The Good Old Hockey Game

Postmodern Sass was on TV today, Gentle Reader. You probably missed it.

I've been on TV before, on a game show in the 1980s when I was in university. I was even an extra in a movie. I never thought I'd be on TSN, though.

But there I was, in the first row, right behind the bench, at the Legends on Ice hockey game. It was great to see a hockey game again, but it was also painful, in a watching-your-best-friend-marry-the-wrong-guy sort of way, because it wasn't a "real" hockey game. There is no hockey, as you know.

(At this point I must ask those of you who live in expansion³ cities, or anyplace where the game is referred to as ice hockey, to please step away from the blog. I just found out there's an NHL team in Phoenix, Arizona, for Christ's sake.)

It wasn't a real game, because the ad hoc teams ("Original Six" vs. "Expansion") aren't part of a real league. There's no playoffs, no Stanley Cup to chase after.

There's no fighting.

Come to think about it, it was a real, good ol' hockey game. Just like the ones I used to watch with my dad when I was a little girl. When Darryl Sittler had all that crazy curly hair that flew out behind him, uncovered by a crustacean helmet. Watching those Legends on the ice I wasn't put in mind of a football game, the way I am when I observe the ever-increasing tonnage of armour worn by NHL players these days. The Original Six players had bare heads; the Expansion team wore toques.

I used to think Mike Krushelnyski was hot, but he played the whole game in a helmet, the pussy.

The Legends games are nostalgic family entertainment, not unlike the Harlem Globetrotters, or a reunion jam session with the bands from Woodstock. Or Band Aid.

No slapshots or body checks are permitted. Like I said, it's not football. It's not the fucking WWE. It's hockey, the way it should be played. Though I wouldn't have minded a little less goofiness.

The game itself is, of course, the main attraction, but there's non-stop entertainment before, during, and after.

First, Paul Coffey and Ray Bourque were inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Poor Paul: even now, Ron MacLean, taking a break from Movie Night in Canada to ref the game, asked him what it was like to play with Wayne Gretzky.

Next, the lights dimmed for the singing of the national anthem. There I was, standing just behind the glass, quietly oogling Nick Kypreos and Doug Gilmour, when Jim Cuddy stepped onto the ice and I forgot all about hockey momentarily.

I love hockey, and I love hockey players (and Blue Rodeo), but I was starting to feel like a middle-aged businessman justifying his lunch at Hooter's.

There's lots of entertainment in between periods. Six year old hockey players of both genders, in tiny gear, looking, on that massive sheet of ice, like those slow flies you get in your house in the winter. There were figure skaters and a "lazer" show. Kalen Porter sang a mediocre song mediocrely, so I went out into the hallway on the platinum level to see what I could see. What I saw was Doug Gilmour, coming down the stairs from the directors' lounge. In his skates. Joking to the usher that he needed a beer.

"I'll buy you a beer after the game, Doug," I piped up before I could stop myself.

I have poor impulse control.

The Killer flashed that killer smile, the one that endeared him to our city, straight at me.

I smiled back. His alleged boffing of his babysitter in St. Louis only heightened his rapscallion charm, as far as I'm concerned. I pulled my ticket out of my back pocket and handed it to him to sign.

He obliged, then winked at me, and headed out to the ice.

I turned the ticket over, and instead of a signature, there were two words, printed in small, block letters.

The name of a bar uptown.

In the next story, Postmodern Sass attends her first blogger party.