A Confession and a Plea for Help
First the confession.
I don’t pay attention to hockey. Never have. Played it as a kid, was rotten at it, gave it up, and never regretted it for a second. Got lots of reading in during the thousands of hours that my friends spend playing or watching hockey.
I spend most of the season praying for the Senators to get eliminated because the games at Scotia Bank Centre mess up traffic on the Queensway something awful. Plus I get tired of grinning weakly when taxi drivers ask me what I thought of the game.
My prayers this year were not answered, obviously, and the Senators will now be competing for the one of those cups, the Grey one or the Stanley one or the World one. Whatever. My point is: I am NOT going to able to ignore this whole playoff anymore. I sense this. It’s my town. And Canada’s only team. Simply uttering “Go, Sens” periodically is NOT going to cut it in the weeks ahead.
Now the plea.
May I enlist the aid of you, my Bunkerian friends? I need about five sentences to help get me through the series…nice, general clichés about the Ottawa team, or whoever the other guys are, that will enable me to sound moderately informed without having to actually engage in a hockey conversation.
The lines are open. I’m counting on you.
Here’s a good all purpose comment:
“It’s just too bad it couldn’t have been Toronto they crushed on their way.” Chuckle right after you say it. Then change the subject.
Here’s one that will work regardless of whether the Sens win or lose the last game:
“Both teams definitely played well. However, that three-point shot while dude was bolting for the 50-yard-line, that’s where everything shifted. Outta the park, man.”
Or, you could just say you don’t watch hockey and screw what people think of you. I didn’t for most of my life until the Calgary Cup run a couple of years ago. When it came up, I just told them.
Of course, that kind of honest declaration is a rarity for lefties.
What? I’m not supposed to make this political?
“What? I’m not supposed to make this political?”
Shrug. Make it whatever you want. Wittier would be good, but if a weak, cliché insult is all you can muster, by all means be my guest.
If they’re winning:
” I don’t wanna talk about it, you know? I figure I’m gonna jinx them. Let’s talk about something else.”
If they’re losing:
“I don’t wanna talk about, you know? Friggin’ Sens. Take you half way there and then break your heart. Let’s talk about something else.”
Or you could actually watch the finals. It’s great entertainment, and the kind of hockey the Senators play is great. I was irritated when Vancouver was making their second round run as well, what with traffic and flag-waving, and redneck hollering. But I also enjoyed the collective sense of spirit that the city rallied around and tried to form some kind of emulative pride from a team they have absolutely no affiliation with personally. Maybe you could do the same.
how about this,…
I’m just so jassed about Sens making,…
To think the Cup could come home to Ottawa,…
We are almost there, and I’m not going to shower till the Sens win the cups,…
I stopped washing to support the Sens a week ago,… wanta smell me? No?
Well Go Sens Go!
That should make you look like a kool-aid drink Sens fan and no will want to risk hang around you to speak about the games because you might smell gamie
Zorph
I feel you Balb. I live in Saskatoon and have to suffer thru the RoughRiders season. A couple of lines eh?
1) We’ve come a long way as a team eh? Remember that first season back in 92/93 when we were 10 and 70?
2) (You can say this anytime after a penalty taken by the Sens). Fucking refs! Put your glasses on!
3) Man, Don Cherry is an idiot.
Wow. Thanks, folks. I am going to etch those lines to the inside of my contact lenses and rehearse before the final starts. I had been working on some lines of my own…
- “Gosh, isn’t it amazing how those guys skate backwards AND forward?”
- “Say, did you know that the word “puck” is in all likelihood derived from the verb to puck (a cognate of poke) used in hurling for striking or pushing a ball, from the Scottish Gaelic “puc” or the Irish “poc”, meaning to poke, punch or deliver a blow.”
- “Well, it’s certainly not the the game I remember from the Russ Jackson years.”
…but yours are vastly superior. Many thanks.
Thank all the gods who are and ever were that I came back to the city before game 1 balbulican, use any of the following
See what happens when we don’t have Zdeno the anchor Chara slowing us down! Boston should have known better, where are they (again) this year?
Yeah, the boys are doing good this year, everybody pulled together when they needed to, the team should be getting more out of Redden but he’ll come through for the cup.
What the hell was Muckler thinking when they signed Gerber anyway? We could get another really good D for what he’s costing the team warming the bench.
Who says Europeans can’t play North American hockey? Alfredsson laid that one to rest didn’t he?
I hope Detroit kicks Anaheim’s ass, Hasek needs to come back here to get his ass kicked…. muttering about fake injuries may also help with this one.
Ray Emery!
If anyone tries to take it further go with the, I’m not gonna discount either team they might face, they’re both strong, but I have faith they’ll pull it off in 5 games – no more, look at Emery.
John always says: “Oh, I can’t follow the series. It jinxes the team if I watch: they always lose.”
He uses this for everything.
[...] Equipped with the lexicon of hockey platitudes generously provided by yourselves, I ventured last night down to Elgin St. and took in The Game in the company of friends. And I must say, I think I was reasonably convincing, relying on a combination of rapt attention to the screen, cheering and booing a quarter second after everyone else did, and periodically deploying a predigested pellets of hockey wisdom, (e.g., a Zen-like “It’s Anybody’s Game”.) All in all, I think in all modestly I gave a pretty good impression of someone who (a) understood what was going on, and (b) gave a shit. [...]