I feel like a proud mum sometimes. Which is… odd, because I’m 22 and not popping out a kid any time soon. But as a hockey fan since forever, and hardcore since 16, my entire life has been lived in this haze of stats, and teams, and plays, and drafts, and trades. My friends say, and often, that the easiest way to pick me up at a bar or club is to talk hockey.
 
(Yeah, they’re probably right.)
 
So it’s been kind of fascinating this year to watch the playoffs, not only because this run that the Canucks have had since December came out of nowhere, but also because for the first time, my best friend is into hockey. And not into hockey because I’m into hockey, but into hockey because there’s actually something about it that she finds compelling, fascinating, and worthy of her interest.
 
A little background about Samantha and I: we met when we were 14 (or at least I was 14, since she was born in 84). We bonded over a shared love of many tv shows and books. Since she lives in Toronto and I, obviously, in Vancouver, we keep in touch through e-mails, MSN, and long distance phone calls. A lot of things in our lives are similar: our long-term boyfriends shared the same name (weird), and we even broke up with them at around the same time. We’re both quite close to our siblings. We like the same things, and share a lot of the same opinions. Sometimes – a lot of times – we swear that we’re the same people.
 
(Funny story – she came to B.C. to spend a week with me when I turned 19. She slept in and completely missed her flight.)
 
We have a history of getting the other person obsessed with our current obsession. And like any good best friend, she knows my entire dating history, my family, my close friends, and so forth. Possibly one of the only things in our lives that have deviated from the other is a love of hockey: I am obsessed, and she was only mildly interested.
 
Well, things change.
 
She knows, of course, about my hockey love. I can’t even begin to imagine how many hours she’s spent listening to me praise and mourn the WCE, Team Canada, Brodeur, etc. But it never gripped her until now. And when we talk about hockey, and I hear about what she’s going through, I see myself years ago when I was just starting to really understand the game and what it means.
 
Maybe it’s because we’re practically the same person. Or maybe it’s just something every hockey fan goes through – the natural progression from emotion to… well, emotion, but also rationalization, and even resignation. For the last 37 years, the Canucks have been losing. And to this day, fans still say, “There’s always next year.”
 
And there is always a next year.
 

---

 
Samantha’s story:
 
Hockey & the Canucks – A New Fan’s Experience
 
(Edited by Colin, which was a Bad Idea.)
 
I’d always enjoyed hockey, but I’d never really found a reason to care about it. If someone was watching, I was happy to watch with them, I just had no interest in following it myself.
 
When my hot boyfriend Colin invited me to participate in his family’s playoff hockey pool this season, and explained that we were just playing for bragging rights (read: relatively low risk), I figured why not, and agreed.
 
I showed up for the draft knowing only two things:
 
1) The Leafs hadn’t made the playoffs, and
2) The Canucks had.¹
 
Isabella had long ago instilled a hatred of the Leafs in me. And, of course, I knew she was a Canucks fan. That was good enough for me.
 
Colin, with an incredible abundance of knowledge, gave me a stack of stats sheets and meticulously explained to me how the playoffs worked. He advised me to pick teams that I thought would go far and then pick players from those teams. Since Isabella is my hockey half, I blurted out “I like the Canucks!” So he handed me their stats sheet for me to choose players from. I also picked players from the Penguins and the Red Wings.
 
In the first games of my three teams, I did very well points-wise. Although Pittsburgh got trashed, I still managed to score five points. I got another five when Detroit killed Calgary. And I almost fell asleep at my monitor following the Canucks’ quadruple OT win, which nabbed me another four points and jumped me to first place in the pool.
 
I’m competitive. Between the excitement of getting points and the bragging from being in first place, I was very quickly hooked.
 
Hey, I thought to myself, this hockey thing is pretty awesome.
 
So I started to follow the series more closely. And then I started watching the games, even when there was no one around. And then something horrible happened to me – I began to care.
 
Before I knew it, I had the NHL.com scores pages bookmarked – and it was the first thing I’d check when I had to miss a game. I could rattle off teams. I had the play schedules memorized. Hell, I even learned the names of all the players in the pool – and the names of many who weren’t!²
 
When I told my Dad I couldn’t go to the movies with him “because the boys are playing tonight. It’s an important game, I can’t abandon them!” he wanted to know what had happened to his daughter.
 
Simple, she’d become a hockey fan.
 
Unfortunately, I soon discovered that being a hockey fan really meant a lot of heartbreak. When Pitty got knocked out, I was so upset I actually had trouble falling asleep that night – and not just because I was going to miss swooning over Sidney Crosby. (Yes, I know he’s three years too young, but let me enjoy his hotness before he loses his teeth and breaks his nose!)³
 
On Tuesday night I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to watch the fourth game of the Vancouver-Anaheim series. At the end of the second period, I was on a hockey high, as I’m sure every Canucks fan was. At the end of the third period, I was deflated, but still hopeful – after all, the Canucks tend to bring it in OT. Two minutes later, I furiously shut off my TV and shed a few tears.⁴
 
Isabella tells me that eventually you learn to just laugh at them for sucking. I’m really hoping she’s right.
 
Because really, I love hockey now, but I think that getting me into it was the worst thing my boyfriend’s ever done to me. Sure, I’ve got something to be passionate about (and I think Isabella secretly forgives my boyfriend for being “a dirty Habs fan” because he got me into it⁵) but all it’s brought me is heartbreak.
 
Well, I’m no longer first place in the hockey pool. In fact, that honour now belongs to my boyfriend, who just happens to be averaging 5 points per night and will have clinched first place by game 3 of the conference finals… but I’m doing a solid job of holding down last place. But I don’t care about the points anymore. I’m in it now. I’ve fallen for these boys hard. So, if it’s all right with all you old-time fans, I’m going to cheer for – and cry with – the boys.
 
And maybe I’ll make it through the series with my heart in tact.⁶
 
__________________________
 
¹ Hell yeah!.
 
² Yeah, that was pretty funny. She goes from only knowing the names of players I liked, like Bertuzzi or Brodeur or Linden, to players I HATED, like Chelios and Hasek.
 
³ We have that in common: liking hockey players who are either too old (me) or too young (her) for us. Though hers isn’t as bad as mine.
 
⁴ I drank. A lot.
 
⁵ Nope! Also, definitely not until he admits that I’m funnier.
 
⁶ Nah, you won’t. But it’s okay. There’s always next year, baby.

Oh, how true.

I was alerted on CDC that Tim Hortons has the Roll Up The Rim promotion going on again, this time for a Toyota Hybrid Camry.

As Mawfeeet! wrote, that Camry’s mine, bitches.

Now I’m a hardcore coffee drinker. I once tried to do a coffee detox in anticipation for finals and term papers, and managed an amazing 36 hours. My longest time spent awake with my good friend coffee? 42 hours, during second year’s Isabella Is Still Deciding If She Should Finish These Three Term Papes All Due In The Same Week Or Just Die marathon. You think you were annoyed just reading that sentence? Think of my poor friends who, at hour 43, finally held me down and made me sleep.

So, as you may have guessed, I love Roll Up The Rim To Win time, because aside from being a hardcore coffee addict, I am also repulsively competitive.

Unfortunately, the score stands at Tim Hortons: 4. Isabella: 0. It’s like a bad Minnesota game.

If you want to say hi to me, drop by Tim Hortons because it’s term paper season and I practically live there. Until then, I’m determined to drink until the score changes, which is usually my method for Canuck games anyway.

EDIT: Crap. Tim Hortons: 5, Isabella: 0.