The Greatest Rule in Sports: Hockey’s EBUG

ESPN Daily

ESPN

Sports

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 1 July 2022

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s the dream of every sports fan: the star player on your favorite team goes down with an injury. The coach is desperate, and someone needs to step up. Somehow you, the average sports fan, get picked out of the stands to hit with the bases loaded, or step in at quarterback, or take the game winning shot. Obviously, that never happens in real life, or in sports, really…except for extremely rare occasions in hockey, thanks to the EBUG rule: which stands for Emergency Back-Up Goaltender. It’s a rule that requires NHL teams to have a random person standing by in the arena, ready to hit the ice should either team’s two goalies both get injured. Jeremy Schaap interviewed some EBUGs who have been called to action, and he brings us the stories of the lucky few who have lived every fan’s dream. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Jeremy Jeff, where are we starting this particular story?
0:03.2	Let's start the story on April 30th, 2022, just a couple of months ago.
0:08.1	The last day of the NHL regular season, we're in Dallas, the ducks are in town,
0:14.5	and the ducks starting goalie, John Gibson, in the first period he suffers with a call in hockey,
0:19.8	and only in hockey, an upper body injury.
0:22.7	A curve ball coming out of the locker room and net for the ducks Anthony Stolars takes over,
0:29.5	for John Gibson, John wrong.
0:31.4	That means the back up goes into the game.
0:34.8	They're back up goalie Anthony Stolars.
0:37.3	But in the second period, he suffers, again, they only call it this in hockey,
0:43.2	a lower body injury.
0:46.0	And that means there's no goalie on the roster left to play for the Anaheim ducks.
0:51.9	And this is where emergency backup goalies enter the picture.
1:00.9	In this case, a gentleman named Thomas Hodges, at this point, must come to the ice after having
1:08.4	been sitting in the stands.
1:10.8	Totally, anonymously, you would have no idea if you were sitting next to him,
1:15.4	having a beer eating a hot dog that you were sitting next to the guy who's going to play in the
1:19.5	third period, Pablo. He quickly changes from Clark Kent into Superman, and he becomes in an
1:29.4	instant in NHL goalie.
1:32.8	And now look at this, the emergency backup goal tender, Thomas Hodges for the Dallas stars
1:39.3	is now playing for the ducks in the third period.
1:42.4	Dreams do come true in the national hockey league.
	...

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