Dart Guy: Hockey’s Favourite Cigarette Lovin’, Beer Guzzlin’ Fan Embraces the Meme

It was when overtime hit that Jason Maslakow realized, goddamn, a smoke could really help with all his stress.

In front of him in at the Verizon Center in Washington DC, the mighty Washington Capitals were taking on Maslakow's beloved Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round of the NHL playoffs. Maslakow and a couple friends had driven 10 hours from Toronto to Washington DC to see his Leafs, massive underdogs in the series, play the best team in the league.

So, to calm his nerves, Maslakow drew a Du Maurier king sized dart and put it between his lips.

"It was kind of little bit of a safety blanket for me," Maslakow told VICE. "I was sitting there stressing out watching the game, it was tied and I was hoping for a good outcome for my Leafs. I needed a smoke so I just threw it in there to get me through until I could get out and smoke it."

That's the state Maslakow was in when a camera swung through the crowd, caught Maslakow and, in that moment, the weird hockey obsessed corner of Twitter fell in love. It wasn't the happy grimace on his face, nor the makeup (that was a total pain-in-the-ass to apply) or the hair he cut to read "Go Leafs Go" which made people take a liking with this man. No, it was the unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.

In honour of that dangling dart, Maslakow was bestowed a name, Dart Guy—boy howdy, has Dart Guy's life been weird since he was caught on camera. The memeing of Dart Guy started to explode seconds after he was caught on camera. This was all happening without Maslakow knowledge.

"I had no idea. I was oblivious, Maslakow told VICE. "I was focused on watching the hockey game and I had no idea what was going on."

In fact, it wasn't until a journalist found his Twitter account and went to talk to him in the stands that Maslakow found out. Now, days later, Maslakow is getting calls from media rooms all over from Canada, the Maple Leafs offered him free tickets to game three (a win!) and he was brought to game four (a loss!) with a radio personality. And in between those moments people have bought the man enough beer to drown a adult horse. One of his favourite players, Wendel Clark, searched him out in the third game to get a photo with him.

"I'm definitely not going to complain but it's been crazy, non-stop interviews pictures. I absolutely didn't expect anything like this," Maslakow said. "I knew doing the makeup and everything I might get a second shot on CBC but I never could have imagined this is what happened."

"The last couple of days… weird would be the word I would use."

Stuff like this isn't supposed to happen to someone like Maslakow, a gregarious Ontario man who doesn't hide his love for cigarettes. He lives a quiet life an hour and a half outside of Toronto in Waterloo with his wife and small dog where he makes a living in a shop painting cars for Toyota. Maslakow has been handling the situation with all the grace he can, but he is also doing what we all would, trying to get what he can out of it before it's all over.

"Well it seems like right now there are a bunch of companies out there selling shirts and stuff like that who are milking the situation for me," he said. "We're going to take care of that as time goes. I've shared a few shameless tweets about Molson Canadian products and they've actually gotten ahold of that and we're going to be meeting. A couple shameless tweets never hurt the situation, that's for sure."

As for that famous dart—the one that brought him all this attention—Maslakow didn't frame it nor hand it over to the Hockey Hall of Fame, the minute overtime finished he rushed outside and he smoked that dart.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.