sleddy2008
01-31-2010, 03:08 AM
C/P from Globe and Mail
There is a plumber named Roberto Luongo who advertises his firm on Toronto sports radio station The Fan 590.
Apparently, Roberto The Plumber showed up at the Air Canada Centre on Saturday night and managed to play goal for the Vancouver Canucks.
How else to explain the Toronto Maple Leafs scoring twice (both by Phil Kessel on feeds from Matt Stajan) in the first four minutes? Or Jamal (‘Trade Me Right Now') Mayers blowing a slapshot from the right faceoff circle by him with 4.1 seconds left in the first period?
In any event, either Roberto The Goalie Luongo or Roberto ‘The Plumber' Luongo was not around to start the second period. Instead, it was former Maple Leaf Andrew Raycroft, whom most Leaf fans believe also impersonates a goaltender.
Not that it mattered in the end.
The Sedin twins and their right winger, Alexandre Burrows, showed up in the third period and they were all too real for the Maple Leafs.
They scored twice in two minutes right off the bat to tie the score and then Daniel Sedin scored his second goal of the period with two minutes, four seconds for the winner as the Canucks pulled out a 5-3 win.
Burrows added an empty-net goal, his second of the game, to finish things off. Henrik Sedin wound up with a goal.
When he came on in relief of Luongo, Raycroft was given the same treatment in his first appearance in Toronto since his contract was bought out two years ago as when he worked here – plenty of mock cheers. But he got the last laugh with the win.
Judging by the noise from management row upstairs, the game was much, much bigger than usual. There is little love between the hockey brains from the Canucks and the Leafs, you see, because the Leaf guys used to work for the Canucks and they tend to think Canucks general manager Mike Gillis had more than a little something to do with getting Dave Nonis fired as the Canucks' GM a couple of years ago.
Nonis is now the Leafs senior vice-president of hockey operations, reporting to his pal Brian Burke, who was fired by the Canucks as GM in 2004. So, yeah, the Leaf management box was a little noisier than usual Saturday night as the Leafs took a 3-1 lead but it got awful quiet in the third period.
At first, the Leafs looked surprisingly spry for an outfit that lost in overtime in New Jersey to the Devils on Friday night. They were all over the Canucks right from the opening faceoff and they were not bad defensively as the visitors gradually came back over the first 40 minutes thanks to a series of power plays.
But the Leafs' usually embarrassing penalty killing was spot-on, thanks in part to some good work by goaltender Vesa Toskala. He earned the start with some decent work in relief of Jonas Gustavsson against the Devils.
The high point for the penalty killers came late in the first period when they killed off a five-on-three Canucks power play. By the end of the second period, the Leafs snuffed out all four Vancouver power plays and held a 3-1 lead.
Up to that point, the Leafs line of Wayne Primeau and wingers Jason Blake and Lee Stempniak along with defenceman Francois Beauchemin held the potent Canucks line of the Sedin twins and Burrows in check, outside of a shorthanded goal by Burrows. But that all fell apart in the third period.
The Leaf power play, which coughed up a shorthanded goal to Burrows in the second period, could not come through when it mattered. With the score tied late in the third period, it could not produce a decent scoring chance.
There is a plumber named Roberto Luongo who advertises his firm on Toronto sports radio station The Fan 590.
Apparently, Roberto The Plumber showed up at the Air Canada Centre on Saturday night and managed to play goal for the Vancouver Canucks.
How else to explain the Toronto Maple Leafs scoring twice (both by Phil Kessel on feeds from Matt Stajan) in the first four minutes? Or Jamal (‘Trade Me Right Now') Mayers blowing a slapshot from the right faceoff circle by him with 4.1 seconds left in the first period?
In any event, either Roberto The Goalie Luongo or Roberto ‘The Plumber' Luongo was not around to start the second period. Instead, it was former Maple Leaf Andrew Raycroft, whom most Leaf fans believe also impersonates a goaltender.
Not that it mattered in the end.
The Sedin twins and their right winger, Alexandre Burrows, showed up in the third period and they were all too real for the Maple Leafs.
They scored twice in two minutes right off the bat to tie the score and then Daniel Sedin scored his second goal of the period with two minutes, four seconds for the winner as the Canucks pulled out a 5-3 win.
Burrows added an empty-net goal, his second of the game, to finish things off. Henrik Sedin wound up with a goal.
When he came on in relief of Luongo, Raycroft was given the same treatment in his first appearance in Toronto since his contract was bought out two years ago as when he worked here – plenty of mock cheers. But he got the last laugh with the win.
Judging by the noise from management row upstairs, the game was much, much bigger than usual. There is little love between the hockey brains from the Canucks and the Leafs, you see, because the Leaf guys used to work for the Canucks and they tend to think Canucks general manager Mike Gillis had more than a little something to do with getting Dave Nonis fired as the Canucks' GM a couple of years ago.
Nonis is now the Leafs senior vice-president of hockey operations, reporting to his pal Brian Burke, who was fired by the Canucks as GM in 2004. So, yeah, the Leaf management box was a little noisier than usual Saturday night as the Leafs took a 3-1 lead but it got awful quiet in the third period.
At first, the Leafs looked surprisingly spry for an outfit that lost in overtime in New Jersey to the Devils on Friday night. They were all over the Canucks right from the opening faceoff and they were not bad defensively as the visitors gradually came back over the first 40 minutes thanks to a series of power plays.
But the Leafs' usually embarrassing penalty killing was spot-on, thanks in part to some good work by goaltender Vesa Toskala. He earned the start with some decent work in relief of Jonas Gustavsson against the Devils.
The high point for the penalty killers came late in the first period when they killed off a five-on-three Canucks power play. By the end of the second period, the Leafs snuffed out all four Vancouver power plays and held a 3-1 lead.
Up to that point, the Leafs line of Wayne Primeau and wingers Jason Blake and Lee Stempniak along with defenceman Francois Beauchemin held the potent Canucks line of the Sedin twins and Burrows in check, outside of a shorthanded goal by Burrows. But that all fell apart in the third period.
The Leaf power play, which coughed up a shorthanded goal to Burrows in the second period, could not come through when it mattered. With the score tied late in the third period, it could not produce a decent scoring chance.