AT A TIME when elite sport is over-analysed, over-hyped and increasingly inching towards becoming a beige behemoth, completely devoid of colour and personality, it’s particularly satisfying when inexplicable moments still occur. The commentators are – momentarily at least – lost for words as researchers flick through rule books and the fans, truly stumped, fall completely silent.
When TV sports coverage is so heavily reliant on a preening preparedness, it’s wonderful to see a communal chaos take hold instead.
After all, the greatest sports moments have always tended to come from nowhere with the architects behind them – the true artists – having specialised in sleight of hand, off-the-cuff magic.
David Ayres is certainly not a true artist, though he painted a masterpiece last weekend.
Let’s set the scene.
It’s a regular-season NHL game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and their guests, the Carolina Hurricanes.
During the first period, the Canes’ goaltender James Reimer is forced off due to injury. So far, so uneventful. The team’s back-up, Petr Mrazek, enters the fray as the Leafs take a one-goal lead into the first interval. But it’s during the second period that things get wild.
With nine minutes still to play, Mrazek races out of the crease to cut out a loose pass. The Leafs’ Kyle Clifford – all fifteen stone of him – chases too and the pair collide, with Mrazek reduced to a crumpled heap on the ice. Quickly, it becomes clear that he can’t continue. And suddenly, the spotlight turns on David Ayres.
It’s a peculiar hockey rule: the emergency back-up goaltender. At every game, both teams have a squad of 20 players, two of them goalies. But, in the event both of them – for whatever reason – can’t continue playing, there needs to be a fill-in.
The NHL say a team is ‘entitled to dress and play any available goalkeeper’ and in the past, that’s meant equipment managers putting the pads on and taking their place in the net. But recently, the league has required every home team to keep a list of available keepers who can be in the venue for a game and jump in – for either team – if needed.
Ayres is a 42-year-old from Whitby, a town about 40 minutes outside Toronto. Like millions of other Canadians, his lifelong dream was to play in the NHL. But, like millions of other Canadians, it didn’t really work out for him. In 2004, he required a kidney transplant and later battled two bouts of skin cancer, which properly put paid to his ambitions. Or so he thought.
Hockey remained a large part of his life and he was still involved to a relatively decent provincial level six years ago. But the pro dreams were long gone by that stage. Instead, Ayres worked as an operations manager at the former home of the Maple Leafs – now the Mattamy Athletic Centre – in downtown Toronto. And as he embraced the beginning of middle-age, competitive hockey was parked in favour of ‘beer leagues’ and recreational games with friends.
But, having previously worked at the arena where Maple Leafs’ affiliate team, the Marlies, play their games (sometimes driving the Zamboni, the machine that smooths the ice surface), Ayres was tapped up to join in training sessions. Later, he did the same with the Leafs.
And on Saturday night, his was the name on the emergency back-up list and the Canes had little alternative than to bring him in.
When Reimer was injured in the first period, Ayres finished his Reuben sandwich, headed for the dressing rooms and got changed. His wife remained in her seat and took to Twitter to voice her irritation that ‘date night’ was over.
“Scotiabank Arena is a lonely place when you’re watching the game on your own”, she wrote.
Forty minutes later, there was another tweet.
“Fuck me!!!”
Mrazek had been taken off and her husband – wearing a Canes’ number 90 shirt, his name stitched on moments earlier by the team’s operations manager, was on the ice.
At the time, Carolina were leading 3-1. And once play restarted, they added a fourth. But, it still proved a baptism of fire for Ayres and he conceded on the first two shots he faced as the Leafs dramatically cut the deficit and his dream rapidly turned sour. He afforded himself a wry smile as his team-mates, who didn’t even know his name – offered some encouragement.
But, Ayres excelled in the final period and stopped the next eight shots that came his way. The Leafs failed to test him enough as the Canes defence admirably protected the novice behind them and also added a further two goals to claim a remarkable 6-3 victory.
It was an astonishing story and the Canes were quick to capitalise, already selling an Ayres numbered t-shirt on their website by the end of the evening. Ayres will receive royalties from the sales and a portion will also go to a kidney foundation. It’s the least they could do. As per NHL rules, Ayres got $500 for playing the game and gets to keep his jersey. It’s likely the team will offer him something sweeter, though they’ve made a pretty big fuss of him since Saturday night.
The mayor of Raleigh declared Tuesday as ‘David Ayres Day’ while the man himself was guest of honour as the team faced Dallas Stars that evening, having earlier spent time catching up with his brothers in arms.
It had been a whirlwind trip, as he embraced his new-found celebrity.
Just hours earlier, he’d been in New York as a guest on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show and entrusted to tease the next segment when Colbert ‘pulled a hamstring’ during the latter part of his monologue. Ayres duly deputised and to rapturous applause.
That morning, he appeared on NBC’s TODAY show. In keeping with the style of the programme, they surprised him with a video link-up to his mother, Mary, who had donated her kidney to him sixteen years earlier. Ayres welled up. And it was tough not to be caught up in the emotion.
Some have ridiculed the NHL for the back-up rule and how it could’ve been so costly to the Canes with the play-off race hotting up.
But given the mainstream attention the league has received because of the heartwarming nature of the tale, it’s hard to think they’ll care too much.
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