Ah hockey!

06 Oct 2005

So those who know me in the face to face sense, know that I'm a huge hockey fan. I love it! I can't get enough of it!

If you ever see me not wearing a hockey jersey it means that I'm going on a date, some special event is happening, or they are all dirty.

Last night was the opening night of the season. I'm sitting at my computer, watching a hockey game on the tv to my right. An old friend messages me:

“Are you watching hockey?”

“Of course! Are you?”

“Absolutely! It's opening night! Did you see that hit?”

“YEAH! God I missed hockey! :)”

It's just so wonderful to have it back! The shoot out sucks. After watching the wonderfully intense third period between Ottawa and Toronto last night, the shoot out was very anticlimactic. You see this 60 minutes of hockey filled with guts, determination, emotion and then… you watch them skate, one at a time, to take one shot on the goalies. Wooptydo… It takes away from the the most key element of the sport. Hockey is a TEAM sport.

So today I'm walking to work. Maybe I should stop walking to work and strang things will stop? So yeah, I'm walking to work. This guy pulls over, hops out of his car, throws both thumbs up in the air and yells over at me. “Oilers! Those are my boys!” I just smiled and nodded and said “Yeah!”. I'm wearing my Edmonton Oilers jersey today.

I have found that wearing hockey jerseys, at least in Canada, is a very social thing to do. A friend of mine who smokes said that he found it was a great way to meet people when you go to conventions etc.

So a couple of years ago (the last time there was hockey :( ) my friend at I were headed to LA for E3. During that year the Calgary Flames made a cinderella run to the cup finals.

At the time I was living in Nova Scotia on the east coast of Canada. So we had to catch a connecting flight in Toronto. In Toronto I ran into this girl wearing a Toronto jersey. She smiled at me, came right over and we started talking. We went our seperate ways a few minutes later and wished eachother safe trips.

Day one at E3 I decided to wear one of my Flames jerseys. I swear, I have never met so many people in a single day. People would come over to me from all over. “I used to live in Calgary…” “Flames for life… “ “Go Flames! Go!” “It's so nice to talk to someone who understands hockey…” Story after story, person after person. It was great. A few people even gave me extra swag from the show because I was a hockey fan.

The highlight was of course that same girl from Toronto happened to be a reporter at E3. We ran into eachother everyday and talked. It was fun.

Hockey is the key!

That was all pretty random? Eh?