Scott Foster, a 36-Year-Old Accountant, Filled In as Blackhawks Goalie

Scott Foster will drink for free for the rest of his life. That much is guaranteed.

A series of perfect coincidences last night produced one of the rarest sports stories you can possibly fathom. A 36-year-old by the name of Scott Foster—who normally plays for a beer league in Chicago—subbed in as the emergency goalie for the Chicago Blackhawks and absolutely stonewalled every shot that came his way in 14 minutes. All shortly after finishing a day of work at his office job as an accountant.

As the Chicago Blackhawks took on the Winnipeg Jets, they knew they were already out their first string goalie Anton Forsberg, who was injured right before the game while playing soccer. So that left them with just their backup, Collin Delia. Just in case, they signed Foster as an emergency goalie and he watched most of the game from the press box. But then Delia got hurt, and the Blackhawks were left with just Foster, a guy who last played a competitive game in 2005, also in relief, for Western Michigan.

The NHL has one delightful bylaw in it, whereby it's the only pro sport that allows for someone not on the roster to play in the game. That person, Scott Foster, likely didn't think that this set of circumstances would ever befall him. But there he was, with 14 minutes on the clock, strapping up to play his first ever professional game, amidst a few chuckles from the Chicago bench, including head coach Joel Quenneville. It probably helped that Chicago was up 6-2 at the time.

But those chuckles transformed into shit-eating grins, as Scott Foster came to absolutely dominate the goal, putting up stop after stop after stop. Just look at the Blackhawks Twitter feed as it tries to lend words to the euphoria rippling through the crowd:

At the end of the night, Foster put up seven saves to preserve a 6-2 lead for the Blackhawks—and some of those saves were real beauties. Just take a look:

Of course he was named the first star of the game, and of course he was snagging interviews after the game. But on top of being the hero of the night on the ice, he also was delivering legendary post-game comments:

And just to give you an idea of where the man came from, his whole crew down at Johnny's IceHouse—where he usually plays for his beer league—packed in to take in their friend's debut.

The legend of Scott Foster is the kind of stuff that makes your hair stand on end while shaking your head. What an absolute dreamland scenario. Sure, he may be a bit on the older side, but someone, for the love of God, sign that man. This kind of magic doesn't come by too often.