Chris Levesque - Call-up To Vancouver

Call-up To Vancouver

On December 9, 2003, the Canucks were hosts to the Pittsburgh Penguins. That morning, their starting goalie Dan Cloutier injured his groin. The Canucks planned to start Johan Hedberg in Cloutier's place, but they still needed a backup. Under normal circumstances, they would have recalled Alex Auld from their American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate Manitoba Moose. However, the Moose were on the East Coast, several time zones away, and Auld could not arrive in Vancouver on time. Under NHL rules, the Canucks needed to find an undrafted player who had never played in the NHL.

Milan Drajicevic, the coach of the UBC Thunderbirds, happened to be at the practice when Cloutier was injured, and he suggested the Canucks use Levesque, UBC's second backup. Because of amateur call-up rules, the Canucks could not recruit the T-Birds' top two goaltenders, Kevin Swanson and Robert Filc. At the time Levesque was in one of the many UBC libraries studying for a geography exam he had the next morning. His friends and teammates scoured the campus, and when they found him, he assumed he was the victim of a prank. He was not convinced otherwise until he received a phone call from Jon Wall, Manager of Scouting and Player Information for the Canucks. Once he realized the situation was real, he quickly received a one-time exemption from Canadian Interuniversity Sport rules to play in the NHL, and drove to General Motors Place to take a spot on the bench.

When Cloutier failed to take the warm-up skate, Levesque officially took the position of backup goaltender for the game. There was an extremely low chance that Levesque would have to play. However, a late first-period collision between Hedberg and Konstantin Koltsov nearly forced Levesque to play. Luckily, Hedberg was not hurt. Levesque finished the game as a backup; the closest he came to any game action was taking warm-up shots before the game. The Canucks won 4-3 in overtime, and Levesque was not paid for his performance, although he kept his #40 jersey. He did not expect to return to play for the Canucks, but described his experience as "surreal" and "a great time," particularly highlighting being scored on by Todd Bertuzzi during practice.