Canucklehead

Canadian readers may or may not be fans of hockey, but they are certainly aware of it (that’s ICE hockey for anybody out of North America, by the way). It’s one of those things identified closely with Canada – like snow and Mounties and polar bears and Timbits.

Canadian readers will also be aware that it’s hockey playoff time. And my home team, the Vancouver Canucks, is in the playoffs and has just swept the St. Louis Blues in four straight games. The next round will start for the Canucks in a week or so, and in the meantime, we hockey fans here are living in a state of high anticipation and excitation.

You see, the Canucks have never won a Stanley Cup, the pinnacle of achievement for teams in the National Hockey League. Well, okay, a team called the Vancouver Millionaires won it in pre-NHL days, back in 1915. They beat an early version of the Ottawa Senators, just so you know. But our modern Canucks, who came into the NHL in 1970, have not. They’re the only Canadian team who has never won – and it bugs us!

Anyway, my point here is that Vancouverites are hockey-mad. Our team is in the playoffs and is doing well so far. This is a rare occurrence for us. We are making the most of it. I myself have a Canuck flag attached to my car’s passenger side window, as do about half the cars seen driving around Metro Vancouver lately.

At least I did.

It was a warm day, and I wanted to open my sunroof to get some fresh air in. But the damn flag flaps pretty loudly, so I thought I’d open my driver’s window instead. Well, that was pretty loud too, what with traffic passing by and all. So Albert Einstein here decided to open the passenger side window, thinking she’d get the air she wanted minus the noise.

Of course, as the window was sliding down, I realized that I’d forgotten about my Canuck flag that was hooked to the top edge of the window. I glanced over as it flew away, down the busy four-lane road on which I was travelling. There was no way I could stop and collect it. In an instant of forgetfulness, I became flagless.

I am hoping that this is not a prediction of how the Canucks will do in the second round of the playoffs. I do not want to be responsible for their downfall.

Seven random things about me

Okay, Ricardipus, I think I’m up to the challenge. Here goes:

1) I am a big NHL hockey fan, particularly of my hometown team, the Vancouver Canucks. (Porsche Guy loves the Toronto Maple Leafs, yet somehow, we co-exist.)

2) I love room-temperature champagne. (Especially the morning after the night before, eh, PG?)

3) If I wasn’t a teacher, I would own a combination bookstore and stationery shop. (A bit like Chapters, I guess, only smaller. Maybe just a singular Chapter.)

4) I once broke my right foot coming down the steps INTO a nightclub where I had just arrived to attend a friend’s staggette party. (I hadn’t even had a single drink yet. Despite the pain, I partied for hours, then went to the hospital for x-rays the next day.)

5) At university, in a statistics class, I scored the highest mark on The Big Test. (But to this day, I can’t figure out the tip on a restaurant bill.)

6) I collect those incredibly detailed little porcelain cottages designed by David Winter. (But only because they don’t show a whole lot of dust.)

7) I don’t like Halloween or dressing up in a costume. (But I do hand out treats to the costumed little darlings who ring my doorbell, so I’m not a complete Scrooge… er… Great Pumpkin… um … maybe UNgreat Pumpkin???)