Shit got hot up in the 6ix this weekend.
For a city that knows heartbreak when it comes to its sports teams, some good fortune finally came Toronto’s way.
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It started Friday when 6 God and Raptors cheerleader Drake dropped #VIEWS on the world. The Toronto-born rapper created a buzz with his latest album cover, in a move that acted as a perfect table-setter for a weekend that Torontonians won’t soon forget.
The NHL draft lottery was the following night, and although Toronto’s perennially struggling hockey team had the best odds to win, we all assumed the Oilers would somehow manage to land the top pick again in next month’s draft and the rights to prized forward Auston Matthews. Not this time. Leafs president Brendan Shanahan was all smiles when the ping pong balls rolled in Toronto’s favour, landing a team that hasn’t won a Cup since 1967 a potentially elite talent to build around.
If that wasn’t enough, Blue Jays ace Marcus Stroman threw a three-hit, one-run gem with a career-high nine strikeouts on his 25th birthday Sunday before rushing back to Toronto with teammate Jose Bautista to take in the Raptors’ do-or-die Game 7 matchup at home later that night.
Tensions were high after the Raptors, with a chance to close the series, got embarrassed two nights earlier, but these guys were looking calm.
Though it wasn’t pretty, the Raptors kept the good times rolling in T.O. by squeaking out an 89-84 victory over the Pacers to advance to the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs for the first time since 2001. In typical Toronto fashion, the Raptors almost squandered a 16-point fourth-quarter lead but managed to hold on, setting up a second-round matchup with the Heat.
Weekends like this don’t happen in Toronto often ever.
Toronto fans can breath a sigh of relief, otherwise, as the heavily-favoured No. 2 seed, Drake and the Raps would have been the punchline of a lot of jokes like this.
Instead, enjoy some of the best memes, vines and tweets that highlighted a successful weekend in the city.
And perhaps the best of all, from the Raps’ Twitter account…
