Roberto Luongo, the Vancouver Canucks goalie under intense trade rumours, impressed hockey fans Saturday night with a CBC interview that was at turns thoughtful and hilarious — including calling sportscaster Scott Oake a term that sent everyone running to Google.
Luongo, who sat out the Canucks 5-1 win over the Calgary Flames, appeared on "After Hours" and made fun of himself as a backup goalie, elaborated on an embarrassing bathroom trip during the 2007 playoffs and all but confirmed he is behind the popular Twitter account @strombone1..
He also called Oake fish sperm.
Prodded by Twitter questions, Oake asked Luongo about the Shapy Awards, which were made up by a small group of Vancouver sports fans.
After Luongo explained that "shap" is a made-up term, he said: "There are a lot of terms I don't even get myself. For instance, the term milt. A few times I've heard people refer to you as a milt but I'll let you figure that one out on your own."
Luongo's self-deprecating attitude on the show got noticed by many people on Twitter.
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Oake highlighted some of the funny Tweets sent by the @strombone1 account to which Luongo responded:
"You gotta be able to make fun of yourself in life. I don't want to take things too seriously. I want to keep them light-hearted. Life is very valuable and important. There's things more important to life than hockey. Sometimes you get caught up in that whole thing and we take it too seriously. We don't look at the bigger picture. I just want to keep it light and show people what type of person I am and that's the perfect way to do it."
Luongo also talked about a recent story where a Victoria nurse who is fighting cancer said she was inspired by the goalie's mental toughness in enduring criticism after the Canucks lost to the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs.
"It really touched me and after reading the letter and the story, I found she was more of an inspiration to me than I was to her," said Luongo.
Watch the full "After Hours" segment: