Saturday night was a very interesting night for the Toronto Maple Leafs. As a longtime Leafs fan of 40 years I thought I had seen it all, but apparently not. After the Hurricanes lost starting goalie James Reimer early, backup Petr Mrazek got hurt in a collision with Kyle Clifford. At the time the Leafs were losing by a couple of goals and lo and behold the unthinkable happened. The EBUG(Emergency Back Up Goalie) was summoned and David Ayres got to live out his dream. The Leafs did score on there first two shots, but the Toronto native shut the door for the remainder of the game and the Canes won 6-3
David Ayres is the practice goalie of the Toronto Marlies(Leafs AHL Affiliate) and also part time practice goalie of the Toronto Maple Leafs. He is also the Zamboni Driver of the facility where the Marlies practice. The 42 year old never thought the day would come that he actually get to play in an NHL game, but it happened.
Now as a Leafs fan this is bitter sweet for me. I am extremely happy by what our hometown hero Ayres did, but the ridicule my team has taken is beyond annoying. The amount of texts and messages I got with Zamboni driver beating my team jokes was in the 100s and after a while it gets annoying. We will always go down as the team that lost to the zamboni driver. Its been a very up and down year for the Maple Leafs , this effort in the third period where they got only 5 shots against a goalie that has never faced this much adversity was embarrasing. You have to hand it to the Canes, but as a Leafs fan I am really upset to see this happen. We have been battered and beaten before, we will be back
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