Zamboni driver gets hockey cards from Upper Deck

David Ayres, a 42-year-old maintenance operations manager and part-time Zamboni driver, stopped eight of 10 shots as an emergency back-up goalie for the Carolina Hurricanes and helped them to a 6-3 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs. Now he has his own hockey cards, thanks to Upper Deck.

“Before, during and after the game fans reached out to Upper Deck sharing they wanted to see cards of Ayres in new hockey sets, but there was one major problem, Ayres is not a member of the NHLPA,” Upper Deck stated. “That means Upper Deck would need to secure an individual deal with Ayres to appear in new trading card sets and that’s EXACTLY what we did.”

Ayres’ first-ever Upper Deck NHL trading card is available through the company’s Game Dated Moments program (Card #57) and is only available via e-Pack through March 6 at 8:59 a.m. Pacific Time. 

The Upper Deck team was also able to scramble to get Ayres his very own Upper Deck Young Guns Update Rookie card (which will include UD Exclusives parallels /100 and High Gloss parallels /10) in 2019-20 NHL® SP Authentic set to be released in mid-May.