NHL Hockey thread

[Josephus]

They got 2 goals on 10 shots on him. That's a respectable average. That they couldn't stop the Carolina train on the other end is the real problem.

Respectable if you're shooting on a professional goalkeeper, not a 42 year old zamboni driver (unless he had his Zamboni parked in front of the net)

[Grey Fox]

Pro goalies respectability starts at 10 saves for every goal allowed.

[viper37]

They got 2 goals on 10 shots on him. That's a respectable average. That they couldn't stop the Carolina train on the other end is the real problem.

Respectable if you're shooting on a professional goalkeeper, not a 42 year old zamboni driver (unless he had his Zamboni parked in front of the net)

TBH, he played in the AMH and ECHL.  Also, I've read he seldom replaces a goalie for the Toronto Marlies.

[Josephus]

Stilll....he' a 42 year old amateur.

I don't get why they have emergency goalies anyway. Seems pretty stupid. Do like every other sport and dress an outfielder.

[Camerus]

It's the general context of the Leafs' recent and disappointing suckitude that makes it much worse and heightens the shame.

If the Leafs were comparable to the the Bruins this year - which many analysts believed they would be going into this season - losing that game might have elicited a more lighthearted reaction from Leaf fans.

[Barrister]

Stilll....he' a 42 year old amateur.

I don't get why they have emergency goalies anyway. Seems pretty stupid. Do like every other sport and dress an outfielder.

That would be even worse than a 42 year old amateur.  Goalies wear completely different equipment, move in completely different ways, than regular players.  Most of those pros have probably not worn goalie pads since middle school.

Looking him up, Ayers had a decent run in hockey.  He played rep as a youth, even went to a couple of junior camps.  It looks like he played senior men's hockey at a high level.  Plus he's been working with the Toronto Marlies for the last few years and would be their fill-in goalie during practices.  Heck he's even dressed for the Marlies several times (though I don't think he saw action).  He even commented how he knew each of the Leaf's tendencies.

Plus, for fun, here's Ayers HockeyDB page.

https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=232235

[Grey Fox]

Stilll....he' a 42 year old amateur.

I don't get why they have emergency goalies anyway. Seems pretty stupid. Do like every other sport and dress an outfielder.

That used to be the rule, they changed it. I don't know why.

[Barrister]

In reading an article about the history of emergency backup goaltenders in the NHL, it finished with this gem from the 1938 Stanley Cup playoffs:

It was April 5, 1938. Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final. Chicago Blackhawks vs. the hometown Toronto Maple Leafs.

In the afternoon, the Blackhawks learned that goalie Mike Karakas would be unable to play because of a broken big toe. For reasons that aren't entirely clear but seemed to be logical at the time, the Blackhawks brain trust was determined to replace Karakas with Dave Kerr, the gifted goalie of the New York Rangers.

To be clear, the Rangers had lost in the first round of the playoffs.

What happened next is a bit murky, but Maple Leafs owner Conn Smythe supposedly refused to give the Blackhawks permission to play Kerr. That led to a meeting with NHL president Frank Calder, who ruled that Kerr couldn't play because he had already been bounced from the playoffs.

So the Blackhawks needed a goalie, and since it was the home team's responsibility to furnish a replacement, the Maple Leafs had one ready and waiting: Alfie Moore.

That is when the controversy exploded. Apparently, the Maple Leafs had called Moore, an old minor-league goalie, and told him to bring his gear to the arena. Smythe greeted him at the entrance to Maple Leaf Gardens, carried his equipment and ushered him into a little room, where Smythe told Moore to wait.

There is one other minor detail to the story: As legend has it, Moore had spent the day buried in the bottom of pints in a Toronto tavern.

In other words, he was some version of shitfaced.

Shortly before the game, Moore was told to go to the Blackhawks locker room because he would start in goal. When Moore entered the dressing room, however, none of the Blackhawks had any idea what was going on. Kerr was getting dressed as if he was the one who was about to play.

"Right then I knew I had been made the sucker," Moore said later. "I was so mad that when Smythe poked his head into the door, I told him, 'I hope I stop every puck you fellows fire even if I have to eat the rubber.'"

If Moore was mad, Bill Stewart, the coach of the Blackhawks, was irate. The Blackhawks claimed they had no idea Kerr was ineligible until Moore showed up and told them. They believed Smythe and his right-hand man, Frank Selke, had pulled a dirty trick.

In the corridor between the two dressing rooms, Stewart saw Smythe and proceeded to berate him. Soon, Selke walked up to the argument.

"You're a liar," Stewart yelled at Selke.

"You are the guy that's always been talking about fighting everybody," Smythe said, according to a totally real-sounding quote in the next day's paper, "but you can't call my pal Selke a liar and get away with it."

So Smythe punched Stewart in the face. Stewart punched him right back in the face. They stood there punching each other in the face until a couple of former Toronto players broke it up.

Mind you, this was all before the game.

In the meantime, Moore's new Chicago teammates supposedly held him under a cold shower and forced coffee down his throat just to sober him up some.

"When we were warming up, Stewart said, 'Take it easy, don't shoot too hard. I don't want him hurt,'" recalled Johnny Gottselig in the Chicago Daily News. "But he was stopping everything, laughing, waving at his friends."

Moore wasn't laughing when the Maple Leafs scored just 1:53 into the game. It looked like a disaster, and Stewart was still fuming.

After the first period, he stood outside his dressing room and loudly talked about "the Toronto racketeers who were Smythe's bodyguards" — the two former Toronto players who broke up the fight. One of those former players, Hal (Baldy) Cotton, heard Stewart running his mouth and so he punched Stewart in the face. Stewart entered the locker room with a bruised cheek and blood running down his face, at which point he apparently gave a rather rousing pep talk.

Moore didn't allow a goal the rest of the way. The Blackhawks won, 3-1, and went on to win the Stanley Cup. Alfie Moore was a certified legend. Neither booze nor the Maple Leafs could stop him.

Many years later, a newspaperman asked him if he was, in fact, drunk that day. Moore supposedly scratched his head and said, "I've always been sorta hazy about that. I had quite a few beers that day and I just can't remember."

https://theathletic.com/1637533/2020/02/26/emergency-goalies-come-from-everywhere-pulpit-factory-floor-or-even-barstool/

(Paywall for the entire article)

[Josephus]

 

Love it.

[Admiral Yi]

The weird thing to me in this recent case, is that it was a Toronto employee and Toronto fan who played for the visiting team.

[Barrister]

The weird thing to me in this recent case, is that it was a Toronto employee and Toronto fan who played for the visiting team.

Home team supplies an EBUG to be available for either team.  They have to be in the building with their gear, and if one goalie goes down the get into the dressing room and dressed, just in case.

Pretty much anyone who has played hockey as a kid dreams of playing in the NHL at some point.  If you got that opportunity, even just for a few minutes, you're going to take advantage of it and play your heart out.

[viper37]

great story 

[Barrister]

Reading a little bit more about the '38 finals, apparently Alfie Moore was ruled ineligible afterwards, but the result allowed to stand.

Apparently the 1938 Blackhawks were such underdogs (their record in the regular season was 14-25-9) the league didn't even bother to have the Stanley Cup in Chicago when they clinched in game 4 (it was a best of 5 series).

[viper37]

The best hockey movies to binge watch

#1 is Slap shot, of course.
Just like Shakespeare, better in its original French Canadian version

[Valmy]

Miracle is a great film. I like how at the end it is revealed that a bizarrely disproportionate number of players went on to work in investment banking