Shut Up And Listen 134

Hockey Night In Canada
Fuck yeah, it’s hockey season once again. Sure, the season technically started on Thursday, but it doesn’t really start until the first Hockey Night In Canada Saturday night game and this year it’s starting off right: Montreal versus Toronto at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto (next Saturday, they play again in Montreal).
	Now it may surprise some, but I don’t know how to skate (amazingly, there are Canadians who don’t know how). I mean, I’ve been skating, but I just never got the hang of it. The actual skating was no problem, but actually stopping without running into the boards was. Not that that fact ever stopped me from playing hockey, it’s just I played a lot of road hockey. 
	Road hockey was a passion of mine when I was younger. It was a way to somehow be put on equal footing with my heroes and to just have a lot of fun. Probably the most memorable game I played was a one-on-one game against Graham Proctor back in grade four when Toronto was playing Los Angeles in the Campbell Conference finals. We played on my front lawn with the goal being the wall. I was Toronto and he was LA; and yes, this is how we both wanted it. Graham was a bandwagon jumper when it came to hockey: whatever team was hot and looked to have the best chance to win, he cheered for (hell, his later “love” for the Detroit Red Wings is a major factor in my outright hatred of them). I don’t remember the score of our game, just that I won and for that brief time, I had felt like I had defended the honour of the Maple Leafs and every other one of their fans. I mean, here was this fucking fair-weather fan and he was daring to say the Leafs suck? Fuck that! I kicked his fucking ass for it. The fact that Toronto lost in game seven to the Kings was a slight embarrassment later though. At least LA lost in the Stanley Cup to Montreal (if the Leafs made it, they would have won, by the way).
	One thing I’ve always loved about road hockey is that I was good at it. I wasn’t a typically geek, wimpy kid or anything. I loved to play sports and such and was always near the best, but just near, never quite the best. In road hockey, I fucking rocked though. I think that was because it wasn’t necessarily a game of strength or speed, but of finesse and skill. A lot of the time, I could score just by taking the ball away with ease and then skilfully shooting for the goalie’s weak spot. It didn’t require strength or speed, just the ability to use my stick to take the ball and then good aim. Also, I’ve always had pretty good reflexes and those were a big asset in net. Yeah, I like to brag about that.
	I played road hockey pretty solidly up until high school. You know, when I really started to shift into the geeky guy you all know and love. I do miss playing it like I used to. Hell, one thing I miss is just having the stick in my hand and being out there even before the game began. Just getting warmed up was great fun. And I miss that.
	But back to the NHL . . . I’m a Leafs fan and I seriously think they’re going to win this year like I do every year. I am disappointed this year a bit because last year, the Leafs got Doug Gilmour back and then in the summer, after being injured, he retired. I mean, in the 90s, he was The Maple Leaf. He was the guy. And then he was traded away (at least, that’s what I remember happening) and finally, finally he was back and then injury prevented him from playing last season and then he called it quits during the summer. Needless to say this disappointed many of us. The thing about the Leafs though is that for the past four or five years, they’ve followed a pattern: they start off the season strong and then around the All-Star game, they begin to slow down and then gain new momentum just before the playoffs only to fuck it up somewhere during the post-season. Hopefully they’ll break that pattern this year.
	Well, the second period just started and I should get back to watching the game. The game is scoreless right now, but I know the Leafs will crush the Canadiens. OH! ALMOST! Dammit! Later.