In case you missed it, a funny thing happened after the Toronto Raptors’ played the Chicago Bulls on New Year’s Eve. After the game — an 85-79 victory for the visiting Raptors — point guard Kyle Lowry was walking towards the locker room when he noticed a Raptors fan calling him out for playing a great game. Lowry casually tossed his shoes to the fan, but before either shoe could reach its intended target, some real life troll did his best Peanut Tillman impression, snagging both before running off into the night.
The intended fan has since been identified as Alan Vale, a Toronto native, who happened to be in Chicago that night with his girlfriend, and sprung for lower bowl tickets to see his favorite team. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, Lowry — who may or may not have realized what happened at the time — found out about the incident, and decided to rectify the situation.
Lowry arranged for Vale and a friend to take in the Raptors’ pregame warmups before Monday night’s game against the Milwaukee Bucks, after which Vale was invited to the player’s lounge for an interview. To Vale’s surprise, Lowry suddenly appeared, presenting a pair of kicks to replace the ones he was robbed of weeks before:
“Blown away,” was how Vale described his response to Lowry’s gesture. “We’re in the middle of an interview and then all of a sudden, there’s the starting point guard for the Toronto Raptors.
“I was not expecting that. Absolutely not. I was pretty blown away just to be sitting courtside and watching the shootaround. This is definitely one of the highlights of my being a Raptors fan.”
About John Ferensen