Of all the ways to return after nearly missing an entire season.

Imagine a chart-topping band needing to use a fan who's really good at Rock Band as their drummer. Or a NFL team putting an offensive lineman under centre after running out of healthy quarterbacks. Then you would have some idea of what happened in St. Catharines, Ont., on Sunday after the Erie Otters' only available goalie, Ramis Sadikov, was injured after being run by a Niagara IceDogs opponent just two minutes into the game.

With their other goaltender, Devin Williams, sitting out with a head injury he suffered two days earlier, centre Connor Crisp was drafted to go in goal. Crisp, gamely jamming his wide double-E feet into Sadikov's narrow goalie skates ("my coach said if I wore player skates, I'd break my foot"), allowed 13 goals on 45 shots in a 13-4 loss to Niagara. IceDogs management was hardly amused, with owner Bill Burke calling it "brutal" that the last-place Otters did not dress a backup goalie. But no one could fault Crisp for taking one for the team. His valiant effort led to him being named the game's first star and a trending topic on Twitter, with some joking that the goalie-deficient Toronto Maple Leafs should draft him.

"On Saturday they told me I was coming on the road and that I would be the backup goalie," Crisp, who just resumed full-contact practices with the Ontario Hockey League team and was itching to get in a game, said from the Otters' team bus. "Me and the guys were laughing about it on the bus coming up. Then just after warmups, Mikey [Hildenbrand], our equipment manager, made up a jersey for me.

"The next thing I know I'm skating out to centre. It was funny at first and then it just escalated from there."

Crisp had just found a spot to watch the game when Niagara's Alex Friesen barreled into Sadikov 1:45 into the contest. While Sadikov received medical attention, Crisp's cell phone buzzed. Before he knew it, he was donning Sadikov's gear, including his Popeye-motif goalie mask, to face one of the highest-scoring teams in junior hockey. The IceDogs have four skaters who were on Team Canada at the world junior hockey championship, including New York Islanders first-rounder pick Ryan Strome, who ended up scoring five goals. Conversely, the Otters are in last place.

"I was just hanging out in the stands and I saw Rammer [Sadikov] got run and I got a call from [Otters assistant general manager] Dave Brown saying, 'Are you ready?' " Crisp said. "I was like, 'Seriously?' And he says, 'Oh no, I think he'll be fine." And the next thing I know he's being helped off the ice.

"I pretty much sprinted to the change room and started gearing down. [Coach] Robbie [Ftorek] walked in and I asked, 'Am I going in?' He said, 'We need a goalie.' I've never been dressed up as a goalie before. I had no idea what I was doing. I had [teammate] Dane Fox strapping one pad on, our equipment manager doing up the other one, the goalie coach telling me what to do. It was a hectic 15 minutes of getting dressed. I've never been so nervous in my life.

"As soon as I got the nod from the coach, I was like, 'Jesus, this is becoming so real right now.' As soon as I stepped on the ice and could barely skate at first with the goalie skates on, I was thinking this could be a long day."

Once play resumed after a 20-minute delay, the IceDogs scored on their first three shots against him and seemed to ease off the throttle. There were a couple of 3-on-2 rushes when Strome, one of the best attackers in junior hockey, seemed to very slowly bring the puck over centre ice before passing off as he entered the Erie zone. However, the Otters were only down a goal after the first period. Realizing they couldn't lay back, Niagara came out harder in the second period and soon enough, the score mounted. The IceDogs players declined to raise their sticks after scoring.

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