It wasn't the typical Thursday night for Scott Foster.
When the Chicago Blackhawks lost goalies Anton Forsberg and Collin Delia to injuries, Foster, a 36-year-old accountant, was called into action.
Foster stopped all seven shots he faced over the final 14 minutes of the Blackhawks' 6-2 victory over the playoff-bound Winnipeg Jets on Thursday at the United Center in Chicago.
"This is something that no one can ever take away from me," Foster told reporters. "It's something that I can go home and tell my kids, and they can tell their friends. ... Just a ton of fun."
Foster is part of a crew of recreational goaltenders who staff Chicago's home games in case of emergencies for either team. But it usually just means a nice dinner and a night in the press box watching the world's best players compete at hockey's highest level.
Nothing at all like this.
"What a moment," Blackhawks Coach Joel Quenneville said.
Forsberg was expected to start, but he got hurt during a "pregame ritual," according to Quenneville. Delia, who was just recalled from the minors Wednesday, then stopped 25 of 27 shots in his NHL debut before he was helped off the ice with 14:01 left after cramping up.
Enter Foster, a married father of two who lives in nearby Oak Park, Ill., and plays in two recreational leagues. After a short warmup, the game resumed and Foster got a big cheer from the crowd of 21,839 when he denied Tyler Myers for his first save about a minute after he came in.
Backed by chants of "Foster! Foster!" and more loud ovations, he made another stop on Myers, then turned away Paul Stastny and Dustin Byfuglien in the final minutes. When it was over, the Blackhawks poured onto the ice and mobbed Foster in the net.
The NHL adjusted its rules last summer to mandate that teams have an emergency goalie present for all home games to fill in for either team -- setting the stage for Foster's most competitive action since 20 minutes in relief with Western Michigan University in the 2005-2006 season.
"A few hours ago I was sitting on the computer typing on a 10-key, and now I'm standing in front of you guys having just finished 14½ minutes of NHL hockey," he cracked.
All about Sister Jean
On Good Friday, it was a nun who stole the show the day before the Final Four in San Antonio.
Hundreds of reporters and cameramen jammed an interview room Friday at the Alamodome to hear Sister Jean Dolores-Schmidt, Loyola-Chicago's 98-year-old team chaplain.
"I walked by, and I thought it looked like Tom Brady at the Super Bowl," Loyola-Chicago Coach Porter Moser, a former coach at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2000-2003, told The Associated Press.
This was the No. 1 fan of Moser and the Ramblers -- the 11th-seeded team whose magical run to the cusp of the title would've made for great theater, even without a nun.
Sister Jean fielded questions during her 15-minute news conference about everything from whether God cares about basketball -- "more the NCAA than the NBA" -- some light trash talk with former Michigan star Jalen Rose's 100-year-old grandma -- "Somebody said, 'Maybe you need a pair of boxing gloves' and I said, 'Well, we'll see what happens' " -- and what it takes to really have your prayer heard -- "God always hears, but maybe He thinks it's better for us to do the 'L' instead of the 'W,' and we have to accept that."
Once Sister Jean's news conference was over, then it was time to move onto the day's regularly scheduled menu of interviews with coaches and players.
But she was having a grand time.
"I could stay for an hour," she said.
Sports on 03/31/2018