Reports indicate that the Toronto Maple Leafs will honor longtime equipment manager Brian Papineau on Saturday's pre-season game at home against the Montreal Canadiens.
Brian Papineau was a longtime equipment manager for the Toronto Maple Leafs, going from 1989-1990 to 2021-22, about 32 years of service behind the bench, according to Elite Prospects.
In Toronto's first pre-season game at Scotiabank Arena on Saturday against the Montreal Canadiens, it has been reported that the Maple Leafs will honor Papineau during the game.
Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman was the one who reported this on the 32 Thoughts podcast. He noted that Papineau and Mats Sundin were close, and now Sundin is a big part of the organization as the senior executive advisor.
"(Papineau) was really tight with Mats Sundin," Friedman said on the show. "Papineau is going to be on the bench on Saturday night in Toronto, and they're going to honor him."
Papineau marked over 2,500 games as an equipment manager for Toronto. In his first four years with the club in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was the assistant equipment manager, but became the head equipment manager beginning in 1992-93.
Speaking of that 1992-93 season, when the Maple Leafs defeated the Detroit Red Wings in the first round of the playoffs with an overtime goal in Game 7 by Nikolai Borschevsky, there is a clip of a man behind Toronto's bench spraying a water bottle in celebration, that's Papineau.
He was also an equipment manager for Team Canada on a few different occasions. Papineau contributed to two World Championships, in 1991 and 1992, winning silver in the former competition.
He was also behind the bench when Canada won gold at the 1992 Canada Cup as an equipment manager.
Since Papineau moved on from the Maple Leafs organization, Bobby Hastings has been Toronto's head equipment manager, beginning that role in 2020-21.
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