Читать книгу Hope and Heartbreak in Toronto. Life as a Maple Leafs Fan онлайн

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It was June 1997 and I was in Bangkok, the nerve centre of backpacker travel in Southeast Asia and, as that song from the mid-1980s said, a place that can make you feel really humble. The Hangover Part II later detailed how easy it is to forget what happened the night before in that city.

But there was no forgetting the image in front of me: Murphy clad in a Red Wings jersey celebrating winning hockey’s Holy Grail with surefire Hall of Famer Steve Yzerman having just accepted the trophy for the very first time.

The alcohol was exiting through my pores, helped along by my angst at what I was witnessing on the television screen and accelerated by the crippling Bangkok heat.

I had left the winter chill in Canada in February, when Murphy was still a Toronto Maple Leaf and an increasingly frustrating presence with every game. Two days before leaving for what turned into an eighteen-month around-the-world sojourn, I had taken in one last Leafs game down at Maple Leaf Gardens: a Leafs–Senators tilt that featured, literally, the two worst teams in the NHL at the time. The Leafs were on a slide, with Pat Burns having been fired the season before and Mike Murphy put in charge of a hockey club that was well past its expiry date. A 2–1 loss to the Sens, with Tie Domi of all people scoring the lone Leafs goal, meant the Leafs were dead last in the NHL.