When Kevin Bieksa joined Twitter back in September, signalling the successful end to our Twitter Needs Juice campaign, we rejoiced. The Canuck blueliner is a funny guy, and we were confident that his Twitter account would provide an additional resource for Canuck fan amusement. What we didn’t expect, however, was that Bieksa would also wind up making more work for us. Not cool, bro.
Wednesday, as the Canucks enjoyed a day off prior to Thursday’s big game in Detroit (where the home team has won a noteworthy 23 straight), a few of them took to Twitter to pass the time. Eventually, old man Sami Salo instituted a “no tweeting on the bus” rule, but this was after Ryan Kesler mocked the mysterious @strombone1 account that appears to belong to Roberto Luongo and Kevin Bieksa tweeted that the man behind the equally mysterious Herb Bagel (@slavy_72) account is part of the team.
Now, while Bieksa never said that this guy was a player on the Canucks, that’s what most took this to mean, and our readers demanded answers. Let’s investigate the clues, which will attempt to prove who Herb Bagel is and isn’t, and will most definitely prove that I have too much time on my hands.
Herb Bagel?
Back in November, right around the time Dale Weise joined Twitter, we observed that there were a lot of Canucks on Twitter all of a sudden, and likely more than we knew about. Bieksa disclosed that some members of the Canucks kept accounts solely for following their friends, teammates, and comedians, but wished to remain anonymous. Fans were able to turn up two suspicious accounts that may have belonged to Keith Ballard (@keith_ballard4) and Alex Edler (@_eagle23), and some have since pointed us to @maseman11, which is likely Mason Raymond.
Anyway. We also observed that a number of the Canucks interacted with this Herb Bagel account, and speculated that he may have been some sort of onion monster that traveled with the team, the ghost of Olympic Greco-Roman wrestler Mark Slavin, who died in 1972, or, based on this exchange, a equipment representative of some sort:
But we still have to investigate the possibility that he’s a player. If he is, this photo of an Easton helmet, captioned with “pumpkin protection”, is your clue to whom:
Does this helmet belong to Herb Bagel? Then Herb Bagel is Alex Edler, because Edler is the only guy on the Canucks who wears Easton headgear. Most wear Bauer helmets, and everyone else encases their brains in products from either CCM or Reebook.
This narrows it down quite quickly. Since none of the other Canucks are going to tweet a random photo of Alex Edler’s helmet, Herb Bagel is either Edler himself or someone who cares about Edler’s helmets, like, say, the guy that gets Edler his helmets.
Is it Edler? One of the few photos this account has tweeted is of Edler, but if the photo is actually of the man behind the account, then this is a curious exchange:
Since we know that Edler’s animal nickname is the eagle, we can deduce that he’s with Bieksa. And either both Bieksa and Edler are very committed to misleading everyone into thinking there are three men at coffee when there aren’t, or there actually are. The latter seems more likely: while Bieksa clearly meant to stir up some trouble with the tweet at the beginning of this post, I don’t think it was the continuation of a ruse that’s been slowly developing for months.
Herb Bagel and Edler are not the same person.
Speaking of Bieksa, he uses an Easton stick, and spoke during this interview with Jeff O’Neill about meeting with his Easton guy about his sticks. That meeting was likely with Herb Bagel, equipment rep.
And as for that suspected Roberto Luongo account, while I can’t verify anything, it’s not too difficult to put it together:
- He’s clearly somebody the Canucks know, since Ryan Kesler tweeted at him yesterday during all the Canuck Twitter shenanigans, and way back in January, Herb Bagel wryly tweeted “who or what is strombone1?”
- Furthermore, before he had tweeted much of anything, he was followed by Kevin Bieksa, Ryan Kesler, Tanner Glass, Herb Bagel, Leo Luongo, Alex Edler, and the suspected Mason Raymond account, all of whom wouldn’t follow some random dude tweeting about the Jersey Shore and turkey sausages unless they knew him.
- He has the same handle Roberto Luongo’s been using on poker sites for five years.
- He tweeted about having a four-year-old daughter, which is about the age of Luongo’s daughter Gabriella.
- He has no interest in the TSN media, since he follows none of their personalities, but he’s made a special exception for Jamie McLennan, who is one of Luongo’s closest friends and a former backup.
- He recently started following Gerry Dee, just as Luongo told Dee he had recently begun to do when he admitted he had a Twitter account during this interview.
- And finally, if he is Luongo, this tweet is hilarious:
I can ask anyone? But who has ever taken a bathroom break that infamous? Oh right.
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Canuckles
February 23, 2012Is it any surprise that, if that is lui’s account, he says some pretty hilarious things? Luongo is a really funny guy!
sarah
February 23, 2012Hmm…I never would have guessed Lu would be a multiple exclamation mark type of guy.
Canuckles
February 23, 2012Luongo’s quite the charachter though. I mean, Strombone as a name? For a married guy with kids? And a lot of his tweets are unreal. “The maid took the christmas tree down yesterday, so I had to fire her!”
Fan#789
February 23, 2012some real investigation shows that @slavy_72 account tweeted pictures of himself before. doesnt take too much dedication to notice this. Simply look at his page online and there are photos on the left hand side.
sorry to say, but this is not a Canucks player account.
Harrison Mooney
February 23, 2012There’s one picture of him on the account. It’s of his feet.
But you’re correct, it’s not a player — it’s an equipment rep, as we said in the post.
Kyle
February 23, 2012I just want to say Herb Bagel is a rad online handle.
kenblankenship
February 23, 2012I’d like to point out that those car keys are not fancy pants car keys. They look like older model Toyota keys
Harrison Mooney
February 23, 2012The clues keep piling up!
zach
February 23, 2012also, don’t know if its relevant but the person probably lives in an apartment, those are key fobs attached to those car keys.
KB
February 23, 2012I’d say Herb Bagel is Salo. Because he tweets with Trevor Linden a lot and his wife, so that must mean he’s been around a while. Also he tweeted for Jarkko Ruutu to check his emails, another former old Canucks and fellow Finn man. Just a thought.
miriam m
February 23, 2012Yeah but apparently Salo isn’t much of a twitter fan (“no tweeting on the bus!”)
J21
February 23, 2012I can’t imagine Salo and Ruutu would text each other in English.
If I had the superpower of understanding Finnish, I’d be using that left and right.
Liam
February 23, 2012It’s Fin
taokenji
February 23, 2012there is also a @slavy_80 account that is being followed by edler and (likely fake) @arome29
Canuck
February 23, 2012Herb bagel is not Edler, like you mentioned his twitter is eagle23 or whatever. One of the people he’s following is his girlfriend and his girlfriend follows an eagle23. In terms of edler it’s not hard to put two and two together. Herb bagel though? Still no idea..
kate
February 23, 2012That and all the Swedish accounts that eagle23 follows makes makes it pretty obvious that it is Edler.
Flynn
February 23, 2012Strombone is also following Roberto’s younger brother. @louie8413
islandrooster
February 23, 2012Mr. Bagel is most likely a M. Slavin. He is a hockey equipment rep that has works in the city and is friends with many of nucks and has worked with the team for years. So not a player.
bieksallent1076
February 23, 2012I think that Herb Bagel might be Burrows, because if you see in his tweets, he puts a space before an exclamation mark or a question mark, and Habs’ twitter account does the same thing. Plus Lappy already has a twitter and I don’t see why he would have more than one account
But this is just my opinion… 
I'mjustsuggesting
February 23, 2012James Duthie and Grabner follow this guy as well. So they both know who he is. Why so secretive boys? lol
Robby
February 23, 2012I know who Slavy_72 is!!
He is not a member of The team, or management staff.
Bieksa was messing with us with that comment.
He is connected to the team via some companies he reps who are sponsors, as the PITB boys have mentioned, but that’s it.
He has been friends with several players, going back 15 years or so. particularly Linden, Ohlund and Juice, but everyone on the team knows him. He’s a season ticket holder and avid golfer, but mostly he is just a buddy who hangs out with the team.
I won’t name him yet, but maybe he will reveal himself in due time. I will say that Slavy is a typical hockey nickname, based on his actual last name…. much like Nazzy was short for Naslund etc.
bieksallent1076
February 23, 2012Seriously? Well okay then…
Nee
February 23, 2012Lol. This has got to be one of the longer PITB posts, and it’s quiite the topic…
vancan19
February 24, 2012I had narrowed it down to Ballard.
But is it Vyacheslav Kozlov? Also known by the name SLAVA Kozlov…born May 3( my birthday) in 19…wait for it…72.
bieksallent1076
February 24, 2012That…could be it O.o
vancan19
February 24, 2012I know that makes absolute no sense…I can’t find any Canucks connection…Linden; Urban Fare, Easton helmets, Edler, Bieksa, Sophie Lui…but hey, just sayin.
I had really good reasons for thinkin its Ballard
Timmy Wong
February 24, 2012From the fires of hell that is CDC:
http://forum.canucks.com/topic/323833-who-is-slavy-72/page__view__findpost__p__10415438
Sorry to wreck everyone’s hope of a new Canuck on twitter, but Herb Bagel (Slavy_72 on twitter) is not a Canuck and is not even in the Canucks organization. His name is Mark Slavin and has been buddy buddies with a number of the Canucks over the years. He always seems to have one Canuck as a best buddy, and that has changed from Linden to Ohlund to now Bieksa. He used to play a lot of golf and was / is a member at Richmond CC. He has been a rep for a few hockey equipment companies and other clothing companies. Now I guess this thread can continue on with the @strombone1 chat.
EDIT – And I am thinking ‘Slavs’ chose 72 because he has the same name as an Olympic wrestler that was murdered at the 1972 Olympics.
Square Ball
February 25, 2012At first, I read @strombone as Ass-trombone.
Harrison Mooney
February 25, 2012hahahahaha
Hips
February 26, 2012If this is actually Luongo it means that he likes Ray William Johnson. This pisses me off more than any of his bad playoff performances.