the.com/goaltender

means The player stationed in front of the goal whose job is to stop the opposing team from scoring.

from A straightforward compound of 'goal' (the scoring target, itself from an old word for boundary or limit) plus 'tender,' meaning one who tends or minds something — the same 'tender' in 'bartender.' The term rose alongside organized ice hockey in the late 19th century, originally describing the role plainly: the one who tends the goal, standing watch over it the way a shepherd tends a flock.