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

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Burns’s long-ago firing had confirmed that the jig was up for that wonderful group of Leafs players that had gotten to two conference finals, even if I was still in denial before I left Canada. It’s perhaps logical that a few players are suddenly cast in the role of heel, as Macoun and Murphy were by the frustrated masses. But for one of the game’s greatest coaches, Scotty Bowman, to find a use for them, and then go on to win the Stanley Cup? Had you told the average Maple Leafs fan that night at the Gardens in 1996 that Macoun and Murphy were going to be hoisting hockey’s premier trophy over their heads, you would have been asked where you bought such effective medicinal enhancements, something far more powerful than Arak.

Holy, shit, this guy thinks both Murphy and Macoun are going to win the Stanley Cup — where in the hell is he getting his gear from?

Not only did it happen, it happened twice for Murphy.

Sitting in that sweltering Bali bar in the midday heat, I allowed myself dark moments of anger just recalling their names. At the time they were still two playoff rounds away from sipping champagne together out of the Stanley Cup, but the foreboding was thick in my mind.