LAS VEGAS. Now John Tortorella’s underpants are at stake.
If the Carolina Hurricanes win and become Stanley Cup champions tonight, the Vegas coach will see his underwear flutter in the wind during the victory parade in Raleigh next week.
No, I haven’t lost my mind and started hallucinating in the 42 degree heat of the Nevada desert.
Since a couple of days ago happens John Tortorella’s clothes actually stand in focus in the Stanley Cup final that is now rising towards its ultimate climax – and it is entirely his own fault.
After the loss at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh on Thursday, he dared, like another Mark Messier, to guarantee the Golden Knights victory in the sixth round.
But the notoriously emotional and short-tempered veteran wasn’t satisfied with that,.
He said he was so confident his team would force a Game 7 this week that he wasn’t even going to bring his suitcase home to Las Vegas for Game 6.
– I leave the clothes here, without a doubt. They can stay in the hotel, he hissed defiantly at his press conference amid the commotion in the surroundings of the construction site where the Canes play their home games.
Bold, you might call it. Cocky. Unforeseen.
But one can also describe such a move as foolhardy and more than legitimately thoughtless.
It’s not as if a Jordan Staal and the other Hurricanes stars need more lighter fluid now that they’re on the brink of Stanley Cup triumph – and yet that’s exactly what they got.
Of course, they want to make sure that “Tårtan” gets to eat his stupid words and never again sees the suitcase he completely recklessly left behind on the wrong side of the continent. Social media is abuzz with suggestions for what should happen to his coats, and if the majority has their way, slick suits and frocks alike will be flapping in the humid North Carolina wind at a possible victory parade through downtown Raleigh next week (unless the Knights then have time to send some underling on a round-trip cross-country flight to retrieve the lost item…)
It would undeniably be quite epic.
On the other hand: If the soon-to-be 68-year-old jock backs up his daring maneuver with a victory tonight, he could be honored with a statue on the Strip about the same height as the fake Eiffel Tower outside the Paris casino.
When mentioned Messier in the same position in the 1994 conference final between the New York Rangers and the New Jersey Devils promised the Rangers victory in Game 6 and then fulfilled that promise with a hat trick, he became eternal God in the capital of the world.
It is absolutely not impossible. The series between the Canes and the Knights has not only been chaotic and wacky and wildly entertaining, it’s also been extremely even. The teams can hardly be distinguished with any available measuring instruments, and in such cases it usually ends with an all-or-nothing thriller in the seventh act.
But with William Karlsson unable to play anymore – apparently due to a broken arm – and the coach insisting on matching an increasingly mediocre Carter Hart in the box, the Knights’ odds have deteriorated quite significantly in the last 24 hours.
So yes, it is danger and danger for Tårtan’s underpants.
