The Stanley Cup is underway once again, and this year it features the Vancouver Canucks against the Boston Bruins. So as you can imagine, a lot of Canadians are glued to their seats with anticipation. It's been eighteen years since the Cup has been won by one of our teams. Far too long, really, and when you have a team called the Anaheim Ducks win it (our Senators were robbed that year, by the way), you can imagine why it might annoy a few of my fellow Canadians.
Now while I enjoy the game, understand it, and can follow what's happening easily, I don't religiously follow the game all the time. It's not a tradition for me to watch Hockey Night In Canada on Saturday nights. Besides, somehow listening to the bigoted blowhard opinions of a mediocre former coach in between periods does nothing for me.
Aside from the Cup, this past week has seen the return of an NHL team to Winnipeg, now that the Atlanta Thrashers are folding up and heading back north. The head of the NHL, Gary Bettman, who's spent the last few years obsessively opening up franchises in places where hockey doesn't fit (Nashville? Tampa Bay? Come on!) was less then enthusiastic when making the announcement. Fans in the Prairies were over the moon.
And so the last round of the playoffs is underway. Across the land, Canadians are watching. In New York, NBC executives are shaking their heads in dismay, wishing they could have had two American teams for the finals. And the Toronto Maple Leafs, of course, have been out on the golf courses now for six weeks, thinking once more that maybe next year will be their chance at the Cup. As if that'll ever happen again...
Even the local wildlife is rooting for the home team.
Obviously Canucks fans have selective hearing. A common thing among the male half of the species.
What to do if you're a hockey fan and a U2 fan... do you attend the concert or the game? Maybe Bono will be kind enough to make a compromise....
While the series continues, surely the eternal torment of Leafs fans shall never end. They chose to hitch their fandom to a lost cause, so they deserve all the heckling they will ever get.
As for Bettman himself... aside from his failed experiment in Southern hockey, there's the whole problem of way too many headshots, fighting, and career ending concussions. Gary's response thus far has been to pull an ostrich and put his head in the sand.
...when he's not thinking of setting up an NHL franchise in Honolulu...
And regarding that bigoted blowhard mediocre former coach turned commentator, here he is....
And so Canada waits to see the outcome of the series. Will it be Vancouver that triumphs and brings the Stanley Cup back home to Canadian soil? Or will Boston take it? One thing's for sure...
The Toronto Maple Leafs won't be carrying the Cup down Yonge Street in victory anytime soon. To their fans, I can only offer up these heartfelt words.....
Nyah nyah nyah nyah!!!
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