Bob Frid-Imagn Images
The NHL is the only major sports league in North America that is structured in a way where teams can essentially yank a person off the street to address a roster shortage. The Blackhawks were recently forced to exercise that option, and it led to a 45-year-old banker suiting up shortly after wrapping up a workday that involved a stop at Hooters for lunch.
NHL teams are permitted to have an active roster consisting of 23 players, but they can only have two goaltenders listed as active at any given time. In the vast majority of cases, only one of those guys will end up patrolling the crease during a game, but franchises need to have a contingency plan for the rare scenarios where neither of them are able to play.
As things currently stand, every team has to have an emergency backup goaltender (EBUG) on call who is tasked with suiting up if either squad finds itself without a goaltender during a game.
Those players have only been tapped on a handful of occasions, none of which were more amusing than the time the Maple Leafs lost after a David Ayres, a 42-year-old who was employed by their AHL team, was credited with a win after stepping into the crease for the Hurricanes.
That transpired a couple of years after the Blackhawks had to turn to Scott Foster, an accountant who stopped all seven shots he faced in a 6-2 victory. Last week, Chicago had to turn to another beer leaguer at the eleventh hour, and while he didn’t end up seeing the ice, it’s hard not to appreciate the circumstances surrounding his whirlwind day.
A 45-year-old banker who had Hooters for lunch got called to serve as an emergency goaltender for the Blackhawks two hours before a game
Last year, we learned the NHL will likely tweak its EBUG rules when a new collective bargaining agreement is signed to make that job a full-time position as opposed to one that’s filled by a rotating cast of over-the-hill hockey players.
If that ends up being the case, we’ll end up being deprived of stories like the one we were treated to when the Blackhawks found themselves in an unenviable position last Friday after their two primary goalies, Spencer Knight and Arvid Soderblom, were scratched ahead of a showdown with the Capitals.
According to ESPN, the team called up Drew Commesso from the Rockford IceHogs of the AHL before putting out a call to Dave Nozzolillo, a Wintrust Bank employee who got off the phone with a client at 5 P.M. before picking it back up after getting a ring from the Blackhawks.
The 45-year-old had a brief stint as a goalie at Lake Forest College, a D-III program, and still plays in men’s leagues in the Chicago area while serving as one of the four EBUGs the Blackhawks can turn to (they essentially get paid $100 a game to watch hockey if it’s their turn to show up).
He told the outlet he’d begrudgingly joined some coworkers for lunch at Hooters that day for a meal consisting of naked wings and some fries before being told to report to the United Center, where he donned a jersey with his name on the back knowing he could be called upon if Commesso went down.
That did not end up being the case, as Nozzolillo watched the entirety of Chicago’s 5-1 loss from the bench after signing a one-day amateur tryout contract worth exactly $0.
He did get to take some shots in the pregame warmups after mistakenly stepping into the net he was supposed to vacate while players were firing pucks, but his stint came to an end after Stanislav Berezhnoy was also called up from the AHL to join the Blackhawks for their road game in Nashville the following night.