Meet the Toledo Walleye’s emergency substitute goaltender

The Toledo Blade’s Mark Monroe penned a superb article profiling the Toledo Walleye’s emergency substitute goaltender, Kent Nusbaum:

When Toledo Walleye trainer Brad Fredrick walked into Jimmy John’s in Sylvania before a recent Sunday game, the last person he expected to make his sub was someone who has served as one of the team’s goaltenders.

Yet there was Kent Nusbaum, a 22-year-old fledgling netminder, standing behind the counter. The Temperance native has one of the most unusual part-time occupations in sports: emergency backup goaltender.

Nusbaum has become the Walleye’s go-to reserve player when a need arises. He has dressed several times for Toledo’s ECHL team — and its opponents — but has played in only one game.

“It’s unique,” Nusbaum said. “It’s exciting. I’d rather be doing something I love than working a normal job.”

But he is not a full-time member of the team. So to make ends meet while pursuing his dream of playing pro hockey, the 6-foot-6 and 180-pound Nusbaum also is sandwich-maker. And that was news to the team’s longtime trainer, Fredrick.

“Brad was shocked. He said, “Hey Baumer, what are you doing here?’ I said, ‘Just working my day job,’” Nusbaum said. “I made him a sandwich. I believe it was a No. 5.”

Every ECHL team has its own list of go-to substitute goalies who can be available at a moment’s notice. If the local team or its visiting opponent loses one of its two goalies to a sudden injury, illness, or transaction on game day, a substitute has to be available to sit on the bench in case he is needed.

Continued

Published by

George Malik

My name is George Malik, and I'm the Malik Report's editor/blogger/poster. I have been blogging about the Red Wings since 2006, when MLive hired me to work their SlapShots blog, and I joined Kukla's Korner in 2011 as The Malik Report. I'm starting The Malik Report as a stand-alone site, hoping that having my readers fund the website is indeed the way to go to build a better community and create better content.