Waiting for the blood to bounce
Where were you when the USA made Obama president? I was at the hockey. One of my bosses has season tickets but he was optimistically planning to host an Obama party on 4th November. Jessie and I didn’t get invited, instead we got his tickets. And a very good deal that was.
Within minutes of arrival, Jessie had told me everything I needed to know about the game. The captain, and goalie, is Luongo. Then, there’s the fat one, the young one, and the funny looking twins. A hockey team has twenty players;presumably the other fifteen have no distinguishing features and therefore were not worthy of comment. Players sorted, she told me about the rules; most seem to relate to penalties for violence. There are separate penalties for tripping, boarding, hooking, high-sticking, slashing and spearing but if the umpire can’t decide they use an all- inclusive roughing. That’s pretty much all there is to know about hockey. Well, I should say, that’s all according to Jessie, who despite being Canadian seems to know very little about their national sport.
Fortunately, on my other side I had a much fuller commentary from what Sarah Palin would probably describe as a “Hockey Mom”. After sitting next to this woman for two hours I think we can be even more grateful for Obama winning. This woman did not let up.”C’mon, go after it. Don’t waste time. You call that a power play? What are you doing out there, you should be defending the goal. Are you trying to lose this game?” etc etc. Most of her stream was fairly negative, which belied the actual outcome.
The Canucks won, four goals to zero.The first goal was one of those scuffles, where the puck falls into the goal, almost without anyone noticing. The second, I’m afraid I missed seeing. Jessie was talking to me about the love hotels in Singapore (Maybe Hong Kong?). Apparently, for a money-conscious student, the love hotels, which have a daily rate as well as an hourly rate, are by far the cheapest place to stay, and surprisingly fresh. Sure the in-house movie selection might be a little unusual, but you get clean sheets every time you leave! You can understand why my attention wasn’t really on the game. The third goal came in the last third. During the interval someone had been trying to get a Mexican wave going. It started off to one side of us, and was moving clockwise meaning we would be nearly the last people to stand. But, it kept petering out. The initiators would stand up again, and it would get a little further and peter out again. A little further, a little further…. Then suddenly every one stood up and started cheering at once. “That’s not how it’s supposed to work”, I thought to myself, and then realised I’d missed the another goal. Right, focus….Not to worry, shortly thereafter, the Canucks scored their final goal for the evening, the only one I actually saw go in.
In the end, Jessie was right. Of all the players, the fat one scored two goals, the young one scored one and one of the funny looking twins scored the other. The only person she neglected to mention was the guy who started the fight. As long as you put your stick down (a fairly dangerous potential weapon in these pumped-up players) and take your gloves off, it is quite acceptable to thump another player. The fight continues until one of you hits the ground, a surprisingly long time given these men are standing on thin blades, on an ice rink. The umpires will not intercede until this point. Both of the fighters are issued a five minute penalty and then they can play again. The weirdest thing part though is that the other players just hang around waiting for it to stop. If it were the AFL, there’d be a free-for-all. Then again, if it were the AFL, I wouldn’t have missed half the goals and be desperate to see something resembling action.
The next night, we went skating ourselves, at the public rink at Kits. OK, we might not be quite so fast, or so skilled as the Canucks. But we survived unscathed, with all our teeth and all our fingers, and think we might make it a regular event. With skiing on Tuesdays, and skating on Wednesdays, I think I’m turning into a Canadian. (This is actually my way of apologising for not having any photos with this entry. I thought it might be a bit touristy to take the camera, though of course I am kicking myself now. If I go again, I’ll update this entry.)
Tags: Canada, Expat life, Travel
