So far, he's been named an Honourary North Carolinian, has his stick entered in the Hall of Fame and has appeared on countless sports and talk programs. Now, a new accolade is coming for emergency backup goaltender David Ayres. He will be immortalized by Upper Deck with his own hockey card. And, yes, there will be more than one and some will be rare.
According to Upper Deck, Ayres will be featured in the company's “Game Dated Moments” collection, which are cards unveiled on a weekly-basis that highlight notable performances from the past week. Ayres’ card features him standing in the Hurricanes’ net, wearing the team’s jersey and Maple Leafs equipment, while the back of the card tells the story of the game. Other cards in Ayres’ pack include an Alexander Ovechkin card highlighting his 700th career goal and one about Los Angeles Kings forward Gabriel Vilardi, who scored his first NHL goal just 10 seconds into his first shift.
"When we saw the moment, we were blown away by how special it was,” Chris Carlin, head of customer experience at Upper Deck, said in a phone interview with CTVNews.ca.
Carlin told CTV News the cards for each week are chosen based on fan requests and that calls for an Ayers card were “like something we’ve never seen before." It’s already one of their top-performing weekly designs.
But wait, there's more! Ayres will also be getting his own rookie card from Upper Deck. His "Young Guns" card will be released in mid-May and will likely be a very limited release (100 or less) meaning they will have some value. Carlin joked that the company considered calling Ayres' rookie card "Old Guns", given his age of 42, but decided against it.
Ayres, of course, joined the Hurricanes as an emergency goalie on Saturday after both their regular goalies left the game due to injury. He went on to make eight saves on 10 shots to help the Hurricanes beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 6-3.
