Yes, I know it's not Friday yet....But forgive me if I am a little giddy....and forgive me if this veers very much away from the lifestyle vein I usually choose...
You know, I often forget how much I love hockey...
When I was a kid growing up, hockey was on every Saturday night. There were fewer teams and you knew who every player was. I still wish I had my Phil Esposito and Bobby Orr hockey cards.
My brother was a goalie and we watched a lot of hockey tournaments and my parents were very proud of his proficiency on ice. My dad was a huge hockey fan, although if truth be told, his tendencies were more to being a baseball statistician. He read The Sporting News cover-to-cover each week and knew all of the standings in baseball and hockey. And lucky him, he lived long enough to see his Beloved White Sox win the World Series.
In my twenties, we were all about The Great One.
My daughter still jokes about the day Wayne Gretzky retired and how I cried and cried. A couple of years ago, my friend Lee got me a puck autographed by Wayne Gretzky and I was giddy for days!
Neither of my kids are hockey players or fans. My brother's boy and girl are both good players ( my brother actually coaches them), as is our other nephew. My sister-in-law Nanc is an awesome hockey mom. I would not be surprised to see her showcased in some Olympic spotlight in about 20 years, with her children raving about what a great inspiration she was to the two Ds when they get their medals!
But of course now I mostly just see hockey during the Olympics. And today our Women's team won against Team USA which will be a game that will go down in the ages as one of the biggest comebacks ever. There was screaming from coast to coast about an hour ago and yes, I was a big part of that screaming....
In Canada, even people who don't like hockey, like hockey, at least around the Olympics. We are a small country of only 30+ million and we live in a place that is either really really cold or really really hot and when it's not cold or hot it's buggy. Our ancestors decided that this was the place to stay. And there was plenty of ice to go around.
Remember this:
Well this afternoon it was this:
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| Yes, those are 5-6 feet high snow banks... |
The walkway this afternoon...
We are nice people. A bit more self-effacing than our neighbours to the south, a bit more emotional than our friends in the UK. And we take a lot of pride in our ability to play hockey. A LOT of pride.
So while I feel very badly for those lovely American girls who saw their 2-0 lead eviscerated in the last three minutes of the hockey game, and snatched away in Overtime, I must say that tonight, after our Women Curlers won gold followed by our Women Hockey Players, Canada's going to walk with a swagger. Okay - who am I kidding? We'll shovel with a swagger....
Until tomorrow afternoon, when we will suck in our breath and yell and scream all over again when the men's hockey team plays in the semi-finals. I may be breaking my only drinking one day a week rule this week.....
In honour of our Women's Team, let's have a cocktail shall we?
Canada Cocktail
I hope you have the nicest Friday possible and stay safe out there!
