Last week, #FartGate was trending nationally on Twitter.
And by now, you likely know why. Just in case you haven’t, this clip below is the reason why.
Headlines circulated worldwide claiming that colour commentator John Garrett let one rip live on air as the clip caught on like wildfire. Garrett denied any wrongdoing of any kind in the moment, and the fact that the sound was picked up by both the home and away broadcasts likely should have absolved Garrett completely. But some still aren’t convinced.
“It’s just something that we’re going to take to our graves, kind of like Carly Simon with You’re So Vain and who the song was about,” John Shorthouse — Garrett’s broadcast partner — told CanucksArmy when asked for official comment on #Fartgate.
We had to get to the bottom of this, so following today’s Canucks practice, we caught up with goaltender Collin Delia, who was the goaltender on the ice when “the incident” took place. Delia didn’t even need us to show him the clip to know what we were talking about.
“It was my skate,” Delia told CanucksArmy. “The one-piece skate.”
Spencer Martin overheard this conversation and wanted to jump in to offer up more information. “It’s the one piece skate!” Martin said with a laugh. “We actually talked about it before that game. Him and Demmer [Thatcher Demko] have the fart stop sometimes.”
Delia and Demko both use a one-piece goalie skate, a newer piece of equipment created by goaltending equipment brand TRUE. Unlike traditional two-piece skates that feature a boot with a blade holder attached at the bottom, Delia’s one-piece skate is essentially all connected. The boot is wrapped in carbon and goes right into the blade holder.
These one-piece skates are custom-moulded and tighter than two-piece skates, and sometimes even just a little bit of movement can create the perfect squeak that makes the hockey world debate whether or not someone let one rip audibly enough that every broadcast of the game picked it up.
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