Amid the hype, one thing was missing
David Ayres became a goalie because of his father, Robert, and he thought about what his dad might say if he were still around
RALEIGH, N.C. — More than seven hours before the Carolina Hurricanes’ game against the Dallas Stars on Tuesday night, David Ayres walked into the Hurricanes locker-room at PNC Arena with his wife by his side. The team had flown Ayres to Raleigh, to celebrate his improbable story, and while the longest dream of his life morphed into reality, parts of it still felt unreal.
It began three days earlier, on Saturday night in Toronto. That was when Ayres went from the upper deck to the ice; when he went from eating a Reuben sandwich in Section 317 to playing goalie for the Hurricanes during the final 28 minutes of their victory against the Maple Leafs.
Ayres, from Whitby, was 42-years-old, a former Zamboni driver and the current operations manager of the historic arena where the Maple Leafs used to play. He’d survived a kidney transplant. He’d lived his improbable dream of one day playing in an NHL game. Now everyone wanted to meet him.
At around 11:30 on Tuesday morning, a Hurricanes’ staffer led him through the locker-room, giving him a tour. Ayres paused to check out the weight room, then the lockers and then walked down a hall where some of the team’s players received treatment in a training room. Ayres walked in to cheers.
“There he is,” one of the players said, his voice rising.
“The legend’s here!” another shouted. “Oh, no,” Ayres said, laughing, smiling, downplaying his new-found celebrity.
Ayres wore a black Hurricanes polo and his wife, Sarah, stood near him, taking in this scene — her husband casually chit-chatting with his former teammates, for one game, in an NHL lockerroom.
Soon Ayres was in another room, meeting with Tom Dundon, the Hurricanes’ owner, and Rod Brind’Amour, their head coach. They all talked like they’d been friends for a long time. Brind’Amour knew the players had something special in the works for the postgame — a special Zamboni ride. But, he said more than once, “We’ve got to win.”
Instead they suffered a 4-1 defeat. No Storm Surge. Ayres’ life moved closer to returning to normalcy. Fans filed out of PNC Arena. Some of them wore white Hurricanes’ shirts with the No. 90 and Ayres’ name on the back. Days later, it all still felt surreal.
When Ayres’ story began to spread Saturday night, it sounded like the plot of a Disney movie. A 42-year-old Zamboni driver, thrust into an NHL game. A man who grew up in rinks and atop frozen ponds, achieving a lifelong dream of playing at the highest level of professional hockey. The emergency, on-call goaltender coming to the rescue, leading a team of strangers to victory. A kidney transplant survivor who persevered.
It was easy to distil Ayres, and his story, into a tweet or two. By the time he saved the final eight shots he faced Saturday night, and helped lead the Hurricanes to a 6-3 victory against the Leafs, Ayres was trending on social media. The public could not get enough of him.
And yet, like with a lot of things on Twitter, important details were lost along the way. The “Zamboni goalie,” as Ayres became known, only described part of his identity. It said nothing of his lifelong pursuit of this moment; or about his connection with his late father, who taught him the game; or about what he’d overcome after a kidney transplant.
Still, Ayres embraced the “Zamboni goalie” moniker, even if it was something of a caricature. Years ago, the woman he married knew Ayres for driving a Zamboni before she met him. Now he and Sarah have known each other for about four years, and been married for two and a half.
“It’s going to sound like I’m pumping his tires for a little bit,” she said during a phone interview earlier this week. “But I don’t know one person that could ever say anything negative about him . ... He constantly gives (at) every opportunity, every chance he can. And he’s the funniest guy you’ve ever met.”
Sarah said she doesn’t drink, but when her husband entered the game on Saturday night a Maple Leafs fan bought her a beer. She drank about half of it to calm her nerves. She’d been on the phone with her mom, screaming the news. Her heart pounded. Down below, Ayres stepped onto the ice and skated to the net. He thought of the one person who’d most appreciate seeing this moment, but who wasn’t around to experience it.
Not long after his NHL debut began, Ayres surrendered two goals on the first two shots he faced. Days later, Dundon, the Hurricanes’ owner, told Ayres that he began to feel badly for him when he allowed those early goals — that he felt like Ayres was overmatched. Ayres, though, entered the arena Saturday night with no shortage of experience against pros.
For years, he’d been a practice goalie with the Maple Leafs and the Marlies. He knew the tendencies of the players he was facing. He knew how they might try to score against him. After the second goal, Ayres said days later, recounting the moment, he looked up at the scoreboard and tried to focus.
“You can’t go out and embarrass yourself like this,” he told himself.
Soon it was intermission between the second and third period. His nerves calmed. He didn’t allow a goal in the third period and saved the final eight shots he faced. At one point during a timeout that period, he tried to absorb everything that surrounded him: The scene of 20,000 fans.
He wished his dad could see him now. Ayres became a goalie because of his father, Robert, and he thought about what his dad might say if he were around — especially if he were around to see Ayres allow two early goals. He imagined his dad would’ve told him to breathe.
“That’s what my dad used to say — ‘Just relax,’ ” Ayres said. “‘You can’t get that one back.’ ”
That his father wasn’t around to witness Saturday night was perhaps the only disappointing thing about it. Robert Ayres died in 2015, leaving behind his wife, Mary, and three children who grew up, like a lot of Canadian kids, with a healthy obsession with hockey.
David Ayres was no different. He began playing when he was about three. By the time he was six, he knew he wanted to be a goalie. Other kids could chase glory in the pursuit of scoring. Ayres found meaning in not allowing the puck to pass him by. He didn’t mind the bruises that came with the position, because he viewed those as proof of success.
On Saturday nights during Ayres’ childhood, the family made a habit of watching Ayres’ dad play at Scarborough Centennial Arena, outside of Toronto. The setting wasn’t fancy and neither were the games.
Ayres said his father was “a beer leaguer,” and that it took the passage of some years to appreciate the value of seeing his dad compete, regardless of the quality of competition. Eventually the lessons became clearer.
In some ways, they shaped his passion for the sport. He told his parents the same thing that a million other Canadian boys tell their own: That one day he’d grow up to play in the NHL. That was his goal, from childhood, and he refused to let it die when he realized the odds and while he drifted through stints with lower-level minor league teams.
He kept it alive in 2005 when, after an extended illness, he needed a kidney transplant.
It is “pretty rare,” Mary Ayres said during a phone interview earlier this week, for a mother to be able to donate a kidney to her child. But she proved to be a match for her son, and made the easy decision to become a donor. The transplant happened at St. Michael’s Hospital, in Toronto.
At the time, in 2005, David Ayres feared that his health might preclude him from ever playing hockey again. The physical demands of goaltending strain the body in such a way that he knew a return to the sport was not necessarily a given.
“He was devastated because, to him, the first thing that went through his head was I’m never going to be able to play hockey again,” Mary said.
And yet, still, Ayres held onto his belief. He told his doctors they needed to be careful with the transplant, that he had a hockey career to get back to. At the time, he was playing for lower-level minor league teams, clinging to hope of working his way up. For years, and years, Ayres stuck around the sport, refusing to let go.
The people closest to Ayres often speak of his refusal to give up. For evidence, they use the story of his transplant, and how easy it might’ve been for him to slow down, or stop playing.
“Dave’s 42,” said Mike Hanna, one of his closest friends from back home. He and Ayres coach a team of 13-year-olds together outside of Toronto — the Whitby Wildcats. “He kept working at it, he kept plugging away, he didn’t give up, he didn’t quit.
“Obviously, the Leafs have been great to him in giving him a great opportunity. But I said he just kept on working and pushing — that just shows that anything is possible if you want to put the work in and the time and the dedication into it.”
That’s one reason why Ayres, who is more comfortable amid quiet, has embraced the attention. He hopes his story can inspire.
“There’s nothing too big that you can’t handle in life,” Mary said by phone.