NEW YORK, N.Y. - Tom Fenton was supposed to be enjoying his final day in Purchase, N.Y., before heading home for the holiday break, but it all changed when he received a once in a lifetime phone call. "My phone rang, but I didn't pick it up," said Fenton, the director of community relations and a volunteer men's hockey coach at Manhattanville.
After missing the initial call, Fenton re-called Steve Ketchabaw, President of the Rye Rangers Youth Hockey Program and was asked if he would be interested in playing hockey tonight in New York City.
After thinking for a couple of seconds, Ketchabaw explained to Tom that he received a call from Frank Effinger, the Director of Scouting for the Phoenix Coyotes of the National Hockey League and they were in dire need of a backup goalie after their original starter, Ilya Bryzgalov, came down with the flu after a team meal on the second night of a four-game east coast road trip against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Thursday evening.
Fenton was not going to fall for what he thought was a practical joke. But when he began to receive calls from the organization asking if he could drop all his plans, gather his belongings and make his way to the arena, the decision was already made.
He made a pair of quick pit stops to his on-campus apartment to get properly dressed and to Playland Ice Casino to obtain his equipment from the locker room, then had to deal with rush-hour traffic heading to mid-town to make a five o'clock contract and medical deadline set forth by the league.
By now, the story was all over the internet with the headline “Man off the Street”. Fenton walked into the visiting dressing room at The Garden and proceeded to dress in his American International College pads and gloves, while sporting the number 35 of the Coyotes. He explained in a post-game interview, “One player told me to get rid of my stick, which had some AIC yellow on it”; luckily he had neutral color pads.
As for the game the Rangers defeated the Coyotes in a contest decided by goaltending, winning 4-3 (OT) in a shootout. Fenton was cool, calm and collected sitting at the end of the bench, but some scary moments happened in the final minutes of the second and third periods when starting netminder Jason LaBarbara seemed to tweak his groin, sending butterflies through his body.
"I wasn't even trying to think about that," Fenton said. "I was just trying to take everything all in. There was one point Barbs came across and made a pretty good save and he was kind of favoring his groin and I immediately started sweating on the bench.”
This was not the first time in NHL history that an emergency call-up was needed; in 2008, the Washington Capitals dressed a producer from the team's website after Jose Theodore was injured. However, that emergency call-up was replaced on the bench after their minor-league replacement showed up to the arena following the first period.
Fenton at times during the contest was seen talking to members of the team and was even the main feature of both the squads' television and radio broadcasts, with the former NCAA D-I netminder getting some face time with interviewers after the first and second periods.
As for the contract, Fenton signed a one-day amateur-based contract so no financial compensation was distributed at the end of the game. But for Fenton having the opportunity to keep his game-worn jersey, a game-used puck by Coyotes captain Shane Doan, along with a copy of the official score sheet and line-up card from head coach Dave Tippet, his 15 minutes of fame is something to talk about over Christmas dinner.
As the 'Yotes exited the arena on their way to Long Island minus Fenton, he will still be remembered forever as the “Man Off The Street”.
Oh, and if your still curious why Fenton didn't answer his phone originally, he was getting a haircut.
Phoenix Coyotes First-Period Intermission Report:
New York Rangers Second-Period Intermission Report:
New York Rangers On-Demand Postgame Interview:
SportsCenter Interview with Linda Cohn:
Audio Interviews:
WFAN with Steve Somers
Sportstalk NY
Tony Bruno Show
NHL Live (at 5:30 mark)
TSN Off the Record
News links:
ESPN.com
USA Today
NHL.com
Yahoo!
Phoenix Coyotes
Wall Street Journal
Pro Hockey Talk
Sportsnet.ca
Journal News
CollegeNews.com
KOLD.com (Phoenix)
RangerRants
Sarnia Observer
New York Magazine
