suddenly his name was on the map.”
Gibson had started that year on the Hornets unnoticed by scouts. By the end of the year, he was in the national team development program.
Potter noticed early on that Gibson was a fierce competitor. While Gibson had a laid-back demeanor off the ice, he had a determination to be the best that enabled him to reach the NHL.
“A lot of times with a younger goaltender, if something goes wrong early in the game, it’s like a coin flip,” Potter said. “John was the opposite. If something bad happened early – let’s say he lets in a bad goal in the first five minutes – he would not let a goal in the rest of the game.”
Sue Gibson agreed, saying that her son’s calm demeanor is what has made him such a great player. She first realized that her son had talent during a different tournament in Minnesota.
“It was the championship game. He played outstanding,” she said. “The game was tied and went into overtime and a shootout. We ended up winning.”
Gibson moved to Ann Arbor, Mich., at the end of his sophomore year to play with the USA Hockey National Team Development Program. Eventually, he was drafted 39th overall by the Anaheim Ducks in 2011. He made his NHL debut in 2014 and has been playing ever since.
Having a child trying to make it into the NHL has its challenges. Traveling became an obstacle for the family as Gibson began playing for more advanced hockey teams.
Junior hockey players often move away from home as teens to play at a higher level. They live with local families, known as billet families, who provide a home atmosphere.
“Travel started when he played for the Pittsburgh Hornets and then when he made the (national team development program) in Ann Arbor, Mich. He moved to live with a billet family at the age of 16,” his mother said. “He traveled to Sweden, Finland, Russia, Czech Republic, and Canada.”
Gibson’s family did not get to travel overseas with him, but still watched his games from their computer.
“We would set our alarm and get up in the middle of the night to watch it live,” his mother said.
Still, the Gibsons made it to Ann Arbor every weekend he played to watch him.
“Either my husband, dad, and father-in-law would go or it would just be me and my son Justin,” Sue Gibson said.
Gibson’s NHL career has had many highlights. During his first NHL game, Gibson shut out the Vancouver Canucks. The Gibsons still have the puck and stats from that game hanging in their game room.
He made the NHL All-Star Game in 2016, 2019, and 2022, and won a bronze medal with Team USA’s senior squad at the 2013 International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships. He shared the William M. Jennings Trophy, given to the goalie who gave up the least goals during the regular season, with fellow Ducks goalie Frederik Andersen in 2016.
With Gibson playing for the Anaheim Ducks, watching his games is a bit of a struggle for his family, who still live in Whitehall. They try to make it to as many of his East Coast games as they can, in addition to his home games in Anaheim a few times a year.
There are “late nights watching him play,” his mother said. “We enjoy it when he plays on the East Coast.”
The Ducks play in Pittsburgh at least once a season. They came to Pittsburgh in October of this season, but Gibson did not get to play due to surgery.
John Gibson said it is always nice coming back to Pittsburgh.
“I’d say family is what I miss most,” Gibson said. “My wife and I are both from Pittsburgh, so it’s our home and we go back in the summers. Being able to see friends and family and having them be able to come and see me play is always a great experience.”
