The Luongo Incident

It seems like everytime I go out drinking with the King of Swing, strange things happen. Misfortune and disaster seem to cling to the King, and follow in his path. Part of this is definitely due to the king's personality, but I sometimes think weird things just happen to him more often than most folks.

Once, he was arrested and thrown in the drunk tank, and became convinced that all jail cells had to have a "secret way out", and spent a good hour trying to squeeze through the bars. He has had his nose broken after mouthing off to a much larger man than he (which isn't hard, as I'm quick to point out). He will hit on anything that moves, if it has nice breasts. And there are other stories, equally fun to tell, but that probably shouldn't be put on the internet, I'm sure.

And one of those stories will be told here.

We look back on this as "the Luongo Incident", and it's one of the most awkward moments I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing. And I once saw a friend make out with a Jack Russell terrier. No, seriously. But that's another story.

The Luongo incident happened a few months ago, during the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. My team (the choke-artist sharks) had already been knocked out of the playoffs - to the Anaheim fucking Ducks, no less - so I had started to cheer for the local team... the Vancouver Canucks. And the King of Swing is a well known Canucklehead. We had decided to watch what was fated to be the Canucks' last game of the season - a very disappointing game #6 against the Chicago Blackhawks. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The King of Swing and I met in my favourite bar, and had a few drinks while waiting for the Faux Frenchman. Now, the great thing about Heckler's is, during a game, you get all sorts of bonuses. Free popcorn at your table. Everybody gets their name entered in a draw for a Canucks jersey. And, most importantly, every table gets assigned a random canuck - if that player scores a goal, gets an assist, or gets in a fight, you get a free pitcher of beer.

Also important - I don't drink beer. I think I'm allergic, or something. I stick to the hard stuff (I've been known to say "Fuck it. Let's switch to 151!").

We had Kyle Wellwood that night, or, as I like to call him, "That fucking nerd". As we're watching the game, I'd start shouting out "shouldn't you be an extra on star trek, you fucking nerd?" at the top of my lungs, while the King made passes at our waittresses. And when Wellwood showed me up, and got a goal, the whole pitcher went to the King. Who stoically drank most of it, before knocking the rest on the floor while making a grandiose gesture of some sort. Or, more likely, he was describing his masturbation technique.

The beer is dripping on to the floor, and the King is already drunk enough that he just stares at it. Stares at it. I'm grabbing napkins and stuff to clean up the mess, while the King laughs and carries on with his story. Two waittresses are cleaning up, and he's apologizing to them, but not helping at all. And he's still talking to me. It was a moment of jackassery that is always fun to watch.

It was going to be a good night.

Around this time, a man wearing a Roberto Luongo jersey approached us. Luongo, of course, being a tall, hairy italian man who plays goalie for the Vancouver Canucks. He is, quite literally, one of the most-loved people in Vancouver. Even if he is from Quebec.

This man, however, looked very little like Roberto Luongo:

1. He was not very tall.
2. He was bald, and not very hairy.
3. He did not play goalie for the Vancouver Canucks.
4. He was not one of the most-loved people in Vancouver. Actually, I don't know that for sure, but I'm 98% sure I'm right.
5. He was not from Quebec. I think, from his accent and use of mid 1990s slang probably learned from watching friends, that he was from Lebanon, or from some other wussy country that can't win wars.

He tried some friendly conversation with us, though I'm a little fuzzy on the details now. Mostly, he was berating the King for not helping clean up the beer mess while the waittresses did the dirty work, which was fair enough. And it ended with Luongo telling the King that if KoS knew how to treat women, he'd be "down on his knees".

At the time, I thought it was just because this weird Luongo didn't fully grasp English, and so didn't realize his double entendre. (Look at me using fancy words). So, we were polite enough, and he meandered away. We all kind of looked at each other, shrugged without speaking, and got on with watching the game. Around this time, the Faux Frenchman showed up, insisted on calling me "Gollum", and got dirty looks from yours truly for the next hour or so.

It's hard to call a hockey player that makes millions a "Fucking Nerd", when the guy sitting next to you insists that you look just like fucking Gollum. Totally threw me off my game. I'm pretty sure that's why I didn't take a waittress home that night. Had to be the reason.

But at least the game was good. It was one of those swingy, back and forth games that have "Clutch" written all over it. It caused us to have celebratory drinks. It forced us to groan and mutter "I need a drink", just as often. In the space of about half an hour, I think I had two rye and gingers, a shot of 151, a prairie fire, and some other nondescript drink. I can't remember which ones were celebratory, and which ones were in mourning.

I hugged a random woman when the Canucks got a goal - and I hugged her boyfriend, too. It was one of those long, lingering hugs, where you smell their hair. Like I said, I'd been drinking. And I wasn't even as blasted as the King.

In fact, the King was so drunk that later, after the "Luongo Incident", he wound up getting into a "battle rap" with the Faux Frenchman. Which is about as cool as it sounds. There was also a dance involved, that sort of reminded me of the type of thing you'd see some out-of-touch jewish uncle performing at his embarrassed nephew's bar mitzvah.

Near the end of the game, when the Canucks were doing what the Canucks do best - failing miserably - our Luongo wannabe won a drink. We looked over, and saw that he had about half a dozen player cards at his table. Turns out, he was a friend of the owner, and so got all the leftover cards after every other table had been served. So he'd been winning free pitchers of beer all night.

He came up, and offered the King and I a pitcher of our choice... because "I've had waaaay too much".

An aside: when I'm out drinking, and I'm about to do something where there could be two possible outcomes (amazing success or disastrous failure), I often precede my action with a declaration of just how drunk I am. So that, if I fail miserably, I can at least blame the booze and save face. Normally, I use this technique when hitting on girls. It very rarely works. I think Luongo had picked up on my strategy.

We took him up on the offer of beer, and I sat back and watched as Luongo and the King talked. The King, barely able to stand at this point, was doing his best to chat amiably, mostly to be polite. Then Luongo leaned in, conspiratorily.

"So, King," he began, "You seem like the type of guy that does crazy things."

The King just laughed. "Yeah, I'm the king of swing, baby! Crazy is my middle name!"

Luongo smiled. That sort of smile that usually only hangs on the faces of paedophiles and televangelists. "I bet you haven't done stuff as crazy as I have."

The King grinned, while The Frenchman and I backed up a little bit. "Please! I'm nuts. I've done all sorts of crazy shit. Please, there's no way you've got me beat."

"You want to hear some of the crazy stuff I've done, man?" Luongo carries on.

"Yeah, fine, let's hear it," King says, taking another long pull from his beer.

"One time, I was at a wedding. A bachelor party, you know?"

"Oh, wow. You were at a bachelor party? That's totally 'crazy'..." King rolled his eyes.

"There were strippers and all these girls, and we drove around in a limo. I stuck my head out the window." Luongo carried on like this, describing a night of hedonism that can only be found on old episodes of Full House or Saved by the Bell. I fully expected to hear a story about how they found Screech in a locker the next morning, or something.

"...and then, we started playing Truth or Dare. Have you ever played Truth or Dare, King?"

Imagine this. A balding, olive-skinned man with a bit of a gut, at a bachelor party, playing a game with (presumably) other balding, gutty men. A game that is usually only played by men when said "men" are actually sixteen, and hoping they get to french the hot chick. Or the hot chick's friend. Or the hot chick's mildy retarded little sister.

I think the King was thinking just this. "oh, wow. You played truth and dare? Hard core, man." He shot me a glance, as if saying "can you believe this shit?" while rolling his eyes.

"What was it you were dared to do? Streak?" The King laughed at his own joke, as he is wont to do.

Luongo just smiled that creepy smile. And then he dropped the bombshell. "No. I was dared to Suck the Groom's dick. And I did."

It all got weird, then. But Luongo wasn't finished. He leaned in, and lightly touched the inside edge of the King's arm, with just the right amount of familiarity. "Have you ever done anything crazy like that, King?"

While staring with these intent eyes.

King just shook his head nervously, while hoping for a way out. Looking for his buddies to get him out of trouble, come with guns blazing like the fucking cavalry or something.

The Faux Frenchman and I were nowhere to be seen. We had escaped to the pool table, and were busy laughing our asses off while the King floundered.

Luongo's assault didn't stop there. He kept pressing, until the King retreated to our pool table, quietly relating the later events of the story - a story of Luongo's "game".

Luongo eventually dropped chasing the King, only to go after the Faux Frenchman, at one point loudly telling the Frenchman to "get on your knees!" and even trying to push the Frenchman down to the ground by pressing down on the shoulders.

I have to say, I was a mite offended when Luongo didn't go after me. I'm guessing it's because I ooze heterosexuality. But the FF would probably say it's because I look like Gollum, and even gay lebanese hockey fans have their standards.