I’ve had a love-apathy relationship with hockey over the last 10 years.
I went into college in the fall of 2010 obsessed with hockey. My team, the Raleigh-based Carolina Hurricanes, had won the National Hockey League’s biggest prize four years before and made the conference finals the playoffs the year before, so I was in good shape as a fan. But in the ensuing years, a league-wide lockout for half a season plus year after year of losing led to my interest in the sport, and the Hurricanes, waning and waning until it was nearly non-existent.
And that was significant: I was a hockey fan from the age of 6 or 7. The Hurricanes moved to North Carolina from Hartford, Connecticut, when I was 4, and not too long after, my dad took me to a game or two in Greensboro. I was hooked.
I was reminded of the unique quality of sports — and just how much I love the Hurricanes — Saturday night, when emergency backup goalie David Ayres came into the game donning a white-and-red Carolina sweater and stole the show not just in Toronto where the game was played, but across the hockey world and into the mainstream.
I’ve gotten back into hockey within the last couple years, and the Hurricanes have climbed out of irrelevancy into a team to watch in the NHL. Carolina consistently ranks among the top 15 teams in the league, and its exciting, fast-paced style of play featuring stars like Sebastian Aho, Teuvo Teravainen and Dougie Hamilton is fun to watch. I admit that I sound like a fairweather fan, and that’s fair — but my anxiety can’t handle too much losing. (Just ask me about my Arsenal fandom sometime.)
But the David Ayres story not only reminded me of how great sports are, it told me two things: one about myself and the other about hockey.
Hockey is a game where anything can happen. There are 82 games in the regular season, up to seven in each playoff series, and each team dresses 20 players every night, meaning more people play more games than any other sporting league. What happened on Saturday was an extension of that — both of Carolina’s dressed goaltenders got hurt, and thanks to league rules, a backup emergency goalie was on site in that case. Ayres gave up goals on the first two Toronto shots — the first was his fault, the second wasn’t — but stopped the other eight he faced to get the recorded win.
It was a true story of adversity overcome. Not only did the Hurricanes score twice in the third period to seal a 6-3 win, after Ayres had come in, but they defended superbly in front of someone they had just met when he stepped onto the Toronto ice. And after the game, after the plethora of media interviews for this 42-year-old Zamboni driver, the team showered him with water bottles. It’s a reason to love the Hurricanes, and a reason to love sports: people come together in a time of trial and difficulty for a common goal, something far too rare these days.
As for me, it reminded me I can still get emotional about sports. Not just angry, frustrated or anxious, but joyous. I was excited for my team — for the win, for the valuable points in the standings, for the six goals we scored, of course — but I felt privileged to have watched the game from the beginning and to have seen history.
There’s too much to get into here about how Ayres’ performance was against all odds, how good the Hurricanes were defensively in front of him, and frankly how shoddy Toronto was in the third period. Suffice it to say, if you haven’t given hockey a chance, give it one. And if you’ve left sports because of your anxiety, I get it, but don’t forget it has the chance to make you feel the complete opposite: happy to be alive and to be a fan.
Reporter Zachary Horner can be reached at zhorner@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @ZachHornerCNR.