Posted on 02/25/2020 11:51:02 AM PST by DUMBGRUNT
“I have to be there at least an hour before the puck drops,” he said. “I just let one of the Leafs guys know I’m there, and I head up, grab something to eat, and watch the game.”
The Canes were now selling a T-shirt with Ayres’s name on the back, donating all proceeds to a local kidney foundation.
Since his win, Ayres’s day job has been abbreviated to “Zamboni driver,”...these days, his co-workers handle most of the driving....needed. “I pride myself on doing a really good flood,” Ayres said, offering a bit of Zamboni-speak. “I don’t like to miss spots…the last thing I want anyone to say is the ice is bad at our arena. We pride on making it great.”
“When you get out there, and both teams are going full tilt ahead, everyone seems a little bigger, everyone seems a little faster,” he said. “It takes a little while to adjust for sure.”
In the Carolina locker room between the second and third period, injured goalie James Reimer offered advice. “He sat down beside me and said, ‘You know what you’re doing. You know how to stop a puck,’” Ayres recalled. “‘Just try and block everything else out, have some fun with it, make a couple saves, and you’ll be ready to go, don’t worry.’
One of Ayres’s first saves was a shot from Leafs star Auston Matthews—the same Auston Matthews who Ayres’s teenage daughter had been asking him about meeting.
“I know a lot of the emergency goalies,” he said. “They’re good goalies. And somewhere or other, they didn’t get a chance, or they feel they couldn’t do it, and retired, or what-not, but they’re not slouches. They’re good. It’s not like they just pulled a guy off a Zamboni and threw him in the net.”
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Over 30 years ago a running back who had been cut by the patriots was attending a game with a friend when the friend decided to go up and grab a couple of beers. While he was gone the running back had his name hailed on the PA and told to report to the locker room. His friend came back with the beers look for the running back and then saw him running onto the field.
by all accounts, Babcock was hated by many players, but when the Leafs fired him, they gave up all team efforts to play defense.
The interesting aspect of this story is that Ayres worked for the Toronto organization, and got the win for the opposing team. Note that if Toronto had suffered the same goalie fate as the Hurricanes, he would have been called up by Toronto against the Hurricanes.
I believe baseball has a similar clause for catchers, but it hasn’t been used yet as far as I know.
In 2004, Dave Ayres, a goaltender toiling around in low-level minor hockey and various pro-am camps, received a kidney transplant from his mother.
https://www.nhl.com/hurricanes/news/legend-of-goaltender-dave-ayres/c-315433228
The Carolina Whalers (er, sorry Hurricanes) are one of my least favorite team. I was a Hartford Whalers season ticket holder...
“Ayres’ curtain call came when he was named first star of the game, a fitting bow on an unforgettable debut. The partial crowd in Toronto gave him a standing ovation, part out of respect, part out of frustrated spite for their own team, part out of sheer disbelief of what they just witnessed.”
And his paycheck comes from the Leafs organization.
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