Member-only story
I want to see the David Ayers movie
The Marlies’ Zamboni Driver becomes the emergency call up goalie for Carolina and wins the game.
It’s the thing all us guys who were never good enough for our hockey career to go anywhere dream of. A chance to get into an NHL game and then play well enough to win.
David Ayers is actually employed by the Toronto Maple Leafs organization. He’s the Zamboni driver for their AHL affiliate, the Toronto Marlies, and he is a guy who straps on the pads from time to time to fill in for the professional goalies when they are off doing something else. That means he has faced Leaf and Marlie players in practices and scrimmages over the past few years. But even that didn’t prepare him for this.
The game starts out as expected. There is a lot of jump on both sides of the ice. Both the Hurricanes and the Maple Leafs are fighting for a playoff spot, and these are an important 2 points.
At the 3:07 mark of the first period, Carolina’s goalie, Mark Reimer has a defender pushed into him and he is slow to get up. Carolina has 9 shots on the board to Toronto’s one. Reimer hangs in there, but when they come back from a commercial break at 6:12, Peter Mrezak has replaced Reimer in the net.
The Leafs score with 35.1 seconds left in the first.
Despite giving up a goal, Mresak plays well. Carolina ties the game at 5:46 of the second. They add a second at 9:53 and a third at 10:49.
Around halfway through the second, the commentators on hockey Night in Canada mention that the emergency backup tonight is a Zamboni driver named David Ayers and they are preparing a hockey sweater for him, “just in case he’s needed.” They show video of his name being sewn on a Hurricane’s jersey with a number 90 on it.
Just past the 11-minute mark, Mrezak storms out of his net to play a puck and collides with Kyle Clifford from the Leafs. Clifford is assessed a penalty and Mrezak comes out of the game at 11:19…
