Opportunity knocks

"I got the call." the emergency backup goalie said: "'Come on down, bring your gear, get dressed.'" Plus, 7 other things worth a click.

Here's some weird hockey trivia. At any NHL game, there's a nonzero chance that before the end of the match, someone watching from the stands will wind up playing for one of the teams on the ice.

It's because of the NHL rule on “EBUGs,” or "emergency backup goalies."

These are backups to the backups, available if a team loses both its starting goaltender and its backup during the course of the game.

Granted, they don't just pick a random spectator.

Usually the emergency goalies are former amateur players or even minor leaguers. But they're not NHL pros, and in fact emergency goalies have taken the ice twice in the last two years:

• Scott Foster, a 36-year-old accountant who'd last played in college, suited up for the Chicago Blackhawks in the last half of the third period of a 2018 game, after both of Chicago's goalies were injured. (He didn't allow a goal.)

• Dave Ayres, 42, a Zamboni driver in Toronto named played almost half of a game last weekend for the Carolina Hurricanes, in their win …