THE WALL OF PUNOUR: Raivis Hščanovičs

 

If there is one piece of Toronto FC lore which we would be foolish not to emulate it is BMO Field's monument to greatness - The Wall of Honour. Created to placate those forced into retirement; celebrate players with years of service to the club; honour players with phenomenal statistics; create faux history; the Wall of Honour truly encapsulates the TFC brand. Taking nothing and making it a thing.

 

Here at The Yorkies we aim to live our lives every day in the MLSE way and felt the need to invest in our own slice of TFC faux-tradition. Sadly, we can't afford our own stupid bird to flap about aimlessly so instead we introduce "The Wall of Punour" - a place to celebrate former TFC "legends" who have given us the most back. Goals? Few. Defensive prowess? Snort. Years of gags, puns and malarkey? You bet!

We salute you, our hilarious brothers with our (reasonably) permanent monument to your punnilingual greatness. If MLS Pun Commissioner Dong Grabber were here for the opening of this temple of stupidity he would say "What you lacked in skill, you overcompensated with LOLZ."

With that we, are proud to honour the The Yorkies Wall of Punour's very first, but not last, inductee...
 

 

RAIVIS HSCANOVICS

The fourteenth son of rutabaga farmers Jrzk and Mrjnnh Hscanovics, Raivis was born in the small farming village of Spltnyvwls outside of Riga in the former Soviet Union, now Latvia. While traditional career paths such as root vegetable propaganda, working in the nearby windshield wiper plant or a bureaucratic life with the Ministry of Vowel Management is where most of young Raivis' peers headed, the teen with the trademark Ivan Drago hairstyle knew that football (or sccrftbll as it was called in Spltnyvwls) was his true calling.

It wasn't long before Raivis was poached by the Latvian national program. The lanky defender shot to fame when spotted scoring an elusive own-goal hat-trick in the 3rd Round of the Turnip Cup for his local side Dynymh Spltnyvwls. Under the tutelage of Marian Pahars Sr. and the coaches at the Ltvjn Cntr Fr Sccrftbll Xcllnc, the boy who learned to dribble around his thirteen brothers with a beetroot was on the donkey-trail to stardom.

Young Raivis soon joined the youth set-up at Latvian "superclub" Skonto Riga. While he would go on to spend eight long years at Skonto, the avowed rural anti-vowelist was never comfortable with his big-city team-mates' loose, liberal usage of phonetics. After three tremendous pro seasons at Skonto (50 appearances, 36 Red Cards, 23 OG's) Raivis had enough of vowel-drunk Riga and searched for a new club. He asked his agent to "find him a club with plenty of L's" (his favourite consonant) - and his adventures at Toronto FC began.

"TFC & MLS" were a vowel-deniers dream come true and Raivis spent a magical season wowing Toronto crowds who often shook their heads in amazement. Playing for a coach named Predrag (Preki) Radosavljevic was simply the icing on the pickled squash cake. Forever known in Canada for his pass he made that time, Raivis will always be welcomed back to Toronto as "the guy who was photographed behind De Ro when he made the cheque-signing motion". Gd tms.

Hscanovics returned to his native land with his 2010 Canadian Championship Medal and a fever to eradicate vowels from Latvian football once and for all. It has been a struggle to fight the powerful Baltic consonant lobby but he has found some fortune, successfully changing the name of club Veentaspeels United into FK Ventspils. Bbystps. With future political ambitions (#RVSFRMYR2014) the world has likely not seen the last of this brave alphabetical crusader.

We salute you today Raivis. Thank you for giving back to Toronto by taking away so many vowels. Gd spd u Ltvjn wndrkd. Ladies and gentlemen, the first inductee onto The Wall of Punour… Raivis Hscanovics.