But Ferrara was enamored of the chase, dipping into his bag of tricks often to keep the dream alive. He had fun with it, introducing himself to teams using colorful agent names, like Victor Fox or Nellie LaChanse, that caused even Ferrara to crack up. The ruse worked, over and over again.

Ferrara had other ways to get by. During a training camp early in his career, he said, he approached his locker to find his name misspelled above it: F-E-R-R-A-R-O. Teammates and coaches presumed he was a nephew of Ray Ferraro, a former N.H.L. All-Star who twice scored 40 goals in a season. Ferrara did not have the heart to correct them.

Another time, a team named the South Carolina Stingrays brought Ferrara in and was somewhat confused when he arrived. He had told management that he was 27, but when the team payroll department ran his tax information, it showed he was 33. Ferrara insisted the computer was lying. The Stingrays shrugged it off, Ferrara said, and kept him on their roster, anyway.

And so it went. A few games here. A few games there. Where a box score was concerned, Ferrara made almost no mark. Between 2003 to 2014, he did more than 20 stints with 19 minor league teams, many of which no longer exist. Ferrara scored only one goal, in 2012, which he described as a one-hop dribbler that just squeaked by the goalie.

But he left in his trail a host of players and coaches smitten with his play, his enthusiasm to sacrifice his own body, his willingness to fight an opponent’s toughest player in defense of his teammates.

“I played with a lot of guys,” said Jamie Rivers, a longtime N.H.L. veteran and Ferrara’s coach on the St. Charles Chill of the Central Hockey League. “I’d put Nello in the top five in terms of his willingness to do whatever it took for the team.”

Ferrara’s (real) agent, Justin Duberman, added with a laugh: “Nello’s gone to great lengths to get opportunities. But, to be honest, he might not have ever gotten them without doing what he did.”