NHL forces Maple Leafs to relive humiliating moment on Saturday.

There is a schedule maker currently working at the National Hockey League that has a pretty wicked sense of humor.

We are fresh off of an extremely exciting international tournament that concluded on Thursday with the NHL's Four Nations Face-Off being a huge success by all accounts, but on Saturday we are right back into the thick of things with the NHL regular season resuming from where it left off.

It seems that the schedule makers at the NHL wanted hockey fans to be able to quickly get back into one of their favorite hobbies, poking fun at the Toronto Maple Leafs, at least that is what their decisions around the schedule for today's game would lead me to believe. In spite of the fact that there will be a whopping 14 games across the NHL, with 28 of the league's 32 teams in action today, somehow the Toronto Maple Leafs have ended up with a home game against the Carolina Hurricanes later tonight.

Now you might be asking yourself, why is a midseason game in Toronto against the Carolina Hurricanes significant? That would be a fair question. Well you see today isn't just any day, it actually marks the 5 year anniversary of a moment that many feel the Toronto Maple Leafs still have not lived down.

5 years ago today, this happened:

That's right, today will mark the 5 year anniversary of Emergency Backup Goaltender David Ayres making his NHL debut at the young age of 42 years old for the Carolina Hurricanes, while still wearing Maple Leafs branded goalie equipment, and leading the Hurricanes to victory over his hometown team.

It is a moment that hockey fans in Toronto certainly have not forgotten, and it is a moment that the rest of the fans in the NHL don't intend to let them live down any time soon either. It would seem that the schedule makers at the NHL offices happen to be in that second group of fans.