THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Inside the wacky world of goaltenders

Despite the madness all around him, Sergei Bobrovsky found himself surprisingly calm.

The Florida Panthers goalie needed to handle a clothing issue.

Specifically, he had to take off his gloves and put aside his blocker.

The 35-year-old Russian that his teammates call “Captain Bob” had waited 15 years — and suffered through several seasons went it seemed he couldn’t translate regular-season brilliance into the playoffs — just for this moment.

Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov skated toward Bobrovsky with a huge grin on his face.

Now that Captain Bob was barehanded, Barkov could properly hand him the Stanley Cup.

Finally, the Cup.

There must have been times when Bobrovsky thought he would never raise the prized piece of silverware over his head.

Even last spring, the Panthers made it to the final, but were blown out by Vegas in five games.

Bobrovsky once again was criticized for his performance in that series, an unpleasant tag that he never seemed to shake.

But Monday night, after stoning Edmonton 2-1 in a spectacular performance, Bobrovsky finally reached the top of the mountain.

Hockey players uniformly carry a superstition.

They will never, ever touch the Cup unless they win it.

Now, at last, Captain Bob could hug the thing.

Fair and square.

GOALIES tend to be a little bit wacky.

Their performances often sail up and down, kind of like their personalities.

When you think about it, what kind of guy (or woman) would consider it great fun to be a target for pucks that come whistling at 100 mph?

Hell, it used to be even crazier.

For decades, goalies didn’t wear masks.

Several years ago, I was writing a magazine story on goalies. It was called, “The Red-Light District.”

It seemed like a clever phrase — to me and to the publisher — but several goalies I interviewed actually cringed at hearing the title.

A couple of them insisted they had nightmares with a horn blowing and that flashing red light signaling another goal.

Doing those interviews, I met Toronto Hall of Fame goalie Gump Worsley.

Gump played in the era before masks, and it was obvious.

He looked like he’d been shot with a bazooka from about 10 feet, and his face could have been mistaken for a map of the Alps.

I asked him if it was painful, blocking all those shots with every possible part of his body, and he said: “I don’t know. I can’t remember most of them.”

The hockey mask (not the one in the horror movies) came into regular use in 1959.

Montreal goalie Jacques Plante, multiple winner of the Vezina Trophy, got hit square in the face by a deflected shot.

Plante looked like he’d been mauled by a jaguar.

He needed to be stitched up to continue in the game, since there was no backup goalie.

In the meantime, Plante told coach Toe Blake that he wouldn’t go back on the ice without his mask — which he’d been wearing in practice.

Blake was furious, but Plante had all the leverage.

As it turned out, the Canadiens went on an 18-game winning streak, and eventually won their fifth straight Stanley Cup.

The mask became a permanent part of hockey.

AT THE start of that magazine gig, I met Michel Plasse.

He was a career backup goalie, with (as far as we knew) only one claim to fame in an otherwise mediocre career.

Michel was the first professional goalie credited with a legitimate score of his own.

Several NHL goalies have registered goals since Plasse’s ice-breaker, but he was the first — in a Central Hockey League game in 1971.

Had he been thinking about making that kind of history?

“No, not at all,” Plasse said. “I didn’t even TRY to score when it happened.

“The other team had an extra skater out there, and we couldn’t get the puck out of our zone.

“I knocked down a shot, there were guys all over me, and I just threw the puck way, way down the ice.

“I didn’t know it went in right away because somebody knocked me down. Then guys started yelling.”

Plasse didn’t get the fame he hoped the goal would bring him.

“I thought I was going to be like Elvis,” he said.

That perhaps gives you a hint about the mindset (or lack of one) that turns up in goalies.

I’ll always have a soft spot for these characters.

Crazy or not.

Applause for Sergei Bobrovsky, for instance, who endured the physical and media beating all those years.

Caress that Cup, Captain Bob.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press four times each week, normally Tuesday through Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”