Hockey: Canucks versus Oilers

The guys and I went to a hockey game with the Canucks playing the Edmonton Oilers.  The Oilers won 2 to 1.  There were a whole lot of zealous oiler fans at the game.  After the Fort McMurray fire and the second time the Federal Liberals, the time Justin  Trudeau, just like his father, Pierre Trudeau,  had thrown the province of Alberta under the bus. The Trudeau energy decisions as always ruined the western provinces for the sake of Quebec.    Quebec had taken 45 billion in transfer payments but now wouldn't even allow a pipe line to cross the province so Albertans could keep their jobs.  Hence the Albertans, Canada’s own uncared for refugees, were migrants to  British Columbia.   So it was kind of good to see these Canadian refugees, displaced and betrayed, cheering their home team as they no doubt wondered when, if ever, they would get back to Alberta.
Hockey has always been dear to me. I grew up playing it with my brother.  My nephews in Ottawa are big Senator fans. Whenever I visit at Christmas  NHL hockey is playing on the television.
When my brother Ron and I were kids, we’d walk to the outdoor rink through waist high snow. We’d shovel off the rink to play. There’d be a wood stove we’d sit around in the old club house putting on our skates. I’d always have freezing toes. My mom would help me get my skates off and warm my feet holding them in her hands.  Boris Tyzuk and his father were always there.  Other than the coach it was always just Boris and my mother who seemed to be there cheering us kids on.  I’ve always thought that explained why Boris became a Rhodes Scholar and I ended up in Medical School. We were just like any other kids but we sure had a whole lot of love and support from our parents.
Walking home with my brother, my mother always had a Wagon Wheel she’d give us for the walk home. I’d be so tired. I played hockey age 5 to 12. My brother played till he  was 16.
Hockey Night in Canada was a great time. My brother and I would put on our hockey sweaters, mine the blue Toronto Maple Leafs and his the red Montreal Canadians. Back then when we were kids Quebec was part of Canada and not separated by Trudeau’s polices.   Dad was in high spirits. We’d all be shouting at the game. Mom would have pop corn or mandarin oranges, always thinking of what would make her boys happy. She was as much a hockey fan as the rest of us and the whole family shouted at the TV screen, so much so that the dog would start barking.  Dad would be laughing so hard and we kids would be squealing and Mom would be trying to keep order while laughing herself.  Sometimes in intermission Dad would roll off the couch and start wrestling and tickling us kids. Naturally the dog would join in.  Bedlam in the Hay home until the intermission ended and the hockey game began again.   Dad always had the couch. Mom had her comfortable chair.  Ron and I usually sat on the floor up close to the tv.  It was in black and white in those days.
Later I’d play in the Old Time League in the country, in the Comox Valley. A former NHL hockey player who had had a few cardiac bypass operations would skate circles around us at supersonic speeds. It brought home better than anything could the difference between amateur and professional.
The Canucks and Oilers are the best professional teams.  Tom was talking a week before of the incredible playing of the new Oilder player, McDavid.  “He’s the new Goreski. I’m looking forward as much to seeing him play as I am to the game.”  Watching McDavid play surely was worth the price of admission. Dave loves hockey too. His eyes never left the game once the puck was dropped.
I love  Canuck’s Sedin brothers. Watching them skate and stick handle is like watching ballet on ice.  The game was so well played by both teams that it took on a choreographed quality.  Getting the puck, passing, skating, lots of shots on goal and great saves by the goalies. The Oilers  just had the edge.  Miller, the Canucks goalie, was terrific,  only letting one shot through. The other goal was on a power play when no one was in the Canucks goal.
James and Kevin, a couple of fathers of young children sat together while I sat between Tom and Dave, a couple of older guys like me.  We’d hear the young guys screaming their heads off at times.  It’s amazing the energy at a hockey game.  Great music.  Lots of fun filming that showed up on the big screen. Michelle sang O Canada so beautifully I had tears.  We all stood and sang along.
I love Zamborni Machines. Just watching them cleaning the ice and all the young kids coming out with shovels warms my heart.  Then the kids there with their parents.  It’s such a family event, hockey games.  And this one was so close to Halloween that a whole lot of people came in costume and the best won a contest they richly deserved, the girl a perfect zombie if she wasn’t so beautiful. Dave and Tom and I liked Wonderwoman a whole lot too.  She was with a guy.  All we could for was some major crime happening so she would  rescue us.  
When people talk about Canadian culture and multi culturalism like Canada is an uncultured place, I point to hockey.  America has its football. The rest of the world has it’s soccer.  Canada has hockey and the game defines us.  I believe it’s the greatest game in the world and there’s a philosophy, theology and poetry that affects the northern soul playing it but also just watching it.  Admittedly cave men played soccer and football but hockey like baseball involves a tool so it didn’t develop until people were far more advanced culturally  mentally. There’s teammanship in other games. Yet hockey is extremely  fast. Only polo with horses is faster.  It’s highly dangerous too and not at all for politically correct easily offended not yet off the breast sorts of adults.  Girls play hockey but it is akin to rugby in it’s contact capabilities. Everything about hockey is marvellous.  I truly believe it’s God’s game. In Canada we say, we’re not doing something till hell freezes over.  A true Canadian, a man of high culture, will skate his way through any challenge.  
All too soon the game was over. It was great to get together with the guys.  I’ve been going to Canucks games over a quarter of a century, given the cost, maybe one or two ever year or so.  This group of guys make it a whole lot of fun.  Looking forward to the next time.

The Canucks beat the Predators and Hockey Night in Canada

The Canucks were awesome.  A little slow in the first period.  Like boxers dancing about each other rather than actually playing hockey.  The game picked up  in the second period, better plays and more aggressive action but still more a dance than real hockey.   The third period  was worth the wait. That's when the game exploded.
The Predators were by no means slouches. All kinds of good hockey.  Great stick play.  So good, sticks were periodically bursting.   Amazing goal tending by Lack.  Lots of dropped pucks by both teams. The first two periods Canucks seemed to be just shooting in the direction of the goal while the Predators were actually getting more real shots on goal.  Lack took one bullet right in the middle of his chest.
I’d got two tickets for the game at the Simon Frazer Robbie Burns Dinner, a fund raiser for the incredible Simon Frazer Pipe Band. It was terrific that the Canucks donated the tickets to that worthy event. I was glad to support Simon Frazer in the Silent Auction while winning a couple of hockey tickets to the greatest hockey team in the world.
Who to bring along?  My Aim Simpeng, the gorgeous Thai PHD political genius had just married Marc Beaudry, the French Canadian businessmen extraordinaire.  Aim must surely be hockey deficient whereas what French Canadian doesn’t love hockey? So I got another ticket and we made it a night.
Marc had indeed played goalie since three and only hung up his skates last year.  Thailand meanwhile is not known for their hockey league.  I told Aim that if the Jamaicans could have a bobsled team there was a possibility Thailand could sport a hockey team.  Being Buddhist wasn't sure it would catch on like soccer has.  Both Marc and I almost shouted her down when she said she wouldn’t want her children playing hockey because it’s so dangerous.  Aim, we're in Canada. Really!
Jim Byrnes was truly amazing. He has the most magnificent voice. Hearing him sing blues and rock I never fully appreciated it until tonight.  Hearing him sing the American Anthem and O Canada sent shivers up my spine.
The opening of this hockey game tonight was more like a rock concert than the old Don Cherry event we grew up on.
When the game began I was instantly nostalgically transported to the Laidlaws backyard in Fort Garry Manitoba. Each winter, Mr. Laidlaw ran water from the garden hose into the boarded areas where he raised his summer corn.   Then all winter Kirk and I , starting age 5 years old  when we became friend, along with all the other kids of our little neighbourhood would skate on that home made back yard rink.
When the his sisters and their girlfriends were skating we could only skate too. Girls didn't play hockey back then. They twirled a lot and stuff but they didn't play hockey.   When the girls weren't around the sticks and pucks came out.  We all had skates.   Sticks for kids in early days were kind of crutches we could scuff at the puck with at risk of falling. We were pretty low to the ground already with our feet splayed out and knees almost on the rink.
 We all loved NHL Hockey Night in Canada. First we  listened to it on the radio then when we got tbs we all sat around as families watching it.  So even if we didn't really look like much on the ice and fell a lot in our minds eyes as kids we were Rocket Richards.  There was even a Bill Hay on the Chicago Blackhawks so I must skate like him since we shared our name.  We had a lot of imagination as kids.  By the time I gave up hockey as a teen,   I could skate backwards and shoot the puck at the net but still  couldn’t stop too good going forward or backwards.
The games when I was 10 to 12 were the best of all. We’d graduated to the community club league and I think I had shin pads and a cup and gloves.  I explained to Aim that hockey gear was something that you collected over a lifetime back then.  My dad never tired of telling my brother and he how they'd rolled up newspapers for knee pads when they were playing hockey as kids north of Swan River. Every Christmas was special because we might get a coveted piece of sports gear along with the perennial pyjamas and socks.
My brother had a Montreal Canadian sweater and I had a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater but because the gear was mostly second hand, the socks I got were blackhawks which was okay because of Bill Hay.  All the kids has a pot pourri of teams. I don't remember anyone having a complete outfit from one hockey team. I didn’t even play hockey long enough to get shoulder pads or shorts.  As a kid I played in jeans and a parka with that Maple Leaf Sweater over it.  The hockey sweaters socks and everything were always bought so we'd grow into sometime when we were adults.
There was no indoor rink either.
Mom would walk my brother and I through the deep snow drifts and dark of night to the Fort Garry Community Club Rink.  She’d pack Wagon Wheels for the trip home. Even now I tear to think of her love and those Wagon Wheels.  In the club house there’d be a wood stove.  We’d put on our skate there in the deathly cold. All us kids got frost bite some time too.  I remember mom warming my toes by the fire one really bad winter when the game was finally called because too many of us kids were crying with a skates off trying to get our feet warm around that wood stove.
Some dad volunteered as a coach for each team of little boys.  Boris Tyzek’s Dad and my Mom were often the only parents out on the coldest nights. Dad was often away working.  Boris went onto a Rhodes Scholar and outstanding Lawyer whereas I, against all odds, became a physician.  I think his dad and my mom cheering for us kids on those  40 below zero nights, at their kids hockey games  made all the difference.
Then too my older brother, Ron, was always there.  He was a real athlete. He could skate circles around us kids and actually stop without falling down first. The stars in those Winnipeg skies were never brighter walking home through those great snow drifts eating those wagon wheels mom brought.
Hockey was everything back then.  The last I played hockey was an Oldtimers Country League a quarter century ago. I was a country doctor by then.  I’ve skated since but haven’t had a stick in my hand that I can remember since.  I don't know where the time went. If you asked us kids back then we'd have told you we'd never give up playing hockey. It was everything a Canadian boy lived for.
When we were kids,  the Red River froze some years.  Then we played hockey for miles on that river skating like the wind and passing the puck back and forth forever.  I think of that year when I hear Vancouver's Sarah MacLaughlan singing so beautifully the Saskatchewan Joni Mitchell prairie Canada song, "I wish I had a river I could skate away on."
Somethings are truly Canadian.
The Samborni Machines cleaned  the ice tonight. I love Samborni machines.   The pretty cheerleader girls and handsome boys carrying shovels rather than batons between periods added to the whole experience.  Given the cold when I was growing up outdoor hockey never had cheer leaders. As kids we sometimes cleared 4 feet of snow off the ice at the rink just to play hockey.
The Canucks are everything now. They’ve got the best of gear. Their sticks aren’t wood taped with electric tape but some sort of composite.  Their skates are some sort of Startrek greased lightening.  Humans couldn't skate that fast without some kind of extraterrestrial or supernatural help. They wear helmets and face guards, things which only the goalie wore when we were kids. Not all goalies.  Only the sissies.
The Canucks goalie Lack is from Sweden.  I like all the northerners on the Canucks team. I never forget that the greatest hockey game I saw was the Canadian Canadian Russian all star series.  After that ironically, the best hockey has been the Canadian women versus Americans.  Well, maybe not, there's nothing like a game with Goretsky on the ice. I've been blessed to see that and I thought his playing was near divine. The Canucks have come close too.  They will again.  Our old standby Luongo is gone but Lack was magnificent tonight.  Gilbert, my cockapoo, still wore his Canucks jersey even if he couldn't attend the game.
When Jensen scored the first goal, that was it. A groundswell of applause. Everyone standing and shouting. I’m hoarse. Really hoarse. The stadium roared. But it got even louder when Edler scored the second in a power play. .  How it could have got any louder than when Jensen scored is beyond me, but it did.   All of us Canucks fans were clapping our hands and stamping our feet.
I’m sure the ghosts of my mom and Boris dad were there too. There sure were a lot of kids with their parents tonight.    I liked that.  Hockey is such a special sport.  It's all about family and Canada and growing up in ice and snow.  I liked that Aim, from Thailand, liked it.
"I used to love watching Marc play goalie,"
It was a grand night.  Thank you Canucks.  Thank you Jensen. Thank you Edler.