Roberto Luongo

Roberto Luongo (/luːˈɒŋɡoʊ/; born April 4, 1979) is a Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender for the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League (NHL). Born in Montreal, Quebec, he is of Italian and Irish ancestry. He employs the butterfly style of goaltending and has previously played in the NHL for the New York Islanders and the Vancouver Canucks. Luongo is a two-time NHL Second All-Star (2004 and 2007) and a winner of the William M. Jennings Trophy for backstopping his team to the lowest goals-against average in the league (2011; with backup Cory Schneider). He has additionally been a finalist for the Vezina Trophy as the league's best goaltender (2004, 2007 and 2011), the Lester B. Pearson Award as the top player voted by his peers (2004 and 2007) and the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's most valuable player (2007).

Vancouver Canucks

The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver, British Columbia. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The Canucks play their home games at Rogers Arena, formerly known as General Motors Place, which has an official capacity of 18,860. Henrik Sedin is currently the captain of the team, Willie Desjardins is the head coach and Jim Benning is the general manager.

The Canucks joined the league in 1970 as an expansion team along with the Buffalo Sabres. In its NHL history, the team has advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals three times, losing to the New York Islanders in 1982, the New York Rangers in 1994 and the Boston Bruins in 2011. They have won the Presidents' Trophy in back-to-back seasons as the team with the league's best regular season record in the 2010–11 and 2011–12 seasons. They won three division titles as a member of the Smythe Division from 1974 to 1993, and seven titles as a member of the Northwest Division from 1998 to 2013.

Robert

The name Robert is a Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic *χrōþi- "fame" and *berχta- "bright". Compare Old Dutch Robrecht and Old High German Hrodebert (a compound of hruod "fame, glory" and berht "bright"). It is also in use as a surname.

After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form Robert, where an Old English cognate form (Hrēodbēorht, Hrodberht, Hrēodbēorð, Hrœdbœrð, Hrœdberð) had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto.

Similar to the name, Richard, "Robert" is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic. It can be used as a French, Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian name as well.

Variations

Trivia

Robert, and also the name Joseph, were in the top 10 most given boys' names in the US for 47 years, from 1925 to 1972.

In Italy during the Second World War, the form of the name, Roberto, briefly acquired a new meaning derived from, and referring to the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis.

Florida Panthers

The Florida Panthers are a professional ice hockey team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). They play home games at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Florida; the Panthers are the southernmost team in the NHL. The team has made one appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals, in 1996; they lost to the Colorado Avalanche in four games.

The team advanced to the Stanley Cup playoffs for the second time in 12 years in 2012, but were eliminated in seven games by the eventual Eastern Conference champions, the New Jersey Devils, in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals.

Franchise history

1990s

Blockbuster Video magnate Wayne Huizenga was awarded an NHL franchise for Miami on December 10, 1992, the same day The Walt Disney Company earned the rights to start a team in Anaheim. At the time, Huizenga owned both the newly founded Florida Marlins of Major League Baseball and a share of the National Football League's Miami Dolphins. The entry fee was $50 million, but despite fellow Florida team Tampa Bay Lightning starting play the year before, the NHL did not consider it to be a case of territory infringement. Huizenga announced the team would play at the Miami Arena, sharing the building with the National Basketball Association's Miami Heat, until a new arena was built. Offices for the team were only established on June 1993, while Vice President of Business Operations Dean Jordan conceded that "none of the business people, myself included, knew anything about hockey."