Great Story in Chicago

What a fantastic story developed Thursday night in Chicago.

Two goalies made their NHL debuts for the Blackhawks on this night. With Corey Crawford and, suddenly, Anton Forsberg out with injuries, first year pro, fresh from Merrimack University, Collin Delia got the unexpected start for the Hawks. But cramps would take Delia out of the game six minutes into the third period of the game.

Enter emergency goalie Scott Foster - an accountant by day and beer league goalie by night. He is one of several emergency goalies the Hawks invite to games - as per league rules - just in case something were to happen.

On this night something did happen, namely Forsberg's unexpected inability to play followed by Delia's inability to complete the game he started. So Foster - who had played two seasons of college hockey at Western Michigan about 15 years ago - actually had to enter the game.

It's pretty rare that the emergency goalie actually sees the ice. Usually if they do it is a token few seconds at the end of the game.

But Foster had a little less than 15 minutes to finish the game. Thankfully the Hawks had amassed a 6-2 lead, though it did not seem to matter. The accountant played pretty well, stopping all seven shots he faced including a good scoring chance by Paul Stastny.



Delia walked away with the 6-2 win even though he didn't finish the game. Foster walked away with the best story of the season.

By the way, it is not the first time the NHL has seen two goalies make their career debuts with the same team in the same game. It's happened twice before: Karl Friesen and Chris Terreri with New Jersey in 1986-87 and Marco Baron and James Stewart Jr with Boston in 1979-80)