Toronto Maple Leafs Joffrey Lupul (left) clears the puck despite pressure from New York Islanders Michael Haley during first period NHL action in Toronto on Tuesday, February 22, 2011.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris YoungChris Young/The Canadian Press
Joffrey Lupul didn't expect much of a response. It was an act of desperation more than anything.
But after losing his iPhone in a taxi this morning on the way to a doctor's appointment, Lupul messaged his 25,000 followers on Twitter that he would give a reward if anyone could track down his lost cellphone.
"Let's make #findlupulsphone a trending topic," he wrote. "Reward - tickets to the next 5 games and a jersey. Andddddd go!"
Ten minutes later, the cab driver delivered the phone to Lupul's condo building after the company had been flooded with calls with people trying to find it.
Lupul was amazed so many people took his tweet seriously.
"It was honestly just kind of a shot in the dark," he said. "I was half joking.
"I called [the cab company]and when I spoke to the lady, she said 'oh we've been expecting your call.' I think they're probably so annoyed with me now. But I got it back."
Because no one person earned the reward, Lupul said he plans to give the cab driver tickets to the Leafs next home game, which will be tomorrow night against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
"I'm going to give him a call after practice and see if he wants to come to the game," he said. "I had almost written it off because it had been a couple of hours and I had called it a bunch of times and no one had answered.
"I was happy to have it back because I didn't have my numbers backed up on it. So I would be stuck with no phone and no phone numbers."
He said it was an interesting experiment in social media, something he may test out again in the future.
"It was kind of fun watching people write back - everyone had different suggestions of how I could get it back," Lupul said. "Maybe we'll have to do another scavenger hunt sometime. Hide something around town and give them a couple clues."
Lupul has been building a fairly large following on Twitter already, one that grew massively after he was traded to Toronto by the Anaheim Ducks a couple weeks ago. He currently has the fourth most followers of any NHL player.