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The St. Louis Blues dressed a vending machine worker as their emergency goalie on Thursday night
Kids, teenagers and 45-year-olds at the bar sipping on their fifth beer that definitely could have made that throw they just saw on TV alike have all had the same dream: suiting up for your favorite sports team. For most of us, it's nothing more than that, a dream. For St. Louis Blues season-ticket holder Tyler Stewart, the dream became reality on Thursday night.
Stewart, a 25-year-old vending machine worker, played goaltender for three seasons on the club team at Saint Louis University. According to NHL.com, that's how he was discovered by former Blue Jamie Rivers, who ran informal practices for the team during the lockout shortened 2012-2013 season. Stewart acted as the practice goalie for those practices, and parlayed it into a few stints as an extra goaltender during Blues prospect camps. He impressed enough to become the beneficiary of a new league rule that states each team must designate an "emergency goalie" to sit in the stands at each home game in case of injury. So Stewart brings his gear to each game, while knowing its highly unlikely the situation occurs.
On Thursday, backup goalie Carter Hutton was injured during the team's morning skate, but unfortunately for Tyler, the team called up its AHL goalie, Villie Husso. Tyler's dream would have to wait until another day ... but wait!
Two bullets dodged for Stewart. It was officially time to suit up:
And you better believe Stewart was up to the task. Here's footage of him in warmups:
Doesn't get much cooler than that.
From refilling vending machines in the morning to taking shots from NHLers at night. What an incredible day for Tyler Stewart, who isn't the first emergency goalie to see a dream come true. Check out all the awesome stories of regular joes getting the call in recent years here.