from Damien Cox of Sportsnet,

Unexpected and unscripted. It happened just that way. The best way.

Young goalie, chubby and seemingly exiled to the low minors less than a year ago, gets a chance out of the blue to start an NHL game for a very famous team fallen upon hard times. Few imagine this as a solution to anything.

Goalie’s parents sit in the stands watching. Goalie gets a shutout. Makes history.

Goalie cries when interviewed.

Rocky Balboa did something along those lines after being pummelled by Apollo Creed the first time, and I seem to remember Todd Gill weeping a bit after the Toronto Maple Leafs upset the Detroit Red Wings in the 1993 playoffs.

But this was just simple and perfect — certainly too perfect for Toronto’s rarely-anywhere-near-perfect NHL franchise.

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Below, watch Garret Sparks when told he was the first Toronto goalie to post a shutout in his first start in Leafs history...