Memphiksen Baarimikko
Jäsen
- Suosikkijoukkue
- I-HK, Motor City Mechanics
Tiedän että Jatkoajalta tulee potkut copy-paste -jutuista mutta tämä keskiviikon New York Timesin juttu on niin hieno ja liikuttava että menköön.
Lisäksi sitä ei voi lukea muuten kuin rekisteröitymällä kyseisen lehden palstoille joten linkin sijasta joudun lainaamaan sen tänne:
----------------------------------------------------------
SPORTS OF THE TIMES
Zamboni Nostalgia Finally Kicks In
By GEORGE VECSEY
Published: January 26, 2005
ALL right. Now I miss hockey.
Miss the Stanley Cup. Miss the red light. Miss the ice chips. Miss the sweaty glove mashed in somebody's face. Miss the starters shuffling nervously during the anthems.
It took nearly three months for this to happen. I was not posturing, not faking one of those plague-on-both-houses snit fits. I truly never had the slightest yearning for the lost sport, until just now.
Then, smack on the brink of losing the entire season, with negotiators meeting in Toronto today to try to end the labor impasse - to salary-cap or not to salary-cap? - I came down with a giant wave of melancholia for the beautiful game I used to know.
Of course, my daydream was all about 1983. Not a good sign for hockey, eh? I envisioned the caveman jaw of Mark Messier jutting out from under his helmet, the willowy figure of Wayne Gretzky in the Oilers' orange and blue uniforms, visiting the southernmost Canadian province of Nassau County, with the ancient Denis Potvin and Billy Smith whacking away, trying to hold back the future.
That's where I'm stuck, 22 years ago, with two great dynasties colliding. I don't necessarily miss the manifest destiny National Hockey League out where people wear shorts to games. (Somebody told me a Tampa Bay team won the Stanley Cup last year, but I'm not falling for that.) I miss the real game. I miss the true north strong and free. I miss Canada.
My virtual homesickness began at Christmas, when my daughter the lawyer gave me the CD by K. D. Lang, "Hymns of the 49th Parallel," 11 glorious covers of songs by Canadians: Young, Mitchell, Lang, Piltch, Siberry, Cohen, Cockburn and Sexsmith. (And she never even got to Lightfoot, Robertson, the McGarrigles.)
One of the songs on the CD, Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You," refers to the beautiful anthem itself, "O Canada." Suddenly my mind was in free flight, to another Mitchell song, "Raised on Robbery," with the familiar lyric, "Look at those jokers/Glued to that damn hockey game."
I could envision a steamy hotel bar somewhere north of the 49th parallel, where people in thick sweaters and pullover caps were drinking Molson or Labatt, following the ricocheting puck on a flickering screen. (Apparently, the terrible inability to follow the puck on the tube is strictly an American affliction; Canadahooskies can do it at 3 months old.)
Up there in that bar, maybe in one of those classic railway hotels, maybe out on some icy prairie highway, the patrons would know every player on every line, recognize them by their mannerisms, the way they pump their knees while skating, the way they handle their stick. Just as I would recognize scruffy Butch Goring in his tiny Swedish helmet or sturdy Bobby Nystrom with his flowing locks if they materialized on the ice out in Lower Saskatchewan - Long Island - tonight (and I wish they would).
Just click "hockey" and "Canada" on the Web and you come up with evidence that the sport itself has not died, not up north. In an hour's browsing on the Web:
Hot-selling hockey gear: from Sidney Crosby, junior star with Rimouski and hero of the recent World Junior Hockey championship. ... Mr. Penalty Box himself, Tiger Williams, now an energy mogul, for goodness' sakes, tells Eric Duhatschek of The Globe and Mail how to end the labor impasse (let farmers mediate). ... London Knights ... Memorial Cup ... Ageless Red Fisher in The Montreal Gazette, dropping names like Elmer Lach, Yvan Cournoyer, Dickie Moore, Phil Goyette and Dick Irvin, all present at an arena dedication in suburban Lachine. ... Quebecois goalies playing in Europe. ... Calls for Wayne Gretzky to become commissioner of the National Hockey League.
Just to make sure I was not having some knee-jerk reaction, I e-mailed my son the journalist, to see if he was having hockey pangs. I used to take him to Oilers-Islanders games when he should have been doing his homework.
"Oddly enough," David replied, "last night at work, out of nowhere, I declared: 'Why isn't there any hockey on TV? This makes no sense.' "
My son even had the same impulses as Tiger Williams: frontier wisdom, justice in the corner. "What I think is strange is this is a sport that governs itself so well on the ice, but it can't put itself together in a boardroom," he wrote, adding:
"Todd Bertuzzi aside, I miss the idea that on any given night you're going to find a game where somebody has an issue with somebody else, and they're going to make sure they get on the ice at the same time at some point. The crease area becomes the courtyard behind the convent in 'The Three Musketeers': 'You have insulted me, sir! Meet me in the plaza midway through the third period and I shall teach you some manners.' "
He reminisced about athleticism that matches basketball, line-change strategies that equal baseball, set plays that compare to football. And I remembered what I was missing.
I miss the so-called Original Six cities, the soul of the league. I miss the blue line. I miss the red line. I miss the five-on-three. I miss the three stars. I'm rooting for those negotiators in Toronto. I want to write, like Joni Mitchell, "Look at those jokers/Glued to that damn hockey game."
E-mail: geovec@nytimes.com
Lisäksi sitä ei voi lukea muuten kuin rekisteröitymällä kyseisen lehden palstoille joten linkin sijasta joudun lainaamaan sen tänne:
----------------------------------------------------------
SPORTS OF THE TIMES
Zamboni Nostalgia Finally Kicks In
By GEORGE VECSEY
Published: January 26, 2005
ALL right. Now I miss hockey.
Miss the Stanley Cup. Miss the red light. Miss the ice chips. Miss the sweaty glove mashed in somebody's face. Miss the starters shuffling nervously during the anthems.
It took nearly three months for this to happen. I was not posturing, not faking one of those plague-on-both-houses snit fits. I truly never had the slightest yearning for the lost sport, until just now.
Then, smack on the brink of losing the entire season, with negotiators meeting in Toronto today to try to end the labor impasse - to salary-cap or not to salary-cap? - I came down with a giant wave of melancholia for the beautiful game I used to know.
Of course, my daydream was all about 1983. Not a good sign for hockey, eh? I envisioned the caveman jaw of Mark Messier jutting out from under his helmet, the willowy figure of Wayne Gretzky in the Oilers' orange and blue uniforms, visiting the southernmost Canadian province of Nassau County, with the ancient Denis Potvin and Billy Smith whacking away, trying to hold back the future.
That's where I'm stuck, 22 years ago, with two great dynasties colliding. I don't necessarily miss the manifest destiny National Hockey League out where people wear shorts to games. (Somebody told me a Tampa Bay team won the Stanley Cup last year, but I'm not falling for that.) I miss the real game. I miss the true north strong and free. I miss Canada.
My virtual homesickness began at Christmas, when my daughter the lawyer gave me the CD by K. D. Lang, "Hymns of the 49th Parallel," 11 glorious covers of songs by Canadians: Young, Mitchell, Lang, Piltch, Siberry, Cohen, Cockburn and Sexsmith. (And she never even got to Lightfoot, Robertson, the McGarrigles.)
One of the songs on the CD, Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You," refers to the beautiful anthem itself, "O Canada." Suddenly my mind was in free flight, to another Mitchell song, "Raised on Robbery," with the familiar lyric, "Look at those jokers/Glued to that damn hockey game."
I could envision a steamy hotel bar somewhere north of the 49th parallel, where people in thick sweaters and pullover caps were drinking Molson or Labatt, following the ricocheting puck on a flickering screen. (Apparently, the terrible inability to follow the puck on the tube is strictly an American affliction; Canadahooskies can do it at 3 months old.)
Up there in that bar, maybe in one of those classic railway hotels, maybe out on some icy prairie highway, the patrons would know every player on every line, recognize them by their mannerisms, the way they pump their knees while skating, the way they handle their stick. Just as I would recognize scruffy Butch Goring in his tiny Swedish helmet or sturdy Bobby Nystrom with his flowing locks if they materialized on the ice out in Lower Saskatchewan - Long Island - tonight (and I wish they would).
Just click "hockey" and "Canada" on the Web and you come up with evidence that the sport itself has not died, not up north. In an hour's browsing on the Web:
Hot-selling hockey gear: from Sidney Crosby, junior star with Rimouski and hero of the recent World Junior Hockey championship. ... Mr. Penalty Box himself, Tiger Williams, now an energy mogul, for goodness' sakes, tells Eric Duhatschek of The Globe and Mail how to end the labor impasse (let farmers mediate). ... London Knights ... Memorial Cup ... Ageless Red Fisher in The Montreal Gazette, dropping names like Elmer Lach, Yvan Cournoyer, Dickie Moore, Phil Goyette and Dick Irvin, all present at an arena dedication in suburban Lachine. ... Quebecois goalies playing in Europe. ... Calls for Wayne Gretzky to become commissioner of the National Hockey League.
Just to make sure I was not having some knee-jerk reaction, I e-mailed my son the journalist, to see if he was having hockey pangs. I used to take him to Oilers-Islanders games when he should have been doing his homework.
"Oddly enough," David replied, "last night at work, out of nowhere, I declared: 'Why isn't there any hockey on TV? This makes no sense.' "
My son even had the same impulses as Tiger Williams: frontier wisdom, justice in the corner. "What I think is strange is this is a sport that governs itself so well on the ice, but it can't put itself together in a boardroom," he wrote, adding:
"Todd Bertuzzi aside, I miss the idea that on any given night you're going to find a game where somebody has an issue with somebody else, and they're going to make sure they get on the ice at the same time at some point. The crease area becomes the courtyard behind the convent in 'The Three Musketeers': 'You have insulted me, sir! Meet me in the plaza midway through the third period and I shall teach you some manners.' "
He reminisced about athleticism that matches basketball, line-change strategies that equal baseball, set plays that compare to football. And I remembered what I was missing.
I miss the so-called Original Six cities, the soul of the league. I miss the blue line. I miss the red line. I miss the five-on-three. I miss the three stars. I'm rooting for those negotiators in Toronto. I want to write, like Joni Mitchell, "Look at those jokers/Glued to that damn hockey game."
E-mail: geovec@nytimes.com