51-year-old goalie suits up for Minnesota Wild

sporting news ^ | 11-23-11 | sporting news

[WOBBLY BOB]

Hopefully for the Minnesota Wild, goalie Josh Harding stays healthy on Wednesday night, because their backup is 51 years old. Paul Deutsch, who runs a printing business in Richfield, Minn., is filling in for Niklas Backstrom, who's out for personal reasons, and Matt Hackett, who couldn't make it to St. Paul from the team's AHL affiliate in Houston in time. Deutsch, according to the Star Tribune, is a friend of former assistant coach Mike Ramsey and filled in for Wild goalies in the past, but only in practice.

[WOBBLY BOB]

good luck to him, if he makes it into the game.

[ConservativeStatement]

Cool stuff. There have been interesting situations in which reserve goalies have dressed for games due to in emergency circumstances.

[Hot Tabasco]

good luck to him, if he makes it into the game.

51? Good luck to him.......here's hoping he's got plenty of Ibuprofin at home. LOL!

[WOBBLY BOB]

I have my gear on just in case the bat phone rings.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Goalies gone wild???

[SamAdams76]

I’m almost that age and I consider myself physically fit enough to tend goal for a hockey team. It’s not exactly heavy lifting. Just sort of sit in front of the goal and get in the way of the puck as much as possible. So long as I’m not skating up and down the ice like a lunatic, I think I’m more than capable of tending goal.

[EQAndyBuzz]

” It’s not exactly heavy lifting. Just sort of sit in front of the goal and get in the way of the puck as much as possible.”

Tell that to my goalie. We start our breakout from the blue line. My goalie spends as much time on offense as he does on defense and he passes better than half the team.

Goaltending is no longer the fattest guy on the team or the guy who could afford the 2 grand on a set of Vaughn’s.

[aposiopetic]

hockey ping

[maine yankee]

George plimpton would be proud

[WOBBLY BOB]

more details here:

http://www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_19402205

[Alberta's Child]

Beautiful. One of the things I always marveled at about hockey is that despite its physical demands (it is the most physically demanding of any major team sport), there is an occasional story like this about an older player who can still get it done.

Chris Chelios -- a certain NHL Hall of Famer in a couple of years -- played his last game in the NHL when he was something like 48 years old, and was still taking regular shifts as a defenseman with the Detroit Red Wings well into his mid-40s.