A New Miracle On Ice Story

Dave Ayers, 42, helped the Carolina Hurricanes defeat the Toronto
Mapleleafs during an NHL game over the weekend

This past weekend, hockey fans are celebrated the 40th anniversary of the "Miracle On Ice."

That was the moment during the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, New York when the United States defeated the supposedly unstoppable Soviet Union in their hockey match.

On Saturday, there was a second miracle on ice that maybe wasn't quite as dramatic as 1980, but still lots of fun.

In case you haven't heard, Saturday's moment came during a regular season NHL matchup between the Toronto Mapleleafs and Carolina Hurricanes in Toronto.

During the game, the Hurricanes' goalie was injured.  A second Hurricanes goalie entered the game, but then, he, too was injured. From there, the game wasn't finished and Hurricanes were out of goalies.

Or were they? As ESPN describes it: "Enter Dave Ayres, 42, a Zamboni driver and arena maintenanc worker for the Maple Leafs' AHL affiliate, the Toronto Marlies."

Ayres is also a kidney transplant recipient who has now suddenly become the oldest goalie to win his regular season debut.

Yep, that's right, the Hurricanes defeated Toronto 6-3.  The score was 3-1 in favor of Carolina when Ayers took over, so he definitely helped the team.  He stopped 8 of 10 shots during his portion of the game. Ayers was so good that Toronto fans loudly cheered him on.

Per NHL rules, Ayers will be paid $500.00 and be allowed to keep the jersey he wore. Of course, that modest payday pales in comparison to the experience.

I picture Snoopy on his Zamboni doing a little victory dance for Ayers.

So did his teammates. Ayers got a hero's welcome in the locker room after the game, as he was greeted by loud cheers and a torrent of Champagne.

By the way, t-shirts bearing Ayers' name are on demand. The Hurricanes are looking for a good kidney transplant organization to give them the proceeds.

The whole episode demonstrates how unexpected things can happen to a person. I think we all fret about disasters that might strike us, and that, unfortunately is a well-founded fear. You never know when you're going to get hit by a terrible illness, your house will burn down, you become a victim of a violent crime.

We don't think about how the opposite can happen. Lightning strikes in a fun, beautiful way. Maybe it doesn't happen as often as we like because we resist the good fortune that hits us.  After all, what if you screw it up?

Ayers had that fear.  He gave up two shots on goal when he first went out on that ice. Then a teammate told him the obvious: Don't worry about it. Just have fun. Everybody knew Ayers was not the best goalie in the world. So just go with the flow. And he did.

He relaxed, and blocked all those shots.  I guess this is a lesson to us all. When "threatened" with a shot of good fortune, or just fun, just go with the flow. Who cares if you mess up a couple shots on goal?   We all do, after all, and nobody condemns us for that.

Here's a video, which is an NHL highlight clip of Ayers' winning performance on the ice: