The Simplest Form

For an overwhelming majority of my life I have thoroughly despised hockey, and I don't mean that lightly. I flat out hated hockey and everything about it. I hated the long hair, the attitudes of the players and the culture that went along with it. I wanted no part of a sport that involved fans mostly consisting of 50 year old long haired men drinking beer, yelling obscene things, talking about their "playing days" and just in general acting immaturely. I hated how all throughout the NHL lockout all they talked about was hockey, and there weren't even any games going on! Then, once the Blackhawks became good, I started to like it even less. The Blackhawks quickly became one of the most popular team with most of my friends, and most of Chicago, after umpteen years of not being cared about at all, just because they were good. It seemed like everyone had hopped on the hockey bandwagon, and this made me feel even more passionate about my now counter-culture dislike of hockey.
But in the past two weeks I have had strong revelations about this game. It all started when I attended the Glenbrook North vs Fenwick Blackhawk Cup Semi-Final. Now I must admit that I was sort of dragged there with my friends, but I was semi open to the thought of going because I know a few kids on the team and enjoy cheering for GBN. Once I got there, the atmosphere was magical. The energy inside the small arena was incredible, everyone was yelling and cheering non-stop. The excitement was like the climax of a basketball game, except lasting the whole 51 minutes. I especially found the fast paced action very appealing, as sometimes I find myself a tad bored in other low scoring games. I was constantly enthused by the thill of a goal scored, and the agony of a goal allowed. GBN came out with the victory over the 1 seed Fenwick in a 3-2 slugfest to advance to the Final at the United Center.
And tonight I was lucky enough to go to that game. I was even luckier to attend that game as a member of the media for my sportscasting class. Having a media pass to the State Championship game was easily one of the coolest things I have experienced so far. My two fellow GBN TV sportscasters and I got to do countless things we will most likely never be able to do again. We got to visit the Blackhawks' locker room, the United Center press hospitality room (Which if you ever find yourself in, has the greatest mashed potatoes on the face of the Earth.), the United Center press boxes, and out on the ice to film the trophy awarding ceremony.
While this was all fun and nice, it was in the GBN locker room filming the coach's pregame speech that I finally fully understood hockey. As the coach said something along the lines of  "This is what you (players) have been dreaming of since you first put on your pads. It's your time. Go out and do it." (Rough Quotation) It was then I realized hockey wasn't about obnoxious 50 year olds, it was about the love of the game, the players that will never play again once they graduate from high school. It was the heart put into the countless hours of practice and the 60+ games a season, and now I finally understand. Sometimes you have too look at the simplest form of something understand the true feelings behind it.Maybe its time to change my feelings about water polo...

Oh Canada...

            Over the winter break my family and I went to Vancouver, Canada. I was very curious beforehand on how similar Canada would be to the USA since Vancouver is pretty much on the US-Canadian border, so while I was there I annotated the differences I noticed. The first thing I noticed as I arrived is that instead of policemen walking around the streets and patrolling the area, there are 3rd party security men. Even at the British Columbian Parliament, a government building, there was an independent security firm instead of policemen. The next thing that was different and impressed me a lot was the public transportation system. Their public transit, called TransLink, made it easy to efficiently get across Vancouver. For example, we were able to take a bus to the light rail, and from their we could take a ferry to another bus to get to where we wanted, all on one inexpensive ticket (~$2.50). Their buses also work the same overhead electrical as the light rail, so it is very energy efficient. But the thing about the TransLink that surprised me the most was the cleanliness. Having ridden the CTA many a time, I was stunned that the seats were not stain encrusted and the poles weren't as greasy as a fresh batch of fries. (And you could actually hear what the conductor said over the PA!)
            Here's a shocker, completely following the stereotype Canadians are some of the nicest people I've met. They are genuinely happy to talk to you and welcome you to their country. Even when your in the heart of Vancouver, the people are enthused to help you find your way around and share their favorite restaurants. While they do follow that stereotype, I was shocked when there where very little Canadians who said "Eh." I thought that they used it habitually but I only heard maybe 2 people say it. Supposedly it is frequently used by rural Canadians. As I was there over Christmas, I got to experience Boxing Day. Boxing Day is a national holiday the day after Christmas where shoppers flee to stores at unearthly hours in the morning to get good deals on leftover merchandise. Its sort of their version of Black Friday, except after Christmas.
           Now I'll just rattle off some miscellaneous differences. Canadian bacon is called back bacon (weird huh?), normal bacon is also called bacon. McDonald's serves up double Big Macs, placing 2 patties wherever there are normally one, not even offering a normal Big Mac. The candy Smartees is called Rockettes because Nestle had already trademarked their M&M competitor named Smartees in Canada before Necco brought the American Smartee to Canada. I still don't know what the flashing left turn signal on the traffic lights mean. All the hotels I stayed at (3 different ones) had a dog that resided in the lobby. Sales tax is ridiculously high (~16%). They had weird Pepsi products such as Melon Pineapple Powerade and Gingerale infused with tea. American corporations like to put the maple leaf in their logos of their Canadian branches. SportsCenter, the ESPN news program airs on The Sports Network, or TSN, which is ESPN's Canadian counterpart. They spell their news program SportsCentre. They LOVE hockey. While I was there, the front page story of the national newspaper was the World Junior Hockey Championships 5 of the 10 days. The NBA is second in popularity but even minor league hockey is more popular. College sports aren't really followed by the public or media there. And possibly the most annoying thing is that all of the light switches are on the outside of the room they control, which took a long time to get used to.
           While Canada was very quirky, it was a very fun time and I would highly recommend taking a trip, I know my family can't wait for our return.