Former Brunswick High player Spencer Marquis (30) makes a save as the emergency backup goalie for Merrimack College on Sunday, Oct. 6. Marquis saved 22 shots in a 3-2 overtime loss to Stonehill College. Jim Stankiewicz / Merrimack Athletics

When Spencer Marquis became a student equipment manager for the Merrimack College ice hockey program this fall, the senior knew two things: the internship requirement for his sports management degree would be fulfilled, and he was about to do a lot of laundry.

The laundry list of responsibilities grew on Sunday, as the former Brunswick High goalie took the ice for Merrimack’s season opener against Stonehill College.

“It’s just been a super, super fast-moving, last 48 hours,” Marquis told the Times Record in a Sunday evening phone interview. “I mean, every kid dreams of playing college hockey, so I’m definitely fulfilling that one.”

The Warriors have three goalies on the roster, but due to injury and ineligibility, the chances of having any of them available to play in Sunday’s season opener against Stonehill were slim. The circumstances forced head coach Scott Borek and the Merrimack coaching staff to look down the bench at Marquis, who played for the Dragons from 2017-2021.

The last time Marquis skated was seven to nine months ago when he was asked to play goalie for a men’s league in Massachusetts. He didn’t even have his equipment on campus when found out there was a possibility of playing over the weekend.

“Friday at 3 o’clock, I got a call from (another student manager), and he said, ‘Hey, you should probably bring your gear down, just in case,'” Marquis said.

Marquis quickly called his parents and explained the situation. Trevor Marquis, a senior at Brunswick High, collected his brother’s gear and drove it to North Andover, Massachusetts, that evening. The first time Spencer Marquis touched the ice was around 10 p.m. Friday, when he faced shots from a few Merrimack players.

As he prepared both mentally and physically, Marquis also had to prepare paperwork. In order to be eligible as the emergency backup goalie, the student equipment manager had to be added to the roster and go through the same NCAA Clearinghouse procedures as the rest of the varsity team, including passing a physical and taking a blood test. Borek had to request a waiver for Marquis to dress and sit on the bench for Saturday’s exhibition game against Sacred Heart. He wore No. 30.

On Sunday morning, Marquis’ blood tests came back clean. He was officially cleared to play. Puck drop was at 4 p.m.

Marquis’ family found out he was playing while on their way to the game from a social media post by Mike McMahon of College Hockey News.

“We were driving down today, anyway, just to support him,” Julie Marquis, Spencer’s mother, said. “It’s not every day you get to suit up for D-I hockey. … We were following a gentleman that was posting about Merrimack hockey, and he was like, ‘Spencer’s getting the start,’ and we were just all screaming.”

Spencer Marquis, third from left, takes a photo with his family and friends, from left, aunt Cheri Siatras, brother Trevor Marquis, Spencer Marquis, mother Julie Marquis, father Joe Marquis, friend Vito Sullivan, after his 22-save performance for Merrimack as an emergency backup goalie on Sunday, Oct. 6. Courtesy of Julie Marquis

Before Marquis took the ice, Borek gave his new player one piece of advice — just have fun.

“What he did to get to this point, all the work he put in, and then his willingness to step into the net in a Division I college hockey game, I just thought it was awesome and showed a lot of things,” Borek said on Monday. “Number one, a lot of courage; number two, a lot of ability; and number three, a lot of (willingness to) compete. That’s someone who’s willing to do that. He’s giving you something, because it’s not an easy task to play that position, anyway, never mind with the experience he has not had recently. It was a big move by him.”

The opportunity was not lost on anyone in Lawler Arena. Throughout the game, referees and several players came up to Marquis and congratulated him. Marquis said he started to realize the magnitude of the moment during warmups prior to Saturday’s exhibition game. On Sunday, he was locked in.

“The way I looked at it was, ‘Hey, I got nothing to lose,’ so why not just go all out?” Marquis, the only Merrimack goalie listed in the pregame program, said. “Like I said earlier, this is almost every kid’s dream growing up, is to play college hockey. So if I got in there and I didn’t try my hardest, I knew that I’d look back and be kind of disappointed in myself.”

The Warriors were the first to strike when Ty Daneault scored on a tip-in 14:38 into the first period. On the play, Daneault beat Stonehill goalie Connor Androlewicz, a graduate transfer from the University of Maine who played 20 games for the Lewiston-based Maine Nordiques in 2019-20.

Stonehill’s Brady Hunter matched the score on a power play shortly before the end of the period.

Marquis notched eight of his 22 saves in the opening frame. Each time he touched the puck, the crowd cheered and banged on the glass in celebration. The loudest reaction came with 5:29 left in the second period when Marquis forced a miss of a Stonehill penalty shot.

Bringing the Lawler Faithful to their feet!#GoMack x #MissionMerrimack pic.twitter.com/HUuJHJMnMc

— Merrimack Men’s Hockey (@Merrimack_MIH) October 6, 2024

Borek couldn’t believe that one of the few collegiate penalty shots he had ever seen happened on his team’s EBUG (emergency backup goalie), but as former Brunswick boys hockey coach Mike Misner pointed out, this wasn’t even the first time it happened to Marquis.

Before the second game against Mt. Ararat in the 2017-18 season, Brunswick’s senior goalie Riley Kirk fell ill. In his place, Marquis, just a freshman, made his first high school varsity start. And like Sunday’s game against Stonehill, he was tested early.

“All of Topsham was there, and half of Brunswick, and so the place is pretty packed,” Misner, who coached Brunswick from 2017-2023, said. “Literally, within the first minute of the game, Mt. Ararat’s best player draws a penalty, and it’s a penalty shot, which hardly ever happens in high school hockey. I mean, it just doesn’t happen. It’s pretty rare. Everybody’s screaming. They’ve got signs behind Spencer that say, ‘He’s a sieve’ and everything. The kid lines up for a penalty shot, comes in and misses the shot, and we end up going on winning the game.”

Unfortunately for Merrimack, the storybook ending was not rewritten.

Holding a 2-1 lead with about 20 seconds remaining in the third period, Merrimack had a chance to add another goal on an open net, but made an unnecessary extra pass, which allowed Stonehill to recover the puck, bring it back to their side of the ice and score on a tip-in with 8.9 seconds left.

The Skyhawks then scored off a rebound 38 seconds into overtime after forcing a turnover in the neutral zone to win 3-2.

“I thought he played really well,” Borek said, adding that none of the three goals scored were Marquis’ fault. “It was great. Ten seconds away from being an unbelievable story. It still is. I hope that’s not lost on people. It’s certainly not lost on me. The fact that we let him down and didn’t get the result that we should have gotten, that was my biggest disappointment in the game.

“We’re going to win and lose some games this year, and you just have to bounce back from them, but he deserved the W last night. I would love to have given that to him, and I was really disappointed we weren’t able to.”

Marquis said he isn’t dwelling on the loss and has received an outpouring of support, from the postgame huddle on the ice to the many messages from people back home in Brunswick and across Maine.

“As I’m talking to you right now, my phone’s buzzing with text messages,” Marquis said. “Everybody’s just super, super happy for me, and they keep telling me I played my heart out and that I gave it my all. Yeah, it’s not the outcome I wanted, but I mean, the experience was so, so cool.”

Sunday isn’t necessarily then the end of Marquis’ collegiate hockey career. According to Borek, it will be up to Marquis on if he wants to dress and be available for more games this season or return to his equipment manager role.

Sometime this week, the NCAA will vote on whether former players from the Canadian Hockey League, the top junior league in North America, are eligible to play in the NCAA. Currently, they are not. If the ruling changes, Merrimack’s goaltender Max Lundgren, who has served one game of a two-game suspension for playing professionally in Sweden, may be granted a waiver.

Regardless of the decision, Borek said Marquis will travel and dress for Merrimack in the Oct. 11 and Oct. 12 away games at Minnesota State-Mankato. For the student manager turned Division I athlete, he plans to take this week one step at a time.

“I know that this isn’t gonna last forever,” Marquis, who recently made the Merrimack club golf team, said, “But if I can just soak it in while it’s happening, and when it’s done, look back and be like, ‘Hey, that was super cool, and the opportunity I got was one in a million,’ you know what I mean? It’s awesome.”