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

51 страница из 85

When I awoke in Bangkok that morning, instead of arriving at a Khoa Shan Road bar in time for the game, I got there just as Yzerman was being interviewed by Ron MacLean literally minutes after the Wings had won the Cup by sweeping the Flyers. The camera frame showed Stevie Y and MacLean, with Yzerman offering his condolences to Don Cherry, whose wife, Rose, had just died. Murphy and his trademark angular smile were soon peering out of the screen. He looked a little like someone who had crept out onto the ice from the crowd and slipped on a Red Wings jersey, or maybe it just seemed that way, because a few short months before, Murphy winning the Stanley Cup seemed just as impossible.

Murphy, Jamie Macoun, and Hal Gill all have drawn the ire of Leafs fans over the past fifteen years or so, ranging from white-hot anger to mere grumpiness at the mention of their names. And all were basically run out of town. All three were defencemen, which, given that they were playing on such bad teams when they fell out of favour, likely offers a hint of why they became the focus of everyone’s anger.