Welcome to Sport Hacks, where we find ways for average Joe's and Joey's to make their mark in professional sport.

As this is the first edition, I want to give you a feel for the level of weird my mind wanders off to, so I'm introducing a "hack" that I conceived long ago.

Watching a rare ice hockey game and questioning how Gordon Bombay or "The Dentist" Stenson would fare in today's NFL, my thoughts naturally took me to everyone's favourite on-screen goalie, the delightful Goldberg (who now looks like a hobo - see that here.

Unlike Julie "The Cat" Gaffney, Team USA's sub goalie, who had feline-like reflexes, Goldberg's only discernible skill appeared to be his sizeable stature. That got me thinking -

WHAT IF YOU PUT A SPECTACULARLY FAT PERSON IN GOALS.

:

Idea being, you take a willing morbidly obese lad or lass, slapped the pads on them, rolled them onto the ice, and positioned them in front of your goal so there would be little to no area available for an opposition player to score.

But is it legal?

Mrs Grape from What's Eating Gilbert Grape could've been a candidate

A quick google search reveals it might be, but there's a few factors to consider.

A size restriction of a person isn't specifically mentioned, but there is a standard size for padding. For example, width of pads can't exceed 11 inches, and height can't be greater than 38 inches.

That means your human can be as large as you want, but their pads can't be. So, there's going to be a lot of exposed flesh for your legendary lard.

Overall, this is good news, and as long as they're OK with taking a few dozen slap shots to their bare skin, night after night, for the sake of the team, they're likely to go down as one of the all time greats.

Just don't expect the team to chair them off after their last match. You'd be more likely to get Gilbert Grapes mom's treatment.