February is toast!
March apparently will make it's annual appearance dressed as a lamb but with a lion mane. At least by all local weather reports.
The Olympics will end and the hangovers in Vancouver will start as quick as the deficits are tallied and the homeless move back to their boxes in the east side.
As I type this, it is time to get ready for the Gold medal hockey game. Canada vs USA. I will put on my patriotic "Canada" official Olympic hoodie, and will get Mary to do the same. The two of us will then head over to friends with my car adorned with a "GO Canada" flag attached and flapping in blaze of patriotic glory. We will watch the game and pray to the hockey Gods to give us the "Glove from above" if those Gods feel us worthy, and snatch pucks that seemed surely bound for the mesh. The crowds will roar and you will hear a collective "did you see that save?" from a sea of some thirty million Canadians that have in our DNA, the "hockey gene".
Our game.
We all remember for some reason where we were when Canada beat the USA to win the gold medal in 2002 at the Salt Lake City Olympics.
Funny lot we are. American friends will tell us in detail where they were when they heard Kennedy was assassinated; or regale in historical detail their location, and with whom they were with' on 9/11.
Canadians on the other sporting hand, will give you coordinates to the exact degree, along with temperature, time and weather outlook when "Our team" won something or other.
It is hockey man. This is Canada.
This is our game, to be sure, but boy do we have an inferiority complex about it. There is no swagger or no given. The outcome is not always a win; a medal; a world championship.
No sir, last winter Olympics we finished so far back, the country drank all the beer in our borders for a week straight! The arm chair hockey coaches and the political pundits flapped gums about what went wrong for a year! We analyzed and second guessed every move made by coaches on the games that we lost. Governments fell I am sure over the catastrophe.
The tide is changing. Russia and Canada were always the two hockey supremacy's in the world. Outside of the "Miracle on ice"30 years ago, the USA was not a hotbed of hockey talent. That is changing.
NCAA is working on drafting talent and building a program of young talented players.
The annual "Boxing day" fixture in our collective consciousness is the World Junior Hockey championships, where traditionally we mop up the world and then apologize in our true Canadian nature for having so Damn much young hockey talent.
This year, we lost!
Lost to the United States of America!
That country to the south of us that we thought just raised Nascar drivers, suddenly came out of the south and beat our young boys at our game!
So in just over one hour from now as I type this, Canada will break a record that quite possibly never be broken again. More people will watch this game in than any other game in our history.
When we beat Russia in the quarter finals just last Wednesday to advance to the Fridays semi-finals, over 10 million of us northern denizens tuned in to watch.
The estimates tell us that the number will be a lot more today.
I pray to the "Gloves from above" as most of my northern neighbours are doing right now.
It is our game, to be sure, but in true Canadian manner, I want to apologize to my friends in the US, for winning soundly!
Go Canada
David
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6 comments:
"That country to the south of us that we thought just raised Nascar drivers" Hahahahahaha!!
Apologies accepted, David. :)
Oh I love it. I'm a typical American and could give a shit about hockey. You guys can have it. It means so much to you :-) I heard that there was chanting at the game from the Canadians that went a little like "We've got Healthcare, We've got Healthcare" and I laughed out loud. Then I cried. Then I polished off this bottle of Malbec and acknowledged what I learned long ago: You Canadians have got it going on all over the place, not just in hockey. God love you all.
Congrats!!!!! Y'all won!!
"hockey gene" My four year old grandson has been introduced to playing hockey. He loves it so much he told me he wants to play it for 100 years. I said I hope I am around to see that..lol.
"The Glove from Above" good one Dave.
I like Hetha's comment.
When I was up north of the "Soo" on a cross-country ski trip, we saw a busload of kids getting home from school. Within minutes, most headed right out on the ice! And when we visited a school (I'm a teacher consultant), I discovered they even have hockey at recess too!
I'm glad your country won. We need some humble pie.
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