Small Talk: From the Beer Leagues to the NHL

Two nights ago, on the eve of Thanksgiving, I sat huddled around a television with my family in our hotel room in Seattle. Naturally, we had on SportsCenter and the discussion bounced around from whether or not Arkansas could beat LSU (the majority of us believed, at the time, that they could have), David Shaw's critique of the BCS system and Virginia Tech's higher ranking (which we all agreed with) and to where high schooler seniors in our hometown in Wilmington, Delaware have committed to play collegiate sports next year (nothing exciting enough to report).

But then something caught my eye. On the left bar of the SportsCenter scroll, the title "51-Year Old Goalie?" appeared. Well that doesn't seem to be a big deal. A 51 year old goalie playing in a rec league? MAYBE in the AHL?

However, as it turned out, the Minnesota Wild had signed a 51-year old embroidery shop owner.

It was quite a twist of events that lead to Paul Deutsch's signing to the team. Niklas Backstrom was out for personal reasons. The team pulled up a back up goalie from their AHL team, but that team is located in Houston so the goalkeeper wasn't guaranteed to make the game given holiday traffic and his flight time. The Wild weren't willing to take any chances with having only one goalie on the bench, so they signed Paul Deutsch to what is called an Amateur Tryout Contract (ATO).

If that turn of events wasn't strange enough, I learned that there is a rule in the National Hockey League for goaltenders for situations just like this one. It's called the Emergency Recall Rule which allows teams to call up a goalkeeper (who must arrive within a reasonable amount of time) to sit on the bench (or play) in the event that their #1 and #2 goalkeepers cannot play. The catch? The player cannot be a professional hockey player. But what's crazy about the situation is that this isn't the first time it's happened. The Washington Capitals once exercised this rule and signed their website editor to an ATO and the Vancouver Canucks gave a third-string college goalie a chance at the limelight in the emergency goalie position. I'm sure the list goes on.

So this is where Deutsch steps in. He had zero professional experience, hadn't played real competitive hockey since he was on the junior varsity team in high school in the late 70s, and only began playing goalkeeper at the age of 37 when he got sick and tired of his "beer league" hockey games getting cancelled because there weren't enough goalies.

It almost seems like the most outrageous "realizing the American Sports Dream" story. Up there perhaps with Rudy. But sadly, Deutsch's amateur contract reached a premature end when the Wild's back up goalie miraculously arrived from Houston in time for the game.

I think this story is a bit ironic in terms of what's going on in the sports world at the moment. Here we have a 51-year old man, willing to suit up in our nation's highest hockey league (arguably as a favor to a friend, former Minnesota Wild assistant coach Mike Ramsey) and the NBA can't reach a CBA deal? This guy wasn't even paid and he was able to reach an agreement with this team.

So maybe Deutsch didn't save the day (pun intended). Maybe he only took a few shots during warm up when the starting goaltender needed a break. I suppose it was lucky for the Wild that Deutsch was already planning on attending that night's game (albeit with a youth team he was chaperoning). But it just goes to show you that no matter where you are, no matter who you think is watching you, you might just want to consider giving it your all on the ice. Who knows, maybe tomorrow you'll be playing in the National Hockey League.