Roberto Luongo got a strong reaction from Vancouver Canucks fans when he ended his Ring of Honour speech with a call to "free the skate jersey." Most of those reactions reached Luongo immediately as cheers from the fans inside Rogers Arena.
One of those reactions took a little bit longer.
The former Canucks goaltender and Hockey Hall of Famer posted a picture of a letter he received on his Twitter account, @strombone1, on Monday from a 64-year-old Canucks fan who was not impressed with Luongo's comments.
"Dear Mr. Luongo," the letter starts respectfully. "I was so very disappointed with your 'Free the Skate' comment in Vancouver on December 14th. Why would you do that? You don't live here, you don't work or play here. It made no sense at all."
The letter-writer continues to point out that the skate jerseys were once the laughingstock of the league, long before their current nostalgic status as "beloved and iconic." The writer instead extols the virtues of the "bold" colour scheme and the "clever and creative" orca logo, later saying, "They finally got a good one" after years of "bad and completely awful" jerseys.
The writer goes on to call Luongo's comment "a kick in the teeth to the Vancouver Canucks team and to your former teammates that wore the blue and green" and says it "was nothing but bizarre and worth of an apology."
Luongo, when posting the letter on Twitter, did not offer an apology, but instead suggested he "might frame this one and put it on my nightstand."
