Canadiens’ emergency goalie pines for taste of NHL
Sweet IQ software accounts man says, ‘If it would ever happen it would be supercool’
The Canadiens’ emergency backup goalie at the Bell Centre isn’t a Zamboni driver.
His name is Antoine Marchand and he’s a 27-year-old digital marketing software account manager for Sweetiq. Marchand is the emergency goalie for about 70 per cent of the games at the Bell Centre and Marc-antoine Turcotte is there for the rest. They both played for the Concordia University Stingers.
Marchand and Turcotte landed the emergency goalie roles through Stingers head coach Marc-andré Élement and a connection he has with the Canadiens.
Last Saturday night, David Ayres earned a win as an emergency backup goalie for the Carolina Hurricanes after starting goalie James Reimer and backup Petr Mrazek were injured. Ayres entered the game at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena midway through the second period with Carolina leading 3-1, allowed goals on the first two shots he faced and then stopped the next eight as the Hurricanes beat the Maple Leafs 6-3.
A star was born on Hockey Night in Canada.
Ayres, 42, is the operations manager at Toronto’s Mattamy Athletic Centre in the old Maple Leaf Gardens building and for five years was a full-time Zamboni driver for the AHL’S Toronto Marlies. To make his movie-script story even better, Ayres received a kidney transplant from his mother 15 years ago. Since last Saturday’s game, Ayres has appeared on the Today Show and the Late Show with Stephen Colbert in the U.S., was honoured before the Hurricanes game Tuesday night in Carolina and drove the Zamboni at the PNC Arena. And on Friday, the stick he used while beating the Maple Leafs was put on display at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.
What happened to Ayres is something Marchand has dreamed about for three years since becoming an emergency goalie for the Canadiens, available to play for either team at the Bell Centre if needed.
“It was supercool,” Marchand said about Ayres during the first intermission of the Canadiens’ 5-2 loss to the New York Rangers Thursday night at the Bell Centre. “It blows my mind. For me as a kid growing up, obviously, it was my dream to play for the Canadiens, a dream to play in the NHL in general. But when you see that, it warms my heart. Obviously, it’s a dream. For it to happen to Scott Foster two years ago and to happen again recently with David Ayres, it’s just something to see.”
Foster, an accountant who was 36 at the time, played for the Blackhawks in the final 14 minutes of a 6-2 win over the Winnipeg Jets in March 2018, stopping all seven shots he faced.
Marchand graduated from Concordia two years ago and plays recreational hockey once a week. The NHL has a rule that the emergency goalie cannot have played pro hockey at any level and Marchand is not paid for his role, but it does come with some nice perks.
Marchand’s office is located beside the Bell Centre. On game days, he gets to park in the players’ lot at the arena all day, making it easy to drop off his equipment. After finishing work around 6 p.m., he walks to the Bell Centre and the Canadiens provide him with a meal in the media lounge and a spot in the press box to watch the game. Marchand admitted he also enjoys a couple of hotdogs during some games.
Ayres and his wife are given standing-room tickets for Leafs games. He was paid $500 after playing for the Hurricanes and was allowed to keep his jersey as a souvenir.
Marchand said his friends and co-workers know about his position as an emergency goalie and think it’s pretty cool — especially the guys he plays with in recreational hockey.
“I put it in my CV just because it’s a really interesting thing that I can talk about with my co-workers,” Marchand said. “It’s a running joke kind of at the office that at 6 p.m. they usually see me going over to the Bell Centre. We talk about it frequently and they’re very cognizant of it. It’s nice.”
The closest Marchand has come to actually suiting up for a game at the Bell Centre was in January, when the Pittsburgh Penguins called up goalie Casey Desmith from the AHL’S Wilkes-barre/scranton team to serve as the backup to Matt Murray against the Canadiens. But Desmith couldn’t find his passport, so the Penguins made a call to the ECHL’S Wheeling Nailers for goalie Emil Larmi, who showed up just in time for the game.
“For about 30 minutes, I was very, very excited,” Marchand said. “It ended up being just kind of a false alarm, but it was supercool for like 30 minutes.
“If ever one day it happens, I’ll be very happy,” he added. “But it’s more than enough for me to be here and absorbing the environment. I feel very lucky.”
Marchand was asked if he feels like a kid waiting for Christmas — and then it never comes.
“That’s exactly what it’s like,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s just like Christmas morning and if it would ever happen it would be supercool.”