Sens

Sens a photo by Rob Hoey on Flickr.

Ah, the season is over for the Ottawa Senators, the lights are slowly fading, and the team can look back on this year and proudly say to themselves: "We couldn't suck enough." They came in last place but finished with a flourish that could only be described as a sports-tease--giving us hope that perhaps next year, they will suck enough. There were enough injuries on the team to give one pause and ponder the question as to whether or not they should have taken up curling instead of hockey. Let's face it, there's a lot less hitting and far fewer injuries in curling than one faces in the NHL. (For the Sens, NHL stands for "Need Help Ladies?").

But who am I to talk? I have no hockey skills. I have so little time in Canada that maybe I should keep my stupid keyboard shut and pretend that coming in dead last is no big deal. Heck, someone has to be last so that being first is just that much sweeter, and being the penultimate team doesn't quite suck as much.

The only good thing that came out of Canadian hockey for me was my learning the National Anthem, which, by the way, I plan to parody.

Canadian Flag in Reflection

flag3
Originally uploaded by Rob Hoey

Only in Canada do you get advertising that also talks about the weather. Let's face it, talking about the weather is about as mundane as you can get in normal conversations, but today we received an ad in the mail for Rogers cable TV where you can get "the hottest shows anytime with Rogers on Demand-free access on Channel 100; up to 170 channels, and Reliability." This is where you can "enjoy your favourite programs even during extreme weather conditions". And I think that's a point well taken because the Canadian weather can be extreme. It has already snowed three times since July and it's still pre-Christmas. In New York, we rarely had a white Christmas. Sometimes we'd get a few flakes in early December, but the flakes were a fluke--it would not snow for a month afterward. But here in Canada snow is like oxygen--they need it to live, and it's everywhere around you all winter long.

I'm going to a hockey game tonight, the first I've been to since I was in my twenties. The Sens are playing the Rangers and guess who I'm rooting for .  .   .

Wrong--I'm rooting for the Sens. I am no longer a New Yorker, although I miss the Big Apple a bit (or should I say "a bite"?), but I never had allegiance to the Rangers. In fact, when I went to that game years ago at Madison Square Garden (which is anything but square), I was surrounded by crazy louts who smoked dope and drank beer, often launching it in the air whenever a Ranger physically abused a member of the opposing team, thus dousing me in suds and making my time at the game quite uncomfortable.

I told Thasneem that I'll be wearing my new Senators sweater and she said "It'll be too cold." I realized she thought the game was played outdoors and I comforted her by explaining the scenario. Imagine how small the crowds would be if the games were actually played outdoors in the dead of winter, when the weather gets really cold--at least it's only going to be around minus 15. No big deal. Eh.