Welcomed onto the ice by former teammates Cory Schneider and Henrik and Daniel Sedin, and flanked by his immediate family, Roberto Luongo was formally inducted into the Canucks ring of honor on Thursday evening, prior to the club’s impressive 4-0 win over the Florida Panthers. .
It was finally a small ceremony for one of the giants of Vancouver Canucks hockey.
Now there were some nice touches. Schneider was a charming, understated performer and a welcome addition to the proceedings. Public Address Announcer Al Murdoch put some extra mustard into a really funny joke about how Luongo never wore a Captain “C” on his jersey when that gift was presented by the Twins. A Kevin Bieksa-narrated video tribute video played on the jumbotron and was truly moving, hitting all the right notes.
Ultimately the main event was Luongo himself. As usual.
Charismatic, human and cool, the best goaltender in franchise history — and it’s not close, it’s not debatable — gave a typically relatable and moving off-time speech to the Rogers Arena faithful.
“I’m so happy for you,” Luongo told the crowd. “Hockey is fun again in Vancouver. This is how it should be.”
The jersey Lu never wore, the Captain’s jersey! pic.twitter.com/a47YbaANER
— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) December 15, 2023
Luongo talked about his favorite hockey memories, noting that the biggest moments of his career all happened at Rogers Arena — the 2010 Olympic Gold Medal win, his quadruple-overtime playoff debut, the night Alex Burrows slayed the dragon and the overtime winner of Kevin Bieksa in the 2010 Western Conference Final.
He thanked his former coaches, and former executives – mocking his contract, and defending John Tortorella with a tut-tut to the fans as the crowd booed his name.
And he thanked the fans, for the good times, but also for the trials and tribulations. For the examination and the pressure. For everything that forged Luongo into Teflon.
“It wasn’t always rainbows and butterflies,” Luongo noted. “There were some tougher times…but those times made me who I am today.”
The self-awareness of that comment was amazing. People are complicated, relationships are complicated and professional hockey is complicated, especially during the hard cap era, with a contract that was arbitrarily subject to changing rules governing it.
Luongo’s tenure in Vancouver has been tainted with real-life complications.
In 2008, Luongo was criticized for leaving to be with his wife Gina in South Florida during a difficult pregnancy with the couple’s first-born child Gabriella. Then came the “will he or won’t he” speculation about his contract status. And the examination of the finals.
By the time Luongo stabilized Team Canada’s game in net, helping deliver a Gold medal on home soil at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, the first question he was asked by the media in the mixed zone after skating about the ice surface with an oversized canadian Flag, it was about the goal he allowed to Zach Parise on a third down rebound in the final minute of the game.
Then things really heated up. Lifetime contract subject, retroactively, to a cap recapture penalty. The “pumping tires” thing in the Stanley Cup Final. Perennial goaltending controversy. Literally years of business speculation.
Then the club decided to deal Schneider instead, which left Luongo in limbo with an organization trying to move on. Change in agents. Seating for a signature event at BC Place. And finally business.
No, it wasn’t always rainbows and butterflies, but that’s life. That’s professional hockey.
However, that is not what defines Luongo or his legacy. It is not what defines his special relationship with fans in this market.
Luongo’s legacy is not about that drama. It’s not about his contract. It’s not about his playoff overtime bathroom break, which happened in the first two Chicago series and it’s not about Game 6 in Boston or Game 7 in Vancouver. It’s not about how he compares to Kirk McLean.
No, Luongo’s legacy is all about his greatness. His humanity. His competitiveness. The fact that he was the most consistent elite goaltender in the league and he wore Canucks colors in his best seasons.
He’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer and you can make an almost bulletproof argument for him as one of the five best puck stoppers to ever make it in the NHL. He played his best seasons in Vancouver, was the face of the franchise and won a gold medal for Canada in the greatest sporting victory this city has ever seen.
He’s the franchise leader in every relevant goaltending category, and considering how sparingly goaltenders are used today and the dizzying heights Luongo’s Canucks teams hit, he likely will be for generations.
He’s the kind of person who took a difficult situation – the controversy that raged around him and Schneider – and turned it into a lifelong friendship, and comedy gold.
This is what sports and nostalgia and collective memory of fandom is all about. It’s about the eight-year stretch when Canucks fans rooted for, got to know and connected with one of the greatest goaltenders and characters to ever play the game.
And when time passes, that’s what’s left. That memory. The size. The connection. The big moments.
What fades is the drama. The complications are inherent in hockey and relationships and real life.
That’s why the small ceremony for a player like Luongo was so ill-fitting Thursday night. So profoundly underwhelming, despite its charms.
Putting a player of Luongo’s stature in the Ring of Honor, among loyal Canucks citizens and non-superstar players like Orland Kurtenbach and Harold Snepsts, as opposed to hanging up a banner and retiring the number 1 along with the other Canucks first ballot Hall of Famers. who played his best hockey in Vancouver are incongruous. It is such a decision that it is so confusing that it requires an explanation.
And any convincing explanation will necessarily be as trivial as it is unconvincing.
It’s telling that Luongo, a goaltender whose regular-season save percentage (.919) is a near-perfect match with his playoff save percentage (.918), couldn’t get it done when it counted.
Some argued that the most consistent elite goaltender of his era couldn’t possibly have his number retired because it was the same number worn by a longtime and highly admired league-average starter who predated Luongo in Vancouver by a decade, and who. no one ever thought his number should be retired until the discussion turns to Luongo.
Some say a player can’t have their number retired if they’ve ever requested a trade, which is both an oversimplification of Luongo’s situation and an argument inconsistent with the club’s standard for retiring numbers.
Or it’s suggested that Luongo’s number shouldn’t have been retired because of the salary cap recap nonsense that bogged down this franchise cap-wise after Luongo decided — after exhausting all other options — to retire when his body gave out and the game became a misery, rather. than go through the unseemly pantomime of existing as a zombie on some teams’ cap balance sheet until his contract expired.
Placing the likeness of Luongo and his iconic #1 in the ring of honor is to recall the earthly elements of Luongo’s legacy. To honor and give primacy to the little explanations, and the complications inherent in real life and the business of hockey.
It’s such an unfortunate unforced error by the club. One that does nothing to diminish Luongo’s reputation, but instead diminishes how the accomplishments of one of the four greatest players to ever wear Canucks colors in their prime are officially recognized by the club.
If the Canadiens had just done the obvious thing and remembered and retired the No. 1 — which no player will wear for several generations anyway, such is the respect for Luongo — they would have honored Luogno’s less tangible, more aspirational. a legacy of greatness. They would have paid tribute to the unique bond between star and fan that he forged.
The club would have served the collective memory of hockey fans in that city, as opposed to prioritizing small internal complaints.
What really should have been a momentous night in franchise history, instead felt like it. As if a wet blanket hung over the proceedings occupying the space that should really have a “Luongo 1” banner.
(Photo: Jeff Vinnick / NHLI via Getty Images)
