Living the Dream

This gentleman you see in the picture is Paul Deutsch.  Don't feel bad if you're a Minnesota Wild fan and don't recognize him, though.  Until Wednesday, no one outside of the Wild organization heard of him, so why was Wednesday important for him?  The regular starting goaltender Nicklas Backstrom left the team for personal reasons (for a few days, obviously), so that left Josh Harding to be the starter.  To fill the void, the Wild called up Matt Hackett from their AHL affiliate in Houston to back him up.  Seeing as this is Thanksgiving weekend, travel was going to be tricky, and given that NHL rules prohibit the Wild from signing a player with professional experience as an emergency, that was where the 51-year old Deutsch came in.  Signed to an amateur tryout deal, Deutsch didn't get to actually suit up for the game, as Hackett got to the arena in time.  For Deutsch, he now has one heck of a story to tell to his friends and family, and it also provided a handy excuse for not being able to make his recreational hockey game that night.  On top of that, he's even got his own player bio on the Wild roster page (though how long it will stay up there remains to be seen).