I was mesmerised by it and joined in the competition among the spectators to try and catch a shot of a body flying past.
At one point in the third period, he tried to catch a shot from Bickell that was going well wide; instead, he deflected it with his glove, it struck the crossbar and, fortunately for Rask, bounced away.
Memphis went ahead with 14.3 seconds left when Shane Battier caught a blocked shot under the basket and flicked in a reverse layup.
In 2003, Andrew Goldstein, the Dartmouth goalie, caught a Syracuse shot, darted out of his net, veered up the left sideline and sprinted almost 80 yards before firing and scoring -- the first goalie to score in an N.C.A.A. tournament game in almost three decades.
"I caught a big shot and that can cost you a round, but the first round went well and the last went well and it was close," said the 28-year-old Fontijn, whose silver is the first boxing medal for the Netherlands since Orhan Delibas won silver and Arnold Vanderlijde took bronze in 1992.
"I have been going to batting practice for about 20 years for this time-honored tradition of letting a kid who doesn't sit in the premium seats where players are at close view and foul balls are regularly caught, have a shot at a wave from a favorite player or a prized ball to take home," she said in an e-mail message last month.
Brodeur made several superb stops, doing a splits to catch a wrist shot by Stall, diving to deny Gaborik off a rebound, kicking out a two-on-one wrist shot from Chris Kreider.
Last night he was having an easy time of it against the shorter Colombian Oscar Rivas until caught with a shot that stopped him in his tracks in the last round.
The feat, in which an illusionist seems to use his mouth to catch a bullet shot from a gun, has led to the death of at least 14 performers, said Ben Robinson, who has written a book on the subject.
