Francesco Corrado, the hockey player, was sipping a small black coffee at a table near the cashier of a bustling midtown Toronto café, and he was talking about his name. It can change depending on where he is at any given moment: at a Starbucks, at TSN, or waiting to hear it called by an NHL executive.
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“When I was going through the OHL draft, we kind of did it as Frankie because we were like, ‘Who the hell is going to draft Francesco from Woodbridge?’” he said with a smile. “Then when it was coming up to the NHL Draft, we just said, ‘Frankie seems like a kid’s name, let’s turn it a bit more adult-like, so we did it as Frank.’”
He laughed.
“Who knows what could have been if I’d stayed Francesco Corrado,” he said. “I might still be playing.”
Corrado, who suggested he be called Frankie for this story, was in a comfortable long-sleeve shirt with dark-rimmed glasses and a fashionable dash of stubble. He grew up in Woodbridge, Ont., a 35-minute drive northwest of where he was seated, and eventually appeared in 80 NHL games as a defenceman.
He became an unwitting cause célèbre during two short, chaotic seasons with the Maple Leafs, and he had been playing overseas before returning home last fall to nurse lingering injuries. At 29, Corrado has hit a professional crossroads, with one eye on the ice, and the other on a growing ambition in broadcasting.
For half of last season, Corrado was part of the pregame, intermission and postgame Leafs coverage at TSN 1050 radio. He has made a series of cameo appearances on “Leafs Lunch,” the weekday radio talk show, and has been part of the company’s television coverage of the Canadian Hockey League.
“I found myself getting this feeling of joy and excitement when I was going to the studio or going to the rink,” he said. “It made me feel good.”
When he was young, Corrado said his parents would let him stay up to watch the first period of a Leafs game before sending him off to bed. His father bought him a radio, with the idea his son would drift into slumber with the soundtrack of Joe Bowen calling the second period action.
“Little did they know, I just basically stayed up the whole time and listened to the whole game,” said Corrado. “I always got a kick out of listening to the call-in show, even as a kid. Listening to guys call in saying, ‘Yeah, we gotta trade Kaberle for Joe Sakic.’”
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Callers from his hometown have become a source of gentle ribbing on TSN 1050, where “Joe from the ‘Bridge” is a recurring presence on air. Corrado is familiar with the genre.
“I just think it’s the delivery,” he said. “It’s the conviction in which it’s delivered. It’s being so certain that we need to trade Player X and get Player Y, and that is going to change it, with no questions asked.”
Corrado still has friends in Woodbridge, and he is a member of a golf club in town. He said he enjoys walking the course on a Saturday morning and bumping into five people who offer five different and strongly held beliefs about how the Leafs can fix their problems: “And (the Leafs) have to do it, or else they’re doomed, right?”
Early last season, while playing in Riga, Latvia, Corrado asked to return home. He had ankle issues, which seemed to lead to knee issues and problems with his hip. His wish was granted, and the team voided his contract.
A few weeks after he returned, a producer from TSN 1050 invited him on air for a short segment. The appearance went well enough that Stephanie Apolito, the assistant program director, asked if he might be interested in dropping in as an occasional co-host.
Corrado had taken a few post-secondary courses over the years. He tried a bit of finance, a little bit of business. He never seemed to finish them, mostly because nothing really captured his imagination. He found something different when he dabbled in broadcasting.
“You get to stay in the game,” he said. “I love the game. I grew up loving the game.”
The game did not always love him back, especially after the Leafs claimed him off waivers in 2015, early in his career. Toronto was terrible by design that season, on its way to securing the first overall pick in the draft, which it would use to select Auston Matthews.
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Despite the rebuild, Corrado was forced to make a home in the press box as a healthy scratch.
“Even the fact that you’re going up for game No. 22, and you haven’t played, and you’re like, ‘What am I going to do? Eat another bag of popcorn? This is ridiculous,’” he said. “Sometimes I would go up and sometimes I would stay in the room and watch the game.”
It was even more difficult for games on the road. Sometimes, he would be the only healthy scratch on the roster. Teammates would leave the hotel on a chartered bus at 4:30 p.m., and he would check out a bit later, making his own way to the arena. He would try to stay out of everyone’s way as they prepared for the game, then work out quietly on his own.
“I’m there,” he said, “but I’m not exactly there.”
Fans picked up his plight.
“It was weird to go on Twitter after a game and see that my name was trending,” he said. “I’m like, ‘I’m not even the next guy in the lineup. I’m two guys out of being in the lineup,’ and my name was trending.”
Mike Babcock was the head coach. Even now, Corrado said he cannot be certain, but he always felt the attention he got for being a healthy scratch only hardened the coach’s resolve to keep him out of the lineup.
“No player is entitled to play,” said Corrado. “But for things to have dragged out as long as they did, I think that’s where I take issue with it. If you knew it was never going to happen, we should have cut ties much earlier than letting it drag on that way.”
The Leafs fired Babcock in November 2019, just as reports were surfacing about his mistreatment of one young player on the roster. (It was reported that, when Mitch Marner was a rookie, Babcock had asked him to list which players he thought were the hardest-working, then shared the list with players Marner had identified as being near the bottom. Babcock later conceded he made “a big-time mistake.”)
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“I’ll tell you straight up: If I ever saw him again, I would have some choice words for him,” said Corrado. “I just feel like it was only a matter of time until his antics caught up to him.”
Corrado is not sure if he will step back into a professional hockey uniform. He has not given his agent, Joe Resnick, the green-light to start searching for new offers. He already has one important date on his calendar: After getting married in 2020, he and his wife, Jessica Laurenza, are finally able to hold their wedding reception in June.
He is also watching the playoffs, but not exactly how he used to watch the playoffs.
“Now, I’m at the point where I want to watch the intermissions,” he said. “I want to see what a guy like Kevin Bieksa is saying, or a guy like Jeff O’Neill: How do they approach it? How do they open it? How do they close it, and what do they do in between?”
(Photo: Claus Andersen / Getty Images)