Overheard At a Hockey Game

Flyers 4 - Oilers 2

Cardigan doesn’t know much about hockey. He probably doesn’t care a whole lot, either, but Basher is his friend so he tries to be supportive when the Flyers are on TV.

Last month, when the Canucks were in Philadelphia, he cheered when Vancouver scored their first goal. Basher immediately pounced. “No, no,” he said, “we’re rooting for the guys in the orange sweaters, not the white ones.”

Cardie looked confused. “But, your sweater is white.”

“Yah, white with black and orange,” Basher replied, which did nothing to help Cardie’s bewilderment.

“The visiting team wears white,” I added. “We want the home team to win.”

“Oh,” said Cardigan, without any conviction at all in his tone. He cheered when the Flyers scored, however, so Basher and I figured he’d got the  message.

Until Wednesday, when the Flyers played in Edmonton. The Oilers also wear orange, and their home sweaters are even more aggressively so than Philly’s. The Flyers scored, Basher and I cheered, but Cardigan was silent. The Oilers scored, Basher said something I would have smacked his ears for except that I said it at the same time, and Cardigan said nothing.

After a while, he whispered to Basher, “I’m confused.”

“Why?” Basher asked.

“Because last time, you told me to cheer for the orange sweaters instead of the white ones. Now you’re cheering for the white ones instead of the orange ones, so I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!”

At this point, Ter chimed in to elaborate on the home versus visiting sweaters, and that it’s better to cheer for the crest on the sweater rather than the colour. Cardigan took a long, hard look at the Flyer logo on Basher’s chest, and proceeded to cheer for the visiting team (who won, incidentally—woo hoo!)

The next night, Philly played in Vancouver. “Do you know who to root for?” Basher asked his nerdy friend.

“Yup,” Cardie happily replied. “The white sweaters!”

Basher looked pleased, until Cardigan added, “Because the other ones are blue!”

&%^#$*

Let’s get the excuses over with, first:

The time change.

Jet lag.

The time zone change.

The post-Halloween sugar down.

A new coach with a strategy no one understands.

The still pitifully thin blue line.

But, come on. The Canucks are rebuilding and, despite all of the above, the Flyers should have won last night’s game. My guy Giroux scored a beauty goal to tie it at one apiece in the second period; they looked like they were coming on, and then … the wheels fell off.

^&%$#

I am always grateful to watch my team, even if half of the faces are different from last year. And I’m kind of glad that Voracek isn’t racking up the points he had last season, since my nemesis, the wire-and-fake-fur-Flyer-fan, nabbed him in the pool, but after Bo Horvat put the ’Nucks back in the lead, I didn’t care which Flyer scored so long as one of them did.

Turned out none of them did. We lost 4 to 1, and while it appeared for a brief moment as if Vancouver’s third goal would look to the uninitiated observer like an empty-netter, Mason was actually pulled before their fourth. The third goal was a gift for rookie Jake Virtanen—it warms my black-and-orange heart that Philadelphia, once the scariest team in the league, now breaks the other team’s losing streak and gives candy to the kiddies.

Have I said, *%#$&^?

On the bright side, the Vancouver broadcaster mentioned that the Philly broadcaster called last night’s game the best the team has played so far, so perhaps the boys are getting it together. I remain unconvinced that firing Craig Berube was a smart move (though I had no problem with ejecting, I mean, promoting Paul Holmgren from the GM’s seat); however, maybe the new guy is starting to get his message across. I wish they would quit playing defence when they’re obvious strength is in offense, but I’m just a lowly fan who is beginning to sympathize with Leaf fans everywhere.

Tonight’s stop: Edmonton. The Oilers are currently twenty-fifth in the standings. I wonder what treats the Flyers will hand to their little ones?

Off to a Boring Start

According to my newly downloaded Flyers app, my hockey team has a 0-1-1 record for the start of the 2015-16 season.

This is what I get for joking with an Oilers fan that everyone is in the playoffs except for the Maple Leafs.

I’m used to it now. Philly has been slow out of the gate for years, but when I see that Florida mopped the ice with them in a 7 – 1 loss on Saturday, I want to weep.

Unless the Panthers’ Aaron Ekblad racked up five points. I have him in the hockey pool, where Ruthie’s Renegades were, at last viewing, in first place.

Claude Giroux has yet to give me a point.

They got the loser point in Tampa Bay on opening night. The Bolts won in a shootout.

$*%#&

As I say, I’m used to a slow start. They’re rebuilding. They’ll gain momentum as the season progresses. They just have to gain it faster than they did last year if they hope to make the playoffs.

I know, I know. It’s too early to talk playoffs. Why do I get ahead of myself? It’s not Zen at all … but then, nothing wrecks my Buddhist-babe mentality like hockey season. Something strange happens over the winter. I become a member of the Roman mob. I want to kill. I want to die. Oh, the drama! My identity is attached to my team’s win/loss record. I get small. Mean. Nasty. Fetal. I spike my buttered rum tea with Captain Morgan. I revert to superstitious behaviour, like wearing my orange jersey for home games and my white jersey for away games, as if anything I do really matters to the outcome.

This is fun?

Well, yeah. Hell, yeah!


(Ed note: the boys won their home opener against Florida 1 - 0 on Monday night. Yay! Now we're 1-1-1!)

Rising to the Challenge?

The Flyers fluffed to Florida on the weekend. The one saving grace (no pun intended) was that Roberto Luongo didn’t shut them out. The final was 2-1 for the Panthers, but the score should not have been that close. It should have been a blowout in Philly’s favour. Our defense is pretty thin due to injuries, but we have enough firepower up front to outrun any other team—especially one plagued with injury-ridden forwards.

So what happened?

I can only guess that they play to the level of the opposition. More teams lose to weak opponents than they do to strong ones because the players don’t respect the challenge. What does this mean for Tuesday, when the Oilers come to town without Taylor Hall?

Three guesses and the first two don’t count.

PHI 4 - EDM 3 (S/O)

My heroes!

Interesting game last night. The Flyers won—just. They had to go to a shootout to break a 3-3 tie, but thanks to a savvy coach, a couple of unfamiliar players, and a disdainful Claude Giroux, they nailed the second point.

The controversy came in the form of Ilya Bryzgalov, the 51 million dollar goalie whom the Flyers let go when he failed to prove as consistent for them as he did with Phoenix. He was nearing the end of his Coyotes contract and Philly bought the free agent act. Not that he’s a bad goalie, because he isn’t. He’s actually pretty darned fabulous when he wants to be. Or when he has a decent defence corps in front of him (that’s the other controversy in Philadelphia). The Flyers bought him out for a meager 25 million during the off season and he subsequently signed with Edmonton. Last night was his first game against his old team and let’s just say if he had played that well in Philadelphia, he’d still be playing in Philadelphia. As it was, last night Philly paid him roughly $27,000 to stop 35 shots for the Oilers. Oh, the irony.

Meh. Truth is, the Flyers didn’t show up for the first period, the Oilers forgot to come back for the second, and we started from a 2-2 tie in the third. If not for a bunch of dumb Oiler penalties, the Flyers would have lost, since their three goals came on power plays and the third was the result of a 5 on 3. Poor Ter was having a heart attack, being the lone Oiler fan for the occasion. The kids burst out of the gate in the first period and after that … well, the shootout might have been planned given the setup of Bryz vs. his former teammates. You could see him anticipating almost every move during the game, otherwise the Flyer would have killed the kids. So, what better ending than a showdown between sides of the ugliest divorce in the NHL?

I wasn’t quite fetal in my chair, but Bryzgalov is a better goalie than Steve Mason. No discredit to Mason, he’s steady enough but not – here we go again – that consistent. Plus, Bryz knows the Flyer shooters better than Mason knows the Oilers. And the Oilers have some tricky young bucks on their top two lines. Yikes. I wasn’t fetal, but I was worried.

First round. Jordan Eberle scores first. No surprise. Vincent Lecavalier shoots first for Philly – he wasn’t on the team last year, but Bryz stops him anyway. Crap.

Second round. Mason stops David Perron. Phew. Claude Giroux steps out. I love Giroux, but wait a second. The coach sends out the best player the Flyers have? The guy who played with Bryzgalov for two years?? The guy whom Bryz knows better than any other goalie in the league? Heart in mouth, I watch No. 28 cruise up the ice and casually flip the puck through the five hole. That’s how good he is. Surgical precision and no real expression – not open contempt, but you could almost sense the sneer. Now we’re tied (again).

Third round. Sam Gagner can’t get past Steve Mason. If the Flyers score now, we win. The coach sends out Austrian wunderkind, Michael Raffl. This guy is fresh from Europe, already on the top line, and totally unknown to any Flyer ex-goalie. Brilliant move, coach. I can’t even describe the goal, it was that pretty. He foxed Bryz right out of the crease. I let out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding and Ter graciously give me a congratulatory high-five. She’s the classiest hockey fan I know.

Yeah, yeah, it’s just a game. I was simply thrilled to be watching my boys on Saturday night instead of Tuesday afternoon. I’ve seen them a few times already this season, thanks to TSN2, and they’re en route to Vancouver to play the Canucks tomorrow night. Another evening game in my time zone against another goalie with his own agenda (this one, auditioning for the Olympics). How will they do? Right now, I don’t care. Right now I’m just happy that the game is on Sportsnet. Ryan Kesler vs. Giroux and Co.

Life is good.

Hockey Night in Canada

 

 

vs

 

Does my life get any better than this? Not today!!! The late game on HNIC and I am SO THERE!!!

Hockey Woes of a Hockey Ho

#16, Captain Bobby Clarke
circa Ru's Hormonal Ignition

When I was growing up, Hockey Night in Canada was nothing more than the program that ran after The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour. At that point, my parents were affluent enough to have acquired a second TV, a portable black and white, to solve the burgeoning viewing issues between the men and the women in the house. My father and two brothers would disappear upstairs at 8:00 on Saturday night. I’d stay in the living room with my mother, two sisters and the “big” TV. I don’t remember what we watched, but at infrequent intervals, the war cry of the male sports fan would shake the walls from upstairs: “He SCOOOORES!!”

Flash forward to February 1974. The family had relocated to BC, save the firstborn son who stayed in Ontario to pursue his own path. My second brother (“the Handsome One”) was about to be married and my father was about to lose his hockey-watching buddy. Mum took my sisters and me aside to suggest that Dad might appreciate it if his daughters developed some interest in the Great Canadian Game. It didn’t have to be an obsessive interest, but enough that one of us could sit with him for a while and know something of what was happening on screen.

In typical Ru fashion, I took it to heart.

One day I wandered into the living room where Dad was watching his beloved Toronto Maple Leafs. I plunked myself onto the sofa and asked who they were playing. It turned out to be the Philadelphia Flyers.

Talk about a destiny point.

I decided—because I always enjoy contradicting my father—to stay the course and root for the opposition to his team. Harmless fun, right? Only I was almost 14 years old and got a glimpse of the Flyers’ captain. Whoa-ho-hoaaa, Nellie! Flowing blond curls and an angel face. He was missing his front teeth and had a potty mouth to boot, but apparently I’m good with that for I fell immediately in love.

From that moment, I was a blood-and-bone Flyer fan.

They won back-to-back Cups during my first two years and haven’t seen one since, though they got pretty darned close a few years ago. Captain Bobby Clarke has graduated from legendary warrior hero to management scum, but I still wear a jersey with his name and number on the back. For years, Dad and I spent every Saturday and Wednesday night in the den downstairs, watching hockey no matter who was playing. We saw the Edmonton Oilers in their gangly, coltish youth (Paul Coffey was a serious threat to Clarkie for a time) and I tried to change my allegiance to a Canadian team so full of energy and promise. I did well, thanks to #7, but when the Flyers came to town, I accidentally cheered when they scored on the Oilers. That was a sign.

I bleed black and orange.

I lost touch for a while. Young adulthood has different priorities, but I was always aware of the Flyers. Dad kept me apprised, with the regulation plethora of sarcastic sidebar comments attributed to embittered Leaf fans, but I didn’t watch a game for almost a decade. I missed the Oilers’ Stanley Cup dynasty and the retiring of Clarke’s number in Philadelphia.

Then one day while flipping channels in 1995, I landed on a TOR/PHI game and called my father to razz him. I don’t recall who won that game, but my passion for the sport was rekindled with a flamethrower, and since then, if there’s a game on, I’ll watch it.

Playoffs are the worst. I get so stressed out that I’m practically fetal by the end of a game, and the deeper my team gets is directly related to how shredded my nerves are. The Philly/Boston series three years ago nearly killed me. The Flyers were down 3-0 in the best of seven and had given up three goals in Game 4. By some miracle (due no doubt to my savaging of the Universe between periods), they clawed their way back to win the game, the series and the eastern conference final, but the effort drained them and they couldn’t beat Chicago for the Cup. &*^%$

Their series against Pittsburgh last year was a literal riot, rife with goals and penalty minutes. It was truly wild fun, and they won that round, but blew it to New Jersey in the conference semi-final. ^$#%*

They haven’t been the same since Mike Richards was traded to LA. And now that captain Chris Pronger looks like he’s done for good, there’s nothing holding them together. This half-baked season was a nightmare that couldn’t have been saved if they’d had another 34 games. They have some truly talented forwards—I consistently lose Claude Giroux to someone else in the office hockey pool, &^$%#—but there’s not much on the blue line and whatever the heck Bryzgalov thinks is in his job description, it isn’t stopping the puck. Sigh.

The regular season isn’t over until Tuesday, but the Flyers were officially finished last week. So were the Oilers, so the 2013/14 Stanley Cup playoffs will be easier on my nerves (sort of), and on Ter’s. She spends a lot of time talking me off the ledge at this time of year despite being a passionate fan herself. Edmonton born, she’s all about the Oilers and sick at their 7 year non-playoff drought, but no one beats me for drama. I’ve got a hate-on for most of the eastern conference teams and don’t care for many in the west, either; not the ones who got to the playoffs this year, anyway. National pride carries some weight: when my first choice goes out, I will cheer a Canadian team to the final … I sure wish Winnipeg had made it.

Sigh.

We’ll see what my heart does in the first round. I really hate to do this, but in the long run, I may have to become a temporary V-V-V … Nope, can’t do it. Can’t become enough of a Canuck fan to hope they win the Cup. I really like Ryan Kesler, though. I’d be okay if he won it – and the way the rest of the team has played, if they do repeat the final with a better outcome, it will be by riding on his back.

He was once owned by Philadelphia. What the heck were they thinking?

Sigh.