While I’ve been away from blogging for a while in lieu of trying to actually graduate this year, I haven’t been away from hockey. I’ve watched or listened to every game, skipped class to catch the 2nd period, and stumbled home drunk from the Pit in the rain, snow and shine after a win or a loss.

I’ve been eagerly anticipating Trevor Linden Night for some time. When I arrived at GM Place, there were lots of people looking for tickets. We had ours.

A friend of mine was trying to sell off a pair of tickets in order to upgrade to lowers. He’s never done this before. My friend was approached by a man who wanted to get a close look at the tickets and was trying to pull them out of my friend’s hands. My friend resisted. wanting to keep a grip on the tickets; the man got angry.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? I know your fucking game. You fucking brown guys are all alike. You’re all crooks. You’re why tickets are so expensive with your fucking scams. Fucking brown guys. Fuck you—I’m not falling for this, you fucking Paki.”

That was unbelievable. In all of my years of living in Vancouver—shit, son, I grew up here—that was the first time I’ve ever witnessed actual racial hatred being spewed at anyone.

I’m not going to recount my friends’ background or his successes at various levels in university, where we met. He’s not better than that man because he’s smarter or more successful; he’s better than that man because he’s not a racist dumbass.

Are people getting more ignorant, or has this always been the case? Either way, we got into Trevor Linden Night, watched Trev’s numbers being raised, watched a pretty fun game, got coffee, went home and tucked into bed. I don’t know what happened to that guy, but hopefully it involved a little karmic retribution.

“The [1972 Summit] series was pointing to something beyond itself, something primal, something of hockey’s own elemental origins. The juvenility and sexism, the Odysseus-like cunning and calculated cruelty — hockey’s eternal dark side was always present though somehow counterbalanced by a sense of transcendence. The 3,000 plus fans who flew to Moscow to shout “Da, Da Canada; Nyet, Nyet, Soviet” testified to that. So did Bobby Orr’s desire to sit behind the bench as a supporter, his bad knees making it impossible for Sinden to play him. Another quiet piece of heroism could be seen when players of the calibre of Stan Mikita and Rod Seiling waited patiently for ice time that hardly ever came.”

Earle, Neil. “Hockey as Canadian Popular Culture: Team Canada 1972, Television and the Canadian Identity,” in Journal of Canadian Studies. 30(2): 107-123.

I’m not the most technology-savvy person around, so I really can’t explain why there was an article on, of all things, ball screws on my front page. But it’s been taken down, and this site is still a site about hockey! Honest!

Laptop’s out of commission. Updates will resume once the laptop resumes!

In CDC’s continuing bid to be the most fan-friendly NHL site ever, they’ve announced that they’re launching a search for the next Canucks.com blogger.
 
Much like the Ultimate Fan Contest, voters get to determine which of the bloggers will continue to the next round in a bracket-style competition. The winner gets to blog for CDC (and I admit that I love how the site admins have picked up the term that was kicking around on the forums for a while now) in an official capacity. Official-ish, at least.
 
If you’re curious, Josh Plummer, last year’s blogger, has some tips on how to get ‘er done.
 
Good luck to everyone who enters! And remember: spellcheck is your friend, but grammarcheck needs a good hard bitchslapping.