Luongo just wants ‘the kids to be safe’
Goaltender addresses shooting before game
Roberto Luongo, husband and father of two kids, just wants children to be safe.
In Parkland, the Panthers goaltender sees a community he wants to live in for the rest of his life. In Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, he sees a neighboring school.
In the faces of the 17 victims who died in last week’s school shooting, he sees his children.
So when Luongo stepped on the ice on Thursday night before the Panthers’ first home game since the shooting at Stoneman Douglas, he abandoned any script, any canned remarks.
Instead, he channeled his emotions in a passionate speech to the crowd at the BB&T Center that called for the community to take action, that sympathized with the victims’ families, that recognized the teachers for their life-saving heroics, and that backed the efforts of student activists trying to make sure Stoneman Douglas is the final school shooting in America.
“At the end of the day, I just want the kids to be safe, right?” Luongo said Friday. “Whatever those measures are, I’m for it. We need to make sure moving
forward that youth go to school to go to school and not be worried about anything else.”
On Friday, the same day Florida gov. Rick Scott announced his plan to prevent future school shootings, Luongo did not delve into the complicated and polarizing national debate about what comes next. He did not talk about assault weapons nor arming teachers nor mental illness nor magazine size. His message was simple: “Whatever it entails.”
“At the end of the day, I just want the kids to be safe,” Luongo said. “Whatever that entails.”
As a parent, Luongo struggled with being on a different coast in a different country during the shooting. (The Panthers were in Vancouver on Feb. 14.) He couldn’t help his son Gianni in lockdown, hiding in a closet for three hours until it was safe to leave. He couldn’t help his wife Gina and his daughter Gabriella outside the school amid the sirens and the helicopters.
In the aftermath of the shooting, Luongo searches for ways to talk to his children about the tragedy. As he drops off his kids at school now, he finds himself asking “What if?”
“Even when your kids are at school now, you have thoughts in the back of your mind that you shouldn’t be having,” Luongo said.
Luongo — whose NHL career features two separate stints with the Panthers, whose wife was born and raised in South Florida, and whose kids attend school in Parkland — felt an obligation to speak out on Thursday night.
Across his 18 seasons in the NHL, Luongo has grown into a leader. He was the face of the franchise for the Panthers in his mid-20s. In Vancouver, the Canucks named him captain in a hockey-crazed Canadian market. Back in Florida as a 38-year-old, Luongo is now an elder statesman with the Panthers, a blueprint to follow in the dressing room.
The Panthers approached him Monday about speaking on Thursday night. He knew he needed to be the one speaking for a franchise in mourning, a city in recovery and a community in healing.
“It’s my home and I wanted to reach out to the kids that went through that, something tragic like that,” Luongo said.
Luongo drew inspiration, in part, from the group of Stoneman Douglas students leading the Never Again movement. On Thursday, he called them brave. He said they were the hope for the future.
In the past week, Stoneman Douglas students, families and staff have participated in a listening session at the White House, meetings with state legislators in Tallahassee, and CNN’s town hall in Sunrise on Wednesday.
“What the kids have been doing, you just want to make sure that there’s support,” Luongo said. “They have a huge voice and, as athletes, we want to get behind that. We want to make sure that they understand and they know that there’s people behind them supporting them. I’m a professional athlete, and I have that platform, I wanted them to hear that.”
Around the dressing room, Panthers stood behind Luongo’s message. It put hockey in perspective for Vincent Trocheck. It helped Keith Yandle think about the families more. For Panthers coach Bob Boughner, the act of speaking up lent a helping hand to the cause.
“I know it’s still fresh, but I think a lot of these guys want to make a difference in this community,” Boughner said. “I think the first step is speaking up. Lu did a great job [Thursday] night.”
Luongo said he’s received a lot of support since his 2-minute, 42-second speech on Thursday night, one that resonated through the continent and the hockey community.
On Friday, hours removed from the pregame tribute, Luongo recalled his childhood in Canada. He would walk a kilometer to elementary and high school by himself. Then the weight of the present pulls him back.
“Nobody was worried about it,” Luongo said. “Now, things have changed.”
He just wants things to change again.