It can be a lonely feeling being a lefty hockey fan in the US. It’s lonely enough being a hockey fan south of the 49th parallel. But add a dose of socialism to the mix, and people just think you’re a freak of nature. (Witness the common response to my “More Hockey Less War” bumper sticker: “Aren’t they the same thing? Ha ha ha.” Why no, I feel obligated to point out, civillians aren’t typically killed, impoverished and driven from their homes by hockey games. But I digress.)

Of course, our neighbors to the north don’t find it ironic to be hockey fans and progressive-minded. And I skate with some pretty leftish guys, many of whom are from the Northeastern US and Canada. So maybe it’s just that people on US left coast just don’t get it.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to find another lefty blog out there written by a guy with legit hockey cred. Michael B�rub� is a leftist right winger, whose off-ice life involves some kind of hoity-toity academic nonsense. No, seriously, he teaches lit and cultural studies at Penn State, and has a great sense of humor in his blog.

Today’s entry, “Who’s out to get you?” is about Bill O’Reilly’s new enemies list, er, I mean “book”. Michael saves us the pain of reading O’Reilly’s pap by publishing the full enemies list, which, I was pleased to discover, contained not only the Hanson brothers, but also Sideshow Bob and Julie Andrews. I went ahead and added a few of my own (I can’t believe he left of Reggie Dunlop and Joe McGrath).

Anyway, see, I’m not crazy.

By the way, I finally got to see “Les Chiefs”. What a trip. I’ll try to write a review of it this week.

Man, this off-season has been looooong! What with war, war, and more war and with stick time at local rink jammed with pros running drills at one end and kids clogging up the other, I am absolutely jonesin’ for hockey. Since the pros are all back with their teams and the kids are back in school, I’ve been getting back on the ice for the lunch our scrimmage sessions (and boy am I out of shape).

The local junior B teams, the Jaguars and the Pioneers, started their seasons this past weekend. The local Canandian major junior team, the Portland Winter Hawks, have played a handful of pre-season games, and start their regular season on the road this weekend on the road. The home opener is September 30 against the Kelowna Rockets.

There’s some good news/bad news on the Winter Hawks front, as the new owners have announced a new media deal. The good news is that they’re going to televise most (if not all) home games and at least one away game. The bad news? No radio. This has got the old farts over at the forum totally up in arms. I think it’s too bad they couldn’t keep it on the air, but it just doesn’t make economic sense. And the TV deal is sure to bring in a lot more fans. Audio of all games will be web-cast.

The other good news is that they are putting replay screens back in the the old Memorial Coliseum, and they’re doing other upgrades there, to. The Coliseum is a beautiful old barn, built in 1960 in an architectural style way ahead of its time. It’s pretty run down, but with a little TLC, it will really shine. The Winter Hawks are playing all but 6 of their home games there this year (another bone of contention with some of the old farts). Last year, they played half of their home games in the much larger, much more modern Rose Garden, home of the NBA Portland Trail Blazers. I like the Colisuem, because it was built for hockey (the old professional Western Hockey League Portland Buckaroos), and it is a much more intimate venue (something like 10,000 seats for hockey, compared with something like 20,000 in the Rose Garden). Sure, it’s a little rough around the edges, but I kind of like that.

Oh, and hey, I designed a new t-shirt:

Drop The Puck!

The Portland area hockey community lost a coach, father, and friend last Friday. Bobby Freeland died from a sudden liver virus, and left his wife and two young sons. Bobby was the hockey director at Valley Ice Arena and the head coach of the Eugene Generals Junior B hockey club. He used to come out to stick time now and again. He was just out skating with us old fart novices a couple weeks ago. He was (gulp) 43 years old. My he rest in peace, may his sons someday discover and understand how many lives he touched, and may his wife find solace.

Carolina skated away with the cup last night, after an amazing series with Edmonton. Edmonton battled back from a 3-1 disadvantage to force a game seven Stanley Cup Final, by far and away the single most exciting event in sports. What a playoff series for both teams. And what an ending. I was rooting for Edmonton, but I really liked the Carolina squad. Brind’Amour, Recchi, Staal, Cam Ward!, to name just a few, holy cow, what a great team, what incredible grit and character.

But while all this went on, most Americans snoozed trhough baseball games or some stinkin’ golf tournament. Tennis anyone? (Don’t get me wrong, I went to a baseball game Friday night and had a fine time. But in what other sport can you gaze out upon 9 guys standing stock still for extended periods of time?) So in the face of jokes like those told by Jay Leno (“The Stanley Cup finals on NBC in prime time last night got a two. Not a two rating. Two people watched.”), herewith my list of reasons hockey doesn’t suck:

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Yours truly is not the only one who is nuts for hockey and world peace. Durham, N.C. civil rights attorney and author Alex Charns has been making the news (at least in Edmonton) and raising some redneck hockey fan eyebrows with his game night protests in Raleigh.

Both the Edmonton Journal and Sun have run articles about him and his righteous antics during the Stanley Cup Final between the Edmonton Oilers and the Carolina Hurricanes.

Charns is the author of “How Hockey Saved the World* (and defeated George W. Bush, but not necessarily in that order)”.

Sing it loud, and sing it proud: More Hockey! Less War! More Hockey! Less War!

Thanks, Alex.

(At hockey, that is.) I haven’t been playing hockey all that long, just a couple of years. I grew up skating, but didn’t pick up a stick until recently. So I’m not all that good, especially considering some of the crew I play with (which typically includes some Junior B and college players and occasionally a minor league pro in the off season). But they cut me slack and don’t laugh at me too much.

Turns out, I’m my own harshest critic. It is particularly hard to get a sense of my skills since I just play pick up, and we never keep score. Sometimes we don’t even have goalies. So the other day, I decided to keep track of my fuck-ups vs. good plays. That is, every time I make an offensive or defensive move, I make a mental note as to whether it was good or bad. For instance: a pass that connects: good. A pass that connects with an opponent: bad. A defensive take-away: good. Getting stood up at the blue line: bad. Then when I come off the ice, I have a fine-grained +/- in my head for each shift. And whattaya know? I’m not as bad as I thought. Also, it makes me better because I’m trying to make good plays since I’m keeping track.

Now, of course, I’m taking it off the ice into life. Not a bad way to live. Look at every action and consider it in the context of the global good. At the end of the day, you’ve got a pretty good idea where you stand with the universe. Once again, hockey is nothing but a metaphor for life. And a damn good workout.

So the Buffalo Sabres, with local boy Paul Gaustad, have been eliminated from the quest for Lord Stanley’s cup. Quite disappointing, but they put up a heck of a fight.

Gaustad grew up in Beaverton, and played youth hockey at Valley, my regular rink. He was there quite a bit last summer working on his skills.

Now, it’s nice that the TV guys have finally realized that even though he was born in Fargo, he’s really “from” Oregon. So last night, they talked about his “amazing story” (true, it is) about how he moved here when he was six and there was only one rink in the state. Huh? There are three hockey rinks in the Portland metro area alone (OK, one’s actually in Washington state), and there was one more when Paul was playing youth. Yeah, okay, Sherwood and Mt. View are pretty new, so maybe they weren’t available to him. But there are (and have been) other rinks in the state with youth hockey, e.g. Eugene. A minor point, true, but come on.

Anyway, now it’s Stanley time. Edmonton vs. Carolina. Got to root for Edmonton, even though there’s a former Portland Winter Hawks player (Glen Wesley) on the ‘Canes. Go Oilers!

Well I went down to the local arena
Asked to see the manager man
He came from his office, said, “Son can I help you?”
I looked at him and said, “Yes you can…”

I want to Drive the Zamboni…hey
I want to Drive the Zamboni…Yes I do!
—Zamboni Song by the Gear Daddies

As if I needed proof of the old adage that life is better with a Zamboni than without one, I got to the old rink today for my lunch hour pick up hockey to discover the Zamboni (actually an Olympia) had blown an intake manifold.

“No ice cut today!” said Swede. Well, how bad can it be, I’m thinking to myself. “Pond hockey!” says Swede.

Indeed. The ice is so clouded, the lines have been hidden for months. And the Zamboni broke down last night (not this morning), so we weren’t talking about a few little scratches from the ice dancers this morning, but the gravel and snow that’s left after a hockey game. The only thing missing were carp frozen in the ice. Swede said it sounded like a gunshot to his head when the thing blew.

They’re closed tomorrow for “building repairs,” which means they’re going to keep the roof beams from falling off their concrete pillars. Well, that’s good. I guess it means they’re not going to condemn the old barn and bulldoze it. So I asked Swede if he was going to take the day to shave down the ice. Nope, they’re going to have all kinds of heavy equipment out there. So we’ll be skating without lines for some time to come. But at least we’ll have the Zamboni back.

Zero tolerance, the calling of all infractions regardless of the situation, is here to stay in the NHL, even as we head down the playoff stretch. So say NHL hockey operations vice-president Mike Murphy and league officiating director Stephen Walkom in an article in Slam! Sports:

“Our motto is to stay the course and the playoff intensity will still be there,” Walkom said. “I don’t look at just one game. I’m very pleased at the way the guys have called it all year. The players dictate whether there will be a lot of calls or not.”

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No, seriously, if you take the view (as I do) that everything in life is metaphor, you can learn valuable life lessons in anything you do.

For instance, in a previous avocation as a musician, I played bass. In hockey, I play defense. (I’ve come to realize that I spent the first half of my adult life living “This is Spinal Tap.” Now as I enter the middle of life I’m living “Slap Shot.” In the words of Reggie Dunlop, “Fuck ’em.”)

If you’re not familiar with music and hockey, here are the similarities between bass players and defensemen:

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